Book reviewer ANNA CREER looks at some of the latest crime fiction worth a read these summer holidays… 

Canberra’s own Chris Hammer’s latest thriller is set close to home in a valley just inland from Batemans Bay.

Ivan Lucic and Nell Buchanan return in The Valley, investigating the death of Wolfgang Burnside, a local, self-made millionaire who has transformed life in the valley, creating a community internet, building a solar farm, establishing a farmers’ market and developing an eco-resort next to the National Park. 

To the locals “he was either some kind of saint, advancing the community, or he was in it for himself, only interested in making money”.

The investigation becomes more personal for Nell when she discovers Burnside is a close blood relative. In flashbacks, as the investigation progresses in the present, Hammer reveals the story of Nell’s mother’s life in the valley in 1994.

Told from multiple perspectives and two different narrative timelines, Hammer’s story of love, greed and crime and corruption is his most ambitious yet. 

Hammer creates a powerful sense of place through vivid descriptions, as well as intriguing characters with his trademark unusual names, including Police Sergeant Cornell Obswith and Teramina Hardcastle, the richest women in the valley. Hammer fans will love it.

RICHARD Osman is described by his publishers as “the biggest author of the decade”. His cosy crime novels, featuring four unlikely friends in a retirement village, have sold more that 10 million copies, with a Hollywood film already in production.

However, in his latest novel We Solve Murders, he’s left the retirement village behind, introducing new characters in perhaps a new genre, cosy thrillers.

Amy Wheeler works for Maximum Impact Solutions, “the world’s biggest close-protection agency”. Her current assignment is to protect Rosie D’Antonio on her private island off the South Carolina coast. Rosie is fabulously wealthy as she is “the world’s best selling novelist if you don’t count Lee Child”.

When both her life and Rosie’s come under threat, Amy turns to the only man she trusts, her father-in-law Steve Wheeler. Steve is a widower and a retired police officer, who lives in a village in the New Forest. What follows is a rollercoaster ride from the US to Dubai via the Caribbean, as Amy, Rosie and Steve outwit a hit-man sent by the notorious money smuggler, Francois Loubet.

Osman has the rare talent of combining humour with crime and, in his cosy world, violent criminals can be transformed by the decency of his irrepressible main characters. Crime, Osman style, is fun.

IAN Rankin is one of the most successful crime writers of the modern era. His iconic detective, John Rebus, has been described as one of British crime writing’s greatest characters alongside Holmes, Poirot and Morse.

In Midnight and Blue, Rebus is retired, approaching 70 and in prison. He’s been convicted of the attempted murder of Big Ger Cafferty (the cliffhanger ending of A Heart full of Headstones, 2022) and has been given a mandatory life sentence. 

While hoping his appeal will succeed, Rebus is thankful he has a cell to himself and that he’s being protected by the dominant criminal in the jail, Daryll Christie.

When a prisoner is found murdered in his cell, Rebus’ former colleague Detective Sergeant Christine Esson arrives as part of the investigative team. It’s a classic locked room mystery and both prisoners and guards are suspects. The Governor turns to Rebus for help telling him the police “can’t see or hear the things you do”.

Prison was a dangerous place for Rebus before, now with no badge, no authority, Rebus has to find a killer in a prison full of them.

At the same time, Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is investigating the disappearance of a 14-year-old schoolgirl and the universally despised Malcolm Fox is interfering in both investigations for his own personal advancement.

Midnight and Blue is vintage Rankin, clever and unpredictable. Rankin says that he gets “a visceral thrill” every time he starts a new Rebus and his readers do, too.

BENJAMIN Stevenson’s third novel in his Ernest Cunningham series, Everyone This Christmas has a Secret, sees his eponymous amateur detective, with a nod to Agatha Christie, solve two murders in the Blue Mountains two days before Christmas.

“Two impossible murders. A woman covered in blood who doesn’t remember how it got on her. And a man decapitated… by a piece of paper”.

There are “santa-fied clues aplenty” to help the reader solve the crimes, including an advent calendar and Secret Santa presents. It’s all impossibly silly.