Books to Look Forward to from Faber and Faber

January 2019

The second book in the Rebekah Roberts series - a taut mystery and a brilliant exploration of the demons we inherit... Aviva Kagan was just a teenager when she left her Hasidic Jewish

life in Brooklyn for a fling with a smiling college boy from Florida. A few months later she was pregnant, engaged to be married and trapped in a life she never imagined. So, shortly after the birth of her daughter she disappeared. Twenty-three years later, the child she walked away from, NYC tabloid reporter Rebekah Roberts, wants nothing to do with her. But when a man from the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Roseville, NY contacts Rebekah about his young wife's mysterious death, she is drawn into Aviva's old world, and a hidden culture full of dangerous secrets and frustrations.   Run You Down is by Julia Dahl.

February 2019

In a hard-boiled city of crooks, grifts and rackets lurk a pair of toughs: Box and _____. They're the kind of men capable of extracting apologies and reparations, of teaching you a chilling lesson. They seldom think twice, and ask very few questions. Until one night over the poker table, they encounter a pulp writer with wild ideas and an unscrupulous private detective, leading them into what is either a classic mystery, a senseless maze of corpses, or an inextricable fever dream . . . Drunk on cinematic and literary influence, Muscle is a slice of noir fiction in collapse, a ceaselessly imaginative story of violence, boredom and madness.  Muscle is by Alan Trotter

The Elegant Lie is by Sam Eastland. The year is 1949. In the bombed-out ruins of Cologne, Hanno Dasch is king. Director of the most successful black market operation in post-war Germany, Dasch has kept his clients supplied with goods so extravagant and rare that they were almost impossible to find even at the height of Germany's conquests. Nobody but Dasch, his enigmatic daughter and the war criminal he keeps as his bodyguard know how he

does it. None of this has escaped the attention of Allied Intelligence, who face not only the systemic corruption of a country where everything is in short supply, but the growing threat of Stalin's KGB. Fearing that Dasch will soon expand his business to include dealings with Russia, and invite the further meddling of Russian agents in the west, the CIA sets in motion an undercover operation to infiltrate and, ultimately, destroy Dasch's empire. A disgraced American Army officer, Nathan Carter, is recruited to approach Dasch and to ingratiate himself with promises of stolen army supplies. As Carter moves further and further into the labyrinth of Dasch's world, it soon becomes clear that the black market ring has already been compromised, but by someone even more dangerous than the Russians. Carter stumbles upon a counterfeiting ring, with whom Dasch has unwittingly gone into business, which seems to have been created with the sole purpose of destroying the Soviet economy, something it could easily do with the superlative quality of the forged bills it is producing. With Carter caught in the middle, and facing the danger that his cover might be blown at any moment, a race begins between the Russian and American spy agencies to uncover who is responsible, before the situation escalates to war.

March 2019

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They had a secret, the two of them, and there was no better way to start a friendship than with a secret.' When Hen and Lloyd move into their new house in West Dartford, Mass., they're relieved to meet, at their first block party, the only other seemingly-childless couple in their neighbourhood, Matthew and Mira Dolamore. Turns out they live in the Dutch Colonial immediately next door. When they're invited over for dinner, however, things take a sinister turn when Hen thinks she sees something suspicious in Matthew's study. Could this charming, mild-mannered College Professor really be hiding a dark secret, one that only Hen, whose been battling her own problems with depression and medication, could know about? Lloyd certainly doesn't seem to believe her, and so, forced together, Hen and Matthew start to form an unlikely bond. But who, if anyone, is really in danger?   Before She Knew Him is by Peter Swanson.

Former Broadway star Tommy Jump isn't getting the roles he once did; as his final run as Sancho Ponza draws to a close, Tommy is getting ready to give up the stage, find a steady paycheck, and settle down with his fiancee. Cue Special Agent Danny Ruiz. An old school friend of Tommy's, now with the FBI, Ruiz makes Tommy an offer that sounds too good to refuse. All Tommy has to do is spend six months in prison, acting as failed bank robber 'Pete Goodrich'. Inside, he must find and befriend Mitchell Dupree, who has hidden a secret cache of documents incriminating enough to take down New Colima, one of Mexico's largest drug cartels. If Tommy can get Dupree to reveal where the documents are hidden, the FBI will give him $300,000. More than enough to jumpstart a new life. But does he have what it takes to pull off this one final role?  The Last Act is by Brad Parks.

