Books to Look Forward to from Head of Zeus

January 2019

It was nothing more than a one-night stand. Juliana Brody, a judge in the Superior Court of Massachusetts, is rumoured to be in consideration for the federal circuit, maybe someday the highest court in the land. At a conference in a Chicago hotel, she meets a gentle, vulnerable man and in a moment of weakness has an unforgettable night with him. They part with an explicit understanding that this must never happen again.  But back home in Boston, it becomes clear that this was no random encounter. The man from Chicago proves to have an integral role in a case she's presiding over - a sex-discrimination case that's received national attention. Juliana discovers that she's been entrapped, her night of infidelity captured on video. Strings are being pulled in high places, a terrifying unfolding conspiracy that will turn her life upside down. But soon it becomes clear that personal humiliation, even the possible destruction of her career, are the least of her concerns, as her own life and the lives of her family are put in mortal jeopardy.  In the end, turning the tables on her adversaries will require her to be as ruthless as they are.  Judgment is by Joseph Finder.

Verses for the Dead is by Preston & Child.  After an overhaul of leadership at the FBI's New York field office, Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast is forced to accept an unthinkable condition of continued employment: the unorthodox lone wolf must now work with a partner.  Pendergast and his new cohort, Special Agent Coldmoon, are dispatched to Florida to investigate a rash of ritualistic murders. A killer is carving out the hearts of his victims, and depositing the stolen organs alongside the headstones of existing graves. Accompanying each heart is a cryptic letter, signed by a 'Mr Brokenhearts'. There is one more intriguing aspect to Mr Brokenhearts' macabre modus operandi: the chosen graves all belong to women who have committed suicide.  As he searches for the connection between the old suicides and the new murders, Pendergast realises the brutal new crimes may be just the tip of the iceberg: that he faces a conspiracy of death reaching back decades.

February 2019

Begging to Die is by Graham Masterton. A young girl is found wandering the city alone. Who is she?  Someone is killing beggars on the streets of Cork. But why?  DCI Katie Maguire, Ireland's most fearless detective, must find out. But while she fights for justice for the homeless, her fiance Conor has his own crusade: against illegal puppy farming. A hugely lucrative black market run by terrifying gangs, it is a huge scandal in Ireland.  Soon their freedom, their marriage, and even their lives are in danger...

March 2019

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett encounters bad behavior on his own turf: a drone is killing wildlife - and the drone belongs to a mysterious and wealthy man whose grandson is dating Joe's own daughter, Lucy.  When Joe tries to lay down the rules for the drone operator, he is asked by the FBI and the DOJ to stand down - and with good reason: the man is in the witness relocation program and he's being hunted by four killers from the Sinaloa cartel. If Joe isn't careful, his actions will expose the witness to his pursuers.  Teaming up with a new partner - a female game warden - to confront these assassins, Joe finds himself their prey - along with Lucy and her boyfriend.  Wolf Pact is by CJ Box.

The Friend is by Joakim Zander.  Jacob Seger arrived in Lebanon with a head full of dreams. This is his first job in the world of international diplomacy, and he's determined to change the world for the better. When he meets the handsome, soulful Yassim at a glamorous party, his happiness is complete.  But three weeks later, Jacob recognises his own face in the newspaper. He is wanted on terrorism charges - apparently he is plotting attacks on Stockholm, London, Brussels, and Rome. Jacob is crushed. Has Yassim set him up? Is he now a pawn in a murderous plot? Jacob doesn't know who he can trust. But one thing's for certain: he needs to flee Beirut - and fast.  At once a moving love story and a gripping adventure, The Friend is an intelligent and urgent thriller that untangles the complexities of international politics and casts light on the dark threats facing the world today.

A Suspicion of Silver is by P F Chisholm.  Sir Robert Carey leaves the court of Scotland's King James VI in early January, 1593, on the hunt for Joachim Hochstetter - also known as Jonathan Hepburn.  Carey, the Queen's Deputy Warden in Carlisle, is carrying a warrant for Hochstetter's arrest for plotting with the King of Spain and Scottish earls to assassinate King James. Hochstetter, a skilled engineer, is a son of a family of Anabaptists from Augsburg and may have taken ship. Or he may have gone to ground at Vicar's Island, Derwentwater, where his widowed mother, Radegunda, rules the smelting business and her unruly brood. Is he a man driven by the religious politics of the period? Or is he just a stone-cold killer?  Meanwhile, what is the fate of Sir Robert's surly henchman Henry Dodd? Is his wife - the redoubtable Janet - now a childless widow?

