Books to Look Forward to from Hodder and Stoughton and Mulholland

June

Clare Riordan and her son Mikey are abducted from Clapham Common early one morning. Hours later, the boy is found wandering disorientated. Soon after, a pack of Clare's blood is left on a doorstep in the heart of the City of London. Alice Quentin is brought in to help the traumatised child uncover his memories - which might lead them to his mother's captors. But she swiftly realises Clare is not the first victim...nor will she be the last. The killers are driven by a desire for revenge...and in the end, it will all come down to blood. Blood Symmetry is by Kate Rhodes

July

Blood Sister is by Dreda Say Mitchell.  There are two ways out of Essex Lane Estate, better known as The Devil. You make good, or you turn bad. Jen Miller is determined not to make the same mistakes her mother did. She's waiting to find herself a good job and a decent man. Her younger sister Tiff is running errands for a gangster and looking for any opportunity for fun and profit. But she might just be in over her head...The choices you make and the plans you have don't always turn out like you expect. Especially if you live on The Devil's Estate. When their paths cross with the unstoppable Dee - a woman with her own agenda - Jen and Tiff will learn that lesson the hard way. At least they can rely on each other. Can't they?

In a remote countryside lane in North Yorkshire, the body of a young girl is found, bruised

and beaten, having apparently been thrown from a moving vehicle. While DI Annie Cabbot investigates the circumstances in which a 14-year-old could possibly fall victim to such a crime, newly promoted Detective Superintendent Alan Banks is faced with a similar task - but the case Banks must investigate is as cold as they come. Fifty years ago Linda Palmer was attacked by celebrity entertainer Danny Caxton, yet no investigation ever took place. Now Caxton stands accused at the centre of a historical abuse investigation and it's Banks's first task as superintendent to find out the truth. While Annie struggles with a controversial case threatening to cause uproar in the local community, Banks must piece together decades-old evidence, and as each steps closer to uncovering the truth, they'll unearth secrets much darker than they ever could have guessed … When The Music’s Over is by Peter Robinson.

Scotland, 1932. Aristocratic private investigator Dandy Gilver strikes again with her witty sidekick Alec Osbourne to solve sinister goings on at a convent on a bleak Lanarkshire moor. The convent was set alight following a mass breakout at a neighbouring psychiatric hospital on Christmas Eve, resulting in the death of the mother superior. Most patients were returned safely but a few are still at large...As Dandy interviews each nun in turn she senses a stranger is still lurking in the corridors at night - could they be the same person who left blood-red footprints in the sacristy? Dandy Gilver and the Most Misleading Habit is by Catriona McPherson.

A Death at Fountains Abbey is by Antonia Hodgson. Late spring, 1728 and Thomas Hawkins has left London for the wild beauty of Yorkshire - forced on a mission he can't refuse. John Aislabie, one of the wealthiest men in England, has been threatened with murder. Blackmailed into investigating, Tom must hunt down those responsible, or lose the woman he loves forever. Since Aislabie is widely regarded as the architect of the greatest financial swindle ever seen, there is no shortage of suspects. Far from the ragged comforts of home, Tom and his ward Sam Fleet enter a world of elegant surfaces and hidden danger. The great estate is haunted by family secrets and simmering unease. Someone is determined to punish John Aislabie - and anyone who stands in the way. As the violence escalates and shocking truths are revealed, Tom is dragged, inexorably, towards the darkest night of his life.

It starts with a lie. The kind we've all told - to a former acquaintance we can't quite place but still, for some reason, feel the need to impress. The story of our life, embellished for the benefit of the happily married lawyer with the kids and the lovely home. And the next thing you know, you're having dinner at their house, and accepting an invitation to join them on holiday - swept up in their perfect life, the kind you always dreamed of...Which turns out to be less than perfect. But by the time you're trapped and sweating in the relentless Greek sun, burning to escape the tension all around you - by the time you start to realise that, however painful the truth might be, it's the lies that cause the real damage...well, by then, it could just be too late. Lie with Me is by Sabine Durrant

Mister Memory is by Marcus Sedgwick.  In Paris in the year 1899, Marcel Despres is

arrested for the murder of his wife and transferred to the famous Salpetriere asylum. And there the story might have stopped. But the doctor assigned to his care soon realises this is no ordinary patient: Marcel Despres, Mister Memory, is a man who cannot forget. And the policeman assigned to his case soon realises that something else is at stake: for why else would the criminal have been hurried off to hospital, and why are his superiors so keen for the whole affair to be closed? This crime involves something bigger and stranger than a lovers' fight - something with links to the highest and lowest establishments in France. The policeman and the doctor between them must unravel the mystery...but the answers lie inside Marcel's head. And how can he tell what is significant when he remembers every detail of every moment of his entire life? 

