With an ingenious ending that’s seriously satisfying, Guy Morpuss's latest detective novel is centred on razor-sharp sleuth and barrister Charles Konig. He’s brought onto a case at the last minute when the ex-husband and co-star of an actress who has been decapitated live on stage is accused of her murder. In front of a full house, leading lady Alexandra Dyce took to the stage for the final time but, as Charles and a colleague sift through the evidence, they realise that the key to solving the mystery may lie within the play itself. As Charles navigates celebrity drama and hidden secrets, he must uncover the real murderer to win the case of a lifetime.

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Irish author Garrett Carr’s latest book is a personal reflection on his own upbringing. It’s 1973 when a baby is found abandoned on the beach on Ireland’s west coast. The close-knit community is at once suspicious of the boy who seems to have washed up on the shore, until a fisherman, Ambrose Bonnar, adopts him. Ambrose, a man more comfortable at sea than on land, brings the baby into his home out of love. But it is a decision that will fracture his family and force this man to try to understand himself and those he cares for. This is a novel about a restless man trying to find his place in the world, and an exploration of the ties that make and bind us. 

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In the early 60s, Victor 'Lucky' Johnson arrives in London from St Kitts, with dreams of becoming a journalist. Lucky soon finds work at an Irish pub in Notting Hill, then as a rent collector for an unscrupulous slum landlord Peter Feldman. Shadowing Lucky from his early struggles in London to the present day, Caryl Phillips paints a portrait of a flawed but vividly alive man grappling with the lifelong disillusionments of exile – and the uniquely complicated identity of the Windrush generation. It’s a timely portrait of immigrant London, and a moving story about displacement and belonging.

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Abdulrazak Gurnah was one of the unsung heroes in contemporary African literature, until he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. His works focus on displacement and colonialism, drawing from his upbringing in Tanzania. Theft is set at the turn of the 21st century, when three young people are coming of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university with new swagger and ambition, while Fauzia glimpses in him a chance to escape from a smothering upbringing. The two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all. As tourism, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils reach their quiet corner of the world, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands.

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