Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith, Grasset
Cormoran Strike is on vacation in Cornwall, and when a lady asks him to look into a cold box — find a missing friend — he cannot refuse. He then unearths a serial killer and suddenly puts his life and that of Robin Ellacot, his partner, in danger. This so-called labyrinthine investigation is already the duo’s fifth and touches on the independence of Cornwall. Even under her pen name, JK Rowling still knows how to tell stories. (February)
The Wall of Silence by Arnaldur Indridason, Métailié
A fourth investigation by Konrad, the stubborn retired cop who continues to search for his father’s killer decades later. Here he helps a woman annoyed by the “negative vibrations” of her house; When a cellar wall collapses and a body is found inside, Konrad begins digging into a painful past. Soon, some elements of the last three cases he solved come to the surface. In the end, he will even become a suspect… (March)
To the Core of Scott Thornley, Black Boreal
Chief Inspector MacNeice’s third investigation begins with a gruesome discovery: the body of a woman trapped in the ice of Dundurn Bay. Things get complicated when, the next day, a homeless man finds a bound man wearing an explosive belt in a park. Soon, MacNeice himself will find himself in danger as his team scours the small underworld of the city’s slums in an attempt to understand the connection between the two cases. (May)
Ten More Souls by Ragnar Jónasson, La Martinière
Jónasson walks away from his usual investigators as Una responds to a classified ad asking for a teacher. She finds herself at the end of the world, in the most remote village of Iceland, Skalar. There are only ten inhabitants there, the cold and the night, but she realizes that the villagers are hiding something; and then there are those voices that Una constantly hears whispering around her. When a tragic death occurs, she regrets having chosen solitude. (February)
Murders Under Ice Skies by Thomas King, Alire
Thumps DreadfulWater is becoming more of a photographer and less of an “ex-cop” in his adopted hometown of Chinook. But when a dead body is found on the eve of a major water conference, the sheriff once again calls on his services. Thumps refuses… but he changes his mind when he learns that the deceased was murdered and especially that he has developed new “ecological” drilling techniques which upset some large groups. (March)