Murders for July

The ethics of reviewing detective novels are complex, with “fair play” an issue for them, as they are for the novels themselves. In particular, disclosing too much of the plot must surely be a no-no, and yet that is all-too-common from reviewers, notably in the case of those in the Times (the reviews in the Financial Times are better in this respect, as in others). My own belief and practice is to try not to offer anything more in plot terms than what is provided on the cover blurb, and, even so, it can be best to be selective in this respect. Separately, a sure sign of a reviewer who has not read the book is that they are prone to repeat the blurb. I must not say which prominent reviewer appears to do so too frequently.

Instead of plot details, I feel it is best to focus on tone and style and, notably, on the use of language: these, after all, are novels, works of literature, and not plot systems. The use of appropriate description and images is more varied in its quality than possibly it should be. Looked at differently, the entry qualifications for the genre are highly flexible and that means that many who cannot write well enter. So also with repeated plot devices and contexts, for example the girls’ reunion, the repetition of which demands a particular quality in the writing.

Separately, the world of authors, publishers, publicists, blurbers and reviewers is overly claustrophobic, with “kiss and write” comments far far too common, and generally compromising the review process. Back covers can be a joke. Best to avoid launch parties and other compromising events.

Lastly, like all reviewers, I have my preferences. Aside from liking quality writing, originality, dexterity and wit, I dislike, and usually avoid, stories that focus on sadism, cruelty and crimes against children, as well as a focus on body parts. Unrealistic, I know, but this genre is supposed to be literature and reviewing should be a literary process.

My murder of the month is Diane Jeffrey’s The Other Couple (HQ, 2023, £9.99). Greatly impressed by her The Crime Writer (2025, already reviewed), I looked back to her earlier list, and in particular to The Other Couple, which she sees as her best novel. If you have ever been on the side roads east of Croyde, you will know their sharp corners and hidden results, and the fatal accident that launches this novel is plausible and well-realised. The protagonists, however, make an amateur mess of concealing the crime and, even more, disposing of the body, and we are launched from deception into revenge. The prime villain, Nick, a highly-effective defence lawyer skilled at getting murderers off, makes a hash of things, while his high-end estate agent lover, Kirsten, finds the aftermath as difficult to handle as her sex-drive. Nemesis comes in a brilliantly-plotted country mouse goes to town story. Can be slow-moving, but the end comes with an adrenaline rush. An excellent novel, and a very good murder, but only to be attempted if you can find very strong nerves. There are easier ways.

“Hometowns are bittersweet. Like biting into a tangerine with a worm inside”. Let us start with an excellent new book, Nicolás Obregón’s The Sugar Man (Penguin Michael Joseph, 2025, £22). In many respects, it might appear conventional for its small town America setting, its theme of return, the shadow of a past murder, and the resulting double narratives that interact to take the plot forward. Yet, there is also the difference offered by the proximity to the fictional Nectar of an Amish-type damagingly interbred community with its own language and its “rhythm practised over a lifetime” and the extent to which an understanding involves the dynamics and ethos of this group as well as of a Nectar which is very different, or is it? Sexual tension is very much present in both as is male cruelty to women. Dakota Finch, “a process. A scalpel to slice through artifice, exposing the truth beneath”, is the disgraced Detroit detective transferred back to her hometown where the night sky “churned grey as television static” and “the mountain valleys were an infinitely folding scarf of fall gold and green”. Very well plotted and a very good read.

There is a murder in the background and two others are commissioned, but, in Carl Hiaasen’s Fever Beach (Sphere, 2025), Americana is to the fore, and exuberantly so. “Jackie and Figgo had briefly hooked up at the January 6th rally, where Jackie was fronting a short-lived movement called the Wives Against Filth. She and some girlfriends originally had founded the group to purge “woke” trash from school libraries, but the mission had soon morphed into a MAGA swingers’ network serving the greater Sarasota area. Jackie gets swept up in a steamy three-on-one that made headlines when the male participant, an itinerant Pentecostal preacher, was arrested for peddling the orgy videos online … dying of a rattlesnake bite during a carelessly improvised exorcism.” Paragraphs begin with phrases such as “Before he was hired at the sex toy shipping facility … ” or “Jonas Onus had gotten up before dawn to go bury Himmler [his dog] in a Jewish cemetery, an act of subtle desecration that, once completed, left Onus feeling unfulfilled”. Set in Florida today, this is a dark, dark comedy, in which the “Strokers for Liberty”, a “band of fuckwits” more extreme than the Proud Boys, are central to multiple delusions and frauds, in a kaleidoscopic plot of interacting deceptions and conspiracies that includes zoning corruption, Clure Boyette, a manically useless Panhandle congressman, Electra and Claude Mink, two unhinged plutocratic would-be creators of a White America, Galaxy, a smart prostitute, sex, guns, lawyers, masturbation, sex dolls, excrement, and the continually unexpected in a rollicking plot for the weekend. Enjoy.

