BOOK OF THE WEEK
Scrublands by Chris Hammer is published in hardback by Wildfire, priced £16.99 (ebook £8.49). Available January 8
AFTER the runaway success of Jane Harper's The Dry, the Outback has become the go-to setting for a crime thriller. This one's also a fiction debut from a journalist, though the author has published non-fiction books about his travels during a drought – an experience which helps Scrublands' sense of authenticity. At first the pace is as slow as an arid afternoon in a one-kangaroo town but it picks up and rips along like a bush fire. In just such a town, a well-liked priest guns down five men. A year on, troubled journalist Martin Scarsden turns up to write a colour piece on the anniversary of the murders, and discovers that a seemingly open and shut case is anything but. Scrublands is well-plotted and atmospheric but at times there's almost too much going on. But, despite a couple of clunky scenes it's well worth a read. It's also likely to end up as a TV-adapted hit before you can say 'Netflix'.
8/10
Derek Watson
Newcomer by Keigo Higashino is published in paperback by Little, Brown, priced £13.99 (ebook £7.99). Available now
NOT for nothing is the bestselling Keigo Higashino a former president of Mystery Writers of Japan. For those who like their crime fiction layered with riddles within enigmas, he is a master. The first English-translated Detective Kaga book, Malice, was well-received as Kyoichiro Kaga joins an illustrious list of much-loved fictional detectives. The understated Kaga makes a habit of surprising witnesses and suspects alike, as they often fail to realise his unassuming, dressed down character is a cop. He is demoted and transferred to Tokyo's Nihonbashi precinct where he is tasked with working on a murder case. A box of traditional sweets that leave an odd taste at the crime scene is enough to pique his interest, and ours. As he closes in on the killer, we accompany him on a tour of the city's Nihonbashi district and an enjoyable journey through Japanese culture. The plot is as intricate and delicately poised as an antique three-sided clock Kaga encounters during his investigations. A charming, evocative and rewarding read.
9/10
Derek Watson
The Fifth To Die by J.D. Barker is published in paperback by HQ, priced £7.99 (ebook £4.49). Available December 27
ICE and snow – it's beginning to look not a lot like Christmas in J.D Barker's follow-up to his macabre bestseller, The Fourth Monkey. If you've ever thought snowmen were creepy, this devious crime tale won't disabuse you of that understandable notion. In the bleakest mid-winter of snow-bound Chicago, Detective Sam Porter and his team discover the body of a girl beneath the ice. She's been missing for three weeks, but the lake froze over months ago. From this cold conundrum, Barker spins a serpentine and sometimes gruesome tale about Porter's arch nemesis: The serial killer Anson Bishop. The victims are girls who drowned in salt water miles from the sea. Porter insists the deaths are different this time, but dark cogs are turning. Sparse and cinematic, the pages fly by. They need to, as there are a daunting 525 of them...
8/10
Julian Cole
She Was The Quiet One by Michele Campbell is published in paperback by Harper Collins, priced £7.99 (ebook £5.99). Available January 10
COMBINE the towering red bricks of an American boarding school reminiscent of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, with the rivalry of young women coming of age, and you have the basis of this whodunnit, where the murder of a twin points the finger at her sister – AKA the quiet one. Centring around orphaned twins Bel and Rose and their boarding school master and mistress, Sarah and Heath Donovan, this is a tale of unrequited love, affairs and breaking the rules. The narrative flips between the story and transcripts of police interviews with people involved in events in the run-up to the murder. Certain scenes will have you squirming in your seat as you decide what's right and wrong – and who is the real villain at the centre of it all. As gripping as this novel is, there were moments where it felt like the reader was being told a fact, rather than shown it, which jarred a little. But the narrative powers through to a gripping conclusion.
7/10
Jenny Stallard
NON-FICTION
The Library Of Ice by Nancy Campbell is published in hardback by Scribner, priced £14.99 (ebook £8.99). Available now
AS A British poet, Nancy Campbell struggled with the requirements of a residency at a Greenland museum: It accepted art, but not written work. She was determined that her study of ice should be recognised, and this hybrid of travel narrative, memoir and cultural history is the fascinating result. The book is incredibly accessible despite jumping across time and space: From personal reflection, to interviews with present-day scientists drilling ice cores, to investigations into water's freezing properties carried out centuries ago. Campbell has one eye on the threat of climate change, but The Library Of Ice does not tub-thump its agenda – drawing on Ancient Greek philosophers and Arctic legends is a canny trick to soften the unsettling dependence that humanity has on the polar region. It's peopled with interesting characters, living and dead, as the best travelogues are, yet it's also illuminating on a subject to which few have probably given much thought.
9/10
Natalie Bowen
CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK
Lightning Chase Me Home by Amber Lee Dodd is published in paperback by Scholastic, priced £6.99 (ebook £5.94). Available January 3
LIGHTING Chase Me Home tells the story of Amelia Hester McLeod, an 11-year-old girl who lives on the tiny Scottish island of Dark Muir and is struggling to cope with her mother's sudden and unexplained departure. It's a book about finding out where you belong. Amelia is named after two of her mum's favourite explorers, Amelia Earhart and Lady Hester Stanhope, who were both bold and amazing women. But Amelia, who suffers from dyslexia, doesn't always feel brave. And when she is forced to start school she becomes a target for bullying – until magic and island myth unexpectedly intervene... A powerful and enchanting story which deals movingly and convincingly with dyslexia and single parent families. A great book for fans of Katherine Rundell and Lisa Thompson too.
8/10
Isla Brotzel, aged 11
