Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel by Lucy Foley (HarperCollins, £22)
This, the first Miss Marple continuation novel, must have been a more difficult undertaking than a new Hercule Poirot; furnished by Christie with a cartoonist’s worth of exaggerated traits, the Belgian detective is surely easier to bring off the page than the unassuming but observant elderly spinster. Foley makes a commendable attempt, removing Miss Marple from the postwar austerity of St Mary Mead to the comparative luxury of the Swiss Alps. Although we are introduced to the unnamed body in the gondola cabin at the start, an immediate backward shift for a two-day lead-up means Miss Marple has little actual detecting to do until about halfway through the proceedings. Employing four narrators rather dilutes things, as well as necessitating a considerable amount of Murder of Roger Ackroyd-style withholding of information, but Foley’s Miss M shows her true colours when – of course – the hotel gets cut off from the outside world, and provides a solution worthy of the Queen of Crime herself.
The Silent Appeal by Janice Hallett (Viper, £20)
Bestseller Hallett’s latest novel reunites us with amateur dramatic group the Fairway Players, first encountered in her debut novel, The Appeal. This time the play is The Hollow, dramatised by Agatha Christie from her novel of the same name, and, as before, lawyers Charlotte and Femi are called upon to review the mountain of emails, online messages and police reports through which the story is told, in order to figure out exactly what happened. All we know at the start is that “a brutal murder was committed” and Hallett slowly but expertly ratchets up the tension as clashes over casting, power plays, marital suspicions and distrust of newcomers create an entire gallery of potential murderers and murderees. The epistolatory method may not be for everyone, but Hallett excels at the form – these missives are variously funny, sinister, heartfelt and thoroughly human in their relatable pettiness – and the plot is well up to her usual standard.
Cold Sunset by William Boyd (Viking, £20)
Boyd’s third novel to feature British travel-writer-cum-spy Gabriel Dax takes place in 1964. Initially on the trail of a wartime double agent for the Soviet Union, who operated out of Bletchley Park, our man is then sent to Moscow in order to exfiltrate repentant double agent Kit Caldwell, who promises to offer up secrets in return for sanctuary back in Blighty. Naturally, none of this goes according to plan … Boyd is an accomplished storyteller, excellent on period detail and often funny – the dinner party of self-important Hampstead literati is particularly good – and one can’t help taking proprietorial pleasure in seeing Dax’s tradecraft gradually improving, although he remains alarmingly in thrall to his MI6 handler and on/off lover, Faith Green, who continues to run rings round him. I’d recommend reading this superb series in order.
The Occidental Book of the Dead by T Geronimo Johnson (Abacus, £25)
Taking place in a lightly fictionalised version of Atlanta, Georgia, the central storyline in this wide-ranging juggernaut of a third novel seems superficially straightforward. In 2005, after 13 years in the police force, Black officer George Washington Jonson finds himself in hot water when his redneck rookie partner shoots and kills a white teenager. In due course, a film version of this event and its aftermath serves up an acceptable narrative about racism and corruption. But in the second half of the book, hero-of-the-hour Jonson gives us his own version of the story, which the film-makers told faithfully “except for that fairytale series finale and a couple other facts Hollywood found inconvenient”. The truth, which is much more complex, is a lot less comfortable: internalised racism, overlapping identities, double standards and the sheer messiness of people’s lives are laid bare in an immersive and thought-provoking read.
The Last Tenant by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, translated by Victoria Cribb (Orenda, £9.99)
The final book in Ægisdóttir’s award-winning Forbidden Iceland series sees Detective Elma Jónsdóttir investigating the case of two skeletons – a woman and a baby, buried some years apart – which have been discovered at a long-abandoned farmhouse in the country outside Akranes, the small west coast town where she works. The farmer who owned it had a reputation for cruelty, but he is long dead, and his son never returned to claim the place. Elma tries to find answers, but is distracted by problems at home – might her partner be having an affair? Meanwhile, single mother Karitas and her young son, Bessi, are in Akranes for a fresh start, but her eccentric landlord’s behaviour is becoming disturbing. Missing family members, people living with past trauma, and the insidious damage caused by secrets abound in this atmospheric and powerful novel.
