The Contract – JM Gulvin
The second novel in any crime fiction series if often a greater challenge for authors, and readers, than the first. The novelty effect wears off, there are expectations to be fulfilled and regular characters to be fleshed out and/or improved on. JM Gulvin, the author among others of the Ewan McGregor-Charley Boorman travel best-seller ‘Long ...
Say Nothing – Brad Parks
I confess to having a weakness for writers who take authorial risks. Especially when the risks pay off. Brad Parks, author of the multi award-winning series featuring investigative reporter Carter Ross, has indeed taken up quite a few challenges, thriller fiction-wise, in his new stand-alone novel ‘Say Nothing’. To his credit, he has come out ...
The Pledge – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Imagine you are an established crime fiction author meeting by chance a former police chief who, during a long car drive over mountains and across valleys in Switzerland, tells you crime authors are getting it all wrong in their stories. Would you then write a novel about the real-life story the police chief tells you, ...
Her Every Fear – Peter Swanson
With his new novel, ‘Her Every Fear’, Peter Swanson proves once again, after ‘The Kind Worth Killing’, that he is a master of the psychological suspense novel. I should add of the crime novel too, because there are plenty of crimes, murders in fact, in this chilling story, but I think this would pigeonhole a ...
Crash Land – Doug Johnstone
Doug Johnstone’s new thriller, ‘Crash Land’, is an apparently straightforward tale: young man, away from home and girlfriend, meets seductive, slightly older woman, something clicks between them and when older woman is threatened by boorish bloke, young man steps up to defend her and gets into a whole heap of trouble. What’s fascinating about ‘Crash ...
Waking Lions – Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
‘Waking Lions’ by Israeli writer Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is a daring, genre-defying literary creation. Even if I knew the Hebrew equivalent to the term noir (as in the genre), I’d hesitate to apply it to this remarkable novel, so layered it is with meanings, perspectives and insights. Gundar-Goshen , the author of ‘One Night, Markovitch’, which ...
The Wicked Go To Hell – Frédéric Dard
‘The Wicked Go To Hell’ is the second novel by Frédéric Dard published by Pushkin Press through their Vertigo imprint. Dard was one of France’s most prolific and influential crime writers of the XXth century, with over 280 novels, 16 plays and sundry other writing to his credit (and to that of his countless noms ...
The Girl in Green – Derek B. Miller
On what scale do you measure the tragedy of modern war? That of hundreds of thousands of deaths, military and civilians alike? Of millions of refugees? ‘The Girl in Green’ by Derek B. Miller will give you a glimpse of the big numbers, taking you from war-torn Iraq in 1991 to 2013 Iraqi Kurdistan, in ...
