Forthcoming Crime Books from Quercus Books (Including Riverrun, MacLehose Press, Arcadia and Jo Fletcher Books)

 January 2023

Stay Buried is by Kate Webb. Detective Inspector Matt Lockyer has been side-lined to working cold cases, following a bad decision he made in a recent investigation in order to support a friend. Lockyer isn't too bothered though, as it gives him the chance to review some of the cases that keep him up at night and to look into his own brother's senseless killing which still remains unsolved. On a quiet afternoon Lockyer receives a phone call from prisoner Hedy Lambert - a woman he put inside for murder fourteen years ago. She informs him that the man she was originally accused of killing has turned up alive and well. She begs him to reopen her case. All those years ago, Lockyer had been the one to pin down Hedy's motive, but deep down he'd never wanted to believe she was guilty. The thought that he might have sent an innocent woman down for life doesn't sit well with him and he agrees to reopen the investigation. But has it become too personal and is he being manipulated? Perhaps there are some cases that should just stay buried.

A Winter Grave is by Peter May. It is the year 2051. Warnings of climate catastrophe have been ignored, and vast areas of the planet are under water, or uninhabitably hot. A quarter of the world's population has been displaced by hunger and flooding, and immigration wars are breaking out around the globe as refugees pour into neighbouring countries. By contrast, melting ice sheets have brought the Gulf Stream to a halt and northern latitudes, including Scotland, are being hit by snow and ice storms. It is against this backdrop that Addie, a young meteorologist checking a mountain top weather station, discovers the body of a man entombed in ice. The dead man is investigative reporter, George Younger, missing for three months after vanishing during what he claimed was a hill-walking holiday. But Younger was no hill walker, and his discovery on a mountain-top near the Highland village of Kinlochleven, is inexplicable. Cameron Brodie, a veteran Glasgow detective, volunteers to be flown north to investigate Younger's death, but he has more than a murder enquiry on his agenda. He has just been given a devastating medical prognosis by his doctor and knows the time has come to face his estranged daughter who has made her home in the remote Highland village. Arriving during an ice storm, Brodie and pathologist Dr. Sita Roy, find themselves the sole guests at the inappropriately named International Hotel, where Younger's body has been kept refrigerated in a cake cabinet. But evidence uncovered during his autopsy places the lives of both Brodie and Roy in extreme jeopardy. As another storm closes off communications and the possibility of escape, Brodie must face up not only to the ghosts of his past, but to a killer determined to bury forever the chilling secret that George Younger's investigations had threatened to expose.

White Riot is by Joe Thomas. 1978:The National Front is gaining ground in Hackney. To counter their influence, anti-fascist groups launch the Carnival Against Racism in Victoria Park. Observing the event is Detective Constable Patrick Noble, charged with investigating racist attacks in the area and running Spycops in both far-right and left wing groups. As Noble's superiors are drawn further into political meddling, he's inveigled into a plot against the embattled Labour government. 1983: Under a disciplinary cloud after a Spycops op ended in tragedy, Noble is offered a reprieve by an old mentor. He is dispatched in the early hours to Stoke Newington police station, where a young black man has died in suspicious circumstances. This is Thatcher's Britain now, a new world that Noble unwittingly helped to usher in, where racial tensions are weaponised by those in power.

February 2023

Ruth and Nelson are working on a murder case in which Cathbad emerges as the prime suspect. Can they uncover the truth in time to save their friend? When builders renovating a cafe in King's Lynn find a human skeleton behind a wall, they call for DCI Harry Nelson and Dr Ruth Galloway, Head of Archaeology at the nearby University of North Norfolk. Ruth is preoccupied with the threatened closure of her department and by her ever-complicated relationship with Nelson. However, she agrees to look at the case. Ruth sees at once that the bones are modern. They are identified as the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in the 1990s. Emily attended a course run by her Cambridge tutor. Suspicion falls on him and also on another course member - Ruth's friend Cathbad, who is still frail following his near death from Covid. As they investigate, Nelson and his team uncover a tangled web of relationships within the student group and the adults leading them. What was the link between the group and the King's Lynn cafe where Emily's bones were found? Then, just when the team seem to be making progress, Cathbad disappears. Was it guilt that led him to flee? The trail leads Ruth and Nelson to the Neolithic flint mines in Grimes Graves which are as spooky as their name. The race is on, first to find Cathbad and then to exonerate him, but will Ruth and Nelson uncover the truth in time to save their friend? The Last Remains is by Elly Griffiths. 

If I Should Die is by Anna Smith. PI Billie Carlson is in Cleveland, Ohio following a lead on the whereabouts of her son, Lucas. But when the trail goes cold, she is forced to return to Glasgow and a life of waiting and praying that one day she might see him again. Back in the office and ready to throw herself into work, she picks up a call from Lars, an old friend from her teenage years in Sweden. He tells her some devastating news. His younger sister, Astrid, was found dead in the Highlands, frozen to death with traces of drugs and alcohol in her system. The police are convinced that Astrid killed herself, but Lars knows his sister would never do such a thing. He begs Billie to investigate and to accompany Astrid's body back to Sweden. Billie quickly agrees and soon finds herself involved in a web of institutional corruption linked to the dark recesses of the criminal underworld. Can Billie find out what happened to Astrid, or will she be silenced by those desperate to keep her from finding out the truth?

