Jake Jackson is a washed-upcop, disillusioned with his career and his marriage. I finished it in one huge gulp, excusing myself unilaterally from any family responsibilities I was so desperate to finish it.ĭeath Under a Little Sky (HarperCollins) is journalist Stig Abell’s first novel and a joyful dive into the detective genre. In the best possible way, this is a hugely stressful read, as we watch both women slowly come to realise the truth about their situations, urging them on from the sidelines. There are shades of Before I Go to Sleep, SJ Watson’s debut novel about a woman with amnesia, in Hannah Beckerman’s The Forgetting (Lake Union), but that’s no bad thing: Beckerman gives the amnesia trope her own twist to create a compelling, claustrophobic story. “It is as though there is an impenetrable black box in my head, like the flight recorder of a crashed plane, but it is locked and tightly sealed and there is no way for me to access it.” Meanwhile, in Bristol, Livvy Nicholson has a six-month-old son, a loving new husband, Dominic, and a yearning to get back to work that is being inadvertently thwarted by Dominic’s plans for his own career.

Her husband, Stephen, feels like a total stranger to her the details of her life are a mystery. A nna Bradshaw remembers nothing when she wakes in a London hospital after an accident.

The Wren Hunt by Mary Watson