When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town
of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is,
seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey,
but what lies behind the pretty facade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with
their parents, wives at war with their husbands, and teachers at war with their
pupils...Pagford is not what it first seems.
Moreover, the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon
becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with
passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?
A big novel about a small town, The
Casual Vacancy is by J K Rowling and is due to be published in September
2012.
The Uncommon Appeal of
Clouds is by Alexander McCall Smith and is due to be published in September
2012. Isabel Dalhouise leads an enviable
life in Edinburgh, with time for cloud-gazing, civilised conversation and good
coffee from Cat’s delicatessen.
Alongside these pastimes, she must also keep with the varied pursuits of
her musician husband and their young son Charlie, who is exhibiting the first,
rather worrying signs of mathematical genius.
But an unexpected appeal for help from a collector who has been the
victim of an important art theft threatens to take her far outside her comfort
zone. As an incorrigible rescuer of
others, Isabel can hardly refuse to assist in the collector’s negotiations with
those holding his beloved painting, however shadowy the circumstances may be…..
Bode Bonner is the Republican governor of Texas. He has everything he ever wanted: money,
power, influence. But something isn't
right in his life - everything feels too settled and easy. He longs for one more moment of excitement,
one more challenge. Lindsay Bonner is
Bode's wife, and she's bored too. Bored
of Bode's womanising, bored of the endless cocktail parties and receptions. She is desperate to break free of her bland,
wealthy Texan lifestyle. And that moment
comes when she saves a poor Hispanic boy's life. From that moment on, nothing will be the same
for Bode and Lindsay Bonner. Their lives
are about to change in ways they could never have predicted...Filled with
dramatic and ingenious twists and turns, this is an addictively readable novel
that delves deep into the dark heart of Texas.
The Governor’s Wife is by Mark
Gimenez and is due to be published in August 2012.
A woman has vanished while digging a dinosaur bone bed in
the remote wilderness of Canada. Somehow,
the only evidence has made its way to the inbox of Chief Medical Examiner Kay
Scarpetta, over two thousand miles away in Boston. She has no idea why. But as events unfold with alarming speed,
Scarpetta begins to suspect the palaeontologist’s disappearance is connected to
a series of crimes much closer to home: a gruesome murder, inexplicable tortures,
and trace evidence from the last living creatures of the dinosaur age. When she turns to those around her, Scarpetta
finds that the danger and suspicion have penetrated even her closest circles. Her niece Lucy speaks in riddles. Her lead investigator Pete Marino and FBI
husband Benton Wesley have secrets of their own. Feeling alone and betrayed, Scarpetta is
tempted by someone from her past as she tracks a killer both cunning and cruel. The
Bone Bed is by Patricia Cornwell and is due to be published in October
2012.
'What would cause someone to want so many people, surely
many of them strangers, to slaughter each other?' The scene that greets
Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her team one terrible evening in New York is more
shocking than any of them have ever witnessed. The usually comfortable downtown
bar is strewn with bodies - office workers who have been sliced, bludgeoned or hacked
to death with the nearest weapon available. It appears they all turned on each
other in a desperate blinding rage. As Eve and her husband Roarke - who owned
the bar among his many properties - investigate the big-business workers of the
city, they link the attacks back to the Urban Wars and the chemical warfare
used all those years ago. With another slaughter imminent, Eve must turn to
unexpected sources in order to stop a killer who is getting revenge by creating
mass carnage... Delusion in Death is by J D Robb and is due to published in September
2012.
After a CIA-sponsored op in the Khorasan Valley, operative
John Stratton is looking forward to a holiday - until old friend and ex-SBS
commander Berry Chandos calls him up out of the blue. Through his contacts,
Chandos has discovered that a nuclear dirty bomb has gone missing in Pakistan.
When Chandos disappears a few days later, Stratton finds himself drawn into a
desperate race to find his old partner before an assassin targets him and
before the bomb can fall into the wrong hands. Alone and unsupported, Stratton
must fight to find his friend and discover the truth in this high-voltage
thriller. Assassin is by Duncan Falconer and is due to be published in August
2012.
It's every parent's worst nightmare... Stephanie Harker is travelling through the
security gates at O'Hare airport, on her way to an idyllic holiday. Five-year-old Jimmy goes through the metal
detector ahead of her. But then, in
panic and disbelief, Stephanie watches as a uniformed agent leads her boy away
- and she's stuck the other side of Security, hysterical with worry. The authorities, unaware of Jimmy's
existence, just see a woman behaving erratically; Stephanie is brutally
wrestled to the ground and blasted with a taser gun to restrain her. And by the time, she can tell them what has
happened, Jimmy is long gone. But as
Stephanie tells her story to the FBI, it becomes clear that everything is not
as it seems with this seemingly normal family.
