The Valley
Don’t expect a cosy rural crime thriller – the valley of the title is actually a street in suburban London. On the one hand the book is a psychological study of the hopes and fears of the families who live in The Valley, but it…
Never Look Back
DI Mike Lockyer has an autistic brother. He also has a failed marriage. The wedding ring on a chain round his neck is a constant reminder of the latter, while his visits to his brother’s care home remind him that life can be extremely unfair…
Runaway by Peter May
Written by Peter May — ‘Would you like to review the latest Peter May novel?’ the CFL boss asked. I replied with a phrase containing the words ‘Pope’ and ‘Catholic’. May is an author who has garnered a huge and incredibly loyal fan base through his…
Black Noise by Pekka Hiltunen
Translated by Owen F Witesman –– When someone starts hacking YouTube accounts and uploading strange videos, the fact that they consist of several minutes of dark silence is just creepy. But in this Finnish crime novel set in London, the strange phenomenon is really a prelude…
Ghost Girl by Lesley Thomson
In the second Detective’s Daughter mystery, accidental detective and owner of a cleaning business, Stella Darnell, inherits another case. Her father, Superintendent Terry Darnell, has been dead for a year but Stella is unable to move on. She still visits his house daily, almost expecting his…
When I was a runaway, by Peter May
On 15 January, Quercus is publishing Peter May’s latest book, Runaway. Well known for his Lewis trilogy – set in the Hebridean Islands – as well as his recent hit Entry Island which is set on an island in the Gulf of St Lawrence, Canada,…
Payton Edgar's Agony by MJT Seal
London, 1962. Payton Edgar is the restaurant critic of the London Evening Clarion. He is also an insufferable snob. Add to that his vanity, sharp tongue and vague air of misanthropy, and you have one of the least appealing amateur detectives of recent times. When…
Fiddle City by Dan Kavanagh
When Julian Barnes’s pseudonymous PI novel Duffy was reissued earlier this year, the literary author found himself welcomed into the crime genre. Written under the name Dan Kavanagh, Duffy was a scandalously funny, violent and sordid debut from a writer who was clearly relishing a…