Books to Look Forward to From Atlantic Books and Corvus

July 2017

Robin and Sarah weren't the closest of twins. They weren't even that similar. But they loved each other dearly. Until, in the cruellest of domestic twists, they were taken from one another. Now, in her early 30s, Robin lives alone. Agoraphobic and suffering from panic attacks, she spends her days pacing the rooms of her house. The rest of the time she watches - watches the street, the houses, the neighbours. Until one day, she sees something she shouldn't...And Sarah? Sarah got what she wanted - the good-looking man, the beautiful baby, the perfect home. But she's just been accused of the most terrible thing of all. She can't be around her new family until she has come to terms with something that happened a long time ago. And to do that, she needs to track down her twin sister. But Sarah isn't the only person looking for Robin. As their paths intersect, something dangerous is set in motion, leading Robin and Sarah to fight for much more than their relationship...  Don’t Close Your Eyes is by Holly Seddon.

August 2017

All the Missing Girls is by Megan Miranda.  It's been ten years since Nicolette Farrell left her

rural hometown after her best friend, Corinne, disappeared without trace. Then a letter from her father arrives - 'I need to talk to you. That girl. I saw that girl.' Has her father's dementia worsened, or has he really seen Corinne? Returning home, Nicolette must finally face what happened on that terrible night all those years ago. Then, another young woman goes missing, almost to the day of the anniversary of when Corinne vanished. And like ten years ago, the whole town is a suspect. Told backwards - Day 15 to Day 1 - Nicolette works to unravel the truth, revealing shocking secrets about her friends, her family, and what really happened to Corinne.

Karin knew what she was getting herself into when she fell for John, the high-flying criminal and love of her life. But she never imagined things would turn out like this: John is now gone and the coke-filled parties, seemingly endless flow of money and high social status she previously enjoyed have been replaced by cut telephone lines, cut heat and cut cash. All that remains of Karin's former life is the big house he bought for her - and his daughter, the child Karin once swore she would never bring into their dangerous world. Now Karin is alone with the baby, and the old promise of 'the family' has proved alarmingly empty. With the authorities zeroing in on organized crime, John's shady legacy is catching up with her, and the house is about to be seized. Over the course of a few nerve-wracking days, Karin is forced to take drastic measures in order to claim what she considers rightfully hers.  The White City is by Karolina Ramqvist.

September 2017

Emilie Jansson has just been made partner at a prestigious law firm when she is asked to work with an unusual partner. Teddy is an ex-con trying to stay on the right side of the law as he goes about his job as the firm's fixer and special Investigator. Meanwhile, a burglary at a remote house in the country turns out to be a murder - and a severely wounded man found near the scene is soon in the frame for the crime. Emilie takes on the role of his defence lawyer but the case is even more complex than it first seemed, and a link is found to Teddy's wayward past, and involving those he loves. In Stockholm Delete, Emile and Teddy become entangled in a snarly web with deep connections to Stockholm's criminal world, where history is never a thing of the past, and always ready to threaten those who lived it. Stockholm Delete is by Jens Lapidus

Treason’s Spring is by Robert Wilton.  1792: the blood begins to drip from the guillotine. The French Revolution is entering its most violent phase, and threatens all Europe with chaos. In the age of the mob, no individual is safe. The spies of England, France and Prussia are fighting their own war for survival and supremacy. Somewhere in Paris is a hidden trove of secrets that will reveal the treacheries of a whole continent. At the height of the madness a stranger arrives in Paris, to meet a man who has disappeared. Unknown and untrusted, he finds himself the centre of all conspiracy. When the world is changing forever, what must one man become to survive? Treason's Spring is a thrilling and meticulous panorama of Paris in the Revolution, the first of a trilogy of books whose revelations transform our understanding of an era.

Open Arms is by Vince Cable.  Kate Thompson - glamorous housewife-turned-MP - surprises everyone with her meteoric rise at Westminster. When Kate is sent as a trade minister to India, she hopes it will be her moment to shine. But, embroiled in a personal scandal, she gets drawn into a dangerous world of corruption and political intrigue...Billionaire Deepak Parrikar - head of an Indian arms technology company - is magnetically drawn to the beautiful British minister. But while their relationship deepens, India's hostilities with Pakistan reach boiling point, causing more than just business and politics to collide. In the race to prevent disaster, can their conflicting loyalties survive being tested to the limit? Open Arms is an explosive thriller which circles from Whitehall to the slums of Mumbai.

November 2017

In 2001, three year old Dina is killed in a tragic car accident. Not long thereafter Dina's mother dies under mysterious circumstances, and Dina's father Jonas is convicted of her murder. In 2016, the cold case ends up on the desk of Detective Henrik Holme, who tries to convince his mentor Hanne Wilhelmsen that the father might have been wrongly convicted. Holme and Wilhelmsen discover that the case could be connected to the suicide of an eccentric blogger as well as the kidnapping of the grandson of a EuroJackpot millionaire.  In Dust and Ashes is by Anne Holt.

