A new year, and murders aplenty. I am writing genre-reviews, not social history but the latter very much intrudes on the former. So with my joint-book of the month, Chris Hammer’s The Broken River (Wildfire, 2025, £20), the fourth in the Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucie series. This is a back-country Australian epic with the good nearly overwhelmed by a conspiracy that brings together a corrupt cop, a bent politician, a crooked lawyer, a con-man, a violent bullion robbery, and the “rebirthing” of gold through opening a disused gold mine in a remote New South Wales valley. The discovery of the body of the deputy mayor sets in train a narrative in past and present that is impressive, well-paced and a triumph of the genre.

Less powerfully, Uketsu’s Strange Pictures (Pushkin Vertigo, 2025, £14.99) is not only what is called a “mystery horror sensation”, with hidden clues in numerous pictures and diagrams that are reproduced in the story, but also a fine guide to the personal tensions bound up in Japanese social structures. An interesting approach. To move country, Eoin McNamee’s The Bureau (Riverrun, 2025, £18.99) is a bleak and searching account of 1980s Ireland. There is much interesting writing, as in “the Imperial toilets … A pale, drunk girl was crying in the corner. The crying seemed to generate light about her, two friends talking to her softly, she was stranded on some ledge of herself and the fall would be long.” The pervasive criminality of the Border region is much to the fore, and affects the judiciary and police, and links to the role of paramilitaries.

To Pay the Ferryman (Polygon, 2025, £9.99) by Pat Black (no relation) is a classic Scottish novel of the Glasgow, serial killer and terrible coffee type. Why not bust the genre and make Glasgow and its inhabitants as pleasant in presentation as they can be in reality? Anyway, the “grim up west” theme (the east is Edinburgh), whilst not exactly original, is accompanied by some arresting writing. The art theme works very well, and the villain is a surprise. It deserves to do well.

White is the most psychologically disturbing, Sapper provides an implausible device and Carter Dickson a locked room mystery

In a major change in tone, the on-stage decapitation by guillotine of the female lead in a play set in 1794 and produced in a London cemetery chapel launches Guy Morpuss’ A Trial in Three Acts (Profile, 2025, £16.99), my other joint-book of the month, a considerable achievement as a courtroom drama that works as a page-turner at once witty, well-observed and a pleasing fantasy. The estranged husband of the victim is charged and Charles Konig KC, the defence barrister, is the impressive protagonist. Witness statements, courtroom examinations and crosses, scenes from the play, and events back at the chapel, are interplayed in a well-constructed plot that works well apart from the romantic interest. Definitely one to read.

Cecily Gayford has very much stuck to the Golden Age in Murder by Candlelight. Ten Classic Crime Stories for Winter (Profile, 2024), £9.99), an ably-selected collection of writing by some of the greats, with the good news of a collection that does not feel that it has to include a Sherlock Holmes story with which most readers are familiar. The authors are Catherine Aird, Carter Dickson, Cyril Hare, J.S. Fletcher, Dorothy Sayers, Fergus Hume, Ethel Lina White, Freeman Wills Crofts, Sapper and Simon Brett, each conforming to their familiar style so that Crofts gives you engineering precision and trains in “The Mystery of the Sleeping-Car Express.” Several, for example Brett, Hare and Sayers, display a mordant wit. White is the most psychologically disturbing, Sapper provides an implausible device, Carter Dickson a locked room mystery, and Aird a predictable culprit but interesting “how did it?”. An excellent collection.

Lettice Cooper (1897-1994) is a less well-known detective novelist but Tea On Sunday (1973; British Library, 2024; £9.99) deserves reprinting in the excellent British Library Crime Classics Series. Very well-written and with interesting and well-drawn characters (though I thought Anthony Seldon an historian not a seller of menswear and possible murderer), this is a closed-cast London murder of a determined wealthy older lady by whichever of the eight she has invited to tea who has arrived earlier and then left leaving the hostess strangled. A very readable story.

In contrast, the writing is poor in Sue Hincenbergs’ The Retirement Plan (Sphere, 2025), and of a plodding character — “Hector nodded, took his jacket off, hung it on the back of a dining table chair, and gestured to Hank, Larry, and Andre to sit down … ”. This contributes to a plot that does not engage. Laura Davie’s The Night We Lost Him (Century, 2024) focuses on rather dull plutocrats who speak in clichés. That might seem a witty idea for an ironic take on a sub-genre, but, alas, there is no irony here. Heidi Perks’ Someone is Lying (Penguin, 2025) is a missing-daughter novel that in part uses the device of a true crime podcast. Workmanlike. Not the most interesting style.

Asia Mackay’s A Serial Killer’s Guide to Marriage (Headline, 2025, £20) presents Hazel and Fox who bond over slaying bad men, marry, have a child, and settle down, abandoning murder and leaving Hazel dissatisfied and Fox turning to poker. Departing from her past matrimonial model of cooperative slaughter, Hazel kills a man who assaults her on her run, and then faces a friend suggesting that Fox is the killer, indeed the serial “Backpacking Butcher.” This leads to a progressive breakdown in the equilibrium of the characters, and chaos spreads and with murderous effect.

Marion Todd’s Dead Man’s Shoes (Canelo, 2025, £9.99) has a workmanlike style: “Unless you don’t think you’re up to it,” Penny said, her eyes on Clare. She returned Penny’s gaze. If she had any misgivings, now was the time to share them. And then she thought about the young men who’d fallen victim to this killer. The dreadful end they’d suffered … If there was a chance she could help she had to take it.” This is not to my taste, but this instance of Dundee-noir will please many with its combination of the Chainlink Choker, a series killer of gays, with the local hard men of crime.

The world of American contest gaming is the setting for Jeff Macfee’s The Contest (Datura, 2025, £9.99), with manipulation, deceit and fraud extending to the running of the game. The writing is somewhat American: “She’d come here to make things better for Mom. With Miscellany against her, things would certainly be worse. But Gillian had faced long odds before. She and her family fighters long before the Contest, and since.”

Beginning with the 1958 Hollywood murder of Blanche Aikerman, an Elizabeth Taylor figure, Max Nightingale’s Murder in Tinseltown (HarperNorth, 2024, £16.99) focuses on the Royal Premier hotel on the eve of the Golden Star Awards and adopts the idea of alternative trajectories to write a story with multiple routes. A hard-boiled LAPD detective is the protagonist. An interesting idea that will confuse some. The characters are boilerplate, as with the director and the hotel manager.

Tariq Ashkanani’s The Midnight King (Viper, 2025, £16.99) deals with a serial killer of children which is a topic I do not cover.