Books Archive

Better Off Dead (November 2021)

By Lee Child and Andrew Child

November 16, 2021

Reacher never backs down from a problem.

And he’s about to find a big one, on a deserted Arizona road, where a Jeep has crashed into the only tree for miles around.  Under the merciless desert sun, nothing is as it seems.

Minutes later Reacher is heading into the nearby border town, a backwater that has seen better days.  Next to him is Michaela Fenton, an army veteran turned FBI agent, who is trying to find her twin brother.  He might have got mixed up with some dangerous people.

And Reacher might just need to pay them a visit.

Their leader has burrowed his influence deep into the town.  Just to get in and meet the mysterious Dendoncker, Reacher is going to have to achieve the impossible.

To get answers will be even harder.  There are people in this hostile, empty place who would rather die than reveal their secrets.

But then, if Reacher is coming after you, you might be better off dead.

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White Nights (November 2021)

By Ann Cleeves

November 16, 2021

The Second Shetland Novel

When the sun never sets it brings to light deadly secrets…

Oh Shetland, the launch of an exhibition at the Herring House art gallery is disturbed by a stranger who bursts into tears, then claims not to remember who he is or where he comes from.  The next day detective Jimmy Perez finds his body in a fisherman’s hut.

Initially it seems to be a straightforward case of suicide, yet this is no desperate act and is instead the work of a cold and calculating killer.  As Perez investigates, he finds himself mired in the hidden secrets of a small community.  Then another body is found.

Perez knows he must find the killer before another death occurs.  But it is midsummer, an unsettling time when the sun never really sets in Shetland and nothing is quite as it seems …

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The Unheard (November 2021)

By Nicci French

November 16, 2021

‘He did kill.  Kill and kill and kill.’

Tess’s number one priority is her three-year-old daughter Poppy.  But splitting up with Poppy’s father, Jason, means that she cannot always be there to keep her daughter safe.

When Tess finds a disturbing drawing, dark and menacing, among Poppy’s brightly-coloured paintings, she is convinced that Poppy has witnessed something terrible.  Something that her young mind is struggling to put into words.

But no one will listen.  It’s only a child’s drawing, isn’t it?

Tess will strive to protect Poppy, whatever it takes.  But when she doesn’t know what, or who, she is protecting her from, how can she know who to trust..?

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Treasure & Dirt (November 2021)

By Chris Hammer

November 16, 2021

In the desolate outback town of Finnigans Gap, police struggle to maintain law and order.  Thieves pillage opal mines, religious fanatics recruit vulnerable young people and billionaires do as they please.

Than an opal miner is found crucified and left to rot down his mine.  Nothing about the miner’s death is straightforward, not even who found the body.  Sydney homicide detective Ivan Lucic is sent to investigate, assisted by inexperienced young investigator Nell Buchanan.

But Finnigans Gap has already ended one police career and damaged others, and soon both officers face damming allegations and internal investigations.  Have Ivan and Nell been set up and, if so, by whom?

As time runs out, their only chance at redemption is to find the killer.  But the more secrets they uncover, the more harrowing the mystery becomes, as events from years ago take on a startling new significance.

For in Finnigans Gap, opals, bodies and secrets don’t stay buried forever.

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The Night She Disappeared (November 2021)

By Lisa Jewell

November 15, 2021

A Cold Case.

An Abandoned Mansion.

A Family Hiding A Terrible Secret.

Midsummer 2017: teenage mum Tallulah heads out on a date, leaving her baby son at home with her mother, Kim.

At 11 p.m. she sends her mum a text message.  At 4.30 a.m. Kim awakens to discover that Tallulah has not come home.

Friends tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a pool party at a house in the woods nearby called Dark Place.

Tallulah never returns.

2018: walking in the woods behind the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started as a head teacher, Sophie sees a sign nailed to a fence.

A sign that says Dig Here…

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The Jealousy Man (November 2021)

By Jo Nesbo

November 15, 2021

Filled with dark thrills, twisted minds and vengeful hearts, these page-turning short stories from ‘the king of Scandicrime’ (FT) and creator of the iconic detective Harry Hole, will have you reading late into the night.

We meet a Greek detective who has become an expert on jealousy thanks to some hard-earned lessons from his private life.  Far away, in another country, a taxi driver finds his wife’s earring in a car belonging to his boss and sets out to discover how it ended up there.  High in the skies above, a woman is on board a plane heading to London, about to end her own life in the wake of her husband’s affair with her best friend.  But who is the man sitting next to her?

Nesbo also takes us to the near future, to a dystopian America, where the upper-class elite is waiting atop a skyscraper to be evacuated while the masses fight for survival in the streets below.  We are introduced to two best friends on their way to the running of the bulls in Pamplona when they fall in love with the same girl and, in the epic and vicious finale, we meet a psychologist who also happens to be an assassin.

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Lucy Maud Montgomery (November 2021)

By Mary Henley Rubio

November 15, 2021

The writings of Lucy Maud Montgomery are so familiar and captivating that it’s easy to feel we know her.  But the complex woman behind the sparkling story of Anne of Green Gables experienced the dark side of life, as well as the intense joy of creativity.  This beautifully written biography of one of Canada’s most celebrated writers looks far beyond Montgomery’s own published journals and draws on a wealth of previously undiscovered material.

Rubio’s comprehensive and penetrating account of Montgomery’s life, all set in rich social context and illustrated with previously unseen photographs, takes its place as the definitive biography of a literary icon.

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birds of a feather (November 2021)

By Tricia Stringer

November 15, 2021

When three women are thrown together by unusual circumstances, ruffled feelings are just the beginning…

Eve has been a partner in a Wallaby Bay fishing fleet as long as she can remember.  Now they want her to sell – but what would her life be without work?  She lives alone, her role on the town committee has been spiked by malicious gossip and she is incapacitated after surgery.  For the first time in her life she feels weak, vulnerable – old.

When her troubled goddaughter Julia arrives at Wallaby Bay, she seems to offer Eve a reprieve from her own concerns.  But there is no such thing as plain sailing.  Eve has another house guest, the abrasive Lucy, who is helping her recuperate and does not look kindly on Julia’s desire for Eve’s attention.

But Lucy too, has demons to battle and as each woman struggles to overcome their loss of place in the world, they start to realise that there may be more that holds them together than keeps them apart.

But will these birds of feather truly be able to reinvent what family means?  Or will the secrets and hurts of the past shatter their precarious hold on their new lives … and each other?

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Saving Time (November 2021)

By Jodi Taylor

November 15, 2021

Life is good for Team Weird, now heroes and fully fledged Time Police officers.  Luke can’t wait to bear arms.  Jane has a date.  and Matthew still hasn’t had his hair cut.

But time waits for no one and neither do criminal masterminds.  A major threat to the Timeline is looming, one far deadlier than mere idiots who want to change history.  And when a familiar face becomes a Very Important Lead, will conflicting family loyalties spell trouble for Team Weird?

One missing.  One guilt-ridden.  And one facing the end of their Time  Police career before it’s even begun.

Not so good then, after all.

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