A Willing Executioner
Written by Connell Nisbet — A Nordic-inspired police procedural set in remote Australia; a debut written by an established magazine writer; an ambitious and unsettling work containing a couple of the most uniquely gruesome murders you’ll encounter in fiction this year. A Willing Executioner is a…
Kiss of Death by Paul Finch
UK crime fiction stalwart Paul Finch has made an enviable career for himself, no doubt helped by his experiences as a policeman, crime beat journalist and screenwriter. His Heck series, featuring DS Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg of the National Crime Group’s Serial Crimes Unit, is now…
Something in the Water
Written by Catherine Steadman — She’s best known as Mabel Lane Fox in the Downton Abbey TV series, but Catherine Steadman’s debut novel couldn’t be further from the life and times of Lord Grantham’s fictional Yorkshire estate. It opens slap bang in the present, in…
The Good Sister
Written by Morgan Jones — “Out of pain will come good. That is how history is made.” These are the uncompromising words uttered by the 17-year-old protagonist of this novel. What would make an apparently well-adjusted, serious young girl flee to actively embrace extremist propaganda?…
Russian Roulette
Written by Sara Sheridan — When Sheridan’s first Mirabelle Bevan book, Brighton Belle, was published in 2012 I was quickly hooked by the story of an ex-Secret Service backroom girl, Mirabelle, who thinks her life is over after World War II. Like many women who are…
A Noise Downstairs
Written by Linwood Barclay — This could be called The Case of the Haunted Typewriter, because an old-fashioned typewriter is one of the eeriest images in Linwood Barclay’s new psychological thriller. Paul Davis is a professor at a small Connecticut college living with his second…
Overkill
Written by Vanda Symon — Tree-lined river banks. Long, winding roads through creepy rows of corn. Secluded woods that block out the light. And houses in hard-to-reach places on the dusty plains. The rural setting is one that crime fiction lovers are passionate about at…