A Night of Espionage

 Join Vassem Khan, Ava Glass, Tony Kent, C J Merritt and James Wolff for A Night of Espionage at Waterstones Putney.

Date:-1 July 2026

Time:- 7:00pm

More information and how to buy tickets can be found here.

Forthcoming Books from John Murray.

 

January 2026

A Gift Before Dying is by Malcolm Kempt. At the edge of the world, can justice still be found.  After a botched high-profile murder investigation, Sergeant Elderick Cole is exiled to the remote, rugged landscape of Nunavut, a vast territory in the Arctic Circle known for its untamed beauty, frigid temperatures, and endless winter nights.  His bleak existence takes a sinister turn when he discovers the hanging body of Pitseolala, a troubled Inuit girl whom he had sworn to protect. Her death dredges up demons he thought he'd buried along with the scars of a fractured marriage and the aching divide between himself and his estranged daughter. As Cole's life unravels - and with it, the fragile thread of his investigation - he turns to Pitseolala's younger brother, Maliktu, a fellow outsider. It's then that Cole uncovers what binds them: a singular mission to find her killer. Against fierce backlash, Cole's overriding desire to redeem just one aspect of his otherwise failed life becomes an obsession - and he's willing to break every rule in his unyielding pursuit of justice and the smallest shred of redemption.

For over a century two rival organisations of women have gone to deadly lengths to secure a precious scrap of fraying embroidery in the hopes of finding the original medieval manuscript from which it was torn. There's the Order of St Katherine: devoted to the belief that women must pull strings in the shadows in order to exercise covert control. And the Fellowship of the Larks: determined to amass as many overt positions of power for women as possible . . . while making sure their methods never come to light. When trailblazing paleographer Dr Anya Brown is headhunted by the exclusive Institute of Manuscript Studies at St Andrews, she's unaware that she is in grave danger - her new employers are the Larks, and they'll stop at nothing to achieve their mission. As Dr Brown is drawn deeper into this ancient web, events spiral beyond her control. To uncover the truth, and escape with her life, she must summon all her expertise to decipher a series of messages that have lain hidden for centuries. The Burning Library is by Gilly Macmillan.

February 2026

 In August 1940, a man walked into Leon Trotsky's study in Mexico City and drove an ice pick into his skull. The killer? Ramon Mercader - an aristocratic Spaniard turned Soviet assassin. The mastermind? Joseph Stalin. But this was no simple hit. It was the climax of a decade-long global hunt: a story of seduction and betrayal, of fake identities and secret loyalties, of idealists and fanatics, lovers and spies. While Trotsky raged in exile - still clinging to his revolutionary dream - Stalin's agents closed in. At the heart of it all was Mercader: a man trained to lie, charm and ultimately to kill. Tracing a path from the cafes of Paris to the battlefields of Spain, from Stalin's Kremlin to a bloodied study in Mexico, The Death of Trotsky by Josh Ireland unfolds like a spy thriller - a story of obsession and betrayal, of dreams destroyed and loyalties twisted, culminating in one of the most shocking murders of the modern age.

From James Wolff a former spy comes Spies and Other Gods an electrifying novel about the mystery, paranoia and ruthlessness of the secretive world of British espionage. The Head of British Intelligence is having a bad day. Only six months off retirement and Sir William Rentoul is wondering if he'll make it that far, what with the sudden descent of a brain fog dense enough to turn every day into a series of small humiliations. To make matters worse, Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee - the body that oversees Sir William - has received an anonymous complaint from one of his officers. Sir William dimly recalls accepting that there should be a channel for whistleblowers, but he never expected that they would pick his most sensitive case, one involving an Iranian assassin and a trail of dead bodies, or that the person who turned up to poke their nose into his files should be a lowly parliamentary researcher named Aphra McQueen, who displays smarts, tenacity and rebelliousness in unsettling measures. Aphra seems to know more about the operation than she is letting on. What will she uncover? What is she really up to? And can she survive the unexpected events that will bounce her from London to Birmingham to Paris to Lausanne?

March 2026

All Them Dogs is by Djamel White. Things are different since Tony Ward landed back in town. The West Dublin gangland has changed. His old mentor is dead, and his best pal Kenny Boyle is on the straight and narrow. After five years keeping quiet across the way, Tony is keen to reinstate himself, and when the opportunity arises to work side by side with Darren 'Flute' Walsh, a top enforcer of notorious crime boss Aengus Lavelle, it feels like a no brainer. Biting off more than he can chew has never bothered Tony Ward, but Flute Walsh is not the meek, quiet boy Tony remembers from school. Brooding, stoic, and unpredictably dangerous, Tony finds himself drawn to his new associate in more ways than one. With retribution from his past actions always close in the rear view, the protection offered by Flute's standing in the gang is crucial. But how safe is Tony really, when a mutual attraction starts to complicate matters?

