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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Patrice Lawrence0241636604|title=NeedleThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=34.5|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=Brave. CharleneIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, the 'heroineyou' re unlikely to think of this piece is extremely hard for some people to someone like, characters and readers bothGary Stevenson. Kicked out of multiple homes A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and schoolshis background is the East End, she's fostering where he was familiar with a pleasant yoga tutor, Annieviolence, poverty and has taken up residence in her son Blake's old room while injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he's at uni. Such a tempestuous personality may be in need of a comfort blanket, you might perhaps think, and had been to the creation London School of one such item Economics. Stevenson is part of the plot here, as Charlene is a wonder knitter, bright - extremely bright - and is making something full of love for her younger sister – he has a younger sister she's allowed contact facility with no morenumbers which most of us can only envy. We see Charlene prove her belligerence with a store detective, and then force He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to give her two days off school, when she shouts someone down as expletively ignorantbe stupid. And then... well It was his ability at what was, what exactly happens is not for me to sayessentially, only to remark how sharp and pointy those knitting needles can be.a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=1800901011
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jason Rohan1035021803|title=S.T.E.A.The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L.T.H.: Access DeniedMiller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Arun and Sam have had little It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to do with Donna, a girl at their schoolthe English country village where she grew up. But things immediately change at the start of this extended sprint She's back now because of a novelrequest for help from her beloved aunt, when she insists ArunCarole. Freya's house has become the attention of plain-clothes coppers former mentor and that they should bunk off school to find out why. And thus an unlikely trio of misfit young heroes is formed – Sam is really not DonnaCarole's idea of companyclose friend, Arthur Crockleford, but he is dead and the computer buffcircumstances seem suspicious, Donna seems to know all say the criminal ins and outs and survival skillsleast. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, and Arun? Welllet her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, it's his lot she has not felt able to find out that all he based his family life on isn't true, and that his father – kidnapped that very morning – is involved in something quite unexpectedbe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. But how can this disparate trio hope to best MI6After the split, kidnappersshe worked in a cafe, people able to keep met and married James (on the rebound from the truth about themselves secret for decadeslove of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and so much more?|isbn=1839943386James have now divorced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1638485216AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black ManTomorrow's Odyssey in Life and Law EnforcementFutures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Frederick ReynoldsBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyScience Fiction|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.'' ''One more body just wouldn't matter''. The murder Opening up new ways of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in thinking about the US city shape of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09DD1QJKJ|title=The Club|author=Ellery Lloyd|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=''The party of the year turned into the murder mystery of the decadethings to come.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Melissa Fu Sunny Singh|title=Peach Blossom Spring Hotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction Thrillers |summary= I loved the prelude to Peach Blossom Spring, a short chapter entitled ''Origins''. Unfortunately it The Hotel Arcadia is the only truly poetic part of a book luxury hotel in an unnamed city that I expected more fromhas suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Covering Chinese history Hiding from 1938 to 2005 as viewed the terrorists who are rampaging through one family's perspective. When their home city , killing everyone on site, there is set ablaze during the war with JapanSam, a young mother (Meilin) wartime photographer and her four-year-old son (Renshu) Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are among those still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who flee. The story follows them on their journey across Chinarefuses to be cowed by events, and in Renshukeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's case eventually happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to Americahelp her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists. |isbn=1472277538086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Vanda Symon1529153298|title=FacelessThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=In this book told from multiple viewpointsIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, several troubled people are thrown into the same story thanks to just one mis-stephonestly... ) Set in New ZealandShe's not what's worrying Miv's family, the first of our characters is Bradleythough. Women have been disappearing. Well, a middle aged man struggling with an overbearing bossthey've been murdered, a weighty mortgage, and what he feels is an unappreciative wifebut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Then there’s Billy, a homeless teenage girl who is a street artist working as a prostitute sometimes in order Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to pay for move the materials she needsfamily 'Down South'. And then we have MaxWhen you're from Yorkshire, who is also living on the streets and who keeps an eye on Billy. He Down South is a shell of a manfrightening, barely able to take any care of himselfforeign place, and yet we can sense that he was once something more than he is nowbest avoided. One nightFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, Bradley finds himself half-crazed with stress and anxiety, driving down the street looking for a prostituteshe'll do anything to prevent that. He picks up Billy, and then with one thoughtless decision finds his life thrown into turmoil and a spiral away from She's not worried about the person he thought he was into someone very differentdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|isbn=1914585046
