MURDER AND MAYHEM FROM AROUND THE WORLD – NEW CRIME RELEASES FOR SEPTEMBER 2024
From Antarctica to outback Australia to North America and a remote Irish Island, the crime and thriller releases for September roam across the world, and also cover a diverse range of styles and themes.
September is always a big month for new books, as publishers start putting out their early Christmas releases, and this year is no exception. I have already reviewed a couple of the September releases by Natalie Conyer and David Whish-Wilson (https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/australian-crime-fiction-2024-new-books-by-natalie-conyer-and-david-whish-wilson/), but here are a few more that have caught my attention.
Leading the books by big name authors is Lee Child’s Safe Enough, (Transworld, 20 August 2024).
Spanning the American continent and across the seas to Northern Ireland and Brazil, Safe Enough is an engaging collection of short stories by the creator of Jack Reacher, Lee Child. Ranging from a drug-dealing hit man who unburdens his fears to a stranger, to an overlooked rookie cop who is assigned to the department’s file room to a secret mission in Northern Ireland to tidy up some loose ends, these stories showcase Child’s ability to craft short, sharp pieces of diverting, criminal entertainment.
In the interesting Introduction, Child describes the delight and freedom of writing stories that did not feature his famous character, and these twenty stories certainly show off his ability to write in a different voice and style. The legendary Reacher only appears in a bonus story at the end. A collaboration between Child and Tess Gerritsen, Over Easy is probably one of the better stories in the collection, and will certainly appeal to those after a Reacher ‘hit’!
I have already read Safe Enough and will be reviewing it in the next day or so, but suffice to say it is well worth putting on your ‘to read list’.
Safe Enough is released in Australia on 20 August 2024, the United Kingdom on 29 August 2024, and in the United States on 3 September. 2024.
Another major release is the latest book by Richard Osman, We Solve Murders (Penguin, 17 September 2024), who has temporarily deserted his Thursday Murder Club crew for a sparkling new set of characters and a new series.
The publishers have provided the following details:
“Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favourite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.
Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job . . .
Then a dead body, a bag of money and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a deadly enemy?”
I have already started reading this one. Although it is not the Thursday Murder Club, it does have the same lively style and wry humour, and I am sure that it will be a big hit with the fans of his earlier books.
We Solve Murders is released in Australia on 17 September 2024 and in the United Kingdom on 12 September 2024.
Another popular release will be the latest novel by British author Peter May.
May’s Lewis Trilogy ranks among some of the best crime fiction of the past twenty years. Now with The Black Loch, (Riverrun, 12 September 2024), he returns to the Isle of Lewis and policeman Fin Macleod.
“The body of eighteen-year-old TV personality Caitlin is found abandoned on a remote beach at the head of An Loch Dubh – the Black Loch – on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis. A swimmer and canoeist, it is inconceivable that she could have drowned. Fin Macleod left the island ten years earlier to escape its memories. When he learns that his married son Fionnlagh had been having a clandestine affair with the dead girl and is suspected of her murder, he and Marsaili return to try and clear his name. But nothing is as it seems, and the truth of the murder lies in a past that Fin would rather forget, and a tragedy at the cages of a salmon farm on East Loch Roag, where the tense climax of the story finds its resolution.”
May’s Lewis Trilogy is highly regarded by a large number of crime fiction readers, and there will be considerable pressure for The Black Loch to meet that standard.
The Black Loch is released in Australia on 10 September 2024 , in the United Kingdom on 12 September 2024 and in the United States on 17 September.
Also set on a remote island is Brooke Hardwick’s debut novel, The Fog (Simon & Schuster, 4 September 2024).
The Fog is the latest in a steady stream of ‘Destination Thrillers’ to hit the desk this year, but Australian author Brooke seems to be trying something a little different with her book set on the sinister Rathlin Island off the coast of Ireland:
“Kate arrives on the wild, remote island of Rathlin in the freezing Irish Channel for a ten-day writers’ retreat. Plagued by memories she can’t unravel and desperate to understand the breakdown of her marriage, Kate is determined to leave the retreat with answers.
As the retreat’s director uses techniques that tap into the eerie mythology of the island, Kate becomes increasingly fascinated by him and her surrounds. But when the temperature plummets and the strange therapy intensifies, her memories unspool. Triggered into a series of disturbing flashbacks, Kate realises her past hides a frightening truth, but can she trust her own mind?
Faced with dark secrets and duplicity, Kate must unlock the answers she’s so desperate to find – and survive the danger she has unwittingly walked into.”
The Fog is released in Australia on 4 September 2024.
Another promising Australian debut set in a cold location is Riley James’ Antarctica thriller The Chilling, (Allen & Unwin, 3 September 2024).
The publishers have provided the following:
“Keen to flee the wreckage of her marriage, Australian scientist Kit Bitterfeld accepts a coveted winter research position at Macpherson Station in Antarctica. On the way there, Kit and her fellow researchers field a distress call from a nearby ship.
By the time they reach the vessel it is on fire and the crew has vanished. A lone survivor is found, but he can’t remember who he is or what has happened.
They bring the survivor, identified as geophysicist Nick Coltheart, to Macpherson, but it’s clear that something is wrong. More and more of Kit’s colleagues are acting strangely. And she can’t shake the suspicion that Nick knows more than he’s letting on. With the winter darkness setting in, Kit must figure out the truth before they are completely cut off from the outside world. But is the danger lurking out on the ice, or is it closer than she thinks?”
