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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=T Kingfisher0008517061|title=ThornhedgeDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=54|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=''You had a right to retake your placeFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky.'' T Kingfisher's latest novella is There’s perhaps a lovely reimagining little uncertainty about the future of a fairytale that is well known his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and well beloved. But whilst there is a princess trapped in a tower, sleeping under an eternal enchantment, Thornhedge is not her story. Insteaddaughter Diana, our protagonist is Toadling, who was stolen away by fairies when she was as moving in together would mean a newlot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-born baby grid and secreted away relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the land of fairie where future she wants for herself and her childhood was spent being taught how to draw magic from her veins daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and cast spellsputting the future on the back burner.|isbn=1803364238
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX1786482126|title=Stories 2The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Richard F WalkerElly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary= This is Richard F WalkerBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury's second volume apartments - when they discovered the bones of short storiesa child beneath a doorway. There are thirteen in all and I took something from each of themwas no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. There isn It't a single one that s difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't deserve to be among , that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the others or brings down the overall qualityone night they spent together some three months ago. It can Her condition will be tricky to review short stories without giving too much awayobvious before long, so I'll just pick two not least because Ruth is prone to talk about and I think they give a general flavoursudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876366070008551324|title=The TrapDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Catherine Ryan HowardNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often in unusual for anyone from the early hours of Hardie family to approach the morningpolice. Drunken revellers spilling out Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of clubs a missing person is buried and looking who was responsible for a way to get homeher death. Some are lucky This person, he promises, is someone big and manage to get one of it will be worth the few taxis availablepolice doing what he wants. Others squash onto And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the night bus that will only go as far as one remainder of the outlying villageshis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The woman all regret new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what'taxi problem', particularly s happening.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the light of Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the missing women'investigation ground to a halt. For one young womanNow, her mother, Helena, the final stop on the bus leaves and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a long way short straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her homeboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. She had intended What looked as though it was going to ring someone to come be an open-and collect her - but her phoneshut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's deadboss, Una Burt) are less convinced. }}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The bus had driven off before she had the chance Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to beg the bus driver run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to let her use hisRobert. ThereMost men in Robert's no option position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to start walking - unsuitably clothed and stumble upon the two of them kissing in high-heeled shoesa dark passageway.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405957174Jo Callaghan|title=A Death at the Party|author=Amy StuartLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=From When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the first pagecase alongside her sidekick, we know that Nadine Walshthe AI detective Lock. It's party will not end welltheir first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. The victim - But when there is a man - second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is dying when we first meet him suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and Nadine consciously makes no effort a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to call the ambulance he so desperately needstheir AI Future Policing project. What we don't know is who Will they be able to solve the man is case in time, or why Nadine prefers to have him die. I'd better give you will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a little more background so that you can understand what's happening.career?|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tania Unsworth1399613073|title=Nowhere IslandMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Meet Gil. Just twelveOlivia, he is so determined to escape Laura and Anjali met on the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – first day of medical school and find their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a home for himselfcentury. He Olivia is en route to yet another fostererruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him you aim to his futurebe a cardiothoracic surgeon. That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in Laura is a perfectionist and a camp on an island between trauma doctor. Anjali is the two directions free spirit of the group and she becomes a motorway, GP. When we first meet them they're at a place inaccessible drug and definitely ignored enough alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to provide for their safety and seclusionend in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home Twenty-five years later there, albeit so much more successfullywill be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combineThis time, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=1804540080's their teenage children who are involved.