TOO CLOSE TO HOME
By Linwood Barclay
published by Orion. £7.99
When the Cutter family’s next door neighbours, the Langleys, are gunned down in their house one hot August night, the Cutters’ world is turned upside down. That violent death should have come so close to them is shocking enough in suburban Promise Falls, but at least the Cutters can console themselves with the thought that lightning is unlikely to strike twice in the same place. Unless, of course, the killers went to the wrong house.
At first the idea seems crazy. But gradually we discover that each of the Cutter family has a secret they’d rather keep buried. What was on that old computer teenage Derek and his friend Adam Langley had salvaged? And where is it now? What hold does a local professor and bestselling author have on Eileen Cutter? And what does Jim Cutter know about Mrs Langley that even her husband didn’t?
To find out who killed the Langleys and why, everybody’s secrets are going to have to come out. But the final secret,the secret that could save them or destroy them, is in the one place nobody would ever think of looking…
DOORS OPEN
By Ian Rankin
published by Orion. £7.99
For the right man, all doors are open… Mike Mackenzie is a self-made man with too much time on his hands and a bit of the devil in his soul. He is looking for something to liven up the days and perhaps give new meaning to his existence. A chance encounter at an art auction offers him the opportunity to do just that as he settles on a plot to commit a ‘perfect crime’. He intends to rip-off one of the most high-profile targets in the capital, the National Gallery of Scotland. So, together with two close friends from the art world, he devises a plan to lift some of the most valuable artwork around. But of course, the real trick is to rob the place for all its worth whilst persuading the world that no crime was ever committed. But soon after he enters the dark waters of the criminal underworld he realises that it’s very easy to drown…
THE TIME TRAVELERS WIFE
By Audrey Niffenegger
published by Vintage. £7.99.
This extraordinary, magical novel is the story of Clare and Henry who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder, periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. His disappearances are spontaneous and his experiences are alternately harrowing and amusing. The Time Traveler’s Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare’s passionate love for each other with grace and humour. Their struggle to lead normal lives in the face of a force they can neither prevent nor control is intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.
