NOW IN B FORMAT. A beautiful June day in the Yorkshire Dales, and a group of children are spending the last of their half-term freedom swimming in the river near Hindswell Woods. But the idyll is shattered by their discovery of a man's body, hanging from a tree. DI Annie Cabott soon discovers he is Mark Hardcastle, the well-liked and successful set designer for the Eastvale Theatre's current production of Othello. Everything points to suicide, and Annie is mystified. Why would such a man want to take his own life? Then Annie's investigation leads to another shattering discovery, and DCI Alan Banks is called back from the idyllic weekend he had planned with his new girlfriend. Banks soon finds himself plunged into a shadow-world where nothing is what it seems, where secrets and deceit are the norm, and where murder is seen as the solution to a problem. The deeper he digs the more he discovers that the monster he has awakened will extend its deadly reach to his friends and family. Nobody is safe.

Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all kinds of tell-tale signs. Mostly because they're nervous. By definition they're all first-timers. Riding the subway in New York at two o'clock in the morning, Reacher knows the twelve giveaway signs to look out for. Watching one of his fellow-passengers, he becomes sharply aware: one by one, he ticks off every bulletpoint on his list. So begins the new heartstopping new thriller starring today's most admired action hero, the gallant and enigmatic loner Jack Reacher.

The report that Brodeck is writing into the lynching of an artist, an outsider, a flamboyant 'other' figure who has deeply disturbed the fragile equilibrium of the town he briefly settled in, becomes a report into the catastrophe of his own life. Brodeck, himself an outsider, has recently returned from a concentration camp. In the course of his investigation into the death of the artist, he uncovers the truth about his distant origins, about his having been rounded up when the Germans came to the town, and all that happened to his family when he was gone.

When, despite all his training and twenty five years of experience as a private detective, Phil Kramer is shot dead on a quiet suburban south Californian street, his wife and partners think it had to have been a professional hit. But why target Kramer? As far as they know he hadn't been working on any case that carried that kind of threat. As his wife leads the investigation into his death, she realises that Phil's life was riddled with secrets he kept from her and his colleagues. And buried amongst them is the secret that cost him his life and now threatens hers.

NOW IN B FORMAT. Four months into the siege of Leningrad, the city is starving. Seventeen-year-old Lev fears for his life when he is arrested for looting the body of a dead German paratrooper, while his charismatic cellmate Kolya, a handsome young soldier arrested for desertion, seems bizarrely unafraid. Dawn brings, instead of the execution squad, an impossible challenge. Lev and Kolya can find a dozen eggs for an NKVD colonel to use for his daughter's wedding cake, and live. Or fail, and die. In the depths of the coldest winter in history, through a city cut off from all supplies and suffering appalling deprivation, man and boy embark on an absurd hunt. Their search will take them through desolate, lawless Leningrad and the devastated countryside surrounding it, in the captivating journey of two men trying to survive against desperate odds.

When she's not digging up bones or other ancient objects, Ruth Galloway lectures at the University of North Norfolk. She lives happily alone in a remote, wild place called Saltmarsh, overlooking the North Sea under Norfolk's vast skies. When a child's bones are found in the marshes near an ancient site that Ruth worked on ten years earlier, Ruth is asked to date them. Soon it becomes clear that Ruth is in grave danger from a killer who knows that her expert knowledge is being used to help the police with their enquiries.

Reluctant bank robber Jack Burn is on the run after a heist in the United States that left $3 million missing and one cop dead. Hiding out in Cape Town, South Africa, he is desperate to build a new life for his pregnant wife and young son. But on a tranquil evening in their new suburban neighbourhood they are the victims of a random gangland assault that changes everything. Benny Mongrel, an ex-con night watchman guarding a building site next to Burn's home, is another man desperate to escape his past. After years in the ghetto gangs of Cape Town, he knows who went into Burn's house. And what the American did to them. He also knows his only chance to save his own brown skin is to forget what he saw. Burn's actions on that night trap them both in a cat-and-mouse game with Rudi "Gatsby" Barnard – a corrupt Afrikaner cop who loves killing almost as much as he loves Jesus Christ – and Disaster Zondi, a fastidious Zulu detective who wishes to settle an old score. Once Gatsby smells those missing American millions, the four men are drawn into a web of murder and vengeance that builds to an unforgettable conclusion.

