Sometimes I love a book because it’s firmly within the area of my reading taste, sometimes a book surprises me. I read Erin’s book ahead of interviewing her at a book festival and from the first page, I was blown away. ‘The House of Mirrors’ is a story of buried secrets and the lies we tell ourselves to maintain the world we’ve built. Flitting between the present day and the 1990s, Alice, our protagonist, is a wonderful creation and the entire novel is built around her somewhat skewed and damaged world view. Infused with lovely Gothic overtones, the first chapter is enough to pull any reader in.
'A bold, beautiful, sexy, full-throttle thriller: immaculately constructed and rich with detail, it is a gorgeous, creepy Gothic story for our times' NICCI FRENCH 'The queen of psychological gothic reigns' GILLIAN McALLISTER 'Literary crime novel is justified here' SUNDAY TIMES 'Mysteries galore ... properly chilling' OBSERVER
One of them has killed before. One of them will kill again.
In the sweltering summer of 1997, straight-laced, straight-A student Karen met Biba - a bohemian and impossibly glamorous aspiring actress. A few months later, two people were dead and another had been sent to prison.
Dark as coal, the second DS Lomax novel takes us slightly back in time to 2011 and a vision of London just before the Olympics begins. Tackling what initially may feel like dry subjects – regeneration, dirty money, corruption and community – the character of Johnny Nunn, a former-boxer now living on the streets as they change around him, injects heart and compassion into the story. An angry novel, but one I loved because it’s brimming with heart and courage, too.
Career campaigner Fraser Neal continually clashed with local businessmen, most recently over the council's selling publicly-owned social housing in the Docklands to private developers and displacing vulnerable residents. Until he's found dead in an alley behind Tennessee Fried Chicken's wheelie bins. Neal was also a police informant – or so he said. DS Max Lomax of Special Operations says he wasn't. No one believes him.
Max's reluctant inquiries into Fraser's murder take him through the rundown estates, church soup kitchens and graffitied shopfronts of southeast London. He's unaware that his investigation is linked to Johnny Nunn, a former boxer living…
Mick’s work and the world of the Slow Horses is surely no longer a secret now Apple TV have brought them to our screens. Over numerous novels, Mick has brought the gang in and out of focus, lifting the curtain to show us certain elements of their lives before pulling away, sometimes forever. I think the reason we keep coming back to these books, though, is to see what Slough House’s leader, Jackson Lamb, is doing. In this thrilling novel, Mick not only brings up to date, he also takes us back to the early-1990s in Berlin and provides a treat for returning readers and the perfect jumping in point for newbies.
When his former business partner and mentor, Don Ridley, is found dead shortly after asking for his help, Private Investigator Joe Geraghty knows he has to return to Hull and a city he thought was in his past. Weighed down with guilt, Don’s death points to his days with the police and an off-the-books investigation into the unsolved ‘Car Boot Murder’ decades previously. With dangerous secrets and a conspiracy of silence, the city might have had a makeover during Joe’s absence, but some things don’t change in the northern seaport. With his own life on the line, Joe is unable to stop, but powerful people with vested interests will always seek to ensure some stories stay covered in darkness.
