TONY BURKE speaks to Gambian kora player SUNTOU SUSSO
Latest editorial
Crime fiction
Reviews of The Perfect Guests by Emma Rousa, Confess to Me by Sharon Doering, Leave the Lights On by Egan Hughes and Highland Fling by Sara Sheridan
MARIA DUARTE recommends a British boxing biopic about the stormy relationship between Nazeem Hamed and his trainer Brendan Ingle
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Good Night, and Good Luck: Live from Broadway, Becoming Victoria Wood, Hamnet, and Song Sung Blue
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Filipino-US saxophonist JON IRABAGON about the threat of AI in the time of Musk and Trump, and how an artist can respond
PETE HIRST introduces a theatre company from Wakefield dedicated to the propagation of socialist perspectives on present British political realities
JENNY FARRELL reminds us that the US novelist, famed for pulp fiction and nature stories, was, by virtue of life experience, a committed revolutionary socialist
THE PERFECT GUESTS by Emma Rous (Piatkus, £7.99) is a house-party mystery with gothic elements in which a group of guests are invited to a Fenland mansion, deserted for years, to take part in a test event for a murder-mystery weekend.
Some of them are actors, supposedly in on the whodunnit. But the dangers turn out to be more real than anyone could have imagined, as the reader learns the recent history of Raven Hall, which has witnessed more than its share of tragedies, secret jealousies and obsessions.
Lots of spine-chilling fun, this novel would be the perfect distraction for the evening of a difficult day.
Similar stories
Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
High quality pulp, rollicking online murders, Abnorman Britain, and high skates drama: reviews of The Get Off, Everyone In The Group Chat Dies, Pagans and First To Fall
A no-nonsense ex-Garda female cop, Scandi-noir’s newest flawed hero, the lure of Aussie gold, and unexpected decency in Silicon valley