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,
A
young woman has been found dead and covered in snow behind a nursery school in
a Stockholm Stockholm Nairobi that
involves her husband – a situation that shakes both Europe and East Africa . The
demands of the kidnappers are both impossible and unreasonable. But when the demands are rejected, the kidnapper
begins to execute the hostages, one by one…. Borderline is by Liza Marklund and is due to be published in
February 2014.
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 then many people could even imagine. She speaks four languages with the clarity and confidence of a native speaker and racks up stratospheric shopping bills where ever 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 boxmen and jugmarkers 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. Vanshing Games is by Roger Hobbs and is due to be published in July 2014.
Morning Frost is the third book in the D I Jack Frost prequel by James Henry and it is due to be published in November 2014. It's 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
'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'm 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,
blood-stained car in the middle of an isolated, lonely part of rural France
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.
The Sisters - Easter and her little
sister Ruby are waiting it out in a foster home. Their mum died after a drug
overdose, and their dad is a loser who walked out on them all. The Dad - Wade
has no claim to them - he signed away his rights years ago, and Easter doesn't
even want a father who'd give them up that easily. But one night he turns up
unannounced and takes them anyway. The Psychopath - Robert Pruitt is just out
of prison when he gets the chance to settle an old score with the man who
ruined his life. He's got to find him first, but luckily the trail is easy to
follow. Because the guy's just kidnapped his two girls... The
Dark Road to Mercy is by Wiley Cash and is due to be published in January
2014.
Don’t Stand So
Close is the
debut novel by Luana Lewis and is due to be published in February 2014. What would you do if a young girl knocked on
your door and asked for your help? If it was snowing and she was freezing cold,
but you were afraid and alone? What would you do if you let her in, but
couldn't make her leave? What if she told you terrible lies about someone you
love, but the truth was even worse? Stella has been cocooned in her home for
three years. Severely agoraphobic, she knows she is safe in the stark, isolated
house she shares with her husband, Max. The traumatic memories of her final
case as a psychologist are that much easier to keep at a distance, too. But the
night that Blue arrives on her doorstep with her frightened eyes and sad
stories, Stella's carefully controlled world begins to unravel around her. Don't Stand So Close is a chilling and
suspenseful read.
A Pleasure and a Calling is by Phil Hogan and is due
to be published in February 2014. You
won't remember Mr Heming. He showed you round your comfortable home, suggested
a sustainable financial package, negotiated a price with the owner and called
you with the good news. The less good news is that, all these years later, he
still has the key. That's absurd, you laugh. Of all the many hundreds of houses
he has sold, why would he still have the key to mine? The answer to that is, he
has the keys to them all. William Heming's every pleasure is in his leafy
community. He loves and knows every inch of it, feels nurtured by it, and would
defend it - perhaps not with his life but if it came to it, with yours...
On
a cold December morning in 1841, a small boy is enticed away from his mother
and his throat savagely cut. But when the people of
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 school friend, Eve
Dalladay appears – just as their daughter’s appendix explodes on a school trip
in France
I
believe, from what I can hear, that either my daughter or my wife has just been
attacked. I don't know the outcome. The house is silent. Fourteen years ago two
teenage lovers were brutally murdered in a patch of remote woodland. The prime
suspect confessed to the crimes and was imprisoned. Now, one family is still
trying to put the memory of the killings behind them. But at their isolated
hilltop house...the nightmare is about to return. Wolf is
the seventh novel in the Jack Caffery series by Mo Hayder and it is due to be
published in February 2014.
.JPG)
