Down Cemetery Road by Mick Herron

Sarah Trafford is bored and frustrated after losing her publishing job, and is especially annoyed when her husband, Mark, forces her to host a dinner party for a pretentious financier, Gerard, and his trophy wife. Gerard enjoys goading Sarah and he is even ruder to the other guests; an interruption by an explosion in the neighborhood is welcome and they all go outside to see what happened.

Past Tense by Catherine Aird – 9/20 Books of Summer

Janet Wakefield is very surprised to be notified that her husband’s Great-Aunt Josephine (not known to either of them) has died in a nearby nursing home. Bill is in South America for business so she reluctantly tries to organize a funeral and reception:

She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodge, a suspenseful series launch

Title: She Lies in Wait
Author: Gytha Lodge
Publication: Random House, hardcover, 2019
Genre: Suspense
Setting: Present-day Britain, somewhere near the New Forest

Description: Back in 1983, six teenagers and one younger sibling went camping in the forest. Aurora Jackson was in awe of her older sister’s confident friends and intimidated by their drinking and drug use. She disappeared in the middle of the night and was never seen again.

Thicker Than Water by Madeleine Polland - atmospheric suspense in Ireland

Title: Thicker Than Water
Author: Madeleine Polland (1918-2005)
Publication: Pyramid Books, paperback, 1966 (originally published in 1965)
Genre: Fiction/Suspense
Setting: Ireland

Description: When Veronica learns her grandmother, from whom she has been estranged since adolescence, is dying and has asked for her, she leaves London and heads to her deceased father’s childhood Irish home, Hollymount, on the border of Galway and Mayo.