Wednesday 2 May 2012

Forthcoming books to look forward to from Penguin and Michael Joseph


Bloodline is the latest novel by Felix Francis and is due to be published in September.  When Mark Shilling ford commentates on a race in which his twin sister Clare, an accomplished and successful jockey, comes in third, he can't help but be suspicious.  As a professional race-caller, he knows she should have won.  Did she lose on purpose?  Was the race fixed?  Why on earth would she do something so out of character?  That night, Mark confronts Clare with his suspicions, but she storms off after an explosive argument.  It's the last time Mark sees her alive.  Hours later, Clare jumps to her death from the balcony of a London hotel ...or so it seems.  Devastated by her death, and almost overcome with guilt, Mark goes in search of answers.  What led Clare to take her own life?  Or was it not suicide at all?

Psychotherapist Frieda Klein is consulted on a grisly and seemingly unsolvable crime.  Sometimes the mind is a dangerous place to hide.  The rotting, naked corpse of a man is found amidst swarms of flies in the living room of a confused woman.  Who is he?  Why is Michelle Doyce trying to serve him afternoon tea?  And how did the dead body find its way into her flat?  DCI Karlsson needs an expert to delve inside Michelle's mind for answers and turns to former colleague, psychiatrist Frieda Klein.  Eventually Michelle's ramblings lead to a vital clue that in turn leads to a possible identity.  Robert Poole.  Jack of all trades and master conman.  The deeper Frieda and Karlsson dig, the more of Poole's victims they encounter ...and the more motives they uncover for his murder.  But is anyone telling them the truth except for poor, confused Michelle?  And when the past returns to haunt Frieda's present, she finds herself in danger.  Whoever set out to destroy Poole also seems determined to destroy Frieda Klein.  A gritty heroine, a gruesome crime and a terrifying hunt for a psychotic killer. Tuesday’s Gone is by Nicci French and is due to be published in July.

The Collini Case is by Ferdinand Von Schirach and is due to be published in September 2012.  From one of Europe's bestselling writers comes a spellbinding and utterly compelling court room drama, which will stay with you for a long time.  Ferdinand von Schirach's "The Collini Case" has been at the top of the German charts since publication.  A murder.  A murderer.  No motive.  For thirty-four years Fabrizio Collini has worked diligently for Mercedes Benz.  He is a quiet and respectable person until the day he visits one of Berlin's most luxurious hotels and kills an innocent man.  Young attorney Caspar Leinen takes the case.  Getting Collini a not-guilty verdict would make his name.  But too late he discovers that Collini's victim - an industrialist of some renown - is known to him.  Now Leinen is caught in a professional and personal dilemma.  Collini admits the murder but won't say why he did it, forcing Leinen to defend a man who won't put up a defence.  And worse, a close friend and relation of the victim insists that he give up the case.  His reputation, his career and this friendship are all at risk.  Then he makes a discovery that goes way beyond his own petty concerns and exposes a terrible and deadly truth at the heart of German justice.....

The year is 1539 and the Portuguese Inquisition ushers in an era of torture and murder.  When the Royal Falconer is imprisoned on false charges to remove him from the inner circle of the boy King, the Inquisitors strike an impossible deal with his daughter, Isabela.  Bring back two rare white falcons from Iceland within the year or her father dies.  Meanwhile in Iceland, a menacing stranger appears to have possessed the soul of a woman chained up in a volcanic cave and is threatening to destroy the community.  The woman's twin sister, Eydis, is desperate to intervene but vivid dreams suggest the twins' only salvation lies with a young girl from afar, travelling in search of white feathers ...Isabela's quest might hold a more crucial purpose then she could ever imagine and there are those among her travel companions who have an interest in doing her harm.  But in order to fulfil her destiny, first she must reach Iceland's shores alive!  The Falcons of Fire and Ice is by Karen Maitland and is due to be published in August 2012.

12-21 is by Dustin Thomason co-author of The Rule of Four and is due to be published in September 2012.  An ancient prophecy foretells that the world will end on 21 December 2012...In Central America, a treasure hunter discovers a Maya relic - a mysterious and ornate codex - but when he smuggles it into the US, he brings with him an old and deadly secret...Early in December 2012, the codex comes to Chel Manu, a Maya world authority.  She is torn between the chance to translate the codex herself and her duty to alert the authorities.  Meanwhile, in an LA hospital, an unknown man is dying of a rare, contagious disease.  When Dr Gabriel Stanton is called in, he realises that this is no ordinary infection - and it will spread uncontrollably.  Stanton and Chel must race to decipher the codex's secrets and prevent the prophesised apocalypse.

