Books to Look Forward to From Little, Brown and Constable & Robinson

The Chelsea Strangler is by Susanna Gregory and is due to be published in January 2016. In the sapping summer heat of 1665 there is little celebration in London of the naval victory at the Battle of Lowestoft. The King, his retinue and anyone with sufficient means has fled the plague-ridden city, its half-deserted streets echoing to the sound of bells tolling the mounting number of deaths. Those who remain clutch doubtful potions to ward off the relentless disease and dart nervously past shuttered buildings, watchful for the thieves who risk their lives to plunder what has been left behind. At Chelsea, a rural backwater by the river, with fine mansions leased to minor members of the Court avoiding the capital, there are more immediate concerns: the government has commandeered the theological college to house Dutch prisoners of war and there are daily rumours that those sailors are on the brink of escaping. Moreover, a vicious strangler is stalking the neighbourhood. Thomas Chaloner is sent to investigate the murder of the first victim, an inmate of a private sanatorium known as Gorges. There have been thefts there as well, but the few facts he gleans from inmates and staff are contradictory and elusive. He realises, though, that Gorges has stronger links to the prison than just proximity, and that the influx of strangers offers plenty of camouflage for a killer - a killer who has no compunction about turning on those determined to stop his murderous rampage.

Awakening the sleeping dragon...Smooth expat Michael Nicholson is a fixer, getting on by doing favours for the rich and powerful in booming China. When he makes the mistake of getting too close to one of his clients, the wife of a leading Communist Party official, the ageing Lothario fears for his life as a vengeful husband decides to put his house in order. So when a domestic dispute from the other side of the world leads to a shoot-out in a luxury penthouse apartment in Chelsea, an ex-cop called Marvin Taylor is one of the casualties. Inspector John Carlyle is little more than a casual onlooker until Taylor's widow turns up, looking for answers. The inspector is drawn into the morass of dealing and double-dealing, much to the dismay of his boss, Carole Simpson, who wants him to focus on Barbara Hutton, a Bloomsbury housewife who may - or may not - be a former German terrorist wanted for a forty-year-old murder...'  Acts of Violence is by James Craig and is due to be published in February 2016.

Black Widow is by Chris Brookmyre and is due to be published in January 2016.  There is no perfect marriage. There is no perfect murder. Diana Jager is clever, strong and successful, a skilled surgeon and fierce campaigner via her blog about sexism. Yet it takes only hours for her life to crumble when her personal details are released on the internet as revenge for her writing. Then she meets Peter. He's kind, generous, and knows nothing about her past: the second chance she's been waiting for. Within six months, they are married. Within six more, Peter is dead - and Diana on trial for his murder, a nightmare end to their fairytale romance. But Peter's sister Lucy doesn't believe in fairytales, and tasks maverick reporter Jack Parlabane with discovering the dark truth behind the woman the media is calling Black Widow...

When an elderly woman is found dead at her home, newly fledged DC Kirsty Wilson is called to the scene. It appears that the woman had a mysterious visitor in the early hours of that morning - someone dressed as a carer, but with much darker intentions. It soon becomes obvious that this was not death by natural causes, in fact, it was murder. Before she can catch her breath, DC Wilson is thrown in at the deep end as another body turns up - this time it's a gruesome crime scene, the victim a well-known drug dealer from Glasgow's mean streets, and there's no question that this was a brutal execution. The two cases appear to have nothing in common, but when a second vulnerable person is murdered in their sleep, the police realise that it's only a matter of time before the next victim emerges and Detective Superintendent William Lorimer is called in to help DC Wilson investigate. This case is big and it's about to get more personal than either of them could have imagined…  The Darkest Day is by Alex Gray and is due to be published in March 2016.

The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine is by Alexander McCall Smith and is due to be published in June 2016.  Mma Ramotswe, the proprietress of the No 1. Ladies' Detective Agency, is not one to sit about. Her busy life gives her little time for relaxation (apart from the drinking of tea, of course). Nonetheless, she is convinced by co-director Mma Makutsi to take a holiday. But Mma Ramotswe finds it impossible to resist the temptation to follow the cases taken on by Mma Makutsi, and to interfere in them - secretly, she intends ...This leads her to delve into the past of a famous man whose reputation has been called into question, and to join forces with a new assistant detective (and part-time science teacher), Mr. Polopetsi. While 'on holiday' Mma Ramotswe also manages to help a young boy named Samuel in the search for his missing mother; and then of course there is the agency's arch-enemy Violet Sephotho, scheming to set up a rival secretarial college. Lessons must be learned, whether we are willing or not, and in the end Mma Ramotswe finds that a little trust goes a long way, especially when it comes to having confidence in our dearest friends and colleagues.

