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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbn=16384852160241636604|title=Black, White, and Gray All OverThe Trading Game: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law EnforcementConfession|author=Frederick ReynoldsGary Stevenson|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you''Corruption re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is not departmentthe East End, where he was familiar with violence, gender or race specificpoverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. It Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has everything a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to do be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with characterCitibank. Period Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter''s Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller''One more body just wouldn't matter''|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeThe murder |summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black manrequest for help from her beloved aunt, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the worldCarole. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but FloydFreya's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on Georgeformer mentor and Carole's neck close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is not one which I'll ever forget dead and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpectedcircumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. There Arthur was a backlash against the police - and reason why Freya had not just in Minneapolisbeen back to the village: whatever their colour or creed Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were ''all'' tarred by in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the Chauvin brushlove of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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|isbn=B09DD1QJKJAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The ClubAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Ellery LloydBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=''The party Opening up new ways of thinking about the year turned into the murder mystery shape of the decadethings to come.''
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|author=Melissa Fu Sunny Singh|title=Peach Blossom Spring Hotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction Thrillers |summary= I loved the prelude to Peach Blossom Spring, a short chapter entitled ''Origins''. Unfortunately it The Hotel Arcadia is the only truly poetic part of a book luxury hotel in an unnamed city that I expected more fromhas suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Covering Chinese history Hiding from 1938 to 2005 as viewed the terrorists who are rampaging through one family's perspective. When their home city , killing everyone on site, there is set ablaze during the war with JapanSam, a young mother (Meilin) wartime photographer and her four-year-old son (Renshu) Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are among those still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who flee. The story follows them on their journey across Chinarefuses to be cowed by events, and in Renshukeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's case eventually happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to Americahelp her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists. |isbn=1472277538086154742X
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|authorisbn=Vanda Symon1529153298|title=FacelessThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=In this book told from multiple viewpointsIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, several troubled people are thrown into the same story thanks to just one mis-stephonestly... ) Set in New ZealandShe's not what's worrying Miv's family, the first of our characters is Bradleythough. Women have been disappearing. Well, a middle aged man struggling with an overbearing bossthey've been murdered, a weighty mortgage, and what he feels is an unappreciative wifebut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Then there’s Billy, a homeless teenage girl who is a street artist working as a prostitute sometimes in order Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to pay for move the materials she needsfamily 'Down South'. And then we have MaxWhen you're from Yorkshire, who is also living on the streets and who keeps an eye on Billy. He Down South is a shell of a manfrightening, barely able to take any care of himselfforeign place, and yet we can sense that he was once something more than he is nowbest avoided. One nightFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, Bradley finds himself half-crazed with stress and anxiety, driving down the street looking for a prostituteshe'll do anything to prevent that. He picks up Billy, and then with one thoughtless decision finds his life thrown into turmoil and a spiral away from She's not worried about the person he thought he was into someone very differentdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|isbn=1914585046
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|isbn=07603735311398524085|title=Cozy Knits: 30 Hat, Mitten, Scarf and Sock Projects from Around the WorldHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Sue FlandersNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=CraftsCrime|summary=Just occasionally you encounter a book of knitting patterns which seems to meet your every needCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Right nowHer children, sons Niall, it's bitterly cold Paul and Ollie and we're in the sandwich filling between two storms: I need socksher daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, scarvesAlec, hats and mittensis not. They have to look stylishShortly afterwards, keep me warm Etty and be so cheerful that they make me feel betterGreg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. If It was an easy assumption for the police to make that sounds like a lot to ask, have a look at ''Cozy Knits'': it has thirty designs for those necessary items Duncan had murdered Charlie and I don't think that there was one of them which I then committed suicide when he couldn't see myself wearing. We start with an introduction by Nancy Bush which gives some of stand the history of knittingguilt. It's The Salter children are not essential convinced but itthere's a nice extralittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
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|isbn=17765740281035906708|title=Bumblebee GrumblebeeDiva|author=David ElliottDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=I love a good board book! We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. ''Bumblebee Grumblebee'' is aimed at quite a niche market: Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it's for the child who still enjoys board books (er, see my first sentence) but has mastered sufficient language skills to have realise that you can 'Callas'play'' with words and to make something quite different from each oneit more manageable in the States. We have When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the elephant who dons a tutu - and becomes Nazi occupation by a ''balletphant''. The buffalo mother who has had a bath (complete with yellow duck) mercilessly exploited her and then dries off with a hair drier becomes a ''fluffalo''made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie. The rhinoceros who drops his ice cream cone is a ''crynoceros'' (think about it!) The pelican who sits on his potty changes into a ''sm.......'' OK, let's not go there Some people are eating!
