Murders for July

“Silk Road to Mecca” should be the title of your next project, a detective novel about the perfect crime in which a disgruntled author kills his copy-editor after one mistake too many. The author — let’s say he is a historian — comes up with a novel idea for committing this crime, which involves a guillotine and a sprig of parsley which does not melt into a pat of butter. Need I go on …?

Surely Occam’s razor demands that Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple be arraigned? … The requirement that phenomena, in this case the extraordinary prevalence of murder everywhere Poirot and Miss Marple set foot, are to be explained in the simplest possible way. …. // … With the destruction of gentility as an idea in England, it is not surprising that crime writing in England should come to resemble its American equivalent, exceptions being made for the backward-looking or nostalgic stories set in a world that no longer exists.

Theodore Dalrymple, “Agatha Christie and the Metaphysics of Murder,” New Criterion, May 2026, book of that title published by Criterion Books, 2026.

Debut novel of the month is Elle Blair’s In Deep Water (HQ, 2026, £9.99), a murder story set on The Synergy of the Seas, the name giving it away as a Carnival Cruises “multi-liner”. There have been many such murders, though in the Caribbean, not setting off from Southampton; but this works not least as DI Rachel Harlow is also shown in retrospect dealing with county lines drug-dealing in the northeast. The blurb is somewhat misleading: “She embarks on a flirtatious game with a stranger … until she finds him dead the next day,” presumably a trick/trip for the many reviewers who appear to go no further than the back-cover, as the “game” in practice entails a very “non-game” oral sex. In Deep Water presents dysfunctional families, both those of the criminous and those of the police, but criticism is more widely spread, as with the ship’s captain: “That’s what thousands of pounds in public school fees bought you … an ability to polish your arrogance with charm.” The writing does not only pin down people: “They looked at each other again, savouring their information like the final suck of a Werther’s Original.” A lot going on in this novel, but the energy keeps it working, even if the close is somewhat rushed. The launch of a new series.

A very different debut, Araki Akane’s Murder at the End of the World (2022 original; English translation Pushkin Vertigo, 2026, £14.99) broadens the very welcome range of Japanese detective writing available in English, and, less attractively, is at a bold price point for paperbacks in the genre. Beginning with a driving lesson in Fukuoka in Kyushu — a Fukuoka different to the one I enjoyed visiting — the lesson is interrupted by a suicide against the background of an expected asteroid nemesis. A subsequent lesson finds a murdered corpse in the boot, and Haru, the highly distinctive driving-student, and Isagawa, her ex-cop instructor who sounds “like the sleuth on a mystery novel”, combine to solve the crime. Isagawa reflects: “Criminal-law experts call the death penalty barbaric. A cruel violation of human rights … I can understand the logic but my emotions won’t fall in line. I just can’t forgive criminals for what they’ve done.” In an instructive change to earlier works, road routes and timings are more important than rail timetables. An effective “buddy” story, a perceptive look at families, a very good reveal, and an exciting close. Well done.

Historic volume of the month is another collection edited by Martin Edwards, Puzzles of the Parish. Short Tales of Ministers, Murder and Mystery (British Library Crime Classics, 2026, £10.99) with an intro by Edwards, that offers an effective and very knowledgeable short account of detective novels in which clerics and/or churches feature, and 17 contributions dating from 1932 to 2006, the eight post-1960 giving a different, more contemporary feel, to the volume than some of the earlier collections in the series. A well-selected and varied collection, and if Chesterton’s “The Eye of Apollo” is possibly over-familiar, it has some interesting observations amidst the cant, not least the 1911 description of the building as “American in its sky-scraping attitude, and … in the oiled elaboration of its machinery of telephones and lifts.” Although overly heavy and somewhat disjointed, I liked “the unbearable pathos of details and habit stabbed him with all the small daggers of bereavement.” More amusing is Milward Kennedy’s “X Takes Bishop” (1951) in which the murder of a bishop in the “Palladian Club,” clearly the Ath, provides, in a brief story first published in the Evening Standard (the source of two others in this collection), a light comedy of its age. So differently, does the language used by the Chief Constable and the prospectus of social ostracism this ex-Major holds out in H.C. Bailey’s “The Bunch of Grapes” (1932) in which rutting among the squirearchy turns potentially deadly. The perils of a visiting dog are at source in C.A. Alington’s “The Adventure of the Dorset Squire” (1937) which has echoes of Fielding. A visit to London is seen as much of an event as one to Yokohama in J.S. Fletcher’s “Mr Leggatt Leaves His Card” (1928). Ormond Greville’s “The Perfect Crime” (1932) sees a blackmailer dispatched. In minor pieces, Cyril Hare and Edmund Crispin are unexpectedly weak, but Austin Lee is witty and successful in his brief “The Tragic Bridegroom” (1962). Religious practice and social influence are divides in Joyce Porter’s “Dover Pulls a Rabbit” (1968) in which the truly gross Chief Inspector Dover ably solves the murder. Peter Lovesey’s “The Virgin and the Bull” (1983) captures rural society, Michael Gilbert brings to the fore a disturbed cleric, Catherine Aird, Ellis Peters and Paul Harding take us to the Middle Ages, and Robert Barnard ends with a brilliantly murderous conclave, one that is more abrupt than Robert Harris’s first-rate novel of that title.

