Books to Look Forward to From Quercus Publishing (Incl MacLehose Press, Riverrun and Jo Fletcher Books)

 April 2021

A Which Hunt in Whitby is by Helen Cox. A serial killer is loose in Yorkshire, and has claimed three victims in three months. Eleven days before each murder, a large purple V is painted on the front door of the victim's house. The victims, all of whom have some association with the occult, are found drained of blood with two red marks on their neck.  When Ruby Barnett comes home one evening to find a large purple V on her front door, it becomes clear she is the so-called Vampire Killer's next victim. Private Investigators Kitt Hartley and Grace Edwards have just eleven days to solve the mystery and save Ruby's life. The clock is ticking . . .

Ex-MI6 officer Paul Samson has been tasked with secretly guarding a gifted young woman, Zoe Freemantle. He is just beginning to tire of the job when he is attacked in the street by a freakish looking knifeman. It's clear the target is on his back not hers. What he doesn't know is who put it there. At that moment, his mentor, the MI6 legend Robert Harland lies dead on a remote stretch of the Baltic coastline. Who needed to end the old spy's life when he was, in any case, dying from a terminal illness? And what or who is Berlin Blue, the name scratched in the sketchbook beside his body? A few hours later, Samson watches footage from the US Congress where billionaire philanthropist Denis Hisami is poisoned with a nerve agent while testifying - an attack that is as spectacular as it is lethal, but spares Anastasia Hisami, the love of Samson's life. Two things become clear. One, it was a big mistake to lose the mysterious Zoe Freemantle. And two, Robert Harland is making a final play from beyond the grave. The Old Enemy is by Henry Porter.

The Untamable is by Guillermo Arriaga.Yukon, Canada's far north. A young man tracks a wolf through the wilderness. The one his grandfather warned him about: "Of all the wolves you will see in your life, one alone will be your master." In Mexico City, Juan Guillermo has pledged vengeance. For his murdered brother, Carlos. For his parents, sentenced to death by their grief. But in 1960s Mexico justice is sold to the highest bidder, and the Catholic fanatics who killed Carlos are allied to Zunita, a corrupt and influential police commander. If he is to quench his thirst for revenge Juan Guillermo will have to answer his inner call of the wild and discover what links his destiny to a hunter on the other side of America.

Short of leads on the execution-style murder of a fortune-teller, Detective Lefty Mendieta turns to his contacts in the drug underworld. They oblige, but there is a quid pro quo: Help Samantha Valdes, head of the Pacific Cartel, slip through the net of Mexican army and federal police encircling the hospital where she is recovering after an attempt on her life. Grudgingly he agrees, but then gets caught on camera during the escape and becomes headline news. Fired from the force and on the run from the Feds, Lefty again seeks Samantha's help when he learns that his son Jason has been kidnapped in Los Angeles. There, he must come to terms with the woman who broke his heart, while contending with a thicket of conspiracies, feints and double-crosses that further blur the distinction between crime and the law. Betrayal is certain. To save his son, who will Lefty sell out? Kiss The Detectives is by Elmer Mendoza.

May 2021

The Perfect Lie is by Jo Spain. He jumped to his death in front of witnesses. Now his wife is charged with murder. Five years ago, Erin Kennedy moved to New York following a family tragedy. She now lives happily with her detective husband in the scenic seaside town of Newport, Long Island. When Erin answers the door to Danny's police colleagues one morning, it's the start of an ordinary day. But behind her, Danny walks to the window of their fourth-floor apartment and jumps to his death. Eighteen months later, Erin is in court, charged with her husband's murder. Over that year and a half, Erin has learned things about Danny she could never have imagined. She thought he was perfect. She thought their life was perfect. But it was all built on the perfect lie.

Bruno Courreges is Chief of Police of the lovely town of St Denis in the Dordogne. His main wish is to keep the local people safe and his town free from crime. But crime has a way of finding its way to him. For thirty years, Bruno's boss, Chief of Detectives Jalipeau, known as J-J, has been obsessed with his first case. It was never solved and Bruno knows that this failure continues to haunt J-J. A young male body was found in the woods near St Denis and never identified. For all these years, J-J has kept the skull as a reminder. He calls him 'Oscar'.Visiting the famous pre-history museum in nearby Les Eyzies, Bruno sees some amazingly life-like heads expertly reconstructed from ancient skulls. He suggests performing a similar reconstruction on Oscar as a first step towards at last identifying him. An expert is hired to start the reconstruction and the search for Oscar's killer begins again in earnest. The Coldest Case is by Martin Walker.

A Double Murder. The naked corpses of Aylmer and Mary Younis are discovered in their home. The only clues are a note written in blood and an eerie report of two spectral figures departing the crime scene. Officer Jill Ferriter is charged with investigating the murders while her colleague Alex Cupidi is on leave, recovering from post-traumatic stress.  An elaborate scam. The dead couple had made investments in a green reforestry scheme in Guatemala, resulting in the loss of all their savings. What is more disturbing is that Cupidi and Ferriter's disgraced former colleague and friend Bill South is also on the list of investors and the Younis's were not the only losers.  An unlikely killer. Despite being in counselling and receiving official warnings to stay away from police work Cupidi finds herself dragged into the case and begins to trawl among the secrets and lies that are held in the fishing community of Folkestone. Desperate to exonerate South she finds herself murderously compromised when personal relationships cloud her judgement. The Trawlerman is by William Shaw.

