Criminal Snippets

© The Guardian

Excellent interview with Sophie Hannah in the Guardian.   It can be read here.  One of the most important points she makes and something that has constantly annoyed me is the fact that many people think that crime fiction can’t be literature.  I often wonder what books they have been reading.

According to the Bookseller Michael Fassbender is to star in the film adaptation of Jo Nesbø’s bestselling novel The Snowman. Filming starts in the middle of January 2016 and is currently set for release in the cinema in October 2017.

Alison Flood in the Guardian interviews author Paula Hawkins on becoming a literary sensation with her novel Girl on the Train.

According to Cinemablend xXx: The Return of Xander Cage will see the return of a major character.  More information can be found here.

Sherlock fans might be interested in the short trailer for BBC’s Christmas special The Abominable Bride.  It can be seen below.

Fans of Ann Cleeves Shetland series will be pleased to note that a six part series is due to start on BBC One on 15 January 2016.  More information can be found here.

Look out for Deutschland 83 which is an 8 part Cold War Spy thriller set amidst a divided Germany.  It is to be shown on Channel 4 starting on 3 January 2016.  More information can be found here.

Interested in knowing what are the world’s greatest spy films? If so then in the run up to the launch of Deutschland 83 Channel 4 are counting down the ten most thrilling spy movies as chosen by “real spies” and spy masters.  More information can be found here.  The programme is due to be shown on 2^nd January 2016 on Channel 4 at 21:00.

Remember the Robert Rodriguez film From Dusk to Dawn? Well the series is due to launch on Spike at 9:00pm on 4 January 2016.  More information about the series can be found here.

Publishers Weekly have issued their list of best mysteries of 2015.  The full list can be found here and includes The Cartel by Don Winslow, James Lee Burke’s House of the Rising Sun and Charles McCarry’s The Mulberry Bush to name a few.

Whilst not strictly crime fiction – fans of actor Idris Elba who plays Luther may be interested to know that he will be sharing his favourite music on BBC Radio 6 on Sunday 27 December 2015 between 1:00pm and 2:00pm.

Books to Look forward to from Head of Zeus

The Mulberry Bush is by Charles McCarry and is due to be published in November 2015. A young spy seeks to avenge his father's lonely death by punishing those responsible within the CIA. He's a recruiter's dream: a doctorate in Islamic studies from a prestigious University, fluent in Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Pashto, single, discreet and ambitious. His father was a spy so he understands the rules. Don't ask questions, don't get impatient, learn to live with uncertainty. But he's not as perfect as he seems. When his father died, penniless and friendless on the streets of Washington, he decided to seek out those who'd turned their backs. A spy with no name can seek vengeance with ease; he's a shadow, a phantom, a spook. But can he bring down the CIA?

 

Clayton Burroughs is the Sheriff of Bull Mountain and the black sheep of the brutal and blood-steeped Burroughs clan. In the forties and fifties, the family ran moonshine over six state lines. In the sixties and seventies, they farmed the largest above-ground marijuana crop on the East Coast, and now they are the dominant suppliers of methamphetamine in the Southern states. An uneasy pact exists between the law man and his folk, but when a federal agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shows up in Clayton's office with a plan to shut down Bull Mountain, his agenda will pit brother against brother, test loyalties, and set Clayton on a path to self-destruction. At its heart, Bull Mountain is a story about family, and the lengths men will go to protect it, honour it, or, in some cases, destroy it.  Bull Mountain is by Brian Panowich and is due to be published in July 2015.

Katie Maguire hunts a serial killer targeting nuns in the gruesome new thriller from Graham Masterton. In a nursing home on the outskirts of Cork, an elderly nun lies dead. She has been suffocated. It looks like a mercy-killing - until another sister from the same convent is found viciously murdered, floating in the Glashaboy river. The nuns were good women, doing God's work. Why would anyone want to kill them? But then a child's skull is unearthed in the garden of the nuns' convent, and DS Katie Maguire discovers a fifty year old secret that just might lead her to the killer...if the killer doesn't find her first.  Blood Sisters is due to be published in October 2015.

