So technically, I started this book last week but it is really good and so I thought I’d share a bit through, First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday Intros. Thank you to Yvonne, from Socrates’ Book Reviews who hosts this meme. As a reminder this is your chance to post a bit from a book that you are reading or planning to read.

“Detective Inspector Anjelica Henley looked back at the mid-terraced house with freshly painted blue door. She wondered, not for the first time, what it said about there that she was happier dealing with rapists and murderers than her own husband. She checked her reflection in the rear-view mirror. She had rushed out too quickly and hand’t had a chance to cover up the small scar on her right cheek and the dark circles under her eyes…

… Trainee Detective Constable Salim Ramouter was standing on the other side of the tape, a short distance from the crowd. He was dressed in a navy suit, white shirt and tie and Henley could see the shine bouncing off his black shoes. He was new to the team, though not new to the force, and he still looked ‘fresh’ and untouched by the reality that would soon come with being a detective on the streets of London.”

The Jigsaw Man by Nadine Matheson.

DI Anjelica Henley has just returned to active duty to the Serial Crimes Unit (SCU) after being on desk duty after her encounter with Serial Killer, Peter Olivier, AKA the Jigsaw Man. She didn’t expect to be sidelined on her first day back on the job by a having a new trainee and much less another violent case which bears a strong resemblance to the Jigsaw Man case. Is this a case of a copy cat?

I’ve mentioned that I haven’t been reading a lot of thrillers lately but this one really caught my attention. I love London settings and I like that we have a strong woman as the main character and she’s in charge of showing the trainee the ropes.

That’s not to say Anjelica doesn’t have her share of demons to contend with but the more I’m reading the book, the more I’m enjoying these two officers whose main goal is to put a killer away.

So what do you think, would you pick this one up?

Here we are past the midway mark of the month and I’m just now getting around to telling you about some new releases. Well hopefully these are still new to you and something to add to your radar. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the review copies.

Stella by Tarkis Würger, translated by Liesl Schillinger. A tale of love and betrayal set in 1942 Berlin. Friedrich arrives in Berlin from bucolic Switzerland with dreams of becoming an artist. The war feels far away to Friedrich as he falls in love with Kristin but as the months pass, the mood in the city darkens yet further.

What’s Mine and Yours by Naima Coster. A community in North Carolina rises in outrage as a county initiative draws students from the largely Black east side of town into predominantly white high schools on the west. For two students, Gee and Noelle, the integration sets off a chain of events that will tie their two families together in unexpected ways over the next twenty years.

Good Eggs by Rebecca Hardiman. A hilarious and heartfelt debut novel following three generations of a boisterous family whose simmering tensions boil over when a home aide enters the picture. Kevin Gogarty’s irrepressible eighty-three-year-old mother, Millie, is caught shoplifting yet again, he has no choice but to hire a caretaker to keep an eye on her.

The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade. It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans.

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel. Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she might also miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family in the north.

The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan. The Nasr family is spread across the globe—Beirut, Brooklyn, Austin, the California desert. A Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and three American children: all have lived a life of migration. Still, they’ve always had their ancestral home in Beirut and the complicated, messy family love that binds them. But following his father’s recent death, Idris, the family’s new patriarch, has decided to sell.

Don’t all of these sound interesting? I’m sort of drawn to The Arsonists’ City first mainly for that striking cover. If you were going to start reading one of these which one would you pick?

Enjoy your weekend and more book talk soon!