BOOKS


Category Spotlight Crime & thriller


Category Spotlight


Crime & thriller I


A preview of new titles published between August 2023–July 2024


Babies, reunions and cosiness: the next year has some unusual crime and thriller combinations in store for readers as the genre proves popular as ever


ver


t’s been a journey geting through the vast number of submissions for this Crime & Thriller Spotlight, but wonder-


Alison Flood Book previewer


ful to see the fiction genre I love best in such glowing health. There are some huge titles coming up, from Robert Galbraith to Patricia Cornwell. We’re publishing to coincide with the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, (20th to 23rd July)—another sign of the market’s strength. Headlined by Vaseem Khan, whose latest Malabar House novel is out in August, the line-up is packed with huge names, from Val McDermid (watch out for the new Karen Pirie in October) to Lee Child (a new Reacher is also out in October).


Looking at crime & thriller across this period has been educational: thanks to Richard Osman and Lucy Foley, publishers clearly think we can’t get enough of a locked-room mystery or a slice of cosy crime, and there is a slew of novels in which friends who haven’t seen each other for years get together, only for one of them to vanish (I’ve categorised these as Friends Reunited, because I’m old). I’d also note how many books feature scary stuff going on with a baby. Historical adventure is lack- ing, however, and I would have loved to see more high-concept crime on the horizon. But all in all, there’s a feast of murder and mystery coming our way. Aren’t we lucky?


High concept


Stuart Turton The Last Murder at


the End of the World Raven Books, 28th March 24, £18.99, hb, 9781526634955


Turton, author of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, is so, so good. This new high-concept thriller is set on a Greek island surrounded by a poisonous fog that has wiped out the rest of the world, where a group of villagers have to solve a crime none of them can remember. If they don’t solve it, the fog will smother the island and kill everyone on it. A “huge” campaign is planned, says Bloomsbury.


30 21st July 2023


Thriller Abigail Dean


Day One HarperCollins, 28th March 24, £16.99, hb, 9780008389260


A lone gunman attacks a primary school in the Lake District. The daughter of the teacher who died trying to protect her pupils is at the heart of the tragedy, and as conspiracy theories spiral, her life becomes entwined with the life of an outsider who wants to expose the “sham” of the killings. Dean’s début Girl A was excellent, and a huge bestseller, backed by a fantastic campaign from HarperCollins: I can’t wait to see how this one does.


Christmas


Janice Hallett The Christmas Appeal Viper, 26th October, £10.99, hb, 9781800817357


What a delightful festive treat! The cast of Hallett’s brilliant and bestselling début, The Appeal, are back for a Christmas mystery. A body is found during the Fairway Players’ produc- tion of “Jack and the Beanstalk”, and lawyers Femi and Charlotte are again exa- mining emails and read- ing police transcripts. Lovely snowy take on The Appeal’s cover—this is bound to be big. Hallett won the Crime and Thriller Nibbie this year for her second novel, The Twyford Code.


Series


Doug Johnstone The Opposite


of Lonely Orenda Books, 28th September, £9.99, tpb, 9781914585807


I really enjoyed A Dark Matter, about the Skelfs, who run a strange combination of funeral director and private investigation busi- nesses. So did others—it was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year. In this fourth in the series, Dorothy looks into a suspicious fire at a travellers’ site, Jenny searches for her missing sister-in-law, and Hannah is asked to investigate conspiracy theorists.


Series Femi Kayode


Gaslight Raven Books, 9th November, £16.99, hb, 9781526617637


I loved Kayode’s first Philip Taiwo novel, Lightseekers, and it was picked as a book of the month by the Times, Sunday Times, Independent, Guardian, Observer, Financial Times and Irish Times. In this second, the investigative psycholo- gist is asked to clear the name of a bishop accused of murdering his wife—the “First Lady” of a Nigerian mega-church. Taiwo is a really interesting and original protagonist.


Legal


Alexandra Wilson The Witness Sphere, 25th April 24, £16.99, hb, 9780751583403


This is the first venture into novel writing by Wilson, author of In Black and White, about her experiences as a young mixed-race barrister in the British legal system, and I am really looking forward to it. A legal thriller—obvi- ously—it sees up-and- coming barrister Rosa on the case of a young Black man arrested for murder. Although the case against him is strong, he is a friend of Rosa’s younger brother and she knows he couldn’t have done it, so she begins investigating.


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