Books To Look Forward To From Michael Joseph Books

 January 2021

What if your experience of motherhood was nothing like what you hoped for - but everything you always feared? The women in this family, we're different . . .' The arrival of baby Violet was meant to be the happiest day of my life. A fresh start. But as soon as I held her in my arms, I knew something wasn't right. I have always known that the women in my family weren't meant to be mothers. My husband Fox says I'm imagining it, but she's different with me. Something feels very wrong. Is it her? Or is it me? Is she the monster? Or am I? Push is by Ashley Audrain.

The Burning Girls is by C J Tudor. 500 years ago: eight martyrs were burnt to death. 30 years ago: two teenagers vanished without trace. Two months ago: the vicar committed suicide. Welcome to Chapel Croft. For Rev Jack Brooks and teenage daughter Flo it's supposed to be a fresh start. New job, new home. But, as Jack knows, the past isn't easily forgotten. And in a close-knit community where the residents seem as proud as they are haunted by Chapel Croft's history, Jack must tread carefully. Ancient superstitions as well as a mistrust of outsiders will be hard to overcome. Yet right away Jack has more frightening concerns. Why is Flo plagued by visions of burning girls? Who's sending them sinister, threatening messages? And why did no one mention that the last vicar killed himself? Chapel Croft's secrets lie deep and dark as the tomb. Jack wouldn't touch them if not for Flo - anything to protect Flo. But the past is catching up with Chapel Croft - and with Jack. For old ghosts with scores to settle will never rest . . .

Thomas Cale has been running from his enemies. Raised and trained in an underground programme - the Sanctuary - he was sent to destroy God's greatest mistake, mankind itself. Cale is a paradox: arrogant and innocent, generous and pitiless. Feared and revered by those that created him, he has already used his terrifying talent for violence and destruction to bring down the most powerful civilisation in the world. But Thomas Cale has been caught. He's been given a choice. Bring down the world's best hope for order, for honesty and for progress, or condemn his soul to hell. The fate of humankind rests on Cale's decision. The White Devil is by Paul Hoffman.

February 2021

Prodigal Son is by Gregg Hurwitz. He can escape anything. Except his own past . . . 'Evan. It's your mother. I heard you help people . . ' Evan Smoak used to be known as Orphan X: a figure as elusive as a rumour, until he came to the rescue of those who most desperately needed his help. The kind of help no one else could provide. The kind that caused concern in the corridors of power. As a boy he'd been plucked from a foster home and trained as an off-the-books assassin inside a top secret US government programme. Which is why, even forced into early retirement, he dare not trust the phone call. Nor the caller claiming to be his mother. Asking him to protect a complete stranger who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of it stacks up. Yet it bears the tell-tale signs of the secret world that made him. And from inside it, a deadly new threat to the nation's security. But this time the danger is more personal than he could have ever imagined. Because blood runs deep … 

Louise wakes up. Her head aches, her mouth is dry, her memory is fuzzy. But she suspects she's done something bad. She rolls over towards her husband, Niall. The man who, until recently, made her feel loved. But it's not Niall who's lying beside her. In fact, she's never seen this man before. And he's dead . . . As Louise desperately struggles to piece her memories back together, it's clear to Detective Jonah Sheens and his team that she is their prime suspect - though they soon find she's not the only one with something to hide. Did she do it? And, if not, can they catch the real killer before they strike again? Lie Beside Me is by Gytha Lodge.

March 2021

Get ready to meet Rebekah in Missing by Tim Weaver's in his first standalone. She is stranded on an island, left for dead and determined to get home, but danger will continue to stalk her . . . Crow Island was meant to be the perfect break. A chance for Rebekah to reconnect with her brother Jonny and forget about her crumbling marriage. But stepping onto this island puts her in more danger than she could ever imagine. After finding themselves in the forest Rebekah and her brother are attacked. When she wakes up her phone is missing and Jonny has vanished. At that moment Rebekah realises the island has become her living hell. By the time she makes it back to safety the island has closed for the season – and it'll be seven months before anyone returns.With her brother missing and no boats, no phones, no people, Rebekah must survive and make her way off this island. But is finding a way back to the mainland the end of her nightmare, or just the beginning? 

