Is this the summer of the destination thriller? Maybe. Maybe not. Some of the spots you’ll visit literarily in this week’s new books report are a lot more desirable than others. Blackpool is the setting for Mark Billingham’s The Shadow Step. Debatable as a destination. But let’s see what else we’ve got – New Orleans, Italia, St Petersburg, Tokyo and the green, green valleys of Wales.
The Shadow Step by Mark Billingham
It’s time to take to the dance floor again as Mark Billingham’s waltzing police officer, DS Declan Miller, steps back into the limelight. This is book three in the Blackpool-based series and the famous Tower even features on the cover. This time, Miller is left wrong-footed when someone is found dead in the park lake. Murder? Well the jury’s out on that one. Cue the start of another fast moving and very funny outing that features, among other things, a drugs queenpin, a wobbly dog, a pair of ceramic leopards and a lovesick gangland enforcer. The Shadow Step is out now in the UK, 21 July in the US.
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Bayou Savages by Nola Triad
New Orleans is the setting for Nola Triad’s Bayou Savages, out now – and it’s a side of the Big Easy that tourists are never likely to see. Four misfits think all their Mardi Gras have some at once when they stumble upon a priceless painting from a mafia heist that happened decades before. But good luck comes at a high price, with the foursome soon realising that their greatest challenge is neither the pursuing ICE agents nor the mafiosi closing in, but the relentless forces in their own community they’ll have to overcome. There’s no hint of the cosy in this one, just the thrill of exploring a city’s darkest shadows.
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Voss: Scene Documentation – St Petersburg by Daniel Laz
Voss: Scene Documentation – St Petersburg is fifth and final book in Daniel Laz’s series featuring forensic investigations Francesca ‘Frankie’ Voss, and it’s out now. In New York, Frankie receives a photograph of seven people, inscribed “Leningrad, 1958”, along with a note: “You were looking in the wrong decade.” It’s enough to send her to Russia, and modern-day St Petersburg – a city that’s full of secrets, hidden in basement archives and the memories of people who refuse to forget. Each book in this series is a standalone, but now it’s time for the pieces to come together…
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Our Marriage is Murder by Carol Goodman
Our globetrotting selection continues with a book set at a mystery conference held in an Italian castle. Fred and Thea Morgan-Lane are partners in life and also in crime writing, with their Death Takes a Holiday series topping the best sellers’ charts. But the perfect facade is starting to crack. Thea wants out and maybe it’s time to announce the end of the franchise? But when one of the other guests drinks a cocktail meant for Thea and dies, the alarm bells begin to chime. Someone is copying the killings in their books, and the unhappy couple need to work together if they are to uncover a killer. Our Marriage is Murder by Carol Goodman arrives on 21 July for Kindle and later in print.
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The Makato Murders by Richard Jerram
Here’s a darkly satirical crime novel set in Japan. Ken Kato is a half-British, half-Japanese photojournalist working for a low-brow weekly magazine in Tokyo, whose only claim to fame is an image of a boy who drowned in the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. Sure, Kato could have saved him, but the photo was more important, right? So it’s no surprise when the snapper keeps arriving first at the scene of a series of grisly murders… because he is the killer. As magazine sales boom, Kato is the star of the hour – until the sheer weight of suspicion threatens to turn the tide of adulation. The Makato Murders by Richard Jerram arrives on 21 July.
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Tell Tale by Claire Parkin
Let’s head back to 1984, and in Llanfair in Wales local busybody, Debbie-Marie Tunstall, has finally outdone herself. The super snoop loves nothing more than spying on people and writing her findings in her notebook but this time she’s gone too far and even her mother wants Debbie-Marie to leave town. Except, when the woman who knows everyone’s business actually witnesses a murder, there’s no alternative but to turn detective and solve the crime, is there? Then again, even if she uncovers the truth, will anyone believe the village’s biggest nosey parker? Find out when Tell Tale by Claire Parkin is published on 23 July.
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