In the chill zone

We're only halfway through the year, but already a collection of great yarns, absorbing literature, brilliant memoirs and big ideas have grabbed our undivided attention. Books editor Mark Broatch surveys some of the best.

- Mark Broatch

THRILLS & CHILLS

The Call (A&U), a deft and accomplished debut novel from NZ screenwriter Gavin Strawhan, has an eye to current issues and a magnetic detective lead. DSS Hana Westerman is back in Return to Blood (S&S), Michael Bennett's confident sequel to the bestselling Better the Blood, which welcomes new characters and has an unexpected ending. In JP Pomare's 17 Years Later (Hachette), out on July 31, a prison psychologist and true-crime podcaster try to find out who really killed the wealthy Primrose family. How far do you go to save your family is canvassed in Home Truths (A&U) by Kiwi Charity Norman, out on July 30, which features former probation officer Livia Denby, who is on trial for attempted murder. Everybody Knows (Faber) by Jordan Harper is a top-notch thriller that journeys into the sordid, moneyed world of Hollywood and its fixers after an apparently random killing of a PR boss. Don Winslow's City in Ruins (HarperCollins), a fitting swansong to his Danny Ryan trilogy and probably his writing career, is an ambitious tale that weaves together a clutch of storylines. In Devil's Kitchen (Bantam), Candice Fox has conjured an action-packed tale of a female undercover agent infiltrating a deadly gang of New York firefighters and thieves. James Lee Burke's Clete (Orion) brings Clete Purcel, sidekick to Burke's Cajun investigator Dave Robicheaux, to centre stage in a gripping story of dogged sleuthing. You Like It Darker (Hachette) is a first-rate compilation of short stories from master of horror Stephen King, some new and some older but uncollected.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON READS