The past will always find you. A woman is found brutally murdered in a
sordid Atlanta apartment. Her
blood-soaked body bears a startling similarity to a woman found dead almost 40
years earlier. Soon Special Agent Will
Trent finds himself returning to the home he grew up in. And a past that could hold the clue to the
killings. Criminal is the latest book in the Georgia Series by Karin Slaughter and is due to be
published in July 2012.
Bones are Forever
is by Kathy Reichs and is due to be
published in August 2012. A newborn baby is found wedged in a vanity cabinet in
a rundown apartment near Montreal. Dr
Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist to the province of Quebec, is
brought in to investigate. While there, she discovers the mummified remains of
two more babies within the same room. Shocked
and distressed, Tempe must use all her skills and inner strength to focus on
the facts. But when the autopsies reveal that the children died of unnatural
causes, the hunt for the mother - a young woman with a seedy past and at least
three aliases - is on. The trail leads Tempe to Yellowknife, a cold, desolate
diamond-mining town on the edge of the Arctic Circle, where her quest for the
truth only throws up more questions, more secrets, and more dead bodies. Taking risks and working alone, Tempe refuses
to give up until she has discovered why the babies died. But in such a hostile
environment, can she avoid being the next victim?
Francis Ackerman is back!
The terrifying serial killer has kept a low profile for the past year.
Now he is ready to return to work – still as brutal, but more cunning,
calculated and dangerous as ever. Marcus
Williams cannot shake Ackerman from his mind.
But now fully integrated into The Shepherd Organisation, Marcus has to
focus on catching a new serial killer. ‘The
Anarchist’, who drugs and kidnaps young women before savagely disposing of them. Marcus and his colleagues face a race against
time: the Anarchist will strike again soon.
And Ackerman is still free. Even
worse than this is a mysterious figure, unknown to the authorities, who
controls the actions of the Anarchist and many like him. He is: The Prophet. The
Prophet is by Ethan Cross and is
due to be published in October 2012.
Guilty Wives is by
James Patterson and David Ellis and is due to be published in
July 2012. Only minutes after Abbie
Elliot and her three best friends step off of a private helicopter, they enter
the most luxurious, sumptuous, sensually pampering hotel they have ever been to. Their lavish presidential suite overlooks
Monte Carlo, and they surrender to the sun and pool, to the sashimi and sake,
to the Bruno Paillard champagne. For
four days, they're free to live someone else's life. As the weekend moves into pulsating nightclubs,
high-stakes casinos, and beyond, Abbie is transported to the greatest pleasure
and release she has ever known. In the
morning's harsh light, Abbie awakens on a yacht, surrounded by police. Something awful has happened - something
impossible, unthinkable. Abbie, Winnie,
Serena, and Bryah are arrested and accused of the foulest crime imaginable. And now the vacation of a lifetime becomes
the fight of a lifetime - a fight for survival.
"Guilty Wives" is
the ultimate indulgence, the kind of non-stop joy ride of excess, friendship,
betrayal, and danger. Also being published in August 2012 by James Patterson is
Maximum Ride: Nevermore the final
book in the Maximum Ride Series. In the beginning, there was maximum ride...A
girl. A fighter. A leader.
A superhuman with a mission to save the world. She's gone to the ends of the earth seeking
her destiny. And now, the end isn't
near...It's here.
When ten-year-old Rainey Teague disappears on his way home
from school in idyllic Niceville, Detective Nick Kavanaugh traces the boy to
his last sighting - staring into the window of old pawn shop in town. CCTV shows Rainey there one minute and then
gone the next. In the days that follow,
any hope Rainey's family has of finding him alive starts to fade but then
Rainey is found - alive but in a coma, and there's no telling when, or if,
he'll ever wake up...One year on, Kavanagh is still haunted by the case. And now another member of the town - this
time an elderly woman - has been reported missing. It's as though she vanished into thin air. Once again, Kavanagh's on the case and, as he
starts to dig back through the town's history, he can't help but notice that
Niceville has a much higher than average number of stranger abductions... Niceville is by Carsten Stroud and is due to be
published in August 2012.
The Case of the Deadly
Butter Chicken is by Tarquin Hall
and is due to be published in July 2012.
