Books to look forward to from Head of Zeus

January 2018

Eighteen Below is by Stefan Ahnhem.  ON A HOT SUMMER'S DAY. The police chase a speeding car through the streets of Helsingborg. When they reach the quay, the driver keeps going, straight into the cold, dark water.  A TRAGIC ACCIDENT. The body recovered from the wreck is Peter Brise, a wealthy tech entrepreneur. Fabian Risk and his team are confident this is a suicide. Young, rich, successful, Brise just didn't know how to ask for help.  TURNS EVERTHING A LITTLE COLDER...   But then the autopsy reveals something unexpected. Brise was already dead when his car crashed. He'd been brutally murdered two months ago. His body was frozen in perfect condition, at eighteen degrees below zero...

Grace Ozmian, missing daughter of a tech billionaire has been found.  Most of her, anyway. Her head is still missing.  Lieutenant CDS Vincent D'Agosta knows his investigation will attract fierce media scrutiny, so he's delighted when his old acquaintance FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast is assigned to the case.  But neither man is prepared for what lies ahead. A diabolical presence is haunting New York City and Grace is only the first of many victims to be murdered... and decapitated.  As mass hysteria sweeps the city, it will take all of Pendergast's skill and strength to unmask this most dangerous foe - let alone survive to tell the tale.  City of Endless Night is by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

February 2018

Dead Men Whistling is by Graham Masterton.  A garda sergeant is found beheaded with an Irish tin whistle sticking out of his neck. He was due to give evidence at a major inquiry into police corruption. His murder sends a clear message to any future whistleblowers: only silence is safe.  The inquiry hinges on the arrest of one of Cork's most ruthless drug dealers. Though there was evidence to convict him, he walked free. DCI Katie Maguire is determined to expose the full truth.  But when another officer is murdered in the exact same way, Katie finds that murder is the best way to stop people talking.

Eight years a soldier, Peter Ash came home from Iraq and Afghanistan with only one souvenir: what he calls 'white static', a buzzing claustrophobia due to post-traumatic stress that has driven him to spend a year roaming the Pacific coast's mountains and forests, sleeping under the stars. But when a friend from the Marines commits suicide, Ash returns to civilization to help the man's widow and two young children. While repairing her dilapidated porch, he makes two unwelcome discoveries: The first is a dog, the meanest, ugliest dog he's ever laid eyes on, guarding a Samsonite suitcase; the second unwelcome surprise is the suitcase's contents - $400,000 in cash and four slabs of plastic explosive. Just what was his friend caught up in during his final days? Ash will find that the demons of war aren't easy to leave behind...  The Drifter is by Nick Petrie.

Like Lions is by Brian Panowich.  Clayton Burroughs is sheriff of Bull Mountain and one-time black sheep of the brutal and blood-steeped Burroughs clan. It's been a year since a rogue government agent systematically crippled the family's criminal empire that left two of the brothers dead, and Clayton, the youngest and only surviving member of the clan, broken and haunted by wounds that may never heal.  Now Bull Mountain is vulnerable, ripe for predators wanting to re-establish the flow of dope and money through the town. And the death of a boy belonging to a rival clan brings the wolves straight to Clayton's door.  The only good son born of a crooked tree, Clayton wants to bury his bloody family legacy for good. But he'll need to call on it if he wants to save his family, and his mountain, from the destruction that awaits.

March 2018

The Disappeared is by C J Box. The new State Governor, Colter Allen, needs a favour from Game Warden Joe Pickett. The British consulate is asking questions over in Denver: a rich English woman visiting a high-end guest ranch has gone missing. Joe has a habit of investigating outside the lines of the local law and Allen needs this done quietly. But Joe's inquiries soon uncover not one, but three missing women.  At the same time, with his friend Nate Romanowski, he's called to investigate a serious federal crime: the killing of several bald and golden eagles. The more questions Joe asks about each case, the clearer it becomes someone wants him to disappear.  And the answers, when they finally come, reveal a violently darker Wyoming that he ever imagined.

