Forthcoming books From Bitter Lemon Press

January 2025 

Runaway Horses is by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini. Siena, one of Italy's most beautiful cities, visited by all discerning travellers to Tuscany, is feverishly preparing for the Palio, a horse race dating back to the Middle Ages held every summer in the centre of the town. Milanese lawyer Enzo Maggione and his wife Valeria are unwittingly caught up in the maelstrom of plots, counterplots and bribes surrounding the race. They are even witnesses to the violent death of Puddu, the Palio's most celebrated jockey, found dead the day before the race. A murder mystery, a hilarious portrait of a fading marriage and a decadent society, and a history of the Palio all rolled up into one brilliant novel. What begins as a listless excursion to a medieval equestrian competition turns into a hallucinatory nightmare for Maggione and his wife, awakening their dormant libido for each other but, more dangerously, for others in their entourage. The death of the jockey is only one of the mysterious goings-on to be solved. It soon becomes clear that there are no bystanders in the Palio.

February 2025

The Best Enemy is by Sergio Olguin. A new investigation by Verónica Rosenthal, the audacious Buenos Aires journalist. Andrés Goicochea, a former director of the magazine where she works, and his ex-partner have been executed in cold blood. Her boss, Patricia, is in the hospital with a bullet in her lung. The authorities are trying to pass the murders off as a burglary gone wrong. Veronica has her doubts. The magazine’s investigation of a high-level corruption scandal seems more likely to have triggered the violence. A scandal perhaps influential Argentine businessmen perhaps involved with an Israeli linked to atrocities committed in Gaza years ago.

March 2025

Hunkeler, now a retired inspector of the Basel police force, is hospitalized and sharing a room with Stephan Fankhauser, an old acquaintance terminally ill with cancer. One night, a groggy Hunkeler wakes up to see a young nurse administering an injection to his friend. The following day Fankhauser is found dead. There was no autopsy, and Fankhauser was quickly cremated. Hunkeler resolves to get to the bottom of the matter. His maverick investigation will threaten Switzerland's carefully honed reputation of neutrality during WWII. Hunkeler's Secret is by Hansjorg Schneider.

May 2025

The story begins in 1989 on the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia. The investigation into a young woman’s disappearance falters as Yugoslavia plunges into a fratricidal war. Another three decades will pass before the truth is revealed. Inspector Gorki Šain, haunted by his failure to unravel the case the first time, returns to solve the crime in 2017. We are barely two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, only “an instant” before the shift from one world to another, the shift toward tragedy for a country ultimately forged by war. Red Water is by Jurica Pavičić.

Forthcoming books from Little Brown Publishers

 January

Detective Galileo, returns in a case where hidden history, and impossible crime, are linked by nearly invisible threads in surprising ways. The body of a young man is found floating in Tokyo Bay. But his death was no accident-Ryota Uetsuji was shot. He'd been reported missing the week before by his live-in girlfriend Sonoka Shimauchi, but when detectives from the Homicide Squad go to interview her, she is nowhere to be found. She's taken time off from work, clothes and effects are missing from the apartment she shared. And when the detectives learn that she was the victim of domestic abuse, they presume that she was the killer. But her alibi is airtight-she was hours away in Kyoto when Ryota disappeared, forcing Detectives Kusanagi and Utsumi to restart their investigation. But if Sonoko didn't kill her abusive lover, then who did? A thin thread of association leads them to their old consultant, brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa, known in the department as "Detective Galileo." With Sonoko still missing, the detectives investigate other threads of association-an eccentric artist, who was Sonoko's mother figure after her own single mother passed; and an older woman who is the owner of a hostess club. And how is Sonoko continuing to stay one step ahead of the police searching for her? It's up to Galileo to find the nearly hidden threads of history and coincidence that connect the people around the bloody murder- which, surprisingly, connect to his own traumatic past-to unravel not merely the facts of the crime but the helix that ties them all together. Invisible Helix is by Keigo Higashino.

The Bone Fire is by Martina Murphy. A fatal fire in a holiday let on Slievemore, Achill Island, leaves one person dead and another missing. Deemed arson, DS Lucy Golden and her team are tasked with solving the murder and locating the missing woman, Moira Delaney. As the case develops, the pressure builds when it transpires that Moira's father is a gangland figure, a suspect in three unsolved murders. If Lucy doesn't uncover what happened that morning in Slievemore, he will deploy his men to deal out his own sort of justice. Things get even more complicated when a laptop is uncovered that could ruin all that Lucy holds dear. And as the net on the suspect tightens, Lucy faces a hard choice - will she use it to save herself and bring a murderer to justice, or bury it and save her family and her career?

Dead men sometimes do tell tales. When the death of an old friend calls him back to Northern Ireland, Connor Fraser sees it as a way to distract himself from his growing troubles at home in Stirling. He's estranged from his partner, Jen, and can't seem to find a way to bridge the growing gap between them. Meanwhile, his beloved grandmother's health is deteriorating, while all Connor can do is watch on helplessly. But, after spotting three familiar faces at the funeral, faces with ties to Northern Ireland's bloody past, Connor quickly learns that there's a lot more to the death of his old friend than just a random traffic accident. But before he can properly investigate, he's lured into a trap and attacked. Pursued by ruthless professionals who don't care if they bring Connor to their powerful masters alive or dead, he must go off grid and on the run. As he tries to untangle the web of deceit and lies that has ensnared him, Connor is faced with choices and losses that threaten to break him. With his back to the wall, can he unravel a mystery from the past that could shatter the peace of the future, before it's too late? Exit Wounds is by Neil Broadfoot. 

February

With his lover imprisoned in a Russian gulag, the Gray Man will stop at nothing to free her in. A winter sunrise over the great plains of Russia is no cause for celebration. The temperature barely rises above zero, and the guards at Penal Colony IK22 are determined to take their misery out on the prisoners - chief among them, one Zoya Zakharova. Once a master spy for Russian foreign intelligence, then the partner and lover of the Gray Man, Zakharova has information the Kremlin wants, and they don't care what they have to do to get it. But if they think a thousand miles of frozen wasteland and the combined power of the Russian police state is enough to protect them, they don't know the Gray Man. He's coming, and no one's safe. Midnight Black is by Mark Greaney.

