Saturday 31 August 2013

Books to Look Forward to From Cornerstone

When two plane crashes set off a spellbinding chain reaction of murder, inadvertent kidnapping, corporate corruption and financial double-dealing, Niceville detective Nick Kavanaugh has to investigate.  To add to his worries, he and his wife, Kate, have also just taken in brutally orphaned Rainey Teague.  Something bothers Nick about Rainey - and it isn't just that the woman in charge of attendance at Rainey's school has suspiciously disappeared.  In fact, people have long been disappearing from seemingly placid Niceville, including, most disturbingly, Kate's father.  Using his files, Kate and Nick start to unearth Niceville's bloodstained history, but something (or is it Nothing?) stands in their way... The Homecoming is by Carsten Stroud and is due to be published in August 2013.

Down Among The Dead Men is by Ed Chatterton and is due to be published in
November 2013.  This is the dark, gritty second novel in the Detective Inspector Frank Keane series.  At first glance, the bloody crime scene in suburban Liverpool looks like a straightforward murder-suicide - the husband kills the wife and then himself.  But what of their missing teenage son, Nicky?  Is he their prime suspect or the third victim?  With Nicky's holiday job on a film, being shot in the city bringing unwanted press attention, newly promoted head of the Merseyside Major Incident Team DCI Frank Keane knows that time is running out to find the boy.  But all too soon, the case starts unravelling into one that will test Keane to the limit - and haunt him to his dying day.

Second Honeymoon is by James Patterson and Howard Roughan and was published in July 2013.  When FBI agent John O'Hara receives a call from a man desperate for his help, little does he know his whole life will turn upside down.  The man's son and daughter-in-law have been found murdered on their honeymoon in the Caribbean.  He wants justice, and will pay O'Hara handsomely to hunt down the killer.  Federal agents aren't allowed to moonlight, but O'Hara is on suspension.  The drunk driver who killed his wife in a car accident two years ago is soon to be released from jail, and O'Hara is battling some serious demons.  He takes on the case, but when another couple are murdered before boarding their honeymoon flight to Rome, it becomes clear that this investigation is far more complicated than it first seemed.  As O'Hara delves deeper, a past he thought was dead and buried soon comes back to haunt him.

Tory Brennan - great niece of Dr Temperance Brennan - and the Virals return for their most terrifying adventure yet.  Life appears peaceful on Loggerhead Island - rescued from financial disaster, the research institute is flourishing once more.  However, the tranquillity is quickly shattered when Tory Brennan and her technophile gang discover a mysterious box buried in the ground.  A seemingly innocent treasure hunt soon turns into a nightmarish game of puzzles, as it becomes clear that one false move will lead to terrible, explosive consequences.  The clock is ticking.  Can Tory and the Virals crack the code in time to save the city - and their own lives? Code is by Kathy Reichs and is due to be published in October 2013.

Gone is by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge and is due to be published in September 2013.Forced into hiding from a mass murderer seeking vengeance, Detective Michael Bennett must decide whether to stay and protect his family, or hunt down the man who is hunting them.  When Bennett arrested Manuel Perrine, he thought he had brought an end to the drug cartel boss' reign of terror and would get justice for the murder of his best friend.  But then, during the trial, Perrine escaped.  In a bloody shoot-out, Bennett killed Perrine's wife.  Now he wants nothing more than to make Bennett suffer, to make him pay.  The whole family are moved to a safe house in California.  But as Perrine's attacks on US soil become more vicious and more daring, it's clear there is a war coming.  No one, anywhere, is safe.

Sacrifice is by Will Jordan and is due to be published in August 2013.  Afghanistan, 2008.  A Black Hawk helicopter carrying a senior CIA operative is shot down by a surface to air missile, its lone passenger taken hostage by a fanatical new insurgent group.  Knowing this man holds information vital to the on-going conflict, the CIA bring in Ryan Drake and his elite Shepherd team to find and rescue their lost operative.  However, nothing is what it seems, and within hours of arriving in the war-torn country, Drake and his team find themselves caught in a deadly conflict between a brutal terrorist warlord and the ruthless leader of a private military company.  In addition, lurking in the shadows is a woman from Drake's past determined to settle old scores.

Favour the Dead is by Mackenzie Smith and is due to be published in October 2013.  My name is Christian McKie and a few months ago, I was killed in military action in Sierra Leone.  I am undercover with the only people who know I am alive.  We were all killed in action.  And now we must use death to our advantage.  We are the Regiment of the Dead.

