Corrupt Practices by Robert Rotstein is the first Parker Stern legal thriller (available June 4, 2013).

After the suicide of his mentor and legal partner, Harmon Cherry, Parker Stern’s shining career comes to a screeching halt as Parker is suddenly paralyzed whenever he is in a courtroom. Soon after, the law firm he works for falls apart, with each lawyer going his own way. Parker winds up teaching law to tiny classes and living an otherwise aimless life.

Then he receives a phone call from an ex-law partner, Rich Baxter. Baxter has gotten himself into some hot water with a powerful client: The Church of the Sanctified Assembly. He’s facing charges related to money laundering, embezzlement, and fraud. But Baxter’s problems don’t end there. FBI agents find false passports, almost half a million dollars in cash, and methamphetamines. Baxter insists he’s being set up—he swears that the Assembly is out to get him and it’s all related to the death of Parker’s mentor, Cherry. Against his better judgment, Parker agrees to take on the case.

[Taking on the True Believers]

Death in the Vines by M. L. Longworth is the third in the Verlaque and Bonnet traditional mystery series set in Provence (available May 28, 2013).

Olivier Bonnard, the owner of Domaine Beauclaire winery, is devastated when he discovers the theft of a priceless cache of rare vintages. Soon after, Monsieur Gilles d’Arras reports that his wife, Pauline, has vanished from their lavish apartment. As Judge Antoine Verlaque and Commissioner Paulik tackle the case (with a little help from Marine Bonnet), they receive an urgent call: Bonnard has just found Madame d’Arras—dead in his vineyard.

Death in the Vines is the third novel in M.L. Longworth’s Verlaque and Bonnet series, and it evokes as strong a sense of place as the previous Death at the Chateau Bremont and Murder in the Rue Dumas. Whether a character is walking through the marketplace or law officers are driving through nighttime streets or a winemaker is wandering through his vineyard, Aix-en-Provence is brought to life through Longworth’s narrative, becoming as much of a character as the living, breathing men and women.

[A sense of place, but not a sense of peace]

Transparent by Natalie Whipple is a debut young adult novel with paranormal elements, including an invisible protagonist (available May 21, 2013).

Fiona was born into one of the largest crime syndicates in the country. Her father runs drugs, steals his millions, and murders whoever gets in his way. When Fiona is born, he sees his chance to become the most powerful man in the world. Because Fiona was born with a special gift.

She’s invisible.

Fiona does anything her father asks, partly because he’s her father and partly because he has his own special gift: he’s a Charmer who can make any woman fall in love with him. At first this means picking pockets—which she learned to do when she was just seven years old. Then she graduates to robbery. Then spying on rival crime syndicates. However, her daddy has an endgame in mind for Fiona.

Assassin.

[Daddy’s Little Girl has big troubles...]

Cuts Through Bone by Alaric Hunt is a contemporary PI novel in the classic PI novel style (available May 14, 2013).

Alaric Hunt’s Cuts Through Bone is a PI mystery with the style and tone of classic PI mysteries, which is probably why it won the 2012 Private Eye Writers of America award for Best First Private Eye Novel.

Hunt’s private investigator is Clayton Guthrie—a man short in stature and heavy on observation. He knows how to talk to snitches and how to break down a case, skills he’s trying to teach his protégé, Rachel Vasquez.

Vasquez, on the other hand, is having a hard time dealing with the tediousness that is real detective work. She considers quitting after a particularly rough morning when in walks one Mr. H.P. Whitridge with a young woman named Michelle Tompkins and the case to end all cases: the Barbie doll murders.

[Oh, you beautiful doll...]

Double Whammy by Gretchen Archer is the first Davis Way Crime Caper novel, a humorous mystery set in Biloxi, Mississippi (available May 14, 2013).

Davis Way is divorced from her ex-ex-husband (so, yes, twice divorced from the same guy), unemployed because her father fired her, not getting along with her mother—which is par for the course, and frustrated. It doesn’t look like things can get much worse. After all, how many restraining orders can one girl face? 

Things start to look up when she finds a job at the Bellissimo, a casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. The grand hotel offers a chance to start over, with a large paycheck and posh surroundings. After a gazillion interviews, Davis is hired to work undercover security, catching safe-cracking thieves and protecting the casino’s hard-earned gains. However, nothing in the Bellissimo is as straightforward or simple as it seems.

First off, the man who seems to be ripping off the Bellissimo’s biggest slot-game—the Double Whammy—is Davis’s ex-ex-husband.

[So nice she divorced him twice...]

Original Skin by David Mark, the follow-up to The Dark Winter, is a gritty police procedural set in the north of England (available May 16, 2013).

Original Skin is the second novel in the Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy series set in Hull, a historic port city that has seen more than its fair share of violent crime. Hull is currently overrun with Vietnamese drug lords, a seedy sexual underbelly, and itinerant “travellers.” So when McAvoy stumbles onto evidence that the suicide of a young “swinger” may in fact be a murder, it’s not really a surprise the case is not placed front and center.

McAvoy investigates the death of Simon Appleyard—the “suicide”—on the quiet, while still working his regular caseload. As he pulls at the loose threads of the suicide theory, he finds more than he bargained for. Government officials are affected. Corruption within the police force is exposed. Innocent bystanders are caught in the crossfire of sexual cover-ups. And the killer isn’t done yet.

[Why stop at one?]

Life After Theft by Aprilynne Pike is a fun, lively young adult novel about making amends (available April 30, 2013).

When Jeff moves from Arizona to California it means a new school—Whitestone Academy—and new uniforms, and new people. His first day actually begins promisingly enough. He meets a hot blonde named Kimberlee, who just happened to be lying down in the middle of the school’s hallway.  But what started with such potential quickly turns sour.

On the surface, meeting Kimberlee is a wonderful social opportunity. She’s the daughter of a powerful local judge. She knows where all the hot parties are. She has a bright smile and sassy attitude. There are just a couple problems Jeff can’t get past:

1. She’s a thief.

2. She’s dead.

[He said she was hot, not perfect...]

Hour of the Red God by Richard Crompton is a debut novel set in Kenya (available May 7, 2013).

In Richard Crompton’s Hour of the Red God, a woman is found mutilated in Uhuru Park, a normally peaceful gathering place in Nairobi, Kenya. Former Massai warrior and now-detective Mollel is called on to the case. Mollel, with his fine-tuned sense for justice, is determined to discover what happened to this young woman, regardless of her profession or her tribal affiliation.

The other investigating officers assume the murder is just the bad-end of a prostitution lifestyle. They also consider the possibility this is a female circumcision gone wrong, since the Massai still maintain the practice when women come of age. Mollel, unwilling to accept these explanations, follows the clues—through sewers, along back streets and alleys—all the way up to Nairobi’s upper classes.

[You can never be sure where the clues will lead...]

Arclight by Josin L. McQuein is a young adult novel with a dystopian setting that was recently optioned for film (available April 23, 2013).

Arclight is the last haven for humankind in this dystopian debut novel by Josin L. McQuein. The world has been overridden by creatures known as the Fade, and the remaining humans have converged in this compound for their own protection. Every night the Arclight glows brightly to keep the Fade—who hate the Light—at bay.

Then one day, out of the Dark—the territory of the Fade—Marina arrives at the Arclight. She is the first human the other survivors have seen in years. A miracle. But she has no memory of her past, no clue where she came from or what was chasing her in the Dark. As Marina struggles to fit into the society of the Arclight, facing the suspicions of her peers and the questions of the elders, the Fade attacks on the Arclight increase. Until finally it becomes clear: something has followed her out of the Dark.

[Is it something nice? No, probably not...]

The One I Left Behind by Jennifer McMahon is a literary thriller with Gothic overtones—and a serial killer (available January 2, 2013).

In 1985 Regina Dufrane’s mother, Vera, was the last known victim of a serial killer called Neptune who would leave the severed hands of his victims on the steps of the Brighton Falls police department, then—exactly five days later—leave the bodies out in a public space. When Neptune kidnapped Vera, he left her hand just like the others. Then he disappeared. Five days came and went. Vera’s body was never found.

Twenty-five years later Reggie, now a successful award-winning architect, receives the inevitable phone call. Vera has been found. Alive. Now Reggie is called back to a home she’s been avoiding for years in order to help her mother. And, while finding Vera alive is both strange and wonderful—a crazy kind of mixed blessing—someone has come back to Brighton Falls with Reggie’s mother: the killer who left her alive.

Jennifer McMahon’s new novel, The One I Left Behind, is a literary thriller filled with beautifully flawed characters (including one very believable serial killer), dark secrets, and psychological twists and turns. In the Dufrane family, McMahon has created a foundation of mistrust that calls to mind Gothic ghost stories. In Reggie’s friends, she has created characters that feel and behave just like real people: confused, angry, and loving all at the same time. And in Neptune McMahon has created a killer who is frightening, not because of his kills, but because of what he’s willing to do before he kills.

[Do we want to know what that is? Of course we do!]

In Frozen by Kate Watterson, detective Ellie MacIntosh hunts a killer of women through the Wisconsin winter (available December 24, 2012).

Three women have disappeared from a small town in northern Wisconsin and it’s up to Detective Ellie MacIntosh to find them. Unfortunately, the person taking these women leaves behind no clues. Cars are found empty, with no trace fibers or fingerprints. The women are not seen or heard from again. For seventeen months the investigation remains at a standstill while families worry and Ellie grows more and more frustrated.

