By Craig Sisterson
GUIDE ME HOME by Attica Locke
(Viper, $37.99)
As the world braces to see what a second Trump presidency may bring, it’s strangely fitting that Attica Locke has returned with an excellent finale to her trilogy starring black Texas Ranger Darren Mathews. The first in this series, Bluebird, Bluebird – which should definitely be in the conversation for best crime novels of the past decade – was written during Trump’s 2016 campaign. Alongside rich characterisation and storytelling, that novel became unhappily prophetic with its incisive observations about divisive political rhetoric emboldening US white supremacists. Now, in Guide Me Home, a bourbon-soaked Mathews hands in his badge, disillusioned by how law and justice are being twisted in Trump’s America, only for his mother to again upturn his life. She wants help uncovering what has happened to a black girl missing from a white sorority. Mathews reluctantly agrees, only to uncover a snakes’ den of deceit.
Locke soaks readers in her East Texas setting, and takes them on a character-centric thrill ride through a slice of modern America, where the prejudices and narratives of the past are stirred and shaken in the present. A top-shelf, troubling read from a master storyteller.
NOTES ON A DROWNING by Anna Sharpe
(Orion, $37.99)
London author Anna Mazzola returns to her roots with her tense new pseudonymous novel, as the award-winning historical thriller writer and criminal justice lawyer takes readers into a twisty modern tale of legal intrigue, power, corruption and human trafficking.
Determined lawyer Alex is already pushing it at home and work when she is roped into more pro bono work – the bane of her boss’s life – with an inquest into the drowning in the Thames of Natalia, a Moldovan teenager.
Authorities seem quick to snap to an “accidental death” judgment, but resolution isn’t as simple for others. The official story doesn’t add up to Natalia’s older sister Rosa, and Alex remains haunted by the disappearance of her own sister years before.
Past and present collide when Kat, an ambitious special adviser to the Home Secretary, becomes involved after stumbling across troubling information that powerful people may be trying to hide. With taut storytelling, fascinating characters, tough real-life issues, Sharpe has crafted a cracking tale.
THE LABYRINTH HOUSE MURDERS by Yukito Ayatsuji, translated by Ho-Ling Wong
(Pushkin Vertigo, $27.99)
Japan has a rich history of mystery fiction; thankfully in recent years there’s been a translation boom, opening up these tales for foreign readers. The Labyrinth House Murders is a fascinating new-to-anglophones locked-room mystery, originally published in 1988.
The third of nine books in legendary mystery and horror writer Yukito Ayatsuji’s Bizarre House mystery series, it involves ingenious sleuth Shimada Kiyoshi investigating a deadly game at the house of famed author Miyagaki Yotaro. Four young crime authors, invited with select others to celebrate Yotaro’s 60th birthday, are trapped in the labyrinth as part of a deadly competition for a grand inheritance. It’s an intricate, clever mystery that’s a near love letter to the genre, so it’s easy to see why Ayatsuji has achieved legendary status in his homeland. Hopefully more of his stories will be translated.
