Spymasters Book Prize 2025: Shortlist Announced

Six novels have been announced for the inaugural Spymasters book prize. 

The Peacock and the Sparrow by IS Berry

Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd

Spy Hunter by HB Lyle

Honour Among Spies by Merle Nygate

Midnight in Vienna by Jane Thynne

Shadow of Poison by Peter Tonkin

The winner will be announced at a special prize-giving event on the evening of 3^rd September 2025.

The Spymasters Book Prize

 

Aspects of History have announced their longlist for their Inaugural SpyMasters Book Prize.

Spy Hunter by HB Lyle

The Old Fox by Robert Perkins

Paying in Blood by Karen Haden

Committed by Chris Merritt

Second Skin by Dugald Bruce-Lockhart

The King Street Affair by Jon Sealy

Shadow of Poison by Peter Tonkin

The Borodino Sacrifice by Paul Phillips

Out in the Cold by Steve Urszenyi

Soldier Spy by Rosemary Hayes

The Violin & the Candlestick by David Jarvis

Mr Campion’s Christmas by Mike Ripley

Honour Among Spies by Merle Nygate

The Peacock and the Sparrow by IS Berry

Foxtrot Mike Lima by Cat Connor

Operation Nightfall by Karl Wegener

Death of a Princess by R.N.Morris

With Prejudice by Roger Price

Midnight in Vienna by Jane Thynne

Found by Will Erikson

Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd

The award is open to any spy novel, published in hardback or paperback, in 2024. They accepted both historical and modern spy thrillers

A cash prize of £500 will be awarded to the winning author. Aspects of HIstory will also interview the winner on the SpyMasters podcast. A shortlist of six titles will then be announced on 1st September 2025.

The winner will be announced at a special event in September, at which the longlist and special guests will be invited. Congratulations to all the nominated authors.

CWA Dagger Awards Longlists Announced

The 2025 longlists for the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Dagger awards, which honour the very best in the crime-writing genre, are announced.

 Created in 1955, the world-famous CWA Daggers are the oldest awards in the genre and have been synonymous with quality crime writing for over half a century.

The longlist for the prestigious Gold Dagger, which is awarded for the best crime novel of the year, includes five debut novels including Bonnie Burke-Patel’s Died at Fallow Hall, the debut whodunnit from Kristen Perrin, How to Solve Your Own Murder, and the first book from bestselling author Harriet Evans, under her penname, Harriet F Townson: D is for Death.

The debuts are up against established authors in the genre, including RJ Ellory, Tana French, and Attica Locke.

The Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, sponsored by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, showcases the thriller of the year.

The longlist for 2025 includes Chris Whitaker with All the Colours of the Dark. Whitaker has previously taken home the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger in 2017 and CWA Gold Dagger in 2021. 

He’s up against firm favourites including MW Craven with Nobody’s Hero, Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods, and Abir Mukherjee’s Hunted. 

The much-anticipated ILP John Creasey First Novel Dagger highlights the best debut novels.

Among the rising stars of 2025 is the debut set in the shadow of the Yorkshire Ripper, Katy Massey’s All of Us Are Sinners, former prison officer Claire Wilson’s assured debut, Five by Five, and the moody neo-noir love letter to New York, An Honest Living by Dwyer Murphy.

DV Bishop makes two longlists with A Divine Fury – the Gold and the Historical Dagger. The book is the fourth in the Cesare Aldo series featuring a sixteenth century detective in Florence.

The Historical Dagger is sponsored by Morgan Witzel in memory of Dr Marilyn Livingstone. The longlist also includes Clare Whitfield’s Poor Girls: Meet the Female Peaky Blinders, which exposes the criminal underbelly of 1920s London, and Anna Mazzola’s The Book of Secrets set in 17th century Italy.

Maxim Jakubowski, Chair of the CWA Daggers’ committee, said: “Once again our independent and rotating judging panels have come up with surprises galore, highlighting the impressive efforts of both major authors and newcomers, with a convincing demonstration of how diverse and talented the crime, mystery and thriller field is at present. A wonderful embarrassment of outstanding titles.”

The Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger, sponsored in honour of Dolores Jakubowski, features the smash-hit, Waterstones Book of the Month, Butter by Asako Yuziki, translated by Polly Barton.

