Books to Look Forward to From Quercus, Riverrun and Maclehose Press

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July 2018

Captain Damian Seeker has gone north. Charged with preparing the way for the rule of the major generals, he is now under the command of Colonel Robert Lilburne at York. But when Lilburne orders him to a small village on the North York moors with details of the stringent new anti-Royalist laws, Seeker finds that what should be a routine visit will reveal a plot to rival anything in scheming London.  An invitation to dinner at the house of local businessman Matthew Pullan lifts the lid on the bubbling cauldron of grudges and resentment that is Faithly village. The local constable, drunk on the tiny bit of power he holds, using it to avenge old resentments. The hated lord of the manor, the last of a staunchly Royalist family who has managed to avoid suspicion of treachery - for now. The vicar on trial for his job and his home, accused of ungodly acts. And the Pullans themselves, proudly Puritan but disillusioned with Cromwell's government, respected and despised in Faithly in equal measure. The man for whom this unlikely gathering was organised - The Trier, the enforcer of Puritan morality for the local villages - hasn't shown up. And by the end of the night, on of those gathered around Matthew Pullan's table will be fatally poisoned.  Seeker must find out the motive behind the death - mushroom misidentification, petty revenge, or part of a larger plot against Cromwell's government in the north? But who in Faithly, if anyone, can he trust? And when the most painful part of his past reappears after eleven years, will the Seeker meet his match? Destroying Angel is by S G Maclean

Believe Me is by J P Delenay.  I'm just an actress. I wanted to stand on a stage and have people applaud. How on earth did I get into all this?Claire Wright likes to play other people. A struggling British actress, in New York without a green card, Claire needs work. She takes the only part she's offered: as a decoy for a firm of divorce lawyers, hired to entrap straying husbands, catching them on tape with their seductive propositions. The rules?  Never hit on them directly. Make it clear you're available, but they have to proposition you, not the other way around. The firm is after evidence, not entrapment. The innocent should have nothing to hide.  Then the game changes.  When the police start investigating one of Claire's targets for murdering his wife - and potentially others too - they ask her to help lure their suspect into a confession. Claire can do this. She assumes a voice and an attitude, something from an old film noir. A master class in deception. But who's deceiving who?  And that's when Claire realises she's playing the deadliest role of her life. 

July 1983, Essex. Fox Farm is, thanks to two corpses, neither picturesque nor peaceful. The body in its kitchen belongs to eminent historian Christopher Cliff, who has taken his own life with an antique shotgun. The second, found on the property boundary, remains unidentified.  DI Nick Lowry's summer is neither sleepy nor serene. And the two deaths are just the half of it. The fact County Chief Merrydown was a college friend of Cliff's means Lowry is now, in turn, under scrutiny from his severely stressed and singularly unsympathetic boss, Sparks.  To catalyse his investigation, Lowry enlists the services of DC Daniel Kenton and WPC Jane Gabriel. Gabriel needs direction, if she is to begin a career as a detective. While Kenton, who appears solely focused on beginning a relationship with Gabriel, needs distraction.  Both the heat and the investigation soon intensify. The team find themselves interrogating enigmatic neighbours, antiques merchants, jilted lovers and wronged relatives; all the while negotiating the caprices of Sparks - whose attitudes remain as dated as Fox Farm's antiques.  Only when they fully open their eyes and minds will they begin to unpick a web of rural rituals, dodgy dealings and fragmented families - and uncover not just one murder, but two.  Yellowhammer is by James Henry.

Stick Together is by Sophie Hénaff.  After their successful solving of three cold cases exposing corruption at the very highest level of the Paris police force, Anne Capestan's squad of misfits and no-hopers should be in a celebratory mood. However, now despised by their colleagues at 36 quai des Orfevres and worried for their future, morale has never been lower among the members of the Awkward Squad.and  Capestan does her best to motivate her troops, but even she cannot maintain a cheerful facade when she has to investigate the murder of Commissaire Serge Rufus, the father of her ex-husband. Worse, it soon appears that his murder is linked to two other victims, both of whom were warned by the killer before they struck . . .

August 2018

After an attempted assassination of a prominent minister goes spectacularly wrong, No sooner has Akyl Borubaev been reinstated as an Inspector in the Bishkek Murder Squad than he's suspended for alleged serious crimes against the state. Akyl is a fugitive from his former colleagues and involved with one of Kyrgyzstan's most dangerous criminals.  On the run, caught up in an illegal scheme that can only end badly, it's time for Akyl to take a stand for everything he believes in.  An Autumn Hunting is by Tom Callaghan.

A Summer of Murder is by Oliver Bottini.  When the fire brigade is called to a burning shed in the Black Forest idyll of Kirchzarten, a volunteer is killed as a weapons cache beneath it explodes. Louise Boni, back with Freiburg Kripo after treatment and recuperation for her alcoholism, is assigned to the task force dealing with this case. The meagre evidence they have points to a possible connection with German neo-Nazis or illegal arms dealers from the former Yugoslavia, while the arrival of secret service agents suggests more is at stake. For Louise to solve the riddle she needs to overcome the ghosts of her past that continue to haunt her.

September 2018

'Island of the Lost was the isle's name long before the hospital was built. In winter, they say the fog falls so heavy there that you can't see your hand in front of your face. Storms rage so forcefully you can be blown from the cliffs. Once St. Christina's was built, the name took on a new meaning. Very few who went into that place ever left.'

Christmas day, and DCI Tom Reynolds receives an alarming call. A mass grave has been discovered on Oilean na Caillte, the island which housed the controversial psychiatric institution St. Christina's. The hospital has been closed for decades and onsite graves were tragically common. Reynolds thinks his adversarial boss is handing him a cold case to side line him.  But then it transpires another body has been discovered amongst the dead - one of the doctors who went missing from the hospital in mysterious circumstances forty years ago. He appears to have been brutally murdered.  As events take a sudden turn, nothing can prepare Reynolds and his team for what they are about to discover once they arrive on the island . . . The Darkest Place is by Jo Spain. 

Alain Delambre is a 57-year-old former HR executive, drained by four years of hopeless unemployment.  All he is offered are small, demoralizing jobs. He has reached his very lowest ebb, and can see no way out.  So when a major company finally invites him to an interview, Alain Delambre is ready to do anything, borrow money, shame his wife and his daughters and even participate in the ultimate recruitment test: a role-playing game that involves hostage-taking.  Alain Delambre commits body and soul in this struggle to regain his dignity.  But if he suddenly realised that the dice had been loaded against him from the start, his fury would be limitless.  And what began as a role-play game could quickly become a bloodbath. Inhuman Resources is by Pierre Lemaitre.

October 2018

Leave No Trace is by Mindy Mejia. Ten years after a boy and his father went missing in the wilderness of Minnesota's Boundary Waters, the boy - who is no longer a boy - walks back out of the forest. He is violent and uncommunicative. The authorities take him to Congdon Mental Institution in Duluth, on the edge of mighty Lake Superior.There, language therapist Maya Stark is given the task of making a connection with this boy/man who came back from the dead. But their celebrity patient tries to escape and refuses to answer any questions about his father or the last ten years of his life. In many ways he is old far beyond his years; in others, still a child.  But Maya, who was abandoned by her own mother, has secrets, too. And as she's drawn closer to this enigmatic boy, she'll risk everything to reunite him with his father who has disappeared from the known world - but at what cost to herself?

The Burning House is by Neil Spring.  It was a victimless crime...  Estate Agent Clara is struggling to make a sale. With her abusive ex-husband on the brink of finding where she's hiding, she needs to make a commission soon or lose her chance to escape.  Boleskine House on the shores of Loch Ness has remained unsold for years, and Clara is sure that an 'innocent' fire will force the price down. But the perfect crime soon turns into the perfect nightmare: there was a witness, a stranger in the village, and he's not going to let Clara get away with it…. 

When one Israeli citizen disappears from Charles de Gaulle airport with a woman in a red dress, you could put it down to youthful indiscretion.   When a second from the same flight is disappeared from his hotel room by a girl with a gun, you might just have a diplomatic crisis on your hands.  Enter Colonel Abadi, recently appointed head of the special branch of Unit 8200, Israel's most secretive intelligence service.  His only allies are his deputy back in Israel, the dazzling and hot-headed Lieutenant Orianna Talmor, and a hungover French detective, hung out to dry by his superiors.  Together they face a squad of ruthless Chinese commandos who have no qualms about leaving Paris littered with bodies.  And then there are their enemies in the Paris establishment and the labyrinthine, back-stabbing Israeli intelligence community.  All in all, it could be a long night.  A Long Night in Paris by Dov Aflon.

November 2018

Bloodline is by Nigel McCrery. When Isabel, a British university student, travels to a remote Spanish town it isn't only to enjoy the atmosphere. It's also to trace how and why her family name might have derived from the town, a quest her father, Sebastian made nine years ago, not long before his death in a car accident. But as Isabel, aided by local guide Mauricio, starts digging into her family's possible links with Alarcon, she's unprepared for the dark secrets uncovered; secrets that the current ruling nobility of Alarcon are keen to keep buried.Ten days into her stay in Alarcon, Isabel mysteriously disappears, presumed dead. Inspector Mark Lapslie and DC Emma Bradbury are sent out to investigate alongside the local Spanish police. A possible gangland link is suspected - Isabel's stepfather in Valencia is a retired British gangster and a mob-hitman from Malaga is identified in Alarcon at the time of Isabel's disappearance. But Mauricio, suspects the Mayor's son, Dario, is the real culprit - to uncover the truth, Lapslie and Bradbury must delve into the murky, chequered past of Isabel's gangland stepfather while also following in her footsteps through Alarcon's dark and tempestuous history.

Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. As a literature teacher specialising in the Gothic writer RM Holland, she teaches a short course on it every year. Then Clare's life and work collide tragically when one of her colleagues is found dead, a line from an RM Holland story by her body. The investigating police detective is convinced the writer's works somehow hold the key to the case.  Not knowing who to trust, and afraid that the killer is someone she knows, Clare confides her darkest suspicions and fears about the case to her journal. Then one day she notices some other writing in the diary. Writing that isn't hers...  The Stranger Diaries is by Elly Griffiths.

December 2018

Village of Lost Girls is by Augustín Martínez.  Five years after their disappearance, the village of Monteperdido still mourns the loss of Ana and Lucia, two eleven-year-old friends who left school one afternoon and were never seen again. Now, Ana reappears unexpectedly inside a crashed car, wounded but alive and next to the body of a man.While the people of the village struggle to comprehend the startling turn of events, the case reopens and a race against time begins to discover the identity of the dead man and who was behind the girls' kidnapping. Most importantly, where is Lucia and is she still alive? Inspector Sara Campos and her boss Santiago Bain, who are called in from Madrid's head office, are forced to work with the local police. Five years ago fatal mistakes were made in the investigation conducted after the girls first vanished, and this mustn't happen again. But Monteperdido has rules of its own.

Books to Look Forward to from Quercus Books

July 2017

On a wet Monday in January, Jess Mount receives the devastating news that she hasn't got long left to live. She doesn't hear it from a doctor, though. She discovers it when her Facebook timeline skips forward eighteen months and friends and family start posting tributes to her, following her death in a terrible and mysterious accident. At first, Jess thinks this must be a sick joke by a colleague jealous of her handsome new boyfriend. But as the posts continue and it becomes clear that no one else can see what she can, Jess is forced to confront that her impending death might be all too real... After I’ve Gone is by Linda Green

3 Minutes is by Roslund and Hellström. INFILTRATOR One-time Swedish government agent Piet Hoffmann is on the run: both from the life prison sentence he escaped, and from the Polish drug mafia he double-crossed. Only Hoffmann’s handler, Erik Wilson, knows he now hides in Cali, Colombia, living under a false identity with his wife Zofia and sons Rasmus and Hugo. INFORMANT But life on the run is precarious. And so when Hoffmann, in order to survive, accepts employment as a bodyguard and hit man for the Colombian cocaine mafia, and is simultaneously approached by the US DEA to infiltrate the same cartel, he chooses to say yes to both. Hoffmann has a new, lucrative double life. IN TOO DEEP However, Hoffmann’s successful balancing act is short lived. When Timothy D. Crouse, Chairman of the US House of Representatives, is kidnapped while on a trip to Colombia, US forces settle on a new enemy for their next War on Terror. This gives the cartel and the US government the same problem. Piet Hoffmann. Condemned and hung out to dry, Hoffmann is stranded, and marked. Yet Erik Wilson will find him help from the most unlikely of figures – the stubborn, acerbic Swedish detective who has never forgotten Piet Hoffmann’s face. DCI Ewert Grens – the enemy who Hoffmann once tricked – will now become the only ally he can trust.

Three Days and a Life is by Pierre Lemaitre.  Antoine is twelve years old. His parents are divorced and he lives with his mother in Beauval, a small, backwater town surrounded by

forests, where everyone knows everyone's business, and nothing much ever happens. But in the last days of 1999, a series of events unfolds, culminating in the shocking vanishing without trace of a young child. The adults of the town are at a loss to explain the disappearance, but for Antoine, it all begins with the violent death of his neighbour's dog. From that one brutal act, his fate and the fate of his neighbour's six year old son are bound forever. In the years following Remi's disappearance, Antoine wrestles with the role his actions played. As a seemingly inescapable net begins to tighten, breaking free from the suffocating environs of Beauval becomes a gnawing obsession. But how far does he have to run, and how long will it take before his past catches up with him again?

August 2017

A Summer Revenge is by Tom Callaghan.  In the burning heat of the sun, murder is deadly

cold. Having resigned from Bishkek Murder Squad, Akyl Borubaev is a lone wolf with blood on his hands. Then the Minister of State Security promises Akyl his old life back …if Akyl finds his vanished mistress. The beautiful Natasha Sulonbekova has disappeared in Dubai with information that could destroy the Minister’s career. But when Borubaev arrives in Dubai – straight into a scene of horrific carnage – he learns that what Natasha is carrying is worth far more than a damaged reputation. Discovering the truth plunges him into a deadly game that means he might never return to Kyrgyzstan… at least, not alive.

