A truly exceptional month, with so many wonderful new titles published that I was unable to stick to just a single highly recommended choice, and gladly opted for two. And still I feel guilty for having to leave out a handful of July titles which wouldn’t fit in, as the current mysterious crop moves from small-town Missouri to New England, Memphis, Tennessee, Venice, the British Virgin Islands, Monte Carlo, a quite Scottish village, L.A. and places beyond.
BOOK OF THE MONTH
Chris Whitaker/ALL THE COLOURS OF THE DARK (Orion)
Following a brief but ineffective foray into YA waters with THE FOREVERS, Chris Whitaker returns to his familiar territory of small-town America and the turmoil of early teenage hood, and the ensuing result is a thriller that is heartbreakingly poignant, deliberately slow-moving and momentous. When misfit, one-eyed Patch from the wrong side of the town, prevents the abduction of wealthy local beauty Misty Meyer, he is stabbed and taken captive instead and will spend months in a dark basement, where he is soothed by Grace, another prisoner who steals his heart although he never is able to actually see her properly in the surrounding darkness. His best friend Saint never gives up and swears she will one day find him, amongst a rash of missing girls that the police have no clue how to solve. (Spoiler alert) Her dogged persistence will pay off and a barely alive Patch is eventually found and returned, although seriously damaged, both physically and mentally, to his mother. The serial killer responsible is assumed dead and the bodies of three missing girls are found but the ensuing lives of Patch, Saint, Misty and the characters that surround them will never be the same again and are followed over many years. A truly moving set of embedded love stories, of eccentric but eminently loveable characters with fiery emotions never less than skin deep make for a truly memorable bildungsroman that stretches over years and never falters in the delicacy of its touch and its attention to the darkness inside the soul. So much more than a thriller but a future classic about how a single, tragic event, can change lives forever, this is Whitaker in full command of his craft, poetic, compassionate, tragic and absolutely compelling. If TALL OAKS and WE BEGIN AT THE END made you cry and bow in admiration, prepare yourself for a torrent of tears. This is one for the ages, gripping, evocative, unforgettable and so lusciously written you can close your eyes and imagine the landscapes, small streets and fields just a yard or so away. A must.
All the Colours of the Dark Chris Whitaker – (amazon.co.uk)
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Peter Swanson/A TALENT FOR MURDER (Faber & Faber)
No two Peter Swanson novels are alike but what they do have in common is a reverence and love for the established tenets of crime fiction and a superlative skill for shattering twists, manipulating emotions and fascinating characters who gleefully walk the line between good and bad (and more often than not get away with it!). A TALENT FOR MURDER also, late in the day, brings back the wonderful Lily Kintner and her wounded cohort and paramour Henry Kimball, so what more could you ask? Demure librarian Martha has been swept off her feet by salesman Alan and is living the quiet dream. However, her doubts are raised when his conduct on the return from a sales trip coincides with a suspicious death at the event he was attending. Younger, she had once been assisted in seeing off a cumbersome suitor by the lethal Lily and the latter, in the spirit of sisterhood, agrees to pursue the case and finds a worrying pattern of murders and deaths strewn along the path of the novelty salesman’s travelling path and her wrath is raised. Who better to hunt down a killer but a killer? But as usual with Swanson, one should not jump to conclusions and the obvious as he always has a trick up his devious sleeve and the ensuing twists that wrap up the story are indeed a shock to the solar plexus and come straight out of the blue, as Lily finds herself in dire peril and Henry, the man she one tried to kill, is called to the rescue. Clever, scary, endearing and plotted like clockwork, A TALENT FOR MURDER proves a highly satisfying brew of the finest calibre and is a must read.