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=07603735311398524085|title=Cozy Knits: 30 Hat, Mitten, Scarf and Sock Projects from Around the WorldHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Sue FlandersNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=CraftsCrime|summary=Just occasionally you encounter a book of knitting patterns which seems to meet your every needCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Right nowHer children, sons Niall, it's bitterly cold Paul and Ollie and we're in the sandwich filling between two storms: I need socksher daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, scarvesAlec, hats and mittensis not. They have to look stylishShortly afterwards, keep me warm Etty and be so cheerful that they make me feel betterGreg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. If It was an easy assumption for the police to make that sounds like a lot to ask, have a look at ''Cozy Knits'': it has thirty designs for those necessary items Duncan had murdered Charlie and I don't think that there was one of them which I then committed suicide when he couldn't see myself wearing. We start with an introduction by Nancy Bush which gives some of stand the history of knittingguilt. It's The Salter children are not essential convinced but itthere's a nice extralittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17765740281035906708|title=Bumblebee GrumblebeeDiva|author=David ElliottDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=I love a good board book! We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. ''Bumblebee Grumblebee'' is aimed at quite a niche market: Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it's for the child who still enjoys board books (er, see my first sentence) but has mastered sufficient language skills to have realise that you can 'Callas'play'' with words and to make something quite different from each oneit more manageable in the States. We have When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the elephant who dons a tutu - and becomes Nazi occupation by a ''balletphant''. The buffalo mother who has had a bath (complete with yellow duck) mercilessly exploited her and then dries off with a hair drier becomes a ''fluffalo''made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie. The rhinoceros who drops his ice cream cone is a ''crynoceros'' (think about it!) The pelican who sits on his potty changes into a ''sm.......'' OK, let's not go there Some people are eating!
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09V1NQ5SXChristopher Edge|title=Death at Friar's Inn|author=Rob KeeleyBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Nat Webber Lucas and Tom Barton were his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the finals nickname of the Moots to take place at 'The Honourable Society of FriarBlack Hole's Inn. For aspiring barristersAll big movie fans, moots test the participantsthey' knowledge re looking forward to lots of several areas of law exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as well as their advocacy skills: itthe movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn's a great way of getting invaluable practice and of getting yourself noticedt even imagine. Tom and Nat are But as they lurch from 'a provincial university' and one film genre to the next, can they're ''almost'' looked down figure out what on earth is going on because of this. ? The other contestants - Becca Decker-Hamilton Will they ever get back to the cinema, and Lucia 'Mouse' Dawes have no such disadvantage and Becca has an abundance of confidence. Tom's £30 supermarket suit doesn't make him feel any better.to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529125944Rachel Greenlaw|title=City of the Dead|author=Jonathan KellermanCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=When you drive large vehicles for ''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a livingremote and partially forgotten island, you're careful survives on luring ships into the rocks and it's not just about plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the way ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that you drivelies within. You restrict your alcohol intake But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and if itMira's a trip that needs overnight stays you make certain you get your sleepfather. When you're taking Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a removals truck through bargain with a residential neighbourhood you head wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off at 5 in search of afamily secret that lies buried deep in the sea.m. when With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the roads are quietersmuggler's territory, even if you have Mira must be determined to wait up when you get stop at nothing to where you're going. And it was going well until save the men hit something in Westwood Village, an upmarket neighbourhood future of Los Angeles. The man was stark naked her home and couldn't be identifiedthe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)James Sherwood Metts|title=I May Be WrongPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre= AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary= When Things have been a bit sticky for the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispieceEarthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, Ioften replacing jobs they'm inclined re paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of the world responds other, new ways to your book. I know, having read the book in questionspend time, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thoughtalong came an awful pandemic. He knows (Life was pretty much shut down and at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to this book, because along with it tells the truth as it is, in all the early 21st centurymany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=15266448271736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0949Q1DC1Matthew Tree|title=The Patient (A DS Cross thriller)|author=Tim SullivanWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=DS George Cross has an autistic spectrum disorder, quite probably Asperger's Syndrome. He can Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be rudedifferent from his father, difficult a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and awkward with people, although it's never intentionalwho had endless crises of self confidence. It's just that he thinks differently and social niceties simply don't occur So Tim applied himself to him. There's a reason why he's in Bristol's Major Crime Unit his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and it's that he has the best conviction rate with cases, ever. His partner is DS Josie Ottey: she regards Cross with affection (not an emotion he would recognise, or welcome being attached to set himself) and even attempts to instil some of those missing social niceties into Cross's behaviourhigh but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529151600A G Slatter|title=Give Unto Others|author=Donna LeonThe Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=Commissario Guido Brunetti senses that Venice has changed. The ''pandemiaThere'' stripped the city s a part of its tourists me that wants to keep this just to myself for nearly two years and a lot however long I can. This secret magic of businesses have closedmy own, all mine, most never at last. I just want to reopenenjoy it for a while. There'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's now , a cascade family of money witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as life begins again but even 125such since she was young,000 deaths have not put an end to greedher training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. The Mafias have liquidity problems: how on earth are they going to launder all the money which is coming their way? Whilst heWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's thinking about thiscousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, Brunetti encounters someone hethe town's seen only occasionally since they were neighbours when he was leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a childmaelstrom of chaos. Elisabetta Foscarini has a problem Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and shedetermine what to do as the Briar witches'd like Brunetti's advicelegacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Marcus Sedgwick1529900360|title=WrathThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Meet Fitz, a young Scottish lad full of frustration at himself. Lockdown is only just over, and he should be free to do what It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he wants, to go where he wants felt responsible and with whom he wantseven after Alex recovered, but he cannot stop himself from putting his foot in it when he talks Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his best friend, Cassiehelp on difficult cases. They His assertions that there were half only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a desultory school bandpsychologist only worked for a while. Finally, but Cassie it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was also one hundred per cent something that the enigmatic – saying man she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earthloved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying Two lovers were murdered in the end swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the world heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is already a done deal? Is married to an extremely rich man and it some spooky new kind of music she's dreaming not the Italian. But which of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out them was the truthprimary target? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he can't...|isbn=1800900899
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=16358640701529395224|title=Knit 2 Socks in 1Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Safiyyah TalleySion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=CraftsAnimals and Wildlife|summary=If youSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn've ever started knitting a pair of sockst want to follow in his footsteps, finished particularly when he considered the first one and either got bored by strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the idea opportunity of doing the same thing all over again, or started on the second sock work experience with a family friend who was a vet and lost the first before you finished it, was convinced this is was the book job for youhim. Where is it that single socks go to hide? Safiyyah Talley has developed a system that allows you to knit two socks in one Before long, divide them up and have a perfectly finished pair of sockshe was at Liverpool University. Sounds good? Ithadn's clever and wellt -thoughtas with so many students -outbeen his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Olivie Blake0861541774|title=The Atlas SixA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary= DarkDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, sharphas taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and highly inquisitivehe killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn''The Atlas Six'' makes its publishing debut after becoming a Tik-Tok sensationt help Danny at all.|isbn=1529095239
