Crime Fiction

A young British Muslim woman who has been researching aspects of the Spanish civil war in the Sierra Nevada is murdered in the entertaining Blood Wedding by PJ Brooke (Constable, £18.99).

Half-Scottish Sub-Inspector Max Romero is assigned to the case because of his fluent English and his good contacts in the Muslim community.

Suspicion quickly falls on a local training centre for young Muslim entrepreneurs from across Europe.

There's a general election coming in Spain and Romero is fully aware that the ruling conservatives desperately need a convenient terrorist plot to swing the polls their way.

On the other hand, there is something very odd about the students at the centre.

Meanwhile, the murder victim's links to Romero's own family are somewhat worrying and her research has reminded everyone that civil wars don't end when the last shots are fired.

The first book in a new series by a husband and wife team of Scottish Green Party activists, Blood Wedding's sharp political sense is matched by interesting characters, a fresh setting and a good mystery.

The Good Son by Russel D McLean (Five Leaves Crime, £7.99) is another debut novel. It offers all the elements which private eye fans expect, starring as detective an ex-cop with demons in his past, enemies in the police and clients whom he can't trust.

Dundee private investigator McNee is hired by a local farmer who wants to know how his estranged brother ended up hanging from a tree.

The police are convinced that it's suicide and so is McNee, but, when he discovers that the dead brother spent most of his life working as a gangster in London, he's sure that there must be more to it.

McLean's fast, stripped-down writing style economises on waffle but not on characterisation and he supplies a neat twist at the end.

If you like tough private eye stories at all, you'll definitely want to pack this one for your next train journey. McNee is the most convincing British PI for a while.

Small-town Minnesota is the setting for Brian Freeman's The Watcher (Headline, £19.99).

On a summer's night in 1977, teenager Jonathan Stride lost his virginity to his future wife at the same time as her sister was being murdered in a public park.

The town was happy to blame a black vagrant who conveniently disappeared and was never seen again, despite Stride's brave attempt to prevent him fleeing.

The experience changed Stride's life and, 30 years later, he is the town's chief of detectives and a widower when an old school friend of the murdered girl turns up in town, announcing that she is writing a book about the still unsolved killing.

Like many others, she has always suspected the scion of a powerful local family, protected by wealth and by police corruption.

Her investigation leads to more deaths and to old secrets crawling out of dark places.

I found the obligatory action-film-style ending a bit over the top and drawn out, but, until then, this well-written and deeply plotted story had me gripped.