Finding my parents’ killer
THE PAIN TOURIST by Paul Cleave
(Orenda £9.99, 300 pp)
AS A boy, James Garrett witnesses the execution of his parents when three men break into their house in Christchurch, New Zealand.
He manages to save his elder sister Hazel, who is 14, by hustling her out of an upstairs bedroom window, but is then shot in the head.
Miraculously, James survives, but remains in a coma for nine years before waking. He discovers that he remembers events common sense dictates he should never have taken part in; things that happened while he was in the coma — such as the exact date of his grandmother’s death.
So begins the spellbinding story of James’s search for the men who murdered his parents. At the same time, however, a serial killer is operating in the city.
This examination of the fascination some people have with the pain and misery of others is genuinely haunting and lingers in the memory.
HUNTING TIME by Jeffery Deaver
(HarperCollins £20, 432 pp) COLTER SHAW is one of Deaver’s most intriguing characters, a survival specialist who finds people who don’t want to be found, for high financial rewards. He is resourceful, smart and courageous.
Here he is asked to track down nuclear scientist Allison Parker and her teenage
daughter Hannah, who are fleeing Allison’s abusive exhusband Jon Merritt. The former detective has been released early from a jail sentence for attacking her and is said to be planning to kill her.
But Shaw and Merritt are not the only people searching for Allison — who has invented a nuclear device which could transform the creation of energy. Two brutal hitmen have also been hired to find her — but by whom, and why? Deaver’s plot skills shine out of this tale of treachery and redemption.
THE SANCTUARY by Emma Haughton (Hodder £16.99, 384 pp)
HAUGHTON’S exceptionally menacing crime debut The Dark — set in Antarctica — was highly original and rightly a bestseller so this, her second, has a lot to live up to. This time she chooses the Mexican desert as her backdrop.
New York party girl Zoey wakes up after a heavy night out, but she is not in her flat. She is in an exclusive, isolated retreat deep in that desert. She has no idea how she got there. Who brought her?
It gradually emerges that she has been sent by a mysterious benefactor who wanted to prevent her being sent to prison for an attack on a man in a Manhattan bar.
At first she insists she does not need help or rehabilitation, but slowly accepts that there are demons that have been pursuing her for years.
When a staff member is found dead in the swimming pool, things turn darker, as it is clear one of the retreat’s residents is a killer. Clever and atmospheric, Haughton’s story weaves a delicate web of intrigue and mystery.