Archives de catégorie : Crime & Thrillers

CORRECTIONAL de N.J. Crosskey

A near-future dystopian novel that examines themes of inequality, poverty and the cycle of criminality, whilst simultaneously shining an uncomfortable light on our obsession with the macabre and sadistic.

CORRECTIONAL
by N.J. Crosskey
‎ Legend Press, June 2022
(via Lorella Belli)

‘Twelve inmates, one chamber. It’s time to face justice, live!’
Saturday night – primetime. The nation settles down to watch a special edition of Justice Live – the most popular, and sadistic, reality show ever made. Twelve of the country’s most notorious criminals are paraded in front of the cameras as the public vote to decide which one will face the horrors of the justice chamber. But correctional officer Cal Roberts has bigger things on his mind. Tonight, he plans to bring down celebrity guard Dax Miller, for good. Tonight, is his chance to put things right, once and for all.

N.J. Crosskey lives with her husband and two children in Worthing, West Sussex. She worked in the care sector for almost 20 years and now is a full-time writer.

THE PERFECT WITNESS de Susanna Beard

A character-driven psychological suspense from a bestselling author.

THE PERFECT WITNESS
by Susanna Beard
Joffe Books, March 2022
(via Lorella Belli)

Daniel had the perfect life: a beautiful girlfriend, a great job, a lovely home. But twenty years ago he witnessed something he never should have seen. And now he’s plagued by memories of that night.

The frightened scream.
The splash of something heavy hitting the water.
His friend being murdered by his father.

It returns again and again and it’s driving him slowly mad. Now he’s lost his girlfriend, his job and his flat. To get his life back on track, he needs to find out what really happened that night. Daniel decides to walk the canals of England, to look for the boat he thinks he saw. But what he finds out will put the one person he trusts in danger.
Fans of Gillian Flynn, T.M. Logan, B.A. Paris, Liane Moriarty, Claire Dyer, Sam Carrington, Celeste Ng will devour this stunning character-driven psychological suspense.

Thriller writer Susanna Beard is fascinated by human relationships. She can be found people-watching wherever she goes, finding material for her writing. Despite the writer’s life, she has an adventurous streak and has swum with whale sharks in Australia, fallen down a crevasse in the French Alps and walked through the sewers of Brighton – not in that order. Her passions include animals — particularly her dogs — walking in the countryside and tennis, which clears her brain of pretty much everything.

BEYOND YEAR ZERO de Lawrence Held

A troubled Australian journalist undertakes an odyssey into the heart of Cambodian darkness that will destroy the life of everyone he encounters – and his own …

BEYOND YEAR ZERO
by Lawrence Held
‎Big Sky (Australia), August 2022

Carl Meissner is a 32-year-old unemployed journalist who was fired over his reporting of a paedophile scandal involving a prominent Sydney judge, and is hired by Joe Goldman, a rich currency trader/property developer, to find his missing twin brother, whom a private detective has traced to Cambodia.
BEYOND YEAR ZERO is the story of Carl’s journey into the dark heart of Cambodia – and simultaneously into himself – along the way becoming entangled in the lives of the mysterious ‘Bible Bill’ Butt and the two beautiful Eurasian sisters, Bopha and Dara, and being forced to confront Cambodia’s dark underworld of child pornography, trafficking in human body parts, personal and political corruption, cannibalism, incest, lust and drugs. Having got himself into this seething milieu, where the only certainties are cruelty and violence, Carl then has to get himself out …

Lawrence Held trained at the ‘Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art’ (London), worked in theatre and television in the UK and Europe, presented a ninepart series for the BBC, acted in Waiting for Godot and Endgame, developed scripts for ‘Film Victoria’ and published Once A Jolly Swagperson (Pan Macmillan).

THE OPPORTUNIST d’Elyse Friedman

For fans of the HBO hit series Succession.

THE OPPORTUNIST
by Elyse Friedman
HarperCollins Canada, December 2022

When Alana Shropshire hears from her brothers, Teddy and Martin, complaining about Kelly, the 28-year-old “gold-digger” their 76-year-old father has taken up with, she ignores them. A single mom with a disabled daughter, Alana has more important things on her mind and has long since left her dysfunctional family behind. But her brothers persist, and eventually, she relents. In exchange for sorely needed payment, Alana flies to her father’s private island retreat to perform one tiny task in Teddy and Martin’s simple plan to make the gold-digger go away.
But when Kelly proves a lot wilier than expected, Alana is entangled in an increasingly dangerous scheme full of twists, turns, secrets and surprises. She has long viewed her brothers as callous sycophants who sacrificed their integrity and freedom for a share of their father’s fortune. But what more are they capable of, and how far will they go to retain control?
Is Kelly really an opportunist? Or is it Alana’s father, an exploitative businessman with more than a few skeletons in the closet? Or perhaps it’s Teddy and Martin, who will do anything to secure their piece of the pie.

Elyse Friedman is a critically acclaimed author, screenwriter, poet and playwright

SNAKE OIL de Kelsey Rae Dimberg

From the author of Girl in the Rearview Window comes a stunning novel set in the high-stakes world of Silicon Valley.

SNAKE OIL
by Kelsey Rae Dimberg
William Morrow, Summer 2023
(via Writers House)

Radical is a fast-growing wellness startup, rumored to be approaching “unicorn” status. But on the night of a booze-fueled bacchanal celebrating another round of venture capital investment, a woman’s body is found outside the company’s San Francisco HQ. Did she fall from the roof? Did she jump? Or was she pushed?
Rhoda West, Radical’s luminous founder-CEO, has attracted both avid followers and vocal detractors in the building of her wellness company. Her Instagram page exhorts followers to #bebetter, showcasing intimate glimpses of Rhoda’s glamorous personal life alongside promotions for the mysterious, cult-status products created in Radical’s secretive Lab.
Dani is her enthusiastic employee—a “radigal”—who has fully immersed herself in the Radical lifestyle, eagerly testing products while covering up a pregnancy she’s not sure she’s ready for. When @Radicalidiocy, a twitter account devoted to lambasting the company online, starts to expose company secrets, Dani suspects her colleague and on-the-rocks friend Cecilia, a disgruntled customer service rep, might be running the account. As Rhoda engages in a cat-and-mouse chase with the Twitter author and struggles to maintain her power against mounting pressure, the women’s ambitions and beliefs will clash—with deadly results.
A page-turning literary thriller, Dimberg’s new book is an incisive examination of the high-stakes startup world, where the reputation of a leader carries outsize influence on the value of a brand, and the barbed double-standards applied to female CEOs.

Kelsey Rae Dimberg is the author of Girl in the Rearview Mirror. She received an MFA from the University of San Francisco and studied at Barrett Honors College of Arizona State University, where she was editor-in-chief of the literary magazine, Lux, and received the Swarthout Award in Fiction.