Books to Look Forward to from Quercus Books

When Detective Sime Mackenzie boards a light aircraft at Montreal’s St. Hubert airfield, he does so without looking back.  For Sime, the 850-mile journey ahead represents an opportunity to escape the bitter blend of loneliness and regret that has come to characterise his life in the city.  Travelling as part of an eight-officer investigation team, Sime’s destination lies in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  Only two kilometres wide and three long, Entry Island is home to a population of around 130 inhabitants – the wealthiest of which has just been discovered murdered in his home.  The investigation itself appears little more than a formality.  The evidence points to a crime of passion: the victim’s wife the vengeful culprit.  But for Sime the investigation is turned on its head when he comes face to face with the prime suspect, and is convinced that he knows her – even though they have never met.  Haunted by this certainty his insomnia becomes punctuated by dreams of a distant past on a Scottish island 3,000 miles away.  Dreams in which the widow plays a leading role.  Sime’s conviction becomes an obsession.  And in spite of mounting evidence of her guilt, he finds himself convinced of her innocence, leading to a conflict between the professional duty he must fulfil, and the personal destiny that awaits him.  Entry Island is due to be published in January 2014 and is a standalone novel by Peter May.

There is a leak in Wellington’s army, and suspicion is falling on James Keane . . . The Iberian Peninsula, 1809.  French troops led by one of Napoleon’s best generals are massing on the border.  Wellington’s outnumbered force and his unreliable Spanish allies need to pick off the smaller French units if they are to stand their ground.  For that, they need information: accurate intelligence on numbers, arms and whereabouts.  That’s where Captain Keane and his company of reformed scouting officers are invaluable tools – despite being unpopular with the regular soldiers.  However, it soon becomes apparent that someone high up in Wellington’s headquarters is a spy for the French.  Only someone able to travel widely outside the camp, someone privy to battle plans, could be the double agent – and Keane’s enemies within the army are quick to point the finger.  Keane must defend his crew against their accusers – or root out the traitor himself.  Keane’s Challenge is by Iain Gale and is due to be published in May 2014.

Sorrow Bound is the third book in the DS Aector McAvoy series by David Mark and is due to be published in March 2014.  Philippa Longman will do anything for her family.  Roisin McAvoy will do anything for her friends.  DS Aector McAvoy will do anything for his wife.  Yet each has an unknown enemy - one that will do anything to destroy them.  Sorrow Bound is a powerful police procedural thriller about how those with the biggest hearts make the easiest targets; and how the corrosive venom of evil can dissolve the bonds between good people, until all they are bound by is grief.

An isolated farm in rural post-apartheid South Africa is the scene of a suspicious death that brings a fraught community together in search of the truth.  De Wildt, North West South Africa.  A township is plunged into mourning when its elderly white doctor falls to her death.  The deceased, Ouma, passed her passion for justice to each one of the townspeople: every man and woman, black or white.  However, the apparent accident leaves two people with an inexplicable feeling of suspicion: one a 14-year-old girl with prodigious intuition, the other an ageing police chief.  Life has taught both to trust their instincts, and both have doubt in their gut.  As their fears grow stronger, and begin to filter through the community, a gradual shift takes place; and Ouma’s legacy develops from a town-wide commitment to preserve her memory, to a communal quest to uncover the truth . . .  The Savage Hour is by Elaine Proctor and is due to be published in June 2014.

Cairo is by Chris Womersley and is due to be published in February 2014.  Who wants to be the same as everyone else?  You don't want to be ordinary, do you?  At 18, Tom escapes ordinariness in small town Australia for Melbourne and a flat in a strange block named Cairo.  There he meets the magnetic Max Cheever, and is drawn into his circle of bohemian artists and dreamers.  Liberating him from the bourgeois aspirations of university, they fill his world with affection, passion, opinion and a feeling of belonging he never had before.  But all is not as idyllic as it seems.  Max is prepared to break all the rules to live freely, and soon Tom is ensnared in his plot to steal a million dollar Picasso masterpiece.  Among undependable forgers and violent art dealers, Tom trusts only in Max - even as he falls hopelessly in love with his beautiful wife...For in all the lessons he learns this summer, the greatest one will be to identify what is real - from what is fake.

