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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Rachel Harrison0008517061|title=Bad DollsDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary=It's been some time since I've read any horrorFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. I had There’s perhaps a couple little uncertainty about the future of misspent teen years reading Stephen Kinghis life with his vet girlfriend, borrowing the books from Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a boy I fancied at school lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and scaring myself half silly relaxing life to move in with them Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night future she wants for fear of 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 Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the vampires outside! Donsite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury't worry apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this short story collection isn't like that! a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It 's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't have those jump scares, and I didnthat she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008551324|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=It't have s unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to read it during daylight hours only! approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But it Davie Hardie is creepy, struggling in prison and I found most he's prepared to tell the police where the body of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about womena missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, living normal liveshe promises, is someone big and that at least in part, it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakupremainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, trying a is it? The new dieting app, going Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to a hen party do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and a coping anyone who works with griefhim is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1803363932
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=13941595440008405026|title=Recycling for DummiesA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Sarah WinklerJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=It''Recycling s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one ton of plastic can save up to 16summer night.3 barrels of oil.'' ''Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees from being cut down.'' If you send an apple core to landfill, it will take between 6 months She was never found and 2 years the investigation ground to decomposea halt. A glass bottle will take up to 1 million years. As a just-post-WWII babyNow, her mother, I faced a dilemma: reducingHelena, reusing and recycling is part of my DNAher father are dead in their bed. NEVER throw away anything that might Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there''possibly'' come in handy now or in the future. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together s something that would serve about the purpose. Almost everything can be used one more time and any purchase must pass the test positioning of 'Is this absolutely essential?' On the other hand, I suspected I was guilty of wishcycling: assuming bodies that something must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes - I'm looking at you) makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and dropping it in the kerbside binher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Yes, I could go searching on the internet What looked as though it was going to be an open- and get conflicting advice - but what I needed was shut case is now a recycling biblecomplex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie'sdisappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lauren St John0571379877|title=Finding WonderThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was Edward Jevons is a working-class youngman, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy Stanza. Robert's a lottery tickettheatre director. When asked what other family she hasHe's also self-obsessed, she can only name her auntdemanding, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly ofhandsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. But she Edward has no one else, been in love with Stanza since their university days - and so off she goes he's drunkenly confided how he feels to live with her unreliable auntRobert. Things continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London Most men in JoniRobert's old campervan, it breaks down in 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 stumble upon the middle two of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=0571376169them kissing in a dark passageway.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1448309743Jo Callaghan|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)|author=Caro RamsayLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=In the village of Cronchie When a man is found crucified on the West coast top of Scotlanda hill in Nuneaton, five members of a wealthy family are found murdered. The only item missing from DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that if case alongside her sidekick, the stone is removed from Otterburn House, death will followAI detective Lock. The only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, thatIt's an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discovered' the bodytheir first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. The Senior Investigating Office But when there is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappearsa second body found crucified a few days later, DCI Christine Caplan Kat is pulled in suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to 'shadow' himtheir AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Kay Chronister1399613073|title= Desert CreaturesMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating= 4.5|genre= Dystopian FictionThrillers|summary= With Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a world that century. Olivia is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanityruthlessly ambitious, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrillwhich is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Whether it Laura is a robotic takeover, perfectionist and a world devoid trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of water or the group and she becomes a nuclear holocaust, this genre is GP. When we first meet them they're at a way for humans drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to cathartically experience their most existential fearsend in tragedy. We don''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of postt know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-apocalyptic fiction five years later there will be an eerily similar event that aligns many of will impact the fears that exist for humanity todaythree friends. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.|isbn=1803364998
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher Fowler0241636604|title=Word MonkeyThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary= It's the first of August in the middle If you were to bring up an image of a cool wet summer city banker in East Anglia. I decided not your mind, you're unlikely to swim at the pool in favour think of going to my beach hutsomeone like Gary Stevenson. The weather closed inA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, rain arrivedwhere he was familiar with violence, poverty and I decided not to do that eitherinjustice. When I finished reading this book, I realised it There was because (a) I wanted no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shackthe London School of Economics. No spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and his first chapter tells he has a facility with numbers which most of us about his terminal diagnosiscan only envy. There is something very strange about being made He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dyingbe stupid. It was his ability at what was, and you know he actually is at that pointessentially, because he doesa card game which got him an internship with Citibank. He didEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=0857529625
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15290776991035021803|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Ann CleevesC L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|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 a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya'Its former mentor and Carole's all bloody peculiarclose friend, isnArthur 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 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 love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=All Tomorrow't it, Sir?s Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
