Books to Look Forward to From Transworld

July

You never know what's happening on the other side of the wall. Your neighbour told you that she didn't want your six-month-old daughter at the dinner party. Nothing personal, she just couldn't stand her crying. Your husband said it would be fine. After all, you only live next door. You'll have the baby monitor and you'll take it in turns to go back every half hour. Your daughter was sleeping when you checked on her last. But now, as you race up the stairs in your deathly quiet house, your worst fears are realized. She's gone. You've never had to call the police before. But now they're in your home, and who knows what they'll find there. What would you be capable of, when pushed past your limit? "How well do we ever know those around us? The Couple Next Door is by Shari Lapena

October

 

The Fourth Victim is by Mari Jungstedt. A violent robbery. A hit and run. A brutal murder. In the stifling heat of an August morning on the beautiful Swedish island of Gotland, terror shatters the calm. An armed robbery is over in minutes, leaving a little girl on the road, hit in the speed of the robbers' flight. Desperate to find those responsible, the police track down one of the culprits. But he is dead, brutally murdered at a remote farm. Tattooed on his arm are three initials: his own and two others. The only clues as to the identity of his friends. As the desperate hunt to find the remaining two robbers intensifies, there's every chance the murderer is on their trail too. Can Detective Superintendent Knutas beat them to it?

Accompanying a group of veteran soldiers on an expedition to the North Pole should be a simple job for ex-deniable operative Nick Stone. But when they're intercepted in their tracks by hulking men with powerful weapons and an enormous ice-breaker ship claiming to be US Navy, Stone immediately understands that not everyone on this trip is who they say they are. When members of the crew begin to die, it is clear that the murderer must be amongst them. And when the very motivations of the trek are called into question, Stone doesn't only have multiple murders on his hands, he has an international crisis to deal with too.  Cold Blood is by Andy McNab

November

An extraordinary discovery. When his old friend, Angela, invites him out to her archaeological dig in the Iraqi desert, Chris Bronson is expecting a relaxing few days and an overdue catch-up. But when they arrive at the site they find her colleagues slaughtered and a recent discovery defaced. An ancient mystery. Their only clue is an incomplete inscription, which holds the key to uncovering the truth behind a centuries-old secret. With unknown assassins hot on their heels, Chris and Angela are forced into a desperate hunt across the globe for the final piece of the puzzle. And if they don't find it first, the consequences could be fatal ...The race of their lives.  The Templar Heresy is by James Becker.

In the morning, they gave Reacher a medal. And in the afternoon, they sent him back to school. Night School takes Reacher back to his army days, but this time he's not in uniform. With trusted sergeant Frances Neagley at his side, he must carry the fate of the world on his shoulders, in a wired, fiendishly clever new adventure that will make the cold sweat trickle down your spine.  Night School is by Lee Child.

The Beautiful Dead is by Belinda Bauer. An obsessed killer craves an audience for his crimes – even advertising them beforehand.  As London is gripped by the fear that there is no safety in numbers, ambitious TV reporter Eve Singer is keen to be first with the news from every gory scene – until she starts to suspect that the killer has two obsessions.  One is public murder.  And the other one is her …

Meet Milo Milodragovitch. He's been running a thriving business helping settle divorce cases; other people's misery can be lucrative. But liberal new divorce laws mean he has no choice but to diversify. And that means something more proactive than just drinking and staring out the window...When beautiful Helen Duffy asks him for help in finding her missing brother, he really can't resist. He needs the money but mostly he just wants to spend more time with her. But what seems like a routine case is far from it, and a long-past crime haunts their every move...  The Wrong Case is by James Crumley.

December

Incendium is by A D Swanston.  Summer, 1572 and England is vulnerable.  Fear of plague and insurrection taint the air, and heresy, fanaticism and religious unrest see the beneath the surface of society.  Rumour and mistrust lead to imprisonment, torture and sometimes murder. To the young lawyer Christopher Radcliff and his patron and employer, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the prospects for peace are grave – and Leicester’s chief intelligence, he is charged with investigating both the rumours of rebellion at home and invasion from abroad.  But Radcliff’s own life is far from orderly.  His relationship with the widow Katherine Allingham is somewhat turbulent and the cut-throat world of court politics leaves no room for indiscretions.  That the queen’s own cousin, the Duke of Norfolk, is found guilty of treason, it is a sign of just how deep dissent goes.  Jesuit priests have been sent to England in order to foment revolt but the threat of a Catholic uprising comes not just from within.  Across the channel, France is caught up in a frenzy of brutal religious persecution and England’s other enemy of old, Spain, is making preparation to invade.  England is a powder keg, just waiting for a spark to ignite it – and then Christopher Radcliff hears word of the plot that could provide that spark.  The word is “Incendium” – but what does it mean and who lies behind it?  Suddenly Christopher Radcliff is caught up in a race against time ….

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…  Frost at Midnight is by James Henry

When a young woman is found dead, the police are quick to respond. But what they find at the scene is unexpected. The body is posed, the scene laboriously set. And there is almost no forensic evidence to be found. Detective Mia Kruger has been signed off work pending psychological assessment. But her boss has less regard for the rules than he should. Desperate to get Mia back in the office, Holger Munch offers her an unofficial deal. But the usually brilliant Mia is struggling and the team are unable to close the case. Until a young hacker uncovers something that forces the team to confront the scope of the murderer's plans and face the possibility that he may already be on the hunt for a second victim. The Owl Always Hunts at Night is by Samuel Bjork.

Books To Look Forward to From Transworld Publishers

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?  He Who Kills the Dragon is by Leif G W Persson and is due to be published in October 2013.

 Kings’s Return is by Andrew Swanston and is due to be published in April 2014.  Spring 1661: Thomas Hill travels from his home in Romsey to London to attend the coronation of King Charles II.  His sister Margaret has died and both his nieces are now married.  At a dinner party after the Coronation, Thomas meets the charming Chandle Stoner, and Sir Joseph Williamson, security advisor to His Majesty, and in charge of the newly restored Post Office.  Learning of Thomas’s skill with code, Williamson asks him to take charge of deciphering coded letters intercepted at the Post Office.  Reluctantly Thomas agrees.  A spate of murders take place in London – including two employees of the Post Office.  Thomas finds himself dragged into the search for the murderer – or murderers.  It soon becomes apparent that those responsible are closer to Thomas  - and his loved ones – than he imagined. But can he ensure that they are apprehended for their crimes before it’s too late?

A young woman has been found dead and covered in snow behind a nursery school in a Stockholm suburb.  She is the fourth murder victim in a short time and with the same characteristics: a young mother, stabbed from behind.  The offices of the Evening Standard 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 that 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 of the kidnappers are both impossible and unreasonable.  But when the demands are rejected, the kidnapper begins to execute the hostages, one by one…. Borderline is by Liza Marklund and is due to be published in February 2014.

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 then many people could even imagine. She speaks four languages with the clarity and confidence of a native speaker and racks up stratospheric shopping bills where ever 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 boxmen and jugmarkers 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.  Vanshing Games is by Roger Hobbs and is due to be published in July 2014.

Morning Frost is the third book in the D I Jack Frost prequel by James Henry and it is due to be published in November 2014.  It's 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...

 'Call your mother.' In the Devonshire countryside, a masked stranger 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 Facts of Life and Death is by Belinda Bauer and is due to be published in March 2014

'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'm 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, blood-stained car in the middle of an isolated, lonely part of rural France at the height of a sweltering summer. Desperate to avoid the police, he takes to the parched fields 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 - 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

 Silencer is the latest book in the Nick Stone series by Andy McNab and is due to be published in October 2013.  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's a risk he's 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'd 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.

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.

The Sisters - Easter and her little sister Ruby are waiting it out in a foster home. Their mum died after a drug overdose, and their dad is a loser who walked out on them all. The Dad - Wade has no claim to them - he signed away his rights years ago, and Easter doesn't even want a father who'd give them up that easily. But one night he turns up unannounced and takes them anyway. The Psychopath - Robert Pruitt is just out of prison when he gets the chance to settle an old score with the man who ruined his life. He's got to find him first, but luckily the trail is easy to follow. Because the guy's just kidnapped his two girls...  The Dark Road to Mercy is by Wiley Cash and is due to be published in January 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 the 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’ beside 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 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 along 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 an deliver their own kind of Justice.  The Dangerous Game is by Mari Jungstedt and is due to be published in March 2014.

Don’t Stand So Close is the debut novel by Luana Lewis and is due to be published in February 2014.  What would you do if a young girl knocked on your door and asked for your help? If it was snowing and she was freezing cold, but you were afraid and alone? What would you do if you let her in, but couldn't make her leave? What if she told you terrible lies about someone you love, but the truth was even worse? Stella has been cocooned in her home for three years. Severely agoraphobic, she knows she is safe in the stark, isolated house she shares with her husband, Max. The traumatic memories of her final case as a psychologist are that much easier to keep at a distance, too. But the night that Blue arrives on her doorstep with her frightened eyes and sad stories, Stella's carefully controlled world begins to unravel around her. Don't Stand So Close is a chilling and suspenseful read.

