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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbn=183885410X1009473085|title=The Dark RemainsConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=William McIlvanney Anthony Seldon and Ian RankinTom Egerton (Editors)|rating=3.5|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=Bobby Carter was Sometimes it's simpler to explain a lawyer book by describing what it ''isn't'' and consigliere that applies to one of the major crime families in nineteen seventies Glasgow''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. DC Jack Laidlaw is If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the CID team charged with the investigationbook for you. I say If that's what you'on the teamre looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon' but Laidlaw never really seems to s book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a part of itcompelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. He does his own thing, goes his own way and ''The Dark RemainsConservative Effect''is an entirely different beast. It' uncovers s the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the truth most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of why Bobby Carter's body was found behind one experts from various fields review the state of Glasgow's seedier pubsthe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
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|isbnauthor=1942410255Max Boucherat|title=Tokyo Zangyo (Detective Hiroshi)|author=Michael PronkoThe Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=''Zangyo: overtime work, often unpaid'' ItWe meet Lori on the first evening she's got the culturehouse to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, isn't it? The hours for which you're paid are really just a statement of the minimum you'll be required to do: you'll work more hours to get the job done and done to the satisfaction of bullies like Shigeru Onizukaan avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. When he was found dead What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in front of Senden Central's headquarters in Tokyo there was nothing in the way of regret or griefa blanket fort, even from his familyshe has one main intention, but there was a mild curiosity as and that is to log on to whether he'd jumped from the roof of Voxminer, the world-building or been assisted , critter-collecting game that is a hit in his descentLori's world. Gossip revolves around the fact But first Lori has a tiny inkling that he left the roof at the exact same spot that an employeethis stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, Mayu Yamase, had committed suicide some three years earlierand then she finds something even more spooky. She'd accused Onizuka For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of bullying tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and forcing her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to work an unreasonable amount of overtime.turn?|isbn=0008666482
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|isbnauthor=0241425425Jenny Lecoat|title=The Man Who Died Twice|author=Richard OsmanBeyond Summerland|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Elizabeth Best was a little surprised when she received Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the letter. It came from a man whose body she had helped to pull from the Thames and who had never existed but then this is end of the sort of conundrum which retired spies have to deal with on a regular basisoccupation. When she visits During the sender of the letter (hewar, Jean's moved into the Cooper's Chase Retirement Village) it comes as no surprise that it's someone with whom she has father was arrested for listening to a long professional history - banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and who used to be her husbandmother waiting for years for news of him. He's made a bad mistake - something to do with a mask being removed within As the British finally free the Channel islands from the range of a CCTV camera on a raidNazis, a missing twenty-million pounds in diamonds and a few death threatsthe war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. He's now in hiding with But will the truth come as a young woman called Pollyrelief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who's his MI5 handler as well as being an incompetent waitress.told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|isbn=1846976537
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|authorisbn=Andrew Sharp1529428289|title=The ChefA Grave in the Woods (A Bruno, the Bird and the BlessingChief of Police Novel)|author=Martin Walker
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy to his employer - isBecause of various property transactions, in his mindpeople were searching for the grave but when they found it, the head chef it came with three sets of a safari business catering bones. They dated back to VIP guests in an unnamed African country. Mozzy is earnest World War II and dedicated it fell to his task and he puts all Bruno, the Chief of himself into creating fine cuisine dishes Police for the guests at BOD-W safaris but his dream is St Denis, to become discover the head chef identities of a restaurant in London the bodies and establish whether or not a big American citycrime had been committed. Even As if this isn't enough to win a Michelin starworry about, the Dordogne River - normally tranquil - is flowing at record levels. He is thwarted in this ambition by his boss, Mr Bin (Ben to you and me) who incurs Mozzy It's disapproval for his scruffy ways, his uninterest in his guests not just the local autumn rains that have caused the problem: various dams upstream on another river have had to release water and - shock, horror - his allowing St Denis faces the possibility of bush animals into the housea devastating flood.|isbn=B09926MK8H
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|authorisbn=Alex Foulkes152919640X|title=Rules for VampiresThe Suspect|author=Rob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or The nation'Leos favourite daytime TV presenter, Jessica Holby, was murdered live on television and it seems that there' for short) is a Vampires only one suspect. She drinks blood, she sleeps during the day, He's celebrity chef Sebastian Brooks and she can Grimwalk (turning into a flock of bats to travel around, although his contract stated that he must not all of them remember serve anything containing miso to come back)Jessica Holby. Pretty cool stuff. Now, on the night of her hundredth birthnight, she has to go out and hunt her first human. However, instead she ends up killing two humans by accident She's seriously allergic and burning down carries an orphanageEpiPen in case of emergencies. Oops! And to make things worse Everything seemed as normal - as normal as they can be in a busy, the ghosts of one of the orphans live television studio - and the evil master of the orphanage come back Brooks served a ragout to haunt herHolby. So, not only does Leo have Her EpiPen was nowhere to team up with the friendly ghost Minna to stop the ghost of the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerful, be found and she has to do it all while hiding it from her familywas dead within minutes. It was soon clear that this was no accident. Did I mention vampires and ghosts hate each other? Yeah, there's a reason why there are rules for vampires…|isbn=147119955X
