Penguin Modern Classics to publish three Eric Ambler novels

On 26th January 2023, Penguin Modern Classics will publish three wildly enjoyable novels from the father of the spy thriller, Eric Ambler: Passage of Arms, The Light of Day and A Kind of Anger. Ambler is often said to have invented the modern suspense novel, and his disciples include John le Carré, Alfred Hitchcock, Graham Greene and Len Deighton. These are a must-read for fans of the genre.

Eric Ambler (1909-98) was born in London to parents who were part-time entertainers. He studied engineering but left college without taking a degree and became a copywriter in the advertising industry. Between 1937 and 1940, he published his great anti-fascist spy thrillers: Uncommon Danger, Epitaph for a Spy, Cause for Alarm, The Mask of Dimitrios, and Journey into Fear. In 1940, he joined the Royal Artillery and was later transferred to the army film unit. After the war he worked as a screenwriter in England and Hollywood and married his second wife, a leading Hollywood producer. Passage of Arms, The Light of Day and A Kind of Anger are his post-war novels.

A Kind of Anger

The last time anyone saw Lucia Bernardi, she was driving at top speed away from a Swiss villa - leaving the body of her murdered Iraqi lover behind. Now she has vanished, along with a potentially explosive set of papers, and disgraced journalist Piet Maas has been sent to follow her trail to the South of France. But finding her is just the start of his problems. Soon, amid a cast of con men, secret agents and revolutionaries, he must decide whether to land the scoop of his lifetime - or follow Lucia into ever more dangerous waters.

A Passage to Arms

An Indian clerk, Girija Krishnan, sees the opportunity of his lifetime when he stumbles on an abandoned cache of arms hidden in the Malayan jungle. If he can sell the weapons, he will be able to achieve his lifelong dream of owning a bus company - although the penalty for gun-running is death. Soon his decision becomes the catalyst for a chain of events involving an entrepreneurial Chinese family, a corrupt Colonel and, finally, a naïve couple of American tourists who find themselves horribly out of their depth.

The Light of Day

Small-time hustler Arthur Abdel Simpson ekes out a living in Athens by robbing gullible tourists. But when an attempted theft backfires, he finds himself out-smarted and blackmailed into driving a highly suspicious car across the border to Istanbul. Then the Turkish secret police get involved, and Simpson becomes embroiled in something far deeper, and more dangerous, than he could imagine. Featuring a heart-stopping jewel heist, this compulsive, morally complex thriller became the basis for the classic filmTopkapi.

June Books from Bookouture

 

Kiss Her Goodnight is by D K Hood. She glances around as she locks the café door behind her. It’s growing dark and the quiet street is deserted. Tired, she starts on her short walk home. She thinks she’ll be safe inside within minutes, but the person watching from the shadows has other plans for her tonight… When the body of a young woman is discovered in a local playground in the center of Black Rock Falls, Sheriff Jenna Alton and her deputy David Kane rush to the scene. Jenna recoils with horror when she sees the body, dressed in a thin nightgown, her face covered by a terrifying Halloween mask. When the body is examined, red puncture marks are uncovered along her spine. Jenna makes a connection with a cold case where the killer tortured young women for years and was never caught. If the murderer has started killing again, Jenna knows it’s only a matter of time before another body is found. Days later, when another victim lays slumped against the fence of a local landfill site, with the same puncture wounds and macabre mask, Jenna’s fears are confirmed. A serial killer is back in town and they’re picking off women one by one. Then, as a third body is found, Jenna finally gets the breakthrough she needs. Dirt found underneath the women’s fingernails leads to a dangerous cave network in the mountains outside town. And once Jenna ventures into the dark, winding underground tunnels, will she find the person responsible for the deaths and take them down, or has she just walked into the killer’s trap?

The girl is sitting upright, her dark brown hair arranged over her shoulders and her blue, blue eyes staring into the distance. She looks almost peaceful. But her gaze is vacant, and her skin is cold… When Detective Jackie Cooke is called to the murder scene, she is shocked by what she sees. Missing teenager Chloe Smedley has finally been found – her body left in a cold back yard, carefully posed with her bright blue eyes still open. Jackie lays a protective hand on the baby in her belly, and vows to find the brutal monster who stole Chloe’s future. When Jackie breaks the news to Chloe’s heartbroken mother, she understands the woman’s cries only too well. Her own brother went missing as a child, the case never solved. Determined to get justice for Chloe and her family, Jackie sets to work, finding footage of the girl waving at someone the day she disappeared. Did Chloe know her killer? But then a second body is found on the side of a busy motorway, lit up by passing cars. The only link with Chloe is the disturbing way the victim has been posed, and Jackie is convinced she is searching for a dangerous predator. Someone has been hunting missing and vulnerable people for decades, and only Jackie seems to see that they were never lost. They were taken. Jackie’s boss refuses to believe a serial killer is on the loose and threatens to take her off the case. But then Jackie returns home to find a brightly coloured bracelet on her kitchen counter and her blood turns cold. It’s the same one her brother was wearing when he vanished. Could his disappearance be connected to the murders? Jackie will stop at nothing to catch her killer… unless he finds her first… The Lost Ones is by Marnie Riches.

