Five
Dreams of Fame. Glasgow, 1965 Jack
Mackay dares not imagine a life of predictability and routine. The headstrong seventeen year old has one
thing on his mind – London – and successfully convinces his four friends, and
fellow band mates, to join him in abandoning their lives to pursue their goal
of musical stardom. Five Decades of
Fear. Glasgow, 2015. Jack MacKay dares not look back on a life of
failure and mediocrity. The
heavy-hearted sixty-seven year old is haunted by the cruel fate that befell him
and his friends some fifty years before, and how he did and did not act when it
mattered most – a memory he has run from all his adult life. London, 2015 A man lies dead in a bedsit. His killer looks on, remorseless. What started with five teenagers five decades
before will now be finished. Runaway is
by Peter May and is a tense nostalgic crime thriller spanning a half-century of
friendships solidified and severed, passions ignited and extinguished; and set
against the background of two unique and contrasting cities at two unique and
contrasting periods of recent history. Runaway
is due to be published in January 2015.
The
Lady from Zagreb is by Philip Kerr and is due to be published in May 2015. In 1942, there are many worse places to be
than Zurich, and detective Bernie Gunther has seen his fair share of them. So when a superior asks him to track down a
glamorous German actress believed to be hiding in Zurich, he takes the job. Not that he has much choice: the superior is
Goebbels himself. Soon Bernie finds
himself involved in something much more sinister. The actress, it emerges, is the daughter of a
fanatical Croatian fascist, the sadistic commandant of a notorious
concentration camp. And the Swiss police
have a cold case that they want Bernie to take a look at: one that seems to
have connections to some powerful people back in the Reich.
London,
1654. Oliver Cromwell is at the height
of his power and has declared himself Lord
The
Other Child is by Lucy Atkins and is due to be published in June 2015. When her newly married husband, Greg, a high
profile paediatric heart surgeon, is offered the job of a lifetime in Boston,
Tess reluctantly agrees to move to the US for a couple of years. But once Tess and Joe, her son from a
previous relationship, arrive in Boston they don't find settling there very
easy. Strange things seem to be
happening at the house they have moved into, and the neighbours are acting
weirdly towards Tess and Joe. Above all,
Tess has found out that she is pregnant, after having agreed with Greg that
they wouldn't want any more children...and the unborn baby triggers different
feelings with all three family members. The
only one striving in the new surroundings seems to be Greg, and Tess is beginning
to wonder why. Then she makes a
jaw-dropping discovery.
Cocaine
is a collection of short stories by Massimo Carlotto, Gianrico Carofiglio and
Giancarlo de Cataldo and is due to be published in May 2015. In Carlotto's The Campagna Trail, Inspector
Campagna uses an old friendship with notorious drug dealer Roby Pizzo in a
Machiavellian attempt to keep the peace.
But when an interfering new police chief demands Campagna bring down the
Mafioso who heads Pizzo's gang, Campagna must use every weapon he has to save
his job - and his life. Meanwhile in
Carofiglio's The Speed of an Angel, a writer in crisis strikes up an unlikely
friendship with a mysterious woman he meets in a quiet seaside cafe. As their conversations deepen, and their
obsessions darken, their drug-fuelled relationship begins to spiral, in this
haunting tale of damnation and redemption.
Finally in De Cataldo's The White Powder Dance, the city police are put
on the trail of a baby-faced new graduate in the Milanese banking sector. As the pursuit accelerates through back
streets and skyscrapers, it becomes clear that there is more to organised crime
than getting your hands dirty.
Cuckold
Point is by Patrick Easter and is due to be published in April 2015. October 1799.
A
A
Book of Scars is the third book in the Breen and Tozer series by William Shaw
and is due to be published in June 2015.
London - Devonshire, 1969. Five
years ago, teenager Alexandra Tozer was murdered on her family farm. Her sister Helen Tozer will never forget. Returning home after quitting the Met Police,
she brings with her the recovering Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen, who begins
to covertly investigate the unsolved case.
He discovers the Tozers were never told the whole truth. Alexandra was tortured for twenty-four hours
before she died. But when he tracks down
the original investigating sergeant, the man goes missing. And so does Tozer. Suspicion falls on her. But Breen is on a trail that goes far beyond
the death of a schoolgirl. For the two
men connected to this case met in Kenya, during the Mau Mau uprising; and the
history that Britain has turned its face from is now returning to haunt it. So when another innocent woman goes missing,
Breen knows he has just twenty-four hours to save her.
Jigsaw Man is by Elena Forbes and is due to be published in January 2015. DI Mark Tartaglia spends a night in a west
London hotel with a woman he has just met.
