Why did I (temporarily) leave my Detective Avraham to write "Three" by D.A Mishani

©Yanay Yechieli

The idea for "Three" came to me while boarding a plane back from a crime fiction festival I attended in Lyon, France. 

It presented itself - how and why I will never know, this being the most mysterious part of writing – not as a story but as a pure structure: a book in three parts, with three different reading-processes, about three women meeting the same man. Who the three women are and why they are meeting the man I didn't know yet – but when I got off the plane in Tel Aviv, I had no doubts that it would be my next book. 

There was only one problem with my idea: it didn't include the detective who appeared in my first three novels, Inspector Avraham Avraham. For the time being, I kept the idea for "Three" a secret from him. 

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In retrospect, I think I have identified a few of the reasons why I needed a break from Avraham. 

After writing three more-or-less classically-structured detective novels, I felt I needed an adventure. And I believe that for a writer, an adventure is almost always an adventure in literary form, or a literary experiment. I wanted to write a novel with a structure that was new to me, and its writing experience - unexpected. 

Moreover, experiencing a few sad departures of close family members and friends in recent years, I wanted to write a book that would recreate the true shock of violence and death that one feels in real life. 

In a classic detective novel, the readers (and the writer too) are somewhat protected from the shock of death by structure itself: you know, when you open the book, that you'll find a corpse on page 15 or 20 and so you're ready; and seeing it through the detective's eyes helps with distancing or ‘regulating’ death.

"Three" had to be something else. It needed to strike the readers with the real grief caused by violence, and to achieve that I needed to turn the classic structure upside-down, to tell the story from the victim's perspective alone, and also to make the readers lose some of the protagonists in the middle of the book, like we sometimes lose our beloved in the midst of life's journey. In order to that I needed to part with my detective. 

Starting "Three", I felt all was going well. 

Writing the first part, I was becoming more and more attached to its protagonist, Orna; I enjoyed the new pace I found for the book, a pace that wasn't Avraham's almost-famous – or infamous – sluggishness. When I had doubts – Am I really not writing a detective novel?! - I calmed myself down by defining "Three" as a crime novel in which it isn't clear if a crime will happen or not, or a detective novel in which the detective might never appear. 

Written under the influence of a shift in my reading-diet in recent years – less realistic-psychological detective novels (Simenon, Sjowall\Wahloo, Mankell) and more novels that use the mystery or the detective story as a starting-point for an adventure in form or in storytelling (From Patricia Highsmith and Friedrich Durrenmatt to Ian MacEwan, Julian Barnes and Ricardo Piglia) – I told myself, and Avraham, that a detective is simply not always needed.

And then I got stuck. 

Writing Part 1 and Part 2 was such a pleasure that I overlooked something: there's a killer on the loose and somebody has to catch them. But since I left Avraham out of my office, who the hell will do that?

For more than two months I didn’t write a single word. My new adventure had derailed completely. I heard knocking on my office doors and I knew who that person was, outside. 

It was Inspector Avraham and he wasn't just offering his services but also telling me in his newly-gained confidence (after all, there's a TV series and a movie now, based upon him): "Let me in. You'll never catch the killer without me. In fact, you've never written a novel without me and you won't finish that one, if you don't let me in".

The truth is that I was tempted. Isn't a detective always right? 

But I didn't want to give up my literary adventure so quickly and I honestly believed in my three female protagonists – Orna, Emilia and Ella. I knew they could carry the novel by themselves. I knew they could catch the killer without Avraham too. 

When the book was out - and found more readers than all of the Avraham novels I wrote before – the knocking on my office door stopped. Was Avraham somewhat embarrassed about his vanity? It was only then, of course, that I could open the door to him again and invite him in – to work together on his new investigation.

Three by D. A Mishani (Published by Quercus Books) Out Now

Three tells the stories of three women: Orna, a divorced single-mother looking for a new relationship; Emilia, a Latvian immigrant on a spiritual search; and Ella, married and mother of three, returning to University to write her thesis. All of them will meet the same man. His name is Gil. He won't tell them the whole truth about himself - but they don't tell him everything either.

