Forthcoming books from Titan Books.

 February 2024

Nobody's Angel is by Jack Clark. Two killers stalk the streets of Chicago. Can one taxi driver corner them both? Eddie Miles is one of a dying breed: a Windy City hack who knows every street and back alley of his beloved city and takes its recent descent into violence personally. But what can one driver do about a killer targeting streetwalkers or another terrorizing cabbies? Precious little—until the night he witnesses one of them in action…

March 2024

Sherlock Holmes and Dorian Gray is by Christian Klaver. Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson have tickets to the newly arrived Circus of Amun-Ra. Holmes is puzzled by his brother Mycroft’s cryptic gift but is intrigued enough to attend the next production. The performers, dressed as wondrous half-animal, half-human gods from Egyptian mythology, display superhuman agility and stunts. But they speak no Arabic, sequester themselves in the stables after each show and take orders from a mysterious ring master who is yet to be seen. And then one of the performers is murdered. Holmes’s enquires lead him to a townhouse near Gorsvenor Square, the home of the beautiful and secretive socialite Dorian Gray. As Holmes digs deeper, he learns Gray is hiding much more than his involvement in a murder in a darkly fantastical tale of lies, experimentation, hypnosis and wicked ambition.

Death Comes Too Late is by Charles Ardai. Collected here for the first time anywhere are the author’s 20 finest stories, including his Edgar-winning “The Home Front,” about death and repentance during World War II; the Shamus Award finalist “Nobody Wins,” about a brutal gangland enforcer searching for the woman he loves; and year’s-best selections such as “A Bar Called Charley’s,” about a traveling salesman’s most grueling night on the road. From Brazil at Carnival to Times Square, from Tijuana, Mexico to history’s first gunshot in 11th-century China, Ardai will take you to some of the most dangerous places in the world – and the darkest corners of the human heart.

The Actor (aka Memory) is by Donald E Westlake. The crime was over in a minute. The consequences lasted a lifetime. Hospitalized after a liaison with another man’s wife ends in violence, Paul Cole has just one goal: to rebuild his shattered life. But with his memory damaged, the police hounding him, and no way even to get home, Paul’s facing steep odds – and a bleak fate if he fails…

Vinyl Detectives: Noise Floor is by Andrew Cartmel. The Vinyl Detective enters the fraught and frenzied realm of electronic dance music. Lambert Ramkin aka Imperium Dart, techno trickster and ambient music wizard of the 1990s, has gone walkabout, disappearing from his palatial home in Kent. This isn’t the first time he’s pulled a vanishing act, but he’s never been gone so long before and his wife—wives, actually; it’s complicated—are worried and hire the Vinyl Detective to find the old rascal. But does Lambert, a man known for his love of outlandish and elaborate pranks, really want to be found? And are the increasingly strange scenarios that the Vinyl Detective and his friends keep finding themselves in due to his trickery or something far more sinister?

April 2024

The Murder of Mr Ma is by John Shen Yen Nee and S J Rozan. Two unlikely allies race through the cobbled streets of 1920s London in search of a killer targeting Chinese immigrants. London, 1924. When shy academic Lao She meets larger-than-life Judge Dee Ren Jie, his life abruptly turns from books and lectures to daring chases and narrow escapes. Dee has come to London to investigate the murder of a man he’d known during World War I when serving with the Chinese Labour Corps. No sooner has Dee interviewed the grieving widow than another dead body turns up. Then another. All stabbed to death with a butterfly sword. Will Dee and Lao be able to connect the threads of the murders—or are they next in line as victims? John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan’s groundbreaking collaboration blends traditional gong’an crime fiction and the most iconic aspects of the Sherlock Holmes canon. Dee and Lao encounter the aristocracy and the street-child telegraph, churchmen and thieves in this clever, cinematic mystery that’s as thrilling and visual as an action film, as imaginative and transporting as a timeless classic.

Sherlock Holmes: The Gentleman Burglar is by Sam Siciliano. Sherlock Holmes and his cousin, Vernier, have been hired by the Baron of Creuse to find the legendary lost treasure of the kings of France. Trekking from La Belle Époque Paris to a chateau in the rural center of France, Holmes, Vernier and a new companion must employ all their wit to solve the fiendishly difficult puzzle of the Hollow Needle. After deciphering the meaning of the phrase “st. s. 138” and decoding a mysterious document, they realize the answer lies to the north in Normandy near the town of Étretat. Together, they follow a long-buried path to an ancient secret, but fresh mysteries and new complications immediately arise. But other forces are at work, and jealous hands seek to interfere with Holmes’s work. He must team up with the notorious gentleman-burglar, Arsène Lupin, if he is to find the treasure and avert an international disaster at sea.

May 2024

Into The Night is by Cornell Woolrich & completed by Lawrence Block. An innocent woman lies dead in the street, felled by a stray bullet. Now it’s up to the woman who killed her to investigate the dead woman’s life and pick up its cut-short threads, carrying out a mission of vengeance on her behalf against the man she loved and lost – and the nightclub-singing femme fatale responsible for splitting them apart. Begun in the last years of his life by noir master Cornell Woolrich, the haunted genius responsible for such classics as Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, and Phantom Lady, and completed decades later by acclaimed novelist and MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block (A Walk Among the Tombstones, Eight Million Ways to Die), Into The Night – available here for the first time in more than 35 years – is a collaboration that extends beyond the grave, echoing the book’s own story of the living taking on and completing the unfinished work of the dead.

