Murder at the Grand Raj Palace
Written by Vaseem Khan — That most honourable of retired police inspectors, Ashwin Chopra, is back on the case for the fourth time with his baby elephant Ganesha when an American billionaire is found dead in Mumbai’s most luxurious and iconic hotel. And despite the sheer…
The Price You Pay
Written by Aidan Truhen — Jack Price is a coke dealing free market entrepreneur. He sells Pale Peruvian Stallion which is, in fact, grown and processed locally. He arranges his deliveries with freelancers in the zero-hours, gig-economy spirit of modern capitalism. As Price says, he…
Cult X by Fuminori Nakamura
Translated by Kalau Almony — Cult X is an ambitious novel, one that pushes boundaries and redefines what crime fiction can be. At 512 pages, it’s also the size of a house brick, with a huge amount of information crammed into the beautiful hardcover pages….
Blood Standard by Laird Barron
Alaskan ex-patriate Laird Barron now lives in New York State, where this debut crime novel is set. Barron, by the way, is no ingénue; Blood Standard may be his first straight-up crime effort, but the hardboiled school of writing has been an obvious influence on…
Beside the Syrian Sea by James Wolff
Reading this debut feels like a stroll in a dangerous section of town. That’s probably how the protagonist in this espionage thriller feels too. Jonas is a former desk-job employee of MI5. His father, part of a church delegation visiting Syria, has been kidnapped by…
The Cutting Edge
Written by Jeffery Deaver — Can you imagine the reaction when Jeffery Deaver pitched his first Lincoln Rhyme novel. ‘Oh yes, and my protagonist is quadriplegic, solving everything from the confines of his apartment…’ What’s the betting that they said it’d never catch on? How…