Priest of Gallows is by Peter McLean. Gangster, soldier, priest. Queen's Man. GovernorTomas Piety has everything he ever wanted. In public he's a wealthy, highly respected businessman, happily married to a beautiful woman and governor of his home city of Ellinburg. In private, he's no longer a gang lord, head of the Pious Men, but one of the Queen's Men, invisible and officially non-existent, working in secret to protect his country. The queen's sudden death sees him summoned him back to the capital - where he discovers his boss, Dieter Vogel, Provost Marshal of the Queen's Men, is busy tightening his stranglehold on the country. Just as he once fought for his Pious Men, Tomas must now bend all his wit and hard-won wisdom to protect his queen - even when he can't always tell if he's on the right side. Tomas has started to ask himself, what is the price of power? And more importantly, is it one he is willing to pay? 

Widowland is by C J Carey. To control the past, they edited history. To control the future, they edited literature. London, 1953, Coronation year - but not the Coronation of Elizabeth II. Thirteen years have passed since a Grand Alliance between Great Britain and Germany was formalized. George VI and his family have been murdered and Edward VIII rules as King. Yet, in practice, all power is vested in Alfred Rosenberg, Britain's Protector. The role and status of women is Rosenberg's particular interest. Rose Ransom belongs to the elite caste of women and works at the Ministry of Culture, rewriting literature to correct the views of the past. But now she has been given a special task. Outbreaks of insurgency have been seen across the country; graffiti daubed on public buildings. Disturbingly, the graffiti is made up of lines from forbidden works, subversive words from the voices of women. Suspicion has fallen on Widowland, the run-down slums where childless women over fifty have been banished. These women are known to be mutinous, for they have nothing to lose. Before the Leader arrives for the Coronation ceremony of King Edward and Queen Wallis, Rose must infiltrate Widowland to find the source of this rebellion and ensure that it is quashed.

It's over, my angel. Today I'm going to die. Just like her. He's won. It's been years since Nadja Kulka was convicted of a cruel crime. After being released from prison, she's wanted nothing more than to live a normal life: nice flat, steady job, even a few friends. But when one of those friends, Laura von Hoven - free-spirited beauty and wife of Nadja's boss - kills her lover and begs Nadja for her help, Nadja can't seem to be able to refuse.The two women make for a remote house in the woods, the perfect place to bury a body. But their plan quickly falls apart and Nadja finds herself outplayed, a pawn in a bizarre game in which she is both the perfect victim and the perfect murderer . Dark secrets past and present collide in this haunting novel of guilt and retribution. Sleepless is by Romy Hausmann.

This Eden is by Ed O'Loughlin. Ever felt like you were living in a dystopian tech thriller? That's because you are... Michael is out of his depth. The closest he ever came to working in tech was when he rode a delivery bike for a food app in Vancouver. Yet when his coder girlfriend dies, he is inexplicably headhunted by sinister tech mogul Campbell Fess, who transplants him to Silicon Valley. There, a reluctant female spy named Aoife lures him into the hands of Towse, an enigmatic war-gamer, who tricks them both into joining his quest to save the world, and reality itself, from the deadliest weapon ever invented. Hunted by government agents and corporate goons, manipulated at every turn by the philosophising Towse, Aoife and Michael find themselves in an intercontinental chase which will take them from California to New York, from the forests of Uganda to Jerusalem, Gaza, Alexandria and Paris, and to a final showdown with the truth in Aoife's native Ireland.

The Wrong Goodbye is by Toshihiko Yahagi. A classic slice of Japanese hard-boiled noir paying homage to the master of the genre: Raymond Chandler The Wrong Goodbye pits homicide detective Eiji Futamura against a shady Chinese business empire and U.S. military intelligence in the docklands of recession Japan. After the frozen corpse of immigrant barman Tran Binh Long washes up in midsummer near Yokosuka U.S. Navy Base, Futamura meets a strange customer from Tran's bar. Vietnam vet pilot Billy Lou Bonney talks Futamura into hauling three suitcases of "goods" to Yokota US Air Base late at night and flies off leaving a dead woman behind.Thereby implicated in a murder suspect's escape and relieved from active duty, Futamura takes on hack work for the beautiful concert violinist Aileen Hsu, a "boat people" orphan whose Japanese adoption mother has mysteriously gone missing. And now a phone call from a bestselling yakuzaauthor, a one-time black marketeer in Saigon, hints at inside information on "former Vietcong mole" Tran and his "old sidekick" Billy Lou, both of whom crossed a triad tycoon who is buying up huge tracts of Mekong Delta marshland for a massive development scheme. As the loose strands flashback to Vietnam, the string of official lies and mysterious allegiances build into a dark picture of the U.S.-Japan postwar alliance.

