G B Rubin on Murder at Christmas: You Solve the Crime

The Sleuth. The ‘Tec. The Gumshoe. He, she or it comes in every shape, form, nationality or spiritual outlook on life. But they are always someone else. We, the readers, sit there, mentally flipping through alibis, suspecting everyone in sight, and muttering: ‘Come on, it’s obvious!’ at the hapless sergeant who misses the crucial clue. Reading a good whodunit has always been a participatory sport.

So, what happens when we make that impulse literal? When the reader really does get to decide which lead to follow, which suspect to interrogate, and which risk to take - even if it means ending up as the next corpse?

That question sat at the heart of my new book, Murder at Christmas – You Solve the Crime. It’s a nod to the Choose Your Own Adventure paperbacks that once lined the floor of every kid’s bedroom. I wanted to bring that same sense of playful peril - the thrill of ‘Turn to page 63 if you open the door… page 91 if you run for your life’ - to the world of country house murders and snowbound mysteries. And so, in my book, the reader gets to be the sleuth and direct the storyline – with all the stakes and peril that entails.

Because if you grew up loving those books – and I did - you’ll know the pleasure wasn’t just in surviving the story; it was in deciding the story. You weren’t a passive reader - you were the protagonist, the author’s conspirator, deciding what comes next. And that, I think, is what every crime fiction reader secretly craves: the power to make the call, to follow the clue, to solve the puzzle.

It’s easy to write off nostalgia as a yearning for childhood, but our fondness for those branching paperbacks runs deeper. Life, especially adult life, rarely gives us the luxury of neat outcomes. A good mystery, by contrast, promises that logic and observation can restore order. Add interactivity, and that promise becomes irresistible: if the world’s gone mad, at least the story still obeys rules.

In Murder at Christmas, you’re not just reading about the detective - you are the detective. You can stalk suspects down candlelit corridors, question the maid with something to hide, or take the wrong turn entirely and end up in a very compromising position. Success or failure is entirely up to you (or whoever you give the book to).

That sense of agency scratches a very particular itch for mystery readers. It turns the act of reading into investigation. Suddenly, the clues aren’t just words on a page; they’re potential lifelines. Every decision has weight.

Funnily enough, the more I wrote, the more I realised how naturally crime fiction fits the ‘choose your path’ structure. A whodunit is already a maze: red herrings, blind alleys, locked doors. All I had to do was let the reader walk those corridors themselves.

Of course, there’s a fine balance between fair play and fatal traps. The old Choose Your Own Adventure books were gleefully unfair - you could die on page four because you took a wrong turn in a cave. I wanted Murder at Christmas to keep that spirit of danger but reward reasoning. The sharp reader - the one who notes the offhand comment, the misplaced glove, the suspicious alibi - will find the right path. The inattentive one may find themselves tried for the very crime they were meant to solve.

At the start of the book, there’s a big choice: investigate the poison pen letters at Hurley Court as your pal Algy is begging you; or join your new client Melissa Thresh on a scenic Christmas train, where a magic act turns deadly. Either way you’re throwing yourself into a cast of sly, hapless or eccentric characters and a devilish mystery. Of course, they’re love letters to Christmas country house mysteries and to Murder on the Orient Express.

Setting the book at Christmas felt inevitable too. Yuletide is a time of tradition and ritual - and what’s more ritualistic than the murder mystery? The snow, the candles, the gathering of family (and grudges). The juxtaposition of goodwill and malice is delicious. Christie knew it, and so did every writer who’s ever stranded a cast of characters in a big house with too much brandy and too many secrets.

At Christmas, we crave both comfort and catharsis. A murder story delivers both. The darkness makes the light more precious. And when the reader gets to choose their path through that darkness - to follow their curiosity, their courage, or their folly - the experience becomes personal.

