Forthcoming books from Quercus Publishing incl Machlehose Press

 January 2025

Some murders can't be solved in just one lifetime. From the no 1 bestselling author Elly Griffiths, The Frozen People is a brand-new series with a brand-new heroine to fall in love with. Ali Dawson is as colourful as her bright red hair - warm, funny, forthright - and mother to a grown son, Finn. Ali works on cold cases, crimes so old, the joke goes, they are almost frozen. What most people don't know is that Ali and the team travel back in time to complete their research - a process pioneered by the mysterious Italian physicist, Serafina Pellegrini. So far, the team has only ventured a few years or decades back, but Ali's boss has a new assignment for her. He wants her to step back to 1850, the heart of the Victorian age, to clear the name of Cain Templeton, the eccentric great-grandfather of Tory MP Isaac Templeton, her son's boss. To ready herself for the challenge ahead, Ali researches the Victorian era. She learns that Cain Templeton was part of a sinister group called The Collectors, the rumour being that you had to kill a woman to become a member. Duly prepared, she arrives in London in January 1850 in the middle of a freezing winter. She is directed to a house inhabited by artists and is greeted by a dead woman at her feet. Soon she finds herself in extreme danger. Even worse - she appears to be stuck, unable to make her way back to the present, to the life she loves and to her son, Finn.

Deep deception, twisted fate. Thames Valley has a new Superintendent - DCS Wainwright - young, charismatic and ruthless, charged with pushing through big reforms. Her in-tray is full of problems - and at the top of the pile is the problem of Wilkins and Wilkins. Trailer park boy DI Ryan Wilkins, interesting looking in baggy trackies and over-large lime-green puffa. In his personnel file is a handwritten note scribbled by the outgoing Super: 'Do not, repeat not, give him responsibility.' And posh boy DI Ray Wilkins, improbably handsome in navy blazer and tan chinos: 'Thinks too highly of himself. More experience needed at the wet end.' Their previous investigations - though somehow successful - were models of disorder and dysfunction. The new Super needs to take action. There's been a shocking murder in the heart of Oxford, the stabbing of a security guard during an attempted armed robbery. Meanwhile, an elderly professor of linguistics goes missing from his home in cosy Iffley Village. The high-profile murder investigation can be safely handled by reliable detective DI Hare. The entry-level enquiry into the wandering academic can be given to the problem duo, with instructions to keep it simple. But when the body of the professor is found, still dressed in his pyjamas and dripping wet, spreadeagled on a hotel lawn miles from home, things get a little unexpected for the Wilkinses. Will Ray keep on top of the brief? Will Ryan keep it together? A Voice in the Night is by Simon Mason.

February 2025

The Stolen Heart is by Andrey Kurkov. Samson Kolechko has been assigned a most perplexing case - though it is mostly perplexing because it's hard to understand why selling the meat of one's own pig constitutes a crime. But apparently it does, and at the insistence of the Chekist secret police officer assigned to "reinforce" the Lybid police station, Samson does his diligent - if diffident - best. Yet no sooner has he got started than his live-in fiancée Nadezhda is abducted by striking railway workers who object to the census she's carrying out. And when you factor in a mysterious thief in the police station itself, a deadly tram accident that may have been pre-meditated, and the potential reappearance of the culprit in the case of the silver bone, it's no wonder the "meat case" takes a back seat. But it is in the pursuit of that petty-fogging, seemingly mundane matter that Samson's fate lies - and Nadezhda's too, for the two are inextricably entwined.

March 2025

1999. A group of archaeologists are excavating a Bronze Age burial site in the grounds of Trusloe Hall, a minor stately home in Wiltshire. Excited that their dig is being filmed for a TV documentary, the group are camping onsite and having the time of their lives. In the blink of an eye, one of the party disappears: a young woman called Nazma Kirmani. An extensive police investigation fails to find any trace of her, and the case goes cold for over twenty years. 2020. When a chance discovery presents new evidence into Nazma's disappearance, DI Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad are put on the case. Did Nazma intend to disappear, or was she taken? Did she walk out on her life, or was she murdered? Lockyer must see past the upheavals in his own life to find out the truth for her desperate family. Hollow Grave is by Kate Webb.

