Death of a Dancing Queen is by Kimberley G Giarratano. After her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Billie Levine revamped her grandfather’s private investigation firm and set up shop in the corner booth of her favorite New Jersey deli, hoping the free pickles and flexible hours would allow her to take care of her mom and pay the bills. So when Tommy Russo, a rich college student with a nasty drug habit, offers her a stack of cash to find his missing girlfriend who is also the co-host of the true-crime podcast Murder Girls - how can she refuse? At first, Billie thinks this will be an easy job, but then her missing person's case turns into a murder investigation… and Tommy becomes the detective bureau’s number one suspect. Suddenly Billie is embroiled in a deadly gang war that’s connected to the decades-old disappearance of Starla Wells, a famous cabaret dancer, with ties to both an infamous Jewish mob and a skinhead group. Toss in the reappearance of Billie’s handsome ex-boyfriend with his own rap sheet, and she is regretting every decision that got her to this point. Becoming a P.I. was supposed to solve her problems; but if Billie doesn’t crack this case, the next body the police dredge out of the Hudson River will be hers.
April 2023
When her missing husband is presumed dead in a fiery car crash, a charismatic actress must find out the truth in this addictive domestic thriller that will keep readers on edge. Sophie is an aspiring British Pakistani actress whose only claim to fame – despite her unscrupulous ambitions – is the unplanned on-camera birth of her son, a clip which has become a cult favorite on the Bollywood movie scene. Her husband, Tariq, is a pillar of the neighborhood’s Muslim community and her perfect match, until his sudden disappearance under mysterious circumstances. When a body is found, but disfigured in a way that makes identification difficult, Sophie is utterly distraught. Tariq was her ‘third time lucky husband’. Her first marriage to Amir, her childhood sweetheart, was cut short, and her rebound marriage to doting Faraz, a recent immigrant to the UK and obsessed with the Royal Family, was even shorter lived. Is Sophie just unlucky or is there more to her than meets the eye? Secrets from the past start to surface when threatening letters appear and questions arise around Tariq’s untimely death. Sophie is guilty of something, but is it murder? Spider is by Amza Dar
June 2023
Mother Howl is by Craig Clevenger and is a compelling literary crime that follows the son of a serial murderer who changes his identity in a bid to escape his past. Sixteen-year-old Lyle Edison recognizes the face of a murder victim on the nightly news – the waitress at his local diner. A place he often frequented with his dad. The following day his father is arrested and charged with her murder. And then eight further bodies are discovered. Following the revelation that his dad is in fact a serial killer, Lyle is outcast and shunned. Forced to abandon his family, illegally obtaining a new identity, he moves away to start all over again. Some years later, Lyle thinks he has finally moved on. But after several brushes with the law, Lyle’s past eventually catches up to him when a mysterious stranger known only as Icarus shows up and seems to know Lyle’s secret…
September 2023
A gothic tale of murder and corruption set in the world imagined by our most famous 19th century writers. The 1840s. Railway Baron Sir Martin Malprelate has been laying waste to the warren of Camden; buying up houses and clearing streets for his new railway line linking King’s Cross with the prosperous town of Middlemarch. He stands to make his fortune ever more vast and to earn the loathing of all who attempt to stand up to him. Little wonder, then, that he meets a violent end on a foggy street after walking out of a particularly bitter meeting with outraged residents facing eviction. But the cause of his death causes more wonder. How could he have possibly fallen beneath the wells of a speeding spectral train running on tracks not yet even built? Sir Martin’s death is investigated by the police, but the company employ one of its senior engineers, Mr Bryde, to pursue his own investigation. Bryde uncovers a network of resentment and conspiracy, popular opposition to the expansion of the railways, agitating workers, scheming shareholders, corrupt politicians and a gallery of varied and grotesque characters, all of whom had some stake in the old man’s death. Lacing it’s realism with both social commentary and the gothic imaginations of the time. The Murder of Sir Martin Malprelate is by Adam Roberts and is a vivid recreation of a London stalked by poverty and haunted by visions of demons and ghosts; a world of slums, lavish wealth and opium dens. The narrative is coloured by exotic characters all too ready to believe in the supernatural but the plot is driven by rationality and the all too real motivations of greed and revenge.
