Well, how about that. Christmas was coming, we blinked, and it’s gone already. But never mind, there’s always next December. Meanwhile, at the time of this writing, New Year is yet to arrive ... but with it, as always, will come a whole new wave of dark fiction that I’m now finding myself getting psyched about.
Today, therefore, I’m going to do my usual thing and focus on 30 new book titles - 10 CRIME, 10 THRILLERS and 10 HORRORS - due out between now and June that I am particularly interested in.
So, without further ado ...
30 PROSPECTIVE DARK FICTION CRACKERS
I haven’t read all of these books yet, so I can’t offer any reviews here. As always, I’ll let the publishers do the talking by reprinting the blurb from the back of each book. I cannot stress that enough: these are NOT Finch recommendations. I’m simply listing a bunch of forthcoming titles for the first half of 2026, in order of publication, that I am really liking the look of.
Obviously there’ll be many more titles than these hitting the shops between now and midsummer, and if there are any shockingly obvious absentees from this little lot, please feel free to post about them in the Comments.
Let’s go ...
Obviously there’ll be many more titles than these hitting the shops between now and midsummer, and if there are any shockingly obvious absentees from this little lot, please feel free to post about them in the Comments.
CRIME
by Ashley Elston
(Jan 13: eb, hb and Audible)
Two women. One dead husband. And only one alibi...
Camille Bayliss suspects her husband Ben hides a dark secret. But as he tracks her every move, she cannot prove it.
Aubrey Price believes lawyer Ben Bayliss knows the truth about the night that wrecked her life a decade ago. But she needs a way in.
When Camille and Aubrey meet, they hatch a plan.
For twelve hours, Aubrey will take Camille’s place. Ben will track the wrong woman, Camille can spy on Ben, and both women will get their answers.
Except the next morning, Ben is found murdered.
Two women need an airtight alibi, but only one of them has it. And one false step is all it takes for everything to come undone...
2 FORBIDDEN WATERS
Two women. One dead husband. And only one alibi...
Camille Bayliss suspects her husband Ben hides a dark secret. But as he tracks her every move, she cannot prove it.
Aubrey Price believes lawyer Ben Bayliss knows the truth about the night that wrecked her life a decade ago. But she needs a way in.
When Camille and Aubrey meet, they hatch a plan.
For twelve hours, Aubrey will take Camille’s place. Ben will track the wrong woman, Camille can spy on Ben, and both women will get their answers.
Except the next morning, Ben is found murdered.
Two women need an airtight alibi, but only one of them has it. And one false step is all it takes for everything to come undone...
by Rob Parker
(Jan 15: eb, hb and Audible)
It starts with the knife. Found at the bottom of a hidden lake in the Norfolk Broads, covered in blood and heart tissue so fresh the water hasn’t yet washed it all away. What salvage diver Cam Killick has found is a murder weapon from a very recent crime - but how do you solve a murder without a body?
The remoteness of the setting is itself a clue. Only a handful of people know the location of the lake, let alone how to access it. But no sooner have Cam and DS Claire Rogers started working through this ready-made suspect pool than one of them disappears.
The ripples from Cam’s discovery have disturbed a dangerous predator, one who knows the water even better than Cam himself. The question now is what they want - and how many more people will die before Cam can stop them?
3 HER COLD JUSTICE
It starts with the knife. Found at the bottom of a hidden lake in the Norfolk Broads, covered in blood and heart tissue so fresh the water hasn’t yet washed it all away. What salvage diver Cam Killick has found is a murder weapon from a very recent crime - but how do you solve a murder without a body?
The remoteness of the setting is itself a clue. Only a handful of people know the location of the lake, let alone how to access it. But no sooner have Cam and DS Claire Rogers started working through this ready-made suspect pool than one of them disappears.
The ripples from Cam’s discovery have disturbed a dangerous predator, one who knows the water even better than Cam himself. The question now is what they want - and how many more people will die before Cam can stop them?
by Robert Dugoni
(Jan 27: eb, pb, hb and Audible)
In a quiet South Seattle neighborhood, a suspected drug smuggler and his girlfriend are murdered in their home. When a young man named Michael Westbrook is accused of the brutal double homicide, his uncle JP Harrison turns to Keera Duggan to defend him. JP is Keera’s trusted investigator, and he desperately needs Keera to save his nephew against escalating odds.
The evidence is circumstantial―Michael worked with one of the victims, drugs were found in his possession, and he bolted from authorities. Ruthless star prosecutor Anh Tran has gotten convictions on much less. With the testimony of two prison informants, the case looks grave. But Keera never concedes defeat. To free her client, she must dig deep before Tran crushes both of them.
As the investigation gets more twisted with each new find, Keera is swept up in a mystery with far-reaching consequences. This case isn’t just murder. It’s looking like a conspiracy. And getting justice for Michael could be the most dangerous promise Keera has ever made.
4 A PRETENDER’S MURDER
In a quiet South Seattle neighborhood, a suspected drug smuggler and his girlfriend are murdered in their home. When a young man named Michael Westbrook is accused of the brutal double homicide, his uncle JP Harrison turns to Keera Duggan to defend him. JP is Keera’s trusted investigator, and he desperately needs Keera to save his nephew against escalating odds.
The evidence is circumstantial―Michael worked with one of the victims, drugs were found in his possession, and he bolted from authorities. Ruthless star prosecutor Anh Tran has gotten convictions on much less. With the testimony of two prison informants, the case looks grave. But Keera never concedes defeat. To free her client, she must dig deep before Tran crushes both of them.
As the investigation gets more twisted with each new find, Keera is swept up in a mystery with far-reaching consequences. This case isn’t just murder. It’s looking like a conspiracy. And getting justice for Michael could be the most dangerous promise Keera has ever made.
by Christopher Huang
(Jan 27: Audible, Feb 24: eb, Mar 19: pb)
The year is 1925. A labyrinth of roads and rails spirals out from the bones of a nearly forgotten settlement. Londinium. Once the far-flung edge of the vast Roman Empire, it is now the seat of a greater one.
Few have given more for the Empire than Colonel Hadrian Russell. Robbed of his four sons by the Great War, he now holds court as the acting president of the Britannia, a prestigious soldiers-only club in London. But when the Colonel is shot and thrown out the club’s front window, it seems the shadows of the Great War may extend further than previously thought.
Lieutenant Eric Peterkin, newly installed secretary at the Britannia, finds himself thrust into the role of detective after Scotland Yard points fingers at friends he knows are innocent. But is the true murderer an unknown spy? Or a recently resurfaced friend of the Colonel’s dead sons? Or is it one of the Colonel’s four widowed daughters-in-law, who by all appearances paid him complete devotion?
Accusations from personal betrayal to wartime espionage mount among the suspects as Eric’s investigation draws him back to scenes and sites of a war he’s sought to leave behind. From the greening fields of Flanders and the springtime streets of Paris to the sterile wards of a Swiss sanatorium, and back to the Britannia itself, Eric finds that even myths leave behind bones.
