Chilling Classic Crime for combatting the May heat: The Soho Murder by Mike Hollow, The
The Soho Murder by Mike Hollow (Allison & Busby £9.99, 384pp)
An antiquarian bookseller is shot dead. This being Soho during the Blitz, when the blackout was a cover for all manner of dirty deeds, there’s no shortage of suspects.
But the motive is elusive. As Inspector Jago discovers, the victim was hard up and desperate to raise money.
As the investigation progresses, Jago finds himself at odds with close-knit families disguising a past that holds deadly secrets.
Hollow has a deceptively easy style that allows his characters to speak for themselves.
A painstaking process of elimination eventually nails the guilty but not before we are led on a chase that offers thrills and spills at every turn.
The Ten Teacups by Carter Dickson (British Library £9.99, 288pp)
The unrivalled master of the closed room murder, John Dickson Carr, here as Carter Dickson, wrote this timeless humdinger mystery in 1937. It starts with an anonymous message to Scotland Yard requesting police presence at a particular time and place at an unoccupied house.
A reference to ten teacups reminds Inspector Masters of a case two years earlier when ten valuable teacups had featured in an unsolved murder.
Fearing a reprise, Masters has the address surrounded. A man is seen to enter but is alone in the house when shots are heard. Another murder is added to the list of apparently inexplicable deaths.
Under pressure to get results, Masters calls on Sir Henry Merrivale, amateur sleuth, to bring his superior intellect to bear on the case. As the puzzle unfolds, many a false lead is deployed before the truth is revealed. It is all fiendishly clever.
Murder On Bluebell Hill by Jane Bettany (HarperCollins £9.99, 256pp)
If it’s cosy crime you’re after, this has all the essential ingredients. Tucked away in the Peak District, Merrywell is a snug community where everybody knows everybody and gossip is a way of life. The trouble with the village is the disturbingly high murder rate.
True to form, the latest victim is a thoroughly nasty piece of work, unlamented by all except her husband who relied on his wife’s business brain to make lots of money.
As the local sleuth – with a track record of beating the police at their own game –
Violet Brewster is intent on identifying the murderer, not least because a close friend is under suspicion. With dogged persistence, Violet gathers the evidence that puts the police on the right track.
Building on a cast of credible characters, Jane Bettany gives us an engaging story with a few neat twists along the way.