Lucy Foley’s The Hunting Party and The Guest List were two of the best mystery thrillers from the last decade, now Foley returns with her new novel The Paris Apartment, one of the most eagerly anticipated novels of 2022. The Paris Apartment centres around Jess who makes a spur of the moment decision to visit her brother Ben in his apartment in Paris. When she arrives, there is no sign of Ben and the longer he stays missing, the more questions Jess has around Ben’s life in Paris and the apartment building in which he lives.

The Paris Apartment is much slower moving than Foley’s previous novels, but no less chilling. Foley has a unique ability to build an utterly creepy atmosphere from the off, in an utterly cinematic way. Her writing flows and is layered, twisting and turning in such a way that you remain unsure of the plot and the ending of the novel, almost through to the bitter conclusion. This novel is much more predictable than her previous thrillers (in our opinion) but no less enjoyable in the picture that it paints. What is the most compelling part of this mystery in particular is possibly the unique and distinctive cast of characters that Foley has created. It’s an immensely enjoyable read for any fans of the mystery thriller genre, but there was something missing that did not match the immense standard of her previous thrillers – still a worthwhile read.

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Greenwich Park – the new novel by Katherine Faulkner – is an addictive new thriller, for any fans of Gone Girl and Girl on the Train. Helen seems to have it all – a perfect husband, a perfect home in Greenwich Park and a wonderful relationship with her brother and sister-in-law, now she is expecting a baby. At antenatal class, she meets Rachel, an unpredictable single mother. Helen is drawn to her or maybe Rachel is forcing herself on Helen?  Her behaviour becomes increasingly erratic, something that her family and friends quickly pick up on. As Rachel embeds herself more firmly into their lives, links to their shared history emerge, it becomes clear that there are many secrets lying lurking in the foundations of Greenwich Park.

This novel is bound to be an instant success and classic, Faulkner twists and turns her prose with a nimble dexterity, her plotting is masterful and the narrative propulsive and pacy. We’ll be keeping our eyes on this author in the years to come.

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New York Times bestselling author – Silvia Moreno Garcia – has released her deliciously propulsive noir novel, Velvet Was the Night. The novel flits back and forth between the perspectives of El Elvis, an eccentric criminal and member of the Hawks who wants to escape his life and Maite, a daydreaming secretary in 1970s Mexico City.Their lives become intertwined when Maite’s neighbour Leonora goes missing, leading Maite into the kind of romantic and thrilling life that she had always wanted. Maite partners up with Leonora’s ex-boyfriend to search for Leonora, now in hiding, leading her into the complicated web in which Leonora lives, filled with student radicals and dissidents. El Elvis is also out looking for her, but as he searches he comes to become obsessed with Maite, from a distance. The novel is an immensely thrilling and propulsive novel, filled with all the qualities of a black and white movie, simmering with Old Hollywood drama – hitmen, government agents, Russian spies, it’s all here. Importantly though, Moreno-Garcia shines a light on 1971 Mexico, painting it as a deeply complicated and interesting time in history, well worthy of attention and fascination.

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At the start of her propulsive new novel, a magpie flies in through the window of Marisa’s new home – one for sorrow. This sign should be noted, as Day takes the reader through a fast-paced twisting and turning journey, telling the story of Marisa – a children’s book illustrator who is set to move in with her near-perfect boyfriend Jake. Due to financial difficulties, they decide to have a lodger move in with them – Kate. When Marisa gets pregnant, she begins to take note of strange things about Kate. To describe more of the story would be to ruin it, this is a flawlessly composed and well-delivered narrative. In a literary world, where many thrillers seem to follow a formula, this novel pulls the rug out from under you. It’s a dizzying story that moves with so much pace told in Elizabeth Day’s taut, razor-sharp prose. Day is a master storyteller and this is an immensely propulsive read-in-a-day read for a cozy winter’s evening. We loved it.

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Helen Walsh has released her debut novel – Pull Focus – that is a delightfully addictive thriller. The book tells the story of Jane who has been appointed as interim director of the Worldwide Toronto Film Festival after her boss has been removed for sexual harassment. No easy role, but made the more complicated when her partner goes missing and she is repeatedly threatened by strange women at the festival. In the dark as to what is going on with her partner and facing a numerous amount of fires to burn during the festival itself, Jane works to understand who are her true allies and enemies in this complicated fabric of the film and finance industry.

The novel is as addictive as they come, painting a detailed and rich picture of the complications of the film industry. Walsh paints her characters with real poise and art, with recognisable but not caricatured characters. The novel is amazingly propulsive, taking a huge amount of different issues as its theme. Although, perhaps, Walsh could have done with stripping the maze of plot lines back – at times it is difficult to unravel the multiple threads and mysteries – she does an incredible job of leading the reader through the story. A masterclass debut that shows Walsh as a talent to watch.