A shocking disapperance. A four-year-old girl goes missing in plain sight outside her nursery in Oxford, a middle-class, affluent area, her mother only a stones-throw away.A triggering response. Ryan Wilkins, one of the youngest ever Detective Inspectors in the Thames Valley force, dishonourably discharged three months ago, watches his former partner DI Ray Wilkins deliver a press conference, confirming a lead. A dark webb. Ray begins to delve deeper, unearthing an underground network of criminal forces in the local area. But while Ray's investigation stalls Ryan brings his unique talents to unofficial and quite illegal inquiries which will bring him into a confrontation with the very officials who have thrown him out of the force. The Broken Afternoon is by Simon Mason. 

March 2023

The Wrong Mother is by Charlotte Duckworth. One mother on the run. A safe place to hide. But you can't escape the past forever . . . Faye is 39 and single. She's terrified she may never have the one thing she always wanted: a child of her own. Then she discovers a co-parenting app: Acorns. For men and women who want to have a baby, but don't want to do it alone. When she meets Louis through it, it feels as though the fates have aligned. But just one year later, Faye is on the run from Louis, with baby Jake in tow. In desperate need of a new place to live, she contacts Rachel, who's renting out a room in her remote Norfolk cottage. It's all Faye can afford - and surely she'll be safe from Louis there? But is Rachel the benevolent landlady she pretends to be? Or does she have a secret of her own?

A group of armed mercenaries lay siege to a remote village in Northumberland. Soldiers patrol the streets, telling everyone to stay inside, and the roads are blocked off to prevent anyone coming in or out. Their target: Alex Winter and his 15-year-old daughter, Ruby. When her father is captured, Ruby tries to run, but quickly realises she has another problem - the only people who can save her are the villagers she's shunned for her whole life including the neighbourhood busybody, a disreputable poacher, the village drunk and the local school's troublemaker. Desperate to find her father and to work out who took him and why, she seeks their help. But what if learning the truth means discovering the life she once knew was a lie. You Can Run is by Trevor Wood.

The Sins of Our Fathers is by Åsa Larsson. Forensic pathologist Lars Pohjanen has only a few weeks to live when he asks Rebecka Martinsson to investigate a murder that has long since passed the statute of limitations. A body found in a freezer at the home of the deceased alcoholic, Henry Pekkari, has been identified as a man who disappeared without a trace in 1962: the father of Swedish Olympic boxing champion Boerje Stroem. Rebecka wants nothing to do with a fifty-year-old case - she has enough to worry about. But how can she ignore a dying man's wish? When the post-mortem confirms that Pekkari, too, was murdered, Rebecka has a red-hot investigation on her hands. But what does it have to do with the body kept in his freezer for decades? Meanwhile, the city of Kiruna is being torn down and moved a few kilometres east, to make way for the mine that has been devouring the city from below. With the city in flux, the tentacles of organized crime are slowly taking over . . .

April 2023

A Good Night to Kill is by Amen Alonge. Born and raised in London, Pretty Boy has spent the last ten years in exile after being forced out of his hometown. He's learned patience, and how to disappear. Now Pretty Boy is ready to get his revenge on those who need to pay for his lost years. Meanwhile, back in the city, things have moved on. People still talk about Pretty Boy, of course. He's a legend, more myth than man, and rumours run wild about his deadly legacy. But most think they've seen the last of him. He's finished. Someone who never gave up on Pretty Boy is Alan Pierce. The former policeman turned corrupt businessman has always lived by his own rules: stay focused, stay one step ahead of the enemy, stay alive. Alan and Pretty Boy have history - Pretty Boy owes him everything - so when Alan finds himself fighting a drug-fuelled war on all fronts, there's only one man he wants to turn to. But where is Pretty Boy?

May 2023

Don't Look Back is by Jo Spain. Your dream island. The love of your life. A secret that changes everything . . . For one week, everything in Luke Miller's life is perfect. Surprised with a belated honeymoon by his wife, Rose, he's had seven days with her in a Caribbean paradise. It's more than he ever thought he'd deserve. But as they pack their bags, Rose breaks down, confessing that on the day they left London, a violent man from her past tracked her down and broke into their home. He wasn't expecting her to fight back. And, in her terror, Rose killed him. Now there's a dead body in Luke's apartment, and only one person he can think to turn to. Mickey Sheils never expected to hear from Luke again, not after he disappeared the first time. Luke knows Mickey can't deny a woman who needs help, so she promises she'll deal with things - she'll make sure Rose doesn't have to keep running. But it turns out, some lies are too big to run from.

