Quieter Than Killing | #blogtour Guest Post by Sarah Hilary #QuieterThanKilling

This is one of my favourite crime series and its a pleasure to take part in the publisher blog tour celebrations for the paperback release of Quieter Than Killing, (Marnie Rome #4).  All the previous books are reviewed on my blog and you can read my review of QTK from April 2017 here.   The paperback is published by Headline and will be available to buy from tomorrow, 5 October.

For my turn on the tour, I have a guest post from Sarah, talking about her Top Five Books but first here’s a bit about Quieter Than Killing.

It’s winter, the nights are dark and freezing, and a series of seemingly random assaults is pulling DI Marnie Rome and DS Noah Jake out onto streets of London. When Marnie’s family home is ransacked, there are signs that the burglary can have only been committed by someone who knows her. Then a child goes missing, yet no-one has reported it. Suddenly, events seem connected, and it’s personal.

Someone out there is playing games. It is time for both Marnie and Noah to face the truth about the creeping, chilling reaches of a troubled upbringing. Keeping quiet can be a means of survival, but the effects can be as terrible as killing.

Top Five Books

by Sarah Hilary

The nights are drawing in, and my reading year is far from over, but here are five of my favourite books so far:

The Dry by Jane Harper is a superb debut by a rising star of Australian crime fiction. Set in the outback, it sizzles with heat, unsettled scores and the horror of a family’s murder. Detective Aaron Falk is one of my favourite new discoveries. I’m lucky enough to have read an early copy of Jane’s blistering follow-up, Force of Nature. Outback Noir might just be the Next Big Thing.

Spook Street is the latest in Mick Herron’s award-winning series about spectacularly dysfunctional spies sidelined from the Service into dead end jobs (think ‘The Office’ meets le Carré). The pace is fast, the prose is delicious and the dialogue pings like bullets. If you only read one new series this year, make it this one.

Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman is a masterpiece of plotting and storytelling. Set in Maryland, it weaves a legal thriller with a suspenseful backstory of family secrets being slowly stripped away to reveal shocking truths. The twists keep coming to the very last page, not flashy twists but utterly credible and deeply disturbing. I loved it.

All the Wicked Girls is Chris Whittaker’s follow-up to his debut, Tall Oaks, which was published to critical acclaim last year. Chris takes one of crime fiction’s most familiar obsessions – missing girls – and restyles it, wonderfully. A bit of Southern Gothic, a twist of Twin Peaks, a noir-ish nod to Stranger Things, and a whole lot of simply brilliant writing.

The Hours Before Dawn was Celia Fremlin’s debut, first published in 1958 and reissued this year by Faber & Faber (with a glow-in-the-dark cover, no less). If you love psychological thrillers, this is one of the originals. A sleep-deprived mother with a new baby begins to imagine there’s a plot to kill her. But is it all in her mind? For fans of Patricia Highsmith but also those who love London, especially its darkest corners.

About the author:

Sarah Hilary has worked as a bookseller, and with the Royal Navy. Her debut, SOMEONE ELSE’S SKIN, won Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year 2015 and was a World Book Night selection for 2016. The Observer’s Book of the Month (“superbly disturbing”) and a Richard & Judy Book Club bestseller, it has been published worldwide. NO OTHER DARKNESS, the second in the series was shortlisted for a Barry Award in the US. Her DI Marnie Rome series continues with TASTES LIKE FEAR (2016) QUIETER THAN KILLING (2017), with COME AND FIND ME out in April 2018.

Author Links:  Website   |   Twitter   |   Facebook   |   Amazon UK    |  Amazon US   |   Goodreads 

Related Posts: 

Someone Else’s Skin (Review – 2014)
No Other Darkness (Review – 2015)
Tastes Like Fear (Review – 2016)