Harriet and I are beginning to settle into our new routine over at Shiny New Books. We are now publishing new content each Tuesday and Thursday (with occasional other days in the mix to accommodate blog tours etc.). If you don’t have time to visit regularly, why not sign up to the newsletter to receive our monthly roundup. Please do comment if you have time.
I’ve contributed reviews over this and last week of two cracking good debut crime thrillers, which I want to highlight to you here.
Sirens by Joseph Knox
A disgraced policeman, the missing daughter of the local MP, a dangerous drug dealer and corruption wherever you look – these are the main ingredients of Sirens, set in Manchester. New British crime at its best and setting the bar afresh for ‘Manc Noir’. I said in my review:
The pace is fast-moving and chapters are short, each a single scene. Many are only a page or two long, at most a handful making it a novel that kept me turning the pages. I was amazed that Sirens is a debut novel for Knox gives full rein to his vision of druggy mean streets in a complex plot that feels as if he’s been writing for years, (he is Waterstones’ crime buyer). The Wire meets Line of Duty in Manchester – I couldn’t put it down.
Read my full review HERE
Buy from Amazon UK here
Paradise City by Joe Thomas
Joe Thomas lived and taught in São Paulo, the most populous city in the Americas and Southern Hemisphere, for ten years. His observations and experience of living in this vibrant city full of extremes inspired his first novel (he’s written a companion article about the city for Shiny too here).
Paradise City is a contemporary crime novel that brings the extraordinary city of São Paulo to life. From the favelas to the high-rises via terrible traffic, this is a city bursting with opportunity, and there will always be those who seek to use that for no good. This is the first contemporary crime novel I’ve read set in South America (I think). I’m glad that Thomas is writing another, I’m definitely looking forward to meeting his leading man, detective Mario Leme again.
Read my full review HERE
Source: Both review copies – thank you.
I’m enjoying reading the reviews from the new Shiny – having them in regular chunks is a bit easier to manage I find than a quarterly issue with tons of new stuff at once!