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008384983Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Paris Apartment|author=Lucy FoleyPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=''Things are not what they seem''. It was The Perfect Passion Company is a Friday dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and Jess Hadley was keen operating as an alternative to get to her half-brother's flat all the online apps in Parisproviding a more personal, tailored service. She'd Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come across from London on Eurostarand look after the business, courtesy as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the money she'd stolen from The Pervert's till in the Copacabana Bar in Brightonchance to come home to Edinburgh. It wasn't likely that the police would be on And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to her yet but she'd like an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to be somewhere safe 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with food and drink inside hersome new characters who quickly begin to charm. She'd phoned Ben and got the address - 12 Rue des Amants Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match- making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and he told her that the apartment was on the third floor. Shethere's outside what's obviously a always her very upmarket building but she hasn't been able helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to get in touch with Ben.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=07603735580811771741|title=Nordic KnitsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Sue FlandersMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Crafts
|summary=I was so delighted by Sue FlandersMelissa Leapman' [[Cozy Knits: 30 Hat, Mitten, Scarf and Sock Projects from Around the World by Sue Flanders|Cozy Knits]] that I didns 't need any persuading at all to pick up her ''Nordic KnitsInstaKnits for Baby''gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. This delivers fortySome will be quick knits -four patterns inspired by textiles and local traditions from Norway, Sweden and Iceland. There others are a few sweaters or jackets but of the majority of patterns are for smaller items such as mittens'long, gloves, hats and bags. All are bright and cheerful and very cosy.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1916072038|title=The House afternoons in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Allie Cresswell|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=We meet part front of the Talbot family in Yorkshire in November 1811fire' variety. TwentyThe projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete -seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklingtonless than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to the house in the hollowtwenty hours and more than twenty hours. The two women All the projects are angry with each other and Jocelyn is well aware of her mother's strengths attractive, modern and weaknesses: ''She is practiced at subterfuge, at concealing, beneath a facade of respectability, the deplorable truth''useable. Hester is furious I perhaps show my age when I wonder about Jocelyn's refusal to do as she was asked, which has precipitated social-media-worthy projects'but that'this violent and unexpected removal''. Then we are told of the birth of a child and, soon after, Hester Talbot departs, leaving Jocelyn in shame and isolation in Yorkshires me being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Matthieu AikinsDean Koontz|title=The Naked Don't Fear the WaterBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyParanormal|summary=ItBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's easy to forget at times possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The Naked Don't Fear thing is, Benny is the Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a well-paced thriller at timesnice person. A really nice person. This So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is not by any means a criticismnew friend, but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen bad weather friend called Spike, who decided has been sent to accompany his friend as a refugee help him since Benny is clearly under attack from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts nefarious forces for being a vast and at times painful journeygood person. There are tense moments Spike is going to take care of Benny, and gripping accounts will certainly take care of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. But itBenny's written with enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage the environments and people describedwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn= B09N9157T61662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas EngerAdam Stower|title=Unhinged (Volume 3) (Blix Murray and Ramm)Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=This Murray is the third book in a series of stories featuring Alexander Blix, supposed to be a police officerhumble, tidy and Emma Rammfriendly cat, a crime journalist. In this book we find that when one of Blix's colleagueswho is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, Kovicwell, uncovers a connection between several Oslo cases, she tries to contact her superior, Blixwhatever takes his fancy next of the two. Before she can reach him, however, she is murdered, and BlixBut he's daughter Iselin who shares the same apartment, narrowly escapes being murdered too. We then find ourselves a few days later with Blix and Ramm, who are being interviewed by the National Criminal Investigation Service because Blix has shot and killed someone, and Ramm saw it all happen. What had Kovic discovered? And what did Blix and Ramm uncover that led to Blix killing someone?