Africa’s under-appreciated crime fiction

As readers of African crime fiction for fifty years, and writers of it for the past fifteen, we’ve

had a chance to appreciate where it’s come from and watch where it’s reached.

While Africa has a long tradition of storytelling, it seems that African fiction writers only really came to international attention in the fifties with the writings of Nigerian Chinua Achebe and South Africans Alan Paton and Nadine Gordimer.

As far as mysteries are concerned, one really starts with James McClure’s Kramer and Zondi series of the early seventies. Not only are these darn good crime fiction plots, but the relationship between the white Lieutenant Tromp Kramer and the (smarter) black Detective Sergeant Mickey Zondi illustrates and satirises the contradictions and unfairness of apartheid. At about the same time, Ngugi wa Thiong’o wrote Petals of Blood set in post-colonial Kenya, but illustrating the conflict between the inherited colonial ideas and the ambient African cultural ones.

Mysteries with African settings by European writers have a longer history. Among the earliest was the first of Elspeth Huxley’s three Kenya mysteries—Murder at Government House—published in the thirties. While there is the strong sense of Africa that characterises all her books, it’s restricted to the colonial players.

So, African mysteries have some history, and over the last fifteen years there has been an explosion of authors writing contemporary crime fiction in Africa—not only in South Africa but across the continent with writers like Leye Adenle (Nigeria), Kwei Quartey (Ghana), Unity Dow (Botswana) and many others. 

How have readers elsewhere in the world reacted to this new and rich perspective on the continent?  Only a few have made the breakthrough into the international arena.  Writers from overseas who set their work here also have had a mixed reception, some successful like Alexander McCall Smith’s Mma Ramotswe series, but others who are first class cause hardly a ripple. Just as one example, take Robert Wilson’s excellent work—his Africa novels are not as popular as the ones set closer to home.

It was Deon Meyer who took up McClure’s cudgel, using crime fiction set in the post-apartheid era, albeit steeped in its aftermath, to illustrate present day South Africa.  He is probably Africa’s best known crime writer, yet even his excellent police procedurals and thrillers don’t make the same impact overseas as those of many Scandinavian writers.

It certainly isn’t the case that readers are only interested in crime fiction set in their own cultures or written originally in their own language—one only has to look at the huge success of the Nordic writers. What makes their books appealing?  Is it the weather? The cold seeping into your bones and the winter darkness seeping into your heart? Or is it a different writing style, but not too different? Or is it just that they are in fashion?

Or is it something else?

Is it perhaps that readers are reluctant to stray away from cultures they know, away from characters who are more or less like themselves?  For the last month, there has been a blog tour for our latest Detective Kubu mystery, Dying to Live.  Fortunately, the response has been overwhelmingly positive, but several of them contained a message that surprised us.  For a number of these bloggers, who are voracious readers, Dying to Live was a first or rare excursion into Africa.  Some were worried before they started reading that differences in culture would put them off or make the book difficult to read.  By the time they finished the book, far from finding it off-putting, many commented how much they enjoyed being taken to somewhere they didn’t know and to a culture that was quite different, set in the context of a good mystery.  Some said it was a welcome change to read an example of Sunshine Noir rather than Nordic Noir.

So, perhaps the main reason that African mysteries don’t get the recognition we think they deserve is nothing to do with the writer, but rather the setting.  So, how can we persuade readers to become more adventurous?

Last year at the Murder Out of Africa panel at Harrogate, we asked the audience how many of them had read an African mystery.  Only a few had.  Then an audience member commented that he hardly ever heard of African mysteries and asked us why publishers don’t select more African crime fiction books.  Deon spoke for all of us when he replied that the way to get more published with greater visibility was for people to buy more and read more of them.  A literary vicious circle.

So, we urge readers to intersperse their to-be-read piles with books set in different cultures and settings.  It will give writers from these places greater access to the wonderful reading public of the U.K., and give readers the opportunity for exciting armchair travel.

Michael and Stanley

www.detectivekubu.com

 https://web.facebook.com/MichaelStanleyBooks/

@detectivekubu

Read Robin Jarossi's review here.

