Books to Look Forward to from Faber and Faber

Black Water is by Louise Doughty and is due to be published in June 2016.  John Harper is in hiding in a remote hut on a tropical Island.  As he lies awake at night, listening to the rain on the roof, he believes his life may be in danger.  But he is less afraid of what is going to happen than of what he’s already done.  In a local town, he meets Rita, a woman with her own tragichistory.  They begin an affair, but can offer each other redemption? Or do the ghosts of the past always catch up with us in the end? Moving between Europe during the Cold War, Civil Rights-era California, and Indonesia during the massacres of 1965 and the subsequent military dictatorship, Black Water explores some of the darkest events of recent history through the story of one troubled man.

Long Time Lost is by Chris Ewan and is due to be published in May 2016.  Nick Miller and his team provide a unique and highly illegal service, relocating at-risk individuals across Europe with new identities and new lives. Nick excels at what he does for a reason: he's spent years living in the shadows under an assumed name. But when Nick steps in to prevent the attempted murder of witness-in-hiding Kate Sutherland on the Isle of Man, he triggers a chain of events with devastating consequences for everyone he protects - because Nick and Kate share a common enemy in Connor Lane, a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, even if it means tearing Nick's entire network apart.

Nick Alston, a Los Angeles private investigator, is hired to find the kidnapped son of America's richest and most hated man. Hastings, a mob hitman in search of redemption, is also on the trail. But both men soon become ensnared by a sinister cabal that spreads from the White House all the way to Dealey Plaza. Decades later in Dallas, Alston's son stumbles across evidence from JFK conspiracy buffs that just might link his father to the shot heard round the world. Violent, vivid, visceral: Fever City is a high-octane, nightmare journey through a Mad Men-era America of dark powers, corruption and conspiracy.  Fever City is by Tim Baker and is due to be published in January 2016. 

West Virginia: A church congregation vanishes in mysterious circumstances, only to be found dead some miles away. The evidence on the ground appears to indicate a ritual killing and the work of demonic forces.  Enter Jessica Blackwood, the FBI's specialist in all things unusual. A former illusionist, Jessica's talent and experience enable her to see what others cannot, as she proved in the infamous 'Warlock' case. Maybe now, once again, the devil will be in the details.  Following the trail from West Virginia to Mexico and Miami, Jessica uncovers a deadly conspiracy that might lead all the way to the Vatican itself. Only with her unique understanding of the powers of deception can they hope to stop a ruthless killer from exacting a revenge that's been thirty years in the planning . . . Name of the Devil is by Andrew Mayne and is due to be published in June 2016.

Sunset City is by Melissa Ginsburg and is due to be published in April 2016. Twenty-two-year-old Charlotte Ford reconnects with Danielle, her best friend from high school, a few days before Danielle is found bludgeoned to death in a motel room. In the wake of the murder, Charlotte's life unravels and she descends into the city's underbelly, where she meets the strippers, pornographers and drug dealers who surrounded Danielle in the years they were estranged. Ginsburg's Houston is part of a lesser known south, where the urban and rural collide gracelessly. In this shadowy world, culpability and sympathy blur in a debut novel which thrillingly brings its three female protagonists to the fore. Scary, funny and almost unbearably sad, Sunset City is written with rare grace and empathy holding you transfixed, praying for some kind of escape for Charlotte.

The Travelers is by Chris Pavone and is due to be published in March 2016. Will Rhodes is an award-winning correspondent for The Travelers, on assignment at a luxury Argentinian resort - fine wines and gourmet food, polo fields and the looming Andes. But Will's life is about to be turned upside down when a new flirtation turns into something far more dangerous, and he only realises too late. Turns out he's been targeted, he just doesn't know why. He doesn't know what these people truly want and how far into his life they will reach, to his friends and his colleagues, to his boss and his wife. He doesn't know that they will stop at nothing in their pursuit, and he doesn't know about the secrets he has already been keeping... The Travelers is an ingenious, compulsive thriller - taking us from New York to Washington, Mendoza to Capri, London to Paris, Edinburgh to Dublin, Stockholm to the wilds of Iceland - about marriage, deceit, betrayal, and the secrets we should watch out for.

The Ex is by Alafair Burke and is due to be published in February 2016.  A lawyer agrees to help an old boyfriend who has been accused of murder - but begins to suspect that she is the one being manipulated. Widower Jack Harris has resisted the dating scene since the shooting of his wife by a fifteen-year-old boy three years ago. An early morning run along the Hudson River changes that when he spots a woman who eerily but thrillingly echoes his past. Eager to help Jack find love again, his best friend posts a "Missed Moment" item online and days later, a woman responds...Olivia Randall is one of New York City's best criminal defence lawyers. When she gets the phone call informing her that her former fiancee, Jack Harris, has been arrested for a triple homicide there is no doubt in her mind as to his innocence. The only question is who would go to such great lengths to frame him - and why? For Olivia, representing Jack is a way to make up for past regrets, and the hurt she caused him, but as the evidence against him mounts, she is forced to confront her doubts. The man she knew could not have done this. But what if she never really knew him?

