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...

Forthcoming Books from Baskerville Press (John Murray)

 February 2025

Dirty Money is by Charlotte Philby. Ramona Chang. An investigative journalist turned private detective, Ramona's final scoop left her with a target on her back. Now in hiding, she is living in a run-down flat in east London. But when her latest case looking into an upmarket escort agency takes a dark turn, she needs information only accessible to those in power. Detective Sergeant Madeleine Farrow. A high-flying operative at a government agency, it's the day of her fiftieth birthday when Madeleine finds out that she has been given the lead on an investigation into corruption on a global scale. But when she finds her case mysteriously blocked from the inside, she needs someone on the outside, capable of moving undetected. As Ramona and Madeleine's cases collide, can the unlikely allies find justice for multiple victims within the capital's hotbed of lies and deception?

June 2025

Death has come to her doorstep . . . Retired nurse, avid gardener, renowned cake maker and fearless sleuth Miss Hortense has lived in Bigglesweigh, a quiet Birmingham suburb, since she emigrated from Jamaica in 1960. She takes great pride in her home, starching her lace curtains bright white, and she can tell if she's being short-changed on turmeric before she's taken her first bite of a beef patty. Thirty-five years of nursing have also left her afraid of nobody, be they a local drug dealer or a priest, and an expert in deciphering other people's secrets with just a glance. Miss Hortense uses her skills to investigate the investments of the Pardner network - a special community of Black investors, determined to help their people succeed. But when an unidentified man is found dead in one of the Pardner's homes, a bible quote noted down beside his body, Miss Hortense's long buried past comes rushing back to greet her, bringing memories of the worst moment of her life, one which her community has never let her forget. It is time for Miss Hortense to solve a mystery that will see her, and the community she loves, tested to their limits. A Murder for Miss Hortense is by Mel Pennant.

Tom Baragwanath on small-town claustrophobia

Some years ago, I moved from a place where it felt like everyone knew me – and I, in turn, felt I knew everyone – to a place where nobody knows me. From small-town New Zealand to Paris, I exchanged bumping into mates on the walk to the supermarket for bread for a thousand incredible boulangeries where not a single soul knew my name. This sudden anonymity was bracing, and a little thrilling. But soon, I found myself craving a little small-town claustrophobia. When nobody in the street knew a thing about me, I wondered what it would be like if everybody knew everything about me.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but this germ of homesickness was ready to sprout into a book: my debut novel Paper Cage. Naturally, I gave my heroine Lorraine Henry an encyclopaedic knowledge of my rural hometown of Masterton. As a file clerk in the police station, Lorraine would know better than anyone the way stories, facts, and gossip all intertwine and coalesce to form a sense of a person: what they’re like, what they do, how far they can be trusted. As far as it’s possible to know a person, Lorraine would know them – or she would think she did. 

Lorraine would have an unerring compass when it came to navigating threats both within the community and outside of it. As the embodiment of small-town collective surveillance, Lorraine would have a sense of the unspoken things lurking between the police reports she’d been writing. Because she’d been watching; because she’d been listening. So when children from marginalised families started going missing, she’d know exactly where to look. 

But because this is small-town New Zealand, Lorraine would quickly run into the emotional miasma that builds up inside so many insular communities. Getting useful information would mean contending with decades-old grievances, obsessions, and spats. It would mean navigating the invisible web of judgement and suspicion, and pulling apart some of the secrets binding people so tight they can barely breathe. 

Working on this novel was more than just a chance to treat my own homesickness – cheaper than a plane trip home, and with a lot less paperwork given the New Zealand government’s near penitential COVID lockdown policy at the time. It was a chance to explore small-town claustrophobia from all sides, and to understand what it is about marginal or forgotten places that writers – especially writers of crime or thriller stories – just can’t seem to escape. 

From Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen to Shelley Burr’s Wake, from True Detective to Fargo, there’s something about tiny communities that lends itself to great stories. For me, it’s the sense of people being so deep in each other’s business: of living, as Lorraine puts it, “cheek-to-jowl”. In a city of millions, it’s easy to disappear into the crowd. In a town of thousands, hundreds, or even dozens, one feels constantly exposed, and constantly judged. And while it’s true that small communities can pull together in miraculous ways to face external threats, it’s just as common for these threats to pit neighbour against neighbour. 

