The doctor’s given me six months . . .
BLACK WIDOW by Chris Brookmyre (Little Brown £18.99)
THE possibility that a woman can be an evil, callous killer is a popular contemporary theme in crime novels.
It must be something in the zeitgeist. Here, the woman is a successful surgeon working in the Inverness Royal Infirmary in Scotland who also writes an anonymous blog about the sexism she encounters there.
It doesn’t take long for Dr Diana Jager to be outed on social media and given the nickname Bladeb***h. She then meets rich, handsome IT technician Peter Elphinstone, and within six months they are married — only for Peter to die in a car accident a few months later at a black spot known as Widow Falls.
It is a nightmare end to what looked like a fairy-tale romance. But Peter’s sister recruits maverick reporter Jack Parlabane (one of Brookmyre’s finest creations) to investigate the truth behind the death.
Told in elegant slices, cutting between a court room trial and the events surrounding it, the story’s characters are compelling and the mystery is evoked with scalpel-like precision by the talented Brookmyre.
THE PROMISE by Alison Bruce (Constable £18.99)
BRUCE is doing for Cambridge what Colin Dexter did for Oxford with Inspector Morse, though without quite such a compelling character as the opera-loving, beer-drinking, vintage car enthusiast himself.
She uses her city just as deftly as Dexter did his, however, and adds subtle touches of feminine intuition and guile. Her plots are deceptively simple, yet describe the frailties of the human heart with a rare skill.
This is the sixth in her series featuring the sympathetic DC Gary Goodhew. In a single night, a young man’s life falls apart, his relationship collapses and he loses access to his young son.
Meanwhile, Goodhew is considering whether he is cut out to remain a policeman, until a homeless man named Ratty, whom he has known for years, is found murdered.
The death propels Goodhew back into police work. His innate dignity and Bruce’s flair make her one of our most interesting crime writers.
DEAD PRETTY by David Mark (Mulholland £12.99)
THIS is the fifth novel featuring freckled, 6 ft 5 in, Scottish-born but Hull-based DS McAvoy written by Mark, a former crime reporter for the Yorkshire Post.
I raved about his grit and toughness last year, and this latest book demonstrates those strengths once again. Mark does not do cosy crime novels.
His heroes and villains can be as darkly ferocious as those of the great American Joseph Wambaugh, but Mark brings to them a rare feeling of humanity amidst the brutality and grief that stalk his world.
This time, a girl has been missing for nine months, while another has been dead for five days. McAvoy has to unravel both mysteries and the detective struggles with the seediest aspects of the Hull underworld as he tries to use his moral compass to guide him through the ugliness.
It is dark, compelling crime writing of the highest order.