Tom Thorne is a favourite of mine, and for good reason. He’s prickly, sardonic and frequently a tad rude, but he has a huge heart underneath it all and a keen sense of justice. Couple all of that with his love for Indian takeaways and you have a winner.

It’s hard to believe there have been sixteen books in this series, and it just keeps getting better and better. Mark Billingham has a real talent for writing twisty mysteries that nonetheless don’t all hinge on the final “shock” moment as so many do these days.

In Their Little Secret, Thorne is called to the scene of a suicide. A woman has jumped in front of a commuter train, and a homicide detective needs to sign to say there was nothing suspicious or untoward about the death. But something just seems off, and soon, Thorne is visiting the woman’s family and learning that she was recently swindled by a conman who made off with almost a hundred thousand pounds of her savings.

Angered but with his hands tied, Thorne hands it off to the Fraud department. All seems back to normal until a young man is found murdered on a beach – miles away – and the conman’s DNA is found beneath his fingernails…

Told from alternating perspectives, Their Little Secret lets us into the minds of not only Tom Thorne, but also Sarah, a deeply troubled young woman with a dark secret, and Conrad, the scam artist bilking women out of their savings, who becomes entangled with one person that he can’t quite control.

Put simply, I was riveted. This is one of Billingham’s best Thorne novels. The genius here is not being quite sure of anyone’s true motivations. The feeling of being on the edge of a avalanche that may tumble with the crack of a tree branch. Even the relationships between Thorne, Hendricks and Nicola Tanner seem balanced on the precipice, teetering on the brink of a fall. Their own kinship may be what ultimately destroys them.

That, they have in common with the killers. Their little secrets, threatening everything.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I appreciate it!

No visitors. No nights spent away from the apartment. No disturbing the other residents, all of whom are rich or famous or both. These are the only rules for Jules Larsen’s new job as an apartment sitter at the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan’s most high-profile and mysterious buildings. 

Sounds simple, right? What could possibly go wrong?

Thankfully, quite a bit. This is a compulsively readable novel from Riley Sager, a favourite of mine since his debut, Final Girls, which was such a fresh take on the typical ‘slasher’ that I almost cheered when I read it. When authors can take a trope and make it feel as if you’re discovering it for the first time – that, my dear friends, is talent.

Although I always hesitate to pronounce any book the author’s “best yet”, well… I might make an exception? Because Lock Every Door was just so deliciously addictive.

As you can see from the blurb above, our heroine Jules Larsen has taken a new job as an “apartment sitter” in the Bartholomew, a fancy-schmancy building in one of Manhattan’s most coveted neighborhoods. Adding to the building’s appeal is is that it was the setting for one of Jules favourite childhood books, Heart of a Dreamer, a book she shared with her sister before she disappeared eight years before.

As you can imagine, Jules is pretty excited to be standing in the pages of a book she loves so much – and feel some connection to her beloved sister, so she takes the job without much introspection – even agreeing to the arcane rules – such as “no visitors” and “no talking to the other residents”.

Jules becomes close with another apartment-sitter, Ingrid. Ingrid isn’t quite so warm and fuzzy about the Bartholomew, and spills her worries about the building’s dark past, and what might be going on in the present. When Ingrid vanishes in the night, leaving only an echo of a scream, Jules feels compelled to find her, and sets out to do her own research into the Bartholomew, its residents, and what secrets the walls might be hiding.

At its heart, this is a story about relationships – between sisters, between friends, strangers, lovers, killers and victims, to buildings and to fantasies, between our bodies and our hearts. The connections between those things, between us and our past, between privilege and poverty – it’s all so tenuous but can feel so bloodied.

This is a wild ride, and you should let Sager take you on it. He knows exactly what he’s doing. I had absolutely no idea what the denouement would bring, and was that ever a treat.

One of the best thrillers of the year, no doubt. Enjoy.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I appreciate it!

I have one thing to say.

HERBERT!

Okay, I have more to say. This book is delightful. It’s everything I didn’t know I needed or wanted in a mystery novel, complete with biting wit, atmospheric tension, a crackerjack sense-of-place, three extremely unreliable and captivating narrators, and one of the most adorable dogs to ever exist on paper – Herbert, he of the woolly white fur and love of crisps.

Clare Cassidy – who I would argue is the main character of this piece – is an English teacher at Halgarth High in Sussex, which she believed would be a quiet place to recover from her divorce and continue raising her teenage daughter Georgia. Even more appropriately, Halgarth High was once the home of Clare’s favourite Gothic writer, R.M. Holland, and holds its own mysteries (and ghosts) within its hallowed halls.

Fiction bleeds into reality when Clare’s good friend, and fellow teacher, Ella Ephwick is found murdered in her home, and it seems as though Holland’s morbid tale, The Stranger, is coming to startling life. When a police detective named Harbinder Kaur is put on the case, Clare turns to her diary to sort out her muddled fears, and finds something new within the pages – a message. Hallo Clare, you don’t know me.

The novel switches between Clare, Harbinder and Clare’s daughter Georgia. Each woman has her own secrets, and all are equally worthy of spending time with. I’m not usually a fan of authors flipping back and forth between narrators, because I often find I’ve fallen in love with one person’s voice and then they’re gone, or worse yet, the voices don’t sound at all dissimilar, and I can’t remember who is supposed to be speaking. Thank goodness Griffiths doesn’t have that problem. Clare, Harbinder and Georgia are distinct, clearly delineated characters, and all offer their own foibles and strengths, their own hopes and selfish desires.

Although I could have gladly spent days (months!) with these women (in the unlikely event that Elly Griffiths is reading this – please make it a series, I’m begging you from my soul), I was also desperate to know the answer to the central question: who is the killer re-creating Holland’s stories of horror?

I didn’t guess for one moment who it was (if you read my reviews, you’ll know I normally do – even once from the synopsis) – and the ending was pitch-perfect and electrifying – from the shock of the killer’s true identity, to finally getting to read R.M Holland’s short story, The Stranger, in full.

The star of the story though – is Herbert. Herbert, Clare’s dog, who she loves with a fierce simplicity that I recognized immediately. My dog is my familiar, my companion, “my soul in animal form”. This quote – I love him so much that sometimes, when I look at him, I’m quite surprised to find he’s covered in hair. It made me laugh, it made my eyes sting with tears. Yes, this is how it is, loving these helpless, funny, greedy, loyal and endlessly affectionate beings – who ask for almost nothing, but take your entire heart.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I appreciate it!