Books To Look Forward To From Penguin Michael Joseph

 January 2022

When her husband Harry walks out after just six months, a girls' weekend away with two friends seems like just what Sam needs. But they aren't even halfway to their destination when things start to go wrong: car trouble that just happens to leave them stranded in the town where Harry lives. And that's only the beginning. Because there are three things Sam doesn't yet know: One of her friends is lying about what happened. One is lying about who she is. And one of them will never make it home . . . The Perfect Escape is by Leah Konen

February 2022

Dark Horse is by Gregg Hurwitz. The hero - Evan Smoak: former off-the-books assassin - code name Orphan X. His world is divided into those who deserve his help and those who've brought his singular brand of justice upon themselves. The victim - A desperate father reaches out. His teenage daughter Anjelina has been kidnapped by a brutal criminal cartel and spirited over the border into Mexico. And while money is no object, Evan soon realises that his prospective client's past is as clouded and compromised as his own. The mission - If Evan is going to put his life on the line to rescue Anjelina, he must first decide whether he can act on behalf of a bad man. And even then, up against the men who are holding his daughter, there will be no guarantee of success...

When struggling journalist Cecily Wong is invited to join an expedition to climb one of the world's tallest mountains, it seems like the chance of a lifetime. She doesn't realise how deadly the climb will be. As their small team starts to climb, things start to go wrong. There's a theft. Then an accident. Then a mysterious note, pinned to her tent: there's a murderer on the mountain. The higher they get, the more dangerous the climb becomes, and the more they need to trust one another. Breathless is by Amy McCulloch. 

March 2022

This Might Hurt is by Stephanie Wrobel. Natalie Collins always has a plan. Her troubled younger sister Kit rarely does. Until Kit finds Wisewood, a secretive self-help retreat on a secluded Maine island. It promises you'll leave a better, braver version of yourself. But why does it forbid contact with the outside world? Why are there no testimonies from previous guests? Natalie fears it is some kind of cult. Then, after six months of silence, she receives an email from Wisewood: Would you like to come tell your sister what you did - or should we? Who is digging into the sisters' past? How did they discover Natalie's secret? A secret that will destroy Kit. She has no choice but to go to Wisewood, to find out if this place of healing has more sinister motives. But as she's about to discover, Wisewood is far easier to enter than to leave.

April 2022

Four friends. One night. Not everyone will come out alive. In the swirling snow of a deadly Icelandic storm, four friends seek shelter in a small abandoned hunting lodge. Miles from help, and knowing they will die outside in the cold, they break open the lock and make their way inside, hoping to wait out the storm until morning. But nothing can prepare them for what they find behind the door . . . Inside the cabin lurks a dangerous presence that chills them to their core. Outside, certain death from exposure awaits. So with no other option, they find themselves forced to spend a long, terrifying night in the cabin, watching as intently and silently as they are being watched themselves. But as the evening darkens, old secrets are beginning to find their way to the light. And as the tension escalates between the four friends, it soon becomes clear that the danger they discovered lurking in the cabin is far from the only mystery that will be uncovered tonight. Nor the only thing to be afraid of . . . Outside is by Ragnar Jónasson

Nobody But Us is by Laure Van Rensburg. Steven Harding is a handsome, well-respected professor. Ellie Masterson is a wide-eyed young college student. Together, they are driving south from New York, for their first holiday: three days in an isolated cabin, far from the city. Ahead of them, the promise of long, dark nights - and the chance to explore one another's bodies, away from prying eyes. It should be a perfect, romantic trip for two. Except that he's nt who he says he is. But then again, neither is she...

Two sisters went missing. Only one of them came back... Detective Jonah Sheens is enjoying a moment of peace and quiet, when a teenage girl wanders out of the wood. She's striking, with flame-red hair and a pale complexion. She's also covered in blood. She insists she's fine. It's her sister he needs to worry about. Jonah quickly discovers that Keely and her sister, Nina, disappeared from a children's home a week ago. Now, Keely is here - but Nina's still missing. Keely likes to play games. She knows where her sister is - but before she tells, she wants Jonah's full attention. Is she killer, witness, or victim? And will Jonah find out what Keely's hiding, in time to save Nina? Little Sister is by Gytha Lodge.

May 2022

It's every parent's nightmare. Your happy, funny, innocent son commits a terrible crime: murdering a complete stranger. You don't know who. You don't know why. You only know your teenage boy is in custody and his future lost. That night you fall asleep in despair. Until you wake . . . . . . and it is yesterday. Every morning you wake up a day earlier, another day before the murder. Another chance to stop it. Somewhere in the past lie the answers, and you don't have a choice but to find them . . . Wrong Place Wrong Time is by Gillian McAllister.

A Kiss After Dying is by Ashok Banker. This is a story about Hannah. She seems shy. Some would even say spiky. People don't pay much attention to Hannah. Which is exactly how she's planned it. It's also a story about Ricky. Ricky is anything but shy. Rich, charming, good-looking, Ricky has never had a problem getting what he wants. And now he wants Hannah. There's a spark between them from the moment they meet. Even Hannah can't resist a man like Ricky for long. But this is not a love story. In fact, it's a little like Hannah. First you'll be intrigued. Then you'll realise there are hidden depths. And then, when you least expect it, you'll be hit by a twist you never saw coming...

