Forthcoming books from Transworld and Vintage

April 2017

There's a new killer on the streets.  A woman is found murdered after an internet date. The marks left on her body show the police that they are dealing with a particularly vicious killer. He's in your house.  He's in your room.  Under pressure from the media to find the murderer, the force know there's only one man for the job. But Harry Hole is reluctant to return to the place that almost took everything from him. Until he starts to suspect a connection between this killing and his one failed case.  He's out for blood.  When another victim is found, Harry realises he will need to put everything on the line if he's to finally catch the one who got away.  The Thirst is by Jo Nesbo.

May 2017

In the last days before her death, Nel called her sister. Jules didn’t pick up the phone, ignoring her plea for help. Now Nel is dead. They say she jumped. And Jules has been dragged back to the one place she hoped she had escaped for good, to care for the teenage girl her sister left behind. But Jules is afraid. So afraid. Of her long-buried memories, of the old Mill House, of knowing that Nel would never have jumped. And most of all she’s afraid of the water, and the place they call the Drowning Pool . . .  Into the Water is by Paula Hawkins

 

What Alice Knew is by T A Cotterell. How far would you go to keep a secret? Alice has a perfect life - a great job, happy kids, a wonderful husband. Until he goes missing one night; she receives a suspicious phone call; things don't quite add up. Alice needs to know what's going on. But when she uncovers the truth she faces a brutal choice. And how can she be sure it is the truth? Sometimes it's better not to know.

Frost at Midnight is by James Henry.  August, 1983. Denton is preparing for a wedding. Detective Sergeant Waters should be on top of the world with less than a week to go until he marries Kim Myles. But the Sunday before the big day, instead of a run-through with his best man, the church is sealed off. The body of a young woman has been found in the churchyard, and their idyllic wedding venue has become a crime scene. Detective Sergeant Jack Frost has been homeless for the past three months, ever since his wife's family sold the matrimonial house. He's been staying with Detective Constable Sue Clarke but with a baby to take care of and the imminent arrival of her mother, she's given him his marching orders. But as best man to Waters, he's got a responsibility to solve the mystery of the dead girl in the churchyard. Can he put his own troubles aside and be the detective they need him to be? All in all, August looks set to be a wicked month in Denton...

Jack 'No Middle Name' Reacher, lone wolf, knight errant, ex military cop, lover of women, scourge of the wicked and righter of wrongs, is the most iconic hero for our age. This is the first time all Lee Child's shorter fiction featuring Jack Reacher has been collected into one volume. A brand-new novella, Too Much Time, is included, as are those previously only published in ebook form: Second Son, James Penney's New Identity, Guy Walks Into a Bar, Deep Down, High Heat, Not a Drill and Small Wars. Added to these is every other Reacher short story that Child has written: Everyone Talks, Maybe They Have a Tradition, No Room at the Motel and The Picture of the Lonely Diner. Read together, these twelve stories shed new light on Reacher’s past, illuminating how he grew up and developed into the wandering avenger who has captured the imagination of millions around the world.  No Middle Name is by Lee Child.

June 2017

Vicky thought that nobody would know if she just stepped out for twenty minutes. Everything was quiet; it was so easy for her to slip away ...One little lie. One little secret. One little mistake has changed everything. Now Vicky's best friend is going to help stop her whole life from falling apart. But if she's keeping Vicky's secret, then Vicky is going to have to keep hers in return...One Little Mistake is by Emma Curtis.

Fierce Kingdom is by Gin Phillips.  Lincoln is a good boy. At the age of four, he is curious, clever and well behaved. He does as his mum says and knows what the rules are. "The rules are different today. The rules are that we hide and do not let the man with the gun find us." When an ordinary day at the zoo turns into a nightmare, Joan finds herself trapped with her beloved son. She must summon all her strength, find unexpected courage and protect Lincoln at all costs - even if it means crossing the line between right and wrong; between humanity and animal instinct. It's a line none of us would ever normally dream of crossing. But sometimes the rules are different.

The Child is by Fiona Barton.  When a paragraph in an evening newspaper reveals a decades-old tragedy, most readers barely give it a glance. But for three strangers it's impossible to ignore. For one woman, it's a reminder of the worst thing that ever happened to her. For another, it reveals the dangerous possibility that her darkest secret is about to be discovered. And for the third, a journalist, it's the first clue in a hunt to uncover the truth. 