April 2019

A Good Enough Mother is by Bev Thomas.  The hardest lies to spot are the ones we tell ourselves. Dr Ruth Hartland rises to difficult tasks. She is the director of a highly respected trauma therapy unit. She is confident, capable and excellent at her job. Today she is preoccupied by her son Tom's disappearance. So when a new patient arrives at the unit - a young man who looks shockingly like Tom - she is floored. As a therapist, Ruth knows exactly what she should do in the best interests of her client, but as a mother she makes a very different choice - a decision that will have profound consequences.

The Better Sister is by Alafair Burke.  For a while, it seemed like both Taylor sisters had found happiness. Chloe landed a coveted publishing job in New York City. Nicky got married to a promising young attorney named Adam McIntosh and became a mother to a baby boy named Ethan. But now, fourteen years later, it is Chloe who is married to Adam. When he is murdered at the couple's beach house, she has no choice but to welcome her estranged sister - her teenage stepson's biological mother - back into her life. When the police begin to treat Ethan as a suspect, the sisters are forced to confront the truth behind family secrets they both tried to leave behind in order to protect the boy they love, whatever the cost.

Mercy River is by Glen Erik Hamilton. When Van Shaw receives a distress call from his fellow Afghan War veteran, Leo Pak, he has to leave the urban hazards of Seattle to head far south to a town called Broken Ridge, deep in the wild heart of rural Oregon. Leo faces charges of murdering a local gun dealer, and while Van doesn't doubt his friend's innocence, he knows he faces conviction. As Van starts his own covert investigations, the small town is suddenly awash with Army Ranger veterans, converging for a raucous annual Rally. Was it only this reunion that brought Leo to town? Or is someone at the Rally setting Leo up to cover for their own dark designs?

May 2019

Phoebe stands on Pulteney Bridge, tights gashed from toe to thigh. The shock of mangled metal and blood-stained walls flashes through her mind as she tries to cover her face so she won't be recognised. It wouldn't do to be spotted looking like this. She's missing a shoe. She feels sick. Phoebe thought murder and murder happened. Thoughts are just thoughts, they said. Now she knows they were wrong. At home, Phoebe arranges the scissors and knives so they point toward her mother's room. She is exhausted, making sure there's no trace of herself - not a single hair, not even her scent - left anywhere in the house. She must not let her thoughts unravel, because if they do, there's no telling who might be caught in the crossfire, and Phoebe will have to live with the consequences.  Crush is by Kate Hamer

The Paris Diversion is by Chris Pavone.  Kate Moore - a mother with an interesting past - is living the quiet life in another European city, or trying to. On her way to drop her children off at school in the city centre, the cafes and streets of Paris start to come alive around her. Kate's husband Dex, meanwhile, charged with finding a particular present for their son's birthday, is struggling to focus on the job in hand as a financial matter at work seems to be playing on his mind. As worrying reports begin to circulate from key locations around the city, and the sound of wailing sirens becomes increasingly hard to ignore, could their day and, indeed, their lives be about to change forever?

Books to Look Forward to from Faber and Faber

Black Water is by Louise Doughty and is due to be published in June 2016.  John Harper is in hiding in a remote hut on a tropical Island.  As he lies awake at night, listening to the rain on the roof, he believes his life may be in danger.  But he is less afraid of what is going to happen than of what he’s already done.  In a local town, he meets Rita, a woman with her own tragichistory.  They begin an affair, but can offer each other redemption? Or do the ghosts of the past always catch up with us in the end? Moving between Europe during the Cold War, Civil Rights-era California, and Indonesia during the massacres of 1965 and the subsequent military dictatorship, Black Water explores some of the darkest events of recent history through the story of one troubled man.

Long Time Lost is by Chris Ewan and is due to be published in May 2016.  Nick Miller and his team provide a unique and highly illegal service, relocating at-risk individuals across Europe with new identities and new lives. Nick excels at what he does for a reason: he's spent years living in the shadows under an assumed name. But when Nick steps in to prevent the attempted murder of witness-in-hiding Kate Sutherland on the Isle of Man, he triggers a chain of events with devastating consequences for everyone he protects - because Nick and Kate share a common enemy in Connor Lane, a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, even if it means tearing Nick's entire network apart.

Nick Alston, a Los Angeles private investigator, is hired to find the kidnapped son of America's richest and most hated man. Hastings, a mob hitman in search of redemption, is also on the trail. But both men soon become ensnared by a sinister cabal that spreads from the White House all the way to Dealey Plaza. Decades later in Dallas, Alston's son stumbles across evidence from JFK conspiracy buffs that just might link his father to the shot heard round the world. Violent, vivid, visceral: Fever City is a high-octane, nightmare journey through a Mad Men-era America of dark powers, corruption and conspiracy.  Fever City is by Tim Baker and is due to be published in January 2016. 

