THERE'S NO POINT WAITING for Denise Mina's two dependable series sleuths, Alex Morrow and Paddy Meehan, to appear in THE LONG DROP (Little, Brown, $26), which is a drastic departure from her brilliant contemporary studies of criminals who prey on Glasgow's social underclass. This new novel takes its story from the Burnside murders, a true crime spree that horrified the city in the late 1950s. William Watt, the owner of a string of bakery shops, is innocent of the murder of his wife, his sister-in-law and his daughter, but although the police can't prove otherwise, they're convinced of his guilt. So Watt sets out to convince them that the real killer is Peter Manuel by - wait for it! - taking him out on a bender and jollying him into a confession. Mina has always been a close observer of the brutality drunkards can inflict on their wives and children ("Between lunchtime closing and the pubs reopening for the evening, Glasgow is carpeted with drunk men. They loll on pavements," wet themselves at bus stops, "fight invisible foes in the streets"). But she also feels for women like Manuel's mother, Brigit ("My knees are broken with praying for you"), and the father of a murdered girl who describes her in the blandest of terms on the witness stand because he can't bring himself to share his memories of the "real daughter" the public knows only as a mangled corpse. Mina even holds out her hand to those inarticulate thugs whose violent acts are a perverse way of validating their own lives. " 'You can't tell a story,'" Watt says, dismissing his companion's veiled threat over the course of their wild night, "not knowing that this is cutting Manuel to the bone." With one plotline continually hopscotching over the other, Mina manages to keep two narratives going at once: the farcical account of Watt and Manuel's binge and the sober courtroom drama of dueling life-or-death stories when Manuel faces a jury. Despite the novel's final reassurance that it's "just a story. Just a creepy story about a serial killer," this one feels painfully real. JO NESBO CERTAINLY has the magic touch when it comes to psycho serial killers. In THE THIRST (Knopf, $26.95), breathlessly translated by Neil Smith, the gloomy Norwegian novelist introduces a monster who stalks his victims on Tinder, rips out their throats with lethal dentures made of metal spikes and drinks their blood. When the killing starts, summer is over, with all its "hysterical, cheerful, stupid selfexpression," and Oslo has resumed its true character, "melancholic, reserved, efficient." That also describes Nesbo's protagonist, Harry Hole, "possibly the best, possibly the worst, but certainly the most mythologized murder detective" on the city's police force. Something about the killer's bizarre M.O. strikes a memory chord with Harry, and at the scene of the second killing he gets down to work, scrutinizing the bloody evidence, reading the clues the madman has leftfor the police and coming to the unnerving conclusion that "he wants to play." At this chilling point, teams of investigators are dispatched and the good citizens of Oslo are paralyzed with fear. But much of this melodrama is only a distraction from the intricate plotting that keeps the story shifting under our feet. Nesbo is a master at this narrative sleight of hand, and if you can stand the gory details and hang on during the switchback turns, the payoffis its own reward. ONE WAY TO DELIVER a message in the unsettled political climate of 1919 Calcutta is to stuffit in the mouth of a murdered man. "English blood will run in the streets," warns the note in Abir Mukherjee's enthralling debut novel, A RISING MAN (Pegasus, $25.95). "Quit India!" Lord Charles Taggart, the police commissioner, assigns the case to Capt. Sam Wyndham, newly arrived from England with lingering war wounds and a morphine habit but a keen appreciation for the "vibrant, wretched beauty" of the slums of Calcutta. The investigation sends Wyndham and his Bengali assistant on a whirlwind circuit of the city. On his way to uncovering "a fully fledged terrorist campaign" against the Raj, Capt. Wyndham is educated in the ways that 150,000 Britons have managed to maintain mastery over millions of Indians. LOVE AND DEATH IN BURGUNDY (Minotaur, $24.99), Susan C. Shea's novel set in the French countryside, offers a pleasant getaway from hard-core killers. Reignysur- Canne is an unspoiled village with only a crumbling castle to recommend it to tourists. Katherine Goff, an American artist of modest reputation and a likable enough amateur sleuth, has acquired an eclectic group of friends and potential murder victims (including a rich, rude American I'd like to murder myself). There are local fetes, excursions to colorful flea markets and the odd interesting character like Jeannette, a 14-year-old thief with personality. That might be enough for a respectable cozy mystery. Even so, this feels like something you've read before - the same characters, the same fetes, even the same recycled scenery. MARILYN STASIO has covered crime fiction for the Book Review since 1988. Her column appears twice a month.