A very well-established series, Peter James’s Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, Brighton-based stories, has, in The Hawk is Dead (Pan Macmillan, 2025), the Queen (Camilla) as a central character and begins with the derailing of the Royal Train followed by the snipered killing at her side of Sir Peregrine Greaves, her Private Secretary. A police procedural with a difference, this plot moves apace, not least with the question of whether the Queen or Greaves was the target. Police divisions and Palace politics both to the fore, with theft from the Palace collections a major topic. A somewhat fact-heavy read, and the deference is very striking; but this will do well.

Enjoyment of Peter Hanington’s new Brighton-set thriller led me to turn to his earlier novels. A Dying Breed (Two Roads, 2016) is Afghan-focused and deals with the treacheries of war and journalism. In a plot that echoes much of Le Carré, the protagonist, William Carver, an elderly, honest BBC foreign correspondent, faces a British conspiracy for financial gain from Afghan mobile phone licences, with sinister figures in the security services and army. The BBC as an institution emerges as less than impressive. Well worth reading even if the plot may appear a little hackneyed.

The underlying storyline of Patrick Worrall’s The Aristocracy (Bantam, 2026, £8.99) is far from new: an élite conspiracy involving covering up the large-scale abuse of institutionalised young men by MI5 and others. So far, so predictable — indeed maybe tired. If you want conspiracies why not go to the trouble of an original plot. But do not be put off. There is much that is good about this vigorously-written page-turner. The characterisation works, the central figures engage, the settings, especially “Grim-up-Midlands” Avonford, well-realised, and the sense of a prevalent squalor in British life all-too-potent. I thought this the best conspiracy-story I had read for a while. The quality of the writing will hopefully take Worrall in new plot directions. He deserves well.

Swapping bodies in a grave is not that easy [try it if you do not believe me — obviously without noisy equipment], but it is a central plot device in Sarah Ward’s Grave Intent (Canelo, 2026, £9.99). Too much revealed you may feel, but I have gone no further than the back cover blurb. All devices may appear artificial and many are hackneyed. That does not ruin a book. Possibly more serious is a slipshod failure to check, for example “the liberal north-west” (p. 31) for New England, or “proscribed” (p. 46) for prescribed, and so on. More irritating might be the tone of the campus people, both staff and students, at once precious and mannered, stilted and performative. This is not one of Canelo’s better offerings.

Better written by far, Chris Barkley’s debut The Man on the Endless Stair (Polygon, 2025, £9.99) is at once a locked-room mystery that is a psychodrama and a literary work of great ambition. Set on a remote Hebridean island, it focuses on Euan, an author whose famous mentor, Malcolm Furnivall, is murdered in the study in his sprawling mansion, with his unfinished novel, the capping stone of his work, missing. The book does atmosphere without inhibition, whether in terms of the relationships between the small cast of characters, and the mansion, or, more particularly, both grounds and surrounding waters. If “it’s a slight difference, between being fascinating and being consumed”, the reader is repeatedly invited to join the characters in the latter in a plot in which incest and time-travel come to rupture certainties. There is also the world of Furnivall’s Gravitation novels, as with the opening of the first, The Limits of Your Longing:

It is set on a city island, where cartography is a crime. The Czar tells his subjects that their island’s edge is sacred and can never be found. The land is flat and vast, seemingly infinite, yet still, some believe the edge can be discovered. One day a young cartographer sets out from the centre of his district, with the intention of mapping the city, finding the island’s edge. He walks and walks for many years, hiding from the law, mapping the towers and the gardens, the splendour and decay, till, eventually, he comes to a place: a wall, built of the same unique stone which is mined solely in his home district. And there, by the long-abandoned gate, waiting to meet him, is a cartographer from the other side, who has made the same journey. They compare maps, see that what they have drawn is exactly the same. They have come by the same way, discovered the same wall, made from the familiar stone mined in their district. The novel ends before they make the decision to continue, or turn back.

Some will like this as literature; others might find the literary grip overwhelming to the point of self-indulgence or even parody.

A very different Scotland is on offer in the opposite pole of Scottish noir, The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney finished by Ian Rankin (Canongate, 2021, £20), an account of the first case of McIlvanney’s Detective Constable Jack Laidlaw. I have only just read this and it is my novel of the month. The discovery of the murdered gang-linked lawyer, Bobby Carter, in a seedy Glasgow lane launches an account of the police manoeuvring between the deadly gangs. The police have their rivalries. Glasgow is a constant presence: “not so much a city as a hangover … Glasgow’s all consequences, every day of the week.”

The men are under pressure: “Doctor’s orders. He wants me losing two stone. I did suggest he lob off a limb or two, but he advised against…. You name it, I’ve got it. Diabetes, scared lungs, coronary heart disease… I do snatch a few hours here and there, though I’m always fretting I might not wake up again.” But with surprises as in the bar with an Open University Programme on the television: “Barman’s studying structural mechanics.” Women are angry and/or victims. “He knew she had a prior appointment with the bottle of gin in her bag. The memory of its predecessor had been lingering on her breath as they talked.” Bleak and powerful.

The writing is easier to follow than a more recent Glasgow underworld spree, Callum McSorley’s Rat Race (Pushkin Vertigo, 2026, £16.99), though for those who like the argot, this has a verve and energy of its own, matching the predecessors in the series.

Edinburgh in a heatwave is the grim setting for James Oswald’s The Violent Hour (Wildfire, 2026, £20). Begins with the discovery of a torn-apart body in a ginnel, this is an effective police procedural in details. The plot, however, develops an occult theme, with an echo of the Rue Morgue, a theme that will work better for some than others.

The backdrop is very different in Rosa Silverman’s debut, The House on Otley Road (HQ, 2026, £16.99), with Leeds student life in 1999 the setting for two murders twenty years apart. Accomplished.

The recurrence of past crime is also the central theme in Emma Babbington’s The Gardens (HQ, 2026, £9.99). I could do without writing of the “I wake at two, slick with sweat, heart pounding” type, but this story is effective.

Domestic tension is more pointed with Mary Watson’s The Lover (Bantam, 2026, £16.99) in which the killing of a man at the outset is the product of deadly tensions. The writing is poor, as in “My curiosity was piqued … My stomach dropped,” but easy, and will certainly not distract from the plot.

Emma Lowther’s debut, Fellow Creatures (Quercus, 2026, £20), works better, with the theme of an outsider in an élite London drama school manipulating her way into new social and professional roles, ably presented. The writing is also different: “My mouth was dry as a birdcage!”

Secrets of a less Gothic type are at play in Jane Corry’s My Sister’s Secret (Penguin, 2026, £9.99). Not terribly well-written — “My teeth literally chatter with nerves” or “‘I think you two are getting on very well without me,’ retorted Amy sharply, storming out of the room,” but maybe designed for easy scanning.

Another book that is not for me is Asia Mackay’s Not Like the Other Parents (Wildfire, 2026, £10.99), the sequel to her A Serial Killer’s Guide to Marriage. The humour will appeal to some, but a witty take on suburbia for serial killers only takes me so far.

Douglas Skelton’s A Thief’s Revenge (Canelo, 2026, £16.9) is another in the “A Company of Rogues” series. The writing is poor, but the plot of interest for those who like the eighteenth century.

A better adventure thriller is provided by Nicholas Shakespeare — Frame 37 (Harvill, 2026, £20.00). There is the classic deep-conspiracy and some indifferent writing — “She dredged up a bitter laugh” — but this is well-plotted and paced and clearly successfully written for film-treatment.

Turning abroad, Martta Kaukonen’s Meet Me in the Darkness (Pushkin Vertigo, 2026, £10.99) is a multiple-narrator psychodrama, with a Helsinki-set serial killer of the horror type — “The sender had left their teeth marks on the deathly white letter … I was alone with a psychopathic killer in an abandoned factory where nobody would hear my screams.” Finnish noir is becoming a more successful sub-genre.

Peter Heller’s The Guide (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2021, £13.99) has a very different setting, with wealthy America in an idyllic fishing setting a cover for the devious cruelty toward children being milked for blood. Well-written.

Writing of a higher order is provided by the accomplished Jurica Pavočiĉ. His Mother of Sorrows (Zagreb, 2022; Bitter Lemon, 2026, £10.99) follows Red Water which was very favourably reviewed by yours truly, the Financial Times and others. Set in Split in 2022, it begins with the discovery of a murdered 17-year-old in an abandoned factory, a discovery that precipitates both plot and, as a related matter, family and community tensions.

These come in another form in Amen Alonge’s impressive A Killing in Lagos (Quercus, 2026, £22). A portrait of place, society and ethos that is deftly handled and enwraps an effective plot. Moves at a very well-regulated, calm pace as light is shone on the practices and recesses of the Lagos élite. A pleasure to read which is rarely the case with the genre.

The difficult personal life of the police is a theme in Garry Dishers’ cold-case Australian police procedural Under the Cold Bright Lights (Viper, 2026, £9.99), the English edition of an 2017 Australian work. The hero, a damaged cop, broods on the world and its structures: “Their assumptions, cronyism, power, sense of entitlement. Pre-emptive strike kinds of men: they seized the advantage while the rest of the world was thinking things through.” A hot, difficult, very human Australia, albeit with copperheads. The very different nature of the cold cases provides variety, and there is a strong and unexpected change in plot and tone half-way through.

For those who like the interactive genre, there is Antony Johnston’s Can You Solve The Murder. The Forest of Death (Bantam, 2026, £15.99) in which there is an explanation of method before we plunge into the plot with the opening sentence: A young woman, wearing strange clothes, found dead in a forest at midnight! Readers get points from solving clues, and are then assessed accordingly.