 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.  The Brotherhood of the Skull also by James Becker will be published in July 2014. At the turn of the 13th century the religious order known as the Knights Templar was ruthlessly chased down, tortured and eliminated. Fast-forward to the present day, where we are thrust into a nail-biting chase for the truth behind the myth of the Templar Treasure.

A Pleasure and a Calling is by Phil Hogan and is due to be published in February 2014.  You won't remember Mr Heming. He showed you round your comfortable home, suggested a sustainable financial package, negotiated a price with the owner and called you with the good news. The less good news is that, all these years later, he still has the key. That's absurd, you laugh. Of all the many hundreds of houses he has sold, why would he still have the key to mine? The answer to that is, he has the keys to them all. William Heming's every pleasure is in his leafy community. He loves and knows every inch of it, feels nurtured by it, and would defend it - perhaps not with his life but if it came to it, with yours...

On a cold December morning in 1841, a small boy is enticed away from his mother and his throat savagely cut. But when the people of Dublin learn why John Delahunt committed this vile crime, the outcry leaves no room for compassion. His fate is sealed, but this feckless Trinity College student and secret informer for the authorities in Dublin Castle seems neither to regret what he did nor fear his punishment. Sitting in Kilmainham Gaol in the days leading up to his execution, Delahunt tells his story in a final, deeply unsettling statement...Dublin in the mid-19th century was a city on the edge - a turbulent time of suspicion and mistrust and the scent of rebellion against the Crown in the air. Beautifully written, brilliantly researched and with a seductive sense of period and place, this unnervingly compelling novel boasts a colourful assortment of characters: from carousing Trinity students, unscrupulous lowlifes and blackmailers to dissectionists, phrenologists and sinister agents of Dublin Castle who are operating according to their own twisted rules. And at its heart lie the doomed John Delahunt and Helen, his wife. Unconventional, an aspiring-writer and daughter of an eminent surgeon, she pursued Delahunt, married him and thereby ruined her own life. And as for Delahunt himself, we follow him from elegant ballrooms and tenement houses to taverns, courtrooms and to the impoverished alleyways where John Delahunt readily betrays his friends, his society and ultimately, himself.  The Convictions of John Delahunt is by Andrew Hughes and is due to be published in March 2014.

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 school 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 a note.  Eve has done this before, more than one and with fatal consequences …..

I believe, from what I can hear, that either my daughter or my wife has just been attacked. I don't know the outcome. The house is silent. Fourteen years ago two teenage lovers were brutally murdered in a patch of remote woodland. The prime suspect confessed to the crimes and was imprisoned. Now, one family is still trying to put the memory of the killings behind them. But at their isolated hilltop house...the nightmare is about to return.  Wolf is the seventh novel in the Jack Caffery series by Mo Hayder and it is due to be published in February 2014.

 Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart is the latest book in the Bryant & May series by Christopher Fowler and is due to be published in March 2014. 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 bodysnatchers, 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.

 'I don’t like killing, but I’m good at it. Murder isn’t so bad from a distance, just shapes in my scope. Close up work though, the garrotte around the neck, the knife in the heart, it’s not for me. Too much empathy, that’s my problem. Usually. But not today. Today is different…’ The year is 1955 and something is very wrong with the world: Churchill is dead and WW2 didn’t happen. Europe is in thrall to a nuclear-armed Nazi Germany. Only Britain and its Empire holds out, bound by an uneasy truce and all the while German scientists are experimenting with terrifying forces beyond their understanding - forces that are driving them to the brink of insanity and beyond. Berlin is a hotbed of suspicion and betrayal - a lone British assassin is fighting a private war with the Nazis; the Gestapo are on the trail of a beautiful young resistance fighter and the head of the SS plots to dispose of an increasingly decrepit Adolf Hitler and become Fuhrer. While in London, a sinister and treacherous cabal will stop at nothing to conceal the conspiracy of the century.  Four desperate scenarios that are destined to collide with catastrophic effect. And it all hinges on a single kill in the morning . . .  A Kill in the Morning is by Graeme Shimmin and is due to be published in June 2014.

Books to Look Forward to From Transworld Publishers

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.