Return of the Maltese Falcon by Max Allan Collins. The greatest private eye of all time returns to finish the job.Legendary mystery writer Dashiell Hammett only wrote one novel about detective Sam Spade: The Maltese Falcon, the most famous private eye story ever told. But the case was never really solved – the priceless golden, bejeweled bird that men and women had been dying to possess turned out to be a fake. Now, Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Max Allan Collins (author of Road to Perdition) brings closure to this crime classic, reuniting all the surviving members of the original cast alongside femme fatales, crooked collectors, and greedy gangsters for one more thrilling, deadly chase through the streets, wharves, morgues, bars, and back alleys of 1920s San Francisco – and finally answers the question, Whatever became of the Maltese falcon…? (US Only)
February 2026
Double Trouble by Joyce Carol Oates. Four decades ago, acclaimed literary author Joyce Carol Oates penned her first novel of psychological suspense under the name “Rosamond Smith.” In the Smith books, Oates explored themes of betrayal and deception, lust and murder, through stories involving twins, doubles, and hidden second identities – initially, keeping her own double identity a secret. A female serial killer seeks refuge in her twin sister’s home in Starr Bright Will be With You Soon, while a male serial killer murders for the woman he craves in Soulmate – and the echoes continue in the rare short stories “The Murderess” and “An Unsolved Crime'.
March 2026
Death Wasn’t Invited by Carlene O’Connor Paris, 1922. The marriage between the Auclair and the Picard family is the talk of the town. June can’t wait to attend the engagement party with her friends, Nate and Jack. But Nate has an ulterior motive: he’s there to stop the wedding. Before he can complete his task, he’s stabbed in the chest with Jack’s knife. Jack is arrested, but June knows he wouldn’t hurt a fly. In this throwback to the classic whodunnits of Agatha Christie, June must find the real killer and clear Jack’s name. As she becomes embroiled deeper and deeper into a corrupt web of Parisian old money, high society and politics, she uncovers deadly secrets. Can June solve the case before the killer strikes again?
June 2026
A Morbid Passion by Robert Holtom. London 1930. Selby Bigge and his aristocratic sidekick Theodora Smythe are invited to dine with Doctor Hector Fortescue and his family, discovering a web of unrest in the household. The good doctor is adamant that homosexuals can be ‘cured’ of their perversions, oblivious to the fact his son Lancelot is ‘as fruity as a pineapple’. Later that evening Theodora becomes Theo and attends the Servants’ Ball with Selby – a fancy-dress dance for servants, which attracts queers of all classes. Lancelot makes a surprise appearance dressed as Harlequin, as do other members of the Fortescue household. And before the night is out Selby and Theo will have another murder to solve. Digging deeper, the duo – assisted by the impossibly glamorous nightclub singer Lady Splendid – discover that secrets abound both above and below stairs in the Kensington home of the Fortescue family. And the stakes get even higher when Selby encounters policemen he’s met before, who’d love to arrest him for being queer. Can Selby solve the crime or will this be his last dance?
July 2026
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Debutante Detective by Bruce Rule. Celebrity socialite Alice Roosevelt is taking London by storm in 1905 when her letter containing sensitive details of upcoming peace talks between Japan and Russia is stolen. The case pulls Holmes from retirement, and with Alice’s help the letter is retrieved. After returning to the U.S., Alice goes missing. At Teddy Roosevelt’s request, Holmes and Watson travel to New York where they discover Alice has turned detective herself, working undercover to thwart a kidnapping plot targeting her father. Her warnings are dismissed, but then the president is kidnapped. Alice and the detective duo join forces to search for her father, only to lose Holmes to the escaping kidnappers. Alice proves herself the equal to the great detective by leading Watson in the rescue of Teddy Roosevelt as well as Holmes, but the stakes are higher than they realise. In a race against time, they must stop a plan to bomb the peace talks or risk an escalation of war on a global scale.
The Makoto Murders by Richard Jerrman. Ken Kato is a half-British, half-Japanese photojournalist working for a low-brow weekly magazine in Tokyo. He achieved fame with a photograph of a boy who drowned in the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, who he could have saved had he not been more concerned with finding the right light and composition for his shot. Four years later, he has failed to repeat that success and, facing irrelevancy (and, worse, redundancy), he decides to turn serial killer to generate his own attention-grabbing pictures - for which he's inevitably always first on the scene. His magazine then publishes the pictures, causing a sensation in a society where murder is almost unheard of, and tripling its sales figures. Hoping to impress his colleague Hayashi's estranged wife Makoto, who he is stalking after a short affair (though she clearly sees things differently), Kato murders only men and women with the same name as her. Inevitably the police are suspicious, but can find no evidence as he is meticulous in his planning and execution. Kato's editor is also suspicious, but is willing to ignore the evidence in front of him as sales boom.
