January 2017
The Vanishing is by Sophia Tobin. On top of the Yorkshire Moors, in an isolated
spot carved out of a barren landscape, lies White Windows, a house of shadows
and secrets. Here lives Marcus Twentyman, a hard-drinking but sensitive man,
and his sister, the brisk widow, Hester. When runaway Annaleigh first meets the
Twentymans, their offer of employment and lodgings seems a blessing. Only later
does she discover the truth. But by then she is already in the middle of a web
of darkness and intrigue, where murder seems the only possible means of
escape...
You
can run! Sam Wylde is a Close Protection Officer to the rich and powerful. In a
world dominated by men, being a woman has been an advantage. And she is the
best in the business at what she does. You can hide! She takes a job protecting
the daughter of the Sharifs - Pakistani textile tycoons - but she realises that
there is more to their organisation than meets the eye and suddenly she finds
herself in danger. But only one person will keep you safe from harm! Now she is
trapped underground, with no light, no signal and no escape. Dangerous men are
coming to hurt her, and the young charge she is meant to be protecting. With
time running out, can she channel everything she knows to keep them safe from
harm...? Safe From Harm is by R J Bailey.
Deep Blue is by Alan Judd. During a time
of political disruption and rising anti-nuclear sentiment, MI5 discovers that
an extremist fringe group, Action Against Austerity, appears to have links to
an established political party while planning sabotage using something or
someone called Deep Blue. Banned from investigating British political parties,
the head of MI5 seeks advice from Charles Thoroughgood, his opposite number in
MI6. Agreeing to help unofficially with the case, Charles must delve deep into
his own past, to an unresolved Cold War case linked to his private life. Using
the past as key to the present, he soon finds himself in a race against time to
prevent a plot which is politically nuclear ...
February 2017
Kill the Father is by Sandrone Dazieri. When
a woman is beheaded in a park outside Rome and her six-year-old son goes
missing, the police unit assigned to the case sees an easy solution: they
arrest the woman's husband and await his confession. But the Chief of Rome's
Major Crimes unit doubts things are so simple. Secretly, he lures to the case
two of Italy's top analytical minds: Deputy Captain Colomba Caselli, a fierce,
warrior-like detective still reeling from having survived a bloody catastrophe,
and Dante Torre, a man who spent his childhood trapped inside a concrete silo.
Fed through the gloved hand of a masked kidnapper who called himself 'The
Father', Dante emerged from his ordeal with crippling claustrophobia but, also,
with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and hyper-observant capacities. All
evidence suggests that 'The Father' is back and active after being dormant for
decades. Indeed, he has left tell-tale signs that signal he's looking forward
to a reunion with Dante. But when Columba and Dante begin following the
ever-more-bizarre trail of clues, they grasp that what's really going on is
darker than they ever imagined.
Francesca
was widowed a year ago. Since then she has focused on her children, trying to
soothe their grief as well as her own. Her husband and father never quite saw
eye to eye but no one could have cared more for her in the past year than her
close-knit family. Finally, she feels she might be ready to move on with life.
Until she is contacted out of the blue by someone who says he must get
information to her. That her husband's death wasn't what it seemed. And that
her family know more than they say ...Who can Francesca trust? And what will
happen to her if she puts her faith in the wrong person? The
Black Sheep is by Sophie McKenzie.
The Caller is by Chris Carter. After a
tough week, Tanya Kaitlin is looking forward to a relaxing night in, but as she
steps out of her shower, she hears her phone ring. The video call request comes
from her best friend, Karen Ward. Tanya takes the call and the nightmare
begins. Karen is gagged and bound to a chair in her own living room. If Tanya
disconnects from the call, if she looks away from the camera, he will come
after her next, the deep, raspy, demonic voice at the other end of the line
promises her. As Hunter and Garcia investigate the threats, they are thrown
into a rollercoaster of evil, chasing a predator who scouts the streets and
social media networks for victims, taunting them with secret messages and
feeding on their fear.
March 2017
The Last Night at Tremore Beach is by
Mikel Santiago. He'd seen the danger
coming. And now it's here...When Peter Harper, a gifted musician whose career
and personal life are in trouble, comes to northwest Ireland and rents a remote
cottage on beautiful, windswept Tremore Beach, he thinks he has found a refuge,
a tranquil place in a time of crisis. His only neighbours for miles around are
a retired American couple, Leo and Marie Kogan, who sense his difficulties and
take him under their wing. But there's something strange about the pair that he
can't quite figure out. One night during one of the dramatic storms that pummel
the coast, Peter is struck by lightning. Though he survives, he begins to
experience a series of terrifying, lucid and bloody nightmares that frame him,
the Kogans and his visiting children in mortal danger. The Harper family legend
of second sight suddenly takes on a sinister twist. What if his horrifying
visions came true, could tonight be his last...?
April 2017
From
the author David Grann comes Killers of
the Flower Moon: An American Crime and the birth of the FBI, a true-life
murder story which became one of the newly-created FBI's first major homicide
investigations. In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were
members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered
beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions and
sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be
killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime
target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And this was just the beginning,
as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious
circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were
themselves murdered. As the death toll climbed, the FBI took up the case. It
was one of the organisation's first major homicide investigations and the
bureau badly bungled it. In desperation, its young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned
to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. Together with
the Osage he and his undercover team began to expose one of the most chilling
conspiracies in American history.