Rachel's boyfriend Frank is different from other people. His strangeness is part of what she loves about him: his innocence, his intelligence, his passionate immersion in the music of JS Bach. As a coder, Frank sees patterns in everything, but as his theories slide further towards the irrational, Rachel becomes increasingly concerned for his wellbeing. There are people Frank knows online, people who share his view of the world and who insist he has a unique role to play. In spite of Rachel's fears for his safety, Frank is determined to meet them face to face. When Frank disappears, Rachel is forced to seek help in the form of Robin, a private detective who left the police force for reasons she will not reveal. Like Frank, Robin is obsessed with the music of Bach. Like Frank, she has unexplained connections with the criminal underworld of southeast London. An obscure science fiction story from the 1950s appears to offer clues to Frank's secret agenda, but not to where he is. As Robin and Rachel draw closer in their search for the truth, they are forced to ask themselves if Frank's obsession with an alien war, against all logic, might have a basis in fact. Conquest is by Nina Allan.

June 2023

The Man in Black and other Stories is by Elly Griffiths. This bumper collection of short stories by the bestselling author of the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries, the Detective Harbinder Kaur trilogy and the Brighton Mysteries features characters that readers have come to know and love. Elly Griffiths has always written short stories to experiment with different voices and genres and to explore what some of her much-loved creations such as Dr Ruth Galloway might have done outside of the novels. This collection gathers them all together in one splendid volume. Here are bite-sized tales to please and entertain every thriller taste as well as all Elly Griffiths' fans. There are ghost stories and mini cosy mysteries; tales of psychological suspense and poignant vignettes of love and loss. There's a creepy horror story to make you shiver and a tale narrated by Flint, Ruth Galloway's cat, to make you smile. These stories illustrate the breadth and variety of Elly Griffiths' talent. Even the darkest of them is leavened with light touches of humour. This collection shows an author writing at the top of her game.

Chateau Under Seige is by Martin Walker. The event of the Perigord tourist season is to be the re-enactment of the liberation of the historic town of Sarlat from the English in 1370. But it all goes wrong when the man playing the part of the French general is almost killed in the heat of the action. The immediate question for chief of police Bruno Courreges is was this an accident - or deliberate? The stakes rise when Bruno learns that the man, Kerquelin, was running Frenchelon, the secret French electronic intelligence base nearby, after being recruited from a brilliant Silicon Valley career. His old Silicon Valley colleagues have been invited to stay at the luxurious local chateau of Rouffillac as his guests to enjoy the Sarlat show. As he investigates, Bruno discovers that Kerquelin's wound was faked, that he is alive and well and secretly negotiating a massive deal to build a semi-conductor industry in France. But then a whole new and dangerous player emerges, determined to nip the deal in the bud.

Former investment banker Johan Golding - Joe to his friends – is the newest member of the Hartley and Edwards Investigations team. And he's thrilled to be shadowing Kitt Hartley, librarian-turned-top sleuth, and her right-hand woman Grace Edwards; even if it means adjusting to the low-level madness that seems to reign in the Hartley and Edwards offices. But Joe finds himself thrown in at the deep end when a man known as Ralph Holmes goes missing on the outskirts of Carlisle. Police are refusing to investigate, as his disappearance seems voluntary, but his niece, Carly Lewis, is determined to find out what really happened. As Kitt, Grace and Joe begin to investigate, they deduce there might be more to this disappearance than meets the eye. Drawn into a web of international conspiracies and possible murder, they need to find out who Ralph Holmes really was - and who he was working for. In their most dangerous case yet, the team are in a race against the clock to uncover the truth, before anyone else gets hurt . . . A Body in the Borderlands is by Helen Cox.

The End of Us is by Olivia Kiernan. It all started to go wrong the day the Wrights moved in next door. Myles and Lana Butler live on a gorgeous new development in Wimbledon, leaning on a mortgage that is just within reach. When one of Myles' investments fails they are bound to lose everything. Gabriel and Holly Wright have just moved in next door. The Wrights are sophisticated, ambitious and apparently very wealthy. At an after-dinner drink with their new neighbours, Myles and Lana share their worries and a solution is suggested between the couples. Life Insurance fraud. For a cut of the pay out, the Wrights would help them. No one thought they were being serious. No one agreed they'd actually go through with it. And no one mentioned it would involve murder. Then, one night, Lana doesn't come home.

Berlin: A man is beaten up, the attacker escapes undetected. As a trail leads to Freiburg, Chief Inspector Louise Boni is sent to investigate. It's a complex case: the attacker appears to be a professional, the victim a secret service informer, the only witness knows more than she's saying, and the domestic intelligence service is hovering in the background but refusing to cooperate. Industrial espionage appears to be at play, focused on the burgeoning solar energy sector. Boni's investigation keeps being obstructed, so yet again she has to rip up the police handbook in her attempt to find out how the different threads of the web are linked. But by the time she discovers the truth, it's already too late for one of those involved . . . In Inspector Louise Boni's fifth case, Oliver Bottini weaves a web of tension that traps all those who come too close. The Invisble Web is by Oliver Bottini.

The Missing Mummies is by Lisa Tuttle. Miss Lane is puzzled by Jasper Jesperson's interest in what seems a very minor theft -possibly even a prank - from the storerooms at the British Museum. But London in the 1890s is rife with secret organisations, cults and individuals eager to acquire some of the legendary magic of ancient Egypt. The deeper the two detectives dig, the more hidden crimes they uncover, and the higher the death toll mounts. And at the centre of it all is the 'Mystery Mummy' recently acquired by the museum.

The Slow Burn of Inspiration by Derek B Miller

 

Inspiration doesn't always strike. More often it simmers.

