New Releases - June 2023

Here's a snapshot of what I think is published for the first time in June 2023 (and is usually a UK date but occasionally will be a US or Australian date). 94 titles this month. June and future months (and sometimes years) can be found on the Future Releases page. If I've missed anything or got the date wrong, do please leave a comment.

Please note that, unless specifically mentioned, when a book has differing print and ebook release date, I use the print release date. Translators' names are included where known.

• Ailes, Kat - The Expectant Detectives
• Aird, Catherine - Constable Country #25 DI C D Sloan, Calleshire
• Ashdown, Isabel - Homecoming
• Askew, Claire - The Dead Don't Speak #5 DI Helen Birch
• Atkinson, Heather - Evil at Alardyce House (apa The Ancestral Tides) #4 The Alardyce Series
• Barnes, Kerry - Malice (ebook only)
• Belsham, Alison - The Girls on Chalk Hill #1 Detective Lexi Bennett
• Bettany, Jane - Murder in Merrywell #1 Violet Brewster
• Bishop, D V - Ritual of Fire #3 Cesare Aldo, Florence, 1536
• Boland, Shalini - The Silent Bride
• Bugler, Sheila - Black Valley Farm
• Calkins, Susanna - Death Among the Ruins #7 Lucy Campion, Chambermaid, 17thC
• Childs, Jill - The Mother at Number 5
• Clark, Cassandra - The Night of the Wolf #3 Brother Chandler, 1399
• Clarke, Wendy - The Night Out
• Coles, Richard - A Death in the Parish #2 Canon Daniel Clement
• Comley, M A - Where Did She Go? #9 DI Sally Parker
• Cooper, Helen - The Couple in the Photo
• Corry, Jane - Coming to Find You
• Diamond, Katerina - The Silence
• Edvardsson, M T - The Woman Inside tr. Rachel Willson-Broyles
• Ellis, Emmy - Best Served Cold #4 DI Carol Wren
• Ellis, Emmy - The Space Between
• Evans, Kate - No Justice #3 DCI Donna Morris, Scarborough
• Farrar, M K - The Time Keeper #11 DI Erica Swift
• Faulkner, Katherine - The Other Mothers
• Finch, Emily L - Ghosts in the Abbey #2 Samantha and Wyatt Mysteries, 1860s
• Fitzek, Sebastian - The Inmate tr. Jamie Bulloch
• Fraine, A L - Of All Flesh #4 Detective Loxley, Nottinghamshire
• Frances, Michelle - The Playground
• Freeman, Dianne - A Newlywed's Guide to Fortune and Murder #6 Countess of Harleigh, Victorian England
• Gatland, Jack - Hunt the Prey #3 Ellie Reckless
• Grayson, C J - The Denes Park Killings #2 Detectives Orion Tanzy and Max Byrd, Darlington
• Hannah, Mari - Black Fell #4 Stone and Oliver
• Hanson, Liam - Devil's Bread #5 Murder Squad, Cardiff
• Heald, Ruth - The Party on Laurel Street
• High, Kate - Murder and the Moggies of Magpie Row #4 Clarice Beech, Lincolnshire
• Holliday, Susi - The Street
• Hood, D K - Their Wicked Games #19 Detectives Kane and Alton
• Huber, Anna Lee - A Fatal Illusion #11 Lady Darby, Scotland, 1830s
• Hurst, Daniel - My Daughter's Boyfriend
• Jordan, Adele - The Traitor Queen #5 Kit Scarlett, Tudor Era
• Jordan, Jack - Conviction
• Kane, Alex - Janey
• Kasasian, M R C - The Horror of Haglin House #1 Violet Thorn
• Khavari, Kate - A Botanist's Guide to Flowers and Fatality #2 Saffron Everleigh, 1920s, London
• Kidd, Michelle - The Trophy Killer #2 DI Nicki Hardcastle, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
• Kiernan, Olivia - The End of Us
• Koning, Christina - Murder at Hendon Aerodrome (also pub. Time of Flight under A. C. Koning) #3 The Blind Detective, 1920s
• Kvensler, Ulf - The Couples Trip tr. ???
• Larkin, L A - Next Girl Missing #1 Sally Fairburn
• Larkin, L A - Her Deadly Truth #2 Sally Fairburn
• Latus, Dan - Playing Dirty #11 Frank Doy
• MacKenzie, A J - By Treason We Perish #1 Simon Merrivale
• Markin, Wes - Better the Devil #7 DCI Yorke
• McCulloch, Amy - Midnight
• McEvoy, Lesley - A Deadly Likeness #3 Dr Jo McCready
• McGowan, Claire - Let Me In
• McGowan, Claire - This Could Be Us
• Meyrick, Denzil - No Sweet Sorrow #11 DCI Daley
• Michallon, Clémence - The Quiet Tenant
• Mistry, Liz - End Game #6 DS Nikki Parekh
• Moore, Ian - Death at the Chateau #3 Follet Valley Mystery
• Morris, M S - Deep into that Darkness #4 DCI Tom Raven
• Nicholl, John - The Bride
• Organ, Emily - The Tower Bridge Murder #4 Augusta Peel, 1920s
• O'Sullivan, Darren - The Price
• Parry, Ambrose - Voices of the Dead #4 Will Raven & Sarah Fisher, 19C
• Phifer, Helen - Hold Your Breath (ebook only) #9 Detective Morgan Brookes
• Ramsay, Danielle - The Perfect Husband
• Ripley, Sam - The Rule of Three
• Robinson, Peter - Standing in the Shadows #28 Insp. Alan Banks, Yorkshire
• Rogers, Bill - The End Game #14 DCI Caton Manchester Murder Mystery
• Rogers, Gemma - The Flatmate
• Rowson, Pauline - Death in the Nets #3 Inspector Alun Ryga, Dorset
• Russell, Craig - The Devil's Playground
• Saxon, Diane - The Stepson
• Schneider, Hansjorg - The Murder of Anton Livius #3 Inspector Hunkeler tr. Mike Mitchell
• Seales, Julia - A Most Agreeable Murder
• Sherratt, Mel - Missing Girls #1 DI Marsha Clay, Staffordshire
• Smith, Alexander McCall - The Discreet Charm of the Big Bad Wolf #4 Detective Varg, Malmo
• Sutherland, John - The Fallen
• Todd, Marion - A Blind Eye #7 DI Clare Mackay
• Walker, Martin - A Chateau Under Siege #16 Bruno, Chief of Police, France
• Waller, Anita - The Couple Across the Street
• Walsh, Tríona - The Party
• Weaver, Tim - The Last Goodbye #13 David Raker, Missing Persons Investigator
• Westerson, Jeri - The Isolated Séance #1 An Irregular Detective, Victorian London
• Wilding, Rose - Speak of the Devil
• Wilkins, Susan - You Left Me #5 Detective Jo Boden
• Wilkinson, Diana - The Woman In My Home
• Wood, Michael - The Seventh Victim
• Woods, Karen - The Con
• Yokomizo, Seishi - The Devil's Flute Murders #8 Kosuke Kindaichi, PI tr. Jim Rion