Blood Mist is by Mark Roberts and is due to be published in August 2015.  Every Night a family dies every day she tries to save them.  DCI Eve Clay got the call at five minutes to midnight. A family of six, slaughtered in their beds, their bodies dragged out to the landing to form an arcane pattern. Outside, a blizzard rages past the well-kept houses of The Serpentine. None of the neighbours heard a sound. Someone took great care to arrange those bodies so precisely. But who? And why? Somewhere in Eve's minds, a long-buried memory flickers. But there is no time for hunches. She must find the killers before they strike again. As Liverpool holds its breath, DCI Eve Clay hunts a ruthless killer who knows more about her past than she does...

The beautiful game just got deadly. Scott Manson needs to leave London. His job managing London City football team is over, and it cuts deep to watch them play on without him. But changing your life isn't as simple as all that. When Scott takes up a new position in Shanghai, he gets caught up in an elaborate sting mounted by a rival team. And when he quits that for a job in Barcelona, it turns out his new employers only want him for his detective skills: their star player is missing, and they need to find him fast. As Scott tracks the player from Paris to Antigua, he uncovers corruption, kidnapping - and murder...  False Nine is by Philip Kerr and is due to be published in November 2015.

Badlands is by CJ Box and is due to be published in July 2015.  Grimstad, North Dakota. A place people used to be from - but were never headed to - has struck oil. As pipelines snake across the prairie, oil flows out and men and money flow in. And with them, comes crime. North Dakota's new oil capital has a serious law and order problem and newly qualified detective Cassie Dewell has just been appointed its deputy sheriff. Twelve-year-old Kyle Westergaard is one of Grimstad's paperboys. Kyle has been written off as the 'slow' kid, but he has dreams deeper than anyone can imagine - he wants to get out of town, take care of his alcoholic mother, and give them a better life. While delivering newspapers, he witnesses a car accident and now has money and a lot of white powder in his possession. With the temperature dropping to 30 degrees below and a gang war heating up, Cassie fears she might be in over her head. The key to it all will come in the most unlikely form: an undersized boy on a bike who keeps showing up where he doesn't belong.

Sherlock is edited by Otto Penzler and is due to be published in September 2015.  In 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle put pen to paper and created a legend: Sherlock Holmes. The greatest detective of all time. His tall, slender, hawk-nosed figure with his deerstalker hat is instantly recognisable in every corner of the world. Alongside Doyle's original stories, Sherlock has spawned a literature of his own in parodies and homages. More than 25,000 books, stories and articles have been written by authors, amateurs and scholars. In this stupendous anthology, the best and most brilliant are collected together for the first time. Contributors include: Arthur Conan Doyle, James M. Barrie, O. Henry, Stephen King, Kingsley Amis, A.A. Milne, P.G. Wodehouse, Neil Gaiman, Anthony Burgess, Colin Dexter and Anne Perry.

The Will to Live is by Philip Hunter and is due to be published in November 2015.  To Joe injured and broken, it seems that the whole of East London is at war.  But until he recovers from the knife wound that nearly killed him, he can’t join the fight.  He is running out of time to track down the men that killed the only woman he ever loved.  But revenge is what drives him. Either they die, or he does.  There’s only one way to find out. …..

A young woman is brutally murdered on an island near Stockholm - a haunt of wealthy retirees and arty weekenders. Suspicion falls first on a family of Iraqi refugees, initially welcomed into the community but gradually feared and shunned. But then, as the victim's story unfolds, suspicion begins inexorably to fall elsewhere. Lena Sundman was rude, dysfunctional, and very young. Everything a fastidious man like Dan Byrne disliked. Taking refuge on the island after the sudden death of his wife, Dan finds himself strangely drawn to the troubled girl, starting from the moment he reluctantly rescues her in the teeth of a gathering snowstorm.  In The Name of Love is by Patrick Smith and is due to be published in August 2015.