When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I had a killer stereo system. I'd saved up — and gladly forked over – over $500 (serious money then) for an NAD 7155 stereo receiver to drive my B&O turntable, Luxman cassette player, and Klipsche speakers. My bedroom wasn't big so there was no perfect place to sit to catch the sound right. My solution was turn the speakers towards me from either side of the dresser, and then lean back on the drawers, creating enormous defacto headphones that came at me from either side. 

This is how I first listened to Telegraph Road from Dire Straits.

I normally had enough money for one or two albums a month at $10 each. Without a car, that left me with one (and only one) record and tape shop in my hometown outside Boston, Massachusetts. I padded this meagre haul with a few albums I stole from the high school library (BB King's Live at the Cook County Jail; With a Little Help from my Friends by Joe Cocker; A Farewell to Kings by Rush). But those were stuck in Pergatory and … how had they gotten there anyway? No, they were better off with me. Stealing is bad, but letting art languish or die is wrong. 

Decisions were made. 

Anyway: I had first heard Telegraph Road on the radio — all fourteen minutes and eighteen seconds of it — in a car park at a mall on a truly god-awful car stereo that I did not switch off until the WCOZ DJ (bless his heart) mentioned the name of the song. I was gobsmacked. So when I dropped my coin to buy it, and spun it up at home off a crisp and shiny LP (the plastic film still clinging to my jeans). I was whisked away. So much so that some thirty-five years later I can confidently trace the first inspirations to my new novel, RADIO LIFE, to that song and that moment. 

Mark Knopfler's first stanza reads, 'Well a long time ago, came a man on a track /Walking thirty miles with a sack on his back / And he put down his load where he thought it was the best / He made a home in the wilderness.' In my mind, back then, the wilderness as a western American desert. I can still picture the rock formations. The color of the sands. The river nearby. The distant hills with touches of green. In RADIO LIFE, this is where The Few came upon the Stadium to later create the Commonwealth.

I started writing fiction (quite alone, and without a word to anyone about it) in a tiny apartment in Geneva, Switzerland on the Rue Louis Favre in 1996, when I moved there to pursue a doctorate. I had no TV, no internet (of course) and nothing to do but read and write. So I did. Twelve years (and about four manuscripts) I published my debut novel, Norwegian by Night, and only in 2020 — among a host of contributing factors — would the tiny spark of Mark Knopfler's song help inspire my latest novel.

I believe that inspiration is made possible by a cumulative process of artistic growth, which is itself made possible by exposure to both unmediated experience on the one hand, and art itself on the other. We too frequently look on objects and events as sources of inspiration — imbuing them with almost magical force and effect. A bridge. A tree. A sunset. A smile. There are such moments, it's true, but it's our Romantic philosophic inheritence that makes us fetishize them. The harm is that it turns our attention away from the slower burn that is the crucible for our artistic sensibilities — as artists and appreciators of art. And to me this is a pity because it sets the artist on a mistaken quest to seek out a kind of inspirational Grail, with all the incumbant possibilities of failure. Instead, I see a virtue in reflecting on our simple lives and how sometimes the smallest experiences lay the foundations for some of the greatest; like how an old song can help craft a new novel, and the imagination of a teenager can later inspire others with a new work of art.

Radio Life by Derek B Miller Published by Quercus Books. (Out Now)

When Lilly was first Chief Engineer at The Commonwealth, nearly fifty years ago, the Central Archive wasn't yet the greatest repository of knowledge in the known world, protected by scribes copying every piece of found material - books, maps, even scraps of paper - and disseminating them by Archive Runners to hidden off-site locations for safe keeping. Back then, there was no Order of Silence to create and maintain secret routes deep into the sand-covered towers of the Gone World or into the northern forests beyond Sea Glass Lake. Back then, the world was still quiet, because Lilly hadn't yet found the Harrington Box. But times change. Recently, the Keepers have started gathering to the east of Yellow Ridge - thousands upon thousands of them - and every one of them determined to burn the Central Archives to the ground, no matter the cost, possessed by an irrational fear that bringing back the ancient knowledge will destroy the world all over again. To prevent that, they will do anything. Fourteen days ago the Keepers chased sixteen-year-old Archive Runner Elimisha into a forbidden Gone World Tower and brought the entire thing down on her. Instead of being killed, though, she slipped into an ancient unmapped bomb shelter where she has discovered a cache of food and fresh water, a two-way radio like the one Lilly's been working on for years . . . and something else. Something that calls itself 'the internet'.

Books to Look Forward to From Quercus Publishing (Incl Riverrun, Maclehose and Jo FletcherBooks)

January 2020

It's June 2008 and twenty-one-year-old Adam Lattimer vanishes, presumed dead. The strain of his disappearance breaks his already fragile family.  Ten years later, with his mother deceased and siblings scattered across the globe, Adam turns up unannounced at the family home. His siblings return reluctantly to Spanish Cove, but Adam's reappearance poses more questions than answers. The past is a tangled web of deceit.  And, as tension builds, it's apparent somebody has planned murderous revenge for the events of ten years ago.  Six Wicked Reasons is by Jo Spain.