|isbn=1914585003}}{{Frontpage|author=Daniel Abraham|title=Age of Ash|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary= We meet Alys under the most northerly of Oldgatebad magician's four bridgescat, she so his favourite bun has been turned into a knife in her hand hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and a meeting that she dreads. Meanwhilethe catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the City of Kithamar is at regular back garden, but into a point in the turning world of years when the worlds are at their thinnest frightening adventure and all things are possiblewhiffs. It is the night between the funeral of This time round it drops them into a Prince and the coronation of his successor. For Viking land, where a night the Kithamar troll hunter is un-ruled.expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=03565154270008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529095522B0C47LV1PC|title=The InterviewFragility|author=C M EwanMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Kate Harding Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is going that the answer for an interview for her dream job at Edge Communicationsboth could well be.... no. It ''Fragility's the last interview of ' is set as the day at one of London's newest office buildings and Edge have fitted out their part city of the building to be something special. MaggiePortland, Kate's recruitment agentOregon, is keen cautiously begins to see that Kate approaches emerge from the interview in a good state of mind: Kate assumes that this is because Maggie will get a decent bonus if Kate gets restrictions imposed during the job - and she has to admit that life has not been easy for her recently.covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B097XNMCRK1529431735|title=The Blood Tide (DS Max Craigie)Winter Visitor|author=Neil LancasterJames Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Loch Torridon 'It's February 1991 and Essex isbitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins'' return all the back of beyond: theremore surprising. He's not even any light pollution which is why it was d been exiled on the perfect place to land illegal deliveries of drugsCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. Jimmy McLeish thought that The return has come about because he was onto 's had a nice little earnerletter from his ex-wife, only saying that she's ill and hasn't long to find that Macca, the man he thought he was working with, is deadlive. His remains would never be found. The delivery It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is hijacked by Davie abducted, stripped to his underwear and Callumsent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. As the story progresses we'll get Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to know them quite well.home?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B09NDJ77LMAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Me and My Shadow|author=Deborah StoneThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary= ''What happens when someone Eli is pushed too far a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and they begin to lose their grip on reality? How would you cope if you felt that no one loved you? And how far would you go to be happy? Accompany Rachel as she tries to shake off in the evening a helper at the shadows of her past dessert cafe his gran owns and attempts to repair decades worth of painruns.'' Rachel Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in a current conversation with her psychiatristthe family. A few short years ago, who pushes her Eli's parents were both lost to recall her life from very young childhood onwards. But Rachel is combative with Doctor Blakethe titular race, sometimes even contemptuous a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of hera magical beast. You can see that it's not an easy therapeutic relationship. Rachel's recall of her life This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is in remarkable detail. She remembers each minor slight and each major betrayal in perfect detail to dare to enter what he most hates, with absolute and unforgiving claritythe sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529409659178763681X|title=The Locked Room (Dr Ruth Galloway)Knife Skills for Beginners|author=Elly GriffithsOrlando Murrin|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was some time since her father Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had remarried but his wife was now keen a way of getting both men and women to do some decorating and Dr Ruth Galloway volunteered to clear out her mother's belongingswhat he wanted. She was intrigued by Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the discovery of school to assist Paul, who had a picture of her own house: broken arm, but it was an old photograph, taken in misty conditions didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and on the back it said 'dawn 1963', some years before Ruth was bornproblems - are all his own. It The one thing he hadn't expected was before her parents were marriedfor someone to turn up dead. When she returned to Norfolk she Unfortunately, he was determined to find out what was behind the photograph but Covid intervened and person who discovered the country was in lockdown. Ruth body and Kate are restricted to everyone knows that the cottage with Ruth attempting police consider that person to home school Kate and continue with her university teaching duties. The good thing was meeting Zoe, be the new tenant from next door whom they got to know whilst clapping for carersprime suspect.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1847941834Sarah Marsh|title=Atomic Habits|author=James ClearA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=LifestyleGeneral Fiction|summary=I've said this before but there are some books that you seek outAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, some books that you stumble across and some books that drop Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into your a world of silence, everything about her life because you really MUST changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read them, likebut physically restrained from signing. From here, right now! ''Atomic Habits'' she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in the last categorya complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09MSC981W1803816759|title=The Woke IliadUnravelling|author=George BoreasWill Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=Helen It's 2038 and Joe is a popular activistbored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Or should we call her a popular influencer? Or perhaps Joe longs for a popular franchise owner? Anyway, Helen is so popular that the United States government has made her its Ambassador bit of Wokeadventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. Helen But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs all sorts of initiatives on behalf everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the government, including the Shaming Conference rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the Permissible Entertainment Committee only one trying to save Suki - ''for indoctrinating Dylan, a British superfan and legislating against summer fun for any who still knew tech nerd, is also on the case. What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how to have itis Suki''. Ouch!s kidnapping connected?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09D95TRKZ1529421284|title=The Wedding MurdersLaying Out the Bones|author=Sarah LinleyKate Webb