Her Frozen Cry is by Carolyn Arnold. The moon shines through the open window, bathing the woman in pale light. Blood-red wine from a shattered glass soaks into the cream blanket beside her, and her dull eyes stare vacantly at the framed photograph in her hand. When beautiful wife and mother Alicia Gordon is found dead in a remote woodland cabin, Detective Amanda Steele is shocked to discover that she knows the husband. Amanda hasn’t spoken to Tony since she lost the love of her own life seven years ago, and seeing tragedy tearing her old friend’s family apart brings back so many painful memories. Alicia was alone when she died, but she was so young, and Amanda can’t help feeling suspicious. Then she discovers that Alicia’s sleep medication had been tampered with, slowly poisoning her over several days. Amanda wants to trust that the sorrow on Tony’s face is real, but the more she digs into his marriage, the more it seems that he had opportunity, and motive… Interviewing one of Alicia’s old colleagues, Amanda is shaken to her core when the woman suddenly collapses in her arms, dying in seconds from a lethal dose of the same poison that killed Alicia. But what could link this woman to Tony? With her partner blaming Amanda for not arresting Tony immediately, she needs to prove that he isn’t the killer, or accept that the second woman’s death could be on her hands. She’s running out of time and leads when she discovers threatening messages sent to both victims. It’s the final clue to unmasking the most twisted killer Amanda has ever come up against, and to stop them she’ll have to risk everything…

Sleeping Dolls is by Helen Phifer. The beam shines around the dark room, lighting up the woman in sky-blue pyjamas lying on the couch. But she doesn’t wake under the bright glow, she isn’t sleeping at all… When a concerned neighbour reports a woman missing, Detective Morgan Brookes squeezes through the stiff front door to find the woman dead. At first, the case appears unsuspicious, but something about the scene unsettles Morgan. Every clock in the house has been stopped, every mirror covered, and the woman seems physically unharmed except for one missing lock of hair. Shirley Kelly was loved by her friends and hated by her ex-husband and his new wife, but they have an iron-clad alibi, and Morgan is certain that the scene-staging holds a vital clue. She’s devastated to be proved right when another woman is killed, and her home arranged in the same way. The only difference is that the second victim has been stabbed, using a knife from Shirley’s own kitchen… The team can’t find a connection between the two women, but Morgan is sure that there is a deadly pattern to the killer’s actions. She hunts through each woman’s past until she finds the link: years ago, they both worked for a woman called Evelyn Reynolds, before tragedy struck her young family. But what has made them targets now? Morgan knows this twisted case is far from over, can she find the final clue before the clock stops for the next name on the killer’s list?

‘You’re just the girl I’ve been looking for,’ Iris told me, her blue eyes sparkling, when she offered me the job as her live-in helper. Little did she know, I thought the exact same about her. And she was wrong to trust me... As I clean Iris’s large, old house in Pacific Heights, my boyfriend Seth works outside, tending to the lawn and fixing the broken gate. I can’t help but notice Iris’s steely eyes watching our every move. Does she know why we’re really here? Most days we live in perfect harmony, but today Iris is confused. She thinks we moved in uninvited. I pass her a tablet from the medicine cabinet, knowing she’ll soon calm down and remember how lucky she is to have found us. Later that night, the police arrive to find Iris’s perfect house turned upside down, the telephone lying on the floor, its cord severed. They walk through each room, calling out, but the house remains totally silent. You will think you know what happened that night, but when the police discover something unexpected hidden amongst the wreckage in Iris’s bedroom, you’ll find you don’t know a thing. The House Sitter is by Ellery Kane.

The Guilty Girl is by Patricia Gibney. Something whistling through the door behind her caused her to turn. A shadow spread across the opening. She clasped a hand to her mouth, stilling the fear that was rising. The menacing shadow was followed by a face that sent a cold shiver down her spine… When the call comes in about Lucy, a seventeen-year-old girl murdered after the secret party she held in her parents’ home, Detective Lottie Parker is first on the scene. As she picks her way through the smashed glasses and the blood spatter on the perfect cream carpet, she is horrified to see Lucy’s angelic face, silvery-blue eyes forever closed. As Lottie breaks the news to Lucy’s heartbroken parents and the devastated partygoers, she discovers that hours before her death Lucy had revealed a terrible secret about her friend Hannah. And when Lottie finds Lucy’s bloodstained clothing hidden in Hannah’s bedroom, she has no option but to bring the shy, frightened girl into custody. But Hannah claims to have no memory of the night Lucy died and Lottie begins to question her guilt. Then a fifteen-year-old boy who also attended the party is pulled from the canal. And as Lottie investigates, she discovers something shocking. Her own son Sean was at the party. Why did he lie to her? Is her beloved child a witness or a suspect…or is he now in the killer’s sights?

