The Excalibur Codex is by
James Douglas and is due to be published in August 2013. For countless
generations the sword had been kept hidden, ready for a time of need. But not
hidden well enough, because on one warm July night in1937 it vanished - its
disappearance swallowed up in the storm clouds of war that would soon engulf
the world. 1941 - twelve SS generals gather
at a castle in East Prussia to re-enact an ancient rite and call on the spirits
of Europe’s mightiest warriors to aid them in the coming battle in the East. At
the heartof the ritual is a pentagram formed by five swords. One of them is Excalibur,
the mythical w eapon pulled from a stone by King Arthur. 2010 - Art recovery expert Jamie Saint Clair
laughs when he reads the codex to a German war veteran’s will, the strange
ritual it describes and the mention of a sword named Excalibur. But collector
Adam Steele is convinced - and if Jamie can find the legendary sword, he will
pay a small fortune for it. The hunt for Excalibur takes Jamie from Germany to
eastern Poland and a deadly encounter in Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair. The castle has been
destroyed down to the last stone and the only clue to the sword’s fate is the
strange tale of a wartime partisan unit murdered by its own commander. With a
team of international assassins on his trail and the distinction between friend
and enemy a blur, Jamie finally makes it back to a Britain under siege, where
the last piece of the puzzle falls into place and he discovers that the line
between obsession and madness is gossamer thin...
The Kill List: a top-secret
catalogue of names held at the highest level of the US
government. On it, those men and women who would threaten
the world's security. And at the top of
it, The Preacher, a radical Islamic cleric whose sermons inspire his followers
to kill high profile Western targets in the name of God. As the bodies begin to pile up in America,
Great Britain and across Europe, the message goes out: discover this man's
identity, locate him and take him out. Tasked
with what seems like an impossible job is an ex-US marine who has risen through
the ranks to become one of America's most effective intelligence chiefs. Now known only as The Tracker, he must gather
what scant evidence there is, collate it and unmask The Preacher if he is to
prevent the next spate of violent deaths.
Aided only by a brilliant teenaged hacker, he must throw out the bait
and see whether his deadly target can be drawn from his lair. The
Kill List is by Frederick Forsyth and is due to be published in September
2013.
Young policewoman Lacey Flint knows
that the Thames is a dangerous place – after all, she lives on it and works on
it – but she’s always been lucky. Until
one day, when she finds a body floating in the water. Who was this woman and why was she wrapped so
carefully in white burial cloths before being hidden in the fast-flowing depths? DCI Dana Tulloch hates to admit it, but she’s
fond of the mysterious Lacey. Even if she
keeps on interfering in her investigations, and is meddling with the latest
floater case. But now she's got to break
some terrible news to her - news that could destroy Lacey's fragile state of
mind. And Lacey will need to keep her wits
about her because there's a killer that's lurking around her boat, leaving her
gifts she'd rather not receive. A Dark and Twisted Tide is by Sharon
(SJ) Bolton and is due to be published in May 2014.
A currently yet untitled Liza
Marklund novel is due to be published in February 2014. A young woman has been found dead and covered
with snow behind a nursery school in a Stockholm suburb. She is the fourth murder victim in a short
time with the same characteristics: a young mother, stabbed from behind. The offices of the Evening Post are awash
with rumours of a serial killer, but journalist Annika Bengtzon dismisses it as
wild fantasy. As the murder spree
continues in Stockholm, the police too begin to think they have a serial killer
on their hands. Meanwhile Annika is
dragged into a violent hostage situation in Nairobi that involves her husband –
a situation that shakes both Europe and East Africa. The demands from the kidnappers are
impossible and unreasonable. But when
the demands are rejected, the kidnappers begin to execute the hostages, one by
one…
High Rollers is by Jack Bowman and is due to be published in August
2013. When the engine of a 737 tears
itself apart at Los Angeles Airport, Tom Patrick is in the wrong place at the
wrong time - playing poker at a nearby casino.