All Human Wisdom is by Pierre Lemaitre. In 1927, the great and the good of Paris gather at the funeral of the wealthy banker, Marcel Pericourt. His daughter, Madeleine, is poised to take over his financial empire (although, unfortunately, she knows next to nothing about banking). More unfortunately still, when Madeleine's seven-year-old son, Paul, tumbles from a second floor window of the Pericourt mansion on the day of his grandfather's funeral, and suffers life-changing injuries, his fall sets off a chain of events that will reduce Madeleine to destitution and ruin in a matter of months. Using all her reserves of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and a burning desire for retribution, Madeleine sets about rebuilding her life. She will be helped by an ex-Communist fixer, a Polish nurse who doesn't speak a word of French, a brainless petty criminal with a talent for sabotage, an exiled German Jewish chemist, a very expensive forger, an opera singer with a handy flair for theatrics, and her own son with ideas for a creative new business to take Paris by storm. A brilliant, imaginative, free-falling caper through between-the-wars Paris, and a portrait of Europe on the edge of disaster.

August 2021

Hell and High Water is by Christian Unge. With 85% per cent burns to his body and a 115% risk of dying, it's a miracle the patient is still alive. He only made it this far thanks to Tekla Berg, an emergency physician whose unorthodox methods and photographic memory are often the difference between life and death. Convinced that the fire was a terrorist attack - and that the patient was involved - the police are determined to question him. Almost as determined as those who would silence him at any cost. And while Tekla battles to keep him breathing, she can't shake the thought that something about him is strangely familiar . . . Tekla has always hidden her remarkable mind from her hospital colleagues, resorting to amphetamines to take the edge off the endless whirl of lucid memories. But now she'll need to call on all her wits as she's drawn into a mystery involving corrupt police, the godfather of the Uzbek mafia, and her beloved but wayward brother.

August 2021

Night Hunters by Oliver Bottini. Over the course of several days one hot summer, a female student from Freiburg disappears, a father is murdered in a brutal attack, a teenage boy drowns in the Rhine in suspicious circumstances. It soon becomes evident to Chief Inspector Louise Boni and her colleagues at Freiburg's criminal police that the three cases are connected - and that others are now in terrible danger. Including Boni herself. In the fourth of the Black Forest Investigations, Louise Boni is confronted with the grim secrets of outwardly respectable citizens. Sometimes it takes very little to unleash the monster in man.

Books to Look Forward to From Quercus Publishing, MacLehose Press and Riverrun

July 2020

Summer, 1658, and the Republic may finally be safe: the combined Stuart and Spanish forces have been heavily defeated by the English and French armies on the coast of Flanders, and the King’s cause appears finished.   Yet one last, desperate throw of the dice is planned. And who can stop them if not Captain Damian Seeker?   The House of Laminations is the final gripping book in this acclaimed and award- winning series of historical thrillers by S G Maclean. Will Seeker’s legacy endure? 

Tell Me How it Ends is by V B Grey.  Delia Maxwell is an international singing sensation and adored by millions. Lily Brooks has watched Delia all her life. Now she has a dream job as her assistant – but is there more to her attachment than the admiration of a fan? Private investigator Frank is beginning to wonder.   As Lily steps into Delia’s spotlight, Frank’s suspicions of Lily’s ulterior motives increase. If Delia thought she had put her past behind her, she had better start watching her back. 

It's November 1983 in Essex and there are reasons to be cheerful. Uptown Girl is sitting pretty at the top of the charts, Risky Business is raking it in at the box office, and there are now four channels on the telly. However, social tensions are beginning to bubble beneath the surface: Mrs Thatcher has embarked on her second controversial term, and the situation in Northern Ireland is ever-escalating.  Yet in the garrison town of Colchester, it's another deadly standoff that is hogging the headlines. The body of a nineteen-year-old Lance Corporal has been discovered on the local High Street, the result of what appears to be a bizarre, chivalrous duel. It seems he was the victim of a doomed army love triangle. As such, the military police are wishing to keep the matter confined within military ranks.  This is all just fine, as far as Colchester CID is concerned. They have enough on their plate as is: with DI Nick Lowry in a tailspin following the breakdown of his marriage, WPC Jane Gabriel

exasperated by the male-favoured system, Detective Daniel Kenton relying on substance abuse to quieten his demons from his last case; and their boss, DCS Sparks, shortly to become a first-time father at 55.  However, it is not long before the blood from the duel runs into civilian police affairs, and the trail presents CID with a local rogues' gallery. A savvy entrepreneur. A wayward skinhead. A member of the landed gentry. And a shadowy Mauritian travel agent with a chilling reputation. Soon, they will discover, a real estate deal, a racist, and the town's Robin Hood pub hold the key to the killing...  Whitethroat is by James Henry.