What is Jimmy's background? Why
would someone want to abduct him? And,
with time running out, how can Stephanie get him back? The
Vanishing Point is by Val McDermid and is due to be published in September
2012.
Grave Secrets In Goa
is by Kathleen McCaul and it is due to be published in July 2012. Ruby Jones just needed to relax and take a
holiday. She made a bad decision when she headed for Goa...Famed for beaches
and full moon parties, Goa is also home to one of the most famous Christian
shrines in Asia - St. Francis Xavier, his body still miraculously intact after five
hundred years. But when the head of the saint is stolen, Ruby discovers there's
a lot more going missing in Goa than the head of the famous saint, and beyond
the palm-fringed beaches is a world of smuggling, corruption and crime. The
weather is balmy, the sea is warm, but Ruby can't play at being tourist when
her journalist instincts are twitching. And soon she finds herself at the
centre of a lethal world turning in on itself - with deadly consequences.
Rush of Blood is
by Mark Billingham and is due to be published in August 2012. Perfect strangers. A perfect holiday. The perfect murder... Three couples meet around the pool on their
Florida holiday and become fast friends.
But on their last night, their perfect holiday takes a tragic twist: the
teenage daughter of another holidaymaker goes missing, and her body is later
found floating in the mangroves. When
the shocked couples return home, they remain in contact, and over the course of
three increasingly fraught dinner parties they come to know one another better. But they don't always like what they find:
buried beneath these apparently normal exteriors are some dark secrets, hidden
kinks, ugly vices...Then, a second girl goes missing. Could it be that one of these six has a
secret far darker than anybody can imagine?
A brilliantly plotted, utterly gripping thriller about the danger of
making friends on holiday.
Joe Coughlin is nineteen when he meets Emma Gould. A small-time thief in 1920s Boston, his task
is to tie her up while his accomplices loot the bank she works in. But Joe falls in love with Emma - and his
life changes forever. That meeting is
the beginning of Joe's journey to becoming one of most feared and respected
gangsters. It is a journey beset by
violence, double-crossing, drama and pain.
And it is a journey into the soul of prohibition-era America... Live by
Night is by Dennis Lehane and is due to be published in October 2012.
Gold Digger is by
Frances Fyfield and is due to be published in November 2012. The warmth of him, the glorious warmth, was
fading by the minute. In a huge old school house by the sea, full of precious
paintings, Thomas Porteous is dying. His much younger wife Di holds him and
mourns. She knows that soon, despite her being his sole inheritor, Thomas's
relatives will descend on the collection that was the passion of both of their
lives. And descend they do. The two needy daughters, who were poisoned against
their father by their defecting mother, are now poison themselves. The family
regard Thomas's wealth as theirs by right, with the exception of young Patrick,
who adored his grandfather and is torn between his parents and Di, the
interloper. The family know Di's weaknesses, and she has to learn theirs. After
all, she met Thomas when she came to his house to rob him. With the help of an
unlikely collection of loners and eccentrics, she sets a trap to hoist the
family members on their own greed. And on the night they are lured to the
house, Di will be ready. Or will she?
Linda Fairstein follows up her 13th bestselling Alexandra
Cooper thriller with another taut, fascinating foray into the dark side of New
York City, this time centred around the city's most glamorous and storied
restaurants. With the help of NYPD's
Mike Chapman, Alex is set to uncover the shocking secrets that have lurked just
beneath the surface of the bustling metropolis for centuries - only to come
screaming to light in the present day. Night Watch is due to be published in
July 2012.
The Lost Girls of Rome
is by Donato Carrisi and is due to be published in July 2012. A young girl has mysteriously disappeared in
Rome. As rain lashes the ancient
streets, two men, Clemente and Marcus, sit in a cafe near the Piazza Navona and
pore over the details of the case. They
are members of the ancient Penitenzeri - a unique Italian team, linked to the
Vatican, and trained in the detection of true evil. But they are not alone. Sandra - a brilliant forensics expert with a
tragic past - is also working on the case.
When her path crosses theirs, not only do they make headway in the case
of the missing girl, but they also uncover a terrible secret world, hidden in
the dark recesses of Rome. A world that
is as perfect as it is evil...A spellbinding literary thriller from the author
of The Whisperer, The Lost Girls of Rome offers a window
onto the hidden secrets of Rome. Beautifully
capturing the atmosphere of the city, it blends a page-turning plot with
fascinating historical fact.
