Forthcoming Books from John Murray.

 

January 2026

A Gift Before Dying is by Malcolm Kempt. At the edge of the world, can justice still be found.  After a botched high-profile murder investigation, Sergeant Elderick Cole is exiled to the remote, rugged landscape of Nunavut, a vast territory in the Arctic Circle known for its untamed beauty, frigid temperatures, and endless winter nights.  His bleak existence takes a sinister turn when he discovers the hanging body of Pitseolala, a troubled Inuit girl whom he had sworn to protect. Her death dredges up demons he thought he'd buried along with the scars of a fractured marriage and the aching divide between himself and his estranged daughter. As Cole's life unravels - and with it, the fragile thread of his investigation - he turns to Pitseolala's younger brother, Maliktu, a fellow outsider. It's then that Cole uncovers what binds them: a singular mission to find her killer. Against fierce backlash, Cole's overriding desire to redeem just one aspect of his otherwise failed life becomes an obsession - and he's willing to break every rule in his unyielding pursuit of justice and the smallest shred of redemption.

For over a century two rival organisations of women have gone to deadly lengths to secure a precious scrap of fraying embroidery in the hopes of finding the original medieval manuscript from which it was torn. There's the Order of St Katherine: devoted to the belief that women must pull strings in the shadows in order to exercise covert control. And the Fellowship of the Larks: determined to amass as many overt positions of power for women as possible . . . while making sure their methods never come to light. When trailblazing paleographer Dr Anya Brown is headhunted by the exclusive Institute of Manuscript Studies at St Andrews, she's unaware that she is in grave danger - her new employers are the Larks, and they'll stop at nothing to achieve their mission. As Dr Brown is drawn deeper into this ancient web, events spiral beyond her control. To uncover the truth, and escape with her life, she must summon all her expertise to decipher a series of messages that have lain hidden for centuries. The Burning Library is by Gilly Macmillan.

February 2026

 In August 1940, a man walked into Leon Trotsky's study in Mexico City and drove an ice pick into his skull. The killer? Ramon Mercader - an aristocratic Spaniard turned Soviet assassin. The mastermind? Joseph Stalin. But this was no simple hit. It was the climax of a decade-long global hunt: a story of seduction and betrayal, of fake identities and secret loyalties, of idealists and fanatics, lovers and spies. While Trotsky raged in exile - still clinging to his revolutionary dream - Stalin's agents closed in. At the heart of it all was Mercader: a man trained to lie, charm and ultimately to kill. Tracing a path from the cafes of Paris to the battlefields of Spain, from Stalin's Kremlin to a bloodied study in Mexico, The Death of Trotsky by Josh Ireland unfolds like a spy thriller - a story of obsession and betrayal, of dreams destroyed and loyalties twisted, culminating in one of the most shocking murders of the modern age.

From James Wolff a former spy comes Spies and Other Gods an electrifying novel about the mystery, paranoia and ruthlessness of the secretive world of British espionage. The Head of British Intelligence is having a bad day. Only six months off retirement and Sir William Rentoul is wondering if he'll make it that far, what with the sudden descent of a brain fog dense enough to turn every day into a series of small humiliations. To make matters worse, Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee - the body that oversees Sir William - has received an anonymous complaint from one of his officers. Sir William dimly recalls accepting that there should be a channel for whistleblowers, but he never expected that they would pick his most sensitive case, one involving an Iranian assassin and a trail of dead bodies, or that the person who turned up to poke their nose into his files should be a lowly parliamentary researcher named Aphra McQueen, who displays smarts, tenacity and rebelliousness in unsettling measures. Aphra seems to know more about the operation than she is letting on. What will she uncover? What is she really up to? And can she survive the unexpected events that will bounce her from London to Birmingham to Paris to Lausanne?

