We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (Viking, £22)
Osman’s eagerly awaited new series features bodyguard Amy Wheeler and her ex-copper father-in-law, Steve. Amy has been sent by her employer, Maximum Impact Solutions, to protect flamboyant bestselling novelist Rosie D’Antonio from a Russian oligarch who has taken exception to his portrayal in one of her books. Meanwhile, leading influencers who are clients of Maximum Impact Solutions are being murdered in an apparent attempt to frame Amy. Steve, widowed and lonely, is protecting his fragile equilibrium with a routine of unofficial surveillance and weekly pub quiz nights. After an attempt on Amy’s life, Steve reluctantly agrees to her request for backup and the odd threesome race around the globe, trying to figure out what’s going on while staying one step ahead of the hitman. Steve, who would not be out of place among the denizens of the Thursday Murder Club, comes off the page more successfully than Amy, but this caper, written in Osman’s trademark genial style, is sure to please.
Guide Me Home by Attica Locke (Viper, £18.99)
The last title in Locke’s award-winning Highway 59 trilogy is set in 2019. As is often the case with final volumes, it’s as much about delivering a whole-story resolution as providing a standalone mystery. Locke manages a good balance between the two, with protagonist Darren Mathews struggling to reconcile an origin story that turns out to contain as many “alternative facts” as a Trump press briefing. With the threat of indictment for his role in a previous case hanging over him, Mathews hands in his Texas Ranger badge, but a visit from his estranged mother propels him into an unofficial investigation. Sera Fuller, the only Black student in a sorority house at a local college, has gone missing, but nobody seems to care. Then a visit to Sera’s family home, in a town owned by a corporation that employs all the adult residents, reveals that what appears to be a sort of benevolent dictatorship has a very dark side. This is compelling political crime fiction.
