Nanao, nicknamed Lady Bird—the self-proclaimed “unluckiest assassin in the world”—boards a bullet train from Tokyo to Morioka with one simple task: grab a suitcase and get off at the next stop. Unbeknownst to him, the deadly duo Tangerine and Lemon are also after the very same suitcase—and they are not the only dangerous passengers onboard. Satoshi, “the Prince,” with the looks of an innocent schoolboy and the mind of a viciously cunning psychopath, is also in the mix and has history with some of the others. Risk fuels him as does a good philosophical debate . . . like, is killing really wrong? Chasing the Prince is another assassin with a score to settle for the time the Prince casually pushed a young boy off of a roof, leaving him comatose. When the five assassins discover they are all on the same train, they realize their missions are not as unrelated as they first appear. All aboard the Shinkansen. Please ensure your baggage is not blocking the walkway and you have a valid ticket ready for inspection. This week’s review is Bullet Train by Kōtarō Isaka, a new crime thriller direct from the shores of Japan. At first glance, you…

THE PAST In wartime Reykjavik, a young woman is found strangled behind the National Theatre, a rough and dangerous area of the city known as ‘the shadow district’. An Icelandic detective and a member of the American military police are on the trail of a brutal killer. THE PRESENT A 90-year-old man is discovered dead on his bed, smothered with his own pillow. Konrad, a former detective now bored with retirement, finds newspaper cuttings in the dead man’s home reporting the shadow district murder that date back to the second world war. It’s a crime that Konrad remembers, having grown up in the same neighbourhood. A MISSING LINK Why, after all this time, would an old crime resurface? Did the police arrest the wrong man? How are these cases linked across the decades? Will Konrad’s link to the past help him solve the case and finally lay the ghosts of wartime Reykjavik to rest? It has been a while since I have read any crime. In fact, I’ve checked and I haven’t read or reviewed any so far in 2017. Time to remedy that oversight. Over the last couple of years, I’ve developed a taste for the occasional crime thriller…

After the disastrous end to their last case, the Intercrime team – a specialist unit created to investigate violent, international crime – has been disbanded, their leader forced into early retirement. The six officers have been scattered throughout the country. Detectives Paul Hjelm and Kerstin Holm are investigating the senseless murder of a young football supporter in a pub in Stockholm, Arto Söderstedt and Viggo Norlander are working on mundane cases, Gunnar Nyberg is tackling child pornography while Jorge Chavez is immersed in research. But when a man is blown up in a high-security prison, a major drugs baron comes under attack and a massacre takes place in a dark suburb, the Intercrime team are urgently reconvened. There is something dangerous approaching Sweden, and they are the only people who can do anything to stop it. Last summer I stumbled upon the Swedish crime drama Arne Dahl* for the first time. Here in the UK it aired on a Saturday night on BBC4, and after about only ten minutes I knew that I was going to be completely hooked. I absolutely adored the format of the show and the characters were wonderful. Recently, I was offered the opportunity to read…