He has been losing at cards and probing pipeline leaks ever since his
big mouth led to his fall from grace as the National Transportation Safety
Board's top air-crash investigator. Now
he cannot wait to come in from the cold.
Sidelined by the official investigation, Tom starts to dig anyway. Moreover, when another 737 crashes for what
looks like similar reasons, it is clear that something could be terribly wrong
with the world's most popular passenger jet.
Risking everything, Tom Patrick sets out on a global paper chase, racing
against time and ruthless killers - before planes and people start falling out
of the sky like bloody confetti. Brace
yourself for high octane, high risk. High
rollers.
1993: Under deep cover, Nick
Stone and a specialist surveillance team have spent weeks in
the jungles and
city streets of Colombia. Their mission:
to locate the boss of the world's most murderous drugs cartel - and terminate
him with extreme prejudice. Now they can
strike. But to get close enough to fire
the fatal shot, Nick must reveal his face.
It is a risk he is willing to take - since only the man who is about to
die will see him. Or so he
thinks...2012: Nick is in Moscow; semi-retired; semi-married to Anna; very much
the devoted father of their newborn son.
But when the boy falls dangerously ill and the doctor who saves him
comes under threat, Nick finds himself back in the firing line. To stop his cover being terminally blown, he
must follow a trail that begins in Triad-controlled Hong Kong and propels him
back into the even more brutal world he thought he had left behind. The forces ranged against him have guns,
helicopters, private armies and a terrified population in their vice-like grip. Nick Stone has two decades of operational
skills that may no longer be deniable - and a fierce desire to protect a woman
and a child who now mean more to him than life itself. The
Silencer is by Andy McNab and is due to be published in October 2013.
Morning Frost is by James Henry and is due to be published in November
2013. It has been one of the worst days
of Detective Sergeant Jack Frost's life.
He has buried his wife Mary, and must now endure the wake, attended by
all of Denton's finest. All, that is,
apart from DC Sue Clark, who spends the night pursuing a bogus tip-off, before
being summoned to the discovery of a human hand. And things get worse. Local entrepreneur Harry Baskin is shot
inside his nightclub, fake fivers are being circulated, and a famous painting
goes missing. As the week goes on, a
cyclist is found dead in suspicious circumstances, and the more body parts
appear. Frost is on the case, but
another disaster - one he is entirely unprepared for - is about to strike...
It’s a fresh start for the Met's
oddest investigation team, the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Their first case involves two teenagers who
see a dead man rising from his grave in a London park. And if that's not alarming enough, one of
them is killed in a hit and run accident.
Stranger still, in the moments between when he was last seen alive and
found dead on the pavement, someone has changed his shirt... Much to his frustration, Arthur Bryant is not
allowed to investigate. Instead, he has
been tasked with finding out how someone could have stolen the ravens from the
Tower of London. All seven birds have
vanished from one of the most secure fortresses in the city. And, as the legend has it, when the ravens leave,
the nation falls… Soon it seems death is
all around and Bryant and May must confront a group of latter-day body
snatchers, explore an eerie funeral parlour and unearth the gruesome legend of
Bleeding Heart Yard. More graves are
desecrated, further deaths occur, and the symbol of the Bleeding Heart seems to
turn up everywhere - it’s even discovered hidden in the PCU’s offices. And when Bryant is blindfolded and taken to
the headquarters of a secret society, he realises that this case is more
complex than even he had imagined, and that everyone is hiding something. The Grim Reaper walks abroad and seems to be
stalking him, playing on his fears of premature burial. Rich in strange characters and steeped in
London’s true history, this is Bryant & May’s most peculiar and disturbing
case of all. Bryant & May and The Bleeding Heart is by Christopher Fowler
and is due to be published in March 2013.
For thousands of years we guarded
it. But now it has been found. This could be the end - for
us; for our
organisation; for the world. You must
destroy it, and those who have taken it.
An ancient object is discovered in a Cairo souk. Hours later, the market trader who sold it is
tortured to death. As the bodies begin
to pile up, a request for help is sent to British Museum historian Angela Lewis. Angela travels to Spain with her ex-husband,
undercover police officer Chris Bronson.