When he is called out to the same hotel the next morning to investigate
a murder, he realises it must have taken place while he was there. If things weren't already complicated enough,
the investigation takes a new and horrifying turn when he recognises the young
female victim. Still reeling from the
shock, he learns that another case he has been investigating - the body of a
homeless man found in a burnt-out car - is also not what it seems. Tests reveal that the corpse has been
assembled from the body parts of four different people. Under mounting pressure from the media and
unsure where his loyalties lie, Tartaglia must solve this new macabre puzzle
before the Jigsaw Killer strikes again.
Unexplained
bloodstains appear in a young couple's apartment; a disembodied hand is found
in a rubbish dump; political prisoners resort to horrific measures in order to
make a point. In this brilliant new
collection of stories, Crimes by Alberto Barrera Tyszka casts an eye on the
violence that afflicts Latin America, and in particular its intimate effects on
the individuals who suffer and inflict it.
Mixing the surreal with the quotidian, the banal with the unspeakable,
Tyszka has created a fragmentary panorama of man's misdeeds against his own
kind. These windingly elliptical stories
are ceaselessly surprising, and will bury themselves into your subconscious
long after the final page is turned.
Crimes is due to be published in April 2015.
A
Killing Winter is the debut novel by Tom Callaghan and is due to be published
in February
Norfolk
is experiencing a July heat wave when a construction crew unearths a macabre
discovery - a buried WWII plane with the pilot still inside. Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway quickly
realizes that the skeleton couldn't possibly be the pilot, and DNA tests
identify the man as Fred Blackstock, a local aristocrat who had been reported
dead at sea. When the remaining members
of the Blackstock family learn about the discovery, they seem strangely
frightened by the news. Events are
further complicated by a TV company that wants to make a film about Norfolk's
deserted air force bases, the so-called Ghost Fields, which have been partially
converted into a pig farm run by one of the younger Blackstock's. As production begins, Ruth notices a
mysterious man lurking close to the Blackstock's family home. Then human bones are found on the family's
pig farm. Can the team outrace a looming
flood to find a killer? The Ghost Fields
is by Elly Griffiths and is due to be published in April 2015.
Dirty
War is by Dominique Sylvain and is due to be published in June 2015. A lawyer who specialises in
French-African relations is found brutally murdered after suffering 'the torture
of Father Lebrun' - a burning tyre is placed around his neck until he
suffocates. The case is already
explosive because of its connections to high-profile members of the
Franco-African arms trade. But for Lola
Jost, the case has a darker resonance - her much-loved assistant, a mixed race
policeman named Toussaint Kidjo, was murdered in the same manner five years
before - a crime that was never solved. Weaving
in our favourite larger-than-life characters from The Dark Angel, this is a far
darker story, as Lola and Ingrid become embroiled in a case that draws
attention from all the wrong quarters.
Barcelona,
Summer 2003. Three women are sacrificed
to an unknown purpose, skin
Daniel
and Vanessa Parker are an American success story. He is a Washington, D.C. power broker, and
she is a doctor with a thriving practice.
But behind the facade, their marriage is a shambles, and their teenage
son, Quentin, is self-destructing. In
desperation, Daniel dusts off a long-delayed dream - a sailing trip around the
world. Little does he know that the
voyage he hopes will save them may destroy them instead. Half a world away, on the lawless coast of
Somalia, Ismail Ibrahim is plotting the rescue of his sister, Yasmin, from the
man who murdered their father. Driven to
crime by love and loyalty, he hijacks ships for ransom money. There is nothing he will not do to save her,
even if it means taking innocent life. Paul
Derrick is the FBI's top hostage negotiator.
His twin sister Megan is a celebrated defense attorney. When Paul is called to respond to a hostage
crisis at sea, he has no idea how far it will take them both into their
traumatic past - or the chance it will give them to redeem the future. Across continents and oceans, through storms
and civil wars, their paths converge in a single, explosive moment. It is a moment that will test them, and break
them, but that will also leave behind a glimmer of hope - that out of the ashes
of tragedy the seeds of justice and reconciliation can grow, not only for
themselves but also for Somalia itself.
The Tears of Dark Water is by Corban Addison and is due to be published
in March 2015.
Four
bodies are found. There is nothing to
connect them, other than that they have been killed in the same way: quick,
efficient and bloodless, each victim stabbed with the same instrument. The press call the killer 'The Ghost', as he
leaves no trace. Nor can Fabel see any
hint of any psycho-sexual or other motive.
The victims are of both genders and from completely different walks of
life. They are, however, all roughly the
same age, which leads Fabel to suspect, as the investigation progresses, that
the motive may be linked to their histories.
