MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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Crime fiction with Mat Coward
Reviews of new offerings from James Kestrel, Maxim Jakubowski (edited compilation of Crime Writers’ Association’s Short Story Dagger-winning stories), Nicholas Bowling and Frances Brody
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
FIVE DECEMBERS by James Kestrel (Hard Case Crime, £16.99) starts in Honolulu, in December 1941, with police detective Joe McGrady investigating a murder.
Following a lead takes him abroad, as a result of which he’s not at home when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour takes place. Instead, he’s somewhere even worse.
Through three countries, and through a world war as well as its preamble and its epilogue, Joe keeps his murder investigation alive — and in the darkest of days, it keeps him alive too.
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Conman conned in a twisty thriller, blind trust tested to the limit, cunning murder methods, and tip-top police procedural
DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
Do frozen colonists carry the virus of empire? Why is monstrosity a great way to describe capital? Was God a dustman?
Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise