Forthcoming Crime Books From Atlantic Books

 February 2023

Bright and Deadly Things is by Lexie Elliott. A retreat doesn't always mean safety... Following the death of her husband, Emily is happy to find herself surrounded by friends and fellow Oxford peers at the rustic Chalet des Anglais in the French Alps. With no electricity, running water, or access by car, surely this trip will offer her the time and space she needs to heal. But before she makes it to the airport, Emily interrupts a break-in at her home, and on the first night at the chalet, she discovers an inappropriate sexual liaison between an undergrad and a colleague. When the student suddenly disappears, and Emily sees her deceased husband's number in her call history, she realizes she had better figure out who she can trust - or the next disappearance may be her own...

March 2023

The Bandit Queens is by Parini Shroff. For Geeta, life as a widow is more peaceful than life as a wife... Until the other women in her village decide they want to be widows, too. Geeta is believed to have killed her vanished husband - a rumour she hasn't bothered trying to correct, because a reputation like that can keep a single woman safe in rural India. But when she's approached for help in ridding another wife of her abusive drunk of a husband, her reluctant agreement sets in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of all the women in the village....

April 2023

Cleeve is not for everyone... When Eve's husband is appointed housemaster at his old boarding school, Cleeve College, she gives up her life in London to join him. But the isolation and loss of autonomy threaten both her happiness and her marriage. The arrival of Fen, an enigmatic artist and wife of the new Classics teacher, is a welcome distraction. Fen doesn't play by the rules, and she and Eve enter into a game of escalating dares, disrupting the delicate balance of school life. Then, the morning after Hazard Night, a tradition that allows the students to run wild and play pranks for one day, a body is found. Someone has been murdered. And it seems everyone has something to hide... Hazard Night is by Laura Vaughan.

The Sinner's Mark is by S.W. Perry. Treason, heresy and revolt in Queen Elizabeth's England . . . The year is 1600. With a dying queen on the throne, war raging on the high seas and famine on the rise, England is on the brink of chaos. And in London's dark alleyways, a conspiracy is brewing. In the court's desperate bid to silence it, an innocent man is found guilty - the father of Nicholas Shelby, physician and spy. As Nicholas races against time to save his father, he and his wife Bianca are drawn into the centre of a treacherous plot against the queen. When one of Shakespeare's boy actors goes missing, and Bianca discovers a disturbing painting that could be a clue, she embarks on her own investigation. Meanwhile, as Nicholas comes closer to unveiling the real conspirator, the men who wish to silence him are multiplying. When he stumbles on a plan to overthrow the state and replace it with a terrifying new order, he may be forced to make a decision between his country and his heart . . 

May 2023

Claire and Sophie aren't your typical murder investigators . . . Claire Hendricks is a hapless 30-something true crime fan working as a freelance medium. When she is Invited to an old university friend's country pile to provide entertainment for a family party, her best friend Sophie tags along. In fact, Sophie rarely leaves Claire's side, because she's been haunting her ever since she was murdered at the age of 17. When the pair arrive at The Cloisters it's clear this family is hiding more than just the good china, as Claire realizes someone has recently met an untimely end at the house. Teaming up with the least unbearable members of the Wellington-Forge family - depressive ex-cop Basher and teenage reactionary Alex - Claire and Sophie determine to figure out not just whodunnit, but who they killed, why and when. Together they must race against incompetence to find the murderer before the murderer finds them, in this funny, modern, media-literate mystery for the My Favourite Murder generation. Grave Expectations is by Alice Bell. 