Annie thought the murders were over. She was wrong. It is autumn in Castle Knoll and Annie Adams is busy settling into her new home. She doesn't find Gravesdown Hall particularly cosy, especially since she found two dead bodies there over the summer. What's more, ever since she arrived in the village, Annie has had the creeping sense she's being watched. Lonely, and desperate for some company, Annie starts talking to a stranger she meets in the grounds of the estate. The striking old woman introduces herself as Peony Lane, the fortune-teller who predicted Great Aunt Frances' murder all those years ago. And now she has a fortune to tell Annie. Desperate not to fall into the same trap as Frances, Annie flees Peony Lane, refusing to hear any of her grim predictions. But she can't outrun Peony for long, as hours later she finds her, dead on the floor of Gravesdown Hall, a ruby-hilted dagger plunged into her back.  But who killed the mysterious fortune teller and why? And can Frances' library of evidence help Annie solve the case? How to Seal Your Own Fate is by Kristen Perrin.

The Bureau is by Eoin McNamee. Lorraine would say afterwards that she was smitten straight off with Paddy Farrell. You could tell that he was occupying the room in a different way, he found the spaces that fitted him. She was the kind of girl the papers called vivacious, always a bit of dazzle to her. Could she not see there was death about him? Could he not see there was death about her? Paddy worked the border, a place of road closures, hijackings, sudden death. Everything bootleg and tawdry, nobody is saying that the law is paid off but it is. This is strange terrain, unsolid, ghosted through. There's illicit cash coming across the border and Brendan's backstreet Bureau de Change is the place to launder it. Brendan knows the rogue lawyers, the nerve shot policemen, the alcoholic judges and he doesn't care about getting caught. For the Bureau crew getting caught is only the start of the game. Paddy and his associates were a ragged band and honourless and their worth to themselves was measured in thievery and fraud. But Lorraine was not a girl to be treated lightly. She's cast as a minx, a criminal's moll but she's bought a shotgun. And she's bought a grave.

April 2025

Fortress of Evil is by Javier Cercas. A father's worst nightmare - Melchor Marín's teenage daughter has disappeared. Years have passed since Melchor took revenge for his mother's murder and at last found peace with his daughter Cosette in the sleepy backwater of Terra Alta. But their idyll is shattered when one day Cosette, now seventeen, discovers that her father has been concealing the truth of her mother's death- that she was killed in a hit-and-run "accident" intended to scare Melchor off a case. Angry and betrayed, Cosette disappears to Mallorca with her friend Elisa. And that's the last Melchor hears of her. His texts and calls go unanswered, and when she returns alone, Elisa can only say Cosette needed "space to think".  Now the former policeman has no choice but to travel to Port de Pollença, where his daughter was last seen alive, and enter the dark, looking-glass world of Swedish-American billionaire Rafael Mattson.

May 2025

You Can’t Escape the Past is by Anna Smith. The future is looking bright for Billie Carlson. With her child safely home and a new relationship on the horizon, she hasn't felt so settled in years. But when Billie takes on a new client, Elizabeth Fletcher, it's clear trouble is imminent. Elizabeth has killed a man in self-defence. She met him in a bar but he'd turned aggressive, attacking Elizabeth in the middle of the night when she caught him going through her husband's desk drawers. Refusing to go to the police for fear her husband will find out, Elizabeth wants Billie to work out who he was - and what secrets he was looking for. Can Billie help Elizabeth, or is she in way over her head?

The Cliffhanger is by Emily Freud. You think you know how this ends. Think again. Stray too close to the edge... New York-based writers Felix and Emma have it all. As the husband and wife team behind the bestselling Morgan Savage thrillers, their meteoric rise to global literary fame seemed unstoppable. Until Felix messed up. And someone is going to get hurt. Now, the couple has been exiled to the south of France. Their sentence: a long, hot summer to cure their writers' block - and save their marriage.  But as tensions rise beneath the sweltering sun, Felix and Emma become trapped in a deathly plot of their own making....

