The Bookshop Detectives, Murder and Mojitos by Gareth Ward and Louise Ward. Two real life booksellers from Hawkes Bay have created a fictional bookshop named Sherlock Tomes which in this, the 3rd in the series, is cosy crime full of literary mayhem. Sherlock Tomes are invited to work with a visiting writer from Cuba who’s coming to Hawkes Bay for the Art Deco Festival, given the shared architecture style of the two countries, and the bookshop has the opportunity to run a literary event while she’s in town – which of course goes terribly awry.. This is warm, witty and highly amusing. 

The Kingpin by A.A.Dhand. A pharmacist in the city of Leeds is drawn into the underworld through both the temptations of his brother, newly released from prison, and a local cop with a terminal illness who now has nothing to lose. Idris Khan is the pharmacist in question – his dispensary is on the edge of a large housing estate where he supplies methadone to local addicts and he lives in a hard, morally grey world. This is really gritty inner city crime, made more interesting by the pharmacist’s understanding of medicines and how to use them for very specific results.

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