June 2024

The Paperback Sleuth: Ashram Assassin is by Andrew Cartmel. When a set of rare, impossible-to-find yoga books are stolen from a West London ashram, its leaders turn to Cordelia, the paperback sleuth, to recover them – a set-up that’s a little awkward as they’ve previously barred her from yoga classes for selling marijuana to their students. But what begins as a hunt for missing paperbacks soon becomes a murder investigation as those involved with the ashram can’t seem to stop dropping down dead – murdered with a whisky bottle to the head or a poisoned curry. Can Cordelia work out who the killer is and bring them to justice before they bring an end to her sleuthing for good.

August 2024

The concluding Hammer novel begins with a 21st century funeral before flashing back to summer, 1970. Six years after the events of Dig Two Graves, Hammer takes another unlikely vacation—this time on Long Island to help look after his partner Velda Sterling’s seventeen-year-old sibling, Willa. Willa must deal with the attention of two boys vying for her affection—Hammer preferring the good kid from a wealthy family over the long-haired doper with an Easy Rider vibe. When Willa gets hooked on heroin, Hamm—filled with contempt for dope dealers—goes on a rampage. He will find the man behind the drug racket and teach him what shooting up is all about.  But a final resolution awaits him in the future at that funeral.... Baby, It's Murder is by Mickey Spillance and Max Allan Collins. 

November 2024

Quarry's Return is by Max Allan Collins. The hitman hero of the acclaimed Cinemax series comes out of retirement when his daughter, a true-crime writer, is abducted by the subject of one of her books.

Seraphina Nova Glass on Why We Love Infidelity…In Thrillers

 

From Shakespeare to Tolstoy to the contemporary airport paperback, we love reading about juicy affairs and cheating spouses. What’s wrong with us? Well, it’s really a tale as old as human civilization. Desire and lust can be a harrowing and complicated thing, so it makes sense that writers take advantage of that…especially thriller writers. People fear it, so it automatically makes for a great trope in these types of novels. 

I personally like to write about affairs because it’s doorway to slew of terrible things to come--lies, cover-ups, jealous rage, revenge, violent crime, and even murder. An affair means something is wrong, something’s off—there’s danger and mistrust at the very mention of it. Adultery is seen as a vulgar thing preying on our deepest desires and fears which fits nicely in a thriller plot. Here are some noteworthy thrillers with a sordid affair at the heart of the story:

Notes On A Scandal By Zoe Heller

This cleverly-written, unconventional thriller tells the story of Sheba, a lonely, middle-aged teacher having a sexual relationship with one of her high school pupils. The brilliantly-drawn characters in this story are at once disturbing and fascinating. When Sheba’s secrets are discovered, the blackmail that follows is...well, unlike any other story I’ve ever read. It’s thought provoking, creepy, and viscous all at once. A must-read.

The Silent Patient By Alex Michaelides

If you’re looking for a thriller with a twist to die for, this is it. A woman shoots her husband five times in the face and then never speaks another word. Her psychotherapist is determined to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband, and this “takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....” If you haven’t already heard the buzz about this one, I’ll confirm it lives up to the hype.

The Last Affair By Margot Hunt

I don’t care what anyone says, I’m a sucker for juicy, unlikable characters. Suburban wife and mother, Gwen Landon, has it all…until she’s found in a pool of blood in her backyard. You’ll be pulling out your best detective skills trying to nail down the culprit in this twisty story. Every character is a suspect and it will keep you turning pages and guessing until the end. A fast-paced, delicious read.

Such A Good Wife by Seraphina Nova Glass (Published by Titan Books) Out Now

Melanie Hale is a devoted mother to her two children, a diligent caregiver to her ailing mother-in-law and a trusted neighbor in their wealthy Louisiana community. Above all, she's a loving partner to her wonderful husband, Collin. Then there are the parts of herself that Mel keeps hidden. She's exhausted, worried and unfulfilled. So much so that one night, after a writers' group meeting, Mel begins an affair with a successful local author named Luke. Suddenly she's transformed into a role she doesn't recognize-a woman who deceives with unseemly ease. A woman who might be capable of just about anything. When Mel finds Luke's dead body in his lavish rented house, she realizes just how high the stakes have become. Not only does she have to keep her affair a secret in order to preserve her marriage, but she desperately needs to avoid being implicated in Luke's death. But who would want to kill him? Who else in her life is keeping secrets? And most terrifying of all, how far will they-and she-go to keep those secrets hidden?

Books to Look Forward to from Titan Books

 

January 2022

Such a Good Wife is by Seraphina Nova Glass. Melanie Hale is a devoted mother to her two children, a diligent caregiver to her ailing mother-in-law and a trusted neighbor in their wealthy Louisiana community. Above all, she's a loving partner to her wonderful husband, Collin. Then there are the parts of herself that Mel keeps hidden. She's exhausted, worried and unfulfilled. So much so that one night, after a writers' group meeting, Mel begins an affair with a successful local author named Luke. Suddenly she's transformed into a role she doesn't recognize-a woman who deceives with unseemly ease. A woman who might be capable of just about anything. When Mel finds Luke's dead body in his lavish rented house, she realizes just how high the stakes have become. Not only does she have to keep her affair a secret in order to preserve her marriage, but she desperately needs to avoid being implicated in Luke's death. But who would want to kill him? Who else in her life is keeping secrets? And most terrifying of all, how far will they-and she-go to keep those secrets hidden?