Vish Puri is as fond of butter chicken as the next Punjabi. And when there's plenty on offer at the Delhi
Durbar hotel where he's attending an India Premier League cricket match dinner,
he's the first to tuck in. Irfan Khan,
father of Pakistani star cricketer Kamran Khan, can't resist either. But the creamy dish proves his undoing. After a few mouthfuls, he collapses on the
floor, dead. Clearly, this isn't a case
of Delhi Belly. But who amongst the
Bollywood stars, politicians, bureaucrats and industrialists poisoned Khan is a
mystery. And with the capital's police
chief proving as incompetent as ever, it falls to Most Private Investigators to
find out the truth. Puri is soon able to
link Khan to a bald bookie called Full Moon and all the clues point to the
involvement of a gambling syndicate that controls the illegal X billion dollars
betting industry. The answers seem to
lie in Surat, the diamond cutting and polishing capital of the world (where
Puri's chief undercover operative Tubelight meets his match) and across the
border in Pakistan, Puri's nemesis, the one country where he has sworn never to
set foot. Or do they? A certain
determined, grey-haired lady with a unique insight into the murder believes
that the portly detective is barking up 'a wrong tree'. Is Mummy-ji right? Is
there more to the murder than meets the eye? And why, to make life even more
complicated for Vish Puri, has someone tried to steal the longest moustache in
the world - from right under the nose of its owner? Literally.
Free Alex Cross is
by James Patterson and is due to be published in October 2012. Detective Alex Cross arrests renowned plastic
surgeon Elijah Creem for sleeping with teenage girls. Now, his life ruined, Creem is out of jail,
and he's made sure that no one will recognize him - by giving himself a new
face. A young woman is found hanging
from a sixth-floor window, and Alex is called to the scene. The victim recently gave birth, but the baby
is nowhere to be found. Before Alex can
begin searching for the missing newborn and killer, he's called to investigate
a second crime. All of Washington DC is
in a panic, and when a third body is discovered, rumours of three serial
killers send the city into an all-out frenzy.
Alex's investigations are going nowhere, and he's too focused on the
cases to notice that someone has been watching him - and will stop at nothing
until he's dead. With white-hot speed,
relentless drama, and hairpin turns, Free
Alex Cross is an ultimate thrill ride.
The other Alex Cross book due to be published in November 2012 is Merry Christmas Alex Cross. It’s Christmas Eve in Washington DC,
Detective Alex Cross is at home with her family decorating the tree and
enjoying a Cross family tradition, a big bowl of egg nog, when he receives a
phone call that causes the festivities to be put on hold. Across town in a mansion house, Henry Fowler,
a hard-nosed corporate lawyer turned small-time drug hustler, is holding his
children, his ex-wife, her new husband and a neighbour at gun point. High on crystal meth and heavily armed,
Fowler is refusing to speak with the negotiator. As an expert in hostage situations, Alex has
been called in to try and save a potential massacre. But with Fowler crazed and irrational, will
Alex be able to save the lives of these hostages, as well as coming out alive
himself? At the same time, international
terrorist Hala al Dossari has been planning a devastating attack to strike at
the heart of the Western world on the most important day of the year –
Christmas Day!
An F-18 Navy fighter careens out of the blue sky above the
Mojave desert. A TV cameraman, who grew up in a small town just miles away, can
see what is going to happen next. Frantically, Wes Stewart races to the downed
jet and tries to save the pilot's life. When the plane explodes, Wes escapes
without harm - and plunges into a murderous conspiracy. It's been fifteen years
since Wes has been back to the desolate landscape of his childhood. Now, he
finds himself up against the US military, the local police and someone who is
tracking his every move. In the moments he spent with the dying pilot, Wes
discovered something that could get him killed. But while he tries to untangle
a web of lies and secrets surrounding the crash, another danger is stalking
him. And this one he will never see coming.
No Return is by Brett Battles and is due to be published
in August 2012.
On a freezing October morning, Detective Inspector Frank
Keane is called to the scene of a crime on Liverpool's shoreline. The body of
what looks like a man, brutally tortured and burned, has been tied to a pole on
the beach. With very little evidence to go on, Keane and his partner, DS Emily Harris,
rely on their gut feeling that this murder is gang-related and their
investigation takes them, once again, into the murky underworld of organised
crime. Over in Australia, ex-Liverpool Police detective Menno Koopman - Frank's
former boss - is enjoying his retirement. He has no plans to ever return to
England but when the body on the beach turns out to be his son, Stevie - whom
he only ever met once as a baby - he knows he has to go back and seek justice
for his horrific murder. But there's a fine line between justice and revenge. A Dark
Place to Die is the debut crime novel by Ed Chatterton and is due to be
published in September 2012.
The Saint Zita Society
is by Ruth Rendell and is due to be published in July 2012. 'Someone had told Dex that the Queen lived in
Victoria. So did he, but she had a
palace and he had one room in a street off Warwick Way. Still he liked the idea that she was his
neighbour'. Dex works as a gardener for
Dr Jefferson at his home on Hexam Place in Pimlico: an exclusive street of
white-painted stucco Georgian houses inhabited by the rich, and serviced by the
not so rich. The hired help, a motley
assortment of au pairs, drivers and cleaners, decide to form the St Zita
Society (Zita was the patron saint of domestic servants) as an excuse to meet
at the local pub and air their grievances.
When Dex is invited to attend one of these meetings, the others find
that he is a strange man, seemingly ill at ease with human beings. These first impressions are compounded when
they discover he has recently been released from a hospital for the criminally
insane, where he was incarcerated for attempting to kill his own mother. Dex's most meaningful relationship seems to
be with his mobile phone service provider, Peach, and he interprets the text notifications
and messages he receives from the company as a reassuring sign that there is
some kind of god who will protect him. And
give him instructions about ridding the world of evil spirits...Accidental
death and pathological madness cohabit above and below stairs in Hexam Place.
The life of a young police officer is hard enough, yet
Samantha Ryan is not only a member of the Boston PD but also a now defunct
coven based in Salem. So when two
students are murdered in quick succession, pentagons smeared onto their
foreheads, it becomes clear that Sam must delve into her terrifying past and go
undercover to solve these occult-soaked crimes.
Through her head screams no, she must embrace her long forgotten magical
powers in order to save the society who have rejected her. But against such a powerful and sadistic
coven in such a weakened state she will be lucky to make it out alive. The 13th
Sacrifice is the first in the Witch Hunt Trilogy by Debbie Viguié and is due to be
published in October 2012.
Spartacus Rebellion:
is by Ben Kane and is due to be published
in August 2012. The mighty slave army, led by Spartacus, has
carried all before it, scattering the legions of Rome. Three praetors, two
consuls and one proconsul have been defeated. Spartacus seems invincible as he
marches towards the Alps and freedom. But storm clouds are massing on the
horizon. Crixus the Gaul defects, taking all his men with him. Crassus, the
richest man in Rome, begins to raise a formidable army, tasked specifically
with the defeat of Spartacus. And within the slave army itself, there are
murmurings of dissent and rebellion. "Spartacus", on the brink of
glory, must make a crucial decision - to go forward over the Alps to freedom,
or back to face the might of Rome and try to break its stranglehold on power
forever
Capital Crimes
"tells the shifting story of crime and punishment in London through vivid
recreations of a series of murders that stretch from the killing of the Lord
Chancellor Roger Lyett during the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 through to the
hanging of Syllou Christofi in 1953. Some of the murderers, such as the
psychopath Neville Heath, are still remembered. Others, including the
eighteenth-century throat-cutter Gerard Dromelius, are largely forgotten. But
all their lives and fates have much to tell us -- about London's changing
underworld, about the slow evolution of policing in the capital, and about the
strange workings of the law (Elizabeth Lillyman, for example, who murdered her
husband in 1675, was found guilty of 'petty treason'). Above all, they provide
a fascinatingly sidewise view of London itself over the centuries -- from the
crime-ridden alleyways of the Georgian capital to the supposedly respectable
suburbs of Finchley, where the notorious 'baby-farmers' Amelia Sach and Annie Walters
operated at the beginning of the twentieth century. Illustrated throughout
with contemporary engravings and photographs, this is an essential read for all
devotees of London -- and of crime. Capital Crimes is by Max Décharné and is
due to be published in September 2012.
