New crime novels and thrillers to read this July, featuring Chris Whitaker and Shari Lapena
Our thriller and crime critic Myles McWeeney on the best novels to read this month.
A Grave in the Woods by Martin Walker
Quercus, 336 pages, hardcover €31.90, e-book £12.99
Bruno Courréges, chief of police of the Vézère valley in the south of France, is supposed to be convalescing from a serious shoulder gunshot wound. But, as ever, events in the little town of St Denis where he lives require him to spring into action rather sooner than he would have wished. The first event is the discovery of three skeletons entombed in the grounds of a beautiful but run-down property being restored by an English couple.
With the help of Abby Howard, a visiting American archaeologist, it is established that the grave dates back to World War II, and that the skeletons are those of a man in his 30s and two women in their late teens.
When it emerges the male was an Italian naval officer and the women members of the Luftwaffe, the investigation becomes international news. But an even bigger problem is looming for Bruno. Weeks of heavy rain are threatening St Denis with a devastating flood and he must scramble to save his town.
Another thoroughly delightful episode in the life of Bruno that suggests a promotion may be imminent.
D is for Death by Harriet F Townson
Hodder & Stoughton, 304 pages, hardcover €27.50, e-book £6.99
It’s 1935 and 21-year-old Dora Wildwood is fleeing the English West Country for the bright lights of London to escape what to her seems an entirely unsuitable arranged marriage to, in her eyes, the loathsome fortune-hunter Charles Silk-Butters. She intends to stay with her aunt, Lady Dreda Uglow. With Charles in hot pursuit, she ducks into the London Library, where she seeks help from staff members Ben Stark and Miss Amani.
Hiding among the bookshelves, she witnesses the murder of the unpleasant chief librarian, Sir Edwin Mountjoy. She may look a little like a country bumpkin, but Dora’s mind is as sharp as a razor, and is confident that she can be of invaluable help to gruff but handsome Detective Inspector Fox, who is in charge of the case. He doesn’t see things that way, but Dora is not one to take no for an answer and ploughs ahead determined to solve the mystery of the dead librarian and the mutilated library books.
A charming, beautifully crafted pastiche of the 1930s crime novels of Dorothy L Sayers and Agatha Christie, with an Enola Holmes/Miss Marple-like heroine in Dora.
All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker
Orion, 576 pages, paperback €17.99, e-book £9.99, out July 16
Thirteen-year-old Joseph ‘Patch’ Macauley lives in the small town of Monta Clare deep in the Ozark mountains. Born with a missing eye, his nickname comes from the colourful eye patches he wears. He is on his way to meet his best friend, Saint Brown, who always accompanies him to school, when he comes across a man in a black balaclava attempting to abduct classmate Misty Meyer.
Courageously, he tackles what turns out to be a serial killer, allowing Misty to escape, but he is taken in her place. Despite weeks of searching, Patch is not found and his disappearance shatters everyone in Monta Clare, especially Saint, who devotes her young life to solving the mystery over her best friend.
In the meantime, Patch finds himself alone in a pitch-black room for what may be days or even weeks. Suddenly he feels a hand in his. Her name is Grace and her words help ease the darkness. But when he manages to escape, there is no sign that Grace even existed. Patch determines to find her and, living a hand-to-mouth existence that often includes criminality, spends years criss-crossing America seeking her, his path shadowed by Saint.
Saint’s pursuit is darker: to track down the man who took these young women. In his odyssey, Patch comes across the tragedy of dozens and dozens of missing girls.
This powerful literary thriller spans 25 years and each of its 576 heart-breaking pages exercises a vice-like grip.
What Have You Done by Shari Lapena
Bantam, 352 pages, paperback €18.99, e-book £9.99, out July 18
Vermont, known as the Green Mountain State and famed for its more than100 covered bridges and lushly forested landscape, is the most sparsely populated state in America. Nothing much happens in Vermont, even less in the little town of Fairhill, where front doors are seldom locked, curtains seldom twitch and parents expect their children to come home safely.
That is until the naked body of teenager Diana Brewer is found in a cornfield surrounded by vultures tearing into her flesh. Diana was a beautiful young woman, a top student and hugely popular with her peers at the town’s high school, so who could want her dead? Her violent demise turns a friendly community into a town of suspects, a place of fear and paranoia.
The immediate prime suspect is her boyfriend Cameron Farrell, who swears that he loved her and would never have killed her. But as Vermont detectives Stone and Godfrey interview everyone close to Diana, other credible suspects begin to emerge. There’s the school sports coach Brad Turner, whom Diana reported to her principal for inappropriate behaviour. There’s also an oddball local man called Joe Prior who stalked her at her part-time job in a local store.
Told in short, cliff-hanging chapters from different characters’ points of view that propel the investigation forward at breakneck speed, this intriguing thriller grips from start to finish, even if a possibly unnecessary supernatural element jars a bit.
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