"Look what the fucking dogs did to them, someone muttered. No-one mentioned the rope, or the monkey-wrench, or the gun, or the knife, or the stick, or the whip, or the blood-stained boots. In fact, no-one said much at all. It seemed simpler that way. There was no sense in pointing fingers.'"  At dusk, on a warm evening in 2016, a group of forty men gathered in the corner of a dusty field on a farm outside Parys in the Free State. Some were in fury. Others treated the whole thing as a joke - a game. The events of the next two hours would come to haunt them all. They would rip families apart, prompt suicide attempts, breakdowns, divorce, bankruptcy, threats of violent revenge and acts of unforgivable treachery.  These Are Not Gentle People is by Andrew Harding and is the story of that night, and of what happened next. It's a murder story, a courtroom drama, a profound exploration of collective guilt and individual justice, and a fast-paced literary thriller.

August 2020

Pete Riley answers the door one morning to a parent's worst nightmare. On his doorstep is a

stranger, Miles Lambert, who breaks the devastating news that Pete's two-year-old, Theo, isn't his biological child after all - he is Miles's, switched with the Lamberts' baby at birth by an understaffed hospital.  Reeling from shock, Peter and his partner Maddie agree that, rather than swap the children back, it's better to stay as they are but to involve the other family in their children's lives. But a plan to sue the hospital triggers an official investigation that unearths some disturbing questions about just what happened on the day the babies were switched.  And when Theo is thrown out of nursery for hitting other children, Maddie and Pete have to ask themselves: how far do they want this arrangement to go? What are the secrets hidden behind the Lamberts' smart front door? And how much can they trust the real parents of their child - or even each other?  Playing Nice is By J P Delaney.

A corpse that wakes up on the mortuary slab.  A case of spontaneous human combustion.  There is little by the way of violent crime and petty theft that Capitaine Victor Coste has not encountered in his fifteen years on the St Denis patch - but nothing like this. Something unusual is afoot, and Coste is about to be dragged out of his comfort zone. Stranger still, anonymous letters addressed to him personally have begun to arrive, highlighting the fates of two women, invisible victims whose deaths were never explained. Just two more blurred faces among the ranks of the lost and the damned.  The Lost and The Damned is Olivier Norek's first novel and draws on all his experience as a police officer in one of France's toughest suburbs - the same experience he drew on as a writer for the hit TV series Spiral.

September 2020

The Old Enemy is by Henry Porter.  Ex-MI6 officer Paul Samson prefers to work privately these days. He has been tasked with guarding a young woman, Joni Freemantle. He doesn't know who she is, or why she's important, but the money's good enough for him not to dig too deeply.   Then a shooter disguised as a homeless man abducts her before his eyes and Samson wishes he'd asked more questions. When his former colleague, Robert Harland, is found dead, the news comes with the threat that Samson's own life - and that of others he holds dear - is on the line.   Samson is sure he knows why there's a target on his back. What he doesn't know is who put it there - the Americans or the Russians?   Two things quickly become clear. One, it was a big mistake to lose Freemantle. And two, Robert Harland, ever the consummate spy, has one final, crucial part to play from beyond the grave.

When librarian and budding private investigator Kitt Hartley visits her ex-assistant Grace Edwards in Durham, she soon learns of an unsolved murder.   A year ago Jodie Perkins, a Mechanics student, disappeared after her student-radio broadcast was cut short with a deafening scream. The police suspect Jodie was murdered although her body was never found. Keen to be on the front line of one of Kitt's investigations, Grace convinces Kit to use her recent private investigator training to solve the mystery. Can Kitt and Grace uncover the truth?  Death Awaits in Durham is by Helen Cox.

After the Silence is by Louise O’Neill.  Nessa Crowley's murderer has been protected by silence for ten years.  Until a team of documentary makers decide to find out the truth.  On the day of Henry and Keelin Kinsella's wild party at their big house a violent storm engulfed the island of Inisrun, cutting it off from the mainland. When morning broke Nessa Crowley's lifeless body lay in the garden, her last breath silenced by the music and the thunder.  The killer couldn't have escaped Inisrun, but no-one was charged with the murder. The mystery that surrounded the death of Nessa remained hidden. But the islanders knew who to blame for the crime that changed them forever. Ten years later a documentary crew arrives, there to lift the lid off the Kinsella's carefully constructed lives, determined to find evidence that will prove Henry's guilt and Keelin's complicity in the murder of beautiful Nessa.

The legendary Laestadius becomes a kind of Sherlock Holmes in this exceptional historical crime novel.  It is 1852, and in Sweden's far north, deep in the Arctic Circle, charismatic preacher and Revivalist Lars Levi Laestadius impassions a poverty-stricken congregation with visions of salvation. But local leaders have reason to resist a shift to temperance over alcohol.  Jussi, the young Sami boy Laestadius has rescued from destitution and abuse, becomes the preacher's faithful disciple on long botanical treks to explore the flora and fauna. Laestadius also teaches him to read and write - and to love and fear God.   When a milkmaid goes missing deep in the forest, the locals suspect a predatory bear is at large. A second girl is attacked, and the sheriff is quick to offer a reward for the bear's capture. Using early forensics and Daguerrotype, Laestidius and Jussi find clues that point to a far worse killer on the loose, even as they are unaware of the evil closing in around them.   To Cook a Bear is by Mikael Niemi and explores how communities turn inwards, how superstition can turn to violence, and how the power of language can be transformative in a richly fascinating mystery.

