Thriller set in DUNEDIN, New Zealand
New books that are strong on location – November 2023
19th October 2023
Here are our three top titles that are strong on location to be published in November 2023:
The Edge by David Baldacci – MAINE
A BRUTAL MURDER
Retired from the Army’s most prestigious special ops force, Travis Devine is now part of an elite
undercover team in Homeland Security. But when he’s brought in by agent Emerson Campbell to
investigate the murder of a young woman, he quickly learns that this case is more personal than
most.
A SMALL TOWN
Four days earlier Jennifer Silkwell was found dead on the rocks of the Maine coastline. A high
ranking analyst for the CIA, she had knowledge of national security secrets that would be valuable to
a number of enemies. And her senator father once saved Emerson Campbell’s life.
A BIG SECRET
Knowing how much is riding on the case, Devine packs his bags and heads for the small town of
Putnam in Maine. But small towns can harbour big secrets, and not everyone wants to share them
with outsiders. Not when there’s a killer on the loose . . .
This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack – IRELAND
How do you rebuild a world that seems to be falling apart?
Nealon returns to his family home in Ireland after a long time away, only to be greeted by a completely empty house. No heat or light, no sign of his wife or child anywhere. It seems the world has forgotten that he even existed.
The one exception is a persistent caller on the telephone, someone who seems to know everything about Nealon’s life, his recent bother with the law and, more importantly, what has happened to his family. All Nealon needs to do is talk with him. But the more he talks the closer Nealon gets to the same trouble he was in years ago, tangled in the very crimes of which he claims to be innocent.
Part roman noir, part metaphysical thriller, This Plague of Souls is a story for these fractured times, dealing with how we might mend the world, and the story of a man who would let the world go to hell if he could keep his family together.
What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez – BUENOS ARIES, EGYPT
Bolivian-Argentinian Inez Olivera belongs to the glittering upper society of nineteenth century Buenos Aires, and like the rest of the world, the town is steeped in old world magic that’s been largely left behind or forgotten. Inez has everything a girl might want, except for the one thing she yearns for the most: her globetrotting parents – who frequently leave her behind when they venture off on their exploring adventures.
When she receives word of their tragic deaths, Inez inherits their massive fortune and a mysterious guardian, an archaeologist in partnership with his Egyptian brother-in-law. Yearning for answers, Inez sails to Cairo, bringing her sketch pads and an ancient golden ring her father sent to her for safekeeping before he died. But upon her arrival, the old world magic tethered to the ring pulls her down a path where she soon discovers there’s more to her parent’s disappearance than what her guardian led her to believe.
With her guardian’s infuriatingly handsome assistant thwarting her at every turn, Inez must rely on ancient magic to uncover the truth about her parent’s disappearance-or risk becoming a pawn in a larger game that will kill her.
And there are some more new books you may like…
Shot with Crimson by Nicola Upson – LOS ANGELES
I will never understand why murder is considered such a lowbrow speciality in Hollywood.
September, 1939, and the worries of war follow Josephine Tey to Hollywood, where a different sort of battle is raging on the set of Hitchcock’s Rebecca.
Then a shocking act of violence reawakens the shadows of the past, with consequences on both sides of the Atlantic, and Josephine and DCI Archie Penrose find themselves on a trail leading back to the house that inspired a young Daphne du Maurier – a trail that echoes Rebecca‘s timeless themes of obsession, jealousy and murder.
Readers love Nicola Upson
‘Oh my, what a delight to read this was. An author absolutely in command of her craft.’ ***** reader review
‘I felt like I knew the Hitchcocks personally. The talent to make that feel likely is really Upson’s draw for me. She never misses a beat.’ ***** reader review
School of Instructions by Ishion Hutchinson – MIDDLE EAST, WEST INDIES
In language that is sensuous and biblical, School of Instructions centres on the experience of West Indian volunteer soldiers in British regiments during the First World War. The poem gathers the psychic and physical terrors of these Black soldiers in the Middle East war theatre and refracts their struggle against the colonial power they served. The narratives of the soldiers overlap with Godspeed, a young schoolboy living in rural Jamaica of the 1990s. This visionary collision, written in a form Ishion Hutchinson calls ‘contrapuntal versets’, unsettles time and event. It reshapes grand gestures of heroism into a music of supple, vigilant intensity. Elegiac and odic, epochal and lyrical, the triumph of School of Instructions is how it confronts the legacy of imperial silencing and etches shards of remembrances into a form of survival.
The War Begins Begins in Paris by Theodore Wheeler – PARIS
Paris, 1938. Two women meet: Mielle, a shy pacifist and shunned Mennonite who struggles to fit in with the elite cohort of foreign correspondents stationed around the city; the other, Jane, a brash, legendary American journalist, who is soon to become a fascist propagandist. When World War II makes landfall in the City of Lights, Mielle falls under Jane’s spell, growing ever more intoxicated by her glamour, self-possession, and reckless confidence. But as this recklessness devolves into militarism and an utter lack of humanity, Mielle is seized by a series of visions that show her an inescapable truth: Jane Anderson must die, and Mielle must be the one to kill her.
Structured as a series of dispatches filed from around Europe and based on the misadventures of a real journalist-turned-Nazi mouthpiece, The War Begins in Paris is a cat-and-mouse suspense that examines the relentlessness of propaganda, the allure of power, and how far one woman will go for the sake of her morality.
The Porcelain Maker by Sarah Freethy – BERLIN, DACHAU
Two lovers caught at the crossroads of history
A daughter’s search for the truth
Germany, 1929.
When Max, a Jewish architect, and Bettina, a beautiful and celebrated German avant-garde artist, meet at a party their attraction is instant. In love with each other and the art they create, their talent transports them to the dazzling lights of Berlin. But Germany is on the brink of terrible change, and their bright beginning is soon dimmed by the rising threat of Nazism.
When Max is arrested and sent to the Dachau concentration camp, it is only his talent at making the exquisite porcelain figures so beloved by the Nazis that stands between him and certain death. At first, Bettina has no idea where Max has been taken but when she learns of his fate, she is determined to rescue him whatever the cost.
Now, a lifetime later, Bettina’s daughter, Clara, sets out on a journey to uncover the truth about her identity. As she weaves together the fabric of her past, she discovers the terrible secret her mother wanted hidden forever.
For fans of Heather Morris and Kristin Hannah, The Porcelain Maker is a sweeping, epic story of love, betrayal and art, set across Europe from the 1920s Weimar Republic, to dark and glittering 1930s Berlin.
Enjoy your November location based new books!
Tony for the TripFiction team
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