Live and Deadly – A book review site reviewing mainly crime fiction

Catherine: A Retelling of Wuthering Heights by Essie Fox @EssieFox @OrendaBooks @RandomTTours

Source: Review copy
Publication day :12 February 2026 from Orenda Books
PP: 296
ISBN-13:978-1917764421

My thanks to Orenda Books for an advance copy for review

With a nature as wild as the moors she loves to roam, Catherine Earnshaw grows up alongside Heathcliff, a foundling her father rescued from the streets of Liverpool. Their fierce, untamed bond deepens as they grow – until Mr Earnshaw’s death leaves Hindley, Catherine’s brutal brother, in control and Heathcliff reduced to servitude.

Desperate to protect him, Catherine turns to Edgar Linton, the handsome heir to Thrushcross Grange. She believes his wealth might free Heathcliff from cruelty – but her choice is fatally misunderstood, and their lives spiral into a storm of passion, jealousy and revenge.

Now, eighteen years later, Catherine rises from her grave to tell her story – and seek redemption.

Catherine is a triumph. Essie Fox writes beautifully and with such intensity that the haunted feelings and anguish of Catherine Earnshaw rise from the pages and seep into your bones. So rich and sumptuous is the writing that you can wallow in it. Dark, brooding, gothic, and so heartbreaking. I cried, (twice actually) and I defy you not to. It is a wonderful retelling of Wuthering Heights that hits perfection

Told through the eyes of Catherine Linton, whereas Wuthering Heights was told by Ellen ‘Nelly’ Dean, a servant in the Earnshaw household, Catherine’s narrative allows us to learn and understand the things that Nellie didn’t know. Her perspective is critical to understanding who Heathcliff is and why he became the jealous, obsessive man that he was, intent on destroying the happiness of everyone in the Linton family, even Catherine’s own daughter.

Catherine stays true to Emily Brontë’s language and to the atmosphere of brooding intensity that is a feature of Brontë’s most famous novel. Essie Fox creates a rich and immersive story that stays true to the original but gives us a deeper understanding of how Heathcliff was so badly wronged and why his character became bent on revenge and so driven by hatred for everything that he believes the Lintons and the Earnshaws inflicted on him.

This is a beautiful and sympathetic retelling of the story. Essie Fox, by giving Catherine a voice, has created a feminist version of this tragic story of obsession, madness and revenge. In Catherine, Essie Fox gives Catherine agency over her own story; reclaiming her voice rather than leaving it to Lockwood or Nelly Dean. This not only enriches Catherine’s character but underscores how Catherine’s individuality in Brontë’s text was constrained by the story being narrated through third parties. By allowing her to speak, Fox gives us access to Catherine’s emotions, and that tells us a lot.

Fox’s narrative retains the passionate intensity and obsession of Wuthering Heights but reframes it, making it self-aware and so even more haunting. Because Catherine is a ghost, you can really feel her lingering attachment and just how impossible any resolution becomes. Catherine looks for redemption as she considers what has happened to her and to Heathcliff.

Wuthering Heights is strong on class and social identity, and Essie Fox’s retelling does not overlook this, but her retelling does shift its emphasis. By putting Catherine’s voice front and centre, it is her memory, grief and resentment that overtakes Brontë’s class analysis. Catherine’s narrative places the emotional consequences of her choices, of how class structures shaped her and Heathcliff’s intimacy and subsequent distance, in sharper relief. She sees not only the passion that bound her to Heathcliff but also the cost of that intensity. Her pain is a mirror to Heathcliff’s psychological torment. Essie Fox evokes the same passion and angst that made Brontë’s work a classic, but in a way that feels fresh and immediate.

Verdict: I adored this book. It is haunting, sad and passionate. I could feel the wildness of the Yorkshire moors and shivered when the wind whistled past my ears. Although Essie Fox has added to the original story, these additions make perfect sense and enrich the story. Don’t bother seeing the film, just read this book.

Essie Fox was born and raised in rural Herefordshire, which inspires much of her writing. After studying English Literature at Sheffield University, she moved to London where she worked for the Telegraph Sunday Magazine, then the book publishers George Allen & Unwin – before becoming self-employed in the world of art and design. Always an avid reader, Essie now spends her time writing historical gothic novels. Her debut, The Somnambulist, was shortlisted for the National Book Awards, and featured on Channel 4’s TV Book Club. The Last Days of Leda Grey, set in the early years of silent film, was selected as The Times Historical Book of the Month. The Fascination, published in 2023, was a Sunday Times bestseller and was followed by Dangerous in 2025. She has lectured at the V&A, and the National Gallery in London. Essie is the host of the podcast Talking the Gothic.

Liar Thief by May Rinaldi @mayrinaldi56 @BlackSpringC @randomttours

Source: Review copy
Publication: 2 December 2025 from Black Spring Crime
PP: 420
ISBN-13: 978-1917788205

Two childhood friends: one ‘killer ’, one cop. Ginnie says she is a serial killer who kills people who have wronged her. No one believes her. Author Fiona Taylor is writing Ginnie’s memoir, The Killer Inside, trying to understand why Ginnie should still insist that she’s a killer. She recruits ex-DI, Tom O’Brien, to examine the evidence. As Ginnie’s oldest friend, Tom has his own insights into her story. As her memoir unfolds will the decisions taken by Fiona and Tom put them and their families at risk? Is it safe to release a self-confessed serial killer back out into society, even if there is no evidence against her?

May Rinaldi’s Liar Thief is about who gets to decide the truth.

Ginnie insists she is a serial killer—and has been since childhood. She claims her victims all ‘deserved it.’ They were people who wronged her, and she was not prepared to let them get away with it. The only problem is that there’s no evidence. No bodies. No charges. Yet Ginnie is sticking to her story.

Ginnie is a fascinating character. Rinaldi doesn’t paint her as a manipulator. She is no hardened criminal, but comes across as normal, rational even, and that makes her insistence all the more chilling. As an unreliable narrator, she’s fascinating: not because she occasionally contradicts herself, but because she both withholds and sometimes drip feeds information. She is a woman shaped by her strong need for loyalty, by resentment, and a strong need to be in control of her own story.