A brand-new Sherlock Holmes mystery from acclaimed Sherlockian author David Stuart Davies, featuring the return of the sinister Moriarty gang... When Professor James Moriarty plunged over the Reichenbach Falls the world believed that Sherlock Holmes was also dead. Three years later, Holmes has returned - but so, too, has a deadly threat. With Moriarty's criminal empire still very much alive, Holmes and Watson are forced to ask themselves if their greatest foe really did perish. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Revenge from the Grave is by David Stuart Davies.

February 2022

one of the world's finest crime novelists turned his pen to suspense of a very different sort - and the results have never been published, until now. Fans of mystery fiction have often pondered whether it would be possible to write a suspense novel without any crime at all, and in Call Me a Cab the masterful Donald E. Westlake answered the question in his inimitable style. You won't find any crime in these pages - but what you will find is a wonderful suspense story, about a New York City taxi driver hired to drive a beautiful woman all the way across America, from Manhattan to Los Angeles, where the biggest decision of her life is waiting to be made. It's Westlake at his witty, thought-provoking best, and it proves that a page-turner doesn't need to have a bomb set to go off at the end of it in order to keep sparks flying every step of the way.

The hitman hero of the acclaimed series Quarry on Cinemax returns for his final fight. He has put killing behind him. But after a beautiful writer of true-crime bestsellers drops by to announce he’s the subject of her next book, killers descend to give him some of his own deadly medicine, forcing Quarry to journey into his bloody past to find the answers – and settle old scores. The visit from a beautiful young woman who seems to have uncovered all his carefully hidden secrets is surprising but what does she want? To expose him? To blackmail him? To get him to come out of retirement to kill someone for her? Quarry's Blood is by Max Alan Collins and brings the hitman’s decades-long saga right up to the present day

March 2022

Hot Water is by Christopher Fowler. At a beautiful villa in the south of France, Hannah Carreras works as a maid. Under strict instructions never to speak to the guests, she blends into the background – but she sees everything. Including the mistress Summer, lounging by the pool awaiting the arrival of her married lover, Steve. When Steve finally shows at the villa – with his family unexpectedly in tow – Summer has vanished. Steve claims he never saw her. But Steve’s wife is no fool: she knows there’s something going on. Whose tiny bikini lies by the pool? Whose perfume is in the bathroom? Before long, the local police start asking questions, and the villa’s occupants have something to hide. Only Hannah, always listening, watching, saw broken glass and blood near the pool the day Summer disappeared. Only Hannah thinks she knows what lies are being told…

Sometimes you bury the past. Sometimes it buries you. Every professional thief knows you never return to the scene of a crime. But what if you’re forced to? In this intense heist story veteran thief Nolan and his young partner in crime Jon back to rob the same bank they targeted in their debut novel, Two for The Money, at the behest of an embezzling executive and a femme fatale with dollar signs where her soul should be. And those aren’t the only figures resurfacing from the past either – the ruthless Comfort clan is back to even old scores, and some members of the Outfit are packing bullets with Nolan’s name on them. With all these forces marshalled against him, can even the toughest professional hardcase come out on top? Tough Tender is by Max Allan Collins.

‘Her Dark Things’: The Paintings at the Heart of Dark Things I Adore

 

Audra Colfax is the mysterious and captivating star painting student at the center of my debut thriller, Dark Things I Adore. She’s in her third and final year of a Boston-based MFA program in painting, working on her thesis collection, when she lures her predatory professor and thesis advisor, Max Durant, to her remote home in Maine. She’s told him that the invitation has been extended so that he may view her collection-in-progress and provide professional feedback – but they both know this is a ruse. Max is convinced Audra has invited him to her inner sanctum to consummate the long-simmering sexual tension he senses between them. But Max couldn’t be more wrong. Audra has lured the charismatic artist to Maine for much darker, much more devious reasons; indeed, every detail of their weekend away together is engineered toward one thing – revenge. 

As Audra executes her plan, guiding Max through the broken ephemera of his sordid past, Audra takes Max to her painting studio to look at her thesis paintings. Here is how Audra describes her project:

When I first started, I was working in these landscapes of the enlarged. Taking everyday items—but ones with significance to me—and blowing them up to a size that intensified their gravitas as well as their visible landscapes. The topography and emotion of things. An apple becomes an overwhelming erotic expression. A lantern becomes a harrowing stand-in for the passage of time. Meanwhile, there are these echoes—voices—within the objects themselves. Voices as objects; found objects

Here is a quick tour—without spoilers!—through the ten objects that Audra focuses on in her thesis collection “Her Dark Things,” the paintings at the center of Dark Things I Adore. The items are carefully selected by Audra to provoke Max; they are clues, they are indictments.  