March 2026

All Them Dogs is by Djamel White. Things are different since Tony Ward landed back in town. The West Dublin gangland has changed. His old mentor is dead, and his best pal Kenny Boyle is on the straight and narrow. After five years keeping quiet across the way, Tony is keen to reinstate himself, and when the opportunity arises to work side by side with Darren 'Flute' Walsh, a top enforcer of notorious crime boss Aengus Lavelle, it feels like a no brainer. Biting off more than he can chew has never bothered Tony Ward, but Flute Walsh is not the meek, quiet boy Tony remembers from school. Brooding, stoic, and unpredictably dangerous, Tony finds himself drawn to his new associate in more ways than one. With retribution from his past actions always close in the rear view, the protection offered by Flute's standing in the gang is crucial. But how safe is Tony really, when a mutual attraction starts to complicate matters?

When the daughter of the Swedish Ambassador disappears from her prestigious London school in broad daylight, the authorities are on high alert. There are no witnesses and no ransom demand: thirteen-year-old Freya Sjöberg has vanished into thin air. With the Metropolitan Police out of their depth, specialist agent DS Madeleine Farrow is called in to handle the case. As a former pupil at Wimpole Girls, she knows the school's affluent corridors only too well. But even she can't anticipate the dark secrets held within its walls. With the clock ticking since Freya's disappearance, Madeleine must return to a place that holds painful memories to find a girl who has left no trace. For help, she calls on dogged - and occasionally maverick - young private investigator Ramona Chang. Together the unlikely pair find themselves plunged into a world of extreme wealth and dangerous secrets. The deeper they dig, the more they uncover - exposing a tangled web of conspiracy and lies that could change everything they thought they knew about the case, and each other. Lost Girls is by Charlotte Philby.

May 2026

Murder at the Hotel Orient is by Alessandra Ranelli. In modern Vienna, the infamous Hotel Orient glitters at the heart of the city, luring lovers inside for an evening of debauchery. Behind its velvet curtain, cameras are forbidden, aliases are required, and every guest has something to hide. For those seeking illicit liaisons, Sterling Lockwood is the perfect concierge. Sultry and poised, she's the ultimate keeper of secrets, including her own. But when dawn breaks and two of the anonymous guests are found dead in their suite, Sterling must break the Orient's sacred code of discretion, turning detective to find a killer and clear her own name. Alongside Fernando, her quick-witted friend and bellhop, Sterling steps beyond the hotel's stained-glass doors, venturing from grand coffee houses where power whispers between porcelain cups, to dimly lit bars where the curious seek rapturous oblivion, and risking everything to solve an impossible case.

What happens when you can no longer keep a secret? When Arthur Cotton sees a body washed up on the beach, difficult memories come flooding back. He kept the books for the Brighton mob back in the day and got out on friendly terms. But retirement came with conditions - mainly to keep his mouth shut. Fifty years on, it's trickier. Dementia is taking hold and he's getting leaky. His former bosses are worried. Arthur didn't just keep their accounts; he also kept their secrets. Now there's going to be a reckoning. It's up to Arthur's daughter, Susan, a carer for the elderly, to find out what her father knows. What he's been saying and to whom. There are dangerous people around, and they're beginning to lose their patience. She'll have to turn detective to encounter a Brighton she barely knew existed, and to turn up parts of her father's past that are just as dark. The Darkest Tide is by Peter Hanington.

Nine nights to solve a murder...or she'll be next. When Bigglesweigh's notorious gangster, Cuttah, uses up the last of his nine lives, and is found dead at his flat, there is only one person who can solve the mystery of who killed him: indomitable retired NHS nurse Miss Hortense. Cuttah left a letter with a list of suspects. There's just one problem: Miss Hortense's name is on the list and she only has nine days before his cronies seek retribution... Miss Hortense and the Last Rites is by Mel Pennant.

