For many years Dan Starkey has been a journalist of some repute - mainly ill. Now he is back with his wife Patricia, and while they try for a baby he is aiming to keep himself out of trouble. Had he not been caught in a rather awkward position when he received a phonecall from Big Davie Kincaird, he might not have decided to return to the village of Groomsport. And had he not drunk too much in order to cover the awkwardness of seeing this friend he hasn't known for 25 years, he might not have found himself agreeing to go on honeymoon... in Florida... for three weeks... with Big Davie. What else could possibly go wrong?

Colin Bateman was a journalist in Northern Ireland before becoming a full-time writer. His first novel, Divorcing Jack, won the Betty Trask Prize, and all his novels have been critically acclaimed. He wrote the screenplays for the feature films Divorcing Jack, Crossmaheart and Wild About Harry. He lives in Ireland with his family.

A hitman is on the loose, targeting men, seemingly at random, all over Dublin. Each time the victim is killed by a single shot, always from a different gun. When former FBI agent Saxon is drawn into the investigation she believes that the fourth victim, Felix - a photographer with a fascination for the murders - holds the key to the killer's identity. As DCS Grace Fitzgerald and her team hunt for the hitman, Saxon is urged on by Felix's sister to delve deeper into his world and uncovers secrets that someone wants to remain buried...

Ingrid Black is the pseudonym of a husband-and-wife writing team who live with their family in Belfast.

Looking back, Nick Leary couldn’t say exactly what kept him awake that night. It might’ve been the oppressive heat, or the distant rumble of thunder. He’d had a lot on his mind; perhaps he’d been thinking about the ‘respectable’ Essex business that he ran, or about his two young sons sleeping in the room next door. Or was it simply the sound of his beautiful wife’s steady breathing beside him…Whatever it was, he was awake when he heard someone’s footsteps downstairs, and Nick’s instinct was to fight. It had always been that way, to protect the things he treasured most: his family, his privacy, his reputation. He’d grafted for these things all his life and no one was going to jeopardise them now. Unless, of course, Nick’s instinct is wrong, and what happens this time is the start of something even he cannot stop…

Martina Cole was born and brought up in Essex. She is the bestselling author of ten novels set in London's gangland, and her most recent two paperbacks, as well as her latest hardback, have gone straight to No. 1 in the Sunday Times on first publication.

A city attracts scavengers and predators, people with malicious intent, for there are many who are vulnerable inhabiting its streets. Rosa Thorn knows how harsh an urban environment can be. A tragedy has changed her life forever and now she has taken the post of drama teacher for the local comprehensive school where her teenage son and daughter attend. But something strange is going on. The headmaster has no qualms about insinuating himself into the private life of the attractive, available Rosa, but how does he know her every move? Then there is the sinister caretaker dealing with more than logistical problems. Or is he? At home some of Rosa?s neighbours have taken to secret late night gatherings on street corners and the gardener of the park opposite seems to have a dangerously obsessive personality. And when small, inexplicable acts of malevolence turn into sudden violence, Rosa fears for her safety and even more so for the well being of her children. For her daughter is the subject of someone?s demented infatuation. But like a diseased town fox, the real threat stalks the shadows, in the night-black recesses of the undergrowth, not just of the city, but of the human mind. Vena Cork?s astonishing, thrilling debut novel is as shocking as it is unputdownable ? a brilliant, menacing, psychological thriller that takes you to the edge of darkness.

Vena Cork is originally from Lancashire, but has lived in London all her adult life. She attended Homerton College, Cambridge, where she was a member of Cambridge Footlights. She is married to the art critic Richard Cork and lives in north west London. This is her first novel.

The monk and scholar Roger Bacon claimed to have seen many marvels of nature and science and concealed these in a book written in an unbreakable code. Sir Hugh Corbett has been instructed to organise agents in Paris to steal this Book of Secrets. They do so but pay a violent price and the French King Philip IV now wishes a meeting between the scholars of England and France to discuss breaking the code. Edward I has no choice but to allow the meeting to take place at Corfe Castle, which becomes a place of murder and mayhem. Young women from the castle are being slain whilst horrific things are witnessed in the nearby forest. The situation becomes more serious when two of the French scholars die in sinister circumstances. Corbett and Ranulf-atte-Newgate have to thread this maze of malevolent murder whilst trying to decipher the great secrets of one of England's most outstanding scholars.

Paul Doherty was born in Middlesbrough. He studied History at Liverpool and Oxford Universities and obtained a doctorate for his thesis on Edward II and Queen Isabella. He is now headmaster of a school in north-east London and lives with his family in Essex.

Racing thriller

When a fellow jockey is killed in a fall at Lambourn, Alan knows it should have been him. For he would have ridden Olympia in the steeple-chase that day - if he'd been able to make the weight. It's soon clear that something sinister has happened. An ex-policemen friend of Alan suspects that, from the way money was placed on Olympia, someone knew the horse wouldn't run to form that day. Was the horse doped? Alan is determined to get to the truth. Meanwhile in Ireland, trainer Tom Dougherty is thrilled he won't be losing his best horse Milesius - the hot favourite for the Cheltenham Champion Hurdle. The horse's new owner wants to keep Milesius at the Dougherty yard. When the day comes for Milesius to race at Cheltenham, it's decided that Alan will ride him. But dangerous men have the race in their pockets, and they'll go to any lengths to get the result they want.

