Thursday 27 December 2012

Forthcoming Books To Look Forward to from Little Brown


Salvation of a Saint is by Keigo Higashino and is due to be published in February 2013.  When a man is discovered dead by poisoning in his empty home his beautiful wife, Ayane, immediately falls under suspicion.  All clues point to Ayane being the logical suspect, but how could she have committed the crime when she was hundreds of miles away?  As Tokyo police detective Kusanagi tries to unpick a seemingly unrelated sequence of events, he finds himself falling for Ayane.  When his judgement becomes dangerously clouded, his assistant must call on an old friend for help; it will take a genius to unravel the most spectacular web of deceit they have ever faced...

Peter Diamond, head of Bath CID, takes a city break in Vienna, where his favourite film, The Third Man, was set, but everything goes wrong and his companion, Paloma, calls a halt to their relationship.  Meanwhile, strange things are happening to jobbing musician Mel Farran, who finds himself scouted by methods closer to the spy world than the concert platform.  The chance of joining a once-famous string quartet in a residency at Bath Spa University is too tempting for Mel to refuse.  Then a body is found in the city canal, and the only clue to the dead woman's identity is the tattoo of a music note on one of her teeth.  For Diamond, who wouldn't know a Stradivarius from a French horn, the investigation is his most demanding ever.  Three mysterious deaths need to be probed while his own personal life is in free fall…  The Tooth Tattoo is the thirteenth book in the Peter Diamond series by Peter Lovesey and it is due to be published in April 2013.
  
Five years after Charles II's triumphant return to London there is growing mistrust of his extravagant court and of corruption among his officials - and when a cart laden with gunpowder explodes outside the General Letter Office, it is immediately clear that such an act is more than an expression of outrage at the inefficiency of the postal service.  As intelligencer to the Lord Chamberlain, Thomas Chaloner cannot understand why a man of known incompetence is put in charge of investigating the attack while he is diverted to make enquiries about the poisoning of birds in the King's aviary in St James's Park.  He becomes even more suspicious of his employer's motives when he discovers that the witnesses he needs to interview have close links to the business conducted in the General Letter Office, activities more firmly centred on intercepting people's mail than delivering it.  Then human rather than avian victims are poisoned, and Chaloner knows he has to ignore his master's instructions and use his own considerable wits to defeat an enemy whose deadly tentacles reach into the very heart of the government.  An enemy who has the power and expertise to destroy anyone who stands in the way … Death in St James’s Park is by Susanna Gregory and is due to be published in January 2013.

David Parker is Manchester's most ingenious criminal defence lawyer. Mike Parker is Manchester's most tenacious homicide detective.  Both bear the burden of the unsolved murder of their sister fifteen years earlier.  And both have a stake in a new series of murders that has shaken their city to its core.  Ronnie Bagley is awaiting trial for the murder of his girlfriend and baby.  Two weeks before he's due in court, he suddenly fires his defence team, claiming that there's only one lawyer he wants to defend him: David Parker.  Despite his misgivings about taking on the case in such strange circumstances, David decides to represent Bagley.  Little does he know that Bagley is smarter than anyone has given him credit for, and soon David will find himself pitched against his own brother, Mike, in a race to outwit the most terrifying serial killer the city has ever seen.  It isn't long before David and Mike's shared past comes crashing into the present in a pulse-pounding race to find out who is next to die...  Next To Die is the first in a new series by Neil White and is due to be published in June 2013.

Transferred to Naples after a tangle with the Sicilian Mafia, Detective Inspector Giuseppe Lojacono feels that he's marking time, waiting out an awkward scandal.  But when the bloodied bodies of teenagers start appearing around the city, victims of a strange and sinister killer whom police and locals take to calling The Crocodile, it soon becomes clear to Lojacono that the killings are more than simple Mafia hits, and that the labyrinthine streets of Naples are more deadly than he'd dared imagine.  Can he catch the assassin in time to save the city's innocents?  A bestseller in Italy, The Crocodile by Maurizio de Giovanni is a dark, bloody story of murder and revenge and is due to be published in June 2013.

Blind Faith is by C J Lyons and is due to be published in January 2013.  When her husband and son are murdered, she thought she'd lost it all.  But for Sarah Durandt the nightmare is just beginning ...Sarah has just witnessed the execution of the man who confessed to killing her husband and son, among others.  Returning home to the small town of Hopewell, Sarah vows to search for the graves of her murdered family - something the killer would never reveal.  But her hunt leads to shocking revelations and in a race to save everything she holds dear, Sarah is forced to swallow the ultimate betrayal and the cruellest of lies.

Victor the assassin is leading a solitary, peaceful life in Iceland when he’s drawn into a job for an unidentified Swiss broker.  Having passed the test, he’s introduced to a group of mercenaries and killers who are tasked to perform the ultimate assassination.  In this group Victor meets someone from his past, someone who recruited him to the life he now knows – someone he thought was dead.  And when he wants out, it’s too late – his former mentor has plans for him…. The Game is the third book in the series by Tom Wood to feature the assassin Victor and is due to be published in June 2013.