An Officer and A Spy is by Robert Harris and is due to be published in September 2013.January 1895.  On a freezing morning in the heart of Paris, an army officer, Georges Picquart, witnesses a convicted spy, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, being publicly humiliated in front of twenty thousand spectators baying 'Death to the Jew!’  The officer is rewarded with promotion: Picquart is made the French army's youngest colonel and put in command of 'the Statistical Section' - the shadowy intelligence unit that tracked down Dreyfus.  The spy, meanwhile, is given a punishment of medieval cruelty: Dreyfus is shipped off to a lifetime of solitary confinement on Devil's Island - unable to speak to anyone, not even his guards, his case seems closed forever.  But gradually Picquart comes to believe there is something rotten at the heart of the Statistical Section.  When he discovers another German spy operating on French soil, his superiors are oddly reluctant to pursue it.  Despite official warnings, Picquart persists, and soon the officer and the spy are in the same predicament.  Narrated by Picquart, An Officer and a Spy is a compelling recreation of a scandal that became the most famous miscarriage of justice in history.  Compelling, too, are the echoes for our modern world: an intelligence agency gone rogue, justice corrupted in the name of national security, a newspaper witch-hunt of a persecuted minority, and the age-old instinct of those in power to cover-up their crimes.

An investigator with the brilliance of Lincoln Rhyme is paired with a former soldier with the
determination and strength of Jack Reacher.  Deacon Munroe is not your average investigator.  He's intelligent, cultured, and well connected.  And totally blind.  Washington DC is Munroe's city.  Now it's a city shaken to the core by the death of a high-ranking general and his wife.  All the evidence suggests that the general killed his wife, before taking his own life.  Deacon Munroe does not trust what other people see - only what he knows is true.  What Munroe soon knows is that the general's death is part of a far greater plan, a sophisticated and brutal plot to kill thousands of innocent people, including those closest to Munroe himself.  But with only a small team at his aid, and just hours to stop a devastating attack on the city, can Munroe unearth the truth in time to bring justice to the city?  Blind Justice is by Ethan Cross and is due to be published in October 2013.

Special Agent Will Trent has something to hide.  Something he doesn't want Dr Sara Linton - the woman he loves - to find out.  He's gone undercover in Macon, Georgia and put his life at risk.  And he knows Sara will never forgive him if she discovers the truth.  But when a young patrolman is shot and left for dead Sara is forced to confront the past and a woman she hoped never to see again.  And without even knowing it, she becomes involved in the same case Will is working on.  Soon both of their lives are in danger.  Unseen is by Karin Slaughter and was published in July 2013.

Dead Set is by Will Carver and is due to be published in November 2013.  Detective Inspector January David doesn't love me.  He loves his missing sister.  He loves his job.  But he doesn't love me.  Not in the way, he should.  I am his wife.  I am still his wife.  And I will do anything for him.  No, matter what I have to sacrifice.

Bones of the Lost is the new Temperance Brennan novel from the world-class forensic anthropologist and author Kathy Reichs.  The body of a teenage girl is discovered along a desolate highway on the outskirts of Charlotte.  Inside her purse is the ID card of a local businessman who died in a fire months earlier.  Who was the girl?  And was she
murdered?  Dr Temperance Brennan, Forensic Anthropologist, must find the answers.  She soon learns that a Gulf War veteran stands accused of smuggling artefacts into the country.  Could there be a connection between the two cases?  Convinced that the girl's death was no accident, Tempe soon finds herself at the centre of a conspiracy that extends from South America to Afghanistan.  But to find justice for the dead, she must be more courageous - and take more extreme action - than ever before. Bones of the Lost is due to be published in August 2013.

How well can you ever really know someone?  As Ben Casper watches his best friend plummet from her sixth-floor apartment balcony, he realises his life is about to change.  Diana had no reason to kill herself, she had to have been pushed.  Diana worked for the CIA, so the investigation into her death is kept tightly under wraps.  But Ben is a political journalist, and can feel that something isn't right.  Ben starts investigating for himself and soon discovers Diana was leading a double life he knew nothing about.  But when more people involved die in questionable circumstances, it's clear that someone doesn't want the truth to be uncovered.  And unless Ben drops his investigation, he could be next.  Mistress is by James Paterson and David Ellis and is due to be published in August 2013.

Angel of Death by Martyn Waites is the sequel to Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black and is due to be published in October 2013.   Autumn 1940, World War Two, the Blitz.  Bombs are raining down, destroying the cities of Britain.  In London, children are being removed from their families and taken to the country for safety.  Teacher Eve Parkins is in charge of one such group, and her destination is an empty and desolate house that appears to be sinking into the treacherous tidal marshes that surround it.  EEL Marsh House - Far from home and with no alternative, Eve and the children move in.  But soon it becomes apparent that there is someone else in the house; someone who is far deadlier than any number of German bombs...The Woman in Black.

No Man's Nightingale is the twenty-fourth title in Ruth Rendell's bestselling Detective Chief Inspector Wexford series.  Sarah Hussain was not popular with many people in the community of Kingsmarkham.  She was born of mixed parentage - a white Irishwoman and an immigrant Indian Hindu.  She was also the Reverend of St Peter's Church.  But it comes as a profound shock to everyone when she is found strangled in the Vicarage.  A garrulous cleaner, Maxine, also shared by the Wexfords, discovers the body.  In his comparatively recent retirement, the former Detective Chief Inspector is devoting much time to reading, and is deep into Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  He has little patience with Maxine's prattle.  But when his old friend Mike Burden asks if he might like to assist on this case as Crime Solutions Adviser (unpaid), Wexford is obliged to pay more precise attention to all available information.  The old instincts have not been blunted by a life where he and Dora divide their time between London and Kingsmarkham.  Wexford retains a relish for solving puzzles and a curiosity about people, which is invaluable in detective work.  For all his experience and sophistication, Burden tends to jump to conclusions.  But he is wise enough to listen to the man whose office he inherited, and whose experience makes him a most formidable ally.  No Man’s Nightingale is due to be published in August 2013.

