In Department Q, the Copenhagen Police's group responsible for clearing up cold crimes, grumpy and work-shy detective Carl Moerk finds the case of a 20 year-old murder of a brother and sister on his desk. Unsure who has referred the case Moerk and his sidekick, the cleaner turned assistant Assad tentatively start looking into the matter, even though someone confessed to the murder and is serving a prison sentence for it. In this book the men of Department Q are joined by a female colleague in the form of Rose who is meant to be some kind of administrative assistant but is soon just about running the place. She has some of the best, bitingly sarcastic lines in the novel. I am certainly looking forward to learning more about the mysterious Assad, who appears to have grown in Carl's estimation since the last book, and whose ability as an investigator now seems sharper, too.

This novel is a sensationalistic one. Drawing on themes of sado-masochism, abuse, and the privilege of the rich, it is difficult to read and I did not feel like the author is trying to shock you. Having said that, there is enough suspense, and the plot is interesting enough to keep the reader wanting to know what happens next and keep turning pages.
In short this is a tremendously good read with excellent characters, lots of interesting storylines and offering a credible depiction of a modern bureaucracy with all its flaws.

I have read all of Gianrico Carofiglio's books and he writes like no other.
I am always sorry to put the book down after finishing it.
His stories are only part of the book. The way he writes it, is the other.
Reading his books are like being in the moment.
Please read him. '

Zulu, the first novel by French author Caryl Férey, is about Cape Town, South Africa: truly an international crime novel.It begins as a police procedural, centered on the head of the homicide team of the Cape Town police, Ali Neuman, whose Zulu background will become relevant to the plot, it constantly shifting plot lines circling around the drugs and violence in the townships surrounding Cape Town and the murder of two white women.
Zulu is a book that could introduce South Africa as a setting for crime fiction to those unfamiliar with the country's history.

The capital city of Bratislava, still recovering from decades of a bleak and impoverished existence, is the site of the murder of a group of people suspected of being involved in human trafficking. According to "Siren of the Waters, Bratislava is at the crossroads of international illegal activity. As the bodies begin to pile up in several countries, Inspector Matinova must unravel the structure of the organizations struggling for dominance in the lucrative business of prostitutes and black market.

Jana Matinova is a police officer who began her job under Communist rule and who has emerged with her job intact after the political change to a more overtly capitalist state. She is our tour guide in Michael Genelin's novel "Siren of the Waters" and her story, both present and past, illuminates the difficulty of life in this part of the world.

Internationally bestselling author Häkan Nesser makes his U.S. debut with this riveting tale of murder and suspense that reveals the deep humanity of the characters portrayed even as it sends chills up the spine.
The first of many, one can only hope, on the evidence of this stylish, warm novel of detection.
The novel is part of a series featuring Inspector Van Veeteren, who rather bucks the trend for Scandinavian detectives in that he's warm, funny, and likes good wine and good company.
At the beginning of the book we find Van Veeteren on holiday in a, presumably, Swedish province; just as he's about to return home, a wealthy real-estate businessman is brutally murdered, with an axe, in a nearby town. Soon the case turns from bad to worse when another body turns up and one of Van Veeteren's colleagues, a young female detective, disappears without a trace. Now Van Veeteren must find the killer,
before anyone else comes to harm.
Riveting and intellectually satisfying, Borkmann's Point unfolds like a chess match where each move could prove deadly.

While this is apparently part of a series featuring the unique voice and perspective of police detective Petra Delicado, Dog Day is the first English translation of Gimenez-Bartlett's series novels.

What's so good about this book? Quite simply, everything. The plot, set in contemporary Spain, is compelling,and probing. The characters, too, are so real that one feels that they are acquaintances. In particular, Petra--from whose vantage point the narrative proceeds--is a vivid presence, with keen observational powers, a wry sense of humor and a healthy sexual appetite.
Delicado and Garzón investigate the near-fatal beating of a derelict whose sole possession seems to be a peculiar-looking dog. As the partners piece together the last few days of the victim's life, they learn his name, Lucena, and that he sold dogs to local universities and pharmaceutical companies for experiments.
Gimenez-Bartlett keeps readers guessing as they follow Petra and her assistant in their quest to find the reasons underlying the victim's death.

I will put Giménez-Bartlett on the lenghtening list of novelists in other languages for whose translations I will await impatiently

The Mannequin Man is set in an Italian seaside town. The period covered in the novel coincides closely with a strike by the garbage collectors, and the putrid anarchy into which the city descends as the garbage piles up makes for a nice atmospheric setting to the novel.

The story begins with an amateur taxidermist hunting for prey. He comes across a young couple making love in a secluded area and notices an old man spying on them from behind a bush. Something snaps in him and he shoots and kills the two men before mutilating the young girl.

The writing flows beautifully; amazing for a translation and I found myself drawn into the book very quickly. This is not a novel where we are left guessing who the murderer is; the entertainment is following how the detectives work out who he is.

The much anticipated 4th book in Garry Disher's series featuring Inspector Hal Challis (The Dragon Man, Kittyhawk Down & Snapshot)

Challis has come home to watch his father die but it's not going to be easy. Uncompromising and awkward, the argumentative old man who used to be a lawyer is still capable of provoking an asthma attack in his son. Challis needs to remind himself that he is now head of a crime investigation unit on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria and he seeks distraction from the inevitable by trying to discover what happened to his sister's husband, an RSPCA inspector who disappeared five years ago.

Sergeant Ellen Destry is left to head an investigation into a ring of pedophiles that has descended on the peaceful Mornington Peninsula, a resort community near Melbourne. A little girl has been abducted from the fairgrounds at the annual Waterloo Show; it takes her mother twenty-four hours to report her missing. By then, hope is slim that the police will find the child before it is too late.

Praise for the Hal Challis series

The Past is a Foreign Country by Gianrico Carofiglio is the brilliant almost poetic story of a young law student's decline into a dark amoral pit, combined with an ancillary tale of the hunt for a serial sex offender.
The story of the law student Giorgio is told in the first person narrator style used in the Guerrieri books. The other strand of the novel features a young carabinieri Lieutenant Chiti and this is told in the third person.
We know that the two seperate strands will coalesce at some point in the story.
He writes such a fine gripping page turner that he makes me impatient for his next book.

If you haven't yet discovered this gem of a series, I can't recommend them enough. Start with his first book The Bridge of Sighs.(2003)
It's the history of a nation through the eyes of its police and spies.

Victory Square is the fifth in this brilliant series set in Eastern Europe just after the Second World War...It marks the end to Olen Steinhauer's grim but fascinating police procedurals set in an unnamed Soviet-bloc nation very much like Romania.

As the Soviet Union falls apart, and the rest of Eastern Europe with it, homicide detective Emil Brod is just focused on his upcoming retirement. As his last case progresses, though, he and his coworkers are forced to navigate the politics of the new revolution. Brod in particular finds out that a new government won't stop the past from haunting the entire country. This is a juicy maze of a story, with interesting characters, and gives a thought-provoking look at not only Soviet-bloc Communism, but also the Wild West democracy that replaced it.