Books to Look Forward to from Penguin and Michael Joseph

July 2017

It's always darkest before the light. In the chilling seventh instalment of the bestselling, critically acclaimed Frieda Klein series, evil circles close to home. Psychotherapist Frieda Klein's home is her refuge. Then she returns to find it has become a crime scene. Beneath the floorboards the police have found the body of a man she had hired to help protect her. The message from the killer is clear: you're mine. But when those closest to Frieda begin to be targeted the picture becomes more confused, the patterns uncertain. And unless Frieda can find and stop whoever is threatening her friends and family her love and loyalty could come at a fatal cost .... Sunday Morning Coming Down is by Nicci French.

The Marriage Pact is by Michelle Richmond.  Your marriage is for ever. Would you stake your life on that? Jake believes Alice is the perfect woman to spend the rest of his life with. So when they're offered a mysterious wedding gift - the chance to join a society which ensures they'll never divorce - he doesn't hesitate to sign the contract. Always answer when your spouse calls. Exchange thoughtful gifts each month. Plan a trip together once per quarter. Have no secrets from your spouse. They are initially seduced by the elite society, with its glamorous parties and like-minded couples. Then one of them breaks the rules. Don't even think about trying to escape ...The Pact will stop at nothing to enforce the contract. And once you're in, there's no way out. As the society's punishments grow more extreme, Jake and Alice fear for their lives. Members never divorce, but why are they so often widowed? Is their love for ever, as The Pact demands ...or have they made a fatal mistake? The marriage of their dreams is about to become their worst nightmare.

I Am Missing is by Tim Weaver.  A man with no memory of who he is or where he is from enlists the help of missing persons investigator David Raker.  When a young man wakes up bruised, beaten and with no memory of who he is or where he came from, the press immediately dub him 'The Lost Man'.  Ten months later, Richard Kite - if that is even his real name - remains as desperate as ever. Despite appeals and the efforts of the police, no one knows this man.  Kite's last hope may be private investigator David Raker – a seasoned locator of missing people. But Raker has more questions than answers.  Who is Richard Kite?  Why does no one know him?  And what links him to the body of a woman found beside on a London railway line two years ago?

August 2017

When Minneapolis homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth are called to a crime scene in a heavily wooded city park, everything about the setting is all too familiar. And when they discover a playing card on the victim's body, their worst fears are confirmed there s a serial killer operating in the city for the first time in years. Across town, Grace MacBride and her unconventional partners at Monkeewrench Software find themselves at both personal and career crossroads. Weary of the darker side of their computer work for law enforcement, they agree to take on a private missing-persons case in a small farming community in southwestern Minnesota. As the violence accelerates in Minneapolis, Magozzi and Gino soon realize their killer is planning to complete the deck, and they enlist Monkeewrench to help stop the rampage. As a baffling tangle of evidence accumulates, the cops and Monkeewrench make the unlikely connections among a farmer s missing daughter, a serial killer, and a decades-old stabbing that brings them face-to-face with pure evil.  Nothing stays Buried is by P J Tracy

September 2017

Romanov Ransom is by Clive Cussler and Robin Burcell.  From Russia to Jamaica to South America, husband-and wife treasure-hunting team Sam and Remi Fargo are plunged into a dark and disturbing mystery.  Adventurers Sam and Remi Fargo soon learn that a long-lost fortune may be back in play, but those responsible are behind a series of unspeakable crimes. As the Fargos follow the trail across Europe, Northern Africa, and South America, they know only one thing, this adventure will be greater than anything before. Should they fail, the world may witness the resurgence of one of the most terrifying evils of the modern world.

A Legacy of Spies is by John Le Carré.  Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, has retired to his family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London are to be scrutinised by a generation with no memory of the Cold War. Somebody must be made to pay for innocent blood once spilt in the name of the greater good.

November 2017

Seventy years after the end of World War II, Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon find themselves in deep waters as they try to stop a war that would engulf the entire continent of Asia.  A search for an art collection worth half a billion dollars leads the Oregon to Salvador Locsin, the vicious Filipino rebel leader. But with access to a powerful serum designed to create an army of supersoldiers, Locsin's insurgency threatens more than just the Philippines. To stop him, the crew of the Oregon must battle a ruthless South African mercenary, hundreds of swarming torpedo drones and an approaching catastrophic megastorm.  If Juan and his team of elite operatives can't defeat Locsin and destroy all remnants of the horrific drug, the fall of the Philippines will be imminent. And with it, will come the beginning of a new and apocalyptic world war.  Typhoon Fury is by Clive Cussler