The Case of the Love Commandos is by Tarquin Hall and is due to be published in October 2013.  When Ram and Tulsi fall in love, the young woman’s parents are dead set against the union.  She’s from a high-caste family; he’s an Untouchable, from the lowest strata of Indian society.  Young Tulsi’s father locks her up and promises to hunt down the “loverboy dog.”  Fortunately, India’s Love Commandos, a group of volunteers dedicated to helping mixed-caste couples, come to the rescue.  But just after they liberate Tulsi, Ram is mysteriously snatched from his hiding place.  The task of finding him falls to India’s “Most Private Investigator”.  Unfortunately, Vish Puri is not having a good month.  He’s failed to recover a cache of stolen jewels.  His wallet has been stolen and he’s having to rely on his infuriating Mummy-ji to get it back.  And to top it all, his arch-rival, suave investigator Hari Kumar, is also trying to locate Ram.  To reunite the star-crossed lovers, Puri and his team of operatives must infiltrate Ram’s village and navigate the caste politics shaped by millennia-old prejudices.

She was ten years old, but knew enough to wipe clean the handle of the bloody kitchen knife.  The night was stifling; the windows were closed, sealing in the chaos.  A table upturned, shattered crockery.  Her distraught mother, bare shoulders raw with welts, knelt beside her motionless father.  The child snatched up her backpack, and ran...London sweats in the height of summer.  The parched city has slowed to a claustrophobic shuffle and there's no end in sight.  Heroin-addicted investigator Catherine Berlin hides her scars from prying eyes while working on the worst of all cases: matrimonial.  The capital's junkies suffer from a drought of a different kind.  A strung-out ghost from Berlin's past turns up on her doorstep with a desperate plea for help: her ten-year-old daughter is missing.  Reminded of a debt owed, Berlin agrees to help, but the search becomes far deadlier than she could ever imagine, drawing her deep into an underworld of corrupt detectives, ruthless drug dealers, and a child killer...A Bitter Taste is the second instalment in the crime series by Annie Hauxwell featuring civilian investigator Catherine Berlin, whose long-standing heroin addiction is only part of her story.  A Bitter Taste was published in July 2013.

Friday 30 August 2013

Books to Look Forward to From Transworld Publishers

The  Excalibur Codex is by James Douglas and is due to be published in August 2013. For countless generations the sword had been kept hidden, ready for a time of need. But not hidden well enough, because on one warm July night in1937 it vanished - its disappearance swallowed up in the storm clouds of war that would soon engulf the world.  1941 - twelve SS generals gather at a castle in East Prussia to re-enact an ancient rite and call on the spirits of Europe’s mightiest warriors to aid them in the coming battle in the East. At the heartof the ritual is a pentagram formed by five swords. One of them is Excalibur, the mythical w eapon pulled from a stone by King Arthur.  2010 - Art recovery expert Jamie Saint Clair laughs when he reads the codex to a German war veteran’s will, the strange ritual it describes and the mention of a sword named Excalibur. But collector Adam Steele is convinced - and if Jamie can find the legendary sword, he will pay a small fortune for it. The hunt for Excalibur takes Jamie from Germany to eastern Poland and a deadly encounter in Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair. The castle has been destroyed down to the last stone and the only clue to the sword’s fate is the strange tale of a wartime partisan unit murdered by its own commander. With a team of international assassins on his trail and the distinction between friend and enemy a blur, Jamie finally makes it back to a Britain under siege, where the last piece of the puzzle falls into place and he discovers that the line between obsession and madness is gossamer thin...

The Kill List: a top-secret catalogue of names held at the highest level of the US
government.  On it, those men and women who would threaten the world's security.  And at the top of it, The Preacher, a radical Islamic cleric whose sermons inspire his followers to kill high profile Western targets in the name of God.  As the bodies begin to pile up in America, Great Britain and across Europe, the message goes out: discover this man's identity, locate him and take him out.  Tasked with what seems like an impossible job is an ex-US marine who has risen through the ranks to become one of America's most effective intelligence chiefs.  Now known only as The Tracker, he must gather what scant evidence there is, collate it and unmask The Preacher if he is to prevent the next spate of violent deaths.  Aided only by a brilliant teenaged hacker, he must throw out the bait and see whether his deadly target can be drawn from his lair.  The Kill List is by Frederick Forsyth and is due to be published in September 2013.

