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<metadesc>Expert , full book reviews & recommendations from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crimenon-fiction, cookery & children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>
Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books reviews and recommendations Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the libraryWith author interviews, the charity shop features and the bookshoptop tens. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times thereYou'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent sure to us by publishers and we promise to tell find something you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something want to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] pagehere.Dig in!
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==Reviews of the The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> '''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0751567426Sylvie Cathrall|title=The Wicked Sister|author=Karen DionneA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=When we first meet Rachel Cunningham she's an inpatient at the Newberry Regional Mental Health Center in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. She's twenty-six and has been there for fifteen years, convinced that she accidentally killed her mother when she was eleven-years-old and that her father then took the gun and killed himself. Her sister, Diana, just twenty-years-old, was left at the family home, There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a lodge in the Upper Peninsula wildernesscompelling premise. Rachel's very bright and although she's a voluntary patient at the Mental Health Center she remains there, feeling that And this is what she deserves. Perhaps, though, the circumstances are not as she remembersone of them.|isbn= 0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15069094420008517061|title=The Worst Dogs: A Progressive Murder-MysteryDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Matthew de Lacey DavidsonStig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=''The greatest hatredFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, like has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the greatest virtue future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and the worst dogsher daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is silentthe future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.''}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786482126|title=The title Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this enjoyable crime procedurala ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, is from German romantic writer Jean PaulDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. But who are the worst dogs in de Lacey Davidson It's latest novel and for whom difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the hatred? This mystery one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will last all the way be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to the very last and carefully plotted pages but you will be thinking about unwarranted hatred all the way through. It sounds uncomfortable - but it isn't: it's honestsudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Rob Baker0008551324|title=Toubab Tales: The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in AfricaDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=TravelCrime|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he'"Go s prepared to Malitell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises," they said. "The music is amazing," they saidsomeone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. " And you what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get ten hours of sunshine every dayan early parole date." So I did.'' Rob Baker Not much to ask, is an ethnomusicologist. ''A whatit? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she' I hear you cry. Well, an ethnomusicologist studies music in relation s even prepared to culture, so rather like a folklorist studies do the oral other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and written story traditions relating to a cultureanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening|isbn=B089CSNFT7
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=James Patterson0008405026|title=Hawk: A Maximum Ride NovelStranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Hawk has been waiting on the same street corner, every day, for It's sixteen yearssince nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She is waiting for her parents was never found and the investigation ground to come and get hera halt. They left Now, her there when she was just tinymother, Helena, and although she's almost certain that they her father are never coming back for her, she continues to head back there each day, just dead in casetheir bed. Hawk isn't your ordinary street urchin though...she has wingsInitially, and can fly! Since she was abandoned she's been living with it looks like a group of other children, all with interesting characteristics of their own and together they've made their own family. But now the city is seemingly even more troubled than usual, straightforward murder/suicide but there's a mysterious child-killer who has been brought to something about the prison next door to where positioning of the children live, bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and then one day Hawk comes home to find her family has been taken awayboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Where have they been taken, What looked as though it was going to be an open-and can Hawk rescue them before it-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's too late?|isbn=1529120004boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17857656980571379877|title=Shed No TearsThe Kellerby Code|author=Caz FrearJonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In November 2012 Christopher MastersEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, the man who would become known as 'the roommate killer'obsessed with his upper-class friends, strangled three women in a fortnightRobert and Stanza. When he was arrested he admitted the killingsRobert's a theatre director. A fourth death was attributed He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him - that of Holly Kemp . Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and on occasions, Masters admitted he's drunkenly confided how he feels to the killing, then he denied it - then admitted it, then denied itRobert. He played with the police, but there was sufficient evidence on the first three killings to put him Most men in Robert's position would stay away for from Stanza or tell Edward that a long time and the CPS were relationship had begun between them but he's not convinced about like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the Holly Kemp case. There was no body and once Masters was murdered two of them kissing in prison, no hope of progressing the case furthera dark passageway.