Hamish Macbeth:Death of a Smuggler is by M C Beaton with R W Green. All Hamish Macbeth ever really wants is a quiet life in the peaceful surroundings of his home in the Highland village of Lochdubh. Unfortunately for him, the time he would normally find most relaxing, after the tourists have gone and before the winter sets in, turns out to be far from peaceful. The new love in his life, Claire, is keen for them to take a holiday and Hamish is mulling over the idea when his newly-assigned constable arrives, presenting Hamish with both a surprise and a secret. Getting to the bottom of the secret becomes the least of Hamish's problems when, at the opening of the revamped village pub, he meets a family who have a score to settle with a sinister man who has mysteriously gone missing. Discovering a murdered woman's body puts further pressure on Hamish, especially when it becomes clear that the murdered woman and the missing man were linked, although their true identities become yet another mystery.  To Hamish's horror, he then finds himself working on the murder case with the despicable Detective Chief Inspector Blair, his sworn enemy, who has been drafted in under curious circumstances. With a growing list of suspects, ever more bewildering circumstances and Blair hindering him at every turn, Hamish must find the murderer before anyone else falls victim. 

Lt. Eve Dallas is back with a murder case with its roots in loyalty, treachery, espionage and the long shadow of war... gHis passport reads Giovanni Rossi, retired businessman. But decades ago, during the Urban Wars, he was part of a small, secret organization called The Twelve. Responding to an urgent summons from an old compatriot, he returns to New York. To his death... Bonded in Death is by J D Robb

March

The Mouthless Dead is by Anthony Quinn. A powerful and gripping crime novel based on the Wallace Murder, a national cause célèbre of the 1930s and still unsolved today. One night in 1931 William Wallace was handed a phone message at his chess club from a Mr Qualtrough, asking him to meet at an address to discuss some work. Wallace caught a tram from the home he shared with his wife, Julia, to the address which turned out, after Wallace had consulted passers-by and even a policeman, to not exist. On returning home two hours later he found his wife beaten to death in the parlour. The elaborate nature of his alibi pointed to Wallace as the culprit. He was arrested and tried, found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang, but the next month the Court of Criminal Appeal sensationally overturned the verdict and he walked free. The killer was never found. Fifteen years on, the inspector who worked the case is considering it once more. Speculation continues to be rife over the true killer's identity. James Agate in his diary called it 'the perfect murder', Raymond Chandler said 'The case is unbeatable. It will always be unbeatable'. And on a cruise in 1947, new information is about to come to light.

Lazarus Man is by Richard Price. In Lazarus Man, Richard Price, one of the greatest

chroniclers of life in urban America, creates intertwining portraits of a group of compelling and singular characters whose lives are permanently impacted by the disaster. East Harlem, 2008. In an instant, a five-story tenement collapses into a fuming hill of rubble, pancaking the cars parked in front and coating the street with a thick layer of ash. As the city's rescue services and media outlets respond, the surrounding neighborhood descends into chaos. At day's end, six bodies are recovered, but many of the other tenants are missing.  Anthony Carter--whose miraculous survival, after being buried for days beneath tons of brick and stone, transforms him into a man with a message and a passionate sense of mission.  Felix Pearl--a young transplant to the city, whose photography and film work that day provokes in this previously unformed soul a sharp sense of personal destiny.  Royal Davis--owner of a failing Harlem funeral home, whose desperate trolling of the scene for potential "customers" triggers a quest to find another path in life.  And Mary Roe--a veteran city detective who, driven in part by her own family's brutal history, becomes obsessed with finding Christopher Diaz, one of the building's missing.

Acts of Malice is by Alex Gray. DSI William Lorimer first meets Meredith St Claire when he is giving a careers talk at his goddaughter's school. The popular and glamorous drama teacher is distraught, begging him to investigate her fiancé's recent disappearance, but with a report already made to the relevant authorities, there's nothing more Lorimer can do.  But then a body is discovered on the outskirts of Glasgow. Guy Richmond was a wealthy and charismatic actor, adored by everyone. Or so it first seems. But as Lorimer and his team are drawn deeper into the peculiar world of professional theatre, they find themselves caught in a web of confidences and rivalry, thwarted dreams and ruthless ambition. For it seems the finest actors of all are those with the darkest secrets to hide.

Even on the most desirable street, there's a dark side . . .The Hill is the kind of place everyone wants to live: luxurious, exclusive and safe. But now someone is breaking and entering these Cheshire homes one by one, and DS Leo Brady suspects the burglar is looking for something, or someone, in particular. Over the border in Wales, DC Ffion Morgan recovers the body of an estate agent from the lake. There's no love lost between Ffion and estate agents, but who hated this one enough to want her dead - and why? As their cases collide, Ffion and Leo discover people will pay a high price to keep their secrets behind closed doors . . . Other People's Houses is by Clare Mackintosh.

Death on the Adriatic is by Georgina Stewart. In the picturesque Slovenian seaside resort of Koper, on the Adriatic shore, a body is found in a lonely, rocky spot on a coastal path. When it is identified as that of a police inspector, Ivan Furlan, his brother is arrested without further investigation, since it is well known that the brothers had fallen out over inherited property. Then a whistle-blower sends an anonymous message to headquarters in the capital, Ljubljana, asking for urgent assistance to prevent a miscarriage of justice, and Petra Vidmar, the youngest serving female police inspector in the Slovenian police, is despatched to sort things out.

April 2025

The Margaret Code is by Richard Hooton. 89-year-old Margaret has lived on Garnon Crescent all her life, except for those few years she never talks about. She knows all the neighbours; their hopes, their heartbreaks.  Only recently, Margaret's memory isn't what it used to be. She is sure Barbara, her best friend and neighbour, told her something important. Something she was supposed to remember.  When Barbara is found dead, Margaret determines to recover her missing memory. She and her grandson James begin to investigate, but soon strange incidents occur in her home. Margaret's daughter thinks her memory is getting worse, but Margaret knows somebody wants her out of the way. Because Margaret holds the key to solving this crime. If only she could remember where she put it.