1. Enamel Lantern – this lantern has given generations of women the perfect light by which to sketch.

2. Gold Dove Charm – this necklace was given as a gift from a mother to a child; it symbolized hope for the future. 

3. Black-Capped Chickadee – the Maine state bird, and a creature with the ability to rise above. 

4. Apple – fruit grown on the land of a Rockveil, Maine family, and a symbol of fertility and motherhood. 

5. Scarf – a daughter’s favorite clothing item, and a reminder hung around their necks. 

6. Flames – a scalding bonfire around which secrets were revealed. 

7. Raven – the signature imagery, haunting and bleak, of a local Rockveil artist. 

8. Birches and Boulders – signifiers of a harrowing and sacred location. 

9. Baby Blanket – the item in which the baby who had been loved and feared in equal measure was swaddled.

10. Rope – a lifeline, a last chance, a threat. 

    
    

    
    
    
    

    Dark Things I Adore by Katie Lattari (Titan Books) Out Now 

    Three campfire secrets. Two witnesses. One dead in the trees. And the woman, thirty years later, bent on making the guilty finally pay. 1988. A group of outcasts gather at a small, prestigious arts camp nestled in the Maine woods. They're the painters: bright, hopeful, teeming with potential. But secrets and dark ambitions rise like smoke from a campfire, and the truths they tell will come back to haunt them in ways more deadly than they dreamed. 2018. Esteemed art professor Max Durant arrives at his protege's remote home to view her graduate thesis collection. He knows Audra is beautiful and brilliant. He knows being invited into her private world is a rare gift. But he doesn't know that Audra has engineered every aspect of their weekend together. Every detail, every conversation. Audra has woven the perfect web. Only Audra knows what happened that summer in 1988. Max's secret, and the dark things that followed. And even though it won't be easy, Audra knows someone must pay. What comes to light, chapter by spellbinding chapter, is that one grand, grotesque act of selfishness committed by Max as a young man, followed by years of manipulating women for art, has set into motion the machinery of his own fatal undoing. A man should pay for his crimes, and no-one is more deserving of revenge than the women to whom he owes his career. He should go into this weekend far more vigilant, but he's distracted, as always, by an overwhelming desire to have his own way. But Audra, who is well aware that he's a monster, doesn't know everything that simmers beneath his surface.

    
    
    

    
    

Gun Honey Comic Series

TITAN COMICS AND HARD CASE CRIME 

ANNOUNCE GUN HONEY COMIC SERIES

SHE’LL GET YOU THE WEAPON YOU NEED,

WHERE YOU NEED IT, WHEN YOU NEED IT

Titan Comics and Hard Case Crime are excited to announce GUN HONEY, a new 4-part crime comic series written by Charles Ardai, the Edgar and Shamus award winner and co-founder of Hard Case Crime, with art by Ang Hor Kheng. Issue #1 launches September 15, 2021 with covers by superstar artist Bill Sienkiewicz and legendary movie poster artist Robert McGinnis. Praised by comic creators Max Allan Collins (Ms. Tree), Ed Brubaker (Captain America) and Duane Swierczynski (Birds of Prey), GUN HONEY is a story about weapons supplier Joanna Tan, the best in the world at providing the perfect weapon at the perfect moment.

But when a gun she smuggles into a high-security prison leads to the escape of a brutal criminal, the U.S. government gives her an ultimatum: track him down or spend the rest of her life in a cell.

In addition to Sienkiewicz and McGinnis, the comic will feature stunning covers across the series from fantastic artists including Adam Hughes, Kendrick Lim, Jay Anacleto, Chris Wahl, Fay Dalton, Andrea Camerini, and more.

“Gun Honey is a project I’ve been working on ever since we launched Hard Case Crime Comics five years ago, and I’m thrilled to finally get to share it with readers,” said Charles Ardai. “Anyone who loves Modesty Blaise or Alias or Uma Thurman in Tarantino’s Kill Bill will be drawn to Joanna Tan’s story the same way I was, and anyone who loves great comic book art will be floored by Ang Hor Kheng’s stunning debut.”

GUN HONEY is the latest title from Titan’s acclaimed Hard Case Crime comics imprint, whose recent publications have included Minky Woodcock: The Girl Who Electrified Tesla by award-winning author, artist and playwright Cynthia von Buhler; explosive manga Ryuko by Eldo Yoshimizu; the multi-volume complete Ms. Tree collection by Road to Perdition author Max Allan Collins; and adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s international best-selling Girl With The Dragon Tattoo novels.

Books to Look Forward to From Titan Books

 December 2020

The Further Adventures of sherlock Holmes: Sherlock Holmes and the Crusader's Curse is by Stuart Douglas.. A cursed legagcy. The last Lord Thorpe, reclusive owner of Thorpe Manor, has died. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are invited to the auction at which the estate will be sold off, in hopes Holmes can uncover the whereabouts of the missing De Trop Diamond, a jewel-encrusted gemstone brought back from the Crusades by an earlier member of the Thorpe dynasty – and the source of a legendary curse. Making the acquaintance of the various potential bidders for the Manor, and visiting the nearby village, the two men uncover the details of the curse from the local publican, before exploring the grounds of the Manor itself. All seems well until one of the guests is found dead. Trapped in the Manor by a ferocious snow storm, and cut off from his network of London assistants, Holmes must convince the remaining guests that the curse is not real, and that there is a murderer in their midst…

January 2021

After 16 Years on the run, would Nolan bury the hatchet with the mob or would they bury him first?They don’t come tougher than Nolan – but even a hardened professional thief can’t fight off the entire Chicago mafia. So when an old friend offers to broker a truce, Nolan accepts the terms. All he has to do is pull off one last heist – and trust the Mob not to double cross him. Fortunately, Nolan has a couple of things going for him: an uncanny knack for survival and an unmatched hunger for revenge… Two For The Money is by Max Allan Collins..