The Inheritance is by Howard Linskey. You will inherit everything. The house. The money. There's just one condition. You have to catch a killer first... Sarah always had a soft spot for her Aunt Evelyn, a famous writer, but she'd always assumed the elderly woman was penniless. But when Evelyn dies, Sarah gets a shock. Evelyn has a significant fortune, including a foreboding mansion, Cragsmoor, on the outskirts of a small Northumberland town. She wants to leave it to Sarah. But that's not all she wants. For most of her life, she'd been haunted by a cold case. Many years ago, her childhood friend Lucy went missing. She was last seen in the house Evie has now left to Sarah. Evie spent years searching for the truth, desperate to find out what really happened the day Lucy disappeared. Now, her final wish is for Sarah to go back to the house where it all began, and uncover the truth. If she does, she will inherit everything. But if there is a secret at Cragsmoor, someone has benefitted from it remaining hidden. Someone who has already killed once before...

June 2022

David Raker is back with another heart-pounding and tense missing persons case. Ten seconds before the crash, Cate and Aiden Gascoigne are recorded on CCTV. The couple are laughing - happy, untroubled. Then their car plunges into a ninety-foot ravine. The impact should kill them. And if that doesn't, the fire will. Within seconds, the vehicle is an inferno - with the Gascoignes trapped inside. But when fire crews arrive at the scene, they find something impossible. The vehicle is empty. Cate and Aiden have vanished. Now only missing persons investigator David Raker can solve the mystery... The Blackbird is by Tim Weaver.

When fifteen-year-old Anabelle King was raped, she reported it immediately. But corrupted evidence meant the jury let her attacker go. Eighteen years later, Anabelle is Ava, a barrister who always follows the rules. But that changes when she reads a familiar name in a case file: Michael Osborne. This time, Michael is the alleged victim, and in the dock is a young girl; Lily Hawthorne, who pleads guilty to GBH without hesitation. Ava is sure that Lily's plea is false. She knows this man is not innocent. But how much will she have to risk to uncover the truth. Your Word is Mine is by Lia Middleton.

William Wisting is in a race against time. When a severed head is found on a stake in the quiet town of Larvik, Police Inspector William Wisting is called in to investigate. The only clue? The killer is trying to send a message. All roads lead back to the Night Man. As the media closes in on the biggest story of the year, Wisting's journalist daughter Line receives a tip. Soon, it becomes clear that there is more to this case than anyone thought. A criminal network has lodged itself deep into the roots of the city, and it's up to Wisting to take down the elusive and dangerous Night Man. This is just the beginning. But hunting down The Night Man will take everything Wisting has, and it's all too easy for the hunter to become the prey. The Night Man is by Jørn Lier Horst.

I Stand Alone…Sometimes by Howard Linskey

 Howard Linskey’s standalones have a habit of turning into series.

I have written two series that weren’t supposed to be series when they started out. My debut novel, ‘The Drop’ was meant to be a standalone about a white-collar gangster called David Blake. He thinks that he sails above the violence of his world because he works for the top-boy in Newcastle and never gets his hands dirty. Then a large sum of money he is responsible for goes missing and he has to get it back in 72 hours or he is a dead man. 

It never crossed my mind that the characters in that novel might reappear. I visualised it as a gritty, one-off gangster story, in the mode of films such as 'The Long Good Friday' and 'Get Carter'. I was thinking "why don't they write that stuff anymore?" So, I went ahead and did it myself. Then a few things happened in quick succession. 

I had too many ideas to fit them all into one book, so I took a few bits out and put them to one side, for later. Then, I was offered a two-book deal by No Exit and that meant completing a second book for publication a year later. I had never written with a contract or a deadline before. No pressure. 

When ‘The Drop’ was published, exactly ten years ago, incidentally, The Times newspaper named it one of the top five thrillers of the year, which was amazing and highly unexpected. When my debut was then optioned, by the producer of the Harry Potter films, it started to feel really quite surreal but it did make me realise that these characters had lives interesting enough to carry on after ‘The Drop’ and there were two further books in the trilogy, ‘The Damage’ and ‘The Dead’, before their stories were concluded.

I could have gone on writing about those guys but I already had an idea for a different kind of story. That book, featuring journalists Tom Carney and Helen Norton, as well as the detective Ian Bradshaw, became ‘No Name Lane’. I will never forget the moment when my literary agent, Phil Patterson, phoned me from the London Book Fair to inform me that an editor from Penguin Random House wanted to buy it. My ‘Yay’ moment was swiftly followed by sense of panic, when he told me Penguin wanted a three-book-deal and the editor was ‘looking forward to seeing where you are going to go with the series’. The honest response to that should have been ‘what series?’ as it too was meant to be a standalone.

I parked my anxiety for twenty-four hours then sat down and wrote the words, ‘It is eighteen months later…’ at the top of a synopsis and I began to wonder where those characters would be now. In a day or two, I had fleshed out the plot for ‘Behind Dead Eyes’. Two further novels followed; ‘The Search’ and ‘The Chosen Ones’, and thankfully, Penguin wanted more books from me but after writing four novels I was looking forward to the freedom of writing a standalone with new characters. 

Last year, I came up with an idea that featured a rookie detective, Beth Winter, who is paired with a difficult veteran cop, Lucas Black. ‘Alice Teale Is Missing’ is a modern-day mystery involving the search for a missing teenage girl. The reviews for that book were lovely but a number of readers commented that they really liked the characters and were looking forward to seeing what would happen to them next. Oh dear, had I begun a third series by accident? 

Would Beth and Lucas reappear to solve a new case? There was no time to worry about this, because I was already halfway through my next book, ‘Don’t Let Him In’, which is published on May 13th. Rebecca Cole returns to her hometown from a long round-the-world trip, following the death of her father and soon discovers he has actually been murdered. She also realises he was on the trail of an almost mythical killer and she picks up where he left off, despite the obvious danger to herself. 

