Books to Look Forward to from Cornerstone

England: October, 1463. The great slaughter of the battle of Towton is two years past, but England is still not at peace. The Northern Parts of the land remain in the hands of the Lancastrian king, while in the south, the princes of the house of York prepare for war. Uneasy alliances are forged and just as quickly broken: a friend one day might be your enemy the next, and through this land, pursued by the Church and the Law, a young man, Thomas, and a young woman, Katherine, must make their way, bearing proof of a secret both sides would kill to learn. Bent on revenge for a past outrage, Thomas and Katherine must turn their backs on their friends and journey to the mighty castle of Bamburgh, there to join a weakened king as he marshals his army to take up arms in one of the most savage civil wars in history: the Wars of the Roses.  Kingmaker: Broken Faith is by Toby Clements and is due to be published in July 2015.

Even for Private Investigations, the world's top detective agency, it's tough to find a man who doesn't exist...Craig Gisto has promised Eliza Moss that his elite team at Private Sydney will investigate the disappearance of her father. After all, as CEO of a high-profile research company, Eric Moss shouldn't be difficult to find. Except it's not just the man who's gone missing. Despite the most advanced technology at their disposal, they find every trace of him has vanished too. And they aren't the only ones on the hunt. Powerful figures want Moss to stay 'lost', while others just as ruthlessly want him found. Meanwhile, a routine background check becomes a frantic race to find a stolen baby and catch a brutal killer - a killer Private may well have sent straight to the victim's door...  Private Sydney is by James Patterson and Kathryn Fox and is due to be published in August 2015.

No. 7 Ocean Drive is a multimillion-dollar beachfront house in the Hamptons, but its beautiful exterior hides a horrific past. This house was the setting for a series of depraved killings that have never been solved. Neglected, empty and rumoured to be cursed, it's known as the Murder House, and locals keep their distance. Detective Jenna Murphy has moved to the area to escape her troubled past and rehabilitate a career on the rocks. But when a Hollywood power broker and his mistress are found dead in the abandoned Murder House, Jenna becomes involved in a case that at first seems open and shut, but reveals more secrets than she could possibly imagine. As more bodies surface and Jenna is drawn deeper into the dark history of No. 7, she must risk her own life to expose the truth – before the Murder House claims another victim.  Murder House is by James Patterson and David Ellis and is due to be published in September 2015.

Dark Corners is by Ruth Rendell and is due to be published in October 2015. When Carl sells a box of slimming pills to his close friend Stacey, inadvertently causing her death, he sets in train a sequence of catastrophic events which begin with subterfuge, extend to lies, and culminate in murder. In Rendell's dark and atmospheric tale of psychological suspense, we encounter mistaken identity, kidnap, blackmail, and a cast of characters who are so real that we come to know them better than we know ourselves. Infused with her distinctive blend of wry humour, acute observation and deep humanity. 

Every New Yorker's worst nightmare is about to become a reality. New York has seen more

than its fair share of horrific attacks, but the city is about to be shaken in a way it never has before. After two devastating catastrophes in quick succession, everyone is on edge. Detective Michael Bennett is assigned to the case and given the near impossible task of hunting down the shadowy terror group responsible. With troubles at home to contend with, Bennett has never been more at risk, or more alone, fighting the chaos all around him. Then a shocking assassination makes it clear that these inexplicable events are just the prelude to the biggest threat of all. Now Bennett is racing against the clock to save his beloved city - before the most destructive force he has ever faced tears it apart.  Alert is by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge and is due to be published in July 2015.

When Billy Ellison, the son of Washington, D.C.’s most influential African-American family, is found dead in the Potomac near a violent drug haven, veteran metro reporter Sully Carter knows it’s time to start asking some serious questions—no matter what the consequences. With the police unable to find a lead and pressure mounting for Sully to abandon the investigation, he has a hunch that there is more to the case than a drug deal gone bad or a tale of family misfortune. Digging deeper, Sully finds that the real story stretches far beyond Billy and into D.C.’s most prominent social circles. An alcoholic still haunted from his years as a war correspondent in Bosnia, Sully now must strike a dangerous

balance between D.C.’s two extremes—the city’s violent, desperate back streets and its highest corridors of power—while threatened by those who will stop at nothing to keep him from discovering the shocking truth. Murder DC is by Neely Tucker and is due to be published in July 2015.

