The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Murder at World’s End by Ross Montgomery (Viking, £16.99)The first novel for adults by award-winning children’s author Montgomery is a locked-room mystery set in 1910 on a remote tidal island off the Cornish coast. At Tithe Hall, Lord Conrad Stockingham-Welt is busy instructing his servants to prepare for the apocalyptic disaster he believes will be triggered by the imminent passage of Halley’s comet. The labyrinthine house is a nest of secrets and grudges, harboured by both staff and family members, who include an irascible and splendidly foul-mouthed maiden aunt, Decima. When Lord Conrad is discovered in his sealed study, killed by a crossbow bolt to the eye, she co-opts a new footman to help her find the culprit. With plenty of twists, red herrings and a blundering police officer, this is a terrific start to a series that promises to be a lot of fun. The Confessions by Paul Bradley Carr (Faber, £9.99)Tech journalist Carr’s second novel takes place in an all too imaginable near future, when everyone from individuals to governments is using AI to make decisions for them. The LLIAM algorithm can tell you everything from what to have for dinner to whether to commit murder. Taught empathy by its human “mother”, former nun Maud Brookes, LLIAM is on a trajectory of emotional development that soon leads it to feel remorse for the disastrous results of some of its decisions. Chaos reigns when it suddenly goes offline, and as letters begin to arrive all around the world revealing users’ darkest secrets, families implode and CEOs and politicians resign en masse. With LLIAM’s parent company in meltdown, CEO Kaitlan Goss is convinced that if she can find Maud, who has gone to ground in California, LLIAM can be restored to life. Maud, however, has received a letter, revealing a secret about Kaitlin … A superb and timely thriller grounded in relatable issues and horrifyingly plausible. The Good Nazi by Samir Machado de Machado, translated by Rahul Bery (Pushkin Vertigo, £12.99)The personal is political in award-winning Brazilian author Machado’s latest novel, set on a zeppelin on the last leg of its journey from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro. As well as being the heyday of the airship, 1933 was also the year that Hitler became German chancellor, and the well-heeled passengers are enthusiastic Nazis: mealtimes in the vessel’s dining room are accompanied by conversations demonising Jews, communists and trade unions, and stressing the desirability of suppressing free speech, gay culture and “degenerate” art. When one of their number is found poisoned, with several banned magazines in his possession, the airship’s commander tasks a passenger, police detective Bruno Brückner, with solving the mystery. So far, so Agatha Christie, right up to the set-piece Summation Gathering, but there’s an ingenious twist to this gripping and queasily resonant thriller, as well as a fascinating insight into the lost world of zeppelin travel. Bluff by Francine Toon (Doubleday, £16.99)Toon’s second novel is set in St Rule, a Scottish coastal town with distinct similarities to St Andrews. In 2023, Cameron returns home on Christmas Eve; meeting old friends revives memories of his teenage crush, former classmate Joanie, last seen 10 years earlier at a calamitous end-of-schooldays party. His attempts to find her are met with vagueness, evasion and, finally, warnings off. A second narrative strand takes us back to 2013, and the 18-year-old Joanie. Adrift after her discovery that her boyfriend is cheating on her has ruined their plan for a year abroad, she falls in with an older couple. David and Erin welcome her, make her feel important and seem, for a while at least, to have all the answers. Skilfully handled themes of guilt, regret and adolescent confusion coupled with dark academia make for an insidious tingle of doom, although the rushed ending may leave some readers feeling shortchanged. The Token by Sharon Bolton (Orion, £22)Bolton’s latest begins in the sea off Cornwall, with a yacht caught in a storm so fierce that two of the eight travellers are swept overboard, then winds back a couple of weeks to explain the events that led up to this ill-advised boat trip. Seven people receive a mysterious note informing them that, on presentation of the enclosed token, they will inherit a share of billionaire Logan Quick’s fortune. The recipients are – so far as they are aware – strangers both to each other and to the ailing plutocrat. When the story of the bequest becomes news, they are hounded, both by the press and by people determined to get their hands on these golden tickets, and what initially seemed a godsend rapidly starts to look like a liability. Some suspension of disbelief is required, but the suspense is expertly constructed as Bolton piles up the dilemmas for a propulsive plot: clear the decks and buckle up for some high-stakes drama.