The only remote downside to me for having received these two beauties in today’s post, is that they are both marked September 2021. I have always thought September to be the saddest month, for a variety of reasons: the dying of the summer light, the wretched return to the classroom ( I was a teacher for forty years) where I would cast artificial pearls before real swine, the looming end of the cricket season, and the girding up of loins to face yet another winter. By the time September comes I will have exceed my biblical span by four years, and I will be thinking of that beautifully sad poem by JRR Tolkein, where Bilbo says:

“I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall ever see.”

Enough of such morbid musings. There are books to look at! Leona Deakin’s character Dr Augusta Bloom first appeared in Gone (December 2019) – click to read the review – and then in Lost (October 2020). Now, Dr Bloom returns with another case, this time involving politics and counter terrorism. No less a figure than the Foreign Secretary is being held by the police on suspicion of terror offences. He will only talk if he is allowed to speak to Augusta Bloom. This results in Augusta having to put herself in the line of fire as a decoy. Does she have the skills to operate undercover? The Kindle is available now, but you will have to hang on until the summer fades to get the paperback. It will be published by Black Swan, which is a Penguin imprint, and will be on sale from 16th September

Vera Kurian’s book, according to the publicity, couldn’t be more different and, if I can be permitted to invent a triple-barreled genre, sounds as if it’s domestic-psycho-noir. Kurian, who is based in Washington DC, has penned a tale of a first year university student named Chloe. The blurb is very effective:

Meet Chloe. First-year student, ordinary, legging-wearing, girl next door and diagnosed psychopath with an !Q of 135. Her hobbies include yogalates, parties, and plotting to kill Will Bachman.

Quite what Will Bachman has done to incur Chloe’s wrath is not clear; neither is it down to me to say whether or not he survives her attentions. She says, however:

“I’ve never met someone like me, but when I do, eventually, I think it will be like two wolves meeting in the night, sniffing and recognising another hunter,”

Never Saw Me Coming will be published by Harvill Secker on 9th September.