Books to Look forward to from Orion

Meet Mollel, a former Maasai warrior whose beloved wife died in the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi. Mollel has been assigned to the investigation of the brutal murder of a local prostitute. Despite the resistance of his colleagues, Mollel soon begins to uncover something more far-reaching. But are his warrior's instincts, which have always served him so well, correct? Or will his convictions about the case be turned on their head? The investigation will become more personal to him than he could have possibly imagined...Set against the backdrop of turbulent elections, The Honey Guide by Richard Crompton is due to be published in February 2013. It brings Nairobi and its citizens vividly to life, and introduces a truly unforgettable leading character in crime fiction.

The Siege is by Arturo Pérez-Reverte and is due to be published in July 2013.  Cadiz, 1811. Spain is battling for independence while America is doing the same. But in the streets of the most liberal city in Europe, other battles are taking place. A serial killer is on the loose, flaying young women to death. Each of these murders takes place near the site where a French bomb has just fallen. It is the job of policeman Rogelio Tizon to find the murderer and avoid public scandal in a city already poised on the brink. Cadiz is a complex chessboard on which an unseen hand - a ruthless assassin, artillery fire, the direction of the wind, the calculation of probabilities - moves the pieces that will decide the fate of its protagonists: a corrupt and brutal policeman, the female heir to important shipping company; an unscrupulous corsair captain; a sinister taxidermist who is also a spy, a hardened soldier, and an eccentric French artilleryman. The Siege tells the story of a world that could have been but never was. It documents the end of an era and characters condemned by history to a life that will never be the same.

In her hey-day, ex FBI agent, Brigid Quinn, not only worked serial killer cases but became their prize. Small and blond, from a distance she looked vulnerable and slight...the perfect bait to catch a killer. But as Quinn got older, she realised she needed to find a protégé, a younger field agent to take her place. So Quinn trains a twenty-two year old and lets her loose in the field. The plan works. Until the Route 66 killer not only takes the bait, but kills the bait. Years on, Quinn is trying to move past the fact that she has a young woman's death on her conscience. She's now the perfect Stepford Wife - until she gets a knock on her door. The girl's body has finally been discovered. Quinn is pulled back into the case and the more she learns about the killer the more she comes to believe, despite the overwhelming forensic evidence to hand, that they have the wrong man. Rage Against the Dying is a debut novel by Becky Masterman.  It is due to be published in February 2013.

Capital Punishment is by Robert Wilson and is due to be published in January 2013. Meet Charles Boxer - ex-army, ex-police and now a high-stakes kidnap recovery specialist, he knows only too well how the dark forces in the city can reach out and ensnare an innocent victim. The hostage is the beautiful Alyshia D'Cruz, daughter of Indian tycoon Francisco 'Frank' D'Cruz. After a boozy night out she gets into the wrong cab home and Boxer is the only man Frank will trust to go down into the criminal underworld to retrieve her. Boxer knows that Frank's crooked business empire has made him plenty of enemies, but despite the vast D'Cruz fortune, the kidnappers don't want his cash. They prefer a crueller, more lethal game and to have any chance of saving Alyshia, Boxer must play it out with religious fanatics, London's homegrown crime lords and Indian mobsters, as his trail crosses paths with a terrorist plot on British soil. Capital Punishment is a thrilling journey to the dark side of people and places hidden just out of sight, waiting for the moment to tear a life apart.

A professional assassin must break into an experimental maximum security prison, targeting a woman with an explosive secret.. Charlotte Alton is forced to re-visit her criminal past as a manipulator of information when Simon Johanssen, a professional killer, wants her to do another job for him.  His target is in an experimental prison, the Program, where people go- but never come out.  To get to the truth Charlotte must leave her safe arena of information and technology for a world of pain, violence and retribution.  The Distance is by Helen Giltrow and is due to be published in March 2013.

The 9^TH Girl is by Tami Hoag and is due to be published in June 2013.  It focuses on the ninth unidentified body to turn up in Minneapolis in 2012, nicknamed Jane Doe 9. When Kovac and Liska take on the case, they discover a shocking fact: This victim has been found without any identifiable characteristics, except for those that peg her as an adolescent girl. 