Surely there is no way that this one can become a series, because Rebecca is a civilian and the case concerns her own father? This is personal and Rebecca has no intention of becoming a serial sleuth. Unless of course she gets a taste for this kind of thing and then…no, stop it!

I blame the characters. After you have spent a year in their close company, you tend to like them, despite the faults you have given them. There is always a temptation to revisit characters a year or two down the line, as if checking in on an old friend to see how they are doing. Crime writers are like the serial killers we occasionally write about. Sometimes, we just can’t help ourselves. 

But really, no, this book should definitely be a one-off. Unless the reviews are really good of course and lots of people buy the thing and Penguin want more…oh, and if I wake up one morning and step from the shower having suddenly thought of a great idea for Rebecca Cole that just has to be written down. Then I will probably start my pitch to Penguin with the words, ‘It is eighteen months later…’ 

Don't Let Him In by Howard Linskey (Penguin Books Ltd) Out Now

Eriston is a small town. It's the kind of place where everyone knows your name - and your secrets. Rebecca hasn't been back in years, but she grew up in the shadow of the dark local legend. There have always been deaths in Eriston - more than can easily be explained. People dying in their houses, behind locked doors. Her father Sean had always warned her of the dangers. Don't let him in. When Rebecca returns, she discovers that her father wasn't willing to let the legend lie. He was on the verge of uncovering the town's darkest truth. He thought he was on the trail of a killer. Sean knew too much. Now he's dead. Rebecca could accept her father's death. Or she could risk her life by carrying on his work . . .

Books To Look Forward To From Michael Joseph Books

 January 2021

What if your experience of motherhood was nothing like what you hoped for - but everything you always feared? The women in this family, we're different . . .' The arrival of baby Violet was meant to be the happiest day of my life. A fresh start. But as soon as I held her in my arms, I knew something wasn't right. I have always known that the women in my family weren't meant to be mothers. My husband Fox says I'm imagining it, but she's different with me. Something feels very wrong. Is it her? Or is it me? Is she the monster? Or am I? Push is by Ashley Audrain.

The Burning Girls is by C J Tudor. 500 years ago: eight martyrs were burnt to death. 30 years ago: two teenagers vanished without trace. Two months ago: the vicar committed suicide. Welcome to Chapel Croft. For Rev Jack Brooks and teenage daughter Flo it's supposed to be a fresh start. New job, new home. But, as Jack knows, the past isn't easily forgotten. And in a close-knit community where the residents seem as proud as they are haunted by Chapel Croft's history, Jack must tread carefully. Ancient superstitions as well as a mistrust of outsiders will be hard to overcome. Yet right away Jack has more frightening concerns. Why is Flo plagued by visions of burning girls? Who's sending them sinister, threatening messages? And why did no one mention that the last vicar killed himself? Chapel Croft's secrets lie deep and dark as the tomb. Jack wouldn't touch them if not for Flo - anything to protect Flo. But the past is catching up with Chapel Croft - and with Jack. For old ghosts with scores to settle will never rest . . .

Thomas Cale has been running from his enemies. Raised and trained in an underground programme - the Sanctuary - he was sent to destroy God's greatest mistake, mankind itself. Cale is a paradox: arrogant and innocent, generous and pitiless. Feared and revered by those that created him, he has already used his terrifying talent for violence and destruction to bring down the most powerful civilisation in the world. But Thomas Cale has been caught. He's been given a choice. Bring down the world's best hope for order, for honesty and for progress, or condemn his soul to hell. The fate of humankind rests on Cale's decision. The White Devil is by Paul Hoffman.

February 2021

Prodigal Son is by Gregg Hurwitz. He can escape anything. Except his own past . . . 'Evan. It's your mother. I heard you help people . . ' Evan Smoak used to be known as Orphan X: a figure as elusive as a rumour, until he came to the rescue of those who most desperately needed his help. The kind of help no one else could provide. The kind that caused concern in the corridors of power. As a boy he'd been plucked from a foster home and trained as an off-the-books assassin inside a top secret US government programme. Which is why, even forced into early retirement, he dare not trust the phone call. Nor the caller claiming to be his mother. Asking him to protect a complete stranger who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of it stacks up. Yet it bears the tell-tale signs of the secret world that made him. And from inside it, a deadly new threat to the nation's security. But this time the danger is more personal than he could have ever imagined. Because blood runs deep … 

Louise wakes up. Her head aches, her mouth is dry, her memory is fuzzy. But she suspects she's done something bad. She rolls over towards her husband, Niall. The man who, until recently, made her feel loved. But it's not Niall who's lying beside her. In fact, she's never seen this man before. And he's dead . . . As Louise desperately struggles to piece her memories back together, it's clear to Detective Jonah Sheens and his team that she is their prime suspect - though they soon find she's not the only one with something to hide. Did she do it? And, if not, can they catch the real killer before they strike again? Lie Beside Me is by Gytha Lodge.

March 2021

Get ready to meet Rebekah in Missing by Tim Weaver's in his first standalone. She is stranded on an island, left for dead and determined to get home, but danger will continue to stalk her . . . Crow Island was meant to be the perfect break. A chance for Rebekah to reconnect with her brother Jonny and forget about her crumbling marriage. But stepping onto this island puts her in more danger than she could ever imagine. After finding themselves in the forest Rebekah and her brother are attacked. When she wakes up her phone is missing and Jonny has vanished. At that moment Rebekah realises the island has become her living hell. By the time she makes it back to safety the island has closed for the season – and it'll be seven months before anyone returns.With her brother missing and no boats, no phones, no people, Rebekah must survive and make her way off this island. But is finding a way back to the mainland the end of her nightmare, or just the beginning? 

