On the Radar — Let’s start December with the clink of glasses, and we’ll lead our weekly news column with the latest pulp novel from Chris Rhatigan. It’s all about a character who likes the clink of glasses just a little too much. Plus, we have four thrillers for you to toast as the merry season approaches.
Race to the Bottom by Chris Rhatigan
This new release from All Due Respect co-publisher Chris Rhatigan will please readers of contemporary pulp. It centres around Roy, a man ejected from his home by his girlfriend for general good-for-nothing drunken laziness. His minimum wage job in a box store is giving him no thrills, so he hits the booze but on this particular night out with his buddy Banksy he ends up the centre of a murder investigation. Choice one: roll with it. Choice two: get out of this unholy mess.
Buy now on Amazon
Kill Someone by Luke Smitherd
Chris is 21, works in a call centre, and lives at home with his parents. Life is dull, dull, dull. Then one day a man in white appears and gives him a choice. Kill a random stranger within 12 days or five kidnapped siblings will die. There are a few conditions. Like nightclub entry, no guns and no blades. Not a terminally ill person and nobody suicidal. It has to be up close and personal. The blurb says Kill Someone is a tale of fear, indecision, confused masculinity and brutal violence. Luke Smitherd was shortlisted for Audible UK’s Book of the Year in 2015, so it seems his style of thriller writing is perfect for the audiobook format. This one is narrated by Matt Addis. Available 6 December.
Pre-order the audiobook
Walk into Silence by Susan McBride
Jenny Dielman is missing and nobody in the Texan town she comes from knows where she is. When her husband approaches Jo Larsson, the detective first assumes that Jenny has run off. But when she looks into it she finds out what a controlling man Patrick Dielman is, and how damaged Jenny was by the death of her son. Finding her becomes Jo Larsson’s mission.
Buy now on Amazon
The Hidden Island by Angela Corner
Just out, The Hidden Island is by debut crime author Angela Corner and the action gets under way on the Greek island of Farou, where a worn out detective called Beckett has arrived to head up the Criminal Investigation Bureau. He’s expecting an easy time of things – a beer by the pool and all that – but instead he gets a pagan cult and dead bodies showing up here and there on the island. The Greek paradise starts to resemble Hell, but at least another Brit is on his way to help, in the shape of DI Lee Harper.
Buy now on Amazon
Rules of Restraint by David Wilson
Released on 19 December, Rules of Restraint is just 99p if you pre-order on Amazon. It’s written by Birmingham University criminologist Professor David Wilson, and takes us inside a therapeutic community prison housing some of the country’s most dangerous killers. New governor Donald Munro is three months into his the job and already things are nearing meltdown. Inmates are being murdered, there’s been a suicide and an escape, and the prison is in panic mode. Psychologist Kate Crowther and DI Nick Knight are called on to catch the killer among the killers.
Pre-order now on Amazon