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1473682401Jo Callaghan|title=The Turning Tide (Dandy Gilver)|author=Catriona McPhersonLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Those who were with us at When a man is found crucified on the end top of [[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson|A Step So Grave]] will remember that Donald was engaged a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to Mallory Dunnochthe case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. TheyIt're now married and Mallory is s their first live case together, having twinspreviously been very successful with several cold cases. When they arrive no one can doubt the charms of Lavinia Dahlia Cherry and her brotherBut when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Edward Hugh Lachlan Gilver. There are two drawbacks: they're noisy and they're staying Kat is suddenly struggling with Dandy a potential serial killer and Hugha very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Dandy and her detective partnerWill they be able to solve the case in time, Alec Osborne, had not or will Kat find herself taken up off the chance to look into a problem at the Cramond ferry when it was offered to them twice beforecase and, potentially, but suddenly the possibility of being out of the house at Gilverton seems irresistible.a career?|isbn=139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07WWSCGVS1399613073|title=The Lies You ToldMoral Injuries|author=Harriet TyceChristie Watson|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Year six student Robin Spence isn't happy about having to start a new school. She's left Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school she loved in New York and now she's going to Ashams in North Londontheir friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. It's very upmarket; places are rare as hens' teeth and as the pupils have all been there ''forever''Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, they have their established groups. Robin's going which is a bonus when you aim to be an outsidera cardiothoracic surgeon. And why Laura is this happening? a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Well, over a matter Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a few days her parents' marriage fell apartGP. Andrew Spence is staying in New York - he works for When we first meet them they're at a securities firm drug and alcohol- fuelled party and her mother, Sadie Roper, has come back it's going to London to pick up her practice as a criminal barristerend in tragedy. ThatWe don's easier said than done when you've been out of t know who suffered the market place - and tragedy or the country consequences. Twenty- for more than ten five yearslater there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14087124150241636604|title=Cry BabyThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Mark BillinghamGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035021803
|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's June 1996 and footballtwenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's European Championships are about to start in Londonback now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. DS Tom Thorne is having a nightmare Freya's former mentor and itCarole's one he close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has regularlynot felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. It relates to After the split, she worked in a case cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from ten years earlier when he ''knew'the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=All Tomorrow' s Futures: Fictions that a man was guilty, but didnDisrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary='t take any action until the man's wife and three children had been murdered and Opening up new ways of thinking about the man had killed himselfshape of things to come.''
Cat Coyne and Maria Ashton are with their sons Kieron and JoshI've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. ItI've kept up reasonably well with what's a happy combination in advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the boys are devoted to each other possibilities and - despite differences in the where probabilities and how end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they live - 're talking about or the women are best friendslatest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sunny Singh|title=Hotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers |summary=The boys Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are seven-year-old rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and they play on Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the swings residents who are still alive in the park hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and then dash off keeps on venturing out of her room to play hide and seek in Highgate Woodtry to capture what's happened through her photography. Josh was Although they only ever talk over the one doing phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the hiding - terrorists.|isbn=086154742X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but he returned tearfully to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the women: Kieron never came family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to find him and now he canprevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum't find Kierons stopped talking - to anyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08CHJLNBS1398524085|title=Capturing EmiliaHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Brooke AdamsNicci French|rating=35|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=HeCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a partner at Wickham Jones, the Mayfair letting agentsfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. She's EmiliaHer children, twenty-ninesons Niall, librarian Paul and Ollie and archivist in the heritage library next doorher daughter, Etty. Emilia has read [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] are all worried but she's moved on from new age books like that- strangely - her husband, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophiesAlec, to something a little deeperis not. Charles is more of a [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himselfShortly afterwards, butEtty and Greg, above all, hefind the body of Greg's shocked that Emilia reads ''The Guardian''father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not get this woman out of his mind? She's not his usual type at all: it's obvious It was an easy assumption for the police to his friends. And given make that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by CharlesDuncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? t stand the guilt. The relationshipSalter children are not convinced but there's obviously a non-starter, isn't it?little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15043213831035906708|title=Single, Again, and Again, and Again …: What Do You Do When Life Doesn't Go to Plan?Diva|author=Louisa PatemanDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=''You can't be happy We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and fulfilled on your ownonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. You are not complete until