The Chilling seems to offers a fresh twist on the Australian thriller setting and will be high on my list to read when I get a copy.
The Chilling is released in Australia on 3 September 2024.
Award winning Australian author Christian White has been described as Australia’s ‘Master Of Misdirection’ and his latest book, The Ledge (Affirm Press, 24 September 2024), seems set to be another twisty tale of surprises and suspense.
The publishers have provided the following information:
“When human remains are discovered in the forests of regional Victoria, the police are baffled, the locals are shocked, and one group of old friends starts to panic. Their long-held secret is about to be uncovered.
It all began in 1999 when sixteen-year-old Aaron ran away from home, dragging his friends into an unforeseeable chain of events that no one escaped from unscathed.
In The Ledge, past and present run breathlessly, tensely parallel, leading to a cliff-hanger nobody will see coming. This is a mind-bending new novel from the master of the unexpected.”
I am enjoying the number of new Australian novels set in our mountainous areas, and I am really looking forward to this new book from Christian White.
The Ledge will be released in Australia on 24 September 2024. No details are available on when it will be released overseas.
Set a long way from the Victorian High Country is High Wire, (Penguin, 24 September 2024), by the incredibly prolific Candice Fox.
By my reckoning this will be the third book by Candice this year after the collaboration effort with James Patterson, Murder Inn, and her stand alone New York thriller, Devil’s Kitchen.
Fox is becoming well known for her high voltage crime thrillers and High Wire seems to offer more of the same:
“You only take the High Wire if you’re desperate – or up to no good.
A notorious unmarked track through outback Australia, the ‘Wire’ crosses slabs of lawless land, body-dumping grounds and mobile-phone blackspots.
Harvey Buck is certainly desperate. Racing to be with his dying girlfriend, he encounters Clare Holland, whose car has broken down. He offers the hapless traveller a ride . . . and then their nightmare begins.
The pair are ambushed by a vengeful crew – and strapped into bomb vests. As part of a deadly game, Harvey and Clare are forced to commit a series of increasingly murderous missions, or else be blown to smithereens.
Senior Sergeant Edna Norris is dealing with a runaway teenager; not an unusual job in a place where people go to disappear. But an unfolding crime spree turns this outback cop’s night into a fight for survival. Hot on Harvey and Clare’s trail, Edna finds a burnt-out car, a missing woman, a bank robbery and a bullet-riddled body.
And this road trip from hell has only just begun.”
High Wire is released in Australia on 24 September 2024. Release dates for overseas do not seem to be available at the moment.
Josh Kemp’s debut novel Banjawarn won the 2022 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction.
His latest novel, Jasper Cliff (Fremantle Press, 3 September 2024), is similarly set in the Western Australia outback and seems to offer the same strong sense of place and people:
“When Toby Bowman vanishes, his brother Lachlan retraces a road trip to the last place Toby phoned from – a remote northern town called Jasper Cliff. There, Lachlan finds himself marooned at the dying town’s pub, and soon learns that his brother is just one of many to have gone missing in recent years. Like Toby, his brother becomes obsessed with finding the Rift, a deep hole in a ravine somewhere in the hills. But what will Lachlan learn, and what will he see, if he stares into the Rift, too?”
Jasper Cliff will be released in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom on 3 September 2024.
I have read and enjoyed Tami Hoag’s novels in the past, particularly Dust To Dust and The Messenger, but have not seen one of her books for awhile. I am therefore keen to read her new book, Bad Liar (Trapeze, 24 September 2024), which seems to offer a good, intricate tale of small town American crime.
“A murder victim dumped at the dead end of a lonely country road, face and hands obliterated by a shotgun blast, is not the way sheriff’s detective Nick Fourcade wants to start his week. His only lead takes him to the family of a hometown hero suddenly gone missing. Marc Mercier left his home for a weekend hunting trip and hasn’t been seen since.
Meanwhile, sheriff’s detective Annie Broussard begins her first day back on the job after suffering a brutal attack by taking on the case of B’Lynn Fontenot, a mother desperate to find her grown son, a recovering drug addict. Robbie Fontenot has been missing for eight days, but the local police have no interest in the case, telling B’Lynn that an adult has the right to disappear, and a missing addict is no big surprise. But B’Lynn swears her son was turning his life around. Sympathetic to a mother’s anguish, Annie agrees to help B’Lynn, knowing she’s about to start a turf war with the city police.
As Annie searches for Robbie Fontenot and Nick investigates the disappearance of Marc Mercier, it quickly becomes apparent that nothing is as it seems in the lives of either man. And it’s still not clear whether either—or neither—of them might be the unidentified murder victim. Old jealousies and fresh deceits, family loyalties gone wrong and love turned sour all lay a twisting trail that leads deep into the Louisiana swamp, endangering all who cross the path of a bad liar.”
Bad Liar is released in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom on 24 September 2024.
In addition to the above there are also new books by Ann Cleeves (The Dark Wives) and Pauline Rowson (The Chidham Creek Murders), which I will be reviewing in the next few days, and David Goodman’s A Reluctant Spy, which I have previously highlighted: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/best-new-crime-novels-july-to-december-2024/. Plus new releases by Alan Carter, Dave Warner, Ian Rankin, Chris Hammer and Michael Connelly coming in October!