GRIESSEL AND CUPIDO ARE EXPECTING A QUIET LIFE

Detectives Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido remain on duty in beautiful Stellenbosch, but run-of-the-mill police work in a leafy university town famed for its vineyards is a far cry from their previous life in Cape Town fighting crime at the highest level. For now, Benny has more pressing things to worry about - it's the countdown to his wedding day on 12 June.

BUT THE PEACE IS ABOUT TO BE SHATTERED

When a student is found dead on a mountain trail, and the key suspect, a local businessman, is found murdered in what looks like a professional hit delivering a message - suffocated by fast-action filler foam sprayed down his throat - Griessel and Cupido both know this the work of professionals.
Benny also knows he needs a cool head to untangle this web of deceit, and to manage the incessant pressure. He needs to stay calm, focused - and sober. And it all needs to be wrapped up by 12 June.

THE CLOCK IS TICKING. AND CHAOS IS COMING...

A PARENT'S WORST NIGHTMARE IS GRACE'S DEADLIEST CASE . . .

Roy Grace, creation of the CWA Diamond Dagger award winning author Peter James, faces his most complex case yet in Dead If You Don't.

Kipp Brown, successful businessman and compulsive gambler, is having the worst run of luck of his life. He’s beginning to lose, big style. However, taking his teenage son, Mungo, to their club’s Saturday afternoon football match should have given him a welcome respite, if only for a few hours. But it’s at the stadium where his nightmare begins.

Within minutes of arriving at the game, Kipp bumps into a client. He takes his eye off Mungo for a few moments, and in that time, the boy disappears. Then he gets the terrifying message that someone has his child, and to get him back alive, Kipp will have to pay.

Defying instruction not to contact the police, Kipp reluctantly does just that, and Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is brought in to investigate. At first it seems a straightforward case of kidnap. But rapidly Grace finds himself entering a dark, criminal underbelly of the city, where the rules are different and nothing is what it seems . . .

The Pyramid of Mud is the twenty-second Montalbano mystery from Italy's finest crime writer, Andrea Camilleri. It's been raining for days in Vigata, and the persistent downpours have led to violent floods overtaking the Inspector's beloved hometown, sweeping across the land and leaving only a sea of mud behind. It is on one of these endless grey days that a man - a Mr Giuglu Nicotra - is found dead. His body discovered in a large sewage tunnel, half naked and with a bullet in his back. The investigation is slow and slippery to start with, but when Montalbano realizes that every clue he uncovers and every person he interviews is leading to the same place: the world of public spending - and with it, the Mafia - the case begins to pick up pace. But there's one question that keeps playing on Montalbano's mind: in his strange and untimely death, was Giuglu Nicotra trying to tell him something?

Sophia, Safa, Ella, Ajola and Caoimhe have been friends since school. They are difficult, unlikeable women; funny, sharp and clever ones – the sort that would have probably ended up burned at the stake a few hundred years ago.

When one of them is about to be framed for murder, they inextricably bind their fates together via some bin bags, a spade and a promise never to tell. Afterwards, they decide to separate to ensure the safety of their secret, leaving each of them to navigate the daily challenges of womanhood alone.

But when an anonymous blackmailer threatens to expose them years later, the group must come back together to get their stories straight – and find out who is behind their torment. But is it already too late?

The Darkest Day is the first novel in the five part Inspector Barbarotti series from renowned Swedish crime author Hakan Nesser. It's December in the quiet Swedish town of Kymlinge, and the Hermansson family are gathering to celebrate father Karl-Erik and eldest daughter Ebba's joint landmark birthdays. But beneath the guise of happy festivities, tensions are running high, and it's not long before the night takes a dark and unexpected turn . . . Before the weekend is over, two members of the Hermansson family are missing, and it's up to Inspector Barbarotti - a detective who spends as much of his time debating the existence of God as he does solving cases - to determine exactly what has happened. And he soon discovers he'll have to unravel a whole tangle of sinister family secrets in the process . . .

As France is in the midst of a closely fought presidential campaign, the government falls victim to a series of mysterious and unsettling cyberattacks. Paul Raison is caught up in the state’s scrambled response, working as an advisor to the finance minister and with family connections to the DGSI, the French counterterrorism agency.

But Paul’s private life is as strained as the nation is troubled. His marriage has collapsed, he’s drifted from his siblings, and their father has been hospitalized following a stroke. In telling Paul’s story, Annihilation moves seamlessly between tense espionage thriller and poignant family drama. The result is an extraordinary and moving meditation on loving, caring and dying.

THEY'RE BAAAAACK.