you find a manHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas'. This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believemake it more manageable in the States. It wasn't unkind: it When she was simply the adults back in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her. It voice - she was reinforced by all those fairy tales where raised under the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued Nazi occupation by the handsome prince a mother who then marries mercilessly exploited her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787301435Christopher Edge|title=Dark Waters|author=G R HallidayBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Twenty-two-year-old Annabelle Whittaker made her second mistake when she opted to drive down the private road Lucas and his friends are all booked in Glen Turrit. It was for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a long road through some breath-taking scenery and she could push place that has the car to its limits without fear nickname of being caught speeding'The Black Hole'. When the blond child stepped out in front All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of her she instinctively jerked the steering wheel exciting films, and hit a tree. many, many snacks! When she came round after However, as the accident she movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't work out where she was, but it obviously wasn't a conventional hospitaleven imagine. She'd made her first mistake some time agoBut as they lurch from one film genre to the next, although can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the realisation wouldn't be obvious cinema, and to her for a long time. She'd made it when she chose to have her father buy her a pale blue BMW M4.their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Suzanne CollinsRachel Greenlaw|title=The Ballad of Songbirds Compass and SnakesBlade|rating=43.5
|genre=Teens
|summary= Coriolanus Snow is refined, charming, and one of ''I can hear the only surviving members song of the affluent Snow familysea. But their world was destroyed by The call of the war. Their riches gonedeep, his parents dead - and yet the facade must be maintainedanswering beat in my heart. As the 10th Hunger Games begins'' Rosevear, Coriolanus a remote and other students of partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the Academy become rocks and plundering the first Mentors wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the tributes in seven who swim out to survey the gamesruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. This is his chance to prove himself But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the world island's leader and secure his place in the Capitol for goodMira's father. But when he is assigned Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a tribute bargain with no hope - a girl from District 12 - wreck survivor who is as charming as he thinks all chances of winning (both for her is secretive and for him) are gone. But Lucy Gray Baird proves herself with only coordinates to be a spark in his worldguide her, she sets off in search of a way he could never have imaginedfamily secret that lies buried deep in the sea. As the Games commenceWith only nine days to unearth what might save her father, Lucy Gray fights for as her journey takes her life in from the watched streets of foreign islands to the arena - but behind heart of the scenessmuggler's territory, in Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the sly, complex future of her home and strangely dangerous world of the Capitol, Coriolanus is fighting for his life tooones she holds most dear. Will she survive the Games? Will he? And what happens then?|isbn=07023001790008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sakinu AhronglongJames Sherwood Metts|title=Hunter SchoolPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary= The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is Things have been a work of fictionbit sticky for the Earthlings. ThatAI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they's possibly misleadingre paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is Just as the blurb goes on they were beginning to get used to say ''recollections, folklore all this technological change and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a childstarting to think of other, as an adolescentnew ways to spend time, as along came an adult are real awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and true. But memory is a fickle thing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling along with it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read it. More people should, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=19997912821736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Kat EllisMatthew Tree|title=Harrow LakeWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=When we first meet 17-year-old Lola, daughter Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to legendary horror movie director Nolan Nox, she is saying goodbye to New York City - by sneaking out and stealing be different from its residents. But when she is found by her his father's assistant and forced to come home, she arrives to find an unlocked door, a trail drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of blood, and her father dying in his study. And so, while he recovers, she is sent off to live with her grandmother in Harrow Lake, the small 1920s town in Indiana that served as the location for the film that made her parents famous. But something about this place isn't right. There's a darkness inside the people here. Secrets about her mother artistic passions all failed miserably and dark tales who had endless crises of the town's cannibal monster 'Mister Jitters' fill every corner, and disturbing happenings plague Lolaself confidence. But with every passing hour, secrets long buried come painfully So Tim applied himself to light and she begins to think that these stories may not be stories at allhis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and something very real and sinister lurks in Harrow Lakeset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=0241397049B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Helly ActonA G Slatter|title= The ShelfBriar Book of the Dead|rating= 45|genre= Women's FictionFantasy|summary= When we meet Amy, she'' There's in a relationship with Jamie. You can't really call it a partnership, because things tend part of me that wants to keep this just to get done on his terms, but she's sticking around because she hopes she myself for however long I can change him. AhThis secret magic of my own, yes. Haven't we all been there? Things are looking up when he tells her to pack for a surprise tripmine, at last. Could this be it? Is he ''finally'' going I just want to get down on one knee? Was the work (and the wait) worth enjoy it?|isbn=1838770879}}{{Frontpage|author= Justine Avery and Daria Yudina|title= This Book Wants to Make You Laugh (Living Book)|rating= 4|genre= For Sharing|summary=This Living Book is on for a missionwhile. What's the mission? To make you laugh! I can't think of many better missions than that, can you? Let's see how it does...
