Is it a fruit? Is it a vegetable? What is an avocado and is it suitable for the pages of a crime novel? English comedian Bob Mortimer specialises in the surreal, so perhaps he knows. His book The Hotel Avocado gets us going this week, and alongside it we have new crime novels set in Ghana from Kwei Quartey, a trip to Australia with Midge Raymond and John Yunker, something cosy from German author Leonie Swann, and a Golden Age-inspired book set in theatre land by Jamie West.
Coffee, smashed avocado on toast, and a delicate lashing of mystery, methinks…
The Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer
Anyone who has ever seen comedian Bob Mortimer on Would I Lie to You knows that this guy can certainly spin a yarn or two — and here he is, with his second comic mystery novel, The Hotel Avocado, out on 29 August. We first met unassuming legal assistant Gary in The Satsuma Complex, and as its sequel begins he is in a quandary. Should he stay in Peckham, or follow his heart, and his girlfriend, to Brighton? His thought processes are disturbed somewhat with the arrival of the mysterious Mr Sequence and the growing possibility that Gary might not be around long enough to make any kind of life-changing decision…
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The Whitewashed Tombs by Kwei Quartey
Kwei Quartey’s fourth mystery featuring PI Emma Djan finds the Ghanaian detective with a case involving both prejudice and politics. Vicious hate crimes are rocking the LGBTQ+ community in Accra, and when Marcelo Tetteh, an LGBTQ+ activist, is butchered after being lured on a dating app to a deserted building site, his father mistrusts the homophobic local police force and asks the Sowah Private Investigators Agency for help. To get to the truth, Emma goes undercover in the International Congress of Families, an organisation seeking the criminalisation of homosexuality and what she discovers shocks her to the core. The Whitewashed Tombs is published on 3 September.
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Devils Island by Midge Raymond and John Yunker
Let’s head to a tiny island off the coast of Tasmania for the debut collaboration of Midge Raymond and John Yunker. It’s where six people embark on a wilderness tour – but guess what? Not all of them are going to come out of it alive. In charge of them all is Kerry, who took the guide job as a respite from the stressful work of rescuing and releasing Tasmanian Devils back into the wild. Now her human charges are gradually disappearing, and as the group gets isolated by a gathering storm, who among them is a killer? Devils Island is released on 3 September.
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Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime by Leonie Swann
Translated from German by Amy Bojang and featuring a tortoise called Hettie, Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime by Leonie Swann is out now for Kindle and next week in print. The end of the year is approaching and Agnes, Charlie, Marshall and the other elderly residents of Sunset Hall are going stir-crazy. Even Hettie has hibernated and there’s trouble in the nearby hamlet of Duck End. Time to plan an escape, and when one of the residents wins a stay in an exclusive coastal hotel in Cornwall they all decide to join her. But there’s a killer on the loose – and as a storm closes in they find themselves with no means of escape.
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Murder at the Matinee by Jamie West
Fans of Golden Age crime should take note of 5 September, when Murder at the Matinee by Jamie West is published. We’re in London in the 1930s, and renowned murder mystery playwright Bertie Carroll discovers that real life is stranger than fiction when the spotlight shines on a drama about to take place on a West End stage. A mysterious newspaper advert predicts that a murder will take place during a show’s third act and when that prediction comes true, Bertie and Inspector Hugh Chapman must work together to find the killer.
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