Murder at Christmas: You Solve the Crime by G B Rubin (Simon and Schuster) Out Now

It is 1932. You are Dr Kim Tenor, a Scotland Yard pathologist with a side line in private detection when the boys in blue are stumped. You’re celebrated in the newspapers, but you tend to get the official police’s backs up. You attend the opening night of your friend Johnny MacAlister’s ritzy new nightclub, the Golden Star. While you’re there, Johnny introduces you to his cousin, Melissa Thresh, who is being followed by a mysterious figure, and she asks if you can find out what's happening. But you have also promised Algy Hurley to go down to the family seat, Hurley Court, where some strange events have been occurring. If you help Melissa, you’re caught up in a mystery on a train that involves a seemingly impossible murder. If it’s Hurley Court, it’s a Christmas-set country house murder involving an old family ritual and a silver dagger. What would you choose?

 G. B. Rubin is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Turnglass and Holmes and Moriarty.

More information about G B Rubin can be found on his website. He can also be found on X @GarethRubin and on Facebook.

Conan Doyle Estate to collaborate with Simon and Schuster

 

Arthur Conan Doyle © Conan Doyle Estate

Simon & Schuster UK has entered into an official collaboration with the Conan Doyle Estate on a programme of new and backlist titles following on from their recent collaboration, Holmes & Moriarty by Gareth Rubin.

The partnership will see the creation of “new works based on the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle”, and some backlist titles, both inside and outside the Holmes canon, “repackaged and republished”. All titles will be officially endorsed by the Conan Doyle Estate.

To launch the publishing programme, Simon & Schuster UK will be publishing a short-story anthology entitled Sherlock, which will feature an introduction by Stephen Fry, along with new stories from Kate Mosse, Anthony Horowitz, SA Cosby, Sarah Perry, Joe Hill, Vaseem Khan, Janice Hallett, Abir Mukherjee and Steve Cavanagh. Sherlock will be published in autumn 2026.

Katherine Armstrong, deputy publishing director for Crime and Thriller Fiction, agreed the deal with Jon Wood at Rogers, Coleridge and White for world all-language rights including audio. Atria, part of Simon & Schuster US, will also be publishing the new works and distributing the backlist titles.

Armstrong said: “I am particularly delighted to be working with the Conan Doyle Estate on these projects. Not only do I – and everyone at Simon & Schuster – share the Estate’s aim to create a lasting legacy of Conan Doyle’s works for many generations to come, but the Sherlock Holmes stories were some of my favourites growing up. I could not be more thrilled to be collaborating with the Estate on a full programme of backlist and new projects to take us to at least 2030”.

“Doyle’s influence on the crime-fiction genre has been immense and the character of Sherlock Holmes has seen and inspired many iterations over the past 140 years, but Doyle was also an intrepid traveller, a soldier, a campaigner for justice, and a scientist, among other things, so there is a wealth of material to explore. I am incredibly excited by the brilliant authors who have already agreed to write new short stories for our Sherlock anthology, and we are also working on a new official biography of Conan Doyle to publish on the anniversary of his death in 2030. There are many exciting projects in the pipeline that I can’t wait to share with existing fans and to introduce to new readers!”

Richard Pooley from the Conan Doyle Estate said: “The Conan Doyle Estate’s mission is to further the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and keep a torch shining on him and his characters for generations to come. Nearly 140 years ago, Conan Doyle created one of the world’s most famous fictional characters. To our knowledge, Sherlock Holmes is still the most depicted character in print, film and TV. But it was Conan Doyle’s genius and significant involvement in so many aspects of life we must also remember. As he himself wrote: ’I have had a life which, for variety and romance, could hardly be exceeded.’  The Simon & Schuster official collaboration with the Conan Doyle Estate will help to bring Sir Arthur out of the shadow of Sherlock Holmes and to continue to tell the life story and work of this remarkable renaissance man.”

Jon Wood added: “Arthur Conan Doyle was a renaissance genius in so many ways – a crime writer, a science-fiction novelist, a politician, a thinker and a visionary. He was also the creator of unarguably the most successful fictional character of all time – Sherlock Holmes. This new relationship with Simon & Schuster worldwide is an unparalleled opportunity to rediscover Arthur and revitalise all his works. I’m so grateful to be part of these efforts along with the Estate, Katherine Armstrong and the whole team around the world.” 