Shoot the Crows is by Karen Perry. 'Three months before the killings I returned to Thornbury Hall . . .' It's been nearly twenty years since Patrick Bagenal stood with this group of friends at Thornbury Hall - his family's crumbling home that he can no longer afford to keep. The last time was Patrick's eighteenth birthday, an occasion swiftly followed by his father's suicide. Before Patrick sells up, he and his sister Rachel, school friends Niall, Hilary and Marcus and old flame Lindsey are back here for one last visit, a shooting party to rid the grounds of the legion of crows. But as the weekend wears on, the layers of the past are stripped away and murky secrets begin to surface. Ones that compel revenge at any cost . . .

Nobody remembers the young men entering the abandoned London flat a few weeks ago. Nobody cares if they left.  Until the unbearable smell of decay.  DCI Antonia Hawkins is called in to view the dead men; three, lying neat in a row. There's no damage to the bodies, no obvious cause of death. Is this a suicide pact? Or is that just how it's meant to look? But Hawkins soon discovers the link between the three men. They had all been fascinated by the supernatural and the occult. And they had recently met in a tiny village just outside London.  A village named Cold Christmas . . .  Cold Christmas is by Alistair Gunn

The House is by Simon Lelic.  What if your perfect home turned out to be the scene of the perfect crime? Londoners Jack and Syd moved into the house a year ago. It seemed like their dream home: tons of space, the perfect location, and a friendly owner who wanted a young couple to have it. So when they made a grisly discovery in the attic, Jack and Syd chose to ignore it. That was a mistake. Because someone has just been murdered. Right outside their back door. And now the police are watching them...

December 2017

Someone took Daisy mason.  Someone you know. How can a child vanish without a trace?  Last night, 8-year-old Daisy Mason disappeared from a summer party at her home. No one at the party noticed her leave. Even her parents aren't sure of the last time they saw her. DS Adam Fawley is trying to keep an open mind. But he knows that in nine cases out of ten, it's someone close to the victim. When a pair of bloody tights is discovered, Fawley's worst suspicions are concerned. Someone knows where Daisy is. And her time is running out.  Close to Home is by Cara Hunter.

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Books to Look Forward to from Penguin and Michael Joseph

July

The Last One is by Alexandra Oliva.  Survival is the name of the game as one woman's mind and body are pushed to the limit. TWELVE CONTESTANTS When Zoo agrees to take part in a new reality TV show, In the Dark, she knows that she will be tested to the limits of her endurance. Beating eleven competitors in a series of survival tasks deep in the forest, living on camera at the extremes of her comfort zone, will be the ultimate challenge before she returns home to start a family. A GAME WITH NO END As the contestants are overcome by hunger, injury and psychological breakdown, the mind games, tricks and hazards to which Zoo is subjected grow dark beyond belief. This isn't what she signed up for: the deserted towns and gruesome props, the empty loneliness. Is this a game with no end? And what is happening away from the cameras' gaze? Discovering the truth will be just the beginning…

A hit-and-run on a woodland road near Amsterdam involving an Afghan boy is connected to a powerful international crime syndicate. Journalist Farah Hafez, together with her colleague Paul Chapelle, gets caught up in an investigation that takes them all the way to Moscow and has greater political and personal ramifications than they bargained for. After this perilous journey, their lives will never be the same again. Butterfly on the Storm is by Walter Lucius and is the first instalment of The Heartland Trilogy.

Broken Heart is by Tim Weaver.  A woman drives to a beautiful headland overlooking the Devon coast.  She is never seen again, and no trace of where she went can be found.  The woman’s sister calls missing person investigator David Raker.  As Raker tries to find her whereabouts – fearing the worst – he learns that she was recently widowed from a reclusive film director.  It seems that, going through her husband’s belongings she found a secret so dark and shocking that it forced her to leave her entire life behind.  Chasing the truth will consume Raker and place him in grave danger…

Truly, Madly Guilty is by Liane Moriarty.  Despite their differences, Erika and

Clementine have been best friends since they were children. So when Erika needs help, Clementine should be the obvious person to turn to. Or so you'd think. For Clementine, as a mother of a two desperately trying to practise for the audition of a lifetime, the last thing she needs is Erika asking for something, again. But the barbecue should be the perfect way to forget their problems for a while. Especially when their hosts, Vid and Tiffany, are only too happy to distract them. Which is how it all spirals out of control..