Ginnie’s story is being written by Fiona Taylor, a true crime author tasked with bringing Ginnie’s life to the public through the publication of The Killer Inside. Her interviews with Ginnie take place in prison. Fiona’s chapters are down to earth. She’s trying to be objective, but the closer she gets to Ginnie, the more personal the project becomes as she tries to work out how much of what Ginnie is telling her is true. I loved how Fiona’s viewpoint highlights the danger of turning true crime into content: after all, Fiona’s career and bank balance rely on Ginnie’s version of events being true. Is giving someone a platform a way of understanding criminal activity, or does it pander to a killer’s ego, particularly when the storyteller stands to benefit financially?

This book presents three perspectives. Ginnie’s, Fiona’s and the third comes from Ginnie’s childhood friend, Tom. Tom O’Brien is a cop – an ex-DI and Ginnie’s oldest friend. Tom still sees Ginnie as the young girl she once was. Tom’s chapters, as he looks back on his old diaries, are full of self-doubt. He questions his career and past decisions, but is his loyalty blinding him to the truth about Ginnie? May Rinaldi does a lovely job in showing how Tom’s instinct to protect Ginnie clashes with his cop’s need for evidence.

Each of these three has a different viewpoint of the same events and that means we have to question Ginnie’s claims. The question becomes not whether it is safe to release Ginnie, but how much evidence we really need before we believe someone.

Liar Thief suggests that memory can be misleading and is sometimes emotionally led. Tom’s memories often clash with Ginnie’s, and it’s impossible to tell whose version is correct, or even if either is. You question Ginnie’s claims, but also wonder how much of Tom’s viewpoint is really accurate, seemingly bathed in a nostalgic glow. His loyalty to Ginnie skews every decision he takes. Is he protecting his innocent friend, or enabling Ginnie’s vindictiveness?

Verdict: Liar Thief is a psychological thriller based on uncertainty. I found the idea that someone could be truly dangerous without their crimes ever being proven really quite unsettling. You end with a sense that you’ve been lied to, but that’s what makes it an enjoyable read.

Bookshop.org

Waterstones

Foyles

May Rinaldi is a crime writer from South-West Scotland where she lives with her Norwegian husband, and two decrepit cats. She recently retired from her consultancy job in Health and Safety and, in the past, has worked as a taxidermist, mycologist and lab technician, all useful in crime writing – not only can her protagonist poison her victims, she can turn them into an interesting, mounted specimen afterwards. She is the co-founder of Moffat Crime Fest, bringing top crime authors to the Dumfries and Galloway town of Moffat. She also runs writing retreats in her secluded home where visiting authors are only disturbed by sheep, cows and the
dinner gong. She spends her spare time travelling between Scotland, Norway and Gozo, and uses her travels as settings for her books. She is currently working on a Gozo trilogy; the Mediterranean island is as much one of the characters as the people who inhabit it.

The Cut Up (Rilke #3) by Louse Welsh @louisewelsh00 @CanongateBooks @NormanTweets @RandomTTours

Source: Review copy
Publication: 29 January 2026 from Canongate Books
PP: 320
ISBN-13:978-1838859862

It’s hard to be good when living is expensive. And times are tough on the streets these days. Luckily for Rilke at Bowery Auctions the demand for no-questions-asked cash is at an all-time high, and business is booming.

When Rilke hears his old acquaintance Les is fresh out of prison, his inclination is to stay well out of his way. Letting sleeping dogs lie is one thing – but when one of Bowery’s customers winds up dead on their tarmac, Rilke needs a bit of help from his friends to tidy things up. If only his friends didn’t have such a habit of making things worse.

I have a lot of stuff going on in my personal life at the moment, so it’s a testament to the quality of the writing in Louise Welsh’s The Cut Up that it more than held my attention.

You can read this book as a stand-alone, but for me, part of the joy is getting reacquainted with Rilke, whom we last met in The Second Cut.

Louise Welsh brings an easy familiarity to the city of Glasgow and at the same time pokes under its flabby belly to expose a raw and sometimes paper-thin skin. Her writing is sharp, funny and insidious. Her characters are glorious; brilliantly drawn, they get under your skin, and their humanity shines through even when the morality is somewhat ambiguous.

Rilke, the lean, cadaverous auctioneer with his own moral compass, is our narrator: he’s lugubrious, witty, and he shambles through Glasgow’s underbelly with a weary charm. More often than not, his tall, spare figure and vintage suit get him mistaken for an undertaker.

The novel’s opening — ‘it’s hard to be good when living is expensive’ — is a theme in the book. Crime is often the result of financial pressure. Her characters aren’t necessarily bad, just desperate to survive. Cash transactions with no questions asked, side hustles and moral compromises are treated as practical responses to a harsh economy rather than wrongdoing.

Rilke himself lives in the grey. His inherent weakness is his loyalty to his friends, however unreliable and touched with criminality they may be. It’s a weakness that has got him into trouble more than once, and this time proves almost fatal. Rilke is older now, and more reflective. The Cut Up examines what it means to age within a criminal system that rewards sharpness and youth. Rilke himself isn’t corrupt, but he is flexible, and Welsh leads us to consider where the line is between helping, enabling, and being complicit. She shows how one small decision shapes another, until right and wrong become blurred.

From the opening pages, Welsh drops you into tough streets, expensive to live in, and full of characters who slide easily between the legal and the criminal. Glasgow is a living, breathing presence in her story: grey and rain-soaked but alive with dark humour.

Rilke finds a body outside the Bowery Auctions, where he works as an auctioneer. The murderer stabbed a Victorian hatpin into the eye of a sleazeball jewellery dealer, Rodney Manderson, known to both Rilke and his employer, Rose, as Mandy. Finding his body gives Rilke his first quandary. Only that afternoon, Rose was wearing that very same hat pin.

Rilke is forced into investigating Mandy’s murder to save his drug-dealing, cross-dressing friend Les, recently released from prison on parole. Les is trying to tread a tightrope between his arch-nemesis, Detective Thurso Scanlan, and a local gangster known as ‘Razzle Dazzle’ Diamond. But without Rilke’s help, Les is going to topple into disaster.

One of the reasons I love Rilke’s character is the way Louise Welsh portrays Rilke’s vulnerability. Being queer in Glasgow, even today, is not comfortable. Rilke has his share of offers, but each time he has to stop and consider the danger any of these encounters might present. The need for an alleviation of loneliness, for the closeness of bodies and for sex itself must be weighed, each time, against the potential harm that could be caused by Rilke’s succumbing to hasty pleasure.

I love the aspects of this novel that pay quiet homage to classic noir. Following a trail that involves a high-class knocking shop, a porn site and a boy’s school, Rilke finds a bottle blonde who drives a red-hot car and who is, as she tells him, ‘protected’. Barely keeping out of serious harm and making one too many compromises, Rilke cannot escape what is due to him.

Verdict: The Cut Up is stylish, dryly witty and accomplished. Rilke is a character you can’t help but like, and the plot goes in directions I didn’t anticipate. The resolution is well realised and beautifully reflects Rilke’s place in the grey.

Highly recommended.

Bookshop.org

Waterstones

Foyles

Louise Welsh is an award-winning author of ten novels. The Cutting Room, her debut novel, won the Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award and the Saltire First Book of The Year Award. In 2018, she was named the Most Inspiring Saltire First Book Award winner by public vote. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. In 2022 she published The Second Cut, which was shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland McIlvanney Prize for Crime Book of the Year and named by The Times as their Crime Book of the Year.

The Edge of Darkness by Vaseem Khan @VaseemKhanUK @HodderBooks

Source: Review copy
Publication: 22 January 2026 from Hodder and Stoughton
PP: 336
ISBN-13: 978-1399747851

My thanks to Hodder Books for an advance copy for review

India, 1951. After wilfully ignoring orders, Persis Wadia, India’s first female police detective, is exiled from Bombay to the wild and mountainous Naga Hills District. As India’s first post-Independence election looms, and tensions rise across the country, Persis finds herself banished to the Hotel Victoria, a crumbling colonial-era relic, her career in tatters.

But when a prominent politician is murdered in his locked room at the Victoria, his head missing, she is thrust back into the fray. Is the murderer one of the foreigners staying at the hotel or an insurgent from the surrounding jungle? As the political situation threatens to explode, Persis has only days to stop a killer operating at the very edge of darkness…

I’ve loved all of Vaseem Khan’s Malabar House series since the very beginning, so I couldn’t wait for the 6^th in this brilliant series, The Edge of Darkness. It’s a series I read in print and then listen to as an audiobook, because I enjoy it so much.

I really enjoyed this book. Inspector Persis Wadia is driven to her limits in all senses: geographically, politically, and emotionally. Banished from Bombay to the Naga Hills District in North East India, where hilltop tribes are still renowned as headhunters. In this setting, she’s been stripped of her authority and her professional progression. Seeing her response to that exile is such a pleasure.

Persis has always been defined by her refusal to bow to authority, and here that stubborn integrity is both her greatest strength and her most dangerous flaw. She is furious at being sidelined, acutely aware of how her gender and independence continue to ruffle feathers in a newly independent India that still clings to colonial hierarchies. Yet that anger sharpens her instincts. When the Region’s Governor turns up murdered in a locked room, his body mutilated in a grotesque fashion, Persis’s restless mind immediately starts worrying about the impossibilities of the crime. She notices what others dismiss, asks the questions that make men in authority bristle, and refuses to accept the convenient explanation.

The remote setting of the hotel, together with the oppressive heat, and the region’s turbulent political setting, creates an oppressive atmosphere simmering with unrest. Naga insurgents in the nearby jungle are determined to fight for their independence, and are prepared to use violence to achieve their aims. Danger surrounds Persis, but that doesn’t stop her from walking straight towards it.

With a cast of suspects who range from a political adviser, a prominent businessman, missionaries and even a journalist, to hotel guests and staff, blaming the ‘foreigners’ at the hotel where all the suspects and Persis herself are quartered, is the easy answer, and one Persis’ bosses are more than happy to accept.

Archie Blackfinch, the forensic scientist with whom she has worked closely in the past, is a background figure in this novel, as he’s out of action, back in Bombay. But Persis’ relationship with him is still one of the emotional anchors in this book. Even though he’s not with her, you can feel Archie’s influence in Persis’s methodical approach to the corpse and her respect for forensic detail. Their relationship, which was built on mutual trust, a shared intellectual curiosity, and affection, has always grounded Persis, and now it serves as a reminder of the life she’s been forced to leave behind. I loved how Khan uses that separation to underline Persis’s isolation, while still letting Archie’s voice echo in her head as she reconstructs the crime.

Persis’s dynamic with James Angami, the new constable she is paired with in the Naga Hills, is fascinating. Young, local, and navigating the tensions between community loyalty and official duty, he becomes Persis’ guide, and his admiration for her grows. Working with Angami, Persis has to confront how ‘outsider’ status works and, in the process, learns a great deal. Her nature leads her to treat this junior constable as an equal rather than a subordinate, and that opens doors that previously were closed in the face of her superiors’ blind arrogance.

Her personality, of course, keeps landing her in trouble. Persis’s refusal to defer, her tendency to act first and justify later, puts her constantly at odds with political bureaucrats more concerned with optics than justice, especially with an election looming. But that’s the beauty of Khan’s series and why I love these books. Persis Wadia doesn’t just solve puzzles; she challenges systems.

Verdict: The Edge of Darkness is rich in atmosphere, politically charged, and deeply human. It is a locked-room mystery set against the portrait of a nation trying to work out what it wants to be. This is Persis bruised, defiant, and utterly compelling.

Bookshop.org

Waterstones

Foyles

Vaseem Khan is the author of two award-winning crime series set in India and the upcoming Quantum of Menace, the first in a series featuring Q from the James Bond franchise. His debut, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 40 best crime novels published 2015-2020. In 2021, Midnight at Malabar House, the first in the Malabar House novels set in 1950s Bombay, won the CWA Historical Dagger. Vaseem was born in England, but spent a decade working in India. Vaseem is the current Chair of the UK Crime Writers Association.

Granite Noir X 2026 Tuesday 17 to Sunday 22 February 2026 @GraniteNoirFest @APArachel

Next month, Aberdeen celebrates a special milestone. It’s the 10^th Anniversary of Granite Noir, Aberdeen’s crime writing festival, and I’m pleased to say it’s bigger and better than ever before!

Marking a decade of darkness in the Silver City. Granite Noir X will celebrate ten years of thrilling mysteries, chilling tales and unforgettable encounters with some of the world’s finest crime writers including Denise Mina, Val McDermid, Ann Cleeves, Shari Lapena, and so many more.

Queens of Crime, Denise Mina and Val McDermid will headline the crime writing festival. The two brilliant authors will comment on their latest projects as well as reflect on their careers to date when they sit down in conversation on Friday, 20 February at the Music Hall.

In a special event, the festival will join forces to celebrate a decade of dramatic mysteries in the north of Scotland on Saturday, 21 February. Shetland: A Celebration with Ann Cleeves and Special Guests will celebrate the beloved BBC television series.

One of the many things I love about Granite Noir is the way that the festival celebrates local, Scottish and international authors. With events for both adults and children, film screenings and a special programme for young people, this is a festival that truly provides something for everyone with an interest in writing and crime writing in particular. Check out the Children’s events here

In another post, I’m planning to focus on some of the smaller events in the lovely Lemon Tree Arts Centre, but for now, let’s take a look at some of the highlights of this anniversary year.

Tuesday 17 February 2026 The Lemon Tree 6pm: Granite Noir 2026 – Aberdeenshire Takes Centre Stage

Granite Noir kicks off its tenth anniversary on home turf with these two thrilling reads set in the North-east. In The Fracture, Morgan Cry‘s ex-police officer Blake Glover’s past threatens to catch up with him and destroy his small-town life in Fraserburgh. Aberdeen-born Deborah Masson brings to life a true creep in I’ll Be Watching You – a CCTV operator, keeping you safe on the streets of Aberdeen: he watches you constantly, he knows your secrets, now he wants revenge!

Wednesday 18 Feb 2026 1:00pm MH Big Sky Studio Literature at Lunchtime with Louise Welsh

In Book 3 of Louise Welsh’s The Cutting Room books, The Cut Up explores the dark underbelly of contemporary Glasgow with the queer, raddled Rilke of Bowery Auctions. An intimate gathering to get the keenest insight from Louise, she’ll be discussing the wonderfully complex character of Rilke and his penchant for finding trouble wherever he goes.

Friday 20 Feb 2026 1:00pm MH Big Sky Studio: Literature at Lunchtime with Lilja Sigurðardóttir

Regular readers of this blog will know what a huge fan I am of Lilja’s books, and in her lunchtime session, she’s arrives knowing that her latest book has just been names Crime fiction book of the year by a major Icelandic newspaper! I’m hoping that will be published here in translation soon! She’ll be discussing her international bestselling An Áróra Investigation series, comprising Cold as Hell, Red as Blood, White as Snow and Dark as Night. Her haunting final chapter in this award-winning series, is Black as Death in which Áróra dives headfirst into a money-laundering case that her friend Daníel is investigating. But she soon finds that there is more than meets the eye and, once again, all leads point towards Engihjalli, the street where her sister Ísafold lived and died.

Wednesday 18 Feb 2026 7pm Sir Ian Wood Building: Dangerous Ideas Afoot: Do We Need The Police?

Granite Noir X is delivering a series of panels for those wanting more than just crime fiction. Professors, Police experts, forensic scientists and Doctors will share their expertise in the criminal world and in literature. This is an opportunity to learn something new from various experts and to get involved in Panel Q&As on an interactive basis.

One such panel is Dangerous Ideas Afoot: Do We Need The Police? with Prof Nick Fyfe, Dr Saorfhlaith Burton & Graeme Mackie. Delivered in partnership with Robert Gordon University’s BA (Hons) Criminology

It’s hard to imagine a world without police. Traditionally viewed as the means for the protection of society, the prevention of crime, and the catching of perpetrators, the police form the backbone of the criminal justice system. Recently, though, there is unrest and resentment between society and its police – we see calls to defund the police, to abandon conventional forms of policing, and criticism of discriminatory and unethical practices of policing.

In this talk, policing expert Nick Fyfe, cultural criminologist Saorfhlaith Burton, and retired Detective Chief Superintendent Graeme Mackie discuss the future of the police in contemporary society. How might we imagine policing differently – can society survive, and even thrive, without the police? Can we reinvent the police that works for how society functions now? Is there still a place for traditional law and order? In this interactive talk, we invite audience participation in asking one of the most pressing questions of our time, do we still need the police?

Saturday 21 Feb 2026 2:00pm MH Big Sky Studio: Publishing Demystified with the Society of Young Publishers Scotland

Ever thought about getting into publishing?

SYP Scotland exists to support early-career and aspiring publishing professionals in Scotland through networking opportunities, mentorship schemes and an annual conference. Their relationships with organisations such as Publishing Scotland, Scottish Book Trust, Scottish publishers, creative festivals, literary agents and booksellers help them to connect emerging Scottish young publishers to excellent opportunities. Join them for an inspiring session to demystify the industry.

Sunday 22 Feb 2026 His Majesty’s Theatre: Hexagone: An Aberdeen Audio Haunt

I must admit to being intrigued by this one!

3 Million Followers. 1 Megastar. 0 Traces.

Unravel the most chilling disappearance of the year in this spooky puzzle adventure.

Mark Benet, Europe’s rising horror icon, has vanished without a trace. Was it a publicity stunt gone wrong? A sinister plot? Or something far more terrifying?

Step into a world where reality blurs with the supernatural. HEXAGONE fuses audio storytelling with mind-bending puzzles, plunging you into a ghostly adventure. This work has been made by young and emerging artists with Produced Moon (UK) and Storydive (Germany) and features puzzles created by young people from Harlaw Academy.

Grab your phone, put on your headphones and decode cryptic clues around His Majesty’s Theatre, from places you know to sites you’ve never seen. Where every step could be your last… or your breakthrough.

Can you uncover the truth before it’s too late?

Doesn’t that sound fascinating?

Sunday 22 Feb 2026 8:00pm His Majesty’s Theatre

Cocktails – Shaken Not Stirred with Dr Kathryn Harkup

James Bond’s adventures thwarting the plans of the world’s greatest villains have thrilled and delighted audiences since Ian Fleming’s novel Casino Royale was published in 1953. Join Dr Kathryn Harkup as she explores 007’s exploits, from the practicalities of building a volcano-based lair, to whether being covered in gold paint really will kill you, and – if you plan to take over the world – whether it is better to use bacteria, bombs, or poison. This event will give you all the answers over a few glasses of James Bond’s favourite cocktails.

That’s one not to miss!

Sunday 22 Feb 2026 8:00pm Music Hall

If sipping cocktails isn’t your thing, you can’t do any better than the closing Granite Noir X event.

Sunday 22 Feb 2026 8:00pm Music Hall
Missing Without a Trace with Eva Björg Ægisdóttir and Shari Lapena.

