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📂 **Category**: Books,Crime fiction,Thrillers,Culture,Fiction
📌 **What You’ll Learn**:
‘Killing Me Softly’ by Christy Watson (Phoenix, £20)
In her second psychological thriller, Watson, a former nurse, perfectly captures the frenetic atmosphere and biting humor of a city hospital’s under-resourced A&E department. The plot revolves around three strongly drawn characters: senior nurse Aoife, whose extramarital experiences with clinical leader Michael help keep her sane, and whose new intake includes the naive and hypocritical Eden and the more experienced but worryingly sarcastic Sophie. After they arrive, the death rate rises: long waiting times may play a role, but Aiden makes mistakes and Sophie has a behavioral problem… The conclusion is surprising but true in a story that is ultimately less about individual guilt than about the failure of the policies of successive governments.
Whidbey by T Kira Madden (Tinder, £20)
The powerful debut novel from Native Hawaiian writer Madden explores the effects of child sexual abuse and the commodification of trauma. It’s the summer of 2013, and former reality TV star Lindsay King is publishing her memoir written about abuse at the hands of Calvin Boyer, the adult son of a school bus driver. The book contains information about Boyer’s other victims, including Birdie Chang, who fled Brooklyn to Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, Washington, dissatisfied with the appropriation of her story and trying to escape media scrutiny. Linzi grapples with the narrative produced by the ghost writer — the truth is far more complex — and Boyer’s mother, who has always defended him and blamed his “illness,” struggles to process her feelings after deliberately running over and killing him. A satisfying mystery, though the crime takes second place to Madden’s unflinching and unsettling examination of how girls are conditioned to conform, and the discrepancy between lived experience and society’s preferred “victim narrative.”
Based on a true story by Sarah Vaughan (Simon & Schuster, £16.99)
Vaughan’s sixth novel is set on a Cornish cliff, in the grand home of best-selling children’s author and national treasure Dame Eleanor Kingman. Preparations are underway for her 70th birthday party, and a film crew is preparing what everyone assumes is a hagiographic documentary, although we know from the quick prologue that nothing goes according to plan. Kingman’s three daughters, who have failed to escape their mother’s shadow, arrive with problems of their own, and the ruthless aspiring writer has made many enemies on his way to the top. There is a danger that an unpublished early novel containing biographical details may emerge, belying Kingman’s carefully curated backstory; Someone sends her threatening emails, and soon the air is filled with the sound of chickens coming home to roost. Expertly plotted and tense, this is dysfunctional family psychodrama at its undeniable best.
The Dangerous Stranger by Simon Mason (Riveron, £16.99)
The fifth installment of Mason’s series set in Oxford sees DI’s odd couple – Ryan Wilkins, a white man who grew up in a trailer park, the offspring of a violent father, and Ray Wilkins, his most respected and best partner of Nigerian heritage – investigating a death at a hotel housing asylum seekers. As attitudes toward immigration harden, racists grow emboldened, and when a riot results in a young man being burned, the victim is presumed to be a refugee. When he turns out to be a French tourist, it is clear that the case is more complicated and perhaps more embarrassing than originally thought, and the police chief, who dislikes the detective duo’s often unorthodox methods, soon begins to hyperventilate. Meanwhile, the previous supposed victim, a 15-year-old African boy who speaks no English, is on the run, starving and terrified. Purists may balk at some of the procedural possibilities, but Mason is a brilliant storyteller, meticulously depicting the deprivation that coexists with the dreamy towers of Oxford.
astronaut! by Oana Aristide (Wildfire, £14.99)
Aristide’s second novel is set in Romania, the country of her birth, in 1989; It is a seedy, dull world full of understudies, informants and the constant televised worship of Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu. When bodies start showing up in various locations with unexplained wounds, police officer Konstantin must solve the case – but how does the investigation proceed when criminals officially only exist in capitalist countries? A colleague’s suggestion that the bear is responsible is brilliantly dealt with. The only problem is that it is impossible to catch this imaginary culprit, and the bodies keep showing up. Meanwhile, eight-year-old Leah finds herself drawn into the disruptive activities of a neighbour. Part thriller, part fairy tale, it’s brilliant, funny and deeply moving – highly recommended.
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