The Predicament by William Boyd (Viking, £20) A second adventure for amateur spy Gabriel Dax, first seen in Boyd’s 2024 novel Gabriel’s Moon. It’s early 1963, and Dax, a travel writer, is... Read more »
Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson (Michael Joseph, £20)The bestselling YA author’s first novel for adults has an intriguing premise: thanks to the combination of a blow to the head by... Read more »
“No good opera plot can be sensible,” admitted W. H. Auden—a man with five opera libretti to his name—“for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.” It is true that... Read more »
Fox by Joyce Carol Oates (4th Estate, £18.99)In this hefty, immersive study of gullibility, complicity and betrayal, English teacher Francis Fox is a predator, all the more dangerous for being charming enough... Read more »
The actor Dwayne Johnson, who began his career as wrestler The Rock, is to co-author a nonfiction book about a Hawaii crime syndicate in the 1960s and 1970s. Writing on Instagram, Johnson... Read more »
Fair Play by Louise Hegarty (Picador, £16.99)Award-winning short-story writer Hegarty’s debut opens with guests arriving at an Irish Airbnb country house for a murder mystery-themed birthday party. Abigail has organised the celebration... Read more »
British writer Mick Herron, best known for his Slough House series beginning with Slow Horses, has been awarded the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Diamond Dagger award for lifetime contribution to crime writing.... Read more »
A “boundary-pushing take on the police procedural” which features a human detective working with an AI sleuth in order to solve a missing persons case has won the coveted Theakston Old Peculier... Read more »
Christie Watson is the first in a handful of big name authors with new thrillers out this month. Winner of the Costa first novel award for her debut, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away,... Read more »