‘How To Get Murdered in Devon’ by Stephanie Austin.

Published by Alison & Busby,
18 September 2025. 
ISBN: 978-0-7490-3133-6 (HB)

Juno Browne is a busy woman.  She runs a dog-walking business, a cleaning business, an antiques business from her home, as well as helping Ricky and Morris with their theatrical costume hire business.  She also gets involved in murder investigations.

Amidst all this activity, Juno does manage to have a personal life, but even that is slightly complicated as her lover, Daniel Thorncroft, lives in Ireland.  He is renovating a house close to Juno’s and visits her as often as he can.  Daniel decides that a car would be useful and Juno manages to find one at a reasonable price in time for his next visit.  On his arrival he discovers a body in the boot of the car.  Juno explains to the police that she purchased the car from Amber Horrell, the daughter of Julian Horrell, another local antiques dealer who had recently died.  To Juno’s concern, the police reveal that they have not been able to contact Amber.

Juno’s natural curiosity soon takes over and, ignoring police warnings not to get involved, she follows her own lines of enquiry.  Her (not always subtle) investigations slowly reveal a complex and fascinating family history, the identity of a murderer and the whereabouts of a family treasure. 

In this, the ninth book in the series, Juno uses her knowledge of the antiques business, her familiarity with the area and her own instincts.  She is supported by her friends and frustrates the police, who attempt to keep her safe.  Daniel is a good foil for her energetic pursuit of the truth.  An interesting introduction to Steampunk helps in the discovery of the solution and the story has a muted, but happy, ending. 
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Reviewer: Jo Hesslewood
Other books by this author:  Dead in Devon, Dead on Dartmoor, From Devon with Death, The Dartmoor Murders, A Devon Night’s Death, Death Comes to Dartmoor, A Devon Midwinter Murder, Death on Dartmoor. 

Stephanie Austin has enjoyed a varied career, working as an artist and an antiques trader, but also for the Devon Schools Library Service. When not writing she is actively involved in amateur theatre as a director and actor and attempts to be a competent gardener and cook. She lives in Devon.

Jo Hesslewood.  Crime fiction has been my favourite reading material since as a teenager I first spotted Agatha Christie on the library bookshelves.  For twenty-five years the commute to and from London provided plenty of reading time.  I am fortunate to live in Cambridge, where my local crime fiction book club, Crimecrackers, meets at Heffers Bookshop .  I enjoy attending crime fiction events and currently organise events for the Margery 

Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival

We are excited to share the announcement that bestselling psychological thriller writer, Lisa Jewell, is confirmed as Festival Programming Chair for the 2026 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival!

Several exciting special guests, David Baldacci, Nadine Matheson, Gillian McAllister, Steve Cavanagh and Alice Feeney, have also been confirmed. We are thrilled that global crime writing icon David Baldacci, one of the world’s most-loved thriller writers, is returning to the Festival for the first time in fifteen years with his highly acclaimed new series featuring undercover spy Walter Nash.

 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival,
returns to Harrogate 
23-26 July 2026 
to offer fans from around the world a unique opportunity to meet literary superstars and discover exciting new talent, and enjoy a packed programme of panels, talks and inspiring creative workshops, with a special event for 2026 celebrating the legacy of Agatha Christie, who stayed at the Old Swan Hotel (the Festival venue)100 years ago when she mysteriously disappeared.

Weekend Break Packages for the festival are on sale now and rover tickets and individual event tickets go on sale in Spring 2026.

  www.harrogateinternationalfestivals.com

New Blood for ‘Oscars of the Crime Genre’

The crime writing genre’s oldest and most famous award has had an injection of new blood thanks to a new sponsor.

Author Karen Baugh Menuhin is sponsoring its highest accolade, the
CWA Diamond Dagger.

One of the UK’s most prominent writers’ societies, the CWA was founded by the prolific author John Creasey in 1953.

The very first CWA awards ceremony was hosted in 1965, with Agatha Christie as the principal guest, and the awards have become known as the ‘Oscars of the crime genre.’

The Diamond Dagger was introduced in 1986, and is considered the UK’s most prestigious lifetime achievement award for crime writers. Presented annually, nominations for the award are put forward by CWA members and selected by a vote of past Diamond Dagger winners.