Charlotte is a British expatriate who has recently settled in Washington, D.C. with her second husband, but enviable dinner parties aren't the only thing she is planning. Meanwhile, Charlie Leigh-Hunt has been posted to Washington as a replacement for Guy Burgess, last seen disappearing around the corner and into the Soviet Union. Charlie is surprised to cross paths with Charlotte, an old flame of his, who, thanks to her gossipy parties, has a packed pocketbook full of secrets she is eager to share. Two decades later, in 1969, Joe Wilderness is stuck on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, held captive by the KGB, a chip in a game way above his pay grade - but his old friends Frank and Eddie are going to try to spring him out of the toughest prison in the world. All roads lead back to Berlin, and to the famous Bridge of Spies... Featuring crackling dialogue and brilliantly plotted Cold War intrigue, Moscow Exile is by John Lawton and is a gripping thriller populated by larger-than-life personalities in a Cold War plot that feels strangely in tune with our present.

June 2023

Killingly by Katharine Beutner is based on the unsolved real-life disappearance of a university student in 1897The young women at Mount Holyoke are famed for their beauty and goodness - except for Agnes and Bertha. With their strange dresses, love of studying and insular friendship, these two students are peculiar. One autumn morning, Bertha is spotted in the woods. Then, she vanishes, leaving Agnes to wander the cold university halls alone. When an infamous detective is hired to investigate Bertha's case, alongside the local doctor, both men become strangely obsessed with finding the missing girl. As Bertha's secrets start to come to light, so do the competing agendas driving each person who is searching for her. Bertha might be gone, but she left clues behind her. Clues which might put her best friend in mortal danger and shatter the peaceful world of Mount Holyoke forever . . . Where did Bertha go? Who would want to hurt her? And could she still be alive?

Dark Deeds in Sun-drenched Places by Lexie Elliott

 

We’re an odd bunch, thriller writers. We don’t so much look at the world sideways as from the bottom up, through the lens of whatever we imagine might lie beneath. Sophisticated sun-kissed European cities have me eying the dark shadows of the back alleys, where tourists seldom dare to venture, and I can’t stumble across the sight of a beautiful waterfront villa without wondering what’s lurking in the damp basement or what horrors might be discovered if the river was dredged. One can speculate that Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley and M. M. Kaye’s Death In… series, along with numerous exotically-set Agatha Christie mysteries, had more of an impact on my teenaged psyche than I appreciated at the time, but I’ve always been utterly fascinated by tales of darkness that play out in the light: is there anything more seductive than a murderous plot conducted in a glamorous care-free location complete with sun-drenched days and hot, sultry nights? 

My latest novel, How to Kill Your Best Friend, is set in just such an environment: a luxury resort on a remote island in Southeast Asia. Setting is so very important to me that on any new project it can almost become a character in itself, and it’s usually the first thing that comes to mind. I’ll be pondering potential ideas and find myself dwelling on a certain location, and an accompanying sense of atmosphere—it’s as if I need to know the where before I can find the characters that inhabit that landscape. However, How to Kill Your Best Friend entirely bucked that trend: the title came to me first, and it was so strong that I couldn’t ignore it; I found myself in the unfamiliar position of working backwards from it. That title threw up so many questions: why would anyone even consider killing their best friend? What must have happened in the past between these friends? How did they get to this extreme point? From mulling those questions, the central relationship quickly unfolded, based around three women (Georgie, Lissa and Bronwyn) who met and bonded through their university swim team—a very convenient shared passion for me to gift them, I must confess, as I myself have a long history of competitive swimming and thus the research was already ticked off. It’s Lissa’s death that brings the friendship group back together; we see the tale through the eyes of Georgie and Bronwyn, who each have their own reasons for questioning how a champion swimmer such as Lissa could possibly have drowned. With the beginnings of a cast of characters in mind, the question of setting reared its head: where would this tale play out? 

