Great British Crime – our ‘dead’ good books for 2020
As the nights draw in, the days get shorter and the leaves begin to fall, why not check out our top crime reads to keep you company on those long dark nights?
From Manchester to Cambridge, Wales to Northern Ireland, British crime writers have found inspiration up and down the country in both the rolling green countryside and the rough, tough streets of the capital city. So if you’re looking for a good book to help immerse yourself in different locations in good ol’ Blighty, then you need look no further.
With these gripping crime and thriller reads you can pay a visit to Brighton with Dorothy Koomson, explore the darker side of Yorkshire with Tim Weaver and escape to Wales with Claire Douglas!
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The Brighton Mermaid by Dorothy Koomson
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Brighton Beach, 1993 Teenagers Nell and Jude find the body of a young woman and when no one comes to claim her, she becomes known as the Brighton Mermaid. Nell is still struggling to move on when, three weeks later, Jude disappears. Twenty-five years on, Nell is forced to quit her job to find out who the Brighton Mermaid really was – and what happened to her best friend that summer. But as Nell edges closer to the truth, dangerous things start to happen. Someone seems to be watching her every move, and soon she starts to wonder who in her life she can actually trust… |
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Wild Fire by Ann Cleeves e-book and e-audiobook |
Shetland: Welcoming. Wild. Remote. Drawn in by the reputation of the islands, a new English family move to the area, eager to give their autistic son a better life. But when a young nanny’s body is found hanging in the barn of their home, rumours of her affair with the husband begin to spread like wild fire. With suspicion raining down on the family, DI Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate. For him it will mean returning to the islands of his on-off lover and boss Willow Reeves, who will run the case. Perez is already facing the most disturbing investigation of his career, when Willow drops a bombshell that will change his life forever. Is he ready for what is to come? |
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No One Home by Tim Weaver e-book |
Yorkshire Nine neighbours gather for a dinner party. But by the next morning, they had disappeared without a trace. |
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Spare Room by Dreda Say Mitchell e-book |
Beautiful double room to let to single person. |
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A Spot of Folly by Ruth Rendell e-book and e-audiobook |
Ruth Rendell was an acknowledged master of psychological suspense: these are ten (and a quarter) of her most chillingly compelling short stories, collected here together for the first time. In these tales, a businessman boasts about cheating on his wife, only to find the tables turned. A beautiful country rectory reverberates to the echo of a historical murder. A compulsive liar acts on impulse, only to be lead inexorably to disaster. And a wealthy man finds there is more to his wife's kidnapping than meets the eye. Atmospheric, gripping and never predictable, this is Ruth Rendell at her inimitable best. |
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Open Grave by A.M. Peacock e-book |
In the British city of Newcastle, a pair of bodies leads a police detective into a dark place… DCI Jack Lambert is no stranger to inner demons, having struggled with his own since the admission about his sexuality. But when two bodies are discovered entwined in an open grave, Lambert must put his personal worries aside and work the case. Then, when a local thug turns up dead on the banks of the River Tyne, the DCI’s criminal past comes back to haunt him. Meanwhile, a local celebrity singer claims that she is being stalked. Could there be a link to the killings? As the bodies start to pile up, Lambert and his colleagues realize the motive lies in the past and the killer is taunting them—but they may not be able to catch the murderer before one of their own ends up in an open grave. |
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The 39 Steps by John Buchan e-book and e-audiobook |
London Recently returned from South Africa, adventurer Richard Hannay is bored with life, but after a chance encounter with an American who informs him of an assassination plot and is then promptly murdered in Hannay's London flat, he becomes the obvious suspect and is forced to go on the run. He heads north to his native Scotland, fleeing the police and his enemies. Hannay must keep his wits about him if he is to warn the government before all is too late. |
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The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths e-audiobook |
Norfolk Winner of the 2016 CWA Dagger in the Library award. A child's bones are discovered on the windswept Norfolk marshes. Believing them to be ancient, the police call in Dr Ruth Galloway, forensic archaeologist. But this is no prehistoric grave. It seems a cold missing person case has now become a murder investigation. A must-read for all crime fiction fans, particularly readers of Val McDermid and Ann Cleeves. |
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The Catch by T.M. Logan e-book and e-audiobook |
She says he's perfect. I know he's lying . . . |
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The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah e-book |
London The new Hercule Poirot novel – another brilliant murder mystery that can only be solved by the eponymous Belgian detective and his ‘little grey cells’. Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffee house is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. She is terrified, but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done. Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at the fashionable Bloxham Hotel have been murdered, a cufflink placed in each one’s mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman? While Poirot struggles to put together the bizarre pieces of the puzzle, the murderer prepares another hotel bedroom for a fourth victim… |
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Darkness Rising by A.A. Dhand e-book (Quick Read) |
Bradford Detective Inspector Harry Virdee has a lot on his plate. His team is facing government cuts, tensions are building between Bradford’s two rival drugs gangs and his wife Saima is due to give birth any day now. So when bodies start turning up in the old industrial district, the pressure is on to get the case wrapped up as quickly as possible, or risk a full-scale gang war. But the man behind the murders is ruthless and pushy. And things are getting personal. Harry must think fast and bend the rules if he wants to keep his city, and his family, safe . . . |
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Case Histories by Kate Atkinson e-book and e-audiobook |
Cambridge Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet - Lost on the left, Found on the right - and the two never seem to balance. Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life haunted by a family tragedy, Jackson attempts to unravel three disparate case histories and begins to realise that in spite of apparent diversity, everything is connected... |
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A Place of Execution by Val McDermid e-book |
Peak District In the Peak District village of Scardale, thirteen-year-old girls didn’t just run away. So when Alison Carter vanished in the winter of ’63, everyone knew it was a murder. Catherine Heathcote remembers the case well. A child herself when Alison vanished, decades on she still recalls the sense of fear as parents kept their children close, terrified of strangers. Now a journalist, she persuades DI George Bennett to speak of the hunt for Alison, the tantalizing leads and harrowing dead ends. But when a fresh lead emerges, Bennett tries to stop the story – plunging Catherine into a world of buried secrets and revelations. |
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The Sleepwalker by Joseph Knox e-book |
Manchester ‘He said he didn’t remember killing them…’As a series of rolling blackouts plunge the city into darkness, Detective Aidan Waits sits on an abandoned hospital ward, watching a mass murderer slowly die. Transferred from his usual night shift duties and onto protective custody, he has just one job… To extract the location of Martin Wick’s final victim before the notorious mass murderer passes away. Wick has spent over a decade in prison, in near-total silence, having confessed to an unspeakable crime that shocked the nation and earned him the nickname of The Sleepwalker. But when a daring premeditated attack leaves one police officer dead and another one fighting for his life, Wick’s whispered last words will send Waits on a journey into the heart of darkness…Manipulated by a reticent psychopath from his past, and under investigation from his new partner, Detective Constable Naomi Black, Waits realises too late that a remorseless contract killer is at work. Can Aidan Waits solve his last case before fleeing justice? |
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Do Not Disturb by Claire Douglas e-book |
Wales After what happened in London, Kirsty needs a fresh start with her family. But then their first guest arrives. Why has she chosen now to walk back into Kirsty's life? |
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Rain Dogs by Adrian McKinty e-book |
Northern Ireland It's just the same things over and again for Sean Duffy. Riot duty. Heartbreak. Cases he can solve but never get to court. But what detective gets two locked room mysteries in one career? |