Books to Look Forward to from Head of Zeus in 2016

Paris Spring is by James Naughtie and is due to be published in March 2016.  Paris in 1968 - seething with revolutionaries and spies - sees Will Flemyng's world turned upside down, after a mysterious encounter on the metro and a chance revelation from a rival operative. In a city alive with talk of revolution, Will finds himself in the thick of the action, a young spy whose first adventures behind the Iron Curtain have already given him a secret glamour. But now he gets news that threatens the closest and most complicated relationship in his life, with his younger brother. In the unforgettable weeks of a crisis that claims blood and tests his deepest loyalties, Flemyng lives and loves the tumult of a city in which his private fears teach him the secrets that lie beneath the raucous politics of the streets. This is the making of the man whose journey leads to The Madness of July - Will Flemyng, trapped with his friends and enemies in The Paris Spring.

A KILLER WITH A MESSAGE The first victim was a bully who liked using his fists. The second was a thug who favoured steel-capped boots. Their bodies bore the marks of a killer who knew their sins. A single clue was left at the scene: a class photo from 1982, with two faces neatly crossed out. A DETECTIVE WHO CAN'T LET GO There are eighteen men and women in the photo who are still alive - and one of them is the lead detective on the case. Fabian Risk thought he'd left his schooldays behind. Now his classmates are dying for the sins of their childhood ...Who is the faceless killer who's come back to haunt them?   Victim Without a Face is by Stefan Ahnhem and is due to be published in January 2016.

Three nights. Three brutal murders. And a killer with a warped imagination. In a smart part of Liverpool, old men and women are being murdered in their beds. DCI Eve Clay is baffled. These people are all nearing the end of their lives. Who would want to kill them? Why? Only one woman has the answer. And she is deaf, mute, and locked up in an exclusive psychiatric ward. As Eve tries desperately to communicate with this woman, and hunt down the killer, her own shadowy past comes back to haunt her...  Blood Vow is by Mark Roberts and is due to be published in April 2016.

The Guilty One is by Sophie Littlefield and is due to be published in January 2016. Once upon a time, Maris was an ordinary, suburban mother. Then her daughter was murdered, and everything fell apart. Now, one year later, a man stands on the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge, a phone in his hand. He's just offered his life to Maris to atone for the sins of his son. At one word from her, he'll jump to his death...The Guilty One is a powerful thriller about guilt, retribution and forgiveness. Maris has lost her daughter, and now she has a choice ...Should the father of her daughter's killer live or die? And will this shocking offer free her - or destroy her?

Papercuts is by Colin Bateman and is due to be published in February 2016. The Bangor Express has been around for a hundred years. Through World Wars and civil strife, it has never missed an issue, but now it's limping towards an inevitable doom and it looks like the owner has no choice but to shut it down - until London-based journalist Rob Cullen arrives on the scene. He believes that just perhaps, if he looks hard enough, he can find a way to resurrect it...what could possibly go wrong? Lured back to Northern Ireland for the first time in 20 years by the demise of his one-time mentor, the Guardian reporter can't resist fighting for the paper where he first made his name. After all, it has been a long time since Rob had a real story to get this teeth in to...and with the Bangor Express, that's just what he's going to get.

The Secrets of Gaslight Lane is by M R C Kasasian and is due to be published in June 2016.  London, 1884: Things are returning to normal at 125 Gower Street. Sidney Grice is engrossed in the finite points of tree frog dissection, his ward, March Middleton, is of sound mind once again, but the household is strangely quiet. So, when a young woman turns up at the door, imploring London's foremost personal detective to solve the mystery of her father's murder, Grice can barely disguise his glee. Nathan Garstang was found slaughtered in his bed, with no trace of a weapon or intruder. But what piques Sidney's interest is the crime's link to one of London's most notorious unsolved murders. Ten years ago, Nathan's Uncle, Aunt and servants were murdered in their sleep in the very same house, 2 Burton Crescent. Now, it seems, the Garston murderer is back.

The Salt Marsh is by Clare Carson and is due to be published in March 2016.  It is a year since Sam's father died, but she cannot lay his ghost to rest. Jim was an undercover agent living a double life, and Sam has quit university to find out the truth about his work. Her journey will take her from the nightclubs of 80s Soho to the salt marshes and shingle spits of Norfolk and Kent. Here, in a bleak windswept landscape dotted with smugglers' huts and buried bones, Jim's secret past calls to her like never before. Now Sam must decide. Will she walk away and pick up her own life? Or become an undercover operative herself and continue her father's work in the shadows...

