I spent most of this week in Cornwall (hence the picture of Lanhydrock) so i haven’t written any reviews. but I did managed to get some reading done and pick up some more books. Here’s what I’ve read and bought this week and what’s up next.
This week, I discovered how incredibly strong Mick Herron’s debut novel was, had a dizzying ride with Lee Goldberg’s latest book, returned to Ky Vatta’s adventures and had my driving calmed by a gentle supernatural cosy mystery featuring an American witch in the Cotswolds.
t’s an evening like any other when an explosion rips through the leafy Oxford suburb Sarah Tucker calls home.
In the aftermath, a house now stands devastated, with two adults dead and a young girl missing.
With the police more interested in keeping the neighbours from rubbernecking than in searching for the missing child, Sarah becomes obsessed with finding her.
She enlists the help of Zoë Boehm’s investigation agency, but Sarah’s and Zoë’s search reveals more secrets than answers, taking them from Oxford’s cobbled streets to the rugged outer reaches of the British Isles. As Zoë and Sarah draw closer to the truth, they are caught in a web of conspiracy and come up against government forces, cold-blooded mercenaries and vengeful loners.
‘Down Cemetery Road’ (2003) was Mick Herron’s CWA Gold Dagger winninng debut novel. I bought it in 2017, after I’d bought the first three books in his Slough House series. For some reason, it never made it to the top of my TBR pile, even though I read his other books as they were published. I was reminded of it when I saw that Apple had made the book into a TV series starring Emma Thompson. I thought, “That looks good”, and then, “Don’t I already own that?”
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the excellent Anna Bentinck, and I was impressed by what a strong and unusual novel it was. I would never have guessed that this was a debut novel. The writing was polished, the plot was tightly wound, and the dialogue sparkled.
My only criticism was that I thought the prologue was unnecessary. I think it was meant as an enticing promise of a clever thriller with spy-adjacent skullduggery ahead, but it almost lost me because it felt competent but generic.
By contrast, being in Sarah’s head as she suffered through a dinner party with a rich arsehole that her husband was trying to win as a client, was electrifying, and that was before the bomb went off. Sarah felt real to me. She also wasn’t at all the kind of character I’d expect to see in a thriller, which made everything more interesting.
There are three more books in the Oxford Investigations series, although Mick Herron has moved his attention from Sarah to Zoë Boehm, the slightly spiky PI Sarah ended up working with. I’ve already downloaded the next book in the series.
Edison Bixby is wealthy, handsome, and, due to a traumatic brain injury, impulsively rude. He’s also a brilliant insurance investigator who solves baffling crimes by figuring out how the design of the man-made world around us makes them possible. Enter Wally Nash: a struggling actor hired to keep Bixby from offending everyone he meets.
Their first case together looks like a simple accident. Caroline Crowley took a nasty fall down a staircase at a shopping mall in front of dozens of witnesses. Video clearly shows the deadly misstep. But Bixby is certain she was murdered by design, subtly manipulated into causing her own demise. The mall itself made the crime intentional, if not inevitable.
Now Bixby must prove his outrageous theory before a very cunning killer gets others on his hit list to murder themselves, too.
I found ‘Murder By Design (2026) the first book in Lee Goldberg’s new series, a little overwhelming.
I was fascinated by Edison Bixby’s ability to see the designed environment as shaping, sometimes even determinging a person’s behaviour to an extent that a building can become an accomplice fo a murder. The examples were clever and stimulating. I enjoyed most of the humour, especially the inside jokes about crime novels and TV scripts.
The pace of the book eas so rapid and relentless that I could feel the wind in my hair. It was a sugar-rush of a book. The characters are cartoonish but fun.
I enjoyed Bixby’s passionate disdain for poor design, his breathtaking arrogance and the way he took apart unpleasant people.
Unfortunately, the story is told from the point of view of his assisnt, Wally. Wally sees himself as great actor who hasn’t been discovered yet. He turns his job as Bixby’s assistant into a series of performances. Wally is even stranger than Bixby. He’s a man so wrapped up in fantasy of his own talent that he’s become impervious to reality. Seeing Bixby’s bizarre behavius through Wally’s self-deluding eyes was dizzying at times.
The book was clever and it made me smile but it was so over the top that I struggled to stay connected with it.
Admiral Ky Vatta should return to her childhood home a war hero, but on the way her shuttle is downed by sabotage.
