The Bat/The Snowman:  

Jo Nesbo's books have sold somewhere in excess of 50m copies.  Before he became a best-selling author, he was footballer, a rock-star in his native Norway and worked in finance.  His books are dark, nasty, cynical and possibly illegal police procedurals.  My thanks to Katie Ellis-Brown at Harvill Secker for the review copies.  

Our hero is Harry Hole.  The surname is pronounced "holy", but there is nothing sanctified here.  He's a recovering alcoholic, borderline sociopathic cop; but he's also Oslo's finest.  The Bat is his first adventure, as Holy is despatched to the other side of the world to solve the murder of a Norwegian backpacker in Melbourne.  The Snowman is set ten years later, with a serial killer placing the body parts of their victims in the first snowmen of the Oslo Winter.

By this point, Hole has become a celebrity on talk shows.  He's found love, lost it and has a flat full of damp for an encore.  This new case piques Harry's cynical nature, but the fact that the killer references Harry's first case makes things that more complicated.

It's easy to see why Nesbo is such a best-selling author.  The cases will be dark, nasty and gory for hardcore crime fans.  What he has got is the control of a Christie or a Rankin.  Those who think they can predict the killer in the first half of the book will have a hard-time.  Nesbo's killers are generally not whom you think you are, hiding in plain sight. 

And you can definitely see a jump in quality between book one and book seven.  The character of Hole is much more rounded, liveable and believable in The Snowman than he is in The Bat.  He is literally a young buck in the first book.  By Seven, he is literally beaten down by life and by the end of the case he has literally lost a body part in the cause of justice.  He can't find any kind of happiness and a bottle is only a step away.  

Credit should also be given to Don Bartlett, who translates his books from Norwegian.  The flourishes and dark humour of Nesbo's writing is still intact and that is a rare skill.  

So, crime fans.  Are you ready to step into a world of blood, ice and mordant humour?  Tread carefully - The Nesboverse is sixteen novels long - it can be a dangerous place.  

 Small Angels by Lauren Owen:

You're all invited to a wedding. Sam and Chloe are getting married in Small Angels, the church of Sam's childhood village.  His sister Kate is along to help. But something is not happy with the imminent festivities at the edge of Mockbeggar Woods. It's angry, manipulative and eldritch at the same time. 

Small Angels is a patchwork of a book.  Beneath it is a general, creeping, lurking terror of what will happen on the day itself.  Beneath that is the history of the village, it's myths and fables and how Sam and Kate's childhood affects what is going to happen.   And when it does, you'll be genuinely terrified. I say that as someone who doesn't "get" horror.  But be warned, find something to hold on to.   

There is the odd hint of the modern world, and where the unnamed village might actually be. But there is nothing to really tie it to one particular time and space - other than the fact that the hard drive of Sam's laptop keeps wiping and he can't get a mobile signal.  There is also the internal logic that the villagers accept that Mockbeggar is haunted.  Not just by the spirit, but also in the ghosts of angry dogs and a lost goose which plays with the children.

I should also mention that The Gonnes are a family of women, guardians of both the woods and Small Angels.  They are depicted at one point as cooking meals of random ingredients thrown into a pot and you can make of that what you will.  

There's more than enough in Small Angels to make the jaw drop and the flesh creep.  There is that tick and drip of information about what is going to happen.  One, involving Chloe's wedding veil is so horrifying I had to stop reading for a few minutes. She also acquires an unseen voice which narrates her wedding preparations and manipulates her into setting something loose.  

I'm not going to say whether there is a happy ending.  What I will say is it ends of a definite, unsettling minor key.  Things might be normal (or as normal as they can be in a haunted village), but there is great uncertainty with it.  It depicts perfectly the great leap of faith of deciding to give your heart and soul to someone.

I read this book three months ahead of publication and it was enough to give me nightmares then.  Published on August 2nd, it will make your flesh creep as the light seeps out of Summertime.