The importance of empathy when writing thrillers

 

It’s the 4^th of July today, and of course apart from America’s Independence Day and Election Day in the United Kingdom – it’s also the release day for Peter Swanson’s latest thriller, A TALENT FOR MURDER.

We reviewed it last month, noting that “…….Told in a beguiling style, alternating between third person as well as first person point of views, we get a literary thriller that will make you shiver next time you think about reading a collection of short stories of John Cheever…….Though a warning – this novel is beguiling because under the cheerfully evocative and engaging narrative, lurks a much darker truth about concealed psychopaths and how banal evil can be……”

Read the Full Review HERE

Following our reading of A TALENT FOR MURDER, Peter kindly supplied our readers with a little context on the writing of this engaging [but very dark] narrative >

I write a lot of bad people. I write some good ones, too, and quite a few that fall somewhere in between. What I try to remember with all of these made-up humans is that they have something in common; they are the center of their own story. And they all think they’re the good guy, more or less.

My job, as I see it, is to write these characters as though they are morally equal. That doesn’t mean I don’t somewhat judge them, myself, but I need to let their actions speak louder than my words. Nothing is worse than a writer telling their reader straight out who the good people are and who are the bad. Most readers can figure this out for themselves.

Also, there is not much worse than a one-note villain. That’s why I think empathy is so important to a writer. Whenever I create the antagonist of the story, I remind myself that this particular character was a child once upon a time. That they were more than likely treated poorly by someone along the way. Just as in real life, this is not an excuse for truly heinous actions, but it does help us to understand why they happen. It helps us to feel as though this bad person has complexity.

And that makes for a better book. Once upon a time I wrote a novel called The Kind Worth Killing. There was a murderer in it named Lily Kintner, and somewhere along the way she became the protagonist of the story, and now she’s the protagonist of my latest book, A Talent for Murder. And, yes, she still kills people. But she has her reasons. I suppose all killers do. Anyway, as a writer I just put her on the page and let her do her thing. It’s not for me to judge if she’s a good person or a bad person. That’s up to the reader. 

The importance of empathy when writing thrillers

(c) 2024 Peter Swanson

Shots Magazine would like to pass our thanks to Tara McEvoy and Angus Cargill of Publishers Faber and Faber [London] for their help in getting this essay from Peter Swanson for Shots Readers.

More information about the work of Peter Swanson >

https://commons.trincoll.edu/reporter/features/a-master-of-suspense/

https://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-rules-for-eight-perfect-murders.html

https://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-hotel-that-inspired-kind-worth.html

https://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2020/03/peter-swansons-6th-novel-launched-in.html

https://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-friend-you-havent-met-yet-by-peter.html

https://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-talented-mr-swanson.html

https://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2017/01/inspiration-behind-her-every-fear-for.html

http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/feature_view.aspx?FEATURE_ID=245

And https://www.peter-swanson.com

 

CrimeFest Announce 2023 Award Shortlists

 

CrimeFest, one of Europe’s leading crime writing conventions, has announced the shortlists for its annual awards.

Now in its 16th year, the awards honour the best crime books released in 2022 in the UK.

The awards feature the hotly-contended Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award which offers a £1,000 cash prize.

This year sees former detective turned advisor, Graham Bartlett, on the debut shortlist. Bartlett is known for advising some of the biggest authors in the crime genre, including Peter James, Mark Billingham, and Elly Griffiths, to help inject reality into their plots involving a crime or police officer. Now, Bartlett has put himself on the line with his debut, Bad for Good.

He's not the only former member of the police on the shortlist. John Sutherland served in a variety of ranks for the Met Police before he retired in 2018, and is shortlisted for his debut, The Siege.

They face strong competition from six other shortlisted authors, including Canada’s vice president and editorial director of the publishing house Simon & Schuster, Nita Prose, with her debut The Maid, which was a No.1 New York Times bestseller, a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and has already picked up the Ned Kelly Award for Best International Crime Fiction.

The eDunnit Award for the best e-book, sees giants of the genre in contention, including Ian Rankin for A Heart Full of Headstones, Sara Gran for The Book of the Most Precious Substance, Michael Connelly with Desert Star and Chris Brookmyre for The Cliff House.

The H.R.F Keating Award for best biographical or critical book on crime fiction sees TV’s Queen of History, Lucy Worsley, take on the Queen of Crime with Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman.

