‘The One You Least Suspect’ by Brian McGilloway

Published by Constable,
8 May 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-40871801-8 (HB)

Some years ago I read McGilloway’s first two novels (featuring Inspector Devlin). At least I assume I read them as they are on my shelves, but I recall nothing about them. That is certainly not the fault of the author but a demonstration of this reader’s memory and his inability to recall the detail of most crime books he has read over the years shortly after finishing them. That failing does have the advantage that I can read them again later with enjoyment as the plot has faded from what passes as my mind. I know not everyone is like that. And it was the best part of 20 years since I read McGilloway’s early novels, so I think I can plead some amount of mitigation.

And thus I was keen to read his latest, a stand-alone. Single mother Katie works as a barmaid and cleaner at O’Reilly’s on the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic (that location is an important aspect of the novel as it is in McGilloway’s writing more generally – he lives there). She has a young daughter, Hope, and Katie’s devoted mother helps with childcare given that Hope’s father has absconded. All is calm until two detectives appear. They know all about Katie and her activities and have intimate photos to prove it. It appears that Katie’s employers (Mark and Terry O’Reilly) are heavily involved in the buying and selling of drugs and they want Katie to become an informer. She resists, of course, as this could be the kiss of death for her, but more and more pressure is put on her. She has a brief fling with a colleague, and his wife attacks her after receiving incriminating photos. Who sent them? Katie’s benefits suddenly stop. Who was behind that? Hope breaks her arm when playing near her devoted grandmother. Social services get involved and Katie’s mother is barred from being alone with her granddaughter. Who instigated that, after what was an innocent accident? Emotional blackmail is everywhere. Katie’s fears, particularly concerning Hope, mean that she finds it impossible to resist the pressure.

Katie is constantly on the edge, between the police and making sure that the O’Reilly brothers do not suspect her reluctant actions. Mark attempts to have a relationship with Katie: ‘I wondered at how one body could house someone who was such a gentleman in his treatment of me,’ she observes, ‘and yet also someone who let a teenager die, who was prepared to sell drugs in our city and murder those who would try to prevent him or, at the very least, turn a blind eye to his brother doing so.’ Katie makes her own enquiries and discovers information that makes matters clearer to her. She can be an operator too.

There is strange morality at work, something that both sides can use to justify their actions. Mark O’Reilly: ‘People want something and they will get it one way or the other. If we weren’t supplying the town, someone of a different persuasion would be and the money would be going somewhere else. We invest in the city. We employ people here. We look after our community.’ The police: ‘There’s always someone higher up the chain, Katie [...] You think we need you. We don’t need you. You’re dispensable. You need us. And, if you want to get out, you need me. [...] If you’re not going to help us, you’re of no value. Remember that.’ Events can be shown to be not what they seem. People can be shown to be not what they seem.

Given that some of the characters are unpleasant, evil and unscrupulous, there is plenty of violence. Lowlife seems to be everywhere, and human life is cheap to some. Demonstrations of genuine kindness are sufficiently rare to take the reader’s notice. If you like your crime hard-boiled, you will enjoy this novel. It is well-written with vivid characters and locations, and the intricate plot keeps you wondering if and/or how Katie will get out of her predicament. ‘I had never been more ashamed to be part of something in my life,’ Katie says at one point. After one or two incidents her first instinct is to take a shower, to cleanse the metaphorical dirt. Perhaps the best praise I can give the novel is that once or twice I felt like doing much the same.
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Reviewer: David Whittle

Brian McGilloway was born in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1974. After studying English at Queen's University, Belfast, he taught in St Columb's College in Derry, where he was Head of English before taking up a post in Holy Cross College in Strabane. His first novel Borderlands was shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger 2007.  and was hailed by The Times as ‘one of (2007’s) most impressive debuts. Brian has now written thirteen books. He lives near the Irish borderlands with his wife and their four children.

http://www.brianmcgilloway.com/  

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then. He is a former convenor of the East Midlands Chapter of the Crime Writers Association.