April 2019

In Kossuth square, Lajos Kolompar, a local politican is found dead, face down in a pond in front of Parliament. With his blood alcohol nudging fatal levels, he's believed to have fallen and drowned.  Gypsy cop Balthazar Kovacs of the Budapest murder squad reads of

Kolompar's death in the news. It stays in the back of his mind until his old girlfriend, journalist Eniko Szalay, receives a tip-off from the coroner's office that Kolompar's autopsy results were tampered with.  And his body accidentally cremated.  Soon, Kovacs is drawn into the Budapest underworld of people smuggling, blackmail and violent political tensions - always caught between the two worlds of the Gypsy and the non-Gypsy, of the law and family loyalty.  Kossuth Square is by Adam Lebor.

The Playground Murders is by Lesley Thomson.  Wormwood scrubs playground, 1980.  The wind blows across the common, and the girl in her shorts shivers. The playground is isolated, timeless. Far from the prying eyes of grown-ups, she and her friends can play make-believe here. The looming slide is a mountain; the upturned log a pirate ship. But six-year-old Sarah Ferris does not know that in two days' time, she will be dead: a victim of jealousy, betrayal, and her own innocence. Hammersmith, 2019. Cleaner Stella Darnell loves rooting into shadowy places and restoring order. She'll clear your attic, polish your kitchen and scrub your bath - but she also investigates cold cases. Stella can spend hours sifting through forgotten evidence looking for shreds of evidence the police might have missed. So when a woman is found dead, and the killer is linked to the Sarah Ferris murder, Stella is the woman for the case. But dredging up the past can be dangerous. Especially if the playground killer is back...

May 2019

A wounded daughter.  Detective Fabian Risk's daughter is in a coma at Helsingborg hospital. It's Risk's fault for getting her involved in his last investigation - and the guilt is crippling.  A murdered boy.   A young Syrian refugee has been killed. It looks like a racist attack - but then more people die across Sweden and Denmark. There's no link between any of the victims. Is this a serial killer who strikes at random?  A desperate hunt.  In Denmark, Police Chief Astrid Tuvesson must abandon her AA program to lead the investigation. And in Sweden, Fabian Risk is called from his daughter's bedside and forced back into service. But even with a united team, tracking a random killer is next to impossible...  How do you catch a killer… Who never strikes the same way twice.  Motive X is by Stefan Ahnhem.

A Date With Death is by Mark Roberts.  All they wanted was to find their happy-ever-after... Instead, they met their deaths.  Three women have been killed in Liverpool. The MO points to a stranger, and now DCI Eve Clay is on the trail of a vicious man who preys on lonely women on dating sites. He signs off the same way with each message: "Kiss kiss, night night."  His crimes are escalating - and Eve has to stop him before another girl dies. But first she needs to find him. And that means going undercover online, and posing as his perfect victim...

June 2019

A Line of Forgotten Blood is by Malcolm Mackay.  Scotland has been a proudly independent country for centuries. But success has now turned sour. Malcolm Mackay's remarkable novel of crime and corruption is set in a brooding, rain-swept Scottish city that is compellingly different from the one we think we know.  The Scottish city of Challaid is corruption-riddled place where people frequently go off the radar. So when PC Vinny Reno discovers his ex-wife, Freya, has disappeared, he turns to private detectives Darian Ross and Sholto Douglas.  Their search will lead them to a collision between Freya and a wealthy banking family. But it also leads to more questions. What does Freya's disappearance have to do with a year-old murder case? What is the involvement of a young man who never leaves his house? As they dig deeper into the past, Darian and Sholto realise they must stand against the most powerful people in the city if they are to unearth the truth...

Books to look forward to from Head of Zeus

January 2018

Eighteen Below is by Stefan Ahnhem.  ON A HOT SUMMER'S DAY. The police chase a speeding car through the streets of Helsingborg. When they reach the quay, the driver keeps going, straight into the cold, dark water.  A TRAGIC ACCIDENT. The body recovered from the wreck is Peter Brise, a wealthy tech entrepreneur. Fabian Risk and his team are confident this is a suicide. Young, rich, successful, Brise just didn't know how to ask for help.  TURNS EVERTHING A LITTLE COLDER...   But then the autopsy reveals something unexpected. Brise was already dead when his car crashed. He'd been brutally murdered two months ago. His body was frozen in perfect condition, at eighteen degrees below zero...

