Tuesday, 20 December 2016

Books to Look Forward to From Orenda Books

January 2017

Deep Down Dead is by Steph Broadribb.  Lori Anderson is as tough as they come, managing to keep her career as a fearless Florida bounty hunter separate from her role as single mother to nine-year-old Dakota, who suffers from leukaemia. But when the hospital bills start to rack up, she has no choice but to take her daughter along on a job that will make her a fast buck. And that's when things start to go wrong. The fugitive she's assigned to haul back to court is none other than JT, Lori's former mentor - the man who taught her everything she knows ...the man who also knows the secrets of her murky past. Not only is JT fighting a child exploitation racket operating out of one of Florida's biggest theme parks, Winter Wonderland, a place where 'bad things never happen', but he's also mixed up with the powerful Miami Mob. With two fearsome foes on their tails, just three days to get JT back to Florida, and her daughter to protect, Lori has her work cut out for her. When they're ambushed at a gas station, the stakes go from high to stratospheric, and things become personal.

1955. Two young couples move to the uninhabited, isolated fjord of Hedinsfjordur. Their stay ends abruptly when one of the women meets her death in mysterious circumstances. The case is never solved. Fifty years later an old photograph comes to light, and it becomes clear that the couples may not have been alone on the fjord after all...In nearby Siglufjordur, young policeman Ari Thor tries to piece together what really happened that fateful night, in a town where no one wants to know, where secrets are a way of life. He's assisted by Isrun, a news reporter in Reykjavik, who is investigating an increasingly chilling case of her own. Things take a sinister turn when a child goes missing in broad daylight. With a stalker on the loose, and the town of Siglufjordur in quarantine, the past might just come back to haunt them. Haunting, frightening and complex, Rupture is a dark and atmospheric thriller from Ragnar Jonasson.

February 2017

Cursed is by Thomas Enger.  When Hedda Hellberg fails to return from a retreat in Italy, where she has been grieving for her recently dead father, her husband discovers that his wife's life is tangled in mystery. Hedda never left Oslo, the retreat has no record of her and, what's more, she appears to be connected to the death of an old man, gunned down on the first day of the hunting season in the depths of the Swedish forests. Henning Juul becomes involved in the case when his ex-wife joins in the search for the missing woman, and the estranged pair find themselves enmeshed both in the murky secrets of one of Sweden's wealthiest families, and in the painful truths surrounding the death of their own son. With the loss of his son to deal with, as well as threats to his own life and that of his ex-wife, Juul is prepared to risk everything to uncover a sinister maze of secrets that ultimately leads to the dark heart of European history. 

March 2017

1997. Scarclaw Fell. The body of teenager Tom Jeffries is found at an outward bound centre. Verdict? Misadventure. But not everyone is convinced. And the truth of what happened in the beautiful but eerie fell is locked in the memories of the tight-knit group of friends who embarked on that fateful trip, and the flimsy testimony of those living nearby.2017. Enter elusive investigative journalist Scott King, whose podcast examinations of complicated cases have rivalled the success of Serial, with his concealed identity making him a cult internet figure. In a series of six interviews, King attempts to work out how the dynamics of a group of idle teenagers conspired with the sinister legends surrounding the fell to result in Jeffries' mysterious death. And who's to blame...As every interview unveils a new revelation, you'll be forced to work out for yourself how Tom Jeffries died, and who is telling the truth.  Six Stories is by Matt Wesolowski.

Deadly Game is by Matt Johnson.  Reeling from the attempts on his life and that of his family, Police Inspector Robert Finlay returns to work to discover that any hope of a peaceful existence has been dashed. Assigned to investigate the Eastern European sex-slave industry just as a key witness is murdered. Finlay, along with his new partner Nina Brasov, finds himself facing a ruthless criminal gang, determined to keep control of the traffic of people into the UK. On the home front, Finlay's efforts to protect his wife and child may have been in vain, as an MI5 protection officer uncovers a covert secret service operation that threatens them all...Picking up where the bestselling Wicked Game left off, Deadly Game sees Matt Johnson's damaged hero fighting on two fronts. Aided by new allies, he must not only protect his family but save a colleague from an unseen enemy ...and a shocking fate.