Murder at the Country Club is by Helena Dixon. Kitty Underhay is playing doubles… with death. Kitty Underhay is accompanying her fiancé, Matthew Bryant,and Bertie, his new cocker spaniel, on an outing to Torbay Country Club. However, the delightful day soon turns to disaster. Walking Bertie in the shaded grotto after an exhilarating archery demonstration, Kitty makes an unsporting discovery: the body of their host, Sir William Winspear, with an arrow in his back. When the local inspector falls foul interviewing female witnesses, Kitty steps up to the mark. And she quickly discovers that Sir William had threatened one of the guests, dashing Russian dancer Ivan, who is dependent on him for patronage. When Kitty overhears a damning conversation between Ivan and his sister, the case seems clear. But the next day Ivan is disqualified as he is found face down in the pool… The race is on for Kitty to find the real killer, but she must keep her head in the game if she is to outwit this cunning murderer. And when the final score comes in, will it be ‘killer: three, Kitty: zero’…?

She has my husband. She has my child. She has my life. I never thought I would end up here. Alone, in a cold one-bedroom apartment, only seeing my precious daughter once a week. Another woman is living the life that was once mine. I wish I was still married to my ex-husband, the love of my life. I dream of tucking my five-year-old child into her ballerina bed sheets every night. I miss living in a beautiful house, the perfect family home, with a winding staircase and a sprawling garden. I’d do anything to be with my family again. To start over and prove to them that I’ve changed, that I won’t lose control like before. But when I get my second chance, the vicious messages come. The noises at night. The feeling of being watched. It’s happening all over again. I know I’m not going mad, but no one will believe me. I don’t know if I even believe myself. All I wanted was my life back. But now my life is under threat – and my darling little girl is in danger. The Other Wife is by Nicole Trope.

A gripping and heartbreaking read, based on the true story of the Jonestown cult, one of the darkest chapters in American history. A Home For The Lost is by Sharon Maas. When journalist Zoe Quint loses her husband and child in a tragic accident, she returns home to Guyana to heal. But when she hears cries and music floating through the trees, her curiosity compels her to learn more about the Americans who have set up camp in a run-down village nearby. Their leader, Jim Jones, dark eyed and charismatic, claims to be a peaceful man who has promised his followers paradise. But everything changes when Zoe meets one of his followers, a young woman called Lucy, in a ramshackle grocery store. Lucy grabs Zoe’s arm, raw terror in her eyes, and passes her a note with a phone number, begging her to call her mother in America. Zoe is determined to help Lucy, but locals warn her to stay away from the camp, and as sirens and gunshots echo through the jungle at nightfall, she knows they are right. But she can’t shake the frightened woman’s face from her mind, and when she discovers that there are young children kept in the camp, she has to act fast. Zoe’s only route to the lost people is to get close to their leader, Jim Jones. But if she is accepted, will she be able to persuade the frightened followers to risk their lives and embark on a perilous escape under the cover of darkness? And when Jim Jones hears of her plans, could she pay the highest price of all?

The Resort is by Sue Watson. When a dream trip becomes your worst nightmare… You’ve been excited about this getaway for months – at last, a chance to reconnect with your husband at a secluded island resort. But when he unexpectedly calls you from the beach, you hear the urgency in his voice. Something is very wrong. The beautiful waitress from the restaurant last night has been found lying dead in the sand. And the police want to question your husband about it. Sure, you saw him glance at her over dinner a few times, but you know he didn’t have anything to do with the poor girl’s death. So why is he asking you to lie to the police that he was with you all night? And where did he go in those missing hours? When he returns to your beautiful sea-view suite, things get heated and he accuses you of being jealous, just like he always does. Yes, the waitress was overly flirtatious with your husband, but you didn’t actually wish her any harm. Not really. Can you trust the man you married… or are you the one who can’t be trusted?

You thought you were safe. Until he moved in next door… I haven’t lived here long. The house is small and a little rundown, but each piece of faded floral wallpaper I peel away feels like unwrapping the second chance I never thought I’d get. I’m finally free to wear what I want, and I don’t flinch when I accidently burn dinner. My new home is warm, and the kids are safe inside. Anywhere would feel idyllic after the nightmare marriage I’ve just escaped. But then I see my ex-husband Craig stroll past my window and let himself into the house next door. Fear chokes me. How did he find me? Does he want me back, or to destroy me for good? As the removals van pulls away, Craig tells me it’s just a coincidence, that we can all get along and be good neighbours. But at night I lie awake listening to the sound of laughter and lovemaking through the thin wall that separates us, wondering if his new girlfriend is safe. And in the morning, I rifle through his trash, trying to guess his next move. I know how crazy I look, but I’d do anything to protect my children. Weeks later, when the night air fills with smoke, and this quiet street dances with blue and red flashing police lights, all the secrets behind our two closed doors will be revealed. But after everything that’s happened, will anyone believe I’m innocent? The Ex-Husband is by Samantha Hayes.