 

My Favourite Reads of 2023

This year I have read a varied number of wonderful books and if you have listened to the CrimeTime Podcast back in November and also have followed DampPebbles #R3COMM3ND3D2023 then a number of the books on my favourite reads list this year should be of no surprise. I also have some honourable mentions.

I have put the books in alphabetical order solely because whilst I could actually work out my top 4, the rest would be slightly more difficult.

The Land of Lost Things by John Connolly (Hodder and Stoughton)

Twice upon a time - for that is how some stories should continue. Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident. She is a body without a spirit, a stolen child. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud to Phoebe the fairy stories she loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world. But it is hard to keep faith, so very hard. Now an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, and to journey - to a land coloured by the memories of Ceres's childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father, to a land of witches and dryads, giants and mandrakes; to a land where old enemies are watching, and waiting.

All the Sinners Bleed by S A Cosby (Headline Publishing)

A black sheriff. A serial killer and a small town ready to combust. Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, Charon has had only two murders. After years of working as an FBI agent, no one knows better than Titus that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. But a year to the day after Titus's election, a school teacher is killed by a former student. The student is then fatally shot by Titus's deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes, and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer's possible connections to a local church and the town's harrowing history weighing on him, Titus tries to project confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town's Confederate history. Charon is Titus's home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.

Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor (Headline Publishing)

After his son is convicted of murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt. Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend-or in some cases, destroy it.

Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper (Faber & Faber)

In Hollywood, nobody talks. But everybody whispers. Welcome to Mae Pruett's LA. A 'black-bag' publicist at one of Hollywood's most powerful crisis PR firms, Mae's job isn't to get good news out, it's to keep the bad news in and contain the scandals. But just as she starts to question her job and life choices, her boss is gunned down in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel, and everything changes. Investigating with the help of an ex-boyfriend, Mae dives headlong into a neon joyride through the jungle of contemporary Hollywood. Pitted against the twisted system she's worked so hard to perpetuate, she's desperately fighting for redemption, and her life.

The Secret Hours by Mick Herron (John Murray Press)

Monochrome is a busted flush - an inquiry into the misdeeds of the intelligence services, established by a vindictive prime minister but rendered toothless by a wily chief spook. For years it has ground away uselessly, interviewing witnesses with nothing to offer, producing a report with nothing to say, while the civil servants at its helm see their careers disappearing into a black hole. And then the OTIS file falls into their hands … What secrets does this hold that see a long-redundant spy being chased through Devon's green lanes in the dark? What happened in a newly reunified Berlin that someone is desperate to keep under wraps? And who will win the battle for the soul of the secret service - or was that decided a long time ago? Spies and pen-pushers, politicians and PAs, high-flyers, time-servers and burn-outs ... They all have jobs to do in the daylight. But what they do in the secret hours reveals who they really are.

The McMaster's Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes (Headling Publishing)

Welcome to The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts - a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to "delete" their most deserving victim. Who hasn't wondered for a split second what the world would be like the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you've probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this "Poison Ivy League" college-its location unknown to even those who study there-is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate...and where one's mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live. Prepare for an education you'll never forget. A delightful mix of witty wordplay, breathtaking twists and genuine intrigue, Murder Your Employerwill gain you admission into a wholly original world, cocooned within the most entertaining book about well-intentioned would-be murderers you'll ever read.

The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys by Jack Jewers (Moonflower Publishing)

It is the summer of 1669 and England is in dire straits. The treasury's coffers are bare and tensions with the powerful Dutch Republic are boiling over. And now, an investigator sent by the King to look into corruption at the Royal Navy has been brutally murdered. Loathe to leave the pleasures of London, Samuel Pepys is sent dragging his feet to Portsmouth to find the truth about what happened. Aided by his faithful assistant, Will Hewer, he soon exposes the killer. But has he got the right man? The truth may be much more sinister. And if the real plot isn't uncovered in time, England could be thrown into a war that would have devastating consequences ...