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085300250241636604|title=Murder in the FamilyThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Cara HunterGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=It was If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in December 2003 that fifteenyour mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-year-old Maura Howard came home stripe suit and found his background is the body of her stepfatherEast End, Luke Ryderwhere he was familiar with violence, in the garden of their West London homepoverty and injustice. He had an injury There was no posh public school on the back of his head which could have happened if CV - but he'd slipped down had been to the steps but the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberateLondon School of Economics. Twenty years later, no one Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has been charged a facility with his murder and it's now the subject numbers which most of ''Infamous'', a true-crime showus can only envy. A group of experts has been brought together to review the evidence and He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to take the investigation furtherbe stupid. More to the pointIt was his ability at what was, they're going to do this live on cameraessentially, episode by episodea card game which got him an internship with Citibank. There's no dump of the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangers. It's compelling viewingEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Judith Eagle1035021803|title=The Stolen SongbirdAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=CaroIt's mother, a world-famous whistler, twenty years since Freya Lockwood has failed been back to return home the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her recent work trip abroad and is now missingbeloved aunt, Carole. Her other motherFreya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, RonnieArthur Crockleford, is having dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwellsay the least. So who is going Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despisesthe village: Arthur, she feels frustrated and confused and worried, let her down badly. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst be near the man or pursue the profession she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there tooloved. But After the split, she soon finds herself caught up worked in a mysterycafe, as she discovers a painting met and married James (on the rebound from the love of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcaselife, who was murdered) and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks Freya and terrorising peopleJames have now divorced. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|isbn=0571363148
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529195977AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=None of this is TrueAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Lisa JewellBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=On her 45th birthday, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fair. She, too, was out celebrating her 45th birthday, only she was just with her husband, Walter. It turns out that not only are Alix and Josie birthday twins, they were both born in St Mary's hospital. That's where Opening up new ways of thinking about the similarities end, though: Alix, with her husband, Nathan, are in the midst shape of a joyful, monied group of friends and whilst theythings to come.'re not I'exactlyve heard it said that 'technology' rowdy, theyis what happens after you're enjoying themselveseighteen. Josie, on the other handWell, holds her handbag close to her tummy and you get the sense I must confess that Walter's not too happythere have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. HeI've kept up reasonably well with what's not used advantageous to spending this much money on a meal - me but I'm left with the feeling that it is Josie's birthday after allgetting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1803365110|author=Chuck TingleSunny Singh|title=Camp DamascusHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=HorrorThrillers |summary=Love The Hotel Arcadia is love; although humans continue to be confused a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by this sentimenta terrorist group. Gay conversion therapy Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is ongoing. The UK government ruled out plans to make it Sam, a crime wartime photographer andAbhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the UShotel, nearly 700 000 adults have received it. Although it is both he forms a secular bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and a religious prejudice, Chuck Tingle, in his new horror, ''Camp Damascus'', peels back the skin keeps on venturing out of Christian her room to try to capture what''pray s happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the gay away'' camps phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to show see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the reader the horror lurking withinterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18031363831529153298|title=Tin SoldiersThe List of Suspicious Things|author=David ChadwickJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary= Wat Tyler has returned from fighting in Vietnam under something of a cloud. What actually happened out there is gossiped about It's 1979 and nobody Margaret Thatcher is sure exactly Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what took place's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but an act of heroism leading to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and disgrace seems she'll do anything to be prevent that. She's not worried about the consensus. Wat himself is keeping his cards close dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to his chest, as he always doesanyone.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C7J9D21B1398524085|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=A J LewisNicci French|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives Charlotte Salter was expected at The House of Beautiful Swallowsher husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Idyllic as this might soundHer children, it's a bordello sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and Ettore's mother died when he was bornher daughter, Etty. He's not been short of mothers, though - are all worried but for someone of his background in late-eighteenthstrangely -century Amalfiher husband, it's difficult to obtain decent employmentAlec, is not. The stint working with Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the preparation body of anchovies didnGreg't work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boatss father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. Ettore It was nothing if not resourceful - an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and determined - and it was not long before then committed suicide when he had a successful business as a guide for visitorscouldn't stand the guilt. He was even saving some moneyThe Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz1035906708|title=After DeathDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Michael Mace, Head We tend to think of SecurityMaria Callas as Greek, at a top secret biological research facilitybut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuaryNew York, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – December 1923 and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleaguesmoved to Athens when she was thirteen. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas'feel'' everythingto make it more manageable in the States. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymoreWhen she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|isbn=1662500467}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jamie LittlerChristopher Edge|title=ArkspireBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Two sisters, Juniper Lucas and Elodiehis friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, born fifteen minutes aparta place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, are growing they're looking forward to be chalk lots of exciting films, and cheese. many, many snacks! Juniper However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an eager hunter and trader in illicit magicadventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, including relics from prior major wars left can they figure out in the Badlands. Elodie what on earth is intent going on getting closer ? Will they ever get back to power in one the cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Greenlaw|title=Compass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=''I can hear the song of the religious districts sea. The call of Arkspirethe deep, perhaps even to become the child answering beat in line to inherit my heart.'' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the power of rocks and plundering the Watcherwrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the closest seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a ruler trap to end the wrecking, they capture the district hasisland's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and one with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the five major victors in said earlier warsea. Being trained in With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the magic that only five people can use would definitely change watched streets of foreign islands to the status heart of the whole family. But in finding something oddly magicalsmuggler's territory, Juniper might just Mira must be able determined to gain some power stop at nothing to save the future of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=02415861430008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thiago de MoraesJames Sherwood Metts|title=Old Gods New TricksPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet TrixieThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. Forever getting into scrapes, larks AI and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powderautomation have been proceeding apace, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance. But just when sheoften replacing jobs they's being told re paid to do and other tasks that by her one-last-chance-giving headteachertook time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, the world changesnew ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. SuddenlyLife was pretty much shut down and, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-outalong with it, even of electric cars, hits not just all the town the schoolmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We's in but the entire planet (apart ll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from mobile phoneshis father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power failed miserably and who had endless crises of power from usself confidence. And so she begins her epic quest, So Tim applied himself to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giantshis studies, half-gods cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and so on known as the trickstersset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=178845295XB0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alexia CasaleA G Slatter|title=Sing if you Can't DanceThe Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=TeensFantasy|summary=It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate a life-changing disability too, but thatThere's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle a part of a dance performance me that was going wants to keep this just to change her lifemyself for however long I can. But she comes back fightingThis secret magic of my own, all mine, desperate at last. I just want to avoid enjoy it for a while.'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the pity staresworld, and desperate to get back to lies Silverton; a life thattown 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 normal such since she was young, her training as she can possibly managea steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. Meanwhile thereWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's a new (cute!) boy in schoolleader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her music A Level performance piece to try to sort outway left, right and just centre, Ellie uncovers the day-rare ability to-day traumas of all communicate with the challenges dead, putting her body continues at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to throw at her another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to navigate. So even though she cando as the Briar witches't dance anymorelegacy, might she be able everything they have sacrificed to sing her way through instead?survive, is under threat.|isbn=05713738011803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Helen Peters1529900360|title=Friends and TraitorsThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=34|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=EnglandIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, WW2Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. Two young girls are new at His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the country pile called Stanbrookhelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. One is NancyFinally, destined to be in service all her life it seemswas Robin, like the female generations before herDelaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school She knew that the involvement was something that has been removed there away from bomber flight-pathsthe man she loved needed. The girls are chalk and cheesenext case did look simple, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it sothough. But something is amiss, and first separately and then Two lovers were murdered in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be swimming pool of a rum 'unremote property in Bel Air. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is made of meetings with Germans, married to an extremely rich man and it's not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attackedthe Italian. But surely which of them was the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhandprimary target?|isbn=1788004647
