Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday, £22)
The sixth Jackson Brodie book finds the PI firmly in Agatha Christie – even Cluedo – territory, as Brodie is tasked by a pair of siblings with investigating the possible theft of one of their recently deceased mother’s paintings. After some reluctant assistance from DC Reggie Chase, he begins to suspect that the theft may be linked to the disappearance of a Turner from Burton Makepeace, a nearby stately home. The owners, in an attempt to make their crumbling pile financially viable, have converted part of it into a hotel. When Jackson and Chase arrive, they are hosting a murder mystery weekend with a group of fractious thespians delivering well-worn lines in front of a captive audience – literally, because a snowstorm soon cuts off all means of escape and lines of communication. Sharp, droll and knowing as ever, Atkinson has huge fun with the set-up; the supporting cast is terrific, and the rueful Brodie, ever more mindful of the passing years, feels like an old friend.
Guilty By Definition by Susie Dent (Zaffre, £16.99)
Set in Oxford, in the offices of the Clarendon English Dictionary, lexicographer Dent’s debut novel, which makes splendidly atmospheric use of the city of dreaming spires, is about the hidden lives of words as well as people. It begins with the first in a series of bafflingly cryptic anonymous letters challenging senior editor Martha Thornhill and her colleagues to solve a murder. The references are to the disappearance of Martha’s elder sister Charlie, who vanished more than a decade earlier, when Martha was still at school. As the editors work through the fiendishly difficult clues, their investigation reveals that not only did golden girl Charlie have a dark side, but that she may have been keeping an astounding secret. Guilty By Definition may not be the most emotionally engaging novel you’ll read this year, but this astonishingly clever literary mystery will be catnip to logophiles and cruciverbalists alike.