Marooned in a hostile landscape it’ll take every bit of wit, skill and luck she can muster to lead her fellow survivors to safety, knowing that the mysterious enemies who destroyed the ship are on the hunt, and may have an agent in the group ready to finish the job at any moment. And was the sabotage an attempt on Ky’s own life, or someone else’s?
I’ve already had a good time gulping down the five books in Elizabeth Moon’s exciting ‘Vatta’s War’ series this year. ‘Cold Welcome’ (2017) is the first book in a two-book series called ‘Vatta’s Peace’ that Elizabeth Moon wrote nine years after she finished the previous series. This time, Ky Vatta is in trouble on the ground on her home planet.
Elizabeth Moon has done it again delivered an engrossing, tension-filled, action-packed story told from multiple points of view.
Peony Bellefleur runs Betwitching Blooms, the charming flower shop in a picture-perfect Cotswold village in England. Her flowers seem to make the sick improve, wedding days happier, and birthdays more special because she infuses her bouquets with a little magic.
Peony’s a witch in a village that seems too perfect to be true. Probably because it is. She’s got her hands full between running her flower shop, managing her mother—who’s a medium with a habit of conversing with the dead wherever she happens to be—and helping her protégé to embrace her newfound powers.
When someone dies, Peony suspects foul play. But can she solve the mystery before she’s the one pushing up daisies?
‘Peony Dreadful’ (2022) is the first book in the Village Flower Shop series of cosy mysteries. Peony is a thirty-something American widow, running the flower shop in a village in the Cotswolds that she and her recently deceased British husband opened together. She’s also a witch with magic at her fingertips.
The audiobook kept my wife and me entertained during the drive down to Cornwall and back. It was fun, in a calm, I’m fairly sure I know what’s going to happen next way. The characters were from Central Casting. The pace was so unhurried, and Peony was so slow on the uptake, that we found ourselves shouting at her to “Work it out already! Duh! How many more clues do you need?” Yet, there was enough there to keep us listening and engaged. It’s a book to relax to rather than to get excited about. Think Green Tea as opposed to a Double Espresso.
I bought five books this week: a spy novel, a crime thriller, a psychological thriller, a Space Opera and a Time Travel novel.
’A Sting In Her Tale’ (2025) called to me because it’s about a spy, now in her eighties, whose suicide by drowning plans are frustrated when a baby floats past her in the river. I can’t resist a setup like that.
I picked up ’The Last Voice You Hear’ (2004) because I want to see what Mich Herron does with the character of Zoë Boehm, the PI I met in ‘Down Cemetery Road’ (2003).
I enjoyed LIz Nugent’s ‘Lying In Wait’ (2016) and ’Strange Sally Diamond’ (2023), so when I saw that her psychological thriller, ’ Unravelling Oliver’ (2014) was on sale, I added it to my TBR.
‘The Blighted Stars’ (2023), is the first book in ‘The Devoured Worlds’, a space opera series which now stands at three books. I was put off by the romance elements of the story initially but, the reviews of this novel and its sequels have been very positive, so I’m going to give it a try.
Amazon are offering Daphne du Maurier’s The House On The Strand’ (1969) for £0.99, so I looked it up. I was surprised to find that it’s a time travel story, where time travel is achieved through the use of drugs. If it’s half as bizarre as it sounds, it should be a fascinating read.
When retired former spy Felicity Jardine’s mission to drown herself is interrupted by a baby drifting down river, her training kicks in at once. She manages to save the baby, and conceals them both from the shady-looking man who is searching for it.
Then an elderly neighbour to whom she bears a resemblance is found dead, and Felicity knows she’s been rumbled. She has to dust off the highly trained and resourceful secret service officer she used to be, ensure the safety of the baby, and re-enter the fray.
She can count on the help of two former MI6 colleagues to identify the murderer and find out exactly what’s going on. But Felicity will soon realise that her work in 1970s Germany and her present are entangled – and she will have to face some hard truths before she can confront the demons of her past.
Zoë Boehm has harbored a distinct aversion to death ever since she shot the man intent on killing her. So when Caroline Daniels takes a deadly fall in front of a train and her lover fails to turn up at the funeral, Zoë wants nothing to do with the case.
But Caroline’s boss is persistent, and as Zoë attempts to unlock the secrets of a woman she’s never met while in search of a man who could be anywhere, she starts to wonder if he’s found her first. And if he has, will that make her the next victim, or prove to be her salvation from a paralysing fear?