Viper's Dream by Jake Lamar (Bedford Square Publishers)

A hard-boiled crime novel set in the jazz world of Harlem between 1936 and 1961, Viper's Dream combines elements of the epic Godfather films and the detective novels of Chester Himes to tell the story of one of the most respected and feared Black gangsters in America. At the centre of Viper's Dream is a turbulent love story. And the climax bears an element of Greek tragedy. For the better part of 20 years, Clyde 'The Viper' Morton has been in love with Yolanda 'Yo-Yo' DeVray, a singer of immense talent but a woman consumed by demons. By turns ambitious and self-destructive, conniving and naive, Yo-Yo is a classic femme fatale. She is a bright star in a constellation of compelling characters including the chauffeur-turned-gangster Peewee Robinson, the Jewish kingpin Abraham 'Mr. O' Orlinsky, the heroin dealer West Indian Charlie, the corrupt cop Red Carney, the wife-beating singer Pretty Paul Baxter, the pimp Buttercup Jones and the brutal enforcer Randall Country Johnson. But Viper's Dream has a fast-paced vibe all its own, a story charged with suspense, intrigue and plot twists and spiced with violence and humour. It is also steeped in music. The Viper's story is intertwined with the history of jazz over a quarter century.

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane (Little, Brown)

'Mrs. Fennessy, please go home.''And do what?' 'Whatever you do when you're home.''And then what?' 'Get up the next day and do it again.' She shakes her head. 'That's not living.''It is if you can find the small blessings. 'She smiles, but her eyes shine with agony. 'All my small blessings are gone.'In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessey is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of 'Southie', the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat's teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn't come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched - asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don't take kindly to any threat to their business. Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city's desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism.

The Second Murderer by Denise Mina (Vintage Publishing)

It's mid-September, a heatwave has descended on the parched hills of LA and Private Detective Philip Marlowe is called to the Montgomery estate, an almost mythic place sitting high on top of Beverly Hills.Wealthy twenty-two-year-old Chrissie Montgomery, set to inherit an enormous fortune, is missing. She's a walking target, ripe for someone to get their claws into. Her dying father, along with his sultry bottle blonde girlfriend, wants her found before that happens. They've hired Anna Riorden, Marlowe's nemesis, too. The search takes them to the roughest neighbourhoods of LA through dive bars and Skid Row. And that's before he finds the body at The Brody Hotel. Who will get to her first, Marlowe, Anne, or the men chasing her fortune? And does she want to be found?

The Turnglass by Gareth Rubin (Simon & Schuster)

1880s England. On the bleak island of Ray, off the Essex coast, an idealistic young doctor, Simeon Lee, is called from London to treat his cousin, Parson Oliver Hawes, who is dying. Parson Hawes, who lives in the only house on the island - Turnglass House - believes he is being poisoned. And he points the finger at his sister-in-law, Florence. Florence was declared insane after killing Oliver's brother in a jealous rage and is now kept in a glass-walled apartment in Oliver's library. And the secret to how she came to be there is found in Oliver's tete-beche journal, where one side tells a very different story from the other. 1930s California. Celebrated author Oliver Tooke, the son of the state governor, is found dead in his writing hut off the coast of the family residence, Turnglass House. His friend Ken Kourian doesn't believe that Oliver would take his own life. His investigations lead him to the mysterious kidnapping of Oliver's brother when they were children, and the subsequent secret incarceration of his mother, Florence, in an asylum. But to discover the truth, Ken must decipher clues hidden in Oliver's final book, a tete-beche novel - which is about a young doctor called Simeon Lee.