Secrets only survive in the dark. When journalist Ben Harper is asked to help re-examine an unsolved murder case from thirty years ago, he immediately agrees. It's not just that the victim was also a journalist, murdered after she'd published a series of shocking interviews with victims of domestic abuse. It's also that he understands all too well the need of victim's daughter, Doctor Uma Jha, for answers. But it's not long before their investigation leads to threats being made on Uma's life. Ben needs to unravel this crime before it's too late, but instead he finds himself tangled in a web of lies and deception. After all, a crime like murder has implications for many people. People who have been keeping secrets for thirty years, and will do whatever it takes to protect them. Nine Hidden Lives is by Robert Gold.

Major Bricket and Circus Corpse is by Simon Brett. Introducing a new but not-so-amateur sleuth from another peaceful English village with an alarmingly high death rate! Meet Major Bricket, an infrequent resident of Highfield House in Stunston Peveril, Suffolk. In the past the Major's work assignments, frequently in foreign countries, have prevented him from spending much time there and a result, there is an air of mystery around him while everyone in the village speculates on the nature of his occupation. But now the Major has retired and has come home for good in his open-topped little red sports car... and what a homecoming it is, for lying spreadeagled on his lawn in the summer sunshine is the corpse of a clown. Coincidence that the circus has come to Stunston Peveril for the annual four-day village fair? Yet none of their quota of clowns is missing - or at least, nobody is saying. Or is the body that of an unfortunate early guest at the village's highlight of the social calendar, the Fincham Abbey Costume Ball? Fortunately Major Bricket's past clandestine career means that he is now very well placed to solve the mystery of the dead clown on his camomile lawn...

The Dead City is by Michael Russell. In this dead city, the vultures are circling... Berlin 1944. The beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. And the beginning of a dark journey for Garda detective Stefan Gillespie as he makes his way through war-ravaged Europe to the German capital. He carries secret instructions for the Irish ambassador, who is clinging on in the growing chaos - even though it's time to get out. Bombs fall and bodies fill the streets. People starve. The true horrors of Nazi terror are everywhere now... and the Russians are coming. As Stefan searches for an Irishman trapped in Berlin who has betrayed his country and his friends, who cares if people are murdered along the way? And Stefan has to ask himself if saving one life matters in this devastation. And if it does, is it worth him risking his own?

May 2025

Pam, Nancy and Shalisa once imagined retirement would mean setting aside their worries, picking up their margaritas, and lying back in a hot tub. Right up until their husbands lost their life savings in a reckless investment. Now, with the men on their last nerve, the life insurance policies are starting to sound more appealing than growing old together. But enlisting the help of the local barber/hitman isn't just the most daring thing Pam, Nancy and Shalisa have done in years - it's also where the trouble really begins. Because the friends don't realise their husbands have a plan of their own. And there's no turning back now . . . From the first laugh to the final twist, The Retirement Plan is full of characters who will steal your heart while plotting their dark deeds. The Retirement Plan is by Sue Hincenbergs.

The One You Least Suspect is by Brian McGilloway. Katie lives a quiet life. She likes her small Derry neighbourhood. She likes her job as a barmaid at O'Reillys. And she loves her daughter, Hope. But everything changes when she is approached by two detectives. They want Katie to tell them the things she hears at work. To become their informant. In this city, Katie knows the dangers of talking to the police. Yet with Hope's safety at risk should she refuse, she is trapped between two impossible choices. Crossing the O'Reilly brothers could cost her everything. Her only chance of survival is if she can remain the one that they least suspect . . . A gripping, heart-wrenching thriller that explores the fine line between right and wrong, justice and revenge, and how you choose your side when everyone is guilty . . .

Hidden Nature by Nora Roberts is a new novel about an injured cop fighting to bring down a pair of twisted killers. When a woman mysteriously vanishes, leaving her car behind in a supermarket parking lot, injured police officer, Sloan Cooper, determines to keep herself busy looking for any similar cases. She finds them, spread across three states. Men and women, old and young―the missing seem to have nothing in common. But the abductions keep on coming. It will take every ounce of Sloan's endurance to get to the dark heart of this bizarre case―and she's willing to risk her life again if that's what it takes...

June 2025

Death of a Diplomat is by Eliza Reid A remote Icelandic island. A diplomatic dinner party. And a murderer in the midst. The stakes at dinner couldn't be higher. The Canadian embassy are visiting a remote Icelandic island and the great and the good have gathered to welcome them. But beneath the glamour, tensions are bubbling. When the deputy Canadian ambassador is poisoned at dinner, suspicion falls on everyone present, but particularly on the ambassador himself. Jane, the ambassador's wife, knows that she has to solve the murder if she is to save her husband and her marriage. But Jane knows better than anyone that, when it comes to protecting scandalous secrets, there are no lengths to which people won't go.  So soon the question becomes: can she track down the killer before they strike again?

What the Night Knows is by Mark Billingham. "Three dead coppers, Tom, maybe four by lunchtime." The targeted murder of four officers is only the first in a series of attacks that leaves police scared, angry and, most disturbingly of all, vengeful. As Tom Thorne and Nicola Tanner dig into the reasons for the violence, a deeper darkness begins to emerge: the possibility that these murders are payback. The price paid for an unspeakable betrayal. To uncover the truth, Thorne will be forced to question everything he stands for. He can trust nobody, and the shocking secrets revealed by one terrible night will fracture his entire world.

Four strangers on a train. An unlikely introduction: 'Actually I'm a Murderer.'Set in the north-east of England in the seventies, the lives of an actor, tech pioneer and political advisor are thrown into turmoil when sharing a carriage with an unremarkable little man with round glasses, on the night train back to Newcastle. By the end of the following day, one of them will be dead, one will turn blackmailer and another forced to commit a crime. And all of them will be under the astute and watchful observation of Aline, the local police officer with her own agenda to fulfil... And then the body count begins to rise which begs the question - just how many actual murderers are out there... and who will be the next victim? Actually I'm a Murderer is by Terry Deary.

Closer Than She Thinks is by Zoe Lea. Louise never thought she'd be the sort of woman to have an affair. She's a good wife, a good mother and a good daughter - even if she is far from happy. But everything changes when Louise crosses paths with Oscar, a man fifteen years her junior. She knows what they're doing is wrong, but she just can't stop... When odd messages begin to arrive, it seems clear that someone has been watching Louise, and that they know her secret. They don't just want Louise to stop her affair with Oscar though - they want much more. And they will stop at nothing to get it.