The Gates of Evangeline is by Hester Young and is due to be published in August 2015. When grieving mother and New York journalist Charlie Cates begins to experience vivid dreams about children after her only son passes away, she’s sure that she’s lost her mind. Yet she soon realizes these are not the hallucinations of a bereaved mother. They are messages and warnings that will help Charlie and the children she sees—if she can make sense of them. The disturbing images lead her from her home in suburban New York City to small-town Louisiana, where she takes a commission to write a true-crime book based on the case of Gabriel Deveau, the young heir to a wealthy and infamous Southern family, whose kidnapping thirty years ago has never been solved. There she meets the Deveau family, none of whom are telling the full truth about the night Gabriel disappeared. And as she uncovers long buried secrets of love, money, betrayal, and murder, the facts begin to implicate those she most wants to trust—and her visions reveal an evil closer than she could have imagined.

Cross Justice is by James Patterson and is due to be published in November 2015. When his cousin is accused of a heinous crime, Alex Cross returns to his North Carolina hometown for the first time in over three decades. As he tries to prove his cousin's innocence in a town where everyone seems to be on the take, Cross unearths a family secret that forces him to question everything he's ever known. Chasing a ghost he believed was long dead, Cross gets pulled into a case that has local cops scratching their heads and needing his help: a grisly string of socialite murders. Now he's hot on the trail of both a brutal killer, and the truth about his own past – and the answers he finds might be fatal.

When forensic anthropologist Dr Tempe Brennan is approached by amateur detective Hazel 'Lucky' Strike, at first she is inclined to dismiss the woman's claims that she's matched a previously unidentified set of remains with a name. But as the words of a terrified young woman echo round her office from an audio recorder found near where the bones were discovered, something about the story won't let Tempe go. As Tempe investigates further she finds herself involved in a case more complicated and horrifying than she could ever have imagined.  Speaking in Bones is by Kathy Reichs and is due to be published in July 2015.

Books to Look Forward to from Vintage Press

Someone's getting married. Someone's getting murdered. In a dark, dark wood, Nora hasn't seen Clare for ten years. Not since Nora walked out of school one day and never went back. There was a dark, dark house until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare's hen do arrives. Is this a chance for Nora to finally put her past behind her? And in the dark, dark house there was a dark, dark room. But something goes wrong. Very wrong. And in the dark, dark room...Some things can't stay secret forever.  In a Dark, Dark Wood is by Ruth Ware and is due to be published in July 2015.

Aleksi lost his mother on a rainy October day when he was 13 years old. 20 years later, he is certain that he knows who's responsible. Everything points to millionaire Henrik Saarinen. The police don't agree. Aleksi has only one option: to get close to Henrik Saarinen and find out the truth about his mother's fate on his own. But as Aleksi soon discovers, delving into Saarinen and his beautiful daughter's family secrets is a confusing and dangerous enterprise. Dark As My Heart is by Antti Tuomainen and is due to be published In October 2015.  It tells the story of a mother and son and the search for justice. It's a story about the cost of obsessions, the price of vengeance and the power of love. 

Oblivion is by Arnaldur Indridason and is due to be published in July 2015. The Quick. A

woman swims in a remote, milky-blue lagoon. Steam rises from the water and as it clears, a body is revealed in the ghostly light. The Dead. Miles away, a vast aircraft hangar rises behind the perimeter fence of the US military base. A sickening thud is heard as a man's body falls from a high platform. The Forgotton. Many years before, a schoolgirl went missing. The world has forgotten her. But Erlendur has not. The Searcher Erlendur Sveinsson is a newly promoted detective with a battered body, a rogue CIA operative and America's troublesome presence in Iceland to contend with. In his spare time he investigates a cold case. He is only starting out but he is already up to his neck. 

Numero Zero is by Umberto Eco and is due to be published in November 2015. 1945, Lake Como. Mussolini and his mistress are captured and shot by local partisans. The precise circumstances of Il Duce's death remain shrouded in controversy. 1992, Milan. Colonna, a depressed hack writer, is offered a fee he can't refuse to ghost-write a memoir. His subject: a fledgling newspaper financed by a powerful media magnate. As Colonna gets to know the team, he learns the paranoid theories of Braggadocio, who is convinced that Mussolini's corpse was a body-double and part of a wider Fascist plot. It's the scoop he desperately needs. The evidence? He's working on it. Colonna is sceptical. But when a body is found, stabbed to death in a back alley, and the paper is shut down, even he is jolted out of his complacency. Fuelled by media hoaxes, Mafiosi, love, gossip and murder, Numero Zero reverberates with the clash of forces that have shaped Italy since World War II. 

