TALES OF MIDDLE ENGLAND and middle-class family life contrast sharply with the latest offering from one of the masters of the thriller genre, Robert Goddard, and number 27 in Donna Leon’s compelling series of Commissario Brunetti crime novels set in Venice.

The Librarian

by Salley Vickers

IN 1958, SYLVIA BLACKWELL, fresh from one of the new post-war Library Schools, takes up a job as children’s librarian in a run-down library in the market town of East Mole. Her mission is to fire the enthusiasm of the children of East Mole for reading.

But her love affair with the local married GP, and her befriending of his precious daughter, her neighbour’s son and her landlady’s neglected grandchild, ignite the prejudices of the town, threatening her job and the very existence of the library with dramatic consequences for them all.

Panic Room

by Robert Goddard

HIGH ON A CORNISH CLIFF sits a vast uninhabited mansion. Uninhabited except for Blake, a young woman of mysterious background, currently acting as house-sitter. The house has a panic room, cunningly concealed, steel lined, impregnable – and apparently closed from within, even Blake doesn’t know it’s there.

She’s too busy being on the run from life, from a story she thinks she’s escaped. But her remote existence is going to be threatened when people come looking for the house’s owner, rogue pharma entrepreneur Jack Harkness.

Soon people with questionable motives will be asking Blake the sort of questions she can’t – or won’t – answer.

The Temptation of Forgiveness

by Donna Leon

IMPORTANT INFORMATION is leaking from inside the Venetian Questura, and Commissario Guido Brunetti is tasked with uncovering the culprit. But before Brunetti can begin his investigation, a friend of his wife’s comes asking for his help, fearful that her son is using drugs.

A few weeks later, the woman’s husband is found unconscious at the foot of a bridge. Following various contradictory leads, Brunetti navigates his way through Venice’s underworld in an attempt to understand who is responsible for the vicious attack.

But as he gets closer to discovering what happened, Brunetti is faced with a difficult truth: sometimes, the best intentions lead to the darkest of consequences….

Why Mummy Drinks

by Gill Sims

IT’S MUMMY’S 39th BIRTHDAY. She is staring down the barrel of a future full of people asking if she wants to come to their advanced yoga classes, and polite book clubs where everyone claims to be ‘tiddly’ after a glass of Pinot Grigio and says things like ‘Oooh gosh, are you having another glass?’

But Mummy does not want to go quietly into that good night of women, with sensible haircuts. Who ‘live for their children and stand in the playground trying to trump each other with their offspring’s extracurricular activities and achievements’, and boasting about their latest holidays.

Instead, she clutches a large glass of wine, muttering ‘FML’ over and over again. Until she remembers the gem of an idea she’s had…

DVD Corner

Cleaning Up

DS457

SHERIDAN SMITH stars in this BBC-TV series as office cleaner Sam, one of an invisible army working every night in London’s financial centre, dreaming of a better life. But, struggling with an online gambling addiction, she’s going under.

One night, hidden in plain sight, she overhears an illegal trade being made. This lucrative stock market information could be the break she needs. Armed with a copy ‘Trading for Dummies’ and her gambler’s nerve, Sam has everything and nothing to lose – but how far will she go to turn her fortunes around?