In the vein of the Coen Brothers, I also wanted to showcase the straight-up weirdness of small-town New Zealand. Or rather, I wanted to showcase how our local flavour of weirdness can better illuminate a more universal strangeness. Is it really that odd that the Gull service station in Masterton sells its fried chicken at half-price after midnight, for example? Should it surprise anyone that fights often break out at Featherston’s Underhill Road swimming hole on the hottest days of summer? And isn’t it only natural that gangs of bored kids might spear eels in the gutters with garden forks during a once-in-a-century flood?

I never imagined that by indulging my homesickness and sharing these kinds of hyper-local details I would end up connecting with a global audience of readers. But now that Paper Cage has made its way onto bookshelves around the world, I’ve come to understand that we make sense of ourselves not through sweeping universal stories, but through small ones. 

As I walk the streets of Paris, I find myself still enjoying my mask of relative anonymity. And yet, there’s something about small-town claustrophobia that keeps drawing me back to Masterton, and back into Lorraine’s story. Or maybe it’s only by going back to those streets where my characters feel like they can’t breathe that I’m able to breathe easy.

Paper Cage by Tom Baragwanath (John Murray Press)

Masterton, New Zealand may be a small town, but its residents are certainly not united. Old resentments and the simmering tensions of race and culture divide the Maori and white inhabitants, with everyone keeping to their own patch of turf. But when local children start to go missing, vanishing between the cracks, accusations are hurled, and community relations reach boiling point. Caught in the middle is Lorraine Henry. She works as a lowly records clerk at the police station amongst towering piles of paperwork, quietly making connections and remembering things that the cops would rather not. Solving cases is not part of her job, but when her great-nephew is the next to disappear, she must put her skills to the test as she is called in to help, all before time runs out for the children.

 

 

 

No Ordinary Day with Matt Johnson and John Murray.

 Author Matt Johnson in conversation with contributor John Murray to talk about how this book came about.

Matt Johnson

Matt: John, perhaps we should explain who we are first, about the campaign and how this all got started?

John: April 17th 1984, a day that will forever live in our memories. Yvonne and I were both uniform PCs at Bow Street. On that day, we were scheduled to do some routine work but were re-assigned to a demonstration outside the Libyan People’s Bureau in St James’s Square. You were driving the local traffic car, as I now know.

Matt: That’s right, and although I’d never met you at that time, I knew Yvonne quite well. Not too long before, she’d been at my house warming party with Mick Liddle, her fiancé. Matt: John, perhaps we should explain who we are first, about the campaign and how this all got started?

John: April 17th 1984, a day that will forever live in our memories. Yvonne and I were both uniform PCs at Bow Street. On that day, we were scheduled to do some routine work but were re-assigned to a demonstration outside the Libyan People’s Bureau in St James’s Square. You were driving the local traffic car, as I now know.

Matt: That’s right, and although I’d never met you at that time, I knew Yvonne quite well. Not too long before, she’d been at my house warming party with Mick Liddle, her fiancé. 

John Murray

John: Mick was on the demonstration as well, just a few yards from us. We were standing facing about fifty noisy demonstrators who were venting their anger against Colonel Gaddafi. I remember hearing a noise like fire crackers going off and then everything went silent, not a sound. Then, from the crowd somebody screamed.

Matt: When did you first realise Yvonne and many others had been shot?

John: It took a while; I mean who would ever have expected a man to open up on us with a Sterling machine gun from the first floor of the Embassy? Yvonne and I had changed position several times and it was only a moment earlier when she’d come across to me and offered to swap. The people in front of me were particularly vocal so she was doing me a favour. She was in my line of sight and I saw her go down. I thought she’d tripped over but it was only as she writhed in agony that I realised it was more serious than that. Our Sergeant, Howard Turner, helped me with her and it was then we saw the blood and her wound.

Matt: So, you knew then you’d been shot at and many people had been hit?