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands.Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions.When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her.. wellAs challenges come her way left, right and centre, it opens up Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a terrible jokemaelstrom of chaos. A groany jokeReeling from one family secret to another, an eye-roll joke. The joke isn't very funny but it is funny Ellie must decide who to see how enthusiastic trust and how generously this book wants determine what to make you laugh - do as the Briar witches''Ohlegacy, I'm terrible at jokes. Some books are so good at them. I always wanted everything they have sacrificed to help someone laughsurvive, is under threat.'' |isbn= 194812453X1803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294022711529900360|title=Murder on the Moorland (Kitt Hartley Yorkshire Mysteries)The Ghost Orchid|author=Helen CoxJonathan Kellerman|rating=3.54
|genre=Crime
|summary=DI Malcolm Halloran and Kitt HartleyIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's relationship is developing nicely: they're fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even into a spot of bandage nowafter Alex recovered, although the details are (mercifully) scantSturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. After a night of passion Halloran is called away in His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the early hours help of the morninga psychologist only worked for a while. ThereFinally, it was Robin, Delaware's been a murder in Irendalepartner, where Halloran used to live and where his wife, Kamala, was strangled five years agowho nudged Milo into asking for help again. There are sufficient details of She knew that the current murder to make Halloran suspect involvement was something that the man who she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered his wife - and others - is in some way involved, despite being the swimming pool of a remote property in prisonBel Air. The DI heads off He was the heir to speak an Italian shoe empire and she is married to Jeremy Kerran extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Mark Dawson1529395224|title= Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The CleanerSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating= 43.5|genre= ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary= Ruthless Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and coldly competentRowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, John Milton is one of particularly when he considered the British governmentstrain that being on-call put on his father's best assets – life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a contract killer with lethal instinctsvet and was convinced this was the job for him. Now, after ten years Before long, he wants outwas at Liverpool University. But It hadn't - as with so many students - been his job isndream since he was a child. If anything, he't one you can just walk away from…|isbn=178739462Xd wanted to be a professional footballer.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Angela Mack0861541774|title=I Am UnworthyA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary= Isabel is determined to start fresh. Start again. Sixth form will be different. Her tormentor doesnDCI Domenic Jejeune't go to Gilleford Secondary School anymore. She can escape the hurts close friend and former colleague, the fearDanny Maik, and the person she became. Josh is determined has taken a short holiday in Singapore to keep going, even through the rage, the painmeet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and using his fists to solve any problem or situationhe killed a Ghurka. But Initially, he has secrets faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that threaten he might have planned to tear him and his brothers apartmurder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. When Josh Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and Isabelwouldn's worlds collide, can they make their relationship work? Can they both finally be happy? Or will Josh's time run out?|isbn=B089FL7H4Ht help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Laura Imai MessinaAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Phone Box at the End of the WorldPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary= In The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the northeast of Japan, online apps in Inwate Prefecture providing a man installed a telephone box in his gardenmore personal, tailored service. ''Inside there Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is an old black, telephone, disconnected, that carries voices into the windplanning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while.'' It Katie is coming out of a real place, break up with a necessary placebad boyfriend, and I am pleased so jumps at the chance to see the IMPORTANT NOTE that the author attaches come home to her Edinburgh. And so begins this new storyfrom Alexander McCall Smith, that bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the place is not Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a tourist destinationbusiness, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, it is a sacred placeand there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a place that must be left to those who really need it.hand…|isbn=178658039X1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0859115X50811771741|title=Lies to Tell (DI Clare Mackay)InstaKnits for Baby|author=Marion ToddMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=When we meet up with DI Clare Mackay again sheMelissa Leapman's at Daisy Cottage on ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the outskirts 'long, cosy afternoons in front of St Andrews with her English Bull Terrierthe fire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, Benjyten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. SheAll the projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's just had me being picky.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a postcard from Geoffrey Dark and terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he's in Provincetownloses his fiancee, Cape Codand his house gets trashed. He wishes Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that she whoever or whatever was thereinside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, but Clare's struggling Benny is the very last person to think of what he ''actually'' deserve all this bad luck. He is to her nowa nice person. Is he her boyfriend? Her ex-boyfriend? A really nice person. She can't work So fortunately for Benny it turns out and thinks that Geoffrey probably can't eitherthe delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. WorkSpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's about to get very busy enemies, if he, Benny, and she Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can't work figure out why DCI Alastair Gibson has cancelled a meeting she'd arranged without discussing it with her first. They're off somewhere top secretwho exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1780899858Adam Stower|title=To Tell You the Truth|author=Gilly MacmillanMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=When Lucy Bewley was nine-years-old she crept out of the house on the night of the summer solstice Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to watch the pagan celebrations in Stoke Woods. Her four-year-old brothersleep and eat and eat and sleep and, Teddywell, would have woken whatever takes his fancy next of the house if she hadn't taken him with hertwo. But in the early hours of the morning, Lucy returned home without Teddy, hoping that he would have got home before her. He hadn't and no one has seen him since. Lucys a bad magician's story was crucial to cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the police investigationregular back garden, but it keeps subtly changinginto a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. Lucy This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is being advised by her imaginary friendexpected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, Eliza Grey to be honest, but he's turned up and Eliza says that there are certain things which Lucy must not tell the police.he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008214700B0C47LV1PC|title=Cut to the Bone (DI Meg Dalton)Fragility|author=Roz WatkinsMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=DI Meg Dalton and Ds Jai Sanghera are dealing with the case of Can you make a missing teenager. Violet Armstrong ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is well-known as a vlogger - championing the cause of meat-eating. She barbeques meat wearing only a bikini and has attracted question should you make it? Or is the attention of animal rights activists. question if you did, would it land? The meat-eaters (they wear meat suits) are determined catch is that Meg Dalton is corrupt and not running a decent investigation (''obviously'' she only got the job because sheanswer for both could well be.... no. 's a woman) because she's a vegetarian. As if the case wasnFragility't enough, Meg's father is coming to stay with her despite having had little to do with her for fifteen years and Jai's convinced that his girlfriendset as the city of Portland, SukiOregon, doesn't like his children and that she wants more, but he doesn't.cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17843851661529431735|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi GermanyWinter Visitor|author=Roger MoorhouseJames Henry|rating=54|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=What It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the first image that comes to mind when you think of more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The Nazi salute? The gate to return has come about because he's had a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reichletter from his ex-wife, saying that she's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects ill and images from that time may be less familiar hasn't long to youlive. In this short volume It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, Roger Moorhouse has attempted stripped to his underwear and sent to illustrate a watery grave in the period boot of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefactsa stolen Ford Sierra.  Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1409187438Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The First Lie|author=A J ParkGlorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=3.54|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=On Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the second of October 37-year-old barristerwondrous library we start by visiting with him, Paul Reeve, returned home and in the evening a helper at 9 pm to find the dessert cafe his house in darkness gran owns and the front door openruns. His wife was in the bedroom in a state of shock and in the bathroomEli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there was is a dead man who had been stabbed repeatedly generation missing in the neck with Paulfamily. A few short years ago, Eli's paperparents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-knifetrotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. At that moment Paul takes This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a decision that will be irrevocable: confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he decides that he and Alice are not going to ring most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the police and tell end – the truth. They're going only thing to bury the body in woodland and go on as though nothing has happenedpossibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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