Isabella pedals her bright red bike on the familiar route home, admiring her charm bracelet catching the light. But half an hour later, she is nowhere to be seen. All her frantic parents find is an angel-shaped charm discarded on the sidewalk… When twelve-year-old Isabella Farner disappears, Agent Tori Hunter races to the scene. Witnesses—including her partner’s son who was biking home with Isabella—saw a man throw her into the back of his blue van and speed away. Terrified that a child she loves like her own might be next, Tori knows every second counts in the hunt for the missing girl. Isabella’s distraught parents insist no-one would want to harm their perfect family. But soon a photo of Isabella looking terrified is discovered, holding a copy of today’s newspaper. Why would the Farners conceal information about their own missing daughter?And what else do they have to hide? Then, while searching a stretch of road where the van was last seen, Tori finds a tiny clue: an angel-shaped charm. Isabella was here. But what chance is there that she is being kept alive?Unable to trust Isabella’s parents, as Tori closes in on the truth she realises someone already known to police must be involved: and she herself is in terrible danger. But even if Tori makes the ultimate sacrifice, will it be enough to find this innocent girl before she disappears forever? Missing Angel is by Roger Stelljes

Can a Wealthy Family Buy Their Alibi? Books Focused on Opulent Wealth, Family Secrets & Suspense by Georgina Cross

 

For readers, novels about the uber wealthy can be an enticing foray into another world, a sneak peek into how “the other half” lives, complete with glamour and over-the-top situations. It’s a fascinating exploration of a person’s flamboyant behavior and entitled notions about their money buying them everything—including a way to bury their secrets.

In my novel, Nanny Needed readers are cast into the mesmerizing world of the Bird family who live in an extraordinary penthouse in the Upper West Side, New York City. Despite the family’s unusual way for hiring nannies and the fact Sarah has zero nannying experience, Sarah takes the job. She agrees to the family’s strict instructions, including that ominous detail she chooses to ignore: Special conditions apply. While dealing with the mother Collette’s tragic behavior and the child in their care, Sarah finds herself going against the powerful family who employs her and the lengths they will take to make sure no one talks—especially the nanny. Until now, the Bird family may have gotten away with a few too many tragedies, but with Sarah, their secrets are about to rise to the surface. 

Other books about families with wealth and secrets: 

Good Rich People by Eliza Jane Brazier

Speaking of opulent wealth, the title says it all. As one of my personal, most anticipated reads for the upcoming year, Eliza Jane Brazier’s sophomore book Good Rich People takes us into the lives of a wealthy couple living in L.A. and the twisted games they will unleash on the people they invite to stay in the guesthouse of their Hollywood Hills mansion. Lyla and Graham have it all, and yet, they can’t stand the idea of someone else having a self-made success story. Enter Demi, a destitute woman who jumps at the chance to take over another person’s identity and deceives her way into living in their guesthouse. But little does she know what Lyla and Graham are planning, and how far they will go to win at their wicked games. Because after all, doesn’t having a lot of money mean you always come out on top and you’re the winner? But Lyla and Graham may have sorely underestimated the latest player living under their roof and she has a few tricks up her sleeve too. Good Rich People is a wild, witty, suspenseful and wholly original story.

Nanny Dearest by Flora Collins 

With Nanny Needed soon to be published, I am definitely plugging another nanny book. Nanny Dearest is Flora Collins’ debut with her novel already gaining quite the buzz as an intense, psychological thriller. When Sue Keller is in her mid-twenties, her father dies, and she finds herself reconnecting with the nanny who cared for her as a child. Annie looked after Sue and lived with the family in their enormous house upstate. She loved Sue as her own. But while the two women rekindle their bond, Sue begins to ask questions and she discovers several tragedies that may have occurred around the time Annie lived with them. A slick thriller, Nanny Dearest shows the dark side of a family and the nanny who promised to care for everyone in the home.

When She Disappeared by Nicole Mabry and Steph Mullin

Writing duo Nicole Mabry and Steph Mullin are back at it again with another suspenseful read. When She Disappeared focuses on the discovery of a teenage girl’s body, the same girl who disappeared fifteen years earlier, and the lengths one family will go to so their only son doesn’t become the main suspect. When Margo returns to her hometown, she works with a documentary crew to investigate the case about the discovery of her high school best friend’s body. But the Abbott family will use their stature to convince everyone—and anyone—to turn the spotlight away from their son. But as Margo uncovers shocking secrets, it appears the Abbotts aren’t the only ones who didn’t want Jessie’s body to be found. 