Ex-National Hunt Champion Jockey John Francome is a broadcaster on racing for Channel 4 and has established himself as one of the front runners in the racing thriller stakes. He lives in Berkshire.

Oz Blackstone didn't go looking for fame: it jumped out of an alleyway and mugged him with a fist full of high denomination notes. Movie stardom, wealth, a successful marriage – Oz is standing on the brink of the Seriously Big Time and life just seems to keep lining up the cherries…
He should have known it couldn't stay that good for that long – don't the juiciest fruit always go sour?
The first sign of trouble appears when Oz finds his ex-wife Primavera Phillips, drenched in her own tears – her life in ruins, cheated out of her fortune and robbed of her baby boy, Tom, by his lying con-man father. What could Oz do but help?
Maybe he should have called for help himself, or stuck to the game plan of looking after number one. Instead he set out on a voyage of dark intrigue and wild discovery that would turn his life upside down – again.

Quintin Jardine is married with an extended family of four adult kids, and two Tonkinese cats. The rarely reclusive author can normally be found in the Mallard Hotel, Gullane, East Lothian, or in Trattoria La Clota, L'Escala, Spain.

Forty years ago, Exeter Cathedral close rang to the clamour of weapons, shouts of defiance and screams of pain. Afterwards, the bodies lying in their own blood bore silent witness to the conflicts that were tearing at the heart of the Cathedral itself.
Today, in 1323, more deaths have occurred. Is the first an accident? The second is surely murder, brutal and foul. Once again vicious slaying has polluted the Cathedral close, but this time the killer will not be so easy to capture and execute. The victim, Henry Potell, a wealthy saddler, was feared and hated - he held secrets that some were keen to keep hidden and others wanted to see him destroyed for his savage deeds all those years ago…
For Sir Baldwin Furnshill, Keeper of the King's Peace, and his friend Bailiff Simon Puttock, the truth is increasingly mysterious. Who among Henry Potell's companions could have wanted him dead? Was it someone whose ties to Potell are dark and sinister?
What first appears to be a matter of lust or greed soon grows much more troubling as Baldwin becomes aware of the disturbing and ominous Chapel of Bones, built long ago in reparation for a terrible murder…

Michael Jecks gave up a career in the computer industry to concentrate on writing and the study of medieval history, especially that of Devon and Cornwall. He lives with his family in northern Dartmoor.

Investigating the case of a lovers' lane murder of a pair of college students, Homicide Lieutenant Milo Sturgis enlists the help of Alex Delaware. As the two peel back layer upon layer of deception, they encounter shocking truths that extend way beyond the slaughter of two young lovers. Something other than therapy has been taking place within the plush, soundproof chambers of the young man's therapist...

After a distinguished career in child psychology, Jonathan Kellerman turned to writing full-time, and there are now over thirty million copies of his novels in print. He is also the author of two volumes of psychology. He lives in Southern California with his wife, the novelist Faye Kellerman, and their four children.

A year has passed since the Cold Heart murders and Detective Petra Connor is, once again, working Hollywood Homicide solo. She has just solved three gang-related killings and is feeling pretty good about herself – about life in general – when Isaac Gomez waltzes into her office and tells her he’s found something she might want to take a look at.
A twenty-two-year-old prodigy researching a Ph.D. in sociology, Isaac has gained access to LAPD case files. But while combing the files, the brilliant young man has come upon a series of apparently unrelated murders all committed shortly after midnight on the exact same date: June 28. Can this be purely coincidence?
As Petra’s curiosity leads her to investigate further, she becomes convinced that something evil has managed to conceal itself within the dry pages of the cold-case files. Killings so diabolical and meticulously constructed that they would have remained invisible but for the probing mind of a young, naïve genius. To make matters worse, June 28 is only a month away...

After a distinguished career in child psychology, Jonathan Kellerman turned to writing full-time, and there are now over thirty million copies of his novels in print. He is also the author of two volumes of psychology. He lives in Southern California with his wife, the novelist Faye Kellerman, and their four children.

Leigh is young, rebellious and beautiful – and she yearns for a summer of excitement by the lake. Maybe she’ll find it in the arms of the handsome boy who rows her out to the abandoned beach house. Or maybe she’ll stumble into a legacy of terror which will shatter her life...
Eighteen years on, Deana has no knowledge of her mother’s troubled past and not that much interest. She just wants to make out somewhere cool with her boyfriend – to let her hair down and live a little. If only living were that simple. But that summer at the lake casts a long shadow. And when the horrors of the past meet the perils of the present, both mother and daughter are plunged into a nightmare of blood and terror from which there is no escape.