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|isbnauthor=B09V1NQ5SXChristopher Edge|title=Death at Friar's Inn|author=Rob KeeleyBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Nat Webber Lucas and Tom Barton were his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the finals nickname of the Moots to take place at 'The Honourable Society of FriarBlack Hole's Inn. For aspiring barristersAll big movie fans, moots test the participantsthey' knowledge re looking forward to lots of several areas of law exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as well as their advocacy skills: itthe 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's a great way of getting invaluable practice and of getting yourself noticedt even imagine. Tom and Nat are But as they lurch from 'a provincial university' and one film genre to the next, can they're ''almost'' looked down figure out what on earth is going on because of this. ? The other contestants - Becca Decker-Hamilton Will they ever get back to the cinema, and Lucia 'Mouse' Dawes have no such disadvantage and Becca has an abundance of confidence. Tom's £30 supermarket suit doesn't make him feel any better.to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
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|isbnauthor=1529125944Rachel Greenlaw|title=City of the Dead|author=Jonathan KellermanCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=When you drive large vehicles for ''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a livingremote and partially forgotten island, you're careful survives on luring ships into the rocks and it's not just about plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the way ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that you drivelies within. You restrict your alcohol intake But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and if itMira's a trip that needs overnight stays you make certain you get your sleepfather. When you're taking Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a removals truck through bargain with a residential neighbourhood you head wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off at 5 in search of afamily secret that lies buried deep in the sea.m. when With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the roads are quietersmuggler's territory, even if you have Mira must be determined to wait up when you get stop at nothing to where you're going. And it was going well until save the men hit something in Westwood Village, an upmarket neighbourhood future of Los Angeles. The man was stark naked her home and couldn't be identifiedthe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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|author=Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)James Sherwood Metts|title=I May Be WrongPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre= AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary= When Things have been a bit sticky for the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispieceEarthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, Ioften replacing jobs they'm inclined re paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of the world responds other, new ways to your book. I know, having read the book in questionspend time, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thoughtalong came an awful pandemic. He knows (Life was pretty much shut down and at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to this book, because along with it tells the truth as it is, in all the early 21st centurymany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=15266448271736128426
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|isbnauthor=B0949Q1DC1Matthew Tree|title=The Patient (A DS Cross thriller)|author=Tim SullivanWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=DS George Cross has an autistic spectrum disorder, quite probably Asperger's Syndrome. He can Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be rudedifferent from his father, difficult a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and awkward with people, although it's never intentionalwho had endless crises of self confidence. It's just that he thinks differently and social niceties simply don't occur So Tim applied himself to him. There's a reason why he's in Bristol's Major Crime Unit his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and it's that he has the best conviction rate with cases, ever. His partner is DS Josie Ottey: she regards Cross with affection (not an emotion he would recognise, or welcome being attached to set himself) and even attempts to instil some of those missing social niceties into Cross's behaviourhigh but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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|isbnauthor=1529151600A G Slatter|title=Give Unto Others|author=Donna LeonThe Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=Commissario Guido Brunetti senses that Venice has changed. The ''pandemiaThere'' stripped the city s a part of its tourists me that wants to keep this just to myself for nearly two years and a lot however long I can. This secret magic of businesses have closedmy own, all mine, most never at last. I just want to reopenenjoy it for a while. There'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's now , a cascade family of money 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 life begins again but even 125such since she was young,000 deaths have not put an end to greedher training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. The Mafias have liquidity problems: how on earth are they going to launder all the money which is coming their way? Whilst heWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's thinking about thiscousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, Brunetti encounters someone hethe town's seen only occasionally since they were neighbours when he was leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a childmaelstrom of chaos. Elisabetta Foscarini has a problem Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and shedetermine what to do as the Briar witches'd like Brunetti's advicelegacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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|authorisbn=Marcus Sedgwick1529900360|title=WrathThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Meet Fitz, a young Scottish lad full of frustration at himself. Lockdown is only just over, and he should be free to do what It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he wants, to go where he wants felt responsible and with whom he wantseven after Alex recovered, but he cannot stop himself from putting his foot in it when he talks Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his best friend, Cassiehelp on difficult cases. They His assertions that there were half only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a desultory school bandpsychologist only worked for a while. Finally, but Cassie it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was also one hundred per cent something that the enigmatic – saying man she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earthloved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying Two lovers were murdered in the end swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the world heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is already a done deal? Is married to an extremely rich man and it some spooky new kind of music she's dreaming not the Italian. But which of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out them was the truthprimary target? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he can't...|isbn=1800900899
