On the Radar — For lovers of Scandinavian crime fiction, we lead off with Gunnar Staalesen’s new book, which has quite a romantic title. We’ve also got a mystery involving crab catchers, the latest Elouise Norton book by Rachel Howzell Hall and some pretty dark thrillers too.
Where Roses Never Die by Gunnar Staalesen
There aren’t too many PIs who become so celebrated that they merit a statue, but Bergen investigator Varg Veum is one such, and his bronze effigy stands in the city’s Scandic Strand Hotel. The character returns with a deadline. He must solve the decades-old mystery of the disappearance of a three-year-old girl. The clock is ticking remorselessly, and if Veum doesn’t solve the crime quickly, the statute of limitation law will come down like a guillotine. Gunnar Staalesen picked his four crime classics here. Translated by Don Bartlett, the novel is out on 1 June.
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Trail of Echoes by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rachel Howzell Hall is from LA, and so is her streetwise detective Elouise Norton. As someone who successfully escaped the grim housing projects, Norton takes it personally when she is called on to investigate the disappearance and death of talented young girls who might have followed in her footsteps. We reviewed the two earlier novels featuring LA Homicide detective Elouise Norton, Land of Shadows (2014) and Skies of Ash (2015). Trail of Echoes is available on 31 May.
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Black Hammock by Michael Wiley
We reviewed Blue Avenue in 2014 and, like Wiley’s latest book, it featured homicide investigator Daniel Turner. The story is set in Jacksonville, Florida, and Turner has to roll back the years, and prise deadly secrets from some very secure hiding places as he tries to discover the truth about the death of Amon Jakobsen 18 years earlier. If Southern Noir is your thing this should fit the bill nicely. It is published on 1 June.
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The Killing Files by Nikki Owen
This psychological thriller features the next chapter in the strange case of Dr Maria Martinez. In The Spider In The Corner of the Room (2015), we read of her imprisonment for murder, the way her Asperger’s Syndrome shapes the way she thinks and acts, and her conviction that she is threatened by a sinister conspiracy. Now she is out of jail, her aim is to find her family, but escaping from prison exposes her to a whole new set of dangers. Out on 2 June.
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Fatal Pursuit by Martin Walker
Here’s one for automobile enthusiasts, which begins with the true tale of the only four Bugatti Type 57 Atlantic ever made. Three are accounted for, but what of the fourth one? It’s a valuable beast because not only is it a rare one but it’s also regarded as the most beautiful car ever made. Two boy racers show up in Perigord, Northern France, where Bruno Courrèges is chief of police, and compete to find the car. Throw into the mix the death of a local researcher, money laundering, a bomb plot and Bruno has plenty on his hands. Good thing there’s nice food and wine readily available in this automotive gastro thriller. Available on 2 June.
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Triggerfish by Dietrich Kalteis
The cover tells us that this a crime novel, but don’t expect a police procedural. Instead, fasten your seat belts for a Mexican drug cartel with a submarine, a gang of cut-throat bikers, and a dishy date for ex-cop Rennie Beckman. All this, by the way, is in and around the Canadian port city of Vancouver. Triggerfish? Well, that’s Beckman’s new boat, with which he hopes to impress his new date, but it all goes pear-shaped, and Beckman becomes a reluctant crusader, fighting for for truth and virtue against all manner of bad guys. Published by ECW Press on 1 June.
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City of Jackals by Parker Bilal
It might be that jackals get a bad press in crime fiction, but this city is Cairo in 2005. The streets are in chaos with Sudanese refugees protesting and the dictator Mubarak re-elected with an implausible majority. Former cop Makana tries to keep the world at arm’s length from his dilapidated houseboat on the Nile, but is soon pulled into investigating the disappearance of a student, and he has to explain the small matter of a severed head found bobbing around outside in the water by his home. On the shelves from 2 June.
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Pot Luck by Nick Fisher
There’s always a first time for everything, and now we bring you a mystery set in the everyday world of crab fishing – hence the title and the cover graphic. We are in Weymouth, a jolly seaside town on England’s Dorset coast. But for Adrian and Matty Collins it’s rather different. The brothers eke out a living by catching the crustaceans which will fill many a sandwich and salad in the cafes and pubs they can’t afford to use. They have a job to keep from strangling each other, such is the drudgery of their existence, but their life is about to change forever, if not for better, when they make a startling discovery out in The English Channel. Available 1 June.
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Homo Superiors by LA Fields
In a retelling of the infamous real life case of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, who put their admiration for Nietzsche into practice by murdering a Chicago schoolboy in 1924, Noah and Ray think they can succeed where their predecessors failed. These two college students are disgruntled outsiders who aim to kill their candidate for murder perhaps out of boredom, and perhaps out of some sense of homo superiority. Available in USA from 1 June.
Justice in the Street by DJ Swykert
Published by Magic Masterminds LLC on 3 June, this is the latest from an author who describes himself as a former 911 operator and wolf expert. In this sequel to Sweet Street, Yuki is a street girl who sees more than is good for her, particularly when she witnesses murders committed by cops. She has sworn revenge on Jack Delgato, who murdered one of Yuki’s girlfriends. The only way she can tempt him in her direction is through his passion for erotic asphyxiation, and this can only end one way – his life or hers.
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