July 2017

There are some surprises that no-one should ever have to experience. Standing over the

body of your beloved - and murdered - niece is one of them. For Detective Inspector Harry Virdee, a man perilously close to the edge, it feels like the beginning of the end. His boss may be telling him he's too close to work the case, but this isn't something that Harry can just let lie. He needs to dive into the murky depths of the Bradford underworld and find the monster that lurks there who killed his flesh and blood. But before he can, he must tell his brother, Ron, the terrible news. And there is no predicting how he will react. Impulsive, dangerous and alarmingly well connected, Ron will act first and think later. Harry may have a murderer to find but if he isn't careful, he may also have a murder to prevent.  Girl Zero is by A A Dhand

They All Fall Down is by Tammy Cohen.  She knows there's a killer on the loose. But no-one believes her. Will she be next? Hannah had a normal life - a loving husband, a good job. Until she did something shocking. Now she's in a psychiatric clinic. It should be a safe place. But patients keep dying. The doctors say it's suicide. Hannah knows they're lying. Can she make anyone believe her before the killer strikes again?

A Stranger in the House is by Shari Lapena.  Why would you run scared from a happy home? You're waiting for your beloved husband to get home work. You're making dinner, looking forward to hearing about his day. That's the last thing you remember. You wake up in hospital, with no idea how you got there. They tell you that you were in an accident; you lost control of your car whilst driving in a dangerous part of town. The police suspect you were up to no good. But your husband refuses to believe it. Your best friend isn't so sure. And even you don't know what to believe…

 

Here and Gone is by Haylen Beck. Audra has finally left her abusive husband. She's taken the family car and her young children, Sean and Louise, are buckled up in the back. This is their chance for a fresh start. She keeps to the country roads to avoid attention and finds herself on an empty road in the Arizona desert, far from home. Looking for a safe place to stay for the night she spots something in her rear-view mirror. A police car is following her and the lights are flickering. Blue and red. As Audra pulls over she is intensely aware of how isolated they are. Her perfect escape is about to turn into a nightmare beyond her imagining.

Someone is Watching You is by Arne Dahl.  Someone is watching. At each abandoned crime scene there's a hidden clue: a tiny metal cog, almost invisible to the naked eye. Someone is sending Detective Sam Berger a message, someone who knows that only he will understand the cryptic trail. Someone knows. When another teenaged girl disappears without trace, Sam must convince his superiors that they're dealing with a serial killer. As the police continue the hunt to find the latest victim, Sam is forced to unearth long-buried personal demons. He has no choice if he is to understand the killer's darkly personal message before time runs out. Somebody is killing just for him.

August 2017

I have a secret. And someone wants to make sure I never tell ...In a house decorated with horror movie posters, a young woman's body is found. She lies on her bed, two bloodied objects clutched in her palm. Detective Jane Rizzoli and Forensic Pathologist Maura Isles are called to the murder scene, but even faced with this gruesome sight they are unable to identify the immediate cause of death. Their investigation leads them to a high-profile murder case that was seemingly solved years before. But when another body is found in horrific circumstances, the link between the two victims is clear. Was the wrong person sent to prison? Is the real killer out there right now, picking off new targets? One woman knows the killer is coming for her next. She's the only one who can help Rizzoli and Isles catch him. But she has a secret that she has to keep...  I Know a Secret is by Tess Gerritsen.

Last Stop Tokyo is by James Buckler.  The funny thing with suffering is just when you think you've suffered enough, you realize it's only the beginning. Alex thought running away would make everything better. Six thousand miles from the mistakes he's made and the people he's hurt, Tokyo seems like the perfect escape. A new life, a new Alex. The bright lights and dark corners of this alien and fascinating city intoxicate him, and he finds himself transfixed by this country, which feels like a puzzle that no one can quite explain. And when Alex meets the enigmatic and alluring Naoko, the peace he sought slips ever further from his grasp. After all, trust is just betrayal waiting to happen and Alex is about to find out that there's no such thing as rock bottom. There's always the chance it'll get worse...

 After helping to avert a deadly attack on London, Luke Carlton has been welcomed on board as a full-fledged member of SIS and is assigned the role of case officer running agents. He is sent undercover into Iran to 'turn' and recruit an officer in that country's infamous Revolutionary Guard Corps: the word is that a conservative group within the IRGC doesn't like the direction post-revolutionary Iran appear to be taking and are planning something big to embarrass their own government - and frighten the country's new 'allies' in the West. The intelligence services need to find out who and what, and fast...but then a senior British government minister on an official visit to Iran goes missing, his close protection officers are found murdered...  Ultimatum is by Frank Gardner.

