July 2017
Everybody
knows about Sherlock Holmes, the unique literary character created by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, who has remained popular over the decades and is more
appreciated than ever today. But what made this fictional character, dreamed up
by a small-town English doctor back in the 1880s, into such a great success?
This is the fascinating and exciting tale of the man and people who created the
Holmes legend. It is also the tragic story of an author who tried to escape
from his own invention and the inheritance that ruined a family dynasty. The
book also charts the unexpected fortune and success of the actors, writers and
readers who, over the decades, have recreated and renewed the idea of this
most-famous of all detectives: from the gentleman amateur of the 1890s to the
odd genius of Sherlock today. The Life and Death of Sherlock Holmes:
Master Detective, Myth and Media Star is by Mattias Boström.
Paradise
Valley is by C J Box. For three years,
Investigator Cassie Dewell has been hunting the serial killer known as The
Lizard King. Twice she has come close to taking him, but now, working for the
Bakken County, North Dakota sheriff's department, Cassie has set what she
believes is the perfect trap. But the plan goes horribly wrong, and the blame
falls on Cassie. Disgraced, she loses her job and, worse, is put under
investigation. At the same time, Kyle Westergaard, a troubled kid whom Cassie
has taken under her wing, has disappeared, telling everyone he is going on a
long-planned adventure. Kyle's grandmother begs Cassie to find him and with
nothing else to do, she agrees. But in the same way that two streams converge
into a river, Kyle's disappearance may be more sinister than anyone suspects.
Cassie's a lone wolf now - with no allies, no support, and only her own wits to
rely on - and she will face a killer who is as ruthless as he is cunning. Can
she do it alone?
Michael
Tanner is heading home from a business trip when he accidentally picks up the
wrong laptop from security. What he doesn't know is that the owner is US
senator Susan Robbins, and her laptop contains top secret files that should
never have been on there in the first place. And Senator Robbins is not the
only one who wants the laptop back...Suddenly, Tanner is a hunted man. On the run,
terrified for the safety of his family - he is in desperate need of a plan -
but who can he trust? The Switch is by
Joseph Finder
August 2017
The
Room by The Lake is by Emma Dibdin. When
Caitlin moved from London to New York, she thought she had left her problems
behind: her alcoholic father, her dead mother, the pressure to succeed. But
now, down to her last dollar in a foreign city, she is desperately lonely. Then
she meets Jake. Handsome, smart, slightly damaged Jake. He lives off-grid, in a
lakeside commune whose members practise regular exercise and frequent group
therapy. Before long, Caitlin has settled into her idyllic new home. It looks
like she has found the fresh start she longed for. But, as the commune tightens
its grip on her freedom and her sanity, Caitlin realizes too late that she
might become lost forever...
Madrid,
1982: The dictator is dead and Guzman is finally back in the capital. Years of
bitter exile in the provinces doing the dirty work for the sinister Head of
Military Intelligence have left their mark on the Comandante. He wants out. But
he needs money first...and what better way to get it than blackmail? After all,
he knows better than anyone where all the bodies are buried. Madrid, 2010:
Forensic Investigator Ana Maria Galindez has been tracking Comandante Guzman by
the trail of dead he left behind him: 15 tangled corpses in a disused mine,
three skeletons in a sealed cellar in the Basque country. Guzman is the key to
unlocking some of Spain's darkest secrets. But are there are those who will do
anything keep the past buried. By threatening to disturb the dead, both Guzman
and Galindez have placed themselves on the same lethal trajectory. The Dead by Mark Oldfield.
September 2017
When
I Wake Up is by Jessica Jarlvi. 'Why
won't Mummy wake up?' When Anna, a much-loved teacher and mother of two, is
left savagely beaten and in a coma, a police investigation is launched. News of
the attack sends shock waves through her family and their small Swedish
community. Anna seems to have had no enemies, so who wanted her dead? As
loved-ones wait anxiously by her bedside, her husband Erik is determined to get
to the bottom of the attack, and soon begins uncovering his wife's secret life,
and a small town riven with desire, betrayal and jealousy. As the list of
suspects grows longer, it soon becomes clear that only one person can reveal
the truth, and she's lying silent in a hospital bed...
