THRILLERS
RIGHTEOUS: AN IQ NOVEL by Joe Ide (W&N £14.99)
a welcome second outing for Isaiah Quintabe — IQ to his friends — the funky, funny, fast-talking La private detective whose debut was one of the most memorable I read all year.
Created by a Japanese-american with a love of Sherlock Holmes, this more than lives up to its predecessor, and sees IQ confront the full might of the Chinese Triads, a deadly loan shark and assorted lowlifes in the casinos and massage parlours of Las vegas, with a humour and originality that’s exhilarating.
along the way, he recruits his Watson, a hard-boiled partner named dodson, who does far more than merely come along for the ride. The two then encounter a criminal mastermind who may know something about the death of IQ’s beloved elder brother, Marcus, eight years earlier in what appeared to be a hit-and-run accident. Ide’s superb ear for dialogue and sharp observational eye make this hum with life.
SPLINTER IN THE BLOOD by Ashley Dyer
(Corsair £16.99) In LIVERPOOL, DS ruth Lake and her boss, dCI Greg Carver, are hunting a serial killer who imprisons young women before killing them slowly and painfully by etching intricate tattoos into their naked bodies with different thorns — making him the ‘Thorn Killer’.
They appear to be making progress — until the killer murders a student who looks uncannily like Carver’s estranged wife and the dCI is shot in the chest while he’s at home studying the case files. did the Thorn Killer attack him directly?
Both detectives have private secrets that they keep from one another.
The novel is packed with police and forensic detail because its author is a pseudonym for two women with impressive pedigrees in both: Margaret Murphy was chair of the Crime Writers’ association and Helen pepper was a forensic scientist who now lectures on policing. They make a formidable combination.
THE LIAR’S GIRL by Catherine Ryan Howard
(Corvus £12.99) In THIS second novel, Howard’s emerging talent could not be clearer.
When she was 19, alison’s boyfriend, Will, confessed to killing five young women while they were both undergraduates in dublin.
He dumped the bodies in the Grand Canal — earning the nickname the Canal Killer. Horrified by his confession and life sentence, alison moves to amsterdam. now, ten years later, another murdered young woman is fished out of the dublin canal.
Inevitably, the police question Will. Is it a copycat or did he have an accomplice who has been lying low for a decade? Will knows something, but will speak only to alison.
The detectives fly to Holland to persuade her to come home. She agrees — only to discover Will now insists he was coerced into his original confession and is innocent.
dare she believe him? This is expertly plotted, with a series of stunning twists.