Anthony Horowitz’s Moonflower Murders, Liz Nugent’s Little Cruelties, and new crime novels from Michael Connelly, Jo Nesbo, and John Connolly all feature among the month’s best reviewed books.
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Moonflower Murders, by Anthony Horowitz
(Harper)
“…… anyone seeking a few evenings’ respite from the emotional roller-coaster of last week’s election need look no further … To begin with, you’ll get two books for the price of one. Quite literally … If all this sounds dizzyingly postmodern, it is and it isn’t. Horowitz’s plotting certainly rivals that of Ruth Rendell’s notoriously complex Barbara Vine mysteries, yet his prose moves along as briskly as that of Dick Francis at his best. Moreover, the whole metafictional twistiness of his current work — The Word Is Murder includes Anthony Horowitz himself as a major character — actually carries on from the gamelike nature of Golden Age whodunitry … Horowitz showcases a cleverness and finesse that even Dame Agatha might envy. Moonflower Murders resembles a super Mobius strip, interlacing multiple degrees and levels of fictiveness
–Michael Dirda (Washington Post)
The Law of Innocence, by Michael Connelly
(Little Brown)
“The law of innocence is simple—and complicated—as Michael Connelly shows in his 35th novel. The Law of Innocence moves at a brisk clip, working as a legal thriller, a police procedural and a character study of Mickey … The action never lags, even though the majority of scenes take place either in the prison or the courtroom, two claustrophobic settings … Connelly invests deeply in his characters, using each novel to explore their psyches.With the story taking place primarily in early 2020, The Law of Innocence offers a new challenge to Connelly’s affinity for zeroing in on contemporary issues. As Connelly builds tension, he weaves in rumors of a spreading virus; people begin wearing masks and chaos erupts at the supermarket. Intelligently plotted, The Law of Innocence again proves Connelly is a master storyteller.”
–Oline H. Cogdill (The Sun Sentinel)
Little Cruelties, by Liz Nugent
(Gallery/Scout Press)
“The much-decorated writer again displays a flair for plot and an uncanny ability to get under the skin of characters in the dysfunctional family drama … Nugent builds her narrative skilfully, with the ellipses in each brother’s account gradually filled in by the ensuing tales. All their psychologies are incisively laid out, consistent and layered across all sections … nobody is a mere cliché in Nugent’s clear, propulsive writing, and the author masterfully unveils the damage and hurt behind every motivation, and the petty resentments, delusions and carelessness that lie behind every nick and cut the family members inflict upon one another over the four decades of her tale … Nugent has won four Irish Book Awards for her previous three novels; it would be a cruelty to deny her further honours for her fourth.”
–Kristoffer Mullin (The Times UK)
The Russian Pink, by Matthew Hart
(Pegasus)
“Matthew Hart’s debut thriller, The Russian Pink, feels especially timely given its subject matter: a fraught presidential election and a Russian conspiracy … This novel plays out like an action movie, fast-paced and globe-trotting from New York City to Antwerp to South Africa. Hart’s compelling hero isn’t afraid to resort to violence, and we see him engaging in everything from sword fights to falling off the balcony of a skyscraper’s penthouse. There’s also a dash of romance to temper the action scenes. The Russian Pink is a fast read, never once allowing the reader to catch their breath. Perfect for fans of Robert Ludlum and David Baldacci, this thriller will have readers anxiously awaiting Hart’s next novel.”
–Elyse Discher (Bookpage)
The Kingdom, by Jo Nesbo
(Knopf)
“…a dense, suspenseful bundle of Norwegian noir … At 549 pages, The Kingdom (named after the Opgard’s family farm) feels as much like a miniseries as a novel. You’re so curious about what the next episode will bring that even if you’ve stepped away from the book for a meal or a good night’s sleep, you feel like one of those 19th-century readers who stormed the New York Harbor, awaiting the arrival of a new installment of a Dickens novel … The sometimes droll, sometimes eerily affectless, occasionally enraged narrator is Roy … While brutal emotional injury is at the center of the novel, social change is what keeps the Opgard family saga churning.”
–Richard Lipez (The Washington Post)
The Dirty South, by John Connolly
(Atria)
“Mr. Connolly’s slam-bang thriller is studded with memorable characters and boasts cliffhangers within cliffhangers.”
–Tom Nolan (The Wall Street Journal)
The Lady Upstairs, by Halley Sutton
(Putnam)
“Gritty and devious, this debut thriller burrows into the idea of the revenge fantasy, and plot twists come so quickly that readers will be left breathless. A vicious, noir-soaked look at one way women choose to seize power in this world.”
–Maggie Regan (Booklist)
V2: A Novel of WWII, by Robert Harris
(Robert Harris)
“As so often with Harris, the joy is in the history as much as the story. There are two conspiracies in this book but…it is only when you reach the end that you realise that the author’s narrative skills have tricked you into focusing on the sideshow … more drama than thriller. For all its pace—you will zip through it in no time—the rewards are in the meta-story. But Harris’s deceptively effortless prose means you barely notice. The effect is one of total immersion: you can feel the cold, taste the bacon sandwiches and imagine the trolleys squeaking across the floor.”
–Robert Shrimsley (Financial Times UK)
