Jake Woodhouse on Mental Health and the War on Drugs

PTSD is hot right now. It’s almost become de rigueur in TV cop shows and films. Where once

there was the alcoholic inspector, solving the case whilst battling the demon drink, we  now have conflict veterans and police diagnosed as suffering from varying forms of Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder. It’s gone so far that in Don Winslow’s Savages its even played as a joke; one of the characters, a returning Veteran from Afghanistan who is completely unfazed by the conflict he’s been involved with, is diagnosed by his closest friends to be suffering from extreme LPTSD, or Lack-of-Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder.

In one sense it’s good that PTSD is portrayed so widely, it’s made us more aware of the results of extreme stress and how that can impact on people, and therefore on society as a whole. But in another sense we’re running the risk that very ubiquity of it in fiction ends up belittling it in the process.

I’ve tortured my main character Inspector Jaap Rykel over the course of three books and for The Copycat I felt I needed to do something more; I needed to show the results of that torture. So I became interested in PTSD and after reading round the subject, mostly dry and academic, I decided to speak to the only people who could really tell me anything of note, the sufferers themselves. And what I found, time and time again, was that PTSD was something that they were having to treat on their own.

The majority of people found the medications prescribed did little to ease the symptoms and had such wide ranging and in some cases, devastating side effects, that they’d rather face the flashbacks and nightmares. The therapy sessions, if they were even available, were gone into with hope but soon transformed into something to be got through, a long hard slog with no real benefit. 

There is however an emerging acceptance of something which genuinely helps, is backed up by emerging science, and is incredibly cheap and side-effect free.  It just so happens that it’s also been a major enemy of a war waged for much of the twentieth century, the War on Drugs.

The postscript has yet to be written on the War on Drugs, mainly because it is still on-going today. This despite the fact that it’s widely acknowledged to be unwinnable and also, in the eyes of increasingly large numbers of people, and like so many other wars, one which should never have been started in the first place.  The sheer stupidity of such an approach, punishing people for their use instead of asking why they are using in the first place, will go down in history as one of the most damaging and inhumane policies ever put into force.

But propaganda is strong, especially when it aligns with the puritanical streak which, though sometimes hidden, nevertheless runs deep through western culture. Why should people be allowed to get ‘high’, it’s disgusting, think many whilst drinking their third or fourth glass of a lovely little white from the Loire valley, or a big fat Malbec from Argentina.

That’s certainly what the average Swiss citizen thought in the 1990’s. At the time Switzerland was in the grip of a Heroin epidemic, users were injecting in public parks, turning to crime and street prostitution to get money, money which would end up in the pockets of the dealers and ultimately the drug cartels. Stronger enforcement never seemed to work, so an incredibly brave and forward thinking woman put forward a radical idea. She argued that it wasn’t the heroin itself which was the problem, it was everything else around it. The lack of social support for those who needed it most as the real problem. 

What if heroin was made available for those who needed it, in a safe place with medical staff and clean needles? Would the street crime problems go away? It would be unthinkable for a politician, in twenty-first century Britain, to stand up with such a proposal in parliament even today, let alone enact such a policy. But in Switzerland it was enacted, because the woman with the radical idea was Ruth Dreifuss, who would go on to be the country’s first women President. 

Her proposal was to run a trial for five years and then hold a national referendum on whether to continue it or not. The critics called it mad, puritans up and down the cantons were disgusted by the idea and the general resistance was extremely high. Nevertheless, the trial went ahead and as promised five years later a referendum was held. The vote was almost unanimous; the trial was an astounding success and should be extended indefinitely. The people had spoken. 

So what changed the minds of so many Swiss who’d opposed it so vehemently when it was proposed? Maybe it was the fact that street crime plummeted, street prostitution disappeared, citizens could take their children to the park without the fear they’d jab themselves on a dirty needle, the black market for heroin virtually disappeared overnight. All of this in itself is enough to prove the war on drugs was deeply misguided. But there was more. And it has to do with mental health.

Because it turned out that once you stopped forcing people to go to the black market, and penalising them for using but instead allowed them to use in a safe place with access to medical facilities and a non-judgemental atmosphere, a large portion of the users found, and sustained, gainful employment whilst they were attending the heroin clinics.