As the daughter of a London crime boss, PC Philomena McCarthy walks a thin blue line keeping the two sides of her complicated life apart. On patrol one night she discovers a child in pyjamas, wandering alone. Taking Daisy home, Phil uncovers the aftermath of a deadly home invasion, as three miles away a prominent jeweller is found strapped to an explosive in his ransacked store. The crimes are linked, and all the evidence points to Phil's father as the mastermind. Phil's two worlds are colliding, trapping her in the middle of a vicious gang war that will threaten her career and everyone she loves. Who can she trust - the badge or her own blood? The White Crow is by Michael Robotham.

Also to be published in June is The Third Light by M W Craven.

The Crime Fiction Lover Awards 2024: The Winners

 

Crime Fiction Lover have announced the winners of their 2024 awards. Congratulations to all the winners.

Book of the Year Winner: 

Midnight and Blue by Ian Rankin

Book of the Year Editor’s Choice: 

Guide Me Home by Attica Locke

Best Debut Winner: 

The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey

Best Debut Editor’s Choice: 

Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney

Best in Translation Winner: 

Death at the Sanatorium by Ragnar Jónasson, translated by Victoria Cribb

Best in Translation Editor’s Choice: 

The Night of Baba Yaga by Akira Otani, translated by Sam Bett

Best Indie Winner: 

A Killer of Influence by JD Kirk

Best Indie Editor’s Choice: 

The Corpse with the Pearly Smile by Cathy Ace

Best Crime Show Winner: 

Ludwig

Best Crime Show Editor’s Choice: 

Slow Horses S4

Best Author Winner: 

Ian Rankin

Best Author Editor’s Choice: 

Janice Hallett

My favourite non-fiction reads 2024

This year I did not read that many non-fiction books. However, there are three books that I throughly enjoyed and were my favourite non- fiction reads this year. Anyone that is interested in Miss Marple, the history of Victorian female detectives and writing about murder should read these books. All throughly entertaining and thought provoking. They are of course in alphabetical order.

Agatha Christie's Marple: Expert on Wickedness by Dr Mark Aldridge (Publisher HarperCollins)

A new investigation from Dr Mark Aldridge, exploring a lifetime of Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple. In Agatha Christie’s Marple: Expert on Wickedness,‘Agathologist’ Dr Mark Aldridge looks at nearly a century of St Mary Mead’s most famous resident and uses his own detective skills to uncover new information about Miss Jane Marple’s appearances on page, stage, screen and beyond. Drawing on a range of material, some of which is newly discovered and previously unpublished, this book explores everything about Miss Marple, from her origins in a series of short stories penned by Christie, to the recent bestselling HarperCollins collection Marple: Twelve New Stories. This accessible, entertaining and illustrated guide to the world of Miss Marple pieces together the evidence in order to tell you everything you need to know about the world’s favourite female detective.

Writing the Murder: Essays in Crafting Crime Fiction (Editors) Dan Coxon and Richard V Hirst (Publisher: Cinder House) 

There's been a murder... From the macabre tales of Edgar Allan Poe through to the locked-room mysteries of the Golden Age, to the many faces of modern crime fiction and the explosion of true crime, writers have always explored the most taboo of human transgressions: the taking of a life. What is it about murder that has fascinated us for so long? And what is it about crimes of this nature that make for such compelling fiction? Gathering an impressive line-up of suspects, Writing the Murder asks some of the finest contemporary writers to dissect their craft and analyse the place of murder in fiction. Authors such as Charlie Higson, Louise Welsh, Jessie Greengrass and Tom Mead interrogate what it means to write about this most illicit of acts, the lasting appeal of crime fiction, and offer practical advice for those looking to write seriously and convincingly about crime. An essential tool for the grizzled veteran and the fresh-faced rookie alike, Writing the Murder gives you the motive and the means to write your own tales of murder and intrigue.

The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective by Sara Lodge. (Publisher: Yale University Press)

A revelatory history of the women who brought Victorian criminals to account—and how they became a cultural sensation. From Wilkie Collins to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the traditional image of the Victorian detective is male. Few people realise that women detectives successfully investigated Victorian Britain, working both with the police and for private agencies, which they sometimes managed themselves. Sara Lodge recovers these forgotten women’s lives. She also reveals the sensational role played by the fantasy female detective in Victorian melodrama and popular fiction, enthralling a public who relished the spectacle of a cross-dressing, fist-swinging heroine who got the better of love rats, burglars, and murderers alike. How did the morally ambiguous work of real women detectives, sometimes paid to betray their fellow women, compare with the exploits of their fictional counterparts, who always save the day? Lodge’s book takes us into the murky underworld of Victorian society on both sides of the Atlantic, revealing the female detective as both an unacknowledged labourer and a feminist icon.

Crime in the First World War

 Why set a crime story against the backdrop of the First World War? 

There are many good reasons, of course – not least the moral ambiguity and jeopardy that war provides – but the real reason, for a writer, is that one is drawn to it. 

And in my case that began a long time ago with a handful individuals, who led me on a path that would end with Cut and Run, my new crime thriller about an injured ex-serviceman named Frank Champion who goes to back to France in 1916 to solve a murder.

I’ll start with the maiden aunts. Did you ever have a maiden aunt? They don’t make them anymore, not in the sorts of numbers that they did back then. I had three – sisters – who lived in Edmonton in North London in a house without, seemingly, a television set and where the dining table was always laden with the sort of high tea that an Edwardian would have recognised – and relished. 

Olive, Dorothy and Alice were unmarried because their would-be husbands had been killed in the First World War; young men who were part of Vera Brittain’s famous lost generation, following a conflict which claimed the lives of one in four junior officers. What’s more, for my three maiden aunts, that lost generation included their elder brother, whose photograph was framed surrounded by the flags of the allied nations, and proudly displayed on the wall on the upstairs hall.

He never came home, was all Olive would say, when I did what a five-year-old like me would do and ask about him. I dare say it was conveyed with what we would now regard as resolute understatement, but that’s what people were like then. 

Another first-hand recollection of the world of the Great War came from my grandmother who remembered seeing the Tommies going off to fight on the trains. In my memory they are waving through at the windows at her. One of her strongest recollections was being called into the playground and told to told by the headmistress that at 11 o’clock precisely that the war would end and the guns would fall silent across Europe. The joy and import in her words travelled through time. 