A Mother Never Lies by Sarah Clarke (Out now)

In A Mother Never Lies, a young woman had the perfect life: a nice house, a loving husband, and a gorgeous little boy. But in one horrific night, everything she knows to be good and pure is taken away from her. Fourteen years later, she’s finally ready to face the past—and she will take her son back. She will bring him home, even if that means going up against her husband’s wealthy and incredibly powerful family who remain intent on brushing their past traumas beneath the carpet. But this mother is no longer going to take no for an answer.

Nanny Needed by Georgina Cross (HarperCollins)

When Sarah Larsen answers the Bird family's advertisement, her life changes overnight.  The job seems like a dream come true: nannying in a glamorous penthouse apartment with a salary that adds several zeroes to her income. Sarah signs the contract binding her to complete secrecy without a second thought. These are important people, after all - they can't be too careful about who they let into their home. All is well until events in Sarah's life begin to take a sinister turn and the trail leads back to the Birds. She soon realises there's something very strange about the family. But by then, is it too late for her?

Georgina Cross is the bestselling suspense author of The Stepdaughter and the author of The Missing Woman published by Bookouture, as well as Nanny Needed with Bantam, Penguin Random House. Two more books are set for publication in 2022. Georgina is a member of Mystery Writers of America and also the Founder & President of Susie's Wish Inc. which sends patients with life-threatening illnesses to the beach. Married to David, they spend their weekends filled with kids' basketball tournaments, scary movies, and trying new restaurants with their combined family of four sons.

More info on Georgina and her books: Instagram: @georginacrossauthor, Twitter: @gcrossauthor, Facebook: @GeorginaCrossAuthor, and georginacrossauthor.com

Dropping off the radar: The Inspiration behind A Good Mother by Sam Hepburn

 

‘What would you think about me taking a posting in Kenya,’ my husband asked one evening when he got back from work.

Why not? I thought. One of the joys of being a writer is that I can work anywhere, our children - who were at university - would have a great time coming out to see us in the holidays and it would be an adventure. So he accepted the posting and off we went.

Although I had travelled extensively in Africa as a documentary maker I was shocked to see the number of very young children roaming around Nairobi on their own, and when a friend told me about a local charity called Immanuel Afrika which rescued, housed and educated street children I was keen to get involved. The director suggested that I come in a couple of mornings a week to help the children to write their life stories. He thought it would help them to deal with some of the traumas they had been through and encourage them to feel that their lives and experiences had value. 

I started with a session with three little boys, who shuffled in shyly and took their places at the table. Tiny and well behaved they sat very demurely while I explained that I wanted them to tell me their stories and then we would spend some time together thinking about how we might put what they told me down on paper. One by one, in a mixture of English and Swahili translated by an older boy, they told me, without emotion, how they had come to be on the streets. I remember sitting there listening, making notes and trying very hard not cry. All three of them had been abandoned by young, single mothers but, in a country where there is extreme poverty, no welfare system and no mental health care for people in crisis these women were clearly in as much need of help as their children. One seven year old had been locked in a hut by his troubled young mother and left there for three days without food and water. Eventually he dug his way under the mud walls and crawled out. After a few days he joined some other boys who were living in a culvert that was used to carry away the waste from an abattoir. It stank, but the boys chose to stay there because the stench kept even the most determined of human predators at bay. This little boy had been so wary and frightened that when the director of the centre tried to rescue him he had to spend hours trying to coax him out with a cup of porridge. By the end of that morning I knew that I needed to do something practical to help and I ended up spending three days a week and most of my weekends at the centre, trying to help the amazing staff to give the time and affection that all children need in order to thrive. I also saw how hard the charity worked to continue to support the young adults who left their care because the workers knew how vulnerable young people are when they take their first shaky steps into the adult world. 

On my return to the UK I was horrified to discover that many teenage care leavers in this country are left to fend for themselves without basic life skills or support. I read about eighteen-year-olds who were given flats to live in but who ended up homeless because they had no idea about paying bills or managing their money, or whose homes and lives were taken over by gangs involved in ‘County Lines’ drug dealing.

It was this notion of teenagers dropping off the radar after they leave care which formed the basis of the plot of my new thriller A Good Mother. What really happened to eighteen-year-old care leaver Nicola Cahill before she became a mother and turned her life around? What is the terrible secret from her past which haunts her life now that she is married and trying for a baby with her wealthy husband? Why does she refuse to discuss the lost years after she left care, and why does she fob off questions about the identity of her son’s father with a lie about a one night stand with a nameless stranger? 

A Good Mother by Sam Hepburn (Bookouture) Out Now

I see my son’s scooter lying in the undergrowth. Time stands still. Where is he? Deafened by my own heartbeat, I keep looking but I can’t see him. This is all my fault. My punishment for the things I did, and the things I should have done. All I ever wanted was to keep my son safe. I married the perfect husband, built the perfect home. I’ve tried to give Finn the life I never had. Everything was going so well. Until now. It’s just small things at first – a punctured tyre, an open gate that I'm sure I locked. But then I see the photograph of two young girls, and a night I’ve tried to forget. I know I have to stop pretending that nothing is happening. I can’t escape the truth. Someone knows my secret. But what do they want from me?