From France comes Artifice, a thriller with a twist from Claire Berest translated by Sophie Lewis, and the queer debut gangland thriller The Night of Baba Yaga from Japan’s Akira Otani also makes the longlist.

The ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction includes giants of the genre with John Grisham and Jim McCloskey’s Framed, which looks at ten wrongful convictions, Lynda La Plante’s memoir, Getting Away with Murder and Kate Summerscale’s retelling of the Christie murders, The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place.

The CWA Daggers are one of the few high-profile awards that honour the short story.

This year sees multiple bestselling names from the genre up for the award including Ann Cleeves, Elly Griffiths, Janice Hallet, Clare Mackintosh, Ruth Ware and Vaseem Khan.

The Best Crime and Mystery Publisher of the Year Dagger, which celebrates publishers and imprints demonstrating excellence and diversity in crime writing, pits big publishing houses including Michael Joseph (Penguin Random House), Hemlock Press (HarperCollins) and Sphere (Little Brown) against independent publishers, Bitter Lemon Press and Canelo. 

2025 sees the announcement of two new CWA Dagger Awards.

The Twisted Dagger celebrates psychological thrillers and dark and twisty tales that often feature unreliable narrators, disturbed emotions, a healthy dose of moral ambiguity, and a sting in the tail.

Longlist titles include NJ Cracknell’s The Perfect Couple, Beautiful People by Amanda Jennings and Catherine Steadman’s Look in the Mirror. Tracy Sierra’s Nightwatching also makes two longlists: the Twisted and the Gold Dagger.

The Whodunnit Dagger celebrates books that focus on the intellectual challenge at the heart of a good mystery. Books in this category include cosy crime, traditional crime, and Golden Age-inspired mysteries.

Longlisted authors include Tess Gerritsen with The Spy Coast, Tom Spencer with The Mystery of the Crooked Man, and Lisa Hall with The Case of the Singer and the Showgirl.

The Dagger in the Library nominee longlist is voted by librarians and library users, chosen for the author’s body of work and support of libraries. This year sees firm favourites from the genre including Richard Osman, Kate Atkinson, Robert Galbraith, and Barbara Nadel.

The Emerging Author Dagger, which has been going for over 20 years, celebrates aspiring crime novelists and is sponsored by Fiction Feedback.

The competition is open to unpublished authors and is judged on the best opening for an unpublished crime novel. The winner will gain the attention of leading agents and top editors; over two dozen past winners and shortlisted Debut Dagger authors have signed publishing deals to date.

The CWA Diamond Dagger, awarded to an author whose crime-writing career has been marked by sustained excellence, is announced in early spring and in 2025 was awarded to Mick Herron.

The CWA Dagger shortlists will be announced later in the year on 29 May.

The winners will be announced at the award ceremony at the CWA gala dinner on 3 July.

The Longlists in Full:

GOLD DAGGER 

D V Bishop: A Divine Fury (Macmillan)

Bonnie Burke-Patel: I Died at Fallow Hall (Bedford Square Publishers)

Ben Creed: Man of Bones (Mountain Leopard Press/Headline)

R J Ellory: The Bell Tower (Orion)

Tana French: The Hunter (Penguin Books Ltd)

Attica Locke: Guide Me Home (Profile Books Ltd)

Anna Mazzola: Book of Secrets (Orion)

Kristen Perrin: How to Solve Your Own Murder (Quercus)

Tracy Sierra: Nightwatching (Penguin Books Ltd)

Marie Tierney: Deadly Animals (Bonnier Books Ltd)

Harriet F Townson: D is for Death (Hodder & Stoughton)

Bridget Walsh: The Innocents (Pushkin Press)

IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER

Lou Berney: Dark Ride (Hemlock Press/ HarperCollins)

I S Berry: The Peacock and the Sparrow (No Exit Press)

Chris Brookmyre: The Cracked Mirror (Abacus/Little Brown, Hachette)

M W Craven: Nobody's Hero (Constable/Little Brown, Hachette)

Blake Crouch: Run (Macmillan/Pan Macmillan)

Garry Disher: Sanctuary (Viper/Profile Books)

Dervla McTiernan: What Happened to Nina? (HarperCollins)

Liz Moore: The God of the Woods (The Borough Press/(HarperCollins)

Abir Mukherjee: Hunted (Harvill & Secker/ Penguin Random House)

Stuart Neville: Blood Like Mine (Simon & Schuster)