Past recipients include Mick Herron, Lynda La Plante, John Le Carré, PD James, Ian Rankin, Ann Cleeves, Lee Child, Frederick Forsyth,
and Michael Connelly.

Karen Baugh Menuhin is a bestselling author whose murder mystery novels have sold over a million copies. She lives in the Cotswolds with her husband, Krov Menuhin – retired explorer, natural history film-maker, and eldest son of Lord Yehudi Menuhin.

Karen Baugh Menuhin said: “I’ve always been a huge fan of historical fiction, Downton Abbey, and murder mystery. I began writing a few years ago at the age of 60 – which just goes to show it's never too late. I decided to take the independent route and have been extremely fortunate that my books have resonated with fans. In the last few years, I’ve reached number 1 in the USA and sold over a million books. Crime fiction has given me so much pleasure as a reader and a writer, and I’m very proud to be able to give something back. Sponsoring the CWA Diamond Dagger is arguably the most esteemed award in crime fiction and it's a huge honour to be involved in supporting the CWA in this.”

Maxim Jakubowski, chair of the CWA Daggers’ committee, said: “I am delighted that Karen Menuhin has come forward to personally sponsor the CWA Diamond Dagger. Following a handful and more of decades when the award was sponsored in turn by a variety of welcome corporate bodies, it is gratifying to find an author with a belief in our crime & mystery community willing to take over the flame.”

The Daggers celebrate the best in crime writing, and feature 13 Dagger Awards in total, celebrating established careers as well as new talent, with the Emerging Author Dagger, open to unpublished authors. To date, agents and editors have signed over two dozen of these emerging authors.

Nadine Matheson, Chair of the CWA, said: “I’m delighted to have Karen Baugh Menuhin as the sponsor of the CWA Diamond Dagger. The Diamond Dagger is the highest honour in crime writing, celebrating a lifetime of extraordinary commitment, creativity, and contribution to the genre. Karen’s generosity and support ensure that this prestigious award continues to recognise the writers whose work has shaped, inspired, and elevated the world of crime fiction.”

Other sponsors of the Daggers include the family-owned company that looks after the James Bond literary brand, Ian Fleming Publications, with the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller, Kevin Anderson and Associates who sponsor the Gold Dagger, and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), a not-for profit organisation that supports authors to receive fair payment, sponsor the ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction.

Sponsor of the John Creasey First Novel Dagger is the intellectual property specialists, International Literary Properties (ILP). Also, the author Maxim Jakubowski sponsors the Crime Fiction in Translation award in honour of his wife Dolores, the editorial consultancy Fiction Feedback sponsor the Emerging Author Dagger, and Morgan Witzel sponsors the Historical Dagger in memory of his wife, the writer Dr Marilyn Livingstone.

The CWA’s founding aims were to provide a social network, as well as help crime writers with business matters. Today, the CWA’s determination to promote the genre remains central to its mission.

‘The Devil in Oxford’ by Jess Armstrong

Published by Allison & Busby,
4 November 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-7490-3204-3 (HB)

 It is December 1922,  and Ruby Vaughan is taking a break from the Exeter bookshop that she runs with her employer, Mr Owen, and has accompanied him on a trip to Oxford. Mr Owen is revelling in catching up with his antiquarian friends, but Ruby is finding the crowded rooms and continual talk about antiquities overwhelming.

 Ruby is a strong and courageous person, but deep inside she is still struggling to cope with her past history of injustice, fear and grief: this ranges from being sent away from her home in America because she had ‘lost her good name’ to a man who used her for his own pleasure; the loss of her parents and sister when the Lusitania was sunk; and her service as an ambulance driver in the First World War. Added to this are the psychological and physical wounds inflicted upon her by the two murder investigations she has become embroiled with, and distress and confusion she feels because of the problems in her relationship with Ruan Kivell, whom she had first met in his native Cornwall, and encountered again in Scotland. Ruan is a witch and healer, born with the ability to hear the thoughts of those around him, and he and Ruby have a tumultuous and intense relationship.