This Nowhere Place is by Natasha Bell. 'That's the thing about our town: people only come here if they're going somewhere else.' One grey afternoon, high on the cliffs of Dover, two girls agree to help a stranger. Within months, two of the three girls are dead. In the years that follow, local legend grows around the events of that summer - and, with the one survivor refusing to speak, it seems the truth will never emerge. Until a documentary-maker arrives, determined to solve the mystery of the Dover Girls. But some will stop at nothing to keep this town's secrets...

In the early days of World War II, the infamous German Luftwaffe embark upon an expedition to Antarctica, hoping to set up a military base to support their goal of world domination. Though the military outpost never comes to fruition, what the Nazis find on the icy continent indeed proves dangerous...and will have implications far into the future. In the present day, Kurt Austin and his assistant Joe Zavala embark for the freezing edge of the world after a former NUMA colleague disappears in Antarctica. While there, they discover a photo of the Luftwaffe expedition of 1939, and are drawn into a decades-old conspiracy. Even as they confront perilous waters and frigid temperatures, they are also are up against a terrifying man-made weapon--a fast-growing ice that could usher in a new Ice Age. Pitted against a determined madman and a monstrous storm, Kurt and the NUMA team must unravel the Nazi-era plot in order to save the globe from a freeze that would bury it once and for all. Fast Ice is by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown. 

April 2021

The Saboteurs is by Clive Cussler and Jack Du Brul. Detective Isaac Bell's wife has said that he is always in the wrong place at the right time. This is certainly the case when Bell thwarts the attempted assassination of a United States Senator shortly after meeting the man. This heroic rescue is just the start of the mystery for Bell, who suspects that the would-be assassins have a much larger and more dangerous agenda--one involving the nearly constructed Panama Canal. While the Senator supports the building of the canal, there are many, including a local Panamanian insurgency known as the Red Vipers, who never want to see the its completion. With millions of dollars and the fates of two nations at stake, Bell heads to Panama to find answers. After a deadly bombing at the Canal's construction site, he is determined to stop the insurgents--or whoever is funding them--before they can attack again.

The teacher wanted on the edge of the world. Una knows she is struggling to deal with her father's sudden, tragic suicide. She spends her nights drinking alone in Reykjavik, stricken with thoughts that she might one day follow in his footsteps. So when she sees an advert seeking a teacher for two girls in the tiny village of Skalar - population of ten - on the storm-battered north coast of the island, she sees it as a chance to escape. But once she arrives, Una quickly realises nothing in city life has prepared her for this. The villagers are unfriendly. The weather is bleak. And, from the creaky attic bedroom of the old house where she's living, she's convinced she hears the ghostly sound of singing. Una worries that she's losing her mind. And then, just before Christmas, there's an unexplained death and Una's life going from bad to worse..... The Girl Who Died is by Ragnar Jónasson.

Don't let Him In is by Howard Linskey. He's always been there. Now he's looking for you.  There have always been deaths in the small town of Eriston over the years - more than can easily be explained. People dying in their houses, behind locked doors. Sean Cole thought he'd spotted a pattern. Thought he was on the trail of a killer. Now he's dead too. When his daughter Rebecca returns to the town, she realises that her father might have been onto something. But can she find the murderer before he finds her? Because if she can't, her father's shabby old Victorian house is no place to hide.