Chris Whitaker: All the Colours of Dark (Orion/Hachette)

Don Winslow: City in Ruins (Hemlock Press/HarperCollins)

ILP JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD) DAGGER

Jack Anderson: The Grief Doctor (Bloomsbury/Raven Books)

Eleanor Barker-White: My Name Was Eden (HarperCollins/ HarperNorth)

Jessica Bull: Miss Austen Investigates (Penguin Random House/ Michael Joseph)

Justine Champine: Knife River (Bonnier Books UK/ Manilla Press)

Anders Lustgarten: Three Burials (Penguin Random House/ Hamish Hamilton)

Gay Marris: A Curtain Twitcher's Book of Murder (Bedford Square Publishers)       

Katy Massey: All Us Sinners (Little, Brown /Sphere)

Alice McIlroy: The Glass Woman (Watkins Media/ Datura Books)

Dwyer Murphy: An Honest Living (No Exit Press)

Marie Tierney: Deadly Animals (Bonnier Books UK/ Zaffre)

Claire Wilson: Five by Five (Penguin Random House/ Michael Joseph)

 

HISTORICAL DAGGER

Rory Clements: Munich Wolf (Bonnier Books UK, Zaffre)

Emily Critchley: The Undoing of Violet Claybourne (Bonnier Books UK, Manilla Press)

D.L. Douglas: Dr Spilsbury and the Cursed Bride (Orion Publishing)

Douglas Jackson: Blood Roses (Canelo)

Chris Lloyd: Banquet of Beggers (Orion Fiction/Orion Publishing)

Anna Mazzola: The Book of Secrets (Orion Fiction/Orion Publishing)

Lizzie Pook: Maude Horton’s Glorious Revenge (Picador)

Sally Smith: A Case of Mice and Murder (Raven Books/Bloomsbury Publishing)

L.C. Tyler: The Three Deaths of Justice Godfrey (Constable/Little, Brown)

A.J. West, The Betrayal of Thomas True (Orenda Books)

Clare Whitfield: Poor Girls (Aries / Head of Zeus)

CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION DAGGER

Claire Berest: Artifice (Mountain Leopard) tr. Sophie Lewis

Carlo Fruttero & Franco Lucentini: The Lover of No Fixed Abode (Bitter Lemon Press) tr. Gregory Dowling

Anne Mette Hancock: Ruthless (Swift Press) tr. Tara Chase

Kotaro Isaka: Hotel Lucky Seven (Harvill Secker) tr. Brian Bergstrom

Andrey Kurkov: The Silver Bone (Maclehose Press) tr. Boris Dralyuk

Hervé Le Corre: Dogs and Wolves (Europa Editions UK) tr. Howard Curtis

Pierre Lemaitre: Going to the Dogs (Maclehose Press) tr. Frank Wynne

Patrícia Melo: The Simple Art of Killing a Woman (The Indigo Press) tr. Sophie Lewis

Akira Otani: The Night of Baby Yaga (Faber & Faber) tr. Sam Bett

Satu Rämö: The Clues in the Fjord (Zaffre) tr.  Kristian London 

Asako Yuziki: Butter (4th Estate) tr. Polly Barton

Alia Trabucco Zerán: Clean (4th Estate) tr. Sophie Hughes

ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION

Jared Cade: Secrets From the Agatha Christie Archive (Pen & Sword) 

Chris Chan with Patricia Meyer Chan, Ph.D.: The Autistic Sleuth (MX Publishing) 

Jonathan Coffey & Judith Moritz: Unmasking Lucy Letby (Seven Dials)  

Jeremy Craddock: The Lady in the Lake (Mirror Books)  

John Grisham & Jim McCloskey: Framed (Hodder & Stoughton) 

Duncan Harding: The Criminal Mind (PRH/Michael Joseph)  

Henry Hemming: Four Shots in the Night (Quercus)  

Joseph Hone: The Book Forger (Chatto & Windus)  

Emma Kenny: The Serial Killer Next Door (Sphere)  

Lynda LaPlante: Getting Away with Murder (Zaffre/Bonnier Books)  

Jane Rosenberg: Drawn Testimony (Manilla Press/Bonnier Books)  

Kate Summerscale: The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place (Bloomsbury Circus)  