Silent vow - Spain, 2020. When ex-pat fugitive Jack Cleland watches his girlfriend die, gunned down in a pursuit involving officer Cristina Sanchez Pradell, he promises to exact his revenge by destroying the policewoman. A silent life - Cristina's aunt Ana has been deaf-blind for the entirety of her adult life: the victim of a rare condition named Usher Syndrome. Ana is the centre of Cristina's world - and of Cleland's cruel plan.  A silent death -  John Mackenzie - an ingenious yet irascible Glaswegian investigator - is seconded to aid the Spanish authorities in their manhunt. He alone can silence Cleland before the fugitive has the last, bloody, word.  A Silent Death is by Peter May. 

Peter Temple started publishing novels late, when he was fifty, but then he got cracking. He wrote nine novels in thirteen years. Along the way he wrote screenplays, stories, dozens of reviews.  When Temple died in March 2018 there was an unfinished Jack Irish novel in his drawer. It is included in The Red Hand, and it reveals the master at the peak of his powers. The Red Hand also includes the screenplay of Valentine's Day, an improbably delightful story about an ailing country football club, which in 2007 was adapted for television by the ABC. Also included are his short fiction, his reflections on the Australian idiom, a handful of autobiographical fragments, and a selection of his brilliant book reviews.  The Red Hand is by Peter Temple.

February 2020

The Lantern Man is by Elly Griffiths.  Everything has changed for Dr Ruth Galloway. She has a new job, home and partner, and is no longer North Norfolk police's resident forensic archaeologist. That is, until convicted murderer Ivor March offers to make DCI Nelson a deal. Nelson was always sure that March killed more women than he was charged with. Now March confirms this, and offers to show Nelson where the other bodies are buried - but only if Ruth will do the digging.  Curious, but wary, Ruth agrees. March tells Ruth that he killed four more women and that their bodies are buried near a village bordering the fens, said to be haunted by the Lantern Men, mysterious figures holding lights that lure travellers to their deaths.  Is Ivor March himself a lantern man, luring Ruth back to Norfolk? What is his plan, and why is she so crucial to it? And are the killings really over?

End Game is by Anna Smith.  Physically and emotionally battered after the shocking events of Fight Back, Glasgow gang leader Kerry Casey must pick herself up and get straight back into the fray.   When London gangsters William 'Wolfie' Wolfe and his tough-talking daughter Hannah approach her with millions of pounds worth of stolen diamonds and offer her an alliance in return for helping to sell them, she jumps at the chance to have someone on her side for a change. But there were more than diamonds in the loot.  Wolfie stole, and its former owners will stop at nothing to get it back. Kerry and Hannah must stay one step ahead of their new enemies - while Kerry spots the opportunity to settle an old score of her own...

To Kill A Man is by Sam Bourne.  Cynthia Wright is a rising star in American politics, strongly tipped as a future candidate for president. One night she is violently assaulted in her home by an intruder. She defends herself and minutes later, the intruder lies dead. Wright is hailed as a #MeToo heroine: the woman who fought back.  But inconsistencies emerge in Wright's story, suggesting that the attack might not have been as random as it first seemed. When former White House trouble shooter Maggie Costello is drafted in to investigate, she finds intriguing gaps, especially over Wright's early life. She likes this woman, who she believes could - and should - be president. But she can't shake off the question: who exactly is Cynthia Wright.

"Look what the fucking dogs did to them, someone muttered. No-one mentioned the rope, or the monkey-wrench, or the gun, or the knife, or the stick, or the whip, or the blood-stained boots. In fact, no-one said much at all. It seemed simpler that way. There was no sense in pointing fingers.'"  At dusk, on a warm evening in 2016, a group of forty men gathered in the corner of a dusty field on a farm outside Parys in the Free State. Some were in fury. Others treated the whole thing as a joke - a game. The events of the next two hours would come to haunt them all. They would rip families apart, prompt suicide attempts, breakdowns, divorce, bankruptcy, threats of violent revenge and acts of unforgivable treachery.  These Are Not Gentle People is the story of that night, and of what happened next. It's a murder story, a courtroom drama, a profound exploration of collective guilt and individual justice, and a fast-paced literary thriller.  Award-winning foreign correspondent and author Andrew Harding traces the impact of one moment of collective barbarism on a fragile community - exploding lies, cover-ups, political meddling and betrayals, and revealing the inner lives of those involved with extraordinary clarity.  The book is also a mesmerising examination of a small town trying to cope with a trauma that threatens to tear it in two - as such, it is as much a journey into the heart of modern South Africa as it is a gripping tale of crime, punishment and redemption.

March 2020

Victim 2117 is by Jussi Adler-Olsen.  The newspaper refers to the dead body only as Victim 2117 - the two thousand, one hundred and seventeenth refugee to die in the Mediterranean Sea.   But to three people, the victim is so much more, and the death

sets off a chain of events that throws Department Q, Copenhagen's cold cases division led by Detective Carl Morck, into a deeply dangerous - and deeply personal - case: a case that not only reveals dark secrets about the past, but has deadly implications for the future.  For a troubled Danish teen, the death of Victim 2117 becomes a symbol of everything he resents and is the perfect excuse to unleash his murderous impulses. For Ghallib, a brutal tormentor from the notorious prison Abu Ghraib, the death of Victim 2117 was the first step in a terrorist plot, years in the making. And for Department Q's Assad, Victim 2117 is a link to his buried past and to the family he assumed was long dead.