The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker and it is due to be published in May 2014.  August 30, 1975.  The day of the disappearance.  The day a small New Hampshire town lost its innocence.  That summer Harry Quebert fell in love with fifteen-year-old Nola Kellergan.  Thirty-three years later, her body is dug up from his yard along with a manuscript copy of his career-defining novel.  Quebert is the only suspect.  Marcus Goldman - Quebert's most gifted protégé - throws off his writer's block to save his mentor from the electric chair.  Solving the case and penning a new bestseller soon blur together.  As his book begins to take on a life of its own, the nation is gripped by the mystery of 'The Girl Who Touched the Heart of America'.  But with Nola, in death as in life, nothing is ever as it seems.

 

The Caravaggio Conspiracy is by Alex Connor and is due to be published in January 2014.  1608. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the greatest Italian painter of his day, is expelled from the Order of the Knights of Malta.  Subject to a clandestine hearing, his crime remains a closely guarded secret.  2014. Two bodies are found in a London art gallery - stripped naked, necks bound with wire and legs obscenely contorted.  They are twin brothers - successful art dealers - their brutal murder linked to the mysterious disappearance of two paintings by the master Caravaggio.  Investigators are confounded, and it falls to art expert Gil Eckhart to identify the killer before he slays again.  But as the search for clues takes him from the glamorous skyline of New York to the fetid catacombs of Palermo, Eckhart finds that in the high-stakes world of art, good and evil are often tarred with the same, blood-soaked, brush.

Hong Kong, August 2017.  On the eve of a crisis summit for world economic leaders, two Chinese Methodist ministers are killed in an apparently motiveless execution in Hong Kong's financial district.  Luck makes Detective Alex Soong one of the first officers at the scene.  Yet Soong begins to suspect his involvement to be more than incidental, and the crime itself more than a senseless assassination: an instinct that is proven correct when Soong is contacted by a mysterious figure, and more massacres follow.  With the eyes of the world's media fixed on Hong Kong, Soong must race to intercept his tormentor, and thwart a conspiracy born from one of the bloodiest confrontations of China's past, which now threatens to destroy a fragile world order.  Emperors Once More is by Duncan Jepson and is due to be published in March 2014.

Murder is by Sarah Pinborough and is due to be published in May 2014.  Dr Bond is back . . . and a trail of gruesome murders leads to his front door.  Dr Thomas Bond, Police Surgeon, is still recovering from the events of the previous year when Jack the Ripper haunted the streets of London – and a more malign enemy hid in his shadow.  Bond and the others who worked on the gruesome case are still stalked by its legacies, both psychological and tangible.  But now the bodies of children are being pulled from the Thames . . . and Bond is about to become inextricably linked with an uncanny, undying enemy.

London, November 1968.  Judy Garland is performing drunk at the Palladium.  Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen is working late at Marylebone CID.  Called to a gas explosion in Maida Vale, Breen finds a shock buried beneath the rubble.  Mind-bending paintings by Bridget Riley and Peter Blakes – and the garrotted body of one Jacob Lakin: drug user, and boyfriend to ‘Groovy Bob’ Fraser.  Fraser – Pop Art Gallery owner and friend to the Stones – is a god in a world Breen has never understood.  He tips Breen off to the squat where Lakin’s dealer lives, but Breen’s only chance of infiltrating is WPC Helen Tozer.  She’s working out her notice, and their brief love affair seems to have died.  But she can get the hippies to talk, and one woman – a victim of free love – begins to trust in her.  For even the young and beautiful, have dark secrets.  And on the search for Lakin’s killer, they risk trespassing too far into a new and treacherous world.  House of Flies is by William Shaw and is due to be published in June 2014.