  

Beside the old woollen mill in Blarney, Cork, a worker's cottage guards its secrets. In 1921, a mother, father and their two young children disappeared from this house. And now, ninety-five years later, their mummified bodies have been discovered under the floorboards. The gunshot wounds in each skull look like the mark of the IRA. But as DS Katie Maguire investigates, the flames of old rivalries flare up once more. Because in this part of Ireland, where people neither forget nor forgive, the past can never stay buried...  Buried is by Graham Masterton and is due to be published in February 2016

Joe Pickett's old friend Nate Romanowski is off the grid, recuperating from wounds and lying low while the FBI search for him. But they are not the only ones looking for him and Nate finds himself confronting an elite team of special forces soldiers. They're not there to take him in - they say - but to make a deal. They need his help destroying a domestic terror cell in Wyoming's Red Desert, and in return they'll make Nate's criminal record disappear...But Joe's not sure they can be trusted. And they can't. They have a very different plan in mind, and it just may be something that takes them all down - Nate and Joe included.  Off the Grid is by C J Box and is due to be published in April 2016.

A chilling new case for the Detective's Daughter. The summer of 1976 was the hottest in living memory. Britain sweltered, trees and plants wilted, fire ripped through forests and rivers ran dry. In London's Kew Gardens a ten year old girl was parted from her friends and, dizzied by scorching heat, wandered lost into its secluded undergrowth. Forty years later, the detective's daughter Stella Darnell takes on a chilling new case. Along with Jack, a train driver, she will be drawn to the secret spaces of Kew, and to an unsolved murder that has lain dormant for decades.  The Detective’s Shadow is by Lesley Thomson and is due to be published in May 2016.

The Lost Island is by Preston & Child and is due to be published in June 2016. Gideon Crew - brilliant scientist, master thief - is living on borrowed time. When his mysterious employer, Eli Glinn, gives him an eyebrow-raising mission, he has no reason to refuse. Gideon's task: steal a page from the priceless Book of Kells, now on display in New York City and protected by unbreakable security. Accomplishing the impossible, Gideon learns that hidden beneath the parchment is a treasure map dating back to the time of the ancient Greeks. As he ponders the strange map, he realizes that the treasure it leads to is no ordinary fortune. It is something far more precious: a discovery that could save his life. Together with his new partner, Amy, Gideon follows a trail of cryptic clues to an unknown island in a remote corner of the Caribbean Sea. There, the pair realize the extraordinary treasure they are hunting conceals an even greater shock - a revelation so profound that it may benefit the entire human race...if Gideon and Amy can survive.

Books to Look forward to from Head of Zeus

Some secrets destroy you.  Rob and Anna have only just met Owen and Kim.  Now they've boarded their handsome old boat to travel to a far off island in the Caribbean.  With only the four of them on board, it should be paradise: lazy afternoons spent snorkelling; long nights enjoying the silence and solitude of the sea. But why does Owen never sleep?  Why is he so secretive about his past?  And why does Kim keep a knife zipped into her money-belt?  Anna can usually get people to talk...but this time, does she want to?  After the Storm is by Jane Lythell and is due to be published in January 2015.

The Absolution is by John Holt and is due to be published in May 2015.  The Rendition - An Italian Muslim has been snatched by the CIA.  His crime: a plot to engulf Venice in flames.  The Gossip - Carnivia is awash with rumour and speculation.  Have the CIA extradited an innocent man?  The Evidence - Holly and Kat must find the powerful men who truly run Italy.  But time is running out to save their city.  The Atrocity - will destroy it all.

Jim says he's an undercover policeman.  His daughter Sam thinks he's a liar.  On holiday in

Orkney, beneath an endless midsummer sky, Sam spies on Jim as he runs secretive errands across the island.  What did he take from the old watchtower on the edge of a cliff?  Why is he so interested in Norse mythology?  And why does Sam have the eerie feeling that she too is being watched?  When Sam finally discovers the truth, it will draw her into a dangerous world of darkness and deception...  Orkney Twilight is by Clare Carson and is an original and haunting thriller about fathers, daughters, and the ghosts of the past.  It is due to be published in April 2015.

Paris Spring is by James Naughtie and is due to be published in March 2015.  Paris in 1968 - seething with revolutionaries and spies - sees Will Flemyng's world turned upside down, after a mysterious encounter on the metro and a chance revelation from a rival operative.  In a city alive with talk of revolution, Will finds himself in the thick of the action, a young spy whose first adventures behind the Iron Curtain have already given him a secret glamour.  But now he gets news that threatens the closest and most complicated relationship in his life, with his younger brother.  In the unforgettable weeks of a crisis that claims blood and tests his deepest loyalties, Flemyng lives and loves the tumult of a city in which his private fears teach him the secrets that lie beneath the raucous politics of the streets.  This is the making of the man whose journey leads to The Madness of July - Will Flemyng, trapped with his friends and enemies in The Paris Spring.