Then there was my grandfather – my dad’s father, who fought and was injured in the war, but survived. He was in the horse artillery and there are pictures of him in the 1970s carrying around an enormous hearing aid. A decent man, I’m told, but hard to know, my father said. What the experience taught him was that the most important job of a junior officer was to protect their men against the senior officers. Which would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic. And surely it informs the outlook of my book’s protagonist Frank Champion.

The final – and probably the most important – personal interaction that informs the backdrop to Cut and Runis my meeting with a Great War veteran Smiler Marshall who died in 2005, before his 109^th birthday. I interviewed him in 2000 when he was 104. 

A farrier by trade, he had joined the Essex Yeomanry after shaking hands with Lord Kitchener at a recruitment event in 1914 was a cavalryman who would fight at the Somme – and much else, serving until 1921. During our conversation, in between singing wartime songs, he told me, with tears in his eyes, about the horrors of what he’d seen, about going out into no man’s land and seeing his mates killed. He left me in no doubt that war was a dreadful, profound waste of life. 

Smiler was one of the last Great War veterans to die. He was followed by Harry Patch who died in 2009 at 111. ‘When the war ended, I don’t know if I was more relieved that we’d won or that I didn’t have to go back,’ Patch recalled in 2004. ‘Passchendaele was a disastrous battle—thousands and thousands of young lives were lost. It makes me angry. Earlier this year, I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Charles Kuentz, Germany’s only surviving veteran from the war. It was emotional. He is 107. We’ve had 87 years to think what war is. To me, it’s a licence to go out and murder. Why should the British government call me up and take me out to a battlefield to shoot a man I never knew, whose language I couldn’t speak? All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?’ 

But it happened and some 900,000 British and British Empire were killed in the process, out of around 20 million worldwide.

So before the slaughter and loss of the Great War recedes from our memories and the folklore of our shared culture, joining the Crimean, Napoleonic or the Seven Years war in the archive – I wanted to bring that world back. Because it’s only a few handshakes in to our past, a great-grandfather or a maiden aunt away. And that is but a blink in the eye in time.

Cut and Run by Alec Marsh (Sharpe Books) Out Now

March 1916, The Great War rages across Europe. In the British Army garrison town of Bethune in northern France, a woman’s body is found in a park. Her throat has been cut. Marie-Louise Toulon is a prostitute at the Blue Lamp, the brothel catering exclusively to officers of the British Army stationed in the area. Wounded ex-soldier Frank Champion is brought in to investigate the crime - to find the killer believed to be among the officer corps. But almost before his investigation gets underway another woman from the Blue Lamp is killed, her throat also cut. A third prostitute, meanwhile, has gone missing. Then two more bodies are uncovered, including that of a British Army captain who appears to have taken his own life with his service revolver. But all is not what it seems… Champion must face a race against time to save the life of another woman - at the risk of dying himself.

Cut and Run by Alec Marsh is published by Sharpe Books in paperback priced £8.99 and Kindle, priced £3.99. It also available in KindleUnlimited: 

More information about Alec Marsh and his books can be found on his website. You can also find him on X @AlecMarsh and on Instagram @marsh_alec. You can also find him on Facebook.

CrimeFest to End After 16 Years

 

CrimeFest, one of the UK’s leading crime fiction events hosted in Bristol each year, has announced 2025 will be its final convention.

In a statement announcing the closure, Adrian Muller, co-founder, co-host and director of CrimeFest, said: “It is with sadness – but great pride – that we announce that our sixteenth CrimeFest, which takes place from 15-18 May 2025, will be the final one.”

Inspired by a visit to Bristol in 2006 of the American Left Coast Crime convention, the first CrimeFest was held in June 2008. CrimeFest is a convention run by fans of the genre, initially organised by Myles Allfrey, Liz Hatherell, Adrian Muller, and Donna Moore, and more recently hosted by the latter two.

Whereas most crime fiction events are invite-only, with a fixed programme of authors, CrimeFest offers a more democratic model. As a convention, any commercially published author can sign up to appear on a panel.

Adrian Muller said: “CrimeFest provides many authors with a platform they would not have been offered elsewhere in the UK. And, subsequently, readers discover and meet writers they otherwise may never have heard of. During CrimeFest, all delegates – be they authors or readers – come together as equals to celebrate the genre they love.”

Taking place across four days, each year CrimeFest showcases around 150 authors across more than 50 panels; over the years, 1,100 authors will have appeared at the event.

CrimeFest also invites Featured and Highlighted guests, securing major authors including Cathy Ace, Lee Child, Ann Cleeves, Martina Cole, Michael Connelly, Jeffrey Deaver, Sue Grafton, Anthony Horowitz, P.D. James, Lynda La Plante, and Ian Rankin.

Lee Child attended the very first convention, and was a Featured Guest at the fifth and tenth anniversaries of CrimeFest.

Lee Child said: "Sadly all good things come to an end - and Adrian Muller's Bristol CrimeFest was one of the very best things ever. It was a warm, friendly, relaxed and inclusive festival, hugely enjoyable for authors and readers alike. Myles, Liz, Donna and Adrian, their team of volunteers - and Dame Mary from Specsavers - have my sincere thanks for many delightful weekends over the years."

The event is sponsored by Specsavers. 

Co-founder of Specsavers, Dame Mary Perkins, who will be attending again next year, praised the event: “I am an avid reader and fan of the genre, and I always look forward to CrimeFest. It is so friendly, and it feels like all who go are welcomed as part of a big family, connected by a love of books, and reading. We are proud sponsors and I will miss CrimeFest and the camaraderie very much.”

Adrian added: “Thanks to the support of Specsavers, our highly valued sponsor, we introduced reduced cost Community Passes for UK school and public librarians, students and for people on benefits. In 2021 we also created an annual bursary for crime fiction authors of colour. We’ve run community projects at local schools in the community; donated books to many schools and libraries across Bristol and the UK; our anthology Ten Year Stretch and our raffles each year have raised thousands of pounds for the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and the seven awards we present each year celebrate crime fiction, non-fiction, TV and crime fiction for children and young adults – the latter two being the first in the UK. We are immensely proud of these initiatives.”

Author and co-host of CrimeFest, Donna Moore, said: “CrimeFest is a labour of love for us and our volunteers. We are immensely grateful to the authors, readers, publishers, booksellers, sponsors, volunteers, and a whole host of other people who have supported us over the years.”