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|isbn=16358640701529395224|title=Knit 2 Socks in 1Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Safiyyah TalleySion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=CraftsAnimals and Wildlife|summary=If youSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn've ever started knitting a pair of sockst want to follow in his footsteps, finished particularly when he considered the first one and either got bored by strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the idea opportunity of doing the same thing all over again, or started on the second sock work experience with a family friend who was a vet and lost the first before you finished it, was convinced this is was the book job for youhim. Where is it that single socks go to hide? Safiyyah Talley has developed a system that allows you to knit two socks in one Before long, divide them up and have a perfectly finished pair of sockshe was at Liverpool University. Sounds good? Ithadn's clever and wellt -thoughtas with so many students -outbeen his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Olivie Blake0861541774|title=The Atlas SixA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary= DarkDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, sharphas taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet 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 highly inquisitivehe killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn''The Atlas Six'' makes its publishing debut after becoming a Tik-Tok sensationt help Danny at all.|isbn=1529095239
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|isbnauthor=0008384983Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Paris Apartment|author=Lucy FoleyPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=''Things are not what they seem''. It was The Perfect Passion Company is a Friday dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and Jess Hadley was keen operating as an alternative to get to her half-brother's flat all the online apps in Parisproviding a more personal, tailored service. She'd Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come across from London on Eurostarand look after the business, courtesy as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the money she'd stolen from The Pervert's till in the Copacabana Bar in Brightonchance to come home to Edinburgh. It wasn't likely that the police would be on And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to her yet but she'd like an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to be somewhere safe 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with food and drink inside hersome new characters who quickly begin to charm. She'd phoned Ben and got the address - 12 Rue des Amants Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match- making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and he told her that the apartment was on the third floor. Shethere's outside what's obviously a always her very upmarket building but she hasn't been able helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to get in touch with Ben.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=07603735580811771741|title=Nordic KnitsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Sue FlandersMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Crafts
|summary=I was so delighted by Sue FlandersMelissa Leapman' [[Cozy Knits: 30 Hat, Mitten, Scarf and Sock Projects from Around the World by Sue Flanders|Cozy Knits]] that I didns 't need any persuading at all to pick up her ''Nordic KnitsInstaKnits for Baby''gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. This delivers fortySome will be quick knits -four patterns inspired by textiles and local traditions from Norwayothers are of the 'long, Sweden and Icelandcosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. There The projects are a few sweaters or jackets but divided by the majority of patterns are for smaller items such as mittenstime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, glovesfive to ten hours, hats ten to twenty hours and bagsmore than twenty hours. All the projects are bright attractive, modern and cheerful and very cosyuseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.
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|isbnauthor=1916072038Dean Koontz|title=The House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Allie CresswellBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionParanormal|summary=We meet part of the Talbot family in Yorkshire in November 1811Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. TwentyOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their sized object to his home at Ecklington, to and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house in ! The thing is, Benny is the hollowvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. The two women are angry with each other and Jocelyn He is well aware of her mother's strengths and weaknesses: ''She a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is practiced at subterfugea new friend, at concealinga bad weather friend called Spike, beneath who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a facade of respectability, the deplorable truth''good person. Hester Spike is furious about Jocelyn's refusal going to do as she was askedtake care of Benny, which has precipitated ''this violent and unexpected removalwill certainly take care of Benny''. Then we are told of the birth of a child ands enemies, soon afterif he, Hester Talbot departsBenny, leaving Jocelyn in shame and isolation in YorkshireHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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|author=Matthieu AikinsAdam Stower|title=The Naked Don't Fear the WaterMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyConfident Readers |summary=It's easy Murray is supposed to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fictionbe a humble, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticismtidy and friendly cat, but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen one who decided is able to accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast sleep and eat and eat and at times painful journey. There are tense moments sleep and gripping accounts , well, whatever takes his fancy next of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way throughtwo. But ithe's written with a haunting bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the environments regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and people describedwhiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn= B09N9157T60008561249
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|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Kate Harding Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is going that the answer for an interview for her dream job at Edge Communicationsboth could well be.... no. It ''Fragility's the last interview of ' is set as the day at one of London's newest office buildings and Edge have fitted out their part city of the building to be something special. MaggiePortland, Kate's recruitment agentOregon, is keen cautiously begins to see that Kate approaches emerge from the interview in a good state of mind: Kate assumes that this is because Maggie will get a decent bonus if Kate gets restrictions imposed during the job - and she has to admit that life has not been easy for her recently.covid pandemic
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|isbn=B097XNMCRK1529431735|title=The Blood Tide (DS Max Craigie)Winter Visitor|author=Neil LancasterJames Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Loch Torridon 'It's February 1991 and Essex isbitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins'' return all the back of beyond: theremore surprising. He's not even any light pollution which is why it was d been exiled on the perfect place to land illegal deliveries of drugsCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. Jimmy McLeish thought that The return has come about because he was onto 's had a nice little earnerletter from his ex-wife, only saying that she's ill and hasn't long to find that Macca, the man he thought he was working with, is deadlive. His remains would never be found. The delivery It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is hijacked by Davie abducted, stripped to his underwear and Callumsent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. As the story progresses we'll get Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to know them quite well.home?