Radio Life is by Derek B Miller.  In this riveting political thriller, The Commonwealth, a post-apocalyptic civilisation on the rise, is locked in a clash of ideas with the Keepers, a fight which threatens to destroy the world . . . again.  When Lilly was first Chief Engineer at The Commonwealth, nearly fifty years ago, the Central Archive wasn't yet the greatest repository of knowledge in the known world, protected by scribes copying every piece of found material - books, maps, even scraps of paper - and disseminating them by Archive Runners to hidden off-site locations for safe keeping. Back then, there was no Order of Silence to create and maintain secret routes deep into the sand-covered towers of the Old World or into the northern forests beyond Sea Glass Lake. Back then, the world was still quiet, because Lilly hadn't yet found the Harrington Box.  But times change. Recently, the Keepers have started gathering to the east of Yellow Ridge - thousands upon thousands of them - and every one of them determined to burn the Central Archives to the ground, no matter the cost, possessed by an irrational fear that bringing back the ancient knowledge will destroy the world all over again. To prevent that, they will do anything.  Fourteen days ago the Keepers chased sixteen-year-old Archive Runner Elimisha into a forbidden Old World Tower and brought the entire thing down on her. Instead of being killed, though, she slipped into an ancient unmapped bomb shelter where she has discovered a cache of food and fresh water, a two-way radio like the one Lilly's been working on for years . . . and something else. Something that calls itself 'the internet' . . .

October 2020

The Postcript Murders is by Elly Griffiths.  PS: Thanks for the murders.   The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should not be suspicious. DS Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing to concern her in carer Natalka’s account of Peggy Smith’s death.   But when Natalka reveals that Peggy lied about her heart condition and that she had been sure someone was following her . . .   And that Peggy Smith had been a ‘murder consultant’ who plotted deaths for authors, and knew more about murder than anyone has any rightto...   And when clearing out Peggy’s flat ends in Natalka being held at gunpoint by a masked figure . . .   Well then DS Harbinder Kaur thinks that maybe there is no such thing as an unsuspicious death after all.   PS: Trust no one.

To Say Goodbye is by Marcello Fois.  When Michele, a young autistic child goes missing, Commissario Sergio Striggio is put in charge of the investigation. Searches turn up nothing, but there is an interesting connection with the mother's past: when she was a child, her twin brother went missing, never to be found.   However, Striggio is finding it difficult to concentrate on the case. He is waiting for his father, Pietro, to come and stay. The idea of the visit is torturing him. He fears having to reveal that he is gay - most of all he fears that his partner, Leo, will reveal his sexuality to his father. Pietro, however, has other matters on his mind: he has news of a devastating diagnosis to share with his son.  And when his life with Leo unexpectedly collides with his investigation into Michele's disappearance, it seems that in the complicated web of the small town of Bolzano, the truth behind the mystery cannot hide for long.

Pamela, a criminal lawyer struggling to balance work with family, is torn with guilt after her bereaved father suffers a domestic accident. Desperation sets in and her brother draws on the help of Maggie - a live-in carer.  A stranger.  Pamela is impressed by Maggie, who nursed both her own parents at home and now wants to help other families by taking the load. But Pamela soon suspects that Maggie has an alternate agenda.   For her father has a secret, long-buried. As past and present mingle, she begins to question whether he is the man she thought he was. And what she learns will have a devastating impact on everyone...  The Haunted Shore is by Neil Spring.

November 2020

Dog Island is by Philippe Claudel.   When three bodies wash up with the morning tide, the initial reaction of the islanders is that this tragedy must be covered up, lest any association with the drownings damages their tourism industry . . .   But when a detective arrives on the island and starts asking awkward questions, it becomes clear that the deaths indicate something far more sinister and rotten at the heart of this insular fragment of sea-bound land. 

Books to Look Forward to From Quercus

-->

January 2019

A breath-taking missing persons thriller set under the menacing peaks of the Pyrenees.  Five years after their disappearance, the village of Monteperdido still mourns the loss of Ana and Lucia, two eleven-year-old friends who left school one afternoon and were never seen again. Now, Ana reappears unexpectedly inside a crashed car, wounded but alive.  The case reopens and a race against time begins to discover who was behind the girls' kidnapping. Most importantly, where is Lucia and is she still alive?  Inspector Sara Campos and her boss Santiago Bain, from Madrid's head office, are forced to work with the local police. Five years ago fatal mistakes were made in the investigation conducted after the girls first vanished, and this mustn't happen again. But Monteperdido has rules of its own.  Village of the Lost Girls is by Agustín Martínez.