Thin Ice is by Quentin Bates and is due to be published in March 2016.  Snowed in with a couple of psychopaths for the winter...When two small-time crooks rob Reykjavik's premier drugs dealer, hoping for a quick escape to the sun, their plans start to unravel after their getaway driver fails to show. Tensions mount between the pair and the two women they have grabbed as hostages when they find themselves holed upcountry in an isolated hotel that has been mothballed for the season. Back in the capital, Gunnhildur, Eirikur and Helgi find themselves at a dead end investigating what appear to be the unrelated disappearance of a mother, her daughter and their car during a day's shopping, and the death of a thief in a house fire. Gunna and her team are faced with a set of riddles but as more people are quizzed it begins to emerge that all these unrelated incidents are in fact linked. And at the same time, two increasingly desperate lowlifes have no choice but to make some big decisions on how to get rid of their accidental hostages...

Welcome to Rockton: a secret town cut off from the rest of the world. If you need a place to hide, this is the perfect place to start again. There's just one catch. You can't leave. Even if there's a killer on the loose. Detective Casey Duncan has a dark past, and it's about to catch up with her. When her best friend Diana is attacked by an abusive ex, the two women realise they have to disappear, fast. And they need sanctuary. Diana's heard of a hidden town that's so remote it's almost impossible to reach. A town that desperately needs a new detective. Casey has barely arrived in Rockton when they discover a body. A man's been murdered - butchered - and there's no time to waste. Casey's job won't be easy: everyone in town has a secret. Meanwhile her boss, Sheriff Eric Dalton, is a brooding, troubled man who's hard to read and very hard to please. With no chance of help from the outside world, Casey will have to rely on her own wits to solve the case. But she's running out of time. Rockton's killer is on the hunt, and this deep in the wilderness, no one is safe. The City of the Lost is by Kelley Armstrong and is due to be published in January 2016.

Apologies for the general email, but I desperately need your help. My goddaughter, Coco Jackson, disappeared from her family's holiday home in Bournemouth on the night of Sunday/Monday August 29/30th, the bank holiday weekend just gone. Coco is three years old. When identical twin Coco goes missing during a family celebration, there is a media frenzy. Her parents are rich and influential, as are the friends they were with at their holiday home by the sea. But what really happened to Coco? Set across two weekends - the first when Coco goes missing and the second fifteen years later at the funeral of her father, where at last, the darkest of secrets will be revealed.  The Darkest Secret is by Alex Marwood and is due to be published in April 2016.

Identifying the murderer of the Chancellor of the University is not the only challenge facing physician Matthew Bartholomew.  Many of is patients have been made worse by the ministrations of a ‘surgeon’ recently arrived from Nottingham, his sister is being rooked by the mason she has commissioned to build her husband’s tomb, and his friend, Brother Michael, has been offered a Bishopric which will cause him to leave Cambridge.  A Grave Concern is by Susanna Gregory and is due to be published in June 2016.

Penance is by Kate O’Riordan and is due to be published in March 2016.  'You know I did a terrible thing. What you cannot know is that there exists an extreme irony, in that, but for one unforgivable sin - far more terrible things might have transpired.' The lives of Rosalie Douglas and her teenage daughter, Maddie, are changed forever when they meet Jed, a beautiful, charismatic young man at Bereavement Counselling. Inexplicably and self-destructively, Maddie holds herself accountable for her brother's drowning accident in Thailand. Jed moves into their lives and their home. Calming the tensions between mother and daughter. He understands the twisted wilderness of grief. Lover and confidante to a besotted Maddie, gentle surrogate son to a grateful Rosalie - on the surface their lives are transformed. But underneath a deadly and morally corrupt triangle is taking shape...Rosalie commits an unspeakable act which forces her to unravel the truth behind the beautiful stranger in their midst. The truth behind the death of her son. And the true extent of just how far she's prepared to go - to save what remains of her family.