‘Shadow of a Queen’ by Peter Tonkin

Independently Published,
21 October 2025.
ISBN:979-827014396-1 (PB)   

The main part of this historical espionage novel focuses on the intrigues around Mary, Queen of Scots during the final part of her imprisonment in England under Elizabeth, seen through the eyes of intelligencer Robert Poley. It begins over twenty years earlier, with the death of Mary’s young husband, the King of France, the event which sent her back to Scotland, followed by a vivid account of the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre in Paris, showing the reader why Elizabeth’s ministers were so afraid of a Catholic uprising, and giving Poley motivation for his double-dealing.

Poley is a sympathetic protagonist, appearing at first to save the young Philip Sidney in the massacre, then as a soldier in the French/German religious wars. This touches on some of the ground covered in the previous books in the series. During the book, his loyalties to Walsingham, Elizabeth’s spymaster, conflict with his love for his young wife and child. Poley was a real person, and all the people who surround him were also historical: Walsingham, Elizabeth’s first minister Cecil, the covert priest Ballard and young Antony Babington, whose plotting to free Mary brought about her downfall. We’re given pictures of all of them, including Mary herself, seen first as a young widow, then as an ageing, overweight Queen so crippled by rheumatism that she can’t stand unaided. We’re shown how she traded on her position, but it’s also made clear that her downfall was brought about by deliberate entrapment. The characters are supported by a wealth of detail: the crowded towns, muddy roads, the food, the horrors of torture in the Tower, the fear of plague. Although the story of Mary Queen of Scots is well-known – and her death described at the end of the novel – the author has gone into detail of parts of the story which are less well known, like how close Savage came to killing Elizabeth, and this maintains genuine tension throughout.

A historical spy novel which brings new light to a well-known story and feels like time travel in the historical detail. It reads well as a stand-alone, but is the fifth in The Queen’s Intelligencer series, starring Poley. The first is Shadow of the Axe.
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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor 

Peter Tonkin was born 1 January 1950 in Ulster, son of an RAF officer. He spent much of his youth travelling the world from one posting to another. He went to school at Portora Royal, Enniskillen and Palmer's, Grays. He sang, acted, and published poetry, winning the Jan Palac Memorial Prize in 1968. He studied English with Seamus Heaney at Queen's Belfast. His first novel, Killer, was published in 1978. His work has included the acclaimed "Mariner" series that have been critically compared with the best of Alistair MacLean, Desmond Bagley and Hammond Innes. He has also written a series of Elizabethan mysteries. Since retiring from teaching he has written mysteries set in Ancient Rome and more recently a series set in Greece.

https://petertonkin.com/

Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh and came to Shetland as a newly-qualified teacher. She is currently a part-time teacher on Shetland's scenic west side, living with her husband and two Shetland ponies. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland's distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women's suffrage in Shetland. She's also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group.  

www.marsalitaylor.co.uk 

‘Rainforest’ by Michelle Paver

Published by Orion Fiction,
9 October 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-39877231-4 (HB)

Michelle Paver is well known as a writer of dark, mysterious books for children, and when she turns her hand to adult fiction the result is dark and mysterious enough to be avoided late at night lest it give you nightmares.

Rainforest is a powerful and scary tale based on her own experiences of visiting the south American jungle. Her version of it is freighted with unquiet spirits and hallucinatory potions and set at a time when white travellers had scant respect for either the terrain or the people who had lived in harmony with it for centuries.

Her protagonist is Simon Corbett, an entomologist who uses his search for new species as a means of escaping the aftermath of an obsessive love affair which ended in tragedy. He is still obsessed, and racked with guilt, a toxic combination which leads him into reckless behaviour and down some perilous paths.

The story is a familiar one of coming-of-age and redemption, but it’s skilfully woven into a sumptuous and graphic evocation of the jungle in all its luxuriant and baleful glory, its beauty and its dangers, and the effect it can have on the imagination. Or is it imagination? The local Indians believe everything, animate or not, has a spirit; who knows whether those spirits have the power to create havoc, or benevolence?

