Recent crime fiction | 9 February 2017

There isn’t a clear line separating crime and literary fiction, but a border zone where ideas are passed from one genre to another. Flynn Berry’s debut Under the Harrow (Weidenfeld, £12.99) is set well to the literary side of this border, but doesn’t shirk on the thrills of a psychological mystery. Nora Lawrence expects to spend a few peaceful days in the countryside, staying at her sister Rachel’s house. Instead she finds Rachel dead, the victim of a brutal murder. A previous, unsolved attack on her sister has left Nora with very little faith in the police, and she is forced to undertake her own investigation. But is she driven by justice or revenge?

Nora seeks a motive for the murder in the earlier crime, and this uncovers aspects of her sister’s life that were hidden away. The novel is a study of grief more than anything, and Berry is very good at detailing the way sadness infects both mind and body. She has a unique writer’s voice. A bloody handprint on the stairs becomes the focus of unrelenting pain. The overly literary style does get in the way at times; too much detail slows down the storytelling. But the twists arise naturally from the psychological desires of the characters, rather than being tacked on for effect. All bodes well for Berry’s next walk along the border.

Italo Calvino declared that profound art doesn’t need to be weighty; it can also enjoy the virtues of lightness. Mario Giordano’s Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions (John Murray, £14.99) attempts a balance of the two impulses, not always successfully, but always with panache and vigour. It’s a comic crime novel starring 60-year-old Poldi, the aunt of the young narrator — who’s often shocked by Poldi’s behaviour and her recklessness.