SMOKE KINGS by Jahmal Mayfield

SMOKE KINGS Jahmal Mayfield (jahmalmayfield.com) Melville House (mhpbooks.com) £16.99 Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop Following the racially-motivated murder of one of their number, a small group of New Jersey friends decide to take the law into their own hands. But rather than seek revenge on the boys who killed their friend, they […]

THE GOODBYE COAST by Joe Ide

THE GOODBYE COAST Joe Ide (joeide.com) Weidenfeld & Nicolson (weidenfeldandnicolson.co.uk) £14.99 Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop Once a rom-com queen, Kendra James is now a fading Hollywood star. Her husband has been shot dead and her step-daughter has disappeared, so she turns to a private detective to find her. Enter Philip Marlowe […]

An Interview with ANGELA SLATTER

Name: ANGELA SLATTER Author of: VIGIL (2016) On the web: http://www.angelaslatter.com On Twitter: @AngelaSlatter Angela Slatter is an award-winning short story writer with the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award and five Aurealis Awards to her name. Vigil is her first novel, introducing the world to Verity Fassbinder and the weird (and, indeed, Weyrd) […]

VIGIL by Angela Slatter

VIGIL Angela Slatter (www.angelaslatter.com) Jo Fletcher Books (www.jofletcherbooks.com) £14.99 Verity Fassbinder’s background makes her the perfect peacekeeper in the Australian city of Brisbane. The product of a Normal mother and Weyrd father, Verity has access to both worlds despite her lack of Weyrd attributes. When a siren is murdered on the heels of Verity’s discovery […]

THE SEARCHER by Chris Morgan Jones

THE SEARCHER Chris Morgan Jones (www.chrismorganjones.com) Mantle (www.panmacmillan.com) £16.99 Isaac Hammer’s world seems to be falling down around him. The offices of his intelligence agency, Ikertu, have been raided by the police, and Ike himself has been arrested. The charge? Obtaining information by illegal means: hacking and phone tapping. But this isn’t Ike’s style, and […]

A MAN LIES DREAMING by Lavie Tidhar

A MAN LIES DREAMING Lavie Tidhar (lavietidhar.wordpress.com) Hodder & Stoughton (www.hodder.co.uk) £18.99 In another time and place, a man lies dreaming. National Socialism is routed at the 1933 elections by Communism, and its leadership exiled from Germany. Sentenced to a concentration camp, Adolf Hitler escapes and makes his way to London where, under his old […]

THE FIRST STONE by Elliott Hall

THE FIRST STONE Elliott Hall (elliott-hall.co.uk) John Murray (www.johnmurray.co.uk) £7.99 Elliott Hall’s 2009 debut novel, and the first in his Felix Strange trilogy, The First Stone, is the subject of the latest Hodderscape Review Project. Don’t forget to check out the thoughts of my fellow reviewers, to which you’ll find links on the Hodderscape website. […]

THE BLACK-EYED BLONDE by Benjamin Black

THE BLACK-EYED BLONDE Benjamin Black (www.benjaminblackbooks.com) Mantle (www.panmacmillan.com) £16.99 It seems like a straightforward case: Nico Peterson, the boyfriend of Philip Marlowe’s married client, has disappeared. It’s a scenario Marlowe has investigated often and it usually means the boyfriend has wanted to end the affair and decided disappearing might be an easier option than going […]

EAST OF INNOCENCE by David Thorne

EAST OF INNOCENCE David Thorne Corvus (atlantic-books.co.uk) £12.99 It’s an old joke, well-worn. What’s the difference between God and a lawyer? The man sitting across the desk from me, eyes fixed on my face, doesn’t look like he’d appreciate the punch line. Daniel Connell, son of an Essex hard-man, is a big-time lawyer fallen on […]

A TAP ON THE WINDOW by Linwood Barclay

A TAP ON THE WINDOW Linwood Barclay (linwoodbarclay.com) Orion (www.orionbooks.co.uk) £16.99 Heading home from an out-of-town job on a wet and miserable night, Cal Weaver stops at a red light close to Griffon, New York’s local hangout spot. When a teenage girl taps on his window and asks for a lift, Cal knows it’s the […]