The Inside Job is the second book in the series by Felix Riley to feature Secret Service Agent Mike Byrne.  Secret Service Agent Mike Byrne is too late….. Too late to save the one man who knew the truth – the star witness who was about to blow the whistle on the biggest bank scandal in history.  Too late to stop an innocent man from dying, and so plunging the world of high finance into a death spiral of violence and murder.  Because payback for bankers who gambled with other people’s money is being handed out in bullets and bombs.  And now the only person who can keep the bankers alive is Agent Byrne, who finds himself having to protect the very people he swore to take down.  Before long Byrne is locked into a deadly fight with an unseen enemy – an enemy that will stop at nothing to get what they want….. The Inside Job is due to be published in August 2012.

Dark Revelations is the concluding book in the Level 26 trilogy.  In Dark Revelations, Steve Dark faces the most intricate, intense, and explosive case of his career.  The killer calls himself Labyrinth, and the riddles, puzzles, and wordplay with which he announces his new targets have caused worldwide media sensation.  The case has already claimed a number of high profile individuals as victims – not to mention several government agencies, which have tried and failed to stop a growing global panic.  But what point is Labyrinth trying to make?  Who will be his next victim?  It’s up to Dark to assemble a team from among the smoking rubble of the international crime solving community, find Labyrinth wherever he may be, and put a stop to the mayhem once and for all.  Can Steve Dark solve the biggest riddle of them all?  Only time will tell.  Dark Revelations is by Anthony E Zuiker and Duane Swierczynski and is due to be published in December 2012.


The Montsegur Medallion points the way to the most coveted relic, the Holy Grail.  In the wrong hands it could destroy civilisation.  Finn McGuire finds himself framed for a string of murders moments after he uncovers the legendary Medallion in an ancient Syrian chapel.  The culprits are a group of Nazi SS descendants known as The Seven who will stop at nothing to possess the pendant...and the Holy Grail.  Their wish?  To resurrect the Third Reich. Over seven centuries later, Templar expert and former MI5 operative Caedmon Aisquith is stunned to learn that his daughter has been kidnapped.  Receiving an ominous ransom demand - Find the Evangelium Gaspar or she dies – Caedmon is hurled into a dangerous labyrinth of Templar intrigues.  Racing against time, he must solve a series of clues involving esoteric symbols and artfully encoded riddles.  All the while being pursued by the bloodthirsty members of the satanic brotherhood Santa Muerte.  Caedmon Aisquith is an expert in the Knights Templar and the Grail; he knows the Seven can only desire it for evil and when Finn approaches him, the two join forces in a quest to find the deadly relic and halt the bloodshed.  Their race takes them from the Louvre to a medieval citadel in the Pyrenees.  But the stakes are high for the fate of mankind hangs in the balance if they fail.  In an epic quest to save his daughter, Caedmon crosses the globe, the clues leading him from the Malabar Coast of India to the Camino de Santiago in Spain, and finally to a Merovingian church in the heart of Paris.  There he discovers the most explosive secret of all – a two-thousand-year-old cover up of such magnitude that if it’s ever disclosed, it would forever change the course of history.  The Templar’s Secret is by C M Palov and is due to be published in November 2012.

"The Killing House" is the amazing first novel in a stunning new series by Chris Mooney.  It introduces fallen angel and former profiler Malcolm Fletcher who is forced to take the law into his own hands in order to uncover the truth in his terrifying first case.  Rule number1: Don't Scream - Four years ago, Theresa Herrera's ten-year-old son Rico was abducted.  The police found little evidence and the case went cold.  Theresa's husband has told her to move on, but she won't give up hope.  Rule number 2: Don't call the police - Today a mysterious woman invaded Theresa's home and told her that Rico is alive.  Theresa talks on the phone to a young man who is, without question, her son.  Rule number 3: Don't run.  Don't fight - The woman promises to reunite Theresa with Rico only if she will follow the rules.  But it is the last rule that fills Theresa with horror...Rule number 4: Kill your husband and your son will live...Malcolm Fletcher - a former FBI profiler and now the nation's Most Wanted fugitive - arrives in Colorado to help Theresa and her husband find their son.  But his arrival coincides with a dangerous and shocking twist in the case.  Barely surviving his first encounter with a suspect, Fletcher embarks on his own secret investigation, with the police just behind him every step of the way.  Behind every door in "The Killing House", death awaits you...  The Killing House is due to be published in August 2012.