A Private Spy, The Letters of John le Carré 1945-2020, edited by Tim Cornwell, is also shortlisted, as is crime fiction expert Barry Forshaw’s Simenon, The Man, The Books, The Films: A 21st Century Guide on the legendary and influential crime writer.

The Last Laugh Award sees Mick Herron’s Bad Actors on the shortlist. The Jackson Lamb series of dysfunctional British intelligence agents has become a major adaptation for Apple TV, starring Oscar-winner Gary Oldman. Herron’s up against Elly Griffiths with The Locked Room, Antti Tuomainen with The Moose Paradox, and the late Christopher Fowler for Bryant and May’s Peculiar London.

Elly Griffiths also features in the Best Crime Novel for Children (aged 8-12) shortlist with A Girl Called Justice: The Spy at the Window. She’s up against the acclaimed Anthony Horowitz for Where Seagulls Dare: A Diamond Brothers Case and M.G. Leonard’s Spark.

Nominees for the Best Crime Novel for Young Adults (aged 12-16) include Holly Jackson with Five Survive, Finn Longman’s The Butterfly Assassin and Sophie McKenzie’s Truth of Dare.

Adrian Muller, Co-host of CrimeFest, said: “The Specsavers Debut Novel Award has become one of the most coveted, and we’d like to thank Specsavers for their on-going support in celebrating new talent. We are also proud to be one of the few genre awards that recognise and celebrate e-books, humour, children, and Young Adult crime fiction novels. Our inclusive awards reflect the values of our convention, and showcase the incredible diversity and reach of the genre which dominates today’s cultural landscape.”

Hosted in Bristol, CrimeFest is one of the biggest crime fiction events in Europe, and one of the most popular dates in the international crime fiction calendar, with circa 60 panel events and 150 authors attending over four days.

Featured Guests at the convention this May are Mark Billingham and Elly Griffiths.

Leading British crime fiction reviewers and reviewers of fiction for children and young adults, alongside the members of the School Library Association (SLA), form the CrimeFest judging panels.

CrimeFest was created following the hugely successful one-off visit to Bristol in 2006 of the American Left Coast Crime convention. It was established in 2008. It follows the egalitarian format of most US conventions, making it open to all commercially published authors and readers alike.

 All category winners will receive a Bristol Blue Glass commemorative award.

The 2023 Shortlists in full

SPECSAVERS DEBUT CRIME NOVEL AWARD

In association with headline sponsor, the Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award is for debut authors first published in the United Kingdom in 2022. The winning author receives a £1,000 prize.

- Amen Alonge for A Good Day to Die (Quercus)

- Graham Bartlett for Bad for Good (Allison & Busby)

- Nita Prose for The Maid (HarperCollins)

- Oriana Rammuno (translator: Katherine Gregor) for Ashes in the Snow (HarperCollins)

- Joachim B. Schmidt (translator: Jamie Lee Searle) for Kalmann (Bitter Lemon)

- Hayley Scrivenor for Dirt Town (Macmillan)

- John Sutherland for The Siege (Orion Fiction)

- Stacy Willingham for A Flicker in the Dark (HarperCollins)

 

eDUNNIT AWARD

The eDunnit Award is for the best crime fiction ebook first published in both hardcopy and in electronic format in the United Kingdom in 2022.

- Chris Brookmyre for The Cliff House (Abacus)

- Michael Connelly for Desert Star (Orion Fiction)

- M.W. Craven for The Botanist (Constable)

- Sara Gran for The Book of the Most Precious Substance (Faber & Faber)

- Ian Rankin for A Heart Full of Headstones (Orion Fiction)

- Peter Swanson for Nine Lives (Faber & Faber)

H.R.F. KEATING AWARD

The H.R.F. Keating Award is for the best biographical or critical book related to crime fiction first published in the United Kingdom in 2022. The award is named after H.R.F. ‘Harry’ Keating, one of Britain’s most esteemed crime novelists, crime reviewers and writer of books about crime fiction.

- J.C. Bernthal & Mary Anna Evans for The Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie (Bloomsbury Academic)

- John le Carré (edited by Tim Cornwell) for A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré 1945-2020 (Viking)

- Martin Edwards for The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and their Creators (Collins Crime Club)

- Barry Forshaw for Simenon: The Man, The Books, The Films (Oldcastle Books)

- Sian MacArthur for Gender Roles and Political Contexts in Cold War Spy Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan)

- Lucy Worsley for Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman (Hodder & Stoughton)

 LAST LAUGH AWARD

The Last Laugh Award is for the best humorous crime novel first published in the United Kingdom in 2022.

