Friday, April 22, 2022

Published 18-24 April 2022

I've expanded on my monthly listing. These are the 17 books published between 18 and 24 April 2022. Blurbs and covers taken from Amazon. 

Beevis, Keri  - With Friends Like These (pb 6/4, ebook 20/4)

On his way to Scotland for a reunion with his university friends, Billy Maguire runs over a pedestrian. But this is only the start of his problems . . .

 
Realising the man is alive, Billy puts him in the back seat of his car, planning to leave him outside the nearest hospital. But when the man dies, Billy panics and drives to the reunion with the body in the car, where he begs his friends for help.
 
Tension swirls within the group at first, but when the dead man’s ID reveals him to be a notorious criminal Dougie McCool, they decide to get rid of the body. The only problem is that some dangerous men are looking for McCool—including his brother, who is willing to brutally exploit the circle of friends to get what he wants. But will he succeed or can they get away with it?


Brunet, Marion - Vanda tr. Katherine Gregor

Set in Marseilles, this is the story of Vanda, a beautiful woman in her thirties, arms covered in tats, skin so dark that some take her for a North African. Devoted to her six-year-old son Now, they live in a derelict shed by the beach. She had wanted to be an artist; she is now a cleaner in a psychiatric hospital. But Vanda is happy living alone with her boy. 'The two of them against the world', as she says. Everything changes when Simon, the father of her son, surfaces in Marseilles. He had left Vanda seven years earlier, not knowing that she was pregnant. When Simon demands custody of his son, Vanda's suppressed rage threatens to explode. The tension becomes unbearable, both parents fully capable of extreme violence.





Buchanan, Kerry - Deadly Shores (ebook only) #3 Detectives Asha Harvey and Aaron Birch, Belfast

A COMPELLING CRIME THRILLER FEATURING DETECTIVES ASHA HARVEY & AARON BIRCH.


TWO SHIPS IN THE NIGHT.
ANOTHER DEAD BODY.
NO SAFE HARBOUR.

A wave lifts the stern of the boat, rigging groans in protest and a crash comes from down below, as the wails of the cargo rise above the howl of the storm.

It’s a wild Christmas Day on the rugged Northern Irish coast. But there’s no time for turkey and pud with the family for Detectives Harvey and Birch.

DS Aaron Birch leans into the wind and driving sleet. Thick, scudding clouds make the streets of Lisburn almost as dark as early evening.

Then he gets the tip-off. Smugglers coming into a boatyard in Bangor.

Birch and DI Asha Harvey head to the marina. They expect to find drugs. But the evidence points to something far, far worse.

When one of the couriers is found murdered in his hotel room, they realize they are facing in a deadly storm of corruption and criminal depravity. Will they sink or swim?

Cheshire, Mahi - Deadly Cure

THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH: FIRST, DO NO HARM...


Dr Rea Dharmasena is devastated when she loses out on her dream research job to her med-school rival and best friend, Dr Julia Stone.

To add insult to injury, Julia used Rea's own cutting-edge research to get it.

But just as Rea finds it in her to forgive the betrayal, Julia, after a life-changing medical discovery, is found murdered.

Now Rea has the dream job she's always wanted.

But at what cost?


Corrigan, J A  - The Bad Sister

One rotten apple can spoil the bunch

The Keane sisters grew up together at Raven House, a luxurious riverside home that their mother inherited. On the day of a party at the house, tension fills the air as Jess, Natalie and Teresa all fear the exposure of things they're desperate to hide. The beautiful evening is marred by tragedy, and a celebration turns into a nightmare when a young life is lost. It is a haunting reminder of a shocking event five years earlier.As guests eye their companions with suspicion, it's the family who have the most to hide. They turn on one another, with breathtaking malice and irrevocable consequences.

Years later, the sisters are barely hanging on to the scraps of their relationship. As another family celebration looms, long-held secrets come rushing to the surface. But someone is determined that the past will stay dead and buried, and will stop at nothing to prevent their mistakes being uncovered.

Which sister has the most to hide? A secret that they would kill to keep...