The Secret of Vesalius is by Jordi Llobregat.  Daniel Amat has left Spain and all that happened there behind him. Having just achieved a brilliant role in Ancient Languages at Oxford University and an even more advantageous engagement, the arrival of a letter - a demand - stamped Barcelona comes like a cold hand from behind. He arrives back in that old, labyrinthine and near-mythic city a few days before the great 1888 World Fair, amid dread whispers of murders - the injuries reminiscent of an ancient curse, and bearing signs of the genius 16th century anatomist, Vesalius. Daniel is soon pulled into the depths of the crime, and eventually into the tunnels below Barcelona, where his own dark past and the future of science are joined in a terrible venture - to bring the secret of Vesalius to life. 

September 2017

In a Copenhagen Park the body of an elderly woman is discovered. Though the case bears a striking resemblance to another unsolved homicide from over a decade ago, the police cannot find any connection between the two victims. Across town a group of young women are being hunted down. The attacks seem random, but could these brutal acts of violence be related? Detective Carl Morck of Department Q is charged with solving the mystery. Back at headquarters, Carl and his team are under pressure to deliver results: failure to meet his superiors’ expectations will mean the end of Department Q. Solving the case, however, is not their only concern. After a breakdown, their colleague Rose is struggling to deal with the ghosts of her past – a past seemingly connected to one of the division’s most sinister case-files. It is up to Carl, Assad and Gordon to unearth the dark and violent truth plaguing Rose before it is too late.  The Scarred Woman is by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Sleeping Beauties is by Jo Spain.  The inspector frowned and examined the earth under the trees. As he scanned the glade, his stomach lurched. One, two, three, four. Five, counting the mound of earth disturbed under the tent. Somebody had cleared the earth of its natural layer and sown their own flowers In five places. Five graves. A young woman, Fiona Holland, has gone missing from a small Irish village. A search is mounted, but there are whispers. Fiona had a wild reputation. Was she abducted, or has she run away? A week later, a gruesome discovery is made in the woods at Ireland's most scenic beauty spot - the valley of Glendalough. The bodies are all young women who disappeared in recent years. D.I. Tom Reynolds and his team are faced with the toughest case of their careers - a serial killer, who hunts vulnerable women, and holds his victims captive before he ends their lives. Soon the race is on to find Fiona Holland before it's too late.

Millennium V by David Lagercrantz.

October 2017

Shortly after Christmas, a message arrives at Sophie's house, scrawled across her own round robin newsletter: HE'S GOING TO LEAVE YOU. LET'S SEE HOW SMUG YOU ARE THEN, YOU STUPID BITCH. Perhaps she should ignore it, but she ignored the last one. And the one before that. Now it's time to take action. But when a simple plan to identify and confront the other woman goes drastically and violently wrong, Sophie must go to extreme lengths to keep her life and her family together - while never letting on her devastating secret.  The Other Woman is by Laura Wilson.

The Hit is by Anna Smith.  When respectable accountant Alan Lewis disappears in Romania, Rosie Gilmour, like most others, thinks little of it. He's done a runner, or committed suicide. But when a known gangster turns up dead in the flat of his grieving widow Helen, Rosie's attention is grabbed completely. Soon she is sucked into the world of Lewis's shady adoption charity - offering Romanian orphans for sale to the highest bidder, and trafficking slave workers into Glasgow through empty aid lorries. Bringing those involved to justice will take all her cunning and all her grit, and a good dose of luck to make sure they don't catch her first. But there is also danger at home for Rosie - just how did that body end up in Helen Lewis's flat? How much did she know about her husband's disappearance? And how far would she go to protect her secrets?

Lillian had phoned telling her to get Skype up and running. 'I have so much to tell you.' Then, the knock on the door. 'Sorry Orla, I'd better see who it is' she said. Orla waited. Seconds became minutes. She didn't know how long she waited before she realised that something terrible had happened. For more than a decade, Lillian's disappearance has remained unsolved, and Orla has found it impossible to move on. Then she receives an unexpected visit from Ned Moynihan, the detective who led the original investigation into her friend's vanishing. Moynihan has been receiving anonymous notes accusing him of having failed to investigate the case properly. He assumes the notes are coming from Orla, yet Orla knows nothing of these letters. Is somebody trying to tell them the truth about what really happened to Lillian that night?  Without A Word is by Kate McQuaile.

