The Last Dance by Mark Billingham (Sphere, £22)
Set in Blackpool, Mark Billingham’s new series starts with the killing of two men – one the heir to a crime empire, the other an IT consultant – in adjacent hotel bedrooms, and proceeds at a smart clip, expertly bedding in characters along the way. The protagonist, widowed DS Declan Miller, provides a novel spin on the emotionally-unfit-copper-returning-to-work-too-soon trope. His hobbies are ballroom dancing, pet rats and mentally discussing the case with his late wife, Alex, a police officer killed in the line of duty. A gobby maverick, Miller treats everything with a mixture of sarcasm and dad humour – which might be hard to take, were he not perfectly balanced by his new work partner, Yamaha-riding thrash metal devotee DS Sara Xiu, who never, ever, gets the jokes. There’s a memorable supporting cast, and the overarching mystery of his wife’s death provides a hook for titles to come. Billingham’s Tom Thorne series set the bar very high indeed, but The Last Dance is well up to standard – funny, moving and expertly plotted.
Grave Expectations by Alice Bell (Corvus, £14.99)
Phantoms abound in Alice Bell’s debut, a modern mashup of Ghosts, Blithe Spirit and Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased). Medium Claire Hendricks has an advantage over other table-tappers: not only can she actually see ghosts, but her best friend at school, Sophie, who was murdered at the age of 17, has hung out with her ever since. When Claire provides birthday party entertainment at a country pile, she realises that someone has recently been killed there, and she and Sophie team up with a depressed ex-copper and his blue-haired nibling to find out whodunnit. It’s a while before the mystery element of the book is properly up and running, but the lightly acerbic style is a delight and the interaction between inept-but-dogged millennial Claire and eternal teenager Sophie – whose death remains a mystery – offers plenty of spooky fun. More, please.
Children of the Sun by Beth Lewis (Hodder & Stoughton, £18.99)
Set in 1982, Beth Lewis’s fourth book is a cult novel with a difference. Living off grid, deep in America’s Adirondack Mountains, the members of the Atlas community, all of whom have lost loved ones, are preparing for the opening of the Golden Door, which they believe will deliver them to a parallel reality in which the tragedies did not happen. Three not entirely reliable narrators – journalist James, trying to maintain professional distance even as grief for his dead lover draws him in; Root, one of a handful of children being prepared for a special role in the ceremony; and Eve, who is on a quest to find cult leader Sol – pass the narrative baton between them. An intriguing mystery with a wholly unexpected ending, and a moving exploration of loss, trauma, belief and unintended consequences.
Now You See Us by Balli Kaur Jaswal (HarperCollins, £14.99)
Balli Kaur Jaswal’s fifth novel is a satisfying character-led mystery set in Singapore, among the Filipina maids who toil for long hours in rich households in order to send money home. Workers Corazon, Donita and Angel are friends who share tales of their treatment – the punishments meted out to Donita by her never-satisfied “ma’am”; the unwanted attentions of Angel’s employers’ son. Things get a lot worse when Donita’s friend Flordeliza is accused of murdering her employer. The police department isn’t prepared to look beyond the obvious suspect; for safety’s sake, the three women ought to keep quiet, but they decide to mount their own investigation. A sympathetic and sobering examination of the hidden lives of an exploited and vulnerable group of people.
The Monk by Tim Sullivan (Head of Zeus, £20)
The fifth novel in Tim Sullivan’s series featuring neurodiverse detective George Cross of the Avon and Somerset Police is an investigation into the death of Benedictine monk Brother Dominic, whose badly beaten body, tied to a chair, has been found in a ditch at a West Country beauty spot. A former banker, Brother Dominic swapped mammon for God some 15 years earlier and lived a quiet life devoting himself to beekeeping, bookbinding and worship. He appeared to have no enemies, so the clues to his violent and untimely end must lie in his previous life. Meanwhile Cross, whose lack of empathy and tendency to take things literally is leavened by an underlying sweetness, is forced to confront his own past – his mother, who left the family home when he was just five, has returned. A gripping, atmospheric police procedural with an intriguing detective and an excellent foil in the shape of his longsuffering partner DS Josie Ottey.
