Books to look forward to from Point Blank (Oneworld Publishers)

January 2018

SEE NO EVIL.  Eyes missing, two bodies lie deep in the forest near a small Swedish town.  HEAR NO EVIL.  Tuva Moodyson, a deaf reporter on a small-time local paper, is looking for the story that could make her career.  SPEAK NO EVIL.  A web of secrets. And an unsolved murder from twenty years ago.  Can Tuva outwit the killer before she becomes the final victim? She'd like to think so. But first she must face her demons and venture far into the deep, dark woods if she wants to stand any chance of getting the hell out of small-time Gavrik.  Dark Pines is by Will Dean

February 2018

Back Up is by Paul Colize.  Berlin, 1967: four members of the British rock band Pearl Harbour die at the same time but in separate locations. Inexplicably, the police conclude natural causes are to blame.  Brussels, 2010: A homeless man is hit by a car outside the Gare du Midi, leaving him with locked-in syndrome, able to communicate (sometimes) by blinking.  An Irish journalist's interest is piqued. How did the members of Pearl Harbour die, and how is this linked to the homeless man in Brussels?

March 2018

When a helicopter explodes, leaving behind a dead client and colleague, Tom Winter, head of security for an elite Swiss bank, teams up with the mysterious Egyptian businesswoman Fatima to follow the money trail through Switzerland and from there on a whistle-stop chase around the world.  With the NSA watching their every move, it's not long before Winter, a former special forces commander, and Fatima realise that in fact they are the hunted, not the hunters, and that their very survival depends on Tom's coolness and quick thinking.  Damnation is by Peter Beck.

Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune hopes an overseas birding trip will hold some clues to

solving his fugitive brother's manslaughter case. Meanwhile, in Jejeune's absence his long-time nemesis has been drafted in as cover to investigate an accountant's murder. And unfortunately Marvin Laraby proves just a bit too effective in showing how an investigation should be handled.  With the manslaughter case poised to claim another victim, Jejeune learns an accident back home in Britain involving his girlfriend, Lindy, is much more than it seems. Lindy is in grave danger, and she needs Jejeune. Soon, he is faced with a further dilemma. He can speak up on a secret he has discovered relating to Laraby's case, knowing it will cost his job on the north Norfolk coast he loves. Or he can stay silent, and let a killer escape justice. Turns out that sometimes the wrong choice is the only one there is.  A Shimmer of Hummingbirds is by Steve Burrows

The Parentations is by Kate Mayfield.  Eighteenth-century London and the lives of the sisters Fitzgerald, Constance and Verity, become entwined with the nearby Fowler household. For Clovis Fowler, whose unearthly Nordic beauty belies a ruthless thirst for power, and husband Finn, a Limehouse thief, have agreed to provide safe harbour to a mysterious baby.  The puzzling phenomenon binding them close arose unexpectedly from deep within the savage but beautiful landscape of Iceland, where a hidden pool of water grants those who drink from it endless life. But those who sip from the waterfall discover all too quickly that immortality is no gift.  To preserve the life of this strange baby from those who wish him harm means that all concerned must remain undiscovered for more than two hundred years. And, as the centuries creep thither, one in their enclave proves more menacing than those who pursue them. Worse, the life-giving pool that sustains them all, runs dry...

May 2018

It's summer in Adders Fork. The sun is out, the sky is blue and things are going swimmingly for Rosie Strange, thank you very much. The Essex Witch Museum has been re-launched with a new Ursula Cadence wing and picnic grounds.  Then developers roll into the sleepy village to widen the road. When the centuries-old Blackly Be boulder, said to mark the grave of a notorious witch but now in the car park of the Seven Stars, is moved, all hell breaks out. Within hours a slew of peculiar phenomena descends and, when a severed head is discovered atop the boulder, the locals can take no more and storm the Museum to demand someone take action.  Can Rosie and Sam unravel the mystery? And what of the ancient treasure that could drastically change someone's fortunes and offer a motive for murder?  Strange Fascination is by Syd Moore

Edgar Allan Poe and the Jewel of Peru is by Karen Lee Street.  Philadelphia, early 1844. As

violent tensions escalate between `nativists' and recent Irish immigrants, Edgar Allan Poe's fears for the safety of his wife Virginia and mother-in-law Muddy are compounded when he receives a parcel of mummified bird parts. Could his nemesis have returned to settle an old score?  Just as odd is the arrival of Helena Loddiges, a young heiress who demands Poe's help to discover why her lover died at the city's docks on his return from an expedition to Peru. Poe is sceptical of her claims to receive messages from birds and visitations from her lover's ghost. But when Miss Loddiges is kidnapped, he and his friend C. Auguste Dupin must unravel a mystery involving old enemies, lost soulmates, ornithomancy, and the legendary jewel of Peru

June 2018

If secrets could be taken to the grave many, of us would have an ear to the ground. But as Alexander, Earl of Greengrass, discovers one clear Sunday morning late in November, death is a most efficient way of revealing the cavern of cover-ups in a guilty conscience. Caught with his trousers down in Spire village graveyard whilst his faithful wife was playing the organ inside the church, this wealthy landowner meets a gruesome end.  Luckily pet portraitist Susie Mahl is on hand to sort things out, as she's been recently commissioned to paint Situp, the aristocratic ash-grey deerhound at the village's Glebe House. Susie discovers an unexpected zest for truth and an awesome nosey parker instinct, and soon the newly appointed Pet Detective is digging out the truth with a dogged determination.  A Brush with Death is by Ali Carter.

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