Books to look forward to from Simon and Schuster

JANUARY 2016

Joe Goldberg came to Los Angeles to start over, to forget about what happened in New York. But in a darkened room in Soho House everything suddenly changed. She is like no one he's ever met before. She doesn't know about his past and never can. The problem is, hidden bodies don't always stay that way.  Hidden Bodies is by Caroline Kepnes.

The Sign of Fear is by Robert Ryan.  The skies above London hum with danger. And in the Channel enemies lie in wait...  Autumn, 1917. London is not the city that Dr John Watson and Sherlock Holmes once bestrode like giants. Terror has come from the sky and Londoners are scurrying underground in fear. Then a twin tragedy strikes Watson. An old friend, Staff Nurse Jennings, is on a boat-ambulance torpedoed in the Channel with no survivors. And his concert-going companion, Sir Gilbert Hardy, is kidnapped. Then comes the gruesome ransom demand, for Sir Gilbert and four others, which will involve terrible mutilation unless the demands are met. Help comes from an unlikely source when Watson finds himself face-to-face with his old ruthless adversary, the "She Wolf" Miss Pillbody. She makes him a remarkable offer and so an unlikely partnership is formed - the enemy spy and Sherlock Holmes's faithful companion, a detective duo which will eventually uncover a shocking case of state-sponsored murder and find Watson on board a German bomber, with a crew intent on setting London ablaze.

A time of turbulence 1975. A summit has been arranged between the Rhodesian government and various nationalist leaders, and is due to take place in railway dining car 49, midway along Victoria Falls Bridge. But Matthew Charamba, a key player in the battle for majority rule in Rhodesia, is hiding a deadly secret. A time of terror Claire and Erik are living in Stockholm, raising their son, Ben. But their quiet life is about to unravel in explosive fashion. Each have hidden pasts, to which the other is oblivious, and those pasts have come back to find them. Time for Paul Dark to take action. When his family is kidnapped, Paul Dark, the most resourceful and dangerous double-agent of the 20th Century, must take action or lose the most precious people in his universe.  Spy Out the Land is by Jeremy Duns.

APRIL 2016

The Amber Shadows by Lucy Ribchester. Bletchley Park typist Honey Deschamps spends her days at a type-x machine in Hut 6, transcribing the decrypted signals from the German Army, doing her bit to help the British war effort. Halfway across the world Hitler's armies are marching into Leningrad, leaving a trail of destruction and pillaging the country's most treasured artworks, including the famous Amber Room - the eighth wonder of the world. As reports begin filtering through about the stolen amber loot, Honey receives a package, addressed to her, carried by a man she has never seen before. He claims his name is Felix Plaidstow and that he works in Hut 3. The package is postmarked from Russia, branded with two censors' stamps. Inside is a small flat piece of amber, and it is just the first of several parcels. Caught between fearing the packages are a trap set by the authorities to test her loyalty or a desperate cry for help, Honey turns to the handsome enigmatic Felix Plaidstow. But then her brother is found beaten to death in nearby woods and suddenly danger is all around...

MAY 2016

Berlin 1943. August Schlegel lives in a world full of questions with no easy answers. Why is he being called out on a homicide case when he works in financial crimes? Why did the old Jewish soldier with an Iron Cross shoot the block warden in the eye then put a bullet through his own head? Why does Schlegel persist with the case when no one cares because the Jews are all being shipped out anyway? And why should Eiko Morgen, wearing the dreaded black uniform of the SS, turn up and say he has been assigned to work with him? Corpses, dressed with fake money, bodies flayed beyond recognition: are these routine murders committed out of rage or is someone trying to tell them something...  The Butchers of Berlin is by Chris Petit.

JUNE 2016

The Lost Swimmer by Anne Turner.  Rebecca Wilding, an archaeology professor, traces the past for a living. But suddenly, truth and certainty are turning against her. Rebecca is accused of serious fraud, and worse, she suspects - she knows - that her husband, Stephen, is having an affair. Desperate to find answers, Rebecca leaves with Stephen for Greece, Italy and Paris, where she can uncover the conspiracy against her, and hopefully win Stephen back to her side, where he belongs. There's too much at stake - her love, her work, her family. But on the idyllic Amalfi Coast, Stephen goes swimming and doesn't come back. In a swirling daze of panic and fear, Rebecca is dealt with fresh allegations. And with time against her, she must uncover the dark secrets that stand between her and Stephen, and the deceit that has chased her halfway around the world.