Buy it from SHOTS A-Store

Michael writes a monthly piece on new African crime fiction—Africa Scene—for the International Thriller Writers The Big Thrill online magazine: http://www.thebigthrill.org/

Dying to Live by Michael Stanley (Published by Orenda Books)

The body of a Bushman is discovered near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, and the death is written off as an accident. But all is not as it seems. An autopsy reveals that although he’s clearly very old, his internal organs are puzzlingly young. What’s more, an old bullet is lodged in one of his muscles … but where is the entry wound? When the body is stolen from the morgue and a local witch doctor is reported missing, Detective ‘Kubu’ Bengu gets involved. As Kubu and his brilliant young colleague, Detective Samantha Khama, follow the twisting trail through a confusion of rhino-horn smugglers, foreign gangsters and drugs manufacturers, the wider and more dangerous the case becomes…

These are a few of my favourite books of 2015.........

My favourite books of 2015 are a varied bunch.  They are as follows in no particular order and mainly as I have remembered them.

Pleasantville by Attica Locke (Serpent's Tail)

It's 1996, Bill Clinton has just been re-elected and in Houston a mayoral election is looming. As usual the campaign focuses on Pleasantville -- the African-American neighbourhood of the city that has swung almost every race since it was founded to house a growing black middle class in 1949.  Axel Hathorne, former chief of police and the son of Pleasantville's founding father Sam Hathorne, was the clear favourite, all set to become Houston's first black mayor. But his lead is slipping thanks to a late entrant into the race -- Sandy Wolcott, a defence attorney riding high on the success of a high-profile murder trial.  And then, just as the competition intensifies, a girl goes missing, apparently while canvassing for Axel. And when her body is found, Axel's nephew is charged with her murder.  Sam is determined that Jay Porter defends his grandson. And even though Jay is tired of wading through other people's problems, he suddenly finds himself trying his first murder case, a trial that threatens to blow the entire community wide open, and reveal the lengths that those with power are willing to go to hold onto it.  A highly accomplished political thriller about an incident in African American election history. Pleasantville depicts the beginnings of the present implacable ideological standoff in US politics.  Well written, fresh and with an oppressively edgy ambiance. Attica Locke channels bitter political memories into a taut and fascinating novel.

The Truth and Other Lies by Sascha Arango (Simon and Schuster)

From the outside, Henry Hayden has a perfect life: he's a famous novelist with more money than he can spend, a grand house in the country, a loyal, clever wife. But Henry has a dark side. If only the readers and critics who worship his every word knew that his success depends on a carefully maintained lie. One he will stop at nothing to protect. His luck must surely run out, and he simply can't allow that to happen. In thrall to paranoia and self-interest, Henry makes a fatal error that could cause the whole dream to unravel and, despite his Machiavellian efforts, events swiftly spin out of control as lie is heaped upon lie, menace upon menace. And it turns out that those around him have their secrets too ...  With a fine line between truth and fiction, The Truth and Other Lies introduces readers to an anti-hero who could easily be Tom Ripley’s double. An intriguing read with a twisty plot, this novel is full of irony, misdirection and black humour. The sheer audacity leaves you gasping for breath.

The Killing Kind by Chris Holm (Mulholland Books)

Michael Hendricks is not a good man. He doesn't deserve a good life. But he is very good at his job. He's the killing kind. He doesn't accept contract kills. He doesn't work for any criminal organisation. And he never kills civilians. He only hits hitters. He's not the kind of guy you call if you want to pop somebody who's pissed you off or done you wrong. He's not a guy you call at all - he calls you. And when he does, you'd be advised to take his call. Because it means that someone wants you dead, and time is running out to save your life. It's not a bad way to make a living, but it's a great way to make enemies. And now both the FBI and the mafia have Hendricks in their sights, he's about to learn just how good he really is...  A hitman killer with a difference? A hitman who only kills other hitmen. A hit man with a guilty conscience.  Spare, ruthless and enthralling we have Hendricks who has his own moral code. With a lot of energy and told from several view points, The Killing Kind is a well-constructed hardboiled thriller easily read in one sitting.

