Wow, this one is so good and so relevant. Holly returns home to Liverpool in 1993 after a term at Oxford, where she was raped. She tells only one friend about the rape, and feels a failure “for being unable to communicate something so crucial-the fact she did not want her body to be invaded […]
The Accident On The A35 by Graeme Macrae Burnet
Not sure whether this one can really be classed as a thriller as the investigation, such as it is, into the whereabouts of a car accident victim’s movements in the hours before the fatal crash moves at a glacial pace and involves an awful lot of stopping off for sherry, beer and whiskey on the part […]
Raven Black by Ann Cleeves
Quite a little ripper of a murder mystery, set in the Shetland Islands. The body of a young women is found in the snow, eight years after another young local girl went missing. This time, as before, suspicion falls on local recluse Magnus, who seems to know more than he’s telling. Cleeves cleverly constructs the […]
He Said She Said by Erin Kelly
There’s so much contained within this beautifully written, slow burning thriller it’s hard to know where to begin. A young woman, Laura, and her partner stumble across a woman being raped at an eclipse festival. They testify as witnesses for the prosecution in the subsequent trial. Sixteen years later Laura and her partner are in hiding – not […]
Fearless by Fiona Higgins
Coulda woulda shoulda been good, but somehow isn’t quite. Five strangers meet on a retreat in Bali with an incredibly irritating spiritual leader, attempting to overcome their respective phobias. A terrorist incident intervenes but somehow it, and the characters, never feel quite real.
Tattletale by Sarah J Naughton
After a difficult childhood, Mags has reinvented herself as a ballsy Las Vegas lawyer. The death of her brother Abe draws her back home into a world of poverty, ugliness and inclement weather in the UK. Abe is comatose after falling over a fourth floor bannister. His fiancé Jody insists he must have jumped but […]
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
When Follett is good (as in this and The Pillars of The Earth) he’s very, very good. In this novel, the first in the Century trilogy, he moves the lives of five families around the chessboard of the First World War with a masterly touch. You don’t even realise how much history you absorb as […]
Crimson Lake by Candice Fox
I’d always avoided Fox’s novels due to their awful covers and her stripper-like name, which I assumed was a unfortunate choice of pseudonym. How wrong I was. Candice Fox is the real name of a spectacularly good writer who deserves far better covers. The protagonist in this one is a likeable cop whose life has been utterly […]