Forthcoming Books from Headline Publishing.

 January 2024

Cover the Bones is by Chris Hammer. No one is ever innocent in paradise. A small town. A closely guarded secret, stretching back decades. And blood in the water. A body has washed up in an irrigation canal, the artery running through Yuwonderie, a man-made paradise on the border of the Outback. Stabbed through the heart, electrocuted and dumped under cover of night, there is no doubt that detectives Ivan Lucic and Nell Buchanan are dealing with a vicious homicide.  The victim is Athol Hasluck, member of one of the seven dynasties who have controlled every slice of bountiful land in this modern-day Eden for generations. But this is not an isolated incident. Someone is targeting the landed aristocracy of this quiet paradise in the desert. Secrets stretching back decades are rising to the surface at last - but the question remains, who stands to gain most from their demise?  Can Ivan and Nell track down a killer before the guilt at the heart of these seven families takes the entire town down with it?

Everything she is about to tell them is a lie... Evie Porter has everything a girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a picket fence, a fun group of friends.  The only catch: Evie Porter doesn't exist. First comes the identity. Once she's given a name and location by her employer, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it.Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job. For Evie, this job feels different. Ryan has gotten under her skin and she's started to picture another kind of life for herself - one where her boss doesn't pull the strings.   But Evie can't make any mistakes. Because the one thing she's worked her entire life to keep clean, the one identity she could always go back to - her real identity - just walked right into this town. A woman, who looks just like her, has stolen her name - and she wants more. As Evie's past begins to catch up with her, can she stay one step ahead to save her future? First Lie Wins is by Ashley Elston

In a harsh Alaskan landscape, four solitary are brought together by a desperate hunt to find a missing child. A blizzard rages in an isolated corner of Alaska. Few inhabitants live in this desolate place. Scattered across the vast, white expanse, they shelter in solitude from the tempest and the extreme cold. But amid this storm and far from home, a woman walks alone with the child. She stops for a moment to re-tie the laces of her boots filled with snow. Instants later she looks up and the child under her care has vanished. In desperation she searches for him, knowing that every minute that goes by in this snowstorm is a threat to both of their lives. Soon she is joined in the hunt by the other neighbours. And as the search intensifies to save the missing child from certain death, she too will become the object of pursuit. Blizzard is by Marie Vingtras.

Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun is by Elle Cosimano. Finlay Donovan is ready to bite the bullet. She's done with her accidental life of crime. But first, there's the small matter of her debt to the Russian mob. Her task should be simple: locate a rogue hitman before the cops do. The catch? This killer might be a cop himself. From inside the citizens' police academy, run by distractingly hot Detective Nicholas Anthony, Finlay needs to sleuth out her target - and some fresh ideas for her new crime novel. Can she get to her edits and the hitman in time? She'll give it her best shot.

February 2024

Life Inside is by Linda Calvey. A chilling look into the brutality of life behind bars and what it's like to be locked away with some of the world's most dangerous criminals. Widely known in the criminal underworld as the 'Black Widow', Linda Calvey spent the first half of her life running with the UK's top gangsters, robbing banks and rubbing shoulders with the Kray twins. That is, until, in 1990, her lover Robbie Cook was murdered at point-blank, and she found herself falsely convicted. Linda was sent away for decades, and would go on to become Britain's longest-serving female prisoner. This is her story of life inside, and how she learnt to survive the many years she spent behind bars. Detailing the systems, characters and rules of prison life, as well as her encounters with notorious criminals Charles Bronson, Rose West and Myra Hindley, Linda gives a full account of her time locked up. Featuring stories of fights, riots, dodgy dealings and what happens when a prison officer gets taken hostage, this is a gritty and eye-opening look at prison life from a woman who has seen it all.