May 2021

An unlikely spy. July 1940. As Britain braces itself for invasion, ex-Tommy and safecracker Bill O'Hagan is glad to have escaped the battlefield. But when a job goes wrong, he finds himself forced to serve his country once more. A former king. Spurned by his government and fearing for his life, the Duke of Windsor flees to Portugal with the woman for whom he abdicated the throne, Wallis Simpson. As a web of Nazi trickery threatens to ensnare him, his fate and the fate of Britain rest on one man. The fate of a nation in their hands. Dropped on an occupied Channel Island without backup, Bill must crack an enemy safe and get its contents to safety. Failure will devastate any hope Britain has of winning the war. But with the layers of deception and intrigue drawing ever more tightly around them, Bill and the Duke both learn they aren't the only players in this game. And Berlin - which has the Duke in its own sights - is plotting its greatest move yet... Island Reich is by Jack Grimwood.

In Harm's Way is by Anthony Mosawi. Sara Eden isn't like other agents. She was the greatest asset MI5 had ever had. But then she disappeared without a trace. Now, she's out of hiding. And she'll do whatever it takes to save innocent lives. Robert Waterman is the director of GCHQ. He trusts numbers. He trusts data. He's learned that whilst humans are unreliable, patterns and codes never lie. But then he meets Sara. What Sara can do isn't rational. What Sara can do defies logic. He can't trust her - but he needs her.

June 2021

Scorpion is by Christian Cantrell. Around the world, twenty-two people have been murdered. The victims fit no profile, the circumstances vary wildly, but one thing links them all: in every case the victim is branded with a number. With police around the globe floundering and unable to identify any pattern, let alone find a killer, CIA Analyst Quinn Mitchell is called in to investigate. Before long, Quinn is on the trail of an ice-hearted assassin with seemingly limitless resources - but she's prepared for that. What she isn't prepared for is the person pulling the strings.

The Michael Joseph 2018 Crime & Thriller Party

So after lunching with Penguin Random House’s Transworld Imprint (photos and video here) there was just enough time for a couple of Gin and Tonics in a Public House, before the Shots Team set off to re-join our colleagues for the next literary celebration: The 2018 Penguin Crime Party.

The Penguin Crime Party has been an annual event, principally to support the Michael Joseph imprint at Penguin Random House: one that is renowned for their interest in Crime and Thriller Fiction.

We have archived the 2017 Party Here, the 2016 Penguin Party Here though now very large affairs.

They used to be more modest events, usually hosted upstairs at The Union Club in Soho; where Publisher Rowland White would welcome the dozen or so guests, perched precariously on a rickety old wooden chair.

This year we were in The Crypt by Trafalgar Square, where Penguin incidentally hosted a Crime Party over a decade ago [Click Here for going back to 2007] while back in 2005, Mike Stotter and I enjoyed a party hosted by Hodder and Stoughton at the same venue for John Connolly [Click Here for photos and report]

So as The Talented Mr Mike Ripley had to have an early night; Ayo Onatade, Mike Stotter and I wandered off to The Crypt, where we met up with many of our bibliophilic colleagues.

It was great to meet up Chris Simmons of Crimesquad, Karen Robinson of The Sunday Times, Marcel Berlins of The Times, Jake Kerridge of The Telegraph, Jon Coates of The Express, writers / literary commentators Natasha Cooper and Peter Guttridge and many others.

From Penguin we had present Sam Deakin, Rowland White, Gaby Young, Joel Richardson among others – and there were plenty of their authors present to mingle with, between the quaffing of wine, one of life’s pleasures (namely talking about crime and thriller fiction over Red Wine).

Soon it was time for publisher Joel Richardson to take to the podium to welcome the assembled guests -

And then it was time to talk books and uncover what is coming from this eclectic Crime and Thriller Imprint; and there were far more writers to name here, so instead we present an array of photographs from the event.

And a tip - I think Jack Grimwood’s follow-up to MOSKOVA is a book to look out for – NIGHTFALL BERLIN and why I am impressed by this work is summed up concisely in this precis –

In 1986, news that East-West nuclear-arms negotiations are taking place lead many to believe the Cold War may finally be thawing.

For British intelligence officer Major Tom Fox, however, it is business as usual.