Richard Laymon was born in Chicago in 1947. He grew up in California and took a BA in English Literature from Willamette University, Oregon, and an MA from Loyola University, Los Angeles. He worked as a schoolteacher, a librarian, a mystery magazine editor and a report writer for a law firm before working full-time as a writer. Four of his books have been shortlisted for the Bram Stoker Award, which he won in 2001 with The Travelling Vampire Show. Richard Laymon wrote many acclaimed works of horror and suspense, including The Stake, Savage, After Midnight and the three novels in the Beast House Chronicles: The Cellar, The Beast House and The Midnight Tour. He died in February 2001.

A bomb goes off in a small town in the Western USA and FBI agent Alex Cross is summoned in to help with the investigation. Calls from an anonymous villain do little to explain the violence as reports come in of similar bombings across the globe. Meanwhile, Alex has been visiting little Alex at Christina’s house in Seattle. As the court date to decide the boy’s custody draws closer, Alex is determined to get his son back somehow. Explosive surprises from his past make re-appearances and Alex must think on his feet. This is surely his most volatile case yet.

James Patterson has written numerous international number one bestsellers, the most recent being 3Rd Degree (with Andrew Gross). He lives in Florida. Kiss The Girls was made into a number one hit movie, and the film version of Along Came A Spider is currently out on video.

Henry Rathbone arrives to spend Christmas at the Dreghorn family manor house near Ullswater. He is greeted by the news that the master of the house, Judah Dreghorn has slipped while crossing a stream in the grounds of the estate in the middle of the night, and drowned. Not only this, but Ashton Gower, recently released from prison, is slandering Judah's name, claiming that his family rightfully owns the estate and that the forged deeds for which he was imprisoned were in fact genuine. To Rathbone and the two remaining Dreghorn brothers, also returning to the Lakes for Christmas, Judah's mysterious death and Gower's outrageous claims seem inextricably linked.

Anne Perry lives in Portmahomack, Scotland, and her well-loved series featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt has recently been adapted for television. The Cater Street Hangman was watched by millions of viewers when it was broadcast by ITV. Also available from Headline are the critically acclaimed William Monk and Hester Latterly mysteries.

Glevum, 187AD - Roman Britain is under the leadership of two interim governors, Marcus and Praxus. They are throwing a sumptuous banquet to celebrate their new power, but all mosaic-maker Libertus can think about is getting home to his warm bed. When the guest of honour is found dead in the vomitorium and all fingers point towards the host and patron, Marcus, home becomes the last thing on Libertus' mind.
The union between Marcus and Praxus has never been easy: they're struggling to share power and Praxus has made advances to Marcus's beautiful young wife. Yet before Libertus can find out whether his patron is guilty or not, he is accused as an accomplice.
Forced to go on the run, Libertus quickly realises that he's an unwelcome visitor in the underworld of Roman Gloucester. In the Ghosts of Glevum Rosemary Rowe weaves together the two extremes of a society that were strictly divided. At the top stood the privileged `citizens', but this only included a select few and most ordinary Romans were without the many rights that went with this title. Freed-men were desperately poor and slaves were very little more than the belongings of their masters, beneath them were an underclass of thieves and freaks. It's these `ghosts' that Libertus finds himself desperately trying to escape from.

In 1938, Ulrike Walter, a beautiful young German musician, is engaged to be married to Erich Hinkel, a member of the Hitler Youth. But when she meets Inspector Cameron Ross, a Scotland Yard policeman, whose father is a colonel in British Intelligence, her life will be changed for ever. When war is declared, Ulrike flees Germany for the safety of England but is instead cruelly imprisoned as an enemy alien. Her only hope of rescue is Cameron, who, despite his better judgement, is falling in love with her. And then Erich is captured by the British and incarcerated in a prisoner of war camp in England. He faces interrogation by Cameron Ross, the one man who stands between him and Ulrike, the woman who means more to Erich than life itself.

Rob Ryan was born in Liverpool. He has written for The Face, Arena, Conde Nast Traveller, Esquire, GQ Magazine and The Sunday Times. He lives in North London with his wife and three children.

Autumn 1944. As the Allies make great gains in France, the Channel Islands remain a bastion of Nazi-occupied territory. On Jersey, Colonel Max von Aufsess is in charge of liaising with the civilian population. He has little time for his fanatical colleagues, and has earned the respect of many of the Islanders. On an early morning ride, Max is disturbed to find several corpses washed up on the beach. Puzzled by their clothes - they wear the distinctive striped uniform of concentration camp inmates, but the nearest camp is in the heart of Holland, over 500 miles away - he is compelled to investigate. The evidence of an escaped Ukrainian prisoner leads him to Alderney, the 'Island of Silence' - for there lies a secret concentration camp, whose inmates are being forced to construct a crude nuclear weapon intended for nearby London. Max knows he has to stop it, yet he can't do it alone. But will the Islanders trust a man who wears the swastika?

Guy Walters was a journalist on The Times for eight years, where he travelled around the world and reported on a wide variety of subjects. He is married, lives in Wiltshire, and is now a full-time novelist.