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=02419961041529395224|title=Coming to Find YouLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Jane CorrySion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Nancy's mother and step-Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse was a GP and her step-brotherRowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, Martin, has been convicted of their murder. We first meet Nancy outside particularly when he considered the court, after Martin receives a life sentence. The barrister tells her strain that she's received a 'silent sentence' being on- shecall put on his father's not been found guilty life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of anything but will have to live doing work experience with what happened a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for the rest of her lifehim. Of courseBefore long, ithe was at Liverpool University. It hadn's made worse because Nancy's rich t - she inherited five million pounds from her mother as with so many students - and the papers are making the most of itbeen his dream since he was a child. If anything, he''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' is one favourite epithet and ''rich bitch'' might not d wanted to be printed but is undoubtedly spokena professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294136800861541774|title=A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief Nye of Police Novel)Pheasants|author=Martin WalkerSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=One of the main events of the Sarlat tourist season is the re-enactment of the liberation of the town from the English in 1370 and BrunoDCI Domenic Jejeune's there close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to see the show meet up with some friendsan old ally, Guy Trueman. It's all been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong when, Kerquelin, the Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man playing one of the main characters is seriously injured when armed with a knife - and he departs from the scriptkilled a Ghurka. LuckilyInitially, his doctor is there and the man is whisked away in he faced a helicopter. A local doctor (and friend of Bruno) wonders about his chances charge of survival manslaughter but - as evidence came to light that suggested that he's a senior government employee, might have planned to murder the man who runs Frenchelon - . Now he could be facing the military has stepped indeath penalty. One daughter lives nearby Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and another, who lives in California, is flying in with some of her fatherwouldn's friends for a pre-arranged holidayt help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529196388Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Trial|author=Rob RinderPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Grant Cliveden was The Perfect Passion Company is a hero: dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a policeman who stood trip to Canada to get away for all that was good and honest and looked a while. Katie is coming out of a break up to by just about everyonewith a bad boyfriend, and so there was public uproar when he was murdered in plain sight jumps at the Old Baileychance to come home to Edinburgh. There's just one man in And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the frame for his murder - Jimmy Knight - and it's not too long before Knight appears in courtIsabel Dalhousie novels, charged but with Cliveden's murdersome new characters who quickly begin to charm. Knight was told that the best barrister for him was Jonathan Taylor Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-Cameron of Stag Court Chambers making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and itthere's Taylor-Cameron always her very helpful (and his pupilrather handsome) neighbour, Adam GreenWilliam, who eventually represent him. Knight's determined to plead not guilty, despite all Taylor-Cameron's recommendations to the contrary.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Essie Fox0811771741|title=The FascinationInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionCrafts|summary= The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the Second World War) which has often led collection of knits from toys to more than a few writers mishandling itblankets. There Some will be quick knits - others are of the 's such a glut long, cosy afternoons in front of media set in the era that fire' variety. The projects are divided by the hallmarks wetime they've come ll take to associate with it are familiar complete - less than five hours, five to the point of being clichedten hours, hackneyed eventen to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All this is simply to illustrate that it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite thatthe projects are attractive, something about it still grabs me – modern and something useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about this book'social-media-worthy projects' but that's description did as wellme being picky.|isbn=1914585526
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{{Frontpage
|author=Andrew Cartmel|title=Death in Fine Condition|rating=3|genre=Crime|summary=Cordelia really loves classic paperback crime fiction, and in particular a series called Sleuth Hound. She spends her time hunting out copies that she can sell on for profit, sometimes 'tweaking' them, to add value, in somewhat fraudulent ways. One day she discovers a near perfect collection of these books after seeing them in the background of a photograph on her drug dealer's living room wall, and so she sets about discovering where this collection is, and how she can steal it! It's a next-level step in her petty crime career, but has she reached too far, and what will happen when the owner of the collection comes looking for their books?|isbn=1789098947}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529507987Dean Koontz|title=The Repair Shop Craft Book|author=Walker Books and Sonia Albert (Illustrator)Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionParanormal|summary=I love ''The Repair Shop''Benny is having a terrifically bad day. It's my go-to programme when I want to be cheered upHe loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. After Oh, and someone has delivered a hard dayreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, thereand it's nothing better than watching experts repair treasured items without ever mentioning what they're worth. possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! You seeThe thing is, Benny is the value very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is in what these possessions are worth to the people who own them and the memories they holda nice person. A really nice person. No expense appears So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to be spared and the experts spend as much time and effort as his house is required a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to achieve the desired resulthelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Regular viewers know the experts Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and theyHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny're all brilliant at explaining what it is s wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they're doingare. But how did they start?|isbn=1662500491