This Nowhere Place is by Natasha Bell. 'That's the thing about our town: people only come here if they're going somewhere else.' One grey afternoon, high on the cliffs of Dover, two girls agree to help a stranger. Within months, two of the three girls are dead. In the years that follow, local legend grows around the events of that summer - and, with the one survivor refusing to speak, it seems the truth will never emerge. Until a documentary-maker arrives, determined to solve the mystery of the Dover Girls. But some will stop at nothing to keep this town's secrets...

In the early days of World War II, the infamous German Luftwaffe embark upon an expedition to Antarctica, hoping to set up a military base to support their goal of world domination. Though the military outpost never comes to fruition, what the Nazis find on the icy continent indeed proves dangerous...and will have implications far into the future. In the present day, Kurt Austin and his assistant Joe Zavala embark for the freezing edge of the world after a former NUMA colleague disappears in Antarctica. While there, they discover a photo of the Luftwaffe expedition of 1939, and are drawn into a decades-old conspiracy. Even as they confront perilous waters and frigid temperatures, they are also are up against a terrifying man-made weapon--a fast-growing ice that could usher in a new Ice Age. Pitted against a determined madman and a monstrous storm, Kurt and the NUMA team must unravel the Nazi-era plot in order to save the globe from a freeze that would bury it once and for all. Fast Ice is by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown. 

April 2021

The Saboteurs is by Clive Cussler and Jack Du Brul. Detective Isaac Bell's wife has said that he is always in the wrong place at the right time. This is certainly the case when Bell thwarts the attempted assassination of a United States Senator shortly after meeting the man. This heroic rescue is just the start of the mystery for Bell, who suspects that the would-be assassins have a much larger and more dangerous agenda--one involving the nearly constructed Panama Canal. While the Senator supports the building of the canal, there are many, including a local Panamanian insurgency known as the Red Vipers, who never want to see the its completion. With millions of dollars and the fates of two nations at stake, Bell heads to Panama to find answers. After a deadly bombing at the Canal's construction site, he is determined to stop the insurgents--or whoever is funding them--before they can attack again.

The teacher wanted on the edge of the world. Una knows she is struggling to deal with her father's sudden, tragic suicide. She spends her nights drinking alone in Reykjavik, stricken with thoughts that she might one day follow in his footsteps. So when she sees an advert seeking a teacher for two girls in the tiny village of Skalar - population of ten - on the storm-battered north coast of the island, she sees it as a chance to escape. But once she arrives, Una quickly realises nothing in city life has prepared her for this. The villagers are unfriendly. The weather is bleak. And, from the creaky attic bedroom of the old house where she's living, she's convinced she hears the ghostly sound of singing. Una worries that she's losing her mind. And then, just before Christmas, there's an unexplained death and Una's life going from bad to worse..... The Girl Who Died is by Ragnar Jónasson.

Don't let Him In is by Howard Linskey. He's always been there. Now he's looking for you.  There have always been deaths in the small town of Eriston over the years - more than can easily be explained. People dying in their houses, behind locked doors. Sean Cole thought he'd spotted a pattern. Thought he was on the trail of a killer. Now he's dead too. When his daughter Rebecca returns to the town, she realises that her father might have been onto something. But can she find the murderer before he finds her? Because if she can't, her father's shabby old Victorian house is no place to hide.

May 2021

An unlikely spy. July 1940. As Britain braces itself for invasion, ex-Tommy and safecracker Bill O'Hagan is glad to have escaped the battlefield. But when a job goes wrong, he finds himself forced to serve his country once more. A former king. Spurned by his government and fearing for his life, the Duke of Windsor flees to Portugal with the woman for whom he abdicated the throne, Wallis Simpson. As a web of Nazi trickery threatens to ensnare him, his fate and the fate of Britain rest on one man. The fate of a nation in their hands. Dropped on an occupied Channel Island without backup, Bill must crack an enemy safe and get its contents to safety. Failure will devastate any hope Britain has of winning the war. But with the layers of deception and intrigue drawing ever more tightly around them, Bill and the Duke both learn they aren't the only players in this game. And Berlin - which has the Duke in its own sights - is plotting its greatest move yet... Island Reich is by Jack Grimwood.

In Harm's Way is by Anthony Mosawi. Sara Eden isn't like other agents. She was the greatest asset MI5 had ever had. But then she disappeared without a trace. Now, she's out of hiding. And she'll do whatever it takes to save innocent lives. Robert Waterman is the director of GCHQ. He trusts numbers. He trusts data. He's learned that whilst humans are unreliable, patterns and codes never lie. But then he meets Sara. What Sara can do isn't rational. What Sara can do defies logic. He can't trust her - but he needs her.

June 2021

Scorpion is by Christian Cantrell. Around the world, twenty-two people have been murdered. The victims fit no profile, the circumstances vary wildly, but one thing links them all: in every case the victim is branded with a number. With police around the globe floundering and unable to identify any pattern, let alone find a killer, CIA Analyst Quinn Mitchell is called in to investigate. Before long, Quinn is on the trail of an ice-hearted assassin with seemingly limitless resources - but she's prepared for that. What she isn't prepared for is the person pulling the strings.

Alice Teale Is Missing – by Howard Linskey

‘Write what you know.’ Authors are always being advised to do that, as if anything else would be too difficult or come across as unauthentic. That’s a bit tricky when you are a crime writer. Unless you used to be a gangster or drug dealer and used your prison time to take a creative writing course, you are unlikely to be writing what you know. I’ve never been to prison and I’ve certainly never killed anyone. Honest, trust me on this, not even once, for research purposes. 

