Recently reviewed titles

May 2021. London. Campbell Flynn - art historian and celebrity intellectual - is entering the empire of middle age. Fuelled by an appetite for admiration and the finer things, controversy and novelty, he doesn't take people half as seriously as they take themselves. Which will prove the first of ...

Danny Ryan is rich. Beyond his wildest dreams rich. The former dock worker, Irish mob soldier and fugitive from the law is now a respected businessman - a Las Vegas casino mogul and billionaire silent partner in a group that owns two lavish hotels. Finally, Danny has it all: a beautiful house, a ...

Lucy finds herself in exactly that situation when a colleague starts showing her pictures of her honeymoon in the Maldives. But in one of the photos, Lucy spots her best friend's husband, apparently on a luxurious holiday with another woman. The discovery is devastating to Lucy. She and her own h...

When a routine autopsy on what looked like a straightforward hit-and-run leads the LA Chief Medical Examiner, Dr Carolyn Hove, to discover some puzzling inconsistencies, she calls in Detective Robert Hunter of the LAPD Ultra Violent Crimes Unit. Not only did Dr Hove discover that the death wasn't...

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Alexandra, Lucy, Bridget, River and Natalie. Five friends who wish they'd never met. Because the one thing they have in common is the worst thing in their lives: they are all being stalked. When one of their group is murdered, days after their stal...

When the Australian Mystery Writers' Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that di...

1990. When beautiful and vivacious Charlotte Salter fails to turn up to her husband Alec's 50th birthday party, her kids are worried, but Alec is not. As the days pass and there's still no word from Charlie, her daughter, Etty, and her sons, Niall, Paul and Ollie, all struggle to come to terms wi...

D-Day. June 6th, 1944. The trajectory of the Second World War - and with it the course of modern history - is changed for ever. For three young former schoolmates from South Wales, their war is only just beginning. James was the school cricket captain. Now, a few short years later, he is in charg...

Anna wants a fresh start. She doesn't believe she deserves it, but after three years behind bars she has finally paid her dues. Most of them, anyway. Lucy craves the attention of the only man she can't have, her alluring Oxford professor. He's married - not for the first time. Maybe she should be...

Hannah Parker is a woman who always gets what she wants. When her current husband discovers she has been lying to him - again - she knows it's time to move on and find someone who can give her the life she desires. The life she knows she deserves. But who will be the lucky man? When her eye catch...

When Rachel qualifies as nurse, she does so because she wants to help others and make a difference. But she is also running from a past life that must stay hidden forever. She applies for another job near Eastby End and is shocked to find it a little more than a slum. It's clear she will need to ...

Marlow has always lived in unusual places. But when she accepts a position as a live-in property guardian, she finds herself moving somewhere she swore she'd never return to. Right from the start, she knows it's a terrible mistake. The elegant Victorian school is due to be turned into luxury apar...

Shakespeare fed us the myth of the Macbeths as murderous conspirators. But now Val McDermid drags the truth out of the shadows, exposing the patriarchal prejudices of history. Expect the unexpected. A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three compan...

Geoffrey Lushington, Mayor of Marlow, dies suddenly during a Town Council meeting. When traces of aconite - also known as the queen of poisons - are found in his coffee cup, the police realise he was murdered. But who did it? And why? The police bring Judith, Suzie and Becks in to investigate as ...

After a kid's party faux-pas, mother Janine anonymously vents about her father-in-law's behaviour on internet forum Am I The Villain Here? When the community is invited to take sides the post goes viral, with mild-mannered Roy ending up in the national newspapers and sparking protests at his loca...

Here are the seven rules to follow to realise your true purpose in life - distilled by Arnold Schwarzenegger from his own journey of ceaseless reinvention and extraordinary achievement, and available for absolutely anyone. The world's greatest bodybuilder. The world's highest paid movie star. The...

Ashley Smith - a bright-eyed American studying in London - has unexpectedly been invited by her classmate Emma Chapman to spend Christmas at her family's Cotswolds manor house, Starvewood Hall. The holiday is a true English fantasy: woodland walks, charming pubs and elaborate dinners at the manor...

All Detective Constable Edward Reekie had to do was pick up a dying prisoner from HMP Grampian and deliver him somewhere to live out his last few months in peace. From the outside, Glenfarach looks like a quaint, sleepy, snow-dusted village, nestled deep in the heart of Cairngorms National Park,...

Women go through various life stages, with each moment bringing a new set of challenges and opportunities. Yet we rarely speak openly about these, or share our knowledge and solutions with each other. Body literacy is something every woman is entitled to. Health and fitness are not the same as ae...

Of all the ancient art that captures the imagination, none is more appealing than the Cycladic figurine. An air of mystery swirls around these statuettes from the Bronze Age and they are highly sought after by collectors - and looters - alike. When Helena inherits her grandparents' apartment in A...