When the daughter of the Swedish Ambassador disappears from her prestigious London school in broad daylight, the authorities are on high alert. There are no witnesses and no ransom demand: thirteen-year-old Freya Sjöberg has vanished into thin air. With the Metropolitan Police out of their depth, specialist agent DS Madeleine Farrow is called in to handle the case. As a former pupil at Wimpole Girls, she knows the school's affluent corridors only too well. But even she can't anticipate the dark secrets held within its walls. With the clock ticking since Freya's disappearance, Madeleine must return to a place that holds painful memories to find a girl who has left no trace. For help, she calls on dogged - and occasionally maverick - young private investigator Ramona Chang. Together the unlikely pair find themselves plunged into a world of extreme wealth and dangerous secrets. The deeper they dig, the more they uncover - exposing a tangled web of conspiracy and lies that could change everything they thought they knew about the case, and each other. Lost Girls is by Charlotte Philby.

May 2026

Murder at the Hotel Orient is by Alessandra Ranelli. In modern Vienna, the infamous Hotel Orient glitters at the heart of the city, luring lovers inside for an evening of debauchery. Behind its velvet curtain, cameras are forbidden, aliases are required, and every guest has something to hide. For those seeking illicit liaisons, Sterling Lockwood is the perfect concierge. Sultry and poised, she's the ultimate keeper of secrets, including her own. But when dawn breaks and two of the anonymous guests are found dead in their suite, Sterling must break the Orient's sacred code of discretion, turning detective to find a killer and clear her own name. Alongside Fernando, her quick-witted friend and bellhop, Sterling steps beyond the hotel's stained-glass doors, venturing from grand coffee houses where power whispers between porcelain cups, to dimly lit bars where the curious seek rapturous oblivion, and risking everything to solve an impossible case.

What happens when you can no longer keep a secret? When Arthur Cotton sees a body washed up on the beach, difficult memories come flooding back. He kept the books for the Brighton mob back in the day and got out on friendly terms. But retirement came with conditions - mainly to keep his mouth shut. Fifty years on, it's trickier. Dementia is taking hold and he's getting leaky. His former bosses are worried. Arthur didn't just keep their accounts; he also kept their secrets. Now there's going to be a reckoning. It's up to Arthur's daughter, Susan, a carer for the elderly, to find out what her father knows. What he's been saying and to whom. There are dangerous people around, and they're beginning to lose their patience. She'll have to turn detective to encounter a Brighton she barely knew existed, and to turn up parts of her father's past that are just as dark. The Darkest Tide is by Peter Hanington.

Nine nights to solve a murder...or she'll be next. When Bigglesweigh's notorious gangster, Cuttah, uses up the last of his nine lives, and is found dead at his flat, there is only one person who can solve the mystery of who killed him: indomitable retired NHS nurse Miss Hortense. Cuttah left a letter with a list of suspects. There's just one problem: Miss Hortense's name is on the list and she only has nine days before his cronies seek retribution... Miss Hortense and the Last Rites is by Mel Pennant.

June 2026

Death by Noir is by Olly Smith. Barclay Flint is the eccentric proprietor of The Bottle Bank wine shop in Lewes, the small Sussex town renowned for its annual Bonfire Night festival. Barclay can taste a kaleidoscopic universe in a single glass of wine - and will delight in luring you to share in its charms. Barclay passes his days happily matching his customers to the wines of their dreams, but when his friend, struggling regenerative vineyard owner Victor Crawshaw, goes missing, Barclay falls under suspicion and must deploy his wine detection skills to crack the case and clear his name. As the clock ticks down to Bonfire Night's epic festival of flames, the fireworks might not be all that start exploding...

Books to Look Forward to from Bitter Lemon Press

 January 2021

The story is set in Uruguay, it starts in a Montevideo prison where Diego waits for his lawyer, the slick Dr Antinucci, always raybanned, chain-smoking, never frisked by the prison guards. Diego, betrayed by his partner in crime, was arrested for kidnapping a businessman. But charges will not be pressed. The businessman and his wife have described Diego as duped by his partner, certainly no master criminal, so he will be let out. But Antonucci has plans for him, a favour must be returned for his surprising freedom, he must join forces with the psychopath El Roto and hold up an armoured truck in Montevideo. The mad and hilarious caper includes the robbery of course which degenerates into appalling violence, a few murders, and the general bungling of affairs by all the men involved. It is the belittled women, including Police Inspector Lima, who end up the true heroines of the story. This seemingly classic lowlife crime story has a powerful message: never, ever underestimate the women. All told with excoriating wit and humour from the Rio de la Plata. Crocodile Tears is by Mercedes Rosende.