February 2021

When four groups of international heist artists team up to pull off the theft of the century – stealing an entire castle, and the treasure secreted in its walls – what could possibly go wrong? Well, consider this: none of the master thieves speak each other’s languages…and no one knows precisely where the loot is stashed…and every one of them wants to steal it all for him or herself. It’s Westlake at his wildest, a breathless slapstick chase through the streets of France with the law in hot pursuit… Castle in The Air is by Donald Westlake.

March 2021 

Later is by Stephen King. The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine – as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave.

Seraphina Nova Glass on The Top Three Well Placed Red Herrings in Crime Fiction

 

What’s a mystery without a red herring? The use of a great red herring leads the reader down multiple paths of uncertainty and is strategically necessary in a good thriller or mystery. Using them correctly is an art. The killer is never going to be the obvious bad guy making all the noise, right? We’re savvy readers these days, so if you have a character who makes too little noise and seems like the least likely culprit, that will automatically send up a red flag and make them highly suspect too, so it’s not an easy feat creating an engaging mystery with the magic number of red herrings . It’s a balance. The author needs to misdirect with the right amount of distraction and illusion that induces the reader to make false conclusions, but not bombard us with too many characters to care about and rabbit holes to climb down.

Each red herring has to serve a purpose, be carefully planned out and placed. They must add to the story while not being too obvious. The reader should never figure them out before the protagonist does. It’s not an easy undertaking, but here are three novels that make the red herring look easy. 

The Invitation by Rachel Abbott

Jemma and Matt are invited to Matt’s childhood friend, Lucas Jarrett's, home for a wedding that ends in tragedy. A body is found. One of the guests is dead. A year later, they are all invited back for what turns into a twisted game Lucas is forcing them all to play in order to uncover what really happened that fateful night and which one of them knows more than they’re letting on. 

This one got rave reviews for a reason. There are so many characters that you have red herrings galore and although sometimes it can be jarring to keep so many characters straight especially with multiple points of view, in addition to switching between first and third person, that structure actually makes it effortless. Don’t let the complexity deter you because it’s a very well-constructed plot with memorable characters you’ll find yourself thinking about after you put it down. 

The Sleeper By Emily Barr

Lara Finch is living a lie. She is bored in her marriage although to the outside world, her life is idyllic. When she talks her husband into agreeing she should take a job in London that requires her to take an overnight sleeper train each week, she feels guilty for enjoying being away. That guilt is short lived, however, when she meets a man on the train whom she begins an affair with. When she suddenly disappears from the train, her double life and dark secrets from the past begin to surface as the search for her ensues. 

I love a story that’s so well-crafted you never suspect the ending and so you keep turning the pages because you will not be satisfied until you know the truth. The structure of this book switches between two first person protagonists in an unusual way that really keeps the reader’s suspicions darting from character to character in search of the culprit. There aren’t an abundance of red herrings, but the ones that exist are so well placed you suspect everyone and no one all at the same time. 

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

On an island off the coast of Ireland, a high profile wedding is being held, and when the family and friends of the couple arrive, things get weird fast. The best man, the bridesmaid, the plus one, the wedding planner--everyone has a secret and yes, there’s a murder, but this dream wedding turns into a nightmare long before the dead body is found. Told in a past/present structure the question is, who is the victim and who is the killer? 

The author provides the perspectives of a wide host of diverse characters, from the bride, to the guests, to the host which keeps the list of suspects juicy because you are getting facts from all sides and trusting and suspecting everyone’s motives at some point. There are so many people to suspect, you’ll never guess the satisfying twist that awaits you at the end. Each characters past--their grief, losses, their simmering resentments and jealousies are skillfully revealed as the story moves toward it’s explosive ending, and the red herrings are so adeptly sprinkled in, that even though it’s a slow burn, you will gladly wait, and it will be worth it. 

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Someone's Listening by Seraphina Nova Glass (Published by Titan Books) Out Now

Faith Finley has it all: she's a talented psychologist with a flourishing career, a bestselling author and the host of a popular local radio program, Someone's Listening, with Dr. Faith Finley. She's married to the perfect man, Liam Finley, a respected food critic. Until the night everything goes horribly wrong, and Faith's life is shattered forever. Liam is missing-gone without a trace-and the police are suspicious of everything Faith says. They either think she has something to hide, or that she's lost her mind. And then the notes begin to arrive. Notes that are ripped from Faith's own book, the one that helps victims leave their abusers. Notes like "Lock your windows. Consider investing in a steel door." As the threats escalate, the mystery behind Liam's disappearance intensifies. And Faith's very life will depend on finding answers...

Thrillers, Crime Novels, and Neuroscience Psychology

“How much will it hurt tonight, and when will the itching drive me crazy?” I said. I was lying on my stomach, trying to stay very still, while my doctor stitched up my right shoulder blade. I have reached the age where my skin is occasionally described as “suspicious”.

“It shouldn’t hurt,” my doctor said. “It might itch in a week.”

“Have you ever had stitches?” I said, soaking up every sensation, committing them to memory because they may come in handy for a story. Writers are an odd bunch, aren’t we?