SHORT STORY DAGGER

S.J Bennett: ‘The Glorious Twelfth’ in Midsummer Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards (lame Tree Publishing/Flame Tree Collections)

J.C Berthal: ‘A Date on Yarmouth Pier’ in Midsummer Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards (Flame Tree Publishing/Flame Tree Collections)

Ann Cleeves: ‘Parkrun’ in Murder in Harrogate edited by Vaseem Khan (Orion Publishing Group/Orion Fiction)

Elly Griffiths: ‘The Valley of the Queens’ in The Man in Black and Other Stories (Quercus)

Janice Hallett: ‘Why Harrogate?’ in Murder in Harrogate edited by Vaseem Khan (Orion Publishing Group/Orion Fiction)

Vaseem Khan: ‘Murder in Masham’ in Murder in Harrogate edited by Vaseem Khan (Orion Publishing Group/Orion Fiction)

Clare Mackintosh: ‘The Perfect Smile’ in Murder in Harrogate edited by Vaseem Khan (Orion Publishing Group/Orion Fiction)

William Burton McCormick: ‘City Without Shadows’ in Midsummer Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards (Flame Tree Publishing/Flame Tree Collections)

Meeti Shroff-Shah: ‘A Ruby Sun’ in Beyond and Within: Midsummer Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards (Flame Tree Publishing/Flame Tree Collections)

Ruth Ware: ‘Murder at the Turkish Baths’ in Murder in Harrogate edited by Vaseem Khan, (Orion Publishing Group/ Orion Fiction)

WHODUNNIT DAGGER

SJ Bennett, A Death in Diamonds Bonnier Books UK, Zaffre

Andreina Cordani, Murder at the Christmas Emporium Bonnier Books UK, Zaffre

Tess Gerritsen, The Spy Coast, Transworld, Penguin Random House, Bantam

Lisa Hall, The Case of the Singer and the Showgirl Hera Hera

Ellery Lloyd, The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby, Macmillan         

Laura Marshall,  A Good Place to Hide a Body, Hodder & Stoughton    

Nita Prose, The Mystery Guest, HarperCollins Publishers, HarperFiction

Meeti Shroff-Shah, A Matrimonial Murder, Joffe Books   

Sally Smith, A Case of Mice and Murder, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Raven Books

Tom Spencer, The Mystery of the Crooked Man, Pushkin Press, Pushkin Vertigo

Benjamin Stevenson, Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect, PRH, Michael Joseph

Jamie West, Murder at the Matinee, Brabinger Publishing

 TWISTED DAGGER

Sharon Bolton: The Neighbour's Secret (Orion Publishing Group/ Orion Fiction)

NJ Cracknell: The Perfect Couple (Bloodhound Books)      

Clara Dillon: The Playdate (PRH/Penguin Sandycove)

Caz Frear: Five Bad Deeds (Simon & Schuster UK)

Kellye Garrett: Missing White Woman (Simon & Schuster UK)

Andrew Hughes: Emma, Disappeared (Hachette Books Ireland)

Amanda Jennings: Beautiful People (HarperCollins/ HQ FICTION)

John Marrs: The Stranger In Her House (Amazon Publishing/ Thomas & Mercer)

Hannah Richell: The Search Party (Simon & Schuster UK)

CS Robertson: The Trials Of Marjorie Crowe (Hodder & Stoughton)            

Tracy Sierra: Nightwatching (PRH/ Viking)

Catherine Steadman: Look In The Mirror (Quercus)   

     

DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY

Richard Osman

Janice Hallett

Kate Atkinson

Barbara Nadel

CJ Tudor

Edward Marston

Julia Chapman

Lisa Jewell

Robert Galbraith

Tim Sullivan

PUBLISHERS’ DAGGER

Allison & Busby

Bitter Lemon Press

Canelo

Faber & Faber

Michael Joseph (Penguin Random House)

Hemlock Press (HarperCollins)

Orenda

Orion Books

Pan Macmillan

 

My Favourite reads of 2024

My favourite reads this year have spanned spy thrillers, a debut novel an end of a trilogy, translated novels and a contemporary topical thriller to name few. They are as follows in alphabetical order.

