Books to Look Forward to from Head of Zeus in 2016

Paris Spring is by James Naughtie and is due to be published in March 2016.  Paris in 1968 - seething with revolutionaries and spies - sees Will Flemyng's world turned upside down, after a mysterious encounter on the metro and a chance revelation from a rival operative. In a city alive with talk of revolution, Will finds himself in the thick of the action, a young spy whose first adventures behind the Iron Curtain have already given him a secret glamour. But now he gets news that threatens the closest and most complicated relationship in his life, with his younger brother. In the unforgettable weeks of a crisis that claims blood and tests his deepest loyalties, Flemyng lives and loves the tumult of a city in which his private fears teach him the secrets that lie beneath the raucous politics of the streets. This is the making of the man whose journey leads to The Madness of July - Will Flemyng, trapped with his friends and enemies in The Paris Spring.

A KILLER WITH A MESSAGE The first victim was a bully who liked using his fists. The second was a thug who favoured steel-capped boots. Their bodies bore the marks of a killer who knew their sins. A single clue was left at the scene: a class photo from 1982, with two faces neatly crossed out. A DETECTIVE WHO CAN'T LET GO There are eighteen men and women in the photo who are still alive - and one of them is the lead detective on the case. Fabian Risk thought he'd left his schooldays behind. Now his classmates are dying for the sins of their childhood ...Who is the faceless killer who's come back to haunt them?   Victim Without a Face is by Stefan Ahnhem and is due to be published in January 2016.

Three nights. Three brutal murders. And a killer with a warped imagination. In a smart part of Liverpool, old men and women are being murdered in their beds. DCI Eve Clay is baffled. These people are all nearing the end of their lives. Who would want to kill them? Why? Only one woman has the answer. And she is deaf, mute, and locked up in an exclusive psychiatric ward. As Eve tries desperately to communicate with this woman, and hunt down the killer, her own shadowy past comes back to haunt her...  Blood Vow is by Mark Roberts and is due to be published in April 2016.

The Guilty One is by Sophie Littlefield and is due to be published in January 2016. Once upon a time, Maris was an ordinary, suburban mother. Then her daughter was murdered, and everything fell apart. Now, one year later, a man stands on the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge, a phone in his hand. He's just offered his life to Maris to atone for the sins of his son. At one word from her, he'll jump to his death...The Guilty One is a powerful thriller about guilt, retribution and forgiveness. Maris has lost her daughter, and now she has a choice ...Should the father of her daughter's killer live or die? And will this shocking offer free her - or destroy her?

Papercuts is by Colin Bateman and is due to be published in February 2016. The Bangor Express has been around for a hundred years. Through World Wars and civil strife, it has never missed an issue, but now it's limping towards an inevitable doom and it looks like the owner has no choice but to shut it down - until London-based journalist Rob Cullen arrives on the scene. He believes that just perhaps, if he looks hard enough, he can find a way to resurrect it...what could possibly go wrong? Lured back to Northern Ireland for the first time in 20 years by the demise of his one-time mentor, the Guardian reporter can't resist fighting for the paper where he first made his name. After all, it has been a long time since Rob had a real story to get this teeth in to...and with the Bangor Express, that's just what he's going to get.

The Secrets of Gaslight Lane is by M R C Kasasian and is due to be published in June 2016.  London, 1884: Things are returning to normal at 125 Gower Street. Sidney Grice is engrossed in the finite points of tree frog dissection, his ward, March Middleton, is of sound mind once again, but the household is strangely quiet. So, when a young woman turns up at the door, imploring London's foremost personal detective to solve the mystery of her father's murder, Grice can barely disguise his glee. Nathan Garstang was found slaughtered in his bed, with no trace of a weapon or intruder. But what piques Sidney's interest is the crime's link to one of London's most notorious unsolved murders. Ten years ago, Nathan's Uncle, Aunt and servants were murdered in their sleep in the very same house, 2 Burton Crescent. Now, it seems, the Garston murderer is back.

The Salt Marsh is by Clare Carson and is due to be published in March 2016.  It is a year since Sam's father died, but she cannot lay his ghost to rest. Jim was an undercover agent living a double life, and Sam has quit university to find out the truth about his work. Her journey will take her from the nightclubs of 80s Soho to the salt marshes and shingle spits of Norfolk and Kent. Here, in a bleak windswept landscape dotted with smugglers' huts and buried bones, Jim's secret past calls to her like never before. Now Sam must decide. Will she walk away and pick up her own life? Or become an undercover operative herself and continue her father's work in the shadows...

  

Beside the old woollen mill in Blarney, Cork, a worker's cottage guards its secrets. In 1921, a mother, father and their two young children disappeared from this house. And now, ninety-five years later, their mummified bodies have been discovered under the floorboards. The gunshot wounds in each skull look like the mark of the IRA. But as DS Katie Maguire investigates, the flames of old rivalries flare up once more. Because in this part of Ireland, where people neither forget nor forgive, the past can never stay buried...  Buried is by Graham Masterton and is due to be published in February 2016

Joe Pickett's old friend Nate Romanowski is off the grid, recuperating from wounds and lying low while the FBI search for him. But they are not the only ones looking for him and Nate finds himself confronting an elite team of special forces soldiers. They're not there to take him in - they say - but to make a deal. They need his help destroying a domestic terror cell in Wyoming's Red Desert, and in return they'll make Nate's criminal record disappear...But Joe's not sure they can be trusted. And they can't. They have a very different plan in mind, and it just may be something that takes them all down - Nate and Joe included.  Off the Grid is by C J Box and is due to be published in April 2016.

A chilling new case for the Detective's Daughter. The summer of 1976 was the hottest in living memory. Britain sweltered, trees and plants wilted, fire ripped through forests and rivers ran dry. In London's Kew Gardens a ten year old girl was parted from her friends and, dizzied by scorching heat, wandered lost into its secluded undergrowth. Forty years later, the detective's daughter Stella Darnell takes on a chilling new case. Along with Jack, a train driver, she will be drawn to the secret spaces of Kew, and to an unsolved murder that has lain dormant for decades.  The Detective’s Shadow is by Lesley Thomson and is due to be published in May 2016.

The Lost Island is by Preston & Child and is due to be published in June 2016. Gideon Crew - brilliant scientist, master thief - is living on borrowed time. When his mysterious employer, Eli Glinn, gives him an eyebrow-raising mission, he has no reason to refuse. Gideon's task: steal a page from the priceless Book of Kells, now on display in New York City and protected by unbreakable security. Accomplishing the impossible, Gideon learns that hidden beneath the parchment is a treasure map dating back to the time of the ancient Greeks. As he ponders the strange map, he realizes that the treasure it leads to is no ordinary fortune. It is something far more precious: a discovery that could save his life. Together with his new partner, Amy, Gideon follows a trail of cryptic clues to an unknown island in a remote corner of the Caribbean Sea. There, the pair realize the extraordinary treasure they are hunting conceals an even greater shock - a revelation so profound that it may benefit the entire human race...if Gideon and Amy can survive.