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|authorisbn=Tori Bovalino0008385068|title=The Devil Makes ThreeMidnight Feast|author=Lucy Foley
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensThrillers|summary= Working all summer in her boarding schoolIt's library is midsummer on the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herselfDorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. What makes it worse is the man who requested the books: Mr Birch It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised. The boarding school It's headmaster, and a man Tess hatesall headed up by Francesca Meadows. As a petty act of revenge for making The Manor was her find ancestral home and deliver such a large request, Tess sticks post-she's converted it notes on each of into an impressive retreat for the bookswealthy and famous. Her husband, scribbled with Owen, was the ugliest insults she can think architect and work is still ongoing on parts ofthe site. They're never meant to reach him, of course The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Her plan is Old scores are going to get her anger out like this, be settled and then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would be, if someone hadnwon't delivered them for herbe long before a body is found.|isbn=1789098130
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|isbnauthor= B09BG8V3Q6Ashley Hickson-Lovence|title= Who Needs Nappies? Not Me! (Everybody Potties!)|author= Justine Avery and Seema AmjadWild East
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingTeens|summary= ''Who Needs Nappies? Not Me!'' Written in verse, this is the latest release in the Ronny''Everybody Potties!'' series s story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Justine Avery. This series of fun picture books aims Hackney who suddenly has to move to take the pain out of potty training children Norwich and replace it with some funstart at a mostly white school. It The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a worthy aimnew school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, as any frustrated parent will tell youand has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words.|isbn=0241645441
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|isbn=B098FFFBH91635866847|title=SnowcubThe Lavender Companion|author=Graham FulbrightJessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionLifestyle|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her schoolIt's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight strange, the way in which human beings exploit things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the animal worldbook for you. She gets Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a great deal picture of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes and her twin, Nickdesserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. Kate runs the family business, (There's a toy shop called Cornucopia recipe in Putneythe book, which is where weI'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspectedm avoiding with some difficulty!!) source Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of information: five soft toyspages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I ''loved'' this book already.
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|author= Angharad WalkerRob Keeley|title= The Ash House|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= A new boy arrives at The Ash House. He doesn't know his name, or why he is there but he is used to the system, used to different places and different faces. He meets Dom who names him Sol and sets out to teach him the rules of The Ash House. These rules centre on a variety of Nicenesses set out by the absent Headmaster. All children must remember their Niceness and complete their chores, working as a hive in the smouldering shadows of The Ash House. But soon their easy peace is shattered by the arrival of the Doctor. By the end of the story, lives will be changed forever and The Ash House will never be the same again.|isbn=1912626977}}{{Frontpage|author=Yancey Williams|title=Crosshairs of the DevilChildish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life's work.|isbn=0986031658}} {{Frontpage|author=Philip Reeve|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In a wordAround here, richwe're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. There is certainly an abundance He's a ball of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on ithappy positivity, and sea-witcheshe understands children, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch he writes for magical islands their pleasure and their monster approaching from even further westenjoyment, where no ship dare sailnot to lecture or hector. The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, and Andrewegreatest achievements. It's foundling daughtera sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who washed up out of can cope with anything the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himselfspirit world throws at her, and Edward, both his sullen brother a spoiled lordling and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it or not.first spirit Ellie encounters|isbn=17884523721783064617
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|author=Erling KaggeJenny Valentine|title=Walking: One Step At A TimeUs in the Before and After
|rating=5