Talking to Ghosts is by Herve Le Corre and is due to be published in February 2014.  Police Inspector Vilar is a broken man.  His son was snatched away at the school gate and his marriage collapsed soon after.  Now he keeps watch outside the school every morning, his 9mm pistol resting on the passenger seat.  A case comes his way - Victor, a troubled teenager, returns home from school to find his mother's lifeless body, savagely beaten, almost unrecognisable.  As Victor is sent first to a care home, then to a foster family, Vilar hits a familiar brick wall: nothing stolen, no fingerprints, no D.N.A.  Finally the case begins to develop, but in an altogether more sinister direction.  A stalker is watching Victor from the shadows, while Vilar receives increasingly threatening phone calls about his son.  The hunter has become the hunted, and Vilar begins to realise that this investigation will strike very close to home.

When nightfall’s, fear spreads...The Lake District: a wild landscape, rife with stories.  Detectives Zoe Barnes and Sam Taylor are called to investigate the disappearance of two children.  But they quickly realise they have been drawn into a complex and unnerving case that hides a much darker intent: as they dig deeper, whispers grow of a community hiding a deadly secret - and talk of witches, the like of which hasn't been heard since the seventeenth century, is spreading.  Zoe and Sam will have to work fast to save lives; but in this atmosphere of fear and mistrust, can they even rely on each other?  A Cry in the Night is by Tom Grieves and is due to be published in January 2014.

The Last Patient is the first in a crime series about the new, disillusioned Robin Hood of Skid Row, Los Angeles.  Dr Adam Knox returns from the war in Afghanistan a little rougher, a little wiser and a lot more inclined to kick it to the ones at the top.  He sets up a clinic in Los Angeles’ most notorious district, tending to the vagrant and the vulnerable.  A Romanian woman and her son are on the run from traffickers; but their freedom comes at a price – too high, or too deadly – to pay.  Knox thinks he can help.  But he’s also got a private commission from a richer patient – a dubious businessman willing to spend extra for his discretion.  Playing one team against another, gangsters and traffickers, Knox must keep his wits scalpel–sharp.  The Last Patient is by Peter Spiegelman and is due to be published in May 2014.

The Outcast Dead is by Elly Griffiths and is due to be published in January 2014.  Forensic

archaeologist Ruth Galloway has excavated a body from the grounds of Norwich Castle, a forbidding edifice that was once a prison.  She believes the body may be that of infamous Victorian murderess Jemima Green.  Called Mother Hook for her claw-like hand, Jemima was hanged in 1867 for the murder of five children in her care.  DCI Harry Nelson has no time for long-dead killers.  Immersed in the case of three infants found dead, one after the other, in their King's Lynn home, he's convinced that a family member is responsible, though others on his team think differently.  Then a child goes missing.  Could the abduction be linked to the long-dead Mother Hook?  Ruth is pulled into the case, and back towards Nelson.

Two months after the suspicious and much-publicized death of his father on the island of Martha's Vineyard, it is taking all of Adam Blaine's character to suture the deep wounds - both within his family and himself - torn open by the tragedy.  Moreover, as the court inquest into Benjamin Blaine's death continues, it is taking all of Adam's cunning to protect

those closest to him from figures who still suspect that Adam's father was murdered by one of his kin.  But the sternest test of all is Adam's proximity to Carla Pacelli - his late father's mistress; and a woman who, despite being pivotal to his family's plight, Adam finds himself increasingly drawn to.  The closer he gets to this beautiful, mysterious woman, the further Adam feels from his troubles.  Yet the closer he also comes to revealing the secrets he's strived to conceal, and condemning the people he's so hard fought to protect.  Eden in Winter is by Richard North Patterson and is due to be published in March 2014.

Into A Raging Blaze is the debut novel by Andreas Norman and is due to be published in February 2014.  Carina Dymek is on a fast track for promotion at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when she is approached by a stranger and given a USB stick containing a report to circulate in her department.  Unwittingly, she delivers a time bomb of classified information that destroys her career and puts her on the radar of the security service, SAPO.  Tasked with discovering how Dymek gained access to the confidential report, the formidable Bente Jensen of SAPO begins investigating her background and finds that Dymek's boyfriend Jamal is an Egyptian Swedish national.  But British MI6 have a vested interest in the leak, and they're quick to muscle in.  When they uncover evidence that links Jamal's family to an extreme faction within the Muslim Brotherhood, SAPO is forced to bow to their command to track him down.  As Bente liaises with the ruthless MI6, she becomes closer to the secretive plans contained in that leaked report: plans for a Europe-wide Intelligence Service.  She begins to understand that Dymek is a red herring in a far more complex plot: one of surveillance corruption, national security and global anti-terrorism.

