Friday, 27 December 2019

Books to Look Forward to from Titan Books Incl (Hard Case Crime)

January 2020
The Manifestation of Sherlock Holmes is by James Lovegrove. Tales of treachery, intrigue and evil… Maverick detective Sherlock Holmes and his faithful chronicler Dr John Watson return in twelve thrilling short stories.  The iconic duo find themselves swiftly drawn into a series of puzzling and sinister events: an otherworldly stone whose touch inflicts fatal bleeding; a hellish potion unlocks a person’s devilish psyche; Holmes’s most hated rival detective tells his story; a fiendishly clever, almost undetectable method of revenge; Watson finally has his chance to shine; and many more – including a brand-new Cthulhu Casebooks story.

February 2020
What’s hidden behind the silver screen? In New York City, a movie critic has just murdered his girlfriend – well, one of his girlfriends (not to be confused with his wife). Will the unlikely crime-solving partnership he forms with the investigating police detective keep him from the film noir ending he deserves?  On the opposite coast, movie star Dawn Devayne – the hottest It Girl in Hollywood – gets a visit from a Navy sailor who says he knew her when she was just ordinary Estelle Anlic of San Diego. Now she’s a big star who’s put her past behind her. But secrets have a way of not staying buried…  Double Feature is by Donald Westlake.

The Big Bang is by Micky Spillane and Max Allan Collins.  It’s the middle of the Swinging Sixties in midtown Manhattan. Hammer, recuperating from a near fatal mix-up with the Mob, disturbs some drug dealers assaulting a young motorbike messenger who was transporting medicine for a hospital. He saves the kid but the muggers are not so lucky. The Mob and a new young breed of drug trafficker assume he will target them, and they target him right back, with a street-corner knife attack. Hammer and his beautiful, deadly partner Velda take on the drug racket in New York. In a world of flashy discos, swanky bachelor pads and the occasional dark alley, Hammer deals with doctors, drug addicts and hit men, and meets changing times with his trademark brand of violent vengeance.

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Martian Menace.  A new addition to the Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series from science fiction and crime author Eric Brown. A deadly plot. For the second time in human history, Martian invaders occupy planet Earth. After a common terrestrial virus thwarted the first deadly invasion, another Martian armada arrived six years later to make peace. Now, mankind enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the aliens' scientific wonders and technology, and an entente exists between the two races. But when Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson are called upon to investigate the death of an eminent Martian philosopher, they unravel an intricate web of betrayal and murder that leaves no one - human or Martian - beyond suspicion...

Mike Hammer, the iconic PI created by hard-boiled crime master Mickey Spillane and written by New York Times bestseller Max Allan Collins, returns in Masquerade for Murder. Hammer is at a high society party when a wealthy and well-respected man, Colby, is hit by a car and badly injured. When all he expected was a night on the town, Mike is hired to find out who was driving the car. His search leads him on a trail of murders, the victims often exhibiting the same kind of strangulation as the cause of death. How are they connected to an accident involving Corby, and why is the man himself acting so strangely?


FBI agent Reed Markham is haunted by one painful unsolved mystery: who murdered his mother? Camilla was brutally stabbed to death more than forty years ago while baby Reed lay in his crib mere steps away. But a shattering family secret changes everything Reed knows about his origins, his murdered mother, and his powerful adoptive father, state senator Angus Markham. Now Reed has to wonder if his mother’s killer is uncomfortably close to home.  Reed enlists his friend, suspended cop Ellery Hathaway, to join his quest in Vegas. Ellery has experience with both troubled families and diabolical murderers, having narrowly escaped from each of them.   Far from home and relying only on each other, Reed and Ellery discover young Camilla had snared the attention of dangerous men, any of whom might have wanted to shut her up for good. They start tracing his twisted family history, knowing the path leads back to a vicious killer―one who has been hiding in plain sight for forty years and isn’t about to give up now.  All The Best Lies is by Joanna Schaffhausen



March 2020
Are Snakes Necessary is by Brian de Palma and Susan Leham.  When the beautiful young videographer offered to join his campaign, Senator Lee Rogers should've known better. But saying no would have taken a stronger man than Rogers, with his ailing wife and his robust libido. Enter Barton Brock, the senator's fixer. He's already gotten rid of one troublesome young woman -- how hard could this new one turn out to be? Pursued from Washington D.C. to the streets of Paris, 18-year-old Fanny Cours knows her reputation and budding career are on the line. But what she doesn't realize is that her life might be as well...

April 2020
Sherlock Holmes acquires a new client when a beautiful young woman, Isabel Stone, faints on the steps of his Baker Street rooms. She has come to beg his assistance in reclaiming some priceless jewels kept from her by her tyrannical stepfather, Captain Grimbold Pratt. But shortly after agreeing to take her case, Captain Pratt comes to Baker Street, not quite so tyrannical as Isabel would have them believe. Holmes and his cousin, Dr Henry Vernier, must unravel a tense family mystery dating back to the Indian Mutiny, where neither of them is sure who to believe... The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Venerable Tiger is by Sam Siciliano

July 2020
She Lies Close is by Sharon Doering.  Five-year-old Ava Boone has been missing for six months. There are have been no leads, no arrests, no witnesses. The only suspect was quiet, middle-aged Leland Ernest.  And Grace Wright has just bought the house next door. Recently divorced, Grace uprooted her two small children to start again and hopes the move will reset her crippling insomnia. But now she understands bargain-price for her beautiful new house.  With whispered neighbourhood gossip and increasingly sleepless nights, Grace develops a fierce obsession with Leland and the safety of her children. Could she really be living next door to a child-kidnapper? A murderer?  With reality and dream blurring more each day, Grace desperately pursues the truth – following Ava’s family, demanding answers from the police – and then a body is discovered…

You Again is by Debra Jo Immergut.  Abigail Willard first spots her from the back of a New York cab: the spitting image of Abby herself at age 22 – right down to the silver platforms and raspberry coat she wore as a young artist with a taste for wildness. But the real Abby is now 46, married with a corporate job and two kids. As the girl vanishes into a rainy night, Abby is left shaken. Was this merely a hallucinatory side-effect of working-mom stress? A message of sorts, sent to remind her of passions and dreams tossed aside? Or something more dangerous?  As weeks go by, Abby continues to spot her double around her old New York haunts—and soon, despite her better instincts, Abby finds herself tailing her lookalike. She is dogged by a nagging suspicion that there is a deeper mystery to figure out, one rooted far in her past. All the while, Abby’s life starts to slip from her control: her marriage hits major turbulence, her teenage son drifts into a radical movement that portends a dark coming era. When her elusive double presents her with a dangerous proposition, Abby must decide how much she values the life she’s built, and how deeply she knows herself.


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