June 2026

Death by Noir is by Olly Smith. Barclay Flint is the eccentric proprietor of The Bottle Bank wine shop in Lewes, the small Sussex town renowned for its annual Bonfire Night festival. Barclay can taste a kaleidoscopic universe in a single glass of wine - and will delight in luring you to share in its charms. Barclay passes his days happily matching his customers to the wines of their dreams, but when his friend, struggling regenerative vineyard owner Victor Crawshaw, goes missing, Barclay falls under suspicion and must deploy his wine detection skills to crack the case and clear his name. As the clock ticks down to Bonfire Night's epic festival of flames, the fireworks might not be all that start exploding...

Two Daughters, One Mission and the return of Celtic Noir

How The  Inn  Closes  for  Christmas  and  Other  Dark  Tales 

Returned to the Light

The  Inn  Closes  for  Christmas has inhabited our family bookcases for decades, appearing in various editions and translations from the 1940s to the mid-1970s. Now, a lost classic rediscovered, it is back in a beautiful hardback edition ready for Christmas 2025! 

For the two of us, Cledwyn Hughes’s daughters, there have been tears, laughter and more than a few surprises along the way.

Starting Out on the Journey

The “Hughes Girls” began a deep dive into the Cledwyn Hughes archive at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth a few years ago. Invariably, every visit to the Reading Room revealed unexpected treasures, guiding us to a deeper awareness of our father and his writing practice. Looking back, each step along the way feels serendipitous and what we uncovered filled in many gaps left by a man who kept his dark imagination deliberately separate from family life.

John Cledwyn Hughes—to use his full name—was born in 1920 into a line of farming families in mid-wales and our paternal ancestors can be traced back to the late 1600s living, marrying and dying within a thirty-mile radius of the farm where he grew up. It must have been surprising, therefore, when, at about fourteen, our father announced his intention to become a writer. His mother had hoped he would take over the local chemist shop in nearby Oswestry, but, devoted to her only child “Jim”, bought him his first typewriter that very year. He went on to study pharmacy at Liverpool University, but the typewriter remained his true companion, and writing his vocation.

From his early teens until the end of his life, Cledwyn, as he became known, wrote every day. Rejection letters arrived, as they do for any fledgling author, but his self belief and relentless graft saw his short stories appear increasingly in magazines throughout the 1940s. 

A Bold Leap Across the Atlantic

One of the most moving discoveries in the archives was tracing the audacity of a young man from a farming background with few literary connections or mentors who wrote to a New York literary agent, Marion  Saunders, asking her to represent him. After a brief exchange, a little like a blind date that goes surprisingly well, Saunders agreed. Within a year (late 1946) she was sending the telegrams we can see in the archives to his family farm that The Inn—originally titled “Obsession”—had been accepted for publication by A. A. Wynn in New York under the new title He Dared Not Look Behind. The publisher later altered the title for the UK market to The  Inn  Closes  for  Christmas.

The original authorial title survived only under a yellowed, gummed strip that we later discovered on the galley proofs of the American edition. Peeling back that strip felt like having sight of a private conversation between our father and his first editor.

Our research also uncovered four previously unpublished short stories, now among the “Dark Tales” in the new volume. These pieces demonstrate four more cracking experiments with the unsettling atmospheres that defined Cledwyn Hughes’s earlier work.

Gratitude to Those Who Made the Return Possible

Many individuals and institutions helped us on this rediscovery project of a fine Welsh writer, and we are so grateful to them for recognising his qualities and his relevance to modern readers. It is not within the scope of this piece to list them all, but we would like particularly to thank:

The National Library of Wales for safeguarding the Cledwyn Hughes papers, noting especially the four unpublished stories that have a home in the new 2025 edition.

Curtis Brown Heritage, and especially Norah Perkins for her brilliant insight and support in developing a publishing strategy.

The Baskerville team for treating the manuscript with reverence, restoring the original title in the acknowledgements and producing a beautifully designed volume that honours both the story and the author’s literary legacy.

