Peace, love and maybe murder
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL by William Shaw (Riverrun £12.99)
ALL set in London’s swinging Sixties, Shaw’s crime novels featuring DS Cathal Breen and DC Helen Tozer first grabbed my attention three years ago with A Song From Dead Lips.
Shaw’s talent for sensuous storytelling comes to the fore as he sets this fourth book in the series in the summer of 1969, when Rolling Stone Brian Jones was found dead in the swimming pool of his country house, and speculation swirled that he might have been killed.
Meanwhile a prostitute known as Julie Teenager, who boasts some mysterious clients, is murdered, and then so is her maid. Breen investigates, while the eight-months-pregnant Tozer waits for him at home, no longer an officer in the Met.
Add in the underground magazine Oz, some stealthy work from MI6 and the possibility of a Russian spy swap, and you have the ingredients of a first-rate drama. Shaw goes from strength to strength, while making it all seem effortless.
YOU DON’T KNOW ME by Imran Mahmood (Michael Joseph £12.99)
A STARTLINGLY original debut from a criminal defence barrister, this story grabs from the very first sentence. It tells of an unnamed young black man on trial for murder who decides at the last minute to sack his barrister and give the closing speech for the defence himself.
The ten-day speech is given in full and is utterly compelling throughout. It succeeds in evoking the patois and mindset of a young black man who lives on the very edge of the law in South London.
Inspired by Mahmood’s own experiences of defending disadvantaged black and Asian men, it prompts readers to ask themselves difficult questions about the way juries — often predominantly white — perceive the young men in the dock before them. The question at its heart, as the young man speaks with the prospect of a life sentence hanging over him, is whether or not he did it.
Mahmood asks the reader to act as the jury and decide for themselves — it is a stunning idea superbly executed.
FAITHLESS by Kjell Ola Dahl (Orenda Books £8.99)
REGULARLY described as the Godfather of Nordic Noir, Dahl has an international reputation for skilfully plotted police procedurals that are drenched in the minutiae of detection. This is a fine example of his talent, featuring two of his most famous detectives, Gunnarstranda and Frolich, who disagree with each other far more often than they agree.
When the naked body of a young woman turns up in an Oslo dumpster wrapped in plastic and scalded, Frolich immediately recognises her.
She is someone he arrested earlier that day for possession of cocaine, and also happens to be engaged to one of his old school friends.
Then there is the murder of a young woman in northern Norway that bears strong similarities. Do they have a serial killer on their hands?
If you have never sampled Dahl, now is the time to try.