July 2016
British detective Fiona Griffiths, one of the most
engaging female protagonists in crime thrillers, is back with her toughest case
yet. When the body of a young woman is found in an old 'dead house' - the
annexe where the dead were stored before burial in medieval times - of a tiny
church in a small town in Wales, it seems that past and present have come
together in a bizarre and horrifying way. For DC Fiona Griffiths, the girl - a
murder victim whose corpse was laid out with obvious tenderness - represents an
irresistibly intriguing puzzle, given Fiona's unusual empathy for the dead. And
when her investigations lead her to an obscure and secretive monastery hidden
in a remote valley, she finds that the murder victim is far from the only
victim of a dark and disturbing melding of modern crime and medieval religious
practices. Only Fiona is capable of solving this brilliantly crafted mystery. The
Dead House is by Harry Bingham.
September 2016
The
Twenty-Three is by Linwood
Barclay. A dark cloud of suspicion and
fear continues to hang over the town of Promise Falls. A series of bizarre,
ominously threatening incidents suggests someone is plotting to take revenge on
the town. But who is the perpetrator, and revenge for what? Now the time for
threats is over. And the inhabitants are about to discover the truth, with
devastating consequences.
Growing up in a difficult household and in a
crumbling mansion with two elder sisters (who are both, in their own way,
horrible to her), a father who seems perennially lost in contemplation of the
past and haunted by fleeting memories of her mother, who died mysteriously in
the Himalayas when Flavia was a baby, her refuge has always been an obsession
with chemistry; an interest that has proved very useful whenever unexplained
October 2016
The Wrong
Side of Goodbye is by Michael
Connelly. 'What do you want me to do?' Bosch
When editor Susan Ryeland is given the tattered
manuscript of Alan Conway's latest novel, she has little idea it will change
her life. She's worked with the revered crime writer for years and his
detective, Atticus Pund, is renowned for solving crimes in the sleepy English
villages of the 1950s. As Susan knows only too well, vintage crime sells
handsomely. It's just a shame that it means dealing with an author like Alan
Conway...But Conway's latest tale of murder at Pye Hall is not quite what it
seems. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but hidden
in the pages of the manuscript there lies another story: a tale written between
the very words on the page, telling of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless
ambition and murder. Magpie Murders is by Anthony Horowitz.
November 2016
Fleeing to America following a terrible crime,
Irish-born fighter, Danny McCabe, throws in his lot with Nicolas and Lucia
Mariani, siblings who have emigrated from Corsica in search of their fortunes.
Adrift in the tough and unforgiving world of 1930s New York, they rely on
Danny's bareknuckle fighting skills to survive. While Nicolas is tempted ever
deeper into the underworld, Lucia can think of little but her obsessive drive
to succeed in Hollywood. When Danny McCabe's dreams of boxing stardom become a
terrifying nightmare, fate compels them to escape westwards to Los Angeles. On
the run, the trio are bound together by blood, by shared secrets, and finally
by love, as Danny and Lucia embark upon an affair that is as profound as it is
dangerous. Nicolas, driven by greed, soon finds a welcome home in the dark
world of corruption and vice that lies behind the glitzy facade of America's
city of dreams. Danny McCabe is desperate to bury the dark secret of his past,
while Lucia is caught in the crossfire between her brother and the man she
loves. Kings of America is by R J Ellory
Rather be
the Devil is by Ian Rankin. John
Rebus, now a couple of years into his retirement finds himself drawn into a
cold case from the 1970s involving a female socialite, found dead in a bedroom
in one of Edinburgh's most luxurious hotels. It's a crime over forty years old,
but no one was ever found guilty. Now, Rebus has his own reasons to investigate
...but it is going to set him against some very dangerous people.
Lovemurder is by Saul Black.
Troubled San Francisco homicide detective Valerie Hart is planning a
rare weekend away from the job when she gets the call. A body has been found. A
woman, brutally murdered. And the cryptic note left by the body is addressed to
Valerie. The victim is unknown to her, but as Valerie analyses the scene, the
clues begin to point in a deeply disturbing direction: to a maximum security
prison where a woman called Katherine Glass is awaiting execution for a series
of gruesome killings. And Valerie was the cop who put her there. The last thing
Valerie wants to do is re-enter Katherine's twisted world, but when a second
body is discovered, with another puzzling clue, she realises she has no choice.
Katherine Glass holds the key to the killings, and Valerie needs to find out
what she knows before the murders come even closer to home. Even if it means
playing a deadly game where once again, the psychopathic killer holds all the
cards.
Frankie James is a young man with a lot on his
shoulders. His mother disappeared when he was fifteen; his father's in jail for
armed robbery; and he owes rent on the SoHo snooker club he inherited to one of
London's toughest gangsters. Things, you'd think, can only get better.
Actually, they're about to get a whole lot worse. He always swore to his mum
he'd keep his younger, wilder brother out of trouble, but when Jack turns up at
the club early in the morning, covered in someone else's blood, with no memory
of the night before, and with the cops hard on his heels, it seems there's no
way Frankie can make good on his promise. With Jack banged up, awaiting trial
for the vicious murder of a bride-to-be - a murder that's sparked an even more
vicious gang war between London's two foremost crime families - Frankie knows a
conviction could quickly turn into a death sentence. To prevent that from
happening, he needs to find out who framed Jack and why, but that means
entering the sordid world of bent coppers, ruthless mobsters and twisted
killers that he's tried all his life to avoid getting sucked into. Now,
however, he no longer has any choice. But in the dog-eat-dog underworld of
1980s SoHo, is he tough enough, and smart enough to come out on top? Framed
is by Ronnie O’Sullivan.
January 2017
A Twist in
the Knife is by Becky
Masterman. Brigid Quinn is a
former Fed trying to live a normal life after years in the most twisted of
company - but still entangled in the guilt, violence and rage inevitable after
a career spent tracking killers. Now Brigid is drawn into the case of a man on
Death Row, awaiting execution for the murder of his wife and three children.
Something tells Brigid that an injustice is about to be done, but when she
investigates the circumstances behind the convictions, she finds the truth is
even more shocking.
On its surface, life in Houston is as you would
expect: drive-in restaurants, souped-up cars, jukeboxes, teenagers discovering
their sexuality. But beneath the glitz and superficial normalcy, a class war
has begun, and it is nothing like the conventional portrayal of the decade.
Against this backdrop Aaron Holland Broussard discovers the poignancy of first
love and a world of violence he did not know existed. When Aaron spots the beautiful and gifted
Valerie Epstein fighting with her boyfriend, Grady Harrelson, at a Galveston
drive-in, he inadvertently challenges the power of the Mob and one of the
richest families in Texas. He also discovers he must find the courage his
father had found as an American soldier in the Great War. The
Jealous Kind is by James Lee Burke.
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