5 WOLF HOUR
The year is 1925. A labyrinth of roads and rails spirals out from the bones of a nearly forgotten settlement. Londinium. Once the far-flung edge of the vast Roman Empire, it is now the seat of a greater one.
Few have given more for the Empire than Colonel Hadrian Russell. Robbed of his four sons by the Great War, he now holds court as the acting president of the Britannia, a prestigious soldiers-only club in London. But when the Colonel is shot and thrown out the club’s front window, it seems the shadows of the Great War may extend further than previously thought.
Lieutenant Eric Peterkin, newly installed secretary at the Britannia, finds himself thrust into the role of detective after Scotland Yard points fingers at friends he knows are innocent. But is the true murderer an unknown spy? Or a recently resurfaced friend of the Colonel’s dead sons? Or is it one of the Colonel’s four widowed daughters-in-law, who by all appearances paid him complete devotion?
Accusations from personal betrayal to wartime espionage mount among the suspects as Eric’s investigation draws him back to scenes and sites of a war he’s sought to leave behind. From the greening fields of Flanders and the springtime streets of Paris to the sterile wards of a Swiss sanatorium, and back to the Britannia itself, Eric finds that even myths leave behind bones.
by Jo Nesbø
(Feb 12: pb)
The hunt is on to catch an unstoppable killer.
When a small-time crook is shot down in the streets of Minneapolis, all signs point to a lone wolf, a sniper who has vanished into thin air.
But when the shooter strikes again, maverick detective Bob Oz is called in to crack the case. He does not think this victim will be the last.
As the body count rises, Oz suspects something even more sinister is at play. And the closer he gets to the truth, the more disturbed he becomes. Because this serial killer reminds him of someone dangerous: himself.
6 SILENT TIES
The hunt is on to catch an unstoppable killer.
When a small-time crook is shot down in the streets of Minneapolis, all signs point to a lone wolf, a sniper who has vanished into thin air.
But when the shooter strikes again, maverick detective Bob Oz is called in to crack the case. He does not think this victim will be the last.
As the body count rises, Oz suspects something even more sinister is at play. And the closer he gets to the truth, the more disturbed he becomes. Because this serial killer reminds him of someone dangerous: himself.
by Leigh Russell
(Feb 26: eb and pb)
Geraldine’s judgment is sharp. But this case cuts deeper than most.
When Peter Selby vanishes after reporting a suspicious encounter, few take notice – until a man is found brutally stabbed in a quiet York suburb. Detectives Geraldine Steel and Ariadne Croft begin to investigate, but what looks like a random act of violence soon unravels into a dark and deeply personal mystery. As they dig into the lives of the victims, the emotional landscape grows increasingly fractured.
Peter’s wife is guarded, their daughter erratic and angry. The second victim’s family are cold, evasive, and seemingly determined to keep the past buried. Then a second disappearance throws everything into chaos. With each revelation, the detectives uncover layers of resentment, betrayal, and psychological trauma lurking behind the neat façades of domestic life.
Under mounting pressure, and with Ariadne in growing danger, Geraldine must navigate a maze of fractured relationships and shifting motives before the killer strikes again. Taut, unsettling, and emotionally charged, this psychological crime thriller exposes the darkness beneath the surface – and the human cost of secrets left to fester.
Before he was a missing persons investigator, David Raker was a journalist – and there’s one story that still haunts him. The Lost Women.
Today, Raker is hired to crack an impossible mystery. Following a car accident, Preston Stewart has surgery on his face. The operation is a success.
But when the dressings are removed, Preston’s wife realises something is very wrong. The man under the bandages is not her husband.
THE CLOCK IS TICKING
Raker and his ally, former detective Colm Healy, begin digging into Preston’s disappearance – and discover a horrifying connection to the lost women.
But there’s something even worse. The men only have 48 hours to solve both cases – or everything that matters to them and everyone they love is in danger…
8 LAST ONE OUT
Geraldine’s judgment is sharp. But this case cuts deeper than most.
When Peter Selby vanishes after reporting a suspicious encounter, few take notice – until a man is found brutally stabbed in a quiet York suburb. Detectives Geraldine Steel and Ariadne Croft begin to investigate, but what looks like a random act of violence soon unravels into a dark and deeply personal mystery. As they dig into the lives of the victims, the emotional landscape grows increasingly fractured.
Peter’s wife is guarded, their daughter erratic and angry. The second victim’s family are cold, evasive, and seemingly determined to keep the past buried. Then a second disappearance throws everything into chaos. With each revelation, the detectives uncover layers of resentment, betrayal, and psychological trauma lurking behind the neat façades of domestic life.
Under mounting pressure, and with Ariadne in growing danger, Geraldine must navigate a maze of fractured relationships and shifting motives before the killer strikes again. Taut, unsettling, and emotionally charged, this psychological crime thriller exposes the darkness beneath the surface – and the human cost of secrets left to fester.
by Tim Weaver
(Feb 28: eb, hb and Audible)
THE WOMEN WHO DISAPPEARED
THE WOMEN WHO DISAPPEARED
Before he was a missing persons investigator, David Raker was a journalist – and there’s one story that still haunts him. The Lost Women.
Eighteen years ago, on the Cornish coast, three women were filming a documentary about a missing student…until they vanished too. With no bodies and no leads, the disappearances remain unsolved.
THE PATIENT WHO VANISHED
THE PATIENT WHO VANISHED
Today, Raker is hired to crack an impossible mystery. Following a car accident, Preston Stewart has surgery on his face. The operation is a success.
But when the dressings are removed, Preston’s wife realises something is very wrong. The man under the bandages is not her husband.
THE CLOCK IS TICKING
Raker and his ally, former detective Colm Healy, begin digging into Preston’s disappearance – and discover a horrifying connection to the lost women.
But there’s something even worse. The men only have 48 hours to solve both cases – or everything that matters to them and everyone they love is in danger…
by Jane Harper
(Apr 23: eb, hb and Audible)
He had been here, that was clear from the marks in the dust. And he had been alone.
In a dying town, Ro Crowley waits for her son on the evening of his twenty-first birthday.
Sam never comes home. His footprints in the dust of three abandoned houses offer the only clue to his final movements. One set in. One set out.
Five long years later, Ro returns to Carralon Ridge for the annual memorial of Sam’s disappearance. The skeletal community is now an echo of itself, having fractured under the pressure of the coal mine operating on its outskirts.
But Ro still wants answers. Only a few people remain. If the truth is to be found in that town, does it lie among them?'
9 YOU CAN RUN
He had been here, that was clear from the marks in the dust. And he had been alone.
In a dying town, Ro Crowley waits for her son on the evening of his twenty-first birthday.
Sam never comes home. His footprints in the dust of three abandoned houses offer the only clue to his final movements. One set in. One set out.
