Forthcoming Books from Simon and Schuster

 January 2024

The Search Party is by Hannah Richell. Five old friends. One glamping weekend. A storm that will change everything. Max and Annie Kingsley have left the London rat race to set up a glamping site in the wilds of Cornwall. They invite old university friends – TV star Dominic, doctor and new mum Kira, and free-spirited Jim and Suze – and their children for a trial weekend but the reunion quickly veers off-course. First, there’s The Incident around the campfire on the first night. The following afternoon, a storm quickly develops off the rugged North Coast. When one of their group goes missing, all hell breaks loose. And as the winds batter the bell-tents, emotions run high and tension mounts for all the characters. Who is lying in hospital, who has gone missing and who is the body on the beach below the cliffs . . .?

February 2024

Some stories demand to be told. They keep coming back, echoing down through the decades, until they find a teller . . . Dublin, 1943. Actress Julia Bridges disappears. The last sighting of her is entering the house of Gloria Fitzpatrick, who is later put on trial for the murder of another woman whose abortion she facilitated. But it’s never proved that Gloria had a hand in Julia’s death – and Julia’s body has never been found. Gloria, however, is sentenced to life in an institution for the criminally insane, until her apparent suicide a few years later, and the truth of what happened to Julia Bridges dies with her. Until . . . Dublin, 1968. Nicoletta Sarto is an ambitious junior reporter for the Irish Sentinel when the bones of Julia Bridges are discovered in the garden of a house on the outskirts of Dublin. Drawn into investigating the 25-year-old mystery of Julia’s disappearance and her link to the notorious Gloria Fitzpatrick, the story takes Nicoletta into the tangled underworld of the illegal abortion industry, stirring up long-buried secrets from her own past. Where They Lie is by Claire Coughlan. 

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? Is by Nicci French. She’s loved by all who meet her. But someone wants her gone . . . 1990. When beautiful and vivacious Charlotte Salter fails to turn up to her husband Alec’s 50th birthday party, her kids are worried, but Alec is not. As the days pass and there’s still no word from Charlie, her daughter, Etty, and her sons, Niall, Paul and Ollie, all struggle to come to terms with her disappearance. How can anyone just vanish without a trace? Left with no answers and in limbo, the Salter children try and go on with their lives, all the while thinking that their mother’s killer is potentially very close to home. Now After years away, Etty returns home to the small East Anglian village where she grew up to help move her father into a care home. Now in his eighties, Alec has dementia and often mistakes his daughter for her mother.  Etty is a changed woman from the trouble-free girl she was when Charlie was still around - all the Salter children have spent decades running and hiding from their mother’s disappearance. But when their childhood friends, Greg and Morgen Ackerley, decide to do a podcast about Charlotte’s disappearance, it seems like the town’s buried secrets – and the Salters’ – might finally come to light. After all this time, will they finally find out what really happened to Charlotte Salter?

March 2024

Deliver Me is by Malin Persson Giolito. Dogge is from affluent Rönnviken in Stockholm. Billy lives in the concrete towers of Våringe, a few hundred yards across a highway but a world apart. They met as six-year-olds at Rönnviken’s playground and have been unlikely best friends ever since. From the outside, Dogge looks privileged: he lives in a large home and there is plenty of money—at first. But his parents are addicts whose negligence becomes a form of abuse. Meanwhile, Billy’s family are poor first-generation immigrants unable to escape the no-go zone where they live. But their cramped apartment is nonetheless a bastion of love. When gangs tighten their grip on Våringe, a ruthless small-time boss seeks recruits and both Dogge and Billy become runners by the time they’re twelve. Fast cash, easy access to drugs, and the dream of gaining status draw them in. But when Billy wants to leave the gang and finds himself trapped, the boys must face the violent rules of the adult game they tried to play. When children commit horrible crimes, who bears the responsibility? With piercing prose and a breathless sense of urgency, Deliver Me is at once a poignant portrayal of the power of friendship and a shattering depiction of what happens when society fails to protect those that need it most. What does justice mean for these lost children and is the law capable of delivering it?

One detective driven by instinct, the other by logic. It will take both to find a killer who knows the true meaning of fear. When the body of a man is found crucified at the top of Mount Judd, AIDE Lock – the world’s first AI Detective – and DCS Kat Frank are thrust into the spotlight as they are given their first live case. But with the discovery of another man’s body – also crucified – it appears that their killer is only just getting started. With the police warning local men to be vigilant, the Future Policing Unit is thrust into a hostile media frenzy as they desperately search for connections between the victims. But time is running out for them to join the dots and prevent another death. For if Kat and Lock know anything, it’s that killers rarely stop – until they are made to. Leave No Trace is by Jo Callaghan. 

April 2024

One womens secret. Two sides to every story. Three deadly betrayals. Four potential suspects. Five bad deeds. Ellen Walsh has done something very, very bad. If only she knew what it was . . . Teacher, mother, wife, and all-around good citizen Ellen is juggling non-stop commitments, from raising a teen and two toddlers to job-hunting, to finally renovating her dream home, the Meadowhouse. Amidst the chaos, an ominous note arrives in the mail declaring: Soon or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences. Why would someone send her this note? Ellen has no clue. She's no angel - a white lie here and there, an occasional sharp tongue - but nothing to incur the wrath of an anonymous enemy. Everyone around Ellen - her husband, her teenage daughter, her sister, her best friend, her neighbours - can guess why, though.  They all know from bitter experience that while Ellen’s intentions are always good, this ultimately counts for very little when you’ve (unintentionally?) blown up someone’s life.  Could the five bad deeds that come to haunt Ellen explain why things have gone so horribly wrong? As she races to discover who’s set on destroying her life, Ellen receives more anonymous messages, each one more threatening than the last . . . and each hitting closer and closer to home and everything she cherishes. Five Bad Deeds is by Caz Frear. 