The question - For the last ten years, the small town of West Wilmer has been struggling to answer one question: on the night of the crash that killed his sister, why did it take Grant Dean twenty-seven minutes to call for help? If he'd called sooner, Phoebe might still be alive. The Secret - As the anniversary of Phoebe's death approaches, Grant is consumed by his memories and the secret that's been suffocating him for years. But he and Phoebe weren't the only ones in the car that night. Becca was there too - she's the only other person who knows what really happened. Or is she? The Truth - Everyone remembers Phoebe, but local girl June also lost someone that night. Her brother Wyatt has been missing for ten years and, now that her mother is dead, June has no one left - no family, no friends. Until someone appears at her door. Someone who knows what really happened that night. And they are ready to tell the truth. With a shocking twist that will leave you breathless, Twenty-Seven Minutes is by Ashley Tate and is a gripping story about what happens when grief becomes unbearable, dark secrets are unearthed, and the horrifying truth is revealed.

Mayday is by Grethe Bøe. Fighter pilot Ylva Norvahl has returned to her hometown, Bodø, in Norway's frozen north where tension is escalating across the border with Russia. NATO has launched the "Arctic Blizzard" excercise, mobilising 60,000 soldiers, many of them American. All it takes is one false move to trigger a major political crisis, or even a war. When her plane is forced down over Russian territory, Ylva and the veteran U.S. Major John Evans must race against time across a frozen landscape to avoid capture by the Russian Spetsnaz special forces in pursuit. Complicating their journey is Evans' involvement with an American military contractor Titans Security which has its own agenda across international frontiers. As the hunt closes in, Ylva uses her local Sami knowledge to survive in the excruciating cold, and her family history reveals dark secrets of its own in this geopolitical game of chess.

Bus driver Dave Kellock is a pillar of the community in Portobello, Edinburgh. But he's got a terrible secret. His past is dragged into the present when an unexpected passenger steps onto his bus: the woman he killed almost twenty years earlier. Dave's still reeling from the shock of it when police turn up at his door, accusing him of an entirely different crime. As he battles to track down a dead woman and maintain his hard-won reputation, Dave makes a terrifying realisation. Wherever he goes, someone is watching. In Her Shadow is by Emma Christie.

'Please take care of my baby. But don't try to find me. You'll put him in danger.' Profiler and therapist Kez Lanyon is shocked when she finds a baby on the backseat of her car, with an unsigned note asking her to take care of him. Kez has a pretty good idea who the mother is - Brandee, a popular social media star with a troubled background, who once lived in Kez's house. Brandee recently dropped out of the limelight and if the internet rumours are true, Kez knows Brandee's life is in danger. Kez is torn. Should she simply take care of the baby as she's been asked, or should she risk her whole family by using contacts from her previous job to save this young woman? Time is running out for Brandee. Can Kez find her before it's too late? Every Smile You Fake is by Dorothy Koomson. 

Four Our Sins is by James Oswald. The wages of sin is death. The partial collapse of a disused Edinburgh church reveals a dead body in the rubble, his head badly smashed by falling masonry. Soon identified as an old ex-con - Kenny Morgan - his death is put down to a heart attack and deemed non-suspicious. Tony McLean is approached by a notorious crime lord who suggests the police should be looking into Morgan's death more closely. Despite struggling with his recent retirement, he is reluctant to involve himself. But when a second man is found dead in another disused church, his forehead branded with a cross, this time it is clearly murder. There's a killer stalking the streets of Edinburgh. Is it time for McLean to get back to doing what he does best?

March 2024

A remote hotel, five guests, one murder. During a broiling heatwave, the inner circle of a high-profile charity attend a critical meeting at White Ash Ridge, a small hotel nestled in the Australian wilderness.  As the temperature rises, a body is found lying in the thick bush, bludgeoned to death.  One of the four remaining guests is a murderer - but who, and why, is a mystery. Detective Dana Russo knows the national spotlight will be sharply focused on the case. The charity was formed when the founders' teenage son was killed after intervening in a vicious assault - sparking public outrage and a damning verdict on the police investigation.  But under huge pressure and with few clues - plus suspects who instinctively distrust the police - how can Dana unravel the truth? White Ash Ridge is by S R White. 

