Friday, September 30, 2022

Published 27-30 September 2022

I've expanded on my monthly listing. Here are 15 books published between 27 and 30 September 2022.
Blurbs and covers taken from Amazon. 

Adler-Olsen Jussi - The Shadow Murders #9 Carl Morck and his assistant Assad, Department Q, Copenhagen tr. ???

The penultimate thriller in the bestselling Department Q Series. Copenhagen's cold cases division must hunt for a nefarious criminal who has slipped under the radar for decades.

On her 60th birthday, a woman takes her own life. When the case lands on Detective Carl Mørck's desk, he can't imagine what this has to do with Department Q, Copenhagen's cold cases division. It's a tragedy to be sure, but the cause of death seems to be clear. But his superior, Marcus Jacobsen, is convinced that this is not in fact a suicide, but a murder related to an unsolved case that has been plaguing him since 1988.

At Marcus' behest, Carl and the Department Q gang-Rose, Assad, and Gordon-reluctantly begin to investigate. However, they quickly discover that Marcus is on to something: Every two years for the past three decades, there have been unusual, impeccably timed deaths with connections between them that cannot be ignored. As they dig deeper, it transpires that these "accidents" are in fact murders by a very cunning and violent criminal.

Faced with their toughest case yet, made only more difficult with COVID-19 restrictions and the challenges of their own personal lives, the Department Q team must race to find the culprit before the next murder is committed, as it is becoming increasingly clear that the killer is far from finished.


Archer, Jeffrey - Next in Line #5 Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick 
 

London, 1988. Royal fever sweeps the nation as Britain falls in love with the ‘people’s princess’.

Which means for Scotland Yard, the focus is on the elite Royalty Protection Command, and its commanding officer. Entrusted with protecting the most famous family on earth, they quite simply have to be the best. A weak link could spell disaster.

Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick and his Scotland Yard squad are sent in to investigate the team. Maverick ex-undercover operative Ross Hogan is charged with a very sensitive – and unique – responsibility. But it soon becomes clear the problems in Royalty Protection are just the beginning. A renegade organization has the security of the country – and the Crown – in its sights. The only question is which target is next in line…


Bridgestock, R C - Vengeance #4 DI Charley Mann, Yorkshire
 

On a beautiful summer afternoon, Stacey Sullivan is getting married to Mark James. But then screams smother the laughter, police sirens drown out the church bells. Out of nowhere, a drug-fuelled gunman opens fire on the wedding party.

The shooter is beaten, disarmed and detained by the guests. No one knows who the gunman is… or if they do, they’re not admitting it. The job of solving the two murders is laid solely at the feet of DI Charley Mann.

Could this be a random attack, or a pre-planned assassination? When information comes to light of a link to feuding drug-dealing families in Manchester, Charley’s team need to act rapidly. They need to find – and apprehend – those responsible. Fast.

It soon becomes clear: if they fail, more deaths are coming…


Griffiths, Elly - Bleeding Heart Yard #3 Harbinder Kaur
 
DS Cassie Fitzgerald has a secret - but it's one she's deleted from her memory. In the 1990s when she was at school, she and her friends killed a fellow pupil. Thirty years later, Cassie is happily married and loves her job as a police officer.

One day her husband persuades her to go to a school reunion and another ex-pupil, Garfield Rice, is found dead, supposedly from a drug overdose. As Garfield was an eminent MP and the investigation is high profile, it's headed by Cassie's new boss, DI Harbinder Kaur. The trouble is, Cassie can't shake the feeling that one of her old friends has killed again.

Is Cassie right, or was Garfield murdered by one of his political cronies? It's in Cassie's interest to skew the investigation so that it looks like the latter and she seems to be succeeding.

Until someone else is killed...



James, Alison - The New Couple

The perfect marriage. The perfect house. The perfect secret...

 As I step through the cherry-red door of my new home, I know I should feel like the luckiest woman alive. I have a handsome husband, a beautiful daughter and now the house of my dreams. And to everyone else my life looks perfect...

When the neighbours stop by to welcome us, I tell them my name is Stephanie Hamlin and, under the watchful gaze of my husband Richard, I introduce him and our curly haired little girl Poppy. I smile as wide as I can and desperately hope I can fit in to this exclusive place with its pretty communal gardens. Because I've risked everything to be here.