April 2018

In the Cage Where Your Saviors Hide is by Malcolm Mackay.  The independent kingdom of

Scotland flourished until the beginning of the last century. Its great trading port of Challaid, in the north west of the country, sent ships around the world and its merchants and bankers grew rich on their empire in Central America.  But Scotland is not what it was, and the docks of Challaid are almost silent. The huge infrastructure projects collapsed, like the dangerous railway tunnels under the city. And above ground the networks of power and corruption are all that survive of Challaid's glorious past.  Darian Ross is a young private investigator whose father, an ex cop, is in prison for murder. He takes on a case brought to him by a charismatic woman, Maeve Campbell. Her partner has been stabbed; the police are not very curious about the death of a man who laundered money for the city's criminals. Ross is drawn by his innate sense of justice and his fascination with Campbell into a world in which no-one can be trusted.

Queen's Jubilee, 1977: Cassie Baker sees her boyfriend kissing another girl at the village disco. Upset, she heads home alone and is never seen again. Millennium Eve, 1999: DCI Paul Mercer finds Cassie's remains in a field. Now he must prove the man who led him there is guilty. When Mercer's daughter asks Stella Darnell for help solving the murder, Stella see echoes of herself. Another detective's daughter. With her sidekick sleuth, Jack, Stella moves to Winchcombe, where DCI Mercer and his prime suspect have been playing cat and mouse for the past eighteen years...  The Death Chamber is by Lesley Thomson

May 2018

Ex-journalist Kay and her family are spending the summer in a rented farmhouse in Vermont. Kay is haunted by her traumatic past in Africa, and is struggling with her troubled marriage and the constraints of motherhood. Then her husband is called away unexpectedly on business and Kay finds herself alone with the children, obsessed by the idea that something terrible has happened to the owners of the house. The locals are reticent when she asks about their whereabouts; and she finds disturbing writing scrawled across one of the walls.  As she starts to investigate she becomes involved with a local man, Ben, whose life is complicated by his own violent past, his involvement in a drug-trafficking operation, and his desire to adopt an abused child.  Their two stories collide and intertwine, heading towards a dramatic denouement.  The Underneath is by Melanie Finn

The End of Days has been predicted for the last two thousand years. But now, without warning, it is upon us.  Braverman 'Bravo' Shaw, member of a secret Franciscan splinter sect, has survived a battle as old as time itself: the battle between good and evil. Working with his once-blind sister, Emma, and his confessor, Fra Leoni, Bravo went to war with the Fallen, Lucifer's advance guard and emerged with The Book of Deathly Things - Lucifer's first and last Testament.  Now, back in New York, the book's secrets have revealed themselves to Emma. With the testament stolen by Bravo, Emma realises the Fallen army will awaken fully. And come to claim what is theirs.  Four Dominions is by Eric Van Lustbader.

A young Czech girl, missing for eight days, is found abandoned in a deserted playground. She is so traumatised she cannot speak.  DCI Eve Clay is on her way to try and interview the victim, when another case is called in. Two Polish migrant workers have been found dead in their burnt out flat. But this is no normal house fire. The men's bodies were set alight, after the killer had clinically removed both of their hearts.  Then reports come in that the Czech girl's mother has disappeared.  Then Clay and her team receive an anonymous call. Someone else will die before the day ends.  Killing Time is by Mark Roberts.

June 2018

Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Nemsis is by Eric Van Lustbader.  Jason Bourne returns. He's fought against the NSA, black off-site cyber operations, a Somali terrorist organisation and been accused of treason against the US.  Now the Russians have planted a mole to uncover Bourne's secrets and launch cyber-warfare against the United States.  Meanwhile, Bourne's former colleague, Soroya Moore, needs his help. Six highly skilled field agents have disappeared, the body parts of three found in a national park in Georgia. Facing death and destruction in the shadows of civilisation, Bourne will battle his deadliest nemesis yet.

Death Notice is by Zhou Haohui.  Online, a vigilante announces their intention of meting out justice for unpunished crimes. Users are invited to submit names for judgement. Those found guilty will be sentenced. And there is just one punishment: death. Despite publishing the name of each victim and the date of execution - their death notice - the police are simply unable to stop the killer. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) is assembled, comprising a criminal psychologist, a SWAT captain, an Online Surveillance Officer and Detective Luo Fei. As they pursue the killer, the SIT will be drawn ever deeper into dark and dangerous territory. What is the connection to a highly classified eighteen-year-old case that saw two similar 'death notice' murders? What is Detective Luo's personal connection to that case? And finally, what crimes might the members of the SIT guilty of? And what will they do to keep them secret?