Hangman Island is by Kate Rhodes. On a remote island. When Jez Cardew’s boat is found drifting empty on the Atlantic Ocean, DI Ben Kitto and his fellow lifeboat crew members immediately fear the worst. After an extensive search yields no results, the team are forced to retreat to dry land as darkness sets in. The ocean is merciless. But Kitto can’t let it go. Why would Jez – an experienced sailor – get into difficulty when the sea has been calm for weeks? Unless his disappearance was no accident. But so are the people. The gruesome discovery of a hand washed ashore on the beach confirms his hunch. Because a medal is attached to the index finger, and it can only have been placed there by the killer. This strange clue is the only lead to an agenda as cold as the ocean itself. Kitto must work fast, before the small, isolated community closes ranks. And it’s only a matter of time before the murderer among them strikes again . . .

Two murders. Two decades apart. One chance to get justice. Hana Westerman has left Auckland and her career as a detective behind her. Settled in a quiet coastal town, all she wants is a fresh start. The discovery of a skeleton in the dunes near her house changes everything. The remains are those of a young Māori woman who went missing five years before, and Hana has a connection to the case. Twenty years ago, a schoolfriend of hers was found buried in the exact same spot. Her killer died in prison, but did the police get the wrong man? And if he was innocent, then why did he plead guilty? No longer part of the Criminal Investigation Branch, Hana turns to her ex-husband Jaye, a high-flying Detective Inspector, for help. But when he cuts her out of the investigation, she realises that she will have to find the answers she needs on her own. But in digging deeper, she sets herself on a potentially fatal collision course with a killer. Return to Blood is by Michael Bennett.

May 2024

Missing White Woman is by Kellye Garrett. Beautiful. Blonde. Missing. Murdered. It was supposed to be a romantic getaway to New York City. Breanna's new boyfriend, Ty, took care of everything – the train tickets, the sightseeing itinerary, the four-story Jersey City rowhouse with the gorgeous view of the Manhattan skyline.  But then Bree wakes up one morning and discovers recently missing dog-walker Janelle Beckett dead in the foyer. Ty is gone, vanished without a trace. A Black woman alone in a strange city, Bree is stranded and out of her depth. There’s only one person she can turn to: her ex-best friend, a lawyer with whom she shares a very complicated past. As the police and a social media mob close in, all looking for #Justice4Janelle, Bree realises that the only way she can stay out of jail is if she finds out what really happened that night. But when people see only what they want to see, can she uncover the truth hiding in plain sight? 

Red Sky Mourning is by Jack Carr. You think you know James Reece. Think again. A storm is on the horizon. America’s days are numbered. A Chinese submarine has gone rogue and is navigating towards the continental United States, putting its nuclear missiles within striking distance of the West Coast. A rising Silicon Valley tech mogul with unknown allegiances is at the forefront of a revolution in quantum computing and Artificial Intelligence. A politician controlled by a foreign power is a breath away from the Oval Office. Three seemingly disconnected events are on a collision course to ignite a power grab unlike anything the world has ever seen. The country’s only hope is a quantum computer that has gone dark, retreating to the deepest levels of the internet, learning at a rate inconceivable at her inception. But during her time in hiding, she has done more than learn. She has become a weapon, positioned to act as either the country’s greatest saviour or its worst enemy. She is known as ‘Alice’, and her only connection to the outside world is a former Navy SEAL sniper named James Reece who has left the violence of his past life behind. With the walls closing in, James Reece is on a race to dismantle a conspiracy that has forced America to her knees. 

Daniel Lohr, sensing that the Nazis are closing in on the Jews, leaves his dying father in Berlin and boards a ship to Shanghai. His passage is dependent upon him delivering a package to his shady uncle, his father’s brother, upon arrival. Daniel has no idea what the package contains. On board is Leah, also fleeing the Nazis. She and Daniel conduct a passionate but brief shipboard affair, but are separated as soon as the ship docks in Shanghai. Will he ever see her again? Daniel is immediately plunged into his uncle’s seductive and corrupt world, and becomes involved in the launch of a new nightclub, the biggest, best and most glitzy in town. When violence breaks out and lives are at risk, he finds himself drawn irrevocably into the terrifying underworld that is wartime Shanghai. Shanghai is by Joseph Kanon.

June 2024

Eye of the Beholder is by Emma Bamford. When Maddy Wight is suddenly tapped to ghostwrite the memoir of the world-renowned cosmetic surgeon Dr. Angela Reynolds, she thinks it might just be the thing to get her career back on track. She travels to Angela's remote estate in the Scottish highlands to hunker down and learn everything she can about her incredibly enigmatic new boss, and the kaleidoscopic beauty industry she leads. As Maddy learns more about her subject, she begins to notice strange gaps in the details of Angela's life. As the threads prove more difficult to pull, she begins to wonder if there just might be a bit more beneath the surface of the doctor and her business than she'd care to let on. Sharing the glass-walled house is Angela's business partner, Scott, whose mercurial moods change as quickly as the weather on the harsh landscape outside. When a series of strange occurances--from strange prints on the windows and moving statues, to a mysterious hiker that keeps sniffing around around--force them closer together, she finds herself drawn to Scott despite his Jekyll and Hyde persona. As Maddy completes her project and returns to London, she's thrilled when Angela invites her to attend the book launch. The elegant evening is suddenly shattered, however, when Angela receives the devestating news that Scott has leapt to his death from the cliffs just beyond the house. Which is why, months later and lost in a fog of grief, Maddy is completely blindsided when she looks up and sees him entering the tube station just in front of her. It can't be him, can it? After all, Scott is dead... or is he?

The Death Watcher is by Chris Carter. When a routine autopsy on what looked like a straightforward hit-and-run leads the LA Chief Medical Examiner, Dr Carolyn Hove, to discover some puzzling inconsistencies, she calls in Detective Robert Hunter of the LAPD Ultra Violent Crimes Unit. Not only did Dr Hove discover that the death wasn’t caused by a hit-and-run, but she also found indications that the victim had been severely tortured prior to death. What no one realises is that what Dr Hove has stumbled upon is just the tip of the iceberg and it will lead Hunter and his partner, Carlos Garcia, on the trail of a twisted and clever killer who hides in plain sight. A serial killer no one even knew existed – a killer who has always operated under the radar, expertly disguising every gruesome murder as an accidental death. But with no leads as to why the victim was targeted, the investigation comes to a standstill, until another body is discovered with an alternative cause of death.  What becomes clear is that this serial killer isn’t going to stop – unless Hunter and Garcia can get to him.