West Virginia: A church congregation vanishes in mysterious circumstances, only to be found dead some miles away. The evidence on the ground appears to indicate a ritual killing and the work of demonic forces.  Enter Jessica Blackwood, the FBI's specialist in all things unusual. A former illusionist, Jessica's talent and experience enable her to see what others cannot, as she proved in the infamous 'Warlock' case. Maybe now, once again, the devil will be in the details.  Following the trail from West Virginia to Mexico and Miami, Jessica uncovers a deadly conspiracy that might lead all the way to the Vatican itself. Only with her unique understanding of the powers of deception can they hope to stop a ruthless killer from exacting a revenge that's been thirty years in the planning . . . Name of the Devil is by Andrew Mayne and is due to be published in June 2016.

Sunset City is by Melissa Ginsburg and is due to be published in April 2016. Twenty-two-year-old Charlotte Ford reconnects with Danielle, her best friend from high school, a few days before Danielle is found bludgeoned to death in a motel room. In the wake of the murder, Charlotte's life unravels and she descends into the city's underbelly, where she meets the strippers, pornographers and drug dealers who surrounded Danielle in the years they were estranged. Ginsburg's Houston is part of a lesser known south, where the urban and rural collide gracelessly. In this shadowy world, culpability and sympathy blur in a debut novel which thrillingly brings its three female protagonists to the fore. Scary, funny and almost unbearably sad, Sunset City is written with rare grace and empathy holding you transfixed, praying for some kind of escape for Charlotte.

The Travelers is by Chris Pavone and is due to be published in March 2016. Will Rhodes is an award-winning correspondent for The Travelers, on assignment at a luxury Argentinian resort - fine wines and gourmet food, polo fields and the looming Andes. But Will's life is about to be turned upside down when a new flirtation turns into something far more dangerous, and he only realises too late. Turns out he's been targeted, he just doesn't know why. He doesn't know what these people truly want and how far into his life they will reach, to his friends and his colleagues, to his boss and his wife. He doesn't know that they will stop at nothing in their pursuit, and he doesn't know about the secrets he has already been keeping... The Travelers is an ingenious, compulsive thriller - taking us from New York to Washington, Mendoza to Capri, London to Paris, Edinburgh to Dublin, Stockholm to the wilds of Iceland - about marriage, deceit, betrayal, and the secrets we should watch out for.

The Ex is by Alafair Burke and is due to be published in February 2016.  A lawyer agrees to help an old boyfriend who has been accused of murder - but begins to suspect that she is the one being manipulated. Widower Jack Harris has resisted the dating scene since the shooting of his wife by a fifteen-year-old boy three years ago. An early morning run along the Hudson River changes that when he spots a woman who eerily but thrillingly echoes his past. Eager to help Jack find love again, his best friend posts a "Missed Moment" item online and days later, a woman responds...Olivia Randall is one of New York City's best criminal defence lawyers. When she gets the phone call informing her that her former fiancee, Jack Harris, has been arrested for a triple homicide there is no doubt in her mind as to his innocence. The only question is who would go to such great lengths to frame him - and why? For Olivia, representing Jack is a way to make up for past regrets, and the hurt she caused him, but as the evidence against him mounts, she is forced to confront her doubts. The man she knew could not have done this. But what if she never really knew him?

So far, twenty-three thousand and ninety six people have seen me online. They include my

mother, my father, my little sister, my grandmother, my other grandmother, my grandfather, my boss, my sixth year Biology teacher and my boyfriend James. When Leah Oliphant-Brotheridge and her adopted sister Su go on holiday together to Magaluf to celebrate their A-levels, only Leah returns home. Her successful, swotty sister remains abroad, humiliated and afraid: there is an online video of her, drunkenly performing a sex act in a nightclub. And everyone has seen it. Ruth Oliphant-Brotheridge, mother of the girls, successful court judge, is furious. How could this have happened? How can she bring justice to these men who took advantage of her dutiful, virginal daughter? What role has Leah played in all this? And can Ruth find Su and bring her back home when Su doesn't want to be found?  Viral is by Helen FitzGerald and is due to be published in February 2016.