There's blood on the water. No one is safe... 1999. A young Detective Constable Louise Mangan crosses the Thames one misty morning in pursuit of a killer. She finds a tranquil community on a leafy island close to Hampton Court Palace, but soon realises that all is not as it seems. There is something evil at play in this quiet suburb, and this junior detective's questions seem only to scratch the surface. Twenty years later, a horrific fire brings Detective Chief Superintendent Mangan back to that same island. Soon, she discovers that murder was just a drop in these dark waters. The river runs deep, and the tide is rising at last. Will the truth rise with it? Death on the Thames is by Alan Johnson. 

Blood Ties is by Veronica Llaca. Once upon a time, there was a woman the press called the Hyena-Woman. Infant Annihilator. Witch. Child-Chopper. Butcher of Little Angels. Monster. The Ogress of Colonia Roma. Julián and I called her Mother.  When the writer Ignacio Suárez is sent photographs of two murdered women, mirroring a passage of his very own detective novel, he drops everything to uncover who is responsible. What no-one suspects is that the origin of these crimes lies in the forgotten, real-life story of Felícitas Sánchez, the midwife turned child-killer who became known in the 1940s as "The Ogress of Colonia Roma". Diary entries and newspaper articles come together in this gripping tale to reveal how the woman called Felícitas, who grew up in a small community in La Huasteca, Mexico, became the infamous child trafficker and murderer in the country's capital, and how her long-ago crimes are linked to a wave of killings.

Cheater is by Karen Rose. Homicide Detective Kit McKittrick finds herself standing over a dead body in the Shady Oaks retirement centre. Frank Flynn has been stabbed and his room ransacked. Though he kept his background quiet at the centre, Kit recognises Frank from the San Diego Police Department. Had the former detective been following a trail that led to his murder? When the head of security is also found dead, it points to a conspiracy right at the heart of Shady Oaks. The one person who might be able to help uncover the truth is just who Kit has been avoiding: Dr Sam Reeves. As a volunteer at the centre and a friend of the victim, the forensic psychologist could be just what her case needs. But without access to CCTV of the day of the murder, how will Kit catch her killer? And can she do so before anyone else is put in danger?

April 2024

They say you can't always get what you want. But you can take it. Anna wants a fresh start. She doesn't believe she deserves it, but after three years behind bars she has finally paid her dues. Most of them, anyway. Lucy craves the attention of the only man she can't have, her alluring Oxford professor. He's married - not for the first time. Maybe she should be next in line? Marie the recluse has been locked up for too long. She's not ready to be free, but some rules are meant to be broken. Everyone wants a perfect life. But not everyone is prepared to take it. Unless someone decides to teach them a lesson. A Lesson in Cruelty is by Harriet Tyce.

A Plague of Serpents is by K J Maitland. London, 1608. Three years after the Gunpowder Treason, the King's enemies prepare to strike again. Daniel Pursglove is tasked by royal command with one final mission: he must infiltrate the Serpents - a secret group of Catholics plotting to kill the King - or risk his own execution. But other conspirators are circling, men who would blackmail Daniel for their own dark ends. In the Serpents' den, nothing is quite as it seems. And when Daniel spies a familiar face among their number, the game takes a dangerous turn. As plague returns to London, tensions reach breaking point. Can Daniel escape the web of treason in which he finds himself ensnared - or has his luck finally run out?

May 2024

Winter 1953. Beneath a pitch-black Leningrad sky, two bodies lie near the towering statue of Lenin outside the Finland Station. 'Nothing sinister, here, just a simple hit and run,' an officer in the MGB secret police assures militia detective Revol Rossel. Now he knows it's murder. Only recently released from a brutal Siberian labour camp and determined to find his missing sister at last, Rossel wants nothing to do with this new case. But his alcoholic, broken superior officer, Captain Liphukin, seizes upon it as his salvation – a last chance to be a true Soviet hero .Along with sharp-witted Sergeant Lidia Gerashvili, and Major Nikitin, the interrogator who once cut off Rossel's fingers, Rossel sets off on the trail of a murderer whose crimes surpass those of even the deranged tsar Ivan the Terrible. A trail leading to a dark, hidden episode in Bolshevik history filled with unspeakable horrors. There is only one eyewitness – Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, whose giant right hand stretches out towards the frozen River Neva. Lenin, Rossel thinks, seems to be pointing at someone. But who? Man of Bones is by Ben Creed.

