1 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)

“Early one winter morning in November 2019, a surveillance camera at MI6’s headquarters on the Thames registered the silhouette of a young man on the balcony of an apartment complex on the opposite side of the river,” writes Ian Thomson in The Guardian. “It was dark but the fifth-floor balcony was brightly lit. The man seemed to hesitate a moment before he jumped. On the way down his hip struck the embankment wall and, possibly unconscious as he hit the water, he drowned. His body was found five hours later face down in riverbank mud, shirtless and in tracksuit bottoms. The autopsy revealed multiple injuries (including a broken jaw) that were caused either by the fall or by a prior assault; the pathologist was unable to determine which.” Radden Keefe’s book unravels the truth of that night and is as gripping and as robust as we’ve come to expect from one of the greatest investigative journalists of our time.

2 The Black Monk by Charlotte Grimshaw (Penguin, $38)

“A woman haunted by family denial, secrets and a shadowy figure . . .

While her brother Cedric spirals into addiction, Alice Lidell finds herself confronted not only by his decline, but by memories of the past. From their chaotic Auckland childhood to her present day life, Alice is haunted by a mysterious figure she calls the Black Monk.

As Alice tries to hold her family together, the Black Monk appears in various guises: a stranger met in a cemetery, a face on television, a character surfacing in her own writing.

Part psychological thriller, part family saga, this is a daring novel that examines the themes of the moment: shame, addiction, truth and the stories we tell to survive.”

3 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, $38)

Shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction.

4 Banjara by Shana Chandra (Moa Press, $38)

A new debut from local publisher, Moa Press. Here’s their blurb: “Rajasthan 1888: Avani Rathod, a nomad of the Banjara community, is summoned to teach a blue-eyed colonial officer the trees of her region, but instead is misled into indenture to the sugarcane plantations of Fiji. While on the voyage that leads her away from her ancestral land, Avani’s baby forms in her belly and she forges close friendships with the other women bound for the Pacific – bonds that will be tested once they reach the islands, under the suffocating colonial powers.

Aotearoa 2016: Avani’s great-granddaughter, Meera Chand, seeks the true history of her ancestors – the forgotten and displaced Girmitiya. Meera’s search for her great-grandmother’s origins leads her to a region of India, where she learns the rhythms of Odissi dance and where she meets up with her former lover – the man she can never have, but whom she can’t forget.

Set in Aotearoa, Australia, India and Fiji, Banjara is an essential reimagining of Indo-Fijian Girmitiya history, and a love letter to our ancestors whose stories live on in our genes.”

5 Enough Said by Alan Bennett (Profile Books, $65)

Bennett’s diaries covering the years 2016-2024.

6 Buffalo Hunter by Stephen Jones (Titan Books, $29)

I’ve heard so many raves about this horror. Here’s the blurb: “Etsy Beaucarne is an academic who needs to get published. So when a journal written in 1912 by Arthur Beaucarne, a Lutheran pastor and her grandfather, is discovered within a wall during renovations, she sees her chance. She can uncover the lost secrets of her family, and get tenure. As she researches, she comes to learn of her grandfather, and a Blackfeet called Good Stab, who came to Arthur to share the story of his extraordinary life. The journals detail a slow massacre, a chain of events charting the history of Montana state as it formed. A cycle of violence that leads all the way back to 217 Blackfeet murdered in the snow. A blood-soaked and unflinching saga of the violence of colonial America, a revenge story like no other, and the chilling reinvention of vampire lore from the master of horror.”

7 Strange Houses by Uketsu (Pushkin Press, $37)

Haunted houses.

8 The Mirror Book by Charlotte Grimshaw (Vintage, $40) 

Reviewed superbly back in 2021 by Emma Wehipeihana on The Spinoff, here.

9 Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder & Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe (Haper Collins, $30) 

Now also a gripping TV series.

10 Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami (Picador, $38)

From the genius behind Breasts and Eggs comes the “story of deep friendship and deep betrayal”.

WELLINGTON

1 One Last Question, Prime Minister by Barry Soper (Harper Collins, $40)

“For the political tragics,” writes Lyric Waiwiri-Smith in her brilliant review of Soper’s book, “there’s plenty of insider tea between the pages. Like the time Soper’s car almost collided with Muldoon’s on the parliament forecourt because the former prime minister was slumped drunk against the wheel. Or the time Soper talked Mike Moore’s wife out of ditching her husband on a trip to London following a marital spat. Or the moment Jim Bolger told him, ‘fuck you’, and Soper replied, ‘no, fuck you’. Or when Chris Hipkins asked Soper what it’s like to try cocaine.”

2 Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Penguin, $28)

In a scary world this story is unashamedly loving and hopeful.

3 Night, Ma by Elizabeth Knox (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $40)

“Over a period of three-and-a-half years between 2008 and 2012, Knox’s sister was hospitalised with a psychotic break, her brother-in-law was murdered in Rarotonga and her mother was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. Night, Ma is a shifting chronicle of these “calamities”, these night-mares (the title reads differently after a while), that force the narrator – a time-travelling Knox – to “tunnel back” through her childhood, taking herself apart, to contextualise and humanise one of the most gruelling periods of her, and her family’s, lives.” Read the rest of Claire Mabey’s review of this remarkable memoir, here.

4 New Days for Old by James Brown (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $30)

A brilliantly unique, at times strange collection of short scenes from the stuff of life. Check out a close reading of one of the poems, right here on The Spinoff.

5 Peace & Quiet by Dinah Hawken (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $25)

Cool in a cover of blue, this new collection is gentle, mesmerising and steadfast even as they take on a theme of ecological disaster.

6 The Lost Climber’s Legacy by Julia Millen (Wrights Hill Press, $35)

A new local novel that blends wearable art with mountaineering and mystery.

7 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)

8 The Clean: In the Dream Life You Need a Rubber Soul by Richard Langston (Auckland University Press, $50)

Perfectly timed for New Zealand Music Month, which has somehow arrived already.

9 Len Cook: South Dunedin to Whitehall by Len Cook (Mary Egan, $35)

“Part memoir, part oral history, South Dunedin to Whitehall follows Len Cook from a witty South Dunedin schoolboy to head of the UK’s Office for National Statistics. With humour and insight, he reflects on family, politics and public service in a life that spans New Zealand and beyond.”

10 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, $38)