The Sparrow & The Peacock by I S Berry (No Exit Press/Bedford Square Publishers)

Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy, is ready to come in from the cold. Stationed in Bahrain for his final tour, he's anxious to dispense with his mission — uncovering Iranian support for the insurgency. But then he meets Almaisa, an enigmatic artist, and his eyes are opened to a side of Bahrain most expats never experience, to questions he never thought to ask. When his trusted informant becomes embroiled in a murder, Collins finds himself drawn deep into the conflict, his romance and loyalties upended. In an instant, he's caught in the crosswinds of a revolution. He sets out to learn the truth behind the Arab Spring, win Almaisa's love, and uncover the murky border where Bahrain's secrets end and America's begin.

The Waiting by Michael Connelly (Orion Publishing)

LAPD Detective Renée Ballard tracks a terrifying serial rapist whose trail has gone cold with the help of the newest volunteer to the Open-Unsolved Unit: Patrol Officer Maddie Bosch, Harry's daughter. Renée Ballard and the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit get a hot shot DNA connection between a recently arrested man and a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet twenty years ago. The arrested man is only twenty-three, so the genetic link must be familial. It is his father who was the Pillowcase Rapist, responsible for a five-year reign of terror in the city of angels. But when Ballard and her team move in on their suspect, they encounter a baffling web of secrets and legal hurdles. Meanwhile, Ballard's badge, gun, and ID are stolen-a theft she can't report without giving her enemies in the department the ammunition they need to end her career as a detective. She works the burglary alone, but her solo mission leads her into greater danger than she anticipates. She has no choice but to go outside the department for help, and that leads her to the door of Harry Bosch. Finally, Ballard takes on a new volunteer to the cold case unit. Bosch's daughter Maddie wants to supplement her work as a patrol officer on the night beat by investigating cases with Ballard. But Renée soon learns that Maddie has an ulterior motive for getting access to the city's library of lost souls.

Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway (Penguin Books)

It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West's spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only on a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumour in Whitehall – unconfirmed and a little scandalous – that George Smiley might almost be happy. But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected in the most unusual of circumstances, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple task: interview Susanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. But in his absence the shadows of Moscow have lengthened. Smiley will soon find himself entangled in a perilous mystery that will define the battles to come, and strike at the heart of his greatest enemy… Karla's Choice is set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and  is an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of spy fiction's greatest writer, John le Carré.

Hotel Lucky Seven by Kotaro Isaka (Vintage Publishing)

A luxury hotel full of assassins - what could go wrong? Nanao ‘the unluckiest assassin in the world’ has been hired to deliver a birthday present to a guest at a luxury Tokyo Hotel. It seems like a simple assignment but by the time he leaves the guest's room one man is dead and more will soon follow. As events spiral out of control as it becomes clear several different killers, with varying missions, are all taking a stay in the hotel at the same time. And they're all particularly interested in a young woman with a photographic memory, hiding out on one of the twenty floors. Will Nanao find the truth about what’s going on? And will he check out alive?

Imposter Syndrome by Joseph Knox (Transworld Publishers)

'When you’re living a lie, you find it’s best to avoid close attachments…’ Lynch, a burned out con-artist, arrives, broke, in London, trying not to dwell on the mistakes that got him there. When he bumps into Bobbie, a rehab-bound heiress - and when she briefly mistakes him for her missing brother - Lynch senses the opportunity, as well as the danger… Bobbie’s brother, Heydon, was a troubled young man. Five years ago, he walked out of the family home and never went back. His car was found parked on a bridge overlooking the Thames, in the early hours of the same morning. Unsettled by Bobbie’s story, and suffering from a rare attack of conscience, Lynch tries to back off. But when Bobbie leaves for rehab the following day, he finds himself drawn to her luxurious family home, and into a meeting with her mother, the formidable Miranda. Seeing the same resemblance that her daughter did, Miranda proposes she hire Lynch to assume her son’s identity, in a last-ditch effort to try and flush out his killer. As Lynch begins to impersonate him, dark forces are lured out of the shadows, and he realises too late that Heydon wasn’t paranoid at all. Someone was watching his every move, and they’ll kill to keep it a secret. For the first time, Lynch is in a life or death situation he can’t lie his way out of.