These are a few of my favourite books of 2014...

This year I sadly did not read as many books as I wanted to.  However there were a number of books that I read that certainly made my favourites list this year and a number that are also honourable mentions.  They are as follows in no particular order (that is to say as a how I remembered them).

The Wolf in Winter by John Connolly.  John Connolly is one of those writers whose writing continues to fascinate in a myriad of ways.  With his latest Charlie Parker novel he has once again written a stylish novel that reminds longstanding readers as to why he is one of our foremost thrillers writers.  In The Wolf in Winter the community of Prosperous, Maine has always thrived when others have suffered.  Its inhabitants are wealthy, its children's future secure.  It shuns outsiders.  It guards its own.  And at the heart of the Prosperous lie the ruins of an ancient church, transported stone by stone from England centuries earlier by the founders of the town . . . But the death of a homeless man and the disappearance of his daughter draw the haunted, lethal private investigator Charlie Parker to Prosperous.  Parker is a dangerous man, driven by compassion, by rage, and by the desire for vengeance.  In him the town and its protectors sense a threat graver than any they have faced in their long history, and in the comfortable, sheltered inhabitants of a small Maine town, Parker will encounter his most vicious opponents yet.  Charlie Parker has been marked to die so that Prosperous may survive.  I have always loved John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series and this one in my opinion is one of the best in the series.

The Fever is by Megan Abbott in which the Nashes are a close-knit family.  Tom, a popular teacher, is father to the handsome, roguish Eli and his younger sister Deenie, serious and sweet.  But their seeming stability is thrown into chaos when two of Deenie's friends become violently ill, and rumours of a dangerous outbreak sweep through the whole community.  As hysteria swells and as more girls succumb, tightly held secrets emerge that threaten to unravel the world Tom has built for his kids, and destroy friendships, families, and the town's fragile idea of security.  For me Megan Abbott is a writer whose novels always fascinate and always have a sense of place whether it is writing noir stories that evoke sexy, dark and tormented characters or teenage angst and family dilemmas. 

The Axeman's Jazz by Ray Celestin.  New Orleans, 1919.  As a dark serial killer - The

Axeman - stalks the city, three individuals set out to unmask him.  Though every citizen of the 'Big Easy' thinks they know who could be behind the terrifying murders, Detective Lieutenant Michael Talbot, heading up the official investigation, is struggling to find leads.  But Michael has a grave secret and — if he doesn't find himself on the right track fast — it could be exposed.  Former detective Luca d'Andrea has spent the last six years in Angola State penitentiary, after Michael, his protégée, blew the whistle on his corrupt behaviour.  Now a newly freed man, Luca finds himself working with the mafia, whose need to solve the mystery of the Axeman is every bit as urgent as the authorities'.  Meanwhile, Ida is a secretary at the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.  Obsessed with Sherlock Holmes and dreaming of a better life, Ida stumbles across a clue which lures her and her musician friend, Louis Armstrong, to the case and into terrible danger . . . As Michael, Luca and Ida each draw closer to discovering the killer's identity, the Axeman himself will issue a challenge to the people of New Orleans: play jazz or risk becoming the next victim.  And as the case builds to its crescendo, the sky will darken, and a great storm will loom over the city . . . The Axeman’s Jazz is a debut novel that will satisfy anyone who enjoys historical crime fiction.  Based on a real life killer it is also set in 1919 in New Orleans, the pre-prohibition era, and the birth of the jazz era and the mafia holding their grip.  Along with a young Louis Armstrong helping with the investigation it makes for a wonderful story.

Kill Your Boss by Shane Kuhn - If you're reading this, you're a new employee at Human Resources, Inc.  Congratulations.  And condolences.  At the very least, you're embarking on a career that you will never be able to describe as dull.  You'll go to interesting places.  You'll meet unique and stimulating people from all walks of life.  And kill them.  You will make a lot of money, but that will mean nothing to you after the first job.  Assassination, no matter how easy it looks in the movies, is the most difficult, stressful, and lonely profession on the planet.  Even when you're disguised as an intern.  John Lago is a hit-man.  He has some rules for you.  And he's about to break every single one.  Kill Your Boss is subversive, funny, twisty, ultra violent, and darkly comedic.  It is a novel that is destined to become a classic. 

After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman.  When Felix Brewer meets nineteen-year-old Bernadette 'Bambi' Gottschalk at a Valentine's Dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps.  Thanks to his lucrative if not always legal businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury.  But on the Fourth of July, 1976, Bambi's world implodes when Felix, newly convicted and facing prison, mysteriously vanishes.  Though Bambi has no idea where her husband — or his money — might be, she suspects one woman does: his devoted young mistress, Julie.  When Julie herself disappears ten years to the day that Felix went on the lam, everyone assumes she's left to join her old lover — until her remains are found in a secluded wooded park.  Now, twenty-six years after Julie went missing, Roberto 'Sandy' Sanchez, a retired Baltimore detective working cold cases for some extra cash, is investigating her murder.  What he discovers is a tangled web of bitterness, jealously, resentment and greed stretching over the three decades and three generations that connect these five very different women.  And at the centre of every woman's story is the man who, though long gone, has never been forgotten: the enigmatic Felix Brewer.  Somewhere between the secrets and lies connecting past and present, Sandy could find the explosive truth...  After Your Gone is a classic story of murder and mystery, in which one man's disappearance echoes through the lives of his wife, daughters — and mistress.  Laura Lippman is as skilful at plotting as she is at characters and setting and she is a writer of some of the best contemporary crime writing being written today.  Any of her novels are worth reading but with After I’m Gone she has written a novel that focuses on crimes of the heart and the repercussions that have an effect on so many. 

Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch.  If you haven’t read this series then I would urge you to do so.  This time around Peter Grant is out of whatever comfort zone he might have found and out of London - to a small village in Herefordshire where the local police are reluctant to admit that there might be a supernatural element to the disappearance of some local children.  But while you can take the London copper out of London you can't take the London out of the copper.  Travelling west with Beverley Brook, Peter soon finds himself caught up in a deep mystery and having to tackle local cops and local gods.  And what's more all the shops are closed by 4pm.  Think police procedural and magic and murder.  However, for all the murder and mayhem, this is a darkly comic read with characters you can't help but like.  Easily read by adults and young adults alike.

A Cruel Necessity by LC Tyler - The theatres are padlocked.  Christmas has been cancelled.  It is 1657 and the unloved English Republic is eight years old.  Though Cromwell's joyless grip on power appears immovable, many still look to Charles Stuart's dissolute and threadbare court-in-exile, and some are prepared to risk their lives plotting a restoration.  For the officers of the Republic, constant vigilance is needed.  So, when the bloody corpse of a Royalist spy is discovered on the dung heap of a small Essex village, why is the local magistrate so reluctant to investigate?  John Grey is a young lawyer with few clients at the time of Oliver Cromwell and Charles Stuart.  Grey is drawn into a vortex of plot and counter-plot and into the all-encompassing web of intrigue spun by Cromwell's own spymaster, John Thurloe.  So when nothing is what is seems, can Grey trust anyone?  LC Tyler is best known for his comedic crime novels featuring Ethelred Tressider a mid-list crime writer and Elsie his trusty agent.  However in A Cruel Necessity, LC Tyler has started a new historical series which is richly drawn and where it is clear that painstaking research has given this new series a strong sense of credibility and historical accuracy.  As a character John Grey is engaging as much as he is sympathetic.  This is a series that will no doubt get better and garner a loyal following.  Hopefully I am at the head of the queue.