When a blind, retired dentist is run down by a logging truck as he crosses the road to post a letter, Dr Siri Paiboun, official and only coroner of Laos, finds himself faced with his most explosive case yet. The dentist's mortal remains aren't nearly as intriguing as the letter in his pocket. Written in invisible ink and encrypted, the letter presents Dr Siri with an irresistible challenge. Dr Siri soon finds himself on the trail of an international plot to overthrow the government.

NOW IN B FORMAT. Berlin, 1946. During one of the coldest winters on record, Pavel Richter, a decommissioned GI, finds himself at odds with a rogue British Army colonel and a Soviet General when a friend deposits the frozen body of a dead Russian spy in his apartment. So begins the race to take possession of the spy's secret, a race which threatens Pavel's friendship with a street orphan named Anders and his budding love for Sonia, his enigmatic upstairs neighbour. As the action hurtles towards catastrophe, the hunt merges with one for the truth about the novel's protagonist: who exactly is Pavel Richter?

When hordes of eighteen-year-old schoolies descend on the Mornington Peninsula to celebrate the last of their exams, the overstretched police of Waterloo expect reports of party drugs and underage drinkers. Maybe even drink-spiking and sexual assault. They don't count on a brutal bashing that attracts political attention. The victim is connected, and now Detective Inspector Hal Challis is facing interference from on high. Newly embarked on a relationship with his sergeant, Ellen Destry, Challis doesn't really need the brass looking over his shoulder. Then a bludgeoned corpse is found outside town, and it's clear something much darker than adolescent craziness is going down. Blood Moon is the fifth in Garry Disher's celebrated series of novels featuring Hal Challis and Ellen Destry. The first, The Dragon Man, won the prestigious German Crime Fiction Prize and the fourth, Chain of Evidence, won Australia's biggest crime writing prize, the 2007 Ned Kelly Award.

NOW IN A FORMAT. Massachusetts State Investigator Win Garano is given one of his most challenging cases yet when he is asked to investigate the death of a young British woman murdered more than forty years ago. Assumed to be a victim of the Boston Strangler, blind Janie Brolin was raped and left for dead in 1962. With no DNA and sketchy police records, this is a case that will test Garano to his limits. It will take him on a journey through the archives, into the latest innovations in forensic technology, and into partnership with senior officers at London s New Scotland Yard. And as Garano unearths deadly secrets from the past, his hard-nosed boss Monique Lamont is putting both their lives in jeopardy with her lust for power and success. With past and present colliding, the tension mounts with every page...

Anger, jealousy, gluttony, sloth, lust, greed and pride. The Seven Deadly sins. Doesn t every major crime have one of these deadly sins at its root?This volume selects two of them, lust and greed, as the inspiration for a selection of brand new stories, chosen and edited by internationally bestselling author Elizabeth George.'All of the contributors have taken a different look at what constitutes lust and greed and at where submitting to the calls of these sins can lead a person. You'll find good guys, bad guys and in-between guys. You'll find mystery, mistakes, misunderstandings, and murder, generated from the minds of a group of terrific women wiriters. In all cases, I hope you enjoy.' Top of page

Harlan Coben's millions of fans have waited three long years for a new Myron Bolitar novel and soon their patience will be rewarded in spectacular fashion.Myron hasn't heard from Terese Collins in years. Not since their affair ended with no explanation. There had been no contact since, so her call catches him off guard. She's in Paris, she says, in trouble and only Myron can help. She tells him a sad story she's never before revealed: a good marriage, her struggles to get pregnant, the happiest moment of her life when her only child was born, the day everything she'd ever loved was taken from her. In the years since, Terese has had no contact with her ex-husband, until the phone call that brought her to Paris.When she gets there he's been murdered and she's a suspect. But then comes a startling piece of evidence that turns the entire case upside down, laying bare Terese's long-buried family secrets in a most shocking way and leaving Myron nowhere to turn for help. Caught in a foreign landscape where nothing is as it seems, he must tear apart the city - and eventually the globe - fighting for answers to unfathomable questions that will take Myron and Harlan Coben's readers, where they have never gone before.

Michael Kelly, a tough-talking Irish cop turned Private Investigator, is hired by an ex-flame to tail her abusive husband. But what looked like a bread-and-butter domestic dispute will turn out to be more than he bargained for. The tail leads him to an old house on Chicago's North Side. Here he finds a body and what looks like the answer to one of Chicago's most enduring mysteries: who started the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and why.