Before the investigation is through, the case will take the two detectives deep into the life and death of a teenage girl who wanted nothing more than to be 'normal'. They will come perilously close to the bullies who tormented her, the twisted family dynamics that may have contributed to her death, and ultimately to the haunting details of a young love that just may hide the secret of Jane Doe 9's terrible fate.

The United States and Russia are on the brink of war and only Will Cochrane - can find and unmask the diabolical double agent responsible for it all. Fourteen days ago, CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, received a cryptic message from an agent operating deep undercover in Russia: 'He has betrayed us and wants to go to war.' Unable to make contact, the Director of Operations is forced to turn to one of his most deadly field officers - Will Cochrane. His mission is simple: infiltrate the remote submarine base in eastern Russia's Avacha Bay, locate the MI6 agent operating under the codename 'Svelte', and decode his message - or die trying. It's a near impossible task, even for a man who carries the codename Spartan, a title given to only the most effective and deadliest Western intelligence officers. Will successfully locates the base, but finds Svelte near death; his last words a final clue: 'Only Sentinel can stop him.' Meanwhile, political and economic tensions between the U.S. and Russia are rising by the day, with both sides rounding up known enemy sleeper agents within their borders for interrogation. Now it's up to Will - with the help of the top-secret joint CIA-MI6 Spartan Section - to uncover the true meaning of Svelte's message and discover the identity of the legendary operative known only as 'Sentinel'.  The Sentinel is by Matthew Dunn and is due to be published in January 2013.

The Devil and The River is by Roger Ellory and is due to be published in June 2013.  'When the rains came they found the girl's face. Just her face. At least that was how it appeared ...' When Sheriff John Gaines is called down to the riverside, it is to supervise the recovery of the body of a teenage girl. The corpse is perfectly preserved - she could have died yesterday. But the locals of Whytesburg, Mississippi, are in for a shock. For Nancy Denton - a girl missing for over two decades - has come back to them from the cold embrace of the riverbank. In 1954, on a perfect summer evening in August, sixteen-year-old Nancy walked into the woods, never to be seen again. Now she's been found and her mother can finally put her memory to rest. But Nancy's body bears horrific mutilations that suggest she was subjected to a terrifying ritual, an evil form of voodoo magic. Gaines discovers that Nancy's tight-knit group of friends were present the night she disappeared and now he must find out what - if anything - they know. But none of them want to talk about that time, or their relationship with the beautiful and vivacious Nancy. As Gaines digs ever deeper into the dark secrets of the town, he is forced to confront his own demons. And when a new series of deaths begin in the wake of the discovery, Gaines must find the answer to two questions: Who really took Nancy that summer night? And what new evil has been released by digging her up?

Never Saw It Coming is by Linwood Barclay and is due to be published in February 2013. Keisha Ceylon is a psychic. At least, that's what she passes herself off as. The truth is, Keisha's real powers have more to do with separating troubled families from their money than actually seeing into the netherworld. Keisha watches the news for stories of missing family members. She gives it a few days, then moves in, tells these families she's had a vision, that she may have some clue to where these missing people are. And by the way, she charges for this service, and likes to see the money up front. Keisha's latest mark is a man whose wife disappeared a week ago. She's seen him on TV, pleading for his wife to come home, or, if she's been abducted, pleading with whoever took her to let her go. Keisha knows a payoff when she sees one. So she pays a visit to our troubled husband and tells him her vision. The trouble is, her vision just happens to be close enough to the truth that it leaves this man rattled. And it may very well leave Keisha dead...

Suspect is the new standalone novel by Robert Crais and it is due to be published in April 2013. In the middle of the night on the streets of LA, Officer Max Kent and his partner of eight years, Allie Baker, respond to what they think is a routine collision incident. But when the masked occupants of one car emerge with automatic rifles and gun down the men in the other, Allie is killed in the crossfire and Max is left severely wounded. Eight months later, the case remains unsolved and Homicide chalk it up to a robbery gone wrong. Max is furious, devastated and volatile, determined to avenge the murder of his partner. When he struggles to return to his old position in the LAPD, he retrains as a K9 dog handler and is paired with Maggie, a German shepherd who lost her handler in Afghanistan. With Maggie at his side, and unbeknownst to his employers, it's down to Max to investigate the shooting and find those responsible for Allie's death. But as he begins to dig deeper into the case he unearths a web of lies, corruption and treachery that threatens to leave Max himself as the prime suspect.

