January 2019
What she can't see can hurt her. I have this dream. In it, I'm in the
house and it's dark and I know someone's in there with me. Even though I can't see them . . . For Sarah and Patrick, family life has always
been easy. But when Sarah's mother dies, it sends Sarah into a downwards
spiral. Knowing they need a fresh start, Patrick moves the family to the
beachside house he grew up in. But there
is a catch: while their new home carries only happy memories for Patrick,
to everyone else it's known as the Murder House - named for the family that was
killed there. Patrick is adamant they
can make it perfect again, though with their children plagued by nightmares and
a constant sense they're being watched, Sarah's not so sure. Because the longer they live in their 'dream
home', the more different her loving husband becomes . . . The Woman in the
Dark is by Vanessa Savage.
Crime always leaves a stain . . . Lena Szarka, a Hungarian cleaner, dusts off
her detective skills when a masterpiece is stolen from a gallery she cleans
with her cousin Sarika. But when Sarika goes missing too, accusations start to
fly. Convinced her cousin is innocent,
Lena sweeps her way through the secrets of the London art scene. With the
evidence mounting against Sarika and the police on her trail, Lena needs to
track down the missing painting if she is to clear her cousin. Embroiling herself in the sketchy world of
thwarted talents, unpaid debts and elegant fraudsters, Lena finds that there's
more to this gallery than meets the eye.
A Clean Canvas is by Elizabeth Mundy.
February 2019
Homicide cop Eve Dallas and her billionaire husband, Roarke,
are building a brand-new school and youth shelter. They know that the hard life
can lead kids toward dangerous crossroads - and with this new project, they
hope to nudge a few more of them onto the right
path. For expert help, they hire child psychologist Dr. Rochelle
Pickering - whose own brother pulled himself out of a spiral of addiction and
crime with Rochelle's support. Lyle is
living with Rochelle while he gets his life together, and he's thrilled to hear
about his sister's new job offer. But within hours, triumph is followed by
tragedy. Returning from a celebratory dinner with her boyfriend, she finds Lyle
dead with a syringe in his lap, and Eve's investigation confirms that this
wasn't just another OD. After all his work to get clean, Lyle's been pumped
full of poison - and a neighbor with a peephole reports seeing a scruffy,
pink-haired girl fleeing the scene. Now
Eve and Roarke must venture into the gang territory where Lyle used to run, and
the ugly underground world of tattoo parlors and strip joints where everyone
has taken a wrong turn somewhere. They both believe in giving people a second
chance. Maybe even a third or fourth. But as far as they're concerned, whoever
gave the order on Lyle Pickering's murder has run out of chances.... Connections in Death is by J D Robb.
Dead Man’s Lane is by Kate Ellis. Some paths only lead to the grave . . . Strangefields Farm is notorious for its
sinister history ever since artist Jackson Temples lured young women there to
model for disturbing works of art. Some of those girls never left the house
alive. Now, decades later, Strangefields
is to be transformed into a holiday village, but the developer's hopes of its
dark history being forgotten are dashed when a skull is found on the site. And
when a local florist is found murdered in an echo of Temples' crimes, DI Wesley
Peterson fears that a copy-cat killer is at large. Especially when another
brutal murder in a nearby village appears to be linked. As Wesley's friend, archaeologist Dr Neil
Watson, uncovers the secrets of Strangefields' grisly past, it seems that an
ancient tale of the dead returning to torment the living might not be as
fantastical as it seems. And Wesley must work fast to discover who's behind the
recent murders . . . before someone close to him is put in danger.
He had started to remove his clothes as logic had deserted
him, and his skin cracked. Whatever had
been going through Cameron’s mind when he was alive, he didn’t look peaceful in
death. Two brothers meet at the remote
border of their vast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of the outback. In an isolated part of
Australia, they are each other's nearest neighbour, their homes hours
apart. They are at the stockman's grave,
a landmark so old that no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the
scant shadow it casts was the last hope for their middle brother, Cameron. The
Bright family's quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish. Something had been troubling Cameron. Did he
choose to walk to his death? Because if he didn't, the isolation of the outback
leaves few suspects. The Lost Man is by
Jane Harper.
When New York psychologist Will Hardy's wife is killed, he
and his teenage daughter Bernadette move into Godwin Hall, a dusty, shut-up
mansion in the small town of Abbeville, Ohio.
