Published by Gollancz, 2020, 352 pages. “That was the town Anahera remembered, the town that had suffocated her, the town where there were no secrets—and far too many hidden things.” Anahera is from Golden Cove, a small town in New Zealand’s South Island. She left for the UK, became a well-known classical pianist and married …
Category: Crime / Thriller
We Trade Our Night for Someone Else’s Day: Ivana Bodrožić
Translated from Croatian by Ellen Elias-BursaćPublished by Seven Stories Press UK, 2021, 223 pages. Original version published in 2016. “Everyone is running from someone, or from their own past.” Corruption and the long shadows thrown by war are at the heart of this political thriller from Croatia. Nora, a young journalist in Zagreb, is sent …
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The Woman in White: Wilkie Collins
Published by Penguin, / Bantam Doubleday Dell / Everyman's Library / Oxford University Press, 1860, 719 pages. “There, in the middle of the broad, bright high-road—there, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth or dropped from the heaven—stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white …
The Thursday Murder Club: Richard Osman
Published by Penguin, 2020, 400 pages. If you’re looking for a light read with a bit of murder thrown in, then look no further. Richard Osman has written a delightful whodunit, set in an upscale retirement village in the UK. Septuagenarians Joyce, Elizabeth, Ibrahim and Ron live at Coopers Chase, a retirement village. They form …
Black Water Lilies: Michel Bussi
Translated from French by Shaun WhitesidePublished by W&N, 2022, 144 pages. Original version published in 2011. Giverny: a beautiful, picturesque village in France, known for its most famous resident, the impressionist painter Claude Monet, who is famous for his paintings of water lilies. Artists and tourists flock to the village to see the beautiful gardens …
Wife of the Gods: Kwei Quartey
Published by Random House, 2009, 319 pages. Set in Ghana, this is the first in a series featuring Detective Inspector Darko Dawson. Gladys Mensah is found dead in the forest near Ketanu. Her body, seemingly untouched, is discovered by Efia, a trokosi or a “wife of the gods”. In reality, Efia is one of the …
The Bone Readers: Jacob Ross
Published by Little, Brown and Company / Peepal Tree Press / Sphere, 2016, 264 pages. This is a thoroughly enjoyable whodunit from a Grenadian writer. Michael Digson (“Digger”) is out of work, living on the island of Camaho.[1] He is the illegitimate son (“outside child”) of a maid and her employer, the Commissioner of Police. …
The Devil and the Dark Water: Stuart Turton
Published by Raven Books, 2020, 576 pages. 1634. A ship, the Saardam, is about to set sail from Batavia in the Dutch East Indies to Amsterdam. The ship is carrying a secret cargo that only very few know about. On board are the ambitious Governor General of Batavia, Jan Haan; his wife Sara Wessel and …
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The Shape of the Ruins: Juan Gabriel Vásquez
Translated from Spanish by Anne McLeanPublished by MacLehose Press / Riverhead Books, 2018, 508 pages. Original version published in 2015. "There are truths that don’t happen in those places, truths that nobody writes down because they’re invisible. There are millions of things that happen in special places… they are places that are not within the …
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The Emperor of Ocean Park: Stephen L. Carter
Published by Vintage, 2002, 672 pages. When Oliver Garland, a well-respected judge, dies—ostensibly of a heart attack—his daughter, Mariah, suspects foul play. Her brother, Tal, a professor of law at a university, is sceptical. Oliver (whom Tal refers to as The Judge) was tipped to a Supreme Court judge, one of the two black judges. …
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