The evidence of careless destruction at the hands of money-grabbing outsiders plays a smaller part but is no less shocking for that. Contributing to that ruination are Simon’s fellow travellers, archaeologists, exploring (and to modern eyes despoiling) ancient Mayan ruins, and they are as colourfully evoked as the landscape. They are all misfits, a little eccentric: the bombastic Professor, self-important Ridley, clownish Birkenshaw. In contrast, the local Indians are laid back and sardonic, resigned to having their way of life and history trampled on. 

In many ways the story could be seen as secondary to the background, but Michelle Paver is too accomplished a writer to allow that view to persist. She uses the jungle to teach Simon Corbett a valuable lesson, about himself and about the world he comes from. His companions don’t change, but he does; he learns how to live peacefully in the jungle, not to fight and abuse it, and to respect the people who have made it their home.

The crime in this novel isn’t murder. It’s what human beings are doing to the planet we inhabit, and the damage we inflict on ourselves and each other along the way.  
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick 

Michelle Paver was born in Malawi to a Belgian mother and a father who ran the tiny 'Nyasaland Times', She moved to the UK when she was three. She grew up in Wimbledon and, following a Biochemistry Degree from Oxford, she became a partner in a City law firm. Eventually, though, having submerged herself in myth and folklore (not at work) and having been chased by a bear (again, not at work), she gave up the lawyer life to follow her long-held dream of becoming a writer. 

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.

‘Broken House’ by Louisa Scarr

Published by Canelo Crime,
16 October 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-83598-077-4

Third in the author’s PC Lucy Halliday series, Broken House features not only the engaging police dog handler Lucy but also her two lovable dogs: Moss, a black spaniel specialist search dog, and Iggy, a German shepherd trained to track and attack. In this series, Scarr writes in the popular genre of “K-9” —stories in which canine companions feature prominently.  

 

Inevitably, Lucy boasts a rich and complicated backstory. Lucy’s past with its unresolved issues figures largely in this third instalment, represented in her conflict with the man whose team she’s assigned to at the beginning of the story to investigate the case of a missing person, Lauren Shaw, daughter of a well-known country and western singer.

 

DCI Jack Ellis is a boss but also a friend and a potential future love interest, although in Broken House, her boyfriend is Pete Nash, a fellow dog handler. In the first book of the series, Ellis had led the team investigating the case of Lucy’s husband, Nico, an investigative journalist, missing and presumed dead, whose body subsequently was found in woodland. The trauma of the case made Lucy decide to relinquish her position as a DI and to retrain as a PC dog handler.

 

Three years later—the time of the action of Broken House—Jack and Lucy are estranged. Investigating Nico’s death, Jack learned he had confessed to his killer that Lucy’s difficult mother, who’d died when she was a child, had had another daughter—Lucy’s sister—of whose existence Lucy has always been completely unaware. Wanting to protect his friend, Jack conceals the fact from Lucy, and on subsequently learning of his deception, Lucy considers it unforgivable. At forty, Lucy imagines it’s too late to start a relationship with an unknown sibling, but the reader is aware she is lying to herself.

As for the case Ellis and Lucy are currently investigating, attractive Lauren Shaw disappeared from her large home in Hampshire ten years earlier. Her husband, Declan Cox, had claimed at the time that she had run off with a lover, and the police accepted his theory. But a schoolboy’s chance discovery of a memory stick in the overgrown garden of the mansion Bracken House, empty for ten years and now, in its now derelict state, dubbed locally as ‘Broken House,’ casts serious doubt on Cox’s supposition. It includes footage of Lauren, timestamped a week after she was reported missing, apparently being raped by a threatening male figure. Moss quickly finds human remains in the garden, and they are assumed to be Lauren’s.

The cast of characters includes not only Jack and Lucy and Lauren’s husband but Maggie Shaw, Lauren’s older sister, and Brett, Maggie’s former husband. They are all flawed individuals hiding dark secrets of their own, enjoyably complicating the story. Scarr ramps up the tension with the stalemate between Lucy and Jack—will they or won’t they ever reconcile? — and the question whether Lucy will, after all, seek out the sister she’d never known about. Iggy and Moss, naturally, also play an important part in the action.

