Books to Look Forward to From Simon & Schuster

If you refuse to believe me, I will no longer consider you my son...Daniel believed that his parents were enjoying a peaceful retirement on a remote farm in Sweden, the country of his mother's birth. But with a single phone call, everything changes. Your mother...she's not well, his father tells him. She's been imagining things - terrible, terrible things. In fact, she has been committed to a mental hospital. Before Daniel can board a plane to Sweden, his mother calls: Everything that man has told you is a lie. I'm not mad...I need the police...Meet me at Heathrow. Daniel is immediately caught between his parents - whom to believe, whom to trust? He becomes his mother's unwilling judge and jury. Presented with a horrific crime, a conspiracy that implicates his own father, Daniel must examine the evidence and decide for himself: who is telling the truth? And he has secrets of his own that for too long he has kept hidden... The Farm is by Tom Rob Smith and is due to be published in February 2014.

The Confessor is by Mark Allen Smith and is due to be published in June 2014.  Months have passed since Geiger found himself sitting in his own chair, facing his own torturer - a man called Dalton. The session didn't end well for Dalton. Geiger turned the tables on him and he has never been the same since. That was then. Now, Dalton is back, and he has just one thing in mind – vengeance.

Kick Lannigan, 21, is a survivor. Abducted at age six in broad daylight, the police, the public, perhaps even her family assumed the worst had occurred. And then Kathleen Lannigan was found, alive, six years later. In the early months following her freedom, as Kick struggled with PTSD, her parents put her through a litany of therapies, but nothing helped until the detective who rescued her suggested Kick learn to fight. Before she was thirteen, Kick learned marksmanship, martial arts, boxing, archery, and knife throwing. She excelled at every one, vowing she would never be victimized again. But when two children in the Portland area go missing in the same month, Kick goes into a tailspin. Then an enigmatic man Bishop approaches her with a proposition: he is convinced Kick's experiences and expertise can be used to help rescue the abductees. Little does Kick know the case will lead directly into her terrifying past… The currently untitled Chelsea Cain is due to be published in August 2014.

  

The Dead Can Wait is by Robert Ryan and is due to be published in January 2014.

Dr John Watson is fresh from his time in the trenches of Flanders Fields and back home for some much needed R & R. But deep in England's green and pleasant land something evil lurks. For enemy spies have infiltrated the home front, in search of vital information to take back to Germany. And when seven dead men are discovered, their bodies laid side by side, there is only one man who can solve this curious crime: Dr John Watson.

In September a currently untitled Chris Carter is due to be published. In rural Wyoming, a man arrested in conjunction with a murder case turns out to have a trail of kidnappings, torture and brutal killings reaching all over the United States linking to him. The Sheriff quickly hands the case over to the FBI, but the man refuses to co-operate. In fact, the only words he will utter are 'I will only speak to Robert Hunter'. Detective Robert Hunter of the Los Angeles Robbery Homicide Division is just about to take his first holiday in over ten years. But before boarding the plane, he is summoned to Captain Barbara Blake's office, where an FBI Director has flown in from Washington DC just to speak to him. The case intrigues Hunter, but he has no idea why the man has asked for him by name, until he sees a photograph of the man in custody - a criminal behaviour psychology graduate and his old university roommate - Lucien Folter. Someone Hunter knew well, or at least he thought he did. Could his old friend really have become a deranged serial killer? Surely there has been some mistake. For Hunter, there is only one way to find out. But it will stretch his abilities - and his grip on reality - further than they have ever been stretched before.

Julia has always been the friend that Livy turns to when life is difficult. United fifteen years ago by grief at the brutal murder of Livy's sister, Kara, they've always told each other everything. Or so Livy thought. So when Julia is found dead in her home, Livy cannot come to terms with the news that she chose to end her own life. The Julia that Livy knew was vibrant and vivacious, a far cry from the selfish neurotic that her family seem determined to paint her as. Troubled by doubt but alone in her suspicions, Livy sets out to prove that Julia was in fact murdered. But little does she realise that digging into her best friend's private life will cause her to question everything she thought she knew about Julia. And the truth that Livy discovers will tear the very fabric of her own life apart.  Trust in Me is by Sophie McKenzie and is due to be published in May 2014.

