Peter Critchley
For The Morning Star
Spring is not always the kindest of seasons, especially when it comes to murder.
Spring Tide (2014) by Cecilia and Rolf Borjlind is a riveting cinematic crime thriller, expertly crafted and full of twists and turns. In 1987, on a Swedish beach, a young boy witnesses three men bury a pregnant woman up to her neck in sand and leave her to drown as the tide floods in.
Twenty-four years later, 24-year-old Olivia Ronning, selects this cold case for a class assignment at the Swedish police academy in Stockholm, the same case her deceased father once investigated. Meanwhile, a gang films the brutal murders of several homeless people in parks, and streams the video recordings online. And Ronning and a team of experienced investigators discover a link between the murder in 1987 and the gruesome events that now unfolding in living colour.
A Spring Betrayal (2016) by Tom Callaghan is a chilling tale about the murder of seven infants whose bodies are discovered in a field near Karakol,a remote area of Kyrgyzstan where murder squad detective Akyl Borubaev is posted.
With the help of Saltanat Umarova, the beautiful Uzbek security service agent from his previous case, Akyl discovers a ring of criminals who specialize in kidnapping, torturing and murdering children and whose reach extends extends to high government levels. The homicide detective is forced to rely on State Security minister Mikhail Tynaliev, a dangerous and questionable ally, to try and stop the brutal gang determined to kill anyone who opposes them.
Akyl, is an admirable hero and glimpses into his childhood years in an orphanage impart depth to the character, particularly within the context of the gripping plot.
Paris Spring (2015) by James Naughtie is a superior spy thriller that plays out against the growing unrest in Paris in April 1968, a setting seldom explored in espionage fiction. British operative Will Flemyng is approached by a German man calling himself Kristof and he is all ears when the man reveals highly interesting information about Will’s younger brother, Abel.
Will finds himself in a quagmire when Kristof suggests Abel is working against the West — he must juggle his duty to both his country and kin. And the juggling grows even complicated after the body of an American journalist, Grace Quincey, is discovered at the Pere Lachaise cemetery.
These three murder mysteries are all available at your Okanagan Regional Library.
www.orl.bc.ca.