Broken House features so many twists, turns, and unexpected revelations that the reader is pleasurably absorbed from start to finish in trying to guess the killer. Scarr writes in lucid prose and provides us with a surprise ending. Recommended.
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Reviewer: Wendy Jones Nakanishi/aka Lea O’Harra. 

Louisa Scarr studied Psychology at the University of Southampton and has lived in and around the city ever since. She works as a freelance copywriter and editor, and when she's not writing, she can be found pounding the streets in running shoes or swimming in muddy lakes.  

Lea O’Harra.  An American by birth, did her postgraduate work in Britain – an MA in Lancaster and a doctorate at Edinburgh – and worked full-time for 36 years at a Japanese university. Since retiring in March 2020, she has spent part of each year in Lancaster and part in Takamatsu on Shikoku Island, her second home, with occasional visits to the States to see family and friends. An avid reader of crime fiction since childhood, as a university professor she wrote academic articles on it as a literary genre and then decided to try her hand at composing such stories herself, publishing the so-called ‘Inspector Inoue mystery series’ comprising three murder mysteries set in rural, contemporary Japan. She has also published two standalone crime fiction novels. 

‘The Woman from Bookclub’ by Carrie Hughes

Published by Hera Books London,
6 November 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-83598 342-3 (PB)

It would appear that Emma has it all: a handsome, affluent husband, Elliot; reasonably well-behaved, teenage twin daughters; a lively dog and a beautiful house in a pretty village. Emma, along with her twin sister Jules, and friends Lucy, Rosa and Marianne, all belong to a book club. They meet in each other’s houses where they discuss their latest book choice whilst consuming posh nibbles and wine. Everything was running along smoothly until Lydia, a glamourous gold-digger, wormed her way into the group. She sets her sights on Elliot and all hell is let loose.

In the first sentence of the prologue Emma tells us that she was arrested for murdering Elliot. We are then taken back six weeks earlier to see how and why this startling event had come about. A tremendous lot then occurs very quickly over a comparatively short period with the  story being told by Emma and Lydia in segments alternating between each of their points of view.

We listen as Lydia shamelessly sets out to seduce Elliot and force Emma out of her home - a fate that the docile Emma seems surprisingly willing to accept.  Thankfully, Emma was not such a doormat as she first appeared to be. Once she starts working and meets a potential new partner, the planning and plotting behind her arrest is slowly revealed. Helped by Jules, Lucy, Marianne and Rosa, Elliot’s character and work ethics are exposed. He is not so nice after all.  Then he is killed.

The Woman from Bookclub is easy to read, and thanks to Carrie Hughes’ excellently drawn characters, distinguishing between the five members of the group presents no problems. The setting may sound idyllic, but not all of the characters have the relaxed and happy lives that those looking in from the outside might attribute to them. I found Lydia’s behaviour truly horrible, though who knows how they would behave if they were in her impecunious position? I just hope that none of us end up with Lydia’s doppelgänger in our book groups.  Suffice to say Emma is definitely not such a wimp as her initial easy acceptance of her fate might suggest. She is also fortunate to have technically adept and feisty friends. The message from this book is clear: choose your book club members carefully.
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Reviewer Angela Crowther.

Carrie Hughes lives in West Sussex, where she is a copywriter and guest lecturer in creative writing. She can often be found dreaming up stories, communing with dogs and visiting the dark side. She loves creating female characters who are stronger than they appear and forcing them into difficult situations.  

Angela Crowther is a retired scientist.  She has published many scientific papers but, as yet, no crime fiction.  In her spare time Angela belongs to a Handbell Ringing group, goes country dancing and enjoys listening to music, particularly the operas of Verdi and Wagner.

‘The Contest’ by Jeff Macfee

Published by Datura Books,
11 February 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-91552345-7 (PB)

During childhood, Gillian, a child prodigy took part in Miscellany’s prize puzzle course, a competition that guaranteed a huge reward for the winner, but it was not to be. Now, Gillian is just trying to keep her life together, working odd jobs and trying to support her unwell mother, without feeling like she has failed again.

When one of Gillians former child adversaries turns up offering her a job to investigate alleged cheating at Miscellany, she takes it.