John: We all realised, if they opened up again we were sitting ducks. But there were injured people who needed help and, as we know, that sometimes means risking it all to do that. Together with another PC called Pete Rogers, we lifted Yvonne and carried her to Charles II Street where it was safer. And that’s where you came in. When the ambulance arrived, you were assigned to escort us to the Westminster Hospital.

Matt: Were you able to speak to Yvonne during those moments?

John: I was. She was hurting and I used a pair of scissors to cut the waistband of her skirt. There were two Libyan students with us who’d also been shot. One was really crying. Yvonne talked to him, calmed him down and reassured him. 

Matt: She realised she’d been shot?

John: By then, yes. And I promised her I would not rest until I’d helped he get the people who’d done it.

Matt: And an hour later came the awful news, that she had died?

John: Yes, and as we know, what followed was the longest siege in UK policing history. At the end of which our Government decided everyone inside, even those suspected of involvement in the murder, would be allowed to leave without being prosecuted.

Matt: Because they had diplomatic immunity?

John: They had nothing of the kind, as we now know. Some of those Libyans were killers, bombers, terrorists. They were in the UK to murder people.

Matt: And now the full story behind what happened that day is about to be told in this book. 

John: Yes, and if you don’t mind me saying, you’ve done an incredible job. This was a three dimensional jigsaw of information, some related, some apparently quite random. You’ve pieced it together with the skill of a detective.

Matt: Do you recall how the idea to write it came about?

John: The Victoria Derbyshire show had the idea to mark the anniversary of the murder with a reunion. They wanted to talk to me about what was a 36 year campaign at that time, and to bring me together with you, with Tony Long from the firearms team and with Clive Mabry, that legend amongst police officers.

Matt: Clive being the PC who sneaked into the Square late at night and under cover of darkness to recover Yvonne’s hat from the street outside the Libyan Embassy?

John: I’d never met him. We knew he existed but it was the BBC researcher who tracked him down. Ex-para. Brave as you can imagine. Rescued her hat so it could sit on her coffin for the funeral.

Matt: The coffin you personally carried into Salisbury Cathedral.

John: That’s right. I repeated my promise to her that day as well. I promised I would get the men that did it. 

Matt: Do you remember how the idea for a book came up that day?

John: I’ve read all your novels and loved them. And I remember you dedicated your very first novel to Yvonne’s memory. Clive suggested it as we talked about those books. He reckoned you could do it because you’d be able to get access to people that an ordinary writer couldn’t. And they’d talk you because of your pedigree. 

Matt: I remember I took a long time thinking about it. It was a lot of responsibility. I’d never written non-fiction before and I didn’t want to let you down, to let down Yvonne’s memory. Even once I’d started I had many doubts.

John: It was a mammoth task. We knew there was stuff in the National Archives waiting to be discovered and there was a story to be told but it grew to even more than I expected.

Matt: Amazing to think what the Government was up to in those days, supposedly in our best interests?

John: And what they’re almost certainly up to today.

Matt; So, what is your hope for the book?

John: I’m hoping people will read it and learn the truth. Over the years I’ve talked to more people than I could count who remember where they were and what they were doing on the day Yvonne was shot. This was a national tragedy not just a police tragedy. I want people to understand what drove me to do the best for my friend and to secure justice for her. I want them to know who killed Yvonne, how they did it and why. And I want them to know why our Government wanted the killers to go free. What about you, similar I’d guess?

Matt: Yes, all as you describe. But for me there’s more. I want people to learn about you and about how brave you’ve been, the personal risks you’ve taken and the dangers you’ve faced and, despite all that, you never gave up. And I want people to read how events that day shaped policing in the UK for the next forty years, and in ways they might hardly have believed. The truth, I think, will shock people but sadly, I fear it may not surprise them.

John Murray has fought for nearly 40 years to secure justice for the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher. No Ordinary Day tells the story of that fight.

No Ordinary Day: Espionage, Betrayal, Terrorism and Corruption - The Truth Behind the Murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher by Matt Johnson with John Murray (Mardle Books) Out Now.