Donnie Miller counts himself lucky. Living in a beautiful,
spacious house in the wild and remote landscape of central Canada, he spends
his days writing for the local newspaper, working on a film script, and acting
as house-husband. After a troubled and impoverished upbringing in Scotland, he
now has all he wants: a caring wife, a bright and happy son, a generous
father-in-law. As the brutal northern winter begins to bite, he can sit back
and enjoy life. But his peace is soon to be broken. There are noises in
the nearby woods, signs of some mysterious watcher. When the family dog
disappears, Donnie makes a horrifying discovery. Is it wolves, as the police
suspect, or something far more dangerous, far darker? What secrets has Donnie
been keeping? And why does he have the terrible sense that his dream was never
going to last? A taut, shocking
and visceral thriller that will leave you gasping for breath, "Cold Hands" is the first in an
exciting new series by John J. Niven and is due to be published in August 2012.
The Kings of Cool
is the much awaited prequel to the bestseller Savages. In Savages, Don Winslow introduced Ben and Chon,
twenty-something best friends who risk everything to save the girl they both
love, O. Now in the high octane prequel,
Winslow reaches back in time to tell the story of how Ben, Chon and O became
the people they are. Spanning fifty
years, from 19602 Southern California to the recent past, it is a tale of
family in all its forms – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, friends and
lovers. As the younger generation does
battle with a cabal of drug dealers and crooked cops, they come to learn that their
future is inextricably linked with their parents’ history. A series of breakneck twists and turns puts
the two generations on a collision course, culminating in a stunning showdown
that will ultimately force Ben, Chon and O to choose between their real
families, and their love for each other. The
Kings of Cool is due to be published in August 2012.
The Splintered Kingdom
is by James Aitcheson and is due
to be published in September 2012. The story begins on the Welsh Marches, where
Tancred has been given land by his new lord, Robert Malet, in return for his
services in the battle for York. Now a lord in his own right, he has knights of
his own to command and a manor to call home. But all is far from peaceful. The
Welsh are joining forces with the English against the Normans and when
skirmishes turn into a full scale battle at Shrewsbury, Tancred is betrayed by a
rival border lord and taken prisoner by the Welsh. Meanwhile the woman he loves
is taken hostage by enemy English forces and the Vikings invade the east coast.
Never has Tancred faced a more impossible situation.
When journalist Mark Bretton is asked to write an article on
Professor Abigail Marchant, who has been denounced by the American Psychology
Association for her belief that rebirth is a genuine phenomenon, he’s more than
a little sceptical about the assignment.
An ambitious journalist, Mark would much rather be writing about current affairs but, once he meets the
beautiful Professor and hears her theories, he can’t help but be won over. Eventually persuaded to undergo regressive
hypnosis himself, Mark is shocked and horrified by what he sees. He is returned to the early 60s when he
worked for the Kennedy administration and not only does he learn the truth
about the conspiracy that led to JFK’s assassination but also his own
murder. Struggling to make sense of it
all, Mark turns to Abi for help but someone is watching Mark’s every move and
will stop at nothing to ensure that the truth about JFK’s murder never comes to
light…. The Kennedy Conspiracy is by Michael White and is due to be
published in October 2012
Confessions
of a Murder Suspect is by James Patterson and is due to be
published in September 2012. On the
night Malcolm and Maud Angel are murdered, their daughter, Tandy, knows just
three things: she was one of the last people to see her parents alive. She and
her brothers are the only suspects. She can't trust anyone - maybe not even
herself. Having grown up under their parents' intense perfectionist demands,
none of the Angel children have come away undamaged. Tandy decides that she
will have to solve the crime on her own, but digging deeper into her powerful
parents' affairs is a dangerous game. As she uncovers haunting secrets and
slowly begins to remember flashes of disturbing past events buried in her
memory, Tandy is forced to ask: What is the Angel family truly capable of?
Returning to the genre that made him the world's bestselling author, James
Patterson introduces a teen detective on a mission to bring her parents' killer
to justice, even if it means uncovering her family's darkest secrets - and confessing some
of her own.