Young policewoman Lacey Flint knows that the Thames is a dangerous place – after all, she lives on it and works on it – but she’s always been lucky.  Until one day, when she finds a body floating in the water.  Who was this woman and why was she wrapped so carefully in white burial cloths before being hidden in the fast-flowing depths?  DCI Dana Tulloch hates to admit it, but she’s fond of the mysterious Lacey.  Even if she keeps on interfering in her investigations, and is meddling with the latest floater case.  But now she's got to break some terrible news to her - news that could destroy Lacey's fragile state of mind.  And Lacey will need to keep her wits about her because there's a killer that's lurking around her boat, leaving her gifts she'd rather not receive.  A Dark and Twisted Tide is by Sharon (SJ) Bolton and is due to be published in May 2014.

A currently yet untitled Liza Marklund novel is due to be published in February 2014.  A young woman has been found dead and covered with snow behind a nursery school in a Stockholm suburb.  She is the fourth murder victim in a short time with the same characteristics: a young mother, stabbed from behind.  The offices of the Evening Post are awash with rumours of a serial killer, but journalist Annika Bengtzon dismisses it as wild fantasy.  As the murder spree continues in Stockholm, the police too begin to think they have a serial killer on their hands.  Meanwhile Annika is dragged into a violent hostage situation in Nairobi that involves her husband – a situation that shakes both Europe and East Africa.  The demands from the kidnappers are impossible and unreasonable.  But when the demands are rejected, the kidnappers begin to execute the hostages, one by one…


High Rollers is by Jack Bowman and is due to be published in August 2013.  When the engine of a 737 tears itself apart at Los Angeles Airport, Tom Patrick is in the wrong place at the wrong time - playing poker at a nearby casino.  He has been losing at cards and probing pipeline leaks ever since his big mouth led to his fall from grace as the National Transportation Safety Board's top air-crash investigator.  Now he cannot wait to come in from the cold.  Sidelined by the official investigation, Tom starts to dig anyway.  Moreover, when another 737 crashes for what looks like similar reasons, it is clear that something could be terribly wrong with the world's most popular passenger jet.  Risking everything, Tom Patrick sets out on a global paper chase, racing against time and ruthless killers - before planes and people start falling out of the sky like bloody confetti.  Brace yourself for high octane, high risk.  High rollers.

1993: Under deep cover, Nick Stone and a specialist surveillance team have spent weeks in
the jungles and city streets of Colombia.  Their mission: to locate the boss of the world's most murderous drugs cartel - and terminate him with extreme prejudice.  Now they can strike.  But to get close enough to fire the fatal shot, Nick must reveal his face.  It is a risk he is willing to take - since only the man who is about to die will see him.  Or so he thinks...2012: Nick is in Moscow; semi-retired; semi-married to Anna; very much the devoted father of their newborn son.  But when the boy falls dangerously ill and the doctor who saves him comes under threat, Nick finds himself back in the firing line.  To stop his cover being terminally blown, he must follow a trail that begins in Triad-controlled Hong Kong and propels him back into the even more brutal world he thought he had left behind.  The forces ranged against him have guns, helicopters, private armies and a terrified population in their vice-like grip.  Nick Stone has two decades of operational skills that may no longer be deniable - and a fierce desire to protect a woman and a child who now mean more to him than life itself.  The Silencer is by Andy McNab and is due to be published in October 2013.

Morning Frost is by James Henry and is due to be published in November 2013.  It has been one of the worst days of Detective Sergeant Jack Frost's life.  He has buried his wife Mary, and must now endure the wake, attended by all of Denton's finest.  All, that is, apart from DC Sue Clark, who spends the night pursuing a bogus tip-off, before being summoned to the discovery of a human hand.  And things get worse.  Local entrepreneur Harry Baskin is shot inside his nightclub, fake fivers are being circulated, and a famous painting goes missing.  As the week goes on, a cyclist is found dead in suspicious circumstances, and the more body parts appear.  Frost is on the case, but another disaster - one he is entirely unprepared for - is about to strike...

It’s a fresh start for the Met's oddest investigation team, the Peculiar Crimes Unit.  Their first case involves two teenagers who see a dead man rising from his grave in a London park.  And if that's not alarming enough, one of them is killed in a hit and run accident.  Stranger still, in the moments between when he was last seen alive and found dead on the pavement, someone has changed his shirt...  Much to his frustration, Arthur Bryant is not allowed to investigate.  Instead, he has been tasked with finding out how someone could have stolen the ravens from the Tower of London.  All seven birds have vanished from one of the most secure fortresses in the city.  And, as the legend has it, when the ravens leave, the nation falls…  Soon it seems death is all around and Bryant and May must confront a group of latter-day body snatchers, explore an eerie funeral parlour and unearth the gruesome legend of Bleeding Heart Yard.  More graves are desecrated, further deaths occur, and the symbol of the Bleeding Heart seems to turn up everywhere - it’s even discovered hidden in the PCU’s offices.  And when Bryant is blindfolded and taken to the headquarters of a secret society, he realises that this case is more complex than even he had imagined, and that everyone is hiding something.  The Grim Reaper walks abroad and seems to be stalking him, playing on his fears of premature burial.  Rich in strange characters and steeped in London’s true history, this is Bryant & May’s most peculiar and disturbing case of all.  Bryant & May and The Bleeding Heart is by Christopher Fowler and is due to be published in March 2013.
  
