What to read this week
Candice Fox and Nicola Moriarty have new books, plus six more titles in our list of this week’s Notable Books.
Candice Fox will be known to some readers for her collaborations with James Patterson, but this book is her latest solo undertaking. Devil’s Kitchen follows an undercover agent deep into an expert crime ring made up of ... firefighters! Yes, the guys who run into burning buildings to save lives are also, apparently, jewel and art thieves. It’s a bold and original idea, and Fox handles it with flair. This was, for me, a “drop everything” release.
Start with a kidnapping case gone cold, add a twin sister hell-bent on figuring out what happened to her, and set the plot in an old-style lunatic asylum and you have Good Half Gone. Tarryn Fisher is a best-selling author, who co-wrote Never Never with Colleen Hoover.
Louise Candlish is the best-selling British author behind Our House and The Only Suspect, whose fan base grows with every new offering. Our Holiday sets status wars and murder in a (not-so) idyllic coastal town that simmers with tensions between NIMBYs and luxury holiday-makers. Take it on your next getaway or read it from the comfort of the couch – by the end, you might be glad you stayed home.
The end of a relationship doesn’t doom anyone to a joyless future, devoid of love, passion, sex and adventure. In this honest and endearing memoir, Melbourne-based Jo Peck describes how she discovered that her husband of 25 years was having an affair with a woman almost half her age. Rather than sink into gloom, she sets forth on a journey of discovery. Whether you relate to this personally or know someone going through a break-up, prepare to be inspired. Peck’s hopeful and heartful journey is a blueprint for resiliency and reinvention after separation – whatever your age.
Nicola Moriarty’s Every Last Suspect stars Harriet as the very-far-from perfect victim, about to die in a pool of her own blood, and determined to reveal her killer before she goes: was it her husband, her best-friend, a mum from the school gate? Whirling through all the possible suspects gives the book a lively momentum, and Moriarty knows how to keep the reader guessing.
David Nicholls is the beloved British author of One Day (now a TV series). His new book is another delightful romance, and You Are Here is as cinematic as his previous offerings (he’s won a BAFTA for his screenwriting, after all). Michael and Marnie are tackling midlife, and loneliness. Nicholls allows their touching love story to unfold against the backdrop of one long, enchanted walk through the
English countryside.
Cameron Stewart’s Why Do Horses Run is an exploration of grief, with beautifully turned sentences. The protagonist is walking across Australia, sometimes eating roadkill to survive. Something awful has happened in his life. He seems to have no real destination, and he is also refusing to speak to anyone. Then he meets Hilda, a widow, who allows him to stay a few days. Can he be healed?
Chris Carter worked for a while as a criminal psychologist. The Death
Watcher is book number 13 in the fan-favourite Robert Hunter series. This instalment sees Hunter and Garcia, who together make up the LAPD’s Ultra Violent Crimes Unit, on the tail of a particularly slippery serial killer. A treat for fans of fast-paced psychological crime thrillers.
Wyatt Earp rides again in this gritty docudrama
Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War offers a mashup of fact and fiction to tell the story of the legendary lawman of the American old west.
McKellen swings the poison-tipped sword
Veteran actor Ian Mckellen has a lot of fun as the chief drama critic at the Daily Chronicle, a Fleet Street newspaper that leans to the right.