Donna Leon

“Your situation is always ambiguous, isn’t it, Guido?,” his father-in-law, Count Orazio Falier, observes of Donna Leon’s soulful detective, Guido Brunetti, at the beginning of her superb 28th Brunetti novel, Unto Us A Son Is Given.

“The world we live in makes that necessary,” Brunetti presciently replies. Count Falier was urging his Venetian son-in-law to investigate, and preferably intervene in, the seemingly innocent plan of the Count’s best friend, the elderly Gonzalo Rodríguez de Tejada, to adopt a much younger man as his son. Under Italian inheritance laws this man would then be heir to Gonzalo’s entire fortune, a prospect Gonzalo’s friends find appalling.

For his part, Brunetti wonders why the old man, a close family friend, can’t be allowed his pleasure in peace. And yet, what seems innocent on the Venetian surface can cause tsunamis beneath.

Gonzalo unexpectedly, and literally, drops dead on the street, and one of his friends just arrived in Venice for the memorial service, is strangled in her hotel room–having earlier sent Gonzalo an email saying “We are the only ones who know you cannot do this,” referring to the adoption.

Now with an urgent case to solve, Brunetti reluctantly untangles the long-hidden mystery in Gonzalo’s life that ultimately led to murder–a resolution that brings him way more pain than satisfaction.

Once again, Donna Leon brilliantly plumbs the twists and turns of the human condition, reuniting us with some of crime fiction’s most memorable and enduring characters.

 Sally Hepworth

Someone once told me that you have two families in your life – the one you are born into and the one you choose. Yes, you may get to choose your partner, but you don’t choose your mother-in-law. The cackling mercenaries of fate determine it all.

From the moment Lucy met Diana, she was kept at arm’s length. Diana is exquisitely polite, but Lucy knows, even after marrying Oliver, that they’ll never have the closeness she’d been hoping for.

But who could fault Diana? She was a pillar of the community, an advocate for social justice, the matriarch of a loving family. Lucy had wanted so much to please her new mother-in-law.

That was ten years ago. Now, Diana has been found dead, leaving a suicide note. But the autopsy reveals evidence of suffocation. And everyone in the family is hiding something…

Mark Billingham

When DI Tom Thorne is called to conduct a routine assessment at the site of a suicide, he expects to be in and out in no time. But when he arrives at the metro station, where a woman named Philippa Goodwin threw herself in front of an underground train, Thorne inexplicably senses something awry and feels compelled to dig deeper. He soon discovers that she was the victim of a callous con-man who preys on vulnerable women, and whose deception plunged Philippa to her end.

Thorne enlists DI Nicola Tanner to help him track down the swindler and bring him to justice. But the detective duo gets more than they bargained for when a young man’s bludgeoned body turns up on the shore of a nearby seaside town. The two cases come together in a way that neither of the detectives could have foreseen.

Brilliantly plotted with a shocking psychological bent, Their Little Secret is another masterful thriller from one of Britain’s most beloved crime writers. With twists and turns that will keep readers guessing until the final page, this is Mark Billingham’s most chilling novel yet.

 Blanche d’Alpuget

The third book in the compelling Birth of the Plantagenets series follows the battle for dominance between the Church and the Crown.

England’s Archbishop of Canterbury is dying and with him the power of the Church. Seizing his chance, King Henry II is determined to enforce the rule of law that he has painstakingly established and bring the violent, corrupt and criminal clergy before his courts.

The ever-scheming Thomas Becket uses his mastery of deceit, sycophancy and wit to undermine the King and the Plantagenet dynasty. Should Becket be elected as the next Archbishop of Canterbury, against the wishes of Queen Eleanor and Empress Matilda, he will be one step closer to becoming England’s strongman.

A story of passion, jealousy, rebellion and downfall, The Lions’ Torment follows Henry, Eleanor and Becket in an era of power and vengeance that leads to one of the most scandalous and tragic murders in history.

Jeffery Deaver

From the bestselling and award-winning master of suspense, the first novel in a thrilling new series, introducing Colter Shaw.

“You have been abandoned.”

A young woman has gone missing in Silicon Valley and her father has hired Colter Shaw to find her. The son of a survivalist family, Shaw is an expert tracker. Now he makes a living as a “reward seeker,” traveling the country to help police solve crimes and private citizens locate missing persons. But what seems a simple investigation quickly thrusts him into the dark heart of America’s tech hub and the cutthroat billion-dollar video-gaming industry.

“Escape if you can.”

When another victim is kidnapped, the clues point to one video game with a troubled past–The Whispering Man. In that game, the player has to survive after being abandoned in an inhospitable setting with five random objects. Is a madman bringing the game to life?

“Or die with dignity.”

Shaw finds himself caught in a cat-and-mouse game, risking his own life to save the victims even as he pursues the kidnapper across both Silicon Valley and the dark ‘net. Encountering eccentric game designers, trigger-happy gamers and ruthless tech titans, he soon learns that he isn’t the only one on the hunt: someone is on his trail and closing fast.

Catherine Alliot

Flora’s been in love with her husband for twenty years. The trouble is, he’s been married to someone else for the past fifteen.

Now she’s been invited to spend the summer in the shady lanes and sandy coves of Cornwall. It should be blissful.

There’s just one small snag: she’ll be staying with her former mother-in-law, Belinda.

And Flora discovers she’s not the only one invited when her ex-husband shows up out of the blue, complete with his new wife. So now there are two small snags.

Can Flora spend the summer playing happy families with the woman who stole her husband’s heart, and the mother-in-law who might have had a hand in it?

Or will stumbling on the family secret change her mind about them all?

James Patterson and Candice Fox

Harriet Blue used to be a detective. Now she’s inmate 3329.

Prison is a dangerous place for a former cop – as Harriet Blue is learning on a daily basis.

So, following a fight for her life and a prison-wide lockdown, the last person she wants to see is Deputy Police Commissioner Joe Woods. The man who put her inside.

But Woods is not there to gloat. His daughter Tonya and her two-year-old child have gone missing.

He’s ready to offer Harriet a deal: find his family to buy her freedom…

Peter James

A man waits at London Airport for Ingrid Ostermann, the love of his life, to arrive. Across the Atlantic, a retired NYPD cop waits in a bar in Florida’s Key West for his first date with the lady who is, without question, his soulmate. The two men are about to discover they’ve been scammed out of almost every penny they have—and that neither woman exists.

Meanwhile, a wealthy divorcée plunges, in suspicious circumstances, from an apartment block in Munich. In the same week, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is called to investigate the suicide of a woman in Brighton, that is clearly not what it seems. As his investigations continue, a handsome Brighton motivational speaker comes forward. He’d discovered his identity is being used to scam 11 different women, online.

Roy Grace realizes he is looking at the tip of an iceberg. A global empire built on clever, cruel internet scams and the murder of anyone who threatens to expose them.

Jonathan Kellerman

The electrifying new Alex Delaware thriller from global bestseller Jonathan Kellerman. First comes love…then comes murder.

In the middle of a ‘Saints and Sinners’ themed wedding, a bridesmaid finds a young woman’s corpse collapsed in the bathroom. None of the wedding guests claim to know the well-dressed victim but psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis aren’t so convinced.