A Song of Shadows by John Connolly (Hodder and Stoughton)

Grievously wounded private detective Charlie Parker investigates a case that has its origins

in a Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War. Recovering from a near-fatal shooting and tormented by memories of a world beyond this one, Parker has retreated to the small Maine town of Boreas to recover. There he befriends a widow named Ruth Winter and her young daughter, Amanda. But Ruth has her secrets. She is hiding from the past, and the forces that threaten her have their origins in the Second World War, in a town called Lubko and a concentration camp unlike any other. Old atrocities are about to be unearthed, and old sinners will kill to hide their sins. Now Parker is about to risk his life to defend a woman he barely knows, one who fears him almost as much as she fears those who are coming for her. His enemies believe him to be vulnerable. Fearful. Solitary. But they are wrong. Parker is far from afraid, and far from alone. For something is emerging from the shadows ...  There is not much that one can say about John Connolly’s writing that has not been said. There is many a dark pleasure along with twists and turns in A Song of Shadows and Charlie Parker is my idea of an avenging angel.  The prose is haunting, crisp, elegant and evocative. Whilst the ending is shocking I know that every time I pick up a book by John Connolly I am going to be reading a thoroughly well-written book with exciting characters. Charlie Parker is a classic.

The Ghosts of Altona by Craig Russell. (Quercus)

Head of Hamburg's Murder Commission, Jan Fabel is used to the dead, but when a routine

enquiry spirals out of control he finds himself on much closer terms with death - his own. As he struggles to process this experience, his first case comes back to haunt him: Monika Krone's body is found at last, fifteen years after she disappeared. Monika - beautiful, intelligent, cruel - was the centre of a group obsessed with the gothic. When men who knew Monika start turning up dead, the crime scenes full of gothic symbolism, Fabel realizes he is looking for a killer with both a hunger for vengeance and a terrifying taste for the macabre. A true gothic demon is stalking the streets of Hamburg ...  It is a brave author that makes his readers believe that he has killed off his main protagonist at the start of the book.  In this case Craig Russell has managed to pull off a fantastic manoeuvre that reverberates throughout the novel. This is no run of the mill serial killer novel.  There are elements of the gothic in play and The Ghosts of Altona.  An upsetting and chilling crime novel it subverts the reader’s expectations with at the same time as being cleverly constructed.  Unsurprisingly it won Bloody Scotland crime novel of the year.

Silver Bullets by Elmer Mendoza (Maclehose Press)

For Detective Edgar "Lefty" Mendieta, tormented by past heartbreak and dismayed by all-pervasive corruption, the murder of lawyer Bruno Canizales represents just another day at the office in Culiacan, Mexico's capital of narco-crime. 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 lover of a drug lord's daughter, and he nurtured a penchant for cross-dressing and edgy sex. But why did the assassin use a silver bullet? And why, six days later, did he apparently strike again? Mendieta's hunt for the killer takes him from mansions to low-life bars, from gumshoe reporters to glamorous transsexuals. Unearthing the truth can be as dangerous as any drug.  Silver Bullets is Élmer Mendoza’s seminal founding text of Latin America’s ‘narco-lit’ wave.  A noir novel with a difference it tears the scab off Latin American drug trafficking and corruption.   A truly grimly black comedic violent novel Silver Bullets is thrilling and sweltering in violence and has a battered detective as an revenging angel. Whilst Mexico is presented in a very unflattering light warts it is a deeply satisfying read.

Arab Jazz by Karim Miské  (Quercus)

Arab Jazz.  Kosher sushi, kebabs, a second-hand bookshop and a bar: the 19th arrondissement in Paris is a cosmopolitan district where multicultural citizens live, love and worship alongside one another. This peace is shattered when Ahmed Taroudant's melancholy daydreams are interrupted by the blood dripping from his upstairs neighbour's brutally mutilated corpse. The violent murder of Laura Vignole, and the pork joint placed next to her, set imaginations ablaze across the neighbourhood, and Ahmed finds himself the prime suspect. But detectives Rachel Kupferstein and Jean Hamelot are not short of other leads. What is the connection between a disbanded hip-hop group and the fiery extremist preachers that jostle for attention in the streets? And what is the mysterious blue pill that is taking the district by storm? Reading a crime novel that is full of literary references makes for a fascinating read.  In this case it is the debut novel In Arab Jazz Karim Miské gives the reader an evocative sense of place seen through the streets of Paris and the synagogues of New York coupled with a sharp eye for character. Evocative, topical and grim and to top it all there is a brilliant playlist as well.