Even more astoundingly, at least for many observers who’d been brought up with the propaganda that heroin would inevitably fry your brain – who can forget the ‘this is your brain on drugs’campaign where an egg was progressively scrambled in front of the viewer’s eyes – many users eventually weaned themselves off it all together. It needs to be said again; many users weaned themselves off it altogether.  This is astonishing, given the narrative surrounding heroin at the time. It has chemical hooks, we were told, once you started you’d never be able to stop. The rhetoric was endless and also, as the Swiss heroin clinics proved, completely, mind-bendingly wrong. 

What emerged was a different picture, one where heroin use was often to get them through a period of deep emotional stress which they were unable to cope with alone. They weren’t bad people, they were just in bad situations and had found a form of self-medication which helped them deal with it. Framed like this, what kind of extreme lack of compassion would we show as a society for punishing people who are down on their luck and need help? 

Which brings us back to PTSD. It turns out many suffers have found something to help with their particular bad situation, and that something is a plant in the rose family, and one which has a history as medicine stretching back centuries; Cannabis Sativa.

The whole sorry history of how this highly beneficial plant became illegal in the first place has been documented at length elsewhere and can’t be gone into here (see Johann Hari’s Chasing the Scream for an excellent and detailed investigation into this), but needless to say it had nothing to do with the plant being inherently dangerous or bad for you, it’s neither, and everything to do with racism entrenched in the US administration during much of the 20th Century. ‘Weed’ was the drug of Mexicans and Black people, both of whom the establishment hated, and the prohibition of Cannabis was in large part simply a tool to enable continued persecution, whilst claiming it wasn’t about race. 

In fact, medical research, hampered by so long because it was illegal, is gradually revealing just why Cannabis is so useful for so many conditions. The discovery in the 1980’s  of the endocannabinoid system which is both present and essential to all mammalian life (that’s right, you are ‘high’ on the endogenous cannabinoids flowing through your brain as you read this) has opened up new vistas in the treatment of a whole host of diseases which medicine is currently failing to make headway with.  The old arguments that it causes mental health issues, psychosis in particular, have not a single shred of compelling evidence which suggests causation. In actual fact, in an almost unbelievable twist of irony, Cannabis is now being studied for it’s anti-psychotic properties.

Turns out all those teenagers who went psychotic after ingesting the demon Skunk (Skunk, despite what the rabid tabloids are constantly screaming at us, is variety of cannabis with a particularly pungent aroma but which is no more powerful than any other variety) were actually self medicating an illness they most likely already had. But from the outsider’s point of view the equation was simple, Skunk equals mental health problems when in fact all those people were doing was, knowingly or unknowingly, self-medicating their illness the same way the heroin users in Switzerland were.

Which brings us back to Inspector Jaap Rykel in The Copycat.

He too has found a way to help deal with his PTSD, but when he’s compelled back onto the force to help on a case he’d closed years previously, his self-medication brings him into conflict with his peers and superiors. After all, he’s spent his life upholding the letter of the law, and now he’s forced, for his own mental health, to break it.

Books to Look Forward to from Penguin and Michael Joseph

January 2017

Good Me Bad Me is by Ali Land.  NEW NAME. NEW FAMILY. SHINY. NEW. ME. Annie's mother is a serial killer. The only way she can make it stop is to hand her in to the police. But out of sight is not out of mind. As her mother's trial looms, the secrets of her past won't let Annie sleep, even with a new foster family and name - Milly. A fresh start. Now, surely, she can be whoever she wants to be. But Milly's mother is a serial killer. And blood is thicker than water. Good me, bad me. She is, after all, her mother's daughter...

He was once called Orphan X. As a boy, Evan Smoak was taken from a children's home, raised and trained as part of a secret government initiative buried so deep that virtually no one knows it exists. But he broke with the programme, choosing instead to vanish off grid and use his formidable skill set to help those unable to protect themselves. One day, though, Evan's luck ran out ...Ambushed, drugged, and spirited away, Evan wakes up in a locked room with no idea where he is or who has captured him. As he tries to piece together what's happened, testing his gilded prison and its highly trained guards for weaknesses, he receives a desperate call for help. With time running out, he will need to out-think, out-manoeuvre, and out-fight an opponent the likes of whom he's never encountered to have any chance of escape. He's got to save himself to protect those whose lives depend on him. Or die trying ...  The Nowhere Man is by Gregg Hurtwiz.