Guide Me Home by Attica Locke (Profile Books)

Texas Ranger Darren Mathews has handed in his badge. A choice made three years before, which served justice if not the law, means that he may now stand trial. And his mother - an intermittent and destructive force in his life - is the cause of his fall from grace.And yet it is his mother's reappearance that may also be his salvation. A black girl at an all-white sorority at a nearby college is missing, her belongings tossed in a dumpster. Her sorority sisters, the college police, even the girl's own family, deny that she has disappeared, but Sera Fuller is nowhere to be found. A bloodstained shirt discovered in a woodland clearing may be the last trace of her. And Darren's mother wants her son to work the case. Disillusioned by an America forever changed by the presidency of Donald Trump, Darren reluctantly agrees. Yet as he sets out to find a girl whose family don't want her found, it is his own family's history that may be brought painfully into the light. And a reckoning with his past may finally show Darren the future he can build.And yet it is his mother's reappearance that may also be his salvation. A black girl at an all-white sorority at a nearby college is missing, her belongings tossed in a dumpster. Her sorority sisters, the college police, even the girl's own family, deny that she has disappeared, but Sera Fuller is nowhere to be found. A bloodstained shirt discovered in a woodland clearing may be the last trace of her. And Darren's mother wants her son to work the case.Disillusioned by an America forever changed by the presidency of Donald Trump, Darren reluctantly agrees. Yet as he sets out to find a girl whose family don't want her found, it is his own family's history that may be brought painfully into the light. And a reckoning with his past may finally show Darren the future he can build.

Moscow X by David McCloskey (Swift Press)

A daring CIA operation threatens chaos in the Kremlin. Its execution is foiled by a Russian woman with secret loyalties CIA operatives Sia and Max enter Russia to recruit Vladimir Putin's moneyman. Sia works for a London firm that conceals the wealth of the super-rich. Max's family business in Mexico - a CIA front since the 1960s - is a farm that breeds high-end racehorses. They pose as a couple, and their targets are Vadim, Putin's private banker, and his wife Anna, who is both a banker and an intelligence officer. As they descend further into a Russian world dripping with luxury and rife with gangland violence, Sia and Max's hope may be Anna, who is playing a game of her own. Careening between the horse ranch and the dark opulence of Saint Petersburg, Moscow X is both a gripping thriller of modern espionage and a daring work of political commentary on the conflict between Washington and Moscow.

Hunted by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage Publishing)

You can't save your kids. But can you stop them? It's a week before the presidential elections when a bomb goes off in an LA shopping mall. In London, armed police storm Heathrow Airport and arrest Sajid Khan. His daughter, Aliyah entered the USA with the suicide bomber, and now she's missing, potentially plotting another attack on American soil. But then a woman called Carrie turns up at Sajid's door after travelling halfway across the world. She claims Aliyah is with her son and she has a clue to their whereabouts. Carrie knows something isn't adding up - and that she and Sajid are the only ones who can find their children and discover the truth. On the run from the authorities, the two parents are thrown together in a race against time to save their kids and stop a catastrophe that will derail the country's future forever.

White City by Dominic Nolan (Headline Publishing)

It's 1952, and London is victorious but broken, a city of war ruins and rationing, run by gangsters and black-market spivs.  An elaborate midnight heist, the biggest robbery in British history, sends newspapers into a frenzy. Politicians are furious, the police red-faced. They have suspicions but no leads. Hunches but no proof. For two families, it is more than just a sensational headline, as their fathers fail to return home on the day of the robbery. Young Addie Rowe, daughter of a missing Jamaican postman and drunk ex-club hostess mother, struggles to care for her little sister in a dilapidated Brixton rooming house.  Claire Martin, increasingly resentful of roads not taken, strives to make the rent and keep her teenage son Ray from falling under unsavoury influences in Notting Dale. She finds herself caught between the interests of dangerous men who may know the truth behind her husband's disappearance: Dave Lander, whose reserved nature she finds difficult to reconcile with his reputation as a violent gang enforcer, and Teddy 'Mother' Nunn, a sociopathic, evangelising outlaw and top lieutenant in Billy Hill's underworld. Drawn together through the years in the city's invisible web of crime and poverty, the fates of the broken families and violent men collide in 1958, as the West Indian community of Notting Hill's slums come under attack from thugs and Teddy Boys. For Addie, Claire, Dave and Mother, old scores will be settled and new dreams chased in the crucible of London's violent summer.