Stealing People by Robert Wilson (Orion)

London, January 2014. In the space of 32 hours, in a well-planned and highly organised operation, six billionaires' children are taken off the streets of London in a series of slickly well-executed kidnaps. The gang demands £25 million per hostage for 'expenses' - not ransom.  And when your child goes missing, you need Charles Boxer: a man with little left to lose who'll stop at nothing to save families suffering what he has.  The wealthy parents of the missing children know that Boxer will do more than police can - but that doesn't mean the law will leave it to him. Intelligence agencies are all interested in the kidnaps because in each case the parents are related to people in power in the various countries involved. Soon the investigation goes beyond the corridors of power and the boardrooms of big corporations - and to far darker corners. Even more worryingly for Boxer, and his ex-wife Mercy, it threatens to lead back to their own lives, too.  But still nobody knows what this mysterious kidnap gang ultimately want and, if they have a cause, what the hell is it?  Robert Wilson always writes books that are thrilling and haunting with mesmerising characters. In this case he has created a wonderful character in Charles Boxer. Stealing People is the third book in the series. Exciting and unpredictable you will hope that you will never get kidnapped.  If you do then hopefully someone akin to Charles Boxer will come and rescue you.

Malice by Keigo Higashino (Little Brown)

Acclaimed bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is brutally murdered in his home on the night before he's planning to leave Japan and relocate to Vancouver. His body is found in his office, in a locked room, within his locked house, by his wife and his best friend, both of whom have rock solid alibis. Or so it seems. Police Detective Kyochiro Kaga recognizes Hidaka's best friend from years ago when they were both teachers. Kaga went on to join the police force while Nonoguchi became a full-time writer, though with not nearly the success of his friend Hidaka. When Kaga suspects something is a little bit off with Nonoguchi's statement, he investigates further, ultimately executing a search warrant on Nonoguchi's apartment. There he finds evidence that shows that the two writers' relationship was very different than they claimed... Malice is a tale of cat and mouse, the truth, the past and how a murder took place. Intricate and at times upsetting Malice is also very reminiscent in its own way of a classic detective novel. It is more of a “whydunnit” than a “whodunit” but no less satisfying.

The Body Snatcher by Patrica Melo (Bitter Lemon Press)

The novel is set in the Pantanal, the vast untamed Brazilian lowlands bordering Bolivia. One bright Sunday, alone on the banks of the Paraguay River, the narrator witnesses the fatal crash of a small 'plane. He finds a kilo of cocaine in the dead pilot's backpack. After but a moment's hesitation he pockets the coke and the pilot's expensive watch. Thus begins the protagonist's long slide into corruption. When the crash site is located several days later, the pilot's body is missing and remains unfound for months despite a large-scale police search. Our hero gets involved in a busted cocaine deal and ends up owing a Bolivian drug gang so much money that blackmailing the wealthy family of the dead pilot seems to be the only way out. The family secretly agrees to pay serious money to recover the body of their son. Our hero doesn't have the pilot's body so someone else's will do. Or so he thinks.  Told in first person this is a brilliant Brazilian corruption crime caper. There is mis-adventure after misadventure in The Body Snatcher, which is fast-paced and intricately plotted.  With a wry vein of humour throughout the novel you are unsure as to whether or not you should be laughing or crying at times.

Every Night I dream of Hell by Malcolm Mckay (Pan MacMillan)

Nate Colgan: a violent man; 'smart muscle' for the Jamieson organization. Someone to be afraid of. But now, with its most powerful individuals either dead or behind bars, things within the Jamieson organization are beginning to shift. When Nate, long working on the fringes of the business, is reluctantly appointed its new 'security consultant', he can little imagine how things are about to unravel . . . It begins with an execution, a message; and soon the various factions within the organization are sent into chaos. But out of the confusion comes one clear fact: a new group has arrived in Glasgow, and in their quest for power they are prepared to ignite a war. But who is behind the group? And why has the calculating Zara Cope - the mother of Nate's child - suddenly appeared back in town?  Meanwhile DI Fisher, buoyed by his recent successes in finally jailing some of the city's most notorious criminals, is prowling on the edges of these latest battles, looking for his chance to strike before all hell breaks loose . . . Welcome to a world of violence, fear and double-crossing. A superb page-turner.  Sparse but sharp dialogue and meticulous plotting makes Every Night I dream of Hell a book that stays with you for a long time.