February 2021

The Foreign Girls is by Sergio Olguin. Veronica Rosenthal has retreated to a cousin's remote cottage in the province of Tucuman, to recuperate from the traumatic events in The Fragility of Bodies. She befriends two female tourists -an Italian and a Norwegian-- invites them to stay and starts a sexual relationship with one of them. After a party they attend together, Veronica travels on alone but days later discovers that the women have been murdered. Suspicion falls on a local Umbanda priest, but Veronica starts to uncover a web of corruption, abuse and femicide in which government, wealthy landowners and a high-ranking official from the Argentina's 'Dirty War' are all implicated. Veronica's investigation, with its unforeseen political dimensions, has alarmed new enemies who will try to stop her at all cost.

March 2021

The Measure of Time is by Gianrico Carofiglio. One spring afternoon, defence attorney Guerrieri is confronted with an unexpected spectre from his past. In her youth, Lorenza had been a beautiful and unpredictable girl with dazzling charm. A changed woman faces him in his office that day. The ensuing years have ravaged her appearance and embittered her mind. As if that weren't enough, her son Jacopo, a small-time delinquent, stands convicted of the first-degree murder of a local drug dealer. Her trial lawyer has died, so, for the appeal, she turns to Guerrieri as her last hope. Guido is not convinced of the innocence of Lorenza's son, nor does he have fond memories of the way their relationship ended two decades earlier. Nevertheless, he accepts the case; perhaps to pay a melancholy homage to the ghosts of his youth. His old friend Carmelo Tancredi, a retired police inspector, and his girlfriend, the charming investigator Annapaola Doria are once again by his side. A masterful, compassionate novel, striking a balance between a straightforward trial story -some say the purest distillation of human experience - and the sad notes of time as it passes and exhausts itself.

April 2021

Things are looking bad for disgraced spy August Drummond. In emotional free fall after the death of his wife, fired for a series of unprecedented security breaches... and now his neighbor on the flight to Istanbul won't stop talking. The only thing keeping him sane is the hunch that there's something not quite right about the nervous young man several rows ahead - a hunch that is confirmed when August watches him throw away directions to an old European cemetery seconds before being detained by Turkish police. A reckless August decides to go to the cemetery, where he meets a mysterious figure from the dark heart of the Islamic State and quickly finds himself drawn into a shadowy plot to murder an Iranian scientist in Istanbul. But nothing is what it seems, and before long August realises he has gone too far to turn back. As he struggles to break free from the clutches of Islamic State and play off British intelligence against their Turkish counterparts, he will find his resourcefulness, ingenuity and courage tested to the very limit of what he can endure. How To Betray Your Country by James Wolff. 

June 2021

The Transparency of Time' by Leonardo Padura sees the Cuban investigator pursuing a mystery spanning centuries of occult history. Mario Conde is facing down his sixtieth birthday. What does he have to show for his decades on the planet? A failing body, a slower mind, and a decrepit country, in which both the ideals and failures of the Cuban Revolution are being swept away in favour of a new and newly cosmopolitan worship of money. Rescue comes in the form of a new case: an old Marxist turned flamboyant practitioner of Santeria appears on the scene to engage Conde to track down a stolen statue of the Virgen de Regla-a black Madonna. This sets Conde on a quest that spans twenty-first century Havana as well as the distant past, as he delves as far back as the Crusades in an attempt to uncover the true provenance of the statue. Through vignettes from the life of a Catalan peasant named Antoni Barral, who appears throughout history in different guises-as a shepherd during the Spanish Civil War, as vassal to a feudal lord-we trace the Madonna to present-day Cuba. With Barral serving as Conde's alter ego, unstuck in time, and Conde serving as the author's, we are treated to a panorama of history, and reminded of the impossibility of ever remaining on its sidelines, no matter how obscure we may think our places in the action.

July 2021

It is the end of October, the city of Basel is grey and wet. It could be December. It is just after midnight when Police Inspector Peter Hunkeler, on his way home and slightly worse for wear, spots old man Hardy sitting on a bench under a street light. He wants to smoke a cigarette with him, but the usually very loquacious Hardy is silent-his throat a gaping wound. Turns out he was first strangled and his left earlobe slit, the diamond stud he usually wore there missing. The media and the police come quickly to the same conclusion: Hardy's murder was the work of a gang of Albanian drug smugglers. But for Hunkeler that seems too obvious a resolution. After all, Barabara Amsler, a prostitute, was also recently found strangled, her ear slit. He follows his own intuition and methods which lead him deep into a seedy world of bars and night clubs. More ominously, he soon must face the consequences of certain events in recent Swiss history that those in power would prefer to keep far from the public eye. The Basel Killings is by Hansjörg Schneider.