At the time, I happened to be on vacation at, erm, a remote resort on an island in Southeast Asia—I’m sure you can connect the dots—and in truth the idea of a resort setting was instantly captivating, not least of all because it made sense logistically for the swimming and the drowning aspects. Perhaps conditioned by my teenage reading material, I could also see distinct possibilities in the juxtaposition of the terrible ordeals the characters undergo with the glamorous luxury setting: the contrast of the darkness and shade of human nature is never so stark as when played out in an environment where people expect to relax and forget their cares. Whilst not precisely a “locked room” scenario, the resort location provides both physical and mental isolation for the characters: physical, in the sense that they are all geographically removed from their ordinary lives and, moreover, spread out across different villas within the resort; and mental, in the sense that the distance and the time zone difficulties cut them off from contact with their usual support systems, leaving them truly alone with their increasingly anxious thoughts. In addition, once the weather turns ominous on the island and the staff begin to melt away, for all its supposed luxury the resort becomes something of a prison that the characters can’t escape. How many of us have taken the back seat on the organisation of a vacation, leading to the uncomfortable realisation that you have very little idea of where you are and even less idea of what to do if catastrophe strikes? Have you ever found yourself thinking: where, exactly, is the airport, and how might one get there if there were no hotel staff around to help? If you haven’t, you surely will now.

As I write this, I’ve already finished the bulk of the work on my next novel (Bright and Deadly Things, which will be coming out in 2023), and I’m beginning to cast around for ideas for my next project. Unfortunately, we’re going on a beach-based island resort holiday this summer, so I can’t rely on that for any fresh inspiration. Though I will at least make sure I know where I am, and how to get to the airport…

How To Kill Your Best Friend by Lexie Elliott (Atlantic Books) Out Now

The perfect getaway - to get away with murder...Georgie, Lissa and Bronwyn have been best friends since they met on their college swimming team. Now Lissa is dead - drowned off the coast of the remote island where her second husband owns a luxury resort. But could a star open-water swimmer really have drowned? Or is something more sinister going on?Brought together for Lissa's memorial, Georgie, Bron, Lissa's grieving husband and their friends find themselves questioning the circumstances around Lissa's death - and each other. As the weather turns ominous, trapping the guests on the island, it slowly dawns on them that Lissa's death was only the beginning. Nobody knows who they can trust. Or if they'll make it off the island alive...

Books To Look Forward To From Atlantic Books and Corvus Books

 July 2021

The Case of the Vanishing Blonde is by Mark Bowden Six captivating true-crime stories, spanning Mark Bowden's long and illustrious career, cover a variety of crimes complicated by extraordinary circumstances. In The Case of the Vanishing Blonde, the veteran reporter revisits some of his most riveting stories and examines the effects of modern technology on the journalistic process. From a story of a campus rape in 1983, to three cold cases solved by the inimitable private detective Ken Brennan, an LAPD investigation that unearths a murderer within its own ranks and the darkest corners of internet chatrooms, this collection contains all the best the genre has to offer. Gripping true crime from 'an old pro'.

When a scream shatters the summer night outside their country house, reformed literary forger Will and his wife Meghan find their daughter Maisie shaken and bloodied, holding a parcel her attacker demanded she present to her father. Inside is a literary rarity the likes of which few have ever handled, and a letter laying out impossible demands regarding its future. After twenty years of living life on the straight and narrow, Will finds himself drawn back to forgery, ensnared in a plot to counterfeit the rarest book in American literature: Edgar Allan Poe's first publication, Tamerlane. Facing threats to his life and family, coerced by his former nemesis and fellow forger Henry Slader, Will must rely on the artistic skills of his other daughter Nicole to help create a flawless forgery of this 1827 publication regarded as the Holy Grail of American letters. Part mystery, part case study of the shadowy side of the book trade, and part homage to the writer who invented the detective tale,  The Forger's Daughter is by Bradford Morrow portrays the world of literary forgery as diabolically clever, genuinely dangerous and inescapable, it would seem, to those who have ever embraced it.

