DARK AND DIRTY DEEDS COME TO LIGHT IN OUR PICK OF THE BEST NEW THRILLERS
THE SHADOW FRIEND ★★★★
Alex North
Michael Joseph, £12.99 LECTURER Paul Adams has spent 25 years running from trauma after classmate Charlie Crabtree murdered one of their friends. Crabtree fled after the murder and never faced justice.
Since leaving for university, Paul has never returned to his family home in industrial town Gritten, instead building a new life in the halls of academia.
But when his elderly mother has a fall and is admitted to a nursing home, he knows it’s time to stop running.
Shortly after arriving in Gritten, Paul learns that a copycat murder has taken place in a town 100 miles away, bringing back painful memories of the day that still haunts him.
And when he visits his mother, she insists during a lucid moment that there is a sinister presence in her house. Then Paul begins to fear he’s being followed. He suspects the murderer, who was thought to be dead, is alive and living rough in the woods surrounding the town.And he has good reason to fear he will be the next victim.
After last year’s bestselling novel The Whisper Man, North has returned with another creepy, atmospheric tale exploring the devastating effects of childhood traumas on communities.
Although it gets off to a slow start,The Shadow Friend builds to a surprising and moving finale that will live long in the memory. JC
THE CURATOR ★★★★
MW Craven
Constable, £16.99
THE third novel featuring the National Crime Agency’s Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw is set at Christmas time with a serial killer leaving body parts of victims on display across Cumbria.
The duo are asked to assist local police with a case that makes no sense.The victims all took the same two weeks off work three years earlier but they were killed differently, if in appalling agony. And a strange message was left at the scene of all the gruesome displays: #BSC6. The investigation takes a darker turn when a disgraced FBI agent contacts Poe and informs him he’s not
dealing with a serial killer. Special Agent Lee thinks he’s dealing with a master assassin known as The Curator. But Lee’s bosses do not believe he exists and she has risked her career to pursue him.
Knowing they are dealing with a formidable foe, Poe and Bradshaw launch a plan to bring him out of hiding and snare him in a trap, triggering a chain of events that will change their world forever.
Poe and Bradshaw are wonderful creations and it’s a joy to spend more time with them in this gloriously dark and twisted thriller.
After winning the CrimeWriters’ Association Gold Dagger last year for the first book in the series, The Puppet Show, Craven has delivered another hugely enjoyable and compelling mystery with The Curator. JC
FIND THEM DEAD ★
Peter James
Macmillan, £20
Although Find Them Dead claims to be “A DS Roy Grace novel”, it only contains elements of Roy Grace’s world, from patient wife Cleo, weird son Bruno, and faithful dog Humphrey, to banter with best mate Glenn Branson, and arguments with his boss.
But really Roy is a peripheral character. This is the story of a major drug dealer’s trial and an attempt to influence the jury.
The book begins as a customs officer notices Mickey Starr, a one-armed, one-eyed career criminal, pulling off the ferry. He’s looking suspicious – unsurprisingly as he is trying to smuggle £6million of cocaine into England, hidden inside a Ferrari. Roy doesn’t appear until chapter eight as he ends his Met secondment and prepares to return to Sussex. There is tragedy on his homecoming but this is glossed over.
Meanwhile, 42-yearold widow Meg Magellan is working out what to do with her life. She is facing unemployment and Laura, her daughter, is travelling before starting university.
After Meg is summoned for jury service, she hears the trial of Terence Gready, a Brighton lawyer and the kingpin behind the importation of the drugs in the Ferrari.
Unlucky Meg is chosen to ensure Gready gets off and, to make sure she complies, a series of threats are made against Laura. So instead of telling the judge, she begins to try to influence the jury.
Gready wants the court to believe he has never met his lieutenant Starr and thugs are sent to rough up Starr’s brother who has Down’s syndrome. It’s an attack that goes too far.
But it’s not Roy who eventually tracks the culprits down.And the book’s ending is totally unbelievable.
Hot on the heels of this disappointing read comes the news that John Simm has been cast as Roy Grace in the ITV adaptation. Simm is a brilliant actor but he’s woefully miscast as Roy.