On the Radar — Jorn Lier Horst is catching up on Jo Nesbo and Karin Possum at the top table of Norwegian crime fiction. With a Glass Key award to his name, he returns with a new police procedural for his conscientious detective William Wisting to solve. We’ve also got a dead teacher, a man strapped to a bomb, hackers, dolphins and the three little pigs this week, so don’t hold back, dive in to the latest crime fiction releases.
Ordeal by Jørn Lier Horst
The quiet Norwegian detective Chief Inspector William Wisting returns to search for a taxi driver who has disappeared into thin air. He’s getting heat from his superiors for not solving the case. Meanwhile, his daughter Line meets an old friend who has moved into a house in Stavern. The woman inherited the house from her grandfather and in the basement she discovers an old safe. Now, seeing as the grandfather had a history of bootlegging and drug trafficking going back to the 1970s, what could be in the safe? How about a revolver? Released in 2015 in Norway under the title Blindgang, and this new translation is available from 24 March. We’ve previously reviewed Dregs, The Caveman and The Hunting Dogs, as well as interviewing the author. Watch for our review, soon.
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The Watcher in the Wall by Owen Laukkanen
This is our reunion with old friends, cop Kirk Stevens and the edgy FBI agent, Carla Windermere. We met them back in 2012 in The Professionals, and now they are putting their professional heads together to solve a peculiarly modern crime. Stevens’ teenage daughter is distraught, along with her classmates, at another student’s suicide. Stevens and Windermere have to do much more than provide sympathy, however, when they discover that an evil and manipulative person is hiding behind a false social media account and using it to persuade other youngsters to end their lives. Available on 15 March.
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Blood of the Oak by Eliot Pattison
This historical mystery is set in the colony of Pennsylvania before American Independence. Against a background of secret meetings where plans are made to throw off the yoke of British rule, Duncan McCallum agrees to solve the mystery of a missing Iroquois artifact. His travels across the largely untamed landscape bring him into contact with political schemers, murderers and – possibly – a sinister forest-dwelling entity, known as The Trickster. This monster, whether human or otherwise, is no joke, as it deals in ghastly amputations and the cruelest of tortures. Published on 31 March.
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Surveillance by Reece Hirsch
Computer wizard and legal eagle Carl Bruen has featured in two previous novels, The Adversary (2013) and Intrusion (2014). His new gig has him partnered with Zoey Doucet, whose ability to break through the most secure firewalls made her the go-to woman for anti-establishment protest groups. Now she’s gone straight, but the first client for Bruen & Doucet PLC is a fellow hacktivist who was a poacher-turned-gamekeeper earning an honest living by testing corporate IT systems for flaws. He has discovered something he wasn’t meant to see and it’s so serious he’s had to go on the run. Do Bruen & Doucet show him the door, and settle for something safer? I think we all know the answer to that, and you can find out for sure on 15 March.
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Waypoint by Matthew Howe
The words ‘explosive thriller’ come to mind as a young man has been abducted, waking up in a hotel room with a bomb strapped to his chest. He’s given an orienteering course from hell – a series of waypoints which, if followed correctly will lead to a geocache containing the code to disable the bomb. Just a matter of taking it easy, right? Well, no. The final waypoint is 1000 miles away, and the clock is ticking. Literally. When 24 hours have elapsed the bomb will detonate, irrespective of where the carrier is. The author says he is one of life’s adventurers, having rubbed shoulders with Haitian gangsters and IRA hitmen in the course of his career as a cameraman. Published on 15 March.
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The Teacher by Katerina Diamond
Which profession would top the charts for being mild mannered, tolerant, unthreatening, and downright ordinary? Teaching? When the head of an expensive and swanky private school is found dead – hanging from the ancient beams of the school hall – all hell breaks loose. The setting is Devon, and the city of Exeter is facing a series of horrific murders. The case is blown open when DS Imogen Grey and DS Adrian Miles find an astonishing link between the school death and the town murders. Out now.
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Deep Blue by Randy Wayne White
Retired National Security Agency investigator Doc Ford is now a marine biologist living on the Gulf Coast in South Florida. With this being the 23rd in the series, you will guess that Ford is not spending his retirement sitting in a rocking chair and day-dreaming of past heroics. The white sands of Sanibel Island (where the author owns a bar and grill) are being despoiled by the corpses of dolphins, apparently savaged by some unknown predator. Ford learns that he is not searching for some underwater behemoth, but that human beings are the cause of the carnage… Published on 15 March.
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Wicked Game by Matt Johnson
Ex-SAS men are in huge demand in private security, but Robert Finlay has chosen to continue his career with the Royalty Protection Unit, otherwise known as SO14. When two former military colleagues meet violent deaths within days of each other, Finlay realises that these aren’t random deaths, but part of a concerted effort to take revenge for past events. To tackle these long-standing enemies, Finlay must put his police rule book in his desk drawer, lock it, and throw away the key. This came out for Kindle in December 2015, and now the paperback will be on sale from 15 March.
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Three Little Pigs by Apostolos Doxiadis
A fitting title for a mafia thriller? The setting is New York, as the 19th century becomes the 20th. Ben Frank is a Calzolaio – a cobbler and shoemaker. In a drunken brawl, he has killed a man. Not just an ordinary man, unfortunately. His victim is the son of an Italian gang boss, who decides to follow the maxim that revenge is a dish best served cold. He casts a curse – maledizione – on Ben’s three sons. The curse determines that all three of them will die at the same age as the man Ben Frank killed. You can find out if they’ll live past 42 from 21 March. The author is a well-known Greek writer of graphic novels.
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