Three generations - torn apart by one bullet. Philadelphia 1965: Two street cops - one black, one white - are gunned down in a robbery gone wrong. The killer is never prosecuted. One of the fallen officers, Stanislaw Walczak, leaves behind a twelve-year-old boy, Jimmy...Philadelphia 1995: Homicide detective Jim Walczak learns that his father's alleged killer, Terrill Lee Stanton, is out of prison. Walczak will be waiting, determined to squeeze the truth out of him - any way he can. Philadelphia 2015: Jim Walczak's daughter Audrey, studying forensic science in grad school, reinvestigates her grandfather's murder for her dissertation. But the deeper Audrey digs, the more she realises: the man everyone thinks killed Walczak didn't do it...And when the truth comes out, the danger's only going to grow.  Revolver is by Duane Swierczynski.

August

A journalist on the track of an old case attempts suicide. An ordinary couple return from a house swap in the states to find their home in disarray and their guests seemingly missing. Four strangers struggle to find shelter on a windswept spike of rock in the middle of a raging sea. They have one thing in common: they all lied. And someone is determined to punish them... Why Did You Lie is by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Mark Novak's greatest mystery might just be his own ...Private Investigator Mark Novak's relentlessness as an investigator has been his professional calling card and curse, but the one case he has couldn't bring himself to pursue is the one closest to his heart: that of his wife's death. Returning to the scene of her murder, a country road outside Cassadaga, Florida, he uncovers disturbing leads that show how her murder might be connected to Novak's own troubled youth in Montana. The investigation leads him back to the mining towns of Montana which he thought he'd left behind forever. On returning, he discovers there are more than just bad memories to be found when you go digging up the past. Novak faces an adversary more frightening than he's ever known, and a secret that has wended its way through his entire life: from the caverns beneath Indiana to the abandoned streets of a southern gothic town to the darkest corners of the Northwest. Novak is about to discover that evil and heroism are inextricably and tragically linked. Rise the Dark is by Michael Koryta.

The Trespasser is by Tana French.  Antoinette Conway, the tough, abrasive detective from

The Secret Place, is still on the Murder squad, but only just. She's partnered up with Stephen Moran now, and that's going well - but the rest of her working life isn't. Antoinette doesn't play well with others, and there's a vicious running campaign in the squad to get rid of her. She and Stephen pull a case that at first looks like a slam-dunk lovers' tiff, but gradually they realise there's more going on: someone on their own squad is trying to push them towards the obvious solution, away from nagging questions. They have to work out whether this is just an escalation in the drive to get rid of her - or whether there's something deeper and darker going on.

Death in the Tuscan Hills is by Marco Vichi.  Spring, 1967. The trail of tragedy and destruction that followed the previous winter's flood seems to have died down; Florence is beginning to recover. But Inspector Bordelli does not feel the same sense of relief - he has not had a moment's peace since his investigation of a young boy's murder went disastrously wrong. Unsettled and embittered, Bordelli resigns from the force and leaves the city. He could not continue to work as a policeman while the perpetrators of such a terrible crime were still at large. Now, in the solitude of his new home in the Tuscan hills, he spends his days cooking, going for long walks and learning to grow his own vegetables. But the thought of that case - of justice not served - is constantly with him. Until fate, in which he has never believed, unexpectedly offers him the chance of retribution...