The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Pan Macmillian)

'My father had spelt it out to me. Choice was a luxury I couldn't afford. This is your story, Red. You must tell it well.' A girl known only as Red, the daughter of a Cornish fortune-teller, travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient method: the Square of Sevens. When her father suddenly dies, Red becomes the ward of a gentleman scholar. Now raised as a lady amidst the Georgian splendour of Bath, her fortune-telling is a delight to high society, but she cannot ignore the questions that gnaw at her soul: who was her mother? How did she die? And who are the mysterious enemies her father was always terrified would find him? The pursuit of these mysteries takes her from Cornwall and Bath to London and Devon, from the rough ribaldry of the Bartholemew Fair to the grand houses of two of the most powerful families in England. And while Red's quest brings her the possibility of great reward, it also leads into her grave danger.

Honourable mentions

Palace of Shadows by Ray Celestin

Resurrection Walk by Micheal Connelly

The Mantis by Kõtarõ Isaka

Moscow Exile by John Lawton

Flags on the Bayou by James Lee Burke

Prom Mum by Laura Lippman

Gareth Rubin’s Liberation Square

I recently bumped into a debut novelist Gareth Rubin, at a party hosted by the PenguinRandomHouse Group, during the Theakston’s Crime-Writing Festival last month. 

I had read espionage writer Adrian Magson’s review earlier, and it intrigued me. So last week, as Rubin’s Liberation Square came to paperback, from Penguin I grabbed a copy for the bank-holiday reading. After penning my review, I had a few questions which the author kindly answered and I’ll share with Shots Readers -

Ali Karim: So firstly, are you a reader of alternate history novels such as PKD’s The Man in the High Castle, Robert Harris’ Fatherland or Len Deighton’s SS-GB?

Gareth Rubin: It would be a bit weird if I weren’t, wouldn’t it? The thing is, the alt-history setting adds something, but it’s not the whole deal. You have to have a decent storyline in there too, or the reader loses interest. I’m not entirely convinced The Man In The High Castle passes that test. But Dick’s dead, so he can’t complain about me now. Screw you, Philip K Dick.

AK: So, tell us a little about your reading, the books that made you consider writing yourself?

GR: I like to kick back with a bit of modern gothic. Rebecca, The Name of the Rose (sure, it’s a medieval setting, but written fairly recently and the main character is ahead of his time), The Secret History. Maybe I’m weird, but I like the idea of people going mad just around the corner from where we sit eating pub lunches in the afternoon. I don’t like horror, but I like the quietly horrifying.

AK: And a little about your foray behind the camera screen, and your journalism?

GR: Ha. I was an actor for a few years, but my mum tells people I wasn’t great at it. She’s probably right. I started as a journalist at the tail end of the good times, in the late 1990s, before the bottom fell out of the market and people starting getting their information about the world from utterly untrue blogs (God, I don’t want to give them any publicity, but some of your friends probably share their content on social media). It’s frightening that there are people out there who believe some of the dross on the internet and base their voting decisions on it. I still work as a journalist from time to time, when I find something that interests me – social affairs – and a newspaper not run on a shoestring or ultimately owned by an odd couple of a dodgy Russian oligarch and a psychopathic Saudi prince (that’s the Independent, in case I wasn’t being clear).

AK: Prior to Liberation Square, had you written fiction prior and tell us a little about those words?

GR: Like most authors, I’ve got a couple of dreadful failed novels stored in the recesses of my laptop. They will never see the light of day so long as I live. On the other hand, before Liberation Square I wrote a mystery set during the French revolution that I might now rewrite and publish. I like it. A priest is crucified.

AK: And back to your day job; is journalism (especially freelance) as precarious as it appears? 

GR: I will write for food. No, seriously. I will.

AK: How fully-formed did the concept of Liberation Square’s alternate history come to you, did you have to plot much before writing or did you find the story during the process of writing it?

GR: I’m awful at planning. Some authors plot it out intricately and know exactly what will happen before they type a word. I wish I could do that. I usually have an opening image – not a scene, but an image – and perhaps a mid-point and ending. I just have to sit down and see where the writing takes me because I only get ideas as I’m writing. I’ve tried planning it out, but I immediately go off at tangents and throw away the planning notes. It means I take a lot longer for a book than I should.

