Published 21-27 March 2022

I've expanded on my monthly listing for March 2022. These are the 10 books published between 21 and 27 March 2022. Blurbs and covers taken from Amazon. 

Blaedel, Sara - A Harmless Lie #10 Detective Inspector Louise Rick tr. Mark Kline

Detective Louise Rick is on vacation in Thailand when she gets a panicked call from her father. Mikkel, Louise's brother, has attempted suicide. His wife Trine has left him, and no one has heard from her in three days. Meanwhile, the media in Louise's hometown of Osted is carrying non-stop coverage about Susan Dahlgaard, a local schoolgirl who went missing over a decade earlier and whose body has just been discovered in a remote forest on the nearby island of Borhnholm. As Louise rushes home to be at Mikkel's side, she discovers that Trine and Susan went to school together. Could there be some connection between Trine's disappearance, and the reopening of Susan's case? With her beloved brother Mikkel's life hanging in the balance, the investigation becomes devastatingly personal for Louise. Set in small-town Denmark, Sara Blaedel's twisty and emotionally intense crime novel proves yet again why she has earned her place as a #1 internationally bestselling author with millions of fans around the world.

Durrant, Helen H - The Ash Lake Murders (ebook only) #1 DCI Alice Rossi

MEET DETECTIVE ALICE ROSSI IN THIS BRILLIANT NEW CRIME SERIES.

A brand-new mystery from #1 bestselling author Helen H. Durrant that will have you gripped from start to explosive finish.

A female serial killer with a deadly agenda. The detective who must stop her. Luxury holiday lodges in the stunning Peak District. The game begins . . .

Callum is lured to an isolated boathouse by an attractive older woman. When she gets him alone, she knocks him out with a single blow. As he wakes up, her voice comes out of the darkness, “You’re a sprat to catch a mackerel.”

Surrounded by hills and lakes, Still Waters is home to a close-knit community of wealthy retirees. It’s an unlikely setting for violence. The police don’t take Callum’s disappearance seriously: he’s 24-years-old, after all. But Callum’s mother, a Still Waters resident, knows that something is very wrong.

Then a body is discovered floating in the lake. Head bashed in. But it’s not Callum.

And someone tweets: Come out to play one last time, Alice. Still Waters run deep. #MadHatter.

That’s when DCI Alice Rossi is called in. She’s back.

IT’S A CAT-AND-MOUSE GAME BETWEEN AN OBSESSED KILLER AND A DETERMINED DETECTIVE IN THIS GRIPPING MYSTERY FULL OF STUNNING TWISTS.

Elliot, Laura - After the Wedding

Everyone said she was the prettiest flower girl. But now her dress lies on the floor. It's wet and torn, her shoes are lost. 'Tell us what happened to you?' her daddy sobs. Christine shakes her head. All she can remember are the red rose petals scattering like drops of blood spilling to the ground.

When Christine Lewis was a little girl, she witnessed something terrible at a wedding and buried it so deep in her memory, she managed to forget it ever happened.

Years later, Jessica Newman walks into the successful advertising agency Christine runs with her husband. Jessica is beautiful and excellent at her job but her presence triggers disturbing memories for Christine. Fragments of the wedding are starting to flicker in her mind and an unexplainable ball of dread begins to form in Christine's stomach. Jessica is slowly beginning to destroy Christine's marriage and her business. Why can't anyone else see it?

Christine and Jessica's lives were connected long before they set eyes on one another. But in unlocking the mystery of what happened at the wedding all those years ago, is Christine prepared for the truth she's about to find?

Goddard, Robert - This is the Night They Come For You

On a stifling afternoon at Police HQ in Algiers, Superintendent Taleb, coasting towards retirement, with not even an air-conditioned office to show for his long years of service, is handed a ticking time bomb of a case which will take him deep into Algeria's troubled past and its fraught relationship with France.

To his dismay, he is assigned to work with Agent Hidouchi, an intimidating representative of the country's feared secret service, who makes it clear she intends to call the shots. They are instructed to pursue a former agent, now on the run after twenty years in prison for his part in a high-level corruption scandal. But their search will lead them inexorably towards a greater mystery, surrounding a murder that took place in Paris more than fifty years ago.

Uncovering the truth may be his responsibility, but Taleb is well aware that no-one in Algeria wants to be reminded of the dark deeds carried out in the struggle for independence - or in the violence that has racked the nation since. Before long, he will face a choice he has long sought to avoid, between self-preservation and doing the right thing.

And, ultimately, the choice may not even be his to make.

Kirk, JD - Southpaw (ebook only) #2 Robert Hoon

Ex-Police Scotland detective, Bob Hoon, has made himself some powerful enemies.

Following his brutal search for the missing daughter of an old army colleague, Hoon is being hunted by the Loop, a secretive criminal cabal with members in very high places and a tendency to eliminate all those who stand against it.