A body is found, victim's head wrapped in cling film, hands tied behind her back. The small island's police force needs help from Amsterdam's Murder Squad - and veteran detective Inspector Jaap Rykel. His investigation swiftly identifies a suspect, who easily hands himself over. But the killer has no history of violence, no motive, and no connection to the victim. On the other side of the country, a similar murder - and confession - is reported and Rykel wonders if these are random senseless acts, or something far darker...? Rykel must walk a thin line between spotting patterns no one wants to see, and a sinister, sprawling case which threatens to consume everything in its path.  Before the Dawn is by Jake Woodhouse.

February 2017

Setagaya ward, Tokyo Inspector Kosuke Iwata, newly transferred to Tokyo's homicide department, is assigned a new partner and a secondhand case. Blunt, hard as nails and shunned by her colleagues, Assistant Inspector Noriko Sakai is a partner Iwata decides it would be unwise to cross. A case that's complicated - a family of four murdered in their own home by a killer who then ate ice cream, surfed the web and painted a hideous black sun on the bedroom ceiling before he left in broad daylight. A case that so haunted the original investigator that he threw himself off the city's famous Rainbow Bridge. Carrying his own secret torment, Iwata is no stranger to pain. He senses the trauma behind the killer's brutal actions. Yet his progress is thwarted in the unlikeliest of places. Fearing corruption among his fellow officers, tracking a killer he's sure is only just beginning and trying to put his own shattered life back together, Iwata knows time is running out before he's taken off the case or there are more killings ...  Blue Light Yokohama is by Nicolás Obregón.

 

Written in Bones is by James Oswald.  The roots of murder run deep...When a body is found in a tree in The Meadows, Edinburgh's scenic parkland, the forensics suggest the corpse has fallen from a great height. Detective Inspector Tony McLean wonders whether it was an accident, or a murder designed to send a chilling message? The dead man had led quite a life: a disgraced ex-cop turned criminal kingpin who reinvented himself as a celebrated philanthropist. As McLean traces the victim's journey, it takes him back to Edinburgh's past, and through its underworld - crossing paths with some of its most dangerous and most vulnerable people. And waiting at the end of it all, is the truth behind a crime that cuts to the very heart of the city...

She came to find her friend. Instead she found a killer. Serial killer expert Darby McCormick gets a call from FBI Agent Jackson Cooper, who has been contacted by a woman who's been in hiding for twenty years. She was one of the only survivors of a murderer who has been carving a dark path across America for decades. Cooper believes he may have tracked this psychopath to the wilds of Montana. Now, he needs Darby's help to bring him in. But when she arrives Cooper has vanished without a trace. Something is very wrong - and as the trail goes cold, Darby is all alone in a strange town, stalked by an unseen predator who wants to add another victim to his collection.  Every Pretty Thing is by Chris Mooney.

Zodiac is by Sam Wilson.  In San Celeste, a series of uniquely brutal murders targets victims from totally different walks of life. In a society divided according to Zodiac signs, those differences are cast at birth and binding for life.All eyes are on detective Jerome Burton and astrological profiler Lindi Childs divided in their beliefs over whether the answer is written in the stars, but united in their conviction that there is an ingenious serial killer executing a grand plan Together, they will unravel a dark tale of betrayal, lost love, broken promises and a devastating truth with the power to tear their world apart . . "

ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH TO GO BACK?  Kate Rafter is a successful war reporter. She's the strong one. The one who escaped Herne Bay and the memories it holds. Her sister Sally didn't. Instead, she drinks.  But when their mother dies, Kate is forced to return to the old family home. And on her first night she is woken by a terrifying scream.  What secret has Kate stumbled upon?  And is she strong enough to uncover the truth . . . and make it out alive?  My Sister’s Bones is by Nuala Ellwood