Speaking From Among The Bones is the fifth book in the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley. It is due to be published in March 2013.  It is almost Easter in Bishop's Lacey, and the villagers are holding their collective breath as the tomb of St Tancred in the church that bears his name is about to be opened after five hundred years. And as luck would have it, it's inveterate eleven-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce who is first at the scene. But the body she finds lying there is clearly not that of a desiccated saint. For a start, there's the pool of fresh blood, and then there's the gasmask, from under which an unmistakeable shock of golden hair identifies the corpse as that of Mr Collicutt, St Tancred's celebrated organist. Despite her tender years, Flavia is no stranger to murder - but even she is baffled by the peculiar circumstances of Collicutt's death. Especially when soon after, an effigy of St Tancred appears to be weeping blood onto the church floor. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, Flavia soon finds herself exploring a secret maze of underground passages beneath the church - and is drawn into the equally dark and fetid world of one of Bishop's Lacey's most peculiar families.

Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities is by Christian Cameron and is due to be published in January 2013. Demetrius, son of Alexander's former comrade, Antigonus One-Eye, was perhaps the most dashing and charismatic of the Successors, the Macedonian generals who fought a bitter war for the spoils of Alexander's short-lived empire. Still smarting from his epic defeat at the hands of Ptolemy, Demetrius has his eye on one of the richest prizes in the ancient world - the naval superpower of Rhodes. But the Rhodians know that defeat will mean annihilation, and Demetrius's campaign will entail five separate naval battles over several years before he can begin to breach the city walls - leading him to employ an array of fantastic war machines: ancient super-weapons like his gigantic lens of polished bronze used to focus on the city's wooden ramparts and set them ablaze. If she is to survive against such a merciless assault, Rhodes will need the help of every ally she can muster - including the newly crowned King of the Bosporus, Satyrus, and his fiery twin, Melitta...

Six years have passed since Jake Sanders watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd. But six years haven't come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd's obituary, he can't keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the glimpse of Todd's wife he's hoping for...but she is not Natalie. Whoever the mourning widow is, she's been married to Todd for more than a decade, and with that fact, everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life - a time he has never gotten over - is turned completely inside out. As Jake searches for the truth, his picture-perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual friends of the couple either can't be found or don't remember Jake. No one has seen Natalie in years. Jake's search for the woman who broke his heart - and who lied to him - soon puts his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he has become may be based on carefully constructed fiction.  Six Years is by Harlan Coben and is due to be published in April 2013.

It should have been the greatest day of David's life. A trip to New York, wife by his side, to visit his new publisher. Finally, after years of lonely struggle it looks as though the gods of fate are on his side. But on the way back to Penn station, a chance encounter changes all of that. David bumps into a man who covertly follows him and, just before he boards the train, passes by him close enough to whisper: 'Remember me.' When the stranger turns up in his home town, David begins to understand that this man wants something from him...something very personal that he may have no choice but to surrender. Meanwhile, back in New York, ex-lawyer John Henderson does his girlfriend Kristina a favour and agrees to talk to Catherine Warren, an acquaintance of hers who believes she's being stalked by an ex-lover. But soon John realises that Catherine's problem is far more complex and terrifying than he could ever have imagined...There are people out there in the shadows, watching, waiting. They are the forgotten. And they're about to turn.  We Are Here is by Michael Marshall and is due to be published in March 2013.

Stephen Killigan has been cold since the day he came to Cambridge as a junior lecturer. Something about the seven hundred years of history staining the stones of the university has given him a chill he can't shake. When he stumbles across the body of a missing beauty queen, he thinks he's found the reason. But when the police go to retrieve the body and find no trace, Killigan has found a problem - and a killer - that is the very opposite of reason. Killigan's unwitting entry into Jackamore Grass's sinister world will lead him on a trail of tattooists, philosophers, cadavers and scholars of a deadly beauty. As Killigan traces a path between our age and seventeenth century Cambridge, he must work out how a corpse can be found before someone goes missing, and whether he's at the edge of madness or an astonishing discovery. A fast-paced page-turner The Beauty of Murder a speculative crime thriller that travels to the heart of gruesome series of crime by way of a city and a person that have far too many secrets written in blood is by A K Benedict.  It is due to be published in February 2013.

