Tuesday 12 June 2012

Forthcoming books to look forward to from Pan Macmillan


Settled Blood is the second novel by Mari Hannah to feature Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels.  When a young girl is found dead at the base of Hadrian's Wall, it is not long before Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels realises her death was no ordinary homicide.  She was thrown from a great height and was probably alive before she hit the ground.  Then a local businessmen reports his daughter missing, has Daniels found the identity of her victim, or is a killer playing a sickening game?  As the murder investigation team delve deeper into the case, half-truths are told, secrets exposed, and while Daniels makes her way through a mountain of obstacles time is running out for one terrified girl.  Settled Blood is due to be published in November 2012.
  
The Lost Library is the debut novel by A M Dean and is due to be published in August 2012.  HE WAS THE KEEPER - Arno Holmstrand is about to die, his life cut short by an organization intent on laying claim to the secrets he has spent a lifetime guarding: the location of the lost Library of Alexandria, and the vast knowledge it has hidden for centuries.  SHE WILL INHERIT HIS LEGACY - Emily Wess is about to have her life change beyond all recognition.  One minute she is a professor of history, the next she is on a journey to the far corners of the world, deciphering strange clues left by her mentor, Arno Holmstrand.  She is being tested, but for what?  THEY WILL KILL FOR CONTROL - They are the Council and crave power and position.  Their corruption spreads from the highest levels of government to the assassins they employ to commit their crimes.  They will kill for the ancient knowledge contained in the Library.  And Emily Wess has exactly what they want.
  
Marine Gunnery Sergeant Kyle Swanson is sent into Pakistan, where an international team of medical workers has been executed in order to cover up a deadly terrorist secret.  In the aftermath of great floods, a doctor on a relief mission in north eastern Pakistan discovers the remains of a collapsed bridge that reminds him of a bridge near his childhood home in Ohio.  He snaps a mobile phone picture and sends it to his sister, just before his entire team is slaughtered.  His sister is Beth Ledford, a Coast Guard sniper, who suspects that the answer to the mystery of her brother's death is in that cell phone picture.  No one believes her until she finds Swanson and the secret special operations team known as Task Force Trident.  When Kyle takes Beth into Pakistan to investigate, they find the true secret behind the mass murder - what may be the last, best hope of victory by al-Qaeda and the Taliban over allied forces.  Now the two snipers have their sights set on one man, an American diplomat who has become the biggest obstacle to victory in the war on terror.  The only question is: which of them gets to pull the trigger?  Running the Maze by Jack Coughlin and Donald A Davis and is due to be published in December 2012.

Ex-Special Agent Dewey Andreas has retreated to rural Australia to escape the turbulent forces he once fought against.  US National Security Advisor, Jessica Tanzer, has her own reasons for wanting him home.  But there is someone else who has a much more sinister agenda.  Someone who seeks revenge and who will not rest until he finds the man who has ruined his life.  Meanwhile in the border region of Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan is escalating.  As the situation quickly spins out of control, it becomes clear that world peace is in jeopardy.  With just hours to head off disaster, the US President joins forces to help avert a worldwide crisis.  There is only one man he can trust to carry out the near impossible task.  Can he be found in time, and can he be persuaded to carry out the most difficult and dangerous mission of his career? Coup d’Etat is by Ben Coes and is due to be published in August 2012.

'The shadowy Gangster Squad was formed in 1946 with eight men operating out of two rusted old Fords.  They had no office and made no arrests -- the idea was to remain invisible.  By the time I met Sgt. Jack O'Mara, most of the early members were dead, so I set out to find the survivors.’  Based on the hugely popular Los Angeles Times column 'LA Noir: Tales from the Gangster Squad', this is the dark-hearted true story of a group of men cleaning up the mean streets of post-War America.  From hundreds of interviews with the original members of the team it stitches together the story of Jack O'Mara, his dangerous colleague Jerry Wooters ('the killer cop, that's what they called me') and their anything-goes war with arch-criminal Mickey Cohen and his budding rival Jack 'The Enforcer' Whalen.  A tale of stake-outs, shoot-outs and even the famous Black Dahlia murder case, this is ice-cool narrative non-fiction at its best -- and the basis for a huge Warner Brothers film of the same name, starring Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Josh Brolin and Emma Stone. The Gangster Squad is by Paul Lieberman and is due to be published in October 2012.