|genre= LifestyleTeens|summary= Those who have read my reviews before will know Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that how much I loved even, their friendship is a once in a book is evidenced by the number of pages with corners turned, so let me start this one with an apology to the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not minelifetime connection. In my defence, I will say that They meet as children one day on a reader of this type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – Itrip out but unfortunately they don't get each other'll allow creased corners, but not scribbles – for s contact details at the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about to do as soon as I have finished telling you why)time. Erligg Kagge is a Norwegian explorer who has walked to the South Pole But then chance brings them back together, the North Pole and the summit of Everestthey are inseparable. He knows a thing or two about walking. However Something has happened though, this isn't a travelogue about any of those epic journeyssomething terrible and tragic, it is instead a thoughtful exploration of what it means to walk. It is a plenitude of unnumbered essays about walking. There is no 'contents' page and I haven't counted. In small format paperbacknow they must work through their grief, each essay is only a few pages long. Perhaps thenand their friendship, better thought of as a meditation rather than an essaytogether.|isbn=02413577051471196585
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|author=Ian Mark Kieran Larwood and Louis Ghibault|title=Monster Hunting For Beginners|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Jack. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quick, for he's a slight boy, and although he wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses to let him out of his sight. That's because Jack's mother knew all about monsters, and look what happened to her – she died. Luckily or unluckily then, depending on your point of view, a giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's father also goes AWOL, Jack will fluke the ogre's death, a dwarfish wizardJoe Todd-type will make him an apprentice monster hunter, and he'll be given a book that tells him all he needs to know about the perils he always wanted closer contact with. The book's name? ''Monster Hunting for Beginners''...|isbn=0755501942}}{{Frontpage|author=Keith GrayStanton|title=The ClimbersDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sully is the best tree climber in the villageMeet Kit. He has what's known amongst Like most of the kids as 'reach'. But what happens when a new kid shows up people in town? A new kidhis world, called Nottinghamit seems, who clambers up some he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is being threatenedsport where a team of warrior, mage and not only thathealer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, that his chance and race to name the finalexit, unnamed perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big tree in bad and the points they grant you along the way. Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the park by being latest race on the first inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to conquer it, might be snatched the goading from the token bully of his handsworld and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will it cost him his best friend What chance does this friendless, or maybe even all of his friendsmuscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to do sosucceed?|isbn=17811299911839945184
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|author=Emma CarrollSaima Mir|title=The Week at World's EndVengeance|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=First, I was instantly intrigued by the premise of this novel – an organised crime syndicate in the titlenorth of England run by a Muslim woman. WeThe fact that it was the second in a series I hadn're in Worldt read didn't stop me – I's End Close, ve jumped midway into a mediocre set of houses, where Stevie few series before (Vie to her friendson page and screen) finds fun only with the family dog and with the boy over the road. But we could also it needn't be at Worlda hindrance if it's End, because something taking a great chunk of the fun away is the fact good enough. And that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking off. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries to reduce the risk of nuclear missiles offshore, and not much else is able to make the news. That said, Vie has news of her own – Anna, wasn't a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shedproblem here. Anna has, in no short time, taken a strong interest in the American airforce base behind the Close, said she'd locate something she wanted and leave, failed Vengeance swiftly brings you up to leavespeed, and implied her life was at riskI never felt lost. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to do with what the Cold War is doing miles away?|isbn=05713644380861541561
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|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de FrestonStuart Douglas|title=Julia Lowe and Le Breton Mysteries - Death at the SharkDress Rehearsal|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Julia, our pre-teen heroineDuring location filming for his 1970's sitcom 'Floggit and Leggit', has been packed off with her parents and their cat from leading man Edward Lowe stumbles across the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for dead body of a summer, in woman on the far NE edge of the Scottish islandsa reservoir. Here be VikingsThe police seem happy to assign it as an accidental death, but something about the whole thing bothers Lowe, that kind and he enlists the help of Scottish islanda fellow actor, John Le Breton to help him investigate matters further. Dad is going to be automating They travel across the lanterncountry during their days off filming, uncovering more possible murders and, which is his specialist thingseemingly, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind a link to hunt death during the elusive Greenland sharkSecond World War. But is there really a link between the deaths? And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night.they manage to uncover who is responsible before more people lose their lives?|isbn=15101077891803368209