March 2017

Follow My Leader is by M J Arlidge.  A desperate young woman runs through the storm. She hares up the path, hammering desperately on the front door, crying for help. The startled owner opens the door, ushers her inside, promising her whatever assistance she needs. This fateful decision will be his last. He should never have opened the door ...A middle aged couple are found brutally murdered in their ransacked suburban house. Helen Grace, now back at Southampton Central following her release from prison, is first on the scene. The crime is baffling, hideous, cruel, but before Helen can process the evidence, another double murder is reported - identical in almost every way to the first. What follows is the darkest, most dangerous night of Helen's life as a sequence of brutal home invasions takes place. By sunrise eight people will be dead and Helen may well be the ninth as she finds herself locked on a collision course with a pair of rampaging spree killers. Is there method in their madness? Or are they selecting their victims at random? It falls to Helen to wrestle with these questions - only by answering them can she end the bloodshed.

The year is 1911. Chief Investigator Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Detective Agency has had many extraordinary cases before. But none quite like this. Hired to find a young woman named Anna Pape who ran away from home to become an actress, Bell gets a shock when her murdered body turns up instead. Vowing to bring the killer to justice, he begins a manhunt which leads him into increasingly more alarming territory. Anna Pape was not alone in her fate - petite young blonde women like Anna are being murdered in cities across America. And the pattern goes beyond the physical resemblance of the victims - there are disturbing familiarities about the killings themselves that send a chill through even a man as experienced with evil as Bell. If he is right about his fears, then he is on the trail of one of the greatest monsters of his time.  The Cutthroat is by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott.

It all started with the email.  It came through to her boyfriend's iPad in the middle of the night. Rachel didn't even mean to look. She loves Jack, and she's pregnant with their child. She trusts him. But now she's seen it, she can't undo that moment, or the chain of events it has set in motion.  Why has Jack been lying about his past? Just what exactly is he hiding? And doesn't Rachel have a right to know the truth at any cost?  Everything But the Truth is by Gillian McAllister.

April 2017

Frey & McGray are back for their biggest and best case yet...1890. The Scottish Play is coming home. But before the darling couple of London theatre, Henry Irving & Ellen Terry, take their acclaimed Macbeth north of the border, terror treads the boards on closing night in the capital. A supposed banshee leaves a message written in blood, foretelling someone's demise. But whose? With the company's arrival in Scotland, comes another death threat and Edinburgh's own beloved pair - Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray & Inspector Ian Frey - enter the scene. Frey scoffs, believing it to be a publicity stunt, while McGray is convinced it's a supernatural affair. As they scrutinise the key players, they discover that Terry, Irving, and his peculiar, preoccupied assistant (one Bram Stoker) all have reasons to kill, or be killed...By occult curse or human hand, death will take a bow the night the curtain rises. A Mask of Shadows is by Oscar de Muriel

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 is the first book in the Heartland trilogy by Walter Lucius.

When disgraced spy Solomon Vine’s friend n rival Gabriel Wilde vanishes without a trace, it’s only Wilde who might be able to discover what has happened to him.  A single missing file holds the key.  That too is gone .  But its contents.  Vine is told, are incendiary.  There were few Wilde can trust. And being one of them appears to have fatal consequences.  But as Vine’s off-the-books investigation begins to reveal the shocking truth, he realises there’s much more at stake than one mans life and the reputation of the Secret Intelligence Service.  My Name is Nobody is by Matthew Richardson.

Let the games begin. A man is found buried in a secluded wood on the outskirts of London. Naked, beaten and bruised; forensics also show that he hasn't eaten in the 24 hours before his murder. To DCI Antonia Hawkins it looks like a vicious, targeted attack. The hunt is on. But as more bodies are unearthed in the same state, Hawkins struggles to find a pattern in the seemingly random killings as the body count continues to climb. But who is the hunter? unique kind of serial killer. One that is playing a twisted game. And so far the killer is one winning ...  The Keeper is by Alistair Gunn.

May 2017

Three little girls set off to school one sunny May morning. Within an hour, one of them is dead.  Fifteen years later, Alison and Kitty are living separate lives. Kitty lives in a care home. She can't speak, and she has no memory of the accident that put her here, or her life before it.  Art teacher Alison looks fine on the surface. But the surface is a lie. When a job in a prison comes up she decides to take it - this is her chance to finally make things right.  But someone is watching Kitty and Alison.  Someone who wants revenge for what happened that day.  And only another life will do...  Blood Sisters is by Jane Corry.