How far would you go to protect your family? Sophie Brinkmann was once an ordinary woman. A dedicated nurse, a grieving widow, a single mother to a beloved teenage son. And then she fell in love with a major crime lord. When he was left in a coma after a brutal attack by his rivals, it was Sophie who had to take control of his empire and negotiate with vengeful mobsters, cunning detectives and charismatic arms dealers. But now their rivals are closing in on them and Sophie is caught up in a game where the rules are constantly changing, where loyalty and friendship are meaningless. If she and her son are to get out of this alive, she has to find her inner strength - and her inner darkness.  The Other Son is by Alexander Soderberg and is due to be published in July 2015.

A Greek gangster arrives in Stockholm, only to be murdered in a macabre fashion at Skansen zoo, his body consumed by animals. As the Intercrime Unit - a team dedicated to solving international violent crime - investigate what brought him to Sweden, eight Eastern European women vanish from a refugee centre outside the city while an elderly professor, the tattooed numbers on his arm hinting at his terrible past, is executed at the Jewish

cemetery. Three cases, one team of detectives and an investigation that will take them across Europe and back through history as they desperately search for answers, and the identities of the killers.  Europa Blues is by Arne Dahl and is due to be published in August 2015.

Jon is on the run.  He has betrayed Oslo’s biggest crime lord: The Fisherman.  Fleeing to an isolated corner of Norway, to a mountain town so far north that the sun never sets, Jon hopes to find sanctuary amongst a local religious sect.  Hiding out in a shepherd’s cabin in the wilderness, all that stands between him and his fate are Lea, a bereaved mother and her young son, Knut.  But while Lea provides him with a rifle and Knut brings essential supplies, the midnight sun is slowly driving Jon to insanity.  And then he discovers that The Fisherman’s men re getting closer.  Midnight Sun: Blood on Snow 2 is by Jo Nesbo and is due to be published in November 2015.

Books to look forward to from Little Brown and Constable

'All you have to do is find out why Harry is prepared to blame an innocent man. That's the thread. Follow it. You'll reach the Silent Ones. This is your way - our way - of making a difference.' With this challenge from Father Edmund Littlemore, Anselm returns to the Old Bailey to fight the most difficult and troubling case of his life. The man in the dock is Littlemore himself. He is charged with grave offences against Harry Brandwell who, it seems, is both a victim and a liar. But he's the only link to these others who've chosen silence over their right to justice. Unknown to Anselm, Robert Saunders, a journalist, has been investigating Littlemore's background. And he's a man with a troubled past, always on the move, from Boston in the USA to Freetown in Sierra Leone, finally running from a London police station rather than explain himself. More disturbingly, Robert uncovers details of a carefully planned scheme to entice Anselm back into court, exploiting his reputation for honesty to secure a shock acquittal. Meanwhile Harry Brandwell - abused, abandoned and betrayed - has decided to take matters into his own hands. The Silent Ones examines the one crime that Church, State and Family thought they could hide in their own best interests; Anselm's return is a compelling novel about the anatomy of silence, the courage of victims and the redemptive power of public justice.  The Silent Ones is by William Brodrick and is due to be published in July 2015.

Splinter the Silence is by Val McDermid and is due to be published in August 2015. 'That day, waiting had been almost unbearable. He wanted something more spectacular, something that couldn't be ignored. These deaths needed to make a mark ...' Psychological profiler Tony Hill is trained to see patterns, to decode the mysteries of human behaviour, and when he comes across a series of suicides among women tormented by vicious online predators, he begins to wonder if there is more to these tragedies than meets the eye. Similar circumstances, different deaths. Could it be murder? But what kind of serial killer wants his crimes to stay hidden? Former DCI Carol Jordan has her own demons to confront, but with lives at stake, Tony and Carol begin the hunt for the most dangerous and terrifying kind of killer - someone who has nothing to fear and nothing to lose ...