For thousands of years we guarded it.  But now it has been found.  This could be the end - for
us; for our organisation; for the world.  You must destroy it, and those who have taken it.  An ancient object is discovered in a Cairo souk.  Hours later, the market trader who sold it is tortured to death.  As the bodies begin to pile up, a request for help is sent to British Museum historian Angela Lewis.  Angela travels to Spain with her ex-husband, undercover police officer Chris Bronson.  There they discover the key to the greatest secret in the history of Christianity.  Their only problem is deciphering it before they are brutally murdered like those before them...  The Lost Testament is by James Becker and is due to be published in November 2013.

'Somebody!’  I half-sob and then, more quietly, ‘Please.’  The words seem absorbed by the afternoon heat, lost amongst the trees.  In their aftermath, the silence descends again.  I know then that I am not going anywhere...  Sean is on the run.  We don't know why and we don't know from whom, but we do know he's abandoned his battered, bloodstained car in the middle of a sweltering, isolated, lonely part of rural France.  Desperate to avoid the police, he takes to the hedgerows and country lanes only to be caught in the vicious jaws of a trap.  Near unconscious from pain and loss of blood, he is freed and taken in by two women - the daughters of the owner of a rundown local farm with its ramshackle barn, blighted vineyard and the brooding lake.  And it's then that Sean's problems really start...  Stone Bruises is by Simon Beckett and is due to be published in January 2014.

Spring, 1648. When Thomas Hill, a bookseller living in rural Hampshire, publishes a political pamphlet he has little idea of the trouble that will follow. He is quickly arrested, forced on a boat to Barbados and condemned to life as a slave to two of the island's most notoriously violent brothers. In England war has erupted again, with London under threat of attack. When news of the king's execution reaches the island, political stability is threatened and a fleet commanded by Sir George Ayscue arrives to take control of the island for Cromwell. The threat of violence increases. Thomas finds himself witness to abuse, poison, rape and savage brutality. When a coded message from Ayscue to a sympathiser on the island is intercepted, Thomas is asked to decipher it. A disastrous battle seems inevitable. But nothing turns out as planned. And as the death toll mounts, the escape Thomas has been relying on seems ever more unlikely.  The King’s Exile is the second book in the Thomas Hill series by Andrew Swanston and is due to be published in August 2013.

A violent robbery has killed an entire family on the Costa Del Sol. Annika Bengtzon is
assigned to cover the story for the Evening Post.  However, when she arrives in Spain she discovers there was a third child - a teenage daughter - who is unaccounted for.  Annika makes it her mission to find the missing girl.  But as she delves into the mystery, she becomes embroiled in a far darker side of Spanish life than she had envisioned, as she begins to piece together a terrifying story of violence, abuse and murder.  The Long Shadow is by Liza Marklund and is due to be published in September 2013.

Easter Quillby: Wade disappeared on us when I was six, and I never saw him again until I turned twelve, after Mom was buried.  She always said he was a loser, even if he was our dad, but it turns out, he was much more than that.  He was also a thief.  Like he was on the day, he stole me and my little sister.  Bobby Pruitt: Wade screwed me.  He took everything.  My career.  My health.  My freedom.  He screwed me and then he put me in jail.  But now I’m out and I’ve got a new reason to find him.  Because Wade made a big mistake, and now someone wants him dead.  And that’s where I come in . . .  The Hearts of Small Children is by Wiley Cash and is due to be published in January 2014.  It powerfully explores the nature of love, and evil.

Wolf the seventh Jack Caffery novel by Mo Hayder is due to be published in February 2014

The Dangerous Game is by Mari Jungstedt and is due to be published in March 2014.  When Jenny, an ordinary schoolgirl on the island of Gotland, is discovered by a modelling agency, her life changes overnight.  Soon she is considered one of their hottest stars and is thrown into a world of VIP parties and glamour.  While Jenny is enjoying her new, exciting life in Stockholm, Agnes, a few years her junior, has been hospitalised due to a serious eating disorder.  She too dreamt of living in the limelight, but is now fading away.  Watching at Agnes' bedside is her worried father.  Since Agnes' mother and brother were tragically killed in a car accident a few years previously, his daughter is all he has.  But tragedy also lies in wait for successful Jenny.  During a lavish fashion photo shoot on Gotland's barren, isolated peninsula, Furillen, her new boyfriend, the fashion photographer Markus, falls victim to a murder attempt.  He is found in an isolated spot, covered in blood and brutally assaulted - but alive.  Will he be able to tell police inspector Anders Knutas anything that will lead the police to the perpetrator before it's too late?  For a long time, Jenny and Agnes remain unaware that their lives are entwined.  But someone is keeping an eye on them.  Someone with plans to intervene in their lives and deliver their own kind of justice.

