RELENTLESS MELT by Jeremy P. Bushnell

RELENTLESS MELT Jeremy P. Bushnell (jeremypbushnell.com) Melville House Books (mhpbooks.com) £16.99 Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop Artie Quick is a 17-year-old Bostonian who wants to know everything there is to know about crime. By day, Artie is a shopgirl in Filene’s department store; by night, she dresses in men’s clothes so she […]

THE POLITICIAN by Tim Sullivan

THE POLITICIAN Tim Sullivan (timsullivan.co.uk) Head of Zeus (headofzeus.com) £20.00 Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop When Peggy Frampton is found, murdered, in the bedroom of her Bristol home it seems, at first glance, to be a robbery gone wrong. But something doesn’t ring true for Detective Sergeant George Cross, who is convinced […]

THE LONG WEEKEND by Gilly Macmillan

THE LONG WEEKEND Gilly Macmillan (www.gillymacmillan.com) Century (penguin.co.uk/…/century.html) £12.99 They have been friends since childhood and every year they take a long weekend break to unwind and enjoy each others’ company. This year is the first since the death of Rob, so four couples have become three. As the women head to Dark Fell Barn, […]

GUEST POST: So it’s a Historical Book by JOHN STEELE

RAT ISLAND John Steele Silvertail Books (silvertailbooks.com) £12.99 ‘So it’s a historical book.’ The NYPD sergeant stood in the Fifth Precinct, in Elizabeth Street in the heart of New York City’s Chinatown. He had delivered a statement of fact with all the blunt authority you’d expect from a New York cop. I blanched for a […]

An Extract from THE DYING SQUAD by Adam Simcox

THE DYING SQUAD Adam Simcox Gollancz (gollancz.co.uk) £16.99 Winter hated Lincolnshire. It sprinkled frost on its fields, squatted on the remains of its abandoned crops and draped everything in a sea of compacted fog, almost as if it were embarrassed by the place. The flatness of its Arctic landscape had always made Joe think of […]

RAZORBLADE TEARS by S. A. Cosby

RAZORBLADE TEARS S. A. Cosby Headline (headline.co.uk) £18.99 Isaac “Ike” Randolph is in mourning following the violent death of his son, Isiah. Ike has much to mourn, given the strained nature of their relationship, caused by Ike’s inability to accept that his son was gay. Now, having been gunned down with his husband, it’s too […]

THE KILLING CHOICE by Will Shindler

THE KILLING CHOICE Will Shindler Hodder & Stoughton (www.hodder.co.uk) £16.99 A man walks with his adult daughter through a quiet park in East London. Confronted by a man in a strange mask and carrying a knife, he is offered a choice: walk away and allow his daughter to be raped, or stay and die. This […]

An Excerpt from BORN SLIPPY by Tom Lutz

BORN SLIPPY Tom Lutz (www.tomlutzwriter.com) Repeater Books (repeaterbooks.com) £10.99 He left the bank and got in a cab. The cabbie turned and looked at him, waiting for an address. Frank pointed to the Bank of China bankbook; the driver looked confused, but then nodded and took him to a branch. Frank went in, waited briefly […]

An Extract From PROXIMITY by Jem Tugwell

PROXIMITY Jem Tugwell (www.jemtugwell.com) Serpentine Books (www.serpentinebooks.com) £8.99 1 Thief For the first time in ten years, the real me walked free. I savoured every beat of excitement that pulsed through me. All those failures, but now it was working. I let the corners of my mouth drag up an unfamiliar smile. They couldn’t […]

EXTRACT: THE DARKNESS THAT DIVIDES US by Renate Dorrestein

THE DARKNESS THAT DIVIDES US Renate Dorrestein (renatedorrestein.nl) Translated by Hester Velmans (hestervelmans.com) World Editions (www.worldeditions.org) £11.99 As part of the Dutch Book Week celebrations, I’m very pleased to present an extract from Renate Dorrestein’s The Darkness that Divides Us. Follow the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #BoekenweekUk. We must at some point have […]