On Monday, the virtual crime book club met to discuss Fatal Isles by Maria Adolfsson. The review of the Nordic Noir book was generally favourable, with a particular interest in the created setting of the fictional Doggerland – though a couple of thousand years ago a Doggerland existed but is now below sea level.
As far as meetings go, it was a slightly unusual one in that several members, myself included, had not yet quite finished or had bought and read the wrong book by accident! This led to one member having to leave early before the main spoilers were brought up.
You can watch the meeting on the video below, but be aware it contains full spoilers so maybe come back to watch when you have read the book if that is your intention.
Next month’s theme is open, so any crime book, of any sub-genre could be nominated. Please check out the blurbs and leave your vote in the comments by the end of Saturday 16th November. The next meeting to discuss the book is 8 p.m. GMT Monday 9th December.
Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera
Am I a murderer? You tell me . . .
Lucy Chase can’t remember anything about the night her best friend was murdered.
Lucky her, you’re probably thinking. Who would want that to be their last memory of someone they love?
But for Lucy, it’s become an issue.
Because everyone thinks she did it.
But that was five years ago, and Lucy has put it all behind her. Or at least, she thought she had, until an interfering yet not bad-looking podcaster offers her the opportunity to join his investigation into the night she forgot.
On the one hand, if she’s a murderer, it’s probably better to know – right? On the other, if she didn’t do it, she’ll be putting herself back in the sights of the person who did.
And either way, if you’ve already killed once, what’s to stop you from doing it again?
The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
Outside the island there is nothing: the world destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island: it is idyllic. 122 villagers and 3 scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they’re told by the scientists.
Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And they learn the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay.
If the murder isn’t solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island – and everyone on it.
But the security system has also wiped everyone’s memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer – and they don’t even know it…
Zero Kill by M K Hill
Meet Elsa Zero: Bad neighbour. Single mother. Ex-deep cover agent.
And right now, the most dangerous person on Earth.
When Elsa’s dull but dedicated boyfriend proposes in a packed restaurant, she doesn’t think her evening can get any worse. But as the clock strikes midnight, her world is turned upside down.
Suddenly Elsa is running for her life, trying to keep her children safe, and desperate to discover what the hell is going on.
Every intelligence agency in the world wants her dead because she’s in possession of a deadly secret – she just has to stay alive long enough to figure out what it is.
But this is Elsa Zero we’re talking about. And it’s a very bad idea to get on her wrong side.
All the Sinners Bleed by S A Cosby
A BLACK SHERIFF. A SERIAL KILLER.
AND A SMALL TOWN READY TO COMBUST.
Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, Charon has had only two murders. After years of working as an FBI agent, no one knows better than Titus that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.
But a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student. The student is then fatally shot by Titus’s deputies.
As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes, and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus tries to project confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.
Charon is Titus’s home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
My husband asked me to lie. Not a big lie. He probably didn’t even consider it a lie, and neither did I, at first . . .
In rural Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine – a pressurised oxygen chamber that patients enter for “dives”, used as an alternative therapy for conditions including autism and infertility. But when the Miracle Submarine mysteriously explodes, killing two people, a dramatic murder trial upends the Yoos’ small community.
Who or what caused the explosion? Was it the mother of one of the patients, who claimed to be sick that day but was smoking down by the creek? Or was it Young and Pak themselves, hoping to cash in on a big insurance payment and send their daughter to college? The ensuing trial uncovers unimaginable secrets from that night?trysts in the woods, mysterious notes, child-abuse charges?as well as tense rivalries and alliances among a group of people driven to extraordinary degrees of desperation and sacrifice.
Angie Kim’s Miracle Creek is a thoroughly contemporary take on the courtroom drama, drawing on the author’s own life as a Korean immigrant, former trial lawyer, and mother of a real-life “submarine” patient. Both a compelling page-turner and an excavation of identity and the desire for connection, Miracle Creek is a brilliant, empathetic debut from an exciting new voice.
All the Sinners Bleed
Hi
It was good to be at the book club meeting on Monday. Sadly, I may not make the 9/12 so I’m not going to vote. If I can make it then I’ll read whatever is chosen. Either way I hope to be at January’s meeting.
The Last Murder At The End Of The World looks different, I will vote for that please.
The Last Murder at the end of the World. Difficult I couldn’t make up my mind
I vote for Zero Kill; as the meetings usually fall during my work hours, I read or listen, to the book, and then watch the videos. It works for me!
Hi all, I’ll be voting for Stuart Turton “The Last Murder at the End of the World” which reminds me a little of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” (the title that kept changing as we became more politically correct!). I do like the others a lot too, but I happen to have the Turton on my Kindle already!
My vote is for Listen for the Lie or Zero Kill!
I finally finish ‘Fatal Isle’. I really quite liked it, and the ending took me completely by surprise.
This month my vote goes to All the Sinners Bleed.
See you in December.