Meanwhile, Abbeville Chief of Police Ivy Holgrave is investigating the
death of a local girl, convinced this may only be the latest in a long line of
murders dating back decades - including her own long-missing sister. But what place does Will's new home have in
the story of the missing girls? And what links the killings to the diary of a
young woman written over a century earlier?
The Buried Girl is by Richard Montanari.
March 2019
The Department of Sensitive crime is by Alexander McCall
Smith. Mister Varg is a Sandinavian
Blanc novel. Scandinavian Blanc is different
from Scandinavian Noir: there is nothing noir about the world of
Ulf Varg, a detective in the Sensitive Crimes Department in the Swedish city of
Malmo. Ulf is concerned with very odd, but not too threatening crimes -
injuries to the back of the knee caused by an unknown hand, young women who
allow their desperation for a boyfriend to get the better of them, and peculiar
goings-on in a spa on Sweden's south coast.
Of course, Ulf is a Swedish detective, and Swedish detectives, by
convention, lead lives beset with problems of one sort or another. For a start,
there is his name: Ulf derives from the Old Norse word for wolf and
Varg means wolf in modern Swedish. But his character is far from
vulpine: Ulf is a sympathetic, well-educated, and likeable man, with a knowledge
of and interest in Nordic art. He has a dog called Marten, the only dog in
Sweden who is capable of lip-reading (but only in Swedish). Martin becomes
depressed and needs treatment. Dogs in Sweden are, apparently, particularly
prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder. But this is summer - and there must be
something else going on. Ulf has a
number of colleagues into whose lives we gain an insight. There is Anna,
married to an anaesthetist, but very fond of Ulf; there is Erik, whose sole
interest is fishing; Carl, whose father has written a book on the Danish
philosopher, Kierkegaard; and there is poor Blomquist, from the uniformed
branch, who goes on and on about health issues but who seems to have
extraordinary luck in investigations. There is also Ulf's psychotherapist, Dr
Svensson, whose observations on Ulf's life - and many other topics - enlightens
- or possibly confuses.
Blood Oath is by Linda Fairstein. Alex Cooper takes on the case of a young
woman who testified years earlier at a landmark Federal trial - and now reveals
that she was sexually assaulted by a prominent law enforcement official during
that time. As the case grows more complex, Alex, along with NYPD detectives
Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, find themselves in uncharted territory within
Manhattan's Rockefeller University, a research institute born of tragedy that
has evolved into a premier scientific facility, hospital, and cornerstone of
higher learning. But when dark secrets
of the century-old institution intersect with life-threatening events, the
experience may just help determine whether Alex will keep her job, or throw her
hat in the ring to become the next district attorney of New York County . . .
if she can survive that long.
A murder on their doorstep.
A case that's too close to home . . . The body of a young woman has been
discovered in Bellahouston park, the second in a matter of months. It's clear
to Detective Superintendent William Lorimer of Police Scotland that they have a
repeat killer on their hands, who is sure to strike again. Lucky for DSI Lorimer that his wife, Maggie,
is miles away from potential danger, touring Scotland to promote her first
book. Faced with strangers at every event, Maggie doesn't notice the quiet,
non-descript man sitting in the back row.
But he has noticed Maggie Lorimer. And soon his will be a face she never
forgets. The Stalker is by Alex Gray.
Six confined psychopaths. A killer on the loose. 1935. As Europe prepares itself for a
calamitous war, six homicidal lunatics - the so-called 'Devil's Six' - are
confined in a remote castle asylum in rural Czechoslovakia. Each patient has
their own dark story to tell and Dr Viktor Kosarek, a young psychiatrist using
revolutionary techniques, is tasked with unlocking their murderous
secrets. At the same time, a terrifying
killer known as 'Leather Apron' is butchering victims across Prague.
Successfully eluding capture, it would seem his depraved crimes are committed
by the Devil himself. Maybe they are...
and what links him with the insane inmates of the Castle of the Eagles? Only the Devil knows. And it is up to Viktor
to find out. The Devil Aspect is by
Craig Russell.
What is the secret which grips Corvus Hall? Visiting the Great Exhibition to view
the wax anatomical models of the famous but reclusive Dr Merlin Strangeway, Jem
Flockhart and Will Quartermain find a severed arm, perfectly dissected and laid
out amongst the exhibits. Assuming it to be a prank by medical students, they
return it to Dr Strangeway, who works at Corvus Hall, a private anatomy school
run by Dr James Crowe - one of
Edinburgh's most revered surgeons and teachers of anatomy. Jem's
persistence reveals that a body does indeed lie in the school's mortuary, minus
its right arm. But the body has no provenance. More macabre still, its face has
been dissected, making identification impossible. Dr Strangeway denies all
knowledge, and Dr Crowe seems unwilling to pursue the matter. At Corvus Hall, Will is employed to
illustrate Dr Crowe's new anatomy handbook. Soon, it becomes evident that
all is not as it should be. Dr Crowe's daughter, Lilith, visits the mortuary in
the dead of night and her twin sisters, Sorrow and Silence - one blind and one
deaf - exert a malign influence over the students. Organs, freshly dissected,
appear in the anatomy museum. Fear grips lecturers and students, even as
something unseen binds them in a bloody pact of silence. In a mystery that ranges from the wynds of
Burke and Hare's Edinburgh to the dissecting tables of London's notorious anatomy
schools, Jem and Will find that the stakes have never been higher. Surgeon’s Hall is by E S Thomson.
Murder Fest is by Julie Wassmer. Pearl's detective agency takes a back
seat as she prepares to offer a warm welcome to a group of special
visitors. A local Arts Festival is being held to honour a cultural exchange
visit from representatives of Borken - Whitstable's Twin Town in Germany. Yet very soon, personality clashes surface
among the participants; local politicians try to use the festival for their own
ends while others jostle for improved billing on the festival programme.
Tempers flare, old feuds re-surface and on the eve of the first event, a
cryptic message - Murder Fest - is received by the local police.
Before DCI Mike McGuire has a chance to investigate, the festival commences
with an unscheduled event when a celebrated author is found brutally murdered .
. . Soon the only 'Arts' on display are
dark ones, as Whitstable's celebration of local culture transforms into a
real-life murder fest - offering Whitstable's Pearl Nolan another mystery to
solve.
April 2019
A game of blackmail and betrayal is played among the
backstreets and canals of Venice . . .
Carnevale is in full swing, the streets and waterways of Venice are
crowded with masked revellers and Nathan Sutherland's birthday is about to be
ruined. A night at the opera at La
Fenice is always a memorable experience - and this time it will be so for all
the wrong reasons as the curtain call is interrupted by a fatal stabbing. But
why is the dead man carrying one of Nathan's business cards in his wallet? The mystery of the murdered stranger takes
Nathan on the trail of a lost opera by Monteverdi. But what begins as a
harmless treasure hunt leads to ruthless criminals asking the highest of prices
for the lost score... and then a second body is found in the sanctuary of
Venice's English church. The quest for
the lost manuscript will bring Nathan back to the stage of La Fenice, where a
final confrontation has deadly consequences...
The Venetian Masquerade is by Philip Gwynne Jones.
May 2019
The intelligence service puts two years and over GBP100k into
the training of new field officers. You're shown how to steal cars, strip
weapons, hack bank accounts. There are courses on the use of blackmail and
improvised explosives, two workshops solely dedicated to navigating by the
stars. But nothing about what I had heard one old spy call whiplash. No one
tells you how to go home. There is a
dark side to MI6 that needs men like Elliot Kane - mercurial, inquisitive, free
floating. He's spent fifteen years managing events overseas that never make the
papers, deniable and deeply effective. Kane is a ghost in his own life, picking
up and dropping personalities as each new cover story comes into play. But when
a woman he loves, Joanna Lake, vanishes without a trace in Kazakhstan, he is
forced centre stage. Drawn ever deeper
into a realm of deception, Kane moves from merely infiltrating events to
steering them. He's used to a new mode of hybrid psychological warfare - but
snowbound Kazakhstan presents unique challenges. Poised between China, Russia
and the West, dictatorship and democracy, state intelligence and an
increasingly powerful world of private agencies, it's impossible to work out
who is manipulating who. And Kane's not the only one trying to figure out where
Joanna Lake has gone or what she learned before disappearing. Unable to trust anyone, hunted by his own
colleagues, and with the life of someone he loves at stake, Kane needs to work
out who is driving events, and why... A
Shadow Intelligence is by Oliver Harris.
When Delta Force Captain Kyle Mercer disappeared from his
post in Afghanistan, a video released by his Taliban captors made international
headlines. But circumstances were murky: Did Mercer desert before he was captured?
