Sorry for the Dead – Nicola Upson
With ‘Sorry for the Dead’, the eighth instalment in the Josephine Tey mystery series, Nicola Upson has, once again, penned a superior historical crime novel. ‘Sorry for the Dead’ is a nuanced, sophisticated psychological thriller which soars above genre conventions as it explores thorny social themes with acute insight and polished prose, while ensnaring readers ...
The Listening Walls – Margaret Millar
Pushkin Press’s Vertigo imprint has unearthed and published yet another gem by US 1960s noir author Margaret Millar. ‘The Listening Walls’ is a sharp tale of mystery, deception and murder, transporting its protagonists and readers from San Francisco and the Californian coast to as far away as Mexico City. Like the other Millar novels recently ...
Will – Jeroen Olyslaegers
Wilfried Wills, the protagonist of ‘Will’, a historical thriller by contemporary Belgian author Jeroen Olyslaegers, translated by David Colmer, is in his nineties, and is writing his memoir. He does ramble on, occasionally skipping backwards and forwards in time, mentioning dead friends and past events as though the former were still alive, and the latter ...
Riverflow – Alison Layland
‘Riverflow’, the second novel written by literary translator Alison Layland (after ‘Someone Else’s Conflict’) is a clever story that subtly blends tension, psychological observation and insights into contemporary attitudes towards environmental protection and green activism. Though it begins with a mysterious, unexplained death, it’s far removed from canonical crime fiction, but it definitely reads as ...
The Stories You Tell – Kristen Lepionka
After a remarkable debut (‘The Last Place You Look’) and an accomplished second novel (‘What You Want to See’), young US author Kristen Lepionka has produced a brilliant third instalment of the adventures of private investigator Roxane Weary with her latest novel, ‘The Stories You Tell’. Set in Columbus, Ohio, like the first two novels ...
A Stranger in My Grave – Margaret Millar
‘A Stranger in My Grave’, the second novel by US author Margaret Millar published by Pushkin Press as part of its eclectic collection of 1950s and 1960s crime stories (after ‘Vanish in an Instant’), is a brilliant work of fiction that, while firmly rooted in the crime/thriller genre, is also a thoughtful, engaging, and devilishly ...
Joe Country – Mick Herron
‘Joe Country’ is the sixth instalment in Mick Herron’s Jackson Lamb spy thriller series, a genre-redefining saga chronicling the seamy, low-fi and delightfully quirky espionage capers involving a ragtag bunch of contemporary MI5 agents. Among the many reputable writers who have taken up the gauntlet of writing spook thrillers in the post-Cold War era, Herron ...
Rafael Bernal – The Mongolian Conspiracy
Mexico City, the late 1960s: the capital of a formally democratic state still relying on the military for ‘legitimacy’, a sprawling metropolis and a melting-pot community that isn’t far from one of the political hotspots of the time, as reverberations of the Cuban crisis, which threatened the international power balance between the USA, Russia and ...