The Book of Forgotten Authors is by Christopher Fowler. Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder. It makes people think you're dead. So begins Christopher Fowler's foray into the back catalogues and backstories of 99 authors who, once hugely popular, have all but disappeared from shelves. We are fondly introduced to each potential rediscovery: from lost Victorian voices to the twentieth century writers who could well become the next John Williams, Hans Fallada or Lionel Davidson. Whether male or female, flash-in-the-pan or prolific, mega-seller or prize-winner - no author, it seems, can ever be fully immune from the fate of being forgotten. These 99 journeys are punctuated by 12 short essays about faded once-favourites: including the now-vanished novels Walt Disney brought to the screen, the contemporary rivals of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie who did not stand the test of time, and the women who introduced psychological suspense many decades before it conquered the world. This is a book about books and their authors. It is for book lovers, and is written by one who could not be a more enthusiastic, enlightening and entertaining guide.

Jeremiah Salinger blames himself. The crash was his fault. He was the only survivor. Now only his daughter Clara can put a smile on his face. The depression and the nightmares are closing in. But when he takes Clara to the Bletterbach - a canyon in the Dolomites rich in fossil remains - he overhears by chance a conversation that gives his life renewed focus. In 1985 three students were murdered there, their bodies savaged, limbs severed and strewn by a killer who was never found. Salinger, a New Yorker, is far from home, and these Italian mountains, where his wife was born, harbour a close-knit, tight-lipped community whose mistrust of outsiders can turn ugly. All the same, solving this mystery might be the only thing that can keep him sane.  The Mountain is by Luca D’Andrea.

November 2017

What do a murdered Brighton flowerseller; the death of Cleopatra and a nude tableau show have in common? One thing's for sure - it could be the most dangerous case yet for Stephens and Mephisto.  Max Mephisto and his daughter Ruby are headlining Brighton Hippodrome, an achievement only slightly marred by the less-than-savoury support act: a tableau show of naked 'living statues'. This might appear to have nothing in common with DI Edgar Stephens' investigation into the death of a quiet flowerseller, but if there's one thing the old comrades have learned it's that, in Brighton, the line between art and life - and death - is all too easily blurred...  The Vanishing Box is by Elly Griffiths.

The fifth case synaesthetic detective, DCI Mark Lapslie.  Whilst investigating the murder of a teenage boy, the DCI’s unconventional methods of investigation come under fire, resulting in his prime suspect, Alastair Tulley, walking free.  Meanwhile the body of another boy is discovered.  Though DNA evidence links the crimes to a different man, Lapslie remains convinces of Tulley’s guilt.  Tulley may be the real culprit but can Lapslie prove it.  Flesh and Blood is by Nigel McCrery.

Books to Look Forward to from Quercus Books

Coffin Road is by Peter May and is due to be published in January 2016.  A man is washed up on a deserted beach on the Hebridean Isle of Harris, barely alive and borderline hypothermic. He has no idea who he is or how he got there. The only clue to his identity is a map tracing a track called the Coffin Road. He does not know where it will lead him, but filled with dread, fear and uncertainty he knows he must follow it. A detective crosses rough Atlantic seas to a remote rock twenty miles west of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. With a sense of foreboding he steps ashore where three lighthouse keepers disappeared more than a century before - a mystery that remains unsolved. But now there is a new mystery - a man found bludgeoned to death on that same rock, and DS George Gunn must find out who did it and why. A teenage girl lies in her Edinburgh bedroom, desperate to discover the truth about her father's death. Two years after the discovery of the pioneering scientist's suicide note, Karen Fleming still cannot accept that he would wilfully abandon her. And the more she discovers about the nature of his research, the more she suspects that others were behind his disappearance. Coffin Road follows three perilous journeys towards one shocking truth - and the realisation that ignorance can kill us.

I talked to my mother the night she died, losing myself in memories of when we were happiest together. But I held one memory back, and it surfaces now, unbidden. I see a green post-box and a small hand stretching up to its oblong mouth. I am never sure whether that small hand is mine. But if not mine, whose? Louise Redmond left Ireland for London before she was twenty. Now, more than two decades later, her heart already breaking from a failing marriage, she is summoned home. Her mother is on her deathbed, and it is Louise's last chance to learn the whereabouts of a father she never knew. Stubborn to the end, Marjorie refuses to fill in the pieces of her daughter's fragmented past. Then Louise unexpectedly finds a lead. A man called David Prescott ...but is he really the father she's been trying to find? And who is the mysterious little girl who appears so often in her dreams? As each new piece of the puzzle leads to another question, Louise begins to suspect that the memories she most treasures could be a delicate web of lies.  What She Never Told Me is by M R McQuaile and is due to be published in March 2016.