The Contest is not your typical thriller; it feels very fresh and has such a unique and compelling premise. As a puzzle lover, this book was incredibly satisfying as there are so many littered between the pages, it also just feels like you're navigating a world of secrets and betrayals, and each player is taking their turn to move their piece.

As the main character I found Gillian to be a very likeable, flawed but realistic, someone who lives with the feeling of not being good enough, and not living up to the potential she was told she had. She often doubts herself, but underneath it all is resilient and stoic.

It’s a slow burn mystery, but one that you can’t help but be pulled into. There is just so much intrigue, deception and many problems to be solved by a puzzling mind.
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Reviewer: Lorraine Carpenter

Jeff Macfee is the VP of IT for Gearbox Software and a graduate of Viable Paradise Writer's Workshop. His short fiction has appeared in Needle: A Magazine of Noir and Shotgun Honey. He lives in North Texas with his wife and the chaos of three children. 

Lorraine Carpenter lives in the Southwest of England with her partner Doug. She spends most of her free time reading and has loved mysteries and thrillers since a very early age. If she’s not reading, she is most likely to be drawing or crocheting (very poorly) and watching a true crime documentary. 

 

 

‘Death in the Sea Pool’ by Peter Tickler

Published by Oxford eBooks,
4 November 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-91077951-4 (PB)

I didn’t kill her, I swear.

Mick Raglan’s voice betrayed anger, desperation and extreme ill-health. P.I. Doug Mullen nodded but said nothing. He is still wondering ‘why me’.  Then he realised, Raglan’s nurse knows his partner Becca Baines, also a nurse, and all becomes clear.

Raglan had served 15 years in prison for the murder of Layla Lark, and is now dying of cancer, all he wants is his name cleared so that his daughter doesn’t have to live the rest of her life thinking her dad was a killer.

Although reluctant to take on the case, Doug knows the money will be useful now that Becca is pregnant, and so he, Becca and their dog Rex head for Bude, the scene of the crime. Within a short time, they become aware that the agency woman looking after the house where they are staying is Roxanne, mother of Layla.

It quickly becomes apparent that Doug’s presence in Bude is not wanted. Mick Raglan is hated, and no one wants the past resurrected. But Doug having agreed to look into Raglan’s case feels compelled to continue. Then he is set upon by three men wearing balaclava’s who use him as a punch bag.

While his investigations don’t bring him any clarity as to the truth of Layla’s murder, Doug doggedly continues to pursue any lead that he can connect with.

This is a fascinating book, as our intrepid hero continues to interview everyone who at any time knew Raglan.  While the list grows, Doug encounters many people that knew both Raglan and Layla. He consequently logs up many questions but fewer  answers. 

A tantalising and truly compelling read as Doug continued to try to piece together just what did happen on the night of Layla’s death. A gripping mystery that I heartily recommend. 
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett

Peter Tickler has lived and worked in Oxford for over 30 years. He was a student at the university, and before that he was a university student, reading classics at Keble College. Peter is a member of the Crime Writer's Association and Mystery People group. 

http://www.petertickler.co.uk/ 

‘The Death Lesson’ by Sarah Ward

Published by Canelo,
2 October 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-83598-145-) (PB)

I’ve read several of Sarah’s novels and enjoyed them all, and so far this is the one I’ve liked the most. I consumed The Death Lesson in about three days, a record for me given my long working hours.

For a start, I enjoyed the setting – both the immediate one of a girls’ select boarding school and the general environs of West Wales, an area I know a little and like a lot – and this is always a plus.

I’ve long had a fascination for stories set in girls’ boarding schools; not only the books I was brought up on such as St Clare’s, Malory Towers and the Chalet School, but also older novels my mum introduced me to by Angela Brazil, Dorita Fairlie Bruce and so on. So, The Death Lesson was one I wanted to read. The novel actually delivered in an unexpected way; the zesty interaction I looked for between the pupils and the staff was certainly there, but it was in a different arena that the novel excelled. I don’t want to provide spoilers so won’t say too much, but it was another all-female group, this time from the past, that was the key to the novel – a group with a quasi-religious, semi-mystical agenda that had me well and truly hooked.