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|author=Nicole JarvisAdam Stower|title=A Portrait in ShadowMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers |summary=''I want all Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of Florence to know my namethe two. But he's a bad magicianCast out from Romes cat, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find so his favourite bun has been turned into a home hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and where her future the catflap they both use can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from chuck them out, not into the powerful Accademiaregular back garden, the self-proclaimed guardians but into a world of the healing magics that through paintings have the power to protect the city and its citizens from plagues frightening adventure and curseswhiffs. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and guard This time round it above all else. To drops theminto a Viking land, Artemisia where a troll hunter is expected an ambitious young woman who promises trouble well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and change – has no place amongst them and their society.he'll have to do…|isbn=18033623400008561249
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|isbn=B0BVDC2VWHB0C47LV1PC|title=The Grave ListenersFragility|author=William FrankMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor. ItCan you make a ''Yo birthing person''s surrounded by a Witching Forest. joke? And if you could, is the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of question should you make it? Or is the forest provides heat and warmthquestion if you did, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. would it land? The fear of being buried alive catch is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is toleratedanswer for both could well be.... no. }}
{{Frontpage|isbn=024162343X|title=Stolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=I was the bad company other people got into at school. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'godFragility''. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it was probably worse still. Not too long after is set as the end city of WWIIPortland, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failuresOregon, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had cautiously begins to be there in the first place. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked emerge from the maturity to approach 'restrictions imposed during the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.covid pandemic
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|author=Amanda Craig|title=Three Graces|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|isbn= 140871468X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=14483093791529431735|title=Flesh and Blood (DS McAvoy 11)The Winter Visitor|author=David MarkJames Henry|rating=3.54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's something of a surprise to find that you're deadFebruary 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, particularly when youwhich made Bruce Hopkins're thinking that youreturn all the more surprising. He're actually d been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a break with your letter from his ex-wife and children, but saying thatshe's what happened ill and hasn't long to DS Aector McAvoylive. Whilst he was relieved It's hard to find that he was stillfeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, officially, alive, it was difficult for Detective Superintendent Trish Pharoah. Her protegee - McAvoy - was still alive but the partially clad man who'd dashed from her flat stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the early hours boot of the morning when it was obvious that someone was tampering with her car, was nota stolen Ford Sierra. Thor Ingolfsson was Aector McAvoy's doppelganger - and not everyone who commented on this was doing so kindly. It had always been suspected that Pharoah was sweet on Aector.Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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|isbnauthor=0957181167Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk Glorious Race of Brian Lewis|author=Alan MarshallMagical Beasts|rating=54|genre=ArtConfident Readers|summary=There are few positive things which can be said about Eli is a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this timebusy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in trying to avoid looking at the evening a problem I found myself looking more closely helper at a couple of pictures on the walls - dessert cafe his gran owns and was completely taken by the work of Brian Lewisruns. I searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the print I wanted was ‘not available’family. OhA few short years ago, dear Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe- then trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a few doors down confession from the apartmentgran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, I found a gift shop with a stack of brand new books - and a framed print the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the picture I wantedonly thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Simon Fox178763681X|title=DeadlockKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a secret place, and join him on the runresidential cookery school in Belgravia. They get together, He didn't really want to but barely begin celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to smell do what he wanted. Paul ''somehow'' got the whiff of Southern trains when impression that he'd be at the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express school to Brightonassist Paul, toting who had a tin broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all his father own. The one thing he hadn't expected was determined for someone to keep away from his colleaguesturn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the bearer of a whole heap of questionspolice consider that person to be the prime suspect.|isbn=1839944420
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