Dark secrets buried in thrillers with killer twists
THE WOMAN IN THE WOODS by John Connolly Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99
THE buried body of a young woman is uncovered in remote woods in Maine and it emerges that she gave birth shortly before her death.
There is no sign of the baby so kindly lawyer Moxie Castin engages private detective Charlie Parker to shadow the police investigation and find the infant.
Parker works with FBI contacts to help identify the woman and piece together the traumatic last days of her life. But as he does so he realises that someone else is following her trail, someone with an interest in more than a missing child and someone prepared to kill without hesitation or mercy.
At the same time a toy telephone begins to ring in a house by the woods and a young boy gets a call from a dead woman. This leaves Parker facing a race to reach the boy before earthly and supernatural threats close in on him.
The bestselling Dark Saga series, with its unique blend of horror and crime fiction, is now 19 years old and this is its 16th instalment. But it still feels fresh and intriguing, the creepy, otherworldly elements adding to the murder mystery at its heart rather than detracting from it.
Connolly writes beautifully and has once again woven a riveting yet disturbing tale that will delight his fans for nearly 500 pages until a surprise ending paves the way for the next instalment.
TIME IS A KILLER by Michel Bussi Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £12.99
CLOTILDE travels to Corsica with her family for a summer holiday, haunted by a car crash that killed her parents and brother there 27 years ago. She was 15 when the car came off a sharp bend in a twisty mountain
road and plunged into a ravine. She was the only survivor.
She is now 42 and a lawyer living in Vernon, Normandy, as she visits the island for the first time since the accident accompanied by husband Franck and their daughter Valentine.
She hopes to exorcise the ghosts of her past and connect with her sulky 15-year-old daughter. But then Clotilde gets a letter from her mother Palma who is seemingly still alive. It forces her to question the events leading up to the accident.
Clotilde saw the corpse of her mother. But if she did not send the letter, who did and why? And was it really an accident as the police ruled?
Award-winning French author Bussi switches between events in 1989 and 2016, his highly inventive plot and well-formed, intriguing characters weaving a captivating mystery on the Mediterranean island.
After the initial shock of the crash, Time Is A Killer peels back layer upon layer of subterfuge to reveal a dizzying twist leading to a pitch-perfect ending.
You will read the last 100 pages at breakneck speed. This moving tale of love, loss, vengeance and redemption is the perfect immersive holiday read.