Books of mystery and book club shenanigans; the rise and rise of AI; ritual killings and serial killers; the return of the Lincoln Lawyer and Frederick Forsyth’s evil Odessa group; a stranded yacht off the Scilly Isles; intrigue on a transatlantic Zeppelin crossing; Paris in the aftermath of WW2 and all matters of misdeeds form the menu for our end of the year offerings. Take your pick of Xmas present in the final round-up of 2025 as there are too few new books issued in December to justify a column!
BOOK OF THE MONTH
Michael Connelly / THE PROVING GROUND (Orion)
A most welcome reappearance for Connelly’s most canny character, Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer and his cohort of well-etched and familiar sidekicks and much-loved helpers. Mickey has now stepped back from criminal defence and is now exclusively involved in public interest litigation. He now takes on a case against a company involved in AI development, whose chatbot appears to have been responsible for a teen murdering his erstwhile girlfriend. Navigating areas the law is still unaccustomed to tackle and the social and moral responsibilities of the tech companies, Mickey allies himself with journalist Jack McEvoy, a character we have met in previous novels, to help dig deep into the secret history behind the perceived evils of the tech world, causing a rift with his usual investigator who is now married to Mickey’s first wife. Add to the mix, Maggie, his second wife and state attorney has seen her house consumed by the Los Angeles fires and is now taking refuge at Mickey’s, fostering hopes of a reunion against the odds. No one engineers a plot like Connelly, moving his elements like fluid chess pieces across his silky canvas, making it look all so supremely easy. There is no fat or digressions in a Connelly book and THE PROVING GROUND is another, assured brilliant lesson in thriller writing, with an innovative plot tied in to modern times, familiar characters we have learned to embrace, and a story that flows effortlessly from street action to the courtroom with just the right amount of twists and misdirection dotted along the way. A most engaging masterclass.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
A.D. Bell / THE BOOKBINDER’S SECRET (HQ)
I won’t deny that as a diehard collector and bibliophile, any novel involving books, libraries and matters literary draws me in, although it also means I come to it with high expectations, or certainly more so than for yet another domestic thriller or serial killer effort. Happily, this sparkling debut novel from a new British author rings all the right bells. Set in Oxford in 1901, it features Lily Delaney, a young female apprentice bookbinder to elderly Mr Caxton, struggling in a strongly male-dominated world, chafing at the bits for more autonomy. When a mysteriously burned volume ends up on her work bench, she discovers concealed in its binding a letter detailing a frenzied story of forbidden love, fortune and even murderous deeds. Determined to find further books that might harbour other letters completing the story that now fascinates her, Lily scours collectors’ libraries and quickly realises she is not the only party tracking them down and eager to elucidate its forbidden secrets. With all the strong colours of historical fiction, teasing elements of the occult and the supernatural and a compelling love story at its heart, this is a rich novel for the senses, racing along like a river, emotional, highly atmospheric and, at times, scary but seductively romantic. Mysterious books? It had me from the word go!
Frederick Forsyth and Tony Kent / REVENGE OF ODESSA (Bantam)
Completed shortly before Forsyth’s passing, this is a sequel of sorts to his earlier THE ODESSA FILE about a post war resurgence of Nazi conspirators. Fifty years have passed and it appears the underground organisation has again emerged from the shadows, with agents in place deep within a worrying set of contemporary law and political organisations, weaving a sinister web of conspiracies and terrorist spikes in violence orchestrated to seed distrust and disruption throughout the world. Once a crusading journalist, Peter Miller who all the while back was responsible for originally unmasking Odessa is now, in his twilight years, involved again with a view to protecting his grandson Georg, also an investigative journalist, whose parents died in an accident he has always suspected the rogue Nazis were responsible for. Germany and Europe’s immigrant population are being blamed for a series of terrorist attacks, with the Medusa group, possibly the modern day equivalent of Odessa, albeit with an unstained reputation, are suspiciously active behind the scene, spreading its occult influence amongst the byways of American politics and a forthcoming Presidential election. This is a conspiracy thriller with all the right elements, and what with the rise of the alt right throughout the world certainly topical, which presses all the right buttons but the characterisation and ever ominous plotting comes off as old-fashioned and lacking in energy, with all the pieces of the Miller’s investigation against the odds falling into place in somewhat lackadaisical fashion, with the authorial hand of coincidence too much in evidence, precluding close reader involvement. How much was actually written by Forsyth beyond the outline is problematic and might be attributable to an author in his twilight years, but the collaboration doesn’t properly gel or come to exciting life. And more instalments are unnecessarily hinted at. which I could certainly do without.