Stripped of his private detective licence and devastated by the murder of his partner Lily Truscott, Cliff Hardy travels to the US to help Lily's brother's tilt for a world boxing title. In San Diego he suffers a heart attack and undergoes a quadruple bypass. He meets nurse Margaret McKinley, an expatriate Australian who is concerned about the disappearance in Sydney of her father - renowned geologist Dr Henry McKinley. Hardy undertakes to investigate in association with Hank Bachelor, his former associate who now runs his own agency. It turns out that McKinley had discovered a way to tap into the massive Sydney basin acquifier, a possible solution to the city's water problems. Working with Margaret who visits Sydney, Bachelor, and his daughter, Megan, Hardy confronts an old enemy and contending forces bent on exploiting the discovery and prepared to kill for it. Energised by the case and by his attachment to Margaret, Hardy obeys the strict rules for the restoration of his health - but in pursuing the truth and the malefactors, he makes his own rules.

In a busy Shanghai alley, the body of an American police officer is found, dismembered and arranged in bizarre fashion. The murder appears to be the work of a trained assassin with a deadly message to send. And before long, he leaves another: the body of an African diplomat, as skilfully carved up as the first. Assigned to track the killer is homicide detective Zhong Fong. Haunted by the deaths of his actress wife and unborn child, Fong throws himself into the case. But his concentration is disrupted, first by the arrival of his late wife's lover, and then by the realisation that he may be the killer's next target. As he hunts for the murderer, Fong must confront his own secrets – and those of his rapidly changing city.

Andy Prescott is the most laid-back young lawyer in Austin, Texas. Specialising in traffic law, he operates from a small room above a ramshackle tattoo parlour. He rides a trail bike and spends way too much time drinking beer in the sunshine. Ambition has never been Andy s strong point - he prefers to take it easy. That is, until one of Texas s wealthiest men walks into his office.On the spot, billionaire Russell Reeves retains Andy as his lawyer and, in exchange for some easy legal work, pays him more money than he has ever earned before. Andy s life is transformed. But nothing comes for free. Russell is a desperate man whose sole aim is to save his eight-year-old son, Zach, who is dying from leukemia. He is prepared to do anything - even if it means putting Andy s life in danger.

NOW IN B FORMAT. Ethan Muller is struggling to establish his reputation as a dealer in the cut-throat world of contemporary art when he is alerted to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: in a decaying New York slum, an elderly tenant has disappeared, leaving behind a staggeringly large trove of original drawings and paintings. Nobody can tell Ethan much about the old man, except that he came and went in solitude for nearly forty years, his genius hidden and unacknowledged.Despite the fact that, strictly speaking, the artwork doesn t belong to him, Ethan takes the challenge and makes a name for the old man - and himself. Soon Ethan has to congratulate himself on his own genius: for storytelling and salesmanship. But suddenly the police are interested in talking to him. It seems that the missing artist had a nasty past, and the drawings hanging in the Muller Gallery have begun to look a lot less like art and a lot more like evidence.Sucked into an investigation four decades cold, Ethan will uncover a secret legacy of shame and death, one that will touch horrifyingly close to home - and leave him fearing for his own life.

NOW IN B FORMAT. In the tiny South African town of Jacob's Rest, Detective Emmanuel Cooper is sent to investigate the murder of an Afrikaner police officer, Captain Willem Pretorius. Cooper, an "English" South African, is viewed with suspicion by both the Boer Afrikaners and the dead man's prominent family, and his investigation is quickly taken over by Security Branch. But Cooper isn't interested in political expediency, or making friends in high places, and as he pursues his own inquiry, he discovers that Captain Pretorius had led a deadly double life. The more Cooper digs, the more dangerous the investigation becomes. For Cooper is a man with his own secrets, and learning the truth about Captain Pretorius just might save life... if he isn't killed first. In this riveting debut, Malla Nunn combines a thrilling, action-packed story with a thoughtful, complex portrayal of an unforgettable time and place and the human desires that drive us all, regardless of race, colour or creed.

'THE DAY I KILLED MY FATHER WAS A BRIGHT DAY, ALTHOUGH THE LIGHT WAS HAZY, WITHOUT SHADOW OR CONTOURS.' So begins a work of suspense, tragedy, and profound reflections on the human soul that marks the unforgettable debut of Mario Sabino, one of Brazil's most exciting novelists. In charming and chilling prose, Sabino draws the reader directly into the mind of a man who has committed patricide. Readers will hang on every word of this bold and stark book, which calls n complex themes of religion, philosophy, and literature in seeking to understand the nature of evil. Part psychological thriller, part intellectual puzzle, this novel plays on some of humankind's most profound archetypes and fables, all the while lulling the reader with the brilliance of its voice.

Grand Duke Georgii Alexandrovich arrives in Moscow for the coronation, accompanied by three of his children and their alluring governess, Mademoiselle Declique. During an afternoon stroll, daughter Xenia is dragged away by bandits, only to be rescued by an elegant gentleman and his oriental sidekick. The passing heroes introduce themselves as Fandorin and Masa, but panic ensues when they realise that four-year old Mikhail has been snatched in the confusion.A ransom letter arrives from Dr Lind, an international criminal and the Moriarty to Fandorin's Sherlock Holmes. The letter demands the handover of the Count Orlov, an enormous diamond on the royal sceptre which is due to play a part in the coronation. Fandorin suggests that the value of the stone is paid in 'installments', buying the party a week to ensure the young boy's safe return. But can the gentleman detective find Mikhail in time, or will the Grand Duke's son meet with the same gruesome fate as Lind's last abductee - whom Fandorin could do nothing to save?Will Fandorin succumb to the affections of Xenia? And why is he falling to his death on the very first page? Our inimitable hero returns in a tantalisingly closely-matched battle of wills and of wiles.

NOW IN B FORMAT. On the outskirts of Paris, two men have been found with their throats cut. It is assumed that this is a drug-related incident of the kind so often uncovered in that area of town. But Adamsberg is convinced that there is more to it. Anxious to keep control of the case, he must call in a favour from the pathologist Ariane Lagarde, someone he had come up against twenty-three years previously. The trail also leads Adamsberg to a cemetery, where a grave has been disturbed with no apparent motive. Could this be the work of the elderly nurse - a serial killer caught by Adamsberg two years ago and recently escaped from prison? Meanwhile a new lieutenant has been assigned to the team. There is something disquieting about him, not least when it emerges that he is from a neighbouring village in the Pyrenees, known for its feuds with Adamsberg's own childhood home.

TRUE DETECTIVES follows Moe Reed and Aaron Fox on the twisted trail of a missing girl, a dark, baffling whodunit that forces the brothers to put aside their mutual animus and to confront the unresolved family mystery that turned them into enemies. PIs can do things, legally, that cops can t. And cops have access to resources denied their private counterparts. Only by pooling their efforts and by consulting a man both brothers respect, psychologist Alex Delaware, do Fox and Reed stand a chance of peeling back the secrets in high places that explain the fate of an outwardly innocent young woman. And, by doing so, the brothers learn about much more than murder.

At a dinner party given by his parents-in-law Comissario Brunetti meets Franca Marinello, the wife of a prosperous Venetian businessman. He's charmed - perhaps too charmed, suggests his wife Paola - by her love of Virgil and Cicero, but shocked by her appearance. A few days later, Brunetti is visited by Carabinieri Maggiore Filipo Guarino from the nearby district of Marghera. As part of a wider investigation into Mafia takeovers of businesses in the region, Guarino wants information about the owner of a trucking company found murdered in his offices. He believes his death is connected to the illegal transportation of refuse - and more sinister material - in the company trucks. No stranger to mutual suspicion and competition between rival Italian police departments, Brunetti is nevertheless puzzled by the younger man's paranoid behaviour. Eventually Guarino agrees to email a photo of his suspect, but by the time the photograph arrives, he himself is dead. Was he killed because he got too close? And how is it that Franca Marinello has often been seen in company of the suspect, a vulgar man with Mafia connections and a violent past?