The Final Silence by Stuart Neville.  Rea Carlisle has inherited a house from an uncle she never knew.  It doesn’t take her long to clear out the dead man’s remaining possessions, but one room remains stubbornly locked.  When Rea finally forces it open she discovers inside a chair, a table — and a leather-bound book.  Inside its pages are locks of hair, fingernails: a catalogue of victims.  Horrified, Rea wants to go straight to the police but when her family intervene, Rea turns to the only person she can think of: DI Jack Lennon.  But Lennon is facing his own problems.  Suspended from the force and hounded by DCI Serena Flanagan, the toughest cop he’s ever faced, Lennon must unlock the secrets of a dead man’s terrifying journal.  Whilst the characters in The Final Silence are not all likeable they do bring a sense of depth.  He’s not afraid of violence, less than perfect characters or controversial plot developments; all of which make his stories more realistic and thrilling.  The Final Silence has a very dark noirish quality to it as can be expected in the novels of Stuart Neville.  It is gloomy and violent, but it is also wickedly funny at times.  Most of its bitter characters are mired in the past; like one has come to expect from Stuart Neville this is not a book for the fainthearted.  It is intriguingly complex, and Neville's dialogue is profane and caustic.  Perfect.

  

The Missing by Sam Hawken.  Jack Searle, an American widower, is bringing up his two stepdaughters, Lidia and Marina, alone in the border town of Laredo.  One night, Marina crosses the border into Mexico to go to a concert with her cousin Patricia in Nuevo Laredo — a dangerous city, controlled by drug cartels and devastated by violence and corruption.  They never come back.  A frantic hunt begins, with Jack and Inspector Gonzalo Soler leading the way.  But soon the whole police force is suspended due to endemic corruption, the army takes over the city and missing girls are forgotten.  Jack and Gonzalo must take the law into their own hands, but in their efforts to find the girls they uncover truths about Nuevo Laredo that neither of them ever wanted to face.  It is clear that he is preoccupied by current events in Mexico and the events are very sharply portrayed in his novels.  From his first novel Tequila Sunset (which is my personal favourite) to The Missing, Hawken manages to enthral readers .  His prose is razor sharp and it is an exceptionally crafted novel that resonates with urgency, emotion, and danger.  It’s a gritty, visceral novel you won’t want to put down.  My only problem with The Missing is the fact that I felt that it was too short. 

The Burning Room by Michael Connelly.  I always have a soft for Harry Bosch and in this latest novel Michael Connelly has reaffirmed why he is the best in the business.  In the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit, not many murder victims die a decade after the crime.  So when a man succumbs to complications from being shot by a stray bullet ten years earlier, Bosch catches a case in which the body is still fresh, but any other clues are virtually non-existent.  Even a veteran cop would find this one tough going, but Bosch's new partner, Detective Lucia Soto, has no homicide experience.  A young star in the department, Soto has been assigned to Bosch so that he can pass on to her his hard-won expertise.  Now Bosch and Soto are tasked with solving a murder that turns out to be highly charged and politically sensitive.  Beginning with the bullet that has been lodged for years in the victim's spine, they must pull new leads from years-old evidence, and these soon reveal that the shooting was anything but random.  As their investigation picks up speed, it leads to another unsolved case with even greater stakes: the deaths of several children in a fire that occurred twenty years ago.  But when their work starts to threaten careers and lives, Bosch and Soto must decide whether it is worth risking everything to find the truth, or if it's safer to let some secrets stay buried.  As can be expected this is  a well-drawn police procedural.  The beautifully constructed plot involves political corruption, greed, lust, and vengeance.  It excels as a look at how power, prestige, and the media can override the best intentions.                                   

Skeleton Road by Val McDermid.  In the centre of historic Edinburgh, builders are preparing to demolish a disused Victorian Gothic building.  They are understandably surprised to find skeletal remains hidden in a high pinnacle that hasn’t been touched by maintenance for years.  Who do the bones belong to, and how did they get there?  Could the eccentric British pastime of free climbing the outside of buildings play a role?  Enter cold case detective Karen Pirie, who gets to work trying to establish the corpse’s identity.  And when it turns out the bones may be from as far away as former Yugoslavia, Karen will need to dig deeper than she ever imagined into the tragic history of the Balkans: to war crimes and their consequences, and ultimately to the notion of what justice is and who serves it.  One of the things McDermid excels in is writing standalone novels.  This is not to say that there is anything wrong with her series books but it seems that she writes with an extra fervour with these.  In Skeleton Road we have a murder mystery moves seamlessly to an exploration of geopolitics and genocide.  This is one of her best being complex and thought provoking.  With a multi stranded story and some very haunting and evocative details about the atrocities in the Balkans, this was really part murder mystery and part history lesson.  At the heart of the story is a real opportunity to explore themes of loss and revenge.  It is not surprising with novels like Skeleton Road that Val McDermid is considered to be one of our finest crime writers.

Grandville Noël by Bryan Talbot.  This is not strictly a novel but a graphic novel.  A steampunk graphic novel to be precise.  I mean how else can one explain the head of Scotland Yard Inspector LeBrock, a muscular, talking badger who has penchant for bareknuckle fights.  Not only badgers, but also rats, dogs, and every other kind of talking animal populate Talbot’s alternate nineteenth-century Britain and France.  In Granville Noël Detective Inspector LeBrock is alone in Grandville, stalking a growing religious cult led by a charismatic unicorn messiah who, along with his con-men partners, are responsible for horrific mass murder.  With Paris in the grip of the mysterious crime lord Tiberius Koenig and increasingly violent attacks by human terrorists, can LeBrock stop the inevitable slide into fascism?  And could these conditions all be the manipulations of a centuries-old conspiracy to throw the world into war?  This is the latest book in the series in this beautifully illustrated murder mystery that is one part Sherlock Holmes, another part Wind in the Willows, wrapped in a steampunk veneer.  It is not to be missed.

Honourable mentions go to Sarah Hilary’s Someone Else’s Skin, A possibility of Violence by D A Mishani, The Ghost Runner by Parker Bilal, This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash, The Silent Boy by Andrew Taylor and Euro Noir by Barry Forshaw.

Books to Look Forward to from Quercus

The Dark is by V M Giambanco and is due to be published in September 2014.  Seattle Homicide Detective Alice Madison is bound to jailed murderer John Cameron and attorney Nathan Quinn by a debt that cannot be repaid, by a nightmare that changed their lives forever.  When the remains of Quinn's younger brother - murdered when he was a boy - are discovered in a shallow grave, Madison vows to follow the trail of brutal deaths that leads to the truth.  A sadistic killer stalks the investigation, as Madison's own demons threaten her future career with the police and darkness closes in.  How far is she prepared to go to save a life?

Graham Weber has been the director of the CIA for less than a week when a Swiss kid in a dirty T-shirt walks into the American consulate in Hamburg and says the agency has been hacked, and he has a list of agents' names to prove it.  This is the moment a CIA director most dreads.  Weber turns to a charismatic (and unstable) young man named James Morris who runs the Internet Operations Centre.  He's the CIA's in-house geek.  Weber launches Morris on a mole hunt unlike anything in spy fiction one that takes the reader into the hacker underground of Europe and America and ends up in a landscape of paranoia and betrayal.  Like the new world of cyber-espionage from which it's drawn, The Director is a maze of deception and double dealing, about a world where everything is written in zeroes and ones and nothing can be trusted.  The CIA has belatedly discovered that this is not your father’s Cold War, and Weber must play catch-up, against the clock and an unknown enemy, in a game he does not yet understand.  The Director is by David Ignatius and is due to be published in June 2014.

The Arc of the Swallow is by Sissel-Jo Gazan and is due to be published in November 2014.When controversial Immunology Professor Kristian Storm is found hanged in his office his assistant Marie Skov refuses to believe that he has committed suicide. Grappling with Storm’s disputed legacy, she uncovers a scandal behind vaccination programmes in West Africa, leading her behind the scene of the cut-throat pharmaceutical industry.

The Root of all Evil is the second book in the Commissario Michele Balistreri series  by Roberto

Costantini and is due to be published in August 2014.  Tripoli, 1960s. During the years in which post-colonial Libya fell prey to the sprawling greed of the West, Michele Balistreri suffered a succession of blows that would scar him for life.  The death of his mother; the unspeakable horror that befell his best friend's family; his father's role in Gaddafi's ascent to power; and the innocent blood pact that would corrupt the course of his future.  Rome, 1982. In the wake of a ruinous blunder, a ground-down Commissario Balistreri escapes his regrets through sex, alcohol, and gambling.  His sole responsibilities are now a stilted investigation into the death of a South American student, and a tiresome obligation - as a gratitude to the man who saved his career - to a rising television starlet needing protection from the pitfalls of fame.  As the risks to this girl, Claudia Teodori, begin to rise along with her reputation, the sorrows of Balistreri's past also start to push back into his present.  Both of their fates are inextricably linked - and this driven, obsessive young woman must help this damaged detective fight a foe that follows her and refuses to forget him.

  

Research is by Philip Kerr and is due to be published in July 2014.  The rolling strip across the bottom of the screen shouts the news: BESTSELLING NOVELIST JOHN HOUSTON'S WIFE FOUND MURDERED AT THEIR LUXURY APARTMENT IN MONACO.  Houston is the richest writer in the world, a book factory publishing many bestsellers a year - so many that he can't possibly write them himself. He has a team that feeds off his talent; ghost writers, agents, publishers.  So when he decides to take a year out to write something of quality, a novel that will win prizes and critical acclaim, a lot of people stand to lose their livelihoods.  Now Houston, the prime suspect in his wife's murder, has disappeared.  He owns a boat and has a pilot's licence - he could be anywhere and there are many who'd like to find him.  First there's the police. If he's innocent, why did he flee?  Then again, maybe he was set up by one of his enemies.  The scenario reads like the plot of one of Houston's million-copy-selling thrillers...

A suspicious device is found inside a suitcase near a nursery in Holon, Tel Aviv.  The children are

taken to safety; a man is caught fleeing the scene.  Then comes the phone call: ‘thee suitcase is only the beginning.’  And it is.  Chaim Sara's son is glad not to be at nursery that day.  He has been bullied - there are bruises.  Chaim, taking care of both his children since the sudden absence of his wife, watches with anticipation as the police search for clues.  Inspector Avraham is thrust into the investigation, still haunted by the failure of his last case.  Witnesses are unforthcoming; suspects are eliminated.  Then a frightening act of violence shifts his understanding.  The suitcase has alerted him to a greater danger; one more private, and deeply disturbing.  No one believes in it but him.  And he will do anything to stop it in its tracks.  A Possibility of Violence is by D A Mishani and is due to be published in September 2014.

Bavaria, Germany, 1947.  At the end of the war, Afra Zauner returns to her parents' cottage on the edge of Mauther Forest.  Unmarried, and pregnant. As she struggles to raise her child, her father's shame, her mother's fury, and the loud whispers of the neighbours begin to weigh upon her.  She doesn't believe in her sin.  But everyone else does.  And someone brings judgement down upon her.  Many years later, Hermann Muller is throwing a drunk out of his tavern.  A traveller, who won't stop ranting about a murder left unsolved, about police who never investigated.  Out of curiosity, the file is reopened.  And in the cold light of hindsight, a chilling realisation creeps upon the community.  No one ever atoned for Afra's death.  But her story is waiting to be told. The Dark Meadow is by Andrea Maria Schenkel and is due to be published in August 2014.

Lake Wales, Central Florida.  Ten years ago, a political fundraiser became a bloodbath when a hooded assassin carried out a savage public execution.  Three men were massacred, casting a dark shadow over the Sunshine State.  A decade on, history is threatening to repeat itself.  The widow of one victim, herself now running for governor, has received an anonymous threat - a newspaper clipping from that fateful day, along with the chilling words 'I'm back.’  Florida detective Cab Bolton agrees to investigate the threat against this candidate, Diane Fairmont: an attractive politician who has a complicated history with Cab's mother, Hollywood actress Tarla Bolton - and with Cab himself.  But by doing so, Cab is entering dangerous waters.  Fairmont's political party is itself swamped in secrecy - a fact that, unknown to Cab, has led one of its junior staff to start asking very sensitive questions about the death of a party employee.  Both Cab and this young researcher, Peach Piper, are digging up the kind of dirt that ten years can't wash away.  And as the powerful crosswinds of state politics swirl around Cab and Peach, and the threat of a tropical storm hangs over Florida, this whirlwind of pressure and chaos will ultimately unearth a poisonous conspiracy, and reawaken a killer who has lain dormant for a decade.  Season of Fear is by Brian Freeman and is due to be published in July 2014.