He Who Kills The Dragon is by Leif G W Persson and is due to be published in October 2013.  In this second instalment of Persson's trilogy of police procedurals featuring the "small, fat and primitive" Evert Backstrom, the grand master's most appallingly repulsive (and funniest) character is finally given his fifteen minutes of fame by way of his patented combination of laziness, luck, and an unbelievable sense of timing.  A seemingly ordinary murder puzzles Backstrom, who is struggling with strict orders from his doctor to lead a healthier life.  His gut feeling proves him right: within days, his team has another murder linked to the first on their hands, and reports of alleged ties to a Securicor heist gone out of control, killing two.  The nation needs a hero, and the newly appointed head of the Vasterort police force Anna Holt needs somebody to kill the dragon for her.  Who better to heed to the task than Evert Backstrom: self-sufficient, ostentatious, devoid of moral, Hawaii shirt-clad, and, latterly, armed?

A Beginners Guide to Gunslinging by Belinda Bauer is due to be published in March 2014.
'Call your mother.’  In the Devonshire countryside, a killer is preying on young women - luring them into his car, taking them to a place they can never be  found, and then ordering them to call home.  At first, he doesn't kill.  His motive for terrifying the women seems  unclear.  But every killer has to start somewhere, and soon enough he will get a taste for something even more sinister.  Meanwhile 10-year-old Ruby Trick, living with her parents in a damp, crumbling house by the sea, is about to come of age in the most terrifying way possible .  .

"The story I now commence is rich in vicissitudes, grim with warfare, torn by civil strife, a tale of horror even during times of peace".  (Tacitus, "The Histories" AD 68).  The Emperor Nero's erratic and bloody reign is in its death throes when Gaius Valerius Verrens is dispatched to Rome on a mission that will bring it to a close.  With Nero dead, the city holds its breath and awaits the arrival his successor, Servius Sulpicius Galba, governor of Hispania.  The Empire prays for peace, but it prays in vain.  Galba promises stability and prosperity, but his rule begins with a massacre and ends only months later in chaos and carnage.  This will become known as the Year of the Four Emperors, a time of civil war, which will tear Rome apart and test Valerius' skills and loyalties to their very limit.  Fortunate to survive Galba's fall, Valerius is sent on a mission by Rome's new Emperor, Otho, to his old friend Vitellius, commander of the armies of the north.  Vitellius' legions are on the march, and only Valerius can persuade him to halt them before the inevitable confrontation.  In an epic adventure that will take him the length and breadth of a divided land, the one-armed Roman fights to stay alive and stave off a bloodbath as he is stalked by the most implacable enemy he has ever faced.  The Sword of Rome is by Douglas Jackson and is due to be published in August 2013.

The Day before You Came is by Paula Daly and is due to be published in April 2014.
Natty and Sean Wainwright are happily married.  Rock solid in fact.  So when Natty’s oldest friend, Eve Dalladay, appears – just as their daughter’s appendix explodes on a school trip in France –  Natty has no qualms about leaving Eve helping Sean out at home.  Two weeks later and Natty finds Eve has slotted into family life too well.  Natty’s husband has fallen in love with Eve.  He’s sorry, he tells her, but their marriage is over.  With no option but to put a brave face on things for the sake of the children, Natty embarks on building a new life for herself.  And then she receives the note.  Eve has done this before, more than once, and with fatal consequences...

Never Go Back is by Lee Child and is due to be published in August 2013.  After an epic and interrupted journey all the way from the snows of South Dakota, Jack Reacher has finally made it to Virginia.  His destination: a sturdy stone building a short bus ride from Washington D.C., the headquarters of his old unit, the 110th MP.  It was the closest thing to a home he ever had.  Why?  He wants to meet the new commanding officer, Major Susan Turner.  He liked her voice on the phone.  However, the officer sitting behind Reacher's old desk is not a woman.  Why is Susan Turner not there?  What Reacher doesn't expect is what comes next.  He himself is in big trouble, accused of a sixteen-year-old homicide.  And he certainly doesn't expect to hear these words: 'You're back in the army, Major.  And your ass is mine.’  Will he be sorry he went back?  Or - will someone else?