Fatal Sunset is by Jason Webster. In the hills above Valencia is a notorious nightclub called Sunset. When its larger-than-life owner, Jose Luis, dies suddenly, everyone assumes it was a heart-attack. Perfectly understandable for a man of his age, size and lifestyle. Meanwhile, all is not well for Max Camara at HQ. His new boss, Rita Hernandez, has it in for him and his idiosyncratic methods. He must abandon a complex investigation into home-grown extremism to check out what looks like a routine death at Sunset. But an anonymous phone-call suggests otherwise...Back in the city, Max's journalist girlfriend Alicia is working on a lead that could turn out to be the story of her career. How her own investigation connects with Max's at Sunset, and an unholy network of drug dealers, priests and shady officials protecting a dark government secret, will place both their lives in jeopardy and push everything to the very edge.

The Accordionist is by Fred Vargas.  Louis Kehlweiler of the Three Evangelists trilogy returns, along with his beloved pet toad, Bufo. Vauquer Clement, a young accordionist in his thirties has disappeared, believed by police forces from Nevers to Paris to have killed two women, both shockingly violent murders. But Kehlweiler is not so sure he’s guilty. With his team of experts, he must go back and look at all the facts, and see if he can clear Clement’s name before it’s too late.

Susan Svendsen has a special talent: she has a unique ability to make people confide in her and tell her their innermost secrets. She has exploited that talent, and now has a prison sentence hanging over her head for punching a Bollywood actor in an Indian casino. To make matters worse, her husband is on the run from the mafia, one of her children has been accused of antiquity smuggling and the other has run off with a monk. But Susan gets an offer from a former government official - an offer to use her power one more time and have all her charges dropped so she can return to Denmark. Together with her family, she must track down the last surviving members of a secret think tank of young talents founded in the 1970s, the so - called Future Committee, and find out what was written in the committee's final report. But the report is apparently covering up information of great value, and some powerful people are determined it is not revealed.  The Susan Effect is by Peter Høeg.

October 2017

Stone has returned to London.  Both the UK and the US are in a state of unrest and ever more extreme politicians are looking to take advantage of an unstable world.  Their motives are unclear. But their threat is real.  Who are they really working for?  Line of Fire is by Andy McNabb

After The Fire is the final novel by Henning Mankell. Fredrik Welin is a seventy-year-old retired doctor. Years ago he retreated to the Swedish archipelago, where he lives alone on an island. He swims in the sea every day, cutting a hole in the ice if necessary. He lives a quiet life. Until he wakes up one night to find his house on fire. Fredrik escapes just in time, wearing two left-footed wellies, as neighbouring islanders arrive to help douse the flames. All that remains in the morning is a stinking ruin and evidence of arson. The house that has been in his family for generations and all his worldly belongings are gone. He cannot think who would do such a thing, or why. Without a suspect, the police begin to think he started the fire himself. 

November 2017

The Badger is back! In the middle of a gang war, wanted for murder, truly alone and outside the law, Detective Inspector LeBrock is on the run from both the police and gangster assassins, the victim of a diabolical scheme to annihilate himself and everyone he holds dear, engineered by mastermind crime lord Tiberius Koenig, one of the most despicable villains in the history of detective fiction. A fiendishly ingenious story of love, tenacity, treachery and tragedy, featuring Grandville's trademark high-octane excitement, humour and deduction on a Holmesian scale as we finally meet LeBrock's mentor, Stamford Hawksmoor, and discover LeBrock's untold backstory. Fan favourite characters, Detective Sergeant Roderick Ratzi and LeBrock's vivacious fiancee, Parisian prostitute Billie, are joined by a new badger in town! Enter Tasso, an Italian badger who's bigger, meaner and uglier than LeBrock - but is he a force for good - or evil? A battle royale ensues as LeBrock fights against truly outrageous odds. How can he possibly survive? Prepare to be royally badgered!  Grandville Force Majeure is by Bryan Talbot.

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Books to Look Forward to From Vintage

An intoxicating and furiously paced thriller taking us into the black heart of contemporary celebrity.  Amber Knight is London’s hottest ticket – pop star, film star, and the front-page subject of daily tabloid gossip.  Nick Belsey is less celebrated.  His decade-long career at Hampstead CID seems to be coming to an end, and his habit of getting into serious trouble is on going.  He is currently of no fixed abode.  But when Belsey is asked by a desperate mother to help find her son, he finds himself infiltrating the entourage of Amber Knight.  It is a world of excess, obsession, lust and greed – precisely as Belsey had expected, and perhaps even hoped for.  Soon, though, the blood begins to flow, one sickening crime is followed by the next, and Belsey finds himself in a far more deadly world, whose mysteries he must solve and whose grip he must escape.  The House of Fame is the third book in the Nick Belsey series by Oliver Harris and is due to be published in June 2015.