Five long years later, Ro returns to Carralon Ridge for the annual memorial of Sam’s disappearance. The skeletal community is now an echo of itself, having fractured under the pressure of the coal mine operating on its outskirts.
But Ro still wants answers. Only a few people remain. If the truth is to be found in that town, does it lie among them?'
by Alex North
(May 7: eb and pb)
YOU CAN RUN
Police called to a crime scene on a quiet suburban street are shocked to find a woman being held captive.
YOU CAN HIDE
DI Will Turner leads the investigation. The killer may be running, but he’s certainly not hiding - and the hunt for his next victim is very much underway . . .
Stilwell and Ballard work the case from both sides of the channel, and soon realize they are on the trail of a criminal who revels in taunting the authorities. Meanwhile, frustrated at being shut out of an investigation on his own island, Stilwell risks his already shaky standing in the department to pursue a case whose reach is wider than he ever imagine.
1 THE WIND WITCH MURDERS
Three days ago, Deanne died in an asylum, without ever speaking a word in her own defense.
Then, at the funeral, a stranger appears with a red feather in his hand. He knows things about Raven’s mother that no one in Silverfield will speak aloud. Things about the Hill People—a community rumoured to practice witchcraft who vanished the day Deanne was locked away.
Things about the wind, and blood, and the gift that runs in Raven’s veins…whether she believes in it or not.
Raised by her fiercely religious grandmother to fear everything her mother represented, Raven’s life has been built on secrets and doubt. But when the past reaches out to claim her, she must choose: remain in the world that has always feared her, or step into the legacy her mother left behind.
Because the wind remembers what everyone else has forgotten. And some murders were never what they seemed…
When hotel owner Geneva hears a true crime writer is in town to research the Landon Fitzroy case, she’s less interested in solving a whodunnit than the business it could bring the Rosalie Inn. But August Fletcher doesn’t come alone: with him is none other than Lo Bailey herself, returned to her hometown to clear her name once and for all.
But the closer Geneva gets to Lo and August, the more she wonders if Lo is actually back to settle old scores. And as another monster storm approaches, she learns that the truth about what really happened to Landon is not the only secret Lo is keeping...
The multi-million-dollar casino heist is impossible―it can’t be done. That’s what makes it irresistible to a legendary robber facing the rest of his life in prison for his “Final Score.”
A city ready to explode: A Hollywood paedophile is arrested, and is ready to tear down the city to get his freedom. A young woman goes missing - and men in black rubber gloves who look like cops clean out her apartment in the middle of the night. And the serial killer known as the LA Ripper is on the loose, leaving tragic/graphic/brutal crime scenes in his wake.
DOUG GIBSON is a street lawyer, who fights for his clients against the army of cops, prosecutors and judges - he is the knife they bring to the gunfight. But when he’s hired by a Hollywood paedo ready to sell out his friends for a chance for freedom, he’ll take on a fight bigger than he could have imagined. And when his client "commits suicide" in prison, Gibson will have to stop being a weapon - and become a warrior.
KARA DELGADO works for an underground private concierge company - a make-a-wish foundation for the terminally rich. She scores drugs, makes connections, and plans multi-million dollar sex parties. She has learned the secret truth of this world: there are no rules, only prices. Her best friend Phoebe has gone missing, and Kara’s the only person who knows that Phoebe’s place was wiped clean of evidence by men in black rubber gloves. But when she begins to unravel the mystery of what happened to Phoebe, and its connection to the killer known as the LA Ripper, it will drag her into the dark heart of the city.
As Jake, Doug and Kara all investigate these crimes, they'll encounter ketamine-addled sitcom stars, bloody riots, homeless gangsters, a killer cop on death row, secret vaults in Beverly Hills, tech-bro orgies, medical cannibals, true crime junkies, private security wet-work teams, reality shows, street takeovers, car chases, coyotes, a sadistic Tarzan, and a three day, fifty million dollar wedding, before everything is revealed and they must each make their choice about how to fight back in this violent world before the bloody, blazing conclusion ...
7 A RIVER RED WITH BLOOD
But those rules have been broken.
When the drowned body of a troubled teenager is recovered from a river in Maine’s Kennebec Valley, and a young woman disappears from a small rural town, they draw the attention of the private investigator named Charlie Parker.
Now Parker will be forced to confront a band of men without morality and without loyalty, not even to one another, in a place where the very darkness is alive.
Because something has emerged from the shadows, something very bad.
And it wants revenge.
8 LIAR LIAR
Once hailed as Liverpool’s finest detective, Mark Fletcher brought a serial killer to justice and earned the city’s admiration. But when it’s revealed he falsified evidence in past cases, his legacy is shattered – and so is his life.
Now disgraced and spiralling, Fletcher wakes up in a hotel room with no memory of the last 24 hours… and a dead body beside him.
The evidence says he did it. His instincts say otherwise.
Hunted by the force he once served, Fletcher must uncover the truth – not just to clear his name, but to survive. Because someone wants him silenced, and they’ll stop at nothing to finish what they started…
9 ONE OF THE FAMILY
But in Harley’s liminal world, things are never straightforward, and the detective soon finds himself embroiled in another pitch-dark scenario, with London’s decadent, thrill-seeking gentry on one side and West End mobsters and wide-boys in search of easy cash on the other. When he discovers that a six-year-old has been kidnapped from an orphanage, Harley is convinced his old nemesis has somehow broken out of the lunatic asylum and is back on the streets of London, up to his old tricks.
Set in 1933 and following on from the events of Midnight Streets, this second instalment in the Piccadilly Noir series sees George Harley return to the frowzy alleyways and sleazy nightclubs of the UK capital in search of answers – no matter how uncomfortable they might turn out to be. But when he becomes ensnared in the mind games of a wily femme fatale, and finds himself up against ruthless Glaswegian gangsters, well-connected occultists, and undercover SS agents, those answers become increasingly hard to find.
1 WITCH CRAFT
Recreation becomes survival.
Marooned, unable to summon help, harassed by dire and worsening circumstances, the ties that bind the expedition are stretched taut. If they snap, vital cooperation will unravel and the group members’ damning secrets will be revealed.
Only the most courageous and committed have any chance against the area’s inhabitants. But is any mind strong enough to endure a confrontation with the most hideous revelation of all? An ancient evil that coils beneath the valley’s sinister folklore.
7 THE HIVE
YOU CAN RUN
Police called to a crime scene on a quiet suburban street are shocked to find a woman being held captive.
YOU CAN HIDE
When the remains of more victims are discovered, it seems that the notorious Red River Killer, who has been abducting women for twenty years, has finally been identified.
BUT HE’S STILL OUT THERE
BUT HE’S STILL OUT THERE
DI Will Turner leads the investigation. The killer may be running, but he’s certainly not hiding - and the hunt for his next victim is very much underway . . .
by Michael Connelly
(May 19: eb, hb and Audible)
Sworn to protect a scenic island meant to be far from the evils of the mainland, Detective Sergeant Stilwell can feel danger closing in.