There are no other women on earth like Angela Lassey.  That’s not her real name, of course.  In her purse, there are six different drivers’ licenses and twelve different passports, each with a different name and photograph.  Over the course of twenty years, she's pulled robberies on five continents and stolen things more valuable than many people could even imagine.  She speaks four languages with the clarity and confidence of a native speaker and racks up stratospheric shopping bills wherever she goes.  She's been a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead.  She's been dark-skinned and light, blue-eyed and brown, young and old.  She's gained weight and lost it again, she's worn platform shoes and slouched to conceal her height, and she's smoked like a chimney and bleached her teeth.  She’s never the same woman from one week to the next.  She doesn’t call any place home.  There's no real term for what Angela Lassey does for a living.  She is a bank robber, sure, and a crook and a thief and a heister, but Angela's particular talent has no proper, accepted name.  In Sweden, someone had called her a skyggemannen.  In the Netherlands, they'd called her a spook.  In South America, she was a desaparecido.  In America, she was simply a ghostman.  She is the master of the disappearing act.  She can make anything or anyone disappear, for the right price.  She has worked with some of the best crooks in the world, the best box men and jug markers and hacks, but she's never met anyone better at disappearing then she was.  Angela Lassey is like human mist.  So she’s the perfect person to call when you need to hide.  Like Sabo Park does after unexpectedly stumbling across treasure during a sapphire heist on the China Sea.  What he has is so valuable that those who know of its existence will never stop their search.  He has to vanish, like a ghost.  Because now he has it, he is the richest criminal in the world.  Vanishing Games is by Roger Hobbs and is due to be published in May 2014.

Thursday 29 August 2013

Press Release! Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards on ITV 3 2013



Shortlist Announcement heralds the return of the TV Book Club
 
The motives are numerous, the list of suspects lengthy, and the body count sky high…the shortlists for this year’s Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards in association with the Crime Writers’ Association are announced today. In addition to the ceremony itself ITV 3 will show a six-part prime time series, The Crime Thriller Club which includes a crime thriller version of the successful TV Book Club, starting on 16th September.
The winners of 11 Awards honouring TV, Books and Film will be announced at The Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards on Thursday 24th October at the Grosvenor House Hotel. The stars of all three genres are guaranteed to turn out in force. The awards for books include the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger for the Best Crime Novel of the Year, the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for the Best Thriller of the Year, and the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger for the Best New Crime Writer of the Year, alongside Film and TV-based Daggers.
This year’s CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year is fiercely contended, and pits Belinda Bauer’s Rubbernecker, featuring the obsessive Patrick, whose anatomical dissection class reveals unwelcome truths, up against Lauren Beukes’s The Shining Girls, in which the victims of a century jumping psychopath speak again. Also in the mix, Becky Masterman’s Rage Against The Dying reveals the secrets of mummified flesh, and Dead Lions by Mick Herron, brings flesh and blood to the shady world of cold war spooks.
Viewers will need good detective skills to uncover the winner of the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger for Best New Crime Writer of the Year, so well matched are the talented debut writers vying for the prize.  The award pits an 82 year old ex-Marine, in Derek B. Miller’s Norwegian By Night against a hired hitman Caruana in Hanna Jameson’s Something You Are. Menacing urban crime is equally apparent in  Malcolm Mackay’s Glasgow based  The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter, whilst Thomas Mogford’s Shadow of the Rock is set in the sunnier, though no less brutal, climes of Tangiers.  
The CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of the Year has a cast list that includes Indian mobsters, the remnants of Franco’s savage Secret Police, a secret network of Nazi asylum seekers in Ireland, religious fanatics, and a fair smattering of homegrown British criminal masterminds:  Thriller authors, Roger Hobbs for Ghostman, Stuart Neville for Ratlines, Mark Oldfield for The Sentinel and Robert Wilson for Capital Punishment are all preparing to slug it out.
The awards, which showcase the UK’s best crime fiction and drama are part of the ITV3 Crime Thriller season, which includes a crime writing magazine show for crime fans called The Crime Thriller Club which will feature 'Living Legends' – interviews with established authors Martina Cole, Nicci French, Harlan Coben, Patricia Cornwell, Wilbur Smith and Frederick Forsyth, who will be inducted into the CWA Hall of Fame at the Awards Ceremony.

At the heart of the Crime Thriller Club series is The Crime Thriller Book Club, with six specially selected titles guaranteed to grip readers who can join the discussion online. The 6 books were selected by Amanda Ross of Cactus TV and her team, whose selections for the TV Book Club created many No 1 Best Selling Authors.  The featured titles are:
  • Trust Your Eyes by Linwood Barclay (Orion)
  • Dare Me by Megan Abbott (Picador)
  • Bryant and May and the Invisible Code by Christopher Fowler (Transworld)
  • The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter by Malcolm Mackay (Pan Books)
  • City of Devils by Diana Bretherick (Orion)
  • The Scent of Death by  Andrew Taylor (Harper Collins)

Amanda Ross, Managing Director of Cactus TV, who created the Awards for ITV3 said: “I was delighted to bring a Crime Thriller version of my Book Club to TV. All the titles we’ve picked are great, with a wide range of styles to suit every type of Crime fan, and hopefully encourage some new readers to the Crime Thriller genre.
Alison Joseph, Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, commented: "The 2013 Crime Thrillers Award shortlists are all about inspirational story-telling and great writing. They show, once again, just why this genre continues to be so hugely popular and so greatly loved by readers."   

The cream of acting talent is also recognised at the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards with categories across Film, TV (UK and International) and for those talented individuals who so masterfully bring unsavoury characters to life, with awards for Best Actor and Actress, and Best Supporting Actor and Actress.