It isn’t only Scotland in the spotlight though, as Granite Noir X closes out with a spectacular international duo in Canada’s Shari Lapena’s ‘She Didn’t See It Coming’ and Icelandic bestseller Eva Björg Ægisdóttir’s ‘Home Before Dark’ both follow the emotional rollercoaster of a loved one gone missing and the agonising search for answers.

Missing Without a Trace sees a spectacular international duo chatting about their latest books, both of which follow the emotional rollercoaster of a loved one going missing and the agonising search for answers.

Canada’s Shari Lapena introduces us to She Didn’t See It Coming where her main characters seem to have the perfect life and are the ideal couple. Then, one day, Bryden disappears and Sam cannot understand how or why; he realises those around him might not be as reliable as he thought they were. In Icelandic bestseller Eva Björg Ægisdóttir’s Home Before Dark Marsí is desperate for news of her missing sister, but terrified that she might be next! She’s determined to find out what happened, but Marsí has always had trouble distinguishing her vivid dreams from reality, and as insomnia threatens her sanity, can she even trust her own memories? Eva is an award-winning writer whose Forbidden Iceland series is so chilling, and pairing her with the amazing Shari Lapena makes for a fabulous evening.

There’s so much more than I have highlighted here, and as, promised, I’ll return to look at some of the terrific authors appearing at the Lemon Tree, my favourite of all the Granite Noir venues. Watch this space – and in the meantime, book your Granite Noir X tickets here!

Into The Dark by Orjan Karlsson translated by Ian Giles (The Arctic Mysteries #2) @orjankarlsson @ioagiles @orendabooks @RandomTTours

Source: Review copy
Publication: 15 January 2026 from Orenda Books
PP: 373
ISBN-13: 978-1917764056

In Norway’s far north, something unspeakable is surfacing…

When a mutilated body rises from the icy waters off the jetty in Kjerringøy, it shocks the quiet coastal village – and stirs something darker beneath. Not long after, a young woman is found dead in a drab Bodø apartment. Suicide, perhaps. Or something far more sinister.

Detective Jakob Weber and former national investigator Noora Yun Sande are drawn into both cases. Then a hiker reports a terrifying encounter in the nearby wilderness: a solitary cabin … and a man without a face.

As the investigation deepens, the clues grow more disturbing – and the wild, wintry landscape closes in. Jakob is certain of one thing: if they don’t find the killer soon, he’ll strike again

It was something of a surreal experience, reading INTO THE DARK while I was basking in the Caribbean sunshine. Even though my skin was burning from the sun, I could feel the chills spilling from this book, and the darkness was even more palpable against the glare of the sun’s rays. I could hear the Arctic wind of Norway’s far north howling in my ears

I love this series, though it’s not necessary to have read the first, INTO THIN AIR, to enjoy this one. Ørjan Karlsson’s second entry in the Arctic Mysteries series is quintessential Nordic noir: bleak, beautifully atmospheric and relentlessly unsettling. From a mutilated body rising from icy waters in Kjerringøy to a young woman’s suspicious death in Bodø, this story really gets under your skin.

Karlsson plunges straight into the grim heart of human darkness. What appears at first to be an isolated incident quickly snowballs into something far more gruesome and sinister: a trail of murders that seem almost supernatural in their cruelty. Karlsson’s sense of place — the harsh seas, frostbitten forests and remote cabins is beautifully rendered. Kjerringøy is a character as much as Jakob Webber and Noora Yun Sande, shaping events and dashing the investigators’ hopes just as surely as the long, impenetrable darkness of the long Arctic nights. This is fantastic environmental storytelling, where bleak landscapes mirror the psychological depths of the narrative.

At the heart of this chilling tale are two contrasting investigators. Detective Jakob Weber is a grounded and methodical individual who carries the weight of the cases he tackles, which significantly impacts his mood. Though this is only the second book in the series, Karlsson (who set his series around Bodø and northern Norway, drawing on his own roots there, has already made Weber feel lived-in and fully formed. Noora Yun Sande, in contrast to Webber, brings a sharper, almost instinctive, edge. A former national investigator, she cuts through bureaucratic fog with razor focus and isn’t afraid to probe uncomfortable truths that Weber sometimes avoids. Their dynamic — his experience, her tenacity — makes for a compelling duo and keeps the investigation from ever drifting into procedural monotony.

What impressed me most was the tension Karlsson wrings from every scene. His pacing is pitch perfect; a slow, tightening coil that makes you feel exactly what the characters feel: creeping dread, moments of false security, then jolts of disturbing revelation.

Ian Giles translation is superb. It’s such a skill to make a book feel like you are reading it in the original language, and Ian pulls that off with aplomb.

Verdict: If you love your crime fiction dark, intelligent and unrelenting — where the sheer malice of some humans feels as elemental as the Arctic cold — Into the Dark delivers in spades. Karlsson composes a slow, haunting symphony of suspense that leaves a lasting impression. This is Nordic noir at its most tangible — haunting, beautiful and thoroughly compelling.

Orenda Books

Bookshop.org

Waterstones

Ørjan Karlsson (b. 1970) grew up in Bodø, in the far north of Norway. A sociologist by education, he received officer training in the army and has taken part in many missions overseas. He has worked at the Ministry of Defence and is now head of department in the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection. He has written a wide range of thrillers, sci-fi novels and crime fiction, and been shortlisted for or won numerous awards, with a number of his books currently in production for the screen. He lives in Nordland, where the Jakob Weber crime series is set

A Death in Glasgow by Eva Macrae @centurybooksuk @lynnemcewanwriter.bsky.social

Source: Review copy
Publication: 8 January 2026 from Century
PP: 336
ISBN-13: 978-1529946918

She bought a return ticket. She never came back…

When Holly Campbell’s body is found on the train tracks at Glasgow Central, police quickly rule it a suicide.

She’d had a troubled past. She’d tried before.

But Sergeant May Mackay can’t let one detail go. If Holly never wanted to come home, why did she buy a return ticket?

Driven by her own haunting loss and a promise to Holly’s grieving mother, May is determined to solve the mystery.

But the deeper she digs, the more sinister the truth becomes.

Someone is hiding a terrible secret. And they’ll do whatever it takes to keep it buried.