Ordered to arrange the smooth repatriation of a defector, Fox is smuggled into East Berlin. But it soon becomes clear that there is more to this than an old man wishing to return home to die - a fact cruelly confirmed when Fox's mission is fatally compromised.

Trapped in East Berlin, hunted by an army of Stasi agents and wanted for murder by those on both sides of the Wall, Fox must somehow elude capture and get out alive.

But to do so he must discover who sabotaged his mission and why...

You can thank me later.

So after thanking Gaby Young and Rowland White for the invitation to the party, we headed back into the London Noir.

Read More about Penguin Random House’s Michael Joseph Imprint and their upcoming 2018 Crime Fiction Click HERE

Photos (c) 2018 A Karim

The Penguin 2017 Crime Fiction Party

After the excitement of the Hodder & Stoughton, Quercus, Headline & Mulholland; as well as the Macmillan Crime & Thriller Parties, showcasing their 2017 releases; the Shots team were delighted to be invited to the 2017 Michael Joseph / Penguin Crime Fiction Party.

We recall with warmth the modest affairs these gatherings that Penguin’s Crime Fiction parties used to be, hosted in the top floor room of a private Soho club in the West End. We all recall Publisher and Writer Rowland White standing on a rickety old chair welcoming us, and introducing the Penguin authors. Though since last year, Penguin have secured the whole ground floor rooms of Soho’s Union Club.

Again, the guest list was eclectic with writers, broadcasters, literary commentators, reviewers, bloggers, editors, booksellers all joining the Penguin Editorial and Marketing teams and of course their authors. It was good for the Shots Team to spend time with Chris Simmons of Crimesquad, broadcasters / reviewers Marcel Berlins and Mike Carlson, Laura Wilson, Craig Sisterson, Barry Forshaw and many others.

It was good to hear that Jon Courtney-Grimwood [aka Jack Grimwood] is just about to deliver his follow-up to last year’s remarkable MOSKVA, which was this award-winning writer of speculative fiction’s first foray into espionage fiction, and highly rated. It was good chatting to Journalist Craig Sisterson, and I thanked him for introducing me to the work of Paul Cleave who has just joined the Mulholland UK stable.

Penguin have developed their crime and thriller list actively over the last few years, injecting new names in with their best-selling writers; so it was good to see Jake Woodhouse, James Oswald, Matthew Frank, Howard Linskey with the Nicci French duo [Nicci Gerrard and Sean French], Tim Weaver, Matthew Hall  et al.

Gaby Young introduced us to Dutch Writer Walter Lucius, as Penguin are very excited about his British debut BUTTERFLY ON THE STORM, the first part of his bestselling Dutch Heartland Trilogy which is released on 30^th of March –

A hit-and-run on a woodland road near Amsterdam involving an Afghan boy is connected to a powerful international crime syndicate.

Journalist Farah Hafez, together with her colleague Paul Chapelle, gets caught up in an investigation that takes them all the way to Moscow and has greater political and personal ramifications than they bargained for. After this perilous journey, their lives will never be the same again.

Butterfly on the Storm, the first instalment of The Heartland Trilogy, is not only a fast-paced thriller, but also an intriguing tale of lost loves and ideals.

Read More Here

I was also delighted to finally meet debut novelist Matthew Richardson, as Publisher Rowland White had spoken to me about Matthew’s debut MY NAME IS NOBODY as he knows of my interest in espionage fiction as well as uncovering new work and machinations of the looking glass war that is spy-craft.

I would indicate that it worth marking your diaries on 13^th July, when it is released –

'I know a secret. A secret that changes everything...'

Solomon Vine was the best of his generation, a spy on a fast track to the top. But when a prisoner is shot in unexplained circumstances on his watch, only suspension and exile beckon.

Three months later, MI6's Head of Station in Istanbul is abducted from his home. There are signs of a violent struggle. With the Service in lockdown, uncertain of who can be trusted, thoughts turn to the missing man's oldest friend: Solomon Vine.

