Monday 3 December 2018

Books to Look Forward to From Orenda Books




January 2019

Deep Dirty Truth is by Steph Broadribb.  A price on her head. A secret worth dying for. Just 48 hours to expose the truth...  Single-mother bounty hunter Lori Anderson has finally got her family back together, but her new-found happiness is shattered when she's snatched by the Miami Mob - and they want her dead. Rather than a bullet, they offer her a job: find the Mob's `numbers man' - Carlton North - who's in protective custody after being forced to turn federal witness against them. If Lori succeeds, they'll wipe the slate clean and the price on her head - and those of her family - will be removed. If she fails, they die.

On Christmas Eve in 1988, seven-year-old Alfie Marsden vanished in the Wentshire Forest Pass, when a burst tyre forced his father, Sorrel, to stop the car. Leaving the car to summon the emergency services, Sorrel returned to find his son gone. No trace of the child, nor his remains, have ever been found. Alfie Marsden was declared officially dead in 1995.  Elusive online journalist, Scott King, whose `Six Stories' podcasts have become an internet sensation, investigates the disappearance, interviewing six witnesses, including Sorrel, his son and his ex-partner, to try to find out what really happened that fateful night. He takes a journey through the trees of the Wentshire Forest - a place synonymous with strange sightings, and tales of hidden folk who dwell there. He talks to a company that tried and failed to build a development in the forest, and a psychic who claims to know where Alfie is...  Changeling is by Matt Wesolowski’.


February 2019

When two teenagers - Johannes and Mari - are found murdered inside their school, in the small Norwegian village of Fredheim, the finger is soon is pointed at eighteen-year-old Even, whose relationship with Mari ended just before she died.  Mari was writing a story for the school newspaper about Even and his dad, who died in a car accident ten years earlier. But was it really an accident? And had Mari uncovered information that someone was willing to commit murder to protect?  Charged and facing trial, Even pores over his memories of the months leading up to the murders, and it becomes clear that more than one villager was acting suspiciously. And as Even recounts his side of the story, it seems that there may be no one he can trust.  But can we trust him?  A taut, moving and chilling thriller, Inborn is by Thomas Enger examines the very nature of evil, and asks the questions: How well do we really know our families? How well do we know ourselves?

On a warm September morning, an unconscious man is found in a cage at the entrance to the offices of one of the biggest German newspapers. Closer inspection shows he is a manager of the company, and he's been tortured. Three days later, another manager appears in similar circumstances.  Chastity Riley and her new colleague Ivo Stepanovic are tasked with uncovering the truth behind the attacks, an investigation that goes far beyond the revenge they first suspect ... to the dubious past shared by both victims. Travelling to the south of Germany, they step into the elite world of boarding schools, where secrets are currency, and monsters are bred ... monsters who will stop at nothing to protect themselves. Beton Rouge is by Simone Buchholz.

March 2019

The Courier is by Kjell Ola Dahl. In 1942, Jewish courier Ester is betrayed, narrowly avoiding arrest by the Gestapo. In a great haste, she escapes to Sweden, saving herself. Her family in Oslo, however, is deported to Auschwitz. In Stockholm, Ester meets the resistance hero, Gerhard Falkum, who has left his little daughter and fled both the Germans and allegations that he murdered his wife, Ase, who helped Ester get to Sweden. Their burgeoning relationship ends abruptly when Falkum dies in a fire. And yet, twenty-five years later, Falkum shows up in Oslo. He wants to reconnect with his daughter. But where has he been, and what is the real reason for his return? Ester stumbles across information that forces her to look closely at her past, and to revisit her war-time training to stay alive... 

April 2019

The Ringmaster is by Vanda Symons.  Death is stalking the southern South Island of New Zealand... Marginalised by previous antics, Sam Shephard, is on the bottom rung of detective training in Dunedin, and her boss makes sure she knows it. She gets involved in her first homicide investigation, when a university student is murdered in the Botanic Gardens, and Sam soon discovers this is not an isolated incident. There is a chilling prospect of a predator loose in Dunedin, and a very strong possibility that the deaths are linked to a visiting circus...  Determined to find out who's running the show, and to prove herself, Sam throws herself into an investigation that can have only one ending... 

Pregnant Victoria Valbon was brutally murdered in an alley three weeks ago - and the killer hasn't been caught.  Tonight is Stella McKeever's final radio show. The theme is secrets. She

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She wants yours, and in exchange she will share some of hers. The ones she knows. But she doesn't know everything.   Why has Stella's mother, Elizabeth, finally returned twelve years after leaving her with a neighbour? Is Stella's new love, Tom, a man who likes to play games, exciting ... or dangerous?   And who is the mysterious man calling the radio station to say he knows who killed Victoria? Tonight Stella's final show may reveal the biggest secret of all... With echoes of the chilling Play Misty for Me, Star Girl is by Louise Beech.

May 2019

Breakers is by Doug Johnstone.  Seventeen-year-old Tyler lives in one of Edinburgh's most deprived areas. Coerced into robbing rich people's homes by his bullying older siblings, he's also trying to care for his little sister and his drug-addict mum.  On a job, his brother Barry stabs a homeowner and leaves her for dead, but that's just the beginning of their nightmare, because the woman is the wife of Edinburgh's biggest crime lord, Deke Holt.  With the police and the Holts closing in, and his shattered family in devastating danger, Tyler meets posh girl Flick in another stranger's house, and he thinks she may just be his salvation ... unless he drags her down too.

Mary Shields is a moody, acerbic probation offer, dealing with some of Glasgow's worst cases, and her job is on the line.  Liam Macdowall was imprisoned for murdering his wife, and he's published a series of letters to the dead woman, in a book that makes him an unlikely hero - and a poster boy for Men's Rights activists. Liam is released on licence into Mary's care, but things are far from simple. Mary develops a poisonous obsession with Liam and his world, and when her son and Liam's daughter form a relationship, Mary will stop at nothing to impose her own brand of justice ... with devastating consequences.  Worst Case Scenario is by Helen FitzGerald. 

June 2019

One dark January night a car drives at high speed towards PI Varg Veum, and comes very close to killing him. Veum is certain this is no accident, following so soon after the deaths of two jailed men who were convicted for their participation in a case of child pornography and sexual assault, crimes that Veum himself once stood wrongly accused of committing. While the guilty men were apparently killed accidentally, Varg suspects that there is something more sinister at play - and that he's on the death list of someone still at large. Fearing for his life, Veum begins to investigate the old case, interviewing the victims of abuse and delving deeper into the brutal crimes, with shocking results.  Wolves at the Door is by Gunner Staalesen.


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