The Bat (Norwegian: Flaggermusmannen, “Bat Man”) is a 1997 crime novel by Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø, the first in the Harry Hole series.

I’ve tried a number of Nesbø books now — but just can’t get into them.

Norwegian police officer Harry Hole — (an alcoholic) — is sent to Sydney, Australia to serve as an attaché for the Australian police’s investigation into the murder of a young female Norwegian girl …

Hole is assisted by Aboriginal colleague Andrew Kensington; together they find out that they are dealing with a serial killer who strangles blonde women. …

The Bat was written eight years before The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

As I’m planning to head back to Norway this summer, I thought I’d get into this series.

And the book is quite good, as well.

It does make me wonder what’s going to happen with Harry in future.

Click PLAY or watch an interview with the author on YouTube.

Another excellent Deaver book (2018). Plenty of surprises.

In the early hours of a quiet, weekend morning in Manhattan’s Diamond District, a brutal triple murder shocks the city. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs quickly take the case.

Curiously, the killer has left behind a half-million dollars’ worth of gems at the murder scene, a jewelry store on 47th street. As more crimes follow, it becomes clear that the killer’s target is not gems, but engaged couples themselves. …

… the Promiser makes a dangerous mistake: leaving behind an innocent witness, Vimal Lahori, a talented young diamond cutter, who can help Rhyme and Sachs blow the lid off the case.

They must track down Vimal before the killer can correct his fatal error. …

jefferydeaver.com

The life story of a loveable jewel thief.

… Who is Nora Roberts?

Now 70-years-old and still publishing 4 books every year?

She writes one novel at a time. Eight hours / day, every day.

And most are huge books like Nightwork (2022). Sprawling. Emotional. Well researched.

Yes, this one is a bit of a romance novel. But Roberts’ storytelling is on par with the best: Stephen King, James Michener, John Grisham, Jeffrey Archer. Authors who keep things moving while making you care about the fictional characters.

Harry Booth started stealing at nine to keep a roof over his ailing mother’s head, slipping into luxurious, empty homes at night to find items he could trade for precious cash.

When his mother finally succumbed to cancer, he left Chicago—but kept up his nightwork, developing into a master thief with a code of honor and an expertise in not attracting attention? … Or getting attached.

Until he meets Miranda Emerson, and the powerful bond between them upends all his rules.

But along the way, Booth has made some dangerous associations, including the ruthless Carter LaPorte, who sees Booth as a tool he controls for his own profit. Knowing LaPorte will leverage any personal connection, Booth abandons Miranda for her own safety—cruelly, with no explanation—and disappears.

But the bond between Miranda and Booth is too strong, pulling them inexorably back together. Now Booth must face LaPorte, to truly free himself and Miranda once and for all.

fantasticfiction.com

Peter Grainger is an under-appreciated, great writer.

Still — I couldn’t get through the second book in this series ➙ One-way Ticket.

Arcadia the 3rd book in the Willows and Lane series.

They are an unlikely couple of detectives:

Emily Willows is middle-aged, widowed, wealthy, and bored.

Summer Lane is a new neighbour. It turns out she’s a skilled former police D.I. — but wants to remain anonymous, if possible.

Emily wants to form a Detective Agency with Summer, … who is reluctant.

In this book they are somehow convinced to investigate the disappearance (?) of a wealthy couple’s daughter. She’s reportedly out of communication in an eco community on a Welsh island.

An audio only original novella by an excellent writer.

It’s 1927, and the most devastating flood in American history has swelled the Mississippi River to a width of eighty miles.

In an attempt to save a family trapped by the rising water, four men in a tiny rowboat battle the treacherous flow: three are convicts, on loan from the local prison and pressed into service; the fourth, the leader of the team, is driven by his own hidden motives.

But to their surprise upon arrival at Ballymore, an ancestral home protected by a high, circular levee, not everyone in the family feels the need to be saved.

Pride, greed, loyalty, and even love create their own complex currents behind the massive wall.

As the threat from the flood increases and time ticks away, the crew and the family must decide on a course of action, and a desperate plan is hatched to save the weakening levee and all it was built to protect.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Dervla McTiernan (born c.1977) is an Irish crime novelist.

She was a practicing lawyer before giving writing a go.

The Ruin (2018) is her debut novel.  A critically acclaimed international bestseller. It won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction, the Davitt Award for Best Adult Fiction and the Barry Award for Best Original Paperback, and was shortlisted for numerous other prizes.

Cormac Reilly is about to reopen the case that took him twenty years to forget …

Responding to a call that took him to a decrepit country house, young Garda Cormac Reilly found two silent, neglected children – fifteen-year-old Maude and five-year-old Jack. Their mother lay dead upstairs.

Since then Cormac’s had twenty high-flying years working as a detective in Dublin, and he’s come back to Galway for reasons of his own. As he struggles to navigate the politics of a new police station, Maude and Jack return to haunt him. …

Betrayal is at the heart of this unsettling small-town noir and the Ireland it portrays. In a country where the written law isn’t the only one, The Ruin asks who will protect you when the authorities can’t – or won’t.

dervlamctiernan.com

Personally, I felt the story telling was not great. Too many peripheral characters. Too slow.

Burial Hour (2017) is 13th in the Lincoln Rhyme series.

And it’s as diabolical and intricate as any.

As usual, it’s the bad guy that’s most intriguing. The Composer.

Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are called in to investigate a bizarre murder in NY City. But Composer escapes and flees to Italy.

Lincoln and Amelia were finally planning to get married. But instead of a honeymoon, they hopped on a private jet to continue the pursuit.

They enlist the assistance of an an endearing Italian Forestry Services officer, Ercole Benelli, to help translate and navigate the Italian police system.

Another great book.

The 3rd in an entertaining series where the author himself is in the story, a dim bulb Watson to investigator Daniel Hawthorne — who’s a gruff, modern Sherlock.

It was a goal to have Horowitz the “the most stupid person in the book“. 😀

In this one Horowitz convinces Hawthorn to join him at a book festival on tiny Alderney island, just three miles long and a mile and a half wide.

… Alderney is in turmoil over a planned power line that will cut through it, desecrating a war cemetery and turning neighbour against neighbour.

The visiting authors – including a blind medium, a French performance poet and a celebrity chef – seem to be harbouring any number of unpleasant secrets.

When the festival’s wealthy sponsor is found brutally killed, Alderney goes into lockdown and Hawthorne knows that he doesn’t have to look too far for suspects.

There’s no escape. The killer is still on the island. And there’s about to be a second death…

anthonyhorowitz.com

Kids invited over 20 authors to their actual literary festival — and none responded aside from Horowitz. That visit inspired this book.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Still good — but I found this to be the weakest of the three in the trilogy.

Horowitz claims there will only be 3 books. But you never know.

I enjoyed the first book in the P.T. Marsh series — The Good Detective — and enjoyed #2, as well.

A hard-nosed real estate baron is dead, and detectives P.T. Marsh and Remy Morgan learn there’s a long list of suspects.

Mason Falls, Georgia, may be a small town, but Ennis Fultz had filled it with professional rivals, angry neighbors, and a wronged ex-wife.

And when Marsh realizes that this potential murder might be the least of his troubles, he begins to see what happens when ordinary people become capable of evil. …

Amazon

I love surprising plot twists. And John McMahon delivers more twists and turns than any other author I can recall.

HIGHLY recommended.