[sufue]

Four "Christchurch Noir" titles by Paul Cleave have recently dropped to $1.99 at Kindle US. I've not heard of Cleave before, and I like mysteries set in foreign (to me) climes, so although they look a bit thriller-ish for me, I will probably give one a try. SYKM calls these "non-series", but then puts a footnote that the "[b]ooks share a similar timeline, with minor characters and plot lines interacting". Some of Cleave's titles have been nominated for or have won various awards.

Joe Victim
link: https://www.amazon.com/Joe-Victim-Th.../dp/B00A2872LK

Spoiler:

NOMINATED FOR THE 2014 EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Sometimes reality can really get in the way of a good story.

Joe Middleton’s story is this: He doesn’t remember killing anyone, so there’ s no way a jury can convict him of serial murder. He calls himself Joe Victim, trying, as he awaits trial, to convince the psychiatrists that he wasn’t in control of his actions, trusting that the system will save him in the end.

But others know Joe as the infamous Christchurch Carver and they want to see him dead. There’s Melissa, Joe’s accomplice in one of the murders, who plans on shooting him on his way to the courthouse before he gets a chance to start talking. Then there’s Raphael, whose daughter was one of the Carver’s victims. Though he’s tried to move on with life as the leader of a counseling group for grieving family members, he’d like nothing more than to watch Joe pay. Finally there’s Carl Schroder, the ex-detective who locked Joe up and is determined to put things right for the case of his career.

To extract himself from this epic mess, Joe has come up with a desperate plan involving a television psychic who’s looking to get rich by making people believe just about anything. It’s a long shot, but it had better work before he becomes the poster boy for a death penalty that may be reinstated in New Zealand, which isn’t quite the dramatic ending he is hoping for…

The Killing Hour
link: https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hour-.../dp/B008J48M04

Spoiler:

“Anyone who likes their crime fiction on the black and bloody side should move Paul Cleave straight to the top of their must-read list” (Mark Billingham, award-winning author of the Tom Thorne crime series).

Imagine waking up covered in blood—but it’s not your blood. There’s a nasty bump on your head, and you can’t remember a thing about last night. The morning paper reports that two young women were brutally murdered. You recognize their names. Pieces of the night before come back to you through the haze. And now you’re the suspect in their grisly deaths. Welcome to Charlie’s world.

In this heart-pounding thriller, only the dead know what happened last night. On the run, Charlie suspects a man named Cyris, but no one believes that Cyris exists. Not the police and not Charlie’s ex-wife Jo, though she wants to trust that the man she once loved is innocent. Soon, Charlie has Jo bound and gagged in the trunk of his car, fleeing across the countryside while the killing hour approaches yet again.

Originally published in 2007 in Cleave’s native New Zealand, The Killing Hour represents the early, “pulse-pounding” (Publishers Weekly) work of a writer known the world over for a style that combines gruesome thrills with clever twists and a heavy dose of devilish humor. Cleave keeps us guessing until the last page of this fantastic psychological thriller.

Blood Men
link: https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Men-Thr.../dp/B003UBAYV6

Spoiler:

From international bestselling author Paul Cleave comes a gripping thriller about a dedicated family man, who may or may not have inherited his serial killer father’s penchant for violence.

WINNER OF NEW ZEALAND’S PRESTIGIOUS NGAIO MARSH AWARD FOR BEST CRIME NOVEL OF 2011

Edward Hunter has it all—a beautiful wife and daughter, a great job, a bright future . . . and a very dark past.

Twenty years ago, a serial killer was caught, convicted, and locked away in New Zealand’s most hellish penitentiary. That man was Edward’s father. Edward has struggled his entire life to put the nightmares of his childhood behind him. But a week before Christmas, violence once again makes an unwelcome appearance in his world. Is Edward destined to be just like his father, to become a man of blood? A true master of the genre, Paul Cleave unveils a brutally vivid picture of a killer’s mind and a city of fallen angels captured at the ends of the earth.

Cemetery Lake
link: https://www.amazon.com/Cemetery-Lake.../dp/B00A2810PO

Spoiler:

A chilling case of unsolved murders and mistaken identities unravels when a lake in a Christchurch cemetery releases its grip on the murky past in this exciting crime thriller from the internationally bestselling author of The Laughterhouse.

Cemetery Lake begins in a cold and rainy graveyard, where Private Detective Theodore Tate is overseeing an exhumation—a routine job for the weathered former cop. But when doubts are raised about the identity of the body found in the coffin, the case takes a sinister turn. Tate knows he should walk away and let his former colleagues on the police force deal with it, but his strong sense of justice intervenes.

Complicating matters are a few loose ends from Tate’s past. Even good guys have secrets, and Tate thought his were dead and buried for good. With time running out and a violent killer lurking, will he manage to stay one step ahead of the police, or will his truth be unearthed?

Originally published in Paul Cleave’s native New Zealand in 2008, Cemetery Lake is the first novel to feature Theodore Tate, the “quintessential flawed hero” (Kirkus Reviews) from Collecting Cooper and The Laughterhouse. Full of the clever plot twists and sardonic humor for which Cleave has become known, it is at once a totally entertaining crime novel and an unforgettable drama about the universal battle against the darkness within.