Yes, that’s what we do around here, and the folks in the novels solve the crimes, just as the title of Richard Osman’s latest novel tells us. The other books we have in this week’s report are less prosaic in their titling but equally interesting in our estimation, with authors including Julia Vaughan, Louise ‘Breakfast TV’ Minchin, Joël Dicker and Libby Cudmore. Big names side by side with interesting indie authors. That’s how we roll. We read crime novels.
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
It’s three years now since debut author Richard Osman struck gold with The Thursday Murder Club. The rest, as they say, is history, with the TV personality selling books by the container load, winning awards and currently having that first book turned into a movie directed by Chris Columbus. He’s taking a new tack with We Solve Murders, out on 12 September and featuring retired cop Steve Wheeler and his bodyguard daughter-in-law Amy. As this new series opens, Steve is enjoying the quiet life (and the odd pub quiz), until he receives a call for help from Amy – and he ends up on a private jet, flying to her aid. Soon the pair are embroiled in a life-or-death race across the globe.
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The Rapunzel Murders by Julia Vaughan
We’re off to the wilds of Shropshire for The Rapunzel Murders by Julia Vaughan, out on 6 September. There, you’ll find the Quartermaine Estate, a place with wild woods and a host of myths and legends attached to it. It’s also where the bodies of three young girls are discovered, sparking an investigation by DCI Kath Fortune and her cold case team. Their numbers expand with the arrival of psychic Lane Petreus, whose job is to uncover the secrets that the matriarch of the manor is determined to keep hidden. But Lane’s arrival complicates the case further when her life is threatened. Can Kath catch a killer before they strike again?
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Isolation Island by Louise Minchin
Broadcaster Louise Minchin makes her crime fiction debut on 12 September with the arrival of Isolation Island. And she sticks to a TV theme, with 10 celebrities taking part in a gruelling reality survival show on a remote Scottish island – what could possibly go wrong? Er, plenty. As the gaggle of B-listers and a Hollywood megastar try to get on for two weeks of roughing it, things start to go awry. The production team seem incapable of doing their jobs properly, and as a storm gathers and tempers fray, everyone begins to show their true colours.
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The Alaska Sanders Affair by Joël Dicker
Swiss author Joël Dicker’s The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair was a worldwide bestseller and became a film starring Patrick Dempsey. Its sequel, The Alaska Sanders Affair, is published on 12 September and sees the return of author and amateur investigator Marcus Goldman, who decides to take a second look at what appeared an open and shut case. When he does, he finds some glaring errors. It’s 11 years since the murder of Alaska Sanders was so speedily solved, but now another woman has been killed and questions are being asked. Marcus teams up with Sergeant Perry Gahalowood, who led the original investigation, in the hope of finally getting to the truth.
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Negative Girl by Libby Cudmore
Take a trip into America’s dark underbelly in Libby Cudmore’s noirish Negative Girl, out on 10 September. Nowadays, Martin Wade is a private investigator in a dying city in upstate New York, but once he was in a band and the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle led him into addiction. These days he’s in recovery, but when his heavily tattooed and scarred assistant Valerie sets up an appointment with a young woman who needs help keeping her biological father at bay, Martin’s past comes back to haunt him. Because the girl’s father is his old bandmate, still using and on the path to destruction. Is this case a step too far for a man who is trying to stay clean? Meanwhile, Valerie becomes obsessed with their new client.
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