Devotees of Alan Furst will greatly appreciate Mark Ellis’ The French Spy (2018; Headline Accent, 2023, £12.99), a June 1941 (after a well-realised Cretan war prelude) novel, with a cast from Churchill, Darlan, Laval, de Gaulle and Wavell, to Ellis’ established policemen, and settings from Buenos Aires and Vichy to Cairo and New York; although mostly in London, with a Vichy spy among the Free French, a centre to a skilful plot that includes business fraud and a fatally botched abortion. An excellent novel, and only a very few moments of carelessness, as in Graf Spee instead of Bismarck, or north Africa instead of North Africa. Very strongly recommended.

Anna Scotti’s Its Not Even Past (Down and Out Books, 2025) brings together her excellent short stories, most formerly published in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, that chart the “librarian on the run”, a protagonist in a troubled Witness Protection programme being safeguarded, preparatory to testifying against a murderous ex who is trying to hunt her down. The stories follow her across America as she is pushed by happenstance, integrity and the murderous character of others into solving a rush of murders each of which forces her to shed an alias in order to stay protected. These are brilliant stories: clever in the truest sense, economical in characterisation, spare in style, strong in the punch of their successive resolutions and revealing a continually inventive mind. Great writing and it is easy to understand why three have been included in very recent volumes of Best Mystery Stories of the Year. Deserves classic status.

Simon McCleave’s The Abersoch Killings (Canelo, 2025, £16.99) has conscious echoes of Agatha Christie with the death of a wealthy film producer in the library of his mansion and his family the major figures among the possible culprits for swapping cyanide for cocaine. A pleasantly short novel that goes with a fizz and moves to an unexpected crisis and solution. Effective plot and good characterisation.

Emma Battington’s The Neighbours (HQ, 2025, £9.99) is a very accomplished debut novel set in Sydney suburbia with the death of an unpleasant plastic surgeon the trigger for a carefully realised account of relationships and secrets within and between families. Deception, to instigate, cover and shift guilt, is the source of plot devices that repeatedly work well to move the plot forward and to provoke interest on the part of the readers. This novel deserves attention.

Louise Penny’s Still Life (Minotaur, 2005, $19), the debut of her highly successful Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, is worth a reread for its plot, setting (Quebecois frontier with US), characterisation, Maigret-like protagonist, uses of art and time and humanity in the midst of the weight of families. Throughout, the observations are acute, and the reflections impressive. The language can be arresting. Churches are “cold tributes to the ecstasy of refusal”, and Gamache, liking them for the music, language and stillness, feeling “closer to God in his Volvo”.

“ … A tourist reached out and took the hand of his teenage son, who was so shocked he actually allowed his father to hold it, for about a nanosecond”.

Ganache, “a ghost of the insecure young man he’d once been[,] … knew from years of investigating murders there was always a motive, and the motive often made absolutely no sense to anyone other than the murderer. But it made absolute sense to that person”.

The poet Ruth Zardo is a less positive personality than the artist murdered at the outset, but also reflective on time: 

“there’s nothing like a brooding, adolescent mind for creating poison. But it often takes time. They say time heals. I think that’s bullshit, I think time does nothing. It only heals if the person wants it to. I’ve seen time, in the hands of a sick person, make situations worse. They ruminate and brood and turn a minor event into a catastrophe, given enough time”.

Beth Lewis’ The Rush (Viper, 2025, £18.99) is set on the edge of civility in the 1898 Yukon gold rush. The quest for gold, “there is a magic to gold … the way it appears to glow”, becomes murderous in a story focused on women that amply dwells on “the hardships and realities of mining in the Klondike”. Fire is a hazard and cruelty to animals a constant in a story that pulls no punches on a world that was far from “cozy”. A version of the latter is offered by Katy Watson in A Deadly Night at the Theatre (Constable, 2025, £20), the theatre-set latest in the Three Dahlias series, and one in which thespian rivalries are to the fore.

Los Angeles in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor has attracted the effective recent attention of James Ellroy. Another approach is offered by Graham Hurley in Kane (Head of Zeus, 2025, 2020). This is conspiracy and crime, the interplay of history and speculation, a cast at once real (from President) and fictional. There is not the somehow intense sprawl as backdrop and foreground as well as a sense of corruption that Ellroy manages to weave in his alternative history, but this is a highly effective summer read and a fascinating subject.

Violent death does not attract young punters as much as Romance or Fantasy, but continues its grip on those who are older

Traumatic history in a very different setting is the topic of Robert Goddard’s very successful This is the Day they Dream Of (Bantam, 2025, £20), a story looking back at the assassination in 1992 of Mohamed Boudiaf, the foe of corruption in Algeria, with Superintendent Taleb in trouble for his remarks on a subsequent television outing to consider the crime. The dominant (and corrupt) Pouvoir, the army and the security services are all in play in a finely-written, atmospheric and interesting story.

The appearance in paperback of A.E. Goldin’s debut novel Murder in Constantinople (2024; Pushkin, 2025, £10.99) makes more accessible a vigorous international tale of 1854, with Ben Canaan translated thanks to Viscount Palmerston from East End tailoring drudgery to a Constantinople in the midst of wartime intrigue, with the Russians an ever-present threat. Power, the lust for adventure, and Flashman-like trickery all make for a hold plot and lively style.

