Stellar mysteries
Desert Star ***** Michael Connelly Orion, £22
When you have penned 35 novels, selling more than 80 million copies across the globe, and are widely acclaimed as one of the world’s greatest crime writers, it must be hard to try reach new heights. But that is exactly what Michael Connelly has achieved with his latest Ballard and Bosch thriller.
Detective Renee Ballard lands her dream assignment of reviving Los Angeles Police Department’s cold case unit, which was disbanded to put more officers on the streets.
But if the unit is to reopen, she must first crack the unsolved murder of the sister of city councilman Jake Pearlman, who is sponsoring it.
Ballard needs to recruit former detective Harry Bosch to help find Sarah Pearlman’s killer so, in exchange, she offers him unfettered access to files on an unsolved case that has haunted him for years – the murder of a family of four found buried in the Mojave Desert.
Bosch follows the trail of the suspect he is certain slaughtered the family, but evidence proves elusive and it leaves him considering drastic action.
Then the case of Sarah Pearlman takes an unexpected turn, with uncomfortable ramifications for the councilman whose support Ballard needs.
Desert Star is a searing masterpiece from a writer on stellar form. It deserves to feature in every book of the year list.
Jon Coates
Murder Most Royal ****
SJ Bennett Zaffre, £14.99
Now that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is no longer with us, there’s something rather poignant about reading SJ Bennett’s latest murder mystery. Here, the Queen is very much alive – if suffering from flu – and portrayed as a sharp-eyed sleuth who once again outwits the local constabulary.
The novel is set at Christmas 2016. A severed hand with a signet ring is washed up on a Norfolk beach, and the Queen immediately identifies it as belonging to Ned St Cyr, a member of the Norfolk aristocracy.
After leading a wild life and marrying several times, he became an environmentalist and annoyed nearby landowners by rewilding his estate.
Then, a stash of drugs washes up on the same beach and local WI member Judy Raspberry is the victim of a hit-andrun crash. Judy has been investigating the Norfolk drug scene and it seems the three events may be connected.
The Queen enlists Rozie Oshodi, her assistant private secretary and a former army officer and banker, to canvas the villagers, while Her Majesty pays surprise visits to local landowners. Between them, they tease out the mystery.
Bennett intends to continue mining the rich seam she’s been quarrying, writing in her acknowledgements that “there is still so much of her life to explore”. I wonder whether, with Her Majesty so lately deceased, it’s too lateor too soon.
But Bennett’s trilogy has been hugely enjoyable in its amusing and affectionate portrait of the practical and shrewd monarch.