A Masterpiece of Corruption is by L C Tyler and is due to be published in December 2015.  It is December 1657. John Grey has returned to the study of law in London. He receives a mysterious invitation which seems to have come from some of his mother's royalist friends - possibly members of the largely ineffectual secret organisation, the Sealed Knot. He is amused rather than otherwise that they would think him stupid enough to join them and thinks it may be entertaining to tell them so to their faces. On arriving at Sir Richard Willys's chambers at Gray's Inn, however, he finds that the invitation was never intended for him - to his horror, Grey is warmly greeted as a royalist conspirator sent over from Brussels to murder Oliver Cromwell. It soon becomes clear that the man he has been mistaken for is his own father, a long-time royalist exile. The question is how he can prevent the murder without betraying his father ...

Mma Ramotswe is not one to sit about. Her busy life gives her little time for relaxation (apart from the drinking of tea, of course, which is another matter altogether). Nonetheless, she is persuaded to take a holiday from the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency. But Mma Ramotswe finds it impossible to resist the temptation to follow the cases taken on by her business partner, Mma Makutsi, and to interfere in them - at one remove. This leads her to delve into the past of a man whose reputation has been called into question. Meanwhile, Violet Sephotho, Mma Makutsi's arch enemy, has had the temerity to set up a new secretarial college - one that aims to rival that great institution, the Botswana Secretarial College. Will she get her comeuppance? It will be a close-run thing.  The Woman who Walked in Sunshine is by Alexander McCall Smith and is due to be published in September 2015.

A twenty-year-old murder A chain of unsolvable mysteries Can one detective solve this epic riddle? When a man is found murdered in an abandoned building in Osaka in 1973, unflappable detective Sasagaki is assigned to the case. He begins to piece together the connection of two young people who are inextricably linked to the crime; the dark, taciturn son of the victim and the unexpectedly captivating daughter of the main suspect. Over the next twenty years we follow their lives as Sasagaki pursues the case - which remains unsolved - to the point of obsession. Stark, intriguing and stylish, Journey Under the Midnight Sun is an epic mystery by the bestselling Japanese author Keigo Higashino and is due to be published in October 2015.

I close my eyes and feel my heart begin racing Someone is coming They're going to find me A mother and her teenage daughter are found brutally murdered in a remote farmhouse, one defiled by multiple stab wounds and the other left lying like Sleeping Beauty waiting for her Prince. Reluctantly, clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin is drawn into the investigation when a former student, calling himself the 'Mindhunter', trading on Joe's name, has jeopardised the police inquiry by leaking details to the media and stirring up public anger. With no shortage of suspects and tempers beginning to fray, Joe discover links between these murders to a series of brutal attacks where the men and women are choked unconscious and the letter 'A' is carved into their foreheads. As the case becomes ever more complex, nothing is quite what it seems and soon Joe's fate, and that of those closest to him, become intertwined with a merciless, unpredictable killer ..  Close Your Eyes is by Michael Robotham and is due to be published in August 2015.

A brutal killer is on the streets of Rome. He leaves no trace. And shows no mercy. A series of gruesome murders leaves the police force in Rome reeling, with no real clues or hard evidence to follow. Assigned to the case is Sandra Vega, a brilliant forensic analyst, struggling to come to terms with the crimes and her own past. Sandra's shared history with Marcus, a member of the ancient Penitenzeri - a unique Italian team, linked to the Vatican, and trained in the detection of true evil, means that the two are brought together again in the pursuit of a malignant killer. Soon Marcus and Sandra notice the emergence of a disturbing pattern running alongside the latest killings - and every time they think they have grasped a fragment of the truth, they are led down yet another terrifying path. The Hunter of the Dark is the sensational new literary thriller from Donato Carrisi and is due to be published in November 2015.  The Hunter of the Dark captures the beautiful atmosphere of Rome and explores its dark and hidden secrets.

A nightmare discovery in the boot of a stolen BMW plunges car thief Danny Stapleton into the worst trouble of his life. What links his misfortune to the mysterious disappearance of an art teacher at a private school for girls in Chichester? Orders from above push Peter Diamond of Bath CID into investigating a police corruption case in the Chichester force, and he soon finds himself reluctantly dealing with spirited schoolgirls, eccentric artists and his formidable old colleague, Hen Mallin.  Dead Among the Dead Men is by Peter Lovesey and is due to be published in July 2015.

When Sadie Wise has a seemingly innocent conversation with a stranger on a train, she has no idea that will set off a chain of events involving murder, deception and danger.  Dangerous Promises is by Roberta Kray and is due to be published in November 2015.