On 17 April 1984, as police and anti-Gaddafi demonstrators gathered in the street outside the Libyan People's Bureau in London, they had no way of knowing they were about to become part of one of the greatest tragedies in British policing history. At 10.17a.m. automatic gunfire rained down on them. WPC Yvonne Fletcher was hit in the back and later died from her injuries. Twelve demonstrators were wounded. The gunmen were Libyans, both concealed behind a first-floor window of the Bureau. Two weeks later, all those present inside the Bureau, including everyone suspected of involvement in the attack, were deported from the UK. Men guilty of terrorism and murder were neither arrested nor prosecuted. As Yvonne Fletcher lay dying, her colleague and close friend PC John Murray cradled her in his arms. Before she lost consciousness, he promised her he would not rest until those responsible for her murder had been brought to justice.

Thirty-seven years would pass before John was able to fulfil that promise. Whilst writing John Murray's story, Matt Johnson identified UK government duplicity, secret service deals and how a plan to finally defeat the all-powerful National Union of Mineworkers would place the government in an invidious position when pro- and anti-Gaddafi elements brought their fight to the streets of the UK. He was able to discover why, in 1984, her killers had been allowed to go free. His extensive research also revealed how events on 17 April resulted in a 30-year government campaign to bring the police services of the UK under political control, a campaign that has driven our police service into the state of disarray we see today. The story behind what happened outside the Libyan People's Bureau is complex, shocking and revealing. Matt Johnson's compelling account pulls together a series of seemingly unconnected threads into a coherent whole, incorporating all the inter-related elements of politics, business, secret service missions and chance. For some, this will be a very uncomfortable read. For many, it may confirm what they already suspect, that we, the public, know very little of the decisions being made by our elected representatives and the actions taken by official bodies, supposedly in our best interests.

Forthcoming books from John Murray

 July 2023

Australian inventor and geo-engineer Clive Winner is the genius who brought the Great Barrier Reef back from the brink, yet his ambition goes well beyond that. He wants to save the planet. To Winner, climate change is just another engineering problem, and he is determined to find the solution. For the all-powerful fossil fuel industry, Winner is their 'get out of jail free card'. If he can engineer a solution to a rapidly warming planet then this trillion-dollar business can continue as usual. The stakes - both financial and moral - are high. But does Winner still believe his own lucrative brand of ambitious climate engineering holds the answer? With the Paris Climate conference looming on the horizon, scientists in the same field as Winner begin to disappear in suspicious circumstances. Old-school journalist William Carver is given a tip-off by a trusted Whitehall source. His gut instinct tells him there's a story there, but he'll need help to tell it, and time is of the essence. With scientists, green campaigners and well-intentioned politicians in the firing line, William Carver and his colleagues have to move fast. They know the journalist's job is to speak truth to power - but first you must uncover that truth and this time it's buried deeper than ever. Racing between Sydney, New York, Seville and London, The Burning Time by Peter Hanington is a smart, fast-paced and action-packed international thriller for the 21st century.

September 2023

The Secret Hours is by Mick Herron. Monochrome is a busted flush - an inquiry into the misdeeds of the intelligence services, established by a vindictive prime minister but rendered toothless by a wily chief spook. For years it has ground away uselessly, interviewing witnesses with nothing to offer, producing a report with nothing to say, while the civil servants at its helm see their careers disappearing into a black hole. And then the OTIS file falls into their hands … What secrets does this hold that see a long-redundant spy being chased through Devon's green lanes in the dark? What happened in a newly reunified Berlin that someone is desperate to keep under wraps? And who will win the battle for the soul of the secret service - or was that decided a long time ago? Spies and pen-pushers, politicians and PAs, high-flyers, time-servers and burn-outs ... They all have jobs to do in the daylight. But what they do in the secret hours reveals who they really are.

October 2023

Edinburgh, 1923. Evelyn Hazard is a young Scottish woman living a comfortable and unremarkable middle-class life until her quiet existence is shattered when her staid, reliable husband Robert suddenly announces that he can communicate with the dead. As the couple are pulled into the spiritualist movement that emerged following the mass deaths caused by the First World War and the Spanish Flu, dark secrets from Evelyn's past threaten to surface. Faced with the prospect of losing all that is dear to her, Evelyn finds herself asking: is the man she loves a fraud, a madman or - most frighteningly - is he telling the truth? Hazardous Spirits is by Anbara Salam.