I suppose it might have helped if I’d been a detective or a forensic scientist but I am the kind of person who would become obsessed with detail and accuracy, rather than character and plot and the books would probably be less interesting as a result. So, instead, I do some research, to get the important details right but mostly I just use my imagination. 

Every one of my books has its origins in a single thought, an idea that kicks them off, a ‘what if?’ moment, if you like. That moment in ‘Alice Teale Is Missing’ comes at the beginning, when a seventeen-year-old girl walks out of her school building one evening, following after-school activities. I visualised her being seen by someone, a teacher, who would look out of the staff room at just the right moment and watch, as Alice walked away from the building and went down a path between two rows of old miner’s cottages. What if, at that point, she simply, inexplicably, vanished.

That was my starting point. Next, I introduced two new characters, Detectives Beth Winter and Lucas Black, who are given the task of investigating Alice’s disappearance. Beth is new and happy to take on the case, because she wants to make a difference. Surely, finding Alice is a worthwhile endeavour but then she learns that her new partner, DS Black, once killed someone. It’s an ominous start to her first major case.

They soon learn that Alice has secrets but then so do most of her friends and family. Almost all of them have something they want to hide. It’s up to Beth and Lucas to work out how any of this is linked to the disappearance of Alice. They begin to realise that her secret was the biggest of them all. 

So far, so fictitious but there is one area of ‘Alice Teale Is Missing’ that does border more on write-what-you-know territory than normal for me and that is Alice’s fictional hometown of Collemby. As I was writing the book, it started to look suspiciously like my own hometown. I don’t know why but, from the moment my two detectives, Winter and Black, took a left turn and drove up a hill into Collemby for the first time, I started to visualise it as the place I grew up in; Ferryhill in County Durham in the north east of England. The town hall, the market square, the pubs and shops that border it, are all very similar to the ones I knew. The lay out of my old school helped too. When the teacher watches Alice walk away, she has the exact same view you would get from its staff room and, helpfully, the miner’s cottages are there too. 

So why not just set the book in the real Ferryhill, instead of the fictional town of Collemby? I didn’t want to burden myself by having to be entirely accurate and receive complaints that I misspelled a street name or got a detail wrong. Also, I’m not entirely sure that the good people of Ferryhill would be too impressed with me if I made their town the factual location of fictional crimes. 

Keeping my town fictional means that Ferryhill and Collemby can be similar but different, when it suits me or my plot. Collemby is a darker, more oppressive place with narrower streets, taller, more Victorian-era buildings and subsequently darker shadows are cast upon its occupants, lending it an atmosphere more conducive to crime fiction. 

I also created a derelict railway station for plot purposes. Ferryhill used to have one but it is long gone now, even though the part of the town that used to house it is still known as Ferryhill Station, more than fifty years after its closure. I liked the idea of someone from the town, a moderately wealthy eccentric perhaps, taking over its platforms and buildings, hoping to preserve and restore them but ultimately lacking the funds to do so. When they give up, the location is left in a spooky form of limbo, its nooks and crannies used only by ‘courting’ couples or cheating ones.  Alice is seen down there but with whom? That question and others, surrounding the mysterious disappearance of the seventeen-year-old, are eventually answered in ‘Alice Teale Is Missing. I hope you enjoy it. 

Alice Teale is Missing by Howard Linskey (Published by Penguin Books)

Alice Teale walked out of school at the end of a bright spring day.  She's not been seen since.  Alice was popular and well-liked, and her boyfriend, friends and family are desperate to find her.  But soon it's clear that everyone in her life has something to hide.  Then the police receive a disturbing package.  Pages from Alice's precious diary.  Who could have sent them? And what have they done with Alice?

Books to Look Forward to from Penguin Random House incl Michael Joseph

May 2019

Catching Teller Crow is by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina.  Nothing's been the same for Beth Teller since she die.  Her dad, a detective, is the only one who can see and hear her, and he's drowning in grief. Only a suspected murder, and a mystery to solve, might save them both.  And they have a potential witness: Isobel Catching. Aboriginal by birth, like Beth, she seems lost and isolated in the world.  But as the two get closer, Isobel's strange tale of glass-eyed monsters and stolen colours will intertwine with Beth's investigation - and reveal something dark and terrible at the heart of this Australian town . . .

PARIS 2017. THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE HAS RULED EUROPE FOR OVER 300 YEARS.  As a respected special investigator for the state police, Kamal Agha is committed to keeping the empire safe from threats inside and out. But these are dangerous times in the empire. Under the sultan's autocratic regime, no one is beyond suspicion. When a naked man covered in tattoos appears on the banks of the Seine and murders a passer-by, Kamal is tasked with tracking him down. But asking too many questions can be a highly risky endeavor-especially when the mysterious man's trail leads Kamal to a secret buried deep in the empire's past, a secret that goes to the very core of the empire's success. A secret the sultan and his security services will do anything to silence.  Kamal is forced to question his own loyalty when his own family attracts unwelcome attention from the security services. Soon, he has no choice but to flee. But on the run from the all-seeing organisation with which he made his reputation, can he save himself and his family?  And, if he does, what might that mean for the existence of the Empire itself? Its past, its present and its future .... The Ottoman Secret is by Raymond Khoury.

The Copy Cat is by Jake Woodhouse.  Jaap Rykel is on the brink, his dark past driving him to breaking point - and ending his police career.   Visiting the station one last time, he stumbles across an investigation into a particularly violent murder. A murder where the details exactly match a case he solved years earlier.  But that killer was caught - and is still in prison.  Is there a copycat killer on the loose, playing games with Rykel's fragile mind? Or did he get it wrong, and send an innocent man to prison?  This might be his last chance to make things right - or it could be the blow that finally takes him over the edge . . .