October 2017
Deadlier is 100 of the best crime
stories written by women, selected and introduced by
They
say the girls were witches, but Beatrice Scarlet, the apothecary's daughter,
knows they were victims...London, 1758: Beatrice Scarlet has returned to London
and found work at St Mary Magdalene's Refuge for fallen women. Beatrice enjoys
the work and her apothecary skills are much needed. The home cooperates with a
network of wealthy factory owners across London, finding their charges steady
work and hopes of rehabilitation. But when twelve girls sent to a factory in
Clerkenwell disappear, Beatrice is uneasy. Their would-be benefactor claims
they were witches, sacrificed by Satan for his demonic misdeeds. But Beatrice
is sure something much darker than witchcraft is at play... The Coven is by Graham Masterton.
Trust
Me is by Zosia Wand. Lizzie is
twenty-seven, and she has a great relationship with her seventeen-year-old
stepson, Sam, even though they could pass for brother and sister. When Sam
becomes sullen and withdrawn, Lizzie starts to suspect that something sinister
is going on at school. She thinks an older woman is grooming him, trying to
turn him against his family. But nobody believes her - and then suspicion falls
on Lizzie herself.
The
Downside is by Mike Cooper. In an age of
cyber-crime, Finn is an old school thief: he's never stolen anything weighing
less than five tons. Now, fresh out of prison and flat broke, he's got a line
on his biggest job ever. Cracking the most heavily guarded private vault in
North America? No problem. Hauling $50 million of precious metal out past
guards, dozens of policemen and an armored SWAT battalion? Even easier. But
navigating the betrayals of double-crossing partners, the machinations of a
hedge-fund billionaire gone bad, and the ambiguous proposals of a woman with
her own agenda? Finn has only begun to figure out the downside.
November 2017
Jenny
Aaron was a government assassin, part of an elite unit tracking Germany's most
dangerous criminals. She was one of the best, until a disastrous mission ended
with her abandoning a wounded colleague and then going blind from her injuries.
Now, five years later, she has learnt to navigate a darkened world, but is haunted
by betraying her colleague. When she is called back to the force to trace a
ruthless serial killer, she seizes the opportunity to solve the case and
restore her honour. Strong-willed and fearless - but vulnerable too. In The
Dark is by Andreas Pflüger.
Life's
tough for a Gypsy cop in Budapest. The cops don't trust you because you're a
Gypsy. Your fellow Gypsies, even your own family, shun you because you're a
cop. The dead, however, don't care. So when Balthazar Kovacs, a detective in
the city's murder squad, gets a mysterious message on his phone from a blocked
number he gulps down the rest of his morning coffee, grabs his police ID and
goes to work. The message has two parts: a photograph and an address. The
photograph shows a man, in his early thirties, lying on his back with his eyes
open, half-covered by a blue plastic sheet. The address is 26, Republic Square,
the former Communist Party headquarters and once the most feared building in
the country. But when Kovacs arrives at Republic Square, the body has gone... District VIII is by Adam Lebor.
Undertow
is by Anthony J Quinn. The body of a
dead police detective drifts ashore at Lough Neagh. What appears to be a simple
case of suicide, takes on a more sinister tone when Detective Celcius Daly
travels across the Irish border to the desolate village of Dreesh, a place
where law and order have ground to a halt, and whose residents, ruined by a
chain of bankruptcies, have fallen under the spell of a malevolent crime boss
with powerful political connections to the IRA. Out of his jurisdiction, out of
his claustrophobic cottage and out of his comfort zone, Daly is plunged into a
shadowy border world of desperate informers, drunken ex-cops, freelance
intelligence agents and violent smugglers. Doomed to be kept in the dark by two
separate police forces working in parallel to each other along a border bracing
itself for Brexit, Daly's dogged search for the truth soon sparks an outbreak
of murderous violence.