- Christopher Fowler for Bryant & May's Peculiar London (Doubleday)

- Elly Griffiths for The Locked Room (Quercus)

- Mick Herron for Bad Actors (Baskerville)

- Cara Hunter for Hope to Die (Viking)

- Mike Ripley for Mr Campion's Mosaic (Severn House)

- Antti Tuomainen for The Moose Paradox (Orenda Books)

BEST CRIME FICTION NOVEL FOR CHILDREN

This award is for the best crime novel for children (aged 8-12) first published in the United Kingdom in 2022.

 - Elly Griffiths for A Girl Called Justice: The Spy at the Window (Quercus Children's Books)

- Anthony Horowitz for Where Seagulls Dare: A Diamond Brothers Case
(Walker Books)

- Sharna Jackson for The Good Turn (Puffin)

- M.G. Leonard for Spark (Walker Books)

- Robin Stevens for The Ministry of Unladylike Activity (Puffin)

- Sarah Todd Taylor for Alice Éclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble (Nosy Crow)

BEST CRIME FICTION NOVEL FOR YOUNG ADULTS

This award is for the best crime novel for young adults (aged 12-16) first published in the United Kingdom in 2022.

- Holly Jackson for Five Survive (Electric Monkey)

- Patrice Lawrence for Needle (Barrington Stoke)

- Finn Longman for The Butterfly Assassin (Simon & Schuster Children's)

- Sophie McKenzie for Truth or Dare (Simon & Schuster Children's)

- Ruta Sepetys for I Must Betray You (Hodder Children's Books)

- Jonathan Stroud for The Notorious Scarlett and Browne (Walker Books)

CrimeFest runs at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel from 11-14 May, 2023. For details and to book, go to: https://www.crimefest.com/

 

 

The Hotel That Inspired the Kind Worth Saving by Peter Swanson

A few years ago, I spent three nights by myself at an old resort hotel in Maine. The reason I was at this hotel (the name of which I’ll leave unsaid) was fairly complicated. The short story version is that I was helping a friend transport his kids to and from a nearby summer camp. The interesting part of the story, at least to me, was that the hotel was once a grand resort getaway, the kind of place where people spent their summers, taking the waters, getting out of the heat of the city. 

The bones of that original hotel were still evident in the wrap-around porch, the enormous dining room, a sloping lawn dotted here and there with cupolas and shuffle board courts, but everything was a little bit run-down and shabby. The families had been replaced by golfers enticed by the cheap drinks from the bar and the buffet dinners, and I’d say the average age of the clientele was around the three-quarters of a century mark.

I enjoyed my time there despite what was a notable hospital smell in the hallways and bedrooms. I discovered a musty library on the third floor filled with donated books from vacations past. I found an adjacent game room with stacked board games, the most recent of which was probably the original Trivial Pursuit from the 1980s. And did I mention the drinks were cheap? This wasn’t that long ago but mixed drinks were at most about four dollars apiece.

Along with the senior set, there were a few miserable teenagers at the hotel, brought along by parents or grandparents, and the expressions on their faces reminded me of pictures I’d seen of prisoners of war. There were so few young people at the hotel that I did wonder if they’d gravitate toward one another in solidarity. This thought led to an idea for a story. I imagined a hotel like this one, and two teenagers, each brought there against their will for an extended stay. These teens would recognize each other as coming from the same town, although they’d never spoken before. The girl would be a star gymnast and popular and the boy would be a strange loner.

In any other circumstance they would never become friends but these two kids, eventually named Joan and Richard, become not just friends but partners in crime. The library from the real hotel made it into my imagined hotel—the Windward Resort in Kennewick, Maine—and my two young people use it to meet in secret, have long conversations, and hatch a plot to remove a common enemy.

There’s a moment after coming up with a new idea when I need to decide what length of story that idea will justify. In other words, am I writing a short story, or a novella, or do I have enough story to write an entire book? At first, I didn’t think that Joan’s and Richard’s secret and murderous friendship was quite enough for a full novel, but then I thought of a way to bring two more characters into the tale. 