June 2019

On a remote island off the coast of Argentina, a team of elite counter-terror commandos prepare to assault a newly-discovered Hezbollah hideout.   What they don't expect is to be brutally ambushed themselves - slaughtered with no survivors.   What they don't realise is that, on screens around the world, the enemies of the West are watching.  Back in Washington DC, the growing obstruction in the Senate has reached crippling levels, as a crucial treaty to strength NATO in Eastern Europe is inexplicably blocked. Suspecting that key politicians may have been compromised - but aware of the explosive consequences of making such accusations in public - the President dispatches Jack Ryan Jr to Poland to investigate.   In Warsaw, Jack partners with beautiful and brilliant Polish agent Liliana Zaleski, and it's not long before they find evidence of a tangled web of corruption. But what Jack and Liliana don't realise is that this conspiracy stretches further than they could ever have imagined, and the danger has already crept terrifyingly close to home… Tom Clancy’s Enemy Contact is by Mike Maden.  

Every Monday, 49-year-old Ellie looks after her grandson Josh. She loves him more than anyone else in the world. The only thing that can mar her happiness is her husband's affair. But he swears it's over now, and Ellie has decided to be thankful for what she's got.  Then one day, while she's looking after Josh, her husband gets a call from that woman. And just for a moment, Ellie takes her eyes off her grandson. What happens next will change her life forever.  Because Ellie is hiding something in her past.  And what looks like an accident could start to look like murder . . .  I looked Away is by Jane Corry.

July 2019

A Fatal Game is by Nicholas Searle.  A terrorist attack has just hit a busy railway station. Jake Winter was the British intelligence officer in charge of stopping the attack and now his career, and his conscience, are in freefall . . .  Jake's next anti-terror operation has to be a success. He has got himself a new source - a young British Asian man, Rashid, recently returned, apparently disillusioned, from battle, who he hopes is the key to foiling the next attack and to getting Jake to the leader of the network. But is Rashid really working for British intelligence, or has Jake put his faith in the wrong man once again?

It's evening, you're leaving work, and in your pigeonhole is a note:  A DEATH THREAT  - and it warns that time is running out.  But the note is for another person. And soon you learn that they are dead. They are just the first.  As more victims are found, you know that soon, very soon, a note will arrive for you - unless you do something . .  Tell No Lies is by Gregg Hurwitz

Inspector Kosuke Iwata returns to Japan after ten years to confront the ghosts of his past, and catch a dangerous killer.  Tokyo. 2020, As Japan prepares to host the Olympic Games an English exchange student is found bludgeoned to death in a love hotel. She lies in an empty room with only a dead spider for morbid company. Could this be a calling card from her killer?   The world's eyes are on Tokyo's Homicide department who are so desperate that the Commissioner picks up the phone and calls his old protege, Kosuke Iwata. A brilliant detective whose haunted personal life has forced him into exile thousands of miles away. Iwata wants no part in an investigation that means stepping back into a past he had no intention of revisiting. Until he is is given an offer he can't refuse.  Black Suit City is by Nicolás Obregón

 August 2019

It's been fifteen years since Simon Meier walked out of his house, never to be seen again. And just one day since politician Bernard Clausen was found dead at his cabin on the Norwegian coast. When Chief Inspector William Wisting is asked to investigate he soon discovers he may have found the key to solving Meier's disappearance.  But doing so means he must work with an old adversary to piece together what really happened all those years ago. It's a puzzle that leads them into a dark underworld on the trail of Clausen's interests and vices . A shady place from which may never emerge - especially when he finds it leads closer to home than he ever could have imagined.   The Cabin is by Jørn Lier Horst.

Ice Cold Heart is by P J Tracey.  On a bitterly cold winter night, Kelly Ramage leaves her suburban home, telling her husband she's going to meet a friend.  She never comes back.  When her body is discovered, murdered in what seems to be a sex game gone horribly wrong, Detectives Gino and Magozzi take the case, expecting to find a flirtatious trail leading straight to the killer.   However, Kelly's sinister lover has done a disturbingly good job of hiding his identity. This isn't his first victim - and that she won't be the last.

 One missing. One a murderer. One trying to find the truth.Flora has her whole life ahead of her - until the summer night she vanishes.  Her sister Heather was a good girl - until the spring morning she kills two people. Jess Fox was once like a sister to them both.  But called home to investigate Heather's crime, she begins to wonder if she really knew either sister at all . . .  And Then She Vanishes is by Claire Douglas.

October 2019

Set in London in 2018, Agent Running in the Field follows a twenty-six year old solitary figure who, in a desperate attempt to resist the political turbulence swirling around him, makes connections that will take him down a very dangerous path.  Agent Running in the Field is by John le Carré.

All the Rageis by Cara Hunter.  A teenage girl is found wandering the outskirts of Oxford, dazed and distressed. The story she tells is terrifying. Grabbed off the street, a plastic bag pulled over her face, then driven to an isolated location where she was subjected to what sounds like an assault. Yet she refuses to press charges. DI Fawley investigates, but there's little he can do without the girl's co-operation. Is she hiding something, and if so, what? And why does Fawley keep getting the feeling he's seen a case like this before?

