Today we’re giving you the heads-up on five new crime novels, several of which are by up-and-coming writers who’ve either made their names outside mainstream US/UK crime fiction, or via ebook publishing. The first up is Verbal, based on the police slang for a false confession, by Peter Murphy. As well as miscarriages of justice, we’ve got books with brutal slayings, disappeared children and… yeah, let’s see, well… mostly brutal slayings, to be honest. Crime Fiction Lover is the place to discover new crime reads.
Verbal by Peter Murphy
Here’s an example of an interesting sub-category of crime novel – the historical legal thriller. Written by former barrister Peter Murphy, Verbal looks back to the days before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984 did away with the police practice of ‘verballing’ a suspect. Basically, they made up oral confessions and submitted them as evidence. So, we step back to the 1970s where young Cambridge graduate Imogen Lester, whose parents have been murdered abroad, is charged with drug trafficking. To her defence steps barrister Ben Schroeder, a veteran of six previous novels by Peter Murphy. Already out for Kindle, it’s released 10 December in print.
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The Angel of Whitehall by Lewis Hastings
Former British police officer Jack Cade is back in an edge-of-the-seat thriller by Lewis Hastings, to be published on 15 December. The mutilated body of a young African woman is discovered in a London side street. Her stomach has been slashed open, a single diamond left inside the wound. What’s the connection? The key may be held by an elderly sailor who only has a short time to live – but his memory is clouded by dementia and Cade has his work cut out trying to piece the disparate fragments together. What he learns leads him to a people trafficking gang which has its roots at the very heart of the British establishment…
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Smokescreen by Thomas Enger and Jorn Lier Horst
Smokescreen is the second collaboration between the Norwegian crime authors Thomas Enger and Jorn Lier Horst, and featuring detective Alexander Blix and blogger Emma Ramm. The story is told from the perspective of each character in alternate chapters, the authors presumably passing the baton back and forth until the book was complete. Smokescreen is book two in the series, following on from Death Deserved, and it begins with the discovery of a woman’s body in the icy harbour. She turns out to be the mother of Patricia Smelpass, a two-year-old girl who was kidnapped a decade ago. What happened to Patricia and why is her mother now dead? Find out from 18 December, when Smokescreen will be available on Kindle.
Pre-order now on Amazon
When Darkness Falls by Emma Salisbury
We reviewed Emma Salisbury’s Flesh and Blood on the site last year, now there’s a new addition to the DS Kevin Coupland collection. When Darkness Falls is just out for Kindle, and as it opens, Coupland is beginning to piece together the story of a teenage runaway who has been found dead. Her demise bears striking similarities to that of another young girl whose murder never made the headlines. As Coupland begins to dig deeper he is shocked by the lack of empathy shown to both victims. Can he break down a wall of indifference and get to the truth?
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Don’t Scream by Margaret Murphy
Book four in the Detective Jeff Rickman series, Margaret Murphy’s Don’t Scream arrives for Kindle on 8 December – and finds the tough looking copper with a tricky conundrum to solve. A young mother has been murdered, her body an intricate pattern of swirls, sunbursts, parallel lines and geometric designs, all cut into her flesh by the monster who took her life. And her baby – where is her baby? As Rickman and his team investigate, they are dragged into a dark world of exploitation and betrayal in a case that is about to become personal for them all.
Pre-order now on Amazon