Victim or murderer . . .  Can she discover the truth? On a misty autumn afternoon, a woman covered in blood clutching a baseball bat walks silently into a London police station. The two officers assigned to her case are DI Leah Hutch and DS Benjamin Randle. But the woman refuses to speak. She is not injured and the blood on the bat is not hers. What has she done? Is she the victim or the perpetrator? As Leah and Randle start their inquiry, a man is found battered to death in a nearby park. Journalist Odie Reid receives a tip off and is determined to solve the case first, trying to link this death to the woman held in custody. Leah and Odie have history and very quickly their cat and mouse game becomes personal, leading them both to the very darkest corners of their pasts. Innocent Guilt is by Remi Kone. 

The Devil's Playbook is by Markus Heitz. Retired gambler Tadeus Boch has just come into possession of a mysterious playing card, apparently from a very rare eighteenth-century deck. He immediately becomes obsessed with tracking down the entire set of cards, rumored to be the one pack in the world for the legendary game Supérieur . . . and said to be created by the Devil himself. But Boch is not the only person searching for the missing cards. And the more he learns about the game, the more dangerous the chase becomes. It's not long before Boch realises he's playing for the highest stakes he's ever wagered: nothing less than his own life.

June 2025

So Happy Together is by Olivia Worley.Jane and Colin are soulmates. He just doesn't know it yet. For twenty-four-year-old Jane, finding love in New York City is even harder than making it as a playwright. So, when Jane meets Colin, a sweet software engineer, she can't believe her luck: they're perfect for each other. Even when Colin breaks off their blooming relationship after six dates, Jane is certain that this is just a stumbling block. She'll get him back. She knows she will. That is, until Colin starts dating Zoe, a perfect, luminous, up-and-coming Brooklyn artist. Even worse, she's actually kind of nice. But Zoe doesn't have what it takes to love Colin. She'd never stay with him through thick and thin. All Jane has to do is prove it, and she and Colin will be so happy together. But when Jane sneaks into Colin's apartment, she makes a shocking discovery - one that will ensnare them all in a complicated web of lies, secrets, and murder.

Bruno Courrѐges is chief of police of the lovely Dordogne town of St Denis with a remit that covers the beautiful valley of the river Vézѐre. One autumn morning he comes across an abandoned car parked near a local beauty spot. Inside is a dead woman, Monique, an apparent suicide resulting from depression. But there are circumstances surrounding the death that raise Bruno's suspicions, particularly when disputes arise surrounding her Will. At the same time, Bruno makes the mistake of interfering in a local marital dispute. Deputy mayor Xavier has been playing away and finds himself evicted from the family home. Old controversies about deer culls take on new life and then a second campaign begins, stating that Bruno is less of a village copper and more of a secret policeman, whose main job is working for French intelligence. Some of the ammunition for this attack, Bruno learns, comes from Xavier, who sees this as a way to topple Bruno and the mayor and succeed to the mayor's job himself. Suddenly Bruno's shiny reputation is looking a little tarnished as he battles to save his name and answer the questions surrounding Monique's suicide. An Enemy in the Village is by Martin Walker.

The Woman Who Laughed is by Simon Mason. In the first months of 2020 there was a spate of murders of Black sex workers in northern cities. One of them was Ella Bailey, last seen talking to a punter in an alley in Sheffield city centre, and although no trace of her was ever found, the punter, Michael Godley, soon confessed to all three murders. Five years later, as another sex worker is murdered in the same district, the bag Ella had been carrying with her reappears, hanging on the door handles of a café, and a local vagrant claims to have seen Ella sitting on a bench in a churchyard near the site of the murder. South Yorkshire Police call in the Finder. So begins a search that takes him back to the strange days of the pandemic, to talk to those who knew Ella best, such as her wayward girlfriend 'Loz', abusive boyfriend Caine Poynton-Smith and respectable foster-parents still struggling to come to terms with Ella's life. How did their intelligent, strong-willed daughter - bright student and national schoolgirl athletics champion - end up in that alley? Is Ella really still alive? If so, why has she reappeared now? And does she realise the danger she is in?