Closing Reflections

Holding the new edition feels like standing on a bridge between two worlds: the private, imaginative realm our father inhabited and the public sphere where his stories now live again. The journey of republishing has run parallel to a personal pilgrimage. A profound and satisfying process. Learning about a father who inhabited a creative world apart from his everyday self; discovering new stories; and meeting the people who are helping to bring his work back into the light.

The Inn Closes for Christmas is by Cledwyn Hughes (John Murray Press) Out Now

Discover the lost masterpiece from the father of Celtic noir. The Inn Closes for Christmas is a deliciously dark and haunting tale of one man's nightmarish obsession and how far he'll go to escape it. For fans of Shirley Jackson, MR James, and Andrew Michael Hurley, rediscover this forgotten classic.  The Bank manager, as he had done for so many Christmases now, opened the file. And as always, as he opened it he wondered why he must do this each year. For the man had asked him that he should do this every Christmas for as long as he should live. In the file, the bank manager sifts through some papers - local newspaper cuttings, a pathologist report, a statement from the town's dentist William Sterrill, and a death notice for his wife, Mrs Doreen Sterrill. But it is the last paper that stops him in his tracks. It is the confession of William Sterrill. In William's confession we learn about the terrible accident that caused his wife to have her leg amputated, the prosthetic leg she then had to wear, how this leg slowly drives William to murder, and then the descent into madness as we walk through William's nightmares, visions, and thoughts.  The Inn Closes for Christmas is also accompanied by a selection of short stories, full of the uncanny and creepy where Hughes points us towards the darkest places in the human psyche with the lightest of touches.

Cledwyn Hughes was an Anglo-Welsh author of short stories, novels, and narrative non-fiction. He wrote for more than 30 years across a wide range of genres including crime, 'Celtic Noir', children's and topographical writing.

Born in Llansantffraid, Montgomeryshire, he worked as a hospital pharmacist in the north of England before settling down in Wales to write full-time. His work has been featured in magazines such as Suspense, as well as in collections like Woodrow Wyatt’s English Stories. He was also a regular contributor to the BBC.

He is best known for the novel The Civil Strangers (1950) and the macabre novella The Inn Closes for Christmas (1947), which remained in print until shortly before his untimely death.

More information about Cledwyn Hughes and his work can be found on the Cledwyn Hughes website. You can also email them directly-  estate@cledwynhughes.com. They can also be found on Instagram  @literaryestate_cledwynhughes

All photographs and copyright courtesy of Rebecca and Janet (daughters of Cledwyn Hughes).

Who is Mason Coile?

 

Enthusiastic book reviewers often want to tell others when they have enjoyed a book immensely, discovered something special, a narrative that provoked deep thought.

EXILES by Mason Coile

So what’s this book about?

It’s 2030

The human crew sent to prepare the first colony on Mars arrives to find the new base half-destroyed and the three robots sent ahead to set it up in disarray.

In the four years since they arrived, the machines have formed alliances, chosen their own names and picked up some disturbing beliefs. Each robot must be interrogated.

But one of them is missing.

As the astronauts close in on the truth, it dawns on them that in this barren, hostile landscape - where even the machines have nightmares - none of them is safe.

I just finished this extraordinary work by an author I had never heard of - Mason Coile and reviewed it -

This slim novel punches well above its word count. It has heft in terms of provoking thought and stopping you in your tracks to ponder upon the ideas, themes and emotions it evokes.

There is a tragic finality in the climax - one that grips the mind.

Presented as a Science Fiction Thriller, it is actually a philosophical exploration of what it means to ‘exist’. As worthy as that may sound, it stretches the edges of this futuristic scenario into a cerebral examination of loneliness and why ‘humans’ and ‘non-humans’ behave in the ways they do when mentally and physically isolated.

Read the Full Review HERE

The climax caused me to put the book down and sit in silence, lost in my thoughts as I gazed at the stars glittering in the infinity of the night sky.