Eldridge, Jim - Murder at Claridge's #3 Detective Chief Inspector Coburg & Sergeant Lampson

One of the Claridge's kitchen porters is found dead – strangled. He was a recent employee who claimed to be Romanian, but evidence suggests he may have been German. Detective Chief Inspector Coburg has to find out exactly who he was, and what he was doing at Claridge’s under a false identity. Once he has established those facts, he might get an insight into why he was killed, and who by.

Coburg’s job is complicated by the fact that so many of the hotel’s residents are exiled European royalty. King George of Greece is registered as ‘Mr Brown’ and even the Duke of Windsor is staying, though without Wallis Simpson. Clandestine affairs, furtive goings-on and conspiracies against the government: Coburg must tread very lightly indeed …





Emerson, T J - The Perfect Holiday 

Olivia and Julian are enjoying lazy days in their Spanish villa, a well deserved break from their busy lives. Especially for Julian, who after a lifetime as a carer was thrust into the public eye following the tragic murder of his first wife.

The languid heat and peace of the villa is broken only by clifftop walks, sun drenched lunches and cooling swims. Until a chance encounter with Gabriel - an attractive man, many years their junior - changes everything.

Soon their idyllic break turns into a dangerous, high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse. Will any of them get out alive?





Fullerton, John - Spy Trap (ebook only) #3 Brodick Cold War Thriller

The year is 1992. As a seasoned British agent, Richard Brodick now occupies a respectable - in as far as any spy can be respectable - position in the UK's Secret Intelligence Service. The isolation and the danger don't bother him; he survived far worse in childhood, and the respect of his bosses is sufficient.

But when a British man dies in a Chinese hotel, Brodick finds himself face-to-face once more with the ruthless and ambitious Chen Meilin, better known as Fang, codename DRAGON. Their working relationship both pleases and torments Brodick, but in this case he cannot operate without her.

As they delve deeper into the events surrounding Roger Peacock's death, Brodick and Fang uncover corruption and betrayal at the heart of China's communist regime. But as events unfold and their own conflicting interests, hopes and ambitions collide, it is not clear that either of them can survive, this time ...


Gatland, Jack - Heavy Is The Crown (pb 13/4, ebook 24/4 ) #10 DI Declan Walsh

To be the king - you need to kill the king.

When East-End gangster and 'frenemy' to the Last Chance SaloonJohnny Lucas, is accused of murdering a London gangland rival in his boxing club, he claims his brother was the killer.

The only problem though is that his brother, Jackie, is actually Johnny's multiple personality.

Pulled in to prove the case, DI Declan Walsh and his team soon realise that Johnny might be as innocent as he claims, as a new player is in town, claiming to be Johnny's brother Jackie in the flesh, a man who shouldn't exist yet can prove he does, is starting to carve out his own empire.

And as old foes appear with their own agendas against Declan, and as Central London becomes a criminal warzone not seen since the days of the Krays and the Richardsons, Declan finds himself facing a criminal mastermind with more than power on their mind...

...and Declan is the next pawn to be taken off the board...


Grecian, Alex - One Eye Open

After her mother’s sudden passing, Laura and her daughter Juniper return to her childhood home in the rural outskirts of Denmark. In the scenic village amidst seas of wheat fields, Laura hopes they have finally let tragedy behind them. Then, Juniper begins to notice something strange about the people she encounters, the same people who have worked in these fields for centuries. 

In tracing her lineage back through her mother and beyond, Juniper makes a horrifying discovery. This town is alive with more than just nature, and the endless fields of wheat demand to be harvested, whether the hands that do so are alive or dead… 





Huber, Anna Lee - A Perilous Perspective #10 Lady Darby, Scotland, 1830s

Argyll, Scotland. July 1832. After a trying few months in Edinburgh, Kiera and her husband and investigative partner, Sebastian Gage, are eager to escape to the Highlands with their three-month-old child. Kiera is overjoyed for her cousin Rye and her detractor-turned-friend Charlotte who are being wed in a private ceremony at the estate of Rye's great-uncle, the Marquess of Barbreck, in what seems to be the perfect wedding party. But when Kiera is invited to peruse Barbreck's extensive art collection, she is disturbed to discover that one of his most priceless paintings seems to be a forgery. The marquess's furious reaction when she dares to mention it leaves her shaken and the entire house shocked. For it turns out that this is not the first time the word forgery has been uttered in connection with the Barbreck household. Matters turn more ominous when a maid from a neighboring estate is found murdered where the forged painting hangs. Is her death connected to the forgeries, perhaps a grisly warning of what awaits those who dare to probe deeper? With unknown entities aligned against them, Kiera and Gage are forced to confront the fact that they may have underestimated their opponent. For they are swiftly made to realize that Charlotte's and Rye's future happiness is not the only issue at stake, and this stealthy game of cat and mouse could prove to have deadly consequences.


