CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH:

The Invisible Man from Salem by Christoffer Carlsson

Similar in tone to last year’s hit The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (both books were written by authors young enough to fill this reviewer with some jealousy), The Invisible Man from Salem has a skilled yet youthful feel to it that never detracts from an unnerving and deadly tale. Suspended police officer Leo Junker is spending his days feeling increasingly bitter and abusing a variety of substances when a murder takes place right at the bottom of his building – a young woman is shot cleanly in the head and left on her bed with a necklace in her hand. And while he has no idea who the woman is, the necklace she holds is something entirely familiar – and it takes Leo back to his tumultuous teenage years and a splintered friendship that ended in tragedy.

Junker is an enthralling character to follow – rightly angry at the organisation that threw him to the wolves, but desperate to be back there and doing something, anything, but hanging out in his favourite bar and going on uncomfortable visits back to his family in Salem, the town he left behind. The dead woman on the bottom floor put the spotlight on him – again – but revisiting his damaged past may not do anything but cause him pain, especially when Junker is seemingly more at home surrounded by obviously dubious types than the moral people who continue to let him down. This is a gripping and highly enjoyable read with the kind of unreliable hero you can’t help but follow desperately, excitedly around.

These are the Names by Tommy Wieringa

A small group of emaciated and feral refugees appears out of nowhere, spreading fear and panic in a small border town on the steppe. When police commissioner Pontus Beg orders their arrest, evidence of a murder is found in their luggage. As he begins to unravel the history of their hellish journey, it becomes increasingly intertwined with the search for his own origins. He becomes the group’s inquisitor and, finally, something like their saviour. The apocalyptic atmosphere of the group’s exodus across the steppes becomes increasingly vivid and laden with meaning as Tommy Wieringa links man’s dark nature with the question of who we are and whether redemption is possible.

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

As evidenced by my book of the month, everybody loves a disgraced cop named Leo – and here’s another one, in the re-release of Smith’s enormously popular Child 44. With the movie, starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace and Gary Oldman (aka Le Carre’s Smiley), out soon, now’s the time to read or re-read this Soviet thriller. Leo Demidov is a war hero investigating a series of murders – based on the harrowing real-life killer, Andrei Chikatilo – even when the state does everything it can to stop his pursuit.

Death in the Rainy Season by Anna Jaquiery

Melbourne-based author Jaquiery returns with the sequel to the first (and adored) Parisian Commandant Serge Morel book, The Lying-Down Room. Morel, on holiday in Phnom Penh, is called to action – and away from his family – when a French man is found murdered. But who would kill the well-loved head of a humanitarian organisation that cares for underprivileged youth? Faced with an unfamiliar environment in Cambodia’s law enforcement system, Morel needs to adjust his usual techniques, bringing readers along on a ground-level investigation in a vividly rendered landscape. Death in the Rainy Season is a mystery soaked in both downpours and atmosphere – and an intelligent character piece.

The Stranger by Harlan Coben

Look, we all sometimes wonder about the person we’ve decided to spend the rest of our life with (seriously, who puts peanut butter in the fridge?) but married couple Corinne and Adam are travelling along happily enough, until a stranger at a meeting he was not even supposed to be at tells Adam a secret about Corinne – one that he can prove. What seems like a small family crisis is much, much bigger, and no one can tell it better than Coben, a master of twisting storylines, superb characters and more wit than you can shake a fake pregnancy test at.

Deadly Election by Lindsey Davis

Flavia Albia, the daughter of Marcus Didius Falco – Davis’ renowned Ancient-Rome-based hero – has an unexpected problem with one of the auction lots her family’s business is dealing with: namely, a decomposing body in a chest. Tough as nails and perfectly capable in a time unfriendly to women, Flavia, ever her father’s daughter, takes on the case, while helping her more-than-a-friend Manlius Faustus with some political dilemmas. It’s election time, and his friend Sextus (go on, you can snort like I did) is in the running – so can Flavia call his opponents into question before his own reputation is in tatters? Davis, as usual, writes wildly fun and historically refined fiction.

Woman of the Dead by Bernhard Aichner

After spending six months as an undertaker’s assistant, Aichner is well-placed to write the story of Blum: badass anti-hero, mortician, doting mother, once loving wife, now grieving widow. Her policeman husband, Mark, is killed in a hit-and-run right in front of her, and after Blum conducts a little police work of her own, she realises that his death was no accident. And so this woman of the dead, not for the first time, will wreak some bloodthirsty and delicious vengeance on those who cross her, in this excellent, snappy actioner.

Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbo

While the title could be shorthand for the entire Scandi-crime genre, Nesbo is one of the people who can get away with it – he is essentially Scandi-crime royalty. Here, the reader is immersed in a freezing 1970s winter, with Olav, a “fixer” (in the sense that he fixes people from being alive to being dead). He’s a man who sees the worth in disposing of unpleasant people, who doesn’t consider himself smart but strives to be better, and who is perhaps not entirely gifted at other criminal exploits – and when he’s given the job to fix his boss’s own wife, Olav sees in her a future he really wants. A short, sharp piece of introspective and bloody noir.

Fiona Hardy