 For Ruby, one of the best things about her stay in Oxford is reuniting with her wartime friend, Leona Abernathy. Leona is living and working in Oxford, translating ancient manuscripts and inscriptions, under the supervision of Professor Frederick Reaver, a high-flying academic, whom people either admire intensely or dislike with equal vehemence. Ruby is geared up to endure another claustrophobic and potentially tedious evening, attending a viewing of the ancient artefacts collected by Julius Harker at his small museum. Harker had once had a career that was as potentially stellar as that of Reaver, but some undisclosed misdemeanour caused him to be disgraced.

 There is quite a lot of doubt about whether Harker will bother to turn up to the event, because he has not been seen around Oxford for several days. However, Mr Owen wishes to attend the gathering at the museum and Ruby feels duty bound to go as well. When Harker does not appear to give his presentation, many members of the audience comment upon his unreliability, but, on this occasion, Harker’s detractors wrong him, because he is present in the museum: he has been murdered and stuffed into the stone funerary box that is the centrepiece of his display.

 Ruby has no intention of getting mixed up in another murder investigation. Her recent experiences in trying to discover the truth about violent deaths have brought her close to death and scarred her both physically and mentally. This resolution is supported by Ruan, who has arrived in the city in which he had once been a student. He is renewing his acquaintanceship with people he had known there and spending time with Emmanuel Laurent, the father of his best friend, who had not survived the First World War. However, Ruby’s resolution to not get involved is shaken when Leona begs her to discover the truth, especially because a man has been arrested for the murder and Leona is convinced that he is innocent. The deeper Ruby delves into the mystery, the darker and more convoluted the matter becomes until it is impossible to distinguish whether the crime is the result of the theft or the forgery of artefacts, or of something far more sinister and evil. It soon becomes evident that something very dark and dangerous is happening in Oxford, which threatens Ruby, Ruan and those close to them.

 The Devil in Oxford is the third book in the series featuring Ruby Vaughan. It is an excellent addition to a fascinating series. The historical details of academic Oxford are vividly drawn and the protagonists are multilayered and engaging as they struggle to overcome their conflicting needs and the traumas of their past lives. This is a beautifully paced, Gothic mystery, which keeps the tension going until the very end. The Devil in Oxford is an outstandingly good read, a page-turner, which I recommend.
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Reviewer: Carol Westron

Jess Armstrong's debut novel The Curse of Penryth Hall won the Mystery Writers of America/Minotaur First Crime Novel Competition. She has a masters degree in American History but prefers writing about imaginary people to the real thing. Jess lives in New Orleans with her historian husband. When she's not working on her next project, she's probably thinking about cheese, baking, tweeting or some combination of the above. 

Carol Westron is a Golden Age expert who has written many articles on the subject and given papers at several conferences. She is the author of several series: contemporary detective stories and police procedurals, comedy crime and Victorian Murder Mysteries. Her most recent publications are Paddling in the Dead Sea and Delivering Lazarus, books 2 and 3 of the Galmouth Mysteries, the series which began with The Fragility of Poppies. 

www.carolwestron.com 

‘The Winter Dead’ by Lynne McEwan

Published by Canelo,
6 November 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-83598-068-2 (PB)

DI Shona Oliver is one very busy lady. Both her personal and professional lives are full of drama. When we first meet Shona, she is a volunteer on the local lifeboat helping to rescue an injured kitesurfer stranded on a perilous beach. Once back on the Scottish uplands, currently covered in a thick blanket of snow, Shona has to unravel how a well-liked forest ranger, John MacFarlane, missing from his cottage in the Dalgeddie forest, is found in a coastal cave miles from his home. Who took him there? Was he killed by tree rustlers or predators involved in illegal activity targeted at local eagles, or was the killing totally unconnected with his current work? Investigating the ranger’s death is not the only problem Shona and her colleagues, DS Murdo O’Halloran, and several young constables have on their hands. They are also tasked with finding an errant poet from Cumbria who is missing in their area and tracing the rightful owner, and establishing the authenticity of, a beautiful painting of the Madonna that has been handed into the police station. 

