Jeff Noon

Secrets and suspense

Andrew Martin, Denise Mina and Rafael Bernal also feature in a round-up of the latest thrillers

Andrew Martin continues his quest to create uniquely interesting crime novels in The Winker (Corsair, £16.99). Lee Jones is a rock musician facing cultural extinction as the punks take over. It’s 1976. He wanders around London dressed to the nines, living his fantasies. His trademark move on stage was to wink at a member of the audience. He’s still doing that to people on the street, but what follows these days is anything but mutual admiration. And so begins the career of the winking killer. (The author has fun with vowels.) Charles Underhill, a wealthy Englishman living in Paris, has his own reasons for being obsessed with the Winker’s killing spree. He sets out to uncover the identity of the murderer.

Martin loves to play games with the reader and his characters. His writing is funny and nasty by turns, but it’s all done with a knowing touch that allows him to tease out intriguing ideas. Accordingly, this story never quite goes where we think it will. The attitudes and social mores belong entirely to the period, as does the reason for the murders — as an antidote to ennui. This is a rare creature, a murder mystery that manages to be both comic and an existential thriller.

Ever since Serial took off, the true crime podcast has been popular. In Conviction (Harvill Secker, £14.99), Denise Mina uses this as a starting point for a novel of suspense and hidden secrets. While suffering from depression, Anna McDonald becomes addicted to a podcast called Death and the Dana, about a murder that took place on a yacht in Saint-Martin. With a shock she recognises the name of one of the victims. It seems that Anna is leading a double life, under an assumed identity, using the trappings of a ‘normal’ existence to cloak a difficult, painful past.

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