Oliver Ryan is a handsome and charismatic success story.
He lives in the suburbs with his wife, Alice, who illustrates his award-winning children’s books and gives him her unstinting devotion. Their life together is one of enviable privilege and ease – enviable until, one evening after supper, Oliver attacks Alice, leaving her fighting for her life.
Everyone around Oliver quickly realises that they didn’t know him at all. Only he knows the lengths to which he has gone to get the life he so desired. But even he is in for a shock when the past catches up with him.
She’s a revolutionary. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they’re found, and Naira Sharp thinks she knows the reason why. The all-powerful Mercator family has been controlling the exploration of the universe for decades, and exploiting any materials they find along the way under the guise of helping humanity’s expansion. But Naira knows the truth, and she plans to bring the whole family down from the inside.
He’s the heir to the dynasty. Tarquin Mercator never wanted to run a galaxy-spanning business empire. He just wanted to study geology and read books. But Tarquin’s father has tasked him with monitoring the settlement of a new planet, and he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.
Disguised as Tarquin’s new bodyguard, Naira plans to destroy the settlement ship before they land. But neither of them expects to end up stranded on a dead planet. To survive and keep her secret, Naira will have to join forces with the man she’s sworn to hate. And together they will uncover a plot that’s bigger than both of them.
When Dick Young’s friend, Professor Magnus Lane offers him an escape from his troubles in the form of a new drug, Dick finds himself transported to fourteenth-century Cornwall. There, in the manor of Tywardreath, the domain of Sir Henry Champerhoune, he witnesses intrigue, adultery and murder.
The more time Dick spends consumed in the past, the more he withdraws from the modern world. With each dose of the drug, his body and mind become addicted to this otherworld and his attempts to change history bring terror to the present and put his own life in jeopardy.
This week, I’ll be reading an historical mystery and two Science Fiction novels. It should be a rich reading week. All three books are written by authors whom I’ve read and enjoyed before.
Sharp-eyed former nun Nora Breen is back, as the latest attraction in Gore-on-Sea turns deadly . . .
On a brilliant December morning, Nora finds her customary seaside walk rudely interrupted: she’s been summoned, with Detective Inspector Rideout, to the home of Doreen Chimes, Gore-on-Sea’s resident medium. Chimes would like to report a robbery – and to personally invite Rideout to that evening’s private séance.
It’s an invitation he will regret accepting: the evening ends in a suspiciously spooky murder. And in the coming days, more of the attendees will find themselves in peril. Can Nora figure out who – or what – is behind these spectral killings before it’s too late?
I’ve been waiting to meet ex-nun, Nora Breen again since I finished the delightful ‘Murder At Gulls Nest’ (2025) last year. I’m keen to see what she’ll do next.
Rule One: Travel can only occur to a point within your lifetime.
Rule Two: You can only travel for ninety seconds.
Rule Three: You can only observe.
The rules cannot be broken.
This is not the story you think you know. And the rules are only the beginning.
I’m not always keen on Time Travel stories but ‘The Third Rule of Time Travel’ (2025) opens with a white- knuckle ride in a small plane plumeting to the ground. That hooked me.
I was suprised to find Philip Fracassi writing Science Fiction. I know him as a horror writer. I enjoyed ‘The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre’ (2025).
The Temporal Location of the Radiant Star has always been a source of both conflict and hope for the people of Ooioiaa. However, the imperial Radch see it only as an inconvenience, an antiquated religious site soon to be absorbed into their own, superior culture. But local politics is complicated, and the Radch have made one last concession: One last man will be allowed to join the mummified bodies in the temporal location to become a “living saint”.
But this one decision will ripple out to affect every part of the city. Amidst a slowly worsening food shortage, riots, and a communication blackout from the rest of the Radch Empire, a religious savant will entertain visions of his own sainthood, a socialite will discover zer comfortable life upended, and a young man sold into servitude will find unlikely escape.
‘Radiant Star’ (2026) is a standalone novel set in Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radtch universe. The other Imperial Radtch books, ‘Ancillary Justice’,, ‘Ancillary Sword’, ‘Ancillary Mercy’ and ‘Provenance’ are some of my favourite Science Fiction novels, so I have high hopes of this one.
I love both Ann Leckie’s engaging prose and complex, thoughtful world-building, especially when they’re enhanced by Adjoa Andoh’s calm but powerful narration.
Mike Finn's Fiction 