Angel with Two Faces, by Nicola Upson (July)

Inspector Archie Penrose invites Josephine Tey down to his family home in Cornwall so she can recover from the traumatic events depicted in An Expert in Murder. Josephine welcomes the opportunity, especially since Archie’s home is near the famous Minack open-air theatre perched on the cliffs overlooking the sea. However, Josephine’s hopes of experiencing a period of rest are dashed when her arrival coincides with the funeral of a young man from the village who had drowned when his horse inexplicitly leapt into the nearby lake. When another young man disappears and the village’s curate falls from the cliffs of the Minack Theatre onto the rocks below, Josphine and Archie begin to suspect the involvement a cold-blooded murderer. As Josephine and Archie try to unravel the mystery, they begin to see death as an angel with two faces – one gazing at the violence in the present, the other looking back to the crimes hidden in the past.

The Salati Case, by Tobias Jones (July)

Castagnetti (informally known as ‘Casta’) is a private detective who doesn’t do things by the book. He’s dogged and lonely, impatient with the world of appearances and deceit. So when a pompous notary commissions him to verify that a missing person is “presumed dead” in order to dispose of a dead woman’s estate to the other heirs, Casta smells a rat. Before long he’s reopening wounds from years ago and exposing family secrets to those who have tried to suppress them. The relatives of Signora Salati just want their their inheritance, but Casta is going to make sure they get their just desserts as well. Because Casta isn’t the sort to content himself with “presumed dead”. He likes certainty, the kind of certainty that comes from seeing a skeleton. As the Salati case progresses, other corpses appear and Casta realises he’s at the centre of an old-fashioned Italian whodunit. The Salti Case marks the appearance of a new and memorable detective: an orphan who has pulled himself up from the mean streets.

The Last Fix, by K.O. Dahl (June)

Katrine Bratterud is on the point of finishing a course of drug rehabilitation and celebrates her success at a party with her social workers. Later that night she finds herself at the shore of a lake, her lover fast asleep in his car nearby. Suddenly she senses that she is not alone. In the dim early morning light she sees a naked man approaching from out of the woods …

The discovery of Katrine’s corpse the following day brings police officers Gunnarstranda and Frølich on to the case and into a world of secrets and lies that stretches back generations.

Katrine’s past as a prostitute makes her easy prey to a series of men, who immediately become suspects – and victims of the killer’s rage. The emotional turmoil of the case soon comes to mirror the vulnerabilities within Gunnarstranda and Frølich themselves.

K. O. Dahl weaves an intricate plot, juxtaposing the self-delusion of drug addicts with the more complex self-delusions of the well-respected middle-class people treating them. Like Henning Mankell, Dahl manages to merge the suspense of the classical whodunit with the detailed precision of the police procedural novel.

Cover Her Face (Faber Firsts), by P.D. James (May)

The first ever Adam Dalgliesh mystery. St Cedd’s Church fête has been held in the grounds of Martingale manor house for generations. As if organizing stalls, as well as presiding over luncheon, the bishop and the tea tent, were not enough for Mrs Maxie on that mellow July afternoon, she also has to contend with the news of her son’s sudden engagement to her new parlour maid, the sly single mother, Sally Jupp. On the following morning Martingale and the village are shocked by the discovery of Sally Jupp’s body.

Investigating the violent death at the manor house, Detective Chief-Inspector Adam Dalgliesh is embroiled in the complicated passions beneath the calm surface of English village life.

The Bellini Card, by Jason Goodwin (May)

The third book in Jason Goodwin’s celebrated series takes Yashim the eunuch from the winding alleyways of Istanbul to the decaying grandeur of Venice.

Charged by the Sultan to find a stolen painting by Bellini, he enlists the help of his friend Palewski, the Polish Ambassador, and goes undercover. Venice in 1840 is a city of empty palazzos and silent canals, and Palewski starts to mingle with Venetian dealers – self-made men, faded aristocrats and the hedonistic Contessa. But when two bodies turn up in the canal, he realises that art in Venice is a deadly business. And meanwhile, what has happened to Yashim?

The Bellini Card is a thrilling adventure in which a quest for a lost painting turns into a dangerous game of cat and mouse that threatens to destroy the Ottoman throne and overturn the balance of power in Europe.

Suffer the Children, by Adam Creed (May)

DI Will Wagstaffe – ‘Staffe’ to friends and enemies alike – is a man with many burdens. On the eve of leaving for a personal trip abroad he is called to the scene of a horrific crime: a known paedophile has been butchered in his own home. As the violence escalates Staffe finds himself having to protect known offenders and haul the families of their victims down to the precinct. The case splits Staffe and his team, for it calls into question the whole idea of justice – when the courts have failed to prosecute the perpetrators of child abuse where does that leave the victims and their families?

As he digs deep into London’s dirtiest seams, figures from Staffe’s past come back to haunt him: Sylvie, the estranged love of his life, and Jessop, his ex-partner and mentor. In pursuing justice he has to hurt the ones he loves, but with his boss and the newspapers out to get him Staffe must revisit the past in order to make sense of the present and end the violence. In doing so the areas between right and wrong are blurred but the main question remains: how far would you go to protect your children?

The Private Patient, by P.D. James (April)

When the notorious investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn booked into Mr Chandler-Powell’s private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar, she had every prospect of a successful operation by a distinguished surgeon, a week’s peaceful convalescence in one of Dorset’s most beautiful manor houses and the beginning of a new life. She was never to leave Cheverell Manor alive. Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate the murder, and later a second death, which are to raise even more complicated problems than the question of innocence or guilt.

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