She already has your looks. Now she wants your life... Beautiful twin sisters Iris and Summer are startlingly alike, but beneath the surface lies a darkness that sets them apart. Cynical and insecure, Iris has long been envious of open-hearted Summer's seemingly never-ending good fortune, including her perfect husband Adam. Called to Thailand to help sail the beloved family yacht to the Seychelles, Iris nurtures her own secret hopes for what might happen on the journey. But when she unexpectedly finds herself alone in the middle of the Indian Ocean, everything changes. Now is her chance to take what she's always wanted - the idyllic life she's coveted from afar. But just how far will she go to get the life she's dreamed about? And how far will she go to ensure no one discovers the truth? Filled with chilling suspense, The Girl in the Mirror is by Rose Carlyle and is an addictive thriller about greed, lust, secrets and deadly lies.

Such a quiet Place is by Megan Miranda. We had no warning that she would come back...Welcome to Hollow's Edge - a picture-perfect neighbourhood where everyone has each other's backs. At least, that's how it used to be, until the night Brandon and Fiona Truett were found dead... Two years ago, branded a grifter, thief and sociopath by her friends and neighbours, Ruby Fletcher was convicted of murdering the Truetts. Now, freed by mistrial, Ruby has returned to Hollow's Edge. But why would she come back? No one wants her there, least of all her old housemate, Harper Nash. As Ruby's return sends shockwaves through the community, terrified residents turn on each other, and it soon becomes clear that not everyone was honest about the night the Truetts died. When Harper begins to receive threatening, anonymous notes, she realizes she has to uncover the truth before someone else gets hurt... Someone like her.

The Viper is by Christobel Kent. Sandro Cellini faces his demons... Sandro Cellini hasn't set foot in La Vipera, a derelict farmhouse just outside Florence that was once home to a free-living commune, for forty years - until the discovery of two bodies nearby leads him back there. At the start of his career, Cellini investigated an accusation that minors were being corrupted at La Vipera, but no charges were ever brought. Now, tasked with tracking down former members of the community, he has a chance to finally discover what really went on all those years ago. But in order to learn the true nature of the commune's mission, he must face his own traumatic memories. As he sifts through the lies, those closest to him are placed in danger. Only Cellini can unravel the final mystery of La Vipera, and so protect those he loves.

August 2021

How to Kill Your Best Friend is by Lexie Elliott. The perfect getaway - to get away with murder... Georgie, Lissa and Bronwyn have been best friends since they met on their college swimming team. Now Lissa is dead - drowned off the coast of the remote island where her second husband owns a luxury resort. But could a star open-water swimmer really have drowned? Or is something more sinister going on? Brought together for Lissa's memorial, Georgie, Bron, Lissa's grieving husband and their friends find themselves questioning the circumstances around Lissa's death - and each other. As the weather turns ominous, trapping the guests on the island, it slowly dawns on them that Lissa's death was only the beginning. Nobody knows who they can trust. Or if they'll make it off the island alive...

September 2021

No one even knew they were together. Now one of them is dead. 56 days ago.Ciara and Oliver meet in a supermarket queue in Dublin and start dating the same week COVID-19 reaches Irish shores. 35 dys ago. When lockdown threatens to keep them apart, Oliver suggests they move in together. Ciara sees a unique opportunity for a relationship to flourish without the scrutiny of family and friends. Oliver sees a chance to hide who - and what - he really is. Today, Detectives arrive at Oliver's apartment to discover a decomposing body inside. Can they determine what really happened, or has lockdown created an opportunity for someone to commit the perfect crime? 56 Days is by Catherine Ryan Howard.

October 2021

The Diplomat's Wife is by Michael Ridpath 1936: Devastated by the death of her beloved brother Hugh, Emma seeks to keep his memory alive by wholeheartedly embracing his dreams of a communist revolution. But when she marries an ambitious diplomat, she must leave her ideals behind and live within the confines of embassy life in Paris and Nazi Berlin. Then one of Hugh's old comrades reappears, asking her to report on her philandering husband, and her loyalties are torn. 1979: Emma's grandson, Phil, dreams of a gap-year tour of Cold War Europe, but is nowhere near being able to fund it. So when his beloved grandmother determines to make one last trip to the places she lived as a young diplomatic wife, and to try to solve a mystery that has haunted her since the war, he jumps at the chance to accompany her. But their journey takes them to darker, more dangerous places than either of them could ever have imagined...