Johana Gustawsson/THE SCARS OF SILENCE (Orenda)
Decidedly, Johana Gustawsson since her move to Sweden is, despite the fact she is French, turning into one the true stars of Nordic Noir! (DISCLAIMER: I was the translator into English of her first two novels and we are well acquainted…). Her second Lidingö mystery, following on from YULE ISLAND, is set in the eponymous isle in the Stockholm Archipelago and lays on the bleakness and damaged characters with a winter-heavy trowel and carries the reader breathlessly along in splendid style. As autumn darkness rolls over the waters, the discovery of the body of a young teenager with a fractured skull is soon followed a fortnight later by a second body with similar characteristics, reminiscent of a crime 23 years earlier of a young girl, at the same location, in identical white festive clothing with a crown of candles on her head associated with the feast of Saint Lucia. Her boyfriend, who strongly protested his innocence, had been charged of the crime at the time. Commissioner Aleksander Storm is summoned from the mainland to investigate and finds himself allied to French cop Maïa Rehn who has recently moved to Sweden. The secrets they manage to unveil will cause havoc in the closed local community as a pall of grief and sorrow takes hold of the island and its residents. Involving a conflicted dance between two investigators wary of each other and with quirky personalities, powerfully explicit and angry at times and featuring a memorable landscape of white and dark, this top notch thriller displays a talent to disturb and fascinate.
Sharon Bolton / THE TOKEN (Orion)
A slick high concept stand-alone from Bolton which unfolds at pace, with a group of diverse characters on a stranded yacht in stormy waters off the Scilly Isles, forced to find answers to questions on which their survival, let alone their future fortune might depend. Flashback to the intriguing premise when seven total strangers are contacted by a law firm out of the blue, asked to hold on to a coin token which will allow them upon the death of notorious billionaire Logan Quick, whose health is failing, to inherit a share of his wealth, although neither of them have seemingly had any previous association with him. At first, it appears to be a novel form of scam, but the offer is in fact genuine and the varied protagonists all have distinct reasons for coveting the money: debts, impending divorce, financial straits, etc… When the news of the bizarre bequest leaks to the press, despite the confidentiality agreement, it sets off a feeding frenzy leading to the strangers meeting and their back story and secret interactions being revealed all the way to the fatal cruise. Never less than entertaining despite its length, the serpentine plot allows each of the random strangers caught up in the labyrinthine plot to come forward, fleshing out their characters and motivations, emotionally involving the reader as revelations finally come to light until a twisty but satisfying conclusion. An intriguing thriller with a firm grip.
Samir Machado de Machado / THE GOOD NAZI (Pushkin Vertigo)
A rare but most welcome example of Brazilian crime writing; which, albeit contemporary, ably combines a homage to Golden Age-style detection and a strong nod to Agatha Christie, with a most uncommon setting. A gay man masquerading as a die-hard fascist, a doughty cop, a Jewish man, an antisemitic doctor, a happy go lucky Englishman and a rich baroness find themselves in a zeppelin; who will survive the fatal trip? It’s 1933 and a motley group of passengers are travelling on a three (!) day journey between Berlin and Rio de Janeiro on a luxury airship, when a body is found aboard, in this twisty and mischievous alternate history whodunnit. Police Detective Bruno Brückner is onboard and it falls to him to conduct an immediate investigation which soon uncovers the fact that the dead man was not the perfect Nazi functionary he initially appeared to be, when subversive material is found in his luggage, uncovering some of the homosexual substrata that lay at the bedrock of the rising Nazi culture. But was this why he was murdered? Brückner interviews each suspect in turn in ways reminiscent of the doughty Poirot on the Orient Express, uncovering lies and contradictions and slowly piecing matters together in almost lackadaisical style, as sleuths always do in locked environment mysteries, until the truth is theatrically revealed in a grand finale. A fascinating exercise in retro crime writing, with an added social and historical context and a small dose of mischief, THE GOOD NAZI is short and to the point, and wonderfully entertaining.
Carrie Hughes / THE WOMAN FROM BOOK CLUB (Hera)
An engaging debut by an author revealed by the CWA’s annual Debut Dagger competition, an award that over the years has brought so many wonderful new authors into the limelight, from Louise Penny onwards. Lydia joins her local book club in English genteel suburbia, where a group of women enjoy discussing the mystery novels they are reading. But, manipulative and deceitful, Lydia has a hidden agenda and her target is Emma, who has it all: husband Elliott and an outwardly perfect marriage, beautiful house, wealth; Lydia stealthily plots her insidious way toward her rival’s downfall, having become her husband’s mistress behind the book club scenes. When one day the police arrive and Emma is surprisingly arrested for her husband’s murder, the group are in shock and it’s up to the reader to discern who, of the two main narrative voices, has been telling the truth, or could other seemingly innocent book club members have anything to hide. At any rate, the motley group of friends and rivals sets out to investigate and dig up the dirt, with a third narrative strand revealing what actually happened. This unfolds as a clever, twisty, strong on characterisation domestic thriller with a few unpredictable rabbits up its cashmere sleeve, and makes for an ingenious debut and a fast read that never lets go, with a powerful streak of insights into the psycho side of the bourgeois female psyche. Naughty.