On the home front, husband Rob is still in prison for supposed financial fraud. His brother, Sandy, runs a local auction house but is reluctant to help Shona find an owner for the missing picture. Shona is also stressed because suspicion she was involved with the misdeeds of her former boss is still hanging over her. Thankfully she has no B&B guests, though some are expected soon. Her daughter, Becky, is now at Glasgow University. Becky is traumatized and needs counselling because Jack Rutherford, one of her flat mates, has been stabbed and is dangerously ill in hospital. Despite his own fears and worries, Jack’s father, Simon, supports Becky and is a good friend, or possibly potentially more, to Shona whose marriage appears to be irretrievably broken. 

Lynne McEwan weaves this multiplicity of threads together with consummate skill whilst still managing to portray her characters as a collection of varied and entirely believable human beings with their attendant problems and little professional jealousies.  A wide variety of locations and activities: pubs, witnesses’ homes, caves threatened by the incoming tide, walking through the sea over possible quick sands and a search and rescue operation in a snowy Dalgeddie forest etc. are described with terrifying intensity and photographic accuracy. And, just when you think everything is beginning to settle down, there is a jaw dropping, personal revelation at the end of the book.  Unfortunately, we will have to wait for the next episode to see how Shona deals with it.

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Reviewer: Angela Crowther 

Lynne McEwan was born in Glasgow. She is a former newspaper photographer turned crime author. She’s covered stories including the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the first Gulf War in addition to many high-profile murder cases. Her DI Shona Oliver series is set on the beautiful Solway Firth which forms the border between Scotland and England, and where Shona is also a lifeboat volunteer. Lynne is a graduate of the University of East Anglia's Creative Writing Programme and splits her time between Lincolnshire and Scotland.

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. 

 

‘Sharon Wright: Butterfly’ by John Lynch.

Published by Mandrill Press,
7 April 2023.
ISBN: 978-1-91019409-6 (PB)

Donald Carver is a hitman.  He is also a fetishist and sexual predator, and the novel begins with a chilling description of him spying on Stacy Teasdale from a café opposite her flat.  The young woman has no idea that she is being observed, nor has she done anything to attract her watcher’s attention.  Through Carver’s misogynistic gaze, though, she is a femme fatale and deserves to be taught a lesson.  He intends her harm, the only question is, what exactly will he do?  

This opening chapter leads the reader into an underworld of petty, and sometimes not so petty, criminality.  It is a world that occasionally collides with ordinary people living ordinary lives and into which the Sharon Wright of the title was born.  The eponymous protagonist, however, could not be more different than Stacy.

Sharon is married to John Wright, a hapless lackey known as Buggy who does errands for hard criminals.  She despises her spouse and treats him with disdain.  Moreover, whilst Buggy is desperate to please Sharon, his heart’s not in it and his ‘butterfly’ spouse’s promiscuous behaviour has all but eroded his confidence.  Then he gets the chance to become a real player in the crime game.  Buggy is determined to prove himself to the woman he loves and is rewarded when Sharon seems impressed.  Still, he is terrified, and with good reason.

The characters in this novel are thoroughly believable if not always likeable.  The author has captured the sense of hopelessness and pessimism that pursues the individuals he depicts. Sharon is an enigma, she wants security and to be respected, whilst using the men who, in turn, use her.  Can she find a way to break the circle?  Carver too is a complicated protagonist, impossible to warm to, a man you would not wish to meet, yet the author prompts us to consider how he became the person he now is.

Sharon Wright- Butterfly is written with precision and frankness as the author describes situations that we know take place, but hope never to be caught up in.  The book includes some explicit descriptions of sexual activity and explores shocking and deeply disturbing issues.  That said, it is an honest tale, well told.

To those who enjoy gritty, anything-but-cosy, crime this is not to be missed.
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent 

John Lynch became a writer after he had spent more than 40 years in international sales, living and working on every continent except Antarctica. In 1989 he sold his first book to a publisher, and first article to a magazine and his first short story to BBC Radio 4. He now writes contemporary fiction in the name of John Lynch, historical fiction as R J Lynch, and police procedurals as JJ Sullivan.

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 fiction.  

‘Death in the Aviary’ by Victoria Dowd

Published by Datura Books,
9 September 2025.
ISBN  978-1-91552353-2 (PB)

A year after the murder of Charles Ravenswick, heir to the Ravenswick Newspaper empire in 1928, the case remains unsolved. He was shot in the dark when the lift broke down with eight other members of the family and household. Charlotte Blood is sent by a rival newspaper editor to investigate under the pretext of writing an article on the ravens kept in the aviary in the grounds on the bleak isolated Devonshire family estate of Ravenswick Abbey.  

