A Good Enough Mother – Bev Thomas
Bev Thomas’s debut novel, ‘A Good Enough Mother’, is a brilliant, genre-defying exploration of the complexities of motherhood, and of the constant conflict between reason and emotion. It tells the story of a respected psychologist who struggles, and fails, to keep her grief as the mother of a missing son at bay, until it collides ...
Before She Knew Him – Peter Swanson
There are various breeds of criminals in fiction and, sadly, in real life, from the crime lords who can only be vanquished by super-hero opposition, to everyday villains, driven by circumstances and opportunity, the stuff of domestic noirs and police procedurals. And there is another breed, one that is disturbing, secretive and unfathomable. Men and ...
Run You Down – Julia Dahl
‘Run You Down’ is the second novel by Julia Dahl featuring feisty young New York journalist Rebekah Roberts. In the first, ‘Invisible City’, which was published in 2014 and won the Macavity, Barry and Shamus Awards, Dahl plunged the reader into the cloistered world of the ultra-orthodox Hasidic community in Brooklyn, and introduced Rebekah, a ...
Slugger – Martin Holmén
‘Slugger’, the final novel in Martin Holmén’s Stockholm trilogy, set in the 1930s and featuring former boxer turned debt-collector Harry Kvist, fully lives up to the high expectations set by the first two, ‘Clinch’ and ‘Down for the Count’. Kvist prides himself in never having gone down for a count in a brief boxing career ...
Celia Fremlin – The Long Shadow
I love novels that refuse to be pigeonholed into one single genre. After all, if you can have more than one treat in the same package, why not? And I admire authors who have the ability to straddle genres with ease, spicing up their narrative recipe with a mixed bag of ingredients. Celia Fremlin has ...
Vanish in an Instant – Margaret Millar
In crime fiction, as in all other genres, the mark of a true classic is a novel’s ability to transcend time and cross geographical boundaries. ‘Vanish in an Instant’ by US author Margaret Millar, first published in 1952, is just such a classic, and a brilliant addition to Pushkin Vertigo’s eclectic collection of international 1950s ...
And Fire Came Down – Emma Viskic
‘And Fire Came Down’ is the second novel by Emma Viskic – after ‘Resurrection Bay’ – featuring Australian insurance investigator Caleb Zelic. ‘Resurrection Bay’ scooped up an array of literary prizes in Australia, winning the 2016 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut and three Davitt Awards, and has now been shortlisted for two Dagger Awards ...
Cold Desert Sky – Rod Reynolds
‘Cold Desert Sky’ is the third novel by Rod Reynolds in the noir series featuring gutsy US reporter Charlie Yates. Set in December 1946, ‘Cold Desert Sky’ is a punchy novel – a cocktail one part fact, three parts fiction – in which Reynolds ups his game and his locale, moving from the rural Texarkana ...
