Denise Smith's 3 favorite reads in 2024

Detective Chief Inspector Allison and Sergeant Mark Stringer have the chilling task of tracking down a serial killer who is to terrify a city with his bizarre and cold-blooded murders of innocent women. They are ordinary men with human frailties and too much to do.

The psychological profile of the killer is meticulously pieced together to reveal a suave, sophisticated seducer of women. He uses his deadly charm and good looks to lure his victims to horrifying deaths.

A complex and incestuous relationship with his conspiring mother, coupled with dark and contradictory religious beliefs, drives the killer to frenzied heights… show more.

In this haunting tale, Daphne du Maurier takes a fresh approach to time travel. A secret experimental concoction, once imbibed, allows you to return to the fourteenth century. There is only one catch: if you happen to touch anyone while traveling in the past you will be thrust instantaneously to the present. Magnus Lane, a University of London chemical researcher, asks his friend Richard Young and Young's family to stay at Kilmarth, an ancient house set in the wilds near the Cornish coast. Here, Richard drinks a potion created by Magnus and finds himself at the same spot where he… show more.

One morning at Styles Court, an Essex country manor, the elderly owner is found dead of strychnine poisoning. Arthur Hastings, a soldier staying there on sick leave from the Western Front, ventures out to the nearby village of Styles St. Mary to ask help from his friend Hercule Poirot, an eccentric Belgian inspector. Thus, in this classic whodunit, one of the most famous characters in detective fiction makes his debut on the world stage. With a half dozen suspects who all harbor secrets, it takes all of Poirot’s prodigious sleuthing skills to untangle the mystery—but not before the inquiry undergoes… show more.