Bruno, chef de police in the French town of St Denis, receives a call from an undercover cop only hours before his body is discovered.  But Bruno’s sometime boss and rival, the Brigadier, doesn’t see this as a priority – there are bigger issues at stake.  Meanwhile, a Muslim youth named Sami turns up at a French army base in Afghanistan hoping to get to St Denis, and an American woman appears in the town with a warrant for Sami’s extradition.  Bruno must unravel these mysteries and find his own way to protect his town and its people.  Children of War is by Peter Walker and is due to be published in June 2014.

The Second Deadly Sin is by Åsa Larsson and is due to be published in January 2014.  At the end of a deadly bear hunt across the wilderness of Northern Sweden, the successful hunters are shaken by a horrifying discovery.  Across in Kurravaara, a woman is murdered with horrific brutality: crude abuse scrawled above her bloodied bed, her young grandson nowhere to be found.  Only Rebecka Martinsson sees a connection.  Dropped from the case thanks to a jealous rival, she now stands alone against a killer who brings death to young and old, spawned by a horrifying crime that festers after one hundred years on ice.

 

For Commandant Verhoeven life is beautiful: he is happily married, expecting his first child with the lovely Irene.  However, his blissful existence is punctured by a murder of unprecedented savagery.  Worse still, the press seem to have it in for him - his every move is headline news.  When he discovers that the killer has killed before - that each murder is a homage to a classic crime novel - the fourth estate are quick to coin a nickname...The Novelist...With both men in the public eye, the case develops into a personal duel, each hell-bent on outsmarting the other.  There can only be one winner - whoever has the least to lose... Irène is by Pierre Lemaitre and is due to be published in February 2014.

Judges is three crime stories by Italy’s most renowned crime writers Camilleri, best known for the Inspector Montalbano series, weaves a tale of a Turin judge who moves to a small Sicilian town, and tackles both entrenched mafia corruption and a string of culinary delicacies.  Lucarelli brings us a far darker tale.  “La Bambina” is a beautiful young judge, whose attempts to expose the complicity of the secret service in money laundering lead to multiple attempts on her life, and a desperate struggle for justice.  De Cataldo, a judge himself, tells a tale of an unending feud between a prosecutor and a mayor, set against the background of murder, sleaze and impenetrable bureaucracy.  Judges is due to be published in May 2014.

In Killing Well by Marco Malvaldi Italy’s first celebrity chef turns detective to save the life of a Tuscan aristocrat.  The nineteenth century is drawing to a close.  Pellegrino Artusi has travelled the length and breadth of Italy compiling his masterpiece, The Science of Cooking and The Art of Eating Well.  When Baron Romualdo Bonaiuti invites him to his Tuscan home to compare notes with his kitchen staff, he’s quite looking forward to a break.  On arrival, he finds everything one might expect: a dramatic Tuscan castle, eccentric aristocrats, spinster aunts and a mysterious guest.  Not to mention a murdered butler.  Faced with a menagerie of suspects, the local constabulary are baffled.  But when the Baron himself is the target of a second murder attempt, Pellegrino realises he may need to put his celebrated culinary skills to use to find the killer.  Killing Well  is due to be published in June 2014.

Dodger of the Dials is by James Benmore and is due to be published in May 2014.  Two years on from the events of Dodger, Jack Dawkins is back as top-sawyer with his own gang of petty thieves from Seven Dials.  But crime in London has become a serious business – and when Jack needs protection, he soon finds himself out of his depth and facing the gallows for murder.  The evidence against him seems insurmountable, until a young reporter by the name of Oliver Twist takes up his cause.  After freeing Jack from gaol, the pair must bury their past differences and join forces to hunt down the men who framed Jack and stole that which he treasures most.

