Welcome to our weekly news column, which lands with a humorous clonk. We lead off with JP Rieger’s new crime novel with a comic-style cover worthy of Roy Lichtenstein with an onomatopoeic title to boot. When you’ve quelled your giggles, read on to discover further new crime titles by Aoife Clifford, Susan Isaacs, Sven Elvestad and Charlie Donlea – each is worth checking out, we reckon.
Clonk! by JP Rieger
JP Rieger’s Clonk! is a darkly comic crime novel set in Baltimore and featuring an eclectic cast of characters. Baltimore City Police Detective Kev Dixit has a work life filled with duty killings, idiot tests and shifts with dour partners, and a home life that’s… complicated. He is the glue holding together his old Ignatius High School friends and they don’t make things easy, either. While Dixit and partner Detective Dinetta Laurence hunt for the murderer of a Roland Park artist, failed actor Chris Waxley is helping classmate Brian ‘the Troll’ Golding avoid the match-making efforts of his parents, attorney Rainwater Wells is trying to ensure fellow Ignatian Alan Switzer keeps his medical licence, and agoraphobic FBI agent Reg Marquis needs some off the books assistance. Grab a copy on 2 May.
Order now on Amazon
When We Fall by Aoife Clifford
Award-winning Aussie crime author Aoife Clifford explores a clutch of disturbing murders in When We Fall, out on 3 May. Alex Tillerson is in the small coastal town of Merritt to visit her mother, who has been diagnosed with dementia. On a walk on the beach together one morning, the pair find a body. The police claim it is an accidental death but Maxine McFarlane was pulled from the ocean but with no water in her lungs. When Alex learns of another strange death nearby – Bella Greggs, who was found dead at the bottom of a ravine but drowned in salt water – she decides to fight for answers and honour the dead. With local residents closing ranks and reluctant to speak, how will she ever find the truth?
Order now on Amazon or Bookshop.org
Bad, Bad Seymour Brown by Susan Isaacs
Susan Isaacs followers will be happy to learn that two of her most popular protagonists, former FBI agent Corie Geller and her retired cop dad, are back. Corie was hoping for a quiet life when she asked her parents to move into the suburban McMansion she shares with her husband and teenage daughter. Those hopes are dashed, however, when her retired ex-NYPD detective father gets a call from one of the victims of a case he could never solve. April Brown is in fear of her life, and Corie and her dad can’t resist the lure of a complicated conundrum. A thriller with a welcome dash of humour in the mix, Bad, Bad Seymour Brown is already out in the UK and publishes in the US on 2 May.
Order now on Amazon or Bookshop.org
Through Three Rooms by Sven Elvestad
Sven Elvestad, who also wrote under the pseudonym Stein Riverton, was one of Norway’s greatest crime writers and wrote more than 100 mysteries, starting in 1907. Many featured detective Asbjørn Krag, but few have been translated into English. Through Three Rooms opens on a cold and dark winter afternoon, when Krag receives a visit from a doctor who is worried about the welfare of a wealthy, elderly, eccentric patient. The visit prompts Krag to go undercover as a guest at an isolated Norwegian manor to try and prevent a murder in its snowy grounds, and to uncover the secret behind three mysterious rooms. This new translation by Lucy Moffat is out of 27 April and features an introduction by Nils Nordberg, who is a radio drama producer and Norwegian authority on crime fiction.
Order now on Amazon
Those Empty Eyes by Charlie Donlea
Psychological thriller fans should put 4 May in the diary, ready for the arrival of Those Empty Eyes by Charlie Donlea. A decade ago, Alexandra Quinlan the prime suspect in the massacre of her whole family. The media nicknamed her Empty Eyes, and her face was on every TV show and front page. Now, Alex Armstrong devotes herself to securing justice for others. But when Laura McAllister, a young student journalist, disappears just as she’s about to break a major story about sexual assault and cover-ups on her college campus, Alex is drawn into a case that will threaten the life she has so carefully constructed — and has shocking links to the murders of her own family.
Order now on Amazon or Bookshop.org
Click here to read about last week’s new crime releases.