A Talent for Murder Peter Swanson – (amazon.co.uk)
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Megan Davis/BAY OF THIEVES (Zaffre)
Her debut THE MESSENGER was set in Paris, and Megan Davis follows up with another tight and suspenseful thriller again set in France, this time in the murky streets of the Côte d’Azur and Monte-Carlo. Her tale of dirty money, crooked lawyers, cheating oligarchs and chancers of all ilk grips from page one, never letting go and constantly feels just an inch away from reality as she dissects the ways and means of white collar crime and corruption, in echoes of so much of the wrongdoings we read about in current newspaper headlines almost weekly. Kate, a young lawyer, joins a new firm whose plat du jour is hiding dirty money for a price and is assigned to the Monaco office where she has to work for Vanessa, an older lawyer whose hands have long been dirty but who is beginning to have serious reservations about her role, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has incentivised her crooked colleagues to intensify their bending of the rules and come up with even more outrageous cryptocurrency scam projects. Who will become the whistleblower and at what terrible risk to herself? And are the men surrounding them mere crooks or deadly criminals, let alone lovers? The pace never falters as conspiracies and deception litter their path to either redemption or betrayal against the glittery backgrounds of the principality and its luxury shops, high end restaurants and casinos, and the moneyed streets of Mayfair behind the windows of which the upper class ever conspire in their greed. Davis, a London-based lawyer, clearly has a deep knowledge of the crooked corridors of the legal system, and her justifiable anger makes her pen her potent weapon to expose its proponents and is channelled into a first-class, propulsive race against the clock thriller that will leave you breathless.
Bay of Thieves Megan Davis – (amazon.co.uk)
Chris Brookmyre/THE CRACKED MIRROR (Abacus)
This ambitious cross-genre attempt by Brookmyre offers a sometimes tongue in cheek blend of cosy and hardboiled that never quite gels, but delivers a multitude of occasional pleasures on its leisurely way. Penny Coyne is an elderly tweed-wearing Scottish librarian and amateur sleuth in the hallowed footsteps of Miss Marple, who is called into action when a corpse is found strangled in the confessional booth of a local church in Glen Cuthar. Meanwhile in mean streets territory in California, Johnny Hawke, a typically grizzled LAPD lieutenant is called to the scene of the apparent suicide of a Hollywood screenwriter. Naturally both are saddled with sidekicks: 80-years old Penny is friendly with local Inspector Saeeda Sattar while Johnny is breaking in new partner Ibanez. Are the cases connected? As both sleuths pursue their individual investigations, Brookmyre serves up two stylistically opposite narratives with dexterity, even though the actions and developments might feel a touch caricatural, and the novel something of an exercise in style(s). However, when Penny is invited to a wedding by someone unknown and Johhny’s path leads him to the same event, the parallel plots and characters finally converge and the explanations and twists come fast and furiously while the chalk and cheese main characters both fall into inevitable conflict and collaborate to resolve the final mystery at the heart of the two merging plots with a devil -or rather cheeky- corker of a twist which offers the book something of a rationale. A fun read and at times a witty parody of the styles and characters of Agatha Christie and Michael Connelly, but also at times slightly gratuitous if not artificial, although it’s evident Brookmyre is having great fun throwing smoke and mirrors at the reader all along. A mixed bag that might divide fans.
The Cracked Mirror Chris Brookmyre – (amazon.co.uk)
Laura Sims/HOW CAN I HELP YOU (Verve)
An American psychological thriller with a strong sense of foreboding and emotional anguish, HOW CAN I HELP YOU has echoes of the book and movie of SINGLE WHITE FEMALE and the atmospheric dread of Shirley Jackson in its depiction of the cat and mouse games between two equally on the edge women. Newly-graduated and aspiring novelist Patricia joins the staff of small town Carlyle public library and meets her reserved counterpart Margo Finch and quickly senses she is a woman of secrets and with a worrying, concealed past, despite her congenial outward exterior. It is soon established she faked her credentials and CV to get the job, and once went under another name. She in fact used to be a nurse, with a long trail of suspicious deaths in her wake, who now sees the peace of the library as a haven of quiet and the opportunity for a new beginning. Patricia, however, is not so easily taken in and finds herself both attracted and inexplicably fearful of her colleague, developing a dangerous fixation on her. When a suspicious death occurs in the library’s bathroom, the scene is set for a tense struggle for power and truth between the older and younger woman now fronting the reference desk and with a front row seat to Margo’s actions. With five sections, alternating the two protagonists’ point of view, the thriller speeds up incrementally, leading to a deadly confrontation. Obsession, madness, and all the attendant tropes of women with a screw loose are soon fanning the flames and the reader gets that gut feeling this is not going to end well. Grips from beginning to end.