Detective Sergeant Stilwell knows that his posting on Catalina Island is no paradise, but to most residents, it seems blissfully separated-by twenty-two miles of ocean-from the troubles of Los Angeles County. But now a threat is coming to his safe haven.
Acting on a tip from a confidential informant, Stilwell and his deputies watch a plane land in the middle of the night at the Airport in the Sky, a remote airstrip in the mountains. A duffel bag of drugs is dropped and the deputies move in, but things quickly go sideways. While Stilwell chases the fleeing pickup man into the mountainside brush, shots are fired on the runway and the plane flies off.
An internal inquiry follows, putting Stilwell on the bench until he is cleared of responsibility for the disastrous operation. But he is determined to find out who brought deadly violence to his island, and begins his own secret investigation into the drug deal gone wrong.
While under orders to remain in the sheriff’s substation, he finds in the lost-and-found a valuable backpack that was never claimed. He traces it to a woman who disappeared while hiking on the island four years ago. But then why was the pack only turned in two months back? Now thoroughly intrigued, he follows the mystery all the way to the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit and Detective Renée Ballard.
Sworn to protect a scenic island meant to be far from the evils of the mainland, Detective Sergeant Stilwell can feel danger closing in.
Detective Sergeant Stilwell knows that his posting on Catalina Island is no paradise, but to most residents, it seems blissfully separated-by twenty-two miles of ocean-from the troubles of Los Angeles County. But now a threat is coming to his safe haven.
Acting on a tip from a confidential informant, Stilwell and his deputies watch a plane land in the middle of the night at the Airport in the Sky, a remote airstrip in the mountains. A duffel bag of drugs is dropped and the deputies move in, but things quickly go sideways. While Stilwell chases the fleeing pickup man into the mountainside brush, shots are fired on the runway and the plane flies off.
An internal inquiry follows, putting Stilwell on the bench until he is cleared of responsibility for the disastrous operation. But he is determined to find out who brought deadly violence to his island, and begins his own secret investigation into the drug deal gone wrong.
While under orders to remain in the sheriff’s substation, he finds in the lost-and-found a valuable backpack that was never claimed. He traces it to a woman who disappeared while hiking on the island four years ago. But then why was the pack only turned in two months back? Now thoroughly intrigued, he follows the mystery all the way to the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit and Detective Renée Ballard.
Stilwell and Ballard work the case from both sides of the channel, and soon realize they are on the trail of a criminal who revels in taunting the authorities. Meanwhile, frustrated at being shut out of an investigation on his own island, Stilwell risks his already shaky standing in the department to pursue a case whose reach is wider than he ever imagine.
THRILLER
by Casey Dunn
(Jan 6: eb and hb)
Arkansas, 1999. Eighteen-year-old Raven Moore has spent her entire life trying to outrun her mother’s dark reputation. Twelve years ago, two bodies were found burned in a field at the base of the Hill, and Raven's mother, Deanne—the woman they called the Wind Witch—was convicted of their murders.
Arkansas, 1999. Eighteen-year-old Raven Moore has spent her entire life trying to outrun her mother’s dark reputation. Twelve years ago, two bodies were found burned in a field at the base of the Hill, and Raven's mother, Deanne—the woman they called the Wind Witch—was convicted of their murders.
Three days ago, Deanne died in an asylum, without ever speaking a word in her own defense.
Then, at the funeral, a stranger appears with a red feather in his hand. He knows things about Raven’s mother that no one in Silverfield will speak aloud. Things about the Hill People—a community rumoured to practice witchcraft who vanished the day Deanne was locked away.
Things about the wind, and blood, and the gift that runs in Raven’s veins…whether she believes in it or not.
Raised by her fiercely religious grandmother to fear everything her mother represented, Raven’s life has been built on secrets and doubt. But when the past reaches out to claim her, she must choose: remain in the world that has always feared her, or step into the legacy her mother left behind.
Because the wind remembers what everyone else has forgotten. And some murders were never what they seemed…
by Rachel Hawkins
(Jan 6: eb and Audible)
It was the trial that swept the nation
But her story isn't finished yet . . .
St Medard’s Bay, Alabama, is famous for three things: the deadly hurricanes that regularly sweep into town, the century-old Rosalie Inn that has survived every one, and Lo Bailey, the local girl accused of murdering her lover in 1984.
It was the trial that swept the nation
But her story isn't finished yet . . .
St Medard’s Bay, Alabama, is famous for three things: the deadly hurricanes that regularly sweep into town, the century-old Rosalie Inn that has survived every one, and Lo Bailey, the local girl accused of murdering her lover in 1984.
When hotel owner Geneva hears a true crime writer is in town to research the Landon Fitzroy case, she’s less interested in solving a whodunnit than the business it could bring the Rosalie Inn. But August Fletcher doesn’t come alone: with him is none other than Lo Bailey herself, returned to her hometown to clear her name once and for all.
But the closer Geneva gets to Lo and August, the more she wonders if Lo is actually back to settle old scores. And as another monster storm approaches, she learns that the truth about what really happened to Landon is not the only secret Lo is keeping...
by Paul Finch
(Jan 15: eb, pb and Audible)
It’s the perfect way to end the weekend-long Murder Tour.
Black Tarn Lodge would seem to offer everything even for visitors who aren’t dark tourists, but when a motley bunch of horror hounds and True Crime buffs arrive to spend the night, it could not be more ideal. Not only is it a magnificent Gothic mansion nestling deep in the remote Forest of Bowland, it once belonged to late British horror movie legend, Edgar Karnwood, and is now filled with costumes and mementoes from his many films.
Offering elegant dinners, vintage wines and the screening of a legendary lost film in the deceased star’s private cinema, it’s a sensational way to finish the Tour. Until night falls and a thick fog isolates the house from the rest of the world. Until the guests’ phones go missing. Until, one by one, they start vanishing.
It’s the perfect way to end the weekend-long Murder Tour.
Black Tarn Lodge would seem to offer everything even for visitors who aren’t dark tourists, but when a motley bunch of horror hounds and True Crime buffs arrive to spend the night, it could not be more ideal. Not only is it a magnificent Gothic mansion nestling deep in the remote Forest of Bowland, it once belonged to late British horror movie legend, Edgar Karnwood, and is now filled with costumes and mementoes from his many films.
Offering elegant dinners, vintage wines and the screening of a legendary lost film in the deceased star’s private cinema, it’s a sensational way to finish the Tour. Until night falls and a thick fog isolates the house from the rest of the world. Until the guests’ phones go missing. Until, one by one, they start vanishing.
