New Year, New Reads
By Charlotte Barber, Jaime Butler, Anna Robinson and Georgia Wells
All the Dark Places by Terri Parlato
27 December 2022, Kensington Publishing
On a cold January night, Molly is celebrating her husband's fortieth birthday. Half a dozen of their close friends are gathered in their house, which is lit with warm candlelight and flowing with wine. Everyone loves Jay, or so they thought. So, when Molly finds his body the next morning, it completely unravels the world she thought she was living in.
Rita Myers has worked for the Boston PD for decades and is accustomed to the brutality of evil that lurks in the darkness, the murders that make no sense beyond an unfortunate run-in with the very worst of humanity. But after closer inspection, Jay Bradley’s murder isn’t random. Rita is convinced that someone at the party killed him, making the murderer someone in their circle of friends.
Molly lived through a nightmare long ago, one she confided in her husband about. Yet, as she tries to make sense of her husband’s death, she realises that maybe he wasn’t everything he seemed to be. Shocking revelations lead her to believe that maybe Jay wasn’t the only one to know about the horrors she endured and hid from her friends, and until the murderer is revealed there is no stopping her fate as the next target.
Ms. Demeanor by Elinor Lipman
27 December 2022, Harper Perennial
In Lipman’s latest novel, one moment and the actions of one nosy neighbour, bring Jane Morgan’s happy life and successful career crumbling down. Jane is forced to endure six months of house arrest in her New York City apartment after being reported for having sex on the roof of her building. Jane is facing the next six months of solitude with feelings of despair. She doesn’t even have her job anymore to keep her busy, just an overbearing twin sister providing unwelcome advice. The last thing she expects to find is friendship, not to mention love, coming in the form of a neighbour felon in her building, Perry Salisbury, who also happens to be under house arrest.
The drama doesn’t end there as Jane begins to discover that the nosy neighbour who reported her may not be as innocent as they seem. Between her own investigating and budding romance via shared dinners with Perry, she realises this house arrest may be more exciting than she expected.
This delightfully funny contemporary romance is the perfect excuse to spend a day at home reading during this holiday season. Dive into the lives of Jane and Perry, where there’s guaranteed to be good food, spicy drama and deliciously surprising romance.
Death Comes to Marlow by Robert Thorogood
5 January 2023, HarperCollins Publishers
The sequel to The Marlow Murder Club brings an exciting new slant to crime thrillers and the well-loved murder mysteries that have steadily increased on bookshelves over the past few years.
By the creator of the TV series Death in Paradise, Death Comes To Marlow rejoins new unlikely friends Judith, Suzie and Becks as they prepare for the upcoming wedding of Marlow local celebrity Sir Peter Bailey. The day before the wedding, Sir Peter is hosting a party at his Thames-side mansion. But during the festivities, there is a commotion and the newly-formed Marlow Murder Club find the groom-to-be crushed to death in his study.
Locked from the inside, this modern murder has some classic twists and turns as Judith and her team prepare to solve yet another murder in this usually peaceful town. With the first in this series proving so popular, the second is perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Janice Hallett.
Robert Thorogood writes with a wealth of local knowledge, plunging the reader right into the heart of this very English town and creating vivid imagery that creates cliff-hangers and tenterhooks – the epitome of a good murder mystery.
Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson
5 January 2023, HarperCollins Publishers
Following on from the successfully solved case of Truly Devious, Stevie Bell returns to take her detective skills abroad, finding herself in London.
Senior year at Ellingham Academy isn’t turning out quite the way Stevie was planning. Whilst her friends focus on college applications, she cannot take her mind off of the solved cold case of the century. So when her boyfriend David invites her to study abroad with him in London she jumps at the chance.
However, trouble travels. As she gets to know David’s friends, they reveal an interesting unsolved case. In 1995, nine friends from Cambridge University decided to rent out a country house for the weekend. The night falls into a fun game of drunken hide-and-seek. Only seven can be found. The following morning, two are found in the woodshed, bludgeoned by an axe.
The police put it down to a robbery gone wrong. But the friends are convinced there’s much more to the case. Somebody among them must know what happened in the woodshed. But somebody among them does not want to speak out.