November 2021

A Memory for Murder is by Anne Holt. When high-powered lawyer Selma Falck is shot and her oldest friend, a junior MP, is killed in a sniper attack, everyone - including the police - assume that Selma was the prime target. But when two other people with connections to the MP are also found murdered, it becomes clear that there is a wider conspiracy at play. As Selma sets out to avenge her friend's death, and discover the truth behind the conspiracy, her own life is threatened once again. Only this time, the danger may be closer to home than she could possibly have realised...

Nights of the Lingering Ghosts is by Phil Rickman. ''I called on Darkness-but before the word. Was uttered, midnight darkness seemed to take. All objects from my sight...'William Wordsworth. England's most famous poet once thought of himself as a modern druid and found his deepest inspiration on the banks of the River Wye, where Celtic magic can still be found and an old darkness lingers. Now, as the world is at the mercy of the coronavirus pandemic, diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins learns that the ghosts of the lower Wye Valley still need some attention...

Books to Look Forward to from Atlantic Books and Corvus

January 2019

When Korede's dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her sister, Ayoola, she knows what's expected of her: bleach, rubber gloves, nerves of steel and a strong stomach. This'll be the third boyfriend Ayoola's dispatched in, quote, self-defence and the third mess that her lethal little sibling has left Korede to clear away. She should probably go to the police for the good of the menfolk of Nigeria, but she loves her sister and, as they say, family always comes first. Until, that is, Ayoola starts dating the doctor where Korede works as a nurse. Korede's long been in love with him, and isn't prepared to see him wind up with a knife in his back: but to save one would mean sacrificing the other...  My Sister the Serial Killer is by Oyinkan Braithwaite.

For the Hell Of It is by Phil Rickman.  The River Wye, according to local folklore, takes a life every year. But in the lower Wye Valley something truly evil is stirring and the locals can sense it.  TV star Arlo Ripley seeks solace in a church at the water's edge. But a famous face always attracts attention and if he thinks he can hide his failings, he couldn't be more wrong. Up river, an ambitious writer thinks she's uncovering Wordsworth's stranger secrets while an urban career-criminal, newly out of prison, assures a sceptical DI Frannie Bliss that he's left his old life behind to find an unlikely pastoral peace.  Enter diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins. As she wades into the murky depths, Merrily discovers that the darkest and most disturbing evil doesn't always involve murder...

February 2019

Michael lost his wife in a terrorist attack on a London train. Since then, he has been seeing a therapist to help him come to terms with his grief - and his anger. He can't get over the fact that the man he holds responsible has seemingly got away scot-free. He doesn't blame the bombers, who he considers only as the logical conclusion to a long chain of events. No, to Michael's mind, the ultimate cause is the politician whose cynical policies have had such deadly impact abroad. His therapist suggests that he write his feelings down to help him forgive and move on, but as a retired headteacher, Michael believes that for every crime there should be a fitting punishment - and so in the pages of his diary he begins to set out the case for, and set about committing, murder.  Waltzing through the darkling journal of a brilliant mind put to serious misuse.  Kill [Redacted] is by Anthony Good.

Gallowstree Lane is by Kate London.  Please don't let me die. Please don't. When a teenage boy steps out of the shadows of Gallowstree Lane and asks a passer-by for help, it's already too late. His life is bleeding out on the London street.  The murder threatens to derail Operation Perseus, a cover police investigation into the Eardsley Bluds, an organised criminal network. Detective Kieran Shaw can't and won't allow that to happen. But fifteen-year-old Ryan has other ideas. He's witnessed the death of his best friend, and now he wants someone to pay...  As loyalties collide, a chain of events is triggered that threatens everyone with a connection to Gallowstree Lane.