In and out of prison for over 40 years, Seymour Eriksson is officially 'London's most unsuccessful criminal.' So why can't Carlyle keep him off the streets for more than five minutes - and how can he stop hack Bernie Gilmore naming and shaming him in his tabloid rag? Worried about his own personal profile, Carlyle is slow to notice several alarming cases involving missing schoolgirls. So can he get his act together and start solving crimes before Bernie brands him publicly as 'London's most unsuccessful cop'?  Nobody’s Hero is by James Craig and is due to be published in August 2015.

 

The Mountain Shadow is by Gregory David Roberts and is due to be published in October 2015.  A breath of Bombay hope, in the first glimpse of the sea, on Marine Drive, filled my heart, if not my head. I turned away from the red shadow. I stopped thinking of that pyramid of killers, and Sanjay's recklessness. I stopped thinking about my own part in the madness. And I rode, with my friends, into the end of everything. The end of the eighties was the beginning of everything. The Berlin wall fell on a ruined empire, and the Taliban took Afghanistan. Lin, on the run after escaping from prison in Australia, working as a passport forger for a Bombay mafia gang, finds himself standing on a tattered corner of a bloody carpet that would soon cover most of the world. But he can't leave the Island City: not without Karla. Two years after the events in Shantaram, Bombay is a different world, playing by different rules. Lin's search for love and faith leads him through secret and violent intrigues to the dangerous truth. A love story told with hope and humour, a personal struggle for redemption, and a philosophical quest for the wisdom of our common humanity, The Mountain Shadow is a sublime novel, and an all-consuming, epic thriller.

Hardly a day goes by when nine-year-old Laurent Lepage doesn't cry wolf. His boundless sense of adventure and vivid imagination mean he has a tendency to concoct stories so extraordinary and so far-fetched that no one can possibly believe him. But when Laurent disappears, former Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true. So begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth. And what Gamache uncovers deep in the forest leads back to crimes of the past, betrayal and murder, with more sinister consequences than anyone could have possibly imagined ...  The Nature of the Beast is by Louise Penny and is due to be published in August 2015.

Fearing for his life, journalist Philip Mangan has gone into hiding from the Chinese agents who have identified him as British spy. His reputation and life are in tatters. But when he is caught in a terrorist attack in East Africa and a shadowy Chinese figure approaches him in the dead of night with information on the origins of the attack, Mangan is suddenly back in the eye of the storm. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away on a humid Hong Kong night, a key MI6 source is murdered minutes after meeting spy Trish Patterson. From Washington, D.C. to the hallowed halls of Oxford University and dusty African streets, a sinister power is stirring which will use Mangan and Patterson as its pawns - if they survive. Deeply steeped in tension and paranoia, Spy Games is by Adam Brookes and is due to be published in July 2015.

Devil’s Bridge is by Linda Fairstein and is due to be published in August 2015. The

Manhattan waterfront is one of New York City's most magnificent vistas, boasting both the majestic Statue of Liberty and the busy George Washington Bridge. But Detective Mike Chapman is about to become far too well acquainted with the dangerous side of the Hudson river and its islands when he takes on his most personal case yet: the disappearance of Alex Cooper. Coop is missing - but there are so many leads and terrifying complications: scores of enemies she has made after a decade of putting criminals behind bars; a recent security breach with dangerous repercussions; and a new intimacy in her relationship with Mike, causing the Police Commissioner himself to be wary of the methods Mike will use to get Coop back...if he can.

Heartbreaker is by Tania Carver and is due to be published in October 2015.  After years of abuse, Gemma Adderley has finally found the courage to leave her violent husband. She has taken one debilitating beating too many, endured one esteem-destroying insult too much. Taking her seven-year-old daughter Carly, she leaves the house, determined to salvage what she can of her life. She phones Safe Harbour, a women's refuge, and they tell her which street corner to wait on and what the car that will pick her up will look like. They tell her the word the driver will use so she knows it's safe to get in. And that's the last they hear from her. Gemma Adderley's daughter Carly is found wandering the city streets on her own the next day. Her mother's mutilated corpse turns up by the canal several weeks later. Her heart has been removed. Detective Inspector Phil Brennan takes on the case, bringing in his wife, psychologist Marina Esposito, to try and help unlock Carly's memories of what happened that day. The race is on to solve the case before the Heartbreaker strikes again...

