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Crime novels to savour
Crime is on the rise, if not in official crime statistics, but in the podcasts we listen to, the shows we binge and books we read. Brits simply can’t get enough of a good old murder story. Arguably, we are entering a golden age of mystery writing, demonstrated by the depth and breadth on display in the Nibbies’ Crime & Thriller shortlist. There is the welcome return
of the godfather of Scottish noir Ian Rankin, whose In a House of Lies brings the ageing and now sober (!) hero, John Rebus, out of retirement to solve a long-dormant cold case. There is a Scottish theme in Scandi-crime kingpin Jo Nesbo’s latest, an update of Macbeth. One of Shakespeare’s goriest plays is in good hands, with the action moving to a country that is a mix between Fife and Scandinavia in the 1970s. Sarah Pekkanen and Greer Hendricks’
entry has an interesting back-story. Hendricks was the editor of nine of New York native Pekkanen’s books, but in 2014, Hendricks decided to chuck her day job and write full-time. As the two had long enjoyed their working relationships they decided to join forces—the result was the hugely popular The Wife Between Us, a twisty psychological thriller on the complexi- ties of marriage, relationships between women, and “the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love”. Louise Candlish (see pages 10–11), author of 11 previous novels, also changed her publishing tack with her award-winning Our House. The final two books are the young guns.
Cara Hunter impressed with her first book, Close to Home, a mazily plotted, impossible to put down tale of a girl gone missing. A J Finn’s The Woman in the Window is one of the best-selling début crime novels in years, capti- vating readers with a tale of sudden violence shattering a family.
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