Well yes, I've heard it said that 'technology' iswhat happens after you're eighteen. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn galeWell, stayed for about I must confess that there have been more than a month and then turned few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up, naked and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the village feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of Greystone, in Devonit is - frankly - quite frightening. Rosco had Of course, I could research the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round possibilities and the world sailor probabilities and all round ''celebrityend 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 ''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find out, he needed people I knew I could trust and who could be more than deliver information in a little bit close with money and his background isn't exactly an open bookway I could understand. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CC9W7GLRSunny Singh|title=On the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=For SharingThrillers |summary=Kit and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better to be at home, bored but warm, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures on The Hotel Arcadia is a snowy beach when luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a large slab of silvery ice drifted onto the shorelineterrorist group. On top of Hiding from the ice was terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a polar bearwartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the ice bumped onto residents who are still alive in the sandhotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, the bear woke and with wobbly legs moved from the icekeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Kit was all for making a run for itAlthough they only ever talk over the phone, but Teal knew that the bear was hungry their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and gave him one apple and then another. He obviously needed they both wait to see if they will be taken home on rescued before they are discovered by the bus and given a good meal and somewhere to sleepterrorists. What else would you do?|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire North1529153298|title=House The List of OdysseusSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre= Literary General Fiction |summary= It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'What could matter more than love?s not what's worrying MivThe follow-up s family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to the excellent have 'disappeared'doesn'Ithacat sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without s overheard that her husband, who sailed father wants to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for move the throne of the Western Islesfamily 'Down South'. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca When you's shoresre from Yorkshire, Queen Penelope Down South is on the brink of a fragile peacefrightening, foreign place, best avoided. One that shatters however with For Miv, the return of Orestesmove would mean leaving her best friend, King of MycenaeSharon, and his sister Elektra, seeking refugeshe'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|isbn=0356516075
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294270451398524085|title=The Girl in the Eagle's TalonsHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Karin SmirnoffNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband''Life has more to offer than people - prime numbers for example''s fiftieth birthday party but never turned upLisbeth Salander has headed north to the small town of Gasskas Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, where the soEtty. are all worried but -farstrangely -untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rush. The criminal underworld has her husband, Alec, is not been slow in coming forward. SalanderShortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's niece's mother is the latest woman father, Duncan Ackerley, in the area to have vanished without traceriver. It was only with reluctance an easy assumption for the police to make that Salander became her nieceDuncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn's guardian t stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager whothere's unaware of the part Salander played in her father's deathlittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CCCPJJ5B1035906708|title=The Last Person in the WorldDiva|author=Matthew TreeDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Our narrator was a scholarship day boy at the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finns. It was an unusual relationship We tend to think of Maria Callas as Ralph Greek, but she was a boarder and had money born to throw around on a Rolex watchGreek parents in Manhattan, New York, vintage wines in December 1923 and a state-of-the-art sound system. Both were probably quite surprised only moved to Athens when they became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintancesshe was thirteen. Finns had no intention of going on Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to University, unlike our storyteller who had a place at Wolverton College make it more manageable in Wellingford, the UK's third most prestigious universityStates. Before going up, he took up When 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 loose invitation to visit Ralph at his homemother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Clouds Manor in West DorsetJackie.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Dean KoontzChristopher Edge|title=The House at the End of the WorldBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy Lucas and feel that there is no one on your sidehis friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, you can either suck it up, saddle up and ride on or you can retreat to your own private fortress on an island a place that sits snugly in a small chain has the nickname of tiny dots on the map and live out your days in peace and solitude'The Black Hole'. ThatAll big movie fans, they's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down her old life re looking forward to start afresh on Jacob's Ladder; lots of exciting films, and all would have been many, many snacks! However, as the aforementioned peace movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and solitude were it not for they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the pesky US Government occupying Ringrocknext, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the neighbouring island cinema, and perpetrating all manner of mischief in the name of science and quite possibly bringing about the end of all mankind.to their real lives?|isbn=16624531591839942738
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{{Frontpage
|author=T KingfisherRachel Greenlaw|title=ThornhedgeCompass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=FantasyTeens|summary=''You had a right to retake your placeI can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
T Kingfisher's latest novella Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is a lovely reimagining one of a fairytale the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that is well known and well belovedlies within. But whilst there is when the Council Watch lays a princess trapped in a towertrap to end the wrecking, sleeping under an eternal enchantmentthey capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Thornhedge Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is not secretive and with only coordinates to guide her story. Instead, our protagonist is Toadling, who was stolen away by fairies when she was sets off in search of a new-born baby and secreted away family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. 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 land heart of fairie where her childhood was spent being taught how the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to draw magic from save the future of her veins home and cast spellsthe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=18033642380008664730