Arab Jazz is by Karim Miské and is due to be published in August 2014.  Kosher sushi, kebabs, a second hand bookshop, and a bar: the 19th arrondissement in Paris is a cosmopolitan neighbourhood where multicultural citizens live, love, and worship alongside one another.  This peace is shattered when Ahmed Taroudant's melancholy daydreams are interrupted by the blood dripping from his upstairs neighbour's brutally mutilated corpse.  The violent murder of Laura Vignole, and the roast pork placed next to her, set imaginations ablaze across the neighbourhood, and Ahmed finds himself the prime suspect.  However detectives Rachel Kupferstein and Jean Hamelot have plenty to go on, as they uncover a volatile underworld of drug trafficking and religious fundamentalism.  In this his debut novel, Karim Miské demonstrates a masterful control of setting, as he moves seamlessly between the sensual streets of Paris and the synagogues of New York to reveal the truth behind a horrifying crime.

A devastating analysis of the human capacity for violence and redemption. 1957: a pacifist goes to war.  2008: a policeman on the warpath.  Set between Paris and Algeria, the overlapping fates of these two men reveal a dark conspiracy to mask the blackest chapter of French history, which can only be undone by the most unlikely hero: a thuggish ex-boxer who’ll do anything for cash . . . Loser’s Corner is by Antonin Varenne and is due to be published in December 2014.

Stockholm, September 2011.  Carina Dymek is on a fast track for promotion at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when she is approached by a stranger and given a USB stick containing a report to circulate in her department.  Unwittingly, she delivers a time bomb of classified information that sends her career up in flames and puts her on the radar of the security service, Sapo.  Tasked with investigating how Dymek gained access to the confidential report, the formidable Bente Jensen of Sapo is quietly approached by the British MI6, who have an undisclosed interest in the leak. She finds out that Dymek's boyfriend is an Egyptian Swedish national.  But it's MI6 who link his family to an extreme faction within the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo. The case explodes into an international manhunt.  Liaising with the ruthless MI6, Bente uncovers the secretive plans contained in that leaked report: plans for an omnipotent Europe-wide Intelligence Service.  Forces hone in on Dymek, while Bente begins to suspect she is a red herring caught in a far wider net: one in which social media is abused for intelligence and civil rights are sacrificed to national security.  Into a Raging Blaze is by Andreas Norman and is due to be published in July 2014.

Four lives are about to come crashing together...Devastated by the murder of his sister in Soho seven years ago, Mark Davis travels to London to carry out an act of violence that he believes will avenge her death.  PhD student Stella is returning to London with her partner Paula to visit a fertility clinic.  But Stella is hiding a secret that could tear their lives apart.  Recovering alcoholic Seb has left his wild days behind him.  As he helps his wife prepare to launch her restaurant in Soho, he feels that his life is finally back on track. But a chance encounter with a stranger brings back tragic memories and puts his family in serious danger.  Kerstin Engel is a brilliant but troubled research analyst.  Haunted by the events of 7/7 when she narrowly escaped death, she has spent the last seven years carrying out a self-imposed penance.  But an unseen enemy lies in wait and threatens to destroy her career and her mind.  As crowds gather in Soho to mark the restaurant launch, a terrifying sequence of events brings these characters together and the last days of summer to a shocking end.  Summer Lies Bleeding is by Nuala Casey and is due to be published in August 2014.

