Books to chill your blood on a warm, balmy evening...

If you’re the kind of reader who enjoys having your blood chilled on a warm and balmy evening, read on. These thrillers, mysteries, dark fantasies and whodunnits promise to keep a good night’s sleep at bay.

Andrew Raymond’s The Bonnie Dead (Vinci €9.49) has a serial killer nicknamed The Sandman on the rampage in Glasgow again. In the past he has kidnapped children and murdered them within five days of their capture. He’s never been caught, and DCI John Lomond is desperate to bring him to justice.

Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin (Titan €9.49) features a cannibalistic orchid growing in a shopping mall, and having a particular interest in the mall’s florist, the beautiful Neve. The orchid is convinced he must consume Neve and nothing, including Neve’s new assistant Shell, will stand in his way.

Jennifer Trevelyan’s A Beautiful Family (Mantle €16.99) is set in 1980s New Zealand, where 10-year-old Alix is on holidays and meets Kahu, a Māori boy who’s also there on holiday. Kahu tells Alix about a girl who went missing from the seaside town a decade before and was never found. The pair decide to investigate for themselves, uncovering a world of dark secrets in the coastal neighbourhood.

In RB Egan’s The Landlord (Hodder €16.99), actress Cathy moves in to a new house after breaking up with her boyfriend. But the landlord’s a bit off and word on the street is he murdered his wife, although it was never proved. Things quickly get hairy for Cathy, but she’s still not convinced he’s a murderer.

Karin Slaughter’s We Are All Guilty Here (Harper Collins €15.99) has two teenage girls go missing from their town during Halloween festivities. Officer Emmy Lou Clifton is investigating and, with the clock ticking, is losing hope of finding them alive.

Some of Us are Liars (Macmillan €16.99) by Fiona Cummins is a twisty thriller involving a four-year-old boy gone missing and a lavish society party that goes horrifically wrong. Saul Anguish investigates not just recent events, but the buried secrets in a dark past that led up to those events. Who’s telling the truth and who isn’t?

Mystery, murder and revenge are the themes of Autumn Woods’ Night Shade (Pan €14.50), a dark academia novel set in the exclusive Sorrowsong University in Scotland. Ophelia Winters has gained a scholarship there and sets about investigating her parents’ ‘accidental’ deaths near the college grounds.

Sinéad Nolan’s The Counting Game (Harper North €14.99) has 13-year-old Saoirse gone missing while playing a game of hide-and-seek with her younger brother Jack in the forest. Jack can’t speak about what he saw that day, so a child psychologist is called in to help. What she discovers is far more than she bargained for.

Ruth Ware’s The Woman in Suite 11 (Simon and Schuster €15.99) has journalist Lo Blacklock itching to interview Marcus Leidmann, owner of a new luxury hotel just opened on Lake Geneva. But he’s proving difficult to track down. When she’s called to his suite for a late-night meeting, she meets not Leidmann but his mistress, who insists that her life is in jeopardy and a breathless pan-European race against time ensues.

Lisa Jewell’s Don’t Let Him In (Century €17.99) is full of lies heaped upon lies, as Nick Radcliffe worms his way into the heart and home of widowed Nina Swann, although her daughter Ash is not convinced he’s as pure as the driven snow. In a nearby town, Martha’s husband Al is away from home with increasing frequency. What’s the connection?

In Liam McIlvanney’s The Good Father (Zaffre €17.99), Rory Rutherford, just seven years old, goes missing from the beach outside his home. A frantic search follows but Rory is not found. Gordon Rutherfod and his wife try to rebuild their lives slowly, but it’s proving impossible, and Gordon needs closure. At any cost.

Amelia Blackwell’s A Crime Through Time (Macmillan €21.75) is set both in Pemberley (Jane Austen’s Pemberley) in 1799, and in the lavish Saltram House in 1995, where Georgiana Darcy finds herself transported through two centuries, to solve a murder investigation. Intriguing and funny, it’s a different take on the usual murder mystery novel, and there are plenty of grins as we observe Georgiana grappling with life in the late 20th century.

Fantasy author Juno Dawson’s Human Rites (Harper Voyager €18.75) is full of witchcraft and dark magic as Her Majesty’s Royal Coven of witches are reunited, but each of them is somewhat broken by previous experiences. When Lucifer comes calling, they are sorely tempted by his promises. But eventually they realise they must either save the ones they love or save the world from the powers of evil.

Steve Cavanagh’s Two Kinds of Stranger (Headline €16.99) is Cavanagh’s ninth Eddie Flynn novel and has internet philanthropist Ellie Parker turn to him for help. Ellie has gone from riches to rags overnight, thanks to one of her good deeds going wrong. Afterwards, when a stranger turns to her for help, she helps him. But she shouldn’t have. And now not only is she in danger, but so is Eddie Flynn and his family.

Sally Gardner’s The Bride Stone (Head of Zeus €23) is a historical mystery set in the late 18th century, where Lord Duval Harlington is to be disinherited of his father’s estate unless he marries within two days. A marriage of convenience in such circumstances must surely lead to disaster. And it does.

In Lynda La Plante’s The Scene of the Crime (Zaffre €16.99), CSI officer Jessica Russell and her team work frantically to uncover who’s behind the savage assault of the husband of a prominent barrister. The man has been left in a coma and might not survive. Is this a robbery that went wrong? If it is, Russell needs to find out what was stolen.

Footnotes

The Kilkenny Arts Festival runs from August 7 to 17, when the city’s churches, castle, courtyards, townhouses and gardens offer unique collaborations and encounters between audiences and artists. See kilkennyarts.ie for details.

This year’s choice for the open-air opera at Loughcrew Estate on 9 August is Carmen. Details and tickets from loughcrew.com.