Behind closed doors I try to relax, to unwind in the huge clawfoot bath and forget about my complicated past. It's hard being the new couple on the street when you've got secrets.

Because the truth is, my charming husband isn't really my husband.

And I'm not Stephanie Hamlin...

 
James, Peter - Picture You Dead #18 Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, Brighton

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace finds himself plunged into an unfamiliar and rarefied world of fine art. Outwardly it appears respectable, gentlemanly, above reproach. But beneath the veneer, he rapidly finds that greed, deception and violence walk hand-in-hand.

Harry and Freya, an ordinary couple, dreamed for years of finding something priceless buried amongst the tat in a car boot sale.

It was a dream they knew in their hearts would never come true – until the day it did…

They buy the drab portrait for a few pounds, for its beautiful frame, planning to cut the painting out. Then studying it back at home there seems to be another picture beneath, of a stunning landscape. Could it be a long-lost masterpiece from 1770? If genuine, it could be worth millions.

One collector is certain that the painting is genuine. Someone who will use any method he can to get what he wants and will stop at nothing.

And Harry and Freya are about to discover that their dream is turning into their worst nightmare. . .


Jameson, Emma - A Death at Neptune Cove #4 Jemima Jago, Librarian, Isles of Scilly

When Jem knocks on the door of an isolated cottage overlooking beautiful Neptune Cove, she's hoping for help fixing a birthday cake baking disaster. She's not expecting to find the tenant dead on the tiled floor, specks of blood on the collar of his navy-and-red satin pajamas...

The victim is Arthur Ajax, a handsome and wealthy American businessman who arrived in the Isles of Scilly as a tourist ten months ago and never left. There have been rumors about him in town, as he was known for his extravagant lifestyle. Perhaps he'd gone overboard, or could his death be connected to an unpaid debt?

Later that same evening, Jem stumbles across a hoard of buried jewelry, dug up from the dunes by little dog Buck, and she immediately wonders if they could be connected to the rich man's murder. It's not every day you find expensive-and very real-looking-sapphire earrings stashed away in an antique biscuit tin!

Jem seeks help from a local jewelry expert to identify the gems. But when he suddenly goes missing, Jem knows someone is trying to cover their tracks. Can she catch the killer before he makes her walk the plank too?


Johnstone, Doug - Black Hearts #4 Skelfs family 
 
Death is just the beginning…


The Skelf women live in the shadow of death every day, running the family funeral directors and private investigator business in Edinburgh. But now their own grief interwines with that of their clients, as they are left reeling by shocking past events.

A fist-fight by an open grave leads Dorothy to investigate the possibility of a faked death, while a young woman’s obsession with Hannah threatens her relationship with Indy and puts them both in mortal danger. An elderly man claims he’s being abused by the ghost of his late wife, while ghosts of another kind come back to haunt Jenny from the grave … pushing her to breaking point.

As the Skelfs struggle with increasingly unnerving cases and chilling danger lurks close to home, it becomes clear that grief, in all its forms, can be deadly…



Linskey, Howard - The Inheritance
 
When Sarah's Aunt Evelyn passes away, she discovers a hidden fortune has been left to her, including a foreboding mansion in a small Northumberland town.

But it comes with one condition.

For most of her life, Evelyn had been haunted by the loss of a friend who went missing in Cragsmoor - the very house Evelyn has left to Sarah.

Now, Evelyn's final wish is for Sarah to return to Cragsmoor and uncover the truth.

If she does, she will inherit everything.

But someone wishes for the secrets of Cragsmoor to remain hidden.

Someone who may have killed once before . . .
 

Mullen, Owen - Thief (ebook only) #4 Glass Family 
 

Charley Glass arrived in her family’s lives like the hurricane she'd escaped. But she hadn't run far enough: the ruthless Giordano family are on her tail and want two things - her life, and the return of the property she stole from them. No matter how many bodies stack up.

After years of hoping, Charley finally has the family she’s always wanted, but now she’s going to have to tell them the real reason she came looking for them. There is only one way she’s going to stay alive, and that is to employ the muscle of the notorious Glass Family.

The head of the family, Luke, isn't sure they're strong enough to take on one of New Orleans' biggest crime gangs. But he'd put his life on the line to protect the empire they've built - even if they’ll have to take on an enemy hurting enough to cross an ocean for revenge.


