Books to Look Forward to from Head of Zeus

July 2016

Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbroke Lane is by Paul Thomas Murphy. In April 1871, a constable walking a beat near Greenwich found a girl dying in the mud - her face cruelly slashed and her brains protruding from her skull. The girl was Maria Jane Clouson, a maid for the respectable Pook family, and who was pregnant at the time of her death. When the blood-spattered clothes of the 20-year-old Edmund Pook, alleged father of the dead girl's unborn child, were discovered, the matter seemed open and shut. Yet there followed a remarkable legal odyssey full of unexpected twists as the police struggled to build a case. 

Meet Liz Lyon: respected TV producer, stressed-out executive, guilty single mother...woman of the hour. StoryWorld is the nation's favourite morning show, and producer Liz Lyon wants to keep it that way. Her job is to turn real-life stories into thrilling TV - and keep a lid on the scandals and backbiting that happen off-stage. But then simmering tensions erupt at the station, trapping Liz in a game of one-upmanship where she doesn't know the rules. As the power struggle intensifies, can Liz keep her cool and keep her job? Does she even want to? Woman of the Hour is by Jane Lythell.

August 2016

Any Minute Now is by Eric Van Lustbader. Red Rover, the blakest of black ops teams, is finished - betrayed on a mission to capture and interrogate a mysterious Saudi deep in Pakistan. One of the team was killed, the remaining two barely escaped alive. Now, the unit has been shut down and Greg Whitman and Felix Orteno are left adrift, wondering what went wrong. Into their midst comes Charlize Daou, a brilliant, wildly talented arms expert, who becomes the reason - and supplies the means - to resurrect their mission. Disobeying orders, they secretly set out to find the Saudi - the first step in a perilous journey that will lead them to the dark heart of a terrifying conspiracy that threatens to change the balance of power across the globe.

September 2016

The girl who teetered out of the doorway was exactly who they were looking for...It's

Hallowe'en, and the people of Cork are partying. At half past two in the morning, a girl with green hair and sad eyes stumbles out of a club. She never makes it home. DS Katie Maguire and her team are stretched to their limit. A gang of dognappers are terrorising the kennel owners of Cork. The city's drug trade is at an all-time high. Now they have a missing girl to find too - and all in the glare of the media spotlight. As Katie closes in on the truth, she realises that the three cases might be connected. And that with every second she spends investigating, the clock ticks on for the missing girl, trapped in a living death...  Living Death is by Graham Masterton.

The Borrowed is by Chan Ho-Kei.  Six interlocking stories. One spellbinding novel. The year is 2013, and Hong Kong's greatest detective is dying. For fifty years, Inspector Kwan quietly solved cases while the world changed around him. Now his partner Detective Lok has come to his deathbed for help with one final case. Where there is murder, there is humanity. This bold and intricate crime novel spans five decades of love, honour, race, class, jealousy and revenge in one of the most intriguing nations in the world. This is the story of a man who let justice shine in the space between black and white. This is the story of Hong Kong.

A controversial, right-wing, German politician is due to speak at the Oxford Union. Following a series of murders linked to a violent anarchist group, the city is on high alert. DCI Hanlon has been partnered with DI Huss to ensure the speech goes smoothly and put an end to the killing. The murders soon reveal a chilling alliance between the anarchists and European Jihadis. And when Hanlon traces the killer she soon realises that the truth has a terrible price. Is Hanlon willing to meet the cost?  An Incidental Death is by Alex Howard.

November 2016

Celcius Daly is investigating the abduction of a boy by a group of travellers already under investigation for smuggling and organised crime. As he digs into the child's background, he discovers a family secret linked to an unsolved crime during the Troubles - the disappearance of a young woman and her baby. Daly's investigation shakes loose some harrowing truths about the past treatment of travellers and the present day lawlessness of Northern Ireland's border country. Undergoing an internal investigation over his handling of the search for IRA spy Daniel Hegarty, Daly realises that he has much in common with the beleaguered and outcast travellers and soon finds himself entangled in a vigilante mission, discovering just how far a group of outsiders will go to find their own justice.  Trespass is by Anthony J Quinn

Jack the Ripper is edited by Otto Penzler.  The predatory ritual, the escalating savagery of the crimes, the grisly trophies taken from his victim's bodies, the games played with his pursuers, the cannibalism: Jack the Ripper's reign of terror in London's East End during the autumn of 1888 casts a long shadow. Many have murdered more, but few have killed so brutally and none have forged such an enduring legend. For a century and a quarter the Ripper's crimes have appalled and fascinated in equal measure, inspiring over one hundred theories about this prototypical serial killer's identity and spawning thousands of works of fiction. This collection is the ultimate exploration of the Ripper legend. It sifts through Jack's legacy, blending the true story (told via contemporary reports and a century's worth of the best analysis) with the best crime and horror fiction his depraved deeds have inspired.

UN covert negotiator, Yael Azoulay, has been sent to Reykjavik to broker a secret meeting between US President Freshwater and the Iranian president. Both parties want the violence to stop, but Yael soon realises that powerful enemies are pulling the strings. Enemies for whom peace means an end to their lucrative profit streams. The Reykjavik Assignment is by AdamLebor.

December 2016

Germany, October 1944: Dozens of cities lie in ruins. Enemy armies are at the gates. For the Thousand Year Reich, time is running out. Desperate to avoid the humiliation of unconditional surrender, German intelligence launch Operation Finisterre - a last-ditch plan to enable Hitler to deny the savage logic of a war on two fronts and bluff his way to the negotiating table. Success depends on two individuals: Stefan Portisch, a German naval officer washed ashore on the coast of Spain after the loss of his U-boat, and Hector Gomez, an ex-FBI detective, planted by Director J. Edgar Hoover in the middle of the most secret place on earth: the American atomic bomb complex. Both men will find themselves fighting for survival as Operation Finisterre plays itself out.  Finisterre is by Graham Hurley.

Road Rage is by Hanna Jameson. A new thriller set in the nowhereland between New York and LA. Eli and Ronnie are two British ex-cons on the road in America. Their mission is to find Trent, a guy who screwed them over and disappeared. But now, after forty hours driving through yellow desert, eating at lonely motels, what seemed real is no longer certain. Where did Trent stay? What did he do? Did he even exist at all? Leaving violent killings in their wake, Ronnie and Eli can do nothing except keep travelling. Now, trapped in a nightmarish road trip together, these two men must confront their own personal demons before they can come home.