June 2017

An unnamed defendant stands accused of murder.  Just before the Closing Speeches, the young man sacks his lawyer, and decides to give his own defence speech.  He tells us that his barrister told him to leave some things out.  Sometimes the truth can be too difficult to explain, or believe.  But he thinks that if he’s going to go down telling the truth.  There are eight pieces of evidence against him.  As he talks us through them one by one, his life is in out hands.  We the reader – member of the jury -  must keep an open mind till we hear the end of the story.  His defence raises many questions…. But at the end of the speeches, only one matters; Did he do it?  You Don’t Know Me is by Imran Mahmood.

Little Susan Verity went missing during the heatwave of 1976.  An unprecedented amount of police resource went into finding  her, but to no avail. Until now.  Serial killer Adrian Wicklow was always the prime suspect. He's  lied to the police about Susan's whereabouts repeatedly but this time, he says, he'll tell the truth. Because Wicklow is dying.  As the case re-opens DS Ian Bradshaw works with investigative journalists Tom Carney and Helen Norton to find Susan. But this is Wicklow's life's work. Would a killer on death's door give up his last secret so easily...?  To Die For is Howard Linskey.

'The emperor's mistress had been murdered, and the world had been taken hold of and turned upon its head' Prague, 1599. Christian Stern, a young doctor, has just arrived in the city. On his first evening, he finds a young woman's body half-buried in the snow.  The dead woman is none other than the emperor's mistress, and there's no shortage of suspects. Stern is employed by the emperor himself to investigate the murder. In the search to find the culprit, Stern finds himself drawn into the shadowy world of the emperor's court - unspoken affairs, letters written in code, and bitter rivalries. But there's no turning back now.  Prague Nights is by Benjamin Black.

July 2017

A photograph found in the effects of a recently deceased polar explorer reveal evidence of something that should not be there. When his death on Deception Island is revealed to have been more suspicious than the heart attack recorded on his death certificate, London's hand is forced. But then the disappearance of the MI6 officer sent south to investigate raises the stakes . . . A four-man military team from a top-secret unit is dispatched. But the South Atlantic in winter is about the most hostile environment on earth. And before you can fight, first you have to survive . . . Deception Island is by Chris Larsson.

Books to look forward to from Penguin and Michael Joseph

The Eye of Heaven is the outstanding new Fargo Adventure from Clive Cussler. Baffin Island, North-Western Canada: Husband-and-wife team Sami and Remi Fargo are on an environmental expedition to the Arctic, when to their astonishment they discover a Viking ship in the ice, perfectly preserved-and filled with pre-Columbian artefacts from Mexico. It's a combination history suggests shouldn't be possible. As the couple plunge into their research, tantalizing clues about a link between the Vikings and the legendary Toltec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl - and a fabled object known as the Eye of Heaven-begin to emerge. But so do many dangerous people...Soon the Fargos find themselves on the run through jungles, temples, and secret tombs, caught between treasure hunters, crime cartels, and those with a far more personal motivation for stopping them. At the end of the road will be the solution to a thousand-year-old mystery-or death.   The Eye of Heaven is due to be published in January 2015.

Raker understands missing people; he knows how they think.  But even Raker's long experience can't prepare him for the deceit and darkness that follows his sometime colleague, ex-copper Healy's decision to find the people that killed his daughter.  Cry is by Tim Weaver and is due to be published in May 2015.

'Are you ready to be reborn?'  The search for a missing journalist is called off as a body is found at the scene of a carefully staged murder.  In a sealed chamber, deep in the heart of Gilmerton Cove, a mysterious network of caves and passages sprawling beneath Edinburgh, the victim has undergone a macabre ritual of purification.  Inspector Tony McLean knew the dead man, and can't shake off the suspicion that there is far more to this case than meets the eye. The baffling lack of forensics at the crime scene seems impossible. But it is not the only thing about this case that McLean will find beyond belief.  Teamed with the most unlikely and unwelcome of allies, he must track down a killer driven by the darkest compulsions, who will answer only to a higher power...  'Are you ready for the mysteries to be revealed?'  Prayer for the Dead is by James Oswald and is due to be published in February 2015.

