Books to Look Forward to from Bloomsbury Publishing

July 2020

Murder by Milk Bottle is by Lynne Truss.  The August bank holiday is approaching and after two extremely high-profile murder cases, Constable Twitten is eagerly anticipating a quiet spell at work. But then they find the bodies - and the milk bottles.  Three seemingly unconnected victims - a hard-working AA patrolman, a would-be Beauty Queen, a catty BBC radio personality - have all been killed with the same, highly unusual murder weapon. Constable Twitten, Sergeant Brunswick and Inspector Steine are initially baffled, the town is alarmed, and the local newspaper is delighted: after all, what sells papers better than a killer on the loose?   Can our redoubtable trio solve the case and catch this most curious of killers before they strike again?

October 2020

The Devil and The Dark Water is by Stuart Turton.  A murder on the high seas. A detective

duo. A demon who may or may not exist.  It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent. But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage.  A twice-dead leper stalks the decks. Strange symbols appear on the sails. Livestock is slaughtered. And then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel. Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes? With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent can solve a mystery that connects every passenger on-board.  A mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board... 

Scatter her Ashes is by Heine Bakkied.  Thorkild Aske returns in the second in this brilliant, darkly funny crime series from a fresh voice in Nordic Noir Disgraced, damaged former police officer Thorkild Aske has stopped taking his painkillers after his last experience searching for the missing in northern Norway. Wracked by withdrawal and desperate for work, he reluctantly agrees to investigate the disappearance of two schoolgirls for crime fiction superstar Milla Lind - but Lind clearly has more invested in the case than fiction. When Thorkild discovers that her previous investigator was murdered on the job, no-one will explain why - all he has to go on are files about unrelated cases from all across Norway. Oh, and his ex-wife wants to talk. What could possibly go wrong?

November 2020

The headlines scream warnings about the 'Butcher of Berner Street!' and the journalist behind them - Leo Stanhope - is secretly thrilled to see the effect his words are having. Leo's previous work has largely been concentrated on more mundane issues but when an anonymous letter summons him to a club in East London, only for the owner of the club to be found murdered shortly afterwards, Leo sees a story worth pursuing. Not to mention an opportunity to make a name for himself. Yet the more Leo digs, the stranger the story becomes, taking him from the club to a nearby convent, and into the past of a very unusual woman. But he is not the only one hunting for a killer. And it seems Leo's initial newspaper reports may have put someone else in grave danger…  The Butcher of Berner Street is by Alex Reeve.