Books to Look Forward to from Allison & Busby

January 2018

Traitor is by David Hingley.  February 1665. With winter passing, Mercia Blakewood is at last headed back to England from America, hoping to leave behind the shadow that death and heartache have cast. She expects a welcome from the King considering her earlier, mostly successful, mission at his behalf, but the reception is not exactly warm. Mercia faces more manipulation and must accept a clandestine and uncomfortable role at the heart of the royal court posing as a mistress to find a spy and traitor.

For Rose McQuinn the invitation to holiday at a luxury hotel on the isle of Bute is an unexpected delight until she discovers the real reason is to investigate a twenty year old non-proven murder case. With close links to a strange local family of ancient origin whose modern castle holds many dark secrets, Rose's involvement in this challenge unleashes a web of intrigue and sinister happenings as she realises too late when a drowned man is a murder victim and someone decides she is close enough to the truth not to leave the island alive.  Murder Lies Waiting is by Alanna Knight.

February 2018

1939, Cambridge: The opening weeks of the Second World War, and the first blackout - The Great Darkness - covers southern England, enveloping the city. Detective Inspector Eden

Brooke, a wounded hero of the Great War, takes his nightly dip in the cool waters of the Cam. Daylight reveals a corpse on the riverside, the body torn apart by some unspeakable force. Brooke investigates, calling on the expertise and inspiration of a faithful group of fellow `nighthawks' across the city, all condemned, like the detective, to a life lived away from the light. Within hours The Great Darkness has claimed a second victim. War, it seems, has many victims, but what links these crimes of the night?  The Great Darkness is by Jim Kelly.

Race to the Kill is by Helen Cadbury.  It is the middle of a long night shift in Doncaster for PC Sean Denton and his partner PC Gavin Wentworth when they are approached by a dishevelled-looking woman desperate that they follow her. She leads them to the old Chasebridge High School where they find the dead body of a Syrian refugee. With a sexual assault court case and a missing girl also vying for his attention, Denton and the murder investigation are drawn towards the neighbouring greyhound stadium where all is not as it seems. With the worlds of immigration, drugs and sexual abuse pressing in on all sides, Denton is walking ever closer to serious danger.

March 2018

Spring 1940. With Britons facing what has become known as the Bore War - nothing much

seems to have happened yet - Maisie Dobbs is asked to investigate the disappearance of a local lad, a young apprentice craftsman working on a "hush-hush" government contract. As Maisie's inquiry reveals a possible link to the London underworld, so the country is bracing for a possible enemy invasion amid news of the British expeditionary force stranded along the French coast. And another mother is worried about a missing son - but this time the boy in question is one beloved by Maisie.  To Die But Once is by Jacqueline Winspear.

April 2018

Simmy Brown has a lot on her mind. Not just keeping her florist business afloat, her father's failing health, the challenge of developing a long-term relationship with Christopher, but also the approach of Mother's Day, a busy and painful day for her. But in taking an order for a retirement party in Staveley, she is pulled into her most challenging investigation. When a daughter starts accusing her own mother of murder, Simmy, Ben and Bonnie find themselves taking different sides of the investigation. With her relationships under strain, Simmy is tired on all fronts. However, she has to learn to leave her own concerns behind to discover just who the killer is.  The Staveley Suspect is by Rebecca Tope.

What falls between the Cracks is by Robert Scragg.  When a severed hand is found in an abandoned flat, Detective Jake Porter and his partner Nick Styles are able to DNA match the limb to the owner, Natasha Barclay, who has not been seen in decades. But why has no one been looking for her? It seems that Natasha's family are the people who can least be trusted. Delving into the details behind her disappearance and discovering links to another investigation, a tragic family history begins to take on a darker twist. Hampered by a widespread fear of a local heavy, as well as internal politics and possible corruption within the force, Porter and Styles are digging for answers, but will what they find ever see the light of day?

June 2018

1817. Upon receiving a letter from an old family friend, Catherine Van Emden returns from Holland to find her father dead. She refuses to believe the middle-aged man died of natural causes, and the suspicious circumstances of his life during the past few months compel her to ask Peter and Paul Skillen for help. Why would a successful engineer suddenly begin begging for alms on the streets? Had he refused to ask for help, or was he prevented from doing so? When his body is revealed missing from the casket, the twins embark on a chase of funerary agents, barmaids and body snatchers, trying to solve the mystery of George Parry's alleged death before their Bow Street rivals.  Fugitive from the Grave is by Edward Marston.