Eighteen-year-old Kirsty Wilson can't believe her luck when she lands a room in a luxury Glasgow flat owned by the beautiful Eva Magnusson, a wealthy fellow student from Stockholm.  But her initial delight turns to terror when Kirsty finds the Swedish girl lying dead in their home and their male flatmate accused of her murder.  Kirsty refuses to accept that he is guilty and, inspired by family friend Detective Superintendent Lorimer, sets out to clear his name.  Meanwhile, Lorimer calls on his trusted colleague, psychologist Solly Brightman, to help unravel the truth behind the enigmatic Eva's life and death.  But it is not long until another woman, bearing a marked resemblance to Eva, is brutally murdered in Glasgow.  Horrified, Lorimer and his team realise that Kirsty could be right.  Is it possible that Glasgow's finest detective has put the wrong man behind bars?  And is there a cold-blooded killer out there orchestrating the death of their next innocent victim?  In this absolutely gripping read, Alex Gray sends her dynamic Scottish detective from the gritty heart of Glasgow to the snowy streets of Stockholm in his toughest case yet?  The Swedish Girl is the tenth book in the DC Lorimer series by Alex Gray and is due to be published in March 2013.

It's 1959 and Lynsey Quinn has done the unthinkable.  She's got herself pregnant by a cop.  Rejected by her criminal family, she will pay the price for her betrayal, and so too will her daughter.  At the age of eleven, Helen is returned to the clan.  Hated by her grandfather, loved only by her uncle, she struggles to fit into a world she doesn't understand.  As warring factions battle for control of the East End, tragedy is about to strike again.  How can she survive?  And who can she trust as the murderous past comes back to haunt her?  Bad Girl is by Roberta Kray and is due to be published in April 2013.

The Cuckoo’s Calling is by Robert Galbraith and is due to be published in April 2013.  When a troubled model falls to her death from a snow-covered Mayfair balcony, it is assumed that she has committed suicide.  However, her brother has his doubts, and calls in private investigator Cormoran Strike to look into the case.  A war veteran wounded both physically and psychologically, Strike's life is in disarray.  The case gives him a financial lifeline, but it comes at a personal cost: the more he delves into the young model's complex world, the darker things get - and the closer he gets to terrible danger ...A gripping, elegant mystery steeped in the atmosphere of London - from the hushed streets of Mayfair, to the backstreet pubs of the East End, to the bustle of Soho - The Cuckoo's Calling is a remarkable debut.  Introducing Cormoran Strike, in a classic crime novel.

Already Dead is by Stephen Booth and is due to be published in June 2013.  It’s a wet summer in the Peak District, and the officers of Derbyshire CID have a problem.  A body is discovered lying in shallow water after torrential rain has swollen the rivers and flooded the roads, making travel difficult and forensic examination impossible.  And that’s not their only problem.  The absence of DS Ben Cooper, on extended leave after an arson attack, has left a serious gap.  DS Diane Fry is a reluctant temporary replacement, but now their makeshift team is about to be tested to the limit.  The fatal events of one damp August night are likely to stay shrouded in mystery if they can’t track down a car glimpsed only as a dark outline in the rain by a passer-by.  And then there’s the victim: is there really nothing in his life to suggest a motive for murder?  Did he have no wife, no partner, and no close relationships at all, as his elderly mother insists?  As the rain turns into a deluge, loyalties among the officers will be put under intolerable strain as they try to solve their toughest case yet.  And that is before it emerges that Ben Cooper is not at home, but has vanished into thin air.

The price of betrayal is more than thirty pieces of silver.  Two days after Jesus Christ's crucifixion, Judas Iscariot receives an anonymous note stating, I know what you did.  Wrapped with it is an eye, complete with trailing optic nerve, and a splintered tooth - trophies ripped from two recently butchered friends.  Someone, it seems, knows what Judas did on that fateful night following the Last Supper.  And that someone is intent on exacting a bloody and gruesome revenge.  As more acquaintances and family members die in increasingly brutal ways, Judas finds himself in a desperate race against time to make amends for his act of treachery, and to uncover the identity of the mysterious hooded killer.  A relentlessly paced, gripping thriller, which further explores one of the darkest bargains in human history.  You might just find yourself engaged in the unthinkable: rooting for the man who betrayed Christ.  I Know What You Did Last Supper is by Wayne Williams and Darren Allan and is due to be published in March 2013.

On the steps outside an empty office in New York's financial district, a woman lies dead.  It's a bitterly cold winter and her coat and other items are missing, which initially seems to point to a mugging gone wrong, but Lt Eve Dallas soon discovers that the body was dumped at the newly renovated property.  Now she has to find out why.  Marta Dickenson was an auditor, so Eve has a host of suspects among those who were under her scrutiny, not ruling out the fact Marta's sister-in-law is a famous judge.  With the financial wizardry of Eve's husband Roarke at her disposal and the faithful Peabody by her side - when not distracted by the upcoming premiere they're all to attend - Eve starts the process of shifting through the motives of some powerful people to catch a killer... Calculated in Death is the thirty-sixth book in the In Death series by J D Robb and is due to be published in February 2013.

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