Officially suspended, Vine can operate outside the chain of command to uncover the truth. But his investigation soon reveals that the disappearance heralds something much darker. And that there's much more at stake than the life of a single spy...

My Name is Nobody is a sophisticated, pacey and accomplished debut novel by 26-year-old rising star Matthew Richardson. Appealing to fans of the TV series Homeland and The Night Manager - as well as I Am Pilgrim, Nomad, Charles Cumming and Robert Harris - this is a gripping, multi-layered and assured debut thriller that drips with an insider's knowledge of London's corridors of power.

Read more here

So before long, Rowland White welcomed us all to the 2017 Penguin Crime Fiction Party, though he didn’t require the old rickety chair of days now passed. His speech paid tribute to the writing duo PJ Tracy, one of the first acquisitions that he brought to the Penguin stable and his sadness in reporting the passing of Patricia Lambrecht.

Then it was time to mingle, with plenty of canapes and wine to lubricate the proceedings. Shots present some photos from the party.

Then it was time to thank Rowland and the Penguin team, as the Shots Team headed back into the London Evening.

For more information about the upcoming work from Penguin Click Here

Photos : © 2017 A Karim unless otherwise indicated

My Favourite Reads of 2016

Finally, I have got round to doing this. My favourite reads for this year have been quite eclectic to say the least with a number of debut novels making the cut as well as a number of books that are either a continuation of a series or the start of ones. They are in no particular order.

Coyote by Colin Winnette. (No Exit Press)

A daughter disappears in the middle of the night. What happens in the aftermath of this tragedy-after the search is abandoned, after the TV crews move on to cover the latest horrific incident-is the story of Coyote. There is a marriage and a detective. There is a storm, a talk show host, and a roasted boar. People are murdered and things are hidden. Coyotes skulk in the woods, a man stands by the fence, and a tale emerges within this familiar landscape of the violent unknown.  Coyote is sparse, harrowing and for me a terrific read. It is one of those books that will fall into one of two camps for those who read it.  You will either like it or loathe it. No need to guess what camp I am in.

 

Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman (Faber & Faber) 

I will freely admit that I am a big Laura Lippman fan. I love her Tess Monaghan series but

her standalone novels always pack a wallop and are always worth more than one read.  In this case Wilde Lake is intelligent, emotional and a thoroughly satisfying read. If you have never read any of her books, then you are selling yourself short!  Luisa Lu Brant is the newly elected states attorney representing suburban Maryland including the famous planned community of Columbia, created to be a utopia of racial and economic equality. Prosecuting a controversial case involving a disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death, the fiercely ambitious Lu is determined to avoid the traps that have destroyed other competitive, successful women. She’s going to play it smart to win this case and win big cementing her political future.  But her intensive preparation for trial unexpectedly dredges up painful recollections of another crime the night when her brother, AJ, saved his best friend at the cost of another man’s life. Only eighteen, AJ was cleared by a grand jury. Justice was done. Or was it? Did the events of 1980 happen as she remembers them? She was only a child then. What details didn’t she know?  As she plunges deeper into the past, Lu is forced to face a troubling reality. The legal system, the bedrock of her entire life, does not have all the answers. But what happens when she realizes that, for the first time, she doesn’t want to know the whole truth?  Two stories (childhood and present day) told in alternative chapters come to a big collision at the end. Sheer brilliance.

Nothing Short of Dying by Erik Storey (Simon & Schuster)

Clyde Barr has been on the run for sixteen years. Now he’s back in the Colorado wilderness, hoping for some peace and quiet.  Then Clyde receives a frantic phone call for help from his sister Jen. But the line goes dead. She’s been taken.  Clyde doesn’t know where Jen is. He doesn’t know who has her. He doesn’t know how much time he has. All he knows is that nothing short of dying will stop him from saving her…  A wonderful debut novel with an anti-hero that will no doubt garner fans galore. Harsh, gripping and a great joy to read.