Even if it means silencing May for good…

When the body of a young woman is found on the train tracks at Glasgow Central Station, police are quick to decide it’s a suicide. Holly Campbell had drugs and mental health problems in her past, and the evidence seems straightforward. But one detail doesn’t make sense: Holly had bought a return ticket.

Sergeant May Mackay can’t let that contradiction go. Weighed down by her own grief and driven by a promise to Holly’s mother, May begins to look into Holly’s case, despite her bosses being ready to close it. What starts as a quiet challenge to the official narrative soon turns into a far more dangerous investigation, one that exposes long-buried secrets and powerful people who don’t want the truth uncovered.

As May teams up with DC Dimple Sharma, a British Transport Police officer, their inquiries move through Glasgow’s darker secrets, depicting a city shaped by years of gang activities, loyalty, violence and a reluctance to speak out. As the tension in the investigation mounts, it becomes clear that Holly’s death was no suicide, and May, together with those closest to her, faces growing danger.

From the outset, when Holly Campbell’s body is discovered on the tracks at Glasgow Central, you can tell this isn’t going to be a bog-standard police procedural. The police are all too ready to file it a suicide, citing Holly’s troubled past, but one tiny detail — the return ticket in her pocket — niggles at Sergeant May Mackay.

May is the heart of this novel. She’s flawed, haunted by her own loss and carrying the weight of a promise she made to Holly’s bereft mother, Jackie. Jackie knows her daughter wouldn’t have killed herself, but no one except May will listen to her. It’s the emotional connection between these two grieving mothers that gives the investigation real depth. You’re not just following clues, you’re watching May wrestle with her ghosts as she edges closer to a truth that refuses to stay buried.

May is empathetic, stubborn, and emotionally raw, all traits that give her character the emotional depth I look for in a good crime novel. The rapport between May and BTP Officer, DC Dimple Sharma, is also excellent: equal parts tension, mutual respect, and believable friction. Both women have fought to keep their place in their respective Police forces, and that mutual recognition helps to bond the women. It’s through their interactions that the procedural elements shine. Together, they are a formidable team, better able to overcome the obstacles their disapproving senior officers place in their way. Theirs is a collaboration of two different but equally committed police women who recognise the presence of danger in their situation, but are determined to get to the truth, whatever the personal cost.

The plot itself is beautifully constructed: brisk where it needs to be, with a slow-burning tension that escalates as May uncovers layers of lies, gang connections, and long-held secrets. Once the action hots up, the pacing becomes relentless.

Glasgow’s rain-slicked streets and dark, whispering, closes are unforgiving. Macrae’s use of the Glasgow patter and her unerring descriptions of Glasgow’s less salubrious spots place you directly into authentic, decidedly gritty, settings.

Verdict: The plot is well-constructed, though in some ways, unsurprising, but there’s enough mystery to keep you guessing. By the end, the mystery converges in twists that are both surprising and satisfying, making perfect sense. If you love dark, character-driven thrillers with a strong sense of place and well-drawn protagonists, A Death in Glasgow is a standout start to what I hope will be a long series.

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Eva Macrae is the author of A Death in Glasgow, a thrilling police procedural set in Glasgow which is publishing in January 2026. Having been born in Glasgow, Eva is a former newspaper photographer turned crime author. She’s covered stories including the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the first Gulf War in addition to many high profile murder cases, which have had an influence on her popular Detective Shona Oliver police procedural series which Eva writes under her real name, Lynne McEwan. She is a graduate of the University of East Anglia’s Creative Writing programme and splits her time between Lincolnshire and Scotland.

Blackwater by Sarah Sultoon @SultoonSarah @OrendaBooks @RandomTTours

Source: Review copy
Publication: 4 December 2025 from Orenda Books
PP: 276
ISBN-13:978-1916788985

My thanks to Orenda Books for an advance copy for review

They feared the machines.

They should have feared the people…

London, Christmas 1999. The world is on edge. With the new millennium just days away, fears of the Millennium Bug are spiralling – warnings of computer failures, market crashes, even global catastrophe. But fifty miles east, on the frozen Blackwater Island, a different kind of mystery unfolds. A child’s body is discovered on the bracken, untouched by footprints, with no sign of how he died. And no one has come forward to claim him.

At the International Tribune, reporter Jonny Murphy senses something is off. Police are appealing for relatives, not suspects. An anonymous call led officers to the scene, but no one knows who made it. While the world fixates on a digital apocalypse, Jonny sees the real disaster unfolding closer to home. With just twenty-hour hours before the century turns, he heads to Blackwater – driven by curiosity, desperation, and the sting of rejection from his colleague Paloma.

But Blackwater has secrets buried deep in the frozen ground. More victims – some dead, others still paying for past sins. And when Paloma catches up to him, they stumble onto something far bigger than either of them imagined. Something that could change everything. The millennium is coming. The clock is ticking. Can Jonny stop it? Should he?

And what if Y2K wasn’t a hoax, but a warning…?

Sarah Sultoon’s Blackwater is an apt December read. The story is a race against the turn of the millennium. The novel is set in late December 1999 in London and the surrounding Essex wetlands of the Blackwater Estuary. Sultoon balances historical tension with sharp pacing to produce a thriller that resonates.

In addition to being the name of an Essex Nature Sanctuary known for its oysters, Blackwater is, of course, the former name of an existing American private military contractor founded by an ex-Navy SEAL officer. A private army that the US government quietly hired to operate in international war zones, which has been involved in several scandals. That fact lingered in the background as I read this book.

The background to the novel – the fear over what Y2K might bring – is not just window dressing; it embodies uncertainty and feeds our deeper anxieties — something the book uses to terrific effect.

From the first page, the pace is propulsive. The discovery of a child’s body on remote Blackwater Island — with no sign of footprints, and no identity for the child – launches Jonny Murphy, a reporter at the International Tribune who’s tired of forever writing dull Y2K dispatches, into the story. What he finds are chilling secrets, and very high stakes.

Sultoon’s plotting is as tight as a drum; lean and spare. Events escalate with mounting tension, and each chilling revelation is a shock that propels you onto the next.

Jonny himself is a compelling and flawed protagonist. Weighed down by memories of his professional disappointments, he has an easily bruised ego, especially when it comes to his relationship with Tribune photographer, Paloma. Their dynamic is more than a tentative partnership; it’s grounded in mutual respect and unspoken feelings. When Paloma catches up to him on Blackwater, the tension between them evolves into a partnership that grows under pressure.

