Bent on justice
A reality star’s death, grieving women seeking revenge and a thriller set in 2051 feature among the latest crime fiction.
LIKE A SISTER, by Kellye Garrett (Simon & Schuster, $26.99)
New Jersey author Kellye Garrett paddled in Hollywood waters before winning several major awards in the US for her debut novel, Hollywood Homicide – the first in a grin-inducing duology about a struggling actress turned accidental private eye. Now, Garrett brings a fresh take to “domestic noir” while exploring ideas around celebrity, social media and the “strong black woman” in her tense third novel, Like a Sister. The death of reality TV star Desiree Pierce sparks online gossip but is shrugged off as a drug overdose, a tragedy rather than a crime, by everyone except grad student Lena Scott. Desiree and Lena shared a father, influential hiphop mogul Mel, but little else. Still, Lena is determined to find justice, wherever that leads. Why was her estranged sibling found dead in a Bronx playground – a part of New York City she’d never venture into – after partying it up for her 25th birthday? Nicely laced with sarcastic humour and attitude, Like a Sister offers a compellingly fresh urban feel and perspective among an ocean of suburban thrillers about troubled marriages and romances.
A WINTER GRAVE, by Peter May (Quercus Books, $38)
Fifty years after he was an award-winning young journo in Glasgow, and 30 years after he firmly established himself as a leading Scottish television screenwriter of the 1980s and early 90s, Peter May continues to bring great new stories to his audience. Now an internationally bestselling author based in France with nearly 30 novels and several awards on
his mantlepiece, May takes readers into a perilous future in his new eco-thriller, A Winter Grave. A young meteorologist discovers the frozen body of a missing journalist in an ice cave while climbing a weather station in the Highlands. The year is 2051, and whereas the northern climes of an independent Scotland are a frozen wilderness, Glasgow is a flooded city relying on water taxis and equatorial nations are uninhabitable due to the heat. Already confronting his own mortality, Detective Inspector Cameron Brodie must also confront his past when he travels to the Highlands to investigate. Readers are treated to flashbacks to 2023 alongside vivid evocations of a global future mangled by climate change. Atmospheric and thought-provoking.
SEVEN SISTERS, by Katherine Kovacic (HarperCollins, $35)
Having delighted readers with a trilogy starring art dealer and amateur sleuth
Alex Clayton, Melbourne author Katherine Kovacic deftly pivots into the world of psychological thrillers and vigilante justice with Seven Sisters. Reeling from grief and rage following the loss of her sister Jo, Naomi is sceptical about her therapist Mia’s suggestion of joining a support group. How can she sit around and share her trauma with a gaggle of strangers? How can she explain how it feels that her sister’s killer is walking free? But within the group, Naomi finds her experience and anger shared by other members: Gabrielle, Brooke, Katy, Olivia and Amy. All have lost loved ones to the scourge of domestic violence. Can they help each other, where the police and justice system have failed? “I’ll kill yours if you kill mine” – a modern twist on Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train. Kovacic delivers a tense tale that plays with reader sympathies as it blends revenge fantasy with a candid look at the impact of domestic violence. ▮