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|authorisbn=Freya SampsonB0CYV674G2|title=The Last LibrarySwanton Morley (John Tanner)|author=David Blake|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I am always a little nervous to start a story about a library, since I am a librarianIt seemed like an open-and-shut case. I always grit my teeth slightly at the thought of the incoming cardigan-wearingA man, hair covered in a bun, catmud and blood -owning, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this story, the main character, June, does put her hair in a bun, and she does own carrying a cat (called Alan Bennett)knife, and she has barely any friends and spends her evenings eating comes into the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone! But I didnpolice station shouting that he hasn't immediately throw killed the book out of the window, because I found I was interested in June, and why she lived as she didman. Her mum used to be a librarian A body at the village library, but when she got sick, June gave up on going to University and stayed at home to take care bottom of her mum, as well as taking on a job as library assistant freshly dug grave at the local librarySwanton Morley church - he's been stabbed to death. And even though her mum sadly died some years ago, she DCI John Tanner is still working therejust back from his honeymoon, still eating her mumwhich coincided with the birth of his daughter Samantha. You would think he'd be grateful for an easy answer but the words 'perverse's favourite takeaway meal, and still reading her mum'John Tanner' were made for each other. He's old books. June is stuck, sleep-deprived to the point of falling asleep at work but little does she know, everything in her life is about the changehe's determined to keep going - probably because he can't get any sleep at home.|isbn=183877369X
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|isbn=00083709821787333175|title=Rock Paper ScissorsYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Alice FeeneyBenji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersPopular Science|summary=Amelia Wright is forty-two and it I was the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her a weekend away in a converted chapel in Scotland. Her husband, Adam, isntempted to read ''You Don't so keen on the idea. Like Amelia, he knows that their marriage has been under strain: heHave to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a screenwriter glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and heautobiography. 's never shy of making it clear to Amelia that he'd prefer to spend time with the novels heYou Don's hoping t Have to adapt than with herbe Mad... Amelia's annoyed that he never enquires about how her day has been - ' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and working with the dogs, many work of whom have been abused, is never easya psychiatrist. Still - she's won the weekend away, even if I did wonder whether it does mean driving was acceptable to be looking for eight hours humour in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with Adam beside her in the passenger seat - empathy and then doing the same thing to come back a couple of days laterunderstanding.
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|author=Doug JohnstoneOnyi Nwabineli|title=The Great Silence|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=For those who, like me, haven't come across the Skelfs before, I'll risk a quick synopsis of who's who – although Johnstone does a good job of bringing the backstory in without being heavy handed about it. Skelf isn't some fantastic creature, though it sounds as though it ought to be, it is merely the surname of a family of undertakers. Undertakers and private investigators. Dorothy is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instinct, she married a scot and ended up helping to run the Edinburgh undertaking firm that had been in the family for generations. Recently widowed and now involved with a black Swedish police officer. Swedish by nationality. Scottish police. Daughter Jenny, 46, is haunted by her still-living husband – a violent escaped prisoner. And grand-daughter is about Allow Me to graduate with a first-class physics degree and join the academic staff next term.|isbn=1913193837}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1901514978|title=There's a Problem With Dad|author=Carlos AlbaIntroduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Life is different for George Lovelace and he canAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia't really understand why. Hes increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's always done everything he ought to: steady worker, husband childhood for sponsorships and father - influencer deals and a father who was always there for school plays and sports days, basically, monetary gain. So why Now Anuri is he never quite in tune with those around him? Why does he upset people? Why her twenties and she is someone with such a ''good'' mind unable slowly trying to progress at work or regain her confidence and to relate get her life back, suing her step-mother to his colleagues? take down the content about her. Why does he make Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so many breath-taking gaffes? . It's almost become a cliche these days to suggest that someone who Most importantly, she is a desperately worried about her little different sister, who is 'on the spectrum', but George Lovelace has all the symptoms new focus of AspergerOphelia's Syndrome: high-functioning autismonline empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873
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|author=Louise CandlishDavid Chadwick|title=The HeightsHeadload of Napalm
|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Ellen doesn't expect to see Kieran that day. SheIt's on siteSeptember 1973 in Hicks, visiting California. Hicks is a client for Mojave desert town of a lighting consultation when she spies him few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a building across defence contractor are the way. There are lots of thingsmain local employers but otherwise, lots there's not much of people, you might see when you look out across London, but this isn't one Ellen expected that day or in fact any note other daythan dive bars and Joshua trees. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two yearsLife is quiet, and Ellen knows this for a fact, because she had a hand in his murderuntil....|isbn=1471183483B0D321VJ76
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|isbnauthor=0008421714Tom Percival|title=Mrs March|author=Virginia FeitoThe Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George MarchWill's most successful novel to datelife is difficult, in a multitude of ways. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on He is bullied because he has 'the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morningwrong shoes', Patricia asked, as she was wrapping he has the bread, wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn'but isnt have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't this work because he lost his job at the first time he's based college, was working a character cash-in-hand job on you?'' a building site and had an accident. She mentioned Throw into that mix the fact that Johannahis mum and dad are separated, the principal character had 'her mannerisms'and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. Perhaps this would not have matteredHe is good at art, except for and clings to the fact moments of joy when he is drawing, that Johanna is feel like a light at the whore end of Nantes - ''a weak, plain, detestable, patheticlong, unloved, unloveable wretchdark tunnel.''|isbn=1398527122