These characters were familiar to me, already, because they were from my second novel, The Kind Worth Killing. I’d always wanted to return to my detective character, Henry Kimball, and to the antihero from that book, Lily Kintner. I realized that Joan and Richard would continue their relationship long after leaving the Windward Resort and that there was a way in which both Henry and Lily could become part of their story. And that’s when I realised that I was writing a novel, and not just a novel, but a sort of sequel to The Kind Worth Killing.

So I’d like to thank that old resort hotel in Maine for bringing me both Joan and Richard, and for bringing me back to my old friends Henry Kimball and Lily Kintner. As a writer you never know where you are going to get stories from; it’s both the joy and the haphazardness of the profession. Maybe I’ll go back to that hotel someday, maybe to celebrate the release of The Kind Worth Saving. The rooms might be musty but the drinks are cheap.

The Kind Worth Saving by Peter Swanson is out now (Faber, £14.99)

The ingenious sequel to The Kind Worth Killing finds private detective and former teacher Henry Kimball embroiled in a labyrinthine mystery involving the infidelity of one of his ex-pupils' husbands.Two's company, three's fatal. 'Do you remember me?' She asked, after stepping into my office. When private detective and former teacher Henry Kimball is hired to investigate an ex-pupil's cheating husband, he senses all is not quite what it seems, and before he knows it he's gotten far too close to the other woman. As the case gets ever stranger, he turns to the only person he can trust, Lily Kintner, someone with dark secrets of her own.

More information about Peter Swanson and his work can be found on his website. He cn also be found on Twitter @PeterSwanson3, on Instagram @peterswanson and on Facebook.

 

Criminal Splatterings

The 37th Deutscher Krimipreis (German Crime Prize) has been announced. The national winner was Zoë Beck with Paradise City. The international winner was Denise Mina with her novel Götter Und Tiere (Gods and Animals).  The whole list complete list of winners and second and third places can be found here.

Not sure how I missed this bit of award news regarding the Staunch Prize. The winner of the 2020 prize for fiction is Attica Locke with her novel Heaven, My Home.  Heaven is my Home is the second book in her Highway 59 Series.  More information can be found here.

When thinking of the Ipcress File Sir Michael Caine usually comes to mind as he played the iconic character Harry Palmer.  ITV have commissioned a six-part series of the classic Len Deighton novel.  Joe Cole from Gangs of London and Peaky Blinders, Lucy Boynton from Bohemian Rhapsody and Murder on the Orient Express and Tom Hollander who stared in The Night Manager and Birdbox are all due to take part with Joe Cole playing Harry Palmer. The Ipcress File will be filmed on location in Liverpool and Croatia during 2021.   More information can be found here.

Not strictly speaking crime fiction but great to hear that there will be a third season of His Dark Materials which is based on the novels by Phillip Pullman of the same name.  More information can be found here.

Look out for Traces a suspense filled crime thriller that is based on an original idea by crime writer Val McDermid.  Traces is set in the world of forensic science in Dundee, Scotland.  The first episode of the six-part series is due to be shown on Monday 4 January at 9:00pm on BBC 1.  More information can be found here.

True crime enthusiasts will welcome the new 15-part series programme Moment of Proof that is due to start on BBC 1 on Monday 4 January 2021 at 11:45am.  The series will be told through interviews, reconstructions and evidence from the cases, the officers behind major historic criminal inquiries give us access to the crimes they solved through the leads they followed.  More information can be found here.

Over on BBC Radio 3 look out for Peking Noir (drama on 3) where historian Paul French presents a true crime docudrama about the secrets of a Russian refugee, Shura, who ran the 1930’s Peking underworld.  More information can be found here.  The transmission date and time to be confirmed.

Radio 4 Extra are due to transmit A Fatal Inversion by Ruth Rendell.  It is a tale of murder set in the hot summer of 19576.  More information can be found here.  It is due to be transmitted on Saturday 9 January 2021 at 06:00am.

To celebrate the 100th birthday of Patricia Highsmith BBC Radio 4 Extra will be transmitting The Cry of The Owl on Tuesday 19 January at 06:30am.  The first of a four-part episode.  More information can be found here.

From Walter Presents comes a stylish Norwegian thriller that follows a police case spinning out of control. Monsters a seven-part series due to be shown on Channel 4 from 1 January. More information can be found here.