Paul Bradley Carr / THE CONFESSIONS (Faber and Faber)
A topical cautionary tale in which the world we are familiar with takes a turn for the worst, by a US-based British tech journalist, who also owns a bookstore and delivers a fast-moving, intriguing debut with deep roots into the fast-evolving world of artificial intelligence,. Just a few years into the future and AI benevolently rules the world, offering answers to everything and, seemingly, facilitating the business of living, with folk becoming increasingly dependent on its advice and instructions. And then one day, it ceases to function overnight, going suddenly offline, leaving the world in the lurch and quite unprepared for its absence. Kaitlan Gross, who runs the company that runs LLIAM, is now racing against time to fix the problem against a background of grounded planes, stock market falls and, worse, a deluge of millions of anonymous letters arriving in the mail all over the world exposing everyone’s deepest sins and crimes, threatening an absolute collapse of society. Kaitlan is compelled to seek the assistance of Maud Brookes, an ex-nun who originally taught LLIAM what it means to be human. But Maud is unreachable, having herself received a letter uncovering some of Kaitlan’s own darkest secrets. As society crumbles around them, the two wary women must form an unlikely alliance to stem the encroaching tide. A fast and furious thriller which raises so many important aspects of the current race to develop generative AI, this is totally gripping stuff that will linger in the memory for a long time, a SF tale of the present that will do nothing to attenuate our worries about the new world we are blindly stepping into. Unputdownable.
Christina Koning / MURDER IN PARIS (Alison and Busby)
Already the 10th volume in Koning’s Blind Detective series and ironically the first one to come to my attention if only by virtue of taking place in the French capital where I grew up, hence my being drawn to Paris-set novels, if only to royally nitpick on occasion! It’s 1945 and WW2 has ended but its murky clouds still hover heavily across the complex layers of French high society, what with echoes of past collaborations with the German-occupying forces still a highly controversial, hot subject. Frederick Rowlands is despatched to the city by MI5 agent Iris Barnes to interrogate Ravensbruck concentration camp survivor Clara Metzner, whom he knew 12 years earlier in Berlin, but who has now been changed forever by her harrowing experiences in inhuman captivity, and mine her knowledge of possibly surviving traitors. Rowlands must establish, through his acute sensory skills whether she is actually the same person he knew or an impostor. Shortly after their meeting she is found dead and when her brother Walter reaches Paris, seeds of doubts are sown about her identity and that of Amélie, a young woman who closely resembled her. The game now afoot, Rowlands must now patrol the Paris streets and its complex layers of society to reach for the truth. The concept of a blind investigator is not a new one but placing him in, as Koning does, within a foreign environment increases the sense of unease and jeopardy and cleverly ramps up the suspense. Rowlands finds his way through Parisian quarters not often mined by other authors, offering a new non-obviously touristic perspective on his sleuthing and a fresh impetus to his travails. A satisfying if traditional read, which might well point me back to some of Koning’s earlier titles.
Jenna Satterthwaite / THE NEW YEAR’S PARTY (Verve)
Arriving right in time for the end of year festivities, this engaging tale of a celebration that goes terribly wrong will have the inner Scrooge in every reader chortling away as disaster following disaster befalls its morally grey characters. Olivia and her set have reached their 30s and the glamour of youth has faded as well as the closeness they once shared; their respective lives have not lived up to expectation and most are now shielding secrets, envy and fears, all elements coming to the boil at a fated New Year’s Eve party where the recipe is ripe and about to explode with unintended consequences, including, of course, murder. Credit card debt and financial worries, marital problems, parental stress, mutual envy, and past lies all conjugate to make this into the party from hell once the group are all together, resentment and anger festering under the surface and alcohol an easy trigger for the conflicts about to be unveiled. As each chapter unfurls from the perspective of a different member of the would-be festive group, a growing sense of doom and despair paves the way for the explosive transgressions Olivia and her mostly unsympathetic friends are about to sink deep into with a sense of the inevitable, offering the reader a multitude of both suspects and victim that keeps the narrative moving along fast, with a few twists thrown into the mix. Good fun.
