BOOKS Shelf Portraits

A Shot In the Dark by Lynne truss is published in hardback by Raven Books, priced £12.99 (ebook £10.99)

» Lynne Truss wrote the best-selling punctuation guide Eats, Shoots and Leaves and is a prolific writer of fiction, non-fiction, screenplays, newspaper columns and radio dramas. A Shot In The Dark is based on Truss’ Radio 4 comedy thriller, The Casebook Of Inspector Steine. Super-keen new boy Constable Twitten is sent to keep an eye on A S Crystal, a vitriolic theatre critic and Twitten ends up with a murder on his hands. Steine’s deputy, the long-suffering Sergeant Brunswick, is soon pounding the streets of Brighton looking for suspects among the cast of colourful characters. Inspector Steine is a bit blinkered when it comes to crime and is not as clever as he thinks he is, while Mrs Groynes, the police station charlady who keeps everyone supplied with tea and cakes, is much cleverer than she appears. Set in 1950s’ Brighton, A Shot In The Dark is an intricately plotted murder mystery that’s darkly humorous and beautifully written. 8/10 Review By Sue Barraclough

you Were MADE For this by Michelle SACKS is published in hardback by hq, priced £12.99 (ebook £7.99)

» Michelle Sacks found her story in the “almost impossibly idyllic” Swedish countryside. She drops Merry and Sam into this limpid pool: lovely picture-book house, perfect marriage, new young son. But shadows fill those clear depths: Why did they have to leave the US? Just what had Sam been up to with female students? And, crucially, does Merry truly love her new baby? Sacks then triangulates the emotional geometry when Frank arrives on holiday. She may be Merry’s oldest girlfriend but their friendship rests on rotten pillars. Short, sparse chapters are devoted to each character, and the overlapping voices create a domestic thriller in which dreams unravel into nightmares. The staccato prose takes a while to settle, but once it does, the narrative impetus never slackens and events tumble towards a tragic resolution. 8/10 Review By Julian cole

take Me In by Sabine Durrant is published in hardback by Mulholland Books, priced £12.99 (ebook £6.99)

» Sabine Durrant is an experienced journalist and well-published author, with a hit under her belt in the form of Lie With Me. We first meet Tessa, Marcus and their young son Josh on a Greek island holiday that is not very comfortable for anyone, partly because of the tense state of their marriage. An accident sees Josh rescued by Dave and an uneasy kind of friendship develops between the trio of adults. Back home in London, it becomes ever more clear this is not a happy family. Things are also going awry in Marcus’ company and Tessa is entangled in a messy affair. Dave re-enters their lives several times and they’re uneasy about it. Who exactly is he anyway and what is he up to, if anything? Durrant gives us a chapter from Marcus and then one from Tessa’s perspective. It works well and helps make this a complex tale that examines our inner insecurities and assumptions in a well-observed way. The first part of Take Me In did not live up to expectations of edge-of-your seat suspense, it takes quite a while to get going - but when it does, the story is gripping and you’ll end up desperate to know what happens next. 6/10 Review By helen Smyth

I WILL be complete: A Memoir by Glen DAVID GOLD is published in hardback by Sceptre, priced £20 (ebook £9.99)

» Glen David Gold’s memoir I Will Be Complete reveals the author’s fractured childhood in hippy-era California and his struggle to become a writer. Born into luxury in Southern California, divorce plunges him into the heart of the hippy scene in San Francisco and leads to him living by himself aged 12 - as he narrates, his mother abandons him as she heads to New York to help the latest in string of feckless boyfriends. His fractious relationship with his mother and her problems dominate the hefty first memoir by the author of Carter Beats The Devil and Sunnyside, which chronicles his time at school for gifted children and boarding in the desert, before turning to university and his series of relationships as he attempts to launch his writing career. A wry wit permeates the work which is imbued with the melancholy of a search for home and ‘completeness’. 5/10 Review By laura Paterson

Moth: An evolution Story by ISABEL thomas AND DANIEL egneus is published in hardback by Bloomsbury children’s Books, priced £12.99

» As the opening of the book says: “This is a story of light and dark. Of change and adaptation, of survival and hope”. It tells the story of how the peppered moth, with its speckled wings, evolves. The story starts with moths living in a rural setting with flying predators to avoid, saved by their camouflage, until factories begin to change the world by belching smoke and bringing dark pollution, and the very characteristics that protected the moths now make them vulnerable. Slowly the darker moths survive and their children and grandchildren become better and better protected. The bold graphics illustrate the story perfectly, and it ends with readers being urged to spot moths in the wild and engages them in a little more formal history of the moth. Perfect for nature-lovers to learn, without realising they are learning. 9/10 Review By Bridie Pritchard