100 years of Agatha Christie – An interesting article by freelance journalist Nandhu Sundaram about the work of Agatha Christie and their timeless appeal.  The article can be read here.

If you missed it, there is a brilliant article in the Guardian on Will Dean and writing his new book Last Thing to Burn.  It can be read here.

Peter Swanson has also written an article in the Guardian about his top ten Christmas stories.  The article can be read here.

In the “i” there is an interview with Tana French who talks about the characters in her work.  The interview can be read here.

Also in the “i” an article about Becky Cooper’s debut novel We Keep The Dead Close, which is based on the mysterious death of a Harvard graduate student.  The article can be read here.

 Over on Dead Good Books they have not only listed debut novels to look out for in 2021 that can be found here but also 20 crime TV shows not to be missed in 2021 that can be found here. Amongst the TV crime shows that will be coming to the small screen are Grace which are based on the Roy Grace novels by Peter James, series 11 of Vera, Sweetpea based on the novel by C J Skuse and Val McDermid’s Karen Pirie series!

For those of you that like your history of crime fiction will be pleased to know that Netflix will be showing Lupin which is inspired by the adventures of Arsène Lupin the French gentleman thief.  The information can be found here.  It starts on 8 January and the trailer can be seen below.

Books to Look Forward to From Faber and Faber

 January 2021

Once You Go This Far is by Kristen Lepionka. After the death of her cop father, PI Roxane Weary did everything she could to lose herself in her work - but she's getting tired of the hangovers, of fighting with her ex-girlfriend, and of avoiding her mother. When she's asked to investigate a suspicious death, she delves into the case with her usual stubborn determination. Pulling her far from home, and into an insular and controlling evangelical community, the case might just be bigger than Roxane can handle alone. But is it too late, or too dangerous, to call on the people she needs?

March 2021

After a whirlwind, fairytale romance, Abigail Baskin marries freshly-minted Silicon Valley millionaire Bruce Lamb. For their honeymoon, he whisks her away to an exclusive retreat at a friend's resort off the Maine coast on Heart Pond Island. But once there, Abigail's perfect new life threatens to crash down around her as she recognises one of their fellow guests as the good looking, charismatic stranger who weeks earlier had seduced her at her own Bachelorette party... Every Vow You Break is by Peter Swanson.

April 2021

My Life as a Villianess (Essays) is by Laura Lippman. I knew something new about venality - my own. I realized I had become the bad guy in someone else's story. And I deserved it. Laura Lippman's first job in journalism was a rookie reporter in Waco, Texas. Two decades later she left her first husband, quit the newspaper business, and became a full time novelist. I had been creating villains on the page for about seven years when I finally became one. Her fiction has always centered on complicated women, paying unique attention to the intricacies of their flaws, their vulnerability, and their empowerment. Now, finally, Lippman has turned her gimlet eye on a new subject: herself. My daughter was ten days old the first time I was asked if I were her grandmother. In this, her first collection of essays, Lippman gives us a brilliant, candid portrait of an unapologetically flawed life. Childhood, friendships, influences, becoming a mother in later life - Lippman's inspiring life stories are at once specific and universal.

May 2021

Love and Theft is by Stan Parish. When Alex Cassidy and Diane Alison meet by chance at a party in Princeton, New Jersey, there are instant sparks. Both are single parents living in wealthy suburbia, independent, highly competent and seemingly settled in their lives. She runs a successful catering business. He's part of a crew that robs banks, casinos and jewellery stores around the world. Neither realises initially that their lives have overlapped before, or that their shared history and burgeoning relationship will come to threaten everything they love. As Alex prepares for one final, daunting job, he discovers that he's not the only one with secrets - and that both of them are playing for the highest stakes imaginable.

June 2021

The Occupation had a hangover, but still the Occupation went to work. Tokyo, July 1949, President Shimoyama, Head of the National Railways of Japan, goes missing just a day after serving notice of 30,000 job losses. In the midst of the US Occupation, against the backdrop of widespread social, political and economic reforms - as tensions and confusion reign - American Detective Harry Sweeney leads the missing person's investigation for General MacArthur's GHQ. Some men go mad, some men go missing . Fifteen years later and Tokyo is booming. As the city prepares for the 1964 Olympics and the global spotlight, Hideki Murota, a former policeman during the Occupation period, and now a private investigator, is given a case which forces him to go back to confront a time, a place and a crime he's been hiding from for the past fifteen years. Some men do both . Over twenty years later, in the autumn and winter of 1988, as the Emperor Showa is dying, Donald Reichenbach, an aging American, eking out a living teaching and translating, sits drinking by the Shinobazu Pond in Ueno, knowing the final reckoning of the greatest mystery of the Showa Era is down to him. Tokyo Redux is by David Peace.