Murder is never just a walk in the park . . . When friends Louise and Irina find a dead body in the local park whilst walking their dogs, they are soon drawn into the mystery of who murdered local entrepreneur Phil Creasey. Phil used to be a member of their dog walking community – nicknamed The Pack – until the death of his cockapoo, and The Pack feel they owe it to Phil to investigate his death. With Louise and Irina leading the charge, they soon come up against local drug dealers, stolen cars and a disturbing incident of poisoned dog biscuits. Have The Pack bitten off more than they can chew, or can they follow their noses and solve the crime? The Dog Park Detectives is by Blake Mara. 

Also due out in June is Redemption by Jack Jordan. 

Books to Look Forward to From Simon & Schuster

 January 2022

Monster? Murderer? Child? Victim? Michelle Cameron's name is associated with the most abhorrent of crimes. A child who lured a younger child away from her parents and to her death, she is known as the black girl who murdered a little white girl; evil incarnate according to the media. As the book opens, she has done her time, and has been released as a young woman with a new identity to start her life again. When another shocking death occurs, Michelle is the first in the frame. Brought into the police station to answer questions around a suspicious death, it is only a matter of time until the press find out who she is now and where she lives and set about destroying her all over again. Natalie Tyler is the officer brought in to investigate the murder. A black detective constable, she has been ostracised from her family and often feels she is in the wrong job. But when she meets Michelle, she feels a complicated need to protect her, whatever she might have done. The Gosling Girl is by Jacqueline Roy.

February 2022

Tell Me Your Lies is by Kate Ruby. Lily Appleby will do anything to protect the people she loves. She's made ruthless choices to make sure their secrets stay buried, and she's not going to stop now. When her party-animal daughter, Rachel, spins out of control, Lily hires a renowned therapist and healer to help her. Amber is the skilled and intuitive confidante that Rachel desperately needs. But as Rachel falls increasingly under Amber's spell, she begins to turn against her parents, and Lily grows suspicious. Does Amber really have Rachel's best interests at heart or is there something darker going on? Only one thing is clear: Rachel is being lied to. Never quite knowing who to believe, her search for the truth will reveal her picture-perfect family as anything but flawless.

Berlin. 1963. The height of the Cold War. An early morning spy swap, not at Glienecke Bridge, the familiar setting for such exchanges, or at Checkpoint Charlie, where international visitors cross into the East, but at a more discreet border crossing, usually reserved for East German VIPs, next to the Charite hospital complex. The Communists are trading two American students caught helping people to escape over the wall and a lower level CIA operative. Not the stuff of headlines and, as planned, no journalists are here to write them. On the other side of the trade: Martin Keller, an American physicist who once indeed made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system. Keller's most critical possession: his American passport. Keller's most ardent desire: to see his ex-wife Sabine and their young son. The exchange is made with the formality characteristic of these swaps - equal paces to the concrete barrier, etc. - with each side sizing up the relative value of the other. Three for one? Small fry for a nuclear spy? But Martin has other questions: who asked for him? who negotiated the deal? Just the KGB bringing home one of its agents? Or, as he hopes, a more personal intervention? He has worked for the service long enough to know that nothing happens by chance. They want him for something. Not physics - his expertise is years out of date. Something else, which he cannot learn until he arrives in East Berlin, when suddenly the game is afoot. The Berlin Exchange is by Joseph Kanon. 

March 2022.

Reputation is by Sarah Vaughan. Reputation: it takes a lifetime to build and just one moment to destroy. Emma Webster is a respectable MP. Emma Webster is a devoted mother. Emma Webster is innocent of the murder of a tabloid journalist. Emma Webster is a liar. #Reputation: The story you tell about yourself. And the lies others choose to believe...

Lost something? Gabriela Rose knows how to get it back. As a recovery agent, she's hired by individuals and companies seeking lost treasures, stolen heirlooms, or missing assets of any kind. She's reliable, cool under pressure, and well trained in weapons of all types. But Gabriela's latest job isn't for some bamboozled billionaire, it's for her own family, whose home is going to be wiped off the map if they can't come up with a lot of money fast.  Inspired by an old family legend, Gabriela sets off for the jungles of Peru in pursuit of the Ring of Solomon and the lost treasure of Cortez. But this particular job comes with a huge problem attached to it - Gabriela's ex-husband, Rafer. It's Rafer who has the map that possibly points the way to the treasure, and he's not about to let Gabriela find it without him. Rafer is as relaxed as Gabriela is driven, and he has a lifetime's experience getting under his ex-wife's skin. But when they aren't bickering about old times the two make a formidable team, and it's going to take a team to defeat the vicious drug lord who has also been searching for the fabled ring. A drug lord who doesn't mind leaving a large body count behind him to get it. The Recovery Agent is by Janet Evanovich. 

April 2022

County Ghost is by Chris Petit. When a government minister is shot there are many suspects but few leads. Days before the attempted assassination, Charlotte Waites, a Home Office analyst, dismissed a crucial intel flag and now has to account for her actions. Dragged into a web of intrigue that will draw in everybody from the prime minister to her ailing father, she must try to get the bottom of the mystery while confronting dark secrets from her family's past.

May 2022

A body is discovered in a frozen lake, its wrists bound. When it is linked to a case from 2002, Tyler, DC Rabbani and the CCRU team are called in. But fresh blood is soon discovered at the scene and the disturbing events from all those years ago are dragged sharply into the present . . . Cold Reckoning is by Russ Thomas.

Do No Harm is by Jack Jordan. My child has been taken. And I've been given a choice... Kill a patient on the operating table. Or never see my son again. The man lies on the table in front of me. As a surgeon, it's my job to save him. As a mother, I know I must kill him. You might think that I'm a monster. But there really is only one choice. I must get away with murder. Or I will never see my son again. I've saved many lives. Would you trust me with yours?

