A selection of this week’s new crime, thriller, mystery and general fiction titles to 25th May – Jill’s Book Cafe
Here’s my pick of this week’s new hardback/paperback fiction titles. In some cases the eBook might already be available.
Just a reminder, I don’t have access to a complete list of titles being published, and, as I don’t see any advance copies, my choices are based on the cover, blurb, gut instinct and what takes my fancy at the time.
(NB This post features Affiliate links from which I earn a small commission on qualifying purchases)
Index
Crime, Thriller and Mystery (includes Historical Crime/Mysteries)
Crime, Thriller & Mystery
Cold Justice by Leigh Russell
The stakes have never been higher for Geraldine Steel.
When Alice Lewis is found murdered, the case becomes personal for DI Steel, as Alice was the niece of her childminder, Lisa. Despite Lisa’s earlier pleas for help, Geraldine hadn’t acted in time to save Alice.
Now, driven by guilt and a thirst for justice, Geraldine dives headfirst into the case. But the deeper she digs, the more layers of secrets and lies she uncovers about Alice’s life, forcing her to question everything she thought she knew. With an elusive killer watching her every move, Geraldine finds herself caught in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
They Had it Coming by Nikki Smith
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer . . .
Nate and Layla, Jude and Sophie. They’ve been a four for as long as they can remember: fancy dinners, dancing ’til dawn . . . Even living and working together.
So when Nate and Layla suddenly quit their lives and move to Bali, with its white sands and exotic beach clubs, Jude and Sophie are their first visitors. Anything to escape their life in London.
But as the two couples reunite, cracks begin to show.
Which is hardly surprising; they’ve been lying to each other for years.
And now, it’s time for revenge.
Nightshade by Michael Connelly
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been “exiled” to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland.
But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found wrapped in plastic and weighed down at the bottom of the harbor. Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, he starts doggedly working the case.
Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.
The Doorman by Chris Pavone
Chicky Diaz is everyone’s favourite doorman at the Bohemia, New York City’s world-famous home of celebrities, financiers, and the cultural elite.
Gathered in the Bohemia’s basement, the almost entirely Black and Hispanic staff is reeling. Just a few miles away, a Black man has been killed by the police, leading to a long night of violence across the city.
But the rising tensions aren’t what most concern Chicky. He knows that there’s more going on within the rooms of the Bohemia than anyone’s aware of. In fact, ahead of tonight’s shift, he bought a gun even before he knew of the rising pandemonium.
Tonight, enemies will clash, loyalties will be tested, secrets will be revealed – and lives will be lost.
New York City is a tinderbox – just one more spark and it will go up in flames…
When Death Calls by JM Dalgliesh
Blood is thicker than water… and runs just as freely…
When the body of a man is discovered face down one morning in the swimming pool of his upmarket family home, the team wonder if it is the result of a tragic accident or serious foul play.
DI Tom Janssen is currently suspended pending the outcome of the events at the close of his previous case. Using the time away from the office to consider his future, and how this will impact on his family life, Tom is invited to attend a school reunion which he reluctantly agrees to. Coming face to face with people he hasn’t seen in years leads to more than a reunion of old friendships. Some people find it hard to let go of the past while others foster long-held grudges. It isn’t long before Tom finds old feuds rekindled and scores that aim to be settled… one way or another.
Finding himself at the centre of a murder inquiry – only this time as a witness rather than an investigator – can he steer clear of the case or will temptation, and a search for the truth, be too much for him to ignore.
The Perfect Psychopath by Alice Hunter
The mind is a dangerous place to hide…
Dr Eleanor Spencer is a well-respected psychologist with a seemingly perfect life. But when a series of women start to vanish, it dredges up memories of her sister’s unsolved disappearance and she finds herself drawn into the investigation.
Desperate, she turns to Lucas Hayne, a convicted serial murderer who revels in mind games. But when Lucas cryptically hints the answers lie buried in her past, Ellie’s carefully constructed world begins to splinter.
Because now she faces a terrifying possibility: the real monster might just be closer than she ever imagined.
Ellie has spent her career deciphering the minds of killers—but now, one of them is inside hers.