The Last Tomorrow is by Ryan David Jahn and is due to be published in July 2012.  April 1952.  Los Angeles.  After thirteen-year-old Sandy Duncan shoots his stepfather in the temple and carves a symbol into the corpse's forehead in imitation of a comic book, district attorney Seymour Markley launches a grand jury investigation into the murder and its causes, an investigation that could implicate east coast crime boss James Manning and end his thirty-year career.  Also potentially implicated: the comic book's creator, Eugene Dahl, who now spends his mornings working as a milkman and his evenings warming bar stools.  Threatening notes begin appearing nailed to his front door, notes that draw him to a downtown hotel where one of the district attorney's witnesses, one of the men who could bring down James Manning, is being held.  There, Eugene finds the witness murdered, as well as the police officer charged with protecting him; and he finds himself framed for those murders.  He is forced to go on the run, and, in order to clear his name, to devise a plan that involves deeds far worse than anything he has been framed for.  And he must commit those deeds with the police right behind him.

A chance encounter with a strange young woman leads Inspector Montalbano to Vigata harbour and into a puzzling new mystery.  The crew of a mysterious yacht - the Vanna - due to dock in the area have discovered a corpse floating in the water, the dead man's face badly disfigured.  It is not long before Montalbano begins to become suspicious of the Vanna's inhabitants.  Who is the yacht's owner, the glamorous and short-tempered Livia Giovannini?  How has she accrued her riches?  And why does she spend so much time at sea?  Meanwhile Montalbano finds himself getting into tangles with the dreaded Commissioner, the exasperating Dr Lattes and a very beautiful young woman at the harbour, with whom he becomes dangerously besotted ...Can the Inspector clear his head long enough to unravel this murky mystery? The Age of Doubt is by Andrea Camileri and is due to be published in November 2012.
  
Kill You Twice is by Chelsea Cain and is due to be published in August 2012.  Archie Sheridan should be recovering from his past run-ins with serial killer Gretchen Lowell, yet he is just as haunted as the day she let him go.  But when a cyclist comes across a corpse in Mount Tabor Park on the eastern side of Portland, Archie suddenly has to focus.  Then comes a call from an unlikely source.  After months of ignoring a doctor at the mental hospital where Gretchen is supposed to be locked away forever, Archie hears that she may have inside knowledge about the new investigation.  But is she bluffing just to get close to him, and can he risk losing his only lead.  One thing is for sure: Gretchen Lowell is back, and Archie must decide if catching a killer is worth facing his demons one more time.
  
When a CIA informant from Kandahar is gunned down in a suburban area of Virginia outside D.C., special Agent Jack Saunders is tasked with uncovering a plot that could alter the fate of Afghanistan and unsettle a tepid peace in the Middle East.  But when a raid on a radical safe house goes horribly wrong, Jack finds himself without support within his own government.  Determined to find answers on his own, Jack enlists the aid of Cianna Phelan, a disgraced former war hero trying to put her life back together.  When Cianna's brother, Charlie, returns to South Boston from active duty in Afghanistan and immediately goes missing, Cianna and Jack find themselves in a race against time not only to save his life, but also to prevent an international conspiracy at the highest levels of the US intelligence community.  As lives are lost in the warrens of Boston's clannish underworld, Jack and Cianna realize they are on the trail of one of the most sacred artefacts in all of Islam.  And when the bullets start to fly, they realize they can never know whom to trust, and nothing is what it seems.  The Guardian is by David Hosp and is due to be published in August 2012.

Ash is by James Herbert and is due to be published in August 2012.  David Ash detective of the paranormal is sent to the mysterious Comraich Castle, secluded deep in the Scottish countryside, to investigate a strange, high-profile case: a man has been found crucified in a room that was locked.  The reports suggest that the cliff-top castle is being haunted ...Who or what is the reclusive hooded figure that Ash has seen from the window walking across the courtyard in the dead of night?  What are the strange, animal-like sounds that come from the surrounding woods?  And why are the castle's inhabitants so reluctant to talk about what they have seen?  ...what Ash eventually discovers is truly shocking.  Featuring one of Herbert's best-loved characters, first encountered in The Ghosts of Sleath and Haunted, Ash is a ghost story like no other that will chill you to the marrow...

