No, no, we’re not talking about independence. This isn’t a political column. It’s Scots author Val McDermid’s new graphic novel, Resistance, which leads off our new books roundup this week. Her compatriot Denise Mina has previously adapted Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to the format, and now McDermid has her own original graphic novel. What makes matters even more interesting is the fact that it’s all about a pandemic. New crime graphic novels are always exciting, but if it’s not your cup of tea we’ve also got an old school whodunnit set in Canada, a buried memories mystery, a touch of historical crime and murder mystery set in Maine’s yachting community.
Resistance by Val McDermid and Kathryn Briggs
The Scottish crime author Val McDermid is trying something new and her first graphic novel will be released 20 May. With artwork by the American illustrator Kathryn Briggs, Resistance could be just what you need as we come out of lockdown because it’s about a pandemic. Journalist Zoe Meadows goes to a music festival and even before the last band have taken to the stage people are being sick. As audience members head home, things get worse. They get blotchy and the pathogen spreads throughout the country. Can Zoe track down its source and help save lives? See our First Look preview here.
Pre-order now on Amazon
The Happiness Thief by Nicole Bokat
Natalie Greene is a food photographer and single mother, but her sister Isabel is famous. She’s the ‘Happiness Guru’. After Natalie’s husband leaves her, she goes on a trip to the Cayman Islands with Isabel, where a late night accident revives memories of their mother’s death 20 years earlier. Natalie has always felt responsible but after returning to Boston that accident while on holiday triggers a hunt for the truth. It’s out 18 May.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Hell’s Half Acre by Jackie Elliott
Fans of the twisty turny whodunnit will love Jackie Elliott’s new book, Hell’s Half Acre, that comes out on 11 May. It’s the second in a series featuring investigative journalist Andrea ‘Andi’ Silvers, whose nose for news gets her into all manner of bother. The disappearance of the former mayor’s son, Ricky Havers, piques Andi’s interest and as she is in the middle of interviewing Coffin Cove’s new Mayor, news comes through that two dead bodies have been discovered in an abandoned chapel – and one is Ricky. As Andi digs deeper, she is about to uncover dirty deeds aplenty in her supposedly sleepy and law-abiding corner of Western Canada.
Pre-order now on Amazon
The Practical Navigator by Chris Crowley
It might sound like a ‘How to’ book, but Chris Crowley’s The Practical Navigator sits firmly on the crime fiction shelves, and it’s out now. You have to be a somebody to be accepted into The Great Arcadia, an exclusive East Coast yacht club, no riffraff here. But the closed doors have to open a chink when Greek billionaire George Minot is murdered during their annual regatta off the coast of Maine. Crowley is a former Wall Street trial lawyer, and his crime fiction debut is a mix of Wall Street lawyers, Maine sheriffs, beautiful, smart women, dubious financiers and a plenty of sex. Oh and yachts, lots of yachts,
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The Distant Dead by Lesley Thomson
Her books have been described as ‘Midsomer Murders for grown ups’, and Lesley Thomson followers will be delighted to hear that The Distant Dead, latest in her Detective’s Daughter series, is out on 13 May. Two deaths, 60 years apart… In the height of the Blitz in 1940 London, a young woman is murdered by her lover, her body left in a bombed out house. Tewkesbury, 2020 and the creator of a true crime podcast is murdered. He’d been investigating the death of a wartime police pathologist – did he get too close to the truth? Sheila Darnell has moved to Tewkesbury for peace and quiet, but when the podcaster dies in her arms she feels compelled to hunt down his killer.
Buy now on Amazon