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|author=John BoyneSylvie Cathrall|title=The Echo ChamberA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the There are few television personalities over the age of fifty without greater joys than a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, who are a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants which lives up to save the world's homeless with out-of-date food, and a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern worldcompelling premise. What suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact And this is bloody funnyone of them.|isbn=08575262190356522776
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|isbn=02419890940008517061|title=The Perfect LifeDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Nuala EllwoodStig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=In August 2018 we meet a young woman called Imogen and she's viewing a house in Goring-on-Thames and telling the estate agent about her three childrenFormer Metropolitan Police detective, LavenderJake Johnson, Freddie and Barclayhas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. The boys are There’s perhaps a bit little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a handful which lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is why the future she's making this trip on wants for herself and her own. daughter? The house would be perfect for them. It's For the same month but now we're moment they’re enjoying life in Wimbledon the present and we encounter putting the future on the same young woman, only this time she's job hunting and living in her sister, Georgie's, spare room, where she's been since she broke up with her boyfriend, Connorback burner.
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|authorisbn=Darren Shan1786482126|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=So. Having done Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the impossible and unpicked the lock site was going to the Forgotten Crypt, from which the Departed communicate with the Merge, Archie now has hold seventy-five 'luxury'grop'' to think aboutapartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. But before that Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, soireesDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Soirees! Archie, much to Inez It's amusementdifficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't even know what , that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one of those night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is. But he manages prone to come through the fancy party unscathed, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in the first volume sudden bouts of this seriessickness. |isbn=B093J9TF73
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|isbn=B07GZ81J7C0008551324|title=When Fred the Snake Got Squished and MendedThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Peter CottonNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Meet FredIt's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Well, actually, youNeither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he're going s prepared to be meeting Fred-Fred tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for reasons which her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will become all too obvious very quicklybe worth the police doing what he wants. But I'm getting ahead And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of myself: I'd better tell you a bit more about Fredhis sentence and to get an early parole date. Fred Not much to ask, is a snake it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even those of us prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who have a phobia about snakes are going to warm to works with himis kept well away from what's happening.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the 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. He arrived as She was never found and the investigation ground to a present halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a box with holes so straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that he could breathe makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and immediately became part of -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the familyexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, to the extent that they would take Fred out obsessed with them when they went out for his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a walktheatre director. And that was where the problem startedHe's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Fred didnEdward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he't have any road senses drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Or brakesMost men in Robert's 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 two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
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{{Frontpage
|author= Justine Avery and Naday MeldovaJo Callaghan|title= Everybody Pees! (Everybody Potties!)Leave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary= Can potty training ever be joyous? When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It often isn'ts their first live case together, as any parent will tell youhaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. But reallywhen there is a second body found crucified a few days later, why shouldn't it be? We all have to learn about our bodily functions just as we have Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to learn about everything else when we are smalltheir AI Future Policing project. Why shouldn't potty training Will they be as much fun asable to solve the case in time, say, learning about why or will Kat find herself taken off the sun case and the moon take turns in the sky, potentially, out of a career? |isbn= B098BJZYHH139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876344931399613073|title=All Her FaultMoral Injuries|author=Andrea MaraChristie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=It had seemed like one Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of those serendipitous events which sometimes happenmedical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Marissa Irvine had been hoping that the opportunity would arise for her son, MiloOlivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to go on be a play datecardiothoracic surgeon. She was concerned that he didn't have any friends at his new schoolLaura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School in an affluent Dublin suburb with his classmate Jacob - Anjali is the free spirit of the group and Marissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove she becomes a little laterGP. What could be better? Only, when Marissa arrived When we first meet them they're at the house, expecting to meet Jacoba drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's mother, Jenny, the door was answered by Esther, who didngoing to end in tragedy. We don't know Jenny who suffered the tragedy or Jacobthe consequences. The phone number she'd been given for Jenny was not recognisedTwenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. Milo had disappeared. And so had JennyThis time, it's nannytheir teenage children who are involved.