The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
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…
The Sinking Admiral by Members of the Detection Club, ed. Simon Brett
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…
Chains of Sand by Jemma Wayne
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…
Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
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…
How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
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…
Passage of Arms by Eric Ambler
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…
The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson
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….
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell
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…
The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson
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…
The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders
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…
Sandlands by Rosy Thornton
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…
For All the Gold in the World by Massimo Carlotto
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,…
The Wonderful Adventure of Nils Holgersson by Selma Lagerlöf
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…
The Sacred Combe by Thomas Maloney
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;…
The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz
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…
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Reviewed by Helen Parry It’s seldom that I buy new books, being a skinflint with a very large existent TBR, and even rarer for me to fork out for a…
To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
Reviewed by Annabel Eowyn Ivey’s debut novel, The Snow Child, was my favourite book of 2012; I awaited her second with great anticipation. To the Bright Edge of the World is…
Marie by Madeleine Bourdouxhe
Translated by Faith Evans Reviewed by Rachel Fenn Belgian writer Madeleine Bourdouxhe’s intriguing novella, originally published in 1943, has been newly translated by Faith Evans in a beautiful edition produced…
The Good Guy by Susan Beale
Reviewed by Victoria It’s a hot early autumn in 1964 small-town America, in the up-and-coming Elm Grove estate (featuring house types named Charmer, Enchantress and El Dorado, in order to…
Love, or Nearest Offer by Adèle Geras
Reviewed by Victoria I don’t know about you, but the past month of UK politics has given me a pressing need to bury my head in soothing and reassuring fiction….
A Kind of Anger by Eric Ambler
Reviewed by Harriet ‘Unquestionably the best thriller writer ever’, says Graham Greene on the cover of this new British Library Crime Classics title, one of three they have recently published…
Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marías
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa Reviewed by Harriet As a couple, they had spotted me like one of those distant shapes on the ocean that can’t be ignored and had…
Ladivine by Marie Ndiaye
Translated from French by Jordan Stump Reviewed by Kate Gardner Marie Ndiaye’s latest book could be described as a surrealist family saga, perhaps even magic realist, if I’m allowed to…
Sergio Y. by Alexandre Vidal Porto
Translated by Alex Ladd Reviewed by Victoria I really love shrink lit. There’s something about the lucid and detailed focus on the interaction between patient and psychotherapist that is somehow…