Retired Inspector Harry Hole, who thinks he's safe from his demons as an underpaid lecturer in Oslo's Police College, gets blackmailed into returning to the Crime Squad Unit, with predictably explosive results.Do vampires exist? Maybe not, but vampirists, in academic expert Hallstein Smith's suitably pedantic distinction, certainly do, and one of them is at work in Oslo. After meeting Elise Hermansen, an attorney specializing in rape cases, on Tinder, he's evidently bitten her to death with a formidable set of iron teeth and drunk her blood. Given the remarkable absence of useful forensic evidence and the tenuous connection between the killer and his victim, one-eyed Police Chief Mikael Bellman, eager to burnish his crime-fighting credentials in support of his nomination as Minister of Justice, wants Harry Hole (Police, 2013, etc.) on the case, and he's willing to threaten legal proceedings against Police College student Oleg Fauke, who just happens to be Harry's stepson, to make it happen. Meanwhile, the killer has not been idle. Instead of letting a discreet interval elapse between his outrages, he attacks a second victim, concocts a smoothie from her blood and some lemon, and leaves a signature V on her door. More victims will follow in short order, and the case will continue to grow darker and more complex, even after Harry focuses the Crime Squad's manhunt on Valentin Gjertsen, who escaped from Ila Prison four years ago. In fact, Nesb, borrowing a page from Jeffery Deaver, piles on so many twists within twists within twists that even the most conscientious readers may end up puzzled about every circumstance of the killings except the pervasive and powerfully evoked evil behind them. Middling for this distinguished series: yet more evidence of why Scandinavian crime writers continue to dominate international bestseller lists. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Actor Lee delivers an excellent, nuanced performance in this audio edition of the latest installment of Nesbo's Harry Hole series. As the book opens, former detective Hole is an instructor at a police college in Oslo, but he's quickly drawn in to the hunt for a serial killer who may be a figure from his past. In this, Hole's 11th outing, Nesbo again keeps the prose lean and the pace taut. Lee gives a distinctive voice and accent to each of the novel's many characters, yet even while successfully differentiating this large ensemble, he manages to conceal the identity of a villain whose voice is heard midway through the novel. And when that same villain's nose is broken later in the book, he skillfully adds a subtle but discernible nasal twinge. As Hole and his ragtag team of investigators close in on their target, the veteran voice actor ratchets up the tension. Lee's suave English brogue is a perfect match for the gritty material and the many Briticisms of the translation. A Knopf hardcover. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A murderer who drinks victims' blood after rending them with iron teeth is slaughtering women in Oslo. Legendary homicide inspector Harry Hole, now a comfy private citizen and police college lecturer, is persuaded to help apprehend this fiend. Acting as a shadow detective with his own handpicked investigative team, Harry detects signatures in the vampirist's modus operandi pointing to the only killer who ever evaded him: Valentin Gjertsen. Although peopled with familiar series characters, this latest Harry Hole thriller recaps enough background to stand alone. The commanding diction of British actor John Lee propels the listener at a pace that unfurls Nesbo's cinematographic prose into the theater of the mind. When Lee channels a villain, listeners are tempted to check under the bed. -VERDICT Nesbo's mastery of plot and suspense will leave fans and police procedural/thriller aficionados more than satisfied. ["Features thoroughly developed characters, an intricate plot, and suspenseful twists, all hallmarks of a master storyteller": LJ 5/1/17 starred review of the Knopf hc.]-Judith -Robinson, Univ. at Buffalo © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

*Starred Review* Somehow it had to happen: Harry Hole up against a vampire. Don't panic. Nesbø's internationally best-selling crime-fiction series, while often intensely horrific, has always remained unfailingly realistic, and so it is here, in this eleventh installment. Not a genre mash-up, then, but a gripping, way-scary crime novel in which former Oslo police detective Hole, now teaching at Norway's police college, is called back to active duty to track down a vampirist, that is, a person who craves blood and exhibits behavior similar to that expected of a vampire. Harry has battled some cunningly evil serial killers in the past, but this is the first to employ a specially designed set of black dentures that make it possible to kill with a perfectly placed vampiric bite. Different, yes, but there's something about this killer, who targets victims on Tinder, that reminds Harry of his nemesis, the one who got away. Could it be? As in previous Hole novels, Nesbø moves his narration around a bit, putting us into the nightmarish mind of the killer without revealing his or her identity. And, of course, this being a novel about the most demon-wracked hero in crime fiction, Harry has troubles of his own, including a mysterious disease that has felled his wife, Rakel, and, yes, another tussle with Harry's longtime sparring partner, Jim Beam. In the end, it's all about thirst the vampirist's for blood, of course, but also Harry's for booze and for the thrill of the chase. Vampires don't exist, we all know that, but thirst is very real indeed, bringing together hunter and hunted. This one will keep readers awake deep into the night.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2017 Booklist