The Ruin, by Dervla McTiernan, paperback
£8.99
Shortlisted for the Guardian ‘Not the Booker’ Prize.
Twenty years ago, Garda Cormac Reilly worked on a case involving a dead mother and two neglected children. As he changes jobs and returns to Galway, the two seem to return to haunt him. What ties a recent suicide to the event of two decades ago?
Wonderful characters and a sublime twisty plot.
an exciting new voice in Irish noir ..Sunday Times
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Sixteen Horses, Greg Buchanan (hardback, April 2021)
£16.99
FEATURED ON BBC TWO'S BETWEEN THE COVERS Summer Reading Recommendations
Near the dying English seaside town of Ilmarsh, local police detective Alec Nichols discovers sixteen horses' heads on a farm, each buried with a single eye facing the low winter sun. After forensic veterinarian Cooper Allen travels to the scene, the investigators soon uncover evidence of a chain of crimes in the community - disappearances, arson and mutilations - all culminating in the reveal of something deadly lurking in the ground itself.
In the dark days that follow, the town slips into panic and paranoia. Everything is not as it seems. Anyone could be a suspect.
And as Cooper finds herself unable to leave town, Alec is stalked by an unseen threat. The two investigators race to uncover the truth behind these frightening and insidious mysteries - no matter the cost. Sixteen Horses is the debut literary thriller from an extraordinary talent, Greg Buchanan.
Crow Court, Andy Charman (hardback Jan 2021)
£16.99
LONGLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2021 - a prize awarded to best debut novel.
As gripping as Hilary Mantel and as convincing as Sarah Perry ... debut novels shouldn't be this perfectly formed' Ben Myers'
Spring, 1840. In the Dorset market town of Wimborne Minster, a young choirboy drowns himself. Soon after, the choirmaster-a belligerent man with a vicious reputation-is found murdered, in a discovery tainted as much by relief as it is by suspicion.
The gaze of the magistrates falls on four local men, whose decisions will reverberate through the community for years to come. So begins the chronicle of Crow Court, unravelling over fourteen delicately interwoven episodes, the town of Wimborne their backdrop: a young gentleman and his groom run off to join the army; a sleepwalking cordwainer wakes on his wife's grave; desperate farmhands emigrate. We meet the composer with writer's block; the smuggler; a troupe of actors down from London; and old Art Pugh, whose impoverished life has made him hard to amuse.
Meanwhile, justice waits...
Case Study, Graeme Macrae Burnett ( hardback, October 2021)
£14.99
"I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger." London, 1965. An unworldly young woman believes that a charismatic psychotherapist, Collins Braithwaite, has driven her sister to suicide. Intent on confirming her suspicions, she assumes a false identity and presents herself to him as a client, recording her experiences in a series of notebooks.But she soon finds herself drawn into a world in which she can no longer be certain of anything. Even her own character. In Case Study, Graeme Macrae Burnet presents these notebooks interspersed with his own biographical research into Collins Braithwaite.
The result is a dazzling - and often wickedly humorous - meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself, by one of the most inventive novelists writing today.
April in Spain, John Banville ( hardback October 2021)
£14.99
The sumptuous, propulsive, sun-kissed follow up to the bestselling Snow, from the Booker Prize winning author' He wanted to know who she was, and why he was convinced he had some unremembered connection with her. It was as simple as that. But he knew it wasn't. It wasn't simple at all.'
When Dublin pathologist Quirke glimpses a familiar face while on holiday with his wife, it's hard, at first, to tell whether his imagination is just running away with him. Could she really be who he thinks she is, and have a connection with a crime that nearly brought ruin to an Irish political dynasty? Unable to ignore his instincts, Quirke makes a call back home and Detective St John Strafford is soon dispatched to Spain. But he's not the only one on route: as a terrifying hitman hunts down his prey, they are all set for a brutal showdown.
Praise for Snow: 'Superb ... crime fiction for the connoisseur.' The Times