The Assassin is by Clive Cussler and is due to be published in March 2015. As Van Dorn private detective Isaac Bell strives to land a government contract to investigate John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil monopoly, the case takes a deadly turn. A sniper begins murdering opponents of Standard Oil, and soon the assassin - shooting with extraordinary accuracy at seemingly impossible long range - kills Bell's best witness, a brave and likable man. Then the shooter detonates a terrible explosion that sets the victim's independent refinery ablaze. Bell summons his best detectives to scour the site of the crime for evidence. Who is the assassin and for whom did he kill? But the murders-shootings, poisonings, staged accidents-have just begun as Bell tracks his phantom-like criminal adversary from the "oil fever" regions of Kansas and Texas to Washington, D.C., to the tycoons' enclave of New York, to Russia's war-torn Baku oil fields on the Caspian Sea, and back to America for a final, desperate confrontation. And this one will be the most explosive of all.

Who is Alice Salmon? Student. Journalist. Daughter. Lover of late nights, hater of deadlines. That girl who drowned last year. Gone doesn't mean forgotten. Everyone's life leaves a trace behind. But it's never the whole story. "I will stand up and ask myself who I am. I do that a lot. I'll look in the mirror. Reassure myself, scare myself, like myself, and hate myself. My name is Alice Salmon." When Alice Salmon died last year, the ripples from her tragic drowning could be felt in the news, on the Internet, and in the hearts of those closest to her. However, the man who knows her best isn't family or a friend. His name is Dr Jeremy Cooke, an academic fixated on piecing together Alice's existence. Cooke knows that faithfully recreating Alice, through her diaries, text messages, and online presence, has become all consuming. But he does not know how deep his search will take him into this shocking story of love, loss and obsession where everyone - including himself - has something to hide ... What She Left is by T. R. Richmond and is due to be published in April 2015.

Fear the Dark is by Chris Mooney and is due to be published in February 2015. A killer watches. A town waits. Fear grips a town in Colorado as a murderer targets entire families in their own homes. As police and the FBI struggle to contain the situation, they bring in forensic investigator and serial killer expert Darby McCormick. What she finds is a brutal and elusive predator who stays one step ahead of their investigation. As Darby navigates the blood-ties and broken promises that divide the locals, she knows that all the while the killer is watching, waiting and circling his next target: her. She must not only meet evil - and somehow survive - but also be prepared to face this small town's dark heart.

Only We Know is by Karen Perry and is due to be published in June 2015.  Sometimes the secrets we keep can kill . . . Kenya, 1982.  The relentless sun beats down on the Maasai Mara. Three children, Nick, Luke and Katie bored and hot go down to the river alone. But when their innocent game by the banks of the river goes horribly wrong, their lives are changed forever and they are eternally bound by a shocking and suffocating secret.  Dublin, 2013.  Their secret is buried, but not forgotten, and when Luke goes missing in violent circumstances it becomes clear that their childhood mistakes have come back to haunt them . . .

John Holliday, army ranger turned historian, is the Indiana Jones of conspiracy thrillers. Ex-army ranger turned historian John Holliday is in search for the truth behind the ancient and deadly Templar order. Putting their lives in danger, Holliday and his good friend Eddie once again travel the world on the trail of a deadly Templar plot. Secret of the Templars is by Christopher Paul and is due to be published in January 2015.

The Doll's House is the third book in the Detective Inspector Helen Grace series from M.J. Arlidge and is due to be published in February 2o15.  No Game. No Escape. A woman wakes up and opens her eyes. And she knows immediately that she's not in the bed she went to sleep in. It's just the beginning of her nightmare. Across town, a child discovers a woman's body buried beneath the beach. Then another victim is found . Yet neither friends nor family had even reported either woman missing. How could their killer be getting away with murder? For Detective Inspector Helen Grace it is chilling evidence that she searching for a monster who's not just twisted, but also clever and careful. And as Helen struggles to understand the motivation behind the crimes, she begins to realise that time might be running out for someone still alive...

