Convicted of a series of horrific crimes against young women in the up-market California town of Santa Barbara, wealthy playboy Charlie Mendez has fled across the US border into Mexico. As one bounty hunter after another meets a grisly end at the hands of the murderous drug cartel his family have hired to keep him safe, it seems that Mendez is one fugitive destined to remain beyond the reach of the law. Or at least that's how it looks until one determined victim persuades high-end security specialist Ryan Lock and his partner, retired Marine Ty Johnson, to take on the case. Plunged into a nightmare world where no one can be trusted, least of all the authorities, the two men discover a city more deadly than any war zone. Worse still, when an attractive young American tourist is snatched from the streets, it appears that Mendez has returned to his old ways. But in order to stop him before he claims another victim, will Lock and Ty have to pay the Devil's Bounty? The Devil’s Bounty is by Sean Black and is due to be published in August 2012.
Fatal Frost is by James Henry and was published in May 2012. May 1982. Britain celebrates the sinking of the Belgrano, Jimmy Saville has the run of the airwaves and Denton Police Division welcomes its first black policeman, DS Waters - recently relocated from East London. While the force is busy dealing with a spate of local burglaries, the body of fifteen-year-old Samantha Ellis is discovered in woodland next to the nearby railway track. Then a fifteen-year-old boy is found dead on Denton's golf course, his organs removed. Detective Sergeant Jack Frost is sent to investigate - a welcome distraction from troubles at home. When the murdered boy's sister goes missing, Frost and Waters must work together to find her ...before it's too late.
The Labyrinth of Osiris is by the late Paul Sussman and is due to be published in July 2012. Since they last met, life has moved on for Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police and Jerusalem detective Arieh Ben-Roe. About to become a father for the first time, Ben-Roi finds himself investigating a gruesome murder in Jerusalem's Armenian Cathedral. The victim, a journalist named Rivka Kleinberg, had been researching an article into the Israeli sex-trafficking industry. When a link emerges between Kleinberg and an English engineer who disappeared from Luxor in 1931, Ben-Roi turns for help to his old friend and sparring partner Khalifa. Khalifa's life too has changed, although in his case not for the better. Preoccupied with personal tragedy and immersed in an investigation of his own - a series of mysterious well-poisonings in Egypt's Eastern desert - he agrees for old time's sake to do some digging for his Israeli colleague. In the process, Ben-Roi might just be giving Khalifa his lust for life back. Inexorably the two investigations entwine, drawing Ben-Roi and Khalifa into a sinister web of violence, abuse, corporate malpractice and anti-capitalist terrorism. And at the heart of the web, lies the Labyrinth - a three-thousand year-old ancient Egyptian mystery that has already taken Rivka Kleinberg's life - and hers will not be the last...
Last To Die is by Tess Gerritsen and is due to be published in August 2012. Three children, strangers to each other, are brought together by seemingly motiveless and extreme acts of violence. Orphaned and alone, they are taken in as students at Evensong, a boarding school for emotionally traumatized children in the remote Maine wilderness. A Place of Safety? Forensic pathologist Maura Isles already has a connection with the school - Julian 'Rat' Perkins, the 16-year-old boy she met during a previous case, is now living there. However, she suspects that the Evensong founders may be using the school for their own agenda. Moreover, her concerns grow when Detective Jane Rizzoli is asked to investigate yet another attempt on the life of one of the orphans at the school...Or A Place of Danger? What both Jane and Maura soon discover is that even a school protected by locked gates and acres of forest cannot shut out a gathering threat. When three blood-spattered twig dolls are found hanging from a tree, they wonder if the threat comes from outside the school ...or from within.
They are known as the Legion of the Damned ...Throughout the Roman Army, the Twelfth Legion is notorious for its ill fortune. It faces the harshest of postings, the toughest of campaigns, and the most vicious of opponents. For one young man, Demalion of Macedon, joining it will be a baptism of fire. Yet, amid all of the violence and savagery of his life as a legionary, he realizes he has discovered a vocation - as a soldier and a leader of men. He has come to love the Twelfth and all the bloody - minded, dark - hearted soldiers he calls his brothers. However, just when he has found a place in the world, all that he cares about is ripped from him. During the brutal Judean campaign, the Hebrew army inflict defeat upon the legion - not only decimating their ranks, but also taking away their soul, the eagle. There is one final chance to save the legion's honour - to steal back the eagle. To do that, Demalion and his legionaries must go undercover into Jerusalem, into the very heart of their enemy - where discovery will mean the worst of deaths - if they are to recover their pride. Moreover, that, in itself, is a task worthy only of heroes. The Eagle of the Twelfth is by MC Scott and was published in May 2012.