“No, I never have,” she said.

That night, it felt like invisible little knives jabbing my shoulder at an irregular rhythm. Of course, it hurt! I had two layers of stitches, deep and superficial. Even as the prickly and throbbing pain under my skin drove me nuts, I thought it was funny how badly my doctor had misled me. She hadn’t lied to me. She was a conscientious doctor. She just didn’t know what it felt like.

Should doctors have to have stitches before they give them? Of course not; that’s cruel. Should doctors have to undergo surgery or take drugs before they perform or prescribe? No, that would be monstrous. (It wouldn’t even necessarily be valuable because the same drug has different effects on a genetically-varied population.)

But these questions dig deeper into the differing perspectives of reality and how they can affect psychiatric diagnosis and prescription. Psychotropic drugs are both overprescribed and underprescribed. They have saved lives and ruined lives. They are still prescribed mostly as one-size-fits-all, but should they be? The brain is complex, and variation rules.

Crime novels and thrillers are especially heavy on neuroscience psychology. The genre is rife with diagnosis and drugs (legal and illegal), serial killers and psychopaths, and relatable, stable people who are simply pushed too far. 

We all have the potential for violence within us; it’s a defense mechanism for survival. Neurologist Robert Burton explains that, even after 30 years of searching for patterns, psychiatrists and psychologists cannot predict who will commit murder, which is unsettling, but also a great relief. Screening populations for violence sounds like a frightening dystopian novel. (Sadly, it’s not. Police use of AI and facial recognition is all over the news.)

Psychiatric issues are at the gooey center of so many novels in the genre: Shutter Island (Dennis Lehane), The Girl on The Train (Paula Hawkins), Sharp Objects (Gillian Flynn), American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis), The Silent Patient (Alex Michaelides), and The Talented Mr. Ripley (Patricia Highsmith). Internal struggles with PTSD, drug addiction, depression, anxiety, obsession, and psychopathy drive plots and characters.

Those of us who don’t have psychiatric issues still have differing perceptions of reality and psychological quirks. Some of us buy into conspiracies. Others are awake in the middle of the night, worried sick over inconsequential things. Some are dependent on their evening glass of wine or get pissy if they don’t exercise. Many of us replay conversations over and over, thinking, I’m so stupid, I’m so stupid.

Some of us embrace our psychological quirks; others don’t. That’s another nuance of the topic. What are we comfortable exposing about ourselves, and what do we feel compelled to keep secret?

In She Lies Close, Grace Wright is the secretive type. She has anxiety and insomnia, she takes meds for ADHD, and her meds exacerbate her insomnia, which leads to other troubling behaviors. She is worried about losing custody of her kids, so she keeps a lot of secrets.

In this dark psychological thriller, recently divorced Grace Wright moves her two small children into a new house, hoping to start a new life, longing to reset her crippling insomnia, but finds out she’s moved in next door to the only suspect in the kidnapping of five-year-old Ava Boone. Grace becomes obsessed with her menacing neighbor and the family of the missing little girl, and then a body turns up...

She Lies Close has already gathered strong early praise, with New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica declaring it as "an explosive, darkly comedic psychological thriller with one of the most memorable protagonists I’ve read" and USA Today bestselling author Hank Phillippi Ryan describing it as a “masterclass in voice, a psychological tour de force, and one of the most original stories I've ever read.”

She Lies Close is by Sharon Doering (Published by Titan Books)

Five-year-old Ava Boone has been missing for six months. There have been no leads, no arrests, no witnesses. The only suspect was quiet, middle-aged Leland Ernest. And Grace Wright has just bought the house next door. Recently divorced, Grace uprooted her two small children to start again and hopes the move will reset her crippling insomnia. But now she understands bargain-price for her beautiful new house. With whispered neighborhood gossip and increasingly sleepless nights, Grace develops a fierce obsession with Leland and the safety of her children. Could she really be living next door to a child-kidnapper? A murderer? With reality and dream blurring more each day, Grace desperately pursues the truth - following Ava's family, demanding answers from the police - and then a body is discovered...

She Lies Close is available now in the UK and releases on November 10 in the US and Canada.

Joanna Schaffhausen, on the Myths of Serial Killer

Serial Killer Myths

Serial killers have been dramatized in books, television and movies hundreds of times. The portrait of the “Hollywood” serial killer as a brilliant man stalking you with a knife from the bushes outside is a familiar one. But how realistic is it? The FBI has spent several decades studying serial offenders, and their results don’t always match up with the fictionalized portrayals. Here are a few serial killer tropes that have been busted by law enforcement research. 

Serial Killers Are Compelled to Take Trophies from the Scene

In fiction, serial killers always take a memento, usually something personal from the victim, to remember the murder. Often, these items are used to link him to the victims when he is finally caught. In real life, only around half of serial killers take any kind of trophy from the scene. When they do take trophies, the objects can sometimes sustain them between attacks. Dennis Rader, who nicknamed himself “BTK,” went years between murders, during which 

They Are Smarter Than Average Humans

Serial killers can be difficult to catch for many reasons, but the one that shows up most often in film and TV is that they are brilliant. Individual serial killers have been highly intelligent—Ted Bundy is one example. However, the truth is that serial killers as a group are no smarter than the rest of us. Their average IQ is about 100, the same as the general population.