As a journalist, Jonny’s position at the International Tribune plays into every choice he makes. He’s not just chasing headlines; he’s wrestling with his conscience, his urge to follow the story, and the need to prove himself. His internal conflict informs his decisions in ways that go beyond the usual ‘follow the clues’ instinct; he pushes into danger not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s how his personality is forged.

Sarah Sultoon creates a vivid sense of place: the bleak Blackwater Island and its surrounding marshes are cold and unforgiving, sharpening the novel’s already chilling tone and enhancing the dread at the story’s core.

The millennial concerns that I remember so well are cleverly interwoven with political intrigue and local mysteries. There are creepy figures; Jane Doe, a witchlike GI Jane and Judith, the landlady of the local pub, The Saxon, who is quite the character and Jonny doesn’t know what to make of her.

Then there’s DI Gillian Peters, the only police presence in the area, with so few resources, she doesn’t even have an official police car. Her hopes of having the investigation into the child’s death properly resourced are unrealised. It’s clear to her that this death will go unresolved unless she can somehow raise the profile of the body’s discovery, and in Jonny she sees a way of getting the help she needs.

Blackwater is taut, atmospheric, and emotionally engaging, authentically evoking late 1999. It captures a time when the world feared computers crashing (I remember worrying about being on a flight so close to midnight on 31st December), yet remained blind to the many killings going on at the same time. It’s the kind of thriller that stays in the mind — not just for its countdown clock, but for how it makes you feel the burden of its characters’ choices.

What makes it so fascinating is not just the plausibility of the storyline, but in the author’s afterword. Sarah Sultoon lays out the facts that appear in the book, showing us just how close to very real danger we came.

Blackwater is perfect for fans of gritty crime and tightly woven suspense.

Orenda Books

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Sarah Sultoon is a journalist and writer, whose work as an international news executive at CNN has taken her all over the world, from the seats of power in both Westminster and Washington to the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. She has extensive experience in conflict zones, winning three Peabody awards for her work on the war in Syria, an Emmy for her contribution to the coverage of Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015, and a number of Royal Television Society gongs. When not reading or writing she can usually be found somewhere outside, either running, swimming or throwing a ball for her three children and dog while she imagines what might happen if… Her debut thriller The Source is currently in production with Lime Pictures, and was a Capital Crime Book Club pick and a number one bestseller on Kindle. The Shot (2022) and Dirt (2023) followed, with Death Flight due to be published in 2024.

Revenge of Odessa by Frederick Forsyth and Tony Kent

Source: Review copy
Publication: 23 October 2025 from Bantam
PP: 448
ISBN-13: 978-0857506900

My thanks to Penguin Bantam for a review copy

The Nazis were never defeated. They were just biding their time…

Summer, 2025. A US senator is burned to death in his Washington townhouse. Masked gunmen massacre supporters during a football match in Berlin. And an old man is murdered while he sleeps in the dementia ward of a German hospital. Three apparently unconnected events, three steps on the countdown to apocalypse.

When journalist and podcaster Georg Miller starts joining the dots between them, he finds himself the target of professional killers. His investigation soon reveals that his would-be assassins are from an organisation known as the Odessa, a menacing and powerful Nazi group intent on regaining power.

The Odessa has spread its poison from a covert compound in the Bavarian countryside all the way to the halls of the American Capitol. And now, as their campaign to destabilise the Western political system accelerates, Georg must stop the next attack, before it changes the course of history…

The Odessa File (1972) chased a fugitive Nazi in the post-war shadows. Revenge of Odessa brings us a nightmare for a new generation. There are new manoeuvres, fresh brutality, and a lingering sense that history isn’t quite being relived, but the old horrors are evolving. The novel feels less like nostalgia and more like a grim foretelling: the old horrors may lie dormant, but they have never truly vanished.

Revenge of Odessa isn’t just a thriller — it’s a treatise on memory, legacy, and the danger of forgetting. The revived threat of the shadowy organisation ODESSA —a post-war Nazi network — embodies the idea that evil doesn’t end; it simply changes to suit the circumstances of the times. By bringing ODESSA out of the past and reviving it as a living menace with global reach, Forsyth and Kent force us to confront the possibility that evil can be dormant but not dead.

Georg Miller, a sharp-witted journalist-podcaster, slowly picks apart a string of deaths — a US senator burnt to death in Washington, gunmen mowing down football fans in Berlin, a quiet killing in a German dementia ward. The Revenge of Odessa deftly sets up a chain of horror that refuses to let you look away.

This is excellent plotting, spare and powerful. Each atrocity feels isolated, but as Georg begins to connect the dots, you can sense the slow tightening of a trap. The growing sense of paranoia — that there is no safe place, no moment of respite — is handled deftly. By the time the narrative has spanned from Germany to the heart of Washington, the tension has turned into something explosive: the stakes are now global.

Our protagonist, Georg Miller is resourceful and determined. He is a worthy heir to his grandfather, the journalist from the original The Odessa File, Peter Miller, and he continues a legacy of investigation and seeking the truth.

This is a thriller with tension that grips hard. The resurgence of the old SS network (ODESSA) is a revived and ruthless force infiltrating politics and terror cells worldwide. It feels chillingly plausible. At a time when far-right movements, disinformation and political polarisation are only too real, this novel taps into my genuine anxieties.

Revenge of Odessa challenges the accepted conclusion that the defeat of Nazi Germany was final, that justice was served, and the horrors ended forever. Instead, the novel chillingly suggests that the defeat was only temporary; ideologies may go underground, but their roots remain.

Verdict: In Revenge of Odessa, Forsyth and Kent deliver more than a gripping page-turner; they issue a warning. Evil may sleep, but it can be woken. As a thriller, it is terrific: there’s tension, fast pacing, and an evil conspiracy with sky-high stakes. This book doesn’t just offer thrills, though — it also issues a warning. It asks how many resolved conflicts are only dormant. How many defeated ideologies quietly survive in dark corners? That’s what will keep me up at night now that I have read it.

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Former RAF pilot and investigative journalist Frederick Forsyth defined the modern thriller when he wrote The Day of the Jackal, described by Lee Child as ‘the book that broke the mould’, with its lightning-paced storytelling, effortlessly cool reality and unique insider information. After that, he wrote thirteen novels which became bestsellers around the world: The Odessa File, The Dogs of War, The Devil’s Alternative, The Fourth Protocol, The Negotiator, The Deceiver, The Fist of God, Icon, Avenger, The Afghan, The Cobra, The Kill List and The Fox. He also published his memoirs in The Outsider. Frederick Forsyth died in June 2025.