AK: Tell us about character. How well did you get to ‘know’ Jane, Nick, Frank and Hazel, among others?

GR: Hmmm, interesting question. I remember at university – I read English literature - one of my tutors warning about being taken in by the romantic myth that the characters exist off the page, in their own world. They don’t. The author creates them in entirety and they only exist in the words you write. I’m a bit suspicious of authors who say: ‘My hero wants to do X, I can’t control him!’ Bollocks. You want him to do that. So write it or don’t write it, but don’t pretend he lives separately from your novel.

That said, I’ve spoken to a couple of reading groups and one group said: ‘We feel really sorry for Hazel, she’s lost her mum and all she does is get sent to her room to keep quiet.’ Sorry Hazel.

AK: I take it you have read Eric Arthur Blair [George Orwell] as I felt his shadow at times during the reading?

GR: Aye. Sad to say, I don’t think I’ll ever create anything as good as Animal Farm.  Orwell is the man to go to when it comes to the critical reality of far-left politics and its apologists. Don’t read Das Kapital, kids, read 1984.

Orwell was also an old Observer hack (I work at the Observer). In fact, so was Kim Philby, who also appears in Liberation Square. He was our Middle East correspondent when he was outed as a spy. We have a strong line in dead socialists.

AK: As a debut novelist, what advice would you give those doing the ‘clickety clack’?

GR: It still feels weird calling myself a novelist. It sounds like a fantasy 

profession. I suppose it is, in a way. What advice? Well, I say you do it by doing it. Sit down at your computer and write a word. Then write another one. And keep going. It’s much easier than it sounds.

AK: So, what’s next?

GR: My next novel is The Winter Agent, out in May next year. It’s about British agents in Paris just before D-Day. It’s inspired by a true – and, in some ways, tragic – story, critical to the success of the invasion in a way no one could possibly have guessed. Britain’s Special Operations Executive agents during the War were among the bravest men and women who ever lived.

I’ve dedicated the book to my grandfathers, who both landed in Normandy on D-Day. This year I went with my dad to the beach where his father came ashore 75 years ago; he was in the Pioneers. We saw the stretch of sand. It was incongruously quiet and peaceful. My grandfathers both survived the War, so many didn’t.

AK: Thank you for your time, and we look forward to seeing what’s coming from your imagination and your pen.

GR: Any time.

More information available from the links below

Shots Magazine Review Hard Cover HERE and Paperback HERE

Gareth Rubin’s website HERE

Gareth Rubin on Twitter HERE

Books to Look Forward to from Penguin Random House incl Michael Joseph

January 2019

One blustery October morning in a quiet suburb of Copenhagen, the police make a terrible discovery. A young woman is found brutally murdered in a playground and one of her hands

is missing. Above her hangs a small doll made of chestnuts. Ambitious young detective Naia Thulin is assigned the case. Her partner, Mark Hess, is a burned-out investigator who's just been kicked out of Europol. They soon discover a mysterious piece of evidence on the chestnut man - evidence connecting it to a girl who went missing a year earlier and is presumed dead - the daughter of politician Rosa Hartung. The man who confessed to her murder is behind bars and the case is long since closed. Soon afterwards, another woman is found murdered, along with another chestnut man. Thulin and Hess suspect that there's a connection between the Hartung case, the murdered women and a killer who is spreading fear throughout the country. But what is it? Thulin and Hess are racing against the clock, because it's clear that the murderer is on a mission that is far from over. The Chestnut Man is by Søren Sveistrup.

BREAKING: Nuclear weapon detonates over Washington.  BREAKING: London hit, thousands feared dead.  BREAKING: Munich and Scotland hit. World leaders call for calm.  Historian Jon Keller is on a trip to Switzerland when the world ends. As the lights go out on civilisation, he wishes he had a way of knowing whether his wife, Nadia, and their two daughters are still alive. More than anything, Jon wishes he hadn't ignored Nadia's last message.  Twenty people remain in Jon's hotel. Far from the nearest city and walled in by towering trees, they wait, they survive.  Then one day, the body of a young girl is found. It's clear she has been murdered. Which means that someone in the hotel is a killer.  As paranoia descends, Jon decides to investigate. But how far is he willing to go in pursuit of justice? And what kind of justice can he hope for, when society as he knows it no longer exists?  The Last is by Hanna Jameson.