I felt alone and insignificant.

The writing was so assured and evocative it came as no surprise to discover that Mason Coile is a pen-name of the award-winning Canadian Author Andrew Pyper. The novel’s melancholic theme is matched by the sadness in the knowledge that Exiles is his final novel. It was published posthumously as Andrew Pyper tragically passed away earlier this year aged 56.

He dedicated his final novel to his wife.

I was fortunate to meet Andrew during Bouchercon 2013 held in Albany, New York State – where we discussed his incredible Horror Novel The Demonologist – which would be awarded the International Thriller Writers [ITW] hardcover novel of the year [in 2014].

If you’ve not read Andrew Pyper / Mason Coile – here’s his bibliography

Kiss Me (1996)

Lost Girls (2000)

The Trade Mission (2002) 

The Wildfire Season (2005)          

The Killing Circle (2008)

The Guardians (2011)        

The Demonologist (2013)  

The Damned (2015)

The Only Child (2017)       

The Homecoming (2019)   

The Residence (2020)       

Oracle (2021)           

As Mason Coile

William (2024)         

Exiles (2025)

More information > https://andrewpyper.com/

 

Forthcoming Books from Baskerville Press (John Murray)

 February 2025

Dirty Money is by Charlotte Philby. Ramona Chang. An investigative journalist turned private detective, Ramona's final scoop left her with a target on her back. Now in hiding, she is living in a run-down flat in east London. But when her latest case looking into an upmarket escort agency takes a dark turn, she needs information only accessible to those in power. Detective Sergeant Madeleine Farrow. A high-flying operative at a government agency, it's the day of her fiftieth birthday when Madeleine finds out that she has been given the lead on an investigation into corruption on a global scale. But when she finds her case mysteriously blocked from the inside, she needs someone on the outside, capable of moving undetected. As Ramona and Madeleine's cases collide, can the unlikely allies find justice for multiple victims within the capital's hotbed of lies and deception?

June 2025

Death has come to her doorstep . . . Retired nurse, avid gardener, renowned cake maker and fearless sleuth Miss Hortense has lived in Bigglesweigh, a quiet Birmingham suburb, since she emigrated from Jamaica in 1960. She takes great pride in her home, starching her lace curtains bright white, and she can tell if she's being short-changed on turmeric before she's taken her first bite of a beef patty. Thirty-five years of nursing have also left her afraid of nobody, be they a local drug dealer or a priest, and an expert in deciphering other people's secrets with just a glance. Miss Hortense uses her skills to investigate the investments of the Pardner network - a special community of Black investors, determined to help their people succeed. But when an unidentified man is found dead in one of the Pardner's homes, a bible quote noted down beside his body, Miss Hortense's long buried past comes rushing back to greet her, bringing memories of the worst moment of her life, one which her community has never let her forget. It is time for Miss Hortense to solve a mystery that will see her, and the community she loves, tested to their limits. A Murder for Miss Hortense is by Mel Pennant.

Mary Horlock on The Safest Place in the World.

‘There was something magical about an island—the mere word suggested fantasy. You lost touch with the world—an island was a world of its own. A world, perhaps, from which you might never return.’

So thought Dr. Armstrong, one of the characters in Agatha Christie’s classic novel And Then There Were None. The story is now familiar: a group of strangers are invited to a mysterious island where they are then stranded and killed off one by one. It’s a kind of locked-room mystery, but by using the setting of on an island, cut off from the rest of the world, Christie increases her characters’ isolation, ramping up the atmosphere of fear and paranoia. 

To re-read the novel now it’s surprisingly dark, but islands can be dark, and I think I’m allowed to say that since I’ve lived on two. They are these fragments of land adrift from the wider world, always a little out of step with it. Whether it’s a tropical haven or a windswept stretch of rock, an island is a border, exposed to the sea on all sides. To be able to see your limits should be reassuring and novels set on islands, particularly crime novels, have that comforting lure. The natural boundaries of cliff and shore shape and contain the narrative. We have a set number of people and places. It is like a puzzle or a game, and also, like a smaller version of our own world. We can put it under the microscope, poke it and prod it and pull it apart. 