The Red Room is by Denise Mina and is due to be published in July 2013.  Alex Morrow is a witness in the trial of a vicious arms dealer, Mark Lynch. When he is convicted, a psychologist is charged by the court to do a risk assessment and finds that the first case against him, the murder of his own brother, was probably committed by someone else.  But who? And how much did the wrongful conviction make him the man he is today.

Professor David Ullman is among the world's leading authorities on demonic literature. Not that he's a believer. He sees what he teaches as a branch of the imagination and nothing more. So when offered a luxury trip to Venice to consult on a 'phenomenon', he accepts, taking his 11-year-old daughter Tess with him. Amidst the decadent splendour of the city, David makes his way to the address he's been asked to visit. What he witnesses in the tiny attic room shakes him to the core: a man restrained in a chair, clearly insane. But what David hears the man say is worse. The voice of his father, dead for 30 years, repeating the last words he ever spoke to his son. Words that have left scars - and a mystery - behind. Terrified, David is determined to leave with Tess as quickly as possible. But he can't shake the feeling that something is following him. And then, before his eyes on the roof of their hotel, Tess disappears. But before she falls into the Grand Canal's waters, she utters a plea: Find me. At once frightening and deeply moving, The Demonologist is a page-turning thriller explores the lengths a father will go to find his daughter, and the darkness he is prepared to confront along the way. The Demonologist is by Andrew Pyper and is due to be published in April 2013.

The Vanishing is by John Connor and is due to be published in June 2013. Twenty years ago, one-year-old Lauren disappeared in the most terrifying way imaginable. Snatched from a creche during a momentary blackout, Lauren was never seen again and her mother still grieves her loss. When Tom Lomax gets a mysterious offer from Sara Eaton, heir to a massive fortune, to fly to her private island, all expenses paid, he cannot help but be intrigued. Sara has received her own cryptic message and, despite all the privileges in her life, she has no one to turn to and doesn't know who to trust. In a matter of hours, both will be thrown headfirst into a race against time that will challenge everything they've believed in and change both their lives for ever.

London 1599, a city on the brink of revolution...He is Queen Elizabeth's last, perhaps her greatest, love - Robert Deveraux, Earl of Essex. Champion jouster, dashing general...and the man that John Lawley, England's finest swordsman, most wishes to avoid. For John knows the other earl - the reckless melancholic - and has had to risk his life for him in battle one time too many. All John wants is to be left alone to win back the heart of the woman he loves, be the kind of father that his son can look up to, and arrange the fight scenes for the magnificent new theatre, the Globe. To realise these dreams, John must dodge both Essex and his ruthless adversary for the queen's affections, Robert Cecil, and remain free to help his oldest friend Will Shakespeare finish the play that threatens to destroy him: The Tragedy Of Hamlet. But John is doomed by his three devils: whisky, women and Mad Robbie Deveraux. Despite every effort to evade the clutches of Elizabeth and her cohorts, John is soon enmeshed in the intrigues of court and dragged into the seemingly hopeless war in Ireland, forced to play his part in a deadly game of power and politics, conspiracy and rebellion. From the scaffold of the Globe to the one in the Tower. From ambush in Ireland to even greater menace in Whitehall, John Lawley must strive to be - or not to be - the man who might just save England. Shakespeare’s Rebel is by C C Humphreys and is due to be published in March 2013.

The Chalice is by Nancy Bilyeau and is due to be published in February 2013.  England, 1538.  A bloody power struggle between crown and cross tears England asunder.  Young Joanna Stafford has already tasted the wrath of the royal court, seen what lies inside the king's torture rooms and escaped death at the hands of those desperate to possess the power of an ancient relic.  After seeing such sights, the quiet life is not for Joanna.  Soon she risks arrest and imprisonment again, when she is caught up in a conspiracy scheming against Henry VIII.  As the power plays grow deadly, Joanna must realise if her role is more central than she had ever imagined.  As one fateful night at the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket proves, she must make a choice between those she cares for most and taking her place in a prophecy foretold by three different seers, each more powerful than the last.  To learn the final, sinister piece of the prophecy, she flees across Europe with an amoral spy sent by Spain.  As the necromancers complete the puzzle, Joanna realises the life of Henry VIII as well as the future of Christendom are in her hands; hands which must someday hold the chalice that lies at the centre of these deadly prophecies...