Retribution is by Steffen Jacobsen and is due to be published in February 2016. On a warm

Autumn afternoon, Tivoli Gardens - Denmark's largest amusement park - is devastated by a terrorist attack. 1,241 people are killed. The unknown bomber is blown to bits; the security forces have no leads. One year later, the nation is still reeling, and those behind the attack are still at large. Amidst the increasingly frustrated police force, Superintendent Lene Jensen is suffering the effects of tragedy closer to home. Everyone is aware the terrorists may soon strike again. Then Lene receives a strange call. A young desperate Muslim woman needs her help, but by the time Lene reaches her she's already dead - supposedly suicide. Already suspicious, Lene's initial investigations suggest that the woman was unknowingly part of a secret services research project. Silenced by her superiors, Lene turns to her old ally Michael Sander to dig deeper. But with even her allies increasingly adamant her actions are a risk to national security, Lene begins to understand that finding the truth might be the most dangerous thing of all.

Ruth Galloway's friend Cathbad is housesitting in Walsingham, a Norfolk village famous as a centre for pilgrimages to the Virgin Mary. In an attempt to stop a malevolent cat from escaping, Cathbad sees a strange vision in the graveyard beside the cottage: a young woman dressed in blue. Cathbad thinks that he may have seen the Madonna herself but, the next morning, the woman's body, dressed in white nightdress and blue dressing-gown, is found in a ditch outside Walsingham. DCI Nelson and his team are called in and establish that the dead woman was a recovering addict being treated at a nearby private hospital. Ruth, a devout atheist, has managed to avoid Walsingham during her seventeen years in Norfolk. But then an old university friend, Hilary Smithson, asks to meet her in the village. When Ruth arrives at the Blue Lady cafe, she's amazed to discover that her friend is now a priest. Hilary has been receiving vitriolic anonymous letters targeting women priests - letters containing references to local archaeology and a striking phrase about a woman 'clad in blue, weeping for the world.' Then another woman is murdered - a priest. As Walsingham prepares for its annual Easter re-enactment of the Crucifixion, the race is on to unmask the killer before they strike again. Ruth has got herself tangled up in a grisly mystery play ...  The Woman in Blue is by Elly Griffiths and is due to be published in April 2016.

Arnaud Mars – a former police divsionnaire on the run after being implicated in a seismic defence contracts scandal – has been found dead in Africa.  The Smith & Wesson that killed him belongs to Commandant Sacha Duguin, a longstanding friend of Lola’s.  Who was really behind Mars’ death?  And what is it that has made Duguin the ideal scapegoat?  Lola joins forces once again with her partner-in-crime-fighting, Ingrid Diesel, in an investigation that will take them from France to Africa to Hong Kong.  Shadows and Sun is by Dominique Sylvain and is due to be published in June 2016.

When a young Pakistani bride falls to her death from a window, Rosie has to navigate the

story with care, trying not to upset the girl's devastated family or the local Pakistani community. After talking to the family, however, Rosie becomes convinced that there is more to the story than a tragic accident, and that something is being kept from her and the police. Meanwhile, on the other side of Glasgow, Nikki and Julie, two prostitutes, find themselves in trouble when a client dies during an assignment and it looks like one of them is to blame. Their problems become far worse though, when a briefcase they steal from the dead man turns out to contain some very valuable rough diamonds and several fake passports. It's clear it belonged to some serious criminals, and now they have much more to worry about than a dead body. Investigating the Pakistani girl's death, Rosie has been talking to Laila, another young girl from the community, who has voiced her fears of being forced into marrying a much older man in Pakistan. When Laila disappears, Rosie is sure her fears have been realised. Then Nikki contacts her asking for help, and Rosie senses a parallel with her current case. Sure enough, as Rosie flies to Pakistan to try and rescue Laila, it becomes clear that the 'accidental' death, Laila's disappearance and the briefcase are all linked - and once back in Glasgow, she, Julie and Nikki discover just how much danger they are in...  Rough Cut is by Anna Smith and is due to be published in January 2016.

The Man Who Wanted to Know is by M A Mishani and is due to be published in June 2016.Called on a stormy day to his first murder scene as the new commander of investigations, Inspector Avraham Avraham is astounded to discover he knows the victim: a middle-aged woman who had been assaulted in the past. His only lead is an eyewitness claiming he saw a policeman going down the building's staircase a few minutes after the murder. Eager to solve his first murder case, Avraham is determined to follow this lead even though it puts him in conflict with the entire police force. It'll take him to Mazal Bengtson - a young woman who doesn't know anything about the murder. She remembers the day of the storm for a different reason. And she will change everything Avraham thought about the case.

SIX FOUR. THE NIGHTMARE NO PARENT COULD ENDURE. THE CASE NO DETECTIVE COULD SOLVE. THE TWIST NO READER COULD PREDICT. For five days in January 1989, the parents of a seven-year-old Tokyo schoolgirl sat and listened to the demands of their daughter's kidnapper. They would never learn his identity. They would never see their daughter again. For the fourteen years that followed, the Japanese public listened to the police's apologies. They would never forget the botched investigation that became known as 'Six Four'. They would never forgive the authorities their failure. For one week in late 2002, the press officer attached to the police department in question confronted an anomaly in the case. He could never imagine what he would uncover. He would never have looked if he'd known what he would find.  Six Four is by Hideo Yokoyama and is due to be published in March 2016.

The Other Side of Silence is by Philip Kerr and is due to be published in May 2016.  Bernie Gunther has done various jobs since the war. Now it's the 1950s and he's working in a hotel on the Cote D'Azur. It's winter, and the Riviera is empty and a little sad. In a bar one evening he bumps into Herr Leuthard, an acquaintance from the war, who offers him a most enticing job. Leuthard owns the Grand Hotel du Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. It's the best hotel on the Cote D'Azur and everyone has heard of it. Leuthard knows of Bernie' skills and thinks he could use them. Bernie's not so sure, says his detective days are over and he couldn't find a missing person in a phone booth. No matter, Leuthard tells him, I need a concierge, not a detective. A good concierge has to be like a detective. He's expected to know things, to fix things - sometimes he has to know things he's not supposed to know, and do things that others wouldn't want to do. Pleasing guests can be a tricky business, especially the ones with a lot of money. It sounds like a cushy number for a man like Bernie Gunther. And so begins a new adventure for him, where he'll discover just how many bad people pass through the doors of the Grand Hotel du Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

A volatile Zimbabwe and the jungles of the Congo are the battlefields for a deadly game of cat and mouse in Africa's wildlife wars. Canadian researcher Michelle Parker jumps at the chance to visit the famed mountain gorillas, but she is wary of the man offering it, a professional big game hunter, Fletcher Reynolds. He represents everything that she has fought against - the slaughter of animals for material gain - but she is reassured by his apparent support for the stamping out of poaching. Ex-SAS officer Shane Castle has been recruited by Fletcher to spearhead the anti-poaching campaign. Shane has seen what bullets can do to both man and animal. He makes Michelle start to doubt the choices she has made.  Safari is by Tony Park and is due to be published in March 2016.

Once a year, Corso Bramard receives a message from the man who destroyed his life. He left the police after a serial killer he was tracking murdered his wife and daughter, but fifteen years later he is still taunted by his old adversary. Mocking letters arrive at his home outside Turin, always from a different country, always typed on the same 1972 Olivetti. But this time the killer may have gone too far. A hair left in the envelope of his latest letter provides a vital clue. Bramard is a teacher now - no gun, no badge, just a score to settle. Isa, an academy graduate whose talent just about outweighs her attitude is assigned to fight his corner. They're a mismatched team, but if they work together they have a chance to unmask the killer before he strikes again - and to uncover a devastating secret that will cut Corso Barmard to the bone.  The Bramard Case is by Davide Longo and is due to be published in May 2016.

A Spring Betrayal is by Tom Callaghan and is due to be published in April 2016.   We uncovered the last of the bodies in the red hour before dusk, as the sun stained the snowcaps of the Tian Shan mountains the colour of dried blood and the spring air turned sharp and cold ...Inspector Akyl Borubaev of Bishkek Murder Squad has been exiled to the far corner of Kyrgystan, but death still haunts him at every turn. Borubaev soon finds himself caught up in a mysterious and gruesome new case: several children's bodies have been found buried together - all tagged with name bands. In his search for the truth behind the brutal killings, Borubaev hits a wall of silence, with no one to turn to outside his sometime lover, the beautiful undercover agent Saltanat Umarova. When Borubaev himself is framed for his involvement in the production of blood-soaked child pornography, it looks as though things couldn't get any worse. With the investigation at a dangerous standstill, Borubaev sets out to save his own integrity, and to deliver his own savage justice on behalf of the many dead who can't speak for themselves ...

A bloody and tragic run-in with ivory hunters in Mozambique left Mike Williams, former Australian Army officer, in despair. A year on, the authorities are on the poachers' trail and need his help to catch them. Now, as an overland tour guide, he must choose between his duty to keep the young tourists in his care safe, and his hunger for retribution. Thrown into the mix is tenacious English journalist Sarah Thatcher, who is determined to cover the story. She'll risk anything and anyone for a scoop, but little does she realize the danger that lies ahead. The murderous hunters and the innocent travellers are on a parallel journey through Africa's most spectacular locations. Eventually their paths will cross and Mike will have his shot at revenge. But at what cost? Far  Horizon is by Tony Parks and is due to be published in May 2016.