Storm Rising is by Chris Hauty. Ex-White House intern Hayley Chill is in training as an MMA fighter, trying to leave her past behind her. But hard as she may try to escape it, the past finds her. Under the floorboards of her father's house, she uncovers a ciphered document titled 'The Storm'. More Clues lead her into the Deeper State. What begins as incidental evidence of a subculture of white supremacy within the US military emerges as a much more extensive and dire threat. Hayley's lonely and often violent investigative pursuit travels up a mysterious cabal's chain of command, leading to the revelation of a fully-realized conspiracy to break off several southern states from the US, forming a new country and one founded on white nationalist ideals. It is up to Hayley Chill alone to stop a second civil war before it starts, while at the same time revealing the ultimate truth about her own father's role in this harrowing chapter of American history.

A woman boards a plan in Burkina Faso having just completed a targeted assassination for the state of Israel. Two minutes after takeoff her plane is blown out of the sky. 6000 miles to the east, James Reece watches the names and pictures of the victims cross cable news. One face triggers a distant memory of a Mossad operative attached to the CIA years earlier in Iraq, a woman with ties to the intelligence services of two nations, a woman Reece thought he would never see again... In a global pursuit spanning four continents, James Reece will enlist the help of friends new and old to track down her killer and walk right into a trap set by a master sniper, a sniper who has enlisted help of his own... In The Blood is by Jack Carr.

June 2022

The Terminal List is by Jack Carr. On his last combat deployment, Lieutenant Commander James Reece's entire team was killed in a catastrophic ambush. But when those dearest to him are murdered on the day of his homecoming, Reece discovers that this was not an act of war by a foreign enemy but a conspiracy that runs to the highest levels of government. Now, with no family and free from the military's command structure, Reece applies the lessons that he's learned in over a decade of constant warfare toward avenging the deaths of his family and teammates. With breathless pacing and relentless suspense, Reece ruthlessly targets his enemies in the upper echelons of power without regard for the laws of combat or the rule of law.

Books to Look Forward to from Simon & Schuster

September 2019

It is said that everyone over a certain age can remember distinctly what they were doing when they heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated, or that Princess Diana had been killed in a Paris car crash, but I, for one, could recall all too clearly where I was standing when a policeman told me that my wife had been murdered. Bill Russell is acting as a volunteer steward at Warwick races when he confronts his worst nightmare - the violent death of his much-loved wife. But worse is to come when he is accused of killing her and hounded mercilessly by the media. His life begins to unravel completely as he loses his job and his home. Even his best friends turn against him, believing him guilty of the heinous crime in spite of the lack of compelling evidence.  Bill sets out to clear his name but finds that proving one's innocence is not easy - one has to find the true culprit, and Bill believes he knows whom it is. But can he prove it before he becomes another victim of the murderer.  Guilty Not Guilty is by Felix Francis.

October 2019

The Lying 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 whom does she really know? And whom can she trust?  A liar. A cheat. A threat. Neve Connolly is all these things.

In the next Mitch Rapp thriller, a bioterrorist threat threatens an America already weakened by internal divisions.  The head of ISIS, Sayid Halabi, survived Mitch Rapp's attack on him, but while he convalesced, he plotted. Once healed, Halabi kidnaps a brilliant Yemeni microbiologist and forces him to produce anthrax. ISIS releases videos of his progress and uses them to stir up hysteria in the States in the midst of an extremely divisive presidential election.  ISIS contracts with a Mexican drug cartel to smuggle the anthrax into the US, but the anthrax is really just a feint. Unknown to anyone but Halabi's team, he also kidnapped people infected with the virus with the plan to use the drug cartels' human trafficking capability to smuggle these infected people into the US. If he succeeds, it would trigger a pandemic that would kill untold millions. Mitch and Irene Kennedy are, of course, on the case. But their ability to act is weakened by the fact that the man who is likely to be the next president despises them. When the DEA stumbles upon a shipment of anthrax coming into California, though, the current president has no choice but to give Mitch Carte blanche to go after both the smugglers and ISIS.  Mitch must infiltrate the drug cartel that has partnered with Halabi in a black ops mission compromised by political manoeuvres and threatened by an unprecedented bioterrorism attack.  Lethal Agent is by Vince Flynn and Kyle Mills

Virgil Flowers will have to watch his back--and his mouth--as he investigates a college culture war turned deadly in Bloody Genius by John Sandsford.  At the local state university, two feuding departments have faced off on the battleground of PC culture. Each carries their views to extremes that may seem absurd, but highly educated people of sound mind and good intentions can reasonably disagree, right?   Then someone winds up dead, and Virgil Flowers is brought in to investigate . . . and he soon comes to realise he's dealing with people who, on this one particular issue, are functionally crazy. Among this group of wildly impassioned, diametrically opposed zealots lurks a killer, and it will be up to Virgil to sort the murderer from the mere maniacs.

A man, wearing his daughter's wedding ring, is found in front of his fireplace, a bullet hole in his chest. A funeral director searches desperately for his brother - a man who doesn't seem to be missed. A woman struggles to protect her children and her life as her husband turns ever more dangerous.  Fredrika Bergman and Alex Recht believe that these three cases are totally unrelated... until they uncover a connection between these three people that changes everything. Soon Bergman and Recht are pulled into an escalating series of events where old sins return to haunt all involved. And someone is leaving them taunting messages... but who, and why?  Flood is by Kristina Ohlsson. 

November 2019

Seventeen years after the fall of the Third Reich, Max Weill has never forgotten the atrocities he saw as a prisoner at Auschwitz-nor the face of Dr Otto Schramm, a camp doctor who worked with Mengele on appalling experiments and who sent Max's family to the gas chambers. As the war came to a close, Schramm was one of the many high-ranking former-Nazi officers who managed to escape Germany for new lives in South America. There, leaders like Argentina's Juan Peron gave them safe harbour and new identities.  With his life nearing its end, Max asks his nephew Aaron Wiley-an American CIA desk analyst-to complete the task Max never could: to track down Otto in Argentina, capture him and bring him back to Germany to stand trial.  Unable to distinguish allies from enemies, Aaron will ultimately have to discover not only Otto, but the boundaries of his own personal morality, how far he is prepared to go to render justice. Accomplice is by Joseph Kanon.

The Siberian Dilemma is by Martin Cruz Smith.  Journalist Tatiana Petrovna has disappeared. Arkady Renko, iconic Moscow investigator and Tatiana's on-off lover, hasn't seen her since she left on a case over a month ago. No one else thinks Renko should be worried - Tatiana is known to disappear during deep assignments - but he knows her enemies all too well and the criminal lengths they will go to keep her quiet. Given the opportunity to interrogate a suspected assassin in Irkutsk, Renko embarks on a dangerous journey to Siberia to find Tatiana and bring her back. Renko finds Siberia to be a land of shamans and brutally cold nights, oligarchs wealthy on northern oil and sea monsters that are said to prowl the deepest lake in the world. With these forces at work against him, Renko will need all his wits about him to get Tatiana out alive.

Kiss the Girls and Makes Them Cry is by Mary Higgins Clark.  When talented journalist Penelope "Casey" Harrison starts to research a piece about the #MeToo movement that includes an incident in her own life that she has been trying to put out of her mind for years, she does not realise that the young man who drugged and assaulted her at a fraternity house party in college is now a wealthy, powerful industrialist on the eve of a merger which will make him a billionaire-and who will do anything, even murder, to cover his tracks.

December 2019

Mister Wolf is by Chris Petit.  Germany, 1944. On the 10th anniversary of the Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler and his private secretary Bormann return for a dinner to the lakeside resort hotel where Hitler arrested his old friend Ro hm. Hitler's erratic behaviour is losing him support in the Nazi party; Bormann is the puppet master. They both believe an assassination attempt on the Fuhrer to be imminent.  Hitler is remembering his niece, Geli; she was his closest confidante until her `suicide' in 1931. Rumours of a scandalous affair still swirl; as well as claims of obscene drawings being passed around Munich, alleged to be of Geli by Hitler - political dynamite in the wrong hands . . . But as Hitler announces he wants to retrieve the pictures from the safe, Bormann finds they aren't there. Their whereabouts become a matter of urgency. As Bormann uses whatever means necessary to keep the Fuhrer in power, August Schlegel, now employed by the Gestapo, is still trying to piece together his own family's role in the Nazi party. His curiosity is piqued by an item of interest in an auction that relates to his missing father. But curiosity can be a very dangerous thing.   As a shift in power looms, and losing the war seems a genuine possibility, panic begins to set in; will anyone make it out of Berlin alive?

Six friends trapped by one dark secret.  It was supposed to be our last weekend away as friends, before marriage and respectability beckoned. But what happened that Saturday changed everything.  In the middle of the night, someone died. The six of us promised each other we would not tell anyone about the body we buried. But now the pact has been broken. And the killing has started again …  Who knows what we did? And what price will we pay? The Six is by Luca Veste.

Books to Look Forward to From Simon & Schuster

January 2017

The Vanishing is by Sophia Tobin.  On top of the Yorkshire Moors, in an isolated spot carved out of a barren landscape, lies White Windows, a house of shadows and secrets. Here lives Marcus Twentyman, a hard-drinking but sensitive man, and his sister, the brisk widow, Hester. When runaway Annaleigh first meets the Twentymans, their offer of employment and lodgings seems a blessing. Only later does she discover the truth. But by then she is already in the middle of a web of darkness and intrigue, where murder seems the only possible means of escape...

 

You can run! Sam Wylde is a Close Protection Officer to the rich and powerful. In a world dominated by men, being a woman has been an advantage. And she is the best in the business at what she does. You can hide! She takes a job protecting the daughter of the Sharifs - Pakistani textile tycoons - but she realises that there is more to their organisation than meets the eye and suddenly she finds herself in danger. But only one person will keep you safe from harm! Now she is trapped underground, with no light, no signal and no escape. Dangerous men are coming to hurt her, and the young charge she is meant to be protecting. With time running out, can she channel everything she knows to keep them safe from harm...?  Safe From Harm is by R J Bailey.

Deep Blue is by Alan Judd. During a time of political disruption and rising anti-nuclear sentiment, MI5 discovers that an extremist fringe group, Action Against Austerity, appears to have links to an established political party while planning sabotage using something or someone called Deep Blue. Banned from investigating British political parties, the head of MI5 seeks advice from Charles Thoroughgood, his opposite number in MI6. Agreeing to help unofficially with the case, Charles must delve deep into his own past, to an unresolved Cold War case linked to his private life. Using the past as key to the present, he soon finds himself in a race against time to prevent a plot which is politically nuclear ...

February 2017

Kill the Father is by Sandrone Dazieri. When a woman is beheaded in a park outside Rome and her six-year-old son goes missing, the police unit assigned to the case sees an easy solution: they arrest the woman's husband and await his confession. But the Chief of Rome's Major Crimes unit doubts things are so simple. Secretly, he lures to the case two of Italy's top analytical minds: Deputy Captain Colomba Caselli, a fierce, warrior-like detective still reeling from having survived a bloody catastrophe, and Dante Torre, a man who spent his childhood trapped inside a concrete silo. Fed through the gloved hand of a masked kidnapper who called himself 'The Father', Dante emerged from his ordeal with crippling claustrophobia but, also, with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and hyper-observant capacities. All evidence suggests that 'The Father' is back and active after being dormant for decades. Indeed, he has left tell-tale signs that signal he's looking forward to a reunion with Dante. But when Columba and Dante begin following the ever-more-bizarre trail of clues, they grasp that what's really going on is darker than they ever imagined.

Francesca was widowed a year ago. Since then she has focused on her children, trying to soothe their grief as well as her own. Her husband and father never quite saw eye to eye but no one could have cared more for her in the past year than her close-knit family. Finally, she feels she might be ready to move on with life. Until she is contacted out of the blue by someone who says he must get information to her. That her husband's death wasn't what it seemed. And that her family know more than they say ...Who can Francesca trust? And what will happen to her if she puts her faith in the wrong person?  The Black Sheep is by Sophie McKenzie.