Innocent
or guilty Her time is running out ...The air is hazy and grey with gunpowder
smoke. Everyone has been shot but me. I haven't got so much as a bruise ...Maja
Norberg has spent nine months in jail awaiting trial for a shooting in her
school. Among those killed were her boyfriend and her best friend. Now the time
has come for her to enter the courtroom ...But is Maja a demonised victim - or
cold-blooded killer? Quicksand is by Malin Persson Giolito.
All by Myself Alone is by Mary Higgins
Clark. Fleeing a disastrous and humiliating arrest of her husband-to-be on the
eve of their wedding, Celia Kilbride, a gems and jewellery expert, hopes to
escape from public attention by lecturing on a brand-new cruise ship - the
Queen Charlotte. On board she meets eighty-six-year-old Lady Emily Haywood,
"Lady Em," as she is known throughout the world. Immensely wealthy,
Lady Em is the owner of a priceless emerald necklace that she intends to leave
to the Smithsonian after the cruise. Three days out to sea Lady Em is found
dead - and the necklace is missing. The list of suspects is large and growing.
Celia sets out to find the killer, not realising that she has put herself in
mortal danger before the ship reaches its final destination...
May 2017
'I wouldn't scream if I were you. Unless you
want the whole world to learn about your husband and his mistress.' Agatha
Christie, in London to visit her literary agent, boards a train, preoccupied
and flustered in the knowledge that her husband Archie is having an affair. She
feels a light touch on her back, causing her to lose her balance, then a sense
of someone pulling her to safety from the rush of the incoming train. So begins
a terrifying sequence of events. Her rescuer is no guardian angel; rather, he
is a blackmailer of the most insidious, manipulative kind. Agatha must use every
ounce of her cleverness and resourcefulness to thwart an adversary determined
to exploit her genius for murder to kill on his behalf. A Talent for Murder is by Andrew Wilson.
June 2017
Defectors
is by Joseph Kanon. Moscow, 1961. Stalin
has been dead for eight years. With the
launch of Sputnik, the Soviet Union's
international prestige is at an all-time high. Former CIA agent Francis 'Frank'
Weeks, the most notorious of the defectors to the Soviet Union, is about to
publish his memoirs, and what he reveals is reportedly going to send shock
waves through the West. Weeks' defection in the early 50s shook Washington to
its core - his betrayal rippled through the State Department, prompting frantic
searches for moles and forcing the resignation of Simon, Frank's brother and
best friend. So when a Soviet agency approaches Simon, now a publisher in New
York City, with a controversial proposition to publish his brother's memoirs,
he finds the offer irresistible since it will finally give him the chance to
learn why his brother chose to betray his country. But what he discovers in Moscow
is far more than he ever imagined ...
How
do you vindicate a deceased, self-proclaimed killer? A criminal lawyer in
Stockholm, Martin Benner sees himself as a man who has it all. Then Bobby T
barges into his office one day, demanding his help. Bobby says he's the brother
of Sara Tell, a young woman dubbed 'Sara Texas' by the tabloids after she
confessed to five brutal murders some time back - three in Sweden, and two in
Texas. Six months ago, she shocked everyone when she escaped from pre-trial
custody and leapt off a bridge to her death. But Bobby says she was innocent.
He needs Martin's help to clear her name and to find Sara's son, Mio, who he
says disappeared around the time of her death. As Martin and Lucy, the partner
in his firm, delve deeper into the case, their pursuit of the truth takes them
across the ocean to Texas, where the pieces of the puzzle slowly fall into
place. But before Martin can continue his investigation, he receives some
devastating news that turns his world upside down... Buried Lies is by Kristina Ohlsson.
February 2017
When
a distressed young woman arrives at their station claiming her friend has been
abducted, and that the man threatened to come back and 'claim her next',
Detectives Carrigan and Miller are thrust into a terrifying new world of
stalking and obsession. Taking them from a Bayswater hostel, where backpackers
and foreign students share dorms and failing dreams, to the emerging threat of
online intimidation, hacking, and control, The Intrusions explores disturbing
contemporary themes with all the skill and dark psychology that Stav Sherez's
work has been so acclaimed for. Under scrutiny themselves, and with old foes
and enmities re-surfacing, how long will Carrigan and Miller have to find out
the truth behind what these two women have been subjected to? The Intrusions is by Stav Sherez
On a
normal Wednesday afternoon, Judge Scott Sampson is preparing to pick up his
six-year-old twins for their weekly swim. His wife Alison texts him with a change
of plan: she has to take them to the doctor instead. So Scott heads home early.
But when Alison arrives back later, she is alone - no Sam, no Emma - and denies
any knowledge of the text ...The phone then rings: an anonymous voice tells
them that the Judge must do exactly what he is told in an upcoming drug case
and, most importantly, they must 'say nothing'. So begins this powerful, tense
breakout thriller about a close-knit young family plunged into unimaginable
horror. As a twisting game of cat and mouse ensues, they know that one false
move could lose them their children forever. Say Nothing is by Brad Parks.
In
New Orleans, Texas Ranger John Q is out of his jurisdiction, and possibly out
of his depth. It seems everyone in Louisiana wants to send him home, and every
time he asks questions there's trouble: from the pharmacist to the detective
running scared to the pimp who turned to him as a last resort. Before John Q
knows it, he looks the only link between a series of murders. So who could be
trying to set him up, and why, and who can he turn to in a city where Southern
tradition and family ties rule? Infused with the rhythms of its iconic setting,
The Contract is by J M Gulvin.
