Tuesday 8 May 2018

Books to Look Forward to from Penguin and Michael Joseph Books


July 2018

At long last, a final reckoning is coming for Frieda Klein... On a north London high street, a runaway vehicle crashes to a halt. The man in the driving seat was murdered a week earlier. On Hampstead Heath, a bonfire blazes: in the flames lies the next victim. As autumn leaves fall, a serial killer runs amok in the capital, playing games with the police. The death toll is rising fast, and the investigation is floundering. But this is no ordinary killer, and every new victim is intended as a message to just one woman. Because psychologist Frieda Klein is in hiding. And someone is coming to find her . . .  Day of the Dead is by Nicci French
 
The Break Line is the debut novel by James Brabazon.  Officially, Max McLean doesn't exist. .' The British government denies all knowledge of the work he does on their behalf to keep us safe. But Max and his masters are losing faith in each other. And they've given him one last chance to prove he's still their man. Sent to a military research facility to meet a former comrade-in-arms, Max finds the bravest man he ever knew locked up for his own protection. His friend lost his mind during an operation in West Africa. The reason? Absolute mortal terror. Max is determined to find out why. Ahead lies a perilous, breathtaking mission into the unknown that will call into question everything that Max once believed in. Acting alone, without back-up, Max lands in Sierra Leone with his friend's last words ringing in his ears: 'They're coming, Max. They're coming . .

Former homicide detective Kosuke Iwata is on the run from his past. Living in LA and working as a private detective he spends his days spying on unfaithful spouses and his nights with an unavailable woman. Still he cannot forget the family he lost in Tokyo. But that all changes when a figure from his old life appears at his door demanding his help. Meredith Nichol, a transgender woman and his wife's sister, has been found strangled on the lonely train tracks behind Skid Row. Soon he discovers that the devil is at play in the City of Angels and Meredith's death wasn't the hate crime the police believe it to be. This is dangerous territory. But Iwata knows that risking his life and future is the only way to silence the demons of his past. Reluctantly throwing himself back in to the dangerous existence he only just escaped, Iwata discovers a seedy world of corruption, exploitation and murder - and a river of sin flowing through LA's underbelly, Mexico's dusty borderlands, and deep within his own past.  The Sins As Scarlet is by Nicolás Obregón.

A woman and child are found locked in a basement room, barely alive... No one knows whom they are - the woman can't speak, and there are no Missing Persons reports that match their profile. And the elderly man who owns the house claims he has never seen them before. The inhabitants of the quiet Oxford street are in shock - how could this happen right under their noses? But DI Adam Fawley knows that nothing is impossible. And that no one is as innocent as they seem . . . In the Dark is by Cara Hunter.

August 2018

Twenty-four years ago Katharina Haugen went missing. All she left behind was her husband Martin and a mysterious string of numbers scribbled on a piece of paper. Every year on October 9th Chief Inspector William Wisting takes out the files to the case he was never able to solve. Stares at the code he was never able to crack. And visits the husband he was never able to help. But now Martin Haugen is missing too. As Wisting prepares to investigate another missing persons case he's visited by a detective from Oslo. Adrian Stiller is convinced Martin's involved in another disappearance of a young woman and asks Wisting to close the net around Martin. But is Wisting playing cat and mouse with a dangerous killer or a grief-stricken husband who cannot lay the past to rest? Set between the icy streets and dark forests of Norway, The Katharina Code is by Jorn Lier Horst and is a heart-stopping story of one man's obsession with his coldest case. 

The Guilty Dead is by P J Tracey.  Gregory Norwood, wealthy businessman and close friend of Minnesota's leading candidate for Governor, is found dead on the first anniversary of his son's drug overdose. It seems clear to Detectives Gino and Magozzi that grief drove him to suicide. Until they realise the left-handed man seems to have used his right hand to pull the trigger. And they find the second body. As the seemingly open-and-shut case becomes a murder enquiry, the detectives begin to delve into the dark secrets of one of the city's most powerful families. It seems the murders are not the first in the Norwoods' tragic story - and they won't be the last . . .

The Liar’ s Room is by Simon Lelic.  Susanna Fenton has a secret. Fourteen years ago she left her identity behind, reinventing herself as a counsellor and starting a new life. It was the only way to keep her daughter safe. But everything changes when Adam Geraghty walks into her office. She's never met this young man before - so why does she feel like she knows him? Adam starts to tell her about a girl. A girl he wants to hurt. And that's when Susanna realises she was wrong. She doesn't know him. He knows her. And the girl he plans to hurt is her daughter.

September 2018

The Spy and the Traitor is by Ben McIntyre and is a thrilling Cold War story about a KGB double agent, by one of Britain's greatest historians. On a warm July evening in 1985, a middle-aged man stood on the pavement of a busy avenue in the heart of Moscow, holding a plastic carrier bag. In his grey suit and tie, he looked like any other Soviet citizen. The bag alone was mildly conspicuous, printed with the red logo of Safeway, the British supermarket. The man was a spy. A senior KGB officer, for more than a decade he had supplied his British spymasters with a stream of priceless secrets from deep within the Soviet intelligence machine. No spy had done more to damage the KGB. The Safeway bag was a signal: to activate his escape plan to be smuggled out of Soviet Russia. So began one of the boldest and most extraordinary episodes in the history of spying.

They say you killed...BUT WHAT IF THEY'RE WRONG? Sixty seconds after she wakes from a coma, Maggie's world is torn apart The police tell her that her daughter Elspeth is dead. That she drowned when the car Maggie had been driving plunged into the river. Maggie remembers nothing. When Maggie begs to see her husband Sean, the police tell her that he has disappeared. He was last seen on the day of her daughter's funeral. What really happened that day at the river? Where is Maggie's husband? And why can't she shake the suspicion that somewhere, somehow, her daughter is still alive? The Day of the Accident is by Nuala Ellwood.

October 2018

A photograph found in the effects of a murdered polar explorer reveals evidence of something that should not be there. A military team from a top-secret unit is dispatched. But the South Atlantic in winter is about the most hostile environment on earth. And before you can fight, first you have to survive.  Deception Island is by Chris Larsson.

Murder by the Book is by Claire Harman.  A gripping investigation into the crime that scandalized literary London, from Dickens to Thackeray On a spring morning in 1840, on an ultra-respectable Mayfair street, a household of servants awoke to discover that their unobtrusive master, Lord William Russell, was lying in bed with his throat cut so deeply that the head was almost severed. The whole of London, from monarch to maidservants, was scandalized by the unfolding drama of such a shocking murder, but behind it was another story, a work of fiction. For when the culprit eventually confessed, he claimed his actions were the direct result of reading the best-selling crime-novel of the day. This announcement amazed the key literary figures of the time, from Thackeray to Dickens, and posed the question: can a work of fiction do real harm?

November 2018

On a crowded tourist beach in Portugal, US operatives use a high-tech drone to watch a French arms dealer flirt with a beautiful woman. It's only when she leaves that they realise she has shot him dead.  In Iran, protests are growing against the oppressive regime, whipped up by a charismatic student. Most external observers are excited, but on the ground a spy of questionable loyalty senses something is badly amiss.  And meanwhile, with the United States reeling from a string of natural disasters, Russian troops and ships are massing on the borders of the Ukraine, bringing the two powers ever closer to war.  Across the globe a conspiracy is brewing, so darkly brilliant that no-one has yet joined the dots. And the distracted President Ryan has no time to play catch-up: little does he know that he faces a madman with a plan more devastating than he could possibly imagine... Tom Clancy’s Oath of Office is by Marc Cameron.

No comments: