Blood Wedding by Pierre Lemaitre
Translated by Frank Wynne Reviewed by Annabel In the UK, Lemaitre has been best-known for his ‘Brigade Criminelle’ trilogy of novels featuring the detective Camille Verhoeven. Irène, Alex, Camille: read them…
Translated by Frank Wynne Reviewed by Annabel In the UK, Lemaitre has been best-known for his ‘Brigade Criminelle’ trilogy of novels featuring the detective Camille Verhoeven. Irène, Alex, Camille: read them…
Reviewed by Victoria Louise Doughty is probably best known for her novel, Apple Tree Yard, which was a huge hit back in 2013. It told the story of a scientist brought…
Reviewed by Simon The title of Jenn Ashworth’s fourth novel could mean any number of things – or, indeed, all of them. The first two that come to mind, as…
Reviewed by Annabel It’s been some years since I read an Alan Furst novel, although I own up to having a shelf-full of them. He’s prolific – A Hero in France is…
Translated by Dora O’Brien Reviewed by Karen Langley Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky is best known in the west for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Demons/Devils/The Possessed and…
Reviewed by Harriet ‘You have to be like Switzerland,’ Gustav’s mother tells him. ‘You have to hold yourself together and be courageous, stay separate and strong.’ The Gustav Sonata is Rose…
Reviewed by Annabel In Nina (of Love, Nina) Stibbe’s first semi-autobiographical novel Man at the Helm (reviewed here) we were introduced to the Vogel family. In it, the three Vogel children who were not…
Paperback review by Anna Hollingsworth The door pulls my palm up against it. It’s warm…And as it swings inwards, the hinges shriek like brakes… … and we’re looking into a…
Reviewed by Harriet Last year I read and loved Cecila Ekbäck’s debut novel, Wolf Winter – you can see my review here and my interview with Cecilia here. So I was thrilled to…
Reviewed by Alice Farrant A relationship with death, or the prospect of it, is like being a member of a horrible club because to know death is to know something…
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long In 1932 Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers collaborated with other writers, including G K Chesterton and Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Edgar Jepson, Clemence Dane…
Reviewed by Isobel Blackthorn A work of contemporary fiction, Chains of Sand by Jemma Wayne is a timely and important portrayal of a realm of Middle Eastern conflict made familiar to most…
Reviewed by Gill Davies This is a gripping read – one of those suspense novels that you don’t want to put aside to do other things. And it’s gripping not…
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long We have had a few weeks of scorching weather as I write this, though it is now raining, and, of course, as it is summer we…
Reviewed by Harriet This is the third of Eric Ambler’s newly reissued novels I have read in the past few months, the other two being The Light of Day and A Kind of…
Reviewed by Harriet Liana was not simply an ex-girlfriend who had once upon a time broken George’s heart; she was also, as far as George still knew, a wanted criminal….
Reviewed by Harriet World is crazier and more of it than we think / Incorrigibly plural. The epigraph to this novel is by Louis MacNeice, from his poem Snow, and beautifully…
Reviewed by Gill Davies Jill Dawson is a poet and novelist who has made her reputation with carefully researched and vividly recreated historical fiction based on real people and…
Reviewed by Victoria I do love a good cozy crime mystery and so I had high hopes for the new series by Kate Saunders, concerning her Victorian lady detective, Laetitia…
Reviewed by Adèle Geras Full disclosure: there’s a quotation from me on the back of Rosy Thornton’s new book and I make no excuses for reviewing the latest offering from…
Translated by Antony Shugaar Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is ‘an Alligator mystery’, latest in a series featuring an independent and unlicensed private investigator, Marco Buratti, tough but not personally violent,…
Translated by Paul Norlén Reviewed by Annabel We don’t feature many children’s books here at Shiny, but occasionally new editions of much-loved childhood favourites or rediscovered classics will emerge. As…
Reviewed by Victoria This is the story of a regeneration, though one of the strangest and yet most serene that I have ever read. Samuel Browne is a grieving man;…
Translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite Basma Abdel Aziz is a writer, artist and psychiatrist from Egypt, noted as a critic of government oppression. The Queue is her…