Books to Look Forward to from Atlantic and Corvus Books

January 2018

Southern California, 1986. Detective Ben Wade has returned to his hometown in search of a quieter life and to try to save his marriage. Suddenly the community, with its peaceful streets and neighbourly concerns, finds itself at the mercy of a serial killer who slips through windows and screen doors at night, shattering illusions of safety. As Ben and forensic specialist Natasha Betencourt struggle to stay one step ahead of the killer - and deal with painful episodes in the past - Ben's own world is rocked again by violence. He must decide how far he is willing to go, and Natasha how much she is willing to risk, to rescue the town from a psychotic murderer and a long-buried secret.  Shadow Man is by Alan Drew.

February 2018

The Perfect Stranger is by Megan Miranda.  What happens when your best friend becomes your worst nightmare...Having reached a dead end in Boston, failed journalist Leah Stevens needs a change. When she runs into an old friend, Emmy Grey, who is moving to rural Pennsylvania, Leah decides to join her. But their fresh start is quickly threatened when a woman with an eerie resemblance to Leah is assaulted by the lake, and Emmy disappears days later.  Determined to find Emmy, Leah helps Detective Kyle Donovan to investigate her friend's life for clues. But with no friends, family or digital footprint, the police begin to suspect that there is no Emmy Grey. Forced to question her version of reality and to save herself, Leah must uncover the truth - no matter how dark or terrible it may be...

March 2018

The Liar’s Girl is by Catherine Ryan Howard.  Her first love confessed to five murders. But the truth was so much worse.  Dublin's notorious Canal Killer, Will Hurley, is ten years into his life sentence when the body of a young woman is fished out of the Grand Canal. Though detectives suspect they are dealing with a copycat, they turn to Will for help. He claims he has the information the police need, but will only give it to one person - the girl he was dating when he committed his horrific crimes.  Alison Smith has spent the last decade abroad, putting her shattered life in Ireland far behind her. But when she gets a request from Dublin imploring her to help prevent another senseless murder, she is pulled back to face the past - and the man - she's worked so hard to forget.

A hot summer. A shocking murder. A town of secrets, waiting to explode...A beautiful young teacher has been murdered, her body found in the lake, strewn with red roses. Local policewoman Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock pushes to be assigned to the case, concealing the fact that she knew the murdered woman in high school years before.  But that's not all Gemma's trying to hide. As the investigation digs deeper into the victim's past, other secrets threaten to come to light, secrets that were supposed to remain buried. The lake holds the key to solving the murder, but it also has the power to drag Gemma down into its dark depths...  The Dark Lake is by Sarah Bailey.

April 2018

When Solomon's sister is found drugged and in a coma after an online date, Solomon can't believe this was just a terrible accident. Determined to find out what happened to his sister and with the police unwilling to help, Solomon begins to investigate on his own.  He soon uncovers a rash of similar cases of women who have been brutally murdered or assaulted after after an online date.  There is a predator out there working the streets of London and preying on young women.  Solomon sets out to bring him to justice, putting him on a collision course with a deadly killer who is fiendishly clever and more twisted than anyone could possibly imagine... Perfect Match is by D B Thorne.  

Friends and Traitors is by John Lawton.  It is 1958. Chief Superintendent Frederick Troy of Scotland Yard, newly promoted after good service during Nikita Khrushchev's visit to Britain, is not looking forward to a Continental trip with his older brother, Rod. Rod was too vain to celebrate being fifty so instead takes his entire family on 'the Grand Tour' for his fifty-first birthday: Paris, Sienna, Florence, Vienna, Amsterdam. Restaurants, galleries and concert halls. But Frederick Troy never gets to Amsterdam. After a concert in Vienna he is approached by an old friend whom he has not seen for years - Guy Burgess, a spy for the Soviets, who says something extraordinary: 'I want to come home.' Troy dumps the problem on MI5 who send an agent to de-brief Burgess - but the man is gunned down only yards from the embassy, and after that, the whole plan unravels with alarming speed and Troy finds himself a suspect. As he fights to prove his innocence, Troy finds that Burgess is not the only ghost who returns to haunt him.

May 2018

My Mother’s Secret is by Sanjida Kay.  Your mother has a secret. Do you really want to know what it is? Stella's mum, Emma, has always been a little strange, but now she's behaving really oddly. Stella is convinced her mother has a secret. She knows something terrible happened in her mum's past, but she doesn't know what; even her dad, Jack, says Emma won't talk to him about it.The teenager decides to follow her mother and find out what she's hiding. But Stella has a dark secret of her own. Nothing can prepare Stella for the shocking truth. And now she knows that if anyone else finds out their secrets, the revelation will tear their family apart.

June 2018

Love Will Tear us Apart is by Holly Seddon.  Kate and Paul have been married for ten years. Childhood best friends who reconnected as adults, Paul now has a high-flying job while Kate looks after their two adorable children. Their friends think they're the perfect couple. Everything should be wonderful. But Kate has a secret. One she's sure Paul doesn't know. Because if he did, would he really love her as much as he says he does? Or would he decide that their life together isn't worth the vow he made all those years ago...?

Seven years after a financial crisis nearly topples America, traders chafe at government regulations on Wall Street, racial tensions are rising, and corrupt financiers make back-door deals with politicians... 1799 was a hell of a year. Thanks to Alexander Hamilton, America recovered from the panic on the Devil's Half Mile (aka Wall Street), but the young country still finding its way. When young lawyer Justy Flanagan returns to prove his father's innocence, he exposes a massive fraud that has already claimed lives, and one the perpetrators are determined to keep secret at any cost. The body count is rising, and the looming crisis could topple the nation.  The Devil’s Half Mile is by Paddy Hirsch.

Jar of Hearts is by Jennifer Hillier.  This is story of three best friends: one who was murdered, one who went to prison, and one who's been searching for the truth all these years . . .  When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong―one of the most popular girls in school―disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school.  But fourteen years later, Angela Wong's remains are discovered in the woods near Geo's childhood home. And Kaiser―now a detective with Seattle PD―finally learns the truth: Angela was a victim of Calvin James. The same Calvin James who murdered at least three other women.  To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he's something else entirely. Back in high school, Calvin was Geo's first love. Turbulent and often volatile, their relationship bordered on obsession from the moment they met right up until the night Angela was killed.  For fourteen years, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela's death until Geo was arrested and sent to prison.  While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And what happened that fateful night is more complex and more chilling than anyone really knows. Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong.  How far will someone go to bury her secrets and hide her grief? How long can you get away with a lie? How long can you live with it?