On the Radar — Our new releases column returns with some hot August releases for you. Thriller fans will be looking forward to Ruth Ware’s latest, set in the Scottish Highlands, but if the summer heat is getting too much then one look at the snowy cover of Jorn Lier Horst’s The Cabin might help you cool off. We’ve also got a medical thriller, historical crime fiction and more this week. Choose your next crime read below…
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The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
She’s made quite a name for herself with her engrossing, twisty and twisted psychological thrillers such as The Woman in Cabin 10, reviewed here. Now English author Ruth Ware is back with another to add to the collection, out 8 August. Rowan can’t believe her luck when she lands a plum job as a nanny in a high tech smart home in the Scottish Highlands. It all seems too good to be true – cue alarm bells ringing for crime fiction fans everywhere. And rightly so, because before long a child is dead and Rowan is locked up and awaiting trial for a murder she didn’t commit. So, who exactly is the killer?
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The Cabin by Jorn Lier Horst
Now that Penguin has picked up Norwegian author Jorn Lier Horst, it’s all about franchise so the detective’s main character William Wisting is being reboxed in The Cold Case Quartet. Book one was The Katharina Code and the second translation in this series is The Cabin. Here, the quiet and sultry chief inspector is investigating the disappearance of Simon Meier, who walked off 15 years ago and hasn’t been seen since. Just yesterday, however, politician Bernard Clausen’s body was found in his cabin on the coast and somehow Wisting believes he can connect the two cases. Clausen had some interesting friends and vices, which means Wisting will run into some very interesting people in his latest case. It’s out 8 August. We reviewed the first Wisting translation, Dregs, way back in 2011. If you liked Wallander you’ll enjoy this too.
Pre-order now on Amazon
The Perfect Wife by JP Delaney
Crime author JP Delaney’s previous book – The Girl Before – was a huge hit and is about to become a movie. The Perfect Wife sounds like something that could go the same way. Abbie awakes with little memory of what went before. The man next to her says he’s her husband and tells her she is a talented artist, a keen surfer, the perfect wife and mother and that five years ago she had a catastrophic accident. She’s only alive today because of technology – she is a miracle of science. But as Abbie pieces her life together once more, she begins to suspect that what she’s been told isn’t true. This book that melds The Six Million Dollar Man with The Stepford Wives is out 6 August.
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Control by Hugh Montgomery
This new medical thriller arrives on 8 August, and as medical thrillers do it begins in brutal fashion. Surgeon Michael Trenchard is hoping for a relaxing evening but the next morning he is found in a coma, barely alive after being strangled, apparently during sex. Dr Kash Devan has his doubts about how his older colleague ended up that way and starts investigating. Trenchard’s success had come at a price and left a trail of aggrieved people in its wake – now they’re all potential suspects.
Pre-order now on Amazon
The Unexpected Return of Josephine Fox by Claire Gradidge
Debut author Claire Gradidge won the 2019 Richard and Judy ‘search for a bestseller’ competition with this historical crime story set in Romsey in 1941. Jo Fox returns to the small town where she was born, hoping to find out more about her parentage, but her timing couldn’t be more off because a Luftwaffe raid has left the place in ruins. The local pub, The Cricketers’ Arms, has been flattened and when the body of an unknown teenager is found in the wreckage Jo joins forces with the local coroner and old pal Bram Nash to find out who the girl is – with unexpected consequences. Out 8 August. For more wartime intrigue, try Breathe by Dominick Donald.
Pre-order now on Amazon