Tell No Tales is by Eva Dolan and is due to be published in January 2015.  In the second book from a rising star of crime fiction, Detectives Zigic and Ferreira must investigate a hit-and-run that leaves two migrant workers dead and a series of horrific killings, seemingly with a Neo-Nazi motivation, captured on CCTV.  The car that ploughs into the bus stop early one morning leaves a trail of death and destruction behind it.  DS Ferreira and DI Zigic are called in from the Peterborough Hate Crimes Unit to handle the hit-and-run, but with another major case on their hands, one with disturbing Neo-Nazi overtones, they are relieved when there seems to be an obvious suspect.  But the case isn't that simple and with tensions erupting in the town leading to more violence, the media are soon hounding them for answers.  Ferreira believes that local politician Richard Shotton, head of a recently established right-wing party, must be involved somehow.  Journalists have been quick to acclaim Shotton, with his Brazilian wife and RAF career, as a serious contender for a major political career, despite his extremist views, but is his party a cover for something far more dangerous?

When twelve-year-old Ciaran Devine confessed to killing his foster carer it sent shock waves through the nation.  He said his older brother Thomas had tried to stop him, but the killing rage had burned too brightly.  Seven years later, Ciaran's release will set a new and even more deadly chain of events in motion.  DCI Serena Flanagan, then an ambitious Detective Sergeant, took the boy's confession after days and weeks spent earning his trust.  He hasn't forgotten the kindness she showed him - in fact; she hasn't left his thoughts in all the years he's been locked away.  Probation officer Paula Cunningham, reluctantly tasked with helping Ciaran re-enter society, suspects there was more to this case than the police or the prosecutors uncovered.  Soon she wonders if Ciaran really committed the murder at all.  His confession saved his brother Thomas from a lengthier sentence, and Cunningham sees the unnatural hold Thomas has over Ciaran.  When she brings her concerns to DCI Flanagan, the years of lies begin to unravel, leading to a truth stranger than anyone could have imagined.  Those we Left Behind is by Stuart Neville and is due to be published in June 2015.

"In this land of chaos and despair, all I can do is wish for magic armour and the power to

disappear.”  Freetown, Sierra Leone.  A city of heat and dirt, of guns and militia.  Alone in its crowded streets, Captain Roland Nair has been given a single assignment.  He must find Michael Adriko - maverick, warrior, and the man who has saved Nair's life three times and risked it many more.  The two men have schemed, fought, and profited together in the most hostile regions of the world.  But on this new level - espionage, state secrets, and treason - their loyalties will be tested to the limit.  This is a brutal journey through a land abandoned by the future - a journey that will lead them to meet themselves not in a new light, but in a new darkness. The Laughing Monsters is by Denis Johnson and is due to be published in February 2015.

The Drowned Boy is by Karin Fossum and is due to be published in June 2015.  'He had just learnt to walk,' she said.  'He was playing on a blanket on the floor and then suddenly he was gone.’  She tried to dry her tears.  She was only nineteen years old, though she somehow seemed younger.  'I know that it's my fault.  You can tell me, I know what you're thinking.  I should have kept an eye on him, but I was only away for a few minutes.’  A 16-month-old boy with Down's Syndrome is found naked and drowned in a pond right by his home.  Chief Inspector Konrad Sejer is called to the scene, as there is something troubling about the mother's story.  As even her own family turns against her, Sejer is determined to get to the truth.

Olav lives the lonely life of a fixer.  When you 'fix' people for a living - terminally - it's hard to get close to anyone.  Now he's finally met the woman of his dreams.  But there are two problems.  She's his boss' wife.  And Olav's just been hired to kill her.  Blood on Snow is by Jo Nesbo and is due to be published in April 2015.

Tensions in Spain are rising: unemployment remains high and political violence has suddenly re-emerged.  In Catalonia - Valencia's neighbour - plans are afoot to hold a potentially explosive referendum on independence from the rest of Spain.  The last time such a proposal was seriously discussed, in the 1930s, the country quickly descended into civil war.  When a shallow grave is found among the orange groves to the north of the city, Max is put on the case.  But this is no ordinary murder.  Behind it, Max uncovers a tangled web that could destabilise the whole country.  The One and The Two is by Jason Webster and is due to be published in June 2015.

