I enjoyed One by One by Ruth Ware, which is more of a who-is-doing-it rather than a whodunnit. A group of tech entrepreneurs retreat to a chalet in the French Alps only to be picked off by a killer in their midst. Ware has real talent for evoking a sense of place and ratcheting up…

I was totally gripped by B P Walter’s the Dinner Guest, and devoured it in less than 48 hours. It has a sort of boxset binge-worthiness. At the heart of the story are this seemingly perfect couple, Matthew and Charlie, who regularly beguile Instagram with their family photos. One evening, their idyll is shattered when…

My latest mini book review is of Girl A by Abigail Dean. The cover might give rise to expectations of a high-octane rollercoaster of twists and shocks, in the vein of the similarly titled ‘Gone Girl’. However, this book is actually slow burning and quite ‘literary’. It paints a psychological portrait of a survivor of…

I’m not generally a fan of recurring characters, but this outing for Tim Weaver’s world weary private investigator, David Raker works perfectly as a standalone. One reason I enjoyed it is because I suspect Weaver is a ‘Twin Peaks’ fan. Raker is hired by the parents of missing teen, Megan Carver who is a girl…

I’m delving into Tartan Noir with my mini-review of Black Widow by Chris Brookmyre. The story is about a surgeon, and sometime feminist blogger, standing trial for offing her drippy younger husband. As you’ve probably guessed, all is not what it seems, which grizzled journalist Jack Parlabane soon discovers when he’s dragged into the case.…

Dystopian satire sometimes hits a nerve because it reflects our collective anxieties.  John Vane, in Frightgeist, transports us a few years into the future where London is recovering from a cataclysmic event known as “the plague”.  Taking place in an atmosphere in which conspiracy theories abound is the election for Mayor of London.  Lorraine Linton,…

I’m about to give a glowing review for another page-turner from one of my favourite writers, Louise Candlish. She has made a career out of turning her sharp observation of middle-class Londoners into binge-worthy domestic noir, and the Heights doesn’t disappoint. I’m a huge fan of the return-from-the-dead trope, and so the premise was appealing.…

I’m a bit of a sucker for Aussie noir, and ‘the Inheritance’ by Gabriel Bergmoser is a dark, ultra-violent odyssey through the Antipodean nether regions. The protagonist is Maggie, a taciturn young woman trying to shelter from her troubled past. However, circumstance and a cast of mesmerisingly nasty characters conspire against her. Before long, she…

One of my lifelong fantasies is to live in a high-ceilinged apartment in the City of Light. And so, the Paris Apartment appealed to me because of its title alone. Inside its pages, Lucy Foley tells a highly entertaining story. It begins with Jess, a neglected drifter, fleeing her scuzzy, grungy existence in Brighton. She…

The very near future is a great place to set crime fiction – it presents a world we recognise, but is darkly skewed. In John Marrs’ ‘the One’, dating apps have been rendered superfluous by a simple DNA test guaranteeing the perfect match. Naturally, they’re not the only thing to have been upended. The story…