Sam Hepburn read modern languages at Cambridge University and, after a brief spell in advertising, joined the BBC as a General Trainee. She worked as a documentary maker for twenty years and was one of the commissioners for the launch of BBC Four. Since then, she has written several books, including psychological thrillers Gone Before and Her Perfect Life, and novels for young adults and children. She won the 2017 CWA Margery Allingham Short Story award and has been nominated for several other prestigious prizes, including the CILIP Carnegie Medal for her YA thrillers.

You can find her on Twitter @Sam_Osman_Books and follow her on Facebook.

Darcy Coates. on Three Prolific Serial Killers You’ve Likely Never Heard Of

©Sandra Henri

When we talk about true crime, and especially serial killers, the same names come up again and again. Ted Bundy. Charles Manson. Jack the Ripper. Ivan Milat. With such a heavy emphasis on a small percentage of killers, it’s easy to overlook the many others out there—some who were never caught.

Here are three you have likely never heard of.

The Volga Maniac

Considered one of Russia’s most prolific serial killers with thirty-two confirmed murders between March 2011 and September 2012, The Volga Maniac was captured on CCTV, but has never been caught.

The Volga Maniac targeted elderly women in Kazan (a major city) and nearby districts that clustered around Russia’s Volga river. His victims were between the ages of seventy-five and ninety and lived alone, almost always in low-rent apartments. Based on investigator’s theories and the testimony of one surviving victim, he gained access to the women’s homes by claiming to be from social services, claiming to be hired by the homeowners’ association, or by helping them with their shopping. Once inside he used items from their homes, such as power cables or bathrobe belts, to strangle his victims. 

Based on his appearance in the CCTV footage captured during his final spree and the survivor’s testimony, he was between twenty-five and thirty at the time of the attacks. He likely isn’t Slavic, but from the Tartar or Udmurt populations—both which are common in the region. Police theorise he was raised by his grandmother, who he disliked. As of this year, the investigation is still ongoing.

Jukka Torsten Lindholm 

Lindholm, born 1965, is the only known Finn serial killer. A series of thefts, attacks, and the abduction of a sixteen-year-old girl while he was a teenager saw him spend a year in a youth facility.

Within months of being released, the now twenty-year-old Lindholm murdered his mother, Laina, who he believed betrayed him by leaving him in the facility. Initially, another man was suspected of Laina’s murder, and Lindholm remained free. 

Less than a year later, in 1986, Lindholm lured two twelve-year-old girls to his apartment, offering them money for alcohol. He strangled one. The other managed to escape and alert the police. During interrogation Lindholm also admitted to his mother’s murder. He was convicted of two counts of manslaughter and sentenced to nine years and seven months imprisonment. 

However, he was granted parole just five years later, in 1992. In 1993, he killed again, strangling a woman in her apartment. He was sentenced to another nine and a half years. After his release in 2008, he went on to attempt the murder of three more women, including a cleaner he’d hired. In 2018, while he was being investigated for separate crimes, he murdered a sex worker in an apartment. This time, he received life in prison. 

Lindholm’s story has led many people to criticise the Finnish justice system, which has an emphasis on rehabilitation and one of the lowest global recidivism rates.

Leonarda Cianciulli 

While female serial killers are far less common than their male counterparts, they still exist, and can kill for a wide variety of reasons, as Leonarda Cianciulli proves.

Born in 1893, Cianciulli had an unhappy childhood. She allegedly visited a fortune teller who told her she would find a husband and have children, but that all of her children would die young.

During her twenties she married a clerk and attempted to start a family, but the fortune teller’s words always hung close by. She had seventeen pregnancies. Three ended in miscarriage. Ten children were born, but died. Four survived, and she became excessively protective over them. 

In 1939, Cianciulli’s oldest son and favourite child told her he was planning to enlist in the Italian army and fight in World War II. Cianciulli was horrified. She was also heavily superstitious, and believed she could save her son with human sacrifices.  She was well liked in her small province in southern Italy, and used that to her advantage: luring three of her neighbours into her home under the guise of helping them find husbands or jobs, drugging them with medicated wine, and murdering them with an axe. 

In all three cases, Cianciulli encouraged the women to write postcards to friends and relatives, which she kept and mailed out after they were dead. All three victims were dismembered. Their blood was dried and baked into teacakes, which Cianciulli ate and gave to other neighbours. The final victim, an opera singer who Cianciulli had promised a job in Florence, was boiled and turned into soap, which was likewise passed around to others in the town. 

Cianciulli was arrested after a relative alerted police. She passed away in prison in 1970. Several artifacts, including the pot Cianciulli used to boil her victims, are on display in the Criminological Museum in Rome.

There are four books (so far) in Darcy Coates Black Winter series. The most recent being Silence in the Shadows.  

