Welcome to Crime Fiction Lover’s weekly news roundup. In our latest edition, we’ve got a great mix of new crime novels for you to discover including books by the authors Adam Plantinga, Chris Dolley, Heleyne Hammersley, Aleksander Szeser, Alysandra Dutton and Sarah Reynolds. Settings range from South Dakota to Wessex to prehistoric Rome…
Dark Country by Adam Plantinga
Former Detroit cop Kurt Argento is living in Barton, South Dakota, and trying to put the traumas of his previous life behind him in Dark Country by Adam Plantinga – out on 27 October. He’s working as a church handyman and keeping his head down, but all that changes when he meets a 17-year-old Syrian refugee who’s in big trouble. Majed is running for his life and Argento jumps to his rescue, with the pair soon on a road trip heading West. But someone powerful badly wants to find the boy and will stop at nothing in their quest. With Argento in his corner, he might just get out of this thing alive…
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The Last Hostage by Chris Dolley
The loose cannon that is DCI Shand is back in Chris Dolley’s The Last Hostage, arriving on 27 October. Wessex Police are bamboozled by the antics of a clever kidnapping gang that has been plaguing South West England for months. Time for someone else to take charge of the investigation, and the Chief Constable reluctantly decides that Shand is the man for the job. He’s an intuitive cop but has problems with authority and an open relationship with the truth, so it’ll come as no surprise that rules are about to be bent in his single-minded pursuit of the perpetrators. Then things begin to escalate, and all bets are off…
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Invisible by Heleyne Hammersley
Let’s head to Yorkshire for another police procedural, this time featuring DI Kate Fletcher. She’s been off for six months after nearly being killed in an investigation, but Fletcher must hit the ground running when the body of a promising swimmer is found in the River Don. She must lead a team divided by differences in staffing and attitude, and when a second body is discovered, it looks like they may have their killer. Circumstantial evidence isn’t enough though – until Fletcher’s former DS uncovers information that could break the case wide open. Invisible by Heleyne Hammersley is out now.
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Dissonance by Aleksander Szeser
Debut author Aleksander Szeser is also known as a screenwriter, filmmaker, philosopher and economist – and there’s something cinematic about his thriller Dissonance, out now. On first appearances, Kira Hunt is an ordinary Los Angeles wife and mother, until a stranger leaves her daughter with a cryptic message meant only for Kira… and her carefully-constructed world begins to show the cracks. The anonymous messenger knows more about Kira’s past that any stranger should, and things come to a head when mother and daughter are violently kidnapped and then manage to escape. Now all eyes are on the heroic mother, and as the police dig deeper, they are shocked by what they uncover.
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The Stolen Women by Alysandra Dutton
Fans of the historical thriller should take note of Alysandra Dutton’s The Stolen Women, published on 27 October for Kindle in the UK and hardback in the US, with the UK print version arriving on 27 December. And we’re talking ancient history, because this book in set in the days before the founding of Rome, where Safinia puts all her focus into training as a warrior – until women from powerful families begin to vanish. Their families have perfectly plausible reasons for the disappearances, but Safinia is unconvinced and sets off on a quest to learn the truth, with an unlikely companion in the shape of an historian who calls himself Livy.
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Traces of Alys by Sarah Reynolds
Two teenage girls, two settings and two timelines feature in award-winning bilingual author Sarah Reynolds’ Traces of Alys, out on 29 October. It’s 1995, and in Surrey 15-year-old Emma sends her family a bunch of flowers and disappears, leaving behind her best friend Kate who blames herself. The same night, in west Wales Idris and his son find a crashed car, a teenage girl and a man trying to kill her. The girl can’t remember anything, but is claimed by a neighbour who says she is her missing daughter, Alys. Now, 30 years on, a body found buried in the park where Emma disappeared is about to give Kate closure… or is it?
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