The first chapter follows Pippa, a young, insecure woman taking up a post as a maths teacher at Penbryn Hall, the prestigious boarding school, and what happens to her there. This sets up the framework for the novel, with Mallory Dawson – a civilian investigator working for the Dyfed Powys police – brushing off her dusty maths degree to go undercover as a teacher at Penbryn Hall. Her boss, DI Harri Evans in CID with whom Mallory is in a wobbly personal relationship, follows another line of investigation and is tracking down the members of a punitive cult that he came across some years previously. The way the novel moves between Mallory in the claustrophobic environment of the school and Harri trying to break down firmly closed doors to the past in Ceredigion, keeps the pages turning and anticipation growing.

Part of the excitement of the novel is sparked by Mallory’s increased isolation at the school and the danger posed to her by person or persons unknown, and part of it by trying to match up the little glimpses we’re given into the past with the women surrounding Mallory at the school. While Mallory gained my sympathy, and was an attractive and determined protagonist, other characters were just as interesting: the headmistress Lowri; one of the girls, Livvy; and the very scary Angharad of the sisterhood. Every page was a fresh delight.

The ending was suitably dramatic and satisfying and I was sorry to say goodbye to the scenario and the cast of characters, including our heroine. So, while in some ways I did revisit Mal(l)ory Towers, the novel’s darker elements recalled another, very different joy from my childhood: The Owl Service by Alan Garner. If you read The Death Lesson you’ll see what I mean, and reading it is very much recommended.
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Reviewer: Dea Parkin

Sarah Ward is the author of four DC Childs novels set in the Derbyshire Peak District where she lives. She is also writes gothic historical thrillers as Rhiannon Ward. The Birthday Girl, is the first book in her new Welsh based series, published 6th April 2023. She has also written Doctor Who audio dramas. Sarah is on Board of the Crime Writers Association and Friends of Buxton Festival, is a member of Crime Cymru, and a Royal Literary Fund fellow at Sheffield University.  

www.crimepieces.com  

Dea Parkin is Editor-in-chief at editorial consultancy Fiction Feedback, sponsor of the Emerging Author Dagger. She’s also Competitions Coordinator at the Crime Writers’ Association. She writes short stories, poetry, award-winning non-fiction and occasionally re-engages with The Novel. When she isn't editing or writing, you can find her at crime-writing festivals or giving her all on the tennis court. Usually, reading several books at a time, she thrives on crime fiction, history, and novels with a mystical edge. She is engaged in a continual struggle to find space for her books and time for her friends.

‘When Shadows Fall’ by Neil Lancaster

Published by Harpercollins,
27 March 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-00-855137-7 (HB)

This is book 6 in the DS Max Craigie series; it starts with Max at Chanonry Point watching dolphins with his aunt Elspeth, and a call from an old friend Shay Hammond about a suspicious death.

A climber has fallen on A’Chralaig, a Scottish Munro. The local police wrote it off as an accident, but it has been uncovered that a string of similar deaths have occurred over the last few years, it appears that someone has been targeting lone female climbers. As the investigation unfolds Max and Janie find themselves wrapped up in a world of heinous crimes and horrific motives.

These are the types of thrillers that I always find the most exciting and enjoyable, When Shadows Fall is centered around a well-established, likeable, capable team, and the plot is chilling, fast paced and suspenseful. It’s a genuine page turner, that pulls you through all its twists and heart in the mouth moments with ease. Neils ability to slowly turn up the tension and only reveal snippets of important information is masterful, following alongside the team as they work through these crimes is joyful in the darkest sense of the word.

I’d highly recommend this book and this series, it’s consistent and will constantly leave you wanting more.
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Reviewer: Lorraine Carpenter

Neil Lancaster was born in Liverpool in the 1960s. He recently left the Metropolitan Police where he served for over twenty-five years, predominantly as a detective, leading and conducting investigations into some of the most serious criminals across the UK and beyond. Neil acted as a surveillance and covert policing specialist, using all types of techniques to arrest and prosecute drug dealers, human traffickers, fraudsters, and murderers. During his career, he successfully prosecuted several wealthy and corrupt members of the legal profession who were involved in organised immigration crime. These prosecutions led to jail sentences, multi-million pound asset confiscations and disbarments. Since retiring from the Metropolitan Police, Neil has relocated to the Scottish Highlands with his wife and son, where he mixes freelance investigations with writing. 