Murder in Oxford by Christina Koning
1942. When Frederick Rowlands arrives in the city in answer to an urgent summons, he finds that the effects of war have not bypassed Oxford, which feels more like a military camp than a university town. His old friend and fellow war veteran, Major Ian Fraser, has been told that there is a spy at large in the university and at nearby Blenheim Palace, the heart of British Intelligence. Rowlands swiftly becomes embroiled in matters involving MI5 and enemy agents, but not before a vicious killer strikes.
Now the race is on to find the murderer before he – or she – can kill again, and to prevent vital plans for a covert British mission being compromised. For Rowlands, the stakes could not be higher, as a deadly game of cat and mouse plays out .
Last Orders by Denzil Meyrick
DCI Jim Daley is charged with murder – and everyone saw him do it – in the gripping final thriller in the series, from the bestselling author Denzil Meyrick.
In the middle of the night in Kinloch, the phone rings…
Detective Sergeant Brian Scott answers. It’s a message from his old friend and partner, DCI Jim Daley, which chills him to the bone:
‘She’s dead, Brian. I couldn’t take it anymore – I killed her! You have to help.’
Daley has been arrested for murder, and everyone saw him do it. The police have all the evidence they need to put him behind bars for life, but Scott still believes he’s innocent.
Is someone trying to frame him?
The search for answers takes Daley and Scott on a dark journey into their past, putting the people closest to them in immediate danger. And as the heartbreak takes its toll, Scott begins to wonder if this might be the end of the road.
Is it time to call last orders?
A Lethal Cocktail by Ciar Byrne
💍 Three ex-husbands. Two ex-wives.
⚰️ One shocking murder.
🍸 A wedding that’s the talk of the town…
Tudor Close Hotel, Rottingdean, is the most glamorous venue of the season. And not somewhere Virginia or her sister Vanessa would usually choose to frequent. They’re far happier at home with their writing or painting, than brushing shoulders with debutantes or starlets.
But Lady Ottoline has had a difficult year, so – despite her rather outlandish tastes – they let her choose the meeting spot. And when the group bumps into fashion designer Mimi Mason in the hotel bar, they begrudgingly accept an invite to her wedding breakfast the next morning.
No one imagined that, a few cocktails later, Mimi would be dead.
As the sisters are drawn into a new case, it becomes clear that someone meticulously planned this murder. Beneath the glittering exterior, there was a dark side to this beautiful bride – and every wedding guest had a reason to sabotage this happy union.
But which one of them decided it was time to give Mimi a taste of her own poison?
Dead Water by Simon Toyne
A brutal murder
When a headless corpse washes up on the bank of the Thames, DCI Tannahill Khan knows this wasn’t accidental – the killer wanted the body found. This is just the beginning.
A deadly warning
The post mortem reveals a shocking discovery. Written on the dead man’s arm is Forensic Criminologist Dr Laughton Rees’ home address.
A fatal game
With her life in danger and more bodies washing up along the river, Laughton and Tannahill are in a race against time to stop the killer before Laughton’s own name reaches the top of his list
The House Sitter by Keri Beevis
She knows what she saw. But can she prove it?
After my relationship breaks down, I agree to house-sit my brother Dexter’s posh apartment whilst he’s out of the country. It will give me some much needed headspace.
Sitting on the balcony one sweltering summer’s evening in the midst of a power cut, I’m given a secret window into the lives of the residents in the opposite building, and I see more than I should.
I’m drawn to a man in the penthouse and watch him closely and when a striking woman joins him on the balcony, I can’t tear my eyes away.
The following weekend a woman matching her exact description is reported missing. She’s not been seen since that fateful night.
When I go to the police, the man in the penthouse has a cast-iron alibi and denies she was ever there.
I know what I saw and I can’t let it go.
The deeper I dig, the more dangerous things become.
Someone is watching me too. Just how much can I trust my neighbours?
Bella Donna by Jill Johnson
SECRETS ARE THE DEADLIEST POISON
Eustacia Rose is done with murder cases. She’s ready to settle down with her partner, Matilde, and focus on her work at the university. To live a normal life.
But then along comes a case she can’t resist investigating – because this time, the murder victim was poisoned with hemlock, one of the plants stolen from Eustacia’s illicit garden of poisonous plants. And Eustacia is not the only one desperate to retrieve her lost treasure: the beguiling trader of rare plants, Zsa Zsa, and rival university professor Hutchins are on the trail, too, not to mention the dangerous criminal gang determined to keep hold of the lethal plants.