Books to Look Forward To From Quercus and Maclehose Press

 

 THE NEW START - Fin Macleod, now head of security on a privately owned Lewis estate, is charged with investigating a spate of illegal game-hunting taking place on the island.  THE OLD FRIEND This mission reunites him with Whistler Macaskill– a local poacher, Fin’s teenage intimate, and possessor of a long-buried secret.  THE FINAL CHAPTER But when this reunion takes a violent, sinister turn and Fin puts together the fractured pieces of the past, he realizes that revealing the truth could destroy the future.  The Chessmen is the final instalment in the trilogy by Peter May, which began with The Blackhouse.  The Chessmen is due to be published in January 2013.

London, 1850s.  After five years in an Australian penal colony, the Artful Dodger returns to London in search of a hidden fortune.  Unaware of the fate that befell Twist, Fagin and Sikes, Dodger revisits the criminal underworld of Dickensian London to seek out his old comrades, any of whom might possess the key to the treasure.  He finds the city a changed place from his youth: with law and order upheld by a new police force, Fagin gone to the gallows, his old gang scattered and danger around every corner. Dodger is by James Benmore and is due to be published in April 2013.

The Devil’s Recruit is by SG Maclean and is due to be published in May 2013.  1635, and Europe is in the grip of the brutal territorial and religious struggle of the Thirty Years' War.  Fear stalks the town of Aberdeen as a ship recruiting for the wars lies at anchor in the river mouth.  A sinister figure watches from the shadows as apprehension grows and culminates in the disappearance of the son of a Highland chief - a student of Alexander Seaton.  When the frozen body of a young woman is found in the garden of a prominent citizen, Alexander becomes more deeply embroiled.  He realises that the figure in the shadows is known to him and has come for him.  He can hide from his past no longer.

Ruth's old friend Dan Golding thinks he has made a discovery that will change archaeology forever - but he needs Ruth's help.  Then, Dan is killed in a fire, leaving Ruth with one clue: the tomb of the Raven King.  DCI Nelson is also rediscovering the past.  He meets his friend Sandy Macleod, now at Blackpool CID, who tells him there are mysterious circumstances surrounding Dan's death.  A Neo-Nazi group at Dan's University has been making threats and could be involved.  Many of Dan's colleagues seem fearful and have secrets to hide.  Ruth is drawn into the mystery, and where she goes, so does her daughter, Kate.  This time, it is not just Ruth's life at risk.  Dying Fall is by Elly Griffiths and is due to be published in February 2013.

A Man Without Breath is by Philip Kerr and is due to be published in June 2013.  It is winter, 1943.  Bernie Gunther has left the Criminal Police and is working for the German War Crimes Bureau based in Berlin.  Reports have been circulating of a mass grave hidden in a wood near Smolensk.  The grave's whereabouts are uncertain until, deep in the Katyn Forest, a wolf digs up some human remains.  Rumour has it that the grave is full of Polish officers murdered by the Russians - a war crime that is perfect propaganda for Germany.  But it needs a detective of subtle skill to investigate this horrific discovery.  Cue Bernie Gunther...

The Garden of Burning Sand is by Corban Addison and is due to be published in March 2013.  On a dark night in Lusaka, Zambia, an adolescent girl is brutally assaulted.  In shock, she cannot speak.  Her identity is a mystery.  Where did she come from?  Was the attack a random street crime or a premeditated act?  The girl's case is taken up by Zoe Fleming, a human rights lawyer working in Africa.  A betrayal in her own past gives the girl's plight a special resonance for Zoe, and she is determined to find the perpetrator and seek justice.  Also investigating on behalf of the Zambian police is Joseph Kabuta.  At first reluctant to work together, they team up.  Yet their progress is thwarted at every turn and it soon becomes clear that their opponents are every bit as powerful and determined as they are corrupt.

