Forthcoming books to look forward to from Harvill Secker and Chatto & Windus

The Caller is by Karin Fossum and is due to be published in July. One mild summer evening Lily and her husband are enjoying a meal while their baby daughter sleeps peacefully in her pram beneath a maple tree. But when Lily steps outside she is paralysed with terror. The child is bathed in blood. Inspector Sejer is called to the hospital to meet the family. Mercifully, the baby is unharmed, but her parents are deeply shaken, and Sejer spends the evening trying to comprehend why anyone would carry out such a sinister prank. Then, just before midnight, somebody rings his doorbell. The corridor is empty, but the caller has left a small grey envelope on the mat. From his living room window, the Inspector watches a figure slip across the car park and disappear into the darkness. Inside the envelope Sejer finds a postcard bearing a short message. Hell begins now.

Nineteenth-century Europe - from Turin to Prague to Paris - abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Conspiracies rule history. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. Italian republicans strangle priests with their own intestines. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate black masses at night. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres. From the unification of Italy to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair to notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Europe is in tumult and everyone needs a scapegoat. But what if, behind all of these conspiracies both real and imagined, lay one lone man? And what if that evil genius created the most infamous document of all? The Prague Cemetery is by Umberto Eco and is due to be published in November 2011.

The police are convinced that Jennifer White has killed her best friend. Amanda's body has been discovered in her home, stabbed to death and with four fingers from her right hand neatly removed. The murder is a horrifying shock to a quiet and genteel neighbourhood. Jennifer's work as an accomplished surgeon and the stormy nature of her friendship with Amanda make her the prime suspect. However, even Jennifer cannot tell if she really is responsible. Her days are spent in confusion and her memories are fragmented thanks to the Alzheimer's that is gradually destroying her once brilliant mind. Fractured images and remembered conversations return to her over the days of the police investigation, and Jennifer pieces together recollections from the near and distant past that cast light on her current predicament. As her condition deteriorates, she struggles against succumbing to the indignities of her merciless illness. She frequently fails to recognise her children, Mark and Fiona, when they come to visit but at times she finds herself vividly reliving distinct moments from her most significant relationships - with her late husband James, her much-loved medical career and of course Amanda, who knew even her most intimate and dangerous family secrets. Turn of Mind is a portrait of a complex friendship of vexed intimacy, with a compelling mystery at its heart. It is a powerful and moving debut that will haunt readers long after the police have drawn their final conclusions about what happened on the cold February evening when Amanda lost her life. Turn of Mind is a debut novel by Alice LaPlante and is due to be published in July 2011.

It is snowing, she's barefoot, but Galya runs. Her captors are close behind her, and she won't go back there, no matter what. Tricked into coming to Belfast with the offer of a good job, all she wants now is to go home to her family. Her only hope is a man who gave her a cross on a fine chain and a phone number, telling her to call if she escapes. He seems kind. She puts herself at his mercy, knowing she has nowhere else to turn. Detective Inspector Jack Lennon wants a quiet Christmas with his daughter. When an apparent turf war between rival gangs leaves a string of bodies across the city, he knows he won't get it. As Lennon digs deeper he discovers the truth is far more threatening. Soon he is locked in a deadly race with two very different killers. Stolen Souls is by Stuart Neville and is due to be published in January 2012.

London, 1860s. The capital’s high society ladies like nothing more than to wile away an evening at a private supper party, drinking sweet wine, sharing confidences – and having their fortunes read. But palm-reading is a perilous business: the lines of the left hand can unlock secrets and reveal futures best left buried. When fortune-teller Miss Rose Lee is called to entertain Lady Quayle and her guests at Portland Place, she sees in the palm of shy, cautious Emily a future she is forced to keep to herself. ‘A quiet life, my dear’ is what she tells the girl. But she spies two little crosses that spell something quite different – fearful, violent death. As Rose’s predictions start coming true, her own fortunes become embroiled in the suspect fates of others and the future suddenly seems a dark and dangerous place. Cross my Palm is by Sara Stockbridge and is an exuberant Victorian mystery of fortune-tellers and gypsies. It is due to be in published in July 2011.

CWA Gold Dagger winner Arnaldur Indridason returns with his new novel Outrage. In a flat near Reykjavik city centre, a young man lies dead in a pool of blood. There is no sign of a break-in: the only clues are a woman's purple shawl, found under the bed in the next room, and a vial of prescription drugs in the victim's pocket. With Detective Erlendur away in a remote part of Iceland, Detective Elinborg, who is already struggling to juggle family life and the relentless demands of her job, is assigned the case. Her investigation into the murdered man's past soon uncovers a squalid tale of double lives, drug dealers and the unsolved disappearance of a young girl many years before. From its explosive opening, "Outrage" leads down a trail of hidden violence, psychological brutality and of wrongs that will never be fully righted. Outrage is due to be published in June 2011.