Books to Look Forward to from Harvill Secker

January 2017

You can run from your past. But you can't run from murder! The body is found by the river, near a spot popular with runners. With a serial rapist at work in the area, DI Zigic and DS Ferreira are initially confused when the Hate Crimes Unit is summoned to the scene. Until they discover that the victim, Corinne Sawyer, was born Colin Sawyer. Police records reveal there have been violent attacks on trans women in the local area. Was Corinne a victim of mistaken identity? Or has the person who has been targeting trans women stepped up their campaign of violence? With tensions running high, and the force coming under national scrutiny, this is a complex case and any mistake made could be fatal...  Watch Her Disappear is by Eva Dolan

February 2017

The Follower is by Koethi Zan. How fine is the line between victim and murderer?  Julie has the perfect life. Kind boyfriend, loving parents, good grades. Everything ahead of her. Until the night she runs into trouble while waiting alone for a late train.  Cora’s life is a nightmare. A violent father, a terrible secret, a psychopath for a husband.  No way out. Until Julie comes into her life.  Locked together in a deadly bond, these two women must work out where to put their trust and how they ended up in the house of a killer.

March 2017

William Watt wants answers about his family's murder. Peter Manuel has them. But Peter Manuel is a liar. William Watt is an ordinary businessman, a fool, a social climber. Peter Manuel is a famous liar, a rapist, a criminal. He claims he can get hold of the gun used to murder Watt's family. One December night in 1957, Watt meets Manuel in a Glasgow bar to find out what he knows. Based on true events, The Long Drop is an extraordinarily unsettling, evocative and compelling novel from a writer at the height of her power.

April 2017

OLD CRIMES, NEW CONSEQUENCES.  THE PAST.  In wartime

Reykjavik, a young woman is found strangled behind the National Theatre, a rough and dangerous area of the city known as ‘the shadow district’. An Icelandic detective and a member of the American military police are on the trail of a brutal killer.  THE PRESENT.  A 90-year-old man is discovered dead on his bed, smothered with his own pillow. Konrad, a former detective now bored with retirement, finds newspaper cuttings in the dead man’s home reporting the shadow district murder that date back to the second world war. It’s a crime that Konrad remembers, having grown up in the same neighbourhood.  A MISSING LINK.  Why, after all this time, would an old crime resurface? Did the police arrest the wrong man? How are these cases linked across the decades? Will Konrad's link to the past help him solve the case and finally lay the ghosts of wartime Reykjavik to rest?  The Shadow District is the start of a new series by Arnaldur Indridason.

The Thirst is by Jo Nesbo.  There's a new killer on the streets. A woman is found murdered after an internet date. The marks left on her body show the police that they are dealing with a particularly vicious killer. He's in your house...he's in your room. Under pressure from the media to find the murderer, the force know there's only one man for the job. But Harry Hole is reluctant to return to the place that almost took everything from him. Until he starts to suspect a connection between this killing and his one failed case. He's out for blood. When another victim is found, Harry realises he will need to put everything on the line if he's to finally catch the one who got away.

June 2017

A Necessary Evil is by Abir Mukherjee.  India, 1920. Captain Wyndham and Sergeant Banerjee of the Calcutta Police Force investigate the dramatic assassination of a Maharajah's son.  The fabulously wealthy kingdom of Sambalpore is home to tigers, elephants, diamond mines and the beautiful Palace of the Sun. But when the heir to the throne is assassinated in the presence of Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant 'Surrender-Not' Banerjee, they discover a kingdom riven with suppressed conflict. Prince Adhir was a moderniser whose attitudes - and romantic relationship - may have upset the more religious elements of his country, while his brother – now in line to the throne – appears to be a feckless playboy.  As Wyndham and Banerjee desperately try to unravel the mystery behind the assassination, they become entangled in a dangerous world where those in power live by their own rules and those who cross their paths pay with their lives. They must find a murderer, before the murderer finds them…

The Lying Game is by Ruth Ware.  An unexpected discovery forces four school friends to confront a dark secret from their childhood. Can we trust them?  And can they trust one another?  How much can you trust your friends...  The text message is just 3 words: I need you.  Isa Leigh drops everything, packs up her baby daughter and heads straight to Salten where she and her 3 best friends attended prestigious boarding school, Salten House.  Only Kate still lives in the area, at the crumbling Tide Mill she inherited when her disgraced art tutor father vanished when she was just 17.  Each of the women is running from something, from an act that has haunted them for many years but which they have tried their best to bury: in work, in alcohol, in family, faith and routine.  At school together, the girls used to play a game – the lying game – in which they competed to tell the most outrageous stories to fool tourists. But for some, did the boundaries between fact and fantasy become too blurred?  ....and how much can you trust one another?

July 2017

Watching You is the start of a new series from international best-seller Arne Dahl. Someone is watching. At each abandoned crime scene there's a hidden clue: a tiny metal cog, almost invisible to the naked eye. Someone is sending Detective Sam Berger a message, and that someone knows that only he will understand the cryptic trail. Someone knows. When another teenaged girl disappears without trace, Sam must convince his superiors that they're dealing with a serial kidnapper and possible killer. As the police continue the hunt to find the latest kidnap victim, Sam is forced to unearth long buried personal demons - he has no choice if he is to understand the brute's darkly personal message before time runs out. Somebody is killing just for him.

Here and Gone is by Haylen Beck.  She swears she didn’t do it. The whole world thinks she did.  Audra has finally left her abusive husband. She’s taken the family car and her young children, Sean and Louise, are buckled up in the back. This is their chance for a fresh start.  She keeps to the country roads to avoid attention and finds herself on an empty road in the Arizona desert, far from home. Looking for a safe place to stay for the night she spots something in her rear-view mirror. A police car is following her and the lights are flickering. Blue and red.  As Audra pulls over she is intensely aware of how isolated they are. Her perfect escape is about to turn into a nightmare beyond her imagining…

August 2017

The Accordionist is by Fred Vargas.  The opera singer Sophia Siméonidis wakes up one morning to discover that a tree has appeared overnight in the garden of her Paris house. Intrigued and unnerved, she turns to her neighbours: Vandoosler, an ex-cop, and three impecunious historians, Mathias, Marc and Lucien - the three evangelists. They agree to dig around the tree and see if something has been buried there. They find nothing but soil.   A few weeks later, Sophia disappears and her body is found burned to ashes in a car. Who killed the opera singer? Her husband, her ex-lover, her best friend, her niece? They all seem to have a motive.  Vandoosler and the three evangelists set out to find the truth.