Books to Look Forward to from Quercus, Riverrun and MacLehose Press

 

January 2022

Dead End Street is by Trevor Wood. A group of vigilantes are carrying out a campaign of harassment against the homeless, hounding them both verbally and physically to get them off the streets. Jimmy Mullen is approached by his friend Gadge, who wants to confront the people behind it but Jimmy has finally got his life back on track. He's working at a hostel for 18 to 25-year-olds and he's reluctant to get involved in anything dodgy. Gadge decides to go it alone but is attacked by two of the vigilantes. The police find him unconscious in an alley, covered in blood. Problem is, there's a dead body in the alley too and it's his blood that Gadge is covered in. He's also got the murder weapon in his hand. Convinced that Gadge has been set up, and feeling guilty that he didn't back him up in the first place, Jimmy returns to the streets to try and find out who's behind his friend's difficulties. Unfortunately, he's about to discover that Gadge has a lot of enemies to choose from.

Ryan Wilkins grew up on a trailer park, a member of what many people would call the criminal classes. As a young Detective Inspector, he's lost none of his disgust with privileged elites - or his objectionable manners. But he notices things; they stick to his eyes. His professional partner, DI Ray Wilkins, of affluent Nigerian-London heritage, is an impeccably groomed, smooth-talking graduate of Balliol College, Oxford. You wouldn't think they would get on. They don't. But when a young woman is found strangled at Barnabas Hall, they're forced to. Rich Oxford is not Ryan's natural habitat. St Barnabas's irascible Provost does not appreciate his forceful line of questioning. But what was the dead woman doing in the Provost's study? Is it just a coincidence that on the night of her murder the college was entertaining Sheik al-Medina, a Gulf state ruler linked to human-rights abuses in his own country and acts of atrocity in others? As tensions rise, things aren't going well. Ray is in despair. Ryan is in disciplinary measures. But their investigation gradually disentangles the links between a Syrian refugee lawyer now working in the college kitchens, a priceless copy of the Koran in the college collection and the identity of the dead woman. A Killing in November is by Simon Mason and introduces an unlikely duo from different sides of the tracks in Oxford in a deftly plotted murder story full of dangerous turns, troubled pasts and unconventional detective work.

The Wanderer is by Luca D'Andrea. It begins with a slap in the face. Out walking his St Bernard, Tony Carcano is confronted by a girl on a motorbike who shows him a photograph from his past. Of him posing with the body of a young woman. Smiling. "Why were you laughing?" It's not the last Tony sees of Sybille Knapp, an orphan whose mother drowned herself in Kreuzwirt lake in 1999. That was the official verdict. Before long, Tony, a bestselling writer, is turning his imagination to working out what really happened. But Kreuzwirt is a sullen, silent community, loyal to the powerful Perkman family, who will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried. And there are other forces at work in this valley. Stories of an ancient evil. Whispers of a figure who stands between this world and the next. The Wanderer sings and his song is the wind.

February 2022

Ruth Galloway and DCI Nelson are on the hunt for a murderer when Covid rears its ugly head. But can they find the killer despite lockdown? Ruth is in London clearing out her mother's belongings when she makes a surprising discovery: a photograph of her Norfolk cottage taken beforeRuth lived there. Her mother always hated the cottage, so why does she have a picture of the place? The only clue is written on the back of the photo: Dawn, 1963. Ruth returns to Norfolk determined to solve the mystery, but then Covid rears its ugly head. Ruth and her daughter are locked down in their cottage, attempting to continue with work and home-schooling. Happily, the house next door is rented by a nice woman called Zoe, who they become friendly with while standing on their doorsteps clapping for carers.Nelson, meanwhile, is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links the deaths to an archaeological discovery, he breaks curfew to visit the cottage where he finds Ruth chatting to her neighbour whom he remembers as a carer who was once tried for murdering her employer.Only then her name wasn't Zoe. It was Dawn. The Locked Room is by Elly Griffiths.

This nail-biting Glasgow-set crime thriller introduces Billie Carlson, an ex-cop turned Private Investigator. When you've lost everything, you'll stop at nothing. Billie Carlson left the police force under a cloud. Once a promising young officer she now works as a private investigator, rooting out insurance scams and spying on cheating spouses. One morning a distraught young woman comes into her office saying that her baby has been stolen. Her story seems unbelievable, yet something about her makes Billie want to help - Billie knows what it's like to lose someone too. To get to the bottom of the case Billie must rattle some dangerous cages and rely on old police friends for inside help. Soon she discovers a network of crime deeper and far more twisted than she ever could have imagined. But is she in way over her head? Until I Find You is by Anna Smith.