A relentless killer scars Rome for two decades, leaving its unique signature on its victims and pursuers.  On 11 July 1982, Elisa Sordi was beautiful.  Commissario Michele Balistreri was fearless.  Italy was victorious.  A killer was waiting...On 9 July 2006, with Sordi's case twenty-four years cold, and Balistreri haunted by guilt and regret, Italian victory returned.  And so did Sordi's killer...But this time Michele Balistreri would be ready.  This time he would fear no evil.  The Deliverance of Evil is by Roberto Constantini and is due to be published in April 2013.

  

Four marked souls, one silent killer!  Simon and Suzie are two pleasure seekers defined by their flamboyant tattoos.  Peter Tressider is a politician on the fast track to the top.  DS Aector McAvoy is a policeman with scars to his body and career.  Each is marked in their own way.  And soon each will be branded by the same sinister foe.  Original Skin is a crime novel that leaves a permanent impression.  Half serial killer thriller, half gritty police procedural, it examines the imprints that our darkest sins leave upon us, and just how far we will go to keep them covered.  Original Skin is by David Mark and is due to be published in March 2013.

The Missing File is by D A Mishani and is due to be published in May 2013.  A sixteen-year-old boy is missing in a Tel Aviv suburb.  His mother is worried.  Inspector Avraham Avraham is not.  It is unheard of for children to vanish in this city.  'He'll be home in an hour, maybe three hours, tomorrow morning at the latest.  I can assure you.’  But there is a first time for everything.  And, as time begins to pass and the boy is still nowhere to be found, Avraham finds himself facing this horrible truth.  The Missing File presents a seemingly average detective and a seemingly routine investigation, and then shows both to be far from what they seem.  A supremely confident crime thriller, its unexpected resolution will force readers to question all they take for granted about innocence, guilt and the ways in which the truth can evade us.

These stories are linked by common themes of belonging, dislocation and identity, and together they take the pulse of a country in turmoil.  In 'The Opposite of Death' Roberto Saviano writes about a town in southern Italy haunted by the war in Afghanistan, where one by one its sons are dying.  Carlo Lucarelli ('Ferengi') explores the colonial war in Eritrea through the eyes of a maid working for a sick man who begs her to end his suffering.  Piero Colaprico's 'Grade C' is a breathless Milanese crime thriller in miniature, while Valeria Parrella's 'The Prize', set during World War II, reminds us that revenge is a dish best served cold.  Outsiders  contains stories by Roberto Saviano, Carlo Lucarelli, Valeria Parrella, Piero Colaprico, Wu Ming, and Simona Vinci and is due to be published in March 2013.

Killer at the End of The Line is a story based on fact of a brilliant detective in wartime Berlin, who becomes a mass-murderer.  Berlin, 1941: The battered remains of a woman: the seventh victim of a serial killer who has cast a pall of terror over the city.  With SS-General Heydrich demanding immediate results, detective Georg Heuser races to catch the killer before he strikes again.  Minsk, 1942: Thousands of Jews arrive in cattle trucks.  Among the policemen about to commit some of the most terrible crimes is detective Georg Heuser.  Koblenz 1962: One young lawyer closes in on her prey, and wonders – just how bad can a good man become?  Killer at the End of The Line is by David Thomas (aka Tom Cain) and is due to be published in April 2013.

Screams in the Dark is the third book in the Rosie Gilmour series by Anna Smith and it is due to be published in February 2013.  'Get back to wherever you came from,' a skinny woman spat from the crowd.  'These foreigners are gettin' everythin' handed to them on a plate.  But if you're born and bred in Glasgow you just get in the queue behind them.’  Steeped in its own problems, Glasgow's mushrooming underclass is simmering with resentment; and one by one, refugees are disappearing.  The authorities assume the refugees have vanished into the black economy, until the mutilated body of an Albanian man is fished out of the River Clyde.  Asylum seekers and refugees with no roots and no families are easy pickings.  But why is there no urgency from the authorities to find out what's happening?  Rosie Gilmour's instincts tell her there's more to this story, but after six weeks on the frontlines in Kosovo, is her sympathy for the refugees clouding her judgement?  Rosie must decide what is most important to her.  Her work or her life?

