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GORDON PARSONS recommends an entertaining account of the years between Germany’s defeat in WWI and Hitler’s seizure of power
Banged up with anti-festive fun, revenge and trauma
Mat Coward’s crime fiction round-up
MIGUEL YOSHIDA explains the evolution and influence of the Cuban Casa De Las Americas in joining culture to the revolutionary struggle
ANDY HEDGECOCK is charmed by a skilful adaptation of Tove Jansson’s lyrical portrait of three generations of a family, overcoming grief
ALEX HALL treads warily through a messy, dialectical struggle fought in the mundane machinery of driving licences, criminal law, and birth registries
MICHAL BONCZA, FIONA O’CONNOR, JAMES WALSH and ANGUS REID review Atlas of Disappearance, Love Me Tender, Bouchra, and This Tempting Madness
Flitting between myth and the modern world, Medusa is determined to steer clear of human affairs. When her resolve crumbles, the result is petrifying in every sense
Cardiff psychotherapist Jess Mayhew takes on a worrying new client in Charlotte Williams’s Black Valley (Macmillan, £14.99), a young artist suffering from disabling claustrophobia following the death of her mother who was apparently killed when she surprised a burglar at her daughter’s studio.
Jess becomes convinced that there’s more to the unsolved case, both clinically and criminally. Somehow it’s all linked to the emergence of a reclusive new artist, an ex-miner whose work attacks capitalism’s ruination of the valley communities.
Atmospheric and full of insight, this is a psychological mystery in which, for once, non-sensationalised psychology really is the key.
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Conman conned in a twisty thriller, blind trust tested to the limit, cunning murder methods, and tip-top police procedural
MAT COWARD writes on Ghost Runner John Tarrant
More expensive by weight than gold, saffron is surprisingly simple to grow. MAT COWARD explains
Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise