Book of the month

Welcome to the nightmare Christmas holiday… Jolted from sleep by the ringing of the telephone, Imogen stumbles through the dark, empty house to answer it. At first, she can't quite understand the man on the other end of the line. Surely he can't honestly be accusing her of killing her husband, Ivor, who died in a car crash barely two months ago. As the nights draw in, Imogen finds her home filling up with unexpected guests, who may be looking for more than simple festive cheer. Has someone been rifling through Ivor’s papers?   /  Join the Crime reading group to discuss this book /

This novel takes us back to one of the most harrowing accidents in the history of Wales, but also shows us what people can do when working together. Wales, October 1966. William Lavery is having the night of his life at his first black-tie do. But, as the evening unfolds, news hits of a landslide at a coal mine. It has buried a school: Aberfan. William decides he must act, so he stands and volunteers to attend. It will be his first job as an embalmer, and it will be one he never forgets. His work that night will force him to think about the little boy he was, and the losses he has worked so hard to forget.

1936, London. A celebrity psychiatrist is discovered dead in his locked study. With no clues, no witnesses, and no evidence of the murder weapon, Inspector Flint, the Scotland Yard detective on the case, calls on retired stage magician turned part-time sleuth Joseph Spector. As he and the Inspector interview the colourful cast of suspects, they uncover no shortage of dark secrets … or motives for murder. An enthralling locked-room murder mystery inspired by crime fiction of the Golden Age, this is the critically acclaimed debut novel by Tom Mead.  

Darwin is a down-on-his-luck gravedigger, newly arrived in the Trinidadian city of Port Angeles to seek his fortune, young and beautiful and lost. Estranged from his mother and the Rastafari faith she taught him, he is convinced that the father he never met may be waiting for him somewhere amid these bustling streets. Meanwhile in an old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide’s mother is dying. And she is leaving behind a legacy that now passes to Yejide: the power to talk to the dead.  

Welcome to The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts – a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to "delete" their most deserving victim.   The campus of this ”Poison Ivy League” college is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate – and where one’s mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live. Prepare for an education you'll never forget.  

The encounter between 87-year-old Kent coast resident Edie, who is in the early stages of dementia, and Jonah, a traumatised Malawian migrant hiding in her barn. An unlikely companionship that helps them make sense of their worlds even as they struggle to understand each other.

Six contestants. The nation’s favourite baking show. And a prize worth killing for...

Two women. Two eggs. One switch. A dual narrative novel about a seemingly impossible situation: two women, Katherine and Tess, find out after pregnancy that their eggs were mistakenly switched during in vitro fertilization (IVF). For Katherine, the news is her worst nightmare realized. For Tess, the news is a seed of hope.

Cornwall, pirates and a good old fashioned murder! When Donna branches out from floristry to private investigation and opens a detective agency, the last thing she expects is to have a murder fall into her lap almost immediately. Especially a case where evidence points to Donna as the murderer!