Reading Matters (week 08) 17 February 2026

Who polices the police? That question is at the heart of superb crime writer, Mike Nicol’s book, Falls the Shadow (Macmillan). Prescient Mike has started a new series, at the heart of which is Captain Zara Dewane who is a clean cop working to out dirty cops. She’s a single mother and what she unearths about a cop who murders his wife and two children before killing himself, sees her staring down the barrel of a gun.

I interviewed Mike the day his book went on sale in the USA and the publishing house there has already bought the sequel and is looking at his third book in the series. For those of us who enjoyed The Fish and Vicki Series as well as The Bishop Series this is pure magic. John Connolly has described Mike as, ‘one of the best crime novelists anywhere in the world.’  I second that big time.

Bestselling author Sue Monk Kidd topped the charts with her first book, The Secret Life of Bees, which sold over eight million copies. Now she’s helping aspirant writers with her book, Writing Creativity and Soul (Canongate/ Penguin Random House).

Witty, warm, fierce, in this her ninth book, she describes her doubts and fears and assures writers that they are common to nearly all who put pen to paper.

Arthur Goldstuck, author of 21 books and a technology expert, will be a bright spark in the lives of techno-phobes, with his fascinating and highly readable, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI (Macmillan).

I learnt from Arthur for instance, that AI is interpreting babies’ cries, describing them as, ‘hunger, pain, discomfort’ etc.  He says his book is, ‘a map through shifting terrain, charted by those already walking it.’  Get it!

Reading Matters with Sue Grant-Marshall