The Lock Up, John Banville ( paperback Jan 2024)
£9.99
1950s Dublin. in a lock-up garage in the city, the body of a young woman is discovered - an apparent suicide.
But pathologist Dr Quirke and Detective Inspector Strafford soon suspect foul play. The victim's sister, a newspaper reporter from London, returns to Dublin to join the two men in their quest to uncover the truth. But, as they explore her links to a wealthy German family in County Wicklow, and to investigative work she may have been doing in Israel, they are confronted with an ever-deepening mystery.
With relations between the two men increasingly strained, and their investigation taking them back to the final days of the Second World War, can they join the pieces of a hidden puzzle?Praise for the Strafford and Quirke series:'Crime writing of the finest quality, elegant, distinctive and utterly absorbing.' Daily Mail.
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Fifty Fifty, Steve Cavanagh ( paperback, Jul 2020)
£9.99
TWO SISTERS ON TRIAL FOR MURDER. THEY ACCUSE EACH OTHER. WHO DO YOU BELIEVE?
'911 what's your emergency?''My dad's dead.
My sister Sofia killed him. She's still in the house. Please send help.''My dad's dead.
My sister Alexandra killed him. She's still in the house. Please send help.'One of them is a liar and a killer.
But which one?
'Very clever, darkly funny, moving, fast-paced.' Jane Casey
Addictive, clever, pacy. Eddie Flynn is one of my heroes.' Jo Spain
Long Bright River by Liz Moore ( paperback 31 Dec 2020)
£8.99
SELECTED BY BARACK OBAMA AS ONE OF HIS BEST BOOKS OF 2020
Once inseparable, sisters Mickey and Kacey are on different paths, but they walk the same streets. Mickey on her police beat and Kacey in the shadows of the city's darkest corners where the drug addicts and sex workers preside.
When a string of murders coincides with Kacey's disappearance, Mickey is terrified her sister could be next. But in a community where death and murder is rife, will Mickey be able to save her sister before it's too late?
A remarkable, profoundly moving novel about the ties that bind and the irrevocable wounds of childhood. It's also a riveting mystery, perfectly paced.
Leave The World Behind, Rumaan Alam (pb, June 1st 2021)
£9.99
Easily the best thing I have read all year' KILEY REID, AUTHOR OF SUCH A FUN AGE'
Intense, incisive, I loved this and have still not quite shaken off the unease' DAVID NICHOLS
A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong. Amanda and Clay head to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a holiday: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they've rented for the week. But with a late-night knock on the door, the spell is broken. Ruth and G.
H., an older couple who claim to own the home, have arrived there in a panic. These strangers say that a sudden power outage has swept the city, and - with nowhere else to turn - they have come to the country in search of shelter. But with the TV and internet down, and no phone service, the facts are unknowable.
Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple - and vice versa? What has happened back in New York? Is the holiday home, isolated from civilisation, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one another?
The System, Ryan Gattis ( paperback,August 2021)
£9.99
Longlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2021
'Excellent, lucid, intelligent and gripping' - Scotsman
December 1993. A drug dealer called Scrappy is shot and left for dead on her mother's lawn in South Central Los Angeles. Two local gang members, Wizard and Dreamer, are arrested.
The problem is: one is guilty, the other wasn't even there. It had to be a frame-up. And the cops had to be responsible, didn't they? Narrated by the characters involved - the suspects, the victim, the families who love them, and those simply doing their jobs - The System tells the story of one crime, from the moments before shots are fired to the verdict and its violent aftershocks.
It's a breakneck journey through the American criminal justice system. A system that can save you, or break you.