March 2019

A seventeen-year-old girl has disappeared after a fight with her boyfriend that was interrupted by armed men, leaving the boyfriend on life support and the girl an apparent kidnap victim. It's a common occurrence in the region-prime narco territory-but the girl's parents are rich and powerful, and determined to find their daughter at any cost. When they call upon Carlos Trevino, he tracks the missing heiress north to the town of La Eternidad, on the Gulf of Mexico not far from the U.S. border-all while constantly attempting to evade detection by La Eternidad's chief of police, Commander Margarito Gonzalez, who is in the pockets of the cartels and has a score to settle with Trevino. Don’t Send Flowers is by Martin Solares.

April 2019

The Feral Detective is by Jonathan Lethem.  Phoebe Siegler first meets Charles Heist in a shabby trailer on the eastern edge of Los Angeles. She's looking for her friend's missing daughter, Arabella, and hires Heist - a laconic loner who keeps his pet opossum in a desk drawer - to help. The unlikely pair navigate the enclaves of desert-dwelling vagabonds and find that Arabella is in serious trouble - caught in the middle of a violent standoff that only Heist, mysteriously, can end. Phoebe's trip to the desert was always going to be strange, but it was never supposed to be dangerous...

May 2019

'If you're reading this, I'm dead.'  Rejected by her family and plagued by insomnia, Rose Shaw is on the brink. But one dark evening she collides with a man running through the streets, who quickly vanishes. The only sign he ever existed - a journal dropped at Rose's feet.  Catapulted into a dark world of fear and obsession, she begins to dedicate her sleepless nights to discovering what happened to Finn Matthews, the mysterious author of the journal. Why was he convinced someone wanted to kill him? And why, in the midst of a string of murders, won't the police investigate his disappearance?  Rose is determined to uncover the truth. But she has no idea what the truth will cost her...  Night by Night is by Jack Jordan

June 2019

An eerie old Scottish manor in the middle of nowhere that's now hers.  Ailsa Calder has inherited half of a house. The other half belongs to a man who disappeared without a trace twenty-seven years ago. Her father.  Leaving London behind to settle her mother's estate, Ailsa returns to her childhood home nestled amongst the craggy peaks of the Scottish Highlands, accompanied by the half-sister she's never taken the time to get to know.  With the past threatening to swallow her whole, she can't escape the claustrophobic feeling that the house itself is watching her, or ignore how animals take care never to set foot within its garden.  And when Ailsa confronts the first night time intruder, she sees that the manor's careless rugged beauty could cost her everything...  Missing Years is by Lexie Elliott.

The Last House Guest is by Megan Miranda.  Her best friend is dead. Now everyone thinks she's a killer.  Littleport, Maine is like two separate towns: a vacation paradise for wealthy holidaymakers and a simple harbour community for the residents who serve them. Friendships between locals and visitors are unheard of - but that's just what happened with Avery Greer and Sadie Loman.  Each summer for a decade the girls are inseparable - until Sadie is found dead. When the police rule the death a suicide, Avery can't help but feel there are those in the community, including a local detective and Sadie's brother Parker, who blame her. Someone knows more than they're saying, and Avery is intent on clearing her name before she's branded a killer.

Treason sleeps for no man...London, 1591. Nicholas Shelby, physician and reluctant spy, returns to his old haunts on London's lawless Bankside. But, when the queen's spymaster Robert Cecil asks him to investigate the dubious practices of a mysterious doctor from Switzerland, Nicholas is soon embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens not just the life of an innocent young patient, but the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth herself.  With fellow healer and mistress of the Jackdaw tavern, Bianca Merton, again at his side, Nicholas is drawn into a dangerous world of zealots, charlatans and fanatics. As their own lives become increasingly at risk, they find themselves confronting the greatest treason of all: the spectre of a bloody war between the faiths...  The Serpent’s Mark is by S W Perry.