Remi Kone’s Innocent Guilt (Quercus, 2025, £16.99) is a London murder story with gender relationships and those within the police to the fore, as well as the effective use of two narratives, one a DI, the other a journalist, both women. A debut novel of considerable interest.

Amy McCulloch’s Runner 13 (Penguin Michael Joseph, 2025, £18.99) is a Sahara-set competition among ultra-runners, with multiple narratives, the weight of the past, and a murderer on the loose. Works very well though I have no point of reference.

Skip the ridiculous blurb — “unspeakable tragedy … prime suspect … belief in his innocence is unwavering … evidence mounts … buried memories … shattering climax … shocking past”, for the novel is not so dire. Clémence Michallon’s Our Last Resort (Elliott and Thompson, 2025, £16.99) deals with cults and luxury hotels, the intensity of textures, smells and food. Works better as prose than plot.

Denzil Meyrick’s Last Orders (Bantam, 2025, £18.99), the last in the DCI Daley Thrillers, takes his protagonist into a familiar world where it is “clearly hard to tell friend from foe” and there is a “twisted senior officer”. Some hackneyed writing of the “gritted teeth” variety, but both character and dead author will be missed.

Gytha Lodge’s Dead to Me (Penguin Michael Joseph, 2025, £16.99) is a kick-off murder with a romantic relationship that had gone wrong, a backdrop to a relationship of dynamic female journalist and steady Brit detective. Needs to improve the writing: “almost out-of-body anxiety … immaculately cared-for-garden … a Jaguar slewed into the driveway … white-faced with fear”, and so on.

S.A. Cosby’s King of Ashes (Headline, 2025, £20) is far better, in setting, style and sentiments. Gangsters, double-crosses, fraud, pink crab meat, family-background, expensive suits, all set in open-carry Virginia where life is cheap and debt-settling through explosions, “Everything burns”, with the past set alight in its hatreds and crimes. A very good read indeed.

Lily Samson’s Watch Me Watch You (Century, 2025, £16.99) is a very well put together plot of friendship, deception, crime, rage, stalking, blackmail emails, a London that is dark and ably-realised in an impressive and (“age of miracles”) well-written second novel. Exemplified the idea of a novel’s tone. Good characterisation.

Philip Gwynne Jones’ The Magus of Sicily (Constable, 2025, £22) moves his setting from Venice to Sicily, with a body pulled from the sea, a rookie journalist and a fraudster all at play. Psychics and sun. Not the best of Sicilian-set stories, but then the competition is acute.

Kia Abdullah’s What Happens in the Dark (HQ, 2025, £16.99) has a very good cover, but the writing requires work: too much of the type of “Safa’s grip tightened on the knife … Safa shifted uneasily … grasping for his cigarettes … His hand froze mid-air … Lily’s voice trembled”. A legal thriller I cannot recommend.

Alex Gerlis’ Every Spy a Treaty (Canelo, 2025, £16.99) launches his fourth series. Set in 1937-9, it deals with traitors within, and the buildup to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Plot and the outbreak of World War Two. Good knowledge of the period and a plot that will interest those fascinated by the period.

She Didn’t See It Coming by Shari Lapena (Bantam, 2025, £20): a luxury life in an Albany [New York not Piccadilly] condo for a perfect couple that, starting with the disappearance of the wife, resolves through the malign reach of the past and the troubled feel of the present. All familiar, but then so were country house murders. The problem is the awful writing: “She’s been itching to get online properly all day … they are met with the crowd of media … Sam faces the detectives with alarm. His attorney is beside him, her face creased in concern. The stakes have changed … Sam swallows. He glances at his lawyer, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and opens them again”.

A truly terrible style, but somehow there is praise on the back cover by Lucy Foley, Paula Hawkins and others. Maybe they know no better.

Violent death does not attract young punters as much as Romance or Fantasy, but continues its grip on those who are older: less troubling to contemplate than dementia. At the same time, because the number of titles is very large, sales for individual ones, especially if self-published, are usually modest, if not very small. Possibly that encourages what might appear safe slots, such as “Hen Weekends”. Given the pace of change, notably with euthanasia, Virtual Reality, AI, robotics and drones, it is surprising that there is not more of an engagement with the new technology of the past as there was for example with trains, fingerprints, cars, telephones and radio.

Psychological dimensions come into play, and while a structural dimension should only be offered with care, there is, for both writers and readers, a focus on the individual, variously as victim, villain, red herring, detective, and detective’s interlocutor, that seems desirable, indeed necessary, in a world in which the role of the person is lost or diminished. So also with the narratives, logics, explication and meaning of cause and effect, and, differently, of evil and morality, hubris and the reckoning. None are new as factors; but all take on greater weight in opposition to the literal trivialisation of information, content and attention spans in an age of social media. There is also the fantasy: crimes are explained, and criminals caught. Legal systems are not swathed in concern for villains rather than victims; nor policing purposed for prescriptive politics, rather than for safety, solutions and the sanctuary of stability. Paradoxically, there is something inherently reassuring about tales of murder for there is resolution and morality. Strange that some commentators decry the genre, but then many are happy with neither of these characteristics.