When a body is found, it looks as if someone fell from the roof. Or was he pushed? Totally cut off, no one can leave or even call for help. Even worse, no one here really knows anyone else. But they’re going to have to work out who they can trust soon. Because whoever lies at the heart of this evil, he or she plainly isn’t finished yet.
by Don Winslow
(Jan 29: eb, hb and Audible)
Six all-new short novels written with the trademark literary style, trenchant wit, and incisive characterization that have made Don Winslow “America’s greatest living crime writer” (Providence Journal) ...
Six all-new short novels written with the trademark literary style, trenchant wit, and incisive characterization that have made Don Winslow “America’s greatest living crime writer” (Providence Journal) ...
The multi-million-dollar casino heist is impossible―it can’t be done. That’s what makes it irresistible to a legendary robber facing the rest of his life in prison for his “Final Score.”
An ambitious, hard-working college-bound teenager has a side job delivering illegal booze to “The Sunday List” until a crooked cop, a seductive customer, and a fake guru threaten to end his dreams.
Two wise guys tell each other a “True Story” over breakfast at a diner. It’s all bullshit and laughs until someone else has to pick up the cheque.
An otherwise honest patrolman has to make an excruciating choice between his loyalty to the job and his love for a ne’er-do-well cousin in “The North Wing.”
The entitled, substance-addicted movie star that surfer/PI Boone Daniels and his crew are hired to babysit in “The Lunch Break” is a problem. She also has a problem―someone wants her dead.
Finally, the one terrible, momentary mistake that a devoted family man makes sends him to prison and on a “Collision” course between the man he wants to be and the killer he’s forced to become to survive.
5 TARGET ECHO
by Alex Shaw
(Feb 2: eb, Feb 3: hb and pb)
Elite Ukrainian assassin Ruslan Akulov, aka Wolf Six, is a ghost. A weapon for hire forged in the fires of conflict and tempered by experience. Known by both the underworld and international intelligence agencies, he works alone, guided only by the next mission and his unwavering commitment to his personal kill code.
So when a routine contract in Argentina turns from simple to chaotic in the squeeze of a trigger, Akulov is thrown into a complex web of deceit and dangerous tests of loyalty. Akulov had heard of the French intelligence operative Sophie Racine – her reputation and skills are world-class, but when her business becomes his problem, Wolf Six must quickly learn to work with others.
Thrust into a high-stakes partnership with Racine and an old comrade he believed was dead, Wolf Six must stop a deadly conspiracy to reignite a defunct Basque terrorist movement. The ‘explosive’ trail leads from the turbulent streets of Buenos Aires, via the Colombian cartels, to the elegant boulevards of Madrid.
Akulov and his allies must stop a new wave of terror attacks before countless innocent lives are lost…
6 A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE
Elite Ukrainian assassin Ruslan Akulov, aka Wolf Six, is a ghost. A weapon for hire forged in the fires of conflict and tempered by experience. Known by both the underworld and international intelligence agencies, he works alone, guided only by the next mission and his unwavering commitment to his personal kill code.
So when a routine contract in Argentina turns from simple to chaotic in the squeeze of a trigger, Akulov is thrown into a complex web of deceit and dangerous tests of loyalty. Akulov had heard of the French intelligence operative Sophie Racine – her reputation and skills are world-class, but when her business becomes his problem, Wolf Six must quickly learn to work with others.
Thrust into a high-stakes partnership with Racine and an old comrade he believed was dead, Wolf Six must stop a deadly conspiracy to reignite a defunct Basque terrorist movement. The ‘explosive’ trail leads from the turbulent streets of Buenos Aires, via the Colombian cartels, to the elegant boulevards of Madrid.
Akulov and his allies must stop a new wave of terror attacks before countless innocent lives are lost…
by Jordan Harper
(Apr 28: hb, Jun 4: pb)
Los Angeles, right now. America with its back up against the wall. This Frankenstein’s monster of crimes and lurid dreams sewn together into something like a city.
Los Angeles, right now. America with its back up against the wall. This Frankenstein’s monster of crimes and lurid dreams sewn together into something like a city.
A city ready to explode: A Hollywood paedophile is arrested, and is ready to tear down the city to get his freedom. A young woman goes missing - and men in black rubber gloves who look like cops clean out her apartment in the middle of the night. And the serial killer known as the LA Ripper is on the loose, leaving tragic/graphic/brutal crime scenes in his wake.
Three people trying to keep their heads above the dirty water will find themselves coming together to unite these strands into one enormous, unspeakable crime ...
JAKE DEAL is a gonzo live-streaming nightcrawler, beaming the city’s chaos straight to his audience of blood-hungry subscribers, giving them the view from the top of the mushroom cloud - until a job he can’t refuse drags him back into his old life of Hollywood glamour, drugs, sex and sleaze. Armed with cameras and hidden mics, he’ll infiltrate private clubs, gather high-class dirt - and stumble onto a conspiracy woven into the centre of LA’s most powerful men, who call themselves "The Kids in the Candy Store."
JAKE DEAL is a gonzo live-streaming nightcrawler, beaming the city’s chaos straight to his audience of blood-hungry subscribers, giving them the view from the top of the mushroom cloud - until a job he can’t refuse drags him back into his old life of Hollywood glamour, drugs, sex and sleaze. Armed with cameras and hidden mics, he’ll infiltrate private clubs, gather high-class dirt - and stumble onto a conspiracy woven into the centre of LA’s most powerful men, who call themselves "The Kids in the Candy Store."
DOUG GIBSON is a street lawyer, who fights for his clients against the army of cops, prosecutors and judges - he is the knife they bring to the gunfight. But when he’s hired by a Hollywood paedo ready to sell out his friends for a chance for freedom, he’ll take on a fight bigger than he could have imagined. And when his client "commits suicide" in prison, Gibson will have to stop being a weapon - and become a warrior.
KARA DELGADO works for an underground private concierge company - a make-a-wish foundation for the terminally rich. She scores drugs, makes connections, and plans multi-million dollar sex parties. She has learned the secret truth of this world: there are no rules, only prices. Her best friend Phoebe has gone missing, and Kara’s the only person who knows that Phoebe’s place was wiped clean of evidence by men in black rubber gloves. But when she begins to unravel the mystery of what happened to Phoebe, and its connection to the killer known as the LA Ripper, it will drag her into the dark heart of the city.
As Jake, Doug and Kara all investigate these crimes, they'll encounter ketamine-addled sitcom stars, bloody riots, homeless gangsters, a killer cop on death row, secret vaults in Beverly Hills, tech-bro orgies, medical cannibals, true crime junkies, private security wet-work teams, reality shows, street takeovers, car chases, coyotes, a sadistic Tarzan, and a three day, fifty million dollar wedding, before everything is revealed and they must each make their choice about how to fight back in this violent world before the bloody, blazing conclusion ...
by John Connolly
(May 7: eb and hb)
The players call it the Game, and its aim is simple: to abduct and kill a stranger without getting caught. They’re very good at it. They've been playing it for a long time. And they can keep playing so long as everyone stick to the rules: No Killing Close to Home and No Killing Outside the Game.
