Mira Bunting has founded an eco-guerilla gardening group. She meets multi-billionaire Robert Lemoine. They use each other to achieve their goals, Mira’s to battle climate change and Robert’s to make more billions by disregarding the cost to the earth. The book’s well paced, the characters interesting and the dialogue is terrific. I did find the ending rather bleak so if you’re looking for a pick me up this isn’t it!

By Janice Hallett

The Twyford Code is written as a series of 200 audio files that have been recovered and deciphered from an iPhone belonging to Steven Smith, an ex-con recently released from prison after being incarcerated for 11 years. He is desperately trying to figure out what happened to his elementary school teacher, Miss Isles, when she disappeared on a field trip taken 40 years prior. Another unique approach to a mystery story that is clever, funny and compelling. I loved this one!

By Janice Hallett

The story revolves around a group of community theatre actors who have responded to an appeal sent out by their director. Someone ends up dead and the novel is written as series of emails interspersed with the musings of the detectives who are on this puzzling case. It is an original and very entertaining approach to solving a crime.

By Tsering Yangsom Lama

In the wake of China’s invasion of Tibet throughout the 1950s, Lhamo and her younger sister, Tenkyi, arrive at a refugee camp in Nepal. Their parents do not survive the journey. The sisters are fiercely loyal to each other. This story is compelling, the characters intimately drawn and the voices so authentic that I found myself laughing and crying alonside them. A beautiful written novel that talks about a history that was not known to me.

By; Bihuti Jain

This is a suspensful read about a daughter (Angie) and her dad (Bobby) who are trying to fit into a community that is dripping with privilege and racism. Angie comes across the brother of an ex-friend of hers bleeding from a stab wound in his abdomen. Angie does her best to recall what actually happened versus the narrative she is fed by the community and the people who want to cover up the truth. This is a great and challeging read.

12 year old Esther disappears on her way home from school. Her best friend Ronnie is determined to find her. Their “sort of” friend Lewis is holding something back. Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels is called in to investigate. Everybody has a secret and nobody in this small “dirt” town in the outbacks of Australia seems to be telling the truth. This is a great debut mystery story that reminded me of Jane Harper. Great characters, good suspense and an ending that was hard to see coming.

When do you speak out and at what cost? The story takes place on an unamed island in the aftermath of a US supported regime that has wreaked havok on the island people. Lena suspects that a powerful senator she was once involved with has murdered a young woman in his employ. What follows is a suspensful exploration of the forces that keep us silent in the face of evil. I loved the characters in this novel – even the slimy senator who I hoped would get his comeuppance in the end.

Ann Stilwell gets a job at the Cloisters, a museum and garden that is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. There she meets Patrick, who is her supervisor and is working with art dealers to locate a pack of 15th Century tarot cards. Ann and her colleague, Rachel, become embroiled in the mysterious dealings of these tarot cards. This is a very fun, interesting read, filled with twists and turns, and characters who keep you on your toes wondering about their motivations and just how far they will go to make their mark. I

By Stephen Spotswood

I’ve just read Murder under her skin which follows Fortune Favours the Dead. These books are set in post-WWII USA. Will and Ms Pentacost are two of the most unlikely characters to ever to be drawn as detectives, but detectives they are and they don’t fit that post war mould of what a woman must be. I fell in love with irreverent, feisty, hilarious Will. She reminded me of a wiser, older version of Flavia de Luce from Alan Bradley’s series.

By Janice Hallett

An amateur theater group starts a fundraising campaign when their director tells them that his granddaughter is in need of a very expensive drug to cure her of cancer. Someone is murdered and the chief inspector has asked two of his detectives to go through the emails that have been circulating prior to the murder. The book is told through the emails and the texts send between the detectives. This is an original, fun, baffling and twisty tale.