Into the House is the second sophisticated and dark instalment in Jake Woodhouse's Amsterdam Quartet, featuring returning series character Inspector Jaap Rykel. It is due to be published in March 2015.A woman is pushed in front of a train by a man in police uniform. And a body is left on a rooftop, its hands scorched and head missing. Another day in Amsterdam: Western Europe's murder capital. The killer announces to the world that this is merely the beginning. The man tasked with stopping the body count is Inspector Jaap Rykel. But as Jaap searches the beheaded body for clues as to its identity, what he finds makes his blood run cold. Why on earth are there pictures of himself - and his home - saved on the victim's phone...? 

No Name Lane is by Howard Linskey and is due to be published in April 2015.  The hunt for a serial killer unearths an unsolved cold case from over sixty years ago. Young girls are being abducted and murdered in the North-East. Out of favour Detective Constable Ian Bradshaw struggles to find any leads - and fears that the only thing this investigation will unravel is himself. Journalist Tom Carney is suspended by his London tabloid and returns to his home village in County Durham. Helen Norton is the reporter who replaced Tom on the local newspaper. Together, they are drawn into a case that will change their lives forever. When a body is found, it's not the latest victim but a decades-old corpse. Secrets buried for years are waiting to be found, while in the present-day an unstoppable killer continues to evade justice...

This is a spellbinding concoction of crime, history and horror - Edinburgh, 1888. A violinist is murdered in his home. The dead virtuoso's maid swears she heard three musicians playing in the night. But with only one body in the locked practice room - and no way in or out - the case makes no sense. Fearing a national panic over another Ripper, Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Frey to investigate under the cover of a fake department specializing in the occult. However, Frey's new boss, Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray, actually believes in such supernatural nonsense. McGray's tragic past has driven him to superstition, but even Frey must admit that this case seems beyond reason. And once someone loses all reason, who knows what they will lose next... The Strings of Murder is by Oscar de Muriel and is due to be published in February 2015.

Alongside Jack the Ripper there is another brutal serial killer roaming the streets of Victorian London Inspector Walter Day has been consigned to desk duty at Scotland Yard, but when the Harvest Man begins killing, carving people's faces off their skulls, Dr Kingsley and the inspectors of the Yard need Walter Day's unique ability to uncover the killer and find him before more are murdered.  Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith has lost his position at Scotland Yard, but when the mutilated bodies of prostitutes start materializing again in Whitechapel, he enlists the help of a criminal network to track down Jack the Ripper.  Day and Hammersmith are being played, and their lives will never be the same again.  The Harvest Man is by Alex Grecian and is due to be published in June 2015.

My Bloody Valentine is the second thrilling novel in the DCI Antonia Hawkins series by Alastair Gunn and is due to be published in January 2015. When the body of a young woman is found brutally slain on Valentine's Day the press reacts with barely disguised glee. For DCI Antonia Hawkins, still recovering from the terrible wounds inflicted by another killer, the pressure of another high profile murder investigation could barely be worse timed. But, battling her own physical limitations and under pressure from a new member of the team whose ambition to displace her is barely disguised, Hawkins must discover not just who killed the first victim, but why. Or watch helplessly as others die at the hands of a monster whose been labelled the Valentine Killer...

Over three years ago, a civil servant vanished after returning from a work trip to Africa. Missing, presumed dead, the man's family still want answers. It is one of the many unsolved crimes left for Department Q, Denmark's cold case unit headed up by Detective Carl Morck. But what Carl doesn't know is that the key to the investigation is in Copenhagen. Fifteen-year-old Marco Jameson is tough, smart and suspicious of police. Sleeping rough and hiding in the shadows is his way of life. But what is he running from - and what does he know worth killing him for?  Buried is by Jussi Adler-Olsen and is due to be published in February 2015.

 Inspector Conny Sjoberg and his police colleagues are perplexed by the brutal killing of a family in their Stockholm apartment. With no clues, the murder inquiry starts with working out how was it possible for the mother, who worked as a cleaner, to afford a multi-million dollar property? Despite a heavily reduced team, with experienced officers ill, injured or mysteriously missing, Sjoberg struggles to keep the investigation on the rails. But Conny has problems of his own - from a woman he cannot get out of his head, to a shocking revelation about his own past - all of which threaten to compromise the hunt for this heartless killer...The Last Lullaby is by Carin Gerhardsen and is due to be published in June 2015.