As my two previous reviews I hope make clear, I like Martin Edwards’ Rachel Savernake Series. I am not quite as positive about the impressive second volume in the series, Mortmain Hall (Head of Zeus, 2020, £8.99). Set in 1930, the novel is ably plotted, with one set of murders directing attention from another, and there is good characterisation:

She always seemed to measure herself against a human clock, urging herself forward relentlessly. It was almost as if she suffered from some terminal malady, and felt she had little time left to achieve all her goals.

I was carried along and, despite working out the who and why, did wish to see what was going to happen. My problem was not so much the silly outdated idea of why World War One broke out but rather the notion of the conspiracy. Ridiculous, far-fetched conspiracies were found aplenty in 1920s novels, but repeating the device did not let it work well, which affects the novel as a whole. A pity, as there is really lots here that is impressive, not least the deft writing. So enjoy the novel, and do not worry about the solution. Definitely one to read.

W.F. Harvey’s The Mysterious Mr. Badman. A Yorkshire Bibliomystery (1934; British Library Crime Classics, 2022, £9.99) amply fulfils the purpose of the series in returning to print an obscure book by an author not associated with the genre. Awarded the Albert Medal for a heroic wartime rescue that had left him permanently ill, Harvey (1885–1937) was best known as the writer of the supernatural, notably The Beast with Five Fingers (1928). The Mysterious Mr Badman (1934) was not only out of type for Harvey but also published by Pawling and Ness, a modest firm that soon after went out of business.

You may be surprised about how much the characters walk

Beginning on a hot July afternoon in a bookshop in the Cleveland Hills, this work is in some respects not only a straight story of murder and blackmail stretching to the heart of the imperial state, but also a satire on the works of John Buchan and others. It prefigures Agatha Christie’s One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940) in that a cabinet minister is involved, but there is a very different level of culpability. Harvey’s novel is well-written, clear in its direction, succinct, with a generous sensibility and a good use of setting. You may be surprised about how much the characters walk. The villain is suitably unpleasant in a slippery fashion. Recommended.

Rosemary Shrager’s The Proof in the Pudding (2023, Constable; £18.99) is the second Prudence Bulstrode novel, with its affable and skilled celebrity chef and her more angular granddaughter murder-solving in a pleasant fashion that will delight Richard Osman fans. Great for easy readers and commercial success, but not for those who want something more complex or a detective with edge. The villains — a fracking company — are all-too-predictable, but more seriously the characters are half-dimensional struggling for oneness. Shrager should provide more spice to her writing and the recipes. This is a second in a series, so author, agent and publishers have the opportunity to rethink, to draw on Shrager’s clear energy and her ability to offer interesting settings, but then up the game.

A more resonant style comes from Alice Slater’s debut novel, Death of a Bookseller (2023, Hodder, £14.99). Set in a chain bookshop clearly modelled on Waterstones, in which Slater worked for six years, this is a much darker work. It also successfully engages with characterisation. Roach, the complex female assistant fond of true crime podcasts, finds Laura, a new colleague, a disappointment at first but then becomes obsessed. An interplay of differing levels of friendship and literature, this is also wonderfully observant both about a sense of metropolitan decay and on the world of bookselling, not least the assistants and the customers. The smell of people is a distinctive theme. An impressive debut.

An even more impressive debut is Liza North’s Obsessed (Little Brown, 2003, £16.99). Set in modern-day Edinburgh, this is told from the perspectives of two school contemporaries, Hope and Laura. Hope speaks on 1999 and Laura on two time-sequences in 2019, before and after the murder of a third contemporary, her lover then and now, Alexis. There is also a sequence of emails between two anonymised lovers of 2018. Wonderfully constructed, this is at once a brilliant murder story, with enough spins of uncertainty to satisfy whilst remaining all-too-credible, and also a richly-perceptive account of female needs for connection, affection, love and sex.

Why does the corporal on page 303 become a colonel on page 304?

Scotland is also a setting for some of Val McDermid’s Christmas is Murder (Sphere, 2022, £8.99), a collection of short stories from 1989 to 2019 that first appeared in 2020. Christmas is not a unifying theme, which is supplied instead by the sheer brilliance of twelve short stories. Several are quite substantial, all vary in their setting and characterisation, but they are united in a kind of ironical dry wit of modern morality tales. Two share a beware bonfires theme; one is a brilliant exposé of the pressures of downward social mobility on the borderline personality; another deals with an electrifying consequence of such a change in a very different setting. One works well as an account of Southern social tensions with, as so often, women the victims. There is a somewhat ridiculous Holmes story that takes him to Sarajevo for 1914; two brilliant murders of vengeance (a frequent McDermid theme), set in Island Scotland and St Petersburg; a murder to protect George Orwell; a devilishly clever account of ghost writing and a brilliant, non-murderous calling to justice through blackmail of a modernising bingo-manager. One to read and enjoy.

Haunters at the Hearth: Eerie Tales for Christmas Nights (British Library Tales of the Weird, 2022, £9.99) is an impressive collection ably put together by Tanya Kirk. Those of a literary bent might find D.H. Lawrence’s “The Last Laugh”, a disturbing tale set in Hampstead, of particular interest. Mysterious roads and journeys are of concern, with A.M. Burrage’s mystical “Oberon Road”, Amelia Edwards’ disturbing “The Phantom Coach” and E.S. Knights’ more insidious “Dr Browning’s Bus”. Historic crime in a Gothic setting is to the fore in Margaret Irwin’s “The Earlier Service”, whilst Cornwall is menacing in Howard Spring’s “Christmas Honeymoon”. An impressive collection.

In at the Kill by Gerald Seymour (Hodder and Stoughton, 2023, £20, hb), is very different in setting, content and tone, being a thriller about the modern drug trade. Ably linking the crime worlds of South America, Spain and Liverpool, this is a Jonas Merrick novel with a satisfying protagonist, a cast finely etched and deployed well by a master writer, and a series of milieux that underline the strength of criminals. A thriller of note, it is particularly interesting for capturing the tensions between police and the security services and within the latter.

Why does the corporal on page 303 become a colonel on page 304 in David McCloskey’s Damascus Station (USA Norton, 2020; Swift, 2023, £9.99), and how far is this a clue that the entire plot is a stich, with the true story and real villain sitting beyond our gaze, apart from for that crucial “insight” clue? Alternatively, had all the very many thanked in the Acknowledgements simply been careless?

It does not matter as far as the tone is concerned, for this is a brutally effective thriller with murders aplenty. Set mostly in Syria in 2011–13, it is an account of the crisis of the Assad regime, of multiple deceits, of the CIA and even more the Syrians under terrible pressure from a ruthless regime eager for mass-murder. Incidentally, I am always puzzled by “activists” who are so much more critical of Israel than Syria. Anyone reading fact or fiction about the Middle East who does not share this view might consider why, unless they want to embrace their inner anti-Western anti-Semitism. The hero in this story is not so much the brave and resourceful CIA officer but his Syrian recruit, and the horrors of life for Syrians are ably brought to the fore in this excellent book.