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The Private Patient (Adam Dalgliesh Mystery)

P.D. James

Given the astonishing length of the writing career of PD James (her first novel was published in 1962), it is perhaps not surprising that her work often consciously refers back to an earlier era of British crime writing -- but it's none-the worse for that. In fact, James' clever and affectionate reinventions of the devices and conventions of that era afford a particular pleasure -- as is the case with her latest, The Private Patient.
Uncompromising investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn has booked herself into the Chandler Powell private clinic in Dorset. She has decided to remove a disfiguring facial scar, and is looking forward to what she hopes will be a new life after the surgery. But Rhoda will not leave the clinical alive - she is killed. After her murder, Commander Adam Dalgliesh is summoned to investigate. As he begins to examine suspects, scene and motives, a second death occurs, and Dalgliesh finds himself faced with one of the most complex and challenging mysteries of his career.
In many ways, The Private Patient has the structure of a novel from the golden age of crime fiction, and James is well aware of the very best writing from that era (including Cyril Hare, who James succeeded as premier crime writer for her publisher, Faber). Needless to say, she freights in a very modern level of psychological investigation, more penetrating than that of her great predecessors. If the novel seems less initially engaging than other recent work by the author, there is perhaps a subtle agenda here: James is avoiding the more obvious reader-grabbing tactics to present a low-key investigation of character than she has chosen to deal with in recent books. If a little more patience is required than usual, the result of this understated approach pays dividends. And admirers of James (and her doughty detective Dalgliesh) will be prepared to be flexible for the pleasures of the cogently handled narrative here. --Barry Forshaw
World Without End

Ken Follett
The Brass Verdict

Michael Connelly
Doors Open

Ian Rankin
Silks

Dick Francis, Felix Francis

There are few thriller writers who have had such long and distinguished careers as Dick Francis, and his lengthy series of books (with their zesty recreations of the racing world) are among many readers' favourite novels in the genre. Recently, ill-health seemed to threaten the author's reliable productivity, and the death of his wife (who had long been a behind-the-scenes collaborator on his books) made it appear that the golden days of the Dick Francis racing thriller were firmly in the past. However, here is Silks, the result of a collaboration between Dick Francis and his son Felix -- and it will be a welcome arrival for the legions of Francis admirers.
Julian Trent is found guilty of a violent unprovoked attack on an innocent family and a charge of attempted murder. He is accused by the judge of showing no remorse for his actions, but receives a remarkably light sentence. Surprisingly, this news is not welcome to his defence barrister, Geoffrey Mason, who was secretly hoping for a more severe judgement against his client, whom he does not like. Mason is a part-time jockey (this is a novel with Dick Francis's name on the jacket, after all), and when Mason dons his racing silks and travels to Sandown to follow his real passion -- riding a thoroughbred in a heated steeplechase -- he finds that he cannot leave the violence that is often the bread and butter of his profession behind him A fellow rider is savagely killed by a pitchfork driven through the chest, and there is a persuasive amount of evidence against champion jockey Steve Mitchell as the killer, but Mason becomes involved -- and finds all the various aspects of his life coalescing in a lethal fashion.
Dick Francis has 41 novels under his belt, and remains the consummate thriller practitioner. Felix, his son, had helped with the research on his father's novels over the last 40 years (notably Twice Shy, Shattered and Under Orders). Silks is their second full collaboration after Dead Heat, and should provides Francis aficionados with all the elements they've grown accustomed to. --Barry Forshaw
The Pillars of the Earth

Ken Follett
Devil Bones

Kathy Reichs
A Killing Frost

R.D. Wingfield
A Cure for All Diseases

Reginald Hill
Divine Justice

David Baldacci
A Snowball in Hell

Christopher Brookmyre
A Darker Domain

Val McDermid

1984. The National miners' strike is dividing the country, and in a struggling coal-mining town, the miners and their families are living at the edge of their resources. They have no money, and there is no food or heating. On the 14th of December, five miners break ranks to travel to Nottingham and work. For those who stay behind, this is an unforgivable betrayal, and the men are branded as scabs. 23 years later, a young woman is asking the police to trace her missing father: miner Mick Prentice vanished, never to be seen again, although money has been sent to his family; he was widely considered to be one of the scabs. Soon, D I Karen Pirie and DS Phil Parharta find themselves investigating a forgotten disappearance.

This is the provocative premise of Val McDermid's latest novel, A Darker Domain, and this utterly compelling book is further proof that McDermid is determined to stretch the parameters of what crime fiction is supposedly capable of. McDermid has always been prepared to freight serious issues into her work, and this novel -- which, in many ways, is an examination of the conditions that produced the Britain we live in today -- demonstrates the continuing high level of her ambition.

In fact, Karen Pirie, when taking on this new assignment, is already involved in a case of kidnapping that took place 22 years earlier (in which a woman was killed during a bungled handover of money). Journalist Bel Richmond makes a startling discovery concerning the MacLennan kidnapping while on holiday in Tuscany, and as the three protagonists dig deeper into ever-more labyrinthine mysteries, they are to make some remarkable discoveries -- discoveries which throw light not just on the crimes involved, but on the whole of British society.
As all of this might suggest, the stakes here are as high as one is likely to find in a crime novel, and Val McDermid demonstrates that she is as capable as ever of integrating the demands of the page-turning crime narrative with a discussion of the things that make society tick. McDermid fans who may be lamenting the fact that this is not another novel featuring Dr Tony Hill will quickly change their minds as A Darker Domain exerts its cobra-like grip. --Barry Forshaw
Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 2009 (Writers' & Artists' Yearbook)

Kate Mosse (foreword)
Deadly Intent

Lynda La Plante
Exit Music

Ian Rankin
Tripwire (A Jack Reacher Novel)

Lee Child

Ex-military policemen Jack Reacher is lying low in Key West, digging up swimming pools by hand. He is not best pleased when a private detective starts asking questions about him, but when the detective, Costello, turns up dead with his fingertips sliced off, Reacher realises it is time to move on. Soon (as in Child's two previous excellent thrillers Die Trying and Killing Floor) Reacher is up to his neck in lethal trouble involving a vicious Wall Street manipulator, a mysterious woman (of course) and the livelihood of a whole community. Even the fate of soldiers missing in action in Vietnam is stirred into the brew. But this is not a book by one of the new breed of US thriller writers: Child prides himself that, as an Englishman, he writes American thrillers that are utterly convincing in milieu and toughness of action, without a trace of English sensibility. This new one is no exception-- every bit as lean and compulsive as its predecessors, it also builds on the freshest aspect of those books: Reacher may be a tough, epic hero, but he always remains human and vulnerable. Here's one for that long plane or train journey.
--Barry Forshaw
Double Cross

James Patterson
The Bone Garden

Tess Gerritsen
Scarpetta

Patricia Cornwell
Found Wanting

Robert Goddard