Canary by Duane Swiercznsky (Mulholland Books)

Every student needs a part-time job.   Hers is hunting criminals.  Sarie Holland is a good kid. An Honor student. She doesn't even drink.  So when a narcotics cop busts her while she's doing a favour for a friend, she has a lot to lose.  Desperate to avoid destroying her future, Sarie agrees to become a CI - a confidential informant. Armed only with a notebook, she turns out to be as good at catching criminals as she is at passing tests.  But it's going to take more than one nineteen-year-old to clean up Philadelphia. Soon Sarie is caught in the middle of a power struggle between corrupt cops and warring gangs, with nothing on her side but stubbornness and smarts.  Which is bad news for both the police and the underworld. Because when it comes to payback, CI #137 turns out to be a very fast learner...  Cool, with wry humour and told from multiple view points Canary features a spirited heroine that finds herself mixed up in drugs and corruption. Words are not wasted and there is a sense of place that makes you think you are right in the middle of what is happening.  Canary is a contemporary neo crime thriller that will no doubt become a classic.

Worthy mentions also go to Hush, Hush by Laura Lippman (Faber & Faber), The Burning Man by Christopher Fowler (Transworld) The Defence by Steve Cavanagh (Orion) The Strings of Murder by Oscar de Muriel (Penguin), The Crossing by Michael Connelly (Orion) and The Killer Next Door by Alex Marwood (Little Brown)

Books to look forward to from Orion Publishing

On the night of 22 December 1980 a plane crashes on the Franco-Swiss border and is engulfed in flames.  168 out of 169 passengers are killed instantly.  The miraculous sole survivor is a newborn baby girl.  Two families, one rich, the other poor, step forward to claim her, sparking a private investigation that will last for almost two decades.  Is she Lyse-Rose or Emilie?  On the eve of the girl’s eighteenth birthday, Detective Credule Grand-Duc plans to take his own life, but not before placing his account of the investigation in the girl’s hands.  But as he sits at his desk about to pull the trigger, he uncovers a secret that changes everything – then is killed before he can breathe a word of it to anyone. . . After the Crash is by Michel Bussi and is due to be published in March 2015.

Dana Nolan was a promising young TV reporter until she was kidnapped by a notorious serial killer. A year has passed since she survived the ordeal, but Dana is still physically, emotionally, and psychologically scarred, racked with bouts of post-traumatic stress disorder and memory loss. In an attempt to put herself back together after surviving the unthinkable, Dana returns to her hometown. But it doesn't provide the comfort she expects: she struggles to recognise family and childhood friends and begins experiencing dark flashbacks. But she's not sure if they're truly memories or side effects of her brain injury. Dana decides to use her investigative skills to piece together her past and learns of the event that made her become a reporter in the first place: the disappearance of her best friend, Casey Grant, the summer after high school graduation. Looking at her past and the unsolved mystery through the dark filter of her shattered psyche, old friends seem to be suspects, authority figures part of a cover-up. Dana begins to question everything she knows. What is real? What is imagined? Are we defined by what happens to us? And is the truth really something too terrible to be believed?  Cold, Cold Heart is by Tami Hoag and is due to be published in January 2015.

Woman of the Dead is by Bernhard Aichner and is due to be published in April 2015.  Blum seems to have it all: the perfect husband, police detective Mark, two daughters, and a thriving undertaking business. But when Mark is killed in a hit and run, Blum stumbles across one of his investigations and realises there is far more to his death than meets the eye. And, as she discovers, the line between investigating and avenging is an easy one to cross.

London, January 2014. In the space of 32 hours, in a well-planned and highly organized operation, six billionaires' children are taken off the streets of London in a series of slickly well-executed kidnaps. The gang demands GBP25 million per hostage for 'expenses' - not ransom. And when your child goes missing, you need Charles Boxer: a man with little left to lose who'll stop at nothing to save families suffering what he has. The wealthy parents of the missing children know that Boxer will do more than police can - but that doesn't mean the law will leave it to him. Intelligence agencies are all interested in the kidnaps because in each case the parents are related to people in power in the various countries involved. Soon the investigation goes beyond the corridors of power and the boardrooms of big corporations - and to far darker corners. Even more worryingly for Boxer, and his ex-wife Mercy, it threatens to lead back to their own lives, too. But still nobody knows what this mysterious kidnap gang ultimately want and, if they have a cause, what the hell is it?  Stealing People is by Robert Wilson and is due to be published in February 2015.