The Murder in the Gutter and the History of Lies

The first in Robert Wilton's Comptrollerate-General series won the Historical Writers' Association/Goldsboro Crown for best historical fiction debut.  The latest, Traitor's Field, has already been described as surpassing it, setting 'a new benchmark for the literary historical thriller with a panache unmatched in modern writing', and 'exhilarating, passionate, inspiring and literate'.  

The assassination of Colonel Thomas Rainsborough is a mystery centuries old.  The documents that form the basis of Traitor's Field strongly suggest the solution, but we still cannot be sure.

We are not used to real murder mysteries in history.  In history, death is commonplace and sordid, and the murders that we know about tend to be little village tragedies or grand public affairs of politics.  It is rare to look at the accumulated historical record of a death and still have to say 'we don't know'.

Colonel Thomas Rainsborough was one of the highest-profile and controversial figures to come out of the British Civil Wars.  He sailed to the Americas, and won fame for his military exploits during the war.  However, when he was sent back to the Navy as a Vice-Admiral, there was a mutiny.  For he was best known as a leading figure among the Levellers, who were pushing for the kind of political liberties that we take for granted today but which seemed inconceivable to many at the time.  He represented one of the great fears of the age, and its great aspiration.  Thousands marched in his funeral, wearing rosemary sprigs to commemorate his memory and mark their Leveller loyalty.

The details of his murder seem well established.  One of the commanders of the siege of Pontefract, among the last of the Royalist strongholds holding out in 1648, he was quartered in nearby Doncaster.  At daybreak on 30 October, a raiding party of Royalists cut their way into Doncaster and dragged Rainsborough and his adjutant from their beds; the two men were killed in the street.  Sources like the old History of Pontefract, available online, give a clear narrative of the event: those involved, the scuffle in the gutter.

However, the questions, and the mystery, have lingered.  From the beginning, some wondered about complicity within the Parliamentarian ranks.  The growing divisions in that cause made this plausible, and made the controversy worse.  Britain was in chaos; the country was splitting on a series of issues, and the continuation of any kind of government was in doubt.  Many different interests were served by the death of this man.

Now the secret archive of the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey throws new light on the assassination, and offers a possible solution.  Traitor's Field is the latest in a series of dramatizations of the documents in the archive, using its extraordinary records as the skeleton for a narrative of what was really going on in the shadows, behind the history that we think we know.

Colonel Rainsborough's death is a critical part of Traitor's Field; the explanation of his death

at the end of the book explains a great deal more about the ebb and flow of fortune between Royalist and Parliamentarian at the climax of the war.  More widely, the book describes the extraordinary battle of espionage that changed the fate of the nation.  At heart, it's a contest between two men: an old, ruthless Royalist prepared to do anything to protect his cause, and a young official rising in Cromwell's service and beginning to understand the true scope of secret intelligence threatening his new world.  Sir Mortimer Shay and John Thurloe were the men behind the scenes; the pullers of strings, the masters of codes, the whisperers in ears, the figures in the shadows.

Their contest is what drives Traitor's Field.  It's fought on the battlefield, in the noise and stench and horror of hand-to-hand combat; it's fought in secret rendezvous between men who cannot be sure of each other's loyalty or even identity; it's fought in a series of remarkable documents - propaganda, forgery, code, and lie.  It is the story of the contest for the future of Britain, the soul, and it is full of violence, intrigue, passion and peculiarity.

During the process of finalizing the first book in the Comptrollerate-General series (The Emperor's Gold, newly out in paperback as Treason's Tide), Angus the extremely patient Editor e-mailed saying that while he thought the final scene - a confrontation on a beach, the timbers of a wreck clutching out of the sand, layers of deception being exposed and an epic of revenge reaching its climax - had great atmosphere and power, he thought it needed further cutting because it 'resembled an Agatha Christie-style denouement'. I had to reply that I like Agatha Christie-style denouements.  I think there is something fundamentally human about wanting to find out the truth.  I think we like to be puzzled and then have the puzzle explained.  In a world of uncertainty filled with unpredictable people, sometimes it helps to believe in the power of human logic to overcome chaos - to believe that if you review the motives and consider the cigarette butts and the blood-stains and the depth the parsley melted into the butter you can put two and two together and prove that the butler did it.

Traitor's Field is a mystery, as well as a dramatic narrative of espionage and an insight on a world in flames, when all of the old certainties of politics and religion were smashed, and when two remarkable men took advantage of the chaotic battle for truth to deal in lies.  Moreover, like the rest of the Comptrollerate-General books, it allows us to answer some of history's more curious puzzles.  As much as we can ever be sure… 

There is more at www.robertwilton.com, and you can participate in the seedy shadows where history and espionage meet on Twitter @ComptrollerGen.

Forthcoming books to look forward to from Atlantic and Corvus books

They call him Herod – a killer of unimaginable cruelty, with an unthinkable desire London is in the grip of a barbaric serial killer. Four women have been abducted in quick succession, their bodies mutilated and dumped. When a fifth woman is taken from her home, DCI David Rosen knows that time is running out... Then Rosen gets a mysterious phone call from Father Sebastian Flint, an enigmatic priest who seems to know rather too much about the abductions.  But it isn’t until Rosen discovers the existence of an ancient text – said to be the devil’s answer to the bible –that the true horror of Herod’s plan begins to unfold.  The Sixth Soul is the debut novel by Mark Roberts and is due to be published in February 2013.