For Marcus Didius Falco, agent to the Emperor Vespasian, Alexandria holds fascination and a hint of fear. Beautiful, historic and famously unruly, the great cosmopolitan city wears Roman rule lightly. While his wife, Helena Justina, wants to see the Lighthouse and the Pyramids, Falco has a mission at the Great Library that soon turns out to involve much more than stock-taking its innumerable scrolls. A mysterious death in the world-famous library bring him into immediate conflict with the darker side of academic life. With forensic science in its infancy, even an illegal autopsy fails to find real answers. To solve the crime for the Roman Prefect - if indeed it is a crime - Falco will have to draw on his own doggedness and intuition, at first supported only by Helena's commonsense and the loyal backup of her brother Aulus, who goes under cover as a student among the in-fighting academics. The philosophers lust after fame and fortune so ruthlessly there is soon another terrifying death, this time at the royal zoo. At the same time, his original innocent mission is overshadowed by the machinations of his Uncle Fulvius, who is living in Alexandria with his partner Cassius for obscure reasons. Their involvement in local affairs already seems shady when they are joined by their crony, Falco's father, Geminus, a man well known for disreputable business practices. If the irrepressible Pa has had any hand in what has gone wrong at the Library, Falco knows he stands no chance...

Behind the closed doors of San Francisco's grandest mansions, beautiful people party the nights away in a heady mix of money, drugs, drink and sex. But the rich and famous aren't the only ones with the keys to these most exclusive of addresses, someone else is intent on crashing the party. A rock star, a fashion designer, a software tycoon and a millionaire heiress. Each is glamourous, stunningly attractive and incredibly rich, but their similarities don't end there, they have something else in common too. They are all dead. Just as the rich and famous are the talk of the town when they're alive, interest in them certainly doesn't die when they do, and Detective Lindsay Boxer is quickly assigned to the case. In stark contrast, few people seem as interested when a local hero, Bagman Jesus, is brutally murdered. Reporter Cindy Thomas soon becomes interested in his story: his work with the homeless of San Francisco was admirable. He was loved by so many - who would want to kill him? Could the down-and-out Samaritan have been hiding a dark secret? It isn't just Cindy who has questions that need answering, Lindsay fiercely depends on Claire's help to crack her case. Both seek guidance from their friends, but in doing so, they are forced to confront feelings they'd buried away. Things aren't so simple for Yuki either, as she falls quite literally head over heels in love; but the man of her dreams isn't quite who he seems. The Women's Murder Club need each other more than ever but with tensions running high will the friends be strong enough to stick together or will the strain tear them apart?

After two high-risk missions, CIA special agent John Wells is a man living on the edge, his nights filled with disturbing dreams. But he knows he has no time for that. He has made many enemies, and the world won't stay quiet for long. Nevertheless, Wells is not prepared for what is about to happen. He and Jennifer Exley, his fianc‚e and colleague, find themselves targeted by assassins sent by a psychotic arms dealer who is out for revenge. The attack leaves many dead and injured - Exley among them. When Wells discovers the assailants are Russian, he immediately leaves for Moscow to seek vengeance. But what Wells finds there is far from what he expected. A plan of unimaginable consequences has been set in motion - terrorists are attempting to steal warheads from the heart of Russia's nuclear complex. If Wells is to stand any chance of saving the West from certain annihilation, he mustn't let a personal vendetta get in his way - the future of mankind depends upon it.

NOW IN B FORMAT. Easy Rawlins comes home one day to find Easter, the daughter of his friend Christmas Black, left on his doorstep. Easy knows that this could only mean that the ex-marine Black is probably dead, or will be soon.Easter's appearance is only the beginning, as Easy is immersed in a sea of problems. The love of his life is marrying another man and his friend Mouse is wanted for murder. As he's searching for a clue to Christmas Black's whereabouts, two suspicious MPs hire him to find his friend Black on behalf of the US Army. Easy's investigation brings him to Faith Laneer, a blonde woman with a dark past.As Easy begins to put the pieces together, he realises that Black's disappearance has its roots in Vietnam and that Faith might be in a world of danger.

Amen Corner, London, 1864. Orphan Sarah O'Reilly has disguised herself as a boy so that she can work in the offices of Septimus Harding's newspaper. She meets Lily Korechnya, a wealthy widow who writes a column for the paper under a pseudonym.Lily has been enlisted by Lady Cynthia Herbert to help catalogue her magnificent jewel collection. She is especially struck by several large gems that belong to the Maharaja of Benares, which Lady Herbert has promised to have made into a special charm. The gems include a fiery red diamond that seems to exert an unsettling influence over anyone who touches it.Then two gruesome murders take place - first, a customs officer at the docks and next a jeweller in Hatton Garden, both of whom are strangled in an unusual, distinct way. A local simpleton, Holy Joe, is blamed for the murders but neither Lily or Sara are convinced the police have the right man. The trail of the missing gems leads them back to India, ghosts and the dangerous cult of the destroyer goddess Kali.