Book Recommendations
Browse our selection of thriller, crime, and suspenseful reads for October! From the usual suspects like; Stephen King, Harlan Coben and Lynda La Plante, to the latest true crime by Ryan Blumenthal - we've got something for everyone!
The Thursday Murder Club 1 by Richard Osman - R260
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case.
Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.
Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?
Also available, The Thursday Murder Club Book 2: Man Who Died Twice, Book 3: The Bullet That Missed and Book 4: The Last Devil to Die
The Collector by Daniel Silva - R370
On the morning after the Venice Preservation Society’s annual black-tie gala, art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon enters his favorite coffee bar on the island of Murano to find General Cesare Ferrari, the commander of the Art Squad, eagerly awaiting his arrival.
The Carabinieri have made a startling discovery in the Amalfi villa of a murdered South African shipping tycoon―a secret vault containing an empty frame and stretcher matching the dimensions of the world’s most valuable missing painting. General Ferrari asks Gabriel to quietly track down the artwork before the trail goes cold.
The painting in question is The Concert by Johannes Vermeer, one of thirteen works of art stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. With the help of a most unlikely ally, a beautiful Danish computer hacker and professional thief, Gabriel soon discovers that the painting has changed hands as part of an illicit billion-dollar business deal involving a man code-named the Collector, an energy executive with close ties to the highest levels of Russian power.
The missing masterpiece is the lynchpin of a conspiracy that if successful, could plunge the world into a conflict of apocalyptic proportions. To foil the plot, Gabriel must carry out a daring heist of his own, with millions of lives hanging in the balance.
The Honeymoon by Kate Gray - R355
Two happy couples.
One dead body.
A whole load of secrets.
Married life wasn't meant to start like this.
On honeymoon in Bali, you hit it off with another newlywed couple and celebrate your last night at a fancy cliff-side restaurant.
No one predicted the evening would end with a dead body. But it was an accident, right? A tragic accident.
The honeymoon may be over but it soon becomes clear that there's another side to this story . . . and your life depends on uncovering it.
Many marriages can survive anything - but when it starts on a lie is it really 'til death do us part?
Holly by Stephen King - R415
Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King's most compelling and ingeniously resourceful characters, returns in this thrilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a Midwestern town.Stephen King's HOLLY marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly's gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr Mercedes to Bill Hodges's partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King's new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.
When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl's desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.
Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harbouring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie's disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.
Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmanoeuvre the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.
Cujo by Stephen King - R240
Once upon a time, not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine . . . He was not a werewolf, vampire, ghoul, or unnameable creature from the enchanted forest or snow wastes; he was only a cop.
Cujo is a huge Saint Bernard dog, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. Then one day Cujo chases a rabbit into a bolt-hole. Except it isn't a rabbit warren any more. It is a cave inhabited by rabid bats.
And Cujo falls sick. Very sick. And the gentle giant who once protected the family becomes a vortex of horror inexorably drawing in all the people around him.
The Match by Harlan Coben - R320
In this gripping new thriller from the No 1 Sunday Times bestselling author and creator of The Stranger, Wilde follows a tip that he hopes will finally solve the mystery of his abandonment, but instead sends him straight into the arms of a serial killer.As a young child, Wilde was found living a feral existence in the Ramapo mountains of New Jersey. He has grown up knowing nothing of his family, and even less about his own identity.
He is known simply as Wilde, the boy from the woods.
But when a match at an online ancestry database puts him on the trail of a close relative - the first family member he has ever known - he thinks he might be about to solve the mystery of who he really is. Only this relation disappears as quickly as he's resurfaced, having experienced an epic fall from grace that can only be described as a waking nightmare.
Undaunted, Wilde continues his research on DNA websites where he becomes caught up in a community of doxxers, a secret group committed to exposing anonymous online trolls.
Then one by one these doxxers start to die, and it soon becomes clear that a serial killer is targeting this secret community - and that his next victim might be Wilde himself.
I Will Find You by Harlan Coben - R380
David and Cheryl Burroughs are living the dream - married, a beautiful house in the suburbs, a three year old son named Matthew - when tragedy strikes one night in the worst possible way.
David awakes to find himself covered in blood, but not his own - his son's. And while he knows he did not murder his son, the overwhelming evidence against him puts him behind bars indefinitely.
Five years into his imprisonment, Cheryl's sister arrives - and drops a bombshell.
She's come with a photograph that a friend took on vacation at a theme park. The boy in the background seems familiar - and even though David realizes it can't be, he knows it is.
It's Matthew, and he's still alive.
David plans a harrowing escape from prison, determined to do what seems impossible - save his son, clear his own name, and discover the real story of what happened that devastating night.
Dark Rooms by Lynda La Plante - R340
Helena Lanark is the only one who knows about the horrors which once occurred in her family's house. The heiress of an immense family fortune, she now resides in a luxurious care home; her mind and memory fading fast.
