Thanks to the success of the likes of Richard Osman and Lucy Foley, this was a year when we couldn’t move for cosy crime novels or locked room mysteries (or locked island or snowed-in ski lodge, you get the picture). Celebrities turning to crime (fiction) have also been thick on the ground, with everyone from Michael Caine to Martin Kemp and Shirley Ballas dabbling in the mystery genre.
The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett (Viper)
Any lover of code-cracking and mysteries would be delighted to find a Janice Hallett novel in their stocking. The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, told in Hallett’s trademark mix of emails, texts and transcriptions, digs into the old case of a cult whose members all took their own lives 18 years ago, and is a joy of a puzzle to crack.
