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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
Crime Fiction: Histories of Babylonian intrigue, village villainy and a savage city
Mat Coward's regular 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
The murder of an archaeology professor and one of her young students, with whom she was having a not very secret affair, leads Inspector Christian Tell and his Gothenburg police colleagues on the trail of ancient treasures looted from Iraqi museums during the US-EU invasion.
But in Babylon (Phoenix, £7.99) by Camilla Ceder, there’s also a more obvious suspect — the dead man’s girlfriend, who is undergoing treatment for impulsive behaviour arising out of an obsessive fear of infidelity.
Readers of Swedish crime fiction will be used to the strong focus on the tortured emotional lives of police, victims and suspects alike. But this book, perhaps best described as a psychological police procedural, breaks with the “Scandi-crime” stereotype in one way — although troubled, the characters are not all pathologically miserable.
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RON JACOBS is enthralled by Roberto Saviano’s portrait of heroes and deplorables, that calls for people to stand up for themselves and the things they believe in
DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise