THE FIFTH GIRL by Georgia Fancett (Arrow £8.99)
THE FIFTH GIRL
by Georgia Fancett (Arrow £8.99)
This police procedural won the Penguin Random House First Novel Competition, in partnership with Daily Mail, even before publication.
DS Rawls has been on extended medical leave when he’s called back to investigate the murder of a young woman that shows the same modus operandi of three previous murders that he failed to solve.
Is there a serial killer in Bath? Who will be his fifth victim Will Rawls be able and Nat, his sidekick, to stop another murder? Despite some obvious points and a slow start to the novel, it picks up pace and twists and turns until the final cliffhanger. Rawls, a new detective on the block, is a wonderful addition with a difficult domestic life and a remarkable vulnerability. I’m looking forward to his next outing.
IN EVERY MIRROR SHE’S BLACK by Lola Akinmade Akerstrom (Head of Zeus £16.99)
IN EVERY MIRROR SHE’S BLACK
by Lola Akinmade Akerstrom (Head of Zeus £16.99)
Three black women from Africa move to Stockholm in search of a new beginning.
Jonny von Lundin, Von Lundin Marketing’s CEO, headhunts Kemi, a highly-flying Nigerian American. Brittany-Rae is a Jamaican-American model who has become an air stewardess. Jonny follows her until she agrees that she will move to Sweden with him. Muna, a young Somali refugee is brought up in Stockholm as a cleaner for the Von Lundin offices.
These seemingly great opportunities, all connected in one way or the other to Jonny, pose many obstacles for each woman based on her race and status.
Akerstrom’s convincing writings about racism, fetishism and identity adds depth and texture to this engaging novel.
THE DUST NEVER RESULTS Karina Quinn Lickorish (Oneworld £16.99)
THE DUST NEVER SETTLES
by Karina Lickorish Quinn (Oneworld £16.99)
Anais Echeverria is pregnant and engaged to marry. She returns from London to Peru to buy her ancestral home.
But the desolate ‘yellow house on a hill’ in the Miraflores district of Lima is redolent with memories and crammed with possessions from previous generations who continue to haunt it. Anais decides to stay and not to sell.
Her story is interspersed with that of Julia, a 17-year-old maid who fell to her death from the house, and on her journey to sainthood becomes all-seeing, able to ‘make little alleviations in the journeys of the common man’.
Ambitious, sometimes confusing, but always colorful, this novel brims Peruvian folklore, history, and magic. Anais deals with ghosts from her past and comes to terms long-buried secrets.
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