The House of Eyes is by Kate Ellis and is due to be published in February 2016.  When Darren Hatman reports his daughter missing, DI Wesley Peterson isn't too concerned. Leanne Hatman is an aspiring model, keen to abandon her native Devon for the bright lights of London. However, Darren's claim that a photographer has been stalking Leanne soon changes Wesley's opinion. Leanne works at Eyecliffe Castle, once home to the wealthy D'Arles family and now converted into a luxury hotel. When Darren himself is found brutally murdered in the castle grounds, the police fear is that Leanne has met a similar fate. But, if so, where is her body? Meanwhile, Wesley's friend, archaeologist Neil Watson, recently returned from a thrilling Sicilian excavation, makes a disturbing discovery near Eyecliffe Castle and surprises Wesley with the news that, while in Sicily, he met Leanne's alleged stalker. With Eyecliffe Castle becoming the scene of another violent death, Wesley suspects a connection between the recent crimes, the disappearance of two girls back in the 1950s and a mysterious Sicilian ruin called the House of Eyes, a place feared by superstitious locals. As he works to solve one of his most challenging cases yet, Wesley must face alarming revelations, rooted in centuries of fear and evil ...as well as dealing with a nightmare of his own.

Blood Torment is by T.F. Muir and is due to be published in May 2016.When a three-year old girl is reported missing, DCI Andy Gilchrist is assigned the case. But Gilchrist soon suspects that the child's mother - Andrea Davis - may be responsible for her daughter's disappearance, or worse, her murder. The case becomes politically sensitive when Gilchrist learns that Andrea is the daughter of Dougal Davis, a former MSP who was forced to resign from Scottish Parliament after being accused of physically abusing his third wife. Now a powerful businessman, Davis demands Gilchrist's removal from the case when his investigation seems to be stalling. But then the case turns on its head when Gilchrist learns that a paedophile, recently released from prison, now lives in the same area as the missing child. The paedophile is interrogated but hours later his body is found floating in the harbour with evidence of blunt force trauma to the head, and Gilchrist launches a murder investigation. As pressure relentlessly mounts on Gilchrist, he begins to unravel a dark family secret, a secret he believes will solve the fate of the missing child

The House of Moriarty is by Sam Christer and is due to be published in March 2016.  Big Ben chimes in the first seconds of the first day of 1900, the start of a fresh century. Inside London's oldest gaol, preparations are afoot to hang Victorian England's deadliest assassin, a man wanted for two decades' worth of murders. Cold-blooded killer Simeon Lynch has lived a brutal and glorious life in the employ of the House of Moriarty - the most feared criminal enterprise in the world. Now, as he faces the noose, Simeon learns dark truths about his master, about Sherlock Holmes and about his own past. Truths that make him determined to escape and kill again...Follow Simeon's bloody footsteps through the capital's cobbled alleyways, wretched workhouses and flash taverns as he crosses swords with Sherlock Holmes and the villainous characters of Victorian London.

A Masterpiece of Corruption is by L C Tyler and is due to be published in January 2016.  It is December 1657. John Grey, at his cramped desk in Lincoln's Inn, is attempting to resume his legal career. A mysterious message from a 'Mr SK' tempts him out into the snowy streets of London and to what he believes will be a harmless diversion from his studies. Mr SK's letter proves to have been intended for somebody else entirely and Grey finds himself unwittingly in the middle of a plot to assassinate the Lord Protector - a plot about which he now knows more than it is safe to know. Can he both prevent the murder and (of greater immediate relevance) save his own skin? Both the Sealed Knot and Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe believe he is on their side, but he is unsure that either is on his. As somebody is kind enough to point out to him: 'You are a brave man, Grey. The life of a double agent can be exciting but very short.' Grey just has to hope that prediction is wrong.

In a single night, Kyle Davidson's life is derailed. His relationship is over, he is denied access to his young son and everything important to him is at risk. His thoughts stumble between fear and revenge. Kyle Davidson has a choice to make. Meanwhile, after the tragic end to a previous case, DC Gary Goodhew finds himself questioning his reasons for returning to work until the badly beaten body of a homeless man is found on Market Hill. Having known the homeless man for several years Goodhew feels compelled to be part of the investigation - but routine lines of enquiry soon take a dark and unexpected turn. Suddenly the Cambridge back streets hold deadly secrets for Goodhew and the only person who has the answers is planning one final, desperate act.  The Promise is by Alison Bruce and is due to be published in February 2016.