Silence in the Shadows by Darcy Coates

The stark world continues to change. Each passing day twists it further, pushing the surviving

humans closer to the brink of extinction. But, for the first time, there is hope. Clare and Dorran have set their sights on returning home to Winterbourne Hall. It's a daunting journey, but vital. Humanity needs more refuges—safe areas where food can be grown without attracting the attention of the hollow ones—and the old gothic manor is their best bet. But their home is no longer a sanctuary. It’s become a trap: carefully crafted for them, lying in wait for their return. By the time they realize just how dangerous Winterbourne has become, it’s already too late. The fight for survival is far from over.

More information about the author can be found on her website. You can also follow her Twitter @darcyauthor,

Shooter in The Shadows by David Hewson

©Dingena Mol and Crimezone

I have a firm and fast rule about never putting writers in a story, and certainly not personal experience. I also have a firm and fast rule about not believing in rules when it comes to writing.

So the fact I’ve broken both the first two rules in my latest book, SHOOTER IN THE SHADOWS, is neither here nor there. Readers always ask how books come about so let me be frank about this one.

Back in May 2018 I was in New York at the ceremony for the Audies, the annual Oscars of the audiobook world, amazed to find myself shortlisted for best digital original work of the year, an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, narrated by the wonderful Richard Armitage. To my astonishment we won, and over drinks afterwards I found myself talking to my long-term friend and Audible producer Steve Feldberg, still pinching myself to believe that had all just happened.

Romeo was, like everything I write, finished in an apartment in Venice where I retreat to blast my way through manuscripts, away from phones, computers, people, desperate for the solitary concentration only Venice can provide. When I told Steve about this he said straight away, ‘There’s a story there. What if you locked yourself away… and found you weren’t really on your own. There was somewhere else too – and they had it in for you.’

Interesting idea. Steve wanted it for an Audible original, which came out last December. And now it’s a book – with an author as the central character, something I’ve never attempted before.

Let me say straight out that my Venice is nothing like the Venice my protagonist, Tom Honeyman, finds himself in. I stay in the middle of sedate Dorsoduro, a short walk away from the wondrous Accademia. Tom, a former hack who made a fortune from a true crime book about a double murder in upstate New York, got sold a pig in a poke when he was flush with cash at the Venice Film Festival: a rotting villa on a desolate former leper island way out in the far north of the lagoon.

While I slave away during the day then relax with a spritz of an evening, Tom locks himself in solitary throughout, no phone, no internet, no easy contact with the outside world, in the belief this will let him rediscover the creativity he so desperately needs to revive his career.

One problem: when the water taxi vanishes into the distance he discovers someone else is on the island. A mysterious figure who seems to know everything about him and his past, and comes with a message: the true crime book that made Tom’s fortune was based on a lie. It named the wrong killer. Now Tom has just days to rewrite his story and finger the real one… or he’s the one who’s dead. All of which he must do from his own notes, his memory and the additional material his assailant supplies. 

So he starts writing and soon we’re dodging back and forth between the Venetian lagoon and a small town called Prosper where a teacher and her pupil, lovers it seems, died in a blaze by an out of the way paradise called Mohawk Lake. 

Can Tom rediscover his mojo in time? Does he even know the answers to the questions his murderous captor is throwing his way? Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out. I wanted to write a story that was about the fine line between truth and fiction at times, and how easy it is to cross from one to the other. Tom’s a good writer at heart but as a reporter he was more than happy to bend the facts to suit the story. Now that’s come back to haunt him in the most deadly of ways.

He’s also a writer who, like many, has an almost superstitious believe that his mojo can be unlocked by some kind of magic talisman, like a solitary villa in the Venetian lagoon. After all it worked for Hemingway on Torcello just a few islands away. 

Me? I don’t go for any of that stuff. 

Now… where’s that Campari spritz?

Shooter in the Shadows by David Hewson (Published on 18 July 2020)

Author Tom Honeyman has locked himself away on a tiny, remote island in the Venetian lagoon in the hope of finding the inspiration to save his career. Instead, he has an unwanted intruder, and a threatening deadline. Tom made his money naming the killer in a vicious murder in his home town Prosper in upstate New York. But the individual who’s infiltrated himself onto Tom’s island says he fingered the wrong man. Without access to the outside world, no phone, no internet, no means of escape, Tom must write a new book naming the real villain… or lose his life.

More information about David Hewson and his books can be found on his website. You can also follow him on Twitter @david_hewson.

An introduction trailer to Shooter in The Shadows by David Hewson can be seen below.

Bad Mothers at Heffer's Bookshop Cambridge

An evening with Sarah Vaughan & Lucy Atkins

Thursday 23rd April, 6.30pm

You're invited on a journey into the darker side of motherly love . . .