When the two strangers turn up at Rowena Cooper's isolated Colorado farmhouse, she knows instantly that it's the end of everything. For the two haunted and driven men, on the other hand, it's just another stop on a long and bloody journey. And they still have many miles to go, and victims to sacrifice, before their work is done. For San Francisco homicide detective Valerie Hart, their trail of corpses - women abducted, tortured and left with a seemingly random series of objects inside them - has brought her from obsession to the edge of physical and psychological destruction. And she's losing hope of making a breakthrough before that happens. But the slaughter at the Cooper farmhouse didn't quite go according to plan. There was a survivor, Rowena's 10-year-old daughter Nell, who now holds the key to the killings. Injured, half-frozen, terrified, Nell has only one place to go. And that place could be even more terrifying than what she's running from.  The Killing Lessons is the debut novel by Saul Black and is due to be published in May 2015.

Ashleigh and Danny Orchard are twins, not that you'd ever tell by looking at them - Danny distant and shy, Ash beautiful and accomplished. But there's a secret in the Orchard house: Ash is a monster, a psychopath who can feel only through bringing others pain. When Ash and Danny are caught in a fire on their 16th birthday, both of them die. But only Danny comes back. Since then, Ash has haunted Danny, denying him any form of normal life ...or love. When Danny meets Willa and her son Eddie he glimpses the life he could have without Ash. To stop her from ruining his new-found happiness, Danny must venture into the frightening underworld of Detroit, where he will unearth the mystery of the night his and Ash's fates changed for ever. Dark and compelling, The Damned is by Andrew Pyper and is a story of how heaven and hell aren't about death, but about the decisions we make in life.  The Damned is due to be published in March 2015.

A collection of stories, mostly gritty low-level crime stories set on Washington DC's mean streets. The Martini Shot itself is set in the world of TV, featuring a scriptwriter on a popular cop show. When a member of the crew is murdered, the screenwriter decides to track down the perpetrators himself, to see if as a writer he can do more than just talk the talk. The Martini Shot and Other Stories is by George Pelecanos and is due to be published in January 2015.

Fear the Darkness is by Becky Masterman and is due to be published in February 21015. Ex-FBI Agent Brigid Quinn thinks she has a second chance at life. After too many years spent in the company of evil, she's quit the Feds and is working out what normal is meant to feel like. She's swapped serial killers, stakeouts and interrogation for a husband, friends and free time. But when you've walked in darkness for so long, can you stand the light? When a local teenager dies in a tragic drowning accident, the community thinks Brigid might be able to help comfort the family. But when she does so, something doesn't add up. And it's no easier at home: after a bereavement in the family, Brigid has reluctantly taken in her niece to give her a break before she starts college. Brigid's ever-patient husband Carlo tells her they must go easy on Gemma-Kate, the grieving youngster. Which is fine, until she starts taking an unhealthy interest in dissecting the local wildlife. For Brigid, death still seems to be wherever she turns. But as she herself starts to feel unwell, it's her own mortality that is the most troubling. And as she tries to get to the bottom of a series of allegedly accidental deaths and increasingly gruesome occurrences at home, she slowly realises that maybe this time, she's let the darkness inside the only place she ever felt safe. Sometimes, death is closer than you think.

Mockingbird is by R J Ellory and is due to be published in May 2015.  Prison changes a man. Sometimes in ways you can see. Usually in ways you can't. The only reason Henry Quinn survived three years inside was because of Evan Riggs, a one-time country singer, one-time killer, now serving a life sentence. No parole. On the day he gets out, Henry promises Evan he will find his daughter, the daughter he never met, and deliver a letter. A free man, Henry heads to the small Texan town where Evan grew up and where his brother Carson now resides as sheriff. There's no sign of the girl and her uncle claims to know nothing of her whereabouts. But Henry isn't about to give up. He made a promise and, no matter what, he's going to find Evan's daughter. As Carson's behaviour towards him becomes ever more threatening, Henry realises that there are dark secrets buried at the heart of this quiet town. What terrible thing drove the brothers apart and what happened to the missing girl?