Murphy, Peter - To Become an Outlaw #8 Ben Schroeder, Lawyer, 1960s

1964, Apartheid South Africa. Danie du Plessis, the son of a conservative Afrikaner family, is poised to start a glittering legal academic career at one of South Africa's leading universities, when he falls in love with a student, Amy Coetzee. But there's a problem: he's white, she's not. Facing arrest, imprisonment and ruin, the couple flee South Africa, and settle in Cambridge, where friends find them positions at the University. They marry and have two children, and have seemingly put the past, and South Africa, behind them. But in 1968 Art Pienaar enters their lives, and, insisting that they have a duty to fight back, enlists their help in increasingly dangerous schemes to undermine the South African regime. When Pienaar and a notorious drug dealer, Vince Cummings, are found murdered together, Danie's activities come to light, and he and his family find themselves in mortal danger. Danie is also threatened with criminal prosecution on behalf of a government desperate to maintain good relations with the apartheid regime. Danie knows he's sailed close to the wind. But has he become an outlaw? Can Ben Schroeder persuade a jury that the answer is no?


Reid, TG - Dead Man's Stone (ebook only) #3 DCI Bone

Some secrets are worth killing for

When DCI Duncan Bone is contacted by a terminally-ill psychiatric patient and given clues linking a forty-year-old unsolved murder to high-profile public figures, he finds himself locked into a conspiracy at the very heart of the Scottish criminal and political establishment.

With his bosses stonewalling the investigation, lives under threat, and his career on the line, Bone faces a race against time to hunt down a group of men who will stop at nothing to cover their murderous crime.

Can DCI Bone catch the killer before the killing starts again?

Set among the dramatic hills and glens of Scotland's Campsie Fells, Dead Man's Stone is the third in a series of edge-of-your-seat crime thrillers that will keep you guessing right up to the nail-biting, heart-stopping climax.


Ryan, Sadie - The Wives of Crimson Avenue (ebook only) #1 DI Vincent Sullivan

Ladies. Are you a perfect wife wanting to live in suburban utopia?
Then Crimson Avenue is for you!
Come and join other like-minded women in our idyllic community.
We might even let you into our little secret…

When a striking young woman turns up to Adele Love’s antique shop acting suspiciously and gives her a cryptic message …

Tell Sam that they know…

On leaving the shop, to Adele’s horror, the woman is bundled into a white van and abducted.

Beginning a search for the missing woman, DI Vincent Sullivan and DS Josephine Jenkins conduct their house-to-house investigations, which lead them into a sinister world of diamond smuggling and drugs, all happening behind the perfect façade of Crimson Avenue.

As the pressure mounts with the severity of the crimes committed, the wives close ranks and deny all knowledge.

But just as cracks begin to appear and the women start to turn on each other, they realise there’s also the small problem of Adele’s secret, which could get them all killed...


Sanderson, Lesley - The Widow's Husband (ebook only)

For seven years I believed my husband was dead - until the note arrived this morning...

The day her husband Tom disappeared, Rachel's life fell apart. Childhood sweethearts with two young children, they'd done everything together. And then, suddenly, Tom was gone. Without a word, without a note, without a single sign of where he might be, leaving Rachel to survive alone.

Now, nearly seven years later, Rachel has come to terms with life as a single mother, caring for their children who still secretly long for their father's miraculous return.

But in his absence, Tom's hidden life started to emerge, and Rachel has discovered things a wife should never have to. A secret life that betrayed everything Rachel thought she knew. Not knowing where he'd gone was no longer the main worry keeping her awake at night - it seemed much more likely he'd been silenced. Forever.

Until today, when - with just one month until Tom is to be declared legally dead - Rachel receives a note in handwriting she recognises with dread:

My darling, I've missed you so much. Give me a chance to explain. I'm coming home.

The husband she'd lost is alive.

And so are all his secrets...


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