They Only Kill Strangers

Targeting strangers is another reason that Hollywood serial killers—and some real-life ones as well—are hard to catch. Police investigations rely on the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator to narrow the search field, and if there is no previous relationship, the killer can be nearly impossible to track down. However, in reality, the most common relationship between a serial killer and the victim is a business one (prostitution accounting for a good share of the ‘business’). But plenty of serial offenders target people close to them as well. Women, in particular, are most likely to kill a series of husbands or children. Sometimes, serial killers will murder both kinds of victims. Edmund Kemper killed hitch-hiking young women who were unknown to him but also family members, including his mother.

They Start with Lesser Violent Crimes and “Graduate” to Murder

In Hollywood serial killer tales, you will often see the profiler recommend that police check records for earlier violent assaults or rapes in which the victims survived because serial killers work their way up to actual murder. This does sometimes occur. However, when arrested for murder, most serial killers do not have a previous record for violent behavior. If they are in the system at all, it tends to be for non-violent offenses like peeping in windows or arson.

Once They Start Killing, They Won’t Stop

It’s a popular conception that, once serial killers start murdering, their attacks grow closer together as each kill fails to satisfy that initial “high.” Indeed, the line about how “He won’t stop until we catch him” gets repeated on nearly every TV show about a serial killer, but it turns out not to be true at all. Serial murderers can go years, even a decade or more, between kills. Gary Ridgway, known as the Green River Serial Killer, killed his last victim in 2003, but the previous one died in 1986, a gap of seventeen years. Sometimes, serial murderers stop entirely, possibly because they fear capture, are growing older and lack the physical strength for the crimes, or otherwise lose the biological/psychological “drive” to kill. Joseph D’Angelo, the accused Golden State Killer, ran a one-man crime spree up and down the state of California before going quiet in the late 1980s. Perhaps his recent arrest, decades after his crimes, will shed some light onto why certain offenders give up their murderous ways.

All The Best Lies by Joanna Schaffhausen published by Titan Books (Out Now)

 FBI agent Reed Markham is haunted by one painful unsolved mystery: who murdered his

mother, and his powerful adoptive father, state senator Angus Markham. Now Reed has to wonder if his mother's killer is uncomfortably close to home. Reed enlists his friend, suspended cop Ellery Hathaway, to join his quest in Vegas. Ellery has experience with both troubled families and diabolical murderers, having narrowly escaped from each of them. Far from home and relying only on each other, Reed and Ellery discover young Camilla had snared the attention of dangerous men, any of whom might have wanted to shut her up for good. They start tracing his twisted family history, knowing the path leads back to a vicious killer-one who has been hiding in plain sight for forty years and isn't about to give up now.

Holidays from Hell: 5 Crime Novels that Will Make You Want to Stay Home

Vacations are a chance to relax, unwind and re-set, but in the thriller genre, things don’t ever go as planned. In my novel, The Retreat, a former child star, her best friends and soon-to-be sister-in-law travel to upstate New York to attend a wellness retreat. While they start the weekend seeking inner peace and relaxation, they soon find themselves wondering if they’ll survive it. 

Here are five must-read crime novels about getaways that go dangerously awry and will make you want to cancel your next vacation. 

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

Lo Blacklock is a journalist at a travel magazine. The novel opens with Lo being the victim of a home invasion. When, following the attack she gets the opportunity to take an assignment on a luxury cruise with only a handful of other wealthy travellers, she jumps at the chance. Soon after the cruise sets sail, Lo witnesses a murder on board, yet all the guests are accounted for and no body is found. Now Lo must not only try to solve the crime but also convince others that a crime even occurred. This is a well-paced, satisfying thriller that made me glad I can’t afford luxury cruises.  

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

Like my own book, Nine Perfect Strangers is set on a wellness retreat. Each person is there to lose weight, deal with past trauma and generally undergo a spiritual transformation. The proprietress of the retreat, Masha, was once an over-stressed, over-worked corporate devotee until she suffered a heart attack. Now her mission to help others achieve their ‘best’ selves, but there’s a dark side to her cool, Zen-like surface much to the detriment of her guests. 

Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

While on their luxurious honeymoon in Bora Bora, Erin and Mark discover something in the water during a scuba diving excursion. Suddenly, the newlyweds must make a decision: do they keep their secret or turn it over to the police? Their decision will trigger a shocking chain of events. 

They All Fall Down by Rachel Howzell Hall 

Miriam Macy receives a surprise invitation to a luxurious private island off the coast of Mexico. Along with six other strangers, she finds herself in a mansion in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles of forest and open water. Cell service is spotty. Soon strange things start happening and one by one, the strangers are killed off, leaving the survivors to wonder who’s responsible and who’s next. 

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

A group of thirty-something friends from Oxford gather to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students. For this vacation, they chose an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands. Soon after their arrival, a blizzard hits and seals the lodge off from the outside world. The roads become impassable and claustrophobia quickly sets in. When New Year’s Day rolls around, one of the guests turns up dead. Tensions rise, past resentments and grudges surface. Which of the friends is the killer?