A reporter with no fear - Brussels, 1979. Jaded Edinburgh journalist Neil Bannerman arrives in the capital of European politics intent on digging up dirt. Yet it is danger he discovers, when two British men are found murdered.  A child with no father - One victim is a journalist, the other a Cabinet Minister: the double-assassination witnessed by the former's autistic daughter. This girl recalls every detail about her father's killer - except for one.  The man with no face - With Brussels rocked by the tragedy, Bannerman is compelled to follow his instincts. He is now fighting to expose a murderous conspiracy, protect a helpless child, and unmask a remorseless killer.  The Man With No Face is by Peter May.

A Long Night in Paris is by Dov Aflon. When an Israeli tech entrepreneur disappears from Charles de Gaulle airport with a woman in red, logic dictates youthful indiscretion. But Israel is on a state of high alert nonetheless. Colonel Zeev Abadi, the new head of Unit 8200's autonomous Special Section, who just happens to be in Paris, also just happens to have arrived on the same flight.  For Commissaire Leger of the Paris Police coincidences have their reasons, and most are suspect. When a second young Israeli is kidnapped soon after arriving on the same flight, this time at gunpoint from his hotel room, his suspicions are confirmed - and a diplomatic incident looms.  Back in Tel Aviv, Lieutenant Oriana Talmor, Abadi's deputy, is his only ally, applying her sharp wits to the race to identify the victims and the reasons behind their abduction. In Paris a covert Chinese commando team listens to the investigation unfurl and watches from the rooftops. While by the hour the morgue receives more bodies from the river and the city's arrondissements.  The clock has been set. And this could be a long night in the City of Lights.

February 2019

Fight Back is by Anna Smith.  Kerry Casey is now a fully-fledged gangland boss. With her business partner Sharon and her wily lawyer Marty at her side, she is busy ridding her organisation of the drug-dealing, people-trafficking scum her dead brother Mickey got them involved with. But her great dream is still to take the Casey’s straight.  Her plan to turn her organisation around hinges on building a property empire in Spain. But Kerry has some deadly rivals - in Glasgow, on the Costa del Sol, and even further afield. They will never believe she has what it takes to defend her turf, and they won't rest until the Casey’s are destroyed.  When her enemies strike at the heart of the Casey family, Kerry must prepare for the fight of her life - for her business, her friends and her own survival.

The Stone Circle is by Elly Griffiths.  DCI Nelson has been receiving threatening letters telling him to 'go to the stone circle and rescue the innocent who is buried there'. He is shaken, not only because children are very much on his mind, with Michelle's baby due to be born, but because although the letters are anonymous, they are somehow familiar. They read like the letters that first drew him into the case of The Crossing Places, and to Ruth. But the author of those letters is dead. Or are they?  Meanwhile Ruth is working on a dig in the Saltmarsh - another henge, known by the archaeologists as the stone circle - trying not to think about the baby. Then bones are found on the site, and identified as those of Margaret Lacey, a twelve-year-old girl who disappeared thirty years ago.  As the Margaret Lacey case progresses, more and more aspects of it begin to hark back to that first case of The Crossing Places, and to Scarlett Henderson, the girl Nelson couldn't save. The past is reaching out for Ruth and Nelson, and its grip is deadly.

 

Death stalked the Vale.  In every corner, every whisper.  They just didn't know it yet.  Six neighbours, six secrets, six reasons to want Olive Collins dead.  In the exclusive gated community of Withered Vale, people's lives appear as perfect as their beautifully manicured lawns. Money, success, privilege - the residents have it all. Life is good.  There's just one problem.  Olive Collins' dead body has been rotting inside number four for the last three months. Her neighbours say they're shocked at the discovery but nobody thought to check on her when she vanished from sight.  The police start to ask questions and the seemingly flawless facade begins to crack. Because, when it comes to Olive's neighbours, it seems each of them has something to hide, something to lose and everything to gain from her death.  Dirty Little Secrets is by Jo Spain.

To Kill The Truth is by Sam Bourne.  Someone is trying to destroy the evidence of history's greatest crimes.  Academics and Holocaust survivors dead in mysterious circumstances. Museums and libraries burning. Digital records and irreplaceable proofs, lost for ever.  Former White House operative Maggie Costello has sworn off politics. But when the Governor of Virginia seeks her help to stop the lethal spiral of killings, she knows that this is bigger than any political game.  As Black Lives Matter protestors clash with slavery deniers, America is on a knife-edge and time is running out. This deadly conspiracy could ignite a new Civil War - but who stands to gain most from the chaos?

March 2019

Even the deepest buried secrets can find their way to the surface...  Moments before she dies, Nicola's grandmother Betty whispers to her that there are babies at the bottom of the garden.  Nicola's mother claims she was talking nonsense. However, when Nicola's daughter finds a bone while playing in Betty's garden, it's clear that something sinister has taken place.  But will unearthing painful family secrets end up tearing Nicola's family apart? The Last Thing She Told Me is by Linda Green.