From the earliest stages of the investigation, Fabel finds himself the
target of attempts on his own life from a hidden, unknown assailant. It's only after a near deadly encounter that
Fabel realizes that, while he is the hunter of one killer, he has become the
hunted of another. A spectre from his
own past has come to claim vengeance. A
killer who believes himself to be untouchable - because he believes himself
already dead. The Ghosts of Altona is by
Craig Russell and is due to be published in June 2015.
The
Boy in the Shadows is by Carl-Johan Vallgren and is due to be published in
January 2015. In an overcrowded
Stockholm underground station a father and his two boys are late for their
train. Joel, the youngest, is howling in
his pushchair and his seven-year-old brother, Kristoffer, refuses to take the
lift. A woman approaches and offers to
lead Kristoffer up the stairs. Reluctantly
his father agrees, but when he arrives on the platform Kristoffer and the woman
have vanished without a trace. Many
years later, Joel, now an adult, goes missing in suspicious circumstances. His wife turns to Danny Katz - an old friend
- for help. But Katz isn't the only one
trying to find Joel, and the deeper he digs the more secrets he uncovers about
the wealthy and powerful family at the heart of the investigation. Then suddenly, the case takes a dramatic new
turn.
A
Cold Killing is by Anna Smith and is due to be published in April 2015. Crime reporter Rosie Gilmour returns from
hiding in Bosnia to a story of a brutal execution. University lecturer Tom Mahoney was shot at
point blank range, the killing has all the signs of a hit. But who would want to kill a retired lecturer? Rosie throws herself into the investigation,
looking for a witness that has gone missing.
A witness that might hold the key to the story. But she has her own reasons to stay hidden. As Rosie digs deeper, she finds the story has
connections to the Ministry of Defence and MI6 and Mahoney's past is darker
than anyone could imagine. Rosie's
running out of time to find out the truth, before Mahoney's killers silence her
for good.
The
Wrong Girl is by Laura Wilson and is due to be published in May 2015. In 2006, three-
Kosher
sushi, kebabs, a second hand bookshop, and a bar:
Camille is the third book in the trilogy by Pierre Lemaitre
and is due to be published in March 2015.
Anne Forestier finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time when
she is trapped in the middle of a raid on a jewellers on the Champs-Elysees. Shot three times, she is lucky to survive -
and morbidly unlucky to remember the face of her assailant. Followed home from her hospital bed, Anne is
in grave danger. But one thing stands in
her favour - a dangerously vengeful partner, carrying the scars of devastating
loss, who will break all the rules to protect the woman he loves: Commandant
Camille Verhoeven. Following the horror
of Irene and the thrills of Alex, Camille is the heart-stopping final chapter
of Lemaitre's multi-award-winning trilogy, soon to be the subject of a major
American film. Drawn once again into a
labyrinthine web with answers ever out of reach, Camille must draw on all his talent
to face an enemy who threatens everything he holds dear.
Tormented by past heartbreak and contemporary politics, for
Edgar 'Lefty' Mendieta the news of the murder of lawyer Bruno Canizales
represents just another day at the office in the drug-ridden city of Culiacan. It soon becomes clear that there is no
shortage of suspects in a city where it's hard to tell the gangsters from the
politicians. Canizales was the son of a
former government minister and the partner of a drug baron's daughter, with his
own penchant for cross-dressing and dangerous sex. What is less clear is why the assassin chose
to use a silver bullet. And why, two
days later, they seem to have struck again.
In this sweltering city where a desire for the truth can be as dangerous
as any drug, Mendieta's search for justice takes him from mansions to drug
dens, in Élmer Mendoza's seminal founding text of Latin America's 'narco-lit'
wave. Silver Bullets is by Élmer Mendoza
and is due to be published in April 2015.
Fall
of Man in Wilmslow is by David Lagercrantz and is due to be published in May
2015. Leonard Corell, a detective
sergeant in the sleepy town of Wilmslow, is disillusioned with his lot. Trapped between professional stagnation and
personal repression, he can't even work up the courage to ask out Julie, the
pretty assistant at the tailor's. Tasked
with investigating the suicide of a local recluse, Alan Turing, Corell is torn
between admiration for the dead man's genius and disgust for his sexuality. In the face of opposition from his superiors,
Corell continues to investigate the open-and-shut case, stumbling across
forbidden knowledge about the marvels of Bletchley Park, and the horrors of its
hero's downfall. As this succession of
remarkable discoveries drives Corell to examine his own prejudice, he is rocked
by two startling developments. His
much-loved Aunt Vicky is exposed as a lesbian, and his increasingly hostile
bosses are demanding he investigate rumours of homosexual activity in Wilmslow. To make matters worse, it seems Corell's
questions might be answered sooner than he imagined...