Operation Goodwood is by Sara Sheridan and is due to be published in April 2016.  1955. When Mirabelle Bevan is rescued from a fire at her home on the Brighton seafront she's lucky to escape unharmed - but the blaze takes the life of her neighbour, Dougie Beaumont, a dashing and successful racing driver living in the flat above. It soon becomes clear that this was arson, raising questions about the young man's death that Mirabelle can't resist investigating further. With her curiosity piqued and on the trail of a potential killer she finds herself taking on the mysterious world of Fleet Street with its long lunches and dodgy deals as well as the glamorous motor racing world at Goodwood. It gradually becomes clear to Mirabelle that Dougie Beaumont's life was not as above-board as it first seemed and that this talented man had many secrets, hidden when he was alive by his international lifestyle where he was constantly on the move. Then, when a second shocking murder takes place, Mirabelle's pursuit is frustrated first by Dougie's well-connected and suspicious family and then by the official investigation - led by her would-be lover Superintendent McGregor. With the help of her colleague at McGuigan & McGuigan Debt Recovery, Vesta, and some of her ex-intelligence service connections, Mirabelle discovers the dark secrets of the glamorous racing driver have ramifications far beyond the English coastline.

When Frances wakes one night to the sound of her baby crying, she realises that her marital bed is empty.  As she wanders through the house looking for her husband, she finds the back door open and his cooling dead body not far outside.  Her husband has been murder.  As Fran tries desperately to unravel the mystery of her husband’s death, she soon finds out that absolutely nothing about their marriage was as it seemed.  The Loving Husband is by Christobel Kent and is due to be published in April 2016.

The Primrose Path is the debut novel by Rebecca Griffith and is due to be published in March 2016.  As a teenager, Sarah D'Villez famously escaped a man who abducted and held her hostage for eleven days. The case became notorious, with Sarah's face splashed across the front of every newspaper in the country. Seventeen years later, Sarah's attempt to build a normal life for herself in London has failed. When she hears of her kidnapper's impending release from prison, fearful of the media storm that is sure to follow, she decides to flee to rural Wales under a new identity, telling nobody where she's gone. As Sarah settles in to her isolated new home and gets to know the small community she is now part of, it soon becomes creepily apparent that someone is watching her. Meanwhile, back in London, her mother makes a shocking discovery - something she fears will put Sarah's life in danger. She must urgently find her missing daughter before it's too late...

The tourist hotspots of the Peak District are attracting a different kind of visitor this summer. A series of suicidal individuals have decided it’s a good place to die.  For Detective Inspector Ben Cooper and his team in Derbyshire’s ‘E’ Division, there’s no way of predicting where the next body will turn up.  But what connection can there be between the seemingly ordinary people who have chosen the Peak District as the location to end their lives?  And there is one among them whose fate wasn’t suicide at all?  Cooper discovers that behind every death, there are always secrets to be revealed.  The Secrets of Death is by Stephen Booth and is due to be published in June 2016.

Making a killing in the market...A bomb takes out a CIA station chief in Geneva. A serial killer strikes apparently at random across the UK. In Algeria a terrorist network that controls the illicit trade in guns, drugs, oil and cigarettes is preparing to murder a hundred US and British energy workers unless a ransom is paid. The British and the American intelligence services are competing to find the kidnappers for very different reasons. One person can see how everything is linked, and that both MI5 and the CIA are being manipulated as part of a grotesque marketing campaign. But Kate Pendragon threatens vested interests who don't want the truth to surface. And some of them are very close to home...  Hostage is by Jamie Doward and is due to be published in January 2016.

In 88 B.C., it seems as if the entire ancient world is at war. In the west, the Italian states are rebelling against Rome; in the east, Mithridates is marching through and conquering the Roman Asian provinces. Even in the relatively calm Alexandria, a coup has brought a new Pharaoh to power and chaos to the streets. The young Gordianus has been waiting out the chaos in Alexandria, with Bethesda, when he gets a cryptic message from his former tutor and friend, Antipater. Now in Ephesus, as part of Mithridates' entourage, Antipater seems to think that his life is in imminent danger. To rescue him, Gordianus concocts a daring, even foolhardy, scheme to go "behind enemy lines" and bring Antipater to safety. But there are powerful, and deadly forces, at work here, which have their own plans for Gordianus. Not entirely sure whether he's a player or a pawn, Gordianus must unravel the mystery behind the message if he's to save himself and the people he holds most dear.  Wrath of the Furies is by Steven Saylor and is due to be published in March 2016.