A Good Day to Die is by Amen Alonge. Meet Pretty Boy. Vengeance is on his mind. His real name: Unknown His code of conduct: Don't be a pawn in someone else's game. Never underestimate the enemy. Above all, survive. There is no glory in death. His mission: It's been ten years since Pretty Boy left the big city - today he's back. No one knows why, but it's clear that revenge is on his mind: he is determined to make the person responsible for his exile from the London scene finally pay. But his plans seem derailed when he takes possession of a bracelet, unaware that its original owner has set a high price for its safe return. Suddenly, the hunter becomes the hunted and Pretty Boy will have to find out if it is indeed a 'good day to die'.

Even The Darkest Night is by Javier Cercas. When Melchor goes to investigate the horrific double-murder of a rich printer and his wife in rural Cataluna nothing quite adds up. The young cop from the big city, hero of a foiled terrorist attack, has been sent to Terra Alta till things quieten down. Observant, streetwise and circumspect, Melchor is an also an outsider. The son of a Barcelona prostitute who never knew his father, Melchor rapidly fell into trouble and was jailed at 19, convicted of driving for a Colombian drug cartel. While he was behind bars, he read Hugo's Les Miserables, and then his mother was murdered. Admiring of both Jean Valjean and Javert - but mostly the relentless Javert - he decided to become a policeman. Now he is out for revenge, but he can wait, and meanwhile he has discovered happiness with his wife, the local librarian, and their daughter, who is, of course, called Cossette. Slowly at first, and then more rapidly once ordered to abandon the case, he tracks the clues that will reveal the larger truth behind what appears at first to be a cold-blooded, professional killing.

March 2022

Three women. Two bodies. One big lie...At an elite private school nestled in the Colorado mountains, a tangled web of lies draws together three vastly different women. Natalie, a young office assistant, dreams of having a life like the school moms she deals with every day. Women like Brooke-a gorgeous heiress, ferociously loving mother and serial cheater-and Asha, an overachieving and overprotective mom who suspects her husband of having an affair. Their fates are bound by their relationships with the handsome, charming assistant athletic director Nicholas, who Natalie loves, Brooke wants and Asha needs. But when two bodies are carried out of the school early one morning, it seems the jealousy between mothers and daughters, rival lovers and the haves and have-nots has shattered the surface of this isolated, affluent town-a town where people will stop at nothing to get what they want. Set in a world of vast ranches, chalet-style apartments and mountain mansions, The Lying Club is by Annie Ward and is a juicy thriller of revenge, murder and a shocking conspiracy-one in which the victims aren't who you might think.

Four pregnant women. Three nights of pampering at an exclusive yoga retreat. One too many deadly secrets . . . On a remote farm in the deepest Devonshire countryside, four pregnant women arrive at an exclusive yoga retreat for a five-star weekend of prenatal pampering. The location is idyllic. Their host, Selina, is eager to teach them all she knows about pregnancy and motherhood. But, like Selina, each of the women has a secret. And secrets can be deadly. The Sanctuary is by Charlotte Duckworth. 

April 2022

The House at Helygen is by Victoria Hawthorne. 2019: When Henry Fox is found dead in his ancestral home in Cornwall, the police rule it a suicide, but his pregnant wife, Josie, believes it was murder. Desperate to make sense of Henry's death she embarks on a quest to learn the truth, all under the watchful eyes of Henry's overbearing mother. Josie soon finds herself wrestling against the dark history of Helygen House and ghosts from the past that refuse to stay buried. 1881: New bride Eliza arrives at Helygen House with high hopes for her marriage. Yet when she meets her new mother-in-law, an icy and forbidding woman, her dreams of a new life are dashed. And when Eliza starts to hear voices in the walls of the house, she begins to fear for her sanity and her life. Can Josie piece together the past to make sense of her present, or will the secrets of Helygen House and its inhabitants forever remain a mystery?