The Caller is by Chris Carter. After a tough week, Tanya Kaitlin is looking forward to a relaxing night in, but as she steps out of her shower, she hears her phone ring. The video call request comes from her best friend, Karen Ward. Tanya takes the call and the nightmare begins. Karen is gagged and bound to a chair in her own living room. If Tanya disconnects from the call, if she looks away from the camera, he will come after her next, the deep, raspy, demonic voice at the other end of the line promises her. As Hunter and Garcia investigate the threats, they are thrown into a rollercoaster of evil, chasing a predator who scouts the streets and social media networks for victims, taunting them with secret messages and feeding on their fear.

March 2017

The Last Night at Tremore Beach is by Mikel Santiago.  He'd seen the danger coming. And now it's here...When Peter Harper, a gifted musician whose career and personal life are in trouble, comes to northwest Ireland and rents a remote cottage on beautiful, windswept Tremore Beach, he thinks he has found a refuge, a tranquil place in a time of crisis. His only neighbours for miles around are a retired American couple, Leo and Marie Kogan, who sense his difficulties and take him under their wing. But there's something strange about the pair that he can't quite figure out. One night during one of the dramatic storms that pummel the coast, Peter is struck by lightning. Though he survives, he begins to experience a series of terrifying, lucid and bloody nightmares that frame him, the Kogans and his visiting children in mortal danger. The Harper family legend of second sight suddenly takes on a sinister twist. What if his horrifying visions came true, could tonight be his last...?

April 2017

From the author David Grann comes Killers of the Flower Moon: An American Crime and the birth of the FBI, a true-life murder story which became one of the newly-created FBI's first major homicide investigations. In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And this was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll climbed, the FBI took up the case. It was one of the organisation's first major homicide investigations and the bureau badly bungled it. In desperation, its young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. Together with the Osage he and his undercover team began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.

Innocent or guilty Her time is running out ...The air is hazy and grey with gunpowder smoke. Everyone has been shot but me. I haven't got so much as a bruise ...Maja Norberg has spent nine months in jail awaiting trial for a shooting in her school. Among those killed were her boyfriend and her best friend. Now the time has come for her to enter the courtroom ...But is Maja a demonised victim - or cold-blooded killer?  Quicksand is by Malin Persson Giolito.

All by Myself Alone is by Mary Higgins Clark. Fleeing a disastrous and humiliating arrest of her husband-to-be on the eve of their wedding, Celia Kilbride, a gems and jewellery expert, hopes to escape from public attention by lecturing on a brand-new cruise ship - the Queen Charlotte. On board she meets eighty-six-year-old Lady Emily Haywood, "Lady Em," as she is known throughout the world. Immensely wealthy, Lady Em is the owner of a priceless emerald necklace that she intends to leave to the Smithsonian after the cruise. Three days out to sea Lady Em is found dead - and the necklace is missing. The list of suspects is large and growing. Celia sets out to find the killer, not realising that she has put herself in mortal danger before the ship reaches its final destination...

May 2017

'I wouldn't scream if I were you. Unless you want the whole world to learn about your husband and his mistress.' Agatha Christie, in London to visit her literary agent, boards a train, preoccupied and flustered in the knowledge that her husband Archie is having an affair. She feels a light touch on her back, causing her to lose her balance, then a sense of someone pulling her to safety from the rush of the incoming train. So begins a terrifying sequence of events. Her rescuer is no guardian angel; rather, he is a blackmailer of the most insidious, manipulative kind. Agatha must use every ounce of her cleverness and resourcefulness to thwart an adversary determined to exploit her genius for murder to kill on his behalf. A Talent for Murder is by Andrew Wilson.

June 2017

Defectors is by Joseph Kanon.  Moscow, 1961. Stalin has been dead for eight years. With the

launch of Sputnik, the Soviet Union's international prestige is at an all-time high. Former CIA agent Francis 'Frank' Weeks, the most notorious of the defectors to the Soviet Union, is about to publish his memoirs, and what he reveals is reportedly going to send shock waves through the West. Weeks' defection in the early 50s shook Washington to its core - his betrayal rippled through the State Department, prompting frantic searches for moles and forcing the resignation of Simon, Frank's brother and best friend. So when a Soviet agency approaches Simon, now a publisher in New York City, with a controversial proposition to publish his brother's memoirs, he finds the offer irresistible since it will finally give him the chance to learn why his brother chose to betray his country. But what he discovers in Moscow is far more than he ever imagined ...

How do you vindicate a deceased, self-proclaimed killer? A criminal lawyer in Stockholm, Martin Benner sees himself as a man who has it all. Then Bobby T barges into his office one day, demanding his help. Bobby says he's the brother of Sara Tell, a young woman dubbed 'Sara Texas' by the tabloids after she confessed to five brutal murders some time back - three in Sweden, and two in Texas. Six months ago, she shocked everyone when she escaped from pre-trial custody and leapt off a bridge to her death. But Bobby says she was innocent. He needs Martin's help to clear her name and to find Sara's son, Mio, who he says disappeared around the time of her death. As Martin and Lucy, the partner in his firm, delve deeper into the case, their pursuit of the truth takes them across the ocean to Texas, where the pieces of the puzzle slowly fall into place. But before Martin can continue his investigation, he receives some devastating news that turns his world upside down...  Buried Lies is by Kristina Ohlsson.

Books to look forward to from Simon & Schuster

London, 1811. The twisting streets of riverside Wapping hold many an untold sin. Bounded by the Ratcliffe Highway to the north and the modern wonders of the Dock to the south, shameful secrets are largely hidden by the noise and glory of Trade. But two families have fallen victim to foul murder, and a terrified populace calls for justice. John Harriott, magistrate of the new Thames River Police Office, must deliver revenge up to them and his only hope of doing so is Charles Horton, Harriot's senior officer. Harriott only recently came up with a word to describe what it is that Horton does. It is detection. Plymouth, 1564. Young Billy Ablass arrives from Oxford armed only with a Letter of Introduction to Captain John Hawkyns, and the burning desire of all young men; the getting and keeping of money. For Hawkyns is about to set sail in a ship owned by Queen Elizabeth herself, and Billy sees the promise of a better life with a crew intent on gain and glory. The kidnap and sale of hundreds of human beings is not the only cursed event to occur on England's first officially-sanctioned slaving voyage. On a sun-blasted islet in the Florida Cays, Billy too is to be enslaved for the rest of his accursed days. Based on the real-life story of the gruesome Ratcliffe Highway murders, The English Monster takes us on a voyage across centuries, through the Age of Discovery, and throws us up, part of the human jetsam, onto the streets of Regency Wapping, policed only by Officer Horton. The English Monster is based on the Ratcliffe Highway murders, and is by Lloyd Shepherd. It is due to be published in March 2012.

