Recent crime novels | 17 July 2010

Michael Ridpath, best known for his excellent financial thrillers, explores new territory in Where the Shadows Lie, which combines elements of the American cop crime novel with J. R. R. Tolkein and post-credit-crunch Iceland. Magnus, a detective with the Boston Police Department, is a key prosecution witness in a case that may bring down a Dominican drug gang. For his own safety, he’s temporarily transferred to Iceland to advise their police department on modern criminal methods. He’s promptly provided with work experience — the killing of a philandering academic. Why did a suspicious Yorkshire truck driver with a fetish for Tolkein have an appointment with the dead man? How does the attractive art dealer fit in? And what on earth has the medieval saga of the Volsungs to do with it all? To make matters even more complicated, the Dominican druglords are still doing their very best to find Magnus before the trial comes up and ensure he will be in no fit state to testify.

Billed as the first of a series, Where the Shadows Lie is ingenious, and briskly narrated. Like many good thriller writers, Ridpath is adept at informing as well as thrilling — you can learn a great deal about Iceland, ancient and modern, here, and it’s fascinating stuff.

Allan Massie’s Death in Bordeaux is set in France during the phony war and the early months of the inglorious German occupation. Superintendent Lannes, of the Police Judiciaire, investigates the particularly brutal murder of a middle-aged homosexual. He turns up unexpected connections between the murder and a clutch of obscene letters received by an unsavoury count and his unpleasant family. The cast includes Spanish anarchists, French fascists and a Jewish femme fatale.