As a brilliant young biochemist studying at Oxford, Martin Blackthorn had a bright future ahead of him.  Then in the course of a behavioural experiment, he met a boy called John Slade, and in a moment, his life took a very different and infinitely darker turn.  On the surface, John appeared quite normal, but when it came to inflicting pain, his behaviour was off the scale.  Here, Martin recognized, was someone who had no inhibitions and no moral qualms: the perfect subject for a series of experiments he had never quite dared to try...Twenty years later in Brighton, and DS Minter is faced with the most bizarre and disturbing murder of his fledgling police career, when the dismembered body of a local woman is casually dumped on a station platform.  Then another body is discovered, and soon Minter has to face the possibility that Brighton now has its very own serial killer at work.  A killer who seems to combine an off-the-scale IQ with a chilling brutality the city has never experienced before.  A Place of Blood and Bone is the second book in the DS Minter series by Mark Peterson and it is due to be published in April 2013.

Ten years ago, she disappeared without a trace ...now she's back.  On 31st December 1999, ten-year-old Amy Archer went missing from her local playground.  Her body was never found and the lives of her parents, Beth and Brian, were torn apart.  On the tenth anniversary of the disappearance, Beth is alone, still struggling with the enormity of her grief and the horror of not knowing the fate of her only child.  However, the fear and confusion has only just begun, and Beth's world is turned upside down when a stranger knocks on her door, claiming to know what happened to Amy.  Beth is introduced to a little girl who is the uncanny double of her missing daughter, who knows things that only Amy would remember; the name of her favourite toy, the place where she scratched her initials, what Beth likes for breakfast.  But this can't be Amy; she hasn't aged a day ...Now Beth is forced to question everything she has ever believed in, and push her faith and her sanity to the limits, if she is to find out the truth about what happened to Amy.  The Second Life of Amy Archer is the debut novel from R S Pateman and is due to be published in June 2013.

Also due to be published in June 2013 is Love Story, With Murders by Harry Bingham, which is the second book in the Fiona Griffiths series.

When a body is discovered in a deserted woodland lake house Dr Kate Hanson and Birmingham’s Unsolved Crime Unit are called in to investigate the decades old murder.  The second book (untitled) in the Dr Kate Hanson series by AJ Cross is due to be published in July 2013.  Also due to be published in July is Red Winter by Dan Smith and is a haunting new thriller full of intrigue, murder and Russian fairy tales.

The conclusion of Hit and Run found Keller living in a big old house in post-Katrina New Orleans, with a new name, a new wife, a new career rehabbing houses, and a baby on the way. It certainly looked as though he was done killing people for money. But old habits die hard, and when the economic downturn knocked out the construction business, a phone call from Dot draws him back into the old game. His work takes him to Dallas, to settle a domestic dispute; to Florida, where he joins a government witness on a West Indies cruise; to Wyoming, where a house has burned down; and to New York, where he lived for so many years, and where people might remember him.  Hit Me is the fifth book in the Keller series by Lawrence Block and is due to be published in February 2013.

A new case for Peter Grant takes him into the heart of a crowed south London housing estate where he finds brooding horror.  Broken Homes is the latest book in Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch.

Cop shows are bringing revenue to Miami and Dexter Morgan is asked to be an advisor for the filming of a new show on top of his regular job as Miami PD's blood-spatter analyst. But things take a distinctly dark turn when the leading actress on the show keels over from a very real bullet on set in front of him. With the press going crazy that the murder took place under the very nose of Miami's finest, Dexter and Debs are under pressure to wrap the case. When their lead suspect turns up dead, and then Rita and Cody are found bound, gagged and barely alive, Dexter knows he's well and truly met his match...  Dexter’s Debut is by Jeff Lindsay and is due to be published in March 2013.