Grace Ozmian, missing daughter of a tech billionaire has been found.  Most of her, anyway. Her head is still missing.  Lieutenant CDS Vincent D'Agosta knows his investigation will attract fierce media scrutiny, so he's delighted when his old acquaintance FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast is assigned to the case.  But neither man is prepared for what lies ahead. A diabolical presence is haunting New York City and Grace is only the first of many victims to be murdered... and decapitated.  As mass hysteria sweeps the city, it will take all of Pendergast's skill and strength to unmask this most dangerous foe - let alone survive to tell the tale.  City of Endless Night is by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

February 2018

Dead Men Whistling is by Graham Masterton.  A garda sergeant is found beheaded with an Irish tin whistle sticking out of his neck. He was due to give evidence at a major inquiry into police corruption. His murder sends a clear message to any future whistleblowers: only silence is safe.  The inquiry hinges on the arrest of one of Cork's most ruthless drug dealers. Though there was evidence to convict him, he walked free. DCI Katie Maguire is determined to expose the full truth.  But when another officer is murdered in the exact same way, Katie finds that murder is the best way to stop people talking.

Eight years a soldier, Peter Ash came home from Iraq and Afghanistan with only one souvenir: what he calls 'white static', a buzzing claustrophobia due to post-traumatic stress that has driven him to spend a year roaming the Pacific coast's mountains and forests, sleeping under the stars. But when a friend from the Marines commits suicide, Ash returns to civilization to help the man's widow and two young children. While repairing her dilapidated porch, he makes two unwelcome discoveries: The first is a dog, the meanest, ugliest dog he's ever laid eyes on, guarding a Samsonite suitcase; the second unwelcome surprise is the suitcase's contents - $400,000 in cash and four slabs of plastic explosive. Just what was his friend caught up in during his final days? Ash will find that the demons of war aren't easy to leave behind...  The Drifter is by Nick Petrie.

Like Lions is by Brian Panowich.  Clayton Burroughs is sheriff of Bull Mountain and one-time black sheep of the brutal and blood-steeped Burroughs clan. It's been a year since a rogue government agent systematically crippled the family's criminal empire that left two of the brothers dead, and Clayton, the youngest and only surviving member of the clan, broken and haunted by wounds that may never heal.  Now Bull Mountain is vulnerable, ripe for predators wanting to re-establish the flow of dope and money through the town. And the death of a boy belonging to a rival clan brings the wolves straight to Clayton's door.  The only good son born of a crooked tree, Clayton wants to bury his bloody family legacy for good. But he'll need to call on it if he wants to save his family, and his mountain, from the destruction that awaits.

March 2018

The Disappeared is by C J Box. The new State Governor, Colter Allen, needs a favour from Game Warden Joe Pickett. The British consulate is asking questions over in Denver: a rich English woman visiting a high-end guest ranch has gone missing. Joe has a habit of investigating outside the lines of the local law and Allen needs this done quietly. But Joe's inquiries soon uncover not one, but three missing women.  At the same time, with his friend Nate Romanowski, he's called to investigate a serious federal crime: the killing of several bald and golden eagles. The more questions Joe asks about each case, the clearer it becomes someone wants him to disappear.  And the answers, when they finally come, reveal a violently darker Wyoming that he ever imagined.

April 2018

In the Cage Where Your Saviors Hide is by Malcolm Mackay.  The independent kingdom of

Scotland flourished until the beginning of the last century. Its great trading port of Challaid, in the north west of the country, sent ships around the world and its merchants and bankers grew rich on their empire in Central America.  But Scotland is not what it was, and the docks of Challaid are almost silent. The huge infrastructure projects collapsed, like the dangerous railway tunnels under the city. And above ground the networks of power and corruption are all that survive of Challaid's glorious past.  Darian Ross is a young private investigator whose father, an ex cop, is in prison for murder. He takes on a case brought to him by a charismatic woman, Maeve Campbell. Her partner has been stabbed; the police are not very curious about the death of a man who laundered money for the city's criminals. Ross is drawn by his innate sense of justice and his fascination with Campbell into a world in which no-one can be trusted.