The Dying Room is by Nicci French.  Neve Connolly looks down at a murdered man.  She doesn't call the police.   You know, it's funny,' Detective Inspector Hitching said. `Whoever I see, they keep saying, talk to Neve Connolly, she'll know. She's the one people talk to, she's the one people confide in.'  A trusted colleague and friend. A mother. A wife. Neve Connolly is all these things.  She has also made mistakes; some small, some unconsciously done, some large, some deliberate. She is only human, after all.  But now one mistake is spiralling out of control and Neve is bringing those around her into immense danger.  She can't tell the truth. So how far is she prepared to go to protect those she loves? And who does she really know? And who can she trust?  A liar. A cheat. A threat. Neve Connolly is all these things.  Could she be a murderer?

 November 2019

In an off-limits computer lab near Chicago, a mole infiltrates and steals a sophisticated piece of government security software. The implications are devastating - but it's only half the prize.  In Indonesia, an American engineer is seduced into spilling secrets about a cutting edge Artificial Intelligence chip. The information seems harmless, but will wreak havoc the wrong hands.  In the White House, discontent with the President is rising - but could it amount to treason?  Tom Clancy's Code of Honour is by Marc Cameron

As usual, seventeen-year-old Alice Teale walked out of school at the end of a bright spring day.  She's not been seen since.  Alice was popular and well-liked, and her boyfriend, friends and family are desperate to find her. But when the police start asking questions, it becomes clear that almost everyone has something to hide.  Torn between a host of suspects, Detectives Beth Winter and Lucas Black don't know which way to turn. But then they receive a disturbing package: pages from Alice's precious diary.  Who could have sent them? And what have they done with Alice? Alice Teale is Missing is by Howard Linskey

Come a Little Closer is by Karen Perry.  Leah is in love. It should be the happiest summer of her life, but she can't help feeling lonely with Jake's attention divided between her, his ex-wife and his young son. As insomnia sets in, the walls of their new basement flat feel as if they're closing in around her.  Until she meets her upstairs neighbour, Anton, who has recently moved back in after a long absence from the street. He's a sympathetic ear when Jake can't be, and even though others on the street seem strangely hostile towards him, Leah soon comes to rely on Anton and their secret conversations in the night.  Leah has no idea that nineteen years before, Anton was convicted of killing his wife. A wife who looked a little bit like Leah. He has always said he didn't do it.  Is Leah his redemption? Or is she befriending a killer intent on luring her closer and closer?

Books to look Forward to from No Exit Press

October 2018

Autumn 1915. World War I is raging across Europe but Woodrow Wilson has kept Americans out of the trenches--though that hasn't stopped young men and women from crossing the Atlantic to volunteer at the front. Christopher "Kit" Cobb, a Chicago reporter with a second job as undercover agent for the U.S. government, is officially in Paris doing a story on American ambulance drivers, but his intelligence handler, James Polk Trask, soon broadens his mission. City-dwelling civilians are meeting death by dynamite in a new string of bombings, and the German-speaking Kit seems just the man to figure out who is behind them--possibly a German operative who has snuck in with the waves of refugees coming in from the provinces and across the border in Belgium. But there are elements in this pursuit that will test Kit Cobb, in all his roles, to the very limits of his principles, wits, and talents for survival.  Paris in the Dark is by Robert Olen Butler

Originally published by Gryphon Books in 1993, Difficult Lives was one of the earliest attempts to track the legacy of original paperback writers such as Jim Thompson, David Goodis and Chester Himes.  The individual essays on these three first appeared in literary magazines.  Difficult Lives visits a rare moment when daylight was showing around the seams of American society and visions quite in contrast to the sanctioned version drifted to the surface in books one bought off racks in drugstores and bus stations -- stark, bonelike, disturbing books.  No Exit Press are to make Difficult Lives available again, doubling our pleasure by pairing it with Hitching Rides, an equal volume of new essays on other crime writers including Derek Raymond, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Patricia Highsmith and Shirley Jackson.  Difficult Lives – Hitching Rides is by James Sallis.

The Lonely Witness is by William Boyle.  Amy was once a party girl, but now she lives a lonely life. Helping the house-bound to receive communion in the Gravesend neighbourhood of Brooklyn, she knows the community well.  When a local woman goes missing, Amy senses something isn’t right.  Tailing the woman’s suspicious son, she winds her way through Brooklyn’s streets. But before she can act, he is dead.  Captivated by the crime she’s witnessed and the murderer himself, Amy doesn’t call the cops. Instead, she collects the weapon from the sidewalk and soon finds herself on the trail of a killer.

November 2018

Death Rope is by Leigh Russell. Mark Abbott is dead. His sister refuses to believe it was suicide, but only Detective Sergeant Geraldine Steel will listen.  When other members of Mark’s family disappear, Geraldine’s suspicions are confirmed.  Taking a risk, Geraldine finds herself confronted by an adversary deadlier than any she has faced before… Her boss Ian is close, but will he arrive in time to save her, or is this the end for Geraldine Steel?

December 2018

One Law For The Rest of Us is by Peter Murphy.  Two generations of abuse... one shocking conspiracy... a woman determined to expose it all.  When Audrey Marshall sends her daughter Emily to the religious boarding school where she herself was educated a generation before, memories return – memories of a culture of child sexual abuse presided over by a highly-regarded priest.  Audrey turns to barrister Ben Schroeder in search of justice for Emily and herself.  But there are powerful men involved, men determined to protect themselves at all costs.

