Our On the Radar column brings you new books every week and you never know what you’re going to get. This time we’ll get things going with a cosy mystery from Josie Lloyd that plays on Victorian notions of household management and cookery but soon gets into sleuthing sidelines. There’s another female-run agency at work in The Arizona Triangle from Sydney Graves, plus we’ve got a woman narco boss in the latest by Stephanie Vasquez. Back in good old Blighty we have a World War II mystery set in London, and case that starts in contemporary Cumbria. Read on to discover your next crime read…
Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency by Josie Lloyd
She has the organisational skills and tidy mind of her distant relative, the renowned cook Mrs Beeton, but instead of using her particular skills in the kitchen Alice Beeton runs the Good Household Management Agency, providing discreet domestic staff to extravagant townhouses and sprawling country piles. Which is why she sends new recruit Enya to Camille Messent as new housekeeper. The girl had impeccable credentials but when Enya is found dead on New Year’s Day and the local constabulary appear to be at a loss, Alice springs into action to solve the crime herself. Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency by Josie Lloyd is out on 24 October.
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The Arizona Triangle by Sydney Graves
Jo Bailen works for an all-female detective agency based in Tucson, Arizona and she’s on a run-of-the-mill cheating spouse stakeout when she learns that her best friend from childhood has gone missing. Rose and Jo had been estranged for years, but when Rose’s mother hires Jo to find her daughter she reluctantly returns to Delphi to search for clues. It’s time to face her past demons – and her high school boyfriend, Tyler, who is now a cop and more mixed up in all of this than he’s willing to admit. It’s complicated, but Jo is determined to get to the truth in The Arizona Triangle by Sydney Graves, out on 22 October.
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All Our Wars by Stephanie Vasquez
Sofia De Luna left Mexico after her mother was murdered 12 years ago and lives a quiet life in Chicago, far from the cartel violence that marred her childhood. But she’s thrown back into the thick of things when her narco father retires and she becomes head of the family. Sofia has plans to legitimise the family business, and she’s also set on finding out who killed her mother. But with her cousins plotting against her, the uneasy truce between cartels is at breaking point and she has some difficult decisions to make. Can Sofia come through or will evil prevail? Find out on 22 October, when All Our Wars by Stephanie Vasquez is published.
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The Soho Murder by Mike Hollow
You won’t be surprised to learn that a death in Central London is at the heart of historical crime novel The Soho Murder by Mike Hollow, out on 24 October. It’s December 1940, the residents of a city already hit by bombing raids are gathering on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral to welcome in the New Year. DI John Jago has other things on his mind as he breaks bad news to a desolate woman sitting among the ruins of her family book business. Her antiquarian bookseller husband has been found shot dead at their home in Soho. He had just taken possession of a priceless but mysterious volume which is now missing. Did someone covet it enough to kill for it? To find out, Jago must head into the dark and shadowy Soho underworld.
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Reunion by Heleyne Hammersley
DI Kate Fletcher is on a well-earned break, walking with her partner, Nick, in Cumbria, when they come across a couple who have found a body. The man seems familiar, but when a second body is found more than 100 miles away, connections between the two victims point back to Kate – and to something that happened to her and some school friends over 30 years ago in Thorpe, her childhood home. It’s clear that the killer has an agenda and others are in danger. Can they be stopped in time to save the final person on the list? Reunion by Heleyne Hammersley is out now.
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