Blessed Are Those Who Thirst is by Anne Holt and is due to be published in April 2013. In Oslo, crime scenes are being found covered with blood, but there is no victim. Only an odd series of numbers is left behind. When a girl is brutally raped in her apartment, Hanne Wilhelmsen quickly notices strange similarities with the blood-stained crime scenes. But the girl’s father has started an independent hunt for the rapist... Also by Anne Holt and due to be published in June is Death of the Demon. The cheerful façade of the Spring Sunshine Children’s home hides a brutal regime. When the manager is found dead in her office, Hanne Wilhelmsen is called in to investigate.

Welcome to fifth-century Britain: the Romans have left, the Saxons have invaded, the towns are decaying and the countryside is dangerous.  Malgwyn ap Cuneglas, an embittered ex-soldier who lost a limb in the Saxon wars, has become the trusted counsellor to Arthur, High King of all Britannia. So when a monk dies in horrific circumstances in Glastonbury Abbey, the Abbot calls for Malgwyn to investigate.  His search for the truth will draw him into an intricate web of religious, economic and political deceit – and a conspiracy that could endanger everything Arthur has fought for. The Divine Sacrifice is by Anthony Hays and is due to be published in April 2013

Traitor’s Field is the second book in the series by Robert Wilton (the winner of the inaugural Goldsboro Crown Award for debut historical novel) to feature John Thurloe.  It is due to be published in May 2013. As England tears itself apart, two spymasters fight for its future: It is 1648 and Britain is at war with itself. The Royalists are defeated but Parliament is in turmoil, its power weakened by internal discord.  Royalism’s last hope is Sir Mortimer Shay, a ruthless veteran of decades of intrigue who must rebuild a credible threat to Cromwell’s rule, whatever the cost.  John Thurloe is a young official in Cromwell’s service. Confronted by the extent of the Royalists’ secret intelligence network, he will have to fight the true power reaching into every corner of society: the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey.

False Gods of Rome is the third novel in the Vespasian series by Robert Fabbri. Sickened by Tiberius’s insane debauchery, Vespasian places his faith in the new Emperor, Caligula. Instead, he watches Rome’s shining star deteriorate into a blood-crazed, incestuous, all-powerful madman. Lavish building projects, endless games, public displays of his  relationship with his sister and a terrified senate are nothing to Caligula’s most ambitious plan: to bridge the bay of Neapolis and ride over it wearing Alexander’s breastplate. And it falls to Vespasian to travel to Alexandria and steal it. False Gods of Rome is due to be published in January 2013.

A Darkness Descending is by Christobel Kent and is due to be published in May 2013.  Silvano Rosselli, the gaunt, charismatic leader of a Florentine political movement, collapses at a rally. His longtime partner Flavia has disappeared, leaving him literally holding their new baby, at least until Rosselli’s formidable mother takes charge. Meanwhile, Sandro Cellini has been reduced to looking into a possibly fraudulent insurance claim. Soon he is drawn into the mystery surrounding Rosselli, and when Flavia’s fate is revealed, events take a terrifying turn.

No Way Back is by Matthew Klein and is due to be published in March 2013. Jimmy Thane has always taken the wrong path. Now he has one last chance to save both his career and his marriage – he has  seven weeks to turn round a failing company. But when the police start asking questions about the disappearance of the former CEO, Jimmy begins to wonder what he’s got himself into.  Then he discovers surveillance equipment in his neighbour’s house. And he begins to notice that his wife isn’t just tired, she’s terrified. Jimmy no longer feels like he’s living the dream – instead he’s plunged into the worst kind of nightmare.

Brodie is approached by the Jewish community in Glasgow to solve a series of thefts. But when the thief is knifed by a householder, who is then also murdered, Brodie’s easy case becomes a terrifying, violent mess. When Brodie investigates further, he discovers that the dead man wasn’t a brutalized Jew, but a sadistic camp guard. What starts as a small case soon escalates into a relentless personal quest for the truth. And when it begins to seem that the guards are protecting someone high up in the old Nazi organization, Brodie faces the biggest moral dilemma of his career.  Pilgrim Soul is by Gordon Ferris and is due to be published in April 2013.

Sherlock Holmes meets Flashman in the first instalment of Adam Carver’s adventures, a wonderfully exuberant piece of Victoriana.  It is 1870. When amateur archaeologist Adam Carver and his loyal but obdurate retainer Quint are visited by an attractive young woman, they are pitched headlong into an elaborate mystery which comes to centre on the existence (or not) of a lost text in Ancient Greek, one that may reveal the whereabouts of the treasure hoard of Philip II of Macedonia. With the scene shifting from the roughest and most genteel parts of the teeming metropolis to the fastness of a Greece gripped by political unrest, Carver and Quint soon realize that nothing is quite what it seems.  Carver’s Quest is by Nick Rennison and is due to be published in June 2013.