The most varied of criminal fare what semi-topical spy thrillers, courtroom shenanigans, locked room mysteries, a strong lesbian romance, hints of cannibalism, WW2 murky intrigue, a fat lady on a river cruise, a fictional counterpart to Cluedo and more. All served up on a tidy platter with a zest of mischief.
BOOK OF THE MONTH
Martin Cruz Smith/HOTEL UKRAINE (Simon & Schuster)
It was a bittersweet feeling to read Martin Cruz Smith’s final novel just a few days after his death, and witness Arkady Renko battle through his final compelling investigation. The only consolation is that he goes out on a high, quality-wise, in what is a particularly topical novel, one of two thrillers this month to integrate Russia’s invasion of Ukraine into its plot. In Moscow, a deputy minister is found savagely slaughtered in a room in the ironically named Hotel Ukraine and Renko is assigned to the case, although his erstwhile lover and rival Marina, from the FSB, is also involved, with obvious hidden motives. Everything points to events pertaining to the recent special forces now devastating the Ukraine front and, as ever, Arkady’s efforts are hindered at every step because of his devotion to finding the truth, irrespective of the politics and the consequences. The dubious role of private armies like the Wagner Group, here called the 1812, in reference to the triumphant Tchaikovsky symphony, and their murderous activities, struggles for power within the Kremlin, all make Renko’s task perilous, putting him, his old flame, journalist Tatiana and his adopted son Zhenya, now a hacker, in danger. Add the fact that, poignantly, Cruz Smith attributes the symptoms of his own long term struggle with the Parkinson’s Disease that finally killed him to his hero, as if he were not fallible enough, and you have a deeply felt, almost intimate thriller. Having survived bureaucracies, repression and the sad crumbling of ethics in Russia since his initial appearance in the seminal GORKY PARK, Renko’s final hurrah is a melancholy, at times depressing thrill ride, but a suitable curtain call for a great character and a superlatively intelligent author, who will be much missed.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Tom Mead/THE HOUSE AT DEVIL’S NECK (Head of Zeus)
Yet again, Tom Mead consolidates his position as a unique successor to John Dickson Carr and Golden Age masters in the tricky waters of the classic locked room mystery, with illusionist-turned-sleuth Joseph Spector’s 4th dazzling outing. While Scotland Yard’s Inspector George Flint is investigating an apparent suicide at a London townhouse with strange connections to a case of 25 years earlier, Spector is travelling in a coach party to an allegedly haunted house first built by a mysterious alchemist on the lonely island of Devil’s Neck; when a seance is held to evoke the ghost of a dead WW1 soldier, the weather takes a turn for the worst and the causeway separating the island from the mainland is flooded, leaving the participants stranded. At which point, like in any worthy mystery, the cast begins to shrink in size as impossible murder follows improbable murder. Needless to say the cases are cleverly linked as Spector deftly begins to assemble the pieces of a dazzling, minutely plotted puzzle where nothing is initially as it seems. Mead moves the pieces on his chessboard with anatomical precision, balancing ghosts, impossible crimes, a strong atmosphere of dread and a welcome zest of mischievousness and you can’t take your eye off the page lest you miss a clue. Impressive as ever.
Elliot Ackerman/SHEEPDOGS (Viking)
A fast-paced romp of a spy thriller with much humour at the helm as two rogue ex-CIA operatives are drawn into a web of action and conspiracy, involving the theft of a plane and later the bizarre instance of plates allegedly used by Marie Antoinette. Skwerl is in disgrace having been used as a scapegoat for a bungled operation while Cheese is an Afghan pilot who managed to make it to America following the fall of Kabul but is now, with a pregnant but latter eminently useful wife in tow, reduced to being an attendant in a gas station. Both desperate for life-changing money, they accept an assignment from a shadowy network only for matters to go topsy turvy very quickly and all sorts of secrets and lies burst out of the woodwork once the plane is in their possession. With a cast of memorable characters all with army-born sobriquets, the novel races between continents, laden with conspiracies, much cynicism (and apt references to the war in Ukraine and the crooked nature of American self-serving politics) with vigour, zest and sparking dialogue, with a cast of originals and bizarros, a rampaging bear and double-crossing to the nth degree. It’s as if Carl Hiaasen had decided to pen a spy thriller, and I enjoyed every silly page. It screams for a film adaptation.
