The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo
Translated by Isabelle Kaufeler Reviewed by Marina Sofia The Baztan valley in the Pyrenees in the north-east of Spain is misty, rainy and remote. Immersed in Basque traditions and superstitions,…
Dry Season by Gabriela Babnik
Translated by Rawley Grau Reviewed by Chelsea McGill Ana, a 62-year-old graphic designer from Slovenia, has run away to a completely foreign place – Burkina Faso. There she meets Ismael,…
American Housewife by Helen Ellis
Reviewed by Linda Boa This slim collection of a dozen stories by American novelist and short story writer Helen Ellis is something of a wee gem. With stories ranging from…
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe & Dracula by Bram Stoker
Reviewed by Harriet I suspect that neither of these two great classics has ever been out of print since their respective first appearances in 1719 and 1897, and a quick…
In Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward
Paperback review by Gill Davies This is Sarah Ward’s first novel. She is a very experienced reader of the genre – she blogs at Crimepieces and reviews and judges Scandinavian crime writing. It…
The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
Reviewed by Eleanor Franzén Forgiveness is a word like tiger–there’s footage of it and verifiably it exists but few of us have seen it close and wild or known it…
Murder of a Lady by Anthony Wynne
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I do love the British Library Crime Classics series. It feels like it goes from strength to strength, or maybe it’s that this past year’s offerings…
Dublin Seven by Frankie Gaffney
Reviewed by Laura Marriott On a small crossroads near the bottom of Manor Street, one of the main through ways in Dublin 7, there is a rundown, abandoned pub called…
Coffin Road by Peter May
Reviewed by Linda Boa If you had killed someone you would remember. Wouldn’t you? In his latest novel, which it goes without saying will be absolutely huge, his legion of fans…
Numero Zero by Umberto Eco
Translated by Richard Dixon Reviewed by Paul Fishman For a short novel, Numero Zero is amazingly leisurely and discursive. It’s like an Arabian Nights for conspiracy theorists, historians of the late 20th century and…
The Long Room by Francesca Kay
Reviewed by Harriet A gripping story of obsession and spies set in eighties London. So says the blurb on the back of this truly excellent novel. But this is no…
The Lives of Women by Christine Dwyer Hickey
Paperback review by Susan Osborne Christine Dwyer Hickey is the kind of author for whom there’s no fanfare of Twitter trumpets heralding her next novel, no drip feed of showy…
The Great Swindle by Pierre Lemaitre
Translated by Frank Wynne Reviewed by Annabel French author Lemaitre is best known for his gory yet gripping trilogy of serial killer novels featuring the detective Camille Verhoeven. They aren’t…
Death on the Riviera by John Bude
Reviewed by Simon I’ve got all the John Bude reprints that have appeared in the British Library Crime Classics series, and have given several to other people, but Death on the…
Spotlight on Young Adult Fiction – early 2016
By Memory and Jenny From music to murder, from a hospital ward to Haworth Parsonage, Jenny and Memory highlight the most exciting young adult novels of the season in the…
Death is a Welcome Guest by Louise Welsh
Paperback review by Annabel Most trilogies are strictly sequential, one volume carrying on from another. Louise Welsh’s ‘Plague Times’ trilogy is slightly different (so far) in that the first two…
Asking For It by Louise O’Neill
Reviewed by Annabel O’Neill’s first novel, Only Ever Yours, published in 2014, won a host of prizes in her native Ireland. Aimed at older teenagers upwards, it was a futuristic…
The Winter Place by Alexander Yates (YA)
Reviewed by Annabel Tess’s mother died giving birth to her brother Axel. They live with their father in a cabin at the edge of a town in the middle of…
The Just City by Jo Walton
Reviewed by Stefanie Hollmichel Aside from The Death of Socrates and a few other pieces forced on me in school, I can’t say I have ever been interested in reading Plato. That Jo…
The Z Murders by J Jefferson Farjeon
Reviewed by Harriet Golden Age crime has always been popular, and each of the so-called queens – Sayers, Christie, Allingham, March, Tey – has her loyal followers. But in the…
The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
Translated by Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson Reviewed by Alice Farrant The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende is a tender love story, traversing from the 1930s through to the present day,…
Pushkin Vertigo – titles by Piero Chiara & Leo Perutz
Reviewed by Victoria Pushkin Vertigo, the new crime imprint from Pushkin Press has got off to a flying start with its first batch of releases. Not surprisingly, perhaps, when you…
The Maiden Dinosaur by Janet McNeill
Reviewed by Julie B “Barbara Pym…Elizabeth Taylor…” exalted company for any author’s novel, and when I noticed these names on the front of this book I must admit I was…
Made to Kill by Adam Christopher
Reviewed by David Harris Made to Kill is the first volume of a projected trilogy featuring a PI (ostensibly) who is also the last robot on Earth. While being another book…