Books to Look Forward to from Faber and Faber

January 2019

The second book in the Rebekah Roberts series - a taut mystery and a brilliant exploration of the demons we inherit... Aviva Kagan was just a teenager when she left her Hasidic Jewish

life in Brooklyn for a fling with a smiling college boy from Florida. A few months later she was pregnant, engaged to be married and trapped in a life she never imagined. So, shortly after the birth of her daughter she disappeared. Twenty-three years later, the child she walked away from, NYC tabloid reporter Rebekah Roberts, wants nothing to do with her. But when a man from the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Roseville, NY contacts Rebekah about his young wife's mysterious death, she is drawn into Aviva's old world, and a hidden culture full of dangerous secrets and frustrations.   Run You Down is by Julia Dahl.

February 2019

In a hard-boiled city of crooks, grifts and rackets lurk a pair of toughs: Box and _____. They're the kind of men capable of extracting apologies and reparations, of teaching you a chilling lesson. They seldom think twice, and ask very few questions. Until one night over the poker table, they encounter a pulp writer with wild ideas and an unscrupulous private detective, leading them into what is either a classic mystery, a senseless maze of corpses, or an inextricable fever dream . . . Drunk on cinematic and literary influence, Muscle is a slice of noir fiction in collapse, a ceaselessly imaginative story of violence, boredom and madness.  Muscle is by Alan Trotter

The Elegant Lie is by Sam Eastland. The year is 1949. In the bombed-out ruins of Cologne, Hanno Dasch is king. Director of the most successful black market operation in post-war Germany, Dasch has kept his clients supplied with goods so extravagant and rare that they were almost impossible to find even at the height of Germany's conquests. Nobody but Dasch, his enigmatic daughter and the war criminal he keeps as his bodyguard know how he

does it. None of this has escaped the attention of Allied Intelligence, who face not only the systemic corruption of a country where everything is in short supply, but the growing threat of Stalin's KGB. Fearing that Dasch will soon expand his business to include dealings with Russia, and invite the further meddling of Russian agents in the west, the CIA sets in motion an undercover operation to infiltrate and, ultimately, destroy Dasch's empire. A disgraced American Army officer, Nathan Carter, is recruited to approach Dasch and to ingratiate himself with promises of stolen army supplies. As Carter moves further and further into the labyrinth of Dasch's world, it soon becomes clear that the black market ring has already been compromised, but by someone even more dangerous than the Russians. Carter stumbles upon a counterfeiting ring, with whom Dasch has unwittingly gone into business, which seems to have been created with the sole purpose of destroying the Soviet economy, something it could easily do with the superlative quality of the forged bills it is producing. With Carter caught in the middle, and facing the danger that his cover might be blown at any moment, a race begins between the Russian and American spy agencies to uncover who is responsible, before the situation escalates to war.

March 2019

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They had a secret, the two of them, and there was no better way to start a friendship than with a secret.' When Hen and Lloyd move into their new house in West Dartford, Mass., they're relieved to meet, at their first block party, the only other seemingly-childless couple in their neighbourhood, Matthew and Mira Dolamore. Turns out they live in the Dutch Colonial immediately next door. When they're invited over for dinner, however, things take a sinister turn when Hen thinks she sees something suspicious in Matthew's study. Could this charming, mild-mannered College Professor really be hiding a dark secret, one that only Hen, whose been battling her own problems with depression and medication, could know about? Lloyd certainly doesn't seem to believe her, and so, forced together, Hen and Matthew start to form an unlikely bond. But who, if anyone, is really in danger?   Before She Knew Him is by Peter Swanson.

Former Broadway star Tommy Jump isn't getting the roles he once did; as his final run as Sancho Ponza draws to a close, Tommy is getting ready to give up the stage, find a steady paycheck, and settle down with his fiancee. Cue Special Agent Danny Ruiz. An old school friend of Tommy's, now with the FBI, Ruiz makes Tommy an offer that sounds too good to refuse. All Tommy has to do is spend six months in prison, acting as failed bank robber 'Pete Goodrich'. Inside, he must find and befriend Mitchell Dupree, who has hidden a secret cache of documents incriminating enough to take down New Colima, one of Mexico's largest drug cartels. If Tommy can get Dupree to reveal where the documents are hidden, the FBI will give him $300,000. More than enough to jumpstart a new life. But does he have what it takes to pull off this one final role?  The Last Act is by Brad Parks.

April 2019

A Good Enough Mother is by Bev Thomas.  The hardest lies to spot are the ones we tell ourselves. Dr Ruth Hartland rises to difficult tasks. She is the director of a highly respected trauma therapy unit. She is confident, capable and excellent at her job. Today she is preoccupied by her son Tom's disappearance. So when a new patient arrives at the unit - a young man who looks shockingly like Tom - she is floored. As a therapist, Ruth knows exactly what she should do in the best interests of her client, but as a mother she makes a very different choice - a decision that will have profound consequences.

The Better Sister is by Alafair Burke.  For a while, it seemed like both Taylor sisters had found happiness. Chloe landed a coveted publishing job in New York City. Nicky got married to a promising young attorney named Adam McIntosh and became a mother to a baby boy named Ethan. But now, fourteen years later, it is Chloe who is married to Adam. When he is murdered at the couple's beach house, she has no choice but to welcome her estranged sister - her teenage stepson's biological mother - back into her life. When the police begin to treat Ethan as a suspect, the sisters are forced to confront the truth behind family secrets they both tried to leave behind in order to protect the boy they love, whatever the cost.

Mercy River is by Glen Erik Hamilton. When Van Shaw receives a distress call from his fellow Afghan War veteran, Leo Pak, he has to leave the urban hazards of Seattle to head far south to a town called Broken Ridge, deep in the wild heart of rural Oregon. Leo faces charges of murdering a local gun dealer, and while Van doesn't doubt his friend's innocence, he knows he faces conviction. As Van starts his own covert investigations, the small town is suddenly awash with Army Ranger veterans, converging for a raucous annual Rally. Was it only this reunion that brought Leo to town? Or is someone at the Rally setting Leo up to cover for their own dark designs?

May 2019

Phoebe stands on Pulteney Bridge, tights gashed from toe to thigh. The shock of mangled metal and blood-stained walls flashes through her mind as she tries to cover her face so she won't be recognised. It wouldn't do to be spotted looking like this. She's missing a shoe. She feels sick. Phoebe thought murder and murder happened. Thoughts are just thoughts, they said. Now she knows they were wrong. At home, Phoebe arranges the scissors and knives so they point toward her mother's room. She is exhausted, making sure there's no trace of herself - not a single hair, not even her scent - left anywhere in the house. She must not let her thoughts unravel, because if they do, there's no telling who might be caught in the crossfire, and Phoebe will have to live with the consequences.  Crush is by Kate Hamer

The Paris Diversion is by Chris Pavone.  Kate Moore - a mother with an interesting past - is living the quiet life in another European city, or trying to. On her way to drop her children off at school in the city centre, the cafes and streets of Paris start to come alive around her. Kate's husband Dex, meanwhile, charged with finding a particular present for their son's birthday, is struggling to focus on the job in hand as a financial matter at work seems to be playing on his mind. As worrying reports begin to circulate from key locations around the city, and the sound of wailing sirens becomes increasingly hard to ignore, could their day and, indeed, their lives be about to change forever?