Pattison, Nell - Friends Don't Lie

My name is Isabella Butterworth. Your name is Isabella Butterworth.

We’re around the same age. We live in the same town.

But your life is more exciting than mine, isn’t it? Richer, dramatic, more fulfilling.

Imagine if I’d never found out about you…

But I have. Because someone mistook me for you.

And now I can’t stop thinking about you because I know you’re in trouble. You need my help.

And I need a way to get to know you.

To save you.

To be you…


Penrose, Andrea - Murder at the Serpentine Bridge #6 Wrexford & Sloane
 
Charlotte, now the Countess of Wrexford, would like nothing more than a summer of peace and quiet with her new husband and their unconventional family and friends. Still, some social obligations must be honored, especially with the grand Peace Celebrations unfolding throughout London to honor victory over Napoleon.
 
But when Wrexford and their two young wards, Raven and Hawk, discover a body floating in Hyde Park’s famous lake, that newfound peace looks to be at risk. The late Jeremiah Willis was the engineering genius behind a new design for a top-secret weapon, and the prototype is missing from the Royal Armory’s laboratory. Wrexford is tasked with retrieving it before it falls into the wrong hands. But there are unsettling complications to the case—including a family connection.
 
Soon, old secrets are tangling with new betrayals, and as Charlotte and Wrexford spin through a web of international intrigue and sumptuous parties, they must race against time to save their loved ones from harm—and keep the weapon from igniting a new war . . .



Phifer, Helen - Silent Angel #7 Detective Morgan Brookes
 

The girl's head is bent as if in prayer, her hands bound tightly together at the wrist. Her bare feet are still against the cold sand, the last thing she ever felt before she breathed her last...

When the body of a teenage girl is found in Rydal Falls' churchyard, Detective Morgan Brookes abandons her own birthday to attend the scene. In the dim evening light, Morgan can just make out the girl wrapped in a pristine white sheet and is certain she's been left here for them to find.

The autopsy identifies the girl as sixteen-year-old Shea Wilkinson, and Morgan's heart cracks with sorrow. The beautiful teenager has been missing for weeks, could she have been suffering all this time? When she learns the sand on Shea's feet is from a nearby island, Morgan leaves immediately, determined to find the killer's hiding place and stop them in their tracks.

But scouring the windswept beach, Morgan can't find any sign that Shea was ever there. And then her phone rings with devastating news. Another girl has gone missing, a young nurse called Milly with the same blonde hair and blue eyes as Shea.

Morgan won't rest until she has returned the kind, cheerful girl to her distraught parents. But Milly was last seen chatting to one of Morgan's colleagues on the force... Refusing to think the worst, can she trace the clues and get inside the mind of the most cunning killer of her career, before another innocent life is lost?

 
Ramunno, Oriana - Ashes in the Snow tr. Katherine Gregor 

A beautiful, moving detective story set in Auschwitz in the Christmas of 1943.

A young Jewish prisoner…
Auschwitz, 1943. It’s snowing outside and Block 10 looks even bleaker than usual. Gioele Errera, a young Jewish boy imprisoned in the camp, finds the body of an SS officer.

A detective with everything to prove…
Hugo Fischer is sent to investigate the unexplained death of the renowned Nazi. But Hugo is hiding a secret – he is suffering from a degenerative disease. The only way for him to survive is to give his support to the Reich and hide his condition.

A confrontation with pure evil…
In Auschwitz, Hugo comes face to face not only with a complex murder, but with a truth – that of the Final Solution. And he is forced to decide what is most important to him – and who, if anyone, he should try to save…

Steadman, Catherine - The Family Game 
 
THE RULES


    1. Listen carefully
    2. Do your research
    3. Trust no one
    4. Run for your life
 
Harriet Reed is newly engaged to Edward Holbeck, the heir to an extremely powerful American family.
When Edward’s father hands her a tape of a book he’s been working on, she is desperate to listen.
But as she presses play, it’s clear that this isn’t a novel. It’s a confession to murder.
Feeling isolated and confused, Harriet must work out if this is all part of a plan to test her loyalty. Or something far darker.
Because this might be a game to the Holbeck family - but games can still be deadly.
 
READY OR NOT, HERE THEY COME . . .
 

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