Books to Look Forward to From Simon & Schuster

The Fifth Gospel is by Ian Caldwell and is due to be published in March 2015.  In 2004, as Pope John Paul II's reign enters its twilight, a mysterious exhibit is under construction at the Vatican Museums.  A week before it is scheduled to open, its curator is murdered.  The same night, a violent break-in rocks the home of the curator's research partner, Father Alex Andreou, a Greek Catholic priest who lives inside the Vatican with his five-year-old son.  When the papal police fail to identify a suspect in either crime, Father Alex, desperate to keep his family safe, undertakes his own investigation.  To find the killer he must reconstruct the dead curator's secret: what the four Christian gospels - and a little-known, true-to-life fifth gospel known as the Diatessaron - reveal about the Church's most controversial holy relic.  But just as he begins to understand the truth about his friend's death, and its consequences for the future of the world's two largest Christian Churches, Father Alex finds himself hunted down by someone with vested stakes in the exhibit - someone he must outwit to survive.

Famous bestselling author, loving husband, generous friend -- Henry Hayden has it all, or so it seems.  What does it matter that his novels are in fact all written by his loving wife?  But when Henry's carefully constructed life is threatened, and his attempt to solve the problem leads to the death of his wife, it starts to look as if everything might fall apart.  As Henry weaves an increasingly complicated web of lies, half-lies and half-truths in a deception which is as entertaining as it is dark, he remains a compelling character, evading the consequence of every action as he plays off the police, his publisher, his friends and above all his past.  The Truth and Other Lies is a dark, clever, and hugely entertaining thriller by Sascha Arango and introduces readers to sociopath Henry Hayden.  It is due to be published in June 2015.

The year is 1917 and Major John Watson is held in a notorious prisoner of war camp deep in

Germany, there as Medical Officer for the British prisoners.  With the Allied blockade of Germany, food is perilously short in the camp and when a new prisoner is murdered all assume the poor chap was killed for his Red Cross parcel.  Watson, though, isn't so sure.  Something isn't quite what it seems and a creeping feeling of unease tells Watson there is more to this than meets the eye.  And when an escape plot is apparently uncovered in his hut and he is sent to solitary confinement, he knows he has touched a nerve.  If Watson is to reveal the heinous crimes that have occurred at the camp, he must escape before he is silenced for good.  All he needs is some long-distance help from Sherlock Holmes...  A Study in Murder is by Robert Ryan and is due to be published in January 2015.

  

Orient, seated at the toe of the north leg of Long Island, ebbs, and flows with the seasons.  When the days start to grow, the first SUVs begin to roll in, filled with beach towels, croquet sets, and the summering multitudes of nearby New York City.  But when the season reaches its close and the swell recedes, a town remains in its wake.  This is the real Orient, the one that stood on its lawn, gardening trowel hung low at its side, eyes squinting against the sun, as Mills Chevern rode into town in Paul Benchley's passenger seat on that last day of summer.  Who is this foster kid?  Where did he come from?  Why did Paul, that nice, lonely, middle-aged neighbour bring him here to our quiet streets?  It's not long after Mills rolls in that all hell breaks loose: the local handyman is found bloated to bursting in the bay, an elderly neighbour is discovered face-down in her garage, and a grotesque creature washes up on shore.  As the town swarms with fear, Mills (we're certain that's not his real name) finds himself the chief suspect in a riddle of violent deaths, one he must solve before his own time runs out.  Orient is by Christopher Bollen and is due to be published in April 2015.

  

The Hourglass Factory is by Lucy Ribchester and is due to be published in January 2014.  1912 and London is in turmoil...The suffragette movement is reaching fever pitch but for broke Fleet Street tomboy Frankie George, just getting by in the cut-throat world of newspapers is hard enough.  Sent to interview trapeze artist Ebony Diamond, Frankie finds herself fascinated by the tightly laced acrobat and follows her across London to a Mayfair corset shop that hides more than one dark secret.  Then Ebony Diamond mysteriously disappears in the middle of a performance, and Frankie is drawn into a world of tricks, society columnists, corset fetishists, suffragettes, and circus freaks.  How did Ebony vanish, who was she afraid of, and what goes on behind the doors of the mysterious Hourglass Factory?  From the newsrooms of Fleet Street to the drawing rooms of high society, the missing Ebony Diamond leads Frankie to the trail of a murderous villain with a plot more deadly than anyone could have imagined...

In Place of Death is by Craig Robertson and is due to be published in May 2015.  A man enters the culverted remains of an ancient Glasgow stream.  Deep below the city it is decaying and claustrophobic, and gets more so with every step.  As the ceiling lowers to no more than a couple of feet above the ground, he finds his path blocked by another person.  But the person is has been murdered.  DS Narey leads the investigation to find out who the victim is and who killed him.  Photographer Winter begins an investigation of his own, through the shadowy world of urbexers, people who pursue a dangerous and illegal hobby, a world that Winter knows more about than he lets on.  Meanwhile, DI Derek Addison is trying to prevent an escalating drugs war, which has already left several casualties in its wake among the city's rival gangs.  A new face in town is upsetting the established order.  Against a backdrop of hauntingly atmospheric and dangerous buildings, the tangled links between the gangs and the urbexers who have strayed unwittingly into deadly territory draw all three investigations together.