November 2023

The year is 1795 and evil lurks in the winding alleys of eighteenth-century Stockholm. The sinister, vengeful landowner, Tycho Ceton, remains at large after he set a devastating fire that claimed many lives. In 1795, the third and final trilogy we are reunited with Mickel Cardell and Emil Winge as they attempt to catch Ceton before he can wreak further havoc on the city. They must act quickly before the city sees its darkest days yet. 1795 is by Niklas Natt och Dag

Forthcoming Books from John Murray (Incl Baskerville Press)

January 2023

Birmingham, 1933. Private enquiry agent William Garrett, a man damaged by a dark childhood spent on Birmingham's canals, specialises in facilitating divorces for the city's male elite. With the help of his best friend - charming, out-of-work actor Ronnie Edgerton - William sets up honey traps. But photographing unsuspecting women in flagrante plagues his conscience and William heaves up his guts with remorse after every job. However, William's life changes when he accidentally meets the beautiful Clara Morton and falls in love. Little does he know she is the wife of a client - a leading fascist with a dangerous obsession. And what should have been another straightforward job turns into something far more deadly. Needless Alley is by Natalie Marlow.

February 2023

Lady Joker: Volume 2 is by Kaoru Takamura. Five men who meet at a Tokyo racetrack every week carry out a heist. They have kidnapped the CEO of Japan's largest beer company to extract blood money from the company's corrupt financiers. Known as Lady Joker, the men make their first attack on the beer company when their demands are not met. As the attacks escalate, the shady networks linking corporations to syndicates are exposed, the stakes rise, and bring into riveting focus the lives and motivations of the victims, the perpetrators, the heroes and the villains. Some will lose everything, even their lives.

March 2023

The Company is by J M Varese. London, 1870. Lucy Braithwhite lives a privileged existence as heir to the fortune of Braithwhite & Company - the most successful purveyor of English luxury wallpapers the world over. The company's formulas have been respected for nearly a century, but have always remained cloaked in mystery. No one has been able to explain the originality of design, or the brilliance of their colours, leaving many to wonder if the mysterious spell-like effect of their wallpapers is due simply to artistry, or something more sinister. When Mr Luckhurst, the company's manager, and the man who has acted as surrogate father to Lucy and her invalid brother John since they were children, suddenly dies, Lucy is shocked to discover that there is no succession plan in place. Who will ensure that the company and her family continue to thrive? The answer soon arrives in the form of the young and alluring Julian Rivers, who, unbeknownst to Lucy and John, has been essential to the company's operations for some time. At first, he seems like the answer to their prayers, but as Lucy begins piecing together Julian's true intentions, and John begins seeing spectral visions in the house's wallpaper, it becomes clear to Lucy that she must do everything within her power to oppose the diabolic forces that have risen up to destroy her family.

April 2023

Jaleesa, Kai, Ilya and Dani are online best friends, and superfans of the hit TV show City Of Night. Fantasising about the show in their chatroom, they find an escape from their troubled small-town lives. Everything changes when Chloe, make-up artist to the show's star Alice Temple, enters the chat. When Chloe tells them Alice is in danger the four resolve to save her, and make their way to California. But fantasy is quickly overtaken by reality. Alice's troubles, they discover, will shine the spotlight on all of them. And not in a good way. On the run across the American South with one of the most famous actresses in the world, the fans must evade the police, the Russian mafia and the Legion, an absurd but terrifying new far-right movement. Can they keep running for long enough to uncover the truth about Alice, and discover themselves in the process? Panic is by Luke Jennings.

May 2023

Coffee and Cigarettes is by Ferdinand Von Schirach. The judge is a calm, level-headed man. He often asks himself what the 'rule of law' actually means. What would he do if a majority in his country passed a law that reintroduced the death penalty? When should a principle-based decision take precedence over a majority decision? When must it do so? Or do ethics count for nothing against the will of the people? Ferdinand von Schirach is one of Germany's most eminent criminal defence lawyers and an internationally bestselling author, best known for his dark, probing short stories and novels, which interrogate the blurred lines of right and wrong, justice and punishment, within the legal system. In Coffee and Cigarettes, he returns with gripping character portraits and short stories, as well as autobiographical vignettes and astute observations drawn from his life and career. From conversations with imprisoned clients, great writers and supreme court judges, and vignettes on art, film and smoking, to observations on Germany's heavy history - as well as his own family's.