The players call it the Game, and its aim is simple: to abduct and kill a stranger without getting caught. They’re very good at it. They've been playing it for a long time. And they can keep playing so long as everyone stick to the rules: No Killing Close to Home and No Killing Outside the Game.
But those rules have been broken.
When the drowned body of a troubled teenager is recovered from a river in Maine’s Kennebec Valley, and a young woman disappears from a small rural town, they draw the attention of the private investigator named Charlie Parker.
Now Parker will be forced to confront a band of men without morality and without loyalty, not even to one another, in a place where the very darkness is alive.
Because something has emerged from the shadows, something very bad.
And it wants revenge.
by Luca Veste
(Jun 4: eb, pb and Audible)
When you’ve lost the trust of everyone around you, where do you turn?
When you’ve lost the trust of everyone around you, where do you turn?
Once hailed as Liverpool’s finest detective, Mark Fletcher brought a serial killer to justice and earned the city’s admiration. But when it’s revealed he falsified evidence in past cases, his legacy is shattered – and so is his life.
Now disgraced and spiralling, Fletcher wakes up in a hotel room with no memory of the last 24 hours… and a dead body beside him.
The evidence says he did it. His instincts say otherwise.
Hunted by the force he once served, Fletcher must uncover the truth – not just to clear his name, but to survive. Because someone wants him silenced, and they’ll stop at nothing to finish what they started…
by Mark Edwards
(Jun 18: eb, hb and Audible)
One of the family is dead.
One of the family is missing.
And one of the family might just be the killer...
Patrick couldn’t believe his luck when Holly fell for him. She’s wickedly funny, beautiful, and with an intimidatingly successful father, Charles.
So when she invites him to Charles’ mansion for a New Year’s break in Scotland, all he’s hoping is that they’ll accept him as one of the family.
But everything feels a little off. Whispers in hallways. Rumours of a body that got found nearby the previous year. And something very strange about Charles’ new girlfriend.
Every family has secrets, and Patrick tells himself all he needs to do is survive the next few days.
But then the first body is found, and Patrick realises that all he needs to do is really survive the next few days…
One of the family is dead.
One of the family is missing.
And one of the family might just be the killer...
Patrick couldn’t believe his luck when Holly fell for him. She’s wickedly funny, beautiful, and with an intimidatingly successful father, Charles.
So when she invites him to Charles’ mansion for a New Year’s break in Scotland, all he’s hoping is that they’ll accept him as one of the family.
But everything feels a little off. Whispers in hallways. Rumours of a body that got found nearby the previous year. And something very strange about Charles’ new girlfriend.
Every family has secrets, and Patrick tells himself all he needs to do is survive the next few days.
But then the first body is found, and Patrick realises that all he needs to do is really survive the next few days…
by Phil Lecomber
(Jun 23: eb and pb)
Four years after bringing the infamous child-killer known as the Nursery Butcher to justice – and still haunted by the brutal vengeance exacted by the psychopath’s ruthless allies – Cockney private eye George Harley is finally back in business, operating a new detective agency in the heart of London’s Soho. Harley and his new assistant Bunty are presented with their first case when a distressed father engages them to investigate the disappearance of his daughter, who has run away from home to join a cabaret troupe led by the notorious ‘Queen of Depravity’ Ilse Blau, now in London after being driven out by the Nazis from Weimar-era Berlin.
Four years after bringing the infamous child-killer known as the Nursery Butcher to justice – and still haunted by the brutal vengeance exacted by the psychopath’s ruthless allies – Cockney private eye George Harley is finally back in business, operating a new detective agency in the heart of London’s Soho. Harley and his new assistant Bunty are presented with their first case when a distressed father engages them to investigate the disappearance of his daughter, who has run away from home to join a cabaret troupe led by the notorious ‘Queen of Depravity’ Ilse Blau, now in London after being driven out by the Nazis from Weimar-era Berlin.
But in Harley’s liminal world, things are never straightforward, and the detective soon finds himself embroiled in another pitch-dark scenario, with London’s decadent, thrill-seeking gentry on one side and West End mobsters and wide-boys in search of easy cash on the other. When he discovers that a six-year-old has been kidnapped from an orphanage, Harley is convinced his old nemesis has somehow broken out of the lunatic asylum and is back on the streets of London, up to his old tricks.
Set in 1933 and following on from the events of Midnight Streets, this second instalment in the Piccadilly Noir series sees George Harley return to the frowzy alleyways and sleazy nightclubs of the UK capital in search of answers – no matter how uncomfortable they might turn out to be. But when he becomes ensnared in the mind games of a wily femme fatale, and finds himself up against ruthless Glaswegian gangsters, well-connected occultists, and undercover SS agents, those answers become increasingly hard to find.
HORROR
edited by Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan
(Jan 20: hb)
An impressive new anthology of horror stories exploring what it means to be ‘witch’, including the rediscovery and reclaiming of that power, its links to nature, and witchcraft mythology from around the world from editors Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan.
The full list of featured authors: Eugen Bacon, David Barnett, Melissa Bobe, Gabriella Buba, Mark Chadbourn, Eliza Chan, Aveline Fletcher, Helen Grant, Muriel Gray, Kay Hanifen, Lisa L. Hannett, Damien Kelly, Amanda Mason, Alison Moore, Buhlebethu Sukoluhle Mpofu, Angela Slatter and Ally Wilkes.
An impressive new anthology of horror stories exploring what it means to be ‘witch’, including the rediscovery and reclaiming of that power, its links to nature, and witchcraft mythology from around the world from editors Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan.
The full list of featured authors: Eugen Bacon, David Barnett, Melissa Bobe, Gabriella Buba, Mark Chadbourn, Eliza Chan, Aveline Fletcher, Helen Grant, Muriel Gray, Kay Hanifen, Lisa L. Hannett, Damien Kelly, Amanda Mason, Alison Moore, Buhlebethu Sukoluhle Mpofu, Angela Slatter and Ally Wilkes.
by Ramsey Campbell
(Feb 17: eb and pb)
A new edition of this classic exploration of malevolent dreams and monstrous forces, from the master of horror ...
“The dreams are getting stronger,” Guilda Kent said. “My dreams and everyone else’s. We’ve allowed them to grow stronger by trying to explain them away, don’t you understand? Dreaming isn’t a state of mind, but we scientists have lulled people into thinking it is. It isn’t a state of mind, it’s a state of being. The dream place, the collective unconscious… I call it the dream thing. It’s alive, I’m sure it is. It wants to feed on what we call reality, feed on it so it can take its place. We’ve given it that strength, we even helped it gain a hold. That time at Oxford let it break through…”
Five people take part in a study of precognitive dreaming, but the future they all dream of is a nightmare. Eleven years later, the dream creature they released creeps into all their lives in shapes they don’t realise are dreams. If it brings the five together again, far worse will be loosed on the world. Can Molly Wolfe, one of the dreamers, track down everyone involved in time to stop it, or is her search doomed to help it achieve its inhuman aim? Is she too unaware of the way the dream creature has insinuated itself into her life?