The organisers promise to say goodbye “in style”, with the attendance of some big-name authors to celebrate its 16 years.

The final CrimeFest takes place 15-18 May at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel

 

Photo shows organisers Adrian Muller and Donna Moore with Specsaver's co-founder (and headline sponsor), Dame Mary Perkins, photo credit Gary Stratmann.

 

The Island of Lies an apology

 

I have to make an apology.

It was only meant to be a small, private joke – a bit of fun – because there's precious little of that in most crime fiction pages.

I'd just spent four years on the Faroes trilogy, writing a story which didn't shy away from the bleaker side of multiple murders. So, having brought The Fire Pit to a rather graphic and dark conclusion, I was ready for a change of mood. 

The trouble is, I've always been rather pedantic about accuracy in police procedure. My personal (and slightly neurotic) worry is that someone will read one of my books and then point out that I've made a basic technical mistake. As a result, I tend to be rather obsessive about research and getting things right. If a plot calls for someone to discover a corpse, then – for reality's sake – I usually feel obliged not to shy away from the unavoidable consequences of that situation, whether I like it or not.

But after the Faroes books I was disinclined to leap straight back into writing more grim reality, so I started to wonder whether I could dispense with that for a while. In fact, what if there was a way to write a crime novel where I didn't feel constrained by accurate procedure and realism? What if, instead, I made the rules and perhaps set the story in a fictional time and location, so no one could tell me I'd got it wrong? 

I may have had a touch of cabin-fever at the time, I suppose, but it seemed like the perfect solution to lighten the mood. 

I'd like to say "and so, before long, Citizen Detective was born", but that wouldn't be true.

I could have guessed that creating an entire society from scratch – as well as the plot of a decent murder mystery – can't be done quickly. However, I also discovered that it's really quite liberating to dispense with gritty realism and simply let your imagination off the lead for a run.

So, the world I eventually came up with was that of Citizen Detective (Grade III) Arne Blöm. He is a very small cog in the machinery which regulates an oppressive authoritarian society, perhaps not dissimilar to East Germany in the fifties or Sweden under the Communists.

Most of Blöm's working day consists of filling out forms (some realism there), padding his timesheet, and trying to avoid saying anything contentious or unpatriotic which might be overheard by the State bugs in the light fitting. But then, of course, there are deaths, which seem unrelated until Blöm is summoned to the sinister Ministry of Governance and Homeland and discovers that things are not as they seem with the State apparatus.

Generally speaking, I was quietly pleased with the book and the small alternative world I'd created. It had been fun to write, which was all I intended, but when I showed it to "a friend in the industry" they were a little sceptical.

Yes, they agreed, it was a sort of crime novel, but was it hard-boiled or comfy crime; a mystery, a police procedural and/or Scandi-noir? How would I categorise it?

Well, I supposed it was a bit of all those, I said, but that didn't help. It turns out publishers don't have a category for something which is a "bit of all of those" (with a little sardonic humour thrown in), and if it can't be categorised it's a no-go. Apparently the marketing algorithms would have a melt-down.

So.

If you're a professional writer you have to accept that the requirements of publishers and TV companies are usually pretty inflexible. If they expected you to produce a gritty noir thriller and you give them something set in a country which doesn't exist and featuring a middle-aged detective who spends much of his time worrying about the repair of his brogues, well, they're not going to be terribly enthusiastic. 

All of which I knew, so I wasn't particularly surprised or disappointed. Citizen Detective was never supposed to be more than a break from realism for my own entertainment and it had served that purpose. 

Of course, being a writer it's always nice to be read, so I told my "friend in the industry" that I'd simply set the book free on Kindle. In these wonderful egalitarian times of independent publishing that's not hard to do, so why not?

"Bad idea," says my friend. "People will think it's one of your proper crime novels and then find out it isn't. They won't be happy."

Because my friend is a wise and serious person I thought about this. But I liked Blöm; I liked the story, even if it wasn't a "proper crime novel", and it seemed a shame just to put it away in a drawer. But then it occurred to me that this might actually be an opportunity to add another layer of intrigue and misdirection to the whole world of Blöm. 

What if I never claimed to have actually written the book? Then no one would expect my usual, realistic style. Instead I could say I'd simply "translated" it from a work by a dissident, underground author named O. Huldumann, writing at the time of the events he describes. I could even add a short afterword, describing how I first "discovered" a copy of the original book (a cult classic, of course) and how little is known about who Huldumann was. 

And so that's what I did. I thought it was fun to pile construct on construct, and so did some other people who not only figured out what had gone on, but actively joined in with the Great Huldumann Mystery. They know who they are. 

Trouble is, I might have been a little more convincing than I really intended to be, because I now discover there are some people who don't realise it was all make-believe. 

So, I'm coming clean here. I'd like to apologise if anyone misunderstood, and I now wish to categorically state that Citizen Detective and The Island Of Lies are not proper crime novels (even if there's a detective and multiple deaths to be solved). And, yes, O. Huldumann is as fictional as Arne Blöm and the world he inhabits. 

Sorry.

But I still had fun and I'm not sorry for that.

The Islands of Lies by O Huldumann (Translated by Chris Ould) Corylus Books

In the midst of Capital City's November crime wave Citizen Detective (Grade III) Arne Blöm finds himself appointed as a Konstable of the State Court and tasked with the arrest and detention of a man he's pretty sure is actually dead. However, being the Detective he is, Blöm quickly discovers that his assignment to the island of Huish has more sinister undertones. Faced with a series of strange and similar deaths, Blöm dispenses with traditional methods for solving the crimes and begins to suspect that certain sections of the island's population are not what they seem, nor as harmless as they might appear…

My Favourite reads of 2024

My favourite reads this year have spanned spy thrillers, a debut novel an end of a trilogy, translated novels and a contemporary topical thriller to name few. They are as follows in alphabetical order.

The Sparrow & The Peacock by I S Berry (No Exit Press/Bedford Square Publishers)

Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy, is ready to come in from the cold. Stationed in Bahrain for his final tour, he's anxious to dispense with his mission — uncovering Iranian support for the insurgency. But then he meets Almaisa, an enigmatic artist, and his eyes are opened to a side of Bahrain most expats never experience, to questions he never thought to ask. When his trusted informant becomes embroiled in a murder, Collins finds himself drawn deep into the conflict, his romance and loyalties upended. In an instant, he's caught in the crosswinds of a revolution. He sets out to learn the truth behind the Arab Spring, win Almaisa's love, and uncover the murky border where Bahrain's secrets end and America's begin.

