What's new, copycat?
When a killer mimics murders from famous crime novels, a bookseller becomes the prime suspect.
Massachusetts author Peter Swanson has a bibliography packed with fiendish twists, strong characters and clear nods to past crime greats such as Patricia Highsmith and Alfred Hitchcock. In his latest novel,
RULES FOR PERFECT MURDERS (Faber & Faber, $32.99),
he leans hard into his love for the genre, centring the story on a specialist bookseller caught up in a series of murders that echo classic mystery novels. Malcolm Kershaw is co-owner of the Old Devil’s Bookstore in Boston. Years after he published a barely read blog post listing some of the least detectable murders in crime novels, Malcolm is visited by FBI Special Agent Gwen Mulvey. She’s noticed a few unsolved deaths that may echo the fictional killings on Malcolm’s list, which encompassed Agatha Christie to James M Cain to Winnie-the-Pooh creator AA Milne’s classic crime novel The Red House Mystery. Is Malcolm a helpful expert, a target or
perhaps a suspect? Swanson delivers an absorbing clever mystery that splashes in meta waters and tickles the mind more than the adrenal glands. Warning: this book could partly spoil a few crime classics if you have yet to read them, while also enticing you to grab them off the shelf.
Two years after her award-winning debut, The Ruin, transplanted Irishwoman Dervla McTiernan may be a long way from “classic” status, but the Perth author has certainly established herself as a crime writer to watch. Her third novel, THE GOOD TURN (HarperCollins,
$35), continues the escapades of Galway copper DS Cormac Reilly. When a lack of resources and support leads to a kidnapping case going bad, Cormac finds himself in the firing line of his bosses; he’s suspended and his protégé, Peter Fisher, is exiled to the Garda station of a tiny seaside town. It’s a village long policed by Peter’s father and a place where a woman, Anna, and her young daughter, Tilly, sought refuge after fleeing Dublin. Cormac secretly digs into his suspicions of broader police corruption, while Peter does his penance in paperwork relating to two murders. McTiernan ably juggles multiple perspectives and storylines in an intelligent and engaging police procedural that’s soaked in Irish atmosphere.
Like McTiernan, Will Dean is three books into a crime-writing career he kick-started after leaving the British Isles for frontiers new, although in his case he sets his excellent series in his adopted home of rural Sweden. Dean’s gift to readers is deaf journalist Tuva Moodyson, a fascinating heroine who is relentless – stumbles and all. In BLACK RIVER (Oneworld, $36), Tuva has escaped small-town
Gavrik for urban life in Malmö, only to be drawn back when her best friend, Tammy, proprietor of the Thai takeaway truck, vanishes. As locals and visitors sweat under the midsummer sun, another woman goes missing, and Tuva investigates the creepy residents of Snake River. But where does the real danger lie? Dean has crafted another tense, atmospheric tale that blends the intrigue and social commentary of crime fiction with the deliciously scary soul of folk tales: vast forests offering both danger and adventure; stories full of memorable characters, heroic and grotesque.
Will Dean has crafted a tense, atmospheric tale that blends the intrigue of crime fiction with the deliciously scary soul of folk tales.