New Fiction: 5 Irresistible Reads

This image is no longer available

From corporate crime and complicated friendships to long-buried spine-tingling secrets, mischief and murder, here are five hot new books to add your list.

 

THE KING OF SHANGHAI (Anansi Press) by Ian Hamilton

It’s never business-as-usual when it comes to forensic accountant Ava Lee. In the seventh novel of the popular crime thriller series, the feisty and fearless, Asian-Canadian detective is off to Shanghai to investigate an investment opportunity with a new fashion line. There she meets the mysterious Xu, head of the Shanghai Triad, who lures her into a business arrangement so audacious it threatens everything she’s worked for — and maybe even her life. (Ava Lee fans will be happy to hear that CBC-TV recently announced plans to adapt the series.)

 

HER (Little, Brown and Company) by Harriet Lane

Every day life becomes deadly for Emma, hapless mother of two, when a coincidental meeting at the park leads to a budding friendship with the ultra-cool Nina, a sophisticated and successful artist. In the vein of Nicci French and S.J. Watson, Harriet Lane’s new book is about how menace can lurk beneath even the most commonplace and seemingly innocent encounters.

AS CHIMNEY SWEEPERS COME TO DUST (Doubleday Canada) by Alan Bradley

The young, but wise-beyond-her-years, chemist and aspiring sleuth Flavia de Luce is back, this time in our very own Great North! In the latest installment of Alan Bradley’s internationally bestselling series, Flavia is shipped off from her beloved English countryside to a boarding school in Toronto. Here, she uses her vast knowledge of poison to take on the unexpectedly unsavoury world of Canadian boarding schools.

THE BOSTON GIRL (Scribner) by Anita Diamant

In much the same way she did for women living in Biblical times in The Red Tent, bestselling author Anita Diamant delves into the complicated lives, family ties and friendships of women coming to age in early twentieth century America. Rich with the vivid historical details of an era ripe with change for women, the story is told from the point-of-view of 85-year-old Addie Baum as she relates her great adventures to her granddaughter.

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW (Patrick Crean Editions) by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

No one living in Canada in the 1990’s could have missed the terrible headlines of the abduction and murder of young girls in Toronto at the hands of Paul Bernardo. In this new literary thriller from Elisabeth de Mariaffi, crime beat rookie reporter Evie Jones is assigned to cover the Bernardo story, but at the same time she’s obsessed with solving the murder of her childhood best friend a decade before. But even as she uses her prodigious skills to stalk a killer, a stalker arrives at her doorstep.

What’s on your book list? Let us know in the comments!