There they discover the key to the greatest secret in the history of
Christianity. Their only problem is
deciphering it before they are brutally murdered like those before them... The
Lost Testament is by James Becker and is due to be published in November
2013.
'Somebody!’ I half-sob and then,
more quietly, ‘Please.’ The words seem absorbed by the afternoon
heat, lost amongst the trees. In their
aftermath, the silence descends again. I
know then that I am not going anywhere...
Sean is on the run. We don't know
why and we don't know from whom, but we do know he's abandoned his battered, bloodstained
car in the middle of a sweltering, isolated, lonely part of rural France. Desperate to avoid the police, he takes to
the hedgerows and country lanes only to be caught in the vicious jaws of a
trap. Near unconscious from pain and
loss of blood, he is freed and taken in by two women - the daughters of the
owner of a rundown local farm with its ramshackle barn, blighted vineyard and
the brooding lake. And it's then that
Sean's problems really start... Stone Bruises is by Simon Beckett and is
due to be published in January 2014.
Spring, 1648. When Thomas Hill, a
bookseller living in rural Hampshire, publishes a political pamphlet he has
little idea of the trouble that will follow. He is quickly arrested, forced on
a boat to Barbados and condemned to life as a slave to two of the island's most
notoriously violent brothers. In England war has erupted again, with London
under threat of attack. When news of the king's execution reaches the island,
political stability is threatened and a fleet commanded by Sir George Ayscue
arrives to take control of the island for Cromwell. The threat of violence
increases. Thomas finds himself witness to abuse, poison, rape and savage
brutality. When a coded message from Ayscue to a sympathiser on the island is
intercepted, Thomas is asked to decipher it. A disastrous battle seems
inevitable. But nothing turns out as planned. And as the death toll mounts, the
escape Thomas has been relying on seems ever more unlikely. The King’s
Exile is the second book in the Thomas Hill series by Andrew Swanston and
is due to be published in August 2013.
A violent robbery has killed an
entire family on the Costa Del Sol. Annika Bengtzon is
assigned to cover the
story for the Evening Post. However,
when she arrives in Spain she discovers there was a third child - a teenage
daughter - who is unaccounted for. Annika
makes it her mission to find the missing girl.
But as she delves into the mystery, she becomes embroiled in a far
darker side of Spanish life than she had envisioned, as she begins to piece
together a terrifying story of violence, abuse and murder. The
Long Shadow is by Liza Marklund and is due to be published in September
2013.
Easter Quillby: Wade disappeared on us when I was six, and I never
saw him again until I turned twelve, after Mom was buried. She always said he was a loser, even if he
was our dad, but it turns out, he was much more than that. He was also a thief. Like he was on the day, he stole me and my
little sister. Bobby Pruitt: Wade screwed me.
He took everything. My
career. My health. My freedom.
He screwed me and then he put me in jail. But now I’m out and I’ve got a new reason to
find him. Because Wade made a big
mistake, and now someone wants him dead.
And that’s where I come in . . . The Hearts of Small Children is by Wiley Cash
and is due to be published in January 2014. It powerfully explores the nature of love, and
evil.
Wolf the seventh Jack Caffery
novel by Mo Hayder is due to be published in February 2014
The Dangerous Game is by Mari Jungstedt and is due to be published
in March 2014. When Jenny, an ordinary
schoolgirl on the island of Gotland, is discovered by a modelling agency, her
life changes overnight. Soon she is
considered one of their hottest stars and is thrown into a world of VIP parties
and glamour. While Jenny is enjoying her
new, exciting life in Stockholm, Agnes, a few years her junior, has been
hospitalised due to a serious eating disorder.