A second instalment in a trilogy of rare power and narrative scope that unlocks the dark heart of Spain, weaving past and present together to portray a country still scarred by civil war, still riven by fear and hatred, still plagued by secrets that refuse to die. 1954: Comandante Guzman has been posted deep into the Basque country to confront a man known only as 'El Lobo'. Guzman was last here in the war though he would rather forget that. But he hasn't been forgotten, and high in the mountains, he must fight for his life, against someone who has been searching for him for a very long time...2010, Madrid: On the eve of an election, the government commission Forensic Investigator Ana Maria Galindez to investigate the scandal of the 'Ninos Robados' the thousands of children stolen at birth during the years of the dictatorship. The politicians hope her findings will pacify public outrage at the thefts, but there are many who would prefer those secrets to remain hidden. And if that means silencing Galindez, they will.  The Exile is by Mark Oldfield and is due to be published in September 2015.

Spider’s Web is the fourth book in the Steel City series by Ben Cheetham and is due to be published in November 2015.  February 14th 1993. Sheffield United supporters remember it as the day their team won a famous victory against Manchester United. The date is lodged in Anna Young's brain for a different reason. That was the day her thirteen-year-old sister, Jessica, was abducted...Fast forward twenty years. The case has long since gone cold. But Anna won't let it die. She made a promise to look after her little sister. And it's a promise she intends to keep no matter how long it takes...A detective with one thing on his mind. Jim Monahan is equally determined to bring down a sadistic sex-ring. But everywhere he turns he finds himself entangled in a web of political power and silence. Then comes a bizarre twenty-year-old clue that might just blow the whole thing apart...

Shadows of War is by Michael Ridpath and is due to be published in July 2015.  October, 1939: War has been declared, but until the armies massed on either side of the French/German border engage, all is quiet on the Western Front. But just because its quiet doesn't mean that it's not deadly. There are those who believe the war no one wants to fight should be brought to a swift conclusion, even if it means treachery. A year ago, Conrad de Lancey came within seconds of assassinating Hitler. Now the British Secret Service want him to go back into Europe and make contact with a group of German officers they believe are plotting a coup. But this is the Shadow War. And the shadows are multiplying. And it’s not only disaffected Germans who are prepared to betray their country to save it...

Chechnya: an incorruptible security officer is assassinated. Berlin: a small child grieves for his father. In the East: an obese psychopath sets his feet on the first rungs of his criminal career. A frightened Russian woman seeks DCI Hanlon's help in finding her missing husband. Hanlon's not keen on the case. Until she hears a name she recognises only too well. Arkady Belanov, sadistic pimp and owner of an exclusive brothel in Oxford is involved. When DI Enver Demirel, her former partner and friend, disappears, Hanlon is forced into an uneasy alliance with the London underworld to rescue him from the blood-stained hands of the Russian mafia.  A Hard Woman to Kill is by Alex Howard and is due to be published in September 2015.

Father Aloysius Walsh spent the last years of his life painstakingly collecting evidence of murder, mass murder - a year-long killing spree of unparalleled savagery that blighted Ireland's borderlands at the end of the 1970s. Pinned to his bedroom wall, a macabre map charts the grim territory of death: victims, weapons, wounds, dates - and somehow, amid the forest of pins and notes, he had discerned a pattern...So why did the priest deliberately drive through a cordon of policemen and off the road to his death? Why, when Inspector Celcius Daly arrives at the scene, does he find Special Branch already there? And why is his mother's name on the Priest's map? The past poisons the present and Daly's life will never be the same again.  Silence is by Anthony J Quinn and is due to be published in November 2015.

Barry Award Nominations

The Barry Award nominations have been announced by George Easter.  The Barry Awards are given out by Deadly Pleasures Magazine.

Best Novel 

A Conspiracy of Faith by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay

Sandrine’s Case by Thomas H. Cook

Suspect by Robert Crais

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

Standing in Another Man’s Grave by  Ian Rankin

Best First Novel

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Japantown by Barry Lancet

The Bookman’s Tale by Charlie Lovett

Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman

Cover of Snow by Jenny Milchman

Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller

Best Paperback Original

Joe Victim by Paul Cleave

Disciple of Las Vegas by Ian Hamilton

The Rage by Gene Kerrigan

I Hear the Sirens in the Street by Adrian McKinty

Fear in the Sunlight by Nicola Upson

Fixing to Die by Elaine Viets

Best Thriller 

Dead Lions by Mick Herron

Ghostman by Roger Hobbs

Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews

The Shanghai Factor by Charles McCarry

Ratlines by Stuart Neville

The Doll by Taylor Stevens

Congratulations to all the nominees!

