Book of the month

Robert Thorogood – A Meditation on Murder is our british crime book of the month for August. Aslan Kennedy has an idyllic life: leader of a spiritual retreat for wealthy holidaymakers on one of the Caribbean's most unspoilt islands, Saint Marie. Until he's murdered, that is. The case seems open and shut: when Aslan was killed he was inside a locked room with only five other people, one of whom has already confessed to the murder.

Melissa Harrison – At Hawthorn Time is our book of the month for August. Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2015, Longlisted for the Baileys Prize 2016.

Kate Clanchy – Meeting the English is our book of the month for July. A bright debut novel about dark subjects, by an acclaimed poet and non-fiction and short story writer. 17yr old Struan goes south for the first time, leaving his Scottish town to spend a life-changing summer in London caring for a paralysed literary giant, in response to an advert.

William Sutton – Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square is our british crime book of the month for July.

Andrea Carter – Death at Whitewater Church is our british crime book of the month for June.

Viet Tanh Nguyen – The Sympathizer is our book of the month for June. Finalist for the Edgar Award for best First Novel 2016! Winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction! Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize! The Sympathizer is a Vietnam War novel unlike any other. The narrator, one of the most arresting of recent fiction, is a man of two minds and divided loyalties, a half-French half-Vietnamese communist sleeper agent living in America after the end of the war.

A. D. Miller – The Faithful Couple is our book of the month for May. California, 1993: Neil Collins and Adam Tayler, two young British men on the cusp of adulthood, meet at a hostel in San Diego. They strike up a friendship that, while platonic, feels as intoxicating as a romance; they travel up the coast together, harmlessly competitive, innocently collusive, wrapped up in each other. On a camping trip to Yosemite they lead each other to behave in ways that, years later, they will desperately regret.

David Mark – Dark Winter (DS Aector McAvoy #1) is our british crime book of the month for May. Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy is a man with a troubled past. His unwavering belief in justice has made him an outsider in the police force he serves. When three seemingly unconnected people are brutally murdered in the weeks before Christmas, the police must work quickly to stop more deaths.It is only McAvoy who can see the connection between the victims. A killer is playing God – and McAvoy must find a way to stop the deadly game.

James Marrison – The Drowning Ground (Guillermo Downes #1) is our british crime book of the month for April. A man is found dead near his home with a pitchfork through his neck. When DCI Guillermo Downes is called to the scene he realizes the victim is well known to him. A decade earlier, Downes made a promise to the families of two missing girls that he would find their daughters. Although cleared of any involvement, the dead man had been a suspect in their disappearance. And as the ripples from his death spread through the local community it happens to offer fresh hope that the detective might finally make good on his promise.

Nell Zink – Wallcreeper is our book of the month for April. The Wallcreeper is nothing more than a portrait of marriage, complete with all its requisite highs and lows: drugs, dubstep, small chores, anal sex, eco-terrorism, birding, breeding and feeding.