Berlin Red is by Sam Eastland and is due to be published in June 2016.  April, 1945. East of Berlin, the Red Army stands poised to unleash its final assault upon the ruined capital of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich. To the north, at a lonely outpost near the Baltic Sea, German scientists perfect a guidance system for the mighty V2 rocket, which has already caused massive damage to the cities of London and Antwerp. This device, known only by the codename Diamond stream, will allow the rocket to arrive at its target with pin-point accuracy. So devastating is the potential of this newly-mastered technology that Hitler's promise to the German people of a 'miracle weapon' that will turn the tide of the war might actually come true. When a radio message sent to Hitler's Headquarters, heralding the success of Diamond stream, is intercepted by an English listening station, British Intelligence orders one of its last agents operating in Berlin to acquire the plans for the device, desperate to evacuate their agent from the doomed city before the Red Army swarms through its streets, British Special Operations turns to the Kremlin for help. They ask for one man in particular - Inspector Pekkala. Anxious to acquire the plans for himself, Stalin readily agrees to risk his finest investigator on what appears to be a suicide mission. But when Pekkala learns the reason that the British have singled him out, he knows that he must make the journey, no matter what the outcome might be. The agent he must rescue is the woman he had planned to marry, before the Revolution tore them apart, sending her to Paris as a refugee and Pekkala to a gulag in Siberia. This time, for Pekkala, it is personal.

In The Long Count, the first book of JM Gulvin's masterful new crime series, we meet Ranger John Quarrie as he is called to the scene of an apparent suicide by a fellow war veteran. Although the local police want the case shut down, John Q is convinced that events aren't quite so straightforward. When his hunch is backed up by the man's son, Isaac - just back from Vietnam, and convinced his father was murdered - they start to look into a series of other violent incidents in the area, including a recent fire at the local Trinity Asylum and the disappearance of Isaac's twin brother, Ishmael. In a desperate race against time, John Q has to try and unravel the dark secrets at the heart of this family and get to the truth before the count is up...Dripping with atmosphere and a sense of time and place, The Long Count is a page-turner and a psychological puzzle and is due to be published in May 2016.

Hard Cold Winter is by Glen Erik Hamilton and is due to be published in April 2016.  When an old crony of Van Shaw's late grandfather calls in a favour, he embarks on a journey deep into the remote forest of the Olympic Mountains in search of a missing girl tied to his own criminal past. Discovering a brutal murder scene, Van finds himself caught between a billionaire businessman on the one side and vicious gangsters on the other. In an attempt to survive Van will have to face some of the toughest questions of his life, not least over his relationship with his iron willed girlfriend, Luce. But with the clock ticking, a desperate Van may just need every ally he can get, especially as someone prepares to unleash a firestorm on Seattle that could burn them all to ashes.

After a stint as a private contractor in Afghanistan, Danny Lynch is back in New York. But nothing's easy. Work is hard to find and his girlfriend owes more than $30,000 in student loans. Danny is also haunted by something he witnessed at the base - a fact that could ultimately destroy him. Then he spots Teddy Trager, tech visionary and billionaire. These two men couldn't be more different - except for one thing: in appearance, they're identical. Danny becomes obsessed with Trager, and before long this member of the ninety-nine per cent is passing undetected into the gilded realm of the one per cent. But what does Danny find there? Who does he become? And is there a route home? From the prize winning author of Limitless, Paradime is by Alan Glynn and is a novel for fans of the great '70s conspiracy thrillers, rebooted for today's ever-globalising world.  It is due to be published in June 2016.

Books to Look Forward to from Faber & Faber

No one is quite who he or she seems.  Missy's Story is the tale of Melisandre - rich, beautiful, possibly insane - who has to live with the knowledge of a devastating event in her past.  She has not seen her two daughters, now aged fifteen, and seventeen, in the ten years since the notorious family tragedy.  And her husband has moved on, married now to his personal trainer, and seemingly happy.  As Melisandre returns to Baltimore from South Africa, however, there are suddenly more mysterious deaths.  And quite what did happen all that time ago has never been clear - what role had each of the members of this unhappy family played?  And is anyone telling the truth?  Tess Monaghan, now the mother of a young girl herself, makes a return as the investigator who gets snared in the case.  A hugely powerful and emotive novel about parents and children - about destructive parents who think they love their children and good parents whose children are the centre of their lives Missy’s Story is by Laura Lippman and is due to be published in April 2015.

'Hello there.’  I looked at the pale, freckled hand on the back of the empty bar seat next to me in the business class lounge of Heathrow airport, then up into the stranger's face.  'Do I know you?’  Delayed in London, Ted Severson meets a woman at the airport bar.  Over cocktails they tell each other rather more than they should, and a dark plan is hatched - but are either of them being serious, could they actually go through with it and, if they did, what would be their chances of getting away with it? Back in Boston, Ted's wife Miranda is busy site managing the construction of their dream home, a beautiful house out on the Maine coastline.  But what secrets is she carrying and to what lengths might she go to protect the vision she has of her deserved future?  A sublimely plotted novel of trust and betrayal, The Kind Worth Killing is by Peter Swanson and is due to be published in February 2015.