The Panther is by
Nelson DeMille and is due to be published in October 2012. It also sees the return of his charismatic
hero John Corey. It's one of the most dangerous and volatile countries in the
world: Yemen. A Middle Eastern hotbed of corruption and insurgency and the
perfect training ground for Islamic terrorists. When Anti-Terrorist Task Force
agent John Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield are assigned to overseas
posts in Sana'a, Yemen's capital city, they are tasked with hunting down a
high-ranking Al Qaeda operative. This man, known as Othman, is wanted for
terrorist acts and multiple murders...and the CIA is convinced that he is
planning a spectacular attack on the Americans stationed in Yemen. John and
Kate quickly realize they are latecomers to a dangerous game that has been
going on for years; they don't know the rules or what the score is. What they
do know is that there is more to their assignment that meets the eye...and that
the hunters are about to become the hunted. In an action-packed and terrifying
race to take down one of the most ruthless men alive.
Detective Inspector Phil Brennan and criminal psychologist
Marina Esposito have just returned from their honeymoon and are spending the
Easter weekend in Suffolk with their baby daughter Josephina and Phil's
adoptive parents. But their rural idyll
is cruelly destroyed. After a devastating
arson attack on the cottage, Josephina goes missing. With Phil in a coma, Marina is alone when she
receives the first phone call. The
kidnappers say that if Marina ever wants to see her daughter alive again, she
has to do exactly what they say… Choked is by Tania Carver and is due to
be published in September 2012.
Ash Rashid is a former homicide detective who can't stand
the thought of handling another death investigation. That's until his niece's body is found in the
property of one of the city's wealthiest citizens. The coroner calls it an overdose, but the
case doesn't add up. Against orders, Ash
launches an investigation to find his niece's murderer. But the longer he searches, the darker the
case gets - and if he doesn't solve it fast, his niece won't be the only family
member he has to bury…. The Abbey is the debut novel by Chris
Culver and is due to be published in August 2012.
Boyd Morrison has two books due to be published. In July 2012 The Roswell Conspiracy - 1947 Ten-year-old Fay Allen of Roswell,
New Mexico, witnesses the fiery crash of an extraordinary craft unlike anything
she's ever seen...2012 More than sixty years later, army engineer Tyler Locke
rescues Fay from a pair of assassins. She
says they were after a piece of wreckage she obtained from the Roswell crash -
and she claims to know secrets about that incident that have never previously
been revealed. Tyler is initially
sceptical, but after he is kidnapped by a mysterious band of mercenaries, he
comes to believe that Roswell holds the key to his and his countrymen's
survival. And he realises that there is
a desperate race against time for him to uncover its secrets...Fast-paced and
thrilling, The Roswell Conspiracy draws on actual details from the Roswell
Incident to create a page-turning and thought-provoking thriller. In December 2012 – The Tsunami Countdown - Over the remote central Pacific, a plane is
suddenly rocked by a massive explosion. Despite the pilot's valiant efforts,
the blast sends it plummeting into the ocean, leaving no witnesses to the
fireball. Kai Tanaka, the new and untested director of the Pacific Tsunami
Warning Center in Honolulu, notes a minor seismic disturbance in that region
but doesn't make the connection with the lost airplane. There's no reason to be
worried about his wife, who is the manager of a luxury hotel, or his daughter,
who is enjoying the sunny holiday morning at Waikiki with friends. But when all
contact with Christmas Island and its 3000 inhabitants is lost, Kai is the
first to realize that Hawaii faces a catastrophe of epic proportions: in one
hour, a series of massive waves will wipe out Honolulu. He has just sixty
minutes to save the lives of a million people, including his wife and
daughter...
The Demon Code is
by Adam Blake and is due to be published in August 2012. Three years ago, Heather Kennedy left the
Metropolitan police under a shadow that has followed her ever since. Now she has been called in to advise on a
supposed burglary in the now-defunct British Museum reading room. Kennedy soon establishes that rather than
steal anything, someone has broken into the stacks in order to photograph pages
from books about Johann Toller, a crazed prophet of 17th century Europe. Toller believed that the end of days was at
hand, and he made a number of prophecies relating to the Apocalypse and the
events that would precede it. None of
them came true. Until now. One after another, the grotesque signs and
wonders Toller predicted come to pass, no matter how unlikely they seem. The river Rhine runs bright red, the towers
of London bow to kiss the ground, and an angel with a fiery sword is seen over
Jerusalem. With the help of a
nineteen-year-old girl from a secretive tribe and ex-mercenary Leo Tillman,
Kennedy must work to stop the next prophecy coming true - the destruction of an
unnamed city...
Little Sister is
by Lucy Dawson and is due to be published in October 2012. In the dead of night, Kate receives a phone
call. Police have recovered her sister
Anya's clothes and personal belongings at the poolside of a remote hideaway in
Mexico - a place she had no idea Anya would be.
Anya was last seen getting into a vehicle with a local diving instructor
but now he's missing too. Their
relationship has been complicated ever since a devastating tragedy blew their
family apart, but Kate cannot believe Anya would willingly travel somewhere so
isolated with a man she barely knows ...would she? In a race against time, Kate must fight to
find her little sister before it's too late.