She too dreamt of living in the limelight, but is now fading away. Watching at Agnes' bedside is her worried
father. Since Agnes' mother and brother
were tragically killed in a car accident a few years previously, his daughter
is all he has. But tragedy also lies in
wait for successful Jenny. During a
lavish fashion photo shoot on Gotland's barren, isolated peninsula, Furillen,
her new boyfriend, the fashion photographer Markus, falls victim to a murder
attempt. He is found in an isolated
spot, covered in blood and brutally assaulted - but alive. Will he be able to tell police inspector
Anders Knutas anything that will lead the police to the perpetrator before it's
too late? For a long time, Jenny and
Agnes remain unaware that their lives are entwined. But someone is keeping an eye on them. Someone with plans to intervene in their
lives and deliver their own kind of justice.
He Who Kills The Dragon is by Leif G W Persson and is due to be published
in October 2013. In this second instalment
of Persson's trilogy of police procedurals featuring the "small, fat and
primitive" Evert Backstrom, the grand master's most appallingly repulsive
(and funniest) character is finally given his fifteen minutes of fame by way of
his patented combination of laziness, luck, and an unbelievable sense of timing. A seemingly ordinary murder puzzles
Backstrom, who is struggling with strict orders from his doctor to lead a
healthier life. His gut feeling proves
him right: within days, his team has another murder linked to the first on
their hands, and reports of alleged ties to a Securicor heist gone out of
control, killing two. The nation needs a
hero, and the newly appointed head of the Vasterort police force Anna Holt
needs somebody to kill the dragon for her.
Who better to heed to the task than Evert Backstrom: self-sufficient,
ostentatious, devoid of moral, Hawaii shirt-clad, and, latterly, armed?
A Beginners Guide to Gunslinging by Belinda Bauer is due to be
published in March 2014.
'Call your mother.’ In the
Devonshire countryside, a killer is preying on young women - luring them into
his car, taking them to a place they can never be found, and then ordering them to call
home. At first, he doesn't kill. His motive for terrifying the women
seems unclear. But every killer has to start somewhere, and
soon enough he will get a taste for something even more sinister. Meanwhile 10-year-old Ruby Trick, living with
her parents in a damp, crumbling house by the sea, is about to come of age in
the most terrifying way possible . .
"The story I now commence is rich in vicissitudes, grim with warfare,
torn by civil strife, a tale of horror even during times of peace". (Tacitus, "The Histories" AD 68). The Emperor Nero's erratic and bloody reign
is in its death throes when Gaius Valerius Verrens is dispatched to Rome on a
mission that will bring it to a close. With
Nero dead, the city holds its breath and awaits the arrival his successor,
Servius Sulpicius Galba, governor of Hispania.
The Empire prays for peace, but it prays in vain. Galba promises stability and prosperity, but
his rule begins with a massacre and ends only months later in chaos and carnage. This will become known as the Year of the
Four Emperors, a time of civil war, which will tear Rome apart and test
Valerius' skills and loyalties to their very limit. Fortunate to survive Galba's fall, Valerius
is sent on a mission by Rome's new Emperor, Otho, to his old friend Vitellius,
commander of the armies of the north. Vitellius'
legions are on the march, and only Valerius can persuade him to halt them
before the inevitable confrontation. In
an epic adventure that will take him the length and breadth of a divided land,
the one-armed Roman fights to stay alive and stave off a bloodbath as he is
stalked by the most implacable enemy he has ever faced. The
Sword of Rome is by Douglas Jackson and is due to be published in August
2013.
The Day before You Came is by Paula Daly and is due to be published
in April 2014.
Natty and Sean Wainwright are
happily married. Rock solid in fact. So when Natty’s oldest friend, Eve Dalladay,
appears – just as their daughter’s appendix explodes on a school trip in France
– Natty has no qualms about leaving Eve
helping Sean out at home. Two weeks
later and Natty finds Eve has slotted into family life too well. Natty’s husband has fallen in love with Eve. He’s sorry, he tells her, but their marriage
is over. With no option but to put a
brave face on things for the sake of the children, Natty embarks on building a
new life for herself. And then she
receives the note. Eve has done this
before, more than once, and with fatal consequences...
Never Go Back is by Lee Child and is due to be published in August
2013. After an epic and interrupted
journey all the way from the snows of South Dakota, Jack Reacher has finally
made it to Virginia. His destination: a
sturdy stone building a short bus ride from Washington D.C., the headquarters
of his old unit, the 110th MP. It was
the closest thing to a home he ever had.