The Gift of Darkness is by V.M. Giambanco and is due to be published in June 2013.  Thirteen days to solve a murder.  Thirteen days to question everything.  Thirteen days before darkness descends.  Twenty-five years ago, three boys were kidnapped and taken into the woods; one never came back.  Now, to stop a psychopath, rookie homicide detective Alice Madison must go back into those woods and into the unsolved mystery of the Hoh River Boys.  Madison must forget her training and follow her instinct to the terrifying end as enemies become allies and, in the silent forest, time is running out to save a life.

Why was the corpse of Khalil Ahmad Jaber found in a mound of rubbish?  Why did he disappear weeks before his horrific death?  And who was he?  A journalist begins to piece the truth together by speaking with his widow, a local engineer, a night watchman, the garbage man who discovered him, the doctor who performed the autopsy, and a young militiaman.  Their stories underline the horrors of Lebanon's bloody civil war and its ravaging effects on the psyches of the survivors.  With empathy and candour, Elias Khoury reveals the havoc the war wreaked on Beirut and its inhabitants, as well as their dogged resilience.  White Masks is by Elias Khoury and is due to be published in February 2013.

 

Alex is by Pierre Lemaître and is due to be published in March 2013.  In kidnapping cases, the first few hours are crucial.  After that, the chances of being found alive go from slim to nearly none.  Alex Prevost - beautiful, resourceful, and tough - may be no ordinary victim, but her time is running out.  Commandant Camille Verhoeven and his detectives have nothing to go on: no suspect, no lead, rapidly diminishing hope.  All they know is that a girl was snatched off the streets of Paris and bundled into a white van.  The enigma that is the fate of Alex will keep Verhoeven guessing until the bitter, bitter end.  And before long, saving her life will be the least of his worries.

High stakes on the high seas – Jake Grafton and Tommy Carmellini combat Somali pirates in the deadly Gulf of Aden.  A luxury cruise liner, Sultan of the Seas, is hijacked by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden; a dangerous shipping route that has earned the nickname ‘Pirate Alley’.  With 490 international passengers and 370 crewmembers on board, a total of 860 lives hang in the balance.  Washington demands the impossible – the Sultan recaptured without the loss of a single life.  And, with the impossible the objective, it turns to Jake Grafton ...  Pirate Alley is by Stephen Coonts and is due to be published in April 2013.

The Low Road is by Chris Wormersley and is due to be published in January 2013.  A suitcase of stolen cash has brought three criminals together.  One has a bullet in his side.  One has blood on his hands.  One has vengeance on his mind.  Each has run from their past.  Each will now fight for their future.  A modern noir thriller, The Low Road highlights our desire to outrun our demons, and the dark consequences we face when we are forced to confront them.

The Cold Nowhere is the sixth book in the Jonathan Stride series by Brian Freeman.  It is due to be published in May 2013.  At six years old, Cat witnessed her father stab her mother forty-one times, and then kill himself.  Now, ten years on, she believes someone is coming for her, and the only person she can trust is Detective Jonathan Stride, who worked on her parents' case.  Determined to make up for past mistakes, Stride decides to trust this abused girl from the streets.  But when a string of murders is linked to Cat, Stride's partner, Maggie Bei, is convinced she is involved and some difficult questions will need to be answered: What is Cat's fascination with knives?  What is she dreaming of when the nightmares come?  What are the secrets she is keeping?

Isle of the Dead is by Alex Connor and is due to be published in April 2013.  In 15th-century Venice, it is a dangerous time to be alive.  A permanent winter has rolled in over the canals and bodies keep washing up on the banks of the city.  These bodies are especially hard to identify, since they have been skinned.  In the present day, a famous portrait by Titian has been discovered.  Its subject: the 15th-century suspected murderer Angelico Vespucci.  The skins of Vespucci's victims were never found, so his guilt was never proven.  Although it is rumoured that when the portrait arises, so will the man.  And when flayed bodies start turning up all over the world, it looks like this is more than just a superstition.  A murderer has been called back to life, and he is hungry for revenge.