Their first caper, "The Spellman Files," was a "New York Times" bestseller and earned comparisons to the books of Carl Hiaasen and Janet Evanovich. Now the Spellmans, a highly functioning yet supremely dysfunctional family of private investigators, return in a sidesplittingly funny story of suspicion, surveillance, and surprise.

When Izzy Spellman, PI, is arrested for the fourth time in three months, she writes it off as a job hazard. She's been (obsessively) keeping surveillance on a suspicious next door neighbor (suspect's name: John Brown), convinced he's up to no good -- even if her parents (the management at Spellman Investigations) are not.

When the (displeased) management refuses to bail Izzy out, it is Morty, Izzy's octogenarian lawyer, who comes to her rescue. But before he can build a defense, he has to know the facts. Over weak coffee and diner sandwiches, Izzy unveils the whole truth and nothing but the truth -- as only she, a thirty-year-old licensed professional, can.

When not compiling Suspicious Behavior Reports on all her family members, staking out her neighbor, or trying to keep her sister, Rae, from stalking her "best friend," Inspector Henry Stone, Izzy has been busy attempting to apprehend the copycat vandal whose attacks on Mrs. Chandler's holiday lawn tableaux perfectly and eerily match a series of crimes from 1991A--92, when Izzy and her best friend, Petra, happened to be at their most rebellious and delinquent. As "Curse of the Spellmans" unfolds, it's clear that Morty may be on retainer, but Izzy is still very much on the case...er, cases -- her own and that of every other Spellman family member.

(Re)meet the Spellmans, a family in which eavesdropping is a mandatory skill, locks are meant to be picked, past missteps are never forgotten, and blackmail is the preferred form of negotiation -- all in the name of unconditional love.

Newly appointed Chief Inspector Charlie Marlow is in charge of Torreston Police Station while Harriet Love is away. He is secretly relieved that nothing drastic happens as the days go by but the calm is shattered when a lorry driver is found dead in a lay-by with a skewer through his neck. Charlie has a murder on his hands and the team begins the investigation with Charlie doing his best to do things as he thinks his boss would do. Harriet, now the superintendent of the station, returns and Charlie hands over secretly happy that she is back. Complications set in when a young woman is found murdered in the same lay-by as the lorry driver and this is soon connected to a similar murder in the same place ten years go. When a second woman is murdered and again found in a lay-by it is a race against time to find the killer before he strikes again.

A crew of thieves hopes to hijack a mobile home full of money in this crime caper from "the funniest man in the world" (The Washington Post). John Dortmunder has been working an encyclopedia-selling scam while waiting for his next big heist. Unfortunately, his latest mark seems to be wise to the con, and he has to cut his sales pitch short and make a quick escape. But opportunity awaits: Main Street bank has temporarily relocated to a mobile home. All Dortmunder has to do is get past seven security guards, put the bank-on-wheels in gear, and drive away. It's a simple plan, until it all goes wrong . . . Perfect for fans of Carl Hiaasen or Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr series, the Dortmunder novels by New York Times-bestselling and multiple Edgar Award-winning author Donald E. Westlake are a rollicking treat that combine fast-moving suspense with laugh-out-loud wit. Bank Shot is a "hilarious" standout in the series (The New York Times).

Although this novel is based upon a genuine murder that took place in the churchyard of Bakewell Parish Church on the 12th September 1973 the characters and events that are described in this book are entirely fictional. They are a product of the author's imagination and any similarity to persons living is coincidental. To date the actual murder has never been solved. It may never be solved even though there were witnesses to the dreadful crime. They refused to testify because they feared for their lives.

"I didn’t plan to fall in love with an accused serial killer. Nevertheless, my wrists and ankles are bound to a chair, and I can only blame myself. I strain at the ropes, take a deep breath, and prepare to die."

Hannah Wilson is embarrassingly unlucky in life and love. Her only comfort comes from the true crime forums she trawls, desperate for more news about the case of serial murders she’s obsessed with. After all, she can’t save herself from more disappointment, but maybe she can figure out who the killer is and save another woman from losing her life.

And then handsome lawyer William Thompson is arrested. And Hannah is so full of female rage about everything he’s done and everything she’s going through, that she decides to write him a series of angry letters. She just doesn’t count on him writing back…

Each response from William is more surprising than the last. He listens. He cares. And for the first time, Hannah feels seen.

When a shocking twist gives Hannah the chance to see William, she can’t resist meeting her pen pal to work out his secrets. But what does she really want him to be – innocent victim, or her own personal monster?

Love Letters to a Serial Killer is a surprising, original and deeply entertaining debut. Part thriller, part romance, part satire. Perfect for fans of Yellowface, You and How to Kill Your Family.

The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story.

"There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine."

Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back.

Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?

Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, "The Konkatsu Killer", Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.