Jane Tennison is leading a murder investigation into the recent brutal death of a young girl, her decomposed, starved body discovered in an old air raid shelter in the garden of the Lanark's now derelict house. Initially the focus is on identifying the victim, until another body is found hidden in the walls of the shelter.
As the investigation and search for answers intensifies, Jane travels to Australia. There she discovers the dark secret that the Lanark family has kept hidden for decades. A secret that not only threatens to bring down a family dynasty, but also places Jane Tennison in mortal danger.
Cold Heart by Lynda La Plante - R240
In a Beverly Hills swimming pool, a single gunshot ends the life of movie mogul Harry Nathan.
As a man with many enemies - including a widow and two ex-wives - the challenge for private investigator Lorraine Page at first seems to be the number of potential suspects. But police are quick to hone in on Harry's third wife, Cindy Nathan, as the culprit, even while she maintains her innocence.
Lorraine believes the grieving widow's story but police soon charge Cindy with murder. Proving Cindy's innocence will be Lorraine's toughest fight yet, ultimately leading her down a trail of lust and conspiracy, to the darkest corners of the international art world.
Part 3 of the Lorraine Trilogy
Risking Life for Death by Ryan Blumenthal - R280
Every contact leaves a trace – a singular strand of hair or a tiny droplet of blood can be the silent witness at a crime scene. Locard’s Exchange Principle underpins all forensic science and holds that the perpetrator of a crime will bring something to the crime scene and leave with something from it.Forensic experts use this principle daily to catch murderers and assailants. In Risking Life for Death, South African forensic pathologist Ryan Blumenthal offers a masterclass in this singular forensic technique based on real-life case studies.
With more than 20 years’ experience in the field, Blumenthal explains how to look for clues and traces, and how what he does not find at autopsy is often more important than what he does find. In other words, the absence of evidence can sometimes be of greater value than the presence of evidence.
His account also highlights the dangers forensic pathologists are exposed to daily. As they try to unravel the puzzle of someone’s death, forensic pathologists often face life-threatening infections, toxic gasses and accidental injury, in effect risking their life for someone else’s death.
An understanding of Locard’s Exchange Principle can help you become a medical detective in your own life and can even help you be a happier person, Blumenthal argues.
His account also highlights the dangers forensic pathologists are exposed to daily. As they try to unravel the puzzle of someone’s death, forensic pathologists often face life-threatening infections, toxic gasses and accidental injury, in effect risking their life for someone else’s death.
An understanding of Locard’s Exchange Principle can help you become a medical detective in your own life and can even help you be a happier person, Blumenthal argues.
Autopsy: Life in the Trenches With a Forensic Pathologist in Africa by Ryan Blumenthal - R260
As a medical detective of the modern world, forensic pathologist Ryan Blumenthal's chief goal is to bring perpetrators to justice. He has performed thousands of autopsies, which have helped bring numerous criminals to book. In Autopsy he covers the hard lessons learnt as a rookie pathologist, as well as some of the most unusual cases he's encountered.
During his career, for example, he has dealt with high-profile deaths, mass disasters, death by lightning and people killed by African wildlife. Blumenthal takes the reader behind the scenes at the mortuary, describing a typical autopsy and the instruments of the trade. He also shares a few trade secrets, like how to establish when a suicide is more likely to be a homicide.
Even though they cannot speak, the dead have a lot to say - and Blumenthal is there to listen.
The Profiler Diaries 1: From The Case Files Of A Police Psychologist by Gerard Labuschagne - R340
‘I wanted to write this book before I forgot the finer details. As strange as that may sound, you can forget these things, and it is probably healthier to do so. You can visit the depths of hell – just don’t hang around there for too long.’ – Gérard Labuschagne
In this gripping – and sometimes terrifying – account, former South African Police Service (SAPS) head profiler Dr Gérard Labuschagne, successor to the legendary Micki Pistorius, recalls some of the 110 murder series and countless other bizarre crimes he analysed during his career.
An expert on serial murder and rape cases, Labuschagne saw it all in his fourteen and a half years in the SAPS. He walks the reader through the first crime scene he ever attended, his arrest of the Muldersdrift serial rapist, his experience as the head of the task team mandated to catch the Quarry serial murderer, his involvement with the Brighton Beach axe murders, and more. Despite often being stymied by a lack of resources, office politics and political interference, Labuschagne and his team were always determined to get their man – or woman, as in the Womb Raider case.
The Profiler Diaries is a fascinating – and often hair-raising – glimpse into what it was like to be a profiler in the world’s busiest profiling unit.
Also available, Profiler Diaries 2: From Crime Scene to Courtroom by Gerard Labuschagne - R320
Who are some of your favorite crime authors? Let us know in the comments below!
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