Welcome to our weekly news column. This edition begins with the latest from Tom Mead, featuring his 1930s sleuth Joseph Spector, who is also an illusionist. There’s more historical crime fiction in that period with Catherine Merridale’s very different Moscow Underground, plus we’ve got thrillers, tales of vengeance, a dead author, a hate crime and much more for you to pick through.
The House at Devil’s Neck by Tom Mead
Fans of the locked-room mystery will be happy to learn that Tom Mead‘s latest Joseph Spector novel arrives on 14 August. The House at Devil’s Neck finds the illusionist-turned-sleuth at a former World War I field hospital where a ghostly soldier is reported to have been making mischief. Spector joins a party of visitors in search of the truth, and instead finds himself cut off by floods, with his companions being killed off, one by one. With old ally Inspector Flint working on a complex case that has links to Spector’s investigation, the pair must try to connect the dots before Spector finds himself in the firing line and out of the game for good.
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Stillwater by Tanya Scott
Stillwater is Tanya Scott’s debut novel – a thriller out on 12 August, and introducing Luke Harris. But just who is Luke? Well, it’s complicated… Back when Jack Quinlan was just a teenager, his mother died of an overdose and Gus took him under his wing. A good Samaritan then? No, Gus is a ruthless crime boss who soon had Jack moulded into someone very useful to the business. But Jack was smart enough to get away before it was too late. Now, as Luke, he’s forging a new life for himself, studying at college, aiming for a good job, and has even fallen in love. But that new life is about to crumble when Gus comes into Luke’s orbit once again. Can he fight back… and win?
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Moscow Underground by Catherine Merridale
Moscow Underground, out 14 August, is a historical mystery taking us back to Stalin’s Russia in the 1930s. Under a totalitarian regime, Anton Belkin is an investigator working for a body called The Procuracy. When an archaeologist is killed, Anton’s secret police ex asks him to look into it. The man had been looking at artefacts unearthed in the construction of Moscow’s Metro, but has been found in an abandoned mansion. There’s a secret there that could change Russia, but we’re in the time of show trials and Anton could just as easily end up dead and buried with it. The author is a leading historian of the Soviet period.
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Just Another Dead Author by Katarina Bivald
A writers’ conference in the lovely French countryside sounds idyllic to mystery author Berit Gardner, but there’s a shadow cast over all that sunshine when the keynote speaker drops dead at the end of their lecture. It seems that plenty of those present wanted the victim dead – a situation that certainly piques Berit’s interest, much to the annoyance of the French commissaire, who has no time for amateur sleuths. However, the pair soon find themselves reluctantly working together to solve the mystery. Katarina Bivald’s debut novel Just Another Dead Author comes out on 12 August in the US, 12 September in the UK
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A Hate Crime in Brooklyn by David G Secular
American lawyer David G Secular writes about what he knows in his debut, A Hate Crime in Brooklyn, out now. Sofia, a sheltered Albanian immigrant and Sylvester, a black man, collide in Prospect Park, New York. It’s a simple accident that has terrible consequences as, hours later, Sylvester is dead. Sofia, who lost a precious ring, gifted to her by Victor, the feared kingpin of the Albanian-American Mafia, is arrested for a hate crime as it’s assumed she ordered the attack. Get ready for court scenes that will have you on the edge of your seat in this story of anger, hate, love and forgiveness. Read our interview with the author here.
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The Girl Without a Voice by Sandra J Paul
Alice is 22 and mute, living a hard life with her cruel mother and overbearing father, and communicating in sign language with her only friend, Hailey their neighbour. Then Alice’s father is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and in his drug-fuelled final days he confesses to murdering several women. Ramblings or the unvarnished truth? As Alice sets out with Hailey to follow her father’s old travelling salesman routes, a chilling pattern begins to emerge – and with it, the reason why Alice lost her ability to speak. All becomes clear when The Girl Without a Voice by Sandra J Paul is published on 12 August.
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The Dancing Face by Mike Phillips
On 12 August, Melville House is reprinting The Dancing Face, a 1997 classic by Guyanese British novelist Mike Phillips. The theft of an African mask from a London museum is the starting point. Black university lecturer Gus is the culprit, but his half-baked scheme to hold the museum to ransom soon backfires and he dies in suspicious circumstances – but not before revealing the location of the artefact to his brother, Danny. As the mask changes ownership several times, lurking in the background is exiled Nigerian millionaire Dr Okigbo, a man determined to get his hands on it and redeeming his tarnished reputation – whatever the cost.
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