Lorraine Carpenter lives in the Southwest of England with her partner Doug. She spends most of her free time reading and has loved mysteries and thrillers since a very early age. If she’s not reading, she is most likely to be drawing or crocheting (very poorly) and watching a true crime documentary. 

‘Final Orbit’ by Chris Hadfield

Published by Quercus,
7 October 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-52943595-5 9HB)

It is 1975 and Kaz Zemeckis has been appointed Flight Controller of a joint American and Soviet space mission.  The plan is for two modules, Apollo and Soyuz, to dock in orbit before attempting to board the USA’s first and now abandoned space station, Skylab.  The mission is considered relatively straightforward in space exploration terms, but there are some potential problems.  For one thing the Cold War is ongoing, and an underlying mistrust exists between the two nations despite the venture.  Another possible stumbling block involves unreliable communications between the two orbiting spacecraft and their control rooms on planet Earth.  Similarly, working in two quite different languages may lead to misunderstandings which on a spaceship could be disastrous. 

Confident that all glitches have been resolved, the ground teams at the Space Centre Houston and Baikonur Cosmodrome watch their respective spaceships launch into orbit.  The hope is that the expedition will herald a new era of collaboration between their two countries.

 

Meanwhile, in China, Chairman Mao and his top space scientist, Professor Tsien Hsue-shen,  are anxious not only to join the space race, but also to exceed the successes that are celebrated in Russia and America.  As the launch day approaches their political and economic rivals are unaware that a single-manned Chinese space craft, Shuguang, is already orbiting the Earth.  Professor Tsien assures his leader that the Peoples’ Republic can disrupt the joint mission, and Shuguang’s pilot, Fang Kuo-chun, intends to do just that – whatever the cost!

 

Hadfield skilfully weaves a story of criminal sabotage through the jeopardy that accompanies every manned space flight as the different narrative strands unfold and collide, in some cases literally!  It will take all Kaz’s experience, expertise and endurance to sort out what is a rapidly unravelling mission. 

 

The author uses his remarkable knowledge and personal experience, as a test and fighter pilot and subsequently as an astronaut, to describe scientific concepts in a way that is both fascinating and comprehensible.  Most of those who appear in the book are real historical characters, helpfully listed in his Author’s Note, and the imagined events that take place feel relatable as well as plausible.

 

This is the third in Hadfield’s Apollo Murders series.  It marks the welcome return of Kaz Zemeckis as its chief protagonist and works perfectly as a stand-alone novel. Scientific endeavour and political posturing at all levels are central themes but at the heart of the story is the desire of the human spirit to survive even in the most desolate places and situations. 

 

Final Orbit is a crime thriller set in orbit 270 miles above the Earth on spacecraft moving at around 4,570 miles per hour.  That is 22 times the speed of sound at sea level!  What’s not to love?

Exciting and entertaining from start to finish, and highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent  

Chris Hadfield is one of the most seasoned and accomplished astronauts in the world. The top graduate of the U.S. Air Force test pilot school in 1988 and U.S. Navy test pilot of the year in 1991, Colonel Hadfield was CAPCOM for twenty-five Shuttle missions and NASA’s Director of Operations in Russia. Hadfield served as Commander of the International Space Station where, while conducting a record-setting number of scientific experiments and overseeing an emergency spacewalk, he gained worldwide acclaim for his breath-taking photographs and educational videos about life in space. His music video, a zero-gravity version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," has nearly 50 million views, and his TED talk on fear has been viewed over 10 million times. He helped create and host the National Geographic miniseries One Strange Rock, with Will Smith, and has a MasterClass on exploration. Chris Hadfield's books An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, You Are Here and The Darkest Dark have been bestsellers all around the world.

Dot Marshall-Gent worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties.  She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues.  Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime