LATEST TITLES

SCRUBLANDS

by Chris Hammer, Wildfire, £16.99, ebook £8.49. Available January 8 ★★★★ ★ AFTER the runaway success of Jane Harper’s The Dry, the Outback has become the go-to setting for a crime thriller.

At the beginning, the pace is slow, but it picks up thereafter and becomes a real page-turner, ripping along like a bush fire.

In a drought-scourged country town, a well-liked and charismatic local priest guns down five men. A year on, troubled journalist Martin Scarsden turns up to write a piece on the anniversary of the murders, and discovers that a seemingly open and shut case is anything but.

Scrublands is well-plotted and atmospheric. At times, there’s almost too much going on, but it’s well worth a read.

THE FIFTH TO DIE

by J.D. Barker, HQ, £7.99, ebook £4.49 ★★★★ ★ IN the bleakest mid-winter of snowbound Chicago, Detective Sam Porter and his team discover the body of a girl beneath the ice of a frozen lake. She’s been missing for three weeks, but the lake froze over months ago.

From this cold conundrum, Barker spins a serpentine and gruesome tale about Porter’s arch nemesis: serial killer Anson Bishop. Sparse and cinematic, the pages fly by.

SHE WAS THE QUIET ONE

by Michele Campbell,

Harper Collins, £7.99, ebook £5.99. Available

January 10

★★★ ★★

CENTRING around orphaned twins and their boarding school master and mistress, this is a tale of unrequited love, affairs and breaking the rules.

The narrative flips between the story and transcripts of police interviews with people involved in events in the run up to the murder.

The narrative powers through to a gripping conclusion, and an unexpected epilogue.