Robert Ludlum’s The Geneva Strategy is by Jamie Freveletti and is due to be published in March 2015.  One evening in Washington, DC, several high-ranking members of government disappear in a mass kidnapping. Among the kidnapped is Nick Rendel, a computer software coding expert in charge of drone programming and strategy. He is the victim with the most dangerous knowledge, including confidential passwords and codes that are used to program the drones. If revealed, his kidnappers could reprogram the drones to strike targets within the United States. Jon Smith and the Covert-One team begin a worldwide search to recover the officials, but as the first kidnapping victims are rescued, they show disturbing signs of brainwashing or mind-altering drugs. Smith's investigation leads him to Fort Detrick, where a researcher, Dr Laura Taylor, had been attempting to create a drug to wipe memory from soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. But Dr Taylor's research was suspended almost a year ago, when she was placed in a mental institution. Now, if Smith doesn't figure out the brainwashing drug, and track down the kidnapped Nick Rendel, the kidnappers will soon have the power to carry out drone strikes anywhere in the world..

The Samaritan is by Mason Cross and is due to be published in June 2015. When the mutilated body of a young woman is discovered in the Santa Monica Mountains, LAPD Detective Jessica Allen knows this isn't the work of a first-time killer. She's seen this MO before - two and a half years ago on the other side of the country. Allen begins to dig deeper and soon uncovers a terrifying truth. A sadistic serial killer has been operating undetected for the past decade, preying on lone female drivers who have broken down. The press dub the killer 'the Samaritan', but with no leads and a killer who leaves no traces, the police investigation quickly grinds to a halt. That's when Carter Blake shows up to volunteer his services. He's a skilled manhunter with an uncanny ability to predict the Samaritan's next moves. At first, Allen and her colleagues are suspicious. After all, their new ally shares some uncomfortable similarities to the man they're tracking. But as the Samaritan takes his slaughter to the next level, Blake is forced to reveal that the similarities between the two men are closer than even Allen suspects. With time running out and an opponent who knows all of his tricks, Blake must find a way to stop the Samaritan ...even if it means bringing his own past crashing down on top of him.

Following the death of Duke Cadogan, talented young rider Duncan Claymore inherits his large estate. Duncan is finally riding high. He's put his demons behind him and is well on his way to achieving his dream of becoming Champion Jockey. However, Cadogan's wealth proves to be illusory, with a manor house and grounds mortgaged to the hilt and a list of creditors who include the formidable George Pleasance. And Duncan's rival on the field, Sandy Sanderson, looks set to shatter his ambitions. Events take a dark turn when it appears someone has been sabotaging the horses on Duncan's trainer's yard. Down on his luck, out of favour and broke, Duncan has to try to engineer a return to good fortune, restore his reputation and bring down his father's enemy of old, William Osborne.  Narrowing the Field is by A P McCoy and is due to be published in February 2015.

The truth has no place in a courtroom.  The truth doesn't matter in a trial.  The only thing that matters is what the prosecution can prove.  Eddie Flynn used to be a con artist.  Then he became a lawyer.  Turned out the two weren't that different.  It's been over a year since Eddie vowed never to set foot in a courtroom again.  But now he doesn't have a choice.  Olek Volchek, the infamous head of the Russian mafia in New York, has strapped a bomb to Eddie's back and kidnapped his ten-year-old daughter Amy.  Eddie only has 48 hours to defend Volchek in an impossible murder trial - and win - if wants to save his daughter.  Under the scrutiny of the media and the FBI, Eddie must use his razor-sharp wit and every con-artist trick in the book to defend his 'client' and ensure Amy's safety.  With the timer on his back ticking away, can Eddie convince the jury of the impossible?  Lose this case and he loses everything.  The Defence is by Steve Cavanagh and is due to be published in March 2015.

As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust is by Alan Bradley and it is due to be published in April 2015.  It all began with that awful business about my mother, Harriet...Following the dramatic events at the conclusion of The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches and the shocking revelations about her mother, Flavia de Luce finds herself expelled from the familiar confines of Bishop's Lacey and her beloved family home, Buckshaw, and 'packed off', as she puts it, to Miss Bodycote's Female Academy in Canada. With its forbidding headmistress and bizarre rules, adapting to Miss Bodycote's is quite a challenge. But Flavia is soon on familiar ground, when, on her first night, a mummified body is dislodged from a chimney, and she is presented with a gruesome puzzle to solve. And the mystery of the withered corpse is only the beginning. Girls have been disappearing from Miss Bodycote's with alarming regularity, leading Flavia to wonder not only how and why, but what exactly is the academy's true purpose, and why were they so keen that she enrol? If Flavia is to avoid the same fate as the missing girls, she must enter a shadowy world where truth and lies seem interchangeable and no one can be trusted. And ultimately she must discover what it means to be her mother's daughter.