 He Is Their Judge...In death, they are purified.  Holding his victims under water, he washes away their sins as they struggle for their last breath.  Then he stakes their bodies to the ground, exposing them for what they really are.  Witches, sent to tempt and to corrupt... Jury ...No one knows about defence attorney Charlotte Wellington's murdered sister, or about her childhood spent with the carnival that's just arrived in town.  For Charlotte, what's past is past.  But others don't agree.  And as a madman's body count rises, she and Detective Daniel Rokov are drawn into a mission that's become terrifyingly personal...  And Executioner.  At last, she is within his reach.  All his victims deserve their fate, but her guilt is greatest.  And with every scream, he will make her see what it means to suffer and repent.... Before She Dies is by Mary Burton and is due to be published in August 2012.

"Vanished" is the brilliant new missing person’s case in the "David Raker" series.  No life is perfect.  Everyone has secrets.  For millions of Londoners, the morning of 17 December is just like any other.  But not for Sam Wren.  An hour after leaving home, he gets onto a tube train - and never gets off again.  No eyewitnesses.  No trace of him on security cameras.  Six months later, he's still missing.  Out of options and desperate for answers, Sam's wife Julia hires David Raker to track him down.  Raker has made a career out of finding the lost.  He knows how they think.  And, in missing person cases, the only certainty is that everyone has something to hide.  But in this case the secrets go deeper than anyone imagined.  For, as Raker starts to suspect that even the police are lying to him, someone is watching.  Someone who knows what happened on the tube that day.  And, with Raker in his sights, he'll do anything to keep Sam's secrets to himself.  Vanished is by Tim Weaver and is due to be published in July 2012.

Once you're part of the pack, there's no getting out...Mild-mannered stay-at-home dad Simon Burns has undergone a life changing transformation - after being indoctrinated into the pack, he has become a werewolf. Fearing that the truth would end his marriage, Simon has told his wife Alison that he is suffering from a psychological condition called lycanthropic disorder, in which a person thinks he is a werewolf. For the moment, his secret remains safe. But NYPD homicide detective Geri Rodriguez has not forgotten about the mysterious wolf-like murders that remain unsolved,and when she hears that one of the witnesses, Diane Coles, was brutally murdered outside her parents' home in Michigan, she resumes her investigation. She's focused on a group of dads - Michael, Charlie, Ramon, and Simon - who had a connection to the unsolved murders. Simon had been trying to stay away from the pack, but he has been tipped off by Michael's father that there may be a cure hidden somewhere in the Brooklyn brewery where Michael lives. He wants to find the cure, and to see that Geri doesn't become another mystery death - but his own life and the lives of his wife and son may be in jeopardy. The Craving by Jason Starr is a hair-raising thriller with a supernatural twist.  It is the sequel to The Pack The Craving is due to be published in October 2012.


The Blood of Crows is the fourth book in her DI Anderson and DS Costello series by Caro Ramsay and is due to be published in September 2012.  For one Scottish cop the beat is about to get dark and very bloody ...DI Colin Anderson is having a bad week.  His conviction of paedophile Skelpie Fairbairn is declared unsafe - putting Fairbairn back on Glasgow's streets and leaving Anderson under investigation.  Add to this a gangster torched alive, a teenage boy tortured then dropped off a bridge and the suicide of a cop who worked an unsolved child kidnapping way back in 1996 and Anderson's got his hands full.  Then one night, a young girl is tied to the river bank and left for the tide.  Anderson gets there, but she dies in his arms.  Working round the clock his team discover these strange crimes are linked to an elusive criminal mastermind known as The Puppeteer.  But unable to find him, unable to stop the murders, Anderson is forced to follow the only lead he has - Skelpie Fairbairn ...But which is worse - the devil you don't know, or the one you do...?


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