Books to Look Forward to From Duckworth Overlook

Former homicide detective and CIA agent Lemuel Gunn left behind the Afghanistan battlefield for a trailer in New Mexico to forge a new career as a private investigator.  Out of nowhere comes Ornella Neppi, a woman making a mess of her uncle's bail bonds business.  She asks Gunn to track down the source of her troubles, a man named Emilio Gava, who has jumped bail after being arrested for buying cocaine.  But no photos of Gava seem to exist.  As Gunn begins his search for a man it seems that someone is protecting, hitting dead end after dead end, he starts to suspect that Gava might not exist at all - The grittiest novel yet from the masterful Robert Littell, A Nasty Piece of Work is unmissable, powerful reading.  As Gunn's game of cat and mouse unfolds - every step leading him closer to the truth - he draws ever closer to an unseen enemy's line of fire.  A Nasty Piece of Work is due to be published in March 2014

Dry Bones is the third book in Fintan Dunne trilogy by Peter Quinn and is due to be published in April 2014.  Fintan Dunne, the detective at the centre of The Man Who Never Returned and Hour of the Cat, is back in this spellbinding story of an ill-fated OSS mission into the heart of the Eastern front and its consequences more than a decade after the war's end.  As the Red Army continues its unstoppable march towards Berlin in the winter of 1945, Dunne and his fellow soldier Dick Van Hull volunteer for a dangerous drop behind enemy lines to rescue a team of OSS officers trying to abet the Czech resistance.  When the plan goes south, Dunne and Van Hull uncover a secret that will change both of their lives.  Years later, Dunne is drawn back into the shadowy realm of Cold War espionage in an effort to clear his friend's name and right an injustice so shocking that men would, quite literally, kill to keep it quiet.

In 1856, a baying crowd of over 30,000 people gathered outside Stafford prison to watch the execution of a village doctor from Staffordshire.  One of the last people to be publicly hanged, the 'Rugely Poisoner', the 'Prince of Poisoners', 'The greatest villain who ever stood trial at the Old Bailey,' as Charles Dickens described him, Dr William Palmer was convicted in 1855 of murdering his best friend, but was suspected of poisoning more than a dozen other people, including his wife, children, brother and mother-in-law - cashing in on their life insurance to fund his monstrously indebted gambling habit.  Highlighting Palmer's particularly gruesome penchant for strychnine, his trial made news across Europe: the most memorable in fifty years, according to the Old Bailey's presiding Lord Chief Justice.  He was a new kind of murderer - respectable, middle class, personable, and consequently more terrifying - and he became Britain's most infamous figure until the arrival of Jack the Ripper.  The first widely available account of one of the most notorious, yet lesser-known, mass-murderers in British history, The Poisoner takes a fresh look at Palmer's life and disputed crimes, ultimately asking 'just how evil was this man?’  With previously undiscovered letters from Palmer and new forensic examination of his victims, Stephen Bates presents not only an astonishing and controversial revision of Palmer's entire story, but takes the reader into the very psyche of a killer.  The Poisoner is due to be published in June 2014.

 In February 2014, Duckworth Overlook is due to publish The Miernik Dossier and The Last Supper by Charles McCarry.  In The Miernik Dossier Cool, urbane Paul Christopher is the perfect American agent, currently working in deep cover in the twilight world of international intrigue.  But now even he cannot tell good from bad in a maze of double and triple-crosses.  As a group of international agents embark on a trip in a Cadillac from Switzerland to the Sudan, Christopher knows that he has to find out which one is about to unleash bloody terrorism - and God help everyone if he makes a mistake.  In The Last Supper on a rainy night in Paris, Paul Christopher's lover Molly Benson falls victim to a vehicular homicide minutes after Christopher boards a jet bound for Vietnam.  To explain this senseless murder, The Last Supper goes back not only to the earliest days of Christopher's life, but also to the origins of the CIA.  Moving seamlessly from tales of refugee smuggling in Nazi Germany to OSS-coordinated guerrilla warfare in Burma and the confusion of the Vietnam War, McCarry creates an intimate history of this shadow-world of deceit and betrayal.

Books to Look Forward to from Head of Zeus!