My favourite fiction reads in 2020

My favourite reads this year have been quite eclectic and they have also included a number of non-fiction titles as well. It has of course been extremly hard to draw up a shortlist of books and I could have easily made this list longer. I have therefore decided to split (for the first time) my list into fiction and non-fiction. I am also putting them in alphabetical order purely because it makes my life easier!

Up first are my favourite fiction reads in alphabetical order  - 

The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly (Orion Publishing) Defense attorney Mickey Haller is pulled over by police, who find the body of a client in the trunk of his Lincoln. Haller is charged with murder and can’t make the exorbitant $5 million bail slapped on him by a vindictive judge. Mickey elects to defend himself and must strategize and build his defense from his jail cell in the Twin Towers Correctional Center in downtown Los Angeles, all the while looking over his shoulder–as an officer of the court he is an instant target. Mickey knows he’s been framed. Now, with the help of his trusted team, including Harry Bosch, he has to figure out who has plotted to destroy his life and why. Then he has to go before a judge and jury and prove his innocence.

Dirty South by John Connolly (Hodder & Stoughton) It is 1997, and someone is slaughtering young black women in Burdon County, Arkansas. But no one wants to admit it, not in the Dirty South. In an Arkansas jail cell sits a former NYPD detective, stricken by grief. He is mourning the death of his wife and child, and searching in vain for their killer. He cares only for his own lost family. But that is about to change . . . Witness the becoming of Charlie Parker.    

Blacktop Wasteland by S A Cosby (Headline) It's a crime that history repeats itself. Beauregard "Bug" Montage: honest mechanic, loving husband, devoted parent. He's no longer the criminal he once was - the sharpest wheelman on the east coast, infamous from the hills of North Carolina to the beaches of Florida. But when his respectable life begins to crumble, a shady associate comes calling with a clean, one-time job: a diamond heist promising a get-rich payout. Inexorably drawn to the driver's seat - and haunted by the ghost of his outlaw father - Bug is yanked back into a savage world of bullets and betrayal, which soon endangers all he holds dear.

Like Flies From Afar by K Ferrari (Cannongate). Luis Machi has had enemies for a long time: after all, he's built his success on dirty deals - not to mention his cooperation with the military junta's coup years ago, or his love life, a web of infidelities. What's new is the corpse in the boot of his car. A body with its face blown off, detained by a pair of furry pink handcuffs that Machi knows well . . .Someone is trying to set him up, but the number of suspects is incalculable. Machi is stuck dredging his guilty past for clues and trying to dispose of the mystery corpse. But time is just another enemy and it's running out fast.

Into the Fire by Gregg Hurwitz. Evan Smoak lives by his own code. As a boy he was taken from a foster home to be raised and trained as an off-the-books government assassin codenamed Orphan X. Then he broke free to live in the shadows as the Nowhere Man, using his unique skills to help those in desperate need. But all good things must come to an end. He'll take on one last mission then go out on a high note. Clean, neat and tidy, just the way he likes it. And then he meets Max Merriweather. Max Merriweather hasn't got much left to lose. Bad luck and trouble have seen off his marriage, his home and his career. On the face of it he's the last guy you'd expect to be trusted with a deadly secret. Which is exactly why his cousin gave him an envelope with the instruction: 'If anything ever happens to me, call the number inside.' Now his cousin is dead and Max's own chances of survival look bleak. On the run and stalked by death, he meets the one man who might save him: Evan Smoak. With Max now under his protection, Evan realizes that the forces against them pose as daunting a threat as he has ever faced. He'll be lucky just to get through it alive . . .

The Less Dead by Denise Mina (Vintage) When Margo goes in search of her birth mother for the first time, she meets her aunt, Nikki, instead. Margo learns that her mother, Susan, was a sex worker murdered soon after Margo's adoption. To this day, Susan's killer has never been found. Nikki asks Margo for help. She has received threatening and haunting letters from the murderer, for decades. She is determined to find him, but she can't do it alone...

