Crime and mystery novels for reading groups and book clubs

November, 1967, Iceland. Fourteen-year-old Marsi has a secret penpal – a boy who lives on the other side of the country – but she has been writing to him in her older sister’s name.

Now she is excited to meet him for the first time. But when the date arrives, Marsi is prevented from going, and during the night her sister Stína goes missing – her bloodstained anorak later found at the place where Marsi and her penpal had agreed to meet.

November, 1977. Stína’s disappearance remains unsolved. Then an unexpected letter arrives for Marsi. It’s from her penpal, and he’s still out there… Desperate for news of her missing sister, but terrified that he might be coming after her next, Marsi returns to her hometown and embarks on an investigation of her own.

But Marsi has always had trouble distinguishing her vivid dreams from reality, and as insomnia threatens her sanity, it seems she can’t even trust her own memories … and her sister’s killer is still on the loose…

Gabriel Dax 2

Gabriel Dax, travel writer and accidental spy, is back in the shadows. Unable to resist the allure of his MI6 handler, Faith Green, he has returned to a life of secrets and subterfuge. Dax is sent to Guatemala under the guise of covering a tinderbox presidential election, where the ruthless decisions of the Mafia provoke pitch-black warfare in collusion with the CIA.

As political turmoil erupts, Gabriel's reluctant involvement deepens. His escape plan leads him to West Berlin, where he uncovers a chilling realization: there is a plot to assassinate magnetic young President John F. Kennedy.

In a race against time, Gabriel must navigate deceit and danger, knowing that the stakes have never been higher.

Wyndham And Banerjee 1

India, 1919. Desperate for a fresh start, Captain Sam Wyndham arrives to take up an important post in Calcutta's police force.

He is soon called to the scene of a horrifying murder. The victim was a senior official, and a note left in his mouth warns the British to leave India - or else. With the stability of the Empire under threat, Wyndham and Sergeant 'Surrender-not' Banerjee must solve the case quickly.

But there are some who will do anything to stop them...

DC Smith 1

When a young man drowns after a boisterous party in a small riverside town, his friends and family report it to the Kings Lake police as a devastating accident. DC Smith, newly returned from leave, and the young, ambitious trainee Christopher Waters are assigned to the case as a routine investigation.

But the post-mortem reveals violent injuries, witnesses give contradictory accounts of the events leading up to the drowning and locals seem determined to redirect their attention. Becoming increasingly suspicious of institutional caution and external interference, Smith and Waters strike out on their own. As they get closer to the truth, they realise the danger is not quite over.

A powerful and gripping crime novel based on the Wallace Murder, a national cause célèbre of the 1930s and still unsolved today.

One night in 1931 William Wallace was handed a phone message at his chess club from a Mr Qualtrough, asking him to meet at an address to discuss some work. Wallace caught a tram from the home he shared with his wife, Julia, to the address which turned out, after Wallace had consulted passers-by and even a policeman, to not exist.

On returning home two hours later he found his wife beaten to death in the parlour. The elaborate nature of his alibi pointed to Wallace as the culprit. He was arrested and tried, found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang, but the next month the Court of Criminal Appeal sensationally overturned the verdict and he walked free.

The killer was never found. Fifteen years on, the inspector who worked the case is considering it once more. Speculation continues to be rife over the true killer's identity.

And on a cruise in 1947, new information is about to come to light.

Eden Driscoll 1

***Signed by the author, exclusive to Gumshoe Books***

Met detective Eden Driscoll never wanted a child, but when his estranged sister vanishes from her sailboat, he is asked to look after her son Finn – the nephew he hadn’t even known existed. Resettled in the seaside town of Teignmouth, Eden adjusts to his newfound parenthood. Then Finn disappears from school, and Eden knows something is dreadfully wrong.

When Eden's sister's body is finally found, floating in the sea, local police rule her death an accident, but Eden isn’t convinced. She was an experienced sailor and would never sail without a life jacket. Eden starts searching his sister’s life for answers, and what he discovers changes everything.

The classic, atmospheric Australian thriller about the mysterious disappearance of a group of young girls. A cloudless summer day in the year nineteen hundred... Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock.

After lunch, a group of three girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of Hanging Rock. Further, higher, till at last they disappeared. They never returned.

Is Picnic at Hanging Rock fact or fiction? Only you can truly decide.

When Nicola Bridge moves back to Dorset after years as a CID detective in the big city, the last thing she expects is for the picturesque village of Fleetcombe to become a grisly crime scene. Jim Tiernan, landlord of the White Hart pub, has been found dead, the body staged with macabre relish on an isolated country road.

As soon as she starts asking questions, Nicola realises everyone in the village has something to hide. Frankie, the hairdresser who isn’t a skilled enough actor to conceal they’re lying about the night of the murder. Eddie, the delivery driver whose heart starts racing every time he drives past the crime scene.

Deakins, the embittered farmer still living in the shadow of a supposedly murderous ancestor. And even the little girl, hidden at the top of the playground slide, who’s watching them all. Whispers.

Rumours. Lies. But Nicola knows that somewhere among them, a killer is hiding in plain sight.

Because sometimes the smallest villages hide the darkest secrets...

Anna Deerin moves to a remote Cotswold cottage to become a gardener, trying to strip away everything she’s spent all her life as a woman striving for, craving the anonymity and privacy her new off-grid life provides.

But when she clears the last vegetable bed and digs up not twigs but bones, the outside world is readmitted. With it comes Detective Inspector Hitesh Mistry, who has his own reasons for a new start in the village of Upper Magna. Drawn in spite of herself to this unknown woman from another time, Anna is determined to uncover her identity and gain recognition for her, if not justice.

As threats to Anna and her new life grow closer, she and DI Mistry will find that this murder is inextricably bound up with issues of gender, family, community, race and British identity itself – all as relevant in decades past as they are to Anna today.

Hercule Poirot 6

Poor Roger Ackroyd. He knew the woman he loved had been harbouring guilty secret. And then, yesterday, she killed herself.

But guilty secrets rarely stay secret. Who had been blackmailing her? Had it really driven her to suicide? Sadly, Roger Ackroyd wasn’t going to live long enough to find out . . .