 

Made to Kill by Adam Christopher (Titan)

Raymond Electromatic is good at his job, as good as he ever was at being a true Private Investigator, the lone employee of the Electromatic Detective Agency--except for Ada, office gal and super-computer, the constant voice in Ray's inner ear. Ray might have taken up a new line of work, but money is money, after all, and he was programmed to make a profit. Besides, with his twenty-four-hour memory-tape limits, he sure can keep a secret.  When a familiar-looking woman arrives at the agency wanting to hire Ray to find a missing movie star, he's inclined to tell her to take a hike. But she had the cold hard cash, a demand for total anonymity, and tendency to vanish on her own.  Plunged into a glittering world of fame, fortune, and secrecy, Ray uncovers a sinister plot that goes much deeper than the silver screen--and this robot is at the wrong place, at the wrong time. A cross-genre noir novel that plays in my opinion homage to both Raymond Chandler and Ron Goulart. 

Dodgers by Bill Beverley (No Exit Press)

It is not surprising that Dodgers won two prestigious crime writing awards (CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger and the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award).  Dodgers is an amazingly dark, edgy and compelling debut novel that has a deep sense of social injustice and is told with a unique narrative voice. When East, a low-level lookout for a Los Angeles drug organisation, loses his watch house in a police raid, his boss recruits him for a very different job: a road trip - straight down the middle of white, rural America - to assassinate a judge in Wisconsin.  Having no choice, East and a crew of untested boys - including his trigger-happy younger brother, Ty - leave the only home they've ever known in a nondescript blue van, with a roll of cash, a map and a gun they shouldn't have.  Along the way, the country surprises East. The blood on his hands isn't the blood he expects. And he reaches places where only he can decide which way to go - or which person to become. On the one hand very funny but on the other hand Dodgers is equally nasty, foul-mouthed and revealing!

Epiphany Jones by Michael Grothaus (Orenda Books)

Jerry has a traumatic past that leaves him subject to psychotic hallucinations and depressive episodes. When he stands accused of stealing a priceless Van Gogh painting, he goes underground, where he develops an unwilling relationship with a woman who believes that the voices she hears are from God. Involuntarily entangled in the illicit world of sex-trafficking amongst the Hollywood elite, and on a mission to find redemption for a haunting series of events from the past, Jerry is thrust into a genuinely shocking and outrageously funny quest to uncover the truth and atone for historical sins.  What can one say about Epiphany Jones?  This is not a comfortable book to read despite the fact that it is at times funny, sinister and a dark tale.  This insanely quirky story is one of the best debut novels that I have read in ages.

 

Darktown by Thomas Mullen (Little Brown)

Atlanta, 1948. In this city, all crime is black and white.  On one side of the tracks are the rich, white neighbourhoods; on the other, Darktown, the African-American area guarded by the city's first black police force of only eight men. These cops are kept near-powerless by the authorities: they can't arrest white suspects; they can't drive a squad car; they must operate out of a dingy basement.  When a poor black woman is killed in Darktown having been last seen in a car with a rich white man, no one seems to care except for Boggs and Smith, two black cops from vastly different backgrounds. Pressured from all sides, they will risk their jobs, the trust of their community and even their own lives to investigate her death.  Their efforts bring them up against a brutal old-school cop, Dunlow, who has long run Darktown as his own turf - but Dunlow's idealistic young partner, Rakestraw, is a young progressive who may be willing to make allies across colour lines . . .   Darktown works well as both an historical novel and a thriller. There is an incredible sense of place and a fascinating story of deep-rooted and vicious racism, political dishonesty and intrigue.  Very topical and unsettling. Darktown perfectly brings the pre-civil rights South back to life and to the fore.

Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz. (Penguin)

I have always been a fan of Gregg Hurwitz’s writing for a number of reasons.  Mainly because

he has always been incredibly good at pulling you into a story.  In this case, with Orphan X he has in my opinion upped his game to another level. 'Do you need my help?' It was the first question he asked. They called him when they had nowhere else to turn.  As a boy Evan Smoak was taken from an orphanage.  Raised and trained in a top secret programme, he was sent to bad places to do things the government denied ever happened.  Then he broke with the programme, using what he'd learned to vanish. Now he helps the desperate and deserving.  But someone's on his trail. Someone who knows his past and believes that the boy once known as Orphan X must die.  Orphan X fulfils everything that I as a reader love and want in a thriller.  Stylish, smart and tight with great plot and characterisation alongside a protagonist who is set to join the best anti-heroes out there.

Moskva by Jack Grimwood (Michael Joseph)

'A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma . . .' January, 1986. A week after disgraced Intelligence Officer Tom Fox is stationed to Moscow the British Ambassador's fifteen-year-old daughter goes missing. Fox is ordered to find her, and fast. But the last thing the Soviets want is a foreign agent snooping about on their turf. Not when a killer they can't even acknowledge let alone catch is preparing to kill again . . . Cold war thrillers have never really gone away.  What has happened however is that they have become even more mesmerising, superbly written and compulsive reading.  This is certainly the case with Moskva with a background stemming from World War 2.  Stylishly written, taut and filled with verve there is a sense of place that keeps you coming back for more.  Russia has never been so austere and immoral.

 A Time of Torment by John Connolly (Hodder & Stoughton)

Jerome Burnel was once a hero. He intervened to prevent multiple killings and in doing so damned himself. His life was torn apart. He was imprisoned, brutalized.  But in his final days, with the hunters circling, he tells his story to private detective Charlie Parker. He speaks of the girl who was marked for death but was saved, of the ones who tormented him, and an entity that hides in a ruined stockade.  Parker is not like other men. He died, and was reborn. He is ready to wage war.  Now he will descend upon a strange, isolated community called the Cut, and face down a force of men who rule by terror, intimidation, and murder.  All in the name of the being they serve.  All in the name of the Dead King.  If you have been reading John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series then you will never fail to be impressed not only with his style, the story and the fact that by some miracle Charlie Parker is still alive. I certainly am.  In A Time of Torment, we are drawn into an enthralling and unsettling story that is as horrific as it is mesmerising. As can be expected A Time of Torment is scarily good and as dark as one expects it to be.

Red Right Hand by Chris Holm (Mulholland)

When viral video footage from a terrorist attack in San Francisco reveals that a mob informant thought dead is still alive, FBI Special Agent Charlie Thompson knows just who to contact to save her witness from certain death: Michael Hendricks. He may be a hitman, but he's not a bad guy.  Teaming up with a green but determined tech whiz, Cameron, on the condition she leave him alone after the case, Hendricks reluctantly takes the job.  Of course, finding a man desperate to stay hidden is challenging enough without deadly competition, let alone when that competition's shadowy corporate backer is tangled in the terrorist conspiracy playing out around them...  A much welcome return of Chris Holm’s ultimate tough guy Michael Hendricks who finds himself heavily involved in carnage, duplicity and destruction.  If you read The Killing Hand then you will welcome with open arms Red Right Hand.  I certainly did.  Lots of action, sense of foreboding and jaw dropping moments. I have found a new series to drool over.

I really could not make up my mind for my twelfth book as anyone of my honorary mentions could have made the cut.  Honorary mentions go to Megan Abbott’s You Will Know Me, Val McDermid’s Out of Bounds, The Plea by Steve Cavanagh, A Fever of Blood by Oscar de Muriel, Far from True by Linwood Barclay, The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid by Craig Russell and The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood.

I also read some really good non-fiction titles as well.

Parker: A Miscellany by John Connolly

A non-fiction companion to the Charlie Parker novels, using music as a starting point. With introductions to the first 13 Charlie Parker novels, an essay about John’s love of music and revised versions of three essays and an essay for every single CD compilation done for the Parker novels.  A must for any dedicated follower of Charlie Parker.

Brit Noir : The Pocket Essential Guide to British Crime Fiction, Film & TV by Barry Forshaw (Pocket Essentials)