Faith is by Linda Calvey. Wakefield, 1964. Life is hardly rosy for Annie Wills – an unhappy upbringing and then married too young with husband Gary soon proving a lazy coward unable to hold down a job, his fists always ready to vent his anger on the world. The one shining star in Annie's life is her perfect little girl, Maria. When Gary foolishly ends up in debt to local crime family, the Waltons, the only way for Annie to keep a roof over their heads is to work at one of the Waltons' drinking clubs. There, for the sake of Maria, Annie does the unthinkable and keeps men happy, night after night. Maria grows into a stunning teenager who catches the eye of Fred Walton, volatile son of family boss, Ted. Despite Annie's desperate efforts to protect Maria from this seedy world, the young couple fall into a relationship and inevitably Maria falls pregnant. Fred is furious at the news, lashing out again and again with his hand, his ring with its secret razor tip leaving Maria with deep, livid scars criss-crossing one side of her beautiful face. Annie knows the marks on her daughter's face will never fade but they will be nothing compared to the trauma Maria will hold deep inside. Annie and Maria simply cannot stay in town. With Maria's face wrapped in bandages, they flee to London. Joyce, a fellow prostitute from the Walton's bar who has recently moved to Stepney, shows mother and daughter the only generosity and kindness they've ever known and helps them find a new life in the East End. But the secrets left behind in Wakefield fester. And while Annie and Maria may be finished with their hometown, the Waltons are far from finished with them.

June 2024

A young man has been murdered on the notorious Paradise estate in London. The police have their assumptions; out-of-work private investigator Dylan Kasper, more than familiar with the neighbourhood, has his own.  Kasper takes it upon himself to get to the bottom of the killing. He soon discovers the reason the boy was killed that the police will never find - or want to find. A highly incriminating piece of evidence tying an illegal production company to the government and police alike. But this is just the beginning. Kasper has made a name for himself getting under the skin of the most brutal killers in the capital. When those dearest to Kasper are suddenly thrust into view, he will have to make an impossible choice. Will the inhabitants of Paradise feel safe at last, if the price must be paid in blood? A Killing in Paradise is by Elliot F Sweeney.

Knock, Knock is by Michelle Yeahan. When a serial killer moves in next door to a say at home mum, he has no idea how much trouble he is in... After all there is no lengths she wouldn't go to. 

A ghost train, lost in Time, hurtles through the night... Two members of Team 236 are trapped on board. Not ideal under any circumstances but catastrophic when they're at each other's throats. Hot on their heels, but never quite able to catch up, can Lt Grint and his team overcome all obstacles in their way and save their fellow officers before the train disappears for good? Nor is TPHQ without its own problems as Matthew risks his sanity to track them through the Time Map. And a Mikey-experiment goes horribly wrong, exposing something better left concealed for all Time. What are the Time Police hiding?  And what will they do to keep their secret? Killing Time is by Jodi Taylor. 

Also published in June is an untitled Berlin thriller by Simon Scarrow. 

Forthcoming Books from Headline

 January 2023

Dead Man's Creek is by Chris Hammer. Old bones sink - but secrets always rise to the surface. Newly-minted homicide detective Nell Buchanan returns to her hometown, annoyed at being assigned a decades-old murder - a 'file and forget'. But this is no ordinary cold case, her arrival provoking an unwelcome and threatening response from the small-town community. As more bodies are discovered, and she begins to question how well she truly knows those closest to her, Nell realises that finding the truth could prove more difficult - and dangerous - than she'd ever expected. The nearer Nell comes to uncovering the secrets of the past, the more treacherous her path becomes. Can she survive to root out the truth, and what price will she have to pay for it?