The Retreat by Sherri Smith (Titan Books) Out Now

Katie Manning was a beloved child star until her mid-teens when her manager attacked and permanently scarred her face, effectively ending her career and sending her on a path of all-too-familiar post-Hollywood self-destruction. Now twenty-seven, Katie wants a better answer to those click bait "Where Are They Now?" articles that float around online. An answer she hopes to find when her brother's too-good-to-be-true fiancée invites her to a wellness retreat upstate. Together with Katie's two best friends-one struggling with crippling debt and family obligations, one running away from a failed job and relationship-Katie will try to find the inner peace promised at the tranquil retreat. But finding oneself just might drudge up more memories than Katie is prepared to deal with. Each woman has come to the retreat for different reasons. Each has her secrets to hide. And at the end of this weekend, only one will be left standing.

The Problem with DNA – 5 historical crime reads

Author Rebecca Alexander writes historical crime fiction as well as fantasy novels.  A Shroud of Leaves is the second book to feature Archaeologist Sage Westfield.  Here she suggests some brilliant historical crime novels.

 Writing crime novels has recently become harder. In the twenty-first century CCTV cameras watch every high street and business. DNA, blood spatter, fibre and hair analysis have become great forensic tools to solve murders.  Before the 1990s these technologies were in their infancy. Few people carried a mobile phone, even less a camera everywhere they went. Crime investigations were based on interviews, careful observation of the scene of crime and the accumulation of evidence. Setting a crime mystery in the pre-DNA days makes the investigation more difficult to solve, but relies on talking to real suspects. When I started writing about an archaeologist who solves a crime in 1580 in A Baby’s Bones, I had even less sources to rely on as all the suspects were long dead. In the sequel, A Shroud of Leaves, Sage Westfield has a direct comparison between modern forensic methods in investigating a contemporary crime, and the limited evidence available in 1992 and 1913.

 I’m not alone in setting crime novels in the pre-technological past. I can suggest a few brilliant reads for more crime novels set in history:

 SJ Parris’s Giordano Bruno series of books (Conspiracy from 2017 is the latest) are set around the 1580s. The books are full of treasonable or heretical plots and horrible murders, and a host of spies and double agents form Bruno’s circle. Bruno, an ex-priest and on the run from the Inquisition, uses his knowledge of people to solve the crimes. Everyone has secrets, everyone is a suspect. 

Antonia Hodgson’s The Devil in the Marshalsea gives us an unusual investigator. In 1727 Tom Hawkins is imprisoned for a debt of ten pounds. Tom fights to be released if he can solve a murder committed inside the chaotic, squalid prison. Well researched, the book shows a society devastated by financial collapse, gambling, exploitation and amorality. Tom, the central character, is our eyes and ears and the prison is as strange and terrifying a place for him as it seems to us. Almost every character is a rogue, including Tom, yet many are likeable, making a living as best they can. This is not a cosy, period drama, this is fast and dramatic with great characters as he solves the crime.

Kate Summerscale’s, The Suspicions of Mr Whicheror The Murder at Road HillHouse is a Victorian murder based on a true story. Summerscale evokes the difficulties of weaving together testimony from family members and servants. No-one dare tell the whole truth, the reader is left as frustrated as Detective Whicher by the divisions of class and education. She never lets us forget the three year old victim, his throat cut, in the servants’ privy.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood is also based on a true crime, this time from Canada in 1843.  The story of sixteen year old Irish maid Grace Marks, who was convicted of killing her employer (and by implication, his mistress), Alias Grace explores her internal world through the efforts of an early American psychiatrist. Dr Simon Jordan is beguiled by Grace as he is repelled by her crime and the violence of her abusive captivity. The reader is left to weigh the evidence as it’s exposed, much like at the trial, in a mess of half-truths, lies and inexpert evidence.

Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project is a ‘found history’, with witness statements from all parts of the examination (each with their prejudices and lies) including those of the prime suspect’s father, the prison doctor and his own journal. The seventeen-year-old Roderick Macrae is from the remotest part of the west coast of Scotland and is accused of three violent deaths. He is also suspected of ‘moral imbecility’ or madness, and the novel is written so convincingly as a family history it seems real. It asks questions about the effects of brutality and emotional neglect throughout, as well as exploring the murders themselves. Like Alias Grace, it asks questions about the effects of brutality and emotional neglect, as well as exploring Roddy’s relationship with the victims.

From police surgeons photographing the eyes of Jack the Ripper’s victims in 1888 to modern DNA phenotype profiles that can ‘read’ DNA to produce a portrait, scientists have been pushing technology forward to solve crime using evidence rather than flawed witness statements. As a writer, I love those unreliable witnesses and misleading statements. Sage Westfield will keep investigating historical crimes through archaeology because like a lot of us, she is deeply curious about human motivations – even if they end in murder.

A Shroud of Leaves by Rebecca Alexander (£8.99, Titan Books) Out Now

"The victim had been buried in a carved hollow in the grass and shrouded in fallen leaves..." Archaeologist Sage Westfield has her first forensics case: investigating the murder of a teenage girl. Hidden by holly leaves, the girl's body has been discovered on the grounds of a stately home, where another teenage girl went missing twenty years ago - but her body was never found. The police suspect the reclusive owner, Alistair Chorleigh, who was questioned but never charged. But when Sage investigates a nearby burial mound - and uncovers rumours of an ancient curse - she discovers the story of another mysterious disappearance over a hundred years ago. Sage will need both her modern forensics skills and her archaeological knowledge to unearth the devastating truth.