City players know they aren't well liked in Greece, but they never expected to face death on the football pitch.  Scott Manson and London City are in Athens battling for the UEFA Champion's League title.  The situation in Athens is tense, and some of City's players are so unpopular in Greece they've been assigned bodyguards.  Karaiskakis Stadium is packed to the rafters when tragedy strikes.  Christoph Bundchen collapses and dies mid-match.  Is it a heart attack?  Or something more sinister?  The team have a crucial match in England - but they can't go home until the investigation is complete.  The Greek authorities are dragging their heels...Can Scott Manson find the truth and get the team home in time? Hand of God is by Philip Kerr and is due to be published in June 2015.

Border Angels is by Anthony Quinn and is due to be published in January 2015.  A charred

corpse and a set of footprints in the snow lead Celcius Daly into the twilight world of people trafficking.  Inspector Celcius Daly is hunting for a missing woman, Lena Novak, who mysteriously disappeared one winter's night along the Irish border, leaving in her wake the corpses of two men.  Daly finds himself hooked together with a prostitute and a hit man in a life-or-death chase.  His investigation leads them deep into border country, a wild terrain of disappearing lanes and blown-up bridges, abandoned ghost-estates and thick forests - the ultimate refuge for anyone who does not want to be found.

Detective Inspector Hanlon is back.  She's been promoted and now she goes undercover in Oxford to find the sadomasochistic killer of two students.  Philosophy lecturer Dr Gideon Fuller, with his penchant for high-end sadistic sex, is in the frame, but Hanlon is not convinced.  From the specialist brothels in Oxford and Soho, to the inner sanctum of a Russian people trafficker with a taste for hurting women, the trail leads Hanlon deeper and deeper into danger - until she herself becomes the killer's next target.  Cold Revenge is by Alex Howard and is due to be published in March 2015.

The Exile by Mark Oldfield is the second instalment in a trilogy that unlocks the dark heart of Spain, weaving past and present together to portray a country still scarred by civil war, still riven by fear and hatred, still plagued by secrets that refuse to die.  1954: Comandante Guzman has been posted deep into the Basque country to confront a man known only as 'El Lobo'.  High in the mountains, Guzman will have to fight for his life, not only against El Lobo, but also against someone who has been searching for him for a very long time...2010, Madrid: Forensic Investigator Ana Maria Galindez has spent seven months in hospital recovering from the blast that nearly killed her.  Her obsession with Guzman's fate has disturbed long dormant forces.  Now she shall reap the consequences: she will be purposely humiliated, abandoned by colleagues and friends, accused of murder...and worse.  The Exile is due to be published in April 2015.

Taken for Dead is the fourth book in the Katie Maguire series by Graham Masterton and is

due to be published in February 2015.  It is a sunny Saturday in county Cork, and an Irish wedding is in full swing.  Drunk uncles are toasting the bride.  The Ceilidh band have played for hours.  But the cutting of the cake will bring the wedding to a horrifying end.  For there, grinning gruesomely up from the bottom tier is the severed head of the local baker.  Katie Maguire, of the Irish Garda, does not have any leads - until another local businessman goes missing in horrific circumstances.  The murders appear to link to The Kings of Erin, a terrifying gang of torturers and extortionists.  But these are dangerous men.  And they will stop at nothing to throw Katie off the trail...

Gower Street: 1883.  March Middleton is the niece of London's greatest (and most curmudgeonly) personal detective, Sidney Grice.  March has just discovered a wealthy long-lost relative she never knew she had.  When this newest family member meets with a horrible death, March is in the frame for murder - and only Sidney Grice can prove her innocence.  Grice agrees to investigate (for his usual fee) but warns that he is not entirely convinced of her innocence.  If he were in her position, he might have been tempted.  But the more he uncovers, the more all the clues point to Grice himself...  Death Descends on Saturn Villa is by M R C Kasasian and is due to be published in June 2015.

Joe Pickett has good reason to dislike Dallas Cates, rodeo champion.  Now he has even more reason - Joe's eighteen-year-old foster daughter April has run off with him.  And then comes even worse news: the body of a girl has been found in a ditch along the highway - alive, but just barely, the victim of blunt force trauma.  It is April, and the doctors don't know if she'll recover.  Cates denies having anything to do with it - says she ran off from him, too - but Joe knows in his gut who's responsible.  The problem is that there's no proof, and when Joe sets out to find some he faces terrifying opposition: the entire Cates clan, including two notoriously violent brothers and a mother like no one Joe has ever met.  But Joe's going to find out the truth, if it kills him.  And this time, it just might.  Endangered is by C J Box and is due to be published in March 2015.

She's only alive because he thinks she's already dead...Everyone in the quiet Jersey Shore town of Silver Bay knows the story: on a Sunday evening in September 1991, Ramsey Miller threw a block party, then murdered his beautiful wife and three-year-old daughter and disappeared...But everyone is wrong.  Ramsey's daughter got away.  Meg, now known as Melanie, has lived in isolation, protected by her adoptive aunt and uncle.  Now she is nearly eighteen and sick of hiding.  Melanie's determined to confront her father, but can she find him before he finds her?  Before He Finds Her is by Michael Kardos and is due to be published in February 2015.