February 2019

Out of the Dark is by Gregg Hurwitz. As a boy, Evan Smoak was taken from the orphanage he called home and inducted into a top secret Cold War programme. Trained as a lethal weapon, he and his fellow recruits were sent round the world to do the government's dirty work. But the programme was rotten to the core. And now the man responsible needs things to be nice and clean. All evidence must be destroyed. That includes Evan. To survive, Evan's going to have to take the fight to his nemesis. There's just one problem with that. Jonathan Bennett is President of the United States and Evan isn't his only victim. To save himself - and the country - Evan is going to have to figure out how to kill the most well-protected man on the planet...

One night, Annie went missing. Disappeared from her own bed. There were searches, appeals. Everyone thought the worst. And then, miraculously, after forty-eight hours, she came back. But she couldn't, or wouldn't, say what had happened to her. Something happened to my sister. I can't explain what. I just know that when she came back, she wasn't the same. She wasn't my Annie. I didn't want to admit, even to myself, that sometimes I was scared to death of my own little sister.  The Taking of Annie Thorne is by C J Tudor.

'For me it all goes back to that night, the dark corroded hinge between before and after, the slipped-in sheet of trick glass that tints everything on one side in its own murky colours and leaves everything on the other luminous and untouchable.'  One night changes everything for Toby. He's always led a charmed life - until a brutal attack leaves him damaged and traumatised, unsure even of the person he used to be. He seeks refuge at his family's ancestral home, the Ivy House, filled with memories of wild-strawberry summers and teenage parties with his cousins.  But not long after Toby's arrival, a discovery is made: a skull, tucked neatly inside the old wych elm in the garden.  As detectives begin to close in, Toby is forced to examine everything he thought he knew about his family, his past, and himself.  The Wych Elm is by Tana French.

Day of the Accident is by Nuala Ellwood. Sixty seconds after she wakes from a coma, Maggie's world is torn apart.  The police tell her that her daughter Elspeth is dead. That she drowned when the car Maggie had been driving plunged into the river. Maggie remembers nothing.  When Maggie begs to see her husband Sean, the police tell her that he has disappeared. He was last seen on the day of her daughter's funeral.  What really happened that day at the river?  Where is Maggie's husband?  And why can't she shake the suspicion that somewhere, somehow, her daughter is still alive?

March 2019

Adam Brandt is a forensic psychologist, used to dealing with the most damaged members of society.  But he's never met anyone like Kassie. The teenager claims to have a terrible gift. With just one look, she can foresee when and how you will die.  Adam knows Kassie must be insane. But a serial killer is terrorising the city. And only Kassie seems to know who his next victim will be.  Against all his intuition, Adam starts to believe her.  But he doesn't realise how deadly his faith might prove...  A Gift for Dying is by M J Arlidge.

She Lies in Wait is by Gytha Lodge.  Six friends. One killer. Who do you trust?  On a hot July night in 1983, six school friends go camping in the forest. Bright and brilliant, they are destined for great things, and young Aurora Jackson is dazzled to be allowed to tag along. 

Thirty years later, a body is discovered. DCI Sheens is called to the scene, but he already knows what's waiting for him: Aurora Jackson, found at long last.  But that's not all. The friends have all maintained their innocence, but the body is found in a hideaway only the six of them knew about.  It seems the killer has always lurked very close to home...

The murder of a team of U.N. scientists while investigating mysterious deaths in El Salvador. A deadly collision in the waterways off Detroit. An attack from tomb raiders on an archeological site along the Nile. Is there a link between these violent events? The answer may lie with the tale of an Egyptian princess forced to flee the armies of her father three thousand years ago.  From the desert sands of Egypt to the rocky isles of Ireland to the deep water lochs of Scotland, only Dirk Pitt can unravel the secrets of an ancient enigma that could change the very future of mankind. Celtic Empire is by Clive and Dirk Cussler.

