On the Radar — There are too many crime books out there with anonymous silhouettes and vaguely thematic backgrounds on the cover, but we think the umbrella man on Mick Herron’s latest works rather well, with an atmospheric composition supported by the chiaroscuro effect of the streetlight. Whether the cover’s good or poor, it being by Mick Herron we’ll be reviewing Joe Country here on Crime Fiction Lover soon, and in this week’s news we’ve got four more crime novels for you to check out. Read on and discover your next crime read…
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Joe Country by Mick Herron
Landing on 20 June, the sixth novel in Mick Herron’s Jackson Lamb series about a group of misfit spies who’ve all been relegated to an office block called Slough House. Vengeance is in the air this time as Jackson heads out into the field – ‘joe country’ – to track down whoever broke into his house. The rest of the team are brooding just the same as Louisa Guy reflects on love lost, Catherine Standish has slipped off the wagon and new joiner Lech Wicinski wants to find out who destroyed his career, no matter what the consequences might be. We’ve reviewed several books in the series, beginning with the first, Slow Horses.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Sister of Mine by Laurie Petrou
Already available in the US, Sister of Mine by Laurie Petrou lands in the UK on 20 June for Kindle and brings us the story of two sisters with a bad reputation in their home town. Like Yin and Yang, Hattie is light and Penny is dark but one night that balance is tipped and a deadly fire results. What happens next? Well, you’ll have to read it to find out but this debut has been praised for its prose and its thriller qualities.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Black Summer by MW Craven
We first met Sgt Washington Poe and NCA analyst Tilly Bradshaw this time last year in The Puppet Show, which earned a five-star review on this site and has been long-listed for this year’s CWA Gold Dagger Award. The follow-up is out on 20 June, and it finds Cumbrian cop Poe in all kinds of trouble. Charismatic, psychopathic, celebrity chef Jared Keaton is serving life for the murder of his daughter Elizabeth, thanks mainly to the testimony of Poe. Then Elizabeth turns up alive, and Poe’s career hangs in the balance. He turns to Bradshaw for help and together they begin a new investigation, but before they can get very far, Elizabeth vanishes once more and Poe becomes the main suspect…
Pre-order now on Amazon
Her Daughter’s Mother by Daniela Petrova
We love a bit of domestic noir on this site and this debut novel ticks that box for certain. In New York, Lana is living a charmed life, with a plum job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a long-term, live-in relationship with Tyler, a professor at Columbia University. All that’s missing is a child and the couple decide to use an egg donor. However, when Tyler moves out of the apartment, Lana decides to carry on alone with the pregnancy. Is it hormones that make her break the rules and befriend the woman who donated the eggs? As Lana and Katya get closer, Lana’s life begins to unravel. Then Katya disappears, and Lana emerges as the prime suspect. Out 18 June.
Pre-order now on Amazon
If She Wakes by Michael Koryta
Locked-in syndrome has made headlines in recent years. Now it’s at the centre of a new novel, out on 13 June, by former private investigator and reporter Michael Koryta, interviewed here. Tara Beckley is a promising college student, at a conference with a visiting engineer, when she’s in a car accident which kills her companion and leaves her in a vegetative state – or so the doctors think. In reality, Tara is fully alert but unable to move a muscle. She knows someone wants her dead, but what can she do about it? Meanwhile, insurance investigator Abby Kaplan smells a rat. How can she prove she is right when the only person who could help her, can’t?
Pre-order now on Amazon