Tony Kent is a criminal barrister, founder director of Chiltern Kills festival and bestselling author of the Dempsey / Devlin series. Tony has published five books in the series, including a Zoe Ball Book Club pick for ITV and a Richard and Judy Book Club pick. Tony’s novels call upon his experiences as one of the UK’s most in-demand criminal defence lawyers & his particular expertise in terrorism and international organised crime, which has brought him into frequent professional contact with Scotland Yard, MI5, Interpol, US Homeland Security and the FBI.

Scars of Silence by Johana Gustawsson translated by David Warriner @JoGustawsson @thewarrinerd @OrendaBooks @RandomTTours

Source: Review copy
Publication: 20 November 2025 from Orenda Books
PP: 300
ISBN-13: 978-1916788923

My thanks to Orenda Books for an advance copy for review

Twenty-three years ago, a young woman was murdered on the Swedish island of Lidingö.

The island has kept its silence.

Until now…

As autumn deepens into darkness in Lidingö, on the Stockholm archipelago, the island is plunged into chaos: in the space of a week, two teenaged boys are murdered. Their bodies are left deep in the forest, dressed in white tunics with crowns of candles on their heads, like offerings to Saint Lucia.

Maïa Rehn has fled Paris for Lidingö after a family tragedy. But when the murders shake the island community, the former police commissioner is drawn into the heart of the investigation, joining Commissioner Aleksander Storm to unravel a mystery as chilling as the Nordic winter.

As they dig deeper, it becomes clear that a wind of vengeance is blowing through the archipelago, unearthing secrets that are as scandalous as they are inhuman.

But what if the victims weren’t who they seemed? What if those long silenced have finally found a way to strike back?

How far would they go to make their tormentors pay?

And you – how far would you go?

I’ll be honest, Scars of Silence blew me away with its power and ultimately with the emotional impact of the subject matter

Johana Gustawsson’s follow-up to Yule Island plunges us into Lidingö’s frozen, claustrophobic world after two teenagers turn up murdered in Lucia-like white tunics and candle crowns, each missing the costume’s customary red sash. From the first page, Gustawsson’s prose is spare and fiercely exacting when it wants to make you feel the hurt underneath the snow. Her writing style balances a forensic examination of motive with lyrical, almost mournful sentences. The narrative voices, through the viewpoints of Maïa Rehn, a former French police officer who has run away to Lidingö, and Police Commissioner Aleksander Storm, shift seamlessly between procedural and internal narratives, showing hurt and haunted reflection. Those tonal shifts mean the book reads both as a mystery and a character study in which facts and forensic detail sit alongside flashes of memory and grief, giving the tension an intelligent tone with a strong emotional undercurrent.

Sense of place is exceptional. Lidingö has its own codes, rituals and silences. Gustawsson expertly evokes the snowbound quiet of winter evenings, the claustrophobia of small-town gossip and the way Lidingö’s peninsular geography amplifies its secrets. The atmosphere is relentlessly cold, distant, gorgeous and dangerous — and Gustawsson uses it to intensify the mystery.

Scars of Silence is a rich, detailed, and beautifully constructed investigation set in a chilling atmosphere. There are echoes of a past crime that intrude upon the present investigation, a classic device, which Gustawsson reframes through family trauma and the collective memory of the community, so that the final reveal is an unwelcome reward. She reminds us that even in the most civilised and peaceful of societies, behind the façade, human beings are capable of the vilest behaviour. The novel’s progress towards a devastating climax is both inevitable and yet truly shocking.

Characterisation is a real strength. Maïa Rehn is complex: professional, scarred and sometimes brittle. She is a protagonist who earns your sympathy. Aleksander Storm, the local Police Commissioner, provides a grounded counterpoint; their partnership brings out the book’s themes of outsiders versus insiders, and the compromise between justice and mercy. Secondary characters are sharply drawn. Gustawsson’s crafting of her characters is one of this book’s real strengths. As a reader, you feel not just that you know these characters, but that you understand them.

Scars of Silence examines vengeance, the legacy of shame, and how communities police their own histories. Discussion of consent, power, and how society silences victims provides a grounding for this mystery. We’re not fed easy answers; instead, we are forced to consider the cost of silence and the destructive effect of secrets across generations. This is powerful social commentary and the subject matter of consent and trauma add moral texture to an immersive, emotionally compelling novel.

David Warriner’s translation is the epitome of why AI can never supplant the abilities of an excellent translator. The coldness of Sweden, the psychological tension, the weight of silence and trauma are all beautifully captured alongside Johana’s lyrical, severe prose and its emotional undercurrents.

Verdict: Scars of Silence delivers on mystery, atmosphere and emotional heft. The plot has real integrity, and the characters have emotional weight. Johana Gustawsson has delivered a ruthless, beautifully written examination of what a small community will protect — and what it will bury. Scars of Silence combines procedural detail with psychological intelligence, and Johana Gustawsson handles trauma and social themes without sensationalism while delivering a shattering climax to this devastating novel.

For me, Scars of Silence is a haunting, accomplished thriller with strong social commentary and a huge emotional tug. It is a book that will stay with me.

Orenda Books

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Born in Marseille, France, and with a degree in Political Science, Johana Gustawsson has worked as a journalist for the French and Spanish press and Her critically acclaimed Roy & Castells series, including Block 46, Keeper and Blood Song, has won the Plume d’Argent, Balai de la découverte, Balai d’Or and Prix Marseillais du Polar awards, and is now published in nineteen countries. A TV adaptation is currently under way in a French, Swedish and UK co-production. The Bleeding was a number-one bestseller in France and is the first in a new series. Johana lives in Sweden with her Swedish husband and their three sons.

David Warriner translates from French and nurtures a healthy passion for Franco, Nordic and British crime fiction. Growing up in deepest Yorkshire, he developed incurable Francophilia at an early age. Emerging from Oxford with a Modern Languages degree he narrowly escaped the graduate rat race by hopping on a plane to Canada – and never looked back. More than a decade into a high-powered commercial translation career, he listened to his heart and turned his hand to the delicate art of literary translation. David has lived in France and Quebec, and now calls beautiful British Columbia home.