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Killing Me Softly by Christie Watson (Phoenix, £20)
In her second psychological thriller, Watson, a former nurse, perfectly captures the frenetic atmosphere and mordant humour of an under-resourced A&E department in a city hospital. The plot revolves around three strongly drawn characters: senior nurse Aoife, whose extramarital trysts with clinical lead Michael help keep her sane, and whose new intake includes the naive, sanctimonious Eden and the more experienced but alarmingly cynical Sophie. After their arrival, the death rate spikes: long wait times may play a part, but Eden makes mistakes and Sophie has an attitude problem … The conclusion is surprising yet authentic in a story that is ultimately less about individual culpability than the policy failures of successive governments.
Whidbey by T Kira Madden (Tinder, £20)
Native Hawaiian writer Madden’s powerful debut novel explores both the aftermath of child sexual abuse and the commodification of trauma. It’s summer 2013, and former reality TV star Linzie King is publicising her ghostwritten memoir of abuse at the hands of Calvin Boyer, the adult son of the school bus driver. It contains information about Boyer’s other victims, among them Birdie Chang who, unhappy with the appropriation of her story and trying to escape media scrutiny, has fled Brooklyn for Whidbey Island in Washington’s Puget Sound. Linzie is grappling with the narrative produced by the ghostwriter – the truth is considerably more complicated – and Boyer’s mother, who has always defended him, blaming his “sickness”, is struggling to process her feelings after he is deliberately run over and killed. A satisfying mystery, although whodunnit takes second place to Madden’s unflinching, unsettling examination of how girls are conditioned into compliance, and the discrepancy between lived experience and society’s preferred “victim narrative”.
Based on a True Story by Sarah Vaughan (Simon & Schuster, £16.99)
Vaughan’s sixth novel is set on a Cornish cliff, in the grand home of bestselling children’s author and national treasure Dame Eleanor Kingman. Preparations for her 70th birthday party are under way, and a film crew is making what everyone assumes will be a hagiographic documentary, although we know from the flash-forward prologue that nothing goes according to plan. Kingman’s three daughters, who have failed to escape their mother’s shadow, arrive with troubles of their own, and the ruthlessly ambitious writer has made several enemies on the way to the top. There’s the danger that an early, unpublished novel containing autobiographical details may reappear, giving the lie to Kingman’s carefully curated backstory; someone is sending her threatening emails and, before long, the air is thick with the sound of chickens coming home to roost. Expertly plotted and crackling with tension, this is dysfunctional family psychodrama at its unputdownable best.
The Dangerous Stranger by Simon Mason (Riverrun, £16.99)
The fifth in Mason’s Oxford-set series sees his DI odd couple – Ryan Wilkins, the white, trailer park-reared offspring of a violent father, and Ray Wilkins, his altogether more respectable and better-groomed partner of Nigerian heritage – investigating a death at a hotel housing asylum seekers. As attitudes towards immigration harden, racists are emboldened, and when rioting leads to the immolation of a young man, the victim is assumed to be a refugee. When he turns out to be a French tourist, it’s clear that the case is more complicated and more potentially embarrassing than originally thought, and the chief constable, who dislikes the detective duo’s often unconventional methods, is soon breathing down their necks. Meanwhile, the former putative victim, a 15-year-old African boy who speaks no English, is on the run, starving and terrified. Purists may balk at some procedural improbabilities, but Mason is a superb storyteller, accurately depicting the deprivation that coexists with Oxford’s dreaming spires.
Astronaut! by Oana Aristide (Wildfire, £14.99)
Aristide’s second novel is set in Romania, her country of birth, in 1989; it’s a shoddy, drab world of shortages, informers and incessant televised worship of the communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu. When bodies start turning up in different locations with unexplained wounds, police officer Constantin must solve the case – but how to investigate when, officially, criminals only exist in capitalist countries? A colleague’s suggestion that a bear is responsible is seized on with alacrity. The only problem is that this imaginary perpetrator proves impossible to catch, and the bodies keep turning up. Meanwhile, eight-year-old Lia finds herself drawn into a neighbour’s subversive activities. Part thriller, part fable, this is fascinating, funny and very moving – highly recommended.
