Book reviews

ROOTED firmly in the here and now, Bloodland is a tightly plotted thriller set in Dublin, London, Verona, New York and the Congo and featuring everything from a dead tabloid celebrity to an alcoholic Irish ex-prime minister and a seemingly heroic wannabe US presidential candidate.

Occasionally the storyline is a little too dense to follow easily, but overall this is an absorbing read.

Bloodland by Alan Glynn is published as a paperback original by Faber and Faber, £12.99

flash and bones by kathy reichs HHHH

FLASH And Bones is vintage Temperance Brennan (ITV’s Bones’ heroine).

When a corpse is found at a landfill site alongside the local NASCAR racing speedway just as a major tournament is about to start, the media whips up a frenzy. Trying to identify the gruesome remains, Tempe is accosted by a young race engineer who suspects it could be his missing sister, or the boyfriend she vanished with years before.

Then the FBI steps in to confiscate the body - and it’s clear they are hiding something about the couple’s disappearance. Broken into short, sharp chapters and told in a lively, diary-style narrative, the action moves as fast as the cars around the ill-fated speedway.

Flash And Bones by Kathy Reichs is published in hardback by William Heinemann, £18.99