The King’s Spy is the debut novel by Andrew Swanston and is due to be published in August 2012. Summer, 1643 England is at war with itself. King Charles I has fled London, his negotiations with Parliament in tatters. The country is consumed by bloodshed. For Thomas Hill, a man of letters quietly running a bookshop in the rural town of Romsey, knowledge of the war is limited to the rumours that reach the local inn. When a stranger knocks on his door one night and informs him that the king's cryptographer has died, everything changes. Aware of Thomas's background as a mathematician and his expertise incodes and ciphers, the king has summoned him to his court in Oxford. On arrival, Thomas soon discovers that nothing at court is straightforward. There is evidence of a traitor in their midst. Brutal murder follows brutal murder. And when a vital message encrypted with a notoriously unbreakable code is intercepted, he must decipher it to reveal the king's betrayer and prevent the violent death that failure will surely bring.
The Summer of Dead Toys is a skilfully plotted story of misdeeds and murder in Barcelona high society: When the death of a vulnerable young witness in a case of human trafficking and voodoo causes the normally calm Inspector Salgado to beat someone up, he is moved off the project and sent instead to investigate a teenager's fall to his death in one of Barcelona's uptown areas. As Salgado begins to uncover the inconvenient truths behind the city's most powerful families, two seemingly unsolvable cases are set to implode under the hot Barcelona sun. The Summer of Dead Toys was published in May 2012 and is by Antonio Hill.
A frosty December night in Stockholm. Inside the City Hall, over a thousand guests attend the prestigious Nobel Prize-winner’s dinner. With a lavish meal laid on to the backdrop of a full orchestra, this is one of the city's most glamorous events of the year. However, things are different tonight. Two shots are fired on the dance floor. Crime reporter Annika Bengtzon is there, covering the event for the Evening Post. As the police realize she caught a glimpse of the suspect, she is far more interested in getting back to the newsroom. However, as murders that are more brutal follow, Annika finds herself in the middle of something far larger than she had anticipated. No longer just a reporter but also a vulnerable key witness, she begins to close up the gaps linking these crimes, just as the suspect starts closing the net on Annika herself... Last Will is by Liza Marklund and is due to be published in September 2012.
"The Vanishing Triangle": A woman's body is found in Ireland's most notorious body dump zone, an area in the Dublin mountains where a number of women disappeared in the past. "Nun's Cross": The victim is from an exclusive gated development in the suburbs - where the prime suspect in the vanishing triangle cases, Derek Carpenter, now lives. It looks like the past is coming back to haunt the present. However, DI Jo Birmingham doesn't believe the case is open and shut. Her husband Dan was part of the original investigation team; is she trying to protect her own fragile domestic peace? The one person who could help her crack the case, Derek's wife Liz, is so desperate to protect her family that she is going out of her way to thwart all efforts to establish the truth. Can both women emerge unscathed? Too Close for Comfort is by Niamh O’Connor and is due to be published in June 2012.
Red Notice is by Andy McNab and is due to be published in October 2012. Deep beneath the English Channel, a small army of vicious terrorists has seized control of the Eurostar to Paris, taken 400 hostages at gunpoint - and declared war on a government that has more than its own fair share of secrets to keep. One man stands in their way. An off-duty SAS soldier is hiding somewhere inside the train. Alone and injured, he is the only chance the passengers and crew have of getting out alive. Meet Andy McNab's explosive new creation, Sergeant Tom Buckingham, as he unleashes a whirlwind of intrigue and retribution in his attempt to stop the terrorists and save everyone on board - including Delphine, the beautiful woman he loves. Hurtling us at breakneck speed between the Regiment's crack assault teams, Whitehall's corridors of power and the heart of the Eurotunnel action. RED NOTICE: You have been warned.
Two small children are playing a game called 'Witch-Hunter'. They place a curse on a young woman taking lunch in a church courtyard and wait for her to die. An hour later, the woman is indeed found dead inside St Bride's Church - a building that no one else has entered. Unfortunately, Bryant & May are refused the case. Instead, there are hired by their greatest enemy to find out why his wife has suddenly started behaving strangely. She's become an embarrassment to him at government dinners, and he is convinced that someone is trying to drive her insane. She has even taken to covering the mirrors in her apartment, and believes herself to be the victim of witchcraft. Then a society photographer is stabbed to death in a nearby park and suddenly a link emerges between the two cases. And so begins an investigation that will test the members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit to their limits, setting Arthur Bryant off on a trail that leads to Bedlam and Bletchley Park, and into the world of madness, codes and the secret of London's strangest relic. As the members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit dig behind the city's facades to expose a world of private clubs, hidden passages and covert loyalties, they realise that the case might not just end in disaster - it might also get everyone killed. Bryant & May and the Invisible Code is by Christopher Fowler and is due to be published in August 2012.
AD 68. The tyrant emperor Nero has no son and no heir. Suddenly there's the very real possibility that Rome might become a republic once more. However, the ambitions of a few are about to bring corruption, chaos and untold bloodshed to the many. Among them is a hero of the campaign against Boudicca, Aulus Caecina Severus. Caught up in a conspiracy to overthrow Caesar's dynasty, he commits treason, raises a rebellion, faces torture and intrigue - all supposedly for the good of Rome. The boundary between the good of Rome and self-preservation is far from clear, and keeping to the dangerous path he's chosen requires all Severus' skills as a cunning soldier and increasingly deft politician. And so Severus looks back on the dark and dangerous time history knows as the Year of the Four Emperors, and the part he played - for good or ill - in plunging the mighty Roman empire into anarchy and civil war... The Last Caesar is the debut novel by Henry Venmore-Rowland and is due to be published in June 2012.