So far, twenty-three thousand and ninety six people have seen me online. They include my

mother, my father, my little sister, my grandmother, my other grandmother, my grandfather, my boss, my sixth year Biology teacher and my boyfriend James. When Leah Oliphant-Brotheridge and her adopted sister Su go on holiday together to Magaluf to celebrate their A-levels, only Leah returns home. Her successful, swotty sister remains abroad, humiliated and afraid: there is an online video of her, drunkenly performing a sex act in a nightclub. And everyone has seen it. Ruth Oliphant-Brotheridge, mother of the girls, successful court judge, is furious. How could this have happened? How can she bring justice to these men who took advantage of her dutiful, virginal daughter? What role has Leah played in all this? And can Ruth find Su and bring her back home when Su doesn't want to be found?  Viral is by Helen FitzGerald and is due to be published in February 2016.

Berlin Red is by Sam Eastland and is due to be published in June 2016.  April, 1945. East of Berlin, the Red Army stands poised to unleash its final assault upon the ruined capital of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich. To the north, at a lonely outpost near the Baltic Sea, German scientists perfect a guidance system for the mighty V2 rocket, which has already caused massive damage to the cities of London and Antwerp. This device, known only by the codename Diamond stream, will allow the rocket to arrive at its target with pin-point accuracy. So devastating is the potential of this newly-mastered technology that Hitler's promise to the German people of a 'miracle weapon' that will turn the tide of the war might actually come true. When a radio message sent to Hitler's Headquarters, heralding the success of Diamond stream, is intercepted by an English listening station, British Intelligence orders one of its last agents operating in Berlin to acquire the plans for the device, desperate to evacuate their agent from the doomed city before the Red Army swarms through its streets, British Special Operations turns to the Kremlin for help. They ask for one man in particular - Inspector Pekkala. Anxious to acquire the plans for himself, Stalin readily agrees to risk his finest investigator on what appears to be a suicide mission. But when Pekkala learns the reason that the British have singled him out, he knows that he must make the journey, no matter what the outcome might be. The agent he must rescue is the woman he had planned to marry, before the Revolution tore them apart, sending her to Paris as a refugee and Pekkala to a gulag in Siberia. This time, for Pekkala, it is personal.

In The Long Count, the first book of JM Gulvin's masterful new crime series, we meet Ranger John Quarrie as he is called to the scene of an apparent suicide by a fellow war veteran. Although the local police want the case shut down, John Q is convinced that events aren't quite so straightforward. When his hunch is backed up by the man's son, Isaac - just back from Vietnam, and convinced his father was murdered - they start to look into a series of other violent incidents in the area, including a recent fire at the local Trinity Asylum and the disappearance of Isaac's twin brother, Ishmael. In a desperate race against time, John Q has to try and unravel the dark secrets at the heart of this family and get to the truth before the count is up...Dripping with atmosphere and a sense of time and place, The Long Count is a page-turner and a psychological puzzle and is due to be published in May 2016.

Hard Cold Winter is by Glen Erik Hamilton and is due to be published in April 2016.  When an old crony of Van Shaw's late grandfather calls in a favour, he embarks on a journey deep into the remote forest of the Olympic Mountains in search of a missing girl tied to his own criminal past. Discovering a brutal murder scene, Van finds himself caught between a billionaire businessman on the one side and vicious gangsters on the other. In an attempt to survive Van will have to face some of the toughest questions of his life, not least over his relationship with his iron willed girlfriend, Luce. But with the clock ticking, a desperate Van may just need every ally he can get, especially as someone prepares to unleash a firestorm on Seattle that could burn them all to ashes.

After a stint as a private contractor in Afghanistan, Danny Lynch is back in New York. But nothing's easy. Work is hard to find and his girlfriend owes more than $30,000 in student loans. Danny is also haunted by something he witnessed at the base - a fact that could ultimately destroy him. Then he spots Teddy Trager, tech visionary and billionaire. These two men couldn't be more different - except for one thing: in appearance, they're identical. Danny becomes obsessed with Trager, and before long this member of the ninety-nine per cent is passing undetected into the gilded realm of the one per cent. But what does Danny find there? Who does he become? And is there a route home? From the prize winning author of Limitless, Paradime is by Alan Glynn and is a novel for fans of the great '70s conspiracy thrillers, rebooted for today's ever-globalising world.  It is due to be published in June 2016.