Alli Carson was once First Daughter, only child of the US President. Then, after a car crash killed her father and hospitalised her mother. Alli battled her grief and threw herself into her FBI training at the elite Fearington Institute. Alli thought she had nothing more to lose...but she was wrong. On the same night that her mother dies from her injuries, Alli's boyfriend is brutally murdered - and she is the only suspect. Suspended from her work, bewildered and alone, Alli must find a way to contact the one person she can trust: National Security Adviser, Jack McClure. Jack knows that Alli is innocent.  So who would want to frame her for murder?  With Fearington in lockdown, they must navigate a treacherous underworld of violence and intrigue to uncover the truth...  Blood Trust is the third book in the Jack McClure series by Eric Van Lustbader and is due to be published in July 2013.

Kiyomi Ishida was just twenty years old when she left Japan for a better life in London. Now nicknamed Seven, she’s had to work her way up to gain access to The Underground, an exclusive club that fuels the night time urges of the gang lords, traffickers, and madams that stalk the streets of south London.  Resourceful and ruthless, Seven will do anything to fund her future; preferably a future far away from here. But as she becomes associated with a mercenary Russian gang, Seven must decide. How many people will she betray to further her own ends?  Girl Seven is the second book in the London Underground series by Hanna Jameson and is due to be published in December 2013.

It was Danielle and Gracie's secret. A teenage adventure. A 1000 mile drive along the spine of the Rocky Mountains to visit Danielle's boyfriend in Montana. Their parents were never to know. But now the girls have simply vanished. The only person who knows they're missing is Danielle's boyfriend. He persuades his father, an ex-cop, to search for them. But he too simply disappears. Its up to his new partner, war widow and single mother Cassie Dewell to find them. Her investigation will introduce her to the FBI's Highway Serial Killer Task Force, force her to confront a spate of roadside sexual mutilations and murders and lead her into the lair of a predator who styles himself The Lizard King.  The Highway is by C J Box and is due to be published in August 2013.

The Abomination is the first book in the trilogy by Jonathan Hole and is due to be published in October 2013.  THE VICTIM: On the steps of Santa Maria della Salute lies the body of a woman, wearing the robes of a Catholic priest. In the eyes of the Church, she is an abomination. THE INVESTIGATOR: Captain Kat Tapo has matched the victim's tattoo to graffiti in an abandoned asylum. Now she's been ordered to close the case. THE HACKER: Carnivia.com is a virtual Venice that holds the city's secrets. Only its reclusive creator can help Kat unearth the shocking truth...THE ABOMINATION has arrived.

The Bull Slayer is the second book in the series featuring Pliny the Younger by BruceMacbain and is due to be published in July 2013. THE ROMAN EMPIRE, 109 AD the frontier province of Bithynia is a cesspit of sedition, rotten with corruption and seething with hatred of Rome. When a rich Roman official is found dead on a desolate hillside; two riderless horses tethered in a nearby wood, it is assumed he was killed as a protest against Emperor Trajan's unlimited power. But Pliny the Younger, newly appointed Governor of Bithynia, is not so sure. Who was the other rider? What were the two of them doing in the middle of nowhere? And what links this murder to a secret cult of the Persian sun god, Mithras - the Bull Slayer?  But as Pliny pursues one baffling lead after another, he is being betrayed where he least expects it: his beautiful wife, neglected and lonely in an alien city, falls desperately in love with a handsome young provincial – an affair which threatens to ruin Pliny’s career.

When a movie producer hurtles to his death from the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, an apparent suicide, it shocks the film community and puts a two hundred million dollar production in jeopardy. A female colleague comes forward claiming it was murder, but the police are sceptical.  Preoccupied by a sudden drug war between the tong gangs of Chinatown and the mob, they listen to her story and send her packing. She turns to private detective Cape Weathers, who believes her just enough to let her pay his day rate. Then two Russian gangsters show up on his doorstep and tell him to drop the case or die. Cape and his partner Sally - a female assassin raised by the Triads - take on the Russian mob, a major movie studio, and a recalcitrant police department by enlisting the help of rogue cops, computer hackers, and an investigative journalist who just doesn't give a damn. But with a sniper on their trail, the challenge will be staying alive long enough to learn the truth.  Beating the Babushka is the second book in the San Francisco Noir series by Tim Maleeny and is due to be published in October 2013.