The stakes are higher than ever for Eustacia. Because if she cannot save her plants in time, there will be more deaths – and this time, the blood will be on her hands . . .
This House of Burning Bones by Stuart MacBride
The Granite City is ready to burn, and all it takes is a single spark . . .
In the heat of a blistering summer, Aberdeen’s police are struggling: half the force is off sick, leave has been cancelled, someone’s firebombed a hotel full of migrants, and there’s a massive protest march happening this Saturday.
With officers dropping like flies, Detective Inspector Logan McRae is forced to juggle cases and run a major murder investigation with a skeleton staff of misfits, idiots and malingerers until the top brass can arrange back-up from other divisions.
It doesn’t help that the Aberdeen Examiner has just been bought by Natasha Agapova, a tabloid media tycoon hell-bent on blaming local police for everything. And she’s more than happy to fan the flames.
But, as bad as everything seems, it’s all about to get much, much worse . . .
The Palazzo by Kayte Nunn
They’re all killers, but only one will resort to murder. The stunning new novel from international bestseller Kayte Nunn, for all fans of Lucy Foley and White Lotus.
Successful beauty entrepreneur Vivi Savidge is about to celebrate her fortieth birthday at the Palazzo Stellina, a historic former convent in the foothills of the Italian Alps.
Vivi’s little sister is flying in from Brisbane with her sixteen-year-old twins in tow. Her ex-colleague and his new husband are coming from Boston, and old university friend Caroline is driving from Turin. Every one of them is hiding a shameful secret.
Amid a suffocating heatwave, the holiday ignites an explosive cocktail of obsession, jealousy, and greed. Before the week is over, secrets will be exposed and the gathering will turn deadly, leaving one victim, a handful of suspects, and a murderer in their midst.
The Chemist by AA Dhand
Local pharmacist and pillar of the community, Idris Khan, spends his days doling out methadone to the hundreds of addicts in his care. They trust Idris with their secrets, and so he knows more than his mild manner suggests. So when his childhood sweetheart, Rebecca, doesn’t turn up for her daily methadone dose, Idris is worried. Worried enough to go looking for her in the most deprived area of Leeds, alone.
The mess Idris finds catapults him into the middle of a turf war between the two most powerful drug cartels in Yorkshire. Now, he must use every bit of intelligence and cunning he has to keep those he loves safe.
Because a war is on the way. And when Idris goes after his enemies, they won’t see him coming.
Please Don’t Find Me by Wendy Dranfield
My heart is hammering furiously as the bedroom door creaks open. The second I see my husband’s lifeless body, I know I have to run. And no-one can ever find us.
There are three things I know to be true.
ONE. My husband knew my secret.
TWO. Now he’s dead, my daughter and I are in danger.
THREE. I will do anything to protect my child, whatever the cost.
We need to vanish. But first, it has to look like we were taken.
I move through our house, pushing over chairs and rummaging violently through drawers. I pull out items Robert and I bought together and throw them across the room. As a final touch, I leave Avery’s sneaker abandoned on the ground outside.
It’s important there’s no trace. But if I could leave a message behind, it would be this:
If you look for me, you won’t like what you find.
The Wood by Rachel McLean & Joel Hames
DI Zoe Finch has been in Cumbria long enough to know who’s pulling the strings in organised crime, and who’s helping them from within the police.
But just as she’s closing in on the evidence to prove it, she finds herself scrambling in the fallout from the murder of a key witness, and struggling to keep the case out of the hands of the very man she suspects of orchestrating it.
Can the women rescued from a human trafficking ring help Zoe wrest back control of the investigation? And does a seemingly unrelated murder on the other side of the Lake District hold the key to bringing her enemies to justice?
With the team thrust into unfamiliar roles and the whole station under investigation, the stakes have never been higher. Can Zoe and her team hold it together under mounting pressure?
Murder at the English Manor by Helena Dixon
A glamorous engagement celebration in an English country manor house… and a local maid dead. Somebody call Kitty Underhay!
