Not A Happy Family by Shari Lapena, Bantam Press, €14.99

In Not A Happy Family by Shari Lapena, obnoxious businessman Fred Merton and his perfect wife are found dead in their tasteful Hudson Valley home after a family get-together. It turns out just about everyone at the dinner had reason to kill Mom and Dad, especially when Fred had hinted about changing his will. Who could blame him with such an entitled lot of offspring? A stylish whodunnit with entertaining twists.

56 DAYS by Catherine Ryan Howard, Corvus, €18.20

Catherine Ryan Howard’s 56 DAYS brilliantly captures the eeriness and unreality of Dublin in the early days of Covid, when everyone is ordered home. Strangers Ciara and Oliver meet over a lunchtime sandwich and are soon living together in his strangely impersonal swanky apartment but how much can they know each other and who is carrying more secrets? When neighbours complain about a bad smell, detectives Lee and Karl are faced with a corpse that blows open an old notorious crime. Howard keeps things nicely tense, with some unexpected laughs along the way.

Hell And High Water by Christian Unge, MacLehose Press, €18.95

In Hell And High Water by Christian Unge, ER doctor Tekla Berg races to save the life of a burns victim police want to question about a terrorist attack, but there’s something familiar about him that dredges up memories from her hyperactive brain. Soon she’s on a collision course with the police and her past. A bestseller in Sweden, this is the first in a series written by a doctor who’s done his time on the emergency ward and stuffs his narrative with authentic hospital back stories.