The best books that are both dark and funny

A RICHARD & JUDY BESTSELLER

72 HOURS TO FIND HER...

'Hits the sweet spot between literary and crime fiction - Gripping' ERIN KELLY

'For those who love their crime fiction rich in psychology, beautifully written and laced with dark humour. Dive in' LUCIE WHITEHOUSE

Mid-December, and Cambridgeshire is blanketed with snow. Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw tries to sleep after yet another soul-destroying Internet date - the low murmuring of her police radio her only solace.

Over the airwaves come reports of a missing woman - door ajar, keys and phone left behind, a spatter of blood on the kitchen floor.… show more.

A young woman is making a living faking it as a cut-price psychic (with some illegal soft-core sex work on the side). She makes a decent wage mostly by telling people what they want to hear. But then she meets Susan Burke.

Susan moved to the city one year ago with her husband and 15-year-old stepson Miles. They live in a Victorian house called Carterhook Manor. Susan has become convinced that some malevolent spirit is inhabiting their home. The young woman doesn't believe in exorcism or the supernatural. However when she enters the house for the first time, she begins… show more.

A TIMES CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH
ONE OF M. W. CRAVEN'S BOOKS OF 2019

A ruthless killer is spreading panic in a quiet village in the Italian Alps.

Police Inspector Teresa Battaglia is the only one who can stop them.

But how can you catch a monster when you're slowly losing your mind?

PREPARE TO FALL IN LOVE WITH TERESA BATTAGLIA, A POLICE INSPECTOR LIKE NO OTHER:

'Superintendent Teresa Battaglia, a criminal profile expert, is in her sixties, overweight, lonely, diabetic, full of the ailments of ageing - and delightful. It's rare that a character like Teresa Battaglia enters… show more.

'If you like your thrillers darkly comic and outrageous this ticks all the boxes' The Sun

The last person who called me 'Sweetpea' ended up dead...

'I haven't killed anyone for three years and I thought that when it happened again I'd feel bad. Like an alcoholic taking a sip of whisky. But no. Nothing. I had a blissful night's sleep. Didn't wake up at all. And for once, no bad dream either. This morning I feel balanced. Almost sane, for once.'

Rhiannon is your average girl next door, settled with her boyfriend and little dog...but she's got a killer… show more.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club introduces a middle-class American family that is ordinary in every way but one in this novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize.
 
Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “I was raised with a chimpanzee,” she explains. “I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern’s expulsion...she was my twin, my funhouse… show more.