The Lying-Down Room by Anna Jaquiery
The Lying Down Room introduces us to the charismatic and dedicated Chief Inspector Serge Morel. The story opens in Paris in the stifling August heat, and Morel is called to examine a disturbing crime scene. An elderly woman has been brutally murdered to the soundtrack…
Sorrow Bound
We interviewed former journalist David Mark after his previous novel Original Skin won universal praise in crime fiction circles. The intriguingly named lynchpins of that book, Aector McAvoy and Trish Pharoah are back. Their stamping grounds remain the unlovely Humberside port of Hull. In an…
Long Way Home
It’s all good when one of our writers lays down her critic’s pen and writes her own novel. There can hardly have been a more stunning debut than this, by Eva Dolan. Scene – the teeming but unglamorous East Anglian city of Peterborough, on the…
The Bleeding Heart
The latest Bryant & May mystery written by Christopher Fowler brings us yet another excellent read, and a baffling case for the Peculiar Crimes Unit. First, there’s the politics – PCU has been put under the jurisdiction of the City of London and its new…
The House of Dolls by David Hewson
With his three novelisations of Danish sensation The Killing, British crime writer David Hewson has elevated the TV tie-in novel into a literary event. He’s even started a trend in crime adaptations that build on original television scripts: Erin Kelly is readying her take on…
Death Money by Henry Chang
Soho Press returns with the fourth instalment featuring the New York Chinese-American police detective Jack Yu. Yu is on the way to see the department psychiatrist after being involved in a shooting from a previous case when he gets a call from the Thirty-Second precinct….
Death Can't Take a Joke by Anya Lipska
Act I, Scene 1 – Canary Wharf, a prime business district which has been redeveloped from the decaying former docklands of East London. A young policewoman is trying to enjoy an over-priced latte. There is a strange birdlike flurry of movement in her peripheral vision,…