The Burning House is by Neil Spring.  It was a victimless crime...  Estate Agent Clara is struggling to make a sale. With her abusive ex-husband on the brink of finding where she's hiding, she needs to make a commission soon or lose her chance to escape.  Boleskine House on the shores of Loch Ness has remained unsold for years, and Clara is sure that an 'innocent' fire will force the price down. But the perfect crime soon turns into the perfect nightmare: there was a witness, a stranger in the village, and he's not going to let Clara get away with it that easily...

Beautiful Bad is by Annie Ward.  Maddie and Ian's romance began when he was serving in the British Army and she was a travel writer visiting her best friend Jo in Europe. Now sixteen years later, married with a beautiful son, Charlie, they are living the perfect suburban life in Middle America.  But when an accident leaves Maddie badly scarred, she begins attending therapy, where she gradually reveals her fears about Ian's PTSD; her concerns for the safety of their young son Charlie; and the couple's tangled and tumultuous past with Jo.  From the Balkans to England, Iraq to Manhattan, and finally to an ordinary family home in Kansas, the years of love and fear, adventure and suspicion culminate in The Day of the Killing, when a frantic 911 call summons the police to the scene of shocking crime.

Prefecture D is by Hideo Yokoyama. A collection of four novellas: each taking place in 1998, each set in the world of Six Four, and each centring around a mystery and the unfortunate officer tasked with solving it.  Season of Shadows - "The force could lose face . . . I want you to fix this." Personnel's Futawatari receives a horrifying memo forcing him to investigate the behaviour of a legendary detective with unfinished business.  Cry of the Earth - "It's too easy to kill a man with a rumour." Shinto of Internal Affairs receives an anonymous tipoff alleging a Station Chief is visiting the red-light district -- a warning he soon learns is a red herring.  Black Lines - "It was supposed to be her special day." Section Chief Nanao, responsible for the force's 49 female officers, is alarmed to learn her star pupil has not reported for duty, and is believed to be missing.  Briefcase - "We need to know what he's going to ask." On the eve of a routine debate, Political Liaison Tsuge learns a wronged politician is preparing his revenge. He must now quickly dig up dirt to silence him.  Prefecture D continues Hideo Yokoyama's exploration of the themes of obsession, saving face, office politics and inter-departmental conflicts. Placing everyday characters between a rock and a hard place and then dialling up the pressure, he blends and balances the very Japanese with the very accessible, to spectacular effect.

A murdered diplomat, planted evidence and a treacherous sister: once again, Helga had better find the real killer quickly, before heads start rolling - literally - in this brand-new Viking noir mystery.  Helga Finnsdottir left her foster parents, the old Viking chieftain Unnthor Reginson and his knowing wife Hildigunnur, to see the world, but she stopped in Uppsala when she fell in love. Now she's established herself as a local healer and herb-woman on the outskirts of town, and life is good - until King Eirik the Victorious calls a trade council and hairy northerners and southern Swedes alike descend on the town.  Unfortunately for Helga, one delegation is headed by a very determined young woman who has her own agenda and will let nothing - and no one - get in her way. But the last time Helga saw Jorunn Unthorsdottir, her foster-sister was being cast out by their father for killing their brother Bjorn and trying to pin the blame on Helga.  So perhaps it's no great surprise when one of the delegates is murdered, or that Helga's soon tagged as the lead suspect. It doesn't take her long to clear her own name, but that only leads suspicion to fall on to her man.  Once again, Helga must solve a murder, and fast, before the innocent pays with his head.  The Council is by Snorri Kristjansson.

April 2019

Berlin, 1928, the dying days of the Weimar Republic shortly before Hitler and the Nazis came to power. It was a period of decadence and excess as Berliners - after the terrible slaughter of WWI and the hardships that followed - are enjoying their own version of Babylon. Bernie is a young detective working in Vice when he gets a summons from Bernard Weiss, Chief of Berlin's Criminal Police. He invites Bernie to join KIA - Criminal Inspection A - the supervisory body for all homicide investigation in Kripo. Bernie's first task is to investigate the Silesian Station killings - four prostitutes murdered in as many weeks. All of them have been hit over the head with a hammer and then scalped with a sharp knife.  Bernie hardly has time to acquaint himself with the case files before another prostitute is murdered. Until now, no one has shown much interest in these victims - there are plenty in Berlin who'd like the streets washed clean of such degenerates. But this time the girl's father runs Berlin's foremost criminal ring, and he's prepared to go to extreme lengths to find his daughter's killer.  Then a second series of murders begins - of crippled wartime veterans who beg in the city's streets. It seems that someone is determined to clean up Berlin of anyone less than perfect. The voice of Nazism is becoming a roar that threatens to drown out all others. But not Bernie Gunther's ...  Metropolis is by Philip Kerr.

As an ex-SAS officer, Aubrey Savage is used to noticing small things. So when he offers a lift to a terrified runaway bride on the moors, he knows that there is more to her story than meets the eye.  But when she is snatched away immediately, leaving behind a holdall and Glock, he is thrust into a terrifying world of corruption, and a threat that is all too close to home.  In High Places is by JJ Holland.