All those with the victim on that fateful night appear to have a motive to want him dead. Charlotte’s ‘disguise’ fools no one and she finds herself ostracised by the family and staff who seem determined to impede her investigation. 

This superb whodunnit has all the hallmarks of the locked-room mystery of the Golden Age with the added gothic atmosphere of Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho. The ancient abbey with its long, dark corridors is surrounded by treacherous bogs hidden by dense mists. 

In addition to its intriguing plot with its many twists and turns, the characters are masterfully drawn especially its headstrong protagonist. Determined not to be shackled by the expected role of a dutiful wife and mother with no will of her own as expected as the granddaughter of a duke, Charlotte marries the man of her choosing. All too soon she finds herself a widow when her husband becomes a victim of the Great War. Determined to make her own way in the world, she becomes a gossip columnist. Her new assignment is her chance to be taken seriously as a reporter which gives her a vested interest in solving the case. 

I have read and enjoyed many of Victoria Dowd’s earlier Smart Women series but with Death in the Aviary she has reached new heights. I loved it and couldn’t put it down. I look forward to more books in this series and hope I don’t have too long a wait for the next one.
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Reviewer: Judith Cranswick  

Victoria Dowd was born and raised in Yorkshire and after studying at Cambridge, went on to be a successful criminal law barrister for many years.  Victoria’s debut crime novel, The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder (published by Joffe Books) is the first part of a dark, humorous crime series that is a modern take on the Golden Age of crime fiction and authors such Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Josephine Tey. She is an award-winning short story writer, winning the Gothic Fiction prize for short fiction 2019 by Go Gothic. Victoria has had short stories published in BTS Literary and Arts Annual, Gold Dust magazine and also by Stairwell books in their literary and arts journal Dream Catcher. Her work has also been selected for publication in an anthology entitled A Ghostly Challenge. She speaks at various literary festivals, most recently in Bath, and at various schools and book groups.

https://victoriadowd.com/

Judith Cranswick was born and brought up in Norwich. Apart from writing, Judith’s great passions are travel and history. Both have influenced her two series of mystery novels. Tour Manager, Fiona Mason takes coach parties throughout Europe, and historian Aunt Jessica is the guest lecturer accompanying tour groups visiting more exotic destinations aided by her nephew Harry. Her published novels also include several award-winning standalone psychological thrillers. She wrote her first novel (now languishing in the back of a drawer somewhere) when her two children were toddlers, but there was little time for writing when she returned to her teaching career. Now retired, she is able to indulge her love of writing and has begun a life of crime! ‘Writers are told to write what they know about, but I can assure you, I've never committed a murder. I'm an ex-convent school headmistress for goodness’ sake!’ Her most recent book is Journey to Casablanca.

‘Recipe for Murder’ by Duncan McNab

Published by Headline Welbeck,
30 October 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-03-544093-1

This true-crime book is the story of Australia’s Mushroom Murders in July 2023, where Erin Patterson invited her ex-husband, his parents and his aunt and uncle to lunch. Her ex-husband didn’t go; all four guests were taken to hospital the next day, and within a week, his parents and aunt were dead.

Former police-officer Duncan McNab is now a journalist who followed the investigation and attended the trial, making this book is a vivid and detailed account of a case that made headlines world-wide. It starts with a description of the small town where the lunch took place, Leongatha, 130km from Melbourne, then moves on to other deaths due to mushroom foraging, particularly fatalities from ‘death cap’. That groundwork laid, he introduces us to the family, how Simon Patterson and Erin Scutter met, the development and breakdown of their relationship, Erin’s personal and online activities, and then the sinister episodes of her holidays with Simon, where he suffered from acute gastric attacks – the reason why he didn’t want to come to dinner with her. This suspected poisoning was part of the original charge but, as McNab explains, it wasn’t mentioned during the trial.