February 2023

Five years since his daughter's death. Now it's happening again. Dylan Kasper is stuck. Living in self-imposed reclusion from his former life in the police, he's been in a downward spiral since his daughter's death five years ago. All that changes when the son of an esteemed professor jumps under an inner-city train. His former colleagues call it suicide, but Kasper knows different. This has all happened before - to him, and his dead daughter. Taking on the investigation himself, Kasper soon realises the terrible trouble young Tommy had found himself in. With nowhere to run, he thought suicide was the only way to keep his family safe. But before long, Kasper's investigation makes him target number one. Can he keep his demons in check and stay alive long enough to bring those responsible to justice? The Next To Die is by Elliot Sweeney.

Red Dirt Road is by S R White. One outback town. Two puzzling murders. Fifty suspects.  In Unamurra, a drought-scarred, one-pub town deep in the outback, two men are savagely murdered a month apart - their bodies elaborately arranged like angels. With no witnesses, no obvious motives and no apparent connections between the killings, how can lone police officer Detective Dana Russo - flown in from hundreds of kilometres away - possibly solve such a baffling, brutal case? Met with silence and suspicion from locals who live by their own set of rules, Dana must take over a stalled investigation with only a week to make progress. But with a murderer hiding in plain sight, and the parched days rapidly passing, Dana is determined to uncover the shocking secrets of this forgotten town - a place where anyone could be a killer.

BERLIN. JANUARY 1941. Evil cannot bring about good . . . After Germany's invasion of Poland, the world is holding its breath and hoping for peace. At home, the Nazi Party's hold on power is absolute. One freezing night, an SS doctor and his wife return from an evening mingling with their fellow Nazis at the concert hall. By the time the sun rises, the doctor will be lying lifeless in a pool of blood. Was it murder or suicide? Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke is told that under no circumstances should he investigate. The doctor's widow, however, is convinced her husband was the target of a hit. But why would anyone murder an apparently obscure doctor? Compelled to dig deeper, Schenke learns of the mysterious death of a child. The cases seem unconnected, but soon chilling links begin to emerge that point to a terrifying secret. Even in times of war, under a ruthless regime, there are places in hell no man should ever enter. And Schenke fears he may not return alive . . . Dead of Night is by Simon Scarrow.

Welcome to The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts - a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to "delete" their most deserving victim. Who hasn't wondered for a split second what the world would be like the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you've probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this "Poison Ivy League" college-its location unknown to even those who study there-is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate...and where one's mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live. Prepare for an education you'll never forget. A delightful mix of witty wordplay, breathtaking twists and genuine intrigue, Murder Your Employer is by Rupert Holmes and will gain you admission into a wholly original world, cocooned within the most entertaining book about well-intentioned would-be murderers you'll ever read.

March 2023

The last thing Anna needs is a baby. Abandoned, adopted and living hand to mouth, she never dreamt of having a real family. But when she meets her birth mother, everything changes - because the same day, she learns she's going to be a mother too. Marlene is eccentric, generous with her considerable fortune and overjoyed to become a grandmother. Anna's living the dream. But is it her dream, or someone else's? Now she will have to decide what she's willing to sacrifice for a real family - her future, her freedom, even her unborn child. Mother's Day is by Abigail Burdess.

Cold Blooded Liar is by Karen Rose. Colton Driscoll is a compulsive liar. But there's one thing his psychologist Sam Reeves fears he is telling the truth about: murder. Concerned his patient has committed an awful crime and that the life of another girl could be under threat, Sam calls in an anonymous tip to the San Diego Police Department. Detective Kit McKittrick works homicide in the hope that one day she will find out what happened to her foster sister, Wren. When a tip comes in from an anonymous caller it leads her to the body of a girl whose murder has the hallmarks of a serial killer that has been at large for almost twenty years. It also leads her to the source of the information: Dr Sam Reeves. Will Kit be able to crack the cold case in time to stop another murder being committed? And is Sam Reeves being a concerned citizen trying to help, or is there another more sinister reason he has so much information?