Heart Attacks is California’s last secret spot – the premier mysto surf haunt, the stuff of rumour and legend. The rumours say you must cross Indian land to get there. They tell of hostile locals and shark-infested waters where waves in excess of thirty feet break a mile from shore. For down-and-out photographer Jack Fletcher, the chance to shoot these waves in the company of surfing legend Drew Harmon offers the promise of new beginnings. But Drew is not alone in the northern reaches of the state. His young wife, Kendra, lives there with him. Obsessed with the unsolved murder of a local girl, Kendra has embarked upon a quest of her own, a search for truth – however dark that truth may prove to be.  In this desolate wasteland the search for the perfect wave becomes a quest for survival, as events lead inevitably to their final, tragic climax.  The Dogs of Winter is by Kem Nunn.

January 2019

On leave from Canada's Community Policing department, Esa Khattak is traveling in Iran, reconnecting with his cultural heritage and seeking peace in the country’s beautiful mosques and gardens. But Khattak’s supposed break from work is cut short when he’s approached by a Canadian government agent in Iran, asking him to look into the death of renowned Canadian-Iranian filmmaker Zahra Sobhani. Zahra was murdered at Iran’s notorious Evin prison, where she’d been seeking the release of a well-known political prisoner. Khattak quickly finds himself embroiled in Iran’s tumultuous politics and under surveillance by the regime, but when the trail leads back to Zahra’s family in Canada, Khattak calls on his partner, Detective Rachel Getty, for help.  Rachel uncovers a conspiracy linked to the Shah of Iran and the decades-old murders of a group of Iran’s most famous dissidents. Historic letters, a connection to the Royal Ontario Museum, and a smuggling operation on the Caspian Sea are just some of the threads Rachel and Khattak begin unraveling, while the list of suspects stretches from Tehran to Toronto. But as Khattak gets caught up in the fate of Iran’s political prisoners, Rachel sees through to the heart of the matter: Zahra’s murder may not have been a political crime at all.  Among the Ruins is by Ausma Zehanat Khan.

February 2019

Jack Harper isn’t a bad man, but he’s stuck in a loveless marriage with a mediocre job just trying to keep sober. The only good thing in his life is his son. When an old college friend introduces him to a new extramarital dating website, he tentatively reaches out to find a distraction from his misery. But when he goes to meet up with his steamy online date, he quickly realises it was a dire choice.  Soon, Jack finds himself desperately trying to prove his innocence for crimes he did not commit, and the life he once had – unhappy as it was – is nothing but a dream. Now, he’s living his worst nightmare. . .  Too Far is by Jason Starr.

Fade to Grey is by John Lincoln.  Gethin Grey is the man you call when there’s nowhere else to turn. His Last Resort Legals team investigates miscarriages of justice. But Gethin is running out of options himself: his gambling is out of control, his marriage is falling apart and there’s no money left to pay the wages…  Izma M was sent down years ago for the brutal murder of a young woman. In jail he’s written a bestseller and become a cult hero, and now the charismatic fading-film-star Amelia Laverne wants to bankroll Gethin to prove Izma's innocence. For Gethin – low on luck and cash – the job is heaven sent. But is Izma M really as blameless as his fans believe?  This seemingly cold case is about to turn very hot indeed…

March 2019

The Conviction of Cora Burns is by Carolyn Kirby.  Birmingham, 1885.  Born in a gaol and raised in a workhouse, Cora Burns has always struggled to control the violence inside her.  Haunted by memories of a terrible crime, she seeks a new life working as a servant in the house of scientist Thomas Jerwood.  Here, Cora befriends a young girl, Violet, who seems to be the subject of a living experiment. But is Jerwood also secretly studying Cora…?

After Brooklyn mob widow Rena Ruggiero hits her eighty-year-old neighbour Enzio in the head with an ashtray when he makes an unwanted move on her, she retreats to the Bronx home of her estranged daughter, Adrienne, and her granddaughter, Lucia, only to be turned away at the door. Their neighbour, Lacey “Wolfie” Wolfstein, a one-time Golden Age porn star and retired Florida Suncoast grifter, takes Rena in and befriends her. When Lucia discovers that Adrienne is planning to hit the road with her ex-boyfriend, she figures Rena is her only way out of a life on the run with a mother she can’t stand. The stage is set for an explosion that will propel Rena, Wolfie, and Lucia down a strange path, each woman running from their demons, no matter what the cost. A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself is by William Boyle.

 

Iconic, tough-but-tender Boston PI Spenser delves into the black market art scene to investigate a decades-long unsolved crime of dangerous proportions.  The heist was legendary, still talked about twenty years after the priceless paintings disappeared from one of Boston's premier art museums. Most thought the art was lost forever, buried deep, sold off overseas, or, worse, destroyed as incriminating evidence. But when paint chips from the most valuable piece stolen, Gentlemen in Black by a Spanish master, arrives at the desk of a Boston journalist, the museum finds hope and enlists Spenser's help.  Soon the cold art case thrusts Spenser into the shady world of black market art dealers, aged Mafia bosses, and old vendettas. A five-million-dollar-reward by the museum's top benefactor, an aged, unlikable Boston socialite, sets Spenser and pals Vinnie Morris and Hawk onto a trail of hidden secrets, jailhouse confessions, murder, and double crosses.  Robert B Parker’s Old Black Magic is by Ace Atkins.

May 2019

Ungentlemanly Warfare is by Howard Linskey. A soldier and a spy, an officer but not quite a gentleman, Captain Harry Walsh is SOE’s secret weapon.  Loathed by his own commanding officer, haunted by the death of his closest friend and trapped in a loveless marriage, Harry Walsh is close to burn out when he is ordered to assassinate the man behind the ME 163 Komet, Hitler’s miracle jet fighter. If Walsh fails, there is no prospect of allied victory in Europe.  Harry Walsh is ruthless, unorthodox and ungentlemanly. He is about to wreak havoc.