Shot Through the Heart is by Isabelle Grey and is due to be published in March 2016. Who can you turn to, if not the police? Essex, Christmas Day. As the residents of a small town enjoy their mince pies, shots ring out in the street. Five people are gunned down before the lone shooter turns his weapon on himself. Grace Fisher, now Detective Inspector, is tasked with making some sense of this

atrocity - all the more sensitive because the first of the victims was one of their own: a police officer. The case throws her back together with crime reporter Ivo Sweatman, but as she investigates it becomes clear that the police connection goes much deeper than she thought. As the evidence of corruption grows and she is obstructed at every turn, Grace knows she is walking further into danger. Then, her young key witness disappears ...What far-reaching compromises will Grace have to make to safeguard the innocent?

Dungeness, Kent Police Sergeant William South has a reason for not wanting to be on the murder investigation. He is a murderer himself. But the victim was his only friend. A quiet, reticent birdwatcher, South finds himself paired with the strong-willed Detective Sergeant Alexandra Cupidi, newly recruited to the Kent coast from London. Together they find the body, violently beaten, inside a wooden chest. The man's sister, broken hearted, cannot guess why he was murdered. But soon - too soon - they find a suspect: Donnie Fraser, a drifter from Northern Ireland. His presence in Kent disturbs William - because he knows him. As a boy, South and his mother fled their home in County Armagh, and, for many reasons, he has never looked back. If the past is catching up with him, South wants to meet it head on. For even as he desperately investigates the connections, he knows there is no crime, however duplicitous or cruel, that can compare to the great lie of his childhood. The Birdwatcher is a crime novel of suspense, intelligence and powerful humanity, that forces open scars from old terrors and faces the fear of retribution.  The Birdwatcher is by William Shaw and is due to be published in May 2016.

A Woman Much Missed is by Valerio Varesi and is due to be published in February 2016.  A few days before Christmas, with Parma gripped by frost, Ghitta Tagliavini, the elderly owner of a student guesthouse in the old town centre, is found dead in her apartment by Commissario Soneri himself. The investigation that follows holds a painful, personal element for Soneri. Tagliavini's guesthouse is where he met his late wife Ada, and where the young couple spent unforgettable hours in each other's company. But the present can embitter even the sweetest memories. An old photograph of Ada with another man sends Soneri into a spiral of despondency, ever more so when he realises her death may be linked to Tagliavini's sideline as a backstreet abortionist. And his retrospective jealousy is compounded when he learns that Ghitta rented her rooms by the hour for the illicit liaisons of Parma's rich and powerful. Did Ada have a part to play? Though Soneri would like nothing more than to be allowed to drop the case, he doggedly persists, uncovering at last, along with the truth behind Tagliavini's death, rife corruption at Parma's rotten heart and a raft of ghosts from Italy's divisive past.

The Wednesday Club is by Kjell Westö and is due to be published in May 2016. 1938. Hitler's expansionist policies are arousing both anger and admiration, not least in the 'Wednesday Club' in Helsinki. Something of a relaxed gentlemen's club, the group's members are old friends of lawyer Claes Thune. They socialise, discuss politics and drink together, but this year it is apparent that the political unrest in Europe is having an effect on the cohesion of the club. Thune, who has returned home after several years serving as a diplomat in Moscow and Stockholm, has recently divorced and is at something of a loss; he runs his law practice without any great enthusiasm, and the growing political anxiety and the chaos in his own life feel like two sides of the same coin. Fortunately he has the assistance of his new secretary, Matilda Wiik. But behind her polished exterior Matilda is tormented by memories of the Finnish Civil War, when at the age of just seventeen she experienced things she has been trying to forget ever since. Then one day her memories catch up with her. When the Wednesday Club gathers for a meeting in Thune's office, she hears a voice she had hoped she would never have to hear again. She is suddenly plunged back into the past, but this time she is no longer a helpless victim.

One time government agent Piet Hoffmann is on the run: both from the life prison sentence he escaped, and from the Polish drug mafia he double- crossed. Only Hoffmann’s handler, Erik Wilson knows he now hides in Cali, Columbia living under a false identity with his wife Zofia and sons Rasmus and Hugo.  But life on the run is precarious. And so when Hoffmann, in order to survive, accepts employment as a bodyguard and hit man for the Columbian cocaine mafia, and is simultaneously approached by the US DEA to infiltrate the same cartel.  He chooses to say yes to both. Hoffmann has a new lucrative double life. However, Hoffmann’s successful balancing act is short-lived.  When Timothy D Crouse, Chairman of the US House of Representatives, is kidnapped while on a trip to Columbia, US forces settle on a new enemy for their War on Terror.  This gives the cartel and the US government the same problem Pet Hoffmann.  Condemned and hung out to dry by both sides, Hoffmann is stranded.  Yet help will come from the most unusual of figures – the stubborn, ascorbic Swedish detective who has doggedly tracked his whereabouts, DC Ewert Grens – the enemy who Hoffmann once tricked – will now become the only ally he can trust.  Three Minutes is by Roslund and Hellström and is due to be published in June 2016.