It is 1944.  The German Army crumbles before the unstoppable tide of advancing Soviet forces.  In the midst of the fighting, two Russian soldiers seek refuge in the crypt of a German church.  There, clutched in the hands of a skeleton priest, they find The Shepherd; a priceless icon thought to have been destroyed long ago.  When news of its discovery reaches Moscow, Stalin calls upon his most trusted investigator, Inspector Pekkala, once a favourite of Tsar and known to all of Russia as The Emerald Eye.  To unravel the secret of the icon's past, Pekkala traces its last known whereabouts to a band of self-mutilating radicals known as The Skoptsy, who were hunted to extinction years by the Bolshevik Secret Police.  Or so it was believed.  As Pekkala soon learns, the last survivors of this brutal sect have clung to life in the shadowy forests of Siberia.  With the reappearance of the icon, they have returned to claim the treasure they say belongs to them alone, bringing with them a new and terrible weapon to unleash upon the Russian people.  Unless the Emerald Eye can stop them.  Red Icon is by Sam Eastland and is due to be published in April 2015.

The Exit is by Helen Fitzgerald and is due to be published in February 2015.  Some people love goodbyes... 23-year-old Catherine is mainly interested in Facebook and flirting, but she reluctantly takes a job at a local care home after her mother puts her foot down - and soon discovers that her new workplace contains many secrets.  One of the residents at the home, 82-year-old Rose, is convinced that something sinister is going on in Room 7 and that her own life is under threat.  But Rose has dementia - so what does she actually know, and who would believe her anyway?  As Catherine starts investigating Rose's allegations, terrible revelations surface about everyone involved. Can Catherine find out what's really going on before it's too late?

If my grandfather's letter had stopped at the comma, I would have tossed it in the trash...I would have mentally told the old man to stick it, if it hadn't been for the last three words.  If you can...Van Shaw was raised to be a thief, but at the age of eighteen he abruptly abandoned the illicit life and joined the US Army, leaving behind Seattle and the grandfather who taught him the trade.  But after ten years of estrangement, Van's grandfather has suddenly asked him to come home.  He does so, only to find his grandfather shot in the head and bleeding out on the kitchen floor.  While the police focus on Van as the prime suspect, he plunges back into an underworld he had vowed never return to, putting his criminal sensibilities back to work to ferret out the attacker and unearth the shocking secret of why his grandfather called him home after so many years.  But in a violent, high-stakes world where the lines between right and wrong are easily blurred, Van finds that the secrets held by those closest to him are the deadliest of all.  Past Crimes is by Glen Erik Hamilton and is due to be published in March 2015.

In Wild Thyme, Pennsylvania, secrets and feuds go back generations.  The lone policeman in a small township on the sparse northern border, Henry Farrell expected to spend his mornings hunting and fishing, his evenings playing old-time music.  Instead, he has watched the steady encroachment of gas drilling bring new wealth and erode neighbourly trust.  The drug trade is pushing heroin into the territory.  There are outlaws cooking meth in the woods, guys Henry grew up with.  When a stranger turns up dead, Henry s search for the killer will open old wounds, dredge up ancient crimes, and exact a deadly price.  With vivid characters and flawless pacing, Tom Bouman immerses readers in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, a region in the grip of change.  In these derelict woods full of whitetail deer and history, the hunt is on.  Dry Bones in the Valley is due to be published in April 2015.

When three deadly bombs rock a sleepy, devout town in 24 hours an extraordinary mystery is unravelled.  The Killing of Bobbi Lomax is the story of Clark Houseman, a rare books dealer, an expert in his field, beloved of both collectors and The Faith, the immensely powerful local church and one of his biggest clients.  Beloved, that is, until he is blown up by the city’s third bomb.  As Clark hovers on the brink of death, first on the scene are detectives Sinclair and Alvarez who after the previous deadly blasts are under pressure to close the case and stop panic spreading through their community.  In a maelstrom of conspiracy theories and local politics, their investigation unearths a web of intrigue surrounding The Faith and its secretive dealings.  With time running out, the detectives start to wonder if there is more to the mild mannered, bookish Houseman than first thought.  The Killing of Bobbi Lomax is by Cat Moriarty and is a tale of deception, forgery, and murder.  It is due to be published in May 2015.