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire North0241636604|title=Notes from the Burning AgeThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Science FictionAutobiography|summary=At its core If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you''Notes From re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the Burning Age'' by Claire North pin-stripe suit and his background is a spy thrillerthe East End, where he was familiar with as many double crossesviolence, interrogations poverty and night time escapes as Le Carre or Fleminginjustice. However, as with the best novels, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is that of a new and timely genre, cli There was no posh public school on his CV -fi, or climate change fiction. North's novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have but he had been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any of the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons London School of mass destruction, intensive farming)Economics. There Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a growing unhappiness facility with this limiting worldnumbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, and one groupessentially, the Brotherhooda card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, aims to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earththis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=0356514757
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)1035021803|title=Girls Who LieThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=You might be forgiven for thinking that all It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the dark corners English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of Iceland have featured in their noirish thrillers and crime books before nowa request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. You think, seeing on the map that weFreya're set in Akranes, s former mentor and finding itCarole's only twenty kilometres from close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the capital citycircumstances seem suspicious, that this author is clutching at to say the few final straws leftleast. However just because Arthur was the book aims for reason why Freya had not been back to the usual small-town feelvillage: Arthur, it's not just in Akranes that our interests lieshe feels, let her down badly. Six months ago a woman failed to turn up for her date eveningEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, and was never seen again. This left a teenaged girl she has not at all disappointed that she could now live permanently with felt able to be near the couple who had given her foster care before her mother had asked for man or pursue the girl back, and a couple of delighted adoptersprofession she loved. But it left our three detectives at a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all of a suddenAfter the split, in one place, the woman's car was found miles away she worked in a second placecafe, met and now, after six months, married James (on the rebound from the body has been discoveredlove of her life, in a third, even more remote place. Meanwhile, this narrative is interrupted by a confessional monologue from a mother who found herself with heavy post-natal depression, was murdered) and Freya and very little maternal feeling in her bodyJames have now divorced. Is the assumption that is so easy for the reader to make the right one?|isbn=191319373X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0925KS87NAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Dead ManAll Tomorrow's Grave (DS Max Craigie)Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Neil LancasterBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=Tam Hardie had been determined ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to find the grave - and come.'' I've heard it took some finding - in an overgrown old cemeterysaid that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. It was a strange thing for Scotland's premier criminal to doWell, but Tam was getting old and I must confess that there were things he wanted to dohave been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. Only, his family didnI't hear from him again after heve kept up reasonably well with what'd said that hes advantageous to me but I'd found m left with the grave - the one which said feeling that it shouldn't be opened s all getting away from me. Some of it is - and his three sons began to worryfrankly - quite frightening. Tam JuniorOf course, Frankie I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and Dave wouldnend up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I't normally go to the police but m reading someone who knows what they weren't certain where their father had been re talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and they were worriedwho could deliver information in a way I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Emily CritchleySunny Singh|title=The Tiny Gestures of Small FlowersHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=General FictionThrillers |summary= The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something goodHotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. I was intrigued by Hiding from the plotterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, liked there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the design of residents who are still alive in the bookhotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and thought the authorkeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's work sounded interestinghappened through her photography. From Although they only ever talk over the outset it all looked incredibly promisingphone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists. So what on earth went wrong here?|isbn= 1911427091086154742X
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