Kitt Hartley wakes to the news that a murder has been committed in Irendale, a village high on the wild Yorkshire moors where her boyfriend, DI Malcolm Halloran lived with his ex-wife until she, too, was murdered. The MO of the two crimes is identical, right down to the runic symbols carved into the victims' hands.  Unable to leave it to the local police to solve, Kitt and Halloran travel to Irendale, where a literary mystery awaits. A line of Anglo-Saxon poetry found on the victim leads to a hiding place, and another cryptic clue. Did the victim know she was going to die? Is she trying to help solve her own murder from beyond the grave? And what is the connection to the murder of Halloran's wife all those years ago?  It will take the combined ingenuity of Kitt and Halloran, as well as Evie Bowes, Grace Edwards and, despite their best efforts, Ruby the (possible) psychic to solve this case. The moors may be beautiful, but they're not peaceful!  Murder on the Moorland is by Helen Cox

Man on the Street is by Trevor Wood.  It started with a splash. Jimmy, a homeless veteran grappling with PTSD, did his best to pretend he hadn't heard it - the sound of something heavy falling into the Tyne at the height of an argument between two men on the riverbank. Not his fight.  Then he sees the headline: GIRL IN MISSING DAD PLEA. The girl, Carrie, reminds him of someone he lost, and this makes his mind up: it's time to stop hiding from his past. But telling Carrie, what he heard - or thought he heard - turns out to be just the beginning of the story.  The police don't believe him, but Carrie is adamant that something awful has happened to her dad and Jimmy agrees to help her, putting himself at risk from enemies old and new. But Jimmy has one big advantage: when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

The Treatment is by Michael Nath.  At a bus stop in south London, black teenager Eldine Matthews is murdered by a racist gang. Twenty years later, L Troop's top boys - models of vice, deviance and violence - are far beyond justice. There are some people the law will not touch.  But Eldine's murder is not forgotten. His story is once again on everyone's lips and the streets of south London; a story of police corruption and the elimination of witnesses. A solicitor, a rent boy, a one-eyed comedian and his minder are raising ghosts; and Carl Hyatt, disgraced reporter, thinks he knows why.  There's one man linking this crew of rambunctious dandies and enchanting thugs, and it's the man Carl promised never to challenge again: Mulhall, kingpin of London's rotten heart and defender of L Troop's racist killers. Carl must face up the morality of retribution and the reality of violence knowing that he is the weak link in the chain; and that he has placed everyone he loves within Mulhall's reach.

Three tells the stories of three women: Orna, a divorced single-mother looking for a new relationship; Emilia, a Latvian immigrant on a spiritual search; and Ella, married and mother of three, returning to University to write her thesis. All of them will meet the same man. His name is Gil. He won't tell them the whole truth about himself - but they don't tell him everything either.  Tense, twisted and surprising, Three is by S A Mishani is a daring new form of psychological thriller. It is a declaration of war against the normalisation of death and violence. Slowly but surely, you see the danger each woman walks into. What you won't see is the trap being laid - until it snaps shut.

April 2020

Thirty-two-year-old Jessica is newly divorced and has returned home to live with her parents whilst she puts the pieces of her life back together. But Jessica isn't the only one with problems, as her mother, Jean, has recently been diagnosed with dementia. Shortly after Jessica's arrival, one of the neighbours falls to her death, in what appears to be a terrible accident. However, Jean claims that the woman was murdered by her husband and that she witnessed the whole thing.   With Jean's memory rapidly deteriorating, her family dismiss her story, believing Jean is confused. But when Jessica learns that the couple next door's marriage may have been in trouble, she begins to wonder if her mother did see something after all.   Jessica is determined to discover the truth, but soon uncovers much more than she bargained for...  Deny Me is by Karen Cole.

When the eight-year-old daughter of an Oxford College Master vanishes in the middle of the night, police turn to the Scottish nanny, Dee, for answers. As Dee looks back over her time in the Master's Lodging - an eerie and ancient house - a picture of a high achieving but dysfunctional family emerges: Nick, the fiercely intelligent and powerful father; his beautiful Danish wife Mariah, pregnant with their child; and the lost little girl, Felicity, almost mute, seeing ghosts, grieving her dead mother.  But is Dee telling the whole story? Is her growing friendship with the eccentric house historian, Linklater, any cause for concern? And most of all, why was Felicity silent?  Magpie Lane is by Lucy Atkins

Hitler’s Peace is by Philip Kerr.  Autumn 1943. Hitler knows he cannot win the war: now he must find a way to make peace. FDR and Stalin are willing to negotiate; only Churchill refuses to listen. The upcoming Allied Tehran conference will be where the next steps - whatever they are - will be decided.  Into this nest of double- and triple-dealing steps Willard Mayer, OSS agent and FDR's envoy to the conference. His job is to secure the peace that the USA and Hitler now crave. The stakes couldn't be higher.