Holmes and Moriarty by Gareth Rubin (Simon and Schuster Ltd) 

Two adversaries. One deadly alliance. Together, can they unlock the truth? Sherlock Holmes and his faithful friend, Dr John Watson, have been hired by actor George Reynolds to help him solve a puzzle. George wants them to find out why the audience who comes to see him perform every night are the same people, only wearing disguises. Is something sinister going on and, if so, what? Meanwhile, Holmes’ archenemy, Professor James Moriarty is having problems of his own. Implicated in the murder of a gang leader, Moriarty and his second, Moran, must go on the run from the police in order to find out who is behind the set-up. But their investigation puts them in the way of Holmes and Watson and it’s not long before all four realise that they are being targeted by the same person. With lives on the line, not just their own, they must form an uneasy alliance in order to unmask the true villain. With clues leading them to a hotel in Switzerland and a conspiracy far greater than any of them expected, who can be trusted – and will anyone of them survive?

The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel (Penguin Books)

Alfred Smettle adores Hitchcock. And who better to become founder, owner and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a remote, sprawling Victorian house sitting atop a hill in the beautiful White Mountains, New England. There, guests can find movie props and memorabilia in every room, round-the-clock film screenings, and an aviary with fifty crows. For the hotel's first anniversary, Alfred invites the five college friends he studied film with. He hasn't spoken to any of them in sixteen years.  Not after what happened. But who better to appreciate Alfred's creation? His guests arrive, and everything seems to go according to plan. Until one glimpses someone standing outside her shower curtain. Another is violently ill every time she eats the hotel food. Then their mobile phones go missing. You should always make the audience suffer as much as possible, right? The guests are stuck in the middle of nowhere, and things are about to get even worse. After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a dead body.

Butter by Asako Yuzuki (HarperCollins Publishers)

The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story. There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation's imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can't resist writing back. Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought? Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, "The Konkatsu Killer", Asako Yuzuki's Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

Honourable mentions go to  -

The Instruments of Darkness by John Connolly (Hodder and Stoughton)

In Maine, Colleen Clark stands accused of the worst crime a mother can commit: the abduction and possible murder of her child. Everyone - ambitious politicians in an election season, hardened police, ordinary folk - has an opinion on the case, and most believe she is guilty. But most is not all. Defending Colleen is the lawyer Moxie Castin, and working alongside him is the private investigator Charlie Parker, who senses the tale has another twist, one involving a husband too eager to accept his wife's guilt, a disgraced psychic seeking redemption, and an old twisted house deep in the Maine woods, a house that should never have been built. A house, and what dwells beneath.

A Beginners Guide to Breaking and Entering by Andrew Hunter Murray (Cornerstone)

Property might be theft. But the housing market is murder. My name is Al. I live in wealthy people's second homes while their real owners are away. I don't rob them, I don't damage anything... I'm more an unofficial house-sitter than an actual criminal. Life is good. Or it was - until last night, when my friends and I broke into the wrong place, on the wrong day, and someone wound up dead. And now... now we’re in a great deal of trouble. Featuring crooked houses, dodgy coppers and a lot of lockpicking, A Beginner's Guide to Breaking and Entering is a gripping thriller about what it's like to be young, skilled, unemployed - and on the run.

Holmes, Margaret and Poe by James Patterson and Brian Sitts (Century)

Brendan Holmes, Margaret Marple and Auguste Poe run the most in-demand private investigation agency in New York City. The three detectives make a formidable team, solving a series of seemingly impossible crimes which expose the dark underbelly of the city - from a priceless art theft, high-stakes kidnapping and a decades-old unsolved murder, to a gruesome subterranean prison and corruption and bribery at the highest levels of power. But it's not long before their headline-grabbing breakthroughs, unconventional methods - and untraceable pasts - attract the attention of the NYPD and the FBI. After all, it's no surprise that there's a mystery or two to unravel in the city that never sleeps . . . not least, who really are Holmes, Margaret and Poe?

Midnight and Blue by Ian Rankin (Orion)

John Rebus spent his life as a detective putting Edinburgh's most deadly criminals behind bars. Now, he's joined them. As new allies and old enemies circle, and the days and nights bleed into each other, even the legendary detective struggles to keep his head. That is, until a murder at midnight in a locked cell presents a new mystery. They say old habits die hard... However, this is a case where the prisoners and the guards are all suspects, and everyone has something to hide.  With no badge, no authority and no safety net, Rebus walks a tightrope - with his life on the line. But how do you find a killer in a place full of them?