The curtain drops
On the Radar — How do you like the sound of Brad Parks’ latest, in which an actor is drafted in to go undercover in a prison to eke information out of an inmate? It sounds like a pretty good set-up, but it’s not the…
First look: Ryuko
She smokes cigars, rides a motorbike, packs twin tommies and she has a dragon tattoo. But Ryuko isn’t from Sweden, and she’s not like anything Japanese crime fiction has sent us so far. Today we’re bringing you a first look at this manga graphic novel…
The Revenant Express
Written by George Mann — The Revenant Express returns us to the Victorian steampunk universe found in George Mann’s Newbury and Hobbes novels, which the author last visited in 2013 with The Executioner’s Heart. The year is 1903, and Sir Maurice Newbury, adventurer and occult…
Another brick in the wall
On the Radar — Sometimes a book arrives that’s so big the postman needs to knock on the door because it won’t fit in the letterbox. The Border by Don Winslow is a good example. It’s the kind of book we normally refer to as…
Hell Chose Me
Written by Angel Luis Colón — Just when avid crime fiction readers might be tiring of the low-life protagonists with unsavoury companions, seedy surroundings, and expletive-inducing situations, which so many crime writers have paraded before their readers of late, along comes a novel that upends…
Her Pretty Face
Written by Robyn Harding — Frances Metcalfe is at an all time low. She’s overweight and unhappy, and when her son Marcus, who has ADHD, takes revenge on a classmate by secretly peeing in her water bottle, Frances finds herself ostracised by all the yummy…
Amsterdam Noir
Edited by René Appel and Josh Pachter — Fourteen of The Netherlands’ premier authors of crime and literary fiction contributed to this collection, with the editors – top-rated crime authors themselves – providing the 15th. Amsterdam Noir is the latest in Akashic Books’ long-running series…
The most wanted crime books of 2019
Maybe it’s a sign of the times, but we think history and throwbacks will dominate crime fiction in 2019. The world feels considerably more unstable with Donald Trump as president, a huge feud continuing in the UK over Brexit, strong-arm nationalist politicians popping up all…