Christmas 1939. In Europe the Phoney War hides carnage to come. In Ireland Detective Inspector Stefan Gillespie keeps tabs on Irishmen joining the British Forces. It's unpleasant work, but when an IRA raid on a military arsenal sends Garda Special Branch in search of guns and explosives, Stefan is soon convinced his boss, Superintendent Terry Gregory, is working for the IRA. At home for Christmas, Stefan is abruptly called to Laragh, an isolated mountain town. A postman has disappeared, believed killed, and Laragh's Guards are hiding something. Stefan is the nearest Special Branch detective, yet is he only there because Gregory wants him out of the way? Laragh is close to the lake where Stefan's wife Maeve drowned years earlier, and when events expose a connection between the missing postman and her death, Stefan realises it wasn't an accident, but murder. And it will be a difficult, dangerous journey where Stefan has to finally confront the ghosts of the past in the mountains of Wicklow, before he can return to Dublin and the truth of his boss's duplicity.  The City in Darkness is by Michael Russell and is due to be published in May 2016.

Beloved Poison is by E. S. Thomson and is due to be published in March 2016.  The object I

drew out was dusty and mildewed, and blotched with dark rust-coloured stains. It smelt of time and decay, sour, like old books and parchments. The light from the chapel's stained glass window blushed red upon it, and upon my hands, as if the thing itself radiated a bloody glow. Ramshackle and crumbling, trapped in the past and resisting the future, St Saviour's Infirmary awaits demolition. Within its stinking wards and cramped corridors the doctors bicker and fight. Ambition, jealousy and hatred seethe beneath the veneer of professional courtesy. Always an outsider, and with a secret of her own to hide, apothecary Jem Flockhart observes everything, but says nothing. And then six tiny coffins are uncovered, inside each a handful of dried flowers and a bundle of mouldering rags. When Jem comes across these strange relics hidden inside the infirmary's old chapel, her quest to understand their meaning prises open a long-forgotten past - with fatal consequences. In a trail that leads from the bloody world of the operating theatre and the dissecting table to the notorious squalor of Newgate and the gallows, Jem's adversary proves to be both powerful and ruthless. As St Saviour's destruction draws near, the dead are unearthed from their graves whilst the living are forced to make impossible choices. And murder is the price to be paid for the secrets to be kept.

May Day Murder is by Julie Wassmer and is due to be published in April 2016.  It's springtime and Whitstable is emerging from hibernation. While neither the restaurant nor detective agency is too busy, Pearl resolves to spend some time at the family allotment. But her best friend, Nathan, has persuaded one of his favourite actresses to open the May Day festivities at Whitstable Castle and involves Pearl in his plans. Like Pearl, Faye Marlowe is a Whitstable native, but having left the town more than two decades ago, the star has been living in the South of France since her agent's phone stopped ringing. Charming but 'sensitive', she arrives with a small entourage and though her presence in the town causes a stir Pearl's mother Dolly remains unimpressed, choosing to remember Faye Marlow when she was plain old Frankie Murray, the daughter of a local whelk merchant. Nathan soon realises he has made a mistake with this invitation and his doubts are confirmed when Faye is nowhere to be found on the morning of May Day. And as 'Jack in the Green' puts on his impressive costume to lead the parade, the actress's dead body is discovered - tethered to the maypole on the Castle grounds ...and so it's left to Pearl and DCI Mike McGuire to unravel the mystery of the May Day murder.

Inspector Singh is irate. He's been instructed to attend a Commonwealth conference on policing in London: a job for paper pushers, not real cops, as far as he is concerned. And as if that isn't bad enough, his wife is determined to come along to shop for souvenirs and visit previously unknown relatives. But it isn't long before the cold case that lands on Singh's ample lap turns into a hot potato and he has to outwit Scotland Yard, his wife and London's finest criminals to prevent more frightful executions from occurring on his watch - or indeed, from being added to their number.  Inspector Singh Investigates a Frightful English Execution is by Shamini Flint and is due to be published in April 2016.

JUSTICE IS SERVED. Edward Mira is a powerful man, with a lot of enemies. But when the

former senator is violently abducted, Lieutenant Eve Dallas suspects his kidnap is more personal than political. Someone is seeking justice; the bloodier the better. Edward's cousin Dennis was injured during the abduction - and that makes things very personal for Eve and her husband Roarke. Dennis is a beloved friend, married to NYPSD's top profiler Charlotte Mira. But as Eve delves deeper into the case, dark secrets emerge that could tear the family apart. Edward Mira has friends in high places - and they all seem to be hiding something. As her investigation takes a shocking turn, Eve finds that not all victims are innocent, and that some bonds are forged not in friendship, but in blood.  Brotherhood in Death is by J D Robb and is due to be published in February 2016.