Velocity Koontz, Dean

Velocity Koontz, DeanBilly Wiles is a bartender who likes his life quiet. Then a note appears on his windshield: "If you don't take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blonde schoolteacher. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have four hours to decide. The choice is yours." Billy thinks it's a sick joke until the schoolteacher turns up dead. More notes follow, each one

Bean's frontline diary from Gallipoli is the closest thing we have to standing on Anzac beach in 1915

The dog perspectives are funny without being cutesy

This is a textbook that does what most business textbooks don't — it actually explains how the world works

and the Scottish moors set a moody

The Edinburgh setting is rendered with Rankin's signature atmospheric detail

or readers curious how a Victorian morality tale holds up when you strip away the snow and replace it with cicadas

His job wants him to sell dog food with fake sincerity

the ghost gums against ochre sand

the mystery moves

and the vampire lore feels fresh

Jonathan Trefoil works in advertising

each chapter peeling back another layer of a tragedy that still isn't finished