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|isbnauthor= B09NDJ77LMAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Me and My Shadow|author=Deborah StoneThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary= ''What happens when someone Eli is pushed too far a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and they begin to lose their grip on reality? How would you cope if you felt that no one loved you? And how far would you go to be happy? Accompany Rachel as she tries to shake off in the evening a helper at the shadows of her past dessert cafe his gran owns and attempts to repair decades worth of painruns.'' Rachel Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in a current conversation with her psychiatristthe family. A few short years ago, who pushes her Eli's parents were both lost to recall her life from very young childhood onwards. But Rachel is combative with Doctor Blakethe titular race, sometimes even contemptuous a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of hera magical beast. You can see that it's not an easy therapeutic relationship. Rachel's recall of her life This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is in remarkable detail. She remembers each minor slight and each major betrayal in perfect detail to dare to enter what he most hates, with absolute and unforgiving claritythe sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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|isbn=1529409659178763681X|title=The Locked Room (Dr Ruth Galloway)Knife Skills for Beginners|author=Elly GriffithsOrlando Murrin|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was some time since her father Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had remarried but his wife was now keen a way of getting both men and women to do some decorating and Dr Ruth Galloway volunteered to clear out her mother's belongingswhat he wanted. She was intrigued by Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the discovery of school to assist Paul, who had a picture of her own house: broken arm, but it was an old photograph, taken in misty conditions didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and on the back it said 'dawn 1963', some years before Ruth was bornproblems - are all his own. It The one thing he hadn't expected was before her parents were marriedfor someone to turn up dead. When she returned to Norfolk she Unfortunately, he was determined to find out what was behind the photograph but Covid intervened and person who discovered the country was in lockdown. Ruth body and Kate are restricted to everyone knows that the cottage with Ruth attempting police consider that person to home school Kate and continue with her university teaching duties. The good thing was meeting Zoe, be the new tenant from next door whom they got to know whilst clapping for carersprime suspect.
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|isbnauthor=1847941834Sarah Marsh|title=Atomic Habits|author=James ClearA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=I've said this before but there are some books that you seek out, some books that you stumble across and some books that drop into your life because you really MUST read them, like, right now! ''Atomic Habits'' is in the last category.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09MSC981W|title=The Woke Iliad|author=George Boreas|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Helen is After a bout of scarlet fever as a popular activistchild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Or should we call Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a popular influencer? Or perhaps time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a popular franchise owner? Anywayschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, Helen is so popular that she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the United States government has made her its Ambassador of Wokedeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. Helen runs all sorts of initiatives on behalf of At the governmentsame time, including the Shaming Conference Bell is working on other inventions and the Permissible Entertainment Committee - ''for indoctrinating ideas, and legislating against summer fun for any who still knew how to have it''Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. Ouch!|isbn=1035401614
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|isbn=B09D95TRKZ1803816759|title=The Wedding MurdersUnravelling|author=Sarah Linley|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Libby Steele was hoping to get a permanent job with the newspaper and the case she was covering was her big chance. It was even more important to her than the celebrity wedding she was to attend the following day with her ex-rock star boyfriend, Matthew. She was leaving her seven-year-old son, Patrick with her sister, Emma, and heading off to a grand manor house hotel in the North Yorkshire countryside. Daniel Acroyd, television presenter and former member of the rock band was marrying Vicky and Libby suspected that the wedding wasn't ''quite'' as high-profile as had been suggested as there was no ban on photos or phones.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1838226834|title=Carried Away With the Carnival|author=Ed BoxallWill Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingScience Fiction|summary=It was one 's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of those memories we treasure from our childhoods: an outing adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with our grandparents. They're there to undo all the good AI system that parents donow runs everything, making life easier for many, so the trips out were always so much funand riots start to spread. A young boy was going Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the carnival with his Grandad, who told him: rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn''It'll be brilliantt the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, just remembera British superfan and tech nerd, don't let go of my handis also on the case.What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki''s kidnapping connected?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291353621529421284|title=The Long WeekendLaying Out the Bones|author=Gilly MacmillanKate Webb