The Lost and the Damned by Oliver Norek (Quercus Publishing) A corpse that wakes up on the mortuary slab. A case of spontaneous human combustion. There is little by the way of violent crime and petty theft that Capitaine Victor Coste has not encountered in his fifteen years on the St Denis patch - but nothing like this. Though each crime has a logical explanation, something unusual is afoot all the same, and Coste is about to be dragged out of his comfort zone. Anonymous letters addressed to him personally have begun to arrive, highlighting the fates of two women, invisible victims whose deaths were never explained. Just two more blurred faces among the ranks of the lost and the damned.

Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi (Penguin Books) All murder mysteries follow a simple set of rules. Grant McAllister, an author of crime fiction and professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked them all out. But that was thirty years ago. Now he's living a life of seclusion on a quiet Mediterranean island - until Julia Hart, a sharp, ambitious editor, knocks on his door. His early work is being republished and together the two of them must revisit those old stories. An author, hiding from his past, and an editor, probing inside it. But as she reads the stories, Julia is unsettled to realise that there are parts that don't make sense. Intricate clues that seem to reference a real murder. One that's remained unsolved for thirty years . . . If Julia wants answers, she must triumph in a battle of wits with a dangerously clever adversary. But she must tread carefully: she knows there's a mystery, but she doesn't yet realise there's already been a murder . . . 

These Women by Ivy Pochoda (Faber and Faber) In West Adams, a rapidly changing part of South Los Angeles, they're referred to as "these women." These women on the corner ...These women in the club ... These women who won't stop asking questions ... These women who got what they deserved ... They're connected by one man and his deadly obsession, though not all of them know that yet. There's Dorian, still adrift after her daughter's murder remains unsolved; Julianna, a young dancer nicknamed Jujubee, who lives hard and fast, resisting anyone trying to slow her down; Essie, a brilliant vice cop who sees a crime pattern emerging where no one else does; Marella, a daring performance artist whose work has long pushed boundaries but now puts her in peril; and Anneke, a quiet woman who has turned a willfully blind eye to those around her for far too long. The careful existence they have built for themselves starts to crumble when two murders rock their neighbourhood.

Rules For Perfect Murder is by Peter Swanson (Faber & Faber). If you want to get away with murder, play by the rules. A series of unsolved murders with one thing in common: each of the deaths bears an eerie resemblance to the crimes depicted in classic mystery novels. The deaths lead FBI Agent Gwen Mulvey to mystery bookshop Old Devils. Owner Malcolm Kershaw had once posted online an article titled 'My Eight Favourite Murders,' and there seems to be a deadly link between the deaths and his list - which includes Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders, Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train and Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Can the killer be stopped before all eight of these perfect murders have been re-enacted?

City of Spies by Mara Timon (Bonnier Zaffre). LISBON, 1943: When her cover is blown, SOE agent Elisabeth de Mornay flees Paris. Pursued by the Gestapo, she makes her way to neutral Lisbon, where Europe's elite rub shoulders with diplomats, businessmen, smugglers, and spies. There she receives new orders - and a new identity. Posing as wealthy French widow Solange Verin, Elisabeth must infiltrate a German espionage ring targeting Allied ships, before more British servicemen are killed. The closer Elisabeth comes to discovering the truth, the greater the risk grows. With a German officer watching her every step, it will take all of Elisabeth's resourcefulness and determination to complete her mission. But in a city where no one is who they claim to be, who can she trust?

The Devil and the Dark Water is by Stuart Turton (Bloomsbury Publishing) A murder on the high seas. A detective duo. A demon who may or may not exist. It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent. But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. A twice-dead leper stalks the decks. Strange symbols appear on the sails. Livestock is slaughtered. And then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel. Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes? With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent can solve a mystery that connects every passenger onboard. A mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board. 

Honourable mentions also go to -

Box 88 by Charles Cumming (Harper Collins), 

Midnight Atlanta by Thomas Mullen (Little Brown) 

A Song for The Dark Times by Ian Rankin (Orion), 

The Last Protector by Andrew Taylor (HarperCollins), 

The Silver Collar by Antonia Hodgson (Hodder & Stoughton) and 

Angel's Inferno by William Hjortsberg (No Exit Press)

A Private Cathedral by James Lee Burke (Orion)

My favourite non-fiction reads will be posted separately.