April 2017

Faithless is by Kjell Ola Dahl.  Oslo detectives Gunnarstranda and Frølich are back … and this time, it’s personal…When the body of a woman turns up in a dumpster, scalded and wrapped in plastic, Inspector Frank Frølich is shocked to discover that he knows her … and their recent meetings may hold the clue to her murder. As he begins to look deeper into the tragic events surrounding her death, Frølich’s colleague Gunnarstranda finds another body, and things take a more sinister turn. With a cold case involving the murder of a young girl in northern Norway casting a shadow, and an unsettling number of coincidences clouding the plot, Frølich is forced to look into his own past to find the answers – and the killer – before he strikes again.

May 2017

Fresh from events in Yemen and Cyprus, vigilante justice seeker Claymore Straker returns to South Africa, seeking absolution for the sins of his past. Over four days, he testifies to Desmond Tutu’s newly established Truth and Reconciliation Commission, recounting the shattering events that led to his dishonourable discharge and exile, fifteen years earlier.  It was 1980. The height of the Cold War. Clay is a young paratrooper in the South African Army, fighting in Angola against the Communist insurgency that threatens to topple the White Apartheid regime. On a patrol deep inside Angola, Clay, and his best friend, Eben Barstow, find themselves enmeshed in a tangled conspiracy that threatens everything they have been taught to believe about war, and the sacrifices that they, and their brothers in arms, are expected to make. Witness and unwitting accomplice to an act of shocking brutality, Clay changes allegiance and finds himself labelled a deserter and accused of high treason, setting him on a journey into the dark, twisted heart of institutionalized hatred, from which no one will emerge unscathed.  Exploring true events from one of the most hateful chapters in South African history, Reconciliation for the Dead is by Paul Hardisty and is a shocking, explosive and gripping thriller.

Block 46 by Johana Gustawsson.  Falkenberg. Sweden. Chief Inspector Bergström discovers the naked and frozen corpse of a woman on the beach of Olofsbo.  London. Renowned profiler, the tenebrous Emily Roy investigates a series of murders of children whose savagely mutilated bodies are dumped in the woods of Hampstead, in the north part of the city. They have the same mutilations that the Swedish victim: torn trachea, enucleated eyes and a mysterious Y etched on their arm.  How strange, a serial killer who suddenly changes his type of prey and hunting place... Could it be a duo of sociopaths? The many questions raised by the two cases bring Emily Roy to Sweden, where she meets an old acquaintance, the tenacious Alexis Castells, a French writer specializing in serial killers.  These two women with contrasting personalities set off in pursuit of killers who are as perverted as they are uncontrollable. A hunt that leads them to the horrors of Buchenwald concentration camp, in 1944.  In the fashion of Nordic crime fiction, between past and present day, “Block 46” reminds us of a duty to remember the cruelty of the Nazi concentration camps, and demonstrates that such inhumanity, in all various forms, is still very much relevant.

June 2017

 
Bo Luxton has it all – a loving family, a beautiful home in the Lake District, and a clutch of bestselling books to her name.  Enter Alice Dark, an aspiring writer who is drifting through life, with a series of dead-end jobs and a freeloading boyfriend. When they meet at a writers’ retreat, the chemistry is instant, and a sinister relationship develops…Or does it? Exquisite is by Sarah Stovell.



Wolves in the Dark is by Gunnar Staalesten. Reeling from the death of his great love, Karin, Varg Veum’s life has descended into a self-destructive spiral of alcohol, lust, grief and blackouts. When traces of child pornography are found on his computer, he’s accused of being part of a paedophile ring and thrown into a prison cell. There, he struggles to sift through his past to work out who is responsible for planting the material … and who is seeking the ultimate revenge. When a chance to escape presents itself, Varg finds himself on the run in his hometown of Bergen. With the clock ticking and the police on his tail, Varg takes on his hardest – and most personal – case yet.

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