Douglas Jackson/BLOOD VENGEANCE (Canelo)
The planned quartet of novels featuring WW2 Warsaw cop Jan Kalisz reaches its third instalment and although a terribly decent thriller in its own right, loses a bit of its impetus by transporting Jan to the Scottish wilderness on a mission to locate who killed a female Polish SOE operative on a wilderness training base. Krystina survived being captured by the Nazis during a previous mission in occupied France and the information she held might be perilously tied to future plans for the Allied Forces landing in Europe. I did find the idea of transporting a local cop, however talented he is, over to Scotland, in the midst of a raging war a little far-fetched and although the local investigation he initiates is meticulous and complex, with a multitude of suspects of all nationalities amongst the die-hard commandos preparing for the invasion and a strong feel for the unyielding terrain they are training across, I missed the dread feel of Warsaw under the Nazi heel Jackson evoked so well in the opening two instalments. The Polish underground has to set up a complex scheme to justify his absence from Warsaw, thus endangering his wife and son, a sub plot which is actually more gripping than Jan’s gallivanting across the glens and lochs, with an obligatory appearance by a scheming Winston Churchill! As ever, Jackson’s research into real wartime settings and schemes is picture perfect and the Scottish wilderness is evocative and integral to the plot, although the multitude of suspects amongst the soldiers and units he investigates is at times confounding. A strong wartime thriller but I’m looking forward to Jan’s return to besieged Warsaw and the final hurrah of the series.
Laura Lippman/MURDER TAKES A VACATION (Faber & Faber)
Following a series of dark and intense novels, Laura Lippman takes a light-hearted holiday, as does her endearing heroine, who had previously briefly appeared as a minor character in the Tess Monaghan series. Having fortuitously won the jackpot at the lottery, widowed Mrs Muriel Blossom treats herself and her friend Elinor to a trip to Paris followed by a luxury river cruise. Now, Mrs Blossom is what one would euphemistically describe as plump (while Elinor is stick thin) and neither accustomed to, let alone seeking male admirers, but is charmed by the courteous attention of fellow flight companion Allan, and agrees to share a dinner with him in London only for him to prove a no-show, and to be advised on her arrival in Paris that he has been found dead, following a fall from his hotel balcony. And now she seems to shadowed by gay man of mystery Danny, whose identity fluctuates and hostile parties who appear to think Allan hid a precious object in her belongings, with a tongue in cheek homage to THE MALTESE FALCON. A comedy of errors, with a fatter version of Miss Marple at the helm, prone to much nostalgia about her happily married previous life and unduly conscious of her advancing age, the novel balances between breezy investigation, a platter full of red herrings and a satire of the variety of travelling Americans, widows with or without a mission, lotharios and a curious piece of art that forms the plot’s McGuffin. Amusing and a pleasant piece of entertainment, but Lippman has done and will do better.
Tess Sharpe/NO BODY, NO CRIME (Dead Ink)
A decidedly adult novel debut, by a popular American LGBTQ YA author, with energy to spare. Mel Tillman is a 24 years old rural private investigator with a terrible secret: eight years before she and her teenage friend Chloe Harper, whom she was deeply in love with, jointly murdered local bully Toby Dunne and buried in his body deep in the woods, after which Chloe disappeared and has not been heard of since. The story progresses along dual timelines and through the voices of both female protagonists- so Mel is taken by surprise when her friend’s family asks her to locate their missing daughter. When she eventually does track her down in the Canadian backwoods, she finds Chloe living a savage life off the grid, armed and vigilant, almost feral and their mutual attraction takes on a new dimension. Their affair reignites with the realisation that Chloe initially took flight to protect Mel. However, when they disposed of Toby Dunne’s body, they also buried with him something a powerful family are desperate to retrieve at all cost what Toby had stolen from them and the scene is set for a ruthless struggle which will put their love and own survival in question. With plane and car crashes, fistfights galore, forest chases and much brutal action, this is a powerful thriller with a marked difference with a set of memorable bad girls at the hem.
Hazell Ward/THE GAME IS MURDER (Michael Joseph)
A chunky debut by a new British author who had previously won the CWA Short Story Dagger, THE GAME IS MURDER is something of a romp amongst Golden Age tropes, in which the reader is asked to become the sleuth in a murder mystery and to impersonate the Great Detective Maximillian Enygma, to solve a puzzle conundrum, the novel becoming a sort of board game come to life. You, the reader, arrive at the London home of the Verreman brothers at which you and the other 13 guests will have to solve a historical murder case that occurred on the same premises in 1974 when the brothers’ father Lord Verreman was accused of the brutal murder of female servant Sally Gardner in the basement and then took flight and the case was never elucidated. Needless to say, as per the unwritten laws of Golden Age detection, many of the other guests also happen to be suspects. The whole proceedings are very much tongue in cheek, with much misdirection afoot and many references to existing classic mystery books and authors. If you like meticulously solving puzzles this spright piece of metafiction will appeal, although it does at times feel a bit too clever for its own sake, but the genre is in vogue what with Stuart Turton’s novels and the success of neo-cosies like KNIVES OUT and others. Has much to be admired in its continuous ingenuity.
S.J. Fleet/THE CUT THROAT TRIAL (Picador)
A fictional debut by the British lawyer who has become famous for his blog ‘The Secret Barrister’, THE CUT THROAT TRIAL brings all the skills of American legal thriller authors like Grisham and Turow to a gripping tale that unfolds within the British legal system. Three seventeen-year-old boys are accused of the murder of an elderly teacher on the occasion of New Year’s Eve. Each one denies it and points the finger of blame at the other two, but only two of them can be innocent. Each has their own barrister to represent them in Ableford County Court. With a varied cast in the dock and similarly very different lawyers in style and comportment advocating their cause, the conflicts soon become apparent with the British legal system as fascinating to watch unfolding as its US equivalent, albeit in a more measured if not cruel way, with politeness a mask for a sometimes savage skewering of witnesses and possible culprits on the stand at each opportunity. With multiple points of view, including a vacillating judge, the narrative proves edgy and sinuous, laying seeds of doubt at every turn of the ritualistic proceedings and makes this a memorable legal thriller and a must read for the many fans of the genre.
Danielle Valentine/THE DEAD HUSBAND COOKBOOK (Viper)
Maria Capello is a celebrity cook, her books and television shows acclaimed and revered as she orchestrates her recipes from her charming Italian-style kitchen. But twenty years earlier she was merely the shy wife of Damien, an equally famous cook who mysteriously disappeared in a turbulent river, with theories aplenty about the mystery of his demise, before Maria took the helm of his business and soon eclipsed his fame. Now she has decided to tell all and spurning overtures from big New York publishing houses selects a minor company, insisting Thea Woods be the editor of her memoirs. Thea, who was just about to lose her lowly job, has always been a fan but has never met Maria previously and finds herself puzzled by her choice when is invited to a remote farmhouse to work on the manuscript. With heavy hints of cannibalism involved, as the secret ingredient of Maria’s meatballs is evoked, Thea has to surrender her phone and obey capricious Maria’s whims. Balancing gothic drama and grand guignolesque hints of terrors, what with a slaughterhouse adjacent to the farm, recipes and a mounting atmosphere of suspense, the novel quickly moves into fifth gear and then sheer overdrive as the two women battle both mentally and physically. Wicked fun.
Yasuhiko Nishizawa/THE MAN WHO DIED SEVEN TIMES (Pushkin Vertigo)
A most curious (and oft challenging) mash-up of GROUNDHOG DAY and a locked room mystery, with Japanese extended family intrigue, combining puzzles and humour, this cult classic from the 1990s, available for the first time in Emglish, is certainly unique. Hisataro, a young member of the wealthy Fuchigami clan, whose family tree features on the opening page and often has to be referred to, has a unique talent whereby he relives the same day on repeated occasions, prisoner of some mysterious time loop, although he manages to retain memories of each sequence after he succeeds in extricating himself and move on to a new day. Which happens to be most convenient, if at times baffling and contradictory, when he finds himself trapped in the day his grandfather is mysteriously murdered on the occasion of a tense reunion where the matter of inheritance looms heavily over the participants. Everyone naturally is a suspect and appears to harbour some sort of secret, and Hisataro has to rely on his memory and mental agility to solve the case and finger the killer before the loop eventually expires and he finds himself stranded, bereft of new clues, in a new day. The story takes some time to settle as the reader familiarises himself with all the sundry, rival characters, and is a clever head scratcher of a yarn.