The Waiting by Michael Connelly (Orion Publishing)

LAPD Detective Renée Ballard tracks a terrifying serial rapist whose trail has gone cold with the help of the newest volunteer to the Open-Unsolved Unit: Patrol Officer Maddie Bosch, Harry's daughter. Renée Ballard and the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit get a hot shot DNA connection between a recently arrested man and a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet twenty years ago. The arrested man is only twenty-three, so the genetic link must be familial. It is his father who was the Pillowcase Rapist, responsible for a five-year reign of terror in the city of angels. But when Ballard and her team move in on their suspect, they encounter a baffling web of secrets and legal hurdles. Meanwhile, Ballard's badge, gun, and ID are stolen-a theft she can't report without giving her enemies in the department the ammunition they need to end her career as a detective. She works the burglary alone, but her solo mission leads her into greater danger than she anticipates. She has no choice but to go outside the department for help, and that leads her to the door of Harry Bosch. Finally, Ballard takes on a new volunteer to the cold case unit. Bosch's daughter Maddie wants to supplement her work as a patrol officer on the night beat by investigating cases with Ballard. But Renée soon learns that Maddie has an ulterior motive for getting access to the city's library of lost souls.

Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway (Penguin Books)

It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West's spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only on a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumour in Whitehall – unconfirmed and a little scandalous – that George Smiley might almost be happy. But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected in the most unusual of circumstances, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple task: interview Susanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. But in his absence the shadows of Moscow have lengthened. Smiley will soon find himself entangled in a perilous mystery that will define the battles to come, and strike at the heart of his greatest enemy… Karla's Choice is set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and  is an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of spy fiction's greatest writer, John le Carré.

Hotel Lucky Seven by Kotaro Isaka (Vintage Publishing)

A luxury hotel full of assassins - what could go wrong? Nanao ‘the unluckiest assassin in the world’ has been hired to deliver a birthday present to a guest at a luxury Tokyo Hotel. It seems like a simple assignment but by the time he leaves the guest's room one man is dead and more will soon follow. As events spiral out of control as it becomes clear several different killers, with varying missions, are all taking a stay in the hotel at the same time. And they're all particularly interested in a young woman with a photographic memory, hiding out on one of the twenty floors. Will Nanao find the truth about what’s going on? And will he check out alive?

Imposter Syndrome by Joseph Knox (Transworld Publishers)

'When you’re living a lie, you find it’s best to avoid close attachments…’ Lynch, a burned out con-artist, arrives, broke, in London, trying not to dwell on the mistakes that got him there. When he bumps into Bobbie, a rehab-bound heiress - and when she briefly mistakes him for her missing brother - Lynch senses the opportunity, as well as the danger… Bobbie’s brother, Heydon, was a troubled young man. Five years ago, he walked out of the family home and never went back. His car was found parked on a bridge overlooking the Thames, in the early hours of the same morning. Unsettled by Bobbie’s story, and suffering from a rare attack of conscience, Lynch tries to back off. But when Bobbie leaves for rehab the following day, he finds himself drawn to her luxurious family home, and into a meeting with her mother, the formidable Miranda. Seeing the same resemblance that her daughter did, Miranda proposes she hire Lynch to assume her son’s identity, in a last-ditch effort to try and flush out his killer. As Lynch begins to impersonate him, dark forces are lured out of the shadows, and he realises too late that Heydon wasn’t paranoid at all. Someone was watching his every move, and they’ll kill to keep it a secret. For the first time, Lynch is in a life or death situation he can’t lie his way out of.

Guide Me Home by Attica Locke (Profile Books)

Texas Ranger Darren Mathews has handed in his badge. A choice made three years before, which served justice if not the law, means that he may now stand trial. And his mother - an intermittent and destructive force in his life - is the cause of his fall from grace.And yet it is his mother's reappearance that may also be his salvation. A black girl at an all-white sorority at a nearby college is missing, her belongings tossed in a dumpster. Her sorority sisters, the college police, even the girl's own family, deny that she has disappeared, but Sera Fuller is nowhere to be found. A bloodstained shirt discovered in a woodland clearing may be the last trace of her. And Darren's mother wants her son to work the case. Disillusioned by an America forever changed by the presidency of Donald Trump, Darren reluctantly agrees. Yet as he sets out to find a girl whose family don't want her found, it is his own family's history that may be brought painfully into the light. And a reckoning with his past may finally show Darren the future he can build.And yet it is his mother's reappearance that may also be his salvation. A black girl at an all-white sorority at a nearby college is missing, her belongings tossed in a dumpster. Her sorority sisters, the college police, even the girl's own family, deny that she has disappeared, but Sera Fuller is nowhere to be found. A bloodstained shirt discovered in a woodland clearing may be the last trace of her. And Darren's mother wants her son to work the case.Disillusioned by an America forever changed by the presidency of Donald Trump, Darren reluctantly agrees. Yet as he sets out to find a girl whose family don't want her found, it is his own family's history that may be brought painfully into the light. And a reckoning with his past may finally show Darren the future he can build.

Moscow X by David McCloskey (Swift Press)

A daring CIA operation threatens chaos in the Kremlin. Its execution is foiled by a Russian woman with secret loyalties CIA operatives Sia and Max enter Russia to recruit Vladimir Putin's moneyman. Sia works for a London firm that conceals the wealth of the super-rich. Max's family business in Mexico - a CIA front since the 1960s - is a farm that breeds high-end racehorses. They pose as a couple, and their targets are Vadim, Putin's private banker, and his wife Anna, who is both a banker and an intelligence officer. As they descend further into a Russian world dripping with luxury and rife with gangland violence, Sia and Max's hope may be Anna, who is playing a game of her own. Careening between the horse ranch and the dark opulence of Saint Petersburg, Moscow X is both a gripping thriller of modern espionage and a daring work of political commentary on the conflict between Washington and Moscow.