Murder convict Sean Hennessy is released from prison to return to a seaside community in Dublin. He has always professed his innocence. But within months of his release, two bodies appear in the peaceful suburb of Clontarf.  With a TV documentary pushing the public's sympathies in Hennessy's direction, the original evidence against him is called into question and Detective Frankie Sheehan finds herself doubting her original analysis of the case.  But when another, fresh victim connects the two cases and the threat closes in around her family, Sheehan must look deep within herself in order to spot the killer who hides in plain sight.  The Killer in Me is by Olivia Kiernan.

May 2019

You Can Run - The two boys never fitted in. Seventeen, the worst age, nothing to do but smoke weed; at least they have each other. The day they speed off on a moped with a stolen mobile, they're ready to celebrate their luck at last. Until their victim comes looking for what's his - and ready to kill for it.  You Can Hide - On the other side of Kent's wealth divide, DS Alexandra Cupidi faces the strangest murder investigation of her career. A severed limb, hidden inside a modern sculpture in Margate's Turner Contemporary. No one takes it seriously - not even the artwork's owners, celebrity dealers who act like they're above the law.  You Can Die - But as Cupidi's case becomes ever more sinister, as she wrangles with police politics and personal dilemmas, she can't help worrying about those runaway boys. Seventeen, the same age as her own headstrong daughter. Alone, on the marshes, they're pawns in someone else's game. Two worlds are about to collide.  Dungeness is by William Shaw.

The Carrier is by Mattias Berg.  Erasmus Levine has a job like no other.  He travels with the President of the United States at all times, and holds in his hands the power to obliterate life

as we know it. He is the man with the nuclear briefcase, part of a crack team of top-secret operatives established after 9/11 and led by a man codenamed Edelweiss. But even Edelweiss does not know the identity of their ultimate authority, known only as Sysboss.  Levine has a secret.  For twelve years he has been receiving cryptic messages from Sysboss - an elaborate communication that began with the words We two against the world. Slowly but surely, Levine begins thinking of escape. His chance comes during an official visit to Sweden, when the alarm sounds in Stockholm's Grand Hotel.  But Sysboss has other plans for him.  From their first meeting in a network of tunnels and bunkers beneath the city, Levine is drawn into a plan to eliminate the world's nuclear arsenals. But how can he be sure that controlled demolition is the endgame? Could he be working towards a controlled apocalypse, a doomsday plot to wipe humanity from the face of the earth?

June 2019

The Body in the Castle Well is by Martin Walker.  A rich American art student is found dead at the bottom of a well in an ancient hilltop castle. The young woman, Claudia, had been working in the archives of an eminent French art historian, a crippled Resistance war hero, at his art-filled chateau.  As Claudia's White House connections get the US Embassy and the FBI involved, Bruno traces the people and events that led to her death - or was it murder?  Bruno learns that Claudia had been trying to buy the chateau and art collection of her tutor, even while her researches led her to suspect that some of his attributions may have been forged. This takes Bruno down a trail that leads him from the ruins of Berlin in 1945, to France's colonial war in Algeria.  The long arm of French history has reached out to find a new victim, but can Bruno identify the killer - and prove his case?

Life for Paul Samson has gone downhill since he last saw Denis Hisami. His luck on the turf has run out and, broke and a little desperate, he has accepted a dangerous assignment searching for a missing American businessman in Russia. Then he receives a call from Hisami asking him for a meeting.  Hisami has a bombshell to drop: Anastasia Christakos, the third member of the unlikely trio who searched for Naji 'Firefly' Touma across the Balkans three years ago, has been kidnapped, and Hisami wants Samson to find her. Given that Anastasia recently left Samson for Hisami, it's a bold request, but Samson is unable to say no.  It soon becomes clear that Anastasia is being held by parties with Russian connections in order to manipulate Hisami's business dealings. Is there a connection to Hisami's early business dealings, or even to actions taken by Hisami twenty five years before when he was a member Kurdish special-forces and intelligence? It will take all of Samson's courage and guile to find out - and meanwhile the life of the only woman he has ever loved hangs in the balance.  White Hot Silence is by Henry Porter.

Carey Logan - She was the genius wild child of the New York art scene, and my idol.  Fake - I was a no-name painter from the Florida backwater, clawing my way into their world.  Like - When she died, she left a space that couldn't be filled. Except, maybe, by Me - Everything that gets created destroys something else.  When a fire rips through her studio and burns the seven enormous paintings for her next exhibition, a young, no-name painter is left with an impossible task: recreate her art in just three months - or ruin her fledgling career. Thirty-four, single and homeless, she desperately secures a place at an exclusive upstate retreat. Brimming with creative history and set on a sparkling black lake, Pine City and its founders - a notorious collective of successful artists - is what she's idolized all her life. She's dreamt of the parties, the celebrities, the privilege. What she finds is a ghost of its former self.  The recent suicide of founding member Carey Logan haunts everyone, lurking beneath the surface like a shipwreck. And one thought begins to shadow her every move - what really happened to her hero?  Fake Like Me is by Barbara Bourland.