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Without a doubt, there has been a newly burgeoning fascination with con artists – in particular female culprits and those hiding in plain sight; Anna Delvey, Caroline Calloway and Elizabeth Holmes. These wide-eyed, un-nerving ‘heroines’ are traced at the edges of the titular character in Susie Yang’s 2020 novel White Ivy. Ivy is the daughter of Chinese immigrants to America, who struggles to find her place in society, starting off shoplifting in high school and drifting through life as a teacher, while having an unnerving fascination for glitz and glamour. By chance, she meets the sister of her childhood crush, Gideon and pursues him with a vengeance – infiltrating his social circle and absorbing herself into the fabric of his family and social set. When Roux – the boy to whom she lost her virginity – by happenstance, re-enters her life, Ivy’s newly created persona is thrown into jeopardy, although she herself is continually drawn back to Roux.

It was unnerving to be placed inside the head of a protagonist who feels so devoid of emotion, so selfishly intent on her own upward trajectory, but Susie Yang has accomplished a masterstroke in her ability to create simultaneously a deeply unlikeable but also intoxicatingly interesting heroine. It is little wonder that the book is now being developed into a series for Netflix, by none other than Shonda Rhimes – the book fits squarely within the modern preoccupation with crime, con artists and problematic characters and it is this dark underbelly to the story that makes it so propulsive.

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The Last Thing He Told Me is the first thriller by celebrated author Laura Dave. Already the book has been optioned as a TV show, starring Julia Roberts and has been chosen as a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick.

The novel is a gripping mystery telling the story of a woman who thinks she’s found the love of her life until he disappears. Hannah is happily married to Owen Michaels until one day she is smuggled a note simply saying ‘Protect Her.’ Despite her confusion and fear, she knows that the note refers to Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. On the news, Hannah finds out that Owen’s company is being investigated for fraud. Increasingly desperate to locate Owen as the FBI arrests Owen’s colleagues, Hannah embarks on a search to find more about Owen’s past and why he disappears, with Bailey’s help – unpicking her childhood memories. As they begin to put together fragments of these memories, they discover that Owen’s past is nowhere near what the two thought it was. More than just a mystery and propulsive thriller, the story increasingly becomes an investigation into the relationship between Hannah and Bailey – a layered dynamic that Dave unpicks with ease.

The novel moves at a breakneck pace, with startling plot twists. It is an evocative and riveting family drama that continually sets the reader off balance. Completely unpredictable, the story is enticing and positions Dave as the next great mystery writer and this novel as one of the breakout hits of 2021.

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This Thursday sees the launch of Penguin’s new landmark series, re-publishing a series of six novels by Black writers, writing about Black Britain and the diaspora across the last century. Introduced by Booker Prize winner, Bernadine Evaristo, the series as Evaristo states aims, ‘to correct historic bias in British publishing and bring a wealth of loot writing back into circulation. While many of us continue to lobby for the publishing industry to become more inclusive and representative of our society, this project looks back to the past in order to resurrect texts that will help reconfigure black British literary history… My aim is to present a body of work that illustrates a variety of preoccupations and genres that offer important and diverse black British perspectives.’ Nicola Williams’ heart-stopping legal thriller – Without Prejudice – is amongst this series, simultaneously an account of what it’s like to be a black female lawyer in Britain and a cut-throat indictment of the legal system itself and privilege in various forms, Williams’ novel twists and turns with eye-watering pace, weaving a story that is as relevant now as it was two decades ago.

The novel tells the story of Lee Mitchell, a thirty-year old barrister from a working-class Caribbean background who takes on ‘the’ case of her career, a high-profile case defending notorious millionaire playboy Clive Omartian who has been arrested alongside his father and brother for fraud. As the case unfolds, Mitchell sees herself being drawn into this world of corruption and fear that begins to hit too close to home. The story is interlaced with that of her new friendship with Simone – an old-school classmate – who is dealing with her own trauma amidst the demise of her marriage. Ultimately though, this story is more about the struggles of a black woman trying to make her voice heard in the white-dominated world of the British courtroom and legal system and Williams delivers with excruciating and raw accuracy, the biases that Mitchell has to handle on a day-to-day basis – near the start of the novel Mitchell is mistakenly identified as the client rather than the lawyer. Given that Williams herself is a lawyer, she is able to fill the novel with realistic and crafty detail both about her experience and about the legal system that truly bring the work to life. Without Prejudice is a phenomenal, layered and whip-smart work and it is a crime that it has been left almost forgotten for nearly decades, Penguin and Evaristo have re-discovered magic here.

Pre-order a copy of the book here.

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