The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran (Faber, £14.99)
American genre-bender Gran’s latest book is a biblio-mystery that poses the question of how far we will go to save someone we love; more insidiously, it examines how life has a habit of giving us both more and less than we desire. Having lost her writing mojo when her husband Abe developed a rare degenerative neurological disorder, promising young novelist Lily Albrecht now deals in antiquarian books to pay the ever-mounting bills for his care. When she finds herself on the trail of a vanishingly rare 17th-century manual of sexual magic, reputed to be the most powerful occult book ever written, Lily enlists the help of another dealer, Lucas. Initially, her motive is profit, but as she and Lucas enact the instructions contained in a facsimile of the volume, Lily regains her vitality and begins to hope that she can heal Abe. However, a lot of people connected with the book seem to end up dead, and the final step involves committing murder … Clever, sexy, insightful and exciting, this story of determination, self-deception and danger is well worth the read.
A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99)
Set, like its predecessors, in the fictional Quebec town Three Pines, the 18th Gamache novel is something of an origin story as well as a tale of resolution and forgiveness. More than a decade after the murder of sex worker Clotilde Arsenault, her children Fiona and Sam, whom she had pimped out, return to the town. Fiona was imprisoned for killing her mother, but Gamache has always suspected Sam, and his feelings are intensified following several murders, apparently connected to a strange painting in a secret room. A complex plot takes in misogyny past and present: the banishing of witches, and the massacre, based on real events in Montreal, of female engineering students for encroaching on traditionally masculine territory. Add in a monstrous serial killer and there is, as the title suggests, almost too much to unpack. That said, the multi-layering is satisfying, and it’s a pleasure to be reacquainted with a cast who have come to feel like old friends.
This Train by James Grady (No Exit, £9.99)
This particular train is the Empire Builder – Seattle to Chicago in only 47 hours – and it’s doing a lot of heavy lifting as a metaphor for all sorts of things, in a plot that takes in sex, love, loneliness, revenge, teenage angst and existential crises as well as a heist and a conspiracy. With a large cast of archetypes – including a banker, a billionaire, a career soldier, an apparently perfect couple, a righteously disgruntled wife, a poet and a mature lady with a yappy dog – veteran American author Grady’s latest work has a “roving mic” POV as well as a kaleidoscope of plotlines. Propulsive rhythm, highly charged prose and slam-dunk cinematic action sequences more than compensate for a lack of emotional depth.
Urgent Matters by Paula Rodríguez, translated by Sarah Moses (Pushkin Vertigo, £12.99)
The train at the start of Argentinian journalist and activist Paula Rodríguez’s debut novel never arrives at its destination, instead crashing in the suburbs of Buenos Aires and killing 43 people in the process. Hugo Lamadrid, a wanted criminal, takes the opportunity to climb out of the wreckage and disappear. Detective Osvaldo Domínguez is left floundering in his wake as the media releases misinformation and rumours and Hugo’s nearest and dearest – including his partner’s pious sister, who works at a casino and has a side hustle in sex-toys, and her mafiosa mother – throw spanners in the works. Domínguez himself is implicated in the resulting unholy mix of Catholicism, confusion and corruption: a vivid and unforgiving depiction of a world in which everyone, even Hugo’s young daughter Evelyn, is guilty of something.
Dalziel and Pascoe Hunt the Christmas Killer & Other Stories by Reginald Hill (Harper Collins, £16.99)
As well as being a highly skilled crime novelist, the late Reginald Hill (1936-2012) was an accomplished short story writer. This collection, which includes several tales featuring his most famous creations, the crude, anarchic DS Andy Dalziel and his contained, politically correct sidekick Peter Pascoe, showcases both Hill’s virtuosity and his continual experimentation with the genre. A vicar is found nailed to a tree; a demon emerges from a suburban cellar; a work by Cellini disappears from a museum … From London to the Lake District, murders, misunderstandings and men disappointed in life abound, as do soured marriages, family members from hell, and interventions both divine and diabolical. All are explored in Hill’s trademark playful but sharply observed style as he conjures up multifaceted characters with economical ease. Issued with a perceptive foreword by Val McDermid, these stories will make a perfect Christmas present for mystery fiction aficionados.