An American spy in China. Name: Unknown. Status: Sleeper. He's meant to be laying low, polishing his Mandarin and awaiting further instructions from Washington. But Shanghai is a difficult city to sleep in, especially when his nights are taken over by the seductive but enigmatic Mei - a woman with secrets he'd rather not hear. Then he is tasked with a delicate operation. Infiltrate the core of the Chinese intelligence service. Distinguish friend from foe. Report to a single contact at HQ. Trust no one. Tell no one. Pushed out into the cold, in a city of millions he's suddenly very, very alone. But in Shanghai city you're never truly alone. Faceless strangers linger in the shadows, watching your every move. No one is safe from the Guoanbu. Not even a spy with no name.  The Shanghai Factor is by Charles McCarry and is due to be published in July 2013.

A car tumbles through darkness down a snowy ravine. A woman without a name walks out of a dust storm in Africa. And in the seething heat of Lagos City, a criminal cartel scours the Internet, looking for victims. Lives intersect. Worlds collide. And it all begins with a single email: 'Dear Sir, I am the daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, and I need your help...' At once a chilling thriller about a lonely woman avenging her father's death and an epic portrait of morality and corruption across the globe, Will Ferguson's Giller Prize-winning novel plunges into the labyrinth of lies that is '419', the world's most insidious Internet scam.  419 is due to be published in September 2013.

Master of War is by David Gilman and is due to be published in August 2013.  England, 1346: For Thomas Blackstone the choice is easy - dance on the end of a rope for a murder he did not commit, or take up his war bow and join the king's invasion of France. As he fights his way across northern France, Blackstone will learn the brutal lessons of war - from the terror and confusion of his first taste of combat, to the savage realities of siege warfare. Vastly outnumbered, Edward III's army will finally confront the armoured might of the French nobility on the field of Crecy. It is a battle that will change the history of warfare, a battle that will change the course of Blackstone's life, a battle that is just the first chapter in a book of legend - Blackstone: Master of War.

In a freezing river in rural Cork, a black-cloaked figure lies bloated and lifeless. It is the

body of a Catholic priest, and he's been bound, garrotted...and castrated. Horrific stories about child abuse in the Church are only just coming to light in Ireland. So this must be a revenge killing by someone who couldn't face the courts. Detective Katie Maguire, of the Irish Gardaí, is not so sure. Two more castrated priests have been found violently murdered, and now her investigation is being obstructed at every turn. Katie's home life is in turmoil, and she knows she must soon choose between her boyfriend and her job. But when she unearths a sinister cover-up that will shake the very foundations of mystical Catholic belief, that choice becomes a matter of life or death.  Broken Angels is the second book in the Kate Maguire series by Graham Masterton and is due to be published in September 2013.

Sandrine is by Thomas H Cook and is due to be published in August 2013. How did Sandrine die? There was no forced entry. She had been gradually stockpiling prescription drugs. A lethal quantity of Demerol was found in her blood. But did the beautiful, luminous Sandrine Madison really take her own life? The District Attorney doesn't think so. Neither does the local newspaper. And so Sandrine's husband must now face a town convinced of his guilt and a daughter whose faith in her father has been shaken to its core. But, as he stands in the dock, Samuel Madison must confront yet more searing questions: Who was Sandrine? Why did she die? And why - how? - is she making him fall in love with her all over again? A psychological thriller from a true master, Sandrine will hold you in its spell until its unexpected end.

1954: Comandante Guzman has been posted deep into the Basque country to confront a man known only as 'El Lobo'. High in the mountains, Guzman will have to fight for his life, not only against El Lobo, but also against someone who has been searching for him for a very long time...2010, Madrid: Forensic Investigator Ana Maria Galindez has spent seven months in hospital recovering from the blast that nearly killed her. Her obsession with Guzman's fate has disturbed long dormant forces. Now she shall reap the consequences: she will be purposely humiliated, abandoned by colleagues and friends, accused of murder...and worse.  The Exile is by Mark Oldfield and is due to be published in October 2013.

