The Murder Road, by Stephen Booth (Sphere UK), is the 15th novel featuring Derbyshire police detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry. The stranger-leery hamlet of Shawhead, accessible only via a single thoroughfare, is shocked when a transport truck is found on that route, jammed beneath a railway bridge, its driver nowhere to be found and its cab marked with blood. After the only person thought capable of solving this mystery turns up dead in a nearby town, Detective Inspector Cooper--already agitated by staffing changes at E Division, and uncertain of his footing in this case--may feel compelled to seek help from Detective Sergeant Fry, who is currently working with Nottingham's Major Crimes Unit. Sympathy for the Devil, by Terrence McCauley (Polis), is an adrenaline-charged spy thriller starring James Hicks, the director of a particularly clandestine government anti-terrorism agency called the University. After barely surviving a shootout in New York City’s Central Park, during which one of his “assets” is killed, Hicks determines that he’s been betrayed by one of his most trusted agents. Worse, he unearths a conspiracy that could release biological disaster upon the world. Although Hicks could have used some more dimension and less pulpish dialogue, Sympathy will appeal to readers fond of technology-enriched escapist fiction.
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