You can't stop watching her.  Violet Young is a hugely popular journalist-turned-mummy-influencer, with three children, a successful husband and a million subscribers on YouTube who tune in daily to watch her everyday life unfold.  Until the day she's no longer there.  But one day she disappears from the online world - her entire social media presence deleted overnight, with no explanation. Has she simply decided that baring her life to all online is no longer a good idea, or has something more sinister happened to Violet?  But do you really know who Violet is?  Her fans are obsessed with finding out the truth, but their search quickly reveals a web of lies, betrayal, and shocking consequences...  Unfollow me is by Charlotte Duckworth

A mother’s love will never die.  Widowed Nan is on her way to her beloved son's wedding. She should be excited, but she is dreading her return to Paradise Place - a small area of Notting Hill that she hasn't dared set foot on for decades. Nan had arrived there as a young girl in the late seventies, desperate for freedom and a career as an artist. But, drawn into a dark obsession that spun out of control, Nan was forced to flee.  And while the only thing seemingly connecting her son's wedding and her old secret life is Paradise Place, Nan quickly gets the impression that someone is watching her every move . . . someone she thought was dead.  Unbroken Flowers is by Kate McQuaile.

DCS Frankie Sheehan is experiencing a crisis of confidence - having become wary of the instincts that have led her face-to-face with a twisted killer and brought those she loves into direct jeopardy.She is summoned to the rural Wicklow mountains, where local mother of two, Debbie Nugent, has been reported missing. A bloody crime scene is discovered at Debbie's home, yet no body. Not only is foul play suspected, but Debbie's daughter, Margot, has been living with scene for three days.  Aware her team cannot convict Margot on appearances alone, Sheehan launches a full investigation into Debbie Nugent's life. And, before long, the discrepancies within Debbie's disappearance suggest that some families are built on dangerous deceptions, with ultimately murderous consequences.  If Looks Could Kill is by Olivia Kiernan.

May 2020

Dear Child is by Romy Hausmann.  A windowless shack in the woods. Lena's life and that of her two children follows the rules set by their captor, the father: Meals, bathroom visits, study time are strictly scheduled and meticulously observed. He protects his family from the dangers lurking in the outside world and makes sure that his children will always have a mother to look after them.   One day Lena manages to flee - but the nightmare continues. It seems as if her tormentor wants to get back what belongs to him. And then there is the question whether she really is the woman called 'Lena', who disappeared without a trace 14 years ago. The police and Lena's family are all desperately trying to piece together a puzzle which doesn't quite seem to fit.

Protest. Rebel. Die. An unidentified body is found in a freezer. No one seems to know or care who it is or who placed it there.  DS Alexandra Cupidi couldn't have realised that this bizarre discovery will be connected to the crisis in housing, the politics of environmentalism and specifically the protection given to badgers by the law. But there are dangerous links between these strange, reclusive, fiercely territorial creatures and the activism of Cupidi's teenage daughter Zoe and her friend Bill South, her colleague Constable Jill Ferriter's dating habits and long forgotten historic crimes of sexual abuse - and murder.  Grave’s End is by William Shaw.  

The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer is by Joel Dicker. In the summer of 1994, the quiet seaside town of Orphea reels from the discovery of two brutal murders.  Confounding their superiors, two young police officers, Jesse Rosenberg and Derek Scott crack the case and arrest the murderer, earning themselves handsome promotions and the lasting respect of their colleagues.  But twenty years later, just as he is on the point of taking early retirement, Rosenberg is approached by Stephanie Mailer, a journalist who believes he made a mistake back in 1994 and that the real murderer is still out there, perhaps ready to strike again. Before she can give any more details however, Stephanie Mailer mysteriously disappears without trace, and Rosenberg and Scott are forced to confront the awful possibility that her suspicions might have been proved horribly true.  What happened to Stephanie Mailer?  What did she know?  And what really happened in Orphea all those years ago?

June 2020

Following the funeral of a local farmer, Bruno gets a phone call from his son. He tells Bruno that before his father's sudden death, he had signed over his property to an insurance company in return for a subscription to a luxury retirement home. Bruno discovers that both the retirement home and the insurance company are scams with links to a Russian oligarch whose dealings are already being tracked by the French police. Meanwhile an aging British rock star is selling his home, Chateau Rock. The star's son returns for the summer with his Russian girlfriend. As Bruno pursues his inquiries into the farmer's death and the stolen inheritance, he learns that the oligarch is none other than the girlfriend's father. Bruno's talents are tested to the limit as he untangles a Gordian Knot of criminality that reaches as far as the Kremlin.   But luckily Bruno still has time to cook delicious meals for his friends and enjoy the life of his beloved Dordogne. What's more, love is in the air. His pedigree basset, Balzac, is old enough to breed. Bruno heads for the kennels where a suitable beauty, Diane de Poitiers, is ready and waiting for Balzac's attentions... A Shooting at Chateau Rock is by Martin Walker.