The Great Zoo of China is by Matthew Reilly and is due to be published in February 2015.  It is a secret the Chinese government has been keeping for 40 years.  They have found a species of animal no one believed even existed.  It will amaze the world.  Now the Chinese are ready to unveil their astonishing discovery within the greatest zoo ever constructed.  A small group of VIPs and journalists has been brought to the zoo deep within China to see its fabulous creatures for the first time.  Among them is Dr Cassandra Jane 'CJ' Cameron, a writer for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and an expert on reptiles.  The visitors are assured by their Chinese hosts that they will be struck with wonder at these beasts, that they are perfectly safe, and that nothing can go wrong...

This Thing of Darkness is by Harry Bingham and is due to be published in July 2015.  A marine engineer who tumbles off a cliff path on a windy night. A burglary where everything taken was returned by the thief. The suicide of a man in love with life. An accident, a mystery, an unexplained tragedy. And nothing at all to connect them. Until, that is, Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths, searching for something - anything - to take her mind off the tedious job of evidence-cataloguing she's been assigned to, starts to wonder if all three incidents are not quite what they seem. It could just be her imagination. After all, she'd be the first to admit that she isn't exactly in the prime of psychological health right now, the darkness she's held at bay ever since she joined the police force now lapping dangerously at her door. But something tells her there are invisible threads linking the crimes, and as she investigates further, she starts to see the outlines of a conspiracy so unlikely and on such a vast scale, that it takes her breath away. And that's when they come for her.

Blood, Salt, Water is by Denise Mina and is due to be published in April 2015. DI Alex Morrow and her team have been shadowing a woman suspected of being involved in a large drug-smuggling and money-laundering operation. Roxanna Fuentecilla recently moved from London to Glasgow in suspicious circumstances and Morrow's bosses want all the glory when she's finally arrested. But then Roxanna disappears. She's left her partner and her two children and something about the situation, and the children's evasive attitude, leads Morrow to question what's really going on. In the nearby picturesque town of Helensburgh, Iain Fraser is struggling to live with his overwhelming guilt. Under orders from the infamous Mark Barratt he's just killed a woman and now he's left with blood on his hands. Meanwhile Miss Grierson, a former scout leader who left the sleepy seaside town decades ago, has returned. Allegedly she's here to sort out her recently deceased mother's estate, but Iain knows her mother died over two years ago and suspects she has an ulterior motive.

Strange things happen in the countryside. And for bisexual private detective Duffy, this is his strangest case yet. Summoned to a country mansion following an unusual murder, Duffy finds the house awash with potential suspects. Does Vic Crowther, the man who called on Duffy in the first place, have a far more sinister motive up his sleeve? Or perhaps his wife, the ex-page three model, knows more than she's letting on ...  Going to the Dogs is by Dan Kavanagh and is due to be published in May 2015.

The Stranger walked into the bar and, with just a few words, shattered Adam’s entire life. His wife’s pregnancy three years ago – the one that saved their marriage but ended in a tragic miscarriage . . . it never existed. The whole thing was faked using a website set up for just that purpose. Hannah lied to him, and has been lying ever since. Thus begins Harlan Coben’s shocking new thriller. Someone out there knows all your secrets, all your affairs, all those lies that, thanks to the Internet, are so easy to create. And now he wants the truth to come out. But for Adam, the chaos this causes is only the beginning. When Hannah disappears, things go to a whole other level. What’s really going on here, and just who is pulling the strings? The Stranger will change your life for ever.  The Stranger is due to be published in April 2015.

Charlie Matheson died two years ago in a car accident. Now a woman who bears a startling resemblance to her claims to be back from the dead. Detective Mark Nelson is called in to investigate her account of what she endured in the ‘afterlife’.  Detective David Groves is determined to bring his son’s killers to justice. But the search will mean facing someone with a more ruthless approach to right and wrong.  Former Detective John Mercer is slowly recovering from the case that nearly destroyed his life, but deep down he knows that he still has demons to face.  At the centre of it all: two brothers with a macabre secret. They’ve been  waiting, they’ve been planning, they’ve been killing. And for Nelson, Groves and Mercer they’re about to release hell on earth.  The currently untitled Steve Mosby novel is due to be published in June 2015.

Also due to be published in June 2015 is The Ice House by John Connor and in July 2015 The Echoes of Their Passing by Michael Marshall.