‘It took Patrick Hawthorne a long time to get rid of the metallic taste after the motorway pile-up that killed his wife and twenty-seven other people.’ As opening sentences go, this one certainly packs a punch.* Welcome to Gothard’s fourth book, ‘The Quietist’, a thoughtful study of grief, loss and the complexity of human feelings. […]
‘Historians estimate that at least eighty per cent of Italian Jews survived the war.’ Kat Devereaux’s author’s note explains that this fact was due, in large part, to the persistence and determination of the individuals and groups who committed to rescue Jews trapped in Italy when the Nazis occupied and patrolled it. This hidden history […]
We all knew that the Harrogate Killer must still be alive. After all, their death was only confirmed by forensic testing, (AKA ‘expensive but cheatable laboratory tests completed by someone who could potentially – and in the horror fiction world, easily – be bribed or misled’,) not by anyone actually eyeballing their blood soaked corpse. […]
Be careful what you wish for… Sea, sand and a film set. Actress Ellie Miller can’t wait to fly to Dubai to record her first movie scenes, especially as she’ll be working with actual stars, but when there’s a death among the crew, Ellie’s dream starts to transform into a nightmare… What’s it about? Ellie […]
Eurovision fans, here’s a treat for you. In ‘No Dream Impossible’, Nigel May treats readers to a comedy murder mystery, set during the “Eurowide” song contest. What’s it about? Willkommen, bienvenue and welcome! It’s time for the newly launched musical celebration that is the Eurowide Song Contest, debuting in the unglamorous city of Ermpit in […]
‘You accused Mia of being a witch and bewitching your father. Do you remember that? When a young woman is found murdered at the foot of Pendle Hill, the obvious suspect is Will Perkins, a local schizophrenic who recently denounced Mia as a witch and sought her arrest. When DCI Liam Doyle and his team […]
‘A shadow moved between her and the sun, and a pang of relief went through her. Help was on the way.’ Murder can be brutal. It can be banal. But in DCI Geldard’s Norfolk, a ten year old murder is top of Greg’s priority list, until a rash of unsolved disappearances becomes something more sinister. […]
Would you know if you had married a serial killer? Of course you would, you think, by which you mean you would never have married him. But before you scoff too vigorously, you should know that Sonia Sutcliffe had no idea. One day, when her husband returns from a weekend away, Martha watches him put […]
‘Jack Palmer had seen the movies: when aliens invade, humans will come together to save the world.’ Unfortunately for Jack, when a superior alien race decide to invade earth, it seems the films are wrong: cowed by their brutally dispassionate taskmasters, whose punishment for every infarction, however minor, is instant death, most humans rapidly learn […]
‘My hands were those of a ghost. They were not my own.’ We often talk about how important it is to (metaphorically) walk in someone else’s shoes, but what happens to your sense of self when you can’t walk in your own? This is journalist Nathan Dunne’s account of his experiences with depersonalisation, a form […]