Poisoned Ground is by Barbara Nadel and is due to be published in September 2014.  Ex-soldier Lee Arnold and his Muslim assistant Mumtaz Hakim run a detective agency in London's ethnically diverse, crime-ridden East End.  An Egyptian woman, Salwa, whose husband is in Belmarsh on terrorism charges, approaches Mumtaz.  Salwa convinces Mumtaz of her husband's innocence and persuades her to go undercover to prove it.  But Salwa is not what she seems.  Trapped in an old tunnel that leads to the London docks, will Mumtaz escape with her life?

The Bosch Deception is by Alex Connor and is due to be published in July 2014. A TRUTH CONCEALED.  Brabant, 1473. A clandestine brotherhood hides a secret that could bring down the Catholic Church.  Their chosen hiding place - the art of Hieronymus Bosch. A TERRIBLE CONSPIRACY. London, 2014. An excommunicated priest approaches both the Church and the art world, claiming to possess an artefact that will destroy their reputations.  A TICKING CLOCK. This man, Nicholas Laverne, is poised to end over 500 years of silence and injustice.  Yet, unknown to Nicholas, he has just summoned a killer intent on silencing him.

You'd know if someone close to you was capable of lethal violence, right?  Dead wrong.  Accused of grassing up a fellow officer and driven brutally out of home and job, Grace Fisher is thankful to survive some dark times and find haven with the Major Investigation Team in Essex.  One female student is missing, last seen at a popular bar in Colchester.  When a second student, also out drinking, is murdered and left grotesquely posed, the case becomes headline news.  Someone is leaking disturbing details to a tabloid crime reporter.  Is it the killer?  Or a detective close to the case? With another victim, and under siege by the media, the murder enquiry hits a dead end.  The review team brought in to shake things up is headed by Grace's old DCI.  Who is going to listen to her now?  Good Girls Don’t Die is the first in a new series by Isabelle Grey featuring Detective Grace Fisher.  It is due to be published in September 2014.

London,  1657. All that is known of the Seeker is that he is utterly loyal to Cromwell, and that nothing can be hidden from him.  In  a fashionable coffee house, a murder takes place and a lawyer, Elias Ellingworth, found holding a knife over the bleeding body.  Despite the damning evidence, the Seeker is not convinced of Ellingworth’s guilt.  He will stop at nothing to bring the real killer to justice.  The Seeker is by S G Maclean and is the first in a new historical thriller series featuring Damian Seeker, one of Cromwell’s most trusted and feared adherents.  The Seeker is due to be published in October 2014.

In Mark Sullivan’s latest high-octane blockbuster, robin Monarch must seek out and steal a mysterious and much-coveted elixir of life, while at the same time attempting to reclaim something – or, more accurately, someone – cruelly stolen from him.  The perilous trail begins in the deepest recesses of the Brazilian rainforest, and will lure Monarch into a deadly trap where his nemesis will be waiting, and where the fate of those dearest to him will be decided.  Thief is due to be published in December 2014.

Two hours to get away, 22 more to survive.  Security consultant and private investigator Michael Sander is tasked with the investigation of a video that seems to show two people being hunted to their deaths.  His job is to find out who they are, and why they were murdered.  But this isn’t just another case, and these deaths are only one piece of the puzzle.  Michael is investigating the darkest reaches of humanity, uncovering crimes that reach further than he ever imagined.  Trophy is by Steffen Jacobsen and is due to be published in October 2014.

Talking to Ghosts is by Hervé Le Corre and is due to be published in July 2014.  With his son Pablo's kidnapping still unsolved, and his marriage ruined by the torment of hope, the brutal murder of a single mother in her own home is an almost welcome diversion for Commandant Vilar.  The woman leaves behind a son, Victor, thrown into the foster system with only his mother's urn for company.  Struggling with bullies, trauma and the first pangs of teenage love, Victor carries a secret that followed his mother to her grave.  Struggling for leads, Vilar is shaken when the colleague investigating Pablo's kidnapping disappears.  When a sadistic caller claims to have information about his son, Vilar is torn between duty and a desperate chance of redemption.