Pile by the Bed finds Andy Weir back in his comfort zone with Project Hail Mary which finds a lone quippy expert having to save the Earth through science.

Pile by the Bed reviews Girl, 11 by Amy Suiter Clarke a serial killer cold case story featuring a true crime podcaster as the amateur detective.

Pile by the Bed reviews The Girl Remains by Katherine Firkin, her follow up to Sticks and Stones which takes Detective Emmett Corban to the Mornington Peninsula to take up a twenty year old cold case.

Pile by the Bed reviews The Frenchman by ex-secret service agent turned novelist Jack Beaumont, a thriller which takes readers into the details of spycraft in the French secret service.

Pile by the Bed reviews The Best Thing You Can Steal by Simon R Green - an urban fantasy that leans heavily on heist tropes.

Pile by the Bed reviews the new environmentally conscious thriller Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer

Pile by the Bed reviews Hyde by Craig Russell a gothic police-procedural reimagining of the story behind Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde

Pile by the Bed reviews What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch, the latest novella set in his Rivers of London universe featuring precocious teenager Abigail.

Pile by the Bed reviews Dangerous Women by Hope Adams a reimgaining of the voyage of the women's convict ship Rajah and the creation of the Rajah Quilt.

Pile by the Bed reviews The Long, Long Afternoon - debut historical crime fiction by Inga Vesper set in Los Angeles in the late 1950s.

Pile by the Bed reviews and recommends Like Mother by Cassandra Austin - a dark, engaging thematically rich novel with a devastating premise.

Pile by the Bed goes to Venus to review The House of Styx, the first book of Venus Ascendant, a new science fiction series by Derek Kunsken

Pile by the Bed reviews Civilisations by Laurent Binet - an alternative history that imagines an Incan takeover of Europe in the Sixteenth Century.

Pile by the Bed reviews A History of What Comes Next, the first in a new series by Sylvain Neuvel which imagines an alien influence behind the space race.

Pile by the Bed reviews Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford an imagined history of five lives cut short by a German bombing in World War 2.

Pile by the Bed reviews and recommends The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex - an assured and absorbing debut based on the true story of the locked door disappearance of a group of lighthouse keepers.

Pile by the Bed reviews Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, a story about what it means to be human that is thematically consistent with his broader body of work.

Pile by the Bed reviews City of Vengeance a debut crime novel by screenwriter DV Bishop set in and around historical events in 16th Century Florence

Pile by the Bed reviews The Fall of Koli - the final ominously named book in MR Carey's post-apocalyptic Ramparts Trilogy and finds that the long journey was worth the effort

Pile by the Bed reviews Fog by Polish author Kaja Malanowska (translated by Bill Johnson) - crime fiction effectively used to explore a range of social issues in modern Poland.