Dame Mary Perkins, founder of Specsavers, said:As autumn creeps in there’s nothing I like more than curling up with a good book, the more bloodcurdling the better. Therefore it’s a pleasure to be a part of the Crime Thriller Awards for several years now, truly the premier showcase of world class writing, acting and production.”

….ENDS…

The Complete Shortlists for Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards are as follows:

The CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year 
  • Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer (Bantam/Transworld)
  • The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes (HarperCollins)
  • Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman (Orion)
  • Dead Lions by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)


The CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger for Best New Crime Write of the Year 
  •  Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller (Faber and Faber)
  • Something You Are by Hanna Jameson (Head of Zeus)
  • The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter by Malcolm Mackay (Mantle)
  • Shadow of the Rock by Thomas Mogford (Bloomsbury)

The CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of the Year
  •  Ghostman by Roger Hobbs (Transworld)
  • Ratlines by Stuart Neville (Random House)
  • The Sentinel by Mark Oldfield (Head of Zeus)
  • Capital Punishment by Robert Wilson (Orion)
The Film Dagger
  • Sky Fall
  • Jack Reacher
  • Killing Them Softly
  • Looper
  • Seven Psychopaths
The TV Dagger
  • Luther
  • Top of the Lake
  • Broadchurch
  • The Fall
  • Bletchley Circle
The International TV Dagger
  • Homeland
  • Boardwalk Empire
  • The Killing 3
  • Arne Dahl
The Best Supporting Actor Dagger
  • Paul McGann for A Mother's Son 
  • Mandy Patinkin for Homeland
  • Andrew Buchan for Broadchurch
  • Warren Brown for Luther
  • Roger Allam for Endeavour
The Best Supporting Actress Dagger
  • Pauline Quirke for Broadchurch
  • Amelia Bullmore for Scott & Bailey
  • Holly Hunter for Top of the Lake
  • Jodie Whittaker for Broadchurch
  • Ruth Wilson for Luther
The Best Actor Dagger
  • Damien Lewis for Homeland
  • David Tennant for Broadchurch
  • Idris Elba for Luther
  • Jason Isaacs for Case Histories
  • Paddy Considine for The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: The Murder in Angel Lane
The Best Actress Dagger
  • Sofie Grabol for The Killing 3
  • Olivia Colman for Broadchurch
  • Claire Danes for Homeland
  • Gillian Anderson for The Fall
  • Lesley Sharp for Scott & Bailey

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards
The Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards 2013 will take place on Thursday, 24th October at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel produced by Cactus TV, and will be televised on ITV3 on the 29th October at 9pm. The 2013 Awards are the sixth annual event created and produced by Cactus TV for ITV3, and the annual sponsored by Specsavers and in conjunction with the Crime Writers' Association.

Visit http://www.crimethrillerawards.com/ for more information
                                                                                                                                                                               
Specsavers
Specsavers was founded by Doug and Dame Mary Perkins in 1984 and is now the largest privately owned opticians in the world. The couple still run the company, along with their three children. Their eldest son John is joint managing director. Specsavers has almost 1,600 stores throughout the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Spain and Australia. Specsavers was voted Britain’s most trusted brand of opticians for the eleventh year running by Reader’s Digest in 2012. More information can be found at: www.specsavers.co.uk.

Cactus TV
Cactus TV is a production company run by husband and wife team Simon and Amanda Ross. Productions include Saturday Kitchen for BBC1, The Roux Scholarship, Hairy Bikers Food Tour of Britain for BBC2, Rachel Allen, The National Book Awards and 8 years of the Channel 4 Richard & Judy show live from Cactus studios. Amanda’s previous Book Club choices have created many million selling authors.

ITV3
ITV3 is the UK’s second most popular digital channel and its focus on character driven narrative and drama helps the channel attract an upmarket audience. ITV3 is available on Freeview (channel 10), Freesat (115), Sky Digital (119) and Virgin Media (116).

Crime Writers’ Association
The Crime Writers’ Association has a membership of over 500 writers of fiction and non-fiction. Its main aims are to promote the crime genre and to support professional writers. The CWA has been providing social and professional support for its members for more than half a century, as well as administering the prestigious Dagger Awards. The Daggers name and Crossed Daggers logo are registered Trade Marks of the Crime Writers’ Association, and are used under licence. For further information on the CWA: www.thecwa.co.uk or contact info@thecwa.co.uk.

Agile Marketing
Agile Marketing is a publishing-specialist promotions & project management agency. They project manage the Crime Thriller Awards in the book trade, liaising with publishers and retailers to ensure the campaign to raise the profile of Crime Fiction is maximised instore and amongst readers. They also manage the supporting website: www.crimethrillerawards.com
  
Tickets
Tickets for the televised Awards event on Thursday, 24th October 2013 will be limited (tables of 10 and individual tickets are available). For ticket information, please email Alastair, Agile Marketing: alastair@agile-ideas.com

Media enquiries:
Please contact Eleanor Riches at Midas Public Relations on 02073617860 or Eleanor.riches@midaspr.co.uk