June 2023

All of us knew him. One of us killed him... Seven women stand in shock in a seedy hotel room; a man's severed head sits in the centre of the floor. Each of the women - the wife, the teenager, the ex, the journalist, the colleague, the friend, and the woman who raised him - has a very good reason to have done it, yet each swears she did not. In order to protect each other, they must figure out who is responsible, all while staying one step ahead of the police. Against the ticking clock of a murder investigation, each woman's secret is brought to light as the connections between them converge to reveal a killer. A dark and nuanced portrait of love, loyalty, and manipulation, Speak of the Devil explores the roles in which women are cast in the lives of terrible men...and the fallout when they refuse to stay silent for one moment longer. Speak of the Devil is by Rose Wilding.

 

What next in 2022!

So, 2021 was hard for so many of us with various things happening, specifically the pandemic. However, for me personally there were a number of good things to celebrate crime fiction wise. The Shotsblog has been going from strength to strength. Looking back in 2020 we had over 250 blog posts. We managed to surpass that in 2021 with 354. What a coup!

I found myself doing more events online last year than I expected and as much as I enjoyed doing them I did miss that face to face contact. Being able to see friends and catch up with people. I am however looking forward to various crime fiction events this year.

There were some great books released last year and my list of favourite reads can be found here. This list could have been doubled. Saying that there are also a great number of books due to be published in 2022. As much as I would like to indicate all the books that I am looking forward to reading this year, I am going to start with the ones that I am looking forward to reading in the first six months of 2022.

I have always been a big Raymond Chandler fan and if you have read any interviews that I have done then I have always mentioned him as one of my all time favourite authors. I am therefore quite intrigued to see how good the re-imaging of Philip Marlowe is going to be.  The Goodbye Coast: A Philip Marlowe Novel by Joe Ide (Orion). The seductive and relentless figure of Raymond Chandler's detective, Philip Marlowe, is vividly re-imagined in present-day Los Angeles. Here is a city of scheming Malibu actresses, ruthless gang members, virulent inequality, and washed-out police. Acclaimed and award-winning novelist Joe Ide imagines a Marlowe very much of our time: he's a quiet, lonely, and remarkably capable and confident private detective, though he lives beneath the shadow of his father, a once-decorated LAPD homicide detective, famous throughout the city, who's given in to drink after the death of Marlowe's mother. Marlowe, against his better judgement, accepts two missing person cases, the first a daughter of a faded, tyrannical Hollywood starlet, and the second, a British child stolen from his mother by his father. At the centre of COAST is Marlowe's troubled and confounding relationship with his father, a son who despises yet respects his dad, and a dad who's unable to hide his bitter disappointment with his grown boy. Together, they will realise that one of their clients may be responsible for murder of her own husband, a washed-up director in debt to Albanian and Russian gangsters, and that the client's trouble-making daughter may not be what she seems.

I have been a huge fan of Gregg Hurwitz even before he started writing his Orphan X series. His Tim Rackley series has always been one of my favourites. However, when Orphan X was first published he created an extraordinary character that has continued to grow and fascinate readers continuously. The next book in the Orphan X series is Dark Horse (Michael Joseph) The hero - Evan Smoak: former off-the-books assassin - code name Orphan X. His world is divided into those who deserve his help and those who've brought his singular brand of justice upon themselves. The victim - A desperate father reaches out. His teenage daughter Anjelina has been kidnapped by a brutal criminal cartel and spirited over the border into Mexico. And while money is no object, Evan soon realises that his prospective client's past is as clouded and compromised as his own. The mission - If Evan is going to put his life on the line to rescue Anjelina, he must first decide whether he can act on behalf of a bad man. And even then, up against the men who are holding his daughter, there will be no guarantee of success...