It's one of the most disturbing cases DI Fawley has ever worked.  The Christmas holidays, and two children have just been pulled from the wreckage of their burning home in North Oxford. The toddler is dead, and his brother is soon fighting for his life.  Why were they left in the house alone? Where is their mother, and why is their father not answering his phone?  Then new evidence is discovered, and DI Fawley's worst nightmare comes true.  Because this fire wasn't an accident.  It was murder.  No Way Out is by Cara Hunter.

April 2019

Ellidaey is a collection of isolated islands off the coast of Iceland. It is has a beautiful, unforgiving terrain and is an easy place to vanish.  The Island is the second thrilling book in Ragnar Jónasson's Hidden Iceland trilogy. This time Hulda is at the peak of her career and is sent to investigate what happened on Ellidaey after a group of friends visited but one failed to return.  Could this have links to the disappearance of a couple ten years previously out on the Westfjords? Is there a killer stalking these barren outposts?

Major Leo Black was once one of the SAS's most fearsome and effective warriors and after twenty years of war, is now striving to be a force for peace. A junior tutor without tenure at Oxford University, his lectures on the ethics of conflict are an inspiration to his students but a threat to colleagues wary of admitting him to their gilded circle.  When his oldest friend and comrade is brutally murdered as a part of a dark international conspiracy, Black's new-found principles are put to the ultimate test. There's a violent job to be done and he's the man called upon to do it: the unrivalled expert in the art of killing.  The Black Art of Killing is by Matthew Hall.

Liberation Square is by Gareth Rubin.  1952. Soviet troops control British streets.  After the disastrous failure of D-Day, Britain is occupied by Nazi Germany, and only rescued by Russian soldiers arriving from the east and Americans from the west. The two superpowers divide the nation between them, a wall running through London like a scar.  When Jane Cawson calls into her husband's medical practice and detects the perfume worn by his former wife, Lorelei, star of propaganda films for the new Marxist regime, she fears what is between them. But when Jane rushes to confront them, she finds herself instead caught up in the glamorous actress's death.  Nick is soon arrested for murder. Desperate to clear his name, Jane must risk the attention of the brutal secret police as she follows a trail of corruption right to the highest levels of the state.  And she might find she never really knew her husband at all.

May 2019

My Lovely Wife is by Samantha Downing.  Every marriage has secrets. Everyone has flaws. Your wife isn't perfect - you know that - but then again nor are you.  But now a serial killer is on the loose in your small town, preying on young women. Fear is driving your well-behaved young daughter off the rails, and you find yourself in bed late at night, looking at the woman who lies asleep beside you.  Because you thought you knew the worst about her. The truth is you know nothing at all.

On Halloween night, four households gather for a party in the tiny Yorkshire village of Black Gale. Three hours in, they head outside, onto the darkened moors, to play a drunken game of hide and seek. None of them return. There's no trail, no evidence and no answers. An entire village has just vanished. With the police investigation dead in the water, the families of the disappeared ask missing persons investigator David Raker to find out what happened. But nothing can prepare him for the truth.  The currently untitled book in the David Raker series is by Tim Weaver.

June 2019

If you leave a door half-open, soon you'll hear the whispers spoken...  Still devastated after the loss of his wife, Tom Kennedy and his young son Jake move to the sleepy village of Featherbank, looking for a fresh start.  But Featherbank has a dark past. Fifteen years ago a twisted serial killer abducted and murdered five young boys. Until he was finally caught, the killer was known as 'The Whisper Man'.  Of course, an old crime need not trouble Tom and Jake as they try to settle in to their new home. Except that now another boy has gone missing. And then Jake begins acting strangely.  He says he hears a whispering at his window...  The Whisper Man is by Alex North.