But the limits are a danger, too. The island is at the mercy of the elements and can throw up all kinds of surprises: a bad storm, something strange on the beach. In And Then There Were None, just like in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies or more recently Alex Garland’s The Beach, our characters find themselves on an island that is not their home, and with life’s normal rules suspended, things quickly fall apart. 

Inevitably perhaps, I’m interested in islanders as much as islands. Islanders often feel like outsiders. By choice or birth, they live on the fringes. This makes them good observers and also, narrators. My father’s family were from the Isle of Wight, and my grandmother, who lived in house looking out over the Solent, would regale me with stories of wreckers and smugglers who were apparently my ancestors. 

When I was seven we moved to Guernsey, an even smaller island in the English Channel. ‘There’s no crime on Guernsey,’ my mother would say (which is often what someone says in a crime novel just before they die). But she’d then point out - quite rightly, I should add - that on a tiny island where everyone knows everyone else, why bother to commit a crime when you’d be swiftly caught? To me, that sounded rather like an invitation. 

My new novel, The Stranger’s Companion, is based on a true crime, a real-life mystery that happened on the island of Sark in 1933. Now Sark, to those who don’t know, is an island even smaller than Guernsey. It measures three and half miles long and has no cars or streetlights to this day. In 1933 it had a population of 500, two telephones and only three wireless sets on the whole island. Unsurprisingly, it had become a haven for shell-shocked veterans of the last War, and was regularly advertised as the perfect place to escape the more ‘disturbing elements of modern civilisation.’ Then the clothes of a man and woman were found on a cliff edge, with no sign of their owners. Despite days-long searches over the cliffs and coves, nobody was found and nobody was reported missing. It caused quite a sensation in the press precisely because it seemed so unlikely. Sark was ‘the Island Where Nothing Ever Happens’ and yet something obviously had. 

The story and the way it caught everyone’s attention points to the truth at the heart of island mysteries - whether real or invented. We think we are on safe ground, but we’re not. Bad things happen everywhere, sometimes in places where we least expect them to happen. All we can do is create the frame to contain and make sense of them.

The Stranger's Companion by Mary Horlock (John Murray/Baskerville) Out Now.

October 1933. With a population of five hundred souls, isolated Sark has a reputation for being 'the island where nothing ever happens'. Until, one day, the neatly folded clothes of an unknown man and woman are discovered abandoned at a coastal beauty spot. As the search for the missing couple catches the attention of first the local and then national newspapers, Sark finds itself front-page news. When young islander Phyllis Carey returns to Sark from England she throws herself into solving the mystery. As Phyll digs through swirls of gossip, ghost stories and dark rumours in search of the truth, she crosses paths with Everard Hyde, a surprise visitor from her past. As press coverage builds to fever pitch, long-suppressed secrets from Phyll's and Everard's shared, shadowy history begin to surface.

More information may be found on her website. 

Forthcoming Books from John Murray (Incl Baskerville Press)

January 2023

Birmingham, 1933. Private enquiry agent William Garrett, a man damaged by a dark childhood spent on Birmingham's canals, specialises in facilitating divorces for the city's male elite. With the help of his best friend - charming, out-of-work actor Ronnie Edgerton - William sets up honey traps. But photographing unsuspecting women in flagrante plagues his conscience and William heaves up his guts with remorse after every job. However, William's life changes when he accidentally meets the beautiful Clara Morton and falls in love. Little does he know she is the wife of a client - a leading fascist with a dangerous obsession. And what should have been another straightforward job turns into something far more deadly. Needless Alley is by Natalie Marlow.

