Control and Coercion in the best Psychological Thrillers out now: Dead Heat by Sabine
Dead Heat by Sabine Durrant (Century £16.99, 352pp)
Durrant’s talent for conjuring the harsh beauty of Greece’s Mani peninsula immediately immerses the reader in the story of Matt Grimshaw, a recently sacked journalist who has also been dumped by his girlfriend.
He is staying with his friend, super achiever Adam, and his enigmatic wife Celia in their Greek house.
The plot turns on the recent arrival of a flashy billionaire, Reynash de Souza, with whom Adam has a history.
The temperature rises as the lavish socialising develops a more sinister atmosphere. We know there is a death from the book’s opening but we don’t know who and why.
Durrant delivers an understated but explosive conclusion to a story about friendship and rivalry.
A deadly Greek odyssey turns up the heat
Unreliable Narrator by Araminta Hall (Macmillan £18.99, 448pp)
Unreliable Narrator is available now
Hope is a young impressionable woman who is a live-in secretary to a magnetic author, Ambrose Glencourt, his wife Celia and their semi-adopted son Tom.
For Hope this is a dream come true, until suddenly it isn’t. The events around a fatal accident cause Hope to leave her job and go on to lead a life as a semi recluse.
We meet Hope when she discovers Ambrose is now making a name for himself by telling his version of those terrible events which they had agreed to keep secret.
She must now confront Ambrose’s retelling and face the painful consequences.
The reader is left trapped in a delightful guessing game as the story is told from different perspectives. An intriguing psychological take on control and coercion.
The Shark by Emma Styles (Sphere £25, 352pp)
Two women decide to take the law into their own hands when the police fail to stop a serial killer nicknamed The Shark who is operating on the coast of Perth, Australia, and attacking young, female swimmers.
Raych and Carmen link up despite them not really knowing each other except for some time spent on the same psychiatric ward.
But after they kidnap the prime suspect, it becomes apparent that they have very different motives.
It’s a strange proposition and the author is an advocate for ‘battling the patriarchy’ but her exquisite prose rescues this tale from being a preachy parable. Instead it lands as thoughtful, if disturbing, work.