Jason Webster's The Spy With 29 Names

Today's guest blog is by crime novelist, travel writer and critic Jason Webster.  Best known for his

Chief Inspector Max Cámara series.  The first book in the series Or The Bull Kills You (2011) was long-listed for the CWA New Blood Dagger. His novel Duende: A journey in search of Flamenco (2003) was long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award.

Some stories have a haunting power - they seep into your dreams and become a part of you. And those kinds of stories may be ‘true’ or ‘untrue’ in the ordinary sense - it really doesn’t matter. The fact is, once you have come across them, you will never be the same again.

The life and achievements of the Spanish WWII double agent Juan Pujol have resonated with me for a decade, ever since I first learned of him. An ordinary-looking yet complex man, Pujol played an indispensable role in the success of D-Day and the Normandy campaign. And he did so by telling stories and inventing larger-than-life characters - fictional members of his supposed network of Nazi spies based in Britain and around the world, feeding disinformation to Hitler and German high command.

His tale was a perfect example of the pen being mightier than the sword.

Pujol himself was from Barcelona - a dreamer and a liar, and yet a deeply noble and kind man. He comes across as a character from a picaresque novel - a saintly rogue and compelling fantasist with unorthodox ideas about truth, someone who defies simple labels of ‘good’ and ‘bad’: at once innocent, like Don Quixote, and wily, like Sancho Panza.

And through his stories, and the powerful grip that they had over German commanders, Pujol became the greatest double agent in history, changing the course of the Second World War. Without him and his extraordinary imagination, the Allies would almost certainly have been defeated in Normandy in June 1944.

I knew that I wanted to tell his tale, but circled around it for years, not knowing quite how to tackle it. In the meantime I wrote other books - travel and history books about my adopted homeland Spain, the first novels in my crime series about Chief Inspector Max Cámara of the Spanish National Police. But Pujol always returned to my thoughts, as though calling to me.

In the end I decided to write something about him, and to tell his tale ‘straight’ - or at least as straight as possible: it’s a story that gets to the very heart of the problem with strict distinctions between ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’.

Having written a crime series, I wanted to flesh the story out - much like a novel. Pujol had affected the lives of millions through what he did and so I brought to life a handful of those most directly touched by his deception work: a brutal and effective German commander whose tanks were re-routed away from Normandy thanks to Pujol’s ‘intelligence’; British soldiers landing in Normandy and fighting their way through northern France; a Spanish lieutenant with the Free French who was the first Allied soldier to reach central Paris in August 1944; Hitler himself, reading Pujol’s reports and making crucial decisions based on information from someone he wrongly believed was ‘his man in London’.

My accounts of all these people were based on historical research, but I treated them as far as possible as characters in a story, weaving them into the narrative of Pujol and the great web of deception that he cast over the spring and summer of 1944.

And I pieced together Pujol’s life and work, running in parallel. As great battles were being fought in Normandy, he was sitting in a tiny office near Piccadilly, often spending the night there, dreaming up stories with his brilliant MI5 case officer, Tomás Harris - half-Spanish half-Jewish, a fluent Spanish-speaker and gifted artist as well as intelligence genius. Occasionally, when work permitted, Pujol managed to make it home to a modest house in Hendon where his wife, Araceli, was looking after their two small children, suffering multiple breakdowns as she coped with the language and cultural challenges of living in wartime Britain, far from her native Spain. Not only was Pujol battling Hitler, he also had a crumbling marriage to cope with on his personal home front.

It has been a richly rewarding book to write, delving into the archives both in Spain and Britain in order to piece together Pujol’s life, unearthing some gems along the way. It was not surprising, perhaps, that in a tale about the secret world there should be more secrets to be uncovered.

And a personal connection to his story developed the more I explored it: as a Brit obsessed with Spain I could hardly fail to be engrossed in this curious - and rare - example of Anglo-Spanish cooperation and harmony. And as a writer and story-teller I felt a link of sorts with the man himself.

He told stories in order to change the world. The Spy with 29 Names is my version of his tale - and a homage to one of the most important story-tellers who has ever lived.

You can find more information about Jason and his work on jasonwebster.net and specifically about The Spy With 29 Names at thespywith29names.com.  He can also be found on Twitter @jwebsterwriter and you can also follow him on Facebook.

THE SPY WITH 29 NAMES is out now and is published by Chatto & Windus.