Hunted by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage Publishing)

You can't save your kids. But can you stop them? It's a week before the presidential elections when a bomb goes off in an LA shopping mall. In London, armed police storm Heathrow Airport and arrest Sajid Khan. His daughter, Aliyah entered the USA with the suicide bomber, and now she's missing, potentially plotting another attack on American soil. But then a woman called Carrie turns up at Sajid's door after travelling halfway across the world. She claims Aliyah is with her son and she has a clue to their whereabouts. Carrie knows something isn't adding up - and that she and Sajid are the only ones who can find their children and discover the truth. On the run from the authorities, the two parents are thrown together in a race against time to save their kids and stop a catastrophe that will derail the country's future forever.

White City by Dominic Nolan (Headline Publishing)

It's 1952, and London is victorious but broken, a city of war ruins and rationing, run by gangsters and black-market spivs.  An elaborate midnight heist, the biggest robbery in British history, sends newspapers into a frenzy. Politicians are furious, the police red-faced. They have suspicions but no leads. Hunches but no proof. For two families, it is more than just a sensational headline, as their fathers fail to return home on the day of the robbery. Young Addie Rowe, daughter of a missing Jamaican postman and drunk ex-club hostess mother, struggles to care for her little sister in a dilapidated Brixton rooming house.  Claire Martin, increasingly resentful of roads not taken, strives to make the rent and keep her teenage son Ray from falling under unsavoury influences in Notting Dale. She finds herself caught between the interests of dangerous men who may know the truth behind her husband's disappearance: Dave Lander, whose reserved nature she finds difficult to reconcile with his reputation as a violent gang enforcer, and Teddy 'Mother' Nunn, a sociopathic, evangelising outlaw and top lieutenant in Billy Hill's underworld. Drawn together through the years in the city's invisible web of crime and poverty, the fates of the broken families and violent men collide in 1958, as the West Indian community of Notting Hill's slums come under attack from thugs and Teddy Boys. For Addie, Claire, Dave and Mother, old scores will be settled and new dreams chased in the crucible of London's violent summer.

Holmes and Moriarty by Gareth Rubin (Simon and Schuster Ltd) 

Two adversaries. One deadly alliance. Together, can they unlock the truth? Sherlock Holmes and his faithful friend, Dr John Watson, have been hired by actor George Reynolds to help him solve a puzzle. George wants them to find out why the audience who comes to see him perform every night are the same people, only wearing disguises. Is something sinister going on and, if so, what? Meanwhile, Holmes’ archenemy, Professor James Moriarty is having problems of his own. Implicated in the murder of a gang leader, Moriarty and his second, Moran, must go on the run from the police in order to find out who is behind the set-up. But their investigation puts them in the way of Holmes and Watson and it’s not long before all four realise that they are being targeted by the same person. With lives on the line, not just their own, they must form an uneasy alliance in order to unmask the true villain. With clues leading them to a hotel in Switzerland and a conspiracy far greater than any of them expected, who can be trusted – and will anyone of them survive?

The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel (Penguin Books)

Alfred Smettle adores Hitchcock. And who better to become founder, owner and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a remote, sprawling Victorian house sitting atop a hill in the beautiful White Mountains, New England. There, guests can find movie props and memorabilia in every room, round-the-clock film screenings, and an aviary with fifty crows. For the hotel's first anniversary, Alfred invites the five college friends he studied film with. He hasn't spoken to any of them in sixteen years.  Not after what happened. But who better to appreciate Alfred's creation? His guests arrive, and everything seems to go according to plan. Until one glimpses someone standing outside her shower curtain. Another is violently ill every time she eats the hotel food. Then their mobile phones go missing. You should always make the audience suffer as much as possible, right? The guests are stuck in the middle of nowhere, and things are about to get even worse. After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a dead body.

Butter by Asako Yuzuki (HarperCollins Publishers)

The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story. There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation's imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can't resist writing back. Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought? Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, "The Konkatsu Killer", Asako Yuzuki's Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

Honourable mentions go to  -

The Instruments of Darkness by John Connolly (Hodder and Stoughton)

In Maine, Colleen Clark stands accused of the worst crime a mother can commit: the abduction and possible murder of her child. Everyone - ambitious politicians in an election season, hardened police, ordinary folk - has an opinion on the case, and most believe she is guilty. But most is not all. Defending Colleen is the lawyer Moxie Castin, and working alongside him is the private investigator Charlie Parker, who senses the tale has another twist, one involving a husband too eager to accept his wife's guilt, a disgraced psychic seeking redemption, and an old twisted house deep in the Maine woods, a house that should never have been built. A house, and what dwells beneath.

A Beginners Guide to Breaking and Entering by Andrew Hunter Murray (Cornerstone)

Property might be theft. But the housing market is murder. My name is Al. I live in wealthy people's second homes while their real owners are away. I don't rob them, I don't damage anything... I'm more an unofficial house-sitter than an actual criminal. Life is good. Or it was - until last night, when my friends and I broke into the wrong place, on the wrong day, and someone wound up dead. And now... now we’re in a great deal of trouble. Featuring crooked houses, dodgy coppers and a lot of lockpicking, A Beginner's Guide to Breaking and Entering is a gripping thriller about what it's like to be young, skilled, unemployed - and on the run.

Holmes, Margaret and Poe by James Patterson and Brian Sitts (Century)

Brendan Holmes, Margaret Marple and Auguste Poe run the most in-demand private investigation agency in New York City. The three detectives make a formidable team, solving a series of seemingly impossible crimes which expose the dark underbelly of the city - from a priceless art theft, high-stakes kidnapping and a decades-old unsolved murder, to a gruesome subterranean prison and corruption and bribery at the highest levels of power. But it's not long before their headline-grabbing breakthroughs, unconventional methods - and untraceable pasts - attract the attention of the NYPD and the FBI. After all, it's no surprise that there's a mystery or two to unravel in the city that never sleeps . . . not least, who really are Holmes, Margaret and Poe?

Midnight and Blue by Ian Rankin (Orion)

John Rebus spent his life as a detective putting Edinburgh's most deadly criminals behind bars. Now, he's joined them. As new allies and old enemies circle, and the days and nights bleed into each other, even the legendary detective struggles to keep his head. That is, until a murder at midnight in a locked cell presents a new mystery. They say old habits die hard... However, this is a case where the prisoners and the guards are all suspects, and everyone has something to hide.  With no badge, no authority and no safety net, Rebus walks a tightrope - with his life on the line. But how do you find a killer in a place full of them?