False Ransom by Ivan Infante
Mike Chance is what you might call a nasty piece of work. He has made his way from America’s East Coast to West, and has ended up in downtown Los Angeles in 1938. His first act is to dress up as cops, roust an illegal…
An Event in Autumn by Henning Mankell
Translated by Laurie Thompson — A new Kurt Wallander book by Henning Mankell is a major literary event for fans of this troubled Swedish detective. Mankell was the first of the translated Scandinavian crime writers I discovered a decade ago and he’s still the best….
Missing by Sam Hawke
Jack Searle lives a quiet life in Texas, near the Mexican border. He earns enough to get by as a builder, looking after his stepdaughters Lidia and Marina. Jack’s wife died of cancer several years ago. Jack and the girls have family over the border…
The Valley by Will Thwaite
The Valley is the debut novel of London headhunter Will Thwaite, and was longlisted for this year’s Bath Novel Award. It’s an international prize which carries some weight and is aimed at aspiring and self-published authors, so a longlisting is some achievement. Told in the…
Bite Harder by Anonymous-9
Dean Drayhart is in prison. He’s a self-confessed serial killer, but with a difference. His wife and child were mowed down in a hit and run, the same accident which left him a paraplegic and barely able to move. Worse, the perpetrator was never caught….
Lock-Down Blues by Ray Wilcox
For the most part, the lives these criminals lead are unconnected. There is Raymond Butterworth, a successful printer, whose gruesome crimes are separated by decades. Then we have ‘Diamond’ Perry, the black street hoodlum who makes the mistake of taking on a Yardie drug gang….
Alphabet House by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Translated by Steve Schein – Published for the first time in English, Alphabet House was Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen’s first book in his native language, predating the Department Q series which includes Mercy and Disgrace. It is an ambitious psychological thriller that was inspired by…
A Madras Miasma by Brian Stoddart
The setting is 1920, in the teeming city of Madras (present day Chennai) on the south eastern coast of India. Superintendent Christian Le Fanu of the Indian Police Service has been called to the banks of a filthy city canal which is, in reality, little…