M. W. CRAVEN | FIVE RECOMMENDED READS | THRILLER THURSDAYS

This Thriller Thursday I'm bringing you five recommended reads from none other than M. W. Craven the Sunday Times bestselling author behind the Washington Poe series! 

1. Bad Monkey | Carl Hiaasen 

Blurb: When a severed arm is discovered by a couple on honeymoon in the Florida Keys, former police detective - now reluctant restaurant inspector - Andrew Yancy senses that something doesn't add up. Determined to get his badge back, he undertakes an unofficial investigation of his own.

Andrew's search for the truth takes him to the Bahamas, where a local man, with the help of a very bad monkey (who allegedly worked on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies), is doing everything in his power to prevent a developer from building a new tourist resort on the island, with deadly consequences . . .

2. Guards! Guards! | Terry Pratchett 

Blurb: 'It was the usual Ankh-Morpork mob in times of crisis; half of them were here to complain, a quarter of them were here to watch the other half, and the remainder were here to rob, importune or sell hotdogs to the rest.'

Insurrection is in the air in the city of Ankh-Morpork. The Haves and Have-Nots are about to fall out all over again.

Captain Sam Vimes of the city’s ramshackle Night Watch is used to this. It’s enough to drive a man to drink. Well, to drink more. But this time, something is different – the Have-Nots have found the key to a dormant, lethal weapon that even they don’t fully understand, and they’re about to unleash a campaign of terror on the city.

Time for Captain Vimes to sober up.

3. Slow Horses | Mick Herron

Blurb: You don't stop being a spook just because you're no longer in the game.

Banished to Slough House from the ranks of achievers at Regent's Park for various crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal, Jackson Lamb's misfit crew of highly trained joes don't run ops, they push paper.

But not one of them joined the Intelligence Service to be a 'slow horse'.

A boy is kidnapped and held hostage. His beheading is scheduled for live broadcast on the net. And whatever the instructions of the Service, the slow horses aren't going to just sit quiet and watch ...

4. Joyland | Stephen King 

Blurb: College student Devin Jones took the summer job at Joyland hoping to forget the girl who broke his heart. But he wound up facing something far more terrible: the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and dark truths about life—and what comes after—that would change his world forever. 

A riveting story about love and loss, about growing up and growing old—and about those who don't get to do either because death comes for them before their time—JOYLAND is Stephen King at the peak of his storytelling powers. 

5. Darkness Take My Hand | Dennis Lehane

Blurb: When Detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro agree to protect the son of a prominent psychiatrist they soon find bodies are piling up around them. What's more, all the clues point to an unlikely suspect - a serial killer who has been in prison for twenty years, so he can't be killing again, can he?

As the duo try to find out what kind of human being could perform such horrifying acts of mutilation, torture and dismemberment, they discover that the killer's motive is disturbingly rooted in their own past. In a series of heart-stopping climaxes that grow ever more bloody, ever more terrifying, the two detectives work frantically to capture the killer before they become victims themselves.

I've got five new editions to my bookshelf... What do you think? 🧐

M. W. Craven's latest novel Dead Ground is out now, catch my review here & if you missed my 'quick-fire questions with...' Craven himself head over here.