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=It was a long drive to one of those flash downpours that the weekend retreat British weather often delivers in Northumbriaa heatwave. In a gully, right up near a human skeleton came to the Scottish borders surface and forensic testing proved the body to make it worse the three husbands be Lee Geary, who had all - for one reason or another - had to delay making the trip until the Saturday morningdisappeared nine years earlier. Jane He'd been a known drug user and Ruth had known each other for learning disabilities, so it could have been a long time simple case of misadventure but Emily DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. Geary was a bit of an outsider. townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? She and Paul had married only relatively recently and she was ten years younger than There are connections to the other two women. The friendship suicide of the group went back Holly Gilbert and to school days. Paul had coached rugby two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the school where Mark, Toby and Rob were pupilstime. Mark had married Jane, Lockyer and Toby is RuthDC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's husband. And Rob? Well, Rob's deadcold cases to you and me) investigate.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=gareth_steel|title=Never Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=4|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Stories of a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. As a TV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's written it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=17876348840571379559|title=The Herd|author=Emily Edwards|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Our story opens in December 2019, before most of us had even heard of Covid or realised that whether or not we should be vaccinated would come to be a major issue. We're in Farley County Court, where Elizabeth and Jack Chamberlain are facing Bryony and Ash Kohli. As they were best friends until just a few months ago we know that whatever has happened is major and that, regardless House of the outcome, this is not going to work out well for anyone.}}{{FrontpageBroken Bricks|author=Annabel Abbs|title=The Language of FoodFiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Eliza Acton ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is a poet who has never had the slightest inclination to boil an eggstory of four people. When tasked with writing a cookery book Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she recruits Ann Kirbylives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, a local woman with a troubled home lifestorms and floods. Together Her husband, they testRichard, craftstruggles to grow his vegetables, refine to complete the delivery rounds - and reshape to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the world of domestic cookeryrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, reinventing the recipe book much less twins and changing the face of cookery writing foreverthere's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.|isbn=1398502227
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louie Stowell1529425867|title=Loki: Lost and Never Found (A Bad God's Guide to Being GoodD I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Simon Mason
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet Loki. The trickster god has got into trouble againIn Oxford, so the other gods have decided there's only one thing for it – he must be banishedare two D I Wilkins. And transformed – for Loki Raymond Wilkins is spending a month both in exile of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and in the physical form father of a middle-school kid here on EarthRyan, is not. He's guarded by a giant and a god in disguise as his parents, and Thor has come along as well, to be the more suave, more popular and more successful brother not any of the twothose things. Loki has He's white, originated from a month to redeem trailer park, barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his reputation, thing) and get his moral compass pointing the right way again, wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or else, and to prove it he has acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to write the text we read in a sentient notebookpolice procedural written for laughs. Well, that is able to cry foul of his lies, and judge his progressyou're not. But Loki is the kind The two men are just different sides of god who insists he can do anything, so surviving a bit more virtuously for a month is going to be a walk in the parksame policing coin. Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic.right?|isbn=1406399752
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008454442Mosby Woods|title=A Flicker in the Dark|author=Stacy WillinghamWhirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=ItThe West isn's May 2019 and Dr Chloe Davis, a medical psychologist, t the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is completing a session with a new patient. Lacey quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is suffering mentally but Chloe has hopes the best course of getting her through the traumaaction. Governments are flailing. You seeA war here, Chloe knows what it's like to have a traumatic childhoodpush for climate action there. Her father A feeling that nobody is Richard Davisin actual charge. Imagine then, the there was a man who murdered six girls some twenty years agowith precognition. Their bodies have never been found but Chloe found some jewellery belonging to Imagine the girls - trophies taken from their bodies - tucked away strategic advantage in this asset; a cupboard at home and she and her mother handed it to man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the police. Dick Davis is most valuable asset in the Louisiana State Penitentiary and Chloie has had nothing to do with him for the last twenty yearshistory. Her mother is in a care homeImagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
}}
