Books to Look Forward to From Bloomsbury Books

 

July 2022

Don't be ordinary, Leo. Passion has its price.'1883. Leo Stanhope, transgender journalist and amateur detective, and his wife Rosie have come to Portsmouth - but this is no simple seaside retreat. While Rosie's sister expects them for dinner, two young people have been killed by the docks. Having learned from experience, Leo wants to leave this to the police. When detectives dismiss the victims as only 'molly-lads' and misfits, though, he knows he has to help. But what connects the two victims, a boy from the streets and a young woman with a strange tattoo? And why is Leo himself being watched? As he begins to uncover a web of theft and secrets surrounding the murders, Leo's investigation draws him deeper into Portsmouth's underground nightlife, the dangers of the Navy dockyard - and uncomfortably close to the in-laws he had just begun to get to know. Can he find the truth without losing his chosen family? Just how much will he risk to bring the right people to justice? The Blood Flower is by Alex Reeve.

All I Said Was True is by Imran Mahmood. When Amy Blahn was murdered on a London office rooftop, Layla Mahoney was there. She held Amy as she died. But all she can say when police arrest her is that 'It was Michael. Find Michael and you'll find out everything you need to know.' The problem is, the police can't find Michael - there is no evidence that he exists. And time is running out before they have to either charge Layla with Amy's murder, or let her go. As a lawyer, Layla knows that she has only forty-eight hours to convince police to investigate the man she knows only as 'Michael' instead of her. But the more she attempts to control her interviews with police, the more the truth leaks out - and how much of that truth can Layla risk being exposed?

September 2022

Turning Blue is by Benjamin Myers In the depths of winter in an isolated Yorkshire hamlet, a teenage girl, Melanie Muncy, is missing. The elite detective unit Cold Storage dispatches its best man to investigate. DI Jim Brindle may be obsessive, taciturn and solitary, but nobody on the force is more relentless in pursuing justice. Local journalist Roddy Mace has sacrificed a high-flying career as a reporter in London to take up a role with the local newspaper. For him the Muncy case offers the chance of redemption. Darker forces are at work than either man has realised. On a farm high above the hamlet, Steven Rutter, a destitute loner, harbours secrets that will shock even the hardened Brindle. Nobody knows the bleak moors and their hiding places better than him. As Brindle and Mace begin to prise the secrets of the case from the tight-lipped locals, their investigation leads first to the pillars of the community and finally to a local celebrity who has his own hiding places, and his own dark tastes.

As autumn draws in, a series of unexplained vicious attacks occur in a small northern town renowned for being a bohemian backwater. As the national media descends, local journalist Roddy Mace attempts to tell the story, but finds the very nature of truth brought into question. He turns to disgraced detective James Brindle for help. When further attacks occur the shattered community becomes the focus of an accelerating media that favours immediacy over truth. Murder and myth collide in a folk-crime story about place, identity and the tangled lives of those who never leave. These Darkening Days is by Benjamin Myers.