Arctic & Antarctic

I'm working on the June releases and have seen that there's a new book out set in the Antarctic - Midnight by Amy McCulloch. You can also "visit" the Arctic in Freeze by Kate Simants which was released in March. Where are you sailing to?

[Blurbs from Amazon.]

ON THE TOUGHEST REALITY SHOW ON TELEVISION
A KILLER IS HIDING OUT OF SHOT

Frozen Out is set to be a TV sensation. On a small ship off the coast of Greenland, eight contestants will push themselves to breaking point for a £100,000 prize.

The show is Tori Matsuka's baby. After years working her way up the ladder, she's finally launching her own production company with Frozen Out, and the late nights, the debts, the strain on her relationship will all be worthwhile. Everything is riding on the next twelve days. For camerawoman Dee, it's a chance to start again after the tragedy that tanked her undercover journalism career. Not even Tori, her oldest friend, knows the full truth of why Dee left her previous job, and she plans to keep it that way.

But as errors and mishaps mount on set, tempers among the cast and crew start to fray. And when one of the contestants is found dead, only Dee realises the death wasn't natural - and from what she's seen from behind the camera, it won't be the last. As the Arctic ice closes in around them and all chance of escape is cut off, it becomes clear that although the world outside wants them dead, it's the secrets inside the ship that might cost them their lives.

With her life back in London falling apart, Olivia cannot believe her luck when she's invited on a once-in-a-lifetime Antarctic cruise with her boyfriend, Aaron.


