January 2025
Some murders can't be
solved in just one lifetime. From the no 1 bestselling author Elly Griffiths, The Frozen People is a
brand-new series with a brand-new heroine to fall in love with. Ali Dawson is
as colourful as her bright red hair - warm, funny, forthright - and mother to a
grown son, Finn. Ali works on cold cases, crimes so old, the joke goes, they
are almost frozen. What most people don't know is that Ali and the team travel
back in time to complete their research - a process pioneered by the mysterious
Italian physicist, Serafina Pellegrini. So far, the team has only ventured a
few years or decades back, but Ali's boss has a new assignment for her. He
wants her to step back to 1850, the heart of the Victorian age, to clear the
name of Cain Templeton, the eccentric great-grandfather of Tory MP Isaac Templeton,
her son's boss. To ready herself for the challenge ahead, Ali researches the Victorian
era. She learns that Cain Templeton was part of a sinister group called The Collectors,
the rumour being that you had to kill a woman to become a member. Duly
prepared, she arrives in London in January 1850 in the middle of a freezing
winter. She is directed to a house inhabited by artists and is greeted by a
dead woman at her feet. Soon she finds herself in extreme danger. Even worse -
she appears to be stuck, unable to make her way back to the present, to the
life she loves and to her son, Finn.
Deep deception, twisted fate. Thames Valley has a new Superintendent - DCS Wainwright - young, charismatic and ruthless, charged with pushing through big reforms. Her in-tray is full of problems - and at the top of the pile is the problem of Wilkins and Wilkins. Trailer park boy DI Ryan Wilkins, interesting looking in baggy trackies and over-large lime-green puffa. In his personnel file is a handwritten note scribbled by the outgoing Super: 'Do not, repeat not, give him responsibility.' And posh boy DI Ray Wilkins, improbably handsome in navy blazer and tan chinos: 'Thinks too highly of himself. More experience needed at the wet end.' Their previous investigations - though somehow successful - were models of disorder and dysfunction. The new Super needs to take action. There's been a shocking murder in the heart of Oxford, the stabbing of a security guard during an attempted armed robbery. Meanwhile, an elderly professor of linguistics goes missing from his home in cosy Iffley Village. The high-profile murder investigation can be safely handled by reliable detective DI Hare. The entry-level enquiry into the wandering academic can be given to the problem duo, with instructions to keep it simple. But when the body of the professor is found, still dressed in his pyjamas and dripping wet, spreadeagled on a hotel lawn miles from home, things get a little unexpected for the Wilkinses. Will Ray keep on top of the brief? Will Ryan keep it together? A Voice in the Night is by Simon Mason.
February 2025
The Stolen Heart is
by Andrey Kurkov. Samson Kolechko has been assigned a most perplexing case -
though it is mostly perplexing because it's hard to understand why selling the
meat of one's own pig constitutes a crime. But apparently it does, and at the
insistence of the Chekist secret police officer assigned to
"reinforce" the Lybid police station, Samson does his diligent - if
diffident - best. Yet no sooner has he got started than his live-in fiancée
Nadezhda is abducted by striking railway workers who object to the census she's
carrying out. And when you factor in a mysterious thief in the police station
itself, a deadly tram accident that may have been pre-meditated, and the
potential reappearance of the culprit in the case of the silver bone, it's no
wonder the "meat case" takes a back seat. But it is in the pursuit of
that petty-fogging, seemingly mundane matter that Samson's fate lies - and
Nadezhda's too, for the two are inextricably entwined.
March 2025
1999. A group of
archaeologists are excavating a Bronze Age burial site in the grounds of
Trusloe Hall, a minor stately home in Wiltshire. Excited that their dig is
being filmed for a TV documentary, the group are camping onsite and having the
time of their lives. In the blink of an
eye, one of the party disappears: a young woman called Nazma Kirmani. An
extensive police investigation fails to find any trace of her, and the case
goes cold for over twenty years. 2020. When a chance discovery presents new
evidence into Nazma's disappearance, DI Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad are put on
the case. Did Nazma intend to disappear, or was she taken? Did she walk out on
her life, or was she murdered? Lockyer must see past the upheavals in his own
life to find out the truth for her desperate family. Hollow Grave is by Kate Webb.