At home in Devon, Kitty is attending a ball at the very grand Markham Hall. With celebrations in full swing and everyone kitted out in their glad rags, Kitty and Matt enjoy the champagne. But the next morning, the party feels well and truly over when Kitty stumbles across a body while out walking her dog, Bertie. The maid, Agnes, is dead, and everyone at Markham Hall is a suspect…
Kitty and Matt set about piecing together the puzzle as the streamers are swept away and empty glasses gathered up. But who could the murderer be? The other maids seem shifty; Lord and Lady Faversham, the hosts, are not without motive, and even Kitty’s grandmother is keeping her cards close to her chest this time…
But then a safe filled with precious jewels has its lock broken, and another body is found tangled up in the weeds of the lake in the grounds. Kitty wonders if the poor guest knew their dancing days were almost over when they were merrily sipping punch the night before? And what secrets are the other guests hiding…
Can Kitty save the next victim at the eleventh hour? Or will this really be a weekend to die for?
General/Contemporary Fiction
Sleep by Honor Jones
How much of our lives are ours alone?
Ten-year-old Margaret hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family’s lush backyard while her brother hunts for her in a game of tag. Hers is a childhood of sunlit swimming pools and Saturday morning pancakes but her family life requires careful prudence. Then one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.
Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents’ bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her. She’s newly divorced and navigating life as a co-parent, while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But some part of her is still under the blackberry bush from all those summers ago, punched out of time. She must now reckon with the echoes between the past and the present, what it means to keep a child truly safe, and the family she carries inside herself as she builds a family of her own.
The Midnight Bookshop by Amanda James
Long ago, a bookshop was born – the beating heart of all those who find hope within the pages of a book. With the words penned upon the echo of old forests, new worlds are created.
It’s ready and waiting to welcome all those who know where to find it…
Strangers Jo, Adelaide and Kye are the least likely people to find themselves across the threshold of a bookshop.
But as their midnight book club shows them that a single book can change everything, all three realise that their own stories can be rewritten.
Songs of Summer by Jane L Rosen
A young woman crashes the wedding of the summer on Fire Island in search of her birth mother—and gets a whole lot more than she bargained for—in this warm, heart-stopping getaway from Jane L. Rosen
Maggie May Wheeler is living her best life—at thirty, she has big plans for her vintage record shop and is about to be engaged to her childhood best friend. But when she stumbles across a letter she wrote to her future self when she was thirteen, she realizes it may not be enough. The letter ignites a desire to find her birth mother and discover where she really belongs.
Her search takes her to dreamy Fire Island, where her birth mother is a guest at a wedding. As Maggie spies on her biological family, she’s caught between diving into their chaotic lives and returning to her comfortable world. Things heat up when a charming local makes her an offer to crash the wedding as his date.
Is it the island’s magic, the whirlwind of the weekend, or the thrill of a fake beau that has her rethinking everything? Swept away by every love song she hears, Maggie must figure out where her heart truly lies.
Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen
Life on a remote island is turned upside down by a stranger’s arrival, testing bonds of family and tradition and leaving a young dreamer’s future hanging in the balance.
It’s no ordinary existence on the rugged isle of Muckle Flugga. The elements run riot and the very rocks that shape the place begin to shift under their influence. The only human inhabitants are the lighthouse keeper, known as The Father, and his otherworldly son, Ouse. Them, and the occasional lodger to keep the wolf from the door.
When one of those lodgers – Firth, a chaotic writer – arrives from Edinburgh, the limits of the world the keeper and his son cling to begin to crumble. A tug of war ensues between Firth and the lighthouse keeper for Ouse’s affections – and his future. As old and new ways collide, and life-changing decisions loom, what will the tides leave standing in their wake?
By Your Side by Ruth Jones
Because second chances come when you least expect them . . .
Linda Standish has been a friend to the friendless for the past thirty-three years, in her role at the council’s Unclaimed Heirs Unit. And now she’s looking forward to the joys of an early retirement.
But before she hangs up her lanyard, Linda takes on one last case – that of Levi Norman – a Welshman who made his home on a remote Scottish island for the five years before he died. Linda must visit Storrich to track down Levi’s remaining relatives . . .
What brought Levi here? And who did he leave behind? Obliged to travel (by hearse!) with her arch nemesis, and helped (and hindered…) by the local residents, Linda searches for clues to a life now lost. And in the process unexpectedly makes new friends, and discovers things about herself she never knew.
Vianne by Joanne Harris
Secrets.
Chocolate.
A touch of magic…
On a warm July evening, Sylviane Rochas scatters her mother’s ashes in New York and lets the changing wind blow her to the French seaside town of Marseille.