Amid the desolate wilderness of the Great Plains of Nebraska, a region so isolated you could drive for hours without seeing another human being, sits Hatchery House. Having served as a church, an asylum and an orphanage, Hatchery is now a treatment facility for orphaned or abandoned children with psychiatric disorders. Haunted by patients past and present, only the most vulnerable find a home within its walls. Dr. Lorelei 'Lore' Webber, a former FBI psychiatrist, has almost grown used to the unorthodox methods used at Hatchery House. But when one of her patients is murdered, Lore finds herself dragged into the centre of an investigation that unearths startling truths, shocking discoveries, and untold cruelty. And as the investigation unravels, Lore is forced to confront the past she's spent her whole life running from - a secret that threatens to undo her entirely. Those Who Return is by Kassandra Montag. 

Young Beasts at Play is by Davide Longo. September 2008. Commissario Arcadipane arrives at the scene of a macabre discovery: the bones of twelve men and women buried in the countryside near Torino. By the next morning, a task force specialising in mass graves from WWII is already in place. But something doesn't feel right: one of the femurs shows signs of an operation that couldn't have taken place before the seventies. Suspecting a cover-up, Arcadipane launches his own investigation, enlisting his old mentor, Corso Bramard, long retired, and Isa, a young officer still haunted by the unexplained death of her father. These mismatched allies - one at last at peace, one jaded to the point of breakdown and one under a permanent disciplinary cloud - will unveil a cruel political conspiracy that someone wants covered up for the second time.

May 2022

The Last to Disappear is by Jo Spain. A luxury resort. Three missing women. One body. When young London professional Alex Evans is informed that his sister's body has been pulled from an icy lake in Northern Lapland, he assumes his irresponsible sister accidentally drowned. He travels to the wealthy winter resort where Vicky worked as a tour-guide and meets Agatha Koskinen, the detective in charge. Agatha is a no-nonsense single mother of three who already thinks there's more to Vicky's case than meets the eye. As the two form an unlikely alliance, Alex also begins to suspect the small town where his sister lived and died is harbouring secrets. It's not long before he learns that three other women have gone missing from the area in the past and that his sister may have left him a message. On the surface, Koppe, Lapland is a winter wonderland. But in this remote, frozen place, death seems only ever a heartbeat away.

Dead Rich is by G W Shaw. Super yachts are secretive, like their owners. The bigger the richer. Like castles, they are created to inspire awe. Like castles too, they are defended. They are an entire world, separate from the rest of us. Kai, a carefree once-successful musician is invited by his new Russian girlfriend Zina to join her family's Caribbean holiday. Impulsively accepting he learns that Zina is the daughter of a Russian oligarch, Stepan Pirumov and that the trip is aboard his yacht, the Zinaida, moored in St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. The crew consists of Captain Marius Falk, the first mate Erin Wade and a hastily assembled staff, including a chief stewardess Marissa from Miami, a chief engineer from Lagos and a personal trainer from Los Angeles. All know how to behave around the very rich. On arrival Kai discovers that the head of security has been arrested, armed guards are below deck, there's an onboard panic room and a strong sense of all not being quite right beneath the gleaming surfaces of the Pirumov's lives. An unnerving presence punctures the atmosphere: a murderous imposter is on board the Zinaida, but who is it? Kai will find that the only person he can trust will be Erin and that the world of the super-rich will become a prison from which they must escape.

June 2022

A woman is found wandering the corridors of Nobel Hospital in Stockholm, accompanied by a young boy. She appears to be looking for a man who was involved in a car accident earlier that day. Meanwhile, in one of the emergency rooms, Tekla Berg is fighting to save a patient who was seriously injured in the same incident. The resulting chaos goes beyond anything anyone could have predicted, leaving hospital staff, police and everyone else involved equally shocked and perplexed. Hospital Director Monica Carlsson has stepped up her attempts to privatise her fiefdom with the launch of an exclusive patient hotel, a controversial liver transplant unit and the prestigious recruitment of star surgeon Klas Nystroem. It soon becomes obvious that Klas has his own agenda and is working to undermine Tekla at every turn. But Tekla is too distracted to meet this challenge head on: she has become obsessed with the mystery surrounding the woman and her young charge - for the boy's identity remains unknown and no trace of his past can be found. A Grain of Truth is by Christian Unge.