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Libby Steele It was hoping one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, a human skeleton came to get a permanent job with the newspaper surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case she was covering was her big chanceof misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. It Geary was even more important to her than the celebrity wedding she a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to attend the following day with her ex-rock star boyfriend, Matthew. She was leaving her seven-year-old son, Patrick with her sister, Emma, suicide of Holly Gilbert and heading off to a grand manor house hotel in two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the North Yorkshire countrysidetime. Daniel Acroyd, television presenter Lockyer and former member DC Gemma Broad of the rock band was marrying Vicky and Libby suspected Major Crimes Review Unit (that the wedding wasn't ''quite'' as high-profile as had been suggested as there was no ban on photos or phoness cold cases to you and me) investigate.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18382268340571379559|title=Carried Away With the CarnivalThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Ed BoxallFiona Williams|rating=45|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=It was one ''The House of those memories we treasure from our childhoods: an outing with our grandparentsBroken Bricks'' is the story of four people. They Tess Hembry're s roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there to undo all , but instead, she lives in the house on the good that parents doriverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, so it's stood the trips out were always so much funpassage of time, storms and floods. A young boy was going Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the carnival with his Grandaddelivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, who told him: the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother'It'll be brilliant, just remember, s Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't let go of my hand.believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291353621529425867|title=The Long WeekendLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Gilly MacmillanSimon Mason
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=It was a long drive to the weekend retreat in NorthumbriaIn Oxford, right up near the Scottish borders and to make it worse the three husbands had all - for one reason or another - had to delay making the trip until the Saturday morningthere are two D I Wilkins. Jane Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and Ruth had known each other for a long time but Emily was a bit of an outsideralways exquisitely dressed. She D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and Paul had married only relatively recently and she was ten years younger than the other two womenfather of Ryan, is not. The friendship He's not any of the group went back to school daysthose things. Paul had coached rugby at the school where MarkHe's white, originated from a trailer park, Toby barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) and Rob were pupilshis wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. Mark had married Jane, and Toby is RuthThey's husbandre usually in lime green or acid yellow. And Rob? You might wonder if you're being introduced to a police procedural written for laughs. Well, Robyou're not. The two men are just different sides of the same policing coin. Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's deadproblematic.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=gareth_steelMosby Woods|title=Never Work With Animals|author=Gareth SteelA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Animals and WildlifeLiterary Fiction|summary=I donThe West isn't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' the dominant force it seems once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to be appropriate. Stories of a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' mend this or even if mending it is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking forbest course of action. Governments are flailing. As A war here, a TV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, as do other similar programmespush for climate action there. Gareth Steel says A feeling that the book nobody is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with himin actual charge. He says that he's written it to inform and provoke thoughtImagine then, particularly amongst aspiring vetsthere was a man with precognition. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be best choosing between reading and eating.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787634884|title=The Herd|author=Emily Edwards|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Our story opens in December 2019valuable, before right? Perhaps the most of us had even heard of Covid or realised that whether or not we should be vaccinated would come to be a major issuevaluable asset in history. We're in Farley County CourtImagine then, where Elizabeth and Jack Chamberlain are facing Bryony and Ash Kohli. As they were best friends until just a few months ago we know that whatever has happened is major and that, regardless of the outcome, this is not going man loses this ability. What would governments do to work out well for anyone.get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
}}