February 2023

Lady Joker: Volume 2 is by Kaoru Takamura. Five men who meet at a Tokyo racetrack every week carry out a heist. They have kidnapped the CEO of Japan's largest beer company to extract blood money from the company's corrupt financiers. Known as Lady Joker, the men make their first attack on the beer company when their demands are not met. As the attacks escalate, the shady networks linking corporations to syndicates are exposed, the stakes rise, and bring into riveting focus the lives and motivations of the victims, the perpetrators, the heroes and the villains. Some will lose everything, even their lives.

March 2023

The Company is by J M Varese. London, 1870. Lucy Braithwhite lives a privileged existence as heir to the fortune of Braithwhite & Company - the most successful purveyor of English luxury wallpapers the world over. The company's formulas have been respected for nearly a century, but have always remained cloaked in mystery. No one has been able to explain the originality of design, or the brilliance of their colours, leaving many to wonder if the mysterious spell-like effect of their wallpapers is due simply to artistry, or something more sinister. When Mr Luckhurst, the company's manager, and the man who has acted as surrogate father to Lucy and her invalid brother John since they were children, suddenly dies, Lucy is shocked to discover that there is no succession plan in place. Who will ensure that the company and her family continue to thrive? The answer soon arrives in the form of the young and alluring Julian Rivers, who, unbeknownst to Lucy and John, has been essential to the company's operations for some time. At first, he seems like the answer to their prayers, but as Lucy begins piecing together Julian's true intentions, and John begins seeing spectral visions in the house's wallpaper, it becomes clear to Lucy that she must do everything within her power to oppose the diabolic forces that have risen up to destroy her family.

April 2023

Jaleesa, Kai, Ilya and Dani are online best friends, and superfans of the hit TV show City Of Night. Fantasising about the show in their chatroom, they find an escape from their troubled small-town lives. Everything changes when Chloe, make-up artist to the show's star Alice Temple, enters the chat. When Chloe tells them Alice is in danger the four resolve to save her, and make their way to California. But fantasy is quickly overtaken by reality. Alice's troubles, they discover, will shine the spotlight on all of them. And not in a good way. On the run across the American South with one of the most famous actresses in the world, the fans must evade the police, the Russian mafia and the Legion, an absurd but terrifying new far-right movement. Can they keep running for long enough to uncover the truth about Alice, and discover themselves in the process? Panic is by Luke Jennings.

May 2023

Coffee and Cigarettes is by Ferdinand Von Schirach. The judge is a calm, level-headed man. He often asks himself what the 'rule of law' actually means. What would he do if a majority in his country passed a law that reintroduced the death penalty? When should a principle-based decision take precedence over a majority decision? When must it do so? Or do ethics count for nothing against the will of the people? Ferdinand von Schirach is one of Germany's most eminent criminal defence lawyers and an internationally bestselling author, best known for his dark, probing short stories and novels, which interrogate the blurred lines of right and wrong, justice and punishment, within the legal system. In Coffee and Cigarettes, he returns with gripping character portraits and short stories, as well as autobiographical vignettes and astute observations drawn from his life and career. From conversations with imprisoned clients, great writers and supreme court judges, and vignettes on art, film and smoking, to observations on Germany's heavy history - as well as his own family's.

June 2023

All of us knew him. One of us killed him... Seven women stand in shock in a seedy hotel room; a man's severed head sits in the centre of the floor. Each of the women - the wife, the teenager, the ex, the journalist, the colleague, the friend, and the woman who raised him - has a very good reason to have done it, yet each swears she did not. In order to protect each other, they must figure out who is responsible, all while staying one step ahead of the police. Against the ticking clock of a murder investigation, each woman's secret is brought to light as the connections between them converge to reveal a killer. A dark and nuanced portrait of love, loyalty, and manipulation, Speak of the Devil explores the roles in which women are cast in the lives of terrible men...and the fallout when they refuse to stay silent for one moment longer. Speak of the Devil is by Rose Wilding.