WARNING: CRIME
CRY BABY by Mark Billingham (Little, Brown, £8.99)
WHEN seven-year-old Kieron Coyne is abducted while playing in woods in north London with his best friend Josh, Detective Sergeant Tom Thorne vows to bring him home alive.
Cry Baby is a gripping prequel to the Harrogate mainstay’s first Thorne novel Sleepyhead, published nearly 20 years ago.
We said: “For anyone that hasn’t read a Thorne novel yet Cry Baby will show them what they have been missing for the past two decades.”
THE OTHER PASSENGER by Louise Candlish (Simon & Schuster, £8.99)
THE third novel from the Hexham-born bestseller is set among the so-called “water rats” of the Thames river boat community and explores how jealousy and anger can undermine even the closest relationships.A sense of dread and suspense pervades. Crime author Shari Lapena said: “A compulsive read that builds to an unimaginable climax.”
THE CUTTING PLACE by Jane Casey (HarperCollins, £7.99)
JANE Casey’s latest bestseller featuring DS Maeve Kerrigan is set among the disturbing world of London’s elite gentlemen’s clubs where money is no object and lives are ruthlessly bought and sold.
Journalist Paige Hargreaves is working on an exposé when she disappears. Now Kerrigan must immerse herself in the hedonistic behaviour to get to the truth.Writer Marian Keyes said: “If you haven’t read the Maeve Kerrigan series, start right now. I envy you.”
FIFTY FIFTY by Steve Cavanagh (Orion, £8.99)
THE fifth instalment of the Eddie Flynn series starts with the kind of ingenious hook which has become former civil rights lawyer Cavanagh’s trademark in the award-winning The Liar andThirteen.Two sisters both call the police saying they’re found their father’s body and their sister killed him. In a joint trial Flynn must make sure the right one is convicted.
We said: “Fifty Fifty is a superb thriller which again shows Cavanagh is the heir apparent to
John Grisham.”
BLACK RIVER by Will Dean
(Oneworld, £8.99) THE third instalment of a
CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE: Will Dean and Lucy Foley series that has breathed new life into Scandi Noir sees relentless reporter Tuva Moodyson – one of the first deaf main protagonists in crime fiction – search for her missing friend in Gavrik, a small town in the Arctic north in the grip of the endless days of midsummer and clouds of biting insects from the dark pine forest.
We said: “The sense of foreboding slowly builds throughout the novel before Dean delivers a cracking finale that paves the way for Tuva’s next adventure.”
BETWEEN TWO EVILS by Eva Dolan (Bloomsbury, £7.99)
THE fifth DI Zigic and DS
Ferreira police procedural sees the duo investigate the murder of a young doctor in a picturesque Cambridgeshire village.
Dr Joshua Ainsworth worked at an all-female detention centre, one still recovering from a major scandal a few years before. But was he the whistleblower or the instigator?
We said: “Yet again, Eva Dolan has produced a compelling and often dramatic whodunit that tells you more about the state of the nation than a sheaf of newspapers.”