April 2023

After his son is convicted of murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt. Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend-or in some cases, destroy it. Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor.

Rivers of Treason is by K J Maitland. From the stark Yorkshire landscape to the dark underbelly of Jacobean London, Daniel Pursglove's new mission sees him fall prey to a ruthless copycat killer... London, 1607. As dawn breaks, Daniel Pursglove rides north, away from the watchful eye of the King and his spies. He returns, disguised, to his childhood home in Yorkshire - with his own score to settle. The locals have little reason to trust a prying stranger, and those who remember Daniel do so with contempt. When a body is found with rope burns about the neck, Daniel falls under suspicion. On the run, across the country, he is pursued by a ruthless killer whose victims all share the same gallows mark. Are these the crimes of someone with a cruel personal vendetta - or has Daniel become embroiled in a bigger, and far more sinister, conspiracy? A new river of treason is rising, flowing from the fields of Yorkshire right to the heart of the King's court . . .

In The Red Hotel: The Untold Story of Stalin's Disinformation War by Alan Philps he sets out the way Stalin created his own reality by constraining and muzzling the British and American reporters covering the eastern front during the war and forcing them to reproduce kremlin propaganda. War correspondents were both bullied and pampered in a gilded cage of the Metropol Hotel. They enjoyed lavish supplies of caviar and had their choice of young women to employ as translators and to share their beds. While some of these translators turned journalists into robotic conveyors of Kremlin propaganda, others were brave secret dissenters who whispered to reporters the reality of Soviet life and were punished with sentences in the Gulag. Through the use of British archives and Russian sources, the story of the role of the women of the Metropol Hotel and the foreign reporters they worked with is told for the first time. With a riveting narrative very much in the same wheelhouse as Ben McIntyre's Agent Sonya this revelatory story will finally lift the lid on Stalin's operation to muzzle and control what the western allies' writers and foreign correspondents knew of his regime's policies to prosecute the war against Hitler's rampaging armies from June 1941 onwards.

May 2023

After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus Crown returns home to Charon County, land of moonshine and cornbread, fist fights and honeysuckle. Seeing his hometown struggling with a bigoted police force inspires him to run for sheriff. He wins, and becomes the first Black sheriff in the history of the county. Then a year to the day after his election, a young Black man is fatally shot by Titus's deputies. Titus pledges to follow the truth wherever it leads. But no one expected he would unearth a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. Now, Titus must pull off the impossible: stay true to his instincts, prevent outright panic, and investigate a shocking crime in a small town where everyone knows everyone yet secrets flourish. All while also breaking up backroads bar fights and being forced to protect racist Confederate pride marchers. For a Black man wearing a police uniform in the American South, that's no easy feat. But Charon is Titus's home and his heart, and he won't let the darkness overtake it. Even as it threatens to consume him... All The Sinners Bleed is by S A Cosby.

When the son of a feared Istanbul gang leader is accused of murdering his gypsy girlfriend, feelings of vengeance are ignited amongst rival Turkish gangs. But the son suffers from a terrible psychosis, whereby he constantly sees people's doubles, and Inspector Suleyman and his team are about to discover that there is a long list of suspects who might have framed him for a murder he didn't commit. Double Illusion is by Barbara Nadel.

June 2023

My Murder is by Katie Williams. Lou has been murdered. She was the fifth victim of the serial killer Edward Early. A young wife and new mother, Lou's death outraged a public breathlessly following the story of the serial murders. Lou has been cloned. Along with Early's other four victims, Lou has been brought back to life by the government-funded replication commission. The women gather at a weekly support group, helping each other to navigate a society obsessed with their very existence. Lou has been lied to. But when Lou agrees to help fellow murder victim Fern secure a visit with Edward Early, a shocking revelation causes Lou to investigate the events around her death and question everything she thought she knew about her murder. Can she finally uncover the truth?