When gambling debts lead to a kidnapping

Middle-class parents Victoria and Nicholas Foulkes are distraught when their children are kidnapped against Nicholas’ gambling debts. Penniless and desperate, the couple turn to crime as a way to raise the ransom. Can they save their children before time runs out? New talent Smith delivers a fast-paced page turner in this brilliant and believable debut…

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Gripping thriller will keep you glued into the night

Fans of the Inspector McLean crime novels will not be disappointed by this instalment, The Damage Done, with Oswald delivering another gritty page-turner that will keep you reading late into the night. When an Edinburgh Police vice squad raid goes embarrassingly awry, Inspector Tony McLean finds himself haunted by echoes of his first case. With…

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Forget Scandi Noir fiction – try this Scandi Blanc

Alexander McCall Smith, who is well-known for his prodigious writing speeds, having now penned over 100 novels, has established a new genre, Scandi Blanc. This contrasts with the oppressively heavy and relentlessly dark Scandi Noir. McCall Smith’s latest page-turner makes for an easy and light-hearted read, even if it is still full of crime. We…

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Gripping novel begins with a body on a beach

From the writer of the  The Lewis Trilogy and The China Thrillers, comes Peter May’s crime novel Coffin Road. A gripping page turner, Coffin Road follows the stories of a mystery man who washed up on a Hebridean beach; a detective hunting a killer; and a teenage girl desperate to discover the truth about her…

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A shooting murder mystery in the countryside

Death of a High Flyer reflects the concerns of the countryside and the people who live there. Hart-Davis creates an intricate web of characters, all of whom come under suspicion when the town’s pushy billionaire dies during a shoot. Known for ruffling more than a few feathers, it all becomes a question of whodunnit? Great…

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Stitch Up is a page turner you won’t put down

The fourth-instalment of the highly acclaimed Best Defence Mystery series has finally arrived. Now happily married with his young daughter safely at home, Robbie Munro’s life is finally an ordinary one. But with a past like his, that can’t last long. An old flame re-enters his life asking for help on an unexplained death. At…

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Book review – The Walrus Mutterer

Green activist Mandy Haggith marks the beginning of her new Stone Stories trilogy with an adventurous novel taking the reader back to the Iron Age. Set in 320BC in Northern Britain, the book follows Rian, a young woman who is enslaved by a deceptive trader and forced on a perilous sea voyage in search of…

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