The Mangle Street Murders is the first in the Gower Street Detective series by M.R.C Kasasian and is due to be published in September 2013. March Middleton has moved to Gower Street to live with her curmudgeonly guardian, Sidney Grice, London's most famous personal detective. She is intelligent, witty, and talkative. He things young women should be seen and not heard. But he grudgingly allows her to join his latest murder case: a young woman is dead and her loving husband is the only suspect.  Their investigations lead the pair to the darkest alleys of the East End: every twist leads Sidney Grice to think the husband guilty; but March is convinces that he is innocent. And as the case threatens to foment civil unrest, Sidney Grice finds his reputations is not the only thing in mortal danger...

The Killing Machine is by Phillip Hunter and is due to be published in November 2013. Massive, glowering, and ugly as sin, former soldier and ex-boxer Joe has always invited violence.  But now Hackney’s most vicious gangs all want to kill him.  As he tries to unravel the knot of events that have made him a target, Joe is drawn back into his past, back to the memory of the only woman he ever loved.  Brenda was a prostitute who dreamed of something better.  Now she’s dead, and her murder, unsolved haunts Joe every night.  Then a twelve year old runaway enters his life.  Kid is traumatised, mute, and sees Joe as her saviour.  Life has made Joe a machine.  Can Kid – as Brenda once did – make him again?

Cat DeLuca's short, stormy marriage was a crash course in infidelity - his, not hers. But two years of unholy matrimony taught her everything she needed to know to launch the Pants On Fire Detective Agency. Now armed with spy glasses, camera, chocolate and a beagle named Inga, Cat specializes in avenging-all-cheated-upon-women. Sticks and Stones: Cleo Jones' husband stole her money, took her dog and slept with her sister - so she can't feel too guilty about shooting him full of buckshot. But she didn't kill him - despite swearing that she would. So when his corpse is found with a large calibre bullet hole in his chest, guess who's the number one suspect? Shame no one but Cat believes Cleo is innocent. So who did pull the trigger? Turns out there is no shortage of suspects.  Sticks and Stones is the second book in the Pants on Fire Detective Agency series by KJ Larsen and is due to be published in September 2013.

The Dangerous Edge of Things is the first book in the series featuring Tai Randolph by Tina Whittle and is due to be published in August 2013. Tai Randolph has just moved to Atlanta. She thought inheriting a Confederate-themed gun shop was her biggest headache - until she finds a young but dead woman in her brother's driveway. With her brother missing and her firearms connection, the siblings are the Atlanta Police Department's number one suspects. Tai is determined to clear their name. But it doesn't look good. Where's her brother? What's his connection with the dead woman? Why is she being tailed by a private security company? Why will no one tell her the truth? Tai is lead from tasteful suburbia to the cold-eyed glamour of Atlanta's adult entertainment scene to the gilded treachery of the city's most exclusive enclaves. The closer she gets to the truth, the less likely she is to survive. To live long enough to clear her name, she's going to have to trust the most dangerous man she's ever met.

Two books by Ben Cheetham are due to be published in December 2013.  The first is Blood Guilt. Can you ever atone for the death of another by your own hand?  The paperback launch of this bestselling, feverish race-against-time thriller.  Harlan Miller used to be the best detective in Sheffield. But after the death of his son, his life spiralled out of control. One booze-soaked night, he killed a man, was charged, and went down for manslaughter.  Now, after four years in prison, Harlan is free, consumed by guilt, and desperate to atone for the death he caused. Then something happens, something terrible, yet something that offers Harlan a chance at the redemption he craves – the dead man’s son is abducted. And Harlan’s purpose is clear.  He must save the boy to avenge the father.  The second is Angel of Death. In the pursuit of justice, would you break the law? DI Jim Monahan must protect a damaged woman from her criminal past.  In Sheffield, a bankrupt businessman has murdered his family. It seems like an open-and-shut case: a desperate man resorting to desperate measures. In Middlesbrough, a woman named Angel is heading south.  She is a woman alone. A prostitute. Now a murderer. And she has only one thing on her mind: revenge.   Two crimes, a hundred miles apart, but a terrible secret connects them. And although the courts may not agree, DI Jim Monahan has all the proof he needs to bring down justice on a group of particularly vicious criminals...