How Can I Help You Laura Sims – (amazon.co.uk)
Ace Atkins/DON’T LET THE DEVIL RIDE (Corsair)
A powerful and slick slice of Southern noir stand-alone from the author of the Quinn Colson books and a Robert B. Parker Spenser continuation series reminds us of the immense talent he displayed from his award-nominated early days and makes me regret that for commercial reasons he momentarily took a different road; welcome back. When Addison, a rich, alcoholic Memphis wife finds her husband Dean gone and evidence he had been leading a secret life for several years, she calls on elderly PI Porter Haynes, on the recommendation of her dying father, after the local police show little interest in helping her. Porter is known locally as the Black Sherlock Holmes and has history with her father, some of which will gradually come to light, as he seizes on the opportunity, which comes as a welcome change to the domestic cases which had become his lot. The web of intrigue and crime he soon unveils turns out twisty and complex, involving an actress with a dubious Elvis Presley connection, her daughter, the millionaire-owner of a chain of Christian aid shops, a French arms dealer, a Russian oligarch, FBI agents and a colourful cast of grifters and crooks of all ilk inveigled in an overall plot that navigates through many conflicting directions but always remains under Atkins’ tight control and a lush prose at times reminiscent of James Lee Burke. The multiple characters and points of view can at first prove a touch confusing but the broth quickly comes to a satisfactory boil and the story never lets go. All the characters are quirky, violent and endearing -even in their evil incarnation- with a redemptive touch of humour that Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen would mightily approve of. Addictive stuff.
Don’t Let the Devil Ride Ace Atkins – (amazon.co.uk)
Nilesha Chauvet/THE REVENGE OF RITA MARSH (Faber & Faber)
An ambitious debut novel and tale of revenge by a new British author that is all fire and brimstone but at times feels awkwardly earnest and somewhat overflowing with personal anger. Rita Marsh, a young woman in her mid-thirties, compassionately runs Raven Court, a care home for the elderly she inherited from her parents, but at night she functions as an online vigilante trying to ensnare and catch paedophiles, through masquerading as a young girl to attract attention from the monsters preying on girls there. Narrated in the first person, the novel does a good job at bringing Rita to life, as a woman with two distinctive sides, kind and caring in her professional mode but angry and imperious in her sleuthing incarnation. When she and her friends in the Raven Justice group’s latest success at catching a potential culprit sees him getting bail in court and then committing suicide, she is faced by a moral dilemma which is exacerbated by meeting up with an old school friend, Leila, at a school reunion and finding herself attracted to her, despite her troubled background which might include the fact that the former teacher was once involved in an under-age relationship with a pupil and might herself have been groomed. Matters come to the boil when we learn that Rita herself is badly damaged as a result of sexual abuse in her youth (since when she changed her name from Patel to Marsh) and the anger that now consumes her leads to the kidnapping and torture of an old teacher in the hope of forcibly extracting a confession out of him. By making Rita the narrator, Chauvet offers a chilling insight into her obsessions and how the best intentions in the world can be subverted by a lack of measure and plunge into immorality, but also detracts from any form of sympathy with her protagonist. A mixed bag.