Following the revelations of Mrs Hudson's past and a commission of murder in the spring of 1925, Mary Russell receives word that one of her university friends-a devout feminist-has been committed to Bedlam mental hospital. Russell herself is feeling less than balanced, and the last thing she wants is to deal with the mad. However, she agrees to look into it-when her friend escapes. The pursuit leads her across Europe to Venice and finally to the Poveglia Island, a lunatic asylum built on the bones of centuries of plague victims. Russell takes a deep breath, and follows-only to find that the lunatics may be in charge of the asylum, and nothing is quite as it seems.  Island of the Mad is by Laurie R King.

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Books to look forward to from Allison and Busby

Two young boys stumble on a dead prostitute. She's on Sean Denton's patch. As Doncaster's youngest community support officer, he's already way out of his death, but soon he's uncovering more than he's supposed to know. Meanwhile Karen Friedman, professional mother of two, learns her brother has disappeared. She desperately needs to know he's safe, but once she starts looking, she discovers unexpected things about her own needs and desires. Played out against a gritty landscape on the edge of a Northern town, Karen and Sean risk losing all they hold precious.  To Catch a Rabbit is by Helen Cadbury and is due to be published in January 2015. Read SHOTS' review here.

Death Wears a Mask is by Ashley Weaver and is due to be published in June 2015.  Amory Ames is investigating the disappearance of valuable jewellery snatched at a dinner party and lays a trap to catch the culprit at a lavish masked ball hosted by the notorious Viscount Dunmore. She wasn’t expecting one of the illustrious party guests to wind up dead . . .

Sussex, 1925. Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell find a beautiful stone belonging to the future emperor of Japan – mysteriously left in their garden. There’s some unfinished business they need to clear up. From the winding lanes of Oxford to the palaces of Japan, the ingenious duo embark on an utterly compelling adventure of politics and espionage.  Dreaming Spies is by Laurie R King and is due to be published in February 2015.

Spring, 1932. Four years after she set sail from England, leaving everything she most loved behind, Maisie Dobbs at last returns, only to find herself in a dangerous place. En route to England a brutal murder in Gibraltar leads Maisie into a web of lies, deceit and peril.  A Dangerous Place is by Jacqueline Winspear and is due to be published in April 2015.

What’s an editor to do with so many demands? Do you deal with the morning’s pile of manuscript submissions first? Or the swine from sales who steals all the chocolate digestives? Or do you concentrate on your ex-lover, whose business partner has just been found dead, slumped over his desk with a gun in his hand? Sam takes on the art world with a handy reserve of satire and irrelevant information culled from books.  Boxing Day. A dead body has been found in the chemistry department of Queen's University in West London. Tom Chambers, the head of department, was known to have a bad heart, and had it not been Christmas, no questions would have been asked. What was a procedural post mortem soon turns into a murder investigation when it becomes evident Chambers had been injected with a dangerous amount of digitalin. A Bed of Scorpions is by Judith Flanders and is due to be published in February 2015.

The Red House is by Emily Winslow and is due to be published in February 2015. Maxwell is living his worst nightmare when he begins to question whether his fiancee Imogen is his own blood sister, separated by adoption. A visit to Imogen's birthplace in Cambridge stirs up deja vu that intensifies his fears.While Detective Chief Inspector Morris Keene languishes at home, struggling with a debilitating injury and post-traumatic stress, his former partner Detective Inspector Chloe Frohmann is following a suicide case in which Morris' daughter Dora is suspected of assisting the death. When buried skeletons are discovered next to an old barn, the suicide is linked back to Imogen's childhood, revealing horrors of the past and new dangers in the present.

Thea Osborne, Cotswold house-sitter with an infamous reputation for getting mixed up in crime, is determined to avoid trouble this time. Her latest commission in the village of Daglingworth seems straightforward, with most of her time spent looking after an old corgi and a hibernating tortoise. Thea is ready for a relaxing if rather boring two weeks, with phone calls to new boyfriend Drew Slocombe the highlight of her days. Until, that is, a dead body is discovered in a nearby quarry... Revenge in the Cotswolds is by Rebecca Tope and is due to be published in March 2015.