 

The Detective’s Secret is by Lesley Thomson is due to be published in April 2015.  October 1987: as a hurricane sweeps through Britain, a man's body slowly rots, locked inside an old water tower in west London.  He carries no identification and fits no missing persons' description.  His corpse is never claimed.  October 2013: the month of the great storm of St Jude.  A man dies beneath a late night Piccadilly line train.  His brother insists he was murdered, but Jack, a train driver, is sure it was suicide.  Jack and Stella uncover the secrets of the case - but Jack is carrying a secret of his own...

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and...Crime. (The Iceman Cometh.)

I’m not entirely sure how I got involved co-running the new Scarborough Book Festival, Books By The Beach.  My big mouth, I expect.  I’d been hosting events at the Library Service’s Literature Festival (note the distinction) in the town for years so when the Library decided it couldn’t carry on the local paper emailed me for a comment.

I thought I said something innocuous about what a shame it was.  The headline in the Scarborough News a couple of days later blared: ‘Festival favourite host to save scrapped Festival’.  That would be me, then.

I got together with Heather French, the librarian who had been programming the Literature Festival for the past seven years, to create Books By The Beach, the new festival.  She worked really hard, off the clock, to put a programme together, whilst I took all the credit.  Worked for me.

Scarborough has always got good audiences for crime writers.  Mr Rankin, Ms McDermid, Ms Mina, Ms Welch and Mr McBride have all made the trip south from Scotland.  Ms Ann Cleeves, Mr Peter James, Mr David Hewson, Mr Mark Billingham, Mr Simon Kernick, Mr Lee Child and many others have also been there.

But this was a new festival.  We needed a crime writer who’d not been to Scarborough before.  (Plus none of these writers were available.  Except that the wonderful Mark Billingham is driving up especially to interview his mate, rock journo Mark Ellen, then driving straight back south again.)

 

 

Enter Jo Nesbo.  Let me rephrase that: ENTER JO NESBO.  The festival was running 24-27 April.  I knew from Bethan Jones, Jo’s magnificent PR at his UK publisher, that he had his new novel, The Son, out in April.  Any chance Jo could come to Scarborough?  Sorry, Bethan said, he doesn’t get in until 28 April.  Did I say the Festival ended 27 April, Bethan?  My mistake.  I meant 28^th… or 29^th… or – can we just do Nesbo Time?

Anyway, The Iceman Cometh.  Jo was up for it (maybe it was an ancestral thing: the Vikings used to live in Scarborough and nearby Jorvik/York for a hundred years or so) so we had our top of the bill (and a longer festival). 

We lined up some spy guys – Jim ‘Today’ Naughtie with his debut novel, Charles Cumming with his seventh and ex-head of Special Branch, Roger Pearce.  We tried for Ben McIntyre and his book on Kim Philby but got slapped down pretty quickly.

(I’m not saying this is Ben but some people have long enough memories to recall that movie An American Werewolf in London and get frightened at the thought of going to Yorkshire.  You can pitch All Creatures Great and Small as much as you want, they just see fog-shrouded moors with throat-ripping creatures waiting to pounce.  Frankly, so do I, but then I’m from Lancashire, the land of milk and honey.)

We had Mark Lawson until he dropped out for ‘personal reasons’, which always sounds a bit odd so we got paranoid about that until he dropped out of everything for ‘personal reasons’ and then we hoped he was going to be okay.  We even forgave him utterly that our brochure was at the printer and we had six hours to find someone else to take his place.

We’ve got two fine crime writers doing unusual things.  (No, not together, scandal-mongers.)  Lynn Shepherd (A Treacherous Likeness, Tom-All-Alone’s) is giving a talk at our Gothic literary dinner in the 1840s town hall about Dracula. (He landed in nearby Whitby when he came over from Transylvania.)  Sherlock Holmes expert, David Stuart Davies, is telling ghost stories in the company of movie star Greta Scacchi (no less) in the town’s abandoned Victorian prison.  Spooookie.

We’ve also got one-man crime and film encyclopaedia, Barry Forshaw, talking about British Gothic Cinema over lunch. (We’re prepared for unfinished meals.)

I’m running a crime-writing workshop in that very same prison.  I’m planning to lock participants in the cells to write.  (I’m funny that way – and isn’t that what public liability insurance was invented for?)

 

Check out the programme at www.booksbythebeach.co.ukwww.booksbythebeach.co.uk.  Follow us on Twitter on @scarboroughbook. We’re on Facebook too.  And come to see Jo and our other writers.  (High speed trains to York then 40 minutes cross-country to the coast.) There are no werewolves in Yorkshire, I promise.  Vampires, now, that’s something else again.