The Sunday Times - UK (2022-05-22)

FICTION HARDBACKS

Last

week

Weeks in

top 10

1

Bad Actors

Mick Herron

(Baskerville £18.99)

A key member of a government

think tank disappears without a trace

(5,300)

—1

2

Thrown/Sara Cox

(Coronet £14.99) Four women bond at a new pottery

class held in a local community centre (4,375)

—1

3

A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting/Sophie Irwin

(HarperCollins £14.99) A determined young woman

seeks a fortune to save her sisters from poverty (3,425)

—1

4

Wrong Place Wrong Time/Gillian McAllister

(M Joseph £14.99) A mother travels backwards through

time to stop a murder committed by her son (2,545)

—1

5

Lessons in Chemistry/Bonnie Garmus

(Doubleday £14.99) In 1960s America, a chemist

becomes the star of a popular TV cooking show (2,470)

36

6

The Saturday Night Sauvignon Sisterhood/Gill Sims

(HarperCollins £12.99) A set of friends are brought

together by a shared love of liquid therapy (2,375)

—1

7

22 Seconds/James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

(Century £20) Sergeant Lindsay Boxer puts her life

on the line to stop guns hitting the streets (2,370)

23

8

Young Mungo/Douglas Stuart

(Picador £16.99) The relationship between two teenage

boys is threatened by the sectarian divide (2,255)

45

9

The House with the Golden Door/Elodie Harper

(Apollo £16.99) Freed from Pompeii’s notorious brothel,

Amara begins her new life as a courtesan (2,140)

—1

10

The Collarbound/Rebecca Zahabi

(Gollancz £16.99) As a rebellion looms, refugees flee

to a fortress of mages offering protection (2,040)

—1

FICTION PAPERBACKS

Last

week

Weeks

in top 10

1

The Man Who Died Twice

Richard Osman

(Penguin £8.99)

Stolen diamonds worth £20 million cause

chaos for the Thursday Murder Club

(43,770)

—1

2

How to Kill Your Family/Bella Mackie

(Borough £8.99) A woman avenges her mother’s death

by bumping off her father and his family (11,270)

45

3

Sorrow and Bliss/Meg Mason

(Weidenfeld £8.99) A troubled woman struggles with

the feeling that her life is too broken to fix (10,295)

33

4

Silverview/John le Carré

(Penguin £8.99) A bookshop owner in a seaside town

receives a proposal from an enigmatic visitor (10,080)

13

5

The Dark Hours/Michael Connelly

(Orion £8.99) Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch

investigate a murder at a street party (9,245)

—1

6

Book Lovers/Emily Henry

(Penguin £8.99) Sparks fly between a cut-throat

literary agent and a successful book editor (9,055)

—1

7

It Ends With Us/Colleen Hoover

(Simon & Schuster £8.99) A first love’s reappearance

threatens a woman’s present relationship (9,005)

737

8

Not a Happy Family/Shari Lapena

(Penguin £8.99) A rich couple are murdered after

a tense dinner with their three children (8,740)

53

9

Better Off Dead/Lee Child and Andrew Child

(Penguin £8.99) Jack Reacher comes to the aid of an

army veteran searching for her twin brother (8,670)

67

10

The Thursday Murder Club/Richard Osman

(Penguin £8.99) Four friends in a retirement village

team up to solve a murder on their doorstep (8,360)

11 52

CHILDREN'S

1

Last

week

1

Weeks

in top 10

3

The World’s Worst Pets

David Walliams and

Adam Stower

(HarperCollins £14.99)

Stories about hilarious

and horrendous pets

(29,195)

2

Last

week

2

Weeks

in top 10

4

Heartstopper:

Volume One

Alice Oseman

(Hodder £10.99)

Two boys, Nick and

Charlie, become friends

at school (16,630)

3

Last

week

3

Weeks

in top 10

4

Heartstopper:

Volume Two

Alice Oseman

(Hodder £10.99)

Nick begins to develop

feelings for Charlie

(13,045)

4

Last

week

4

Weeks

in top 10

4

Heartstopper:

Volume Three

Alice Oseman

(Hodder £10.99)

Nick and Charlie navigate

relationship challenges

(11,270)

5

Last

week

5

Weeks

in top 10

4

Heartstopper:

Volume Four

Alice Oseman

(Hodder £10.99)

Nick prepares to come

out to his father

(10,780)

Only 12 weeks after the Wards

were found dead, another

elderly couple had suffered

a similar fate in Didsbury,

just seven miles away. Michael

and Violet Higgins were

murdered with extreme

violence. Again there was no

evidence of outside agency,

again the conclusion reached

was murder-suicide, despite

the elderly husband’s family

“insisting that his advanced

Parkinson’s disease meant he

could hardly hold a cup of tea”.

In the course of her

investigations Davies found

two other, similar murder-

suicides of elderly couples:

Kenneth and Eileen Martin in

2008 in Greater Manchester;

and Stanley and Peggie

Wilson in Cumbria in 2011. All

these deaths featured a kind

of “overkill”, she argued, and

all involved elderly, vulnerable

people. Collins, though, notes

that the deaths of the Wilsons

took place just a day after

Stanley came home from

hospital, where he had been

admitted with paranoid

delusions about Peggie trying

to poison him. In this case you

can see why the police would

regard murder-suicide as the

most convincing verdict.

But the book suggests

another disturbing possibility,

of a shadowy serial killer out

to brutalise, humiliate and

murder the elderly, and

elderly women in particular.

Does such a figure exist? Or

has an imaginary monster

been conjured out of a few

unusual deaths? Does the

truth lie more in that familiar

observation that you never

quite know what goes on in

other people’s marriages?

Collins argues that it is time

for the police to reopen the

files on the Wilmslow killings,

using forensic science

techniques that have advanced

enormously since the 1990s.

The Hunt for the Silver Killer

is a gripping and haunting

account, all the more so

because of its unanswered

questions. A serial killer at

large is one thing — but a

serial killer clever enough

never to have been caught is

another order of scary. c

up all the time. To this day
Cheshire police maintain
that no further investigation
is needed.
Others, though, disagree,
including an American
expert, convinced that the
Wilmslow deaths had been
staged, who concluded that
“it was likely a serial killer had
been operating undetected in
the northwest of England
since the mid-’90s”. Also
unhappy was the new
coroner’s officer for Cheshire,
Stephanie Davies, whose 2018
review of the cases concluded
that they should be reopened.
And it wasn’t just two cases
Davies was worried about.

PAPERBACK

OF THE WEEK

The End of the World Is

a Cul de Sac

by Louise Kennedy

Bloomsbury £8.99

Resignation

is the

governing

emotion of

the mostly

female

protagonists

in the 15

gritty, bitter and hard-won

stories of this first

collection. Children are

burdens not blessings;

husbands and partners,

with a few exceptions, are

disappointments or worse.

Yet Kennedy’s voice is

electric. Andrew Holgate

ST DIGITAL

FOR MORE PICKS, AND OUR

CHOICE OF THE BEST OF 2022,

GO TO THESUNDAYTIMES.

CO.UK/CULTURE

Auriel & Donald Ward

Wilmslow, Nov 26, 1999

Violet & Michael Higgins

Didsbury, Feb 21, 2000

Eileen & Kenneth Martin
Davyhulme, Nov 10, 2008

A 2018 review

said that the

cases should

be reopened

22 May 2022 25