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B0CCCVRSGXJames Sherwood Metts|title=Stories 2|author=Richard F WalkerPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesConfident Readers|summary= This is Richard F Walker's second volume of short storiesThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. There are thirteen in all AI and I took something from each of them. There isnautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they't a single one re paid to do and other tasks that doesn't deserve took time to be among the others or brings down the overall qualityaccomplish. It can be tricky Just as they were beginning to get used to review short stories without giving too much awayall this technological change and starting to think of other, so I'll just pick two new ways to talk about spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and I think , along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they give a general flavourdepend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787636607Matthew Tree|title=The Trap|author=Catherine Ryan HowardWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=It's Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a scene replicated drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all too often in the early hours failed miserably and who had endless crises of the morningself confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions. Drunken revellers spilling out |isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|author=A G Slatter|title=The Briar Book of clubs and looking for the Dead|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary='' There's a way part of me that wants to keep this just to get homemyself for however long I can. Some are lucky and manage to get one This secret magic of the few taxis availablemy own, all mine, at last. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villagesI just want to enjoy it for a while. The woman all regret the 'taxi problemWithin a remote mountain pass, particularly in far away from the light world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of 'the missing womenBriar'. For one young womans, a family of witches who protect the final stop on town and the bus leaves her a long way short of her homewider world from the Darklands. She had intended Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to ring someone to come be born into her family for generations and collect as such since she was young, her - but training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her phonegrandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's deadleader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. The bus had driven off before she had As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the chance rare ability to beg communicate with the bus driver to let dead, putting her use hisat the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. ThereReeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches's no option but legacy, everything they have sacrificed to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoessurvive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14059571741529900360|title=A Death at the PartyThe Ghost Orchid|author=Amy StuartJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=From the first page, we know that Nadine WalshIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's party will not end wellfault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. The victim His assertions that there were only open- a man and- is dying when we first meet him and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call shut cases which didn't need the ambulance he so desperately needshelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. What we donFinally, it was Robin, Delaware't know is s partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him dieshe loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. I'd better give you Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a little more background so that you can understand whatremote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's happeningnot the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tania Unsworth1529395224|title=Nowhere IslandLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Meet GilSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Just twelveHis father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he is so determined to escape considered the care system – strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and find a home was convinced this was the job for himselfhim. He is en route to yet another fostererBefore long, when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his futurewas at Liverpool University. That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives It hadn't - as with so many students - been his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, dream since he was a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusionchild. ThemIf anything, and he'd wanted to be a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfullyprofessional footballer. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=1804540080
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085300250861541774|title=Murder in the FamilyA Nye of Pheasants|author=Cara HunterSteve Burrows|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and found the body of her stepfatherformer colleague, Luke RyderDanny Maik, has taken a short holiday in the garden of their West London homeSingapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. He had an injury on the back of his head which could have happened if Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he'd slipped down the steps but the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberate. Twenty years later, no one has been charged facing a man armed with his murder a knife - and it's now the subject of ''Infamous'', he killed a true-crime showGhurka. A group Initially, he faced a charge of experts has been brought together manslaughter but evidence came to review the evidence and light that suggested that he might have planned to take murder the investigation furtherman. More to Now he could be facing the point, they're going to do this live on camera, episode by episodedeath penalty. There's no dump of the whole box set - Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and no shortage of cliffhangers. Itwouldn's compelling viewingt help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Stolen SongbirdPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Caro's motherThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a world-famous whistlermore personal, tailored service. Ness has failed to return home from asked her recent work trip abroad younger cousin Katie if she could come and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnielook after the business, as Ness is having planning to take a trip to go up North Canada to take care of her sister who is unwellget away for a while. So who Katie is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay coming out of a break up with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despisesa bad boyfriend, she feels frustrated and confused and worriedso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside And so begins this staid old Victorian lady's housenew story from Alexander McCall Smith, along with bringing us to an orphan boyEdinburgh we already love, Albiethanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who is living there tooquickly begin to charm. But she soon finds herself caught up Katie has no experience in running a mysterybusiness, or in match-making, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside but Ness has full confidence in her mumabilities, and there's old suitcasealways her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, and all across London to lend a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?hand…|isbn=05713631481846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291959770811771741|title=None of this is TrueInstaKnits for Baby|author=Lisa JewellMelissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary=On her 45th birthday, Alix Summer celebrated with Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a crowd collection of friends in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fairknits from toys to blankets. She, too, was out celebrating her 45th birthday, only she was just with her husband, Walter. It turns out that not only Some will be quick knits - others are Alix and Josie birthday twinsof the 'long, they were both born cosy afternoons in St Maryfront of the fire's hospitalvariety. That's where the similarities end, though: Alix, with her husband, Nathan, The projects are in divided by the midst of a joyful, monied group of friends and whilst time they're not ''exactly'' rowdyll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, they're enjoying themselvesten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. Josie, on All the other handprojects are attractive, holds her handbag close to her tummy modern and you get the sense that Walter's not too happyuseable. HeI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 's not used to spending this much money on a meal social-media- worthy projects' but it is Josiethat's birthday after allme being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1803365110|author=Chuck TingleDean Koontz|title=Camp Damascus|rating=3.5|genre=Horror|summary=Love is love; although humans continue to be confused by this sentiment. Gay conversion therapy is ongoing. The UK government ruled out plans to make it a crime and, in the US, nearly 700 000 adults have received it. Although it is both a secular and a religious prejudice, Chuck Tingle, in his new horror, ''Camp Damascus'', peels back the skin of Christian ''pray the gay away'' camps to show the reader the horror lurking within.