Rome, summer 66AD and Nero's agents mercilessly hunt down the last survivors of the Piso Conspiracy. Yet, despite purging this viper's nest with fire and iron, the increasingly unstable young Emperor feels his grip on power weakening. In Judaea, rebels have bested his army and taken an eagle, in Germania, the Rhenus legions agitate for better conditions. In Hispana, his governor plots. But the most dangerous threat is in the east where Rome's greatest general, Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, presides over an Empire within an Empire. Is Corbulo preparing to march against Rome and take the purple? Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome, is ordered to Antioch with the power of life and death over the soldier he worships. There he finds every man's hand against him and Corbulo's eyes not on Rome, but on a new threat from the Parthian King of Kings, Vologases. Outnumbered, Corbulo marches with Valerius at his side into the barren wastes beyond the Tigris, to meet Vologases in a mighty confrontation that will decide the future of the Empire. In Avenger of Rome, Valerius will face his greatest enemy and his greatest challenge, but neither will be what he believes. Avenger of Rome is by Douglas Jackson and is due to be published in August 2012.
A Letter from Lee Child..."Like any reader, I love old favourites ...but I love new voices too, and I especially love it when a new voice starts to become an old favourite. It doesn't happen often, but right now, it's happening with Marcus Sakey. He's got it all. he writes like a dream, he creates characters exactly like people you know, he scares you, and above all keeps you turning the pages. But most of all he does the 'what if' thing better than anyone in the business. 'What if' questions power a lot of plots, but Sakey is special. He doesn't just check a box or construct a neat twist for the sake of it. Reading him between the lines, I guarantee he lives this stuff ...he thinks it through and sweats it out, probably for weeks at a time. I can see him, looking around at all the things he loves, looking at his house, turning and looking at his wife, asking himself, 'What if? What if I had to put all this at risk? Would I? Could I? How would it feel? What would be the effect on me?’ It's that kind of depth, intelligence, passion, and emotion that sets Sakey apart. These are not just clever plots. These are real people with night sweats and wide eyes and everything to lose. The "Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes" takes 'what if' in a new direction and to new heights. Every writer muses, 'What if the reader isn't sure whether the husband killed his wife, or not?’ That's a basic whodunit. But Sakey asks, 'What if the husband isn't sure whether he killed his wife, or not?’ That's a terrific premise, and it boosts an already-terrific thriller plot into the stratosphere. The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes is by Marcus Sakey and is due to be published in July 2012.
AD 64 Roman Centurion Marcus Domitus leads an expedition to find the mythical treasure hidden deep inside Queen Dido’s temple. AD 1945 In the confusion and burning Berlin, two high powered Nazis disappear, and so does a precious object. Art recovery specialist Jamie Saintclair receives a call from a Boston detective, asking for his help to investigate a brutal murder. He believes that Saintclair might hold the key to solving the crime through his detailed knowledge of specialist Nazi units. But as they delve deeper into the sinister world of the occult, they uncover a dark secret that men must have lusted over for more than two millennia. Long ago, in the ancient temple of Isis, something was stolen, and the repercussions have resonated through the centuries. Saintclair must discover the truth before the curse claims more victims, and finally catches up with him. The Isis Covenant is by James Douglas and is due to be published in August 2012. 
A Wanted Man is by Lee Child and is due to be published in September 2012. When you're as big and rough as Jack Reacher - and you have a badly-set, freshly-busted nose, patched with silver duct tape - it isn't easy to hitch a ride. But Reacher has some unfinished business in Virginia, so he doesn't quit. And at last, he's picked up by three strangers - two men and a woman. But within minutes it becomes clear they're all lying about everything - and then they run into a police roadblock on the highway. There has been an incident, and the cops are looking for the bad guys...Will they get through because the three are innocent? Or because the three are now four? Is Reacher just a decoy?
He Who Kills The Dragon is the second instalment of Leif G W Persson's trilogy of police procedurals featuring the "small, fat and primitive" Evert Backstrom, the grand master's most appallingly repulsive (and funniest) character is finally given his fifteen minutes of fame by way of his patented combination of laziness, luck, and an unbelievable sense of timing. A seemingly ordinary murder puzzles Backstrom, who is struggling with strict orders from his doctor to lead a healthier life. His gut feeling proves him right: within days, his team has another murder linked to the first on their hands, and reports of alleged ties to a Securicor heist gone out of control, killing two. The nation needs a hero, and the newly appointed head of the Vasterort police force Anna Holt needs somebody to kill the dragon for her. Who better to heed to the task than Evert Backstrom: self-sufficient, ostentatious, devoid of moral, Hawaii shirt-clad, and, latterly, armed? He Who Kills The Dragon is due to be published in October 2012.
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