Imagine not being able to recognise anybody’s face. And imagine then being witness to a crime. That’s a tricky setup and it’s one Swedish author Camilla Sten capitalises on in her second novel, The Lost Village, which is our lead book this week.
But that’s not the only interesting release covered. The great television writer Lynda La Plante – creator of Tennison – has a new novel out, we’ve got a trip to Kabul with Alison Belsham and Nick Higgins, and pulp-o-phile Nick Kolakowski has written an homage to Parker. Perfectly rounding things off, we have a new voyage to Italia with the legendary Donna Leon. What to choose, what to choose…
The Resting Place by Camilla Sten
Swedish author Camilla Sten is best known for her creepily atmospheric crime debut The Lost Village, now she’s back with another suspenseful stand alone. Meet Eleanor. She lives with prosopagnosia, the inability to recognise a familiar person’s face. It causes stress and acute anxiety – and is particularly problematic when she walks in on her grandmother’s murder but afterwards has no idea of what the killer looked like. Then Eleanor is left a looming estate tucked away in the Swedish woods and her problems multiply. The Resting Place, written by Camilla Sten and translated by Alexandra Fleming, is out on 29 March.
Order now on Amazon or Bookshop.org
Death in Kabul by A Belsham and N Higgins
Brother and sister writing team Alison Belsham and Nick Higgins have put their heads together to come up with a murder mystery set in Afghanistan in 2003. In Kabul, a fledgling democracy is struggling with crime and corruption as NATO coalition troops, gangs and warlords jostle for control. When the body of a British serviceman is discovered in the city’s infamous tank graveyard, the local police need help and former Met officer Alasdair ‘Mac’ MacKenzie is seconded to the team. He meets Baz Khan, an Afghan-American investigative journalist, who is in Kabul researching a story about missing artefacts and the pair quickly realise they have each stumbled on something far bigger than they reckoned for. Death in Kabul publishes on 31 March.
Order now on Amazon or Bookshop.org
Vanished by Lynda La Plante
Lynda La Plante’s Buried trilogy ends with Vanished, out on 31 March. DC Jack Warr is the only one to take an interest when an eccentric widow claims a former lodger is stalking her, but he is proved right a few days later when the woman is found murdered in her home. Investigations reveal an international drugs operation on the widow’s property, and the case gets even more complicated. But as the hunt for the widow’s lodger hits brick wall after brick wall, it looks like the prime suspect has vanished. Just how far is Warr prepared to go to get to the truth? It seems we are about to find out…
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Payback is Forever by Nick Kolakowski
If you like your crime on the shorter side, offbeat and with a liberal pinch of noir, then Nick Kolakowski’s new novella Payback is Forever is arriving on 25 March — and it will be just up your alley. Set in New York in the 1960s, this is an homage to Richard Stark’s Parker series that sees master thief Miller forced into hiding after a heist goes badly wrong. He heads to the West Village, where even the target of a nationwide manhunt can hide out among the freaks. But when an old friend offers Miller a shady protection job, he’s thrown into a bizarre world of pint-sized gangsters, ageing war criminals and shady government agents… all pursuing a prize beyond imagination.
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Give Unto Others by Donna Leon
Book 31 – yes 31! – in Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti series is out now, and Give Unto Others sees the gifted Venetian detective finding himself entangled in the murky exploits of an accountant and his family after a favour is called in. He’s forced to bend the rules – but as Brunetti fans know all too well, this is nothing new to our hero. However, as his ‘private’ investigation gathers momentum, the Commissario must explore the duplicitous nature of yet another Italian institution as well as toeing the wobbly line that attempts to differentiate between the worlds of the criminal and the non-criminal.
Order now on Amazon or Bookshop.org