The Chamber is the pulse-pounding new thriller from the Executive Producer of 24. When Gideon Davis, ex-international peacemaker, is approached by a man claiming to have information about an impending terrorist attack, even though his career with the government is over, something makes him sit up and listen. Calling on Nancy Clement, his old FBI colleague, Gideon decides to hand the evidence over to new boss, Ray Dahlgren. But when Dahlgren refuses to take Gideon seriously, he is left with only one option – to launch his own investigation. Enlisting the help of his brother, Tillman, to infiltrate a white supremacist group that may be involved, Gideon is thrown into the thick of a revenge plot designed not only to overthrow the government but to bring an end to democracy itself. But when things get messy, Gideon and Tillman will need Nancy’s help if they are to slot the final piece of the puzzle into place and prevent disaster. The Chamber is by Howard Gordon and is due to be published in January 2012.

A neutral capital straddling Europe and Asia, Istanbul has spent the war as a magnet for refugees and spies. Even American businessman Leon Bauer has been drawn into this shadow world, doing undercover odd jobs and courier runs for the Allied war effort. Now as the espionage community begins to pack up and an apprehensive city prepares for the grim realities of post-war life, he is given one more assignment, a routine job that goes fatally wrong, plunging him into a tangle of intrigue and moral confusion. Played out against the bazaars and mosques and faded mansions of this knowing, ancient Ottoman city, Leon’s attempt to save one life leads to a desperate manhunt and a maze of shifting loyalties that threatens his own. The new but untitled novel is by Joseph Kanon and is due to be published in May 2012

The Inquisitor is the debut novel by Mark Allen Smith and is due to be published in March 2012. Meet Geiger, a professional torturer whose methods know no bounds. He is about to embark on his most challenging subject yet...himself. Geiger’s business is extracting information. A meticulous torturer, his methods range from the brutal to the psychologically complex, and he will stop at nothing to get the job done. His clients are referred to him from international corporations, government agencies and organised crime; his skills are in worldwide demand. Geiger only has one rule: that he will never work on a child. So when a client presents Geiger with a twelve-year-old boy, his instinct is to walk away. But the alternative – the unknown horror that might await the boy elsewhere – is too awful for him to contemplate. Geiger’s history is a blank page, even to himself. In accepting this assignment in an attempt to save the boy, he will discover that history, no matter how torturous that proves to be.

Good men have stepped over the line. Now they need to cover up their actions, and for that they need to bury Harry Jones... Fifty young Americans are on their way back from a day’s outing to Brussels. But their rapture at returning home is cut short when a bomb blows their plane from the skies above Kent, killing them all. The savage media reaction to the atrocity will sweep away a powerless Prime Minister and his followers at the next election. In nothing less than a coup, Britain is about to be taken over – unless Harry Jones can stop it. But Harry, no longer an MP, finds his path strewn with obstacles. Caught in a web of betrayal by his closest friends, is there anyone who will believe what Harry has to say? The Sentimental Traitor is by Michael Dobbs and is due to be published in February 2012.

The Moscow Option is by Jeremy Duns and is due to be published in February 2012. Double agent Paul Dark must confront his past to save himself and the world. October 1969. Moscow. A terrible mistake twenty- four years ago led to Paul Dark being recruited into Soviet intelligence, and he has paid a heavy price for it. Now locked up in a cell, Dark

has nothing for company but the ghosts of his past when he is woken in the early hours and taken to a secret location. There, he discovers that the Soviets believe they are about to face a nuclear attack by the West – and are planning to strike first as a result. Dark realizes at once that the truth can be found in the final days of the Second World War, and the final mission he undertook as a loyal British agent. Now the fate of the world rests on his shoulders: a traitor long past his best, who is soon the subject of a massive man-hunt. Dark needs to make it to a small Baltic island before it’s too late – and the clock is ticking.

From a prison cell, in which he has been held on suspicion of breaking the Official Secrets Act, Charles Thoroughgood awaits not only his bail, but also the reappearance of the woman whom all the major roads in his life have led back to. After his years in the army and then with MI6, Charles has begun a new chapter in his life with the Secret Intelligence Agency, shadowing the movements of a suspected double agent. Charles knows that he has nothing to hide, and as he casts his mind over the course of recent events, he begins to suspect a more sinister motivation, both personally and politically, behind his incarceration. Uncommon Enemy is by Alan Judd and is due to be published in February 2012.

Snakes & Ladders is by Sean Slater who is in real life Vancover Police Officer Sean Sommerville. When Homicide Detective Jacob Striker discovers that a string of recent suicides might actually be covered-up murders, his investigation quickly leads him to the Riverglen Mental Health Facility. The victims were all patients from the support group overseen by Dr Erich Ostermann. And when Striker discovers Larisa Logan – a friend of his, and a patient of Ostermann – has gone missing, his investigation goes into overdrive. The evidence tells him one very important fact: that Larisa knows something about the murders. Even worse, she is trapped. She can’t return to the hospital because her own life is in danger, her only chance of living is to escape. Racing against time and a chilling adversary, Striker searches desperately for Larisa. It is a dangerous game they play where one move can catapult you to a place of dominance and one wrong step can leave you sliding to your doom. It is a game of psychopaths. It is Snakes & Ladders. Snakes & Ladders will be published in March 2012.

The Elixir is by Dean Crawford and is due to be published in May 2012. While carrying out an autopsy on a body recently brought into a morgue in Santa Fe, county coroner Alexis Cruz makes a surprising discovery. Lodged in the dead man's femur is a musket ball which, carbon dating reveals, was fired some 200 years earlier in the American Civil War. But before she can notify the authorities, Alexis disappears. The DIA call in Ethan Warner and his partner, Nicola Lopez, to find the missing coroner. But the closer they come to unlocking the terrifying truth, the nearer they unknowingly bring a warped and dangerous individual to achieving a catastrophic goal.