The Venetian Venture is by Suzette Hill and is due to be published in January 2015. 1954, Venice. For Rosy Gilchrist the tables may have turned. Her boss at the British Museum, Dr Stanley, has chosen her to travel to Venice, track down a rare edition of Horace's Odes and bring it back for their collection. Rosy jumps at the chance to spend time away from her capricious supervisor and hopefully indulge in a little Venetian culture. Following Dr Stanley's advice, she roams the cobbled streets of Venice in search of the book and crosses paths with old friends Felix Smythe and Cedric Dillworthy. With their help, Rosy thinks she's laid her hands on the treasure but things soon take a drastic downward spiral. A wealthy and eccentric recluse offers a GBP1 million reward for anyone who can find Horace's Odes and pair it with a missing Murano vase. The price on the book's head brings all sorts of murky characters out of the shadows. Soon Rosy finds herself in a race against time as her rivals will go to any lengths to secure the prize ... even murder.

The Third Sin is by Aline Templeton and is due to be published in March 2015. Pleasure is the highest good: the group who called themselves the Cyrenaics practised the principle until the death of one from an overdose and the apparent suicide of another. Sobered, the group went their several ways. One heads to Canada, another disappears and a third is believed to have committed suicide, at least until his body turns up two years later in the wreck of a car swept up on to the Solway mud flats. The murky relationships among the Cyrenaics, revived when they start returning for a party bring more pain and death. DI Marjory Fleming finds this and the murder which follows on her own patch, obstructed by the unpleasant and resentful inspector she has been asked to direct, and DC Hepburn and DS Macdonald, still at loggerheads, don't make it any easier. Fleming's daughter has a new boyfriend and though Cammie at last achieves his Scotland cap, he too is in trouble with the affairs of the heart.

1815. Peter and Paul Skillen, identical twins and fearless thief-catchers, stalk all who dare to

walk in the shadow of the hangman. When they catch a notorious burglar, they claim a handsome reward and infuriate the Bow Street Runners who believe they have a monopoly on policing in the capital.  Home Secretary Viscount Sidmouth faces a crisis. During a massacre of American prisoners-of-war at Dartmoor, two escape and come to London in search of retribution – and if their demands are not met, they’ll kill Sidmouth. The Runners compete fiercely with the twin detectives to bring the villains to justice in a compelling tale of murder, kidnap, revenge and political machination.  Shadow of the Hangman is by Edward Marston and is due to be published in February 2015.  It is the first in the Bow Street Rivals series.

A huge funeral for Windermere's popular resident, Barbara Dodge, is taking place and florist Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown and her new assistant, Bonnie Lawson are busy compiling wreaths in preparation. There's word of a series of sinister dognappings occurring in nearby Troutbeck and whilst taking a walk up Wansfell Pike, Simmy and her father, Russell, stumble on a dog, strangled to death - it's not long before Simmy reluctantly finds herself caught up in a murder investigation. The Troutbeck Testimony is by Rebecca Tope and is due to be published in May 2015.

When Monsieur Pamplemousse is summoned into the head office of Le Guide by the director, Henri Leclercq, he is unaware of the chaos that is about to erupt. Accompanied by his faithful bloodhound, Pommes Frites, Pamplemousse attempts to solve Leclercq's plaintive conundrums - all of which relate back to his mobster uncle-in-law. The crime-solving duo gallivant around Paris and become tangled up in seemingly arbitrary problems; a letter about a juicy steak horrifyingly turned into a brisket; a dead restaurant owner; a giant truffle delivered by post and the imminent arrival of the vivacious Caterina, the mobster's niece. With all these obstacles at hand, Pamplemousse attempts to unravel each dilemma but it quickly proves impossible as they overlap and tangle at every turn. As he battles with this confounding case, it becomes apparent that these events are much more sinister and inextricably linked than first thought ... Monsieur Pamplemousse and the Tangled Web is by Michael Bond and is due to be published in March 2015. 

Sixth century Constantinople. Flavius Belisarius is barely eighteen and is already

commander of the cavalry patrolling the Persian frontier. A brilliant soldier but a poor schemer - Flavius needs to be both in order to survive the febrile politics of the Eastern Roman Empire. When his friend, Petrus Sabbatius uses trickery to elevate himself to the position of co-Emperor, Flavius finds himself embroiled in an explosive venture of machinations and warfare. The brave general must battle against the deadly Sassanids and protect the co-Emperor from his own subjects who are out for blood. As the valiant leader sets out to re-conquer the Western Empire from the hands of the Vandals and Ostrogoths, Flavius is unaware that his wife, joining him on the campaign, is secretly charged to spy on him. Honour is the second instalment in the brutal Roman trilogy. Only the most merciless traitors prevail in a volatile land where one wrong step will cost you your head.  The Last Roman: Honour is by Jack Ludlow and is due to be published in January 2015.