Some fairy tales are born of dreams...and some are born of nightmares.  A murderer is on the loose, but the gruesome way in which the bodies are being posed has the police at a loss.  Until, on a hunch, Alice Hyland, an expert in fairy tales is called in.  And it is Alice who finds the connection between the body of Chrissie Farrell and an obscure Italian version of Snow White.  Then, when a second body is found, Alice is dragged further into the investigation - until she herself becomes a suspect.  Now Alice must fight, not just to prove her innocence, but also to protect herself: because it's looking like she might well be next.  Path of Needles is by Alice Littlewood and is due to be published in January 2013.

Steve Range thinks his friend Randy is a corpse in a desert grave - until he reappears in an Al Qaeda video, spitting extremist hate and challenging Range and Blackstone Six to a desert battle that will settle a vicious blood feud.  But Range's attention is drawn to a stray word slipped in to Randy's tirade, and he begins to wonder whether his old comrade-in-arms really has been turned by his captors.  All he knows for sure is that he owes a debt to the man he left for dead.  As Range plunges ever deeper into the dark and chaotic heart of the terrorists’ murderous plot he realises that nothing is what it seems, and that his elite band of warriors are facing a desperate fight like no other.  Killing Range is by Phil Campion and is due to be published in June 2013.

 

Until the French government declassified documents concerning their ignominious defeat at Dien Bien Phu, Madam Daeng's past had been a well-kept secret.  Now Dr Siri's wife is vulnerable and being stalked by a killer.  But when Dr Siri whisks her away for a romantic working weekend, they encounter an even greater threat.  For Dr Siri falls under the spell of a beautiful witch, they call the Used-To-Be Woman.  The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die is by Colin Cotterill and is due to be published in February 2013.

 

Jose Pereira heads the police's Organized Crime and Gang Section in Raby, a southern suburb of Stockholm.  Here, juvenile gang crime is a rapidly growing and all-too-real problem.  Blood brothers Leon and Gabriel have spent their young lives establishing a formidable criminal enterprise - known as the Raby Warriors - which is now poised to secure domination in the area.  DCI Ewert Grens is investigating a recent prison break from a maximum-security facility: an incident that is linked to the Raby Warriors - a group Grens knows more about than he first admits.  All four men are on a collision course: heading toward an explosive convergence, and a revelation powerful enough to tear each of them apart.  Two Soldiers is by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellström and is due to be published in May 2013.

At the deathbed of an old Resistance veteran, Bruno finds banknotes from the legendary 1944 train robbery of Neuvic Bruno is dealing with a wave of burglaries, one of which ends in murder.  In the meantime, Jacqueline is investigating the stolen banknotes, and when her home is burgled, suddenly the stakes become much higher and her work, suggests the Major, is political dynamite in France ... The Resistance Man is by Martin Walker and is due to be published in June 2013.

The Investigation is by Philippe Claudel and is due to be published in January 2013. A routine investigation descends into a nightmarish journey into the unknown.  The Investigator is despatched to a provincial town to investigate a disturbing spate of suicides amongst the employees of The Firm.  But from the moment he steps off the train, he finds that everything is against him, from the hostile weather to the town's bewildering inhabitants.  Cold, hungry and humiliated, always one-step behind, he finds himself in a recurring nightmare that waking cannot break.  And yet his resolve never falters: he remains determined to find the only man he can hold to account - The Firm's legendary but elusive founder.

When a rotting torso is discovered in the vault of New Scotland Yard, it doesn't take Dr Thomas Bond, Police Surgeon, long to realise that there is a second killer at work in the city where, only a few days before, Jack the Ripper brutally murdered two women in one night.  Though just as gruesome, this is the hand of a colder killer, one who lacks Jack's emotion.  And, as more headless and limbless torsos find their way into the Thames, Dr Bond becomes obsessed with finding the killer.  As his investigations lead him into an unholy alliance, he starts to wonder: is it a man who has brought mayhem to the streets of London, or a monster?  Mayhem is by Sarah Pinborough and it is due to be published in June 2013.