HOLIDAY READING: Simon Kernick, Charles Cumming, Jeffrey Deaver and Peter Swanson

The holiday season is nearly on us and I have recently read four books that would make for ideal reading over the festive season, or as great gifts for the crime and thriller aficionado in your family.

It is hard not to like a book with the front page tagline of: “‘Tis The Season To Be Wary”.

Peter Swanson is a master of the unexpected, and his seasonal novella, The Christmas Guest (Faber), is a treat to read.

When Ashley Smith, a lonely American studying in London, is invited to spend Christmas with her classmate’s family at their Cotswolds manor house, it seems like a perfect country idyll. But is there something strange about the family and their old rundown house, and the holiday does not go as expected and ends in tragedy. Told largely through Ashley’s diary extracts, the book flows along at a good pace before the typically clever shift by Swanson in the telling, that will catch most readers off guard.

Swanson’s books are always a delight, and this novella is very enjoyable read. The atmosphere and the depiction of the small English village is pitch perfect, and there are also the usual witty references to classic crime novels. As is often the case with a Swanson novel, there is a touch of melancholy to the story and the characters are nicely sketched and credible. There is also a neat final sentence that will have you reflecting on what you have just read.

An ideal post-Christmas lunch read!

The Christmas Guest was released in the United Kingdom and the United States in September and has just been released in Australia.

You always know what you are going to get with a Simon Kernick novel; fast frenetic action and plenty of it, and this is certainly the case with The First 48 Hours (Headline).

The story is a rollercoaster of a read, that revolves around the kidnapping of the daughter of a prominent defense barrister, Becca Barraclough. The girl has been taken by a notorious gang, known as the Vanishers, who have been responsible for a string of kidnappings. If the parents pay up, and do not go to the police, the Vanishers always return their captives in a healthy state. But if they alert the authorities the child goes forever. In the case of Becca’s daughter, however, the kidnappers do not want money. They want Becca to do something that goes against all of her principles.

Shifting the viewpoint between Becca, the kidnappers and a dodgy cop, the story races along at a very brisk pace with an abundance of twists and turns, and plenty of surprises. As is usually the case with a Kernick novel, the telling is very unsentimental and most of the characters have a dark, or crooked, side to them. The plot is impossible to predict, and there is never the assumption that the good guys, if there are any, will win.

The book is set over a 48 hour period, and I read it in less time than that! A great book to take to the beach this summer (Australia).

The First 48 Hours was released everywhere in November 2023.

Also full of customary twists and turns and good moments of suspense is the latest Lincoln Rhyme thriller by Jeffery Deaver, The Watch Maker’s Hand (Harper Collins, 23 November 2023).

This is the sixteenth novel about the wheelchair bound Lincoln Rhyme and his now wife Amelia Sachs, and it provides the usual tightly wound plot and accelerating suspense that readers have come to expect. The story revolves an elaborate conspiracy that is threatening to bring New York to its knees. Rhyme is brought in to work out who is behind the attacks against the city and why, and while he and the authorities desperately try to stop them, an elusive assassin is watching from the sidelines.

Few of the subsequent Lincoln Rhyme novels have matched the suspense and surprises of the original one, The Bone Collector, but all of them have been highly entertaining. The Watch Maker’s Hand sticks true to the pattern of the others, with Deaver skilfully playing with reader’s expectations as the book races to a high voltage conclusion.

Another enjoyable holiday read for those who like to be surprised.

The Watch Maker’s Hand was released on 23 November 2023. Thanks to the publishers and the Canberra Daily for the copy of the book for review.

For those who enjoy high quality spy fiction, Charles Cumming’s latest Box 88 novel, Kennedy 35 (Harper Collins, 26 October 2023), is sure to fit the holiday reading bill.

Cumming is up there with Mick Herron, Henry Porter and Matthew Richardson as one of Britain’s leading contemporary spy writers and Kennedy 35 provides his usual mix of intelligent plotting, thrills and exemplary spycraft.

As has been the case with his previous two Lachlan Kite novels, Cumming splits the story between the present and the 1990s, in this case 1995.

After the troubled events in the last book, Judas 62, 24-year-old spy Lachlan Kite and his girlfriend, Martha Raine, are sent to Senegal on the trail of a war criminal responsible for hundreds of deaths during the Rwandan genocide. What should have been a reasonably routine snatch and grab, goes wrong from almost the beginning, forcing Kite to make choices that will have devastating consequences that will reverberate down the years.

In 2023 Eric Appiah, an old friend from Kite’s days at school, and an off-the-record asset for the agency that Kite works for, makes contact with explosive information about what happened all those years ago in West Africa. When tragedy strikes, Kite must use all his resources to bring down a criminal network with links to international terror, and protect Martha from possible assassination.

I really enjoyed the first Lachlan Kite novel, Box 88, but was less impressed with Judas 62. Kennedy 35 is a good return to form, although some of the moments between Kite and Martha grate. Once the 1995 storyline gets underway, it builds to a great, dramatic climax that delivers good thrills and violent action. The descriptions of Senegal are very evocative, and Cumming seems to really capture the feel of the place. The unravelling of the operation also drips with credibility and is very suspenseful. The 2023 sections feel a little tacked on, but once again Cumming brings them to a good and fitting conclusion, with a sting in the tail.

In all, the pick of the spy novels on offer this holiday season.

Kennedy 35 was released in late October 2023 in Australia and the United Kingdom and in late November in the United States. Thanks to the publishers and the Canberra Daily for the copy of the book for review.