The name's Gideon Tau, but everyone just calls me London. I work for the Delphic Division,

the occult investigative unit of the South African Police Service. My life revolves around two things - finding out who killed my daughter and imagining what I'm going to do to the bastard when I catch him. I have two friends. The first is my boss, Armitage, a fifty-something DCI from Yorkshire who looks more like someone's mother than a cop. Don't let that fool you. The second is the dog, my magical spirit guide. He talks, he watches TV all day, and he's a mean drunk. Life is pretty routine - I solve crimes, I search for my daughter's killer. Wash, rinse, repeat. Until the day I'm called out to the murder of a ramanga - a low-key vampire - basically, the tabloid journalist of the vampire world. It looks like an open and shut case. There's even CCTV footage of the killer. Except...the face on the CCTV footage? It's the face of the man who killed my daughter. I'm about to face a tough choice. Catch her killer or save the world? I can't do both. It's not looking good for the world.  Poison City is by Paul Crilley.

September

If the good guys can't save you, call a bad guy.  When viral video of an explosive terrorist attack on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge reveals that a Federal witness long thought dead is still alive, the organization he'd agreed to testify against will stop at nothing to put him in the ground.  FBI Special Agent Charlie Thompson is determined to protect him, but her hands are tied; the FBI's sole priority is catching the terrorists before they strike again. So Charlie calls the only person on the planet who can keep her witness safe: Michael Hendricks.  Once a covert operative for the US military, Hendricks makes his living hitting hitmen... or he "did," until the very organization hunting Charlie's witness--the Council--caught wind and targeted the people he loves. Teaming up with a young but determined tech whiz, Cameron, on the condition she leave him alone after the case, Hendricks reluctantly takes the job.  Of course, finding a man desperate to stay hidden is challenging enough without deadly competition, let alone when the competition's shadowy corporate backer is tangled in the terrorist conspiracy playing out around them. And now Hendricks is determined to take the Council down, even if that means wading into the center of a terror plot whose perpetrators are not what they seem.  Red Right Hand is by Chris Holm.

October

The most corrupt judge in US history. A young investigator with a secret informant.  The Whistler is by John Grisham.

Don’t Turn Out the Lights is by Bernard Minier.  "You did nothing." Christine Steinmeyer thought the suicide note she found in her mailbox on Christmas Eve wasn't meant for her. But the man calling in to her radio show seems convinced otherwise. "You let her die..." The note and the call are only the beginning. Bit by bit, her life is progressively turned upside down: someone is trying to destroy her. But who among her friends and family can hate her that much? And why? Commandant Martin Servaz is on leave in a clinic for depressed cops, haunted by the latest crime committed by his nemesis, serial killer Julian Hirtmann. Then he receives a key card to a hotel room - the room where an artist committed suicide a year earlier. He soon realises that the key opens up a most intriguing mystery. Could someone really be cruelly, consciously driving women to kill themselves? Both he and Christine are about to find out...but it may already be too late.

November

Thomas De Quincey is beginning to control his opium addiction when the excitement of his current case threatens to unravel his grip on reality once and for all. On their way home to the Lake District, the De Quinceys become unwitting witnesses to a truly historic murder: the first to take place on one of England's newly constructed railways. The railways changed everything in the Victorian era, transforming the English countryside, revolutionizing modern industry, and as the De Quinceys discover, providing the perfect escape. Giving chase in a cat-and-mouse game unlike any that have come before, the De Quinceys uncover a dangerous secret that reaches all levels of English society.  Ruler of the Night is by David Morrell.

December

Expecting to Die is by Lisa Jackson.  THE WOODS ARE DARK, AND DEEP, AND DEADLY...Some places earn their bad reputation through tall tales or chance. Grizzly Falls is different. Here, killers aren't just the stuff of legends and campfire lore. Someone is in the nighttime shadows, watching the local teens in the moonlit woods. Waiting for the right moment, the right victim. Waiting to take away a life. Detective Regan Pescoli is counting the days until her maternity leave. Exhausted and emotional, the last thing she needs is another suspected serial killer. Especially when her daughter, Bianca, is swept up in the media storm. When a reality show arrives in town, the chaos only makes it harder for Pescoli and her partner, Selena Alvarez, to distinguish rumour from truth. Another body is found...and another. And as the nightmare strikes closer to home, Pescoli races to find the terror lingering in the darkness, where there are too many places to hide...and countless places to die...