Is this sleeping beauty a killer?
ANNA O by Matthew Blake (Harper-Collins £16.99, 432pp)
THIS striking debut is one of the most remarkable in many years — for at its heart lies a fascinating enigma.
Twenty-five-year-old Anna Ogilvy hasn’t opened her eyes in four years — not since the night she was found fast asleep in her home, a blood stained kitchen knife in her hand, near the bodies of two of her best friends who had been stabbed to death.
Enter sleep expert Dr Ben Prince, who is asked to see if he can wake her up to face a trial for murder. He concludes she is suffering from ‘resignation syndrome’, a mysterious illness afflicting those who commit a dreadful crime and whose brain then refuses to allow them to wake up.
Anna’s story becomes even more compelling when the boss of the sleep clinic in Harley Street that she has been assigned to is murdered.
Brilliantly executed, packed with insight, it deserves to be a breakout best-seller.
THE FURY by Alex Michaelides (Michael Joseph £18.99, 368pp)
ANOTHER blockbuster by the author of the multi-million selling A Silent Patient. Reclusive ex-movie star Lana Farrer has invited a small group of her closest friends for a week on her private Greek island — a lavish present from her late movie-producer husband.
But this is not the joyful reunion that everyone expects at this glamorous retreat. Old enmities, bitter jealousies and violent passions surface all too quickly.
Within 48 hours of their arrival, one of the friends is killed — but by whom, and why? Could the local man charged with looking after the island for the past seven years be a killer, or could it be one of the celebrity guests, all of whom seem to have darkness in their hearts? Infinitely thrilling, and delicately crafted, the plot keeps everyone guessing until the very end, with an unscrupulous villain to underline just how good it is. Do not miss it.
THE SHADOW NETWORK by Tony Kent (Elliott & Thompson £16.99, 464pp)
AT THE heart of this crackling political thriller, packed with deception and espionage, lies a shadowy organisation determined to overthrow the world order. Its aim is to re-establish Russian supremacy but not under communists like Vladimir Putin. It wants the ancestors of the Russian Tsars back in control. Then two lawyers, acting for an alleged war criminal who is to be tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, are gunned down, it transpires the attack has been carried out on the orders of ‘The Monk’ — named after Grigori Rasputin, the legendary Russian adviser to Tsar Nicholas II.
British barrister, Michael Devlin, who knows one of the victims, sets out to discover where the reality lies. Tense and fast paced, it has a fierce edge that questions whether the world as we know it can survive. Kent has become the British Baldacci, and there can be no higher praise.