 

In The Blood is by Lisa Unger and is due to be published in February 2014.  About to graduate from university in upstate New York, Lana Granger takes a job in town looking after eleven year old Luke. Expelled from schools all over the country, manipulative Luke is accustomed to controlling the people in his life. He likes to play games. But in Lana he may have met his match. Or has Lana met hers? Because Lana is a liar. She has told so many lies about where she comes from and who she is, that even she can't remember the truth. Then Lana's closest friend Beck mysteriously goes missing, and Lana's alibi for the night of the disappearance doesn't match with eyewitness accounts. Now, Lana finds herself lying again - to friends, to the police, to herself. Lana is willing to do almost anything to keep the truth - about her last night with Beck, about everything - from coming out. Even so, it might not be enough to keep her shocking secrets dead and buried. But somebody knows all about Lana's lies. And they are dying to tell.

The currently untitled Penny Hancock is due to be published in August 2014.  Driving down to the cottage in Southwold she's newly inherited from her Aunty May, Ellie senses she is on the edge of something new. The life she's always dreamed of living as a successful artist seems as though it is about to begin. So excited is she that she barely notices when the car bumps against something on the road. That evening Ellie hears a news flash on the radio. A man was seriously injured in a hit and run on the very road she was driving down that evening. Then Ellie remembers the thump she heard. Could she have been responsible for putting a man in hospital? Unable to hold the doubts at bay, she decides to visit the victim to lay her mind to rest, little knowing that the consequences of this decision will change her life forever.

I’ve Got You Under My Skin is by Mary Higgins Clark and is due to be published in May 2014. Julia has always been the friend that Livy turns to when life is difficult. United fifteen years ago by grief at the brutal murder of Livy's sister, Kara, they've always told each other everything. Or so Livy thought. So when Julia is found dead in her home, Livy cannot come to terms with the news that she chose to end her own life. The Julia that Livy knew was vibrant and vivacious, a far cry from the selfish neurotic that her family seem determined to paint her as. Troubled by doubt but alone in her suspicions, Livy sets out to prove that Julia was in fact murdered. But little does she realise that digging into her best friend's private life will cause her to question everything she thought she knew about Julia. And the truth that Livy discovers will tear the very fabric of her own life apart.

The Silversmith’s Wife is by Sophia Tobin and is due to be published in January 2014.The year is 1792 and it's winter in Berkeley Square. As the city sleeps, the night-watchman keeps a cautious eye over the streets and another eye in the back doors of the great and the good. Then one fateful night he comes across the body of Pierre Renard, the eponymous silversmith, lying dead, his throat cut and his valuables missing. It could be common theft, committed by one of the many villains who stalk the square, but as news of the murder spreads, it soon becomes clear that Renard had more than a few enemies, all with their own secrets to hide. At the centre of this web is Mary, the silversmith's wife. Ostensibly theirs was an excellent pairing, but behind closed doors their relationship was a dark and at times sadistic one and when we meet her, Mary is withdrawn and weak, haunted by her past and near-mad with guilt. Will she attain the redemption she seeks and what, exactly, does she need redemption for…

In June a currently untitled Lynda La Plante is due to be published.  Amy Fulford, excellent pupil and gifted athlete at a girls' public school in Ascot vanishes one Saturday afternoon. DSI Marshe runs the local missing persons unit. He is responsible for overseeing the disappearance of Amy Fulford. But, as a late joiner and with only ten years of service, and a bullish DCS on his back, he tends to be unsure of himself. While the spiral of media interest in the missing daughter of a well-connected couple heats up, the spotlight turns on the parents who are embroiled in a bitter divorce. Amy's journal surfaces with disturbing entries about her mother's abilities - and also her father's sordid sexual activities. Marshe's DCS is convinced Marcus Fulford is responsible for his daughter's death. But Marshe himself is not so sure. He discovers some startling and disturbing discoveries about Amy's teachers and peers. Did Amy Fulford have a need to escape ...or was she driven by abuse and despair to disappear into another world?