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1803136383|title=Tin Soldiers|author=David ChadwickBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersParanormal|summary= Wat Tyler Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has returned from fighting in Vietnam under something of delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a cloudnice person. A really nice person. What actually happened So fortunately for Benny it turns out there that the delivery to his house is gossiped about and nobody is sure exactly what took placea new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, but an act of heroism leading who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice and disgrace seems to be the consensusgood person. Wat himself Spike is keeping his cards close going to his chesttake care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, as if he always does, Benny, and Harper (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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|isbnauthor=B0C7J9D21BAdam Stower|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J LewisMurray and Bun
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|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers |summary=When we first meet our heroMurray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, his name one who is Ettore able to sleep and he lives at The House eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of Beautiful Swallowsthe two. Idyllic as this might sound, itBut he's a bordello and Ettorebad magician's mother died when he was born. He's not cat, so his favourite bun has been short of mothersturned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, though - but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfiand the catflap they both use can chuck them out, it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The stint working with not into the preparation regular back garden, but into a world of anchovies didn't work out frightening adventure and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boatswhiffs. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and This time round it was not long before he had drops them into a successful business as Viking land, where a guide for visitors. He troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was even saving some money., to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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|authorisbn=Dean KoontzB0C47LV1PC|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{FrontpageFragility|author=Jamie Littler|title=ArkspireMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Two sistersCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, Juniper and Elodieis the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Elodie .. no. ''Fragility'' is intent on getting closer to power in one of set as the religious districts city of ArkspirePortland, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the WatcherOregon, the closest cautiously begins to a ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier war. Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change emerge from the status of restrictions imposed during the whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…|isbn=0241586143covid pandemic
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|authorisbn=Thiago de Moraes1529431735|title=Old Gods New TricksThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet TrixieIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding He'd been exiled on the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a young goddess of nuisancedecade. But just when sheThe return has come about because he's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – had a powerletter from his ex-outwife, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the schoolsaying that she's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, ill and all that powers the Internet, just for our conveniencehasn's sake)t long to live. TrixieIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the power boot of power from usa stolen Ford Sierra. And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can steal Is it back – namely the characters a warning from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.|isbn=178845295Xa Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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|author=Alexia CasaleAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Sing if you Can't Dance|rating=5|genre=Teens|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 that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle The Glorious Race of a dance performance that was going to change her life. But she comes back fighting, desperate to avoid the pity stares, and desperate to get back to a life that's as normal as she can possibly manage. Meanwhile there's a new (cute!) boy in school, her music A Level performance piece to try to sort out, and just the day-to-day traumas of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigate. So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead?|isbn=0571373801}}{{Frontpage|author=Helen Peters|title=Friends and TraitorsMagical Beasts|rating=34
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=EnglandEli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, WW2. Two young girls are new and in the evening a helper at the country pile called Stanbrookdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. One Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is Nancy, destined to be a generation missing in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before herfamily. The other is SidneyA few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a girl from a hoityglobe-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, and first separately and then trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be company of a rum 'unmagical beast. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is This has made of meetings with Germansthe race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, and not Eli knows his only thathope is to dare to enter what he most hates, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely with the sole aim the prize of magic at the girls are wrong, and end – the upper class could never be so underhand?only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=17880046470571382231
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|isbn=0241996104178763681X|title=Coming to Find YouKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Jane CorryOrlando Murrin|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Nancy's mother and step-father were brutally stabbed Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at their Sussex farmhouse and her step-brother, Martin, has been convicted of their murdera residential cookery school in Belgravia. We first meet Nancy outside the court, after Martin receives He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a life sentenceway of getting both men and women to do what he wanted. The barrister tells her that shePaul ''s received a somehow'silent sentence' - shegot the impression that he's not been found guilty of anything but will have d be at the school to live with what happened for the rest of her life. Of courseassist Paul, who had a broken arm, but itdidn's made worse because Nancy's rich - she inherited five million pounds from her mother t turn out that way. The teaching - and the papers problems - are making the most of itall his own. The one thing he hadn''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' is one favourite epithet t expected was for someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and ''rich bitch'' might not everyone knows that the police consider that person to be printed but is undoubtedly spokenthe prime suspect.
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