Olivia has never been anywhere so spectacular: huge cliffs of ice loom high on the horizon, penguins dive through the sparkling sea, and above it all, the sun never sets in the eerie twilight sky.

Then Aaron disappears. And a body is discovered on board.

Surrounded by strangers, Olivia has no idea who she can trust.

If she can't figure it out soon, she might not make it back alive . . .

Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2023 - Shortlist

Please find below the official press release announcing the shortlist for the Harrogate Crime Novel of the Year 2023. 

 M.W. CRAVEN | FIONA CUMMINS | ELLY GRIFFITHS

DOUG JOHNSTONE | GILLIAN MCALLISTER | RUTH WARE

Harrogate, 15 June 2023: The shortlist for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2023, produced by Harrogate International Festivals, has been announced today, with six bestselling authors competing to win the UK’s most wanted crime writing prize. The public is now invited to vote for the winner at www.harrogatetheakstoncrimeaward.com.

The prestigious award – now in its 19th year – celebrates crime fiction at its very best, with this year’s shortlist taking readers on spine-tingling journeys of murder, stalking, ghosts, mysterious disappearances and much more. Selected with help from a public vote from a longlist of twenty novels to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, the list features newcomers and previous prize contenders alike – but none of this year’s shortlisted novelists have ever taken home the coveted award before, making this year’s competition even more tense…

Challengers for the trophy include Elly Griffiths, former Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival Programming Chair in 2017, who is in the running for an impressive sixth time for The Locked Room: the penultimate mystery in the series featuring Norfolk’s favourite forensic archaeologist, Dr Ruth Galloway.

Fellow award alumni on the shortlist are: Ruth Ware with her deliciously dark The It Girl, which unpicks the secrets of university friends in an unputdownable story of suspense and shock; Doug Johnstone’s latest instalment in the much-acclaimed ‘Skelfs’ series – which has been optioned for TV – also makes the list, with the heart-racing twists and turns of Black Hearts featuring an obsessive stalker, a faked death and a devastating spectre from the past; and best-selling author M.W. Craven is shortlisted for the latest DS Washington Poe thriller The Botanist, where the  disgraced detective is tasked with catching a poisoner sending the nation's most reviled people poems and pressed flowers.

Two novelists have made the shortlist for the first time: Gillian McAllister with her Sunday Times Thriller of the Year, Wrong Place Wrong Time, the jaw-dropping, plot twisting, mind bending Groundhog Day style murder mystery and Fiona Cummins – who was selected by Val McDermid for New Blood in 2017 – takes the final shortlist spot for her eerily unnerving thriller Into The Dark. The novel follows DS Saul Anguish as he aims to uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of a whole family that takes the reader on a journey through revenge, greed, ambition, and the true cost of friendship.

The six novels shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2023 are:

    The Botanist by M.W. Craven (Little, Brown Book Group; Constable)

    Into The Dark by Fiona Cummins (Pan Macmillan; Macmillan/Pan)

    The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)

    Black Hearts by Doug Johnstone (Orenda Books)

    Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister (Penguin Random House; Michael Joseph)

    The It Girl by Ruth Ware (Simon & Schuster)

Sharon Canavar, Chief Executive of Harrogate International Festivals, commented: “We are delighted to announce this year’s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year shortlist, featuring six gripping reads that celebrate the best of the crime genre. With an array of subgenres spanning gripping thrillers to murder mysteries, the public have a tricky task ahead choosing only one from this talented bunch – we can’t wait to unmask the winner at the 20th anniversary of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival on 20th July!”

Simon Theakston, Executive Director of T&R Theakston Ltd, added: “What an exceptional line-up of crime writers in this year’s shortlist! We raise a glass of Theakston Old Peculier to all of the shortlistees and look forward to awarding the coveted beer cask trophy during the opening night ceremony!”

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year is run by Harrogate International Festivals and sponsored by T&R Theakston Ltd, in partnership with Waterstones and Daily Express, and is open to full-length crime novels published in paperback between 1 May 2022 to 30 April 2023 by UK and Irish authors.

The public is now invited to vote for a winner at www.harrogatetheakstoncrimeaward.com. Voting closes on Thursday 13 July, with the winner revealed on the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, Thursday 20 July, receiving a prize of £3,000 and a handmade, engraved beer barrel provided by T&R Theakston Ltd.