The death of Lord Edward Crick has unleashed a torrent of gossip through the seedy taverns and elegant ballrooms of Oxfordshire. Few mourn the dissolute young man-except his sister, the beautiful Lady Lydia Farrell. When her husband comes under suspicion of murder, she seeks expert help from Dr. Thomas Silkstone, a young anatomist and pioneering forensic detective from Philadelphia. Thomas arrived in England to study under its foremost surgeon, the aging Dr. Carruthers, and finds his unconventional methods and dedication to the grisly study of anatomy only add to his outsider status. Against his better judgment he agrees to examine Sir Edward's decomposing corpse, examining his internal and external state, as well as the unusual behaviour of those still living in the Crick household. Thomas soon learns that it is not only the dead but also the living to whom he must apply the keen blade of his intellect. And the deeper the doctor's investigations go, the greater the risk that he will be consigned to the ranks of the corpses he studies.  The Anatomist’s Apprentice is the debut novel by Tessa Harris and is due to be published in July 2015.

How does a child become a criminal? How does a father lose a son?  The Father is inspired by the extraordinary true story of three brothers who held Sweden to ransom, committing ten audacious bank robberies over just two years. None had committed a crime before. All were under 24 years old. All of them would be changed forever. In this intoxicating, heart-breaking thriller, the fourth brother, who was not involved in the real robberies, tells of three boys who grew from innocent children to become public enemy number one - and of the man who made them that way.  Made In Sweden Part I: The Father is by Anton Svensson and is due to be published in August 2015.

A Death in the Dales is by Frances Brody and is due to be published in October 2015.  A murder most foul When the landlord of a Yorkshire tavern is killed in plain sight, Freda Simonson, the only witness to the crime, becomes plagued with guilt, believing the wrong man has been convicted. Following her death, it seems that the truth will never be uncovered in the peaceful village of Langcliffe ...A village of secrets But it just so happens that Freda's nephew is courting the renowned amateur sleuth Kate Shackleton, who decides to holiday in Langcliffe with her indomitable teenage niece, Harriet. When Harriet strikes up a friendship with a local girl whose young brother is missing, the search leads Kate to uncover another suspicious death, not to mention an illicit affair. The case of a lifetime As the present mysteries merge with the past's mistakes, Kate is thrust into the secrets that Freda left behind and realises that this courageous woman has entrusted her with solving a murder from beyond the grave. It soon becomes clear to her that nothing in Langcliffe is quite as it appears, and with a murderer on the loose and an ever-growing roster of suspects, this isn't the holiday Kate was expecting ...

Into the Dark is by Alison Gaylin and is due to be published in December 2015.  Can a stranger share your memories? That's the question that haunts PI Brenna Spector when she first sees footage of missing webcam performer Lula Belle. Naked but hidden in shadow, the 'performance artist' shares her deepest, darkest secrets with her unseen male audience ...secrets that, to Brenna, are chillingly familiar. Brenna has perfect memory, able to recall in astonishing detail every moment of every day of her adult life. But her childhood - those carefree years before the traumatic disappearance of her sister, Clea - is frustratingly vague. When Brenna listens to the stories Lula Belle tells her audience, stories only Brenna and Clea could know, those years come to life again in vivid detail. Convinced the missing internet performer has ties to her sister, Brenna takes the case - and in her quest for Lula Belle unravels a web of obsession, sex, guilt, and murder that could regain her family ...or cost her life.

Your face is a blur to him. But your body still bleeds. The Farren family has been a plague upon Philadelphia's most dangerous neighbourhood, the Devil's Pocket, for generations. There, row after row of tumbledown houses hide dark secrets - none darker than Billy, the youngest Farren. Afflicted by a syndrome that means he can't recognise faces, Billy must use photographs to identify his family - and his victims. And when your life has bled away, he takes a final, gruesome picture for his wall. But what is the meaning of the horrific ritual Billy enacts with every murder? And is there any connection to a childhood event Detective Kevin Byrne has buried so well it's hidden even from his former partner Jessica Balzano?  Shutter Man is by Richard Montanari and is due to be published in August 2015.

