Murder at the Spirit Lounge

Jess Kidd

Sharp-eyed former nun Nora Breen is back, as the latest attraction in Gore-on-Sea turns deadly …

On a brilliant December morning, Nora finds her customary seaside walk rudely interrupted: she’s been summoned, with Detective Inspector Rideout, to the home of Doreen Chimes, Gore-on-Sea’s resident medium. Chimes would like to report a robbery - and to personally invite Rideout to that evening’s private séance.

It’s an invitation he will regret accepting: the evening ends in a suspiciously spooky murder. And in the coming days, more of the attendees will find themselves in peril. Can Nora figure out who - or what - is behind these spectral killings before it’s too late?

Suspicion

Seicho Matsumoto

A taut psychological novel about trial by public opinion and how we shape the truth -- now available in English for the first time

Is she a victim or a murderer?

Onizuka Kumako is a fierce woman: tall, beautiful, and not afraid to speak her mind. In Tokyo bars, she seduces customers and commits petty crime, using her connections to the local yakuza to get by. Suspected of murder and labelled a femme fatale, Kumako is hounded by the press, but stays firm, repeatedly proclaiming her own innocence. As pressure from dogged journalists mounts, the tide of public opinion is rising against her. But when a scrupulous defence lawyer takes on her case, doubt begins to creep in...

In this intricate, psychological noir, masterfully translated into English for the first time, Seicho Matsumoto draws out the hidden demons that guide our convictions, our biases and our deepest desires.

Shrink Solves Murder

Philippa Perry

When a body is found near Beachy Head, the police chalk it up to suicide - a tragic but not uncommon end in these parts. But local psychotherapist Patricia Phillips isn't convinced. The victim? Her three o'clock patient, Henry Clayton.

The cause of death is supposedly self-inflicted. Yet Pat can't shake the belief that someone wanted Henry Clayton dead. She spends her working life listening to histories and secrets, and she has a nose for when a story doesn't quite ring true.

Shrink Solves Murder is a warm, witty, and perceptive crime caper from the nation's favourite therapist

The Hollow Boys

Tariq Ashkanani

Two children lost. The wrong one found. The town of Aurora is waiting to die. A few miles away a deep seam of coal burns underground, the fire creeping closer ever year. Businesses close. Families leave. Hope dwindles.

And then one day, nine-year-old Danny Yates comes back from the dead. He walks into town half-starved and silent, ten months after he and his best friend Will Keefe were presumed drowned. But when Danny does finally speak, he swears that he's not Danny anymore. He's Will.

Strange Buildings

Uketsu

Eleven strange buildings. One terrible secret.

A lonely hut in the woods.

A hidden chamber.

A mysterious shrine.

A home in flames.

A nightmarish prison...

Each of the buildings in this book tells a chilling story. Each one is part of a puzzle.

Pietr the Latvian

Georges Simenon

Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands. But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man. His firm muscles filled out his jacket and quickly pulled all his trousers out of shape.

He had a way of imposing himself just by standing there. His assertive presence had often irked many of his own colleagues.

In Simenon's first novel featuring Maigret, the laconic detective is taken from grimy bars to luxury hotels as he traces the true identity of Pietr the Latvian.

"One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century." Guardian