Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper (Faber, £8.99)
Hollywood publicist Mae Pruett works for a crisis management company where “the only job is to disconnect power from responsibility”. Her ex-boyfriend, a former cop, has a similarly morally sordid job with a security company that “fixes” things – sometimes using physical force – for its high-value clients. When Mae’s boss Dan is murdered, shortly after inviting her to join his mysterious and possibly illegal side-hustle, the pair end up investigating, working against the system they formerly sustained. Cinematic and insightful, with one-liners worthy of Raymond Chandler on a good day and a sprawling plot that unfolds in a James Ellroyesque underworld of sexual predators, crooked police officers and unscrupulous wheeler-dealers, Everybody Knows is a tour de force.
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman (Viking, £22)
In the latest of Osman’s turbo-selling Thursday Murder Club series, the four resourceful pensioners from Kentish retirement village Coopers Chase look into the killing of antiques dealer Kuldesh Sharma, with help from friends including police officers, former KGB operatives and criminals. Kuldesh, who helped the Murder Clubbers with their previous investigation, was found shot in the head, and the mysterious package he’d been tasked with taking care of has gone missing. The body count grows as plot strands multiply to include art forgery and romance fraud – new Coopers Chase resident Mervyn Collins is having an online “relationship” with a financially rapacious Lithuanian called Tatiana. There is also a moving and sensitively written subplot involving former spy Elizabeth Best and her husband Stephen, as they face his advancing dementia. The Last Devil to Die is as warm-hearted and entertaining as its three predecessors, but as the characters’ backgrounds are only sketchily rendered, newcomers to the series will be better off starting with an earlier title.
You’d Look Better As a Ghost by Joanna Wallace (Viper, £14.99)
A welcome addition to the burgeoning subgenre of darkly humorous female serial killer novels (My Sister, the Serial Killer; How to Kill Your Family; How to Kill Men and Get Away With It, etc), Wallace’s debut centres on Claire, for whom murder is both a go-to method of problem-solving and a form of therapy. Flashbacks tell of a difficult childhood with a truly appalling mother, while in the present she attends a bereavement counselling group after the death of her beloved dad, who had dementia. Meanwhile Lucas, who caused Claire disappointment and humiliation when he mistakenly informed her that she was shortlisted for an art prize, is duly dispatched, as is sadistic nurse Sebastian; but someone in the bereavement group rumbles her and blackmails her into a deal. Forensically compromised, not least by the rotting human head in her fish tank, Claire is forced to agree, and things start to get very complicated indeed. You’d Look Better As a Ghost and its ilk are, I suspect, “Marmite” books. If you’re a fan, this one will be a treat: a pacey page turner, written in an enjoyably deadpan style.
The Winter List by SG MacLean (Quercus, £20)
In 1660, when the monarchy was restored after the Commonwealth, the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion pardoned those who had fought on the side of Thomas Cromwell, unless they had had direct involvement in Charles I’s execution. Two years later, when the latest book in MacLean’s splendid Damian Seeker series is set, the hunt is still on for the remaining regicides. This novel does not feature Seeker, who was Cromwell’s man through and through, but his presence looms large. His daughter Manon is living in York and expecting her second child in a house beset by spies. Among them are Lady Anne Winter and her “maid” Griselda Duncan – two widows who have banded together in adversity and are working their way through the titular list of traitors in order to gather evidence. With a propulsive plot, this is a well-researched and fascinating portrait of a febrile, still divided nation, where long-held grudges fester in an atmosphere of broken trust.
Tell Me Your Secrets by Mel McGrath (HQ, £16.99)
Abuse of trust is the theme of McGrath’s latest psychological thriller – here, the covenant between physician and patient. Trying to rebuild their lives after the death of their young daughter in a hit-and-run accident, Meg and Marc relocate to a Kentish cottage that was the property of his late father. While Marc commutes, Meg, left to settle into her new home, is disconcerted to bump into Janette, who counselled the couple in London. Janette, who says she is looking for a country bolthole, soon insinuates herself into their new lives, and Meg’s existence gradually descends into a nightmare of missed red flags and blurred boundaries as her erstwhile therapist becomes ever more manipulative and controlling. McGrath provides a sensitive study of trauma and loss as well as expertly ratcheting up the tension, and the result is a compelling read.
