The Accusation
Written by Bandi — You won’t find a conventional thriller in this collection of modern-day short stories set in North Korea, and while you may find puzzlement, you won’t find much mystery. What you do find – on a vast, society-wide, top-to-bottom scale – is crime….
NTN: Cambodia Noir
Written by Nick Seeley — This year has seen the rise of some impressive new stars in crime fiction, authors whose novels are set in far-flung European locales, Scandinavian landscapes, and urban America. Perhaps none is more stellar than Nick Seeley whose debut novel, Cambodia Noir, is set in…
A Death in the Family
Written by Michael Stanley — Talk about explosive beginnings! This time it gets very personal indeed. Assistant Superintendent David Bengu in Botswana – aka Kubu, meaning hippo – is jolted out of a dream in which he’s eating. His boss, Makabu, tells him that his father has…
A Rising Man
This prize-winning debut takes us back to 1919 Calcutta, where Sam Wyndham, formerly of the British Army and of Scotland Yard, has arrived to start a new life in the colonial police force. He’s barely had time to wipe the sweat from his brow before a…
The Fire Maker
Written by Peter May — Crime fiction fans know and love Peter May for his very atmospheric Lewis trilogy and we’ve reviewed The Chessmen and a recent standalone likewise set in the Outer Hebrides, Coffin Road. The author has since moved on to the Gulf of St Lawrence…
A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee
Calcutta, 1919, and the city is full of rising men. There are the colonials making fortunes in commodities like rubber and jute, or grafting in the administration in ways they never could back in the UK. There are cloth merchants and bankers. There are the…
Behind Dead Eyes by Howard Linskey
Tom Carney, true crime author, keeps receiving letters imploring him for help. These are no ordinary pleas, the writer no ordinary person. The letters are from convicted killer Richard Bell who is languishing in prison for murdering his lover. Bell claims he’s innocent and believes…