Why? He wants to meet the new
commanding officer, Major Susan Turner. He
liked her voice on the phone. However,
the officer sitting behind Reacher's old desk is not a woman. Why is Susan Turner not there? What Reacher doesn't expect is what comes
next. He himself is in big trouble,
accused of a sixteen-year-old homicide. And
he certainly doesn't expect to hear these words: 'You're back in the army,
Major. And your ass is mine.’ Will he be sorry he went back? Or - will someone else?
There
are no other women on earth like Angela Lassey.
That’s not her real name, of course.
In her purse, there are six different drivers’ licenses and twelve
different passports, each with a different name and photograph. Over the course of twenty years, she's pulled
robberies on five continents and stolen things more valuable than many people
could even imagine. She speaks four
languages with the clarity and confidence of a native speaker and racks up stratospheric
shopping bills wherever she goes. She's
been a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead.
She's been dark-skinned and light, blue-eyed and brown, young and old. She's gained weight and lost it again, she's
worn platform shoes and slouched to conceal her height, and she's smoked like a
chimney and bleached her teeth. She’s never
the same woman from one week to the next.
She doesn’t call any place home. There's
no real term for what Angela Lassey does for a living. She is a bank robber, sure, and a crook and a
thief and a heister, but Angela's particular talent has no proper, accepted
name. In Sweden, someone had called her
a skyggemannen. In the Netherlands, they'd called her a spook. In South America, she was a desaparecido. In America, she was simply a ghostman. She is the master of the disappearing act. She can make anything or anyone disappear,
for the right price. She has worked with
some of the best crooks in the world, the best box men and jug markers and
hacks, but she's never met anyone better at disappearing then she was. Angela Lassey is like human mist. So she’s the perfect person to call when you
need to hide. Like Sabo Park does after
unexpectedly stumbling across treasure during a sapphire heist on the China Sea. What he has is so valuable that those who
know of its existence will never stop their search. He has to vanish, like a ghost. Because now he has it, he is the richest
criminal in the world. Vanishing Games is by Roger Hobbs and is
due to be published in May 2014.
The
river Thames is London's most important yet neglected artery. When a young
woman is found chained to a post in the tide, no-one can understand how she
came to be drowned there. At the Peculiar Crimes Unit, Arthur Bryant and John
May find themselves dealing with an impossible crime committed in a very public
place. Soon they discover that the river is giving up other victims, but as the
investigation extends from the coast of Libya to the nightclubs of North
London, it proves as murkily sinister as the Thames itself. That's only part of
the problem; Bryant's rapidly deteriorating condition prevents him from
handling the case, and he is confined to home. To make matters worse, May makes
a fatal error of judgement that knocks him out of action and places everyone at
risk. With the PCU staff baffled as much by their own detectives as the case,
the only people who can help now are the battery of eccentrics Bryant keeps
listed in his diary, but will their arcane knowledge save the day or make
matters even worse? Soon there's a clear suspect in everyone's sights - the
only thing that's missing is any scrap of evidence. As the detectives'
disastrous investigation comes unstuck, the whole team gets involved in some
serious messing about on the river. In an adventure that's as twisting as the
river upon which it's set, will there be anything left of the Peculiar Crimes
Unit when it's over? Strange Tide is by Christopher Fowler
and is due to be published in March 2016.
He
loves her. He loves her not. He's a serial killer. A murderer of young women,
all killed in brutal attacks. But despite his conviction, he's always stuck to
his story - he's innocent and he's been wrongly imprisoned. And now he wants
someone to investigate, and more importantly, to write his story. At first
Maggie, a barrister and true-crime writer, is reluctant to even acknowledge his
requests, ignoring his letters. But this is a very charismatic and persuasive
man, good-looking and intelligent. Eventually even she can't resist his lure... Daisy
in Chains is by Sharon Bolton and is due to be published in June 2016.