August

Cold Kill is by P J Tracy.  The peaceful Christmas season in Minneapolis is shattered when two friends, Chuck Spencer and Wally Luntz, scheduled to meet in person for the first time, are murdered on the same night, two hours and several miles apart, dramatically concluding winter vacation for homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth. An hour north of Minneapolis, Lydia Ascher comes home to find two dead men in her basement. When Leo and Gino discover her connection to their current cases, they suspect that she is a target, too. The same day, an elderly, terminally ill man is kidnapped from his home, an Alzheimer's patient goes missing from his care facility, and a baffling link among all the crimes emerges. This series of inexplicable events sends the detectives sixty years into the past to search for answers-and straight to Grace MacBride's Monkeewrench, a group of eccentric computer geniuses who devote their time and resources to helping the cops solve the unsolvable. What they find is an unimaginable horror-a dormant Armageddon that might be activated at any moment unless Grace and her partners Annie, Roadrunner, and Harley Davidson, along with Leo and Gino, can find a way to stop it.

Husband-and-wife treasure-hunting team Sam and Remi Fargo try to unravel another ancient and cryptic mystery. An 800-year-old treasure ...An ancient cypher wheel ...A brutal murder ...And a man who will stop at nothing to claim what he considers rightfully his. Husband-and-wife treasure-hunting team Sam and Remi Fargo have gone on impossible missions before and faced many perils, but never have they faced an adversary as determined as the one before them now. The battle will take them halfway around the world, and at its end will be either one of the most glorious finds in history-or certain death. Pirate is by Clive Cussler and Russell Blake.

The old Victorian pier was once a thing of beauty. It's also where twenty-one-year-old Sophie Collier vanished eighteen years ago. Francesca has spent the last twenty years haunted by the disappearance of her best friend. But when she receives a phone call from Sophie's brother saying that a body has been found, she knows she can't keep hiding from what happened. With her own secrets to keep, Francesca doesn't relish the idea of digging up the past or returning to Oldcliffe. But it is time to go back to where she grew up, and it looks like she isn't the only one there hiding truths.  Local Girl Missing is by Claire Douglas.

September

Helen awaits trial in a crumbling women’s prison in Southampton.  She has a fight on to prove her innocence from inside her prison cell, but this soon turns out to be the least of her worries.  A serial killer is picking off fellow inmates, thriving in an environment where there is truly nowhere to run.  Is it a criminal giving in to their dark urges or a member of the prison staff preying  on the captive population.  Helen must work fast to reveal this devious killer, all the time wondering if she will be next on her list.  Hide and Seek is by M J Arlidge.

The Sleepless Ones the second in the DCI Guillermo Downes series by James Marrison.

No longer a trainee but a freshly-minted Detective Constable, Joseph Stark finds himself working a double homicide. Thomas and Mary Chase were shot dead in their London home, and first impressions are that this is a burglary-gone-bad. But Stark is unconvinced. Burglary-Murders are usually a tragic case of unfortunate timing, but this felt like something else entirely. And when evidence arises to link this murder to a twenty year old cold case the hunt is well and truly on.  Between the Crosses is by Matthew Frank.

October

There is something hiding in the forest.  A man is found dead near an isolated forest outside of London.  When another body is discovered a few days later, DCI Antonia Hawkins knows that she must move fast.  The hunt is on.  With each passing day,  Hawkins struggles to find a patter in this seemingly random scattering of murders.  But who is the hunter? With more disappearances, Hawkins must stop a cold, careful killer whose twisted game can only be guessed at, before the next disappearance.  The Keeper is by Alastair Gunn.

November

A desperate attempt in 1917 to preserve the wealth and power of the Romanov Empire. A Cold War bomber lost with a deadly cargo. Mysterious deaths on the Black Sea linked to modern-day smugglers of nuclear materials. At the center of it all is Dirk Pitt and his team from NUMA. As the danger escalates, there's only one man who can avert catastrophe. From London to Washington, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, the action never stops, as Pitt races to prevent the next global war.  Odessa Sea is by Clive and Dirk Cussler.

The Taken is by Alice Clark-Platts.  In a Durham boarding house at dawn, Pastor Ramsay Snow is murdered while he prays.  Detective Inspector Erica Martin’s investigation encounters a host of suspects all staying in the boarding house.  Violet Snow, his daughter, who seems unsurprised by her father’s murder.  Sera Snow, his inscrutable wife.  Her sister, Antonia, who was closer to the Pastor than anyone yet knows. And Fraser McKenzie, Snow’s manager and best friend, who has his own dark secrets to hide.  DI Martin soon learns that this is a case in which nothing is what it seems, and no-one is innocent…