This fine week in mid-October, our news report brings you five books by women authors. We begin with Black Storms by Teresa Solana, new Spanish crime fiction in translation. You’re also in for some Irish, Canadian and American books, with themes that lean heavily into mental health, and there’s a fair old bit of deception, corruption and murder too!
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Black Storms by Teresa Solana
Meet Deputy Inspector Norma Forester of the Catalan police, who takes the reins when a professor heading towards retirement is murdered at the University of Barcelona. As if that wasn’t enough to contend with, Forester has an unusual home life. The daughter of an English member of the International Brigades, her family includes a hippie mother, a daughter who’s a squatter and an aunt who is a nun in a closed order. And…. the latter operates as a computer hacker from her austere convent cell. Written by Teresa Solana and translated by Peter Bush, expect humour and some neat plotting when Black Storms arrives on 25 October.
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Someone to Blame by JJ Green
In a close-knit Irish village, someone is sending out poison pen letters. The shadowy correspondent is Shay Dunne, whose reaction to the recent tragedies that have befallen her is to send unsigned messages to the people she blames for her misfortune. But her unwanted missives have unforeseen consequences in a community still reeling from COVID. Suddenly, there are sinister secrets everywhere – just what has Shay started? Find out when Someone to Blame by JJ Green is published on 28 October.
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The Grays of Truth by Sharon Virts
It’s time for some historical true crime. The Grays of Truth by Sharon Virts comes out on 29 October and is set in Baltimore in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Jane Gray Wharton finds herself unexpectedly widowed when her husband, Ned, dies suddenly while overnighting at his brother’s home. A straightforward death, it seems, until Jane and her daughter also fall ill at the same house a few weeks later. Could there be foul play? As a trained chemist and former nurse, Jane seems the perfect person to get to the truth. But she’s suffered from mental issues in the past, and as the number of unexpected deaths grows Jane begins to question her hold on reality.
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When I Became Never by Nathalie Guilbeault
Canadian author Nathalie Guilbeault’s When I Became Never, out on 29 October, is a standalone thriller that also works alongside her previous novel, Inhaled. Once again, the author takes a deep dive into madness, focusing on the family history of Benjamin Rodriguez, a sociopath and narcissist who has left a stream of victims in his wake. But not all of them are prepared to live with what happened, and when Isabelle Duval is joined by two other women in seeking their revenge it could be time for Rodriguez to get his just deserts…
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Close Range by Shannon Baker
Sheriff Kate Fox is the law in rural Nebraska cattle country, and she’ll need her wits about her in the latest case to land on her desk. The apparent electrocution of attorney Garrett Haney, it’s judged to be accident. But as Kate and her young colleague Zoe dig deeper, they uncover a tangled web of lies involving the Haney family and Garrett’s powerful clients. Further investigation points to connections that come uncomfortably close to home for Kate and soon it’s a race against the clock to save everything she holds dear. Book nine in the Kate Fox Mysteries series, Close Range by Shannon Baker is out now.
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