 From there, McNab moves to the fatal lunch, the preparation of individual portions of Beef Wellington with a mushroom layer under the pastry, the mismatched plates which gave Erin the differently-coloured one, the illness of all four guests, and the agonising deaths of Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson. When we move to the trial, the writing is a gripping eye-witness account which is at the same time sensitive to the feelings of the people involved in this awful case. However there’s one big question he can’t answer, and perhaps Erin herself can’t either: why she did this dreadful thing to the beloved grandparents of her young children and their great-aunt and uncle, kindly people with whom she’d apparently had a good relationship.

A thoroughly-researched, restrained account of a sensational trial, and a really interesting read.
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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor

Duncan McNab is a former police detective, private investigator specialising in criminal defence, investigative journalist and media adviser to government and the private sector. He is the author of twelve books, including the phenomenally bestselling Dead Man Running (with Ross Coulthart), Snapshot Killer, Waterfront and Roger Rogerson. In 2017 his book Getting Away with Murder won the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime. In the same year his bestselling book on disgraced former detective and convicted murderer, Roger Rogerson, was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime.  

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.  

Click on the title to read a review of her recent book
An Imposter in Shetland

www.marsalitaylor.co.uk

‘Till Death Do Us Part’ by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Published by HQ, Harper Collins,
14 August 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-008-38891-1 (PB)

Till Death Do Us Part is a thriller divided into five parts, prefaced by a prologue and ending with an epilogue, that switches between various timelines and narrators. The chapters describe events occurring in autumns ranging from 1999 till 2022, and in two different parts of the States: Brooklyn, New York and Napa Valley, in California. The prologue, related by one of the two narrators, June Emery, sets the tone of the story: twisty, mysterious, and vaguely menacing. June tells of her elopement with Josh Kelly, the man of her dreams. They marry in a sun-drenched ceremony on Santa Barbara beach in September 2012, but June’s romantic dream quickly becomes a nightmare when Josh disappears, presumed drowned, and she becomes a widow a week after her wedding.  

The first chapter is set in August 2022 and, a decade on from her husband’s disappearance, June has made a new life for herself as the owner of a popular natural wine bar in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Her recovery from the emotional trauma of losing Josh so abruptly has, however, been hindered by her suspicion he might have been murdered. Still, there is now a new man in her life, Kyle Parker, who proposes and she accepts. 

The second chapter, set in September 1999, introduces us to the story’s other narrator, Bev Kelly, who is Josh’s mother. She and her husband David own a successful winery in the Napa Valley and have two other children: Andrew – Josh’s identical twin brother – in their late teens, and Kieran, who is still a baby. Passionate about the craft of winemaking, Bev and David live in a lovely home in a beautiful part of the world, proud parents of three handsome sons, but she admits there is trouble in paradise. She suspects her husband has had an affair, and there is some recent trouble or worry about her two older sons she fails to clarify. 

Returning to August 2022, June’s chance of embarking on a joyous, fulfilling new life is threatened when, celebrating her engagement with Kyle at a New York park – a friend taking photos of the happy couple – she happens to catch sight of a familiar face in the crowd: Josh. 

And so, it goes on. The story alternates between the years and the perspectives of the two narrators. All the main characters harbor secrets and lies. Appearances are deceptive: for example, is Josh alive or dead?  Till Death Do Us Part is engaging not only because of its labyrinthine plot and fascinating characters but also for the light it casts on winemaking. It is a novel gratifying to the oenophile as well as the crime fiction enthusiast, with each of its five parts devoted to an essential element of making wine: the harvest, the crushing of the grapes, fermentation, clarification, and finally aging. The epilogue satisfactorily gathers up the threads of the story and weaves them into a convincing conclusion.     

Highly recommended! But it is advisable to have a glass of red at hand –perhaps a good Cabernet Sauvignon – while one reads. 
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Reviewer: Wendy Jones Nakanishi/aka Lea O’Harra.

Laurie Elizabeth Flynn went to school for Journalism, where the most important thing she learned was that she would rather write made-up stories than report the news. She also worked as a model, a job that took her overseas to Tokyo, Athens, and Paris.  Laurie now lives in London, Ontario with her husband Steve, who is very understanding when she would rather spend time with the people in her head. Laurie drinks way too much coffee, snorts when she laughs, and times herself when she does crossword puzzles. 

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 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.