In 1941, mixed race Ruby Darke is born into a family that seem to hate her, but why?  While her two brothers dive into a life of gangland violence, Ruby has to work in their family store.  As she blossoms into a beautiful young woman, she crosses paths with aristocrat Cornelius Bray, a chance meeting that will change her life forever.  When she finds herself pregnant, and then has twins, she is forced to give her children away.  At that point, she vows never to trust another man again.  As the years pass, Ruby never forgets her babies, and as the family store turns into a retail empire, Ruby wants her children back.  But secrets were whispered and bargains made, and if Ruby wants to stay alive she needs to forget the past, or the past will come back and kill her.  Nameless is by Jessie Keane and is due to be published in August 2012.

Dark Waters is the second in the Cragg & Fidelis historical mystery series by Robin Blake and is due to be published in August 2012.  Preston, 1741.  The drowning of drunken publican Antony Egan is no surprise even if it comes as an unpleasant shock to coroner Titus Cragg, whose wife was the old man's niece.  But he does his duty to the letter, and the inquest's verdict is accidental death.  Meanwhile the town is agog with rumour and faction, as the General Election is only a week away and the two local seats are to be contested by four rival candidates.  But Cragg's close friend, Dr Luke Fidelis, finds evidence to cast doubt on the events leading to Egan's demise.  Soon suspicions are further roused when a well-to-do farmer collapses and it appears he was in town on political business.  Is there a conspiracy afoot?  The Mayor and Council have their own way of imposing order, but Cragg is determined not to be swayed by their pressure.  With the help of Fidelis's scientific ingenuity, the true criminals are brought to light...

Blood Ties: The Calabrian Mafia is by Gianluigi Nuzzi and Claudio Antonelli and is due to be published in August 2012.  A massive bestseller in its native Italy, and a book that can justly be compared with Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah, Blood Ties is a terrifying account of the 'ndrangheta's criminal activities over the last four decades.  Originally, from Calabria, this sinister organization has - like the Mafia in Sicily and the Camorra in Naples - a vicious hold over northern Italy and much of the rest of the country, too, a stranglehold that is growing every day.  Told to the authors by an insider, Pippo di Bella, a 'pentito', a former member of the gang now turned state's evidence, it reveals many hitherto unknown operations, as well as throwing new light on well-known cases from the past.  It shows an organization which retains and strengthens its position through corruption, drug smuggling, gun running, violence, extortion and kidnapping.  Visceral, compelling and terrifyingly readable, it paints a brutally vivid picture of the most dangerous and powerful of the Italian mafias, one which demands to be read.

Why would suicide need a witness?  On the east coast of Ireland, Victor Delahaye, one of the country's most prominent citizens, takes his business partner's son out sailing.  But once at sea, Davy Clancy is horrified to witness Delahaye take out a gun and shoot himself dead.  This strange event captures the attention of Detective Inspector Hackett and his friend Pathologist Doctor Quirke.  The Delahayes and Clancys have been rivals for generations and the suicide lays bare the perplexing characters at the heart of the mystery, from Mona, Delahaye's toxic young widow, to Jonas and James, his strange, enigmatic twin sons; and Jack Clancy, his down-trodden, womanizing partner.  And when a second death occurs, one even more shocking than the first, Quirke begins to realise that terrible secrets lie buried within these entangled families; and that in this world of jealousy, ruthless ambition and pride nothing is quite as it seems…  Vengeance is by Benjamin Black and is due to be published in August 2012.

The Boy in the Snow is the second book in the series featuring Edie Kiglatuk by M J McGrath and is due to be published in October 2012.  When Arctic guide Edie Kiglatuk stumbles across a body abandoned in the Alaskan forest, she little imagines what her discovery will lead her to.  With the local police convinced the death is linked to the Dark Believers, a sinister Russian sect, Edie's friends insist she leave the investigation to the proper authorities.  But remaining in the area as part of the support team for her ex-husband Sammy's bid to win the famous Iditarod dog sled race, Edie cannot get the image of the frozen corpse out of her mind.  While Sammy travels across some of world's toughest and most deadly terrain, Edie sets off on an investigation which will take her into a dark world of politics, corruption and greed as a painful secret in her past finally catches up with her...

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