The Revenge of Rita Marsh Nilesha Chauvet – (amazon.co.uk)
Joseph Knox/IMPOSTER SYNDROME (Doubleday)
Following the semi-experimental and metafictional TRUE CRIME STORY, Knox moves from his familiar Manchester patch to London with a tale in which no one is truly telling the truth, and the said truth proves eminently elastic when confronted by all-round venality. Lynch, a burned-out con artist arrives back in the city on the Eurostar, fleeing his sins and unsure how safe he might be from those he had betrayed. When he accidentally bumps into addict and heiress Bobbie, herself on the way to rehab, he discovers he bears a strong resemblance to her long-lost brother Heydon Pierce, a troubled soul who walked out on his wealthy family five years before and hasn’t been heard from since. Desperate for funds he takes her up on her suggestion to impersonate him, which fools no one, least alone their monstrous mother Miranda. However, she takes him up on the offer in seemingly an attempt to flush out whoever might have murdered her son. Dangerous games indeed for which Lynch is unprepared, alongside the murky family and close advisors undercurrents he has to navigate by instinct. Knox’s plot is a swamp of lies and unknown factors which at times become repetitive and confusing, with many of the protagonists’ motivations contradictory amongst the grit and pervasive noir atmosphere. Making a book’s main character dislikeable is always a challenge as it negates any attempt at reader identification and one might justifiably provoke interest in his continuous plight diminish as he stumbles along for answers, and in that respect Knox makes it hard to engage fully with his agitated pawns. It didn’t work for me at any rate, although one must admire the technique and complexity of the plotting. A Marmite book if ever there was one.
Imposter Syndrome Joseph Knox – (amazon.co.uk)
Philip Gwynne Jones/THE VENETIAN SANCTUARY (Constable)
It’s common knowledge that I am a bit of a sucker for books set in Venice, irrespective of period or genre, from Casanova’s memoirs to Donna Leon! Indeed, I was once edited a VENICE NOIR anthology and have used the city on the lagoon in some of my novels and short stories. However I come late to Philip Gwynne Jones’ Nathan Sutherland mystery series, of which this is already the eighth instalment, in which the eponymous and decidedly quirky but appealing Honorary Consul is drawn to an investigations into the mysterious death of Dominic Vicari, an Anglo-Italian private investigator who has travelled across Europe followed by grief only to meet his fate on the campanile of the tiny island of San Francesco del Deserto in search of his estranged brother. Nathan goes undercover among the small local congregation of priests and pilgrims, in a Venice surprisingly free of tourists due to the Covid pandemic, a situation that stretches his epicurean and drinking habits to the full. As per the unwritten rules of the genre, there is a cat called Gramsci involved, owned by the sleuthing hero, but it didn’t bother this reader and no fan of felines too much! Sutherland’s’ local friends and acolytes also play a part in his quest, and move width allegria from book to book, adding an extra dimension to a likeable main character and the loving evocation of a city that is dear to the author’s heart and where he now mostly lives. Not all writers can reconcile sleuthing with a hearty dose of humour and do so whilst setting their action against the background of a foreign city and country, but Philip Gwynne Jones pulls it off with brio. Ancora, prego!
The Venetian Sanctuary Philip Gwynne Jones – (amazon.co.uk)
Catherine Steadman/LOOK IN THE MIRROR (Quercus)
Another tense tale of two women whose destinies and backgrounds are at opposite ends of the spectrum coming together in forced circumstance, LOOK IN THE MIRROR has the added perk of being set in a tropical paradise, a sumptuous villa in the British Virgin Islands, a house full of secrets and deceit. Add the obligatory strong women in peril angle and all the elements are in place for an efficient thriller with just the right dosage of upsets, psychological revelations, dirty dealings, inheritance burdens and class struggle. Add an innovative locked room element to the mix, and you have a great summer read by the British actress, now shaping into a first-class suspense author. Nina, a reserved 34 years old academic until now satisfied by her secluded life comes into ownership of a prodigious all glass and marble seafront estate in Gorda on the death of her father. But, a man of modest means and demeanour, how could he ever have afforded it, let alone concealed it from her knowledge? The realtor arranges for her to visit the island and see for herself the luxurious villa built on a rock, where no expense has been spared in the building, the materials and the decoration. In parallel, Maria, a medical student accustomed to working as a nanny for the super-rich through an agency, is assigned to another luxury building, with strict instructions to never attempt to enter its basement. When an electrical fault allows her to do so, she comes to the realisation that her presence here is not an accident and that her babysitting skills are not the reason for her employ. Two women; two mysteries. Steadman, having established strong foundations for her plot, then manages to confound readers and characters in a frantic race for the truth. Engrossing.
Look in the Mirror Catherine Steadman – (amazon.co.uk)