Queen's Jubilee, 1977: Cassie Baker sees her boyfriend kissing another girl at the village disco. Upset, she heads home alone and is never seen again. Millennium Eve, 1999: DCI Paul Mercer finds Cassie's remains in a field. Now he must prove the man who led him there is guilty. When Mercer's daughter asks Stella Darnell for help solving the murder, Stella see echoes of herself. Another detective's daughter. With her sidekick sleuth, Jack, Stella moves to Winchcombe, where DCI Mercer and his prime suspect have been playing cat and mouse for the past eighteen years...  The Death Chamber is by Lesley Thomson

May 2018

Ex-journalist Kay and her family are spending the summer in a rented farmhouse in Vermont. Kay is haunted by her traumatic past in Africa, and is struggling with her troubled marriage and the constraints of motherhood. Then her husband is called away unexpectedly on business and Kay finds herself alone with the children, obsessed by the idea that something terrible has happened to the owners of the house. The locals are reticent when she asks about their whereabouts; and she finds disturbing writing scrawled across one of the walls.  As she starts to investigate she becomes involved with a local man, Ben, whose life is complicated by his own violent past, his involvement in a drug-trafficking operation, and his desire to adopt an abused child.  Their two stories collide and intertwine, heading towards a dramatic denouement.  The Underneath is by Melanie Finn

The End of Days has been predicted for the last two thousand years. But now, without warning, it is upon us.  Braverman 'Bravo' Shaw, member of a secret Franciscan splinter sect, has survived a battle as old as time itself: the battle between good and evil. Working with his once-blind sister, Emma, and his confessor, Fra Leoni, Bravo went to war with the Fallen, Lucifer's advance guard and emerged with The Book of Deathly Things - Lucifer's first and last Testament.  Now, back in New York, the book's secrets have revealed themselves to Emma. With the testament stolen by Bravo, Emma realises the Fallen army will awaken fully. And come to claim what is theirs.  Four Dominions is by Eric Van Lustbader.

A young Czech girl, missing for eight days, is found abandoned in a deserted playground. She is so traumatised she cannot speak.  DCI Eve Clay is on her way to try and interview the victim, when another case is called in. Two Polish migrant workers have been found dead in their burnt out flat. But this is no normal house fire. The men's bodies were set alight, after the killer had clinically removed both of their hearts.  Then reports come in that the Czech girl's mother has disappeared.  Then Clay and her team receive an anonymous call. Someone else will die before the day ends.  Killing Time is by Mark Roberts.

June 2018

Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Nemsis is by Eric Van Lustbader.  Jason Bourne returns. He's fought against the NSA, black off-site cyber operations, a Somali terrorist organisation and been accused of treason against the US.  Now the Russians have planted a mole to uncover Bourne's secrets and launch cyber-warfare against the United States.  Meanwhile, Bourne's former colleague, Soroya Moore, needs his help. Six highly skilled field agents have disappeared, the body parts of three found in a national park in Georgia. Facing death and destruction in the shadows of civilisation, Bourne will battle his deadliest nemesis yet.

Death Notice is by Zhou Haohui.  Online, a vigilante announces their intention of meting out justice for unpunished crimes. Users are invited to submit names for judgement. Those found guilty will be sentenced. And there is just one punishment: death. Despite publishing the name of each victim and the date of execution - their death notice - the police are simply unable to stop the killer. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) is assembled, comprising a criminal psychologist, a SWAT captain, an Online Surveillance Officer and Detective Luo Fei. As they pursue the killer, the SIT will be drawn ever deeper into dark and dangerous territory. What is the connection to a highly classified eighteen-year-old case that saw two similar 'death notice' murders? What is Detective Luo's personal connection to that case? And finally, what crimes might the members of the SIT guilty of? And what will they do to keep them secret?

December 2015 Book Reviews

Here's a listing of reviews posted on the SHOTS' website in December ... Happy Reading

Sophie Hannah	A Game For All The Family
Angela Clarke	Follow Me
Brian Panowich	Bull Mountain
Mark Roberts	Blood Mist
Ruth Ware	In a Dark, Dark Wood
Adrian McKinty	Rain Dogs
Matthew Pritchard	Broken Arrow
Christina James	The Crossing
Orlando Pearson	The Redacted Sherlock Holmes Volume 1
Jonathan Holt	The Traitor
M.R.C. Kasasian	Death Descends on Saturn Villa
Patrick Lee	Only to Die Again
Conrad Williams	Dust and Desire