March 2025 books

What’s new and good to read this month? Dan Coombes has a look at what’s on offer from publishers in March and chooses Death at the White Hart by Chris Chibnall, When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi and Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah.

Death at the White Hart – Chris Chibnall

A gruesome murder shocks a quiet Dorset village, you say? And what’s this, a fancy big-city detective  uncovering secrets, lies, twists and turns in a close-knit community where everyone has something to hide? If any of this sounds at all familiar, don’t worry, you’re in safe hands.

This is Chris Chibnall’s debut crime novel but far from his first go at creating a good mystery – he wrote Broadchurch, one of the most successful British tv crime dramas in recent years, so if anyone’s earned the right to whack out a few tropes and the pedigree to use them rather brilliantly before his first novel’s even out, it’s this guy.

When Nicola Bridge moves back to Dorset after years as a CID detective in the big city, the last thing she expects is for the picturesque village of Fleetcombe to become a grisly crime scene. Jim Tiernan, landlord of the White Hart pub, has been found dead, the body staged with macabre relish on an isolated country road. As soon as she starts asking questions, Nicola realises everyone in the village has something to hide.

Frankie, the hairdresser who isn’t a skilled enough actor to conceal they’re lying about the night of the murder. Eddie, the delivery driver whose heart starts racing every time he drives past the crime scene. Deakins, the embittered farmer still living in the shadow of a supposedly murderous ancestor. And even the little girl, hidden at the top of the playground slide, who’s watching them all.

Whispers. Rumours. Lies. But Nicola knows that somewhere among them, a killer is hiding in plain sight. Because sometimes the smallest villages hide the darkest secrets…

Images: Death at the White Hart front cover, Author Chris Chibnall

When the Moon Hits Your Eye – John Scalzi

When I first started writing these reviews I was given the general guideline of going for big names, prestigious titles, highbrow, heavyweight, award-winning literature, that kind of thing, so here’s a book about the moon turning into a big ball of cheese.

But hold on…this is really good stuff, promise. John Scalzi is a smart, gifted and extremely imaginative writer (and an award winning one too!) and this is not – assuming you have any expectations at all about celestial bodies becoming cheddar – what you might be expecting. This book takes a long look at humanity in unexpected circumstances and is far more serious and moving than its cheesy set up might suggest.

One day, suddenly and without explanation, the moon turns into a ball of cheese. For some, it’s an opportunity. For others, it’s time to question their life choices.How can the world stay the same in the face of such absurdity and uncertainty? Astronauts and billionaires, comedians and bank executives, professors and presidents, teenagers and patients at the end of their lives – over the length of a lunar cycle, each gets their moment in the moonlight.

To panic, to plan, to wonder and to hope, to laugh and to grieve. All in a story that goes all the places you’d expect, and to many others you could never anticipate.For the people of the earth, this could be the end – or the beginning of a whole new world. When the Moon Hits Your Eye is an entirely serious take on an entirely unserious subject.

Images: When the Moon Hits Your Eye front cover, Author John Sculzi

Theft – Abdulrazak Gurnah

Okay fine, if the profound impact of spacebound Cathedral City isn’t what you’re after then this one is probably about as prestigious as it gets.

Abdulrazak Gurnah shot to fame after winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 2021, writes anything from grittily human tales to powerfully thought provoking looks at history, politics and identity (and quite often both at the same time, to be fair). His latest work is a multi-layered look at great big crunchy global issues like postcolonialism, alongside small squidgy ones like the human heart and soul, and stands up alongside the best of his back catalogue – which is also great, by the way.

What are we given, and what do we have to take for ourselves? It is the 1990s. Growing up in Zanzibar, three very different young people.But for Badar, an uneducated servant boy who has never known his parents, it seems as if all doors are closed. Brought into a lowly position in a great house in Dar es Salaam, Badar finds the first true home of his life – and the friendship of Karim, the young man of the house.

Even when a shattering false accusation sees Badar sent away, Karim and Fauzia refuse to turn away from their friend.But as the three of them take their first steps in love, infatuation, work and parenthood, their bond is tested – and Karim is tempted into a betrayal that will change all of their lives forever.

Images: Theft front cover, Author Abdulrazak Gurnah