To the Top of the Mountain by Arne Dahl
Translated by Alice Menzies — Crime readers have to get used to time lags in English translations, but you suspect some devoted fans of Arne Dahl have decided to learn Swedish rather than wait for the UK publisher to catch up. To the Top of…
A Morbid Habit by Annie Hauxwell
If you had to create a check-list for a spy fiction heroine, then Catherine Berlin would not tick many boxes. Let’s try: Young and glamorous? No, she shows all of her 57 years, and looks slightly the worse for wear. High profile job? Sorry. She’s…
Artefacts of the Dead by Tony Black
He is probably best known as the author of the acclaimed Gus Dury thrillers, set in the mean streets of Edinburgh, but Tony Black has turned his sights to a much less likely setting for Artefacts of the Dead. That setting is the sleepy seaside…
A Man's Head by Georges Simenon
Translated by David Coward — Having accrued an incomplete collection of dog-eared, yellowed and slightly foxed editions of Simenon’s Maigret novels by scavenging second hand bookshops, Penguin’s project to reprint all 75 of them was music to my ears. This set is being translated afresh…
The Eagle Turns by James Green
In my mind there are two types of spies: those who know everything and those who know nothing. Jean-François Mercier in Alan Furst’s The Spies of Warsaw is an example of the former, as is John le Carré’s George Smiley, while examples of the latter…
Nine Years Gone by Chris Culver
The New York Times bestselling author of the Ash Rashid series of detective mysteries has this time turned his attention to a standalone psychological thriller, set in St Louis. Nine years ago, crime novelist Steve Hale made a decision that was destined to haunt him…
Cop Town by Karin Slaughter
We’re in Atlanta and it’s 1974. Doesn’t sound long ago if you’re of a certain age – but trust me, mid-70s Georgia is a world away from the uber-politically correct here and now. It’s November as the book opens, and a distraught police officer is…