Murder-on-Sea is by Julie Wassmer and is due to be published in October 2015.It's not the season of good will to all men...The festive month is kicking off in style and Pearl is rushed off her feet with her restaurant, The Whitstable Pearl. She's also busy planning her own family Christmas and providing mulled wine for a charity church fundraiser when Christmas cards begin arriving all over town - filled with spiteful messages from an anonymous writer. Pearl's curiosity is piqued but having pledged not to take on a case at her detective agency before Christmas, she reluctantly agrees that Canterbury's DCI Mike McGuire should take over; poisoned pen cards are after all a matter for the police. And with only the church fundraiser now between Pearl and Christmas, she invites McGuire along as her guest. The event appears to be a great success; St Alfred's church hall is packed and Pearl happily finds herself standing close to McGuire beneath some mistletoe ...but then a guest suddenly collapses. Too much of Pearl's delicious mulled wine - or could it be something more sinister? The last thing Pearl expects for Christmas is murder but soon the bodies are piling up. Can Pearl possibly solve the mystery in time to make 25th December an unforgettable day - or will the murderer contrive to ensure her goose is well and truly cooked before then?

Also due to be published in November 2015 is A Painted Smile by Frances Fyfield which continues the series featuring Di Porteous.

Silenced is the second book in the Wheeler and Ross series by A J McCreanor and is due to be published in September 2015.  He buried his victim alive. And now he's escaped from prison and is on the run in the city. Fiona Henderson, the daughter of the victim who'd descended into a world of silence following her mother's murder, has gone missing. Her sister Annabelle scours the city in a desperate attempt to find her. And then the body of a homeless person if found among the rubbish in a deserted alleyway. As DIs Wheeler and Ross investigate, more suspicious deaths occur and a pattern emerges: the victims are all homeless. And so the police are pitched against a killer who is hellbent on a mission to rid the streets of the vulnerable and dispossessed. As Wheeler and Ross descend further into Glasgow's netherworld, their investigation reveals not only a flawed support system for the disaffected, but also a criminal class ruthlessly willing to exploit them. A city of double standards, where morality is bought and sold. But it's when the killer begins stalking DI Wheeler, that she and Ross realise that the threat is now personal.

How far would you go to protect the ones you love? Life has never been easy for the three Campbell sisters. Jess, Courtney, and Dani live on a remote ranch where they work hard and try to stay out of the way of their father's temper. One night, a fight gets out of hand and the sisters are forced to go on the run, only to get caught in an even worse nightmare when their truck breaks down in a small town. As events spiral out of control they find themselves in a horrifying situation and are left with no choice but to change their names and create new lives. Eighteen years later, they are still trying to forget what happened to them. But when one of the sisters goes missing, followed closely by her niece, they are pulled back into the past. And this time there's nowhere left to run...  Those Girls is by Chevy Stevens and is due to be published in December 2015.

The Honourable Daisy Dalrymple-Fletcher is on a convalescent trip in the countryside, visiting old school friends. The three of them, all unmarried, have recently bought a house together. They are a part of the generation of 'superfluous women', brought up expecting marriage and a family, but left without any prospects after more than 700,000 British men were killed in the Great War. Daisy and her husband Alec - Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher, of Scotland Yard - are invited for Sunday lunch, where one of the women mentions a wine cellar below the house which remains resolutely locked. Alec picks the lock but when he eventually opens the door, what greets them is not a cache of wine, but the stench of a dead body. And with that, what was a pleasant Sunday lunch becomes a much darker affair. Now Daisy's three friends are the suspects in a murder and her husband Alec is a witness. So before the local detective, DI Underwood, can officially bring charges against her friends, Daisy is determined to use all her resources and skills to solve the mystery behind this perplexing locked-room crime. Superfluous Women is by Carola Dunn and is due to be published in July 2015.

Detective Sergeant Lucy Black is visiting her father, a patient in a secure unit in Gransha Hospital on the banks of the River Foyle. He's been hurt badly in an altercation with another patient, and Lucy is shocked to discover him chained to the bed for safety. But she barely has time to take it all in, before an orderly raises the alarm - a body has been spotted floating in the river below...The body of an elderly man in a grey suit is hauled ashore: he is cold dead. He has been dead for several days. In fact a closer examination reveals that he has already been embalmed. A full scale investigation is launched - could this really be the suicide they at first assumed, or is this some kind of sick joke? Troubled and exhausted, Lucy goes back to her father's shell of a house to get some sleep; but there'll be no rest for her tonight. She's barely in the front door when a neighbour knocks, in total distress - his wife's sister has turned up badly beaten. Can she help?  Preserve the Dead is by Brian McGilloway and is due to be published in August 2015.