“The dreams are getting stronger,” Guilda Kent said. “My dreams and everyone else’s. We’ve allowed them to grow stronger by trying to explain them away, don’t you understand? Dreaming isn’t a state of mind, but we scientists have lulled people into thinking it is. It isn’t a state of mind, it’s a state of being. The dream place, the collective unconscious… I call it the dream thing. It’s alive, I’m sure it is. It wants to feed on what we call reality, feed on it so it can take its place. We’ve given it that strength, we even helped it gain a hold. That time at Oxford let it break through…”
Five people take part in a study of precognitive dreaming, but the future they all dream of is a nightmare. Eleven years later, the dream creature they released creeps into all their lives in shapes they don’t realise are dreams. If it brings the five together again, far worse will be loosed on the world. Can Molly Wolfe, one of the dreamers, track down everyone involved in time to stop it, or is her search doomed to help it achieve its inhuman aim? Is she too unaware of the way the dream creature has insinuated itself into her life?
by Catriona Ward
(Feb 19: eb, hb and Audible)
The Nowhere Children are expecting you...
High in the mountains sits Nowhere, a verdant valley surrounded by walls of rock. People have lived at Nowhere for centuries, though never for long, and rarely happily. Its last owner was its most famous: movie star Leaf Winham, who built Nowhere House as a refuge to hide from his fame... and to hide his crimes. Only when Nowhere House went up in flames were the graves discovered, the last resting places of lost young men who would never go home.
Years later, Nowhere valley has become a sanctuary for runaway children, a place where adults cannot enter. Drawn by this promise, fourteen-year-old Riley pulls her brother Oliver from his bed in the middle of the night, hoping to find a new family. But the Nowhere Children are fierce in defending their valley and their secrets. For something dark lives in the ruins of Nowhere House, something that asks a terrible price for sanctuary...
4 SCRATCH MOSS
The Nowhere Children are expecting you...
High in the mountains sits Nowhere, a verdant valley surrounded by walls of rock. People have lived at Nowhere for centuries, though never for long, and rarely happily. Its last owner was its most famous: movie star Leaf Winham, who built Nowhere House as a refuge to hide from his fame... and to hide his crimes. Only when Nowhere House went up in flames were the graves discovered, the last resting places of lost young men who would never go home.
Years later, Nowhere valley has become a sanctuary for runaway children, a place where adults cannot enter. Drawn by this promise, fourteen-year-old Riley pulls her brother Oliver from his bed in the middle of the night, hoping to find a new family. But the Nowhere Children are fierce in defending their valley and their secrets. For something dark lives in the ruins of Nowhere House, something that asks a terrible price for sanctuary...
by David Barnett
(Mar 5: eb, pb and Audible)
1865. Coal lies beneath Scratch Moss Manor and Sir Henry Brody is determined to get to it. But something else lurks below, something dark and evil.
1905. Reverend George Ackman has never known such godless people as those of Scratch Moss. But if not God, what do they believe in?
1945. Arthur works for the Coal Commission, visiting privately-owned pits ahead of their nationalisation. On his visit to Scratch Moss, he finds only misery and death.
1985. The miners have lost. Thatcher reigns supreme. And in the shattered community of Scratch Moss, rumours resurface about Red Clogs, a terrible presence in the land below.
2025. Divorced, fifty-something writer Joe returns to his hometown of Scratch Moss for the funeral of his father. Soon the memories of Joe’s teenage years, and the horror that blighted the community, come flooding back....
1865. Coal lies beneath Scratch Moss Manor and Sir Henry Brody is determined to get to it. But something else lurks below, something dark and evil.
1905. Reverend George Ackman has never known such godless people as those of Scratch Moss. But if not God, what do they believe in?
1945. Arthur works for the Coal Commission, visiting privately-owned pits ahead of their nationalisation. On his visit to Scratch Moss, he finds only misery and death.
1985. The miners have lost. Thatcher reigns supreme. And in the shattered community of Scratch Moss, rumours resurface about Red Clogs, a terrible presence in the land below.
2025. Divorced, fifty-something writer Joe returns to his hometown of Scratch Moss for the funeral of his father. Soon the memories of Joe’s teenage years, and the horror that blighted the community, come flooding back....
by T. Kingfisher
(Mar 26: eb, hb and Audible)
Something darker than the devil stalks the North Carolina woods.
The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use.
But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work in the Carolina woods.
What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife?
Why are animals acting so strangely?
And what is behind the peculiar local whispers about ‘blood thieves’?
With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh – and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator . . .
6 MONUMENTAL
Something darker than the devil stalks the North Carolina woods.
The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use.
But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work in the Carolina woods.
What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife?
Why are animals acting so strangely?
And what is behind the peculiar local whispers about ‘blood thieves’?
With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh – and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator . . .
by Adam Nevill
(Apr 2: eb)
Disaster strikes quickly and without warning. What should have been a glorious weekend of kayaking and camping in a secluded beauty spot is transformed by a scream, the first crisis initiating a deadly momentum that accelerates as the valley reveals itself to Marcus and his five companions.
They’re trespassing on strictly private land. There’s only one way out. An escape route closed until the next high tide fills the estuary. In twelve hours’ time.
Disaster strikes quickly and without warning. What should have been a glorious weekend of kayaking and camping in a secluded beauty spot is transformed by a scream, the first crisis initiating a deadly momentum that accelerates as the valley reveals itself to Marcus and his five companions.
They’re trespassing on strictly private land. There’s only one way out. An escape route closed until the next high tide fills the estuary. In twelve hours’ time.
Recreation becomes survival.
Marooned, unable to summon help, harassed by dire and worsening circumstances, the ties that bind the expedition are stretched taut. If they snap, vital cooperation will unravel and the group members’ damning secrets will be revealed.
Only the most courageous and committed have any chance against the area’s inhabitants. But is any mind strong enough to endure a confrontation with the most hideous revelation of all? An ancient evil that coils beneath the valley’s sinister folklore.
by Ronald Malfi
(Apr 14: eb and hb)
The residents of Mariner’s Cove are changing…
In the aftermath of a violent storm, a collective obsession is rapidly developing among the people of this quaint suburban neighborhood. Random, everyday items left scattered upon the lawns, the streets, and the shoreline all seem to call out to them. There is an item for almost everyone, and each item has a certain hold over the person who finds it—a hold that soon turns into unwavering infatuation. They hide their items from each other, obsess over them, and they will do anything—anything—to protect them.
The collective hum of bees’ wings...
A young boy finds himself the possessor of a strange and inexplicable power. Is the arrival of this power linked to the increasingly odd and dangerous behavior of the residents of Mariner’s Cove? Has he been granted this power in order to thwart whatever is about to happen in this small, bayside community, or is there a more sinister purpose?
All hail the Dragon...
All eyes are on him now.
The residents of Mariner’s Cove are watching.
They move as one, like a solitary organism, and will do anything to succeed in their single-minded purpose.
They will not be stopped.
8 HEX HOUSE
The residents of Mariner’s Cove are changing…
In the aftermath of a violent storm, a collective obsession is rapidly developing among the people of this quaint suburban neighborhood. Random, everyday items left scattered upon the lawns, the streets, and the shoreline all seem to call out to them. There is an item for almost everyone, and each item has a certain hold over the person who finds it—a hold that soon turns into unwavering infatuation. They hide their items from each other, obsess over them, and they will do anything—anything—to protect them.
The collective hum of bees’ wings...
A young boy finds himself the possessor of a strange and inexplicable power. Is the arrival of this power linked to the increasingly odd and dangerous behavior of the residents of Mariner’s Cove? Has he been granted this power in order to thwart whatever is about to happen in this small, bayside community, or is there a more sinister purpose?
All hail the Dragon...
All eyes are on him now.
The residents of Mariner’s Cove are watching.
They move as one, like a solitary organism, and will do anything to succeed in their single-minded purpose.
They will not be stopped.
by Amy Jane Stewart
(Apr 28: eb and pb)
A woman in the woods alone is never the beginning of the story. It’s usually the end.
ELLY
Elly is running. Pregnant and still in her wedding dress, she flees the cottage that her new husband, Ethan, has rented for their wedding night. Because he’s not what people think he is, and she knows that one day he’ll hurt her in a way she can’t fix.
Freezing and alone in the woods in the dead of night, she accepts that she’s going to die. But just as she has given up all hope, a house appears out of nowhere, and a woman beckons her in. Welcome to Hex House. A place that can only be found by those who truly need it. A place that teaches broken women how to access a power more beautiful and more horrifying than anything they could have imagined.
SIOBHAN
Edinburgh, present day: Siobhan’s life is in ruins. Once a promising documentary filmmaker, she has given up on her dream, and kept all the terrifying footage she has of Hex House hidden away. She tries to erase all the horrors she witnessed with drugs and alcohol, and spends her time toying with a man in increasingly feral and dangerous ways. Her brother won’t speak to her, and she ignores the scar on her stomach that never fully heals
But despite everything, always, she feels the presence of that place.
And she knows, deep down, that she has to return.
9 HOUSE OF FLIES
A woman in the woods alone is never the beginning of the story. It’s usually the end.
ELLY
Elly is running. Pregnant and still in her wedding dress, she flees the cottage that her new husband, Ethan, has rented for their wedding night. Because he’s not what people think he is, and she knows that one day he’ll hurt her in a way she can’t fix.
Freezing and alone in the woods in the dead of night, she accepts that she’s going to die. But just as she has given up all hope, a house appears out of nowhere, and a woman beckons her in. Welcome to Hex House. A place that can only be found by those who truly need it. A place that teaches broken women how to access a power more beautiful and more horrifying than anything they could have imagined.
SIOBHAN
Edinburgh, present day: Siobhan’s life is in ruins. Once a promising documentary filmmaker, she has given up on her dream, and kept all the terrifying footage she has of Hex House hidden away. She tries to erase all the horrors she witnessed with drugs and alcohol, and spends her time toying with a man in increasingly feral and dangerous ways. Her brother won’t speak to her, and she ignores the scar on her stomach that never fully heals
But despite everything, always, she feels the presence of that place.
And she knows, deep down, that she has to return.
by Graham Masterton
(May 7: pb)
IF YOU SEE THEM, RUN...
A clergyman is murdered in his bed in the dead of night, triggering a chilling chain of events, each more bizarre and unnerving than the last - brutal killings, corpses vanishing, decomposed bodies digging their way out of graves.
These shocking events seem unconnected but, at each scene, people report witnessing swarms of flies - hundreds, thousands, even millions of them.
As DI Patel and DS Pardoe hunt for the mastermind behind these atrocious crimes, they are forced to ask: is this person human - or is all of this linked to the mysterious figure caught on CCTV, running at speed without moving its legs?
And can they stop the swarm before they themselves are consumed?
10 THE SUMMER FUN MASSACRE
IF YOU SEE THEM, RUN...
A clergyman is murdered in his bed in the dead of night, triggering a chilling chain of events, each more bizarre and unnerving than the last - brutal killings, corpses vanishing, decomposed bodies digging their way out of graves.
These shocking events seem unconnected but, at each scene, people report witnessing swarms of flies - hundreds, thousands, even millions of them.
As DI Patel and DS Pardoe hunt for the mastermind behind these atrocious crimes, they are forced to ask: is this person human - or is all of this linked to the mysterious figure caught on CCTV, running at speed without moving its legs?
And can they stop the swarm before they themselves are consumed?
by Craig DiLouie
(Jun 16: eb and Audible)
SUMMER 1983. A blood-soaked summer camp counsellor is found staggering down a country road. The sole survivor of a horrific massacre, Mary tells a nightmare of a masked maniac wielding an old skinning knife. Arriving too late to help, her boyfriend Tom Bailey is plagued by guilt.
SUMMER 1992. The camp reopens as Camp Summer Fun. Now a sheriff’s deputy, Tom doubts this is a good idea, but the camp has been refurbished, the counsellors hired, and the little campers are on the way. Responding to reports of a blood-curdling howl near the camp, he again arrives too late to save anyone except a single brutalized teen. The killer nowhere to be found.
Hoping to catch the killer and finally right his mistakes, Tom reconnects with Mary. She's convinced that the killer is not human but instead a rural legend known as the Hungry Hare.
The sheriff wants the case closed, but refuses to believe in folklore. Mary dreams of revenge for her friends. And Tom hunts for any traces of the killer: real or fictional. But the murderer could be closer to home than anyone expects.
The Hare is coming and is so, so hungry…
SUMMER 1983. A blood-soaked summer camp counsellor is found staggering down a country road. The sole survivor of a horrific massacre, Mary tells a nightmare of a masked maniac wielding an old skinning knife. Arriving too late to help, her boyfriend Tom Bailey is plagued by guilt.
SUMMER 1992. The camp reopens as Camp Summer Fun. Now a sheriff’s deputy, Tom doubts this is a good idea, but the camp has been refurbished, the counsellors hired, and the little campers are on the way. Responding to reports of a blood-curdling howl near the camp, he again arrives too late to save anyone except a single brutalized teen. The killer nowhere to be found.
Hoping to catch the killer and finally right his mistakes, Tom reconnects with Mary. She's convinced that the killer is not human but instead a rural legend known as the Hungry Hare.
The sheriff wants the case closed, but refuses to believe in folklore. Mary dreams of revenge for her friends. And Tom hunts for any traces of the killer: real or fictional. But the murderer could be closer to home than anyone expects.
The Hare is coming and is so, so hungry…