Unfortunately for them, Hoon has never been one to back down from a fight, and he isn’t about to start now. Instead, he’s going to burn their whole damn organisation to the ground.

But first, he’s going to have to get inside.

He may be a foul-mouthed, hard-drinking psychopath with a death wish, but Bob Hoon is about to do something he hasn’t done in years.

He’s going undercover.

Melchor, Fernanda - Paradais tr. Sophie Hughes

Inside a luxury housing complex, two misfit teenagers sneak around and get drunk. Franco Andrade, lonely, overweight, and addicted to porn, obsessively fantasizes about seducing his neighbor – an attractive married woman and mother – while Polo dreams about quitting his gruelling job as a gardener within the gated community and fleeing his overbearing mother and their narco-controlled village. Each facing the impossibility of getting what he thinks he deserves, Franco and Polo hatch a mindless and macabre scheme. Written in a chilling torrent of prose by one of our most thrilling new writers, Paradais explores the explosive fragility of Mexican society – fractured by issues of race, class and violence – and how the myths, desires, and hardships of teenagers can tear life apart at the seams.

Penrose, Andrea - A Swirl of Shadows (ebook only) #7 Lady Arianna Hadley, Regency England

A traumatic personal crisis has left Lady Arianna bedeviled by guilt and questioning whether she has lost her nerve. Saybrook and her circle of friends can’t seem to help rekindle her fire. Even a challenge from Lord Grentham, Britain’s shadowy head spymaster, to undertake a vital mission to Russia in aid of her old friend, Tsar Alexander, fails to spark any interest . . . Until Grentham mentions that Arianna’s half-brother has gone in her place and may be in mortal danger.

Arianna is furious. She only recently discovered that she had a sibling when her father’s illegitimate son was recruited to play a small role in their previous mission. Resentful of the minister’s attempt to manipulate her emotions, she still refuses to be drawn back into the fray.

But when the murder of a mysterious Russian baroness in London entangles her friend Sophia in the byzantine intrigue surrounding a stolen Imperial medallion and a legendary curse that may topple the Tsar from his throne if it’s not recovered, Arianna finds she can’t turn her back on family and friends—especially as the tensions within her closeknit circle are threatening to fray the bonds of all she holds dear.

And so Arianna and Saybrook—along with Sophia—head off to St. Petersburg, where dangerous deceptions and duplicity swirl beneath the sumptuous splendor of the Imperial Court. An American adventuress, an old nemesis, a possible traitor within their own allies . . . Suspects abound—treachery is everywhere, and when her brother goes missing, Arianna know that for her and Saybrook to have any hope catching the cunning conspirators, she’ll have to learn to trust herself again. But the clock is ticking . . .

Perdue, Gill - The Interview

A girl covered in blood. A missing man. A cryptic fairy tale.

Detective Laura Shaw seems to have it all: a supportive husband, a happy two-year-old and a great career. She is her team's top interviewer, brilliant at coaxing victims to open up.

Then, she meets Jenny - a 14-year-old assault victim - and the façade crumbles. Jenny's stepfather is missing, the blood on her clothes is not her own and Laura can't interpret the fairy tale she keeps repeating.

But Jenny isn't the only one with secrets. With every hour that passes, Laura loses more of her grip, grappling with the biggest question of all:

Is every life worth saving?

Petersen, Christoffer - The Boreal Tattoo (ebook only) Greenland Missing Persons

While convalescing in her hospital bed, Constable Petra Jensen is given a Polaroid photo of a traditional Inuit tattoo and encouraged to track down the artist who made it.

The Boreal Tattoo is the thirteenth in the Greenland Missing Persons series of novellas and novels set in the harsh, unpredictable Arctic, rich in tradition, myth and culture.

The Boreal Tattoo continues the adventures of Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen, ably assisted by interesting characters, together with a few familiar faces making cameo appearances in the series.

The Greenland Missing Persons stories are set prior to The Ice Star and Seven Graves, One Winter.

This special Kickstarter edition introduces a new character: Eva Møller.

Winspear, Jacqueline - A Sunlit Weapon #17 Maisie Dobbs, Psychologist and Investigator, 1930s London

September, 1942. Jo Hardy, an Air Transport Auxiliary ferry pilot, is delivering a Spitfire when she has the unnerving experience of someone shooting at her aircraft. A few days later she hears that another ferry pilot has been killed when her aircraft crashed in the same area of Kent. Although the death has been attributed to ‘pilot error’, Jo is convinced there is a link between the two incidents.

Jo takes her suspicions to Maisie Dobbs and while Maisie wants to find out why someone appears to want to take down much-needed pilots, she finds it is part of a much larger operation involving Eleanor Roosevelt, the American president’s First Lady. To protect Eleanor’s life – and possibly the safety of everyone in London – Maisie must quickly uncover the connection.