Crime Thriller Book Log: Galbraith, Kerley, Sakey & Booth
Welcome to this flight of the Crime Thriller Book Log. Please stow your luggage underneath the seat in front of you or in an overhead bin, take your seat and fasten your seat belt. Ensure your seat back and folding trays are in their full upright position.
It’s requested that all mobile phones, pagers, radios and remote controlled devices be turned off for the full duration of the flight, because I don’t write this shit just so you can faff about doing something else.
There’s really not much more to be said about the new Robert Galbraith book, The Silkworm. Everybody knows Galbraith is a pseudonym for JK Rowling. If you didn’t know that, please read the masthead above again, because it’s quite possible you’re reading the wrong blog.
When the secret of Galbraith’s identity was unmasked on Twitter the first book became an immediate sensation. Rowling, er, Galbraith plans to write seven novels featuring sleuth Cormoran Strike. And she is undoubtedly the big draw at this year’s Harrogate Crime Festival.
The blurb potters along nicely:
When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days - as he has done before - and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.
But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published it would ruin lives - so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him.And when Quine is found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any he has encountered before . . .
The Silkworm is available in hardcover and on kindle on Thursday.
In a few moments, we’ll be passing around the cabin to offer you hot or cold drinks, as well as a complimentary snack.
The Memory Killer is by J.A. Kerley. Jack Kerley gets up before dawn to write—before dawn! That’s, like, before the sun’s come up and everything. The Memory KIller is the seventh novel in the series about detective Carson Ryder, who investigates particularly horrific crimes.
The blurb knows your face, but can’t quite…
Young men in Miami are being abducted and tortured after their drinks are spiked with a cocktail of drugs that leaves them unable to recall their ordeal. Despite this, Detective Carson Ryder knows the predator’s name, height, age, colouring … everything. It’s impossible for the perpetrator to avoid detection. Yet he does.
When Carson seeks answers from his brother, a wanted criminal intimate with twisted minds, Jeremy’s odd behaviour sparks even more questions. With each abduction, the violence becomes more horrific, and it’s only a short time until torture turns to murder.
But how do you catch an invisible man?
The Memory Killer is published on Thursday in paperback and as an ebook.
We’re just experiencing a little turbulence right now, so please remain seated for the remainder of this Crime Thriller Book Log.
The Corpse Bridge is Stephen Booth’s latest book – the 14th - featuring his police detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry. Their precinct is the Peak District. The scenery may be splendid, with its rolling hills, traditional stonework and burbling brooks, but there’s still murder a-plenty.
The blurb has invested in a sturdy pair of walking boots:
The old Corpse Bridge is the route taken for centuries by mourners from villages on the western fringes of Derbyshire to a burial ground across the River Dove, now absorbed into the landscaped parkland of a stately home. When Earl Manby, the landowner, announces plans to deconsecrate the burial ground to turn it into a car park for his holiday cottages, bodies begin to appear once again on the road to the Corpse Bridge. Is there a connection with the Earl’s plans? Or worse, is there a terrifying serial killer at work?
Back in his job after the traumatic events of previous months, Detective Sergeant Ben Cooper knows that he must unravel the mystery of the Corpse Bridge if he’s going to be able to move on with his life. As the pressure builds, Ben doesn’t know who he can trust and, when the case reaches breaking point, he has to make a call that could put everything - and everyone - at risk…
As well as being a bestselling and award-winning author, Stephen is also a renowned expert on goats. Yes, goats.
The Copse Bridge is published in hardback, paperback and kindle on Thursday.
We’re currently passing around the cabin to make a final compliance check before we finish and picking up any remaining cups and glasses. You’ll be wanting to give those handphones back, and not stuff them down the side of the seat, thanks.
A Better World is Marcus Sakey’s sequel to his novel Brilliance and the second in a planned trilogy. It’s one of those sci-fi slash crime hybrids with a mutant vibe to it. There aren’t enough of those.
The blurb is too clever by half:
The brilliants changed everything.
Since 1980, 1% of the world has been born with gifts we’d only dreamed of. The ability to sense a person’s most intimate secrets, or predict the stock market, or move virtually unseen. For thirty years the world has struggled with a growing divide between the exceptional…and the rest of us.
Now a terrorist network led by brilliants has crippled three cities. Supermarket shelves stand empty. 911 calls go unanswered. Fanatics are burning people alive.
Nick Cooper has always fought to make the world better for his children. As both a brilliant and an advisor to the president of the United States, he’s against everything the terrorists represent. But as America slides toward a devastating civil war, Cooper is forced to play a game he dares not lose—because his opponents have their own vision of a better world.
And to reach it, they’re willing to burn this one down.
Booth may have his goats, but Sakey’s a presenter on a travel show. A novelist who gets out of the house - that’s a new one on me. His rather good thriller Good People has just been made into a movie. He has a website where he talks a little about writing, which is something we at Crime Thriller Fella - or CTF, as absolutely no-one calls us - absolutely encourage . You can take a look-see here.
A Better World is published on Tuesday on paperback and kindle.
On behalf of Crime Thriller Fella Airways, we’d like to thank you for flying with us and look forward to seeing you back again for the next Crime Thriller Book Log. Just keep checking the departures board.
