Published by Picador, 2007, 240 pages. This is a detective story set in Beijing that provides a glimpse into life in modern China with all its contradictions. The central character, Mei, is a private detective. She is approached by a family friend, Uncle Chen, to look for a Han dynasty jade seal. The seal had …
Category: Crime / Thriller
Set in Darkness: Ian Rankin
Published by Orion, 2000, 496 pages. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book in the Rebus series, and I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed them. The books are set in Edinburgh, which is a character in its own right. Ian Rankin knows the city well, from the posh part with the big houses …
The Pledge: Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Translated from German by Joel AgeePublished by University of Chicago Press / Pushkin Vertigo, 1959, 192 pages. Original version published in 1958. The book starts with the narrator travelling to Chur in Switzerland to give a lecture on the art of writing detective stories. The talk is not a success, and the writer meets Dr. …
Dark Fire: C.J. Sansom
Published by Pan / Penguin, 2005, 512 pages. When I mentioned to a friend that I enjoyed Susanna Gregory’s medieval whodunits, she lent me the entire series of novels set during the time of Henry VIII with a hunchback lawyer, Matthew Shardlake, as the main character. Having just finished the first one (although strictly speaking, …
The Glorious Heresies: Lisa McInerney
Published by John Murray, 2015, 384 pages. An intruder breaks into Maureen Phelan’s apartment. Without thinking, she brains him with a Holy Stone, a religious relic. Worrying over the dead body and the blood seeping into the grout on the kitchen floor, she calls her son James, a gangster, to deal with the mess. James …
Child 44: Tom Rob Smith
Published by Simon & Schuster UK / Grand Central Publishing, 2008, 484 pages. Child 44 is set in the USSR towards the end of Stalin’s regime, a Utopia where crime—and therefore criminals—no longer exist. Or at least that’s what the state wants people to believe. What this actually means is that murders cannot be reported, …
The Decagon House Murders: Yukito Ayatsuji
Translated from Japanese by Ho-Ling WongPublished by Pushkin Vertigo, 2015, 228 pages. Original version published in 2007. The island of Tsunojima holds a dark secret. A year ago, the main house on the island burned down, killing four people—the architect, Nakamura Seiji and his wife, Kazue, and the couple working for them. Except that when …
The Blackhouse: Peter May
Published by Quercus Publishing / Silver Oak, 2011, 528 pages. Peter May has written an atmospheric and intricately plotted novel set on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. The Blackhouse is a police procedural and a story about a man forced to come to terms with his past. Fin McLeod is …
The Girl on the Train: Paula Hawkins
Published by Doubleday / Thorndike / Black Swan, 2015, 416 pages. Rachel takes the train to and from London, like any other commuter. The train always stops at the same signal, opposite a house with a young couple. She is fascinated by them, this perfect couple, whom she calls Jess and Jason (who are, in …
The Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles: Susanna Gregory
Series published by Sphere. Monks and murder in the Middle Ages—an irresistible formula! Maybe it's the mixing of piety and nefarious doings that makes it so attractive. And a reason why this is one of my favourite crime series. It is set in Cambridge in the 14th century, and the detective is Matthew Bartholomew, a young physician …
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