Broadstairs, Kent, 1850.  Part sea-bathing resort, part fishing village, this is a place where people come to take the air, and where they come to hide...Delphine and her sister Julia have come to the seaside with a secret, one they have been running from for years.  The clean air and quiet outlook of Broadstairs appeal to them and they think this is a place they can hide from the darkness for just a little longer.  But this is a town with its own secrets, and a dark past.  And when the body of a young girl is found washed up on the beach, a mysterious message scrawled on the sand beneath her, the past returns to haunt the town, and they cannot escape what happened here years before...A compelling story of secrets, lies and lost innocence...  The Widow’s Confession is by Sophia Tobin and is due to be published in January 2015.

A family holiday takes a horrifying turn as one of the party is found dead. At first Emily believes it to be a terrible accident, but soon secrets emerge that throw suspicion on those closest to her … Here We Lie is by Sophie McKenzie and is due to be published in May 2015.

My Favourite Books of 2013.

It has been hard to narrow down my books of the year, as I have not read as many books this year as I would normally have done.  However, there are some books that stuck with me over the year.  They are as follows in no particular order.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes (Harper Collins) – In Depression Era Chicago, a drifter named Harper Curtis finds a key to a house that opens on to other times.  But it comes at a cost.  He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women who burn with potential.  He stalks them through their lives across different eras until, in 1989, one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives, and starts hunting him back.  This is a novel that spans the history of Chicago from the 1930s to 1990s.  An unusual twist on the serial killer novel.

The Double by George Pelecanos (Orion).  In this second novel featuring Spero Lucas, a young Iraq vet working as a PI in Washington DC but with a sideline in finding lost items - the kind of items the owners can't go to the police about.  This time Spero is trying to find a painting belonging to a sexy young woman who was scammed out of it by a super-smooth con artist, part of a team of ruthless thugs.  Spero tracks the painting down but the woman is brutally attacked to warn him off.  Spero goes on the attack and takes the gang out one by one in their isolated house in the woods - prompting the question: have his experiences in Iraq turned him into an amoral killer no better than the crooks he's up against?  George Pelecanos always has the ability to write such fascinating and lyrical novels.  The Double is no exception.  Back to Spero Lucas who finds himself investigating the loss of a painting and his own dark side.  Augmented with a playlist that is as fascinating as the novel. 

Suspect by Robert Crais (Orion) LAPD cop Scott James is not doing so well.  Eight months ago, a shocking night time assault by unidentified men killed his partner Stephanie, nearly killed him, and left him enraged, ashamed, and ready to explode.  He is unfit for duty—until he meets his new partner.  Maggie is not doing so well, either.  A German shepherd who survived three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan sniffing explosives before losing her handler to an IED, her PTSD is as bad as Scott’s.  They are each other’s last chance.  Shunned and shunted to the side, they set out to investigate the one case that no one wants them to touch: the identity of the men who murdered Stephanie.  What they begin to find is nothing like what Scott has been told, and the journey will take them both through the darkest moments of their own personal hells.  Whether they will make it out again, no can say.  In Suspect, Robert Crais has presented readers with not only a multi-faceted and unusual new protagonist but also a gripping and heart-rending thriller.

The Twelfth Department by William Ryan (Mantle).  Set in Moscow during 1937.  Captain

Korolev, a police investigator, is enjoying a long-overdue visit from his young son Yuri when an eminent scientist is shot dead within sight of the Kremlin and Korolev is ordered to find the killer.  It soon emerges that the victim, a man who it appears would stop at nothing to fulfil his ambitions, was engaged in research of great interest to those at the very top ranks of Soviet power.  When another scientist is brutally murdered, and evidence of the professors’ dark experiments is hastily removed, Korolev begins to realise that, along with having a difficult case to solve, he’s caught in a dangerous battle between two warring factions of the NKVD.  And then his son Yuri goes missing . . . The Twelfth Department is a desperate race against time, set against a city gripped by Stalin’s Great Terror and teeming with spies, street children and thieves and is a great atmospheric historical thriller set in Stalin's Moscow

Then We Take Berlin by John Lawton (Atlantic) John Holderness, known to the women in his life as 'Wilderness', comes of age during World War II in Stepney, East London, breaking in to houses with his grandfather.  After the war, Wilderness is recruited as MI5's resident 'cat burglar' and finds himself in Berlin, involved with schemes in the booming black market that put both him and his relationships in danger.  In 1963 it is a most unusual and lucrative request that persuades Wilderness to return - to smuggle someone under the Berlin Wall and out of East Germany.  But this final scheme may prove to be one challenge too far...  Then We Take Berlin is a gripping, meticulously researched, and richly detailed historical thriller - a moving story of espionage and war, and people caught up in the most tumultuous events of the twenty-first century.  This is a new historical series by an author that needs to be read featuring an East-End Londoner turned spy at the start of the cold war.  Brilliantly written.

The Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin (Orion).  Rebus is back on the force, albeit with a demotion and a chip on his shoulder.  A 30-year-old case is being reopened, and Rebus’s team from back then is suspected of foul play.  With Malcolm Fox as the investigating officer is the past and present about to collide in a shocking and murderous fashion?  And does Rebus have anything to hide?  His colleagues back then called themselves ‘The Saints’, and swore a bond on something called ‘the Shadow Bible’.  But times have changed and the crimes of the past may not stay hidden much longer, especially with a referendum on Scottish independence just around the corner.  Who are the saints and who the sinners?  And can the one ever become the other?  As in the best police thrillers there is a rich mixture of ingredients layered into a very satisfying meal.  Ian Rankin's decision to bring John Rebus out of retirement to rake over the past was the right one.

Dead Man’s Land by Robert Ryan (Simon & Schuster) Deep in the trenches of Flanders Fields, men are dying in their thousands every day.  So one more death shouldn't be a surprise.  But then a body turns up with bizarre injuries, and Sherlock Holmes' former sidekick Dr John Watson - unable to fight for his country due to injury but able to serve it through his medical expertise - finds his suspicions raised.  The face has a blue-ish tinge, the jaw is clamped shut in a terrible rictus, and the eyes are almost popping out of his head, as if the man had seen unimaginable horror.  Something is terribly wrong.  But this is just the beginning.  Soon more bodies appear, and Watson must discover who is the killer in the trenches.  Who can he trust?  Who is the enemy?  And can he find the perpetrator before he kills again?  Surrounded by unimaginable carnage, amidst a conflict that's ripping the world apart, Watson must for once step out of the shadows and into the limelight if he's to solve the mystery behind the inexplicable deaths.  Dead Man's Land is not only a very inventive murder plot that will be welcomed by all lovers of crime thrillers, but it is also a brilliant and powerful depiction of wartime horror from the point of view of Dr John Watson.  The first in what is hoped a new series.

How a Gunman Says Goodbye by Malcolm Mackay (Pan Macmillan).  How does a gunman retire?  Frank MacLeod was the best at what he does.  Thoughtful.  Efficient.  Ruthless.  But is he still the best?  A new job.  A target.  But something is about to go horribly wrong.  Someone is going to end up dead.  Most gunmen say goodbye to the world with a bang.  Frank’s still here.  He’s lasted longer than he should have ... The breath taking, devastating sequel to lauded debut The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter, How a Gunman Says Goodbye plunges the reader back into the Glasgow underworld, where criminal organisations war for prominence and those caught up in events are tested at every turn.  This is a page-turner of a read that is brutal whilst being smoothly written.

London Falling by Paul Cornell (Tor) The dark is rising . . . Detective Inspector James Quill is about to complete the drugs bust of his career.  Then his prize suspect Rob Toshack is murdered in custody.  Furious, Quill pursues the investigation, co-opting intelligence analyst Lisa Ross and undercover cops Costain and Sefton.  But nothing about Toshack’s murder is normal.  Toshack had struck a bargain with a vindictive entity, whose occult powers kept Toshack one-step ahead of the law – until his luck ran out.  Now, the team must find a 'suspect' who can bend space and time and alter memory itself.  And they will kill again.  As the group starts to see London’s sinister magic for themselves, they have two choices: panic or use their new abilities.  Then they must hunt a terrifying supernatural force the only way they know how: using police methods, equipment, and tactics.  But they must all learn the rules of this new game - and quickly.  More than their lives will depend on it.  London Falling is pacy, clever and delights in London mythology.  An unusual but still unique novel.

In Screwed by Eoin Colfer (Headline) he adds and entirely new chapter to the adventures and misadventures of Daniel McEvoy, the down-on-his-luck Irish bouncer at a seedy New Jersey bar who, with the help of a motley crew of unlikely characters, solved a bizarre string of murders--including the one of the girl he loved.  But people around him continue to die mysteriously, and Daniel is called into action once again.  Colfer provides more back-story in this second novel and weaves in information about McEvoy’s alcoholic father and doomed mother and brother as well as McEvoy’s experiences in the Middle East.  Screwed is an equally gritty novel with a dark vein of humour that runs throughout the book.  This is shaping up to be a brilliantly wacky series that is awesomely good to read.

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?