It’s 1327 and England is in turmoil. Edward II has been removed from the throne and his son installed in his place. Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, tasked with guarding Edward II, has failed and now rides to Exeter to inform the sheriff of the old king’s escape. In Exeter, the sheriff has problems of his own. Overnight, the body of a young maid has been discovered, lying bloodied and abandoned in a dirty alleyway. The city’s gates had been shut against the lawlessness outside, so the perpetrator must still lie within the sanctuary of the town. When Baldwin de Furnshill arrives, he is tasked with uncovering the truth behind this gruesome murder. But, in a city where every man hides a secret, his task will be far from easy. City of Fiends is by Michael Jecks and is due to be published in June 2012.

The Last Good Man is by Danish duo Anders Rønnow Klarlund and Jakob Weinreich who are jointly known as AJ Kasinski. According to Jewish scripture, there are thirty-six

righteous people on earth. Without them, humanity would perish. In Beijing, a monk collapses in his chamber. A fiery mark has spread across his back and down his spine. In Mumbai, a man who served the poor dies suddenly. Similar deaths are reported around the world – the victims all humanitarians, all bearing the same death mark. In Copenhagen, it falls to veteran detective Niels Bentzon to investigate. He is told to find eight ‘good people’ of Denmark and warn them. But Bentzon is trained to see the worst in people and he becomes increasingly skeptical as he realizes that not everyone perceived to be good is truly good. It is only when Niels meets Hannah that the pair begin to piece together the puzzle. There have been thirty-four deaths and there are two more to come. According to the pattern, Bentzon and Hannah can predict the time and place of the final two. The murders will occur in Venice and Copenhagen. And the time is now. The Last Good Man is due to be published in March 20.

Tideline is by Penny Hancock and is due to be published in January 2012. One winter's afternoon, voice coach Sonia opens the door of her beautiful riverside home to fifteen-year-old Jez, the nephew of a family friend. He's come to borrow some music. Sonia invites him in and soon decides that she isn't going to let him leave. As Sonia's desire to keep Jez hidden and protected from the outside world becomes all the more overpowering, she is haunted by memories of an intense teenage relationship, which gradually reveal a terrifying truth. The River House, Sonia's home since childhood, holds secrets within its walls. And outside, on the shores of the Thames, new ones are coming in on the tide...

Kill Shot is by Vince Flynn and is due to be published in February 2012. For months, Mitch Rapp has been steadily working his way through a list of the men responsible for the slaughter of 270 civilians including his own girlfriend in the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing - bullet by bullet. His next target - a Libyan diplomat - should be easy. Prone to drink and currently in Paris without a bodyguard, Rapp quickly tracks the man down and sends a bullet into his skull while he's sleeping. But in the split second it takes the bullet to leave the silenced pistol, everything changes. The door to the hotel room is kicked open and gunfire erupts all around Rapp. When the news breaks that Libya's Oil Minister has been killed along with three innocent civilians and four unidentified men, the French authorities are certain that the gunman is wounded and still on the loose in Paris. As the finger-pointing begins, Rapp's handlers have only one choice - deny any responsibility for the incident and race to do damage control. Rapp has become a liability, and he must not be taken alive by the French authorities. But alone in Paris, on the run from the authorities and from his own employers, Mitch Rapp must prepare to fight for his life.

For generations the Freyls have ruled Springfield, Illinois, capital of a state of great lakes and rivers. Now convicted killer David Marion threatens their invincibility, and he threatens it from within their own ranks. Water: it’s blue gold, and the price on world markets is soaring. When Springfield gets a new mayor, it finds its supply under threat, not only from corporations out for the money but from a disease that appears from nowhere, that nobody can identify and nobody can treat. None of this interests David Marion until his own past surfaces and he finds himself caught between multinational leviathans at war over America’s heartland. The Blue Death is by Joan Brady and is due to be published in April 2012.

34-year-old psychotherapist Siri Bergman is terrified of the dark. Living alone in an isolated area east of Stockholm, she has tried hard to convince herself that she has moved on since her husband, Stefan, died in a diving accident several years ago. But when she goes to bed, Siri leaves all the lights on and she can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching her through the windows at night. So when one night she wakes up to find that the house is pitch black, and the torch she keeps by her bed for back up is not where she thought she’d left it, it seems that Siri’s worst fears have been realized. And when the lifeless body of Sara Matteus, one of her patients, is found floating in the water near Siri’s house, events quickly spiral. It is clear that Siri is in great danger, and she is thrown headlong into the centre of a murder investigation, which will put each of her closest friends under the spotlight and force her to re-live her troubled past. Some Kind of Peace is by sisters Camilla Grebe & Åsa Träff, one is a writer and the other a psychologist. It is due to be published in May 2012.

The Medusa Society is an all-female secret society with a chilling mission. Intent on establishing a new world order, they will set out to destroy New York City and bring down the dollar. Nothing will stand in their way. The new but untitled novel is by Philip Carter and is due to be published in May 2012.

Cold as the Grave is by CWA New Blood Dagger shortlisted author Craig Robertson. November 1992. Scotland is in the grip of its coldest winter in 30 years and Lake Menteith in the Trossachs is frozen over. A young man and woman walk across the ice to the historic island of Inchmahome which lies in the middle of the lake. Only the man comes back. Four months later, as staff prepare the ruined abbey for summer visitors, they discover the remains of the body of a girl, her skull violently crushed. Her identity is unknown. Twenty years on, retired detective Alan Narey is still troubled by the unsolved crime. Determined to relieve her father’s torment, DS Rachel Narey, now returns to Lake Menteith and unofficially ‘reopens’ the cold case. Rachel discovers that the one man her father had instinctively suspected of being the killer has died. The police are not prepared to admit that there is anything more to the accident and Rachel must investigate the link without their help. But when she prepares a dangerous gambit, using a covert email operation to uncover the killer's identity, she puts herself in more danger than she could ever have imagined. Cold as the Grave is due to be published in June 2012.