On the Radar — This week’s new books take us on a journey from chilling Derbyshire where Sarah Ward has another cold case for us, to the baking heat of the Australian Outback and then the Kalahari Desert in Namibia. There’s murder everywhere, including Hampshire and even the dentist’s chair…
A Deadly Thaw by Sarah Ward
Sarah Ward’s first novel, In Bitter Chill, looked at how a woman’s family secrets strangely co-incided with the disappearance of her childhood friend years and years ago. In her second book, also set in Derbyshire, she once again sets up an intricate plot in which peculiar past events have a strong and deathly impact on the present. In 1984, Lina Fisher was convicted of killing her husband Andrew. In 2016, a man is killed and he turns out to be the same man. So who was that body they had back in the 80s and what’s been going on ever since. Francis Sadler returns to investigate. Intrigued? Find out more when the book is released on 1 September and watch out for our review as well.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Never Never by James Patterson and Candice Fox
The James Patterson franchise has opened an outlet in Australia with today’s release of Never Never, a book set in the Outback. Harriet ‘Harry’ Blue has been banished there because her brother is a suspect in a sex crimes case back in Sydney, and having been attached to the Perth police department she’s detailed with investigating the disappearance of a mine worker. The town where Danny Carter worked is as full of lonely and raucous miners as it is of ways for them to immorally part with their earnings… and Carter isn’t the first to have disappeared.
Buy now on Amazon
An Empty Coast by Tony Park
The desert sun is just as hot in Namibia, setting for this action thriller in which Sonja Kurtz, a former soldier and mercenary, returns to the country of her birth. Her daughter Emma has called for her help after discovering a body during an archaeological dig in the Etosha Pan. The body isn’t ancient history, though, it dates from the country’s war of liberation against South Africa in the 80s. The dead man’s corpse could point to the location of a missing treasure, however Emma has gone missing and that fishy smell, well it’s the involvement of the CIA. Out 8 September.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Hide and Seek by MJ Arlidge
Since his debut Eeny Meeny a mere two years ago, MJ Arlidge has become one of Penguin’s best sellers and has churned out books at a pace. Hide and Seek is the fifth in the Helen Grace series and the story starts off with her serving time in Holloway. It’s no place for a cop and the inmates and screws hate her in equal measure. But worse than that, a mutilated body has been found and, yes, there’s a serial killer in the jail. On sale 8 September.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Death in the Dentist’s Chair by Molly Thynne
What a way to go! Especially if you hate dentists. Here the bumbling mouth doctor Humphrey Davenport accidentally locks himself out of his own surgery. Mrs Miller, meanwhile, is locked in with just her false teeth. Or is there a murderer in there too? Because when she’s found with her throat cut it looks like a classic locked-room mystery. Published in 1932, Death in the Dentist’s Chair is one of six Molly Thynne novels being reprinted by Dean Street Press next month. It’s out on 5 Sept.
Pre-order now on Amazon
For more vintage crime fiction, watch for our themed month Classics in September 2016, sponsored by Bloomsbury Reader.
