Head of Zeus, ISBN-13: 978-1-78854-374-3 In the illusionist’s world, close-up magic is king, and eighteen-year-old prodigy Natalie Webb promised to be one of the best. Then she got burned by an unscrupulous artist who stole her heart along with her best illusion. Nine years on, honest, but grindingly poor, Natalie ekes out an existence performing at […]
In this audio interview, Ashley Dyer chats with BBC Radio Merseyside’s Jermaine Foster about growing up in Liverpool, defying her strict Roman Catholic family expectations to go to university, later becoming a crime novelist, and now writing serial killer novels set in her home town, Liverpool. How she became founder of Murder Squad, breaking rules […]
November Road, by Lou Berney HarperCollins ISBN-10: 0008309337 November Road unfolds in the wake of President Kennedy’s assassination. Frank Guidry knows everyone—as a loyal and long-serving lieutenant to New Orleans Mob boss, Carlo Marcello, it’s what he’s paid to do. He’s a self-aware hedonist intent on enjoying every minute of life, and his talent for deception […]
Detective Inspector Carver lies near death—shot in the chest. A woman stands over him—she has a gun in her hand. Carver has been investigating the Thorn Killer murders for almost a year—a killer who tattoos his victims over a period of days or weeks, using an ancient and excruciatingly painful method called “thorn tapping”. As […]
Richard Montanari has long been among my favourite crime writers. In his Byrne and Balzano series, set in Philadelphia, two strikingly different and very likeable cops spark off each other. But he also pens standalone thrillers, and his latest, The Buried Girl, is darkly gothic in tone. When New York forensic psychologist Will Hardy’s wife […]
Trapeze, £5.95 ISBN-10: 9781409174134 The Craftsman opens in August 1999, the hottest day of the year. Assistant Commissioner Florence Lovelady attends the burial of Larry Glassbrook, a coffin-maker. He’s also the convicted serial killer whom she arrested thirty years earlier. A master carpenter and funeral director, Larry imprisoned his victims – alive – in caskets he […]
Doubleday ISBN-10: 0857524739 Fatal Inheritance begins in post-war London. Eve Forrester, raised by a mother who seemingly disapproves of her very existence, has escaped into a loveless marriage to an overbearing prig, and is now living a dismal life in a grey suburb. But the arrival of a solicitor’s letter changes all that – for Eve […]
Quercus, £0.99ASIN: B009S8HJ04 (Kindle edition) First published in 1999, A Little Death presents the reader with a triple murder on page two, and then leaves no room for speculation: we are told quite firmly at the outset that one of the three must have shot the others and then committed suicide. It is a testament to […]
Vintage PressISBN-10: 0099458276 I first read Engleby in 2007, its year of publication, and recommended it as an essential Christmas read. Although he is better known for his novels set in France, particularly Birdsong, Faulks writes cracking psychological suspense, too – and has even penned a well-received Bond thriller. While Engleby is a quieter affair, it […]
Zaffre ISBN-10: 178576 3350 There’s a plethora of ‘domestic noir’ novels in crime fiction, just now. You know the sort of thing: isolated woman, unreliable narrator, dark goings-on in suffocating relationships. Gripping reads, all. But if, like me, you feel the need to escape that claustrophobic world and glimpse a broader vista, SWEET LITTLE LIES could […]