Death at Whitewater Church is by Andrea Carter and is due to be published in September 2015.  When a skeleton is discovered, wrapped in a blanket, in the hidden crypt of a deconsecrated church, everyone is convinced the bones must be those of Conor Devitt, a local man who went missing on his wedding day six years previously. But the post mortem reveals otherwise. Solicitor Benedicta 'Ben' O'Keeffe is acting for the owners of the church, and although an unwelcome face from her past makes her reluctant to get involved initially, when Conor's brother dies in strange circumstances shortly after coming to see her, she finds herself drawn in to the mystery. Whose is the skeleton in the crypt and how did it get there? Is Conor Devitt still alive, and if so is there a link? What happened on the morning of his wedding to make him disappear? Negotiating between the official investigation, headed up by the handsome but surly Sergeant Tom Molloy, and obstructive locals with secrets of their own, Ben unravels layers of personal and political history to get to the truth of what happened six years before.

In the aftermath of a family tragedy, Mike Bowditch has left the Maine Warden Service and is working as a fishing guide in the North Woods. But when his mentor Sgt. Kathy Frost is forced to kill a troubled war veteran in an apparent case of 'suicide by cop,' he begins having second thoughts about his decision. Now Kathy finds herself the target of a government inquiry and outrage from the dead soldier's platoon mates. Soon she finds herself in the sights of a sniper, as well. When the sergeant is shot outside her farmhouse, Mike joins the hunt to find the mysterious man responsible. To do so, the ex-warden must plunge into his friend's secret past - even as a beautiful woman from Mike's own past returns, throwing into jeopardy his tentative romance with wildlife biologist Stacey Stevens. As Kathy Frost lies on the brink of death and a dangerous shooter stalks the blueberry barrens of central Maine, Bowditch is forced to confront the choices he has made and determine, once and for all, the kind of man he truly is. The Bone Orchard by Paul Doiron and is due to be published in July 2015.

Agatha Raisin: Dishing the Dirt is by M C Beaton and is due to be published in October 2015.  In Agatha's newest adventure she must prove her own innocence when a love rival turns up dead! When therapist Jil Davent moves into the village of Carsely, Agatha Raisin is not a fan. Not only is the therapist romancing her ex-husband James but she digs up details of Agatha's rather unsavoury origins; details she is happy to share with all in the village. Furthermore, Jill is counselling a woman, Gwen Simple, Agatha is convinced is a murderess - although she has no actual proof. Not one to keep her feelings to herself, Agatha tells anyone who cares to listen that Jill is a charlatan who is better off dead. So she can only sigh with relief when Jill takes offices in the nearby town of Mircester. But then Jill is found strangled to death in her offices two days later and Agatha is the prime suspect! So, together with the detectives in her agency, she must prove her innocence and find the real culprit - before the murderer ensures that it's Agatha who's left pushing up the daisies!

Set in Amsterdam, the novel introduces Lotte Meerman, a Cold Case detective still recovering from the emotional devastation of her previous investigation. A tip-off leads Lotte to an unresolved ten-year-old murder case in which her father was the lead detective. When she discovers irregularities surrounding the original investigation that make him a suspect, she decides to cover for him. She doesn't tell her boss about the family connection and jeopardises her career by hiding evidence. Now she has to find the real murderer before her acts are discovered, otherwise her father will go to jail and she will lose her job, the one thing in life she still takes pride in ...  A Cold Death in Amsterdam and is the debut novel by Anja de Jager and is due to be published in November 2015.

It's a new year in New York city, and two star-crossed lovers have just discovered an insatiable appetite...for murder. Lieutenant Eve Dallas has witnessed some grisly crimes in her career and she knows just how dark things can get on the streets. But when a much-loved musician is found dead, Eve soon realises that his murder is part of a horrifying killing spree, stretching right across the country. Now the killers have reached New York, and they've found themselves another victim. Eve knows she only has a couple of days to save a young girl's life, and to stop the killers before their sadistic games escalate. Eve's husband Roarke is ready to put his brains and his considerable resources behind the search. But even as the couple works closely together, time is running out...  Devoted in Death is by J D Robb and is due to be published in September 2015.