For those who love the action genre, Die Hard is perhaps the greatest Christmas movie of all. Now imagine if Die Hard was set in Hamburg. Maybe it would be a little bit like the latest novel by Simone Buchholz, whose Chastity Riley series has been a hit with us. Hotel Cartagena sees Riley caught up in the siege of a 20-storey building – can’t wait to see how that turns out. If that’s a bit too breathtaking for you, you could always try settling in with LJ Ross’s latest, which sees a cop investigating the theft of an artefact by walking St Cuthbert’s Way in County Durham. Other novels highlighted this week are set in New Zealand, New Jersey and… old Illinois.
Read on and let us know which you’ll be reading first.
Hotel Cartagena by Simone Buchholz
On 4 January, German author Simone Buchholz takes us back to Hamburg where, in a glitzy high-rise building, public prosecutor Chastity Riley is celebrating a birthday with friends. Celebrations are curtailed when armed gunmen storm the hotel taking everyone hostage, including the proprietor Konrad Hoogsmart. The high powered businessman has ruined many lives during his career. It’s a fascinating Die Hard-style set-up, with police negotiators on the outside, and Riley on the inside, trying to defuse the situation and prevent loss of life. We’ve previously reviewed Beton Rouge and Mexico Street.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Cuthbert’s Way by LJ Ross
A precious artefact is stolen from Durham Cathedral, then recovered. Not much of a story there, then? But the St Cuthbert’s Cross reunited with its grateful owners is a fake, and DCI Ryan and his team know it. As they set out to find the original, Ryan realises that modern-day policing methods are not about to solve this one. Instead, he must crack ‘Cuthbert’s Code’, following the trail of a long-dead saint across the wild, unpredictable hills and valleys of the borderlands. The latest in LJ Ross’s popular DCI Ryan series, Cuthbert’s Way is out now for Kindle and on 21 December in print. Read our review of Holy Island here.
Buy now on Amazon
Bound by Vanda Symon
We’ve reached number four in Vanda Symon‘s Sam Shephard series and as Bound opens, we find the New Zealand-based detective investigating a nasty murder. A wealthy and apparently respectable Dunedin businessman has been killed in his luxurious home while his wife, bound and gagged, was forced to watch. As Shephard starts digging, though, she finds the victim wasn’t as squeaky clean as he first appeared and had some pretty dubious friends who could well have wanted him dead. Case sorted then? Shephard isn’t so sure… Bound is out on 4 January.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Black Irish Blues by Andrew Cotto
From 30 December you’ll be able to pick up Black Irish Blues by New York journalists Andrew Cotto. This dark and gritty urban thriller sees Cotto’s character Caesar Stiles return to New Jersey, haunted by the ghost of his father and hounded in one way or another by people harmed by his corrupt brother, a local crime lord, and the general denizens of Jersey’s criminal underbelly. Stiles is on a mission to find out what happened to a stranger called Dinny Tuite who has disappeared. It follows on from the highly rated Outerborough Blues.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Deliberate Duplicity by David Rohlfing
This debut novel is the first in a series featuring detective Sasha Frank, an Illinois police officer with plenty to prove. Frank and his team are baffled as, one by one, bodies are discovered along the Constitution Trail – abandoned railroad tracks which once ran through the Twin Cities of Bloomington and Normal in Illinois. Each victim is carefully posed, their eyes wide open. As the body count soars, so does the pressure on Frank and he comes close to cracking. Is he up to the job? Deliberate Duplicity by David Rohlfing is out on 4 January.
Pre-order now on the author’s site
Read about last week’s new crime novels here.