Motherhood in fiction is often portrayed as tender, blissful perfection but, as every mother knows, there are darker sides too - loss, despair, fear, exhaustion, confusion. Join leading suspense authors Sarah Vaughan (Little Disasters) and Lucy Atkins (Magpie Lane) at Heffers as they discuss why they are drawn to the complicated reality of motherhood, and why this intensity and dysfunction is rich material for any writer.

Tickets are £6 in advance.

More information and how to buy tickets can be found here.

I See Through You by Daisy McNally Extract

I am pleased to host an extract from Daisy McNally's new book I See Through You as part of the I See Through You blog tour.

Edinburgh, January 2017

Nine days in total. Nine days since Christmas Eve, and nine days since you disappeared. The realisation afresh, the fury and the confusion; a simultaneous, constant nine-day exhaustion. This is my merry-go-round. My unravelling. I shake the little glass ornament on my desk. My precious fairy-tale snow globe, apparently filled with nothing more than water and bone fragments. As I put it down, I notice that my hands, still parched dry from the thin, cold air, are shaking slightly. The bottle of red wine is half empty. The thought that I probably need to eat something pricks at a corner of my mind. I remember at the same time that I don’t have any food in the flat and so I pour another glass while I tell myself I will think what to do about that. I don’t think about supper. I think about Johnny, and after a while, turn my computer on. It’s near the window so I sit with my back to the outside world, looking blankly into my world. I used to feel fondly about my flat. But when I came back from the Alps, I saw it through Johnny’s non-seeing eyes and it altered for me. I’d cleaned it and bought flowers and champagne. I waited for him to come. I lay outfits on the bed, tried them all on and wondered if they would do. I rearranged ornaments and books. I threw away the tatty, and the dull; I replaced them with the gleaming and the enticing. The flat watched me wait with Scottish sternness and shaking head and the flowers wilted. On day seven, when I got a message but not from him, I threw the champagne against the wall. And now, having witnessed both my anticipation and my humiliation, the flat mocks me. I wish the dust would materialise again, would resettle on the chest and the drabness re-establish itself. It is, after all, just me again: in my one-room apartment on a busy thoroughfare in Edinburgh, and the eager thought of Johnny just that. One shamed occupant and now, tiny glass shards lodged like slivers of glitter between the wooden floorboards. When the phone rings, my eyes jerk to the screen. But it is Tamsin calling. My fingers spasm in anger. I clench my fist over the warm phone as though to crush it and then answer, jabbing at the speakerphone. ‘Hi.’ ‘Skye. There you are. Happy New Year, finally.’ ‘And you. Happy New Year.’ With my hands free, I can log into Facebook. ‘Sorry we never saw you. Were you busy?’ ‘I was.’ In one sense of the word. ‘Hope you had fun.’ Press search . . . ‘It was brilliant. Best fireworks ever.’ I’m not interested in pyrotechnics. ‘Someone at the door. I’ve got to go.’ ‘Wait, Skye,’ she says, and then falters. ‘What are you doing? Really?’

I hold my breath to control the irritation, thinking, I could tell her what I’m doing. Drinking, and thinking about Johnny. Looking everywhere for him. I could tell her but I don’t want to, I’m busy doing these things. I want her to stop bothering me. ‘Nothing.’ ‘And how’s Nora?’

‘OK, no better really. She doesn’t remember things most of the time.’ ‘Poor Aunt Nora,’ says Tam sympathetically. ‘Yes. I’ve got to go, call you later.’ With one eye on my computer screen, I just end the call. I acknowledge and dismiss my callousness at the same time, and drain my glass. Sometimes – two or three times – I have found him active on Facebook at the same time as me. Or active two minutes ago. Of course, this is nothing other than what it says it is. It doesn’t mean anything, other than he’s still alive and this I know by now anyway. And after the burst of adrenalin, there’s nothing, again. I don’t know why I do it. I haven’t yet actually found anything out that’s helpful, or comforting. I don’t know – only that, like an addict without expectation of joy or enlightenment, I trawl social media constantly. There’s a trickery to this sort of drug, not unlike the target himself: just the suggestion of information and a veneer of plausibility, enough to deceive, and tease me into another effort at cracking through. Tam can wait, and she can hear about my aunt’s dementia another time – because nothing is so important as him, and I can’t get near him any other way. I won’t be interrupted. Knowing the worthless and invidious nature of the addiction doesn’t stop me doing it. He’s not really there, even when the screen tells me otherwise – and I am led up various dead-ends in my frustrated search for him until well past midnight and well into the dregs of the Rioja.

I See Through You by Daisy McNally published by Orion Publishing

It started with a lie . . .  Skye has finally met someone she can trust. A holiday romance, of all things. But you know when something real comes along, when it's meant to be. Don't you? A week after returning home, and Johnny has disappeared. He hasn't called or returned her messages.  Then, with the easiest of lies, Skye finds a way back in to Johnny's life - and to the people in it. When she makes an unlikely friend, they realise that Johnny is telling lies of his own. So will the two women find a way to bring him down - or each other?  It ended with the truth.