Nobody was supposed to get out alive.  On a Dublin city street, packed with afternoon Christmas shoppers, a young woman appears, naked, traumatised and bearing burn marks.  Tom Reynolds, now Chief Superintendent, is no longer head of the murder squad. But when it transpires the woman escaped from a house fire started deliberately and that there are more victims, including a baby, Tom is sucked in. What begins as a straightforward case of arson, soon becomes something much more sinister.  The people in that house never wanted to be there in the first place. Now more of them are missing. Tom is faced with a ticking clock as he tries to locate the others and as he does, a terrifying spider's web of domestic and international crime unfolds.  And not everybody will survive the fall-out.  After the Fire is by Jo Spain.

Allegation is by R G Adams.  'There isn't going to be an easy way to say this . . .' An evil monster exposed?  '. . . I'm afraid an allegation has been made'. Or an innocent father condemned?  A scandal will shake a small community to its very foundations.  Sandbeach, South Wales. Two women have come forward to make historical sexual allegations against a pillar of the local community, Matthew Cooper. And child-safeguarding protocol demands that Social Services remove the accused from his home and his family, while a formal assessment is carried out.  The Cooper case lands on the desk of inexperienced Social Worker, Kit Goddard. Although intrepid and intuitive, she is ill-prepared for such a high-profile case.  Kit finds herself navigating a local minefield of connections and class, reputations and rumour. Unsure whether her interference is a heroic intervention or a hurtful intrusion, she knows one thing: it will have an impact. The question is whether this impact will be to expose an iniquitous lie, or destroy an innocent life...

Solving problem-solving problems – on writing Viking Crime and getting yourself into a spot of bother.

©Photo by Gunnar Freyr Photography

When I started out I wrote a fantasy trilogy about large men with big beards and bigger axes finding inventive ways to hack, cleave and slash at each other with the odd enthusiastic string of curses thrown in, because sometimes one has to. And while that was great fun (The Valhalla Saga, available from retailers of various repute, features fantasy, mythology and crimes (against history, comedy, common sense and at times language)) it had one thing in common with all trilogies, bad and good - it ended. 

While not wholly unexpected, this left me somewhat stuck as to what on earth to do next. Like all writers I had a couple of ideas for things. Most of them were non-starters; a couple were half-starters, one was a limper and another an enthusiastic shuffler but none was a runner or even close to a finisher. I kept coming back to the fact that one of my minor characters from the second book in the trilogy had been such fun to write that she sort of elbowed herself into the third book and played a much larger part in it than I’d expected – and her name was Helga Finnsdottir.

And as characters sometimes do, Helga posed questions. Some were easy to answer; others were, if I am to be honest with you, quite inappropriate and definitely not fit for printing on the pages of a reputable website. The one I got stuck on, though, was a simple one: Where did she come from?

So I set to finding out – and I found myself writing a story about a murder set on a family farm in Norway in the year 965 and a young farm girl full of curiosity that would get her into quite a lot of trouble. And already, the astute reader will spot some things that I possibly maybe didn‘t think about so much before launching myself enthusiastically into this new project.

What exactly constitutes murder in the Viking Age? They were – rather famously – not against a spot of killing. They weren’t so keen on murdering your own family, and guests were supposed to be safe in your house – and then there is the whole matter of Viking Law, which is a subject matter for another chat.

But the main problem remains. Once there is a murder – how does one investigate? Physical evidence is at best rather limited, and forensic evidence is non-existent. 

There is of course an easy way to get around the evidence part. One could invent a Viking named, say, Skarlak Holmsson, who invents a method of burning ash in a very hot fire and dusting it over dagger hilts to note the finger marks left behind. Sadly, having decided to splash ‘Viking’ all over the books, doing that would probably mean I’d need to change my name, hand in my Icelandic passport and spend my days in hiding from irate Viking enthusiasts (of which there are a fair few, and they don’t give much ground to the Vikings themselves in fearsomeness). Also, as I am unaware of other Viking Murder Mysteries out there (but do feel free to correct me on this) there’s not really an established procedure to follow, so some of the joys of the more procedural route are a little bit lost.

My conclusion, once I had done a fair bit of wailing, head-scratching and a spot of gnashing of teeth was that if one wants to keep some measure of historical accuracy, writing a Viking Murder Mystery is actually a little bit tricky – but Helga did have a solution that fit in nicely with the answer to the question of how she became like she was when she first walked onto the page. 

And this is where we get to a point which I am more than happy to argue, possibly over a tankard of mead. 

Crime fiction depends on plausibility. A murder is a puzzle, and if there are pieces of the solution that are from another puzzle, or missing, or clearly cut to fit by your grandfather‘s knife (he was a man of great practical ability but never one of patience) it is markedly less satisfying. The world is full of people who can write annoyingly brilliant crime books that work, so the book has to work within the reality of the world. 

Further to that, historical fiction depends on historical veracity. The period has to feel authentic, and what is in the period must feel real to the characters because otherwise it doesn‘t feel real to the reader. And while the Vikings had little in the way of tech, they did have – and firmly believed in – Gods and magic. And because magic by its very nature solves things and Gods are sort of supposed to know everything, we have a little bit of a problem if we want a satisfying story about crime. However, Gods are also known for not doing what they are supposed to and magic can be quite tricky to wield. And there is also entirely the possibility that some of it might not be real. 

Some mysteries are better left for the reader to solve.

Kin by Snorri Kristjansson is published by Jo Fletcher Books in paperback on 7th March, £8.99