For the first time in her life, Vianne holds the future in her own hands. Charming her way into a job as a waitress in a local bistrot, she knows that she is not here to stay – when her child is born in a few months, she must be gone.
As she discovers the joy of cooking, making recipes her own with the addition of bittersweet chocolate spices, she realises that it possesses its own magic in this town full of secrets.
Yet Vianne will never forget her mother’s warning: that there is danger in revealing the true desires of those around her – and she must flee these cobbled streets before it’s too late…
Poor Ghost! by Gabriel Flynn
When Luca drops out of his prestigious PhD programme and moves back home to Manchester, he thinks he’ll take some time to consider his life choices: the failed love affair that ended in a disastrous holiday and embarrassing exit, the pursuit of an academic life that gave him nothing but a strong sense of failure.
In need of money, and still convinced the literary life might be for him, Luca takes on a job as a ghost writer: Andy, who has progressive MS, wants Luca to write his life story. Luca’s own father had MS and eventually took his own life – making the assignment a full immersion in the dark parts of his childhood Luca has never really dealt with. Luca has his own ideas about what Andy’s book should be like – but he’ll have to learn how to curb his dreaming, if he ever wants to get paid.
While his love of literature and intellectual ambition might have got him so far away from his childhood in Manchester, Luca is grappling with what it means to try to go home again – how far where you’re from shapes you, and how difficult your parent’s past is to shake off.
Happy is the One by Katie Allen
What if halfway through your life was just the beginning?
Robin Edmund Blake is halfway through his life.
Born in 1986, when Halley’s Comet crossed the sky, he is destined to go out with it, when it returns in 2061. Until that day, he can’t die. He has proof.
With his future mapped out in minute detail, a lucrative but increasingly dull job in the City of London, and Gemma to share his life with, Robin has a plan to be remembered forever.
But when Robin’s sick father has one accident too many, the plan starts to unravel. Robin must return home to the tiny seaside town of Eastgate, learn to care for the man who never really cared for him, and face the childhood ghosts he fled decades ago.
Desperate to get his life back on schedule, he connects with fellow outsider Astrid. Brutally direct, sharp-witted and a professor at a nearby university, she’s unlike anyone he’s ever met. But Astrid is hiding something and someone from Robin.
And he’s hiding even more from her…
Ripeness by Sarah Moss
On the brink of adulthood and just out of school, Edith finds herself travelling to rural Italy. She has been sent by her mother with strict instructions: to see her sister, ballet dancer Lydia, through the final weeks of her pregnancy, help at the birth and then make a phone call which will change all of their lives.
Decades later, happily divorced and newly energized, Edith is living in contentment and comfort in Ireland. When her best friend Méabh receives a call from an American man claiming to be her brother, Méabh must decide if she will meet him, and Edith finds herself plunged back into her own past and the story of the baby she once knew and loved.
The Santorini Writing Retreat by Eva Glynn
Three women, one writing retreat, endless possibilities…
Bestselling author Jessica Rose needs to escape from a terrible secret that’s robbed her of her creativity. Could leading a retreat on a gorgeous Greek island be just what she needs?
Coming home to Santorini was never in Zina’s plans, but now she’s determined to make her new business a success.
And then there’s Karmela, who just wants to write her book and make her mother proud.
In the heat of their Greek island paradise, these new friends find the courage to shape their own stories, and write endings they can all be proud of…
The Woman Who Met Herself by Laura Pearson
What would you do, if you met your double?
Debbie Jones thinks life is an adventure. Even having lost her husband a year ago, she’s ready for whatever the world might throw her way. Being in her sixties doesn’t mean it’s all over for her yet, and she loves her new job doing neighbourhood support for a charity. Then she knocks on a stranger’s front door.
Ruth Waverley doesn’t like surprises. Her life isn’t perhaps all she once dreamed off, but what other options are there for a woman in her sixties? She’s proud of her home and children. And she likes her life well enough. Then she hears someone knocking at the door.
As the door opens, both Ruth and Debbie get the shock of their lives. As their eyes meet – the recognition is instant. Not because they’ve met before. But because they have the same face. They’re completely identical.
And everything is about to change, for both women. In ways they couldn’t possibly imagine…
So that’s all for this week.
Happy Reading!