Annie thought the
murders were over. She was wrong. It is autumn in Castle Knoll and Annie Adams
is busy settling into her new home. She doesn't find Gravesdown Hall
particularly cosy, especially since she found two dead bodies there over the
summer. What's more, ever since she arrived in the village, Annie has had the
creeping sense she's being watched. Lonely, and desperate for some company,
Annie starts talking to a stranger she meets in the grounds of the estate. The
striking old woman introduces herself as Peony Lane, the fortune-teller who
predicted Great Aunt Frances' murder all those years ago. And now she has a
fortune to tell Annie. Desperate not to fall into the same trap as Frances,
Annie flees Peony Lane, refusing to hear any of her grim predictions. But she
can't outrun Peony for long, as hours later she finds her, dead on the floor of
Gravesdown Hall, a ruby-hilted dagger plunged into her back. But who killed the mysterious fortune teller
and why? And can Frances' library of evidence help Annie solve the case? How to Seal Your Own Fate is by Kristen Perrin.
The Bureau is by Eoin
McNamee. Lorraine would say afterwards that she was smitten straight off with
Paddy Farrell. You could tell that he was occupying the room in a different
way, he found the spaces that fitted him. She was the kind of girl the papers
called vivacious, always a bit of dazzle to her. Could she not see there was
death about him? Could he not see there was death about her? Paddy worked the
border, a place of road closures, hijackings, sudden death. Everything bootleg
and tawdry, nobody is saying that the law is paid off but it is. This is
strange terrain, unsolid, ghosted through. There's illicit cash coming across
the border and Brendan's backstreet Bureau de Change is the place to launder
it. Brendan knows the rogue lawyers, the nerve shot policemen, the alcoholic
judges and he doesn't care about getting caught. For the Bureau crew getting
caught is only the start of the game. Paddy and his associates were a ragged
band and honourless and their worth to themselves was measured in thievery and
fraud. But Lorraine was not a girl to be treated lightly. She's cast as a minx,
a criminal's moll but she's bought a shotgun. And she's bought a grave.
April 2025
Fortress of Evil is by Javier Cercas. A father's worst nightmare - Melchor Marín's teenage daughter has disappeared. Years have passed since Melchor took revenge for his mother's murder and at last found peace with his daughter Cosette in the sleepy backwater of Terra Alta. But their idyll is shattered when one day Cosette, now seventeen, discovers that her father has been concealing the truth of her mother's death- that she was killed in a hit-and-run "accident" intended to scare Melchor off a case. Angry and betrayed, Cosette disappears to Mallorca with her friend Elisa. And that's the last Melchor hears of her. His texts and calls go unanswered, and when she returns alone, Elisa can only say Cosette needed "space to think". Now the former policeman has no choice but to travel to Port de Pollença, where his daughter was last seen alive, and enter the dark, looking-glass world of Swedish-American billionaire Rafael Mattson.
May 2025
You Can’t Escape the
Past is by Anna Smith. The future is looking bright for Billie Carlson. With
her child safely home and a new relationship on the horizon, she hasn't felt so
settled in years. But when Billie takes on a new client, Elizabeth Fletcher,
it's clear trouble is imminent. Elizabeth has killed a man in self-defence. She
met him in a bar but he'd turned aggressive, attacking Elizabeth in the middle
of the night when she caught him going through her husband's desk drawers. Refusing
to go to the police for fear her husband will find out, Elizabeth wants Billie
to work out who he was - and what secrets he was looking for. Can Billie help
Elizabeth, or is she in way over her head?
The Cliffhanger is by Emily Freud. You think you know how this ends. Think again. Stray too close to the edge... New York-based writers Felix and Emma have it all. As the husband and wife team behind the bestselling Morgan Savage thrillers, their meteoric rise to global literary fame seemed unstoppable. Until Felix messed up. And someone is going to get hurt. Now, the couple has been exiled to the south of France. Their sentence: a long, hot summer to cure their writers' block - and save their marriage. But as tensions rise beneath the sweltering sun, Felix and Emma become trapped in a deathly plot of their own making....