Then a second video sent to Mercer's Army commanders leaves no doubt: the
trained assassin and keeper of classified Army intelligence has wilfully
disappeared. When Mercer is spotted two
years later in Caracas, Venezuela, top military brass task Scott Brodie and
Maggie Taylor of the Criminal Investigation Division to fly to Venezuela and
bring Mercer back to America-dead or alive. Brodie knows this is a difficult
mission, made more difficult by his new partner's inexperience and by his
suspicion that Maggie Taylor is reporting to the CIA. The Deserter is by William DeMille and Alex
DeMille.
Brighton,1957.
Mirabelle Bevan can't resist a cry for help, be it the little girl at a
seaside sanatorium who is getting bullied or the strange behaviour of Uma, the
Indian nurse who is looking after her. Intrigued she soon finds herself drawn
into a spider's web of connections between an upmarket brothel, local priest
Father Grogan, a man's body washed up on Brighton beach and a missing nursing
sister. Attracted to handsome police
doctor, Chris Williams, Mirabelle is determined to finally put her love affair
with Jack Duggan behind her and recover from the betrayal of Superintendent
Alan McGregor, but the police force in Brighton is undergoing a sea change that
keeps leading her back to the sanatorium at the epicentre of a spate of brutal
killings. And very soon it becomes apparent Mirabelle is in much more danger
than she realises... Indian Summer is by
Sara Sheridan.
June 2019
One family, two holidays, one devastating secret. To new nanny Amanda, the Temple family seem
to have it all: the former actress; the famous professor; their three
successful grown-up children. But like any family, beneath the smiles and hugs
there lurks far darker emotions. Sixteen
years earlier, little Niamh Temple died while they were on holiday in Portugal.
Now, as Amanda joins the family for a reunion at their seaside villa, she
begins to suspect one of them might be hiding something terrible... And suspicion is a dangerous thing. Fallen Angel is by Chris Brookmyre.
London, 1976. In
Belgravia in the heat of summer, Lee Jones, a faded and embittered rock star,
is checking out a group of women through the heavy cigarette smoke in a crowded
pub. He makes eye contact with one, and winks. After allowing glances to linger
for a while longer, he finally moves towards her. In that moment, his programme of terror -
years in the making - has begun. Months
later, the first of the many chilling headlines to come appears: 'Police
hunting winking killer.' Meanwhile in
France. Charles Underhill, a wealthy
Englishman living in Paris, has good reason to be interested in the activities
of the so-called Winking Killer. With a past to hide and his future precarious,
Charles is determined to discover the Winker's identity. In the overheating cities of London, Oxford,
Paris and Nice, a game of cat and mouse develops, and catching someone's eye
becomes increasingly perilous. But if no one dares look, a killer can hide in
plain sight . . . The Winker is by
Andrew Martin.
The Poison Garden is by Alex Marwood. Born and raised within the confines of a
sinister cult, Romy is now alone in a world she knows nothing about and
understands even less. But just when she thought she had escaped her past and can
start a new life with the child growing insider her, she discovers she is in
more danger than she could ever have imagined . . .
My Scotland will be a beautiful, fully illustrated book
containing over 100 photos of the landscapes and locations that form the
backdrop to Val McDermid's celebrated writing, and some of the places that have
inspired her personally. From Skye to Edinburgh, from Glasgow to Jura, the book
crisscrosses Scotland, offering readers a fascinating guide to the country,
alongside Val's own thoughts about what it means to her.
SuLin is doing her dream job: assistant at Singapore's brand
new detective agency. Until Bald Bernie decides a 'local girl' can't be trusted
with private investigations, and replaces her with a new secretary - pretty,
privileged, and white. So SuLin's not the only person finding it hard to mourn
Bernie after he's found dead in the filing room. And when her best friend's dad
is accused, she gets up to some sleuthing work of her own in a bid to clear his
name. SuLin finds out that Bernie may
have been working undercover, trading stolen diamonds for explosives from enemy
troops. Was he really the upright English citizen he claimed to be? Meanwhile, a famous assassin commits his
worst crime yet, and disappears into thin air. Rumours spread that he may be
dangerously close to home. Beneath the
stifling, cloudless Singaporean summer, earthquakes of chaos and political
unrest are breaking out. When a tragic loss shakes SuLin's personal world to
its core, she becomes determined to find the truth. But in dark, hate-filled
times, truth has a price - and SuLin must decide how much she's willing to pay
for it. The Paper Tree Bark is by Ovidia Yu.
Also due to be published in June is The Graves of Whitechapel
by Claire Evans.
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