Kotaro Isaka's Bullet Train was an unusual book featuring a bunch of assassins aboard a train, where not that many get off at the other end. It was one of my favourite reads in 2021 so I am looking forward to Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka (Vintage). Once again assassins are in the mix. Their mission is murder. His is revenge. Suzuki is just an ordinary man until his wife is murdered. When he discovers the criminal gang responsible he leaves behind his life as a maths teacher and joins them, looking for a chance to take his revenge. What he doesn't realise is that he's about to get drawn into a web of unusual professional assassins, each with their own agenda. The Whale convinces his victims to take their own lives using just his words. The Cicada is a talkative and deadly knife expert. The elusive Pusher dispatches his targets in deadly traffic accidents. Suzuki must take each of them on, in order to try to find justice and keep his innocence in a world of killers. 

If you have never read any of Mick Herron's Slough House series then I would suggest that you do so. 2021 saw the publication of Dolphin Junction a collection of short stories which included a peek into the past of Slough House's top agent Jackson Lamb. Bad Actors (John Murray) sees the return to Slough House with a full length novel. Intelligence has a new home. A governmental think-tank, whose remit is to curb the independence of the intelligence service, has lost one of its key members, and Claude Whelan-one-time head of MI5's Regent's Park-is tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads straight back to the Park itself, with Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Diana overplayed her hand at last? What's her counterpart, Moscow's First Desk, doing in London? And does Jackson Lamb know more than he's telling? Over at Slough House, with Shirley Dander in rehab, Roddy Ho in dress rehearsal, and new recruit Ashley Khan turning up the heat, the slow horses are doing what they do best, and adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation . . . There are bad actors everywhere, and they usually get their comeuppance before the credits roll. But politics is a dirty business, and in a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing are the norm, sometimes the good guys can find themselves outgunned.

The Book of Sand (Century) is the posthumous published book by Theo Clare who for many of us is better known as Mo Hayder. This is not strictly a crime book more of a high concept thriller. But with the loss last year of Mo Hayder The Book of Sand is a welcome reminder of how good a writer she is. Sand. A hostile world of burning sun. Outlines of several once-busy cities shimmer on the horizon. Now empty of inhabitants, their buildings lie in ruins. In the distance a group of people - a family - walk towards us. Ahead lies shelter: a 'shuck' the family call home and which they know they must reach before the light fails, as to be out after dark is to invite danger and almost certain death. To survive in this alien world of shifting sand, they must find an object hidden in or near water. But other families want it too. And they are willing to fight to the death to make it theirs. It is beginning to rain in Fairfax County, Virginia when McKenzie Strathie wakes up. An ordinary teenage girl living an ordinary life - except that the previous night she found a sand-lizard in her bed, and now she's beginning to question everything around her, especially who she really is... Two very different worlds featuring a group of extraordinary characters driven to the very limit of their endurance in a place where only the strongest will survive.

Wiley Cash has always been one of those writers whose novels have always had a great sense of place. From his brilliant debut novel A Land More Kind Than Home to his CWA Gold Dagger Award winning This Dark Road to Mercy Wiley Cash has constantly given readers lyrical, heartbreaking and haunting stories. With When Ghosts Come Home (Faber & Faber) we once again have a fascinating, nuanced meditation on life in a small town. An abandoned plane. A dead body. A small town threatening to explode. 'A searing, thunderous, heartbreaking thriller. Wiley Cash has talent to burn.' Chris Whitaker Winston did not hear it so much as feel it as it passed over their house and into the trees across the waterway. The sheriff struggling for re-election and haunted by his past. The mystery plane which crash-lands on his island. The daughter returning home to hide from her troubles. The FBI pilot sent in to help. As the mystery of the abandoned plane and the dead body stokes long-simmering racial tensions, a moment of reckoning draws ever closer for the town of Oak Island.

I have always been a big fan of (1) short stories and (2) Laura Lippman who writes phenomenal short stories.  Seasonal Work and Other Killer Stories is a collection by Laura Lippman that I am looking forward to reading. From 'The Everyday Housewife' to 'The Cougar', 'Tricks' to 'Snowflake Time', Laura Lippman's sharp and acerbic stories explore the contemporary world and the female experience through the prism of classic crime, where the stakes are always deadly. And in the collection's longest piece, the novella 'Just One More', she follows the trajectory of a married couple who, tired of re-watching 'Columbo' re-runs during lockdown, decide to join the same dating app: 'Why would we do something like that?' 'As an experiment. And a diversion. We would both join, then see if the service matches us. Just for grins...'