Victim or murderer . . . Can she discover the truth? On a misty autumn afternoon, a woman covered in blood clutching a baseball bat walks silently into a London police station. The two officers assigned to her case are DI Leah Hutch and DS Benjamin Randle. But the woman refuses to speak. She is not injured and the blood on the bat is not hers. What has she done? Is she the victim or the perpetrator? As Leah and Randle start their inquiry, a man is found battered to death in a nearby park. Journalist Odie Reid receives a tip off and is determined to solve the case first, trying to link this death to the woman held in custody. Leah and Odie have history and very quickly their cat and mouse game becomes personal, leading them both to the very darkest corners of their pasts. Innocent Guilt is by Remi Kone.
The Devil's Playbook is by Markus Heitz. Retired gambler Tadeus Boch has just come into possession of a mysterious playing card, apparently from a very rare eighteenth-century deck. He immediately becomes obsessed with tracking down the entire set of cards, rumored to be the one pack in the world for the legendary game Supérieur . . . and said to be created by the Devil himself. But Boch is not the only person searching for the missing cards. And the more he learns about the game, the more dangerous the chase becomes. It's not long before Boch realises he's playing for the highest stakes he's ever wagered: nothing less than his own life.
June 2025
So Happy Together is by Olivia Worley.Jane and Colin are soulmates. He just doesn't know it yet. For twenty-four-year-old Jane, finding love in New York City is even harder than making it as a playwright. So, when Jane meets Colin, a sweet software engineer, she can't believe her luck: they're perfect for each other. Even when Colin breaks off their blooming relationship after six dates, Jane is certain that this is just a stumbling block. She'll get him back. She knows she will. That is, until Colin starts dating Zoe, a perfect, luminous, up-and-coming Brooklyn artist. Even worse, she's actually kind of nice. But Zoe doesn't have what it takes to love Colin. She'd never stay with him through thick and thin. All Jane has to do is prove it, and she and Colin will be so happy together. But when Jane sneaks into Colin's apartment, she makes a shocking discovery - one that will ensnare them all in a complicated web of lies, secrets, and murder.
Bruno Courrѐges is chief of police of the lovely Dordogne town of St Denis with a remit that covers the beautiful valley of the river Vézѐre. One autumn morning he comes across an abandoned car parked near a local beauty spot. Inside is a dead woman, Monique, an apparent suicide resulting from depression. But there are circumstances surrounding the death that raise Bruno's suspicions, particularly when disputes arise surrounding her Will. At the same time, Bruno makes the mistake of interfering in a local marital dispute. Deputy mayor Xavier has been playing away and finds himself evicted from the family home. Old controversies about deer culls take on new life and then a second campaign begins, stating that Bruno is less of a village copper and more of a secret policeman, whose main job is working for French intelligence. Some of the ammunition for this attack, Bruno learns, comes from Xavier, who sees this as a way to topple Bruno and the mayor and succeed to the mayor's job himself. Suddenly Bruno's shiny reputation is looking a little tarnished as he battles to save his name and answer the questions surrounding Monique's suicide. An Enemy in the Village is by Martin Walker.
The Woman Who Laughed is by Simon Mason. In the first months of 2020 there was a spate of murders of Black sex workers in northern cities. One of them was Ella Bailey, last seen talking to a punter in an alley in Sheffield city centre, and although no trace of her was ever found, the punter, Michael Godley, soon confessed to all three murders. Five years later, as another sex worker is murdered in the same district, the bag Ella had been carrying with her reappears, hanging on the door handles of a café, and a local vagrant claims to have seen Ella sitting on a bench in a churchyard near the site of the murder. South Yorkshire Police call in the Finder. So begins a search that takes him back to the strange days of the pandemic, to talk to those who knew Ella best, such as her wayward girlfriend 'Loz', abusive boyfriend Caine Poynton-Smith and respectable foster-parents still struggling to come to terms with Ella's life. How did their intelligent, strong-willed daughter - bright student and national schoolgirl athletics champion - end up in that alley? Is Ella really still alive? If so, why has she reappeared now? And does she realise the danger she is in?
