Serial thriller from the king of storytellers; NEVER FLINCH by Stephen King, THE
NEVER FLINCH by Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton £25, 432pp)
THE founder of the Finders Keepers detective agency, Holly Gibney – one of King’s most memorable characters in recent years – returns to help her friend, detective Izzy Jaynes, track down a serial killer who has threatened to ‘kill 13 innocents and one guilty’ to avenge the death of an innocent man, who was killed in jail after he had been wrongly convicted of murder.
But then Holly is diverted to act as bodyguard for women’s rights advocate Kate McKay who is embarking on a nationwide tour of the US, but who is being stalked and threatened by a ruthless vigilante.
The master storyteller has lost none of his grasp of the dark heart in the soul of Middle America: the result is simply superb.
THE RETIREMENT PLAN by Sue Hincenbergs (Sphere £16.99, 336pp)
THREE suburban American housewives of a certain age decide they have had enough of their humdrum lives and husbands who do not seem to care about them. They want to match their friend, whose world changed when her husband was found dead. She took off for a new life in Florida with the insurance money.
So they come up with a plan to kill their husbands to enable their new lives. What they don’t know is that their husbands have a secret scheme of their own – to steal $10million from a local casino.
A wonderful cosy crime novel with a sharp edge. Ingenious, twisty and often hilarious – with a neat ending – this debut from a former TV producer is certainly a match for Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club.
DEAD WATER by Simon Toyne (Hemlock Press £16.99, 384pp)
A CORPSE is washed up on the banks of the Thames near Tower Bridge with no head and no hands, simply an address mysteriously tattooed on one arm. DCI Tannahill Khan realises the killer wanted the body found, and the tattoo is the reason. It is the address of Khan’s friend and collaborator, forensic criminologist Dr Laughton Rees.
So begins the third of Toyne’s excellent series involving the two detectives. It transpires that Rees is living in the flat once owned by her late father, Met detective John Rees, who was responsible for the conviction of a brutal band of robbers 16 years ago – and one of the gang is set on revenge for his years in prison.
Written with Toyne’s practiced flair for suspense, the story is as fast flowing and threatening as the Thames itself