This is just a snapshot of some of the books that I'm looking forward to reading. There are lots more and I am in no doubt that 2022 will once again be a bumper year for great books. My thanks of course go to all the wonderful authors who have kept me busy reading. It looks as if will be the same again this year. 

Where the Spies Live by Mick Herron

Good spies, as everyone knows, get to wear jetpacks and exploding wristwatches; they have abundant sex partners and more lives than a cat. They travel the world, visit vast, hollowed-out volcanoes, zip into space and throw bad guys from jet-aircraft.

Bad spies go to Slough House.

Slough House is the upper part of a ramshackle building near Barbican Tube station: three storeys of soul-shriveling offices whose front door – which never opens – is wedged between a newsagent’s and a Chinese restaurant. In this miserable building the failures of the Secret Service are assigned their daily tasks, which involve acres of paperwork and deserts of digital boredom. It’s all a far cry from the life they signed up for, which they had imagined involved saving the world, or at least keeping it safe from terrorists. But “nobody left Slough House at the end of a working day feeling like they’d contributed to the security of the nation. They left it feeling like their brains had been fed through a juicer.” Having aimed for the spy’s life of thrills and subterfuge, Slough House’s occupants – the slow horses – have found themselves trapped in a humdrum existence, where the greatest danger is a paper-cut, and the most implacable enemy a dodgy WiFi connection.

Under the thumb of the gross, bad-tempered, flatulent and vile-mannered Jackson Lamb, the slow horses endure long days and sleepless nights, but if life in Slough House has taught them anything, it’s to seize any opportunity for excitement with both hands. In SPOOK STREET, this brings them up against a group responsible for the worst act of terrorism the nation has seen in a decade – led by a man whose secrets have shattering implications for young River Cartwright…

SPOOK STREET. You won’t find it on a map. But it’s where the spies live.

© 2017 Mick Herron

Read the Shots Review Here

Grab a copy of Spook Street, from the Shots Bookstore with a generous discount on RRP Here

More information about the work of Mick Herron available Here

Books to look forward to John Murray

January 2017

Auntie Poldi can think of no finer place to wait for death than Sicily. All she asks is a sea view, fine wine (and plenty of it), and her family close around. When death instead takes her handsome young friend Valentino - and under mysterious circumstances at that - Poldi will not take it lying down. Perhaps it's in her blood (her father was a detective chief inspector); perhaps it's a diverting excuse to spend more time with men in uniform; or perhaps it's just the promise she makes to Valentino while holding his poor dead hand. But Auntie Poldi's hunting instincts have never felt more alive. Justice must be served - if it's the last thing she does ... Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions is by Mario Giordano.

February 2017

 

Spook Street is by Mick Herron.  Never outlive your ability to survive a fight. Twenty years retired, David Cartwright can still spot when the stoats are on his trail. Radioactive secrets and unfinished business go with the territory on Spook Street: he's always known there would be an accounting. And he's not as defenceless as they might think. Jackson Lamb worked with Cartwright back in the day. He knows better than most that this is no vulnerable old man. 'Nasty old spook with blood on his hands' would be a more accurate description. 'The old bastard' has raised his grandson with a head full of guts and glory. But far from joining the myths and legends of Spook Street, River Cartwright is consigned to Lamb's team of pen-pushing no-hopers at Slough House. So it's Lamb they call to identify the body when Cartwright's panic button raises the alarm at Service HQ. And Lamb who will do whatever he thinks necessary, to protect an agent in peril ...

March 2017

William Hoffer - handsome, refined, a little cold perhaps - is an established figure in London society. But Hoffer has secrets. He is vague about his Midwestern origins. The counsel he offers a Russian billionaire may extend to murkier topics than art investments. Then there is his Kensington flat, which is only rented, and the broader question of his money, which is running out. When a ghost from his past in Mexico surfaces, Hoffer is forced to revive brutal instincts for self-preservation ...  Hoffer is by Tim Glencross

-->