Frozen, the new novel by Kate Watterson, presents northern Wisconsin in a shivery new light. Here the characters navigate a harsh landscape—both internally and externally. Detective Ellie MacIntosh is determined to find the man taking these women. In order to figure out his game, she has to survive the inhospitable environment of a snowy Wisconsin season and discover just what role a handsome semi-local plays in the whole tangle. Is he just an innocent guy up for a vacation? Is he an unlikely ally? Or is he something much, much worse?

[We already have chills!]

The Explorer by James Smythe is a science fiction thriller set in deep space (available January 2, 2013).

When journalist Cormac Easton is selected to document the first manned mission into deep space, he dreams of securing his place in history as one of humanity’s great explorers.

But in space, nothing goes according to plan.

The crew wake from hypersleep to discover their captain dead in his allegedly fail-proof safety pod. They mourn, and Cormac sends a beautifully written eulogy back to Earth. The word from ground control is unequivocal: no matter what happens, the mission must continue.

But as the body count begins to rise, Cormac finds himself alone and spiraling toward his own inevitable death . . . unless he can do something to stop it.

To start: the crew of the Ishiguro all die. Arlen—the first pilot—dies when his stasis bed malfunctions. Tech Wanda “Dogsbody” gets a tear and she doesn’t make it back from a walk outside the ship. Guy has a heart attack. Quinn’s head breaks against machinery in a freak accident. Emmy, the doctor, is sedated and never wakes again. Cormac sits alone with a computer he doesn’t understand. And that’s just the first chapter.

James Smythe’s science fiction thriller The Explorer doesn’t pull any punches. Smythe presents the lonely vastness of space by introducing us to a dead crew. The ship feels haunted. Something has gone amazingly, incredibly wrong.

[Now there’s an understatement...]

Swift Run by Laura DiSilverio is the third in the Charlie Swift humorous mystery series (available November 27, 2012).

Swift Run is an appropriate title for this third installment in Laura DiSilverio’s Swift series. In this fast-paced novel, Charlotte “Charlie” Swift returns to work after suffering a bullet-in-the-tush to help her hapless partner Gigi Goldman find her husband, Les. Lots of running and hijinks ensue.

Gigi takes center stage in this novel when her husband—ex-husband—disappears. The twist is that Les has already disappeared, jumping the marriage-and-family and heading to Costa Rica with a sexy woman named Heather-Anne Pawlusik. So there Gigi is, trying to learn the ropes of private investigation work, keeping what’s left of her fragile family together, when Heather-Anne waltzes into Swift Investigations to hire her to find Les:

[You know this is gonna be good]

Young Philby by Robert Littell is a possible history, the imagined events that might have created one of the world’s most notorious double agents, Harold Adrian Russell Philby, better known as “Kim” (available November 13, 2012).

Police, when working a murder case, compile a Homicide Notebook, which is exactly what it sounds like. Detectives pull together all the evidence: photographs, evidence logs, crime scene sketches, witness statements, etc. Then they index everything so that it’s easy to find for trial.

Reading a Homicide Notebook is an intense experience, especially when you get to the people who actually witnessed an event. Some people say the car was purple, other say it was definitely red. The eyewitness testimony becomes mixed and muddled, but you still have the sense that you understand what actually happened because, somehow, every witness was telling his own truth…and therefore everything—and nothing—was true.

[What is the truth, anyway?]

The Colony by A.J. Colucci is a horror thriller featuring swarming killer ants (available November 13, 2012).

In 1954, during the age of atomic bomb testing, a movie came out that drove home to the world the idea of mutated, violent, aggressive ants: the horror classic Them. That movie preyed on 1950s fears:  the consequences of atomic testing, government manipulation, and the fear of being eaten alive by insects.

Author A.J. Colucci has taken the ant-as-enemy storyline and updated it in her new novel The Colony. Today we don’t fear Russian satellites, we fear bio- and eco-terrorism. We fear too much government control and not enough transparency—who is experimenting with what? And where?

And Colucci definitely plays with the never-gets-old fear of being eaten alive by insects.

[The ants go marching one by one...thousand...]

The Shadow Society by Marie Rutkoski is a young adult paranormal mystery (available October 16, 2012).

It is every teenager’s dream to find out that they are part of something special. They want to find out they have magical powers and can go to wizarding boarding schools. They dream of being whisked away to far-off lands through a wardrobe.

But….

In some cases the dream means just being a part of a normal family. And that happens to be the case with the main character in Marie Rutkoski’s new novel The Shadow Society. Sixteen-year-old Darcy Jones has been shuffled from foster home to foster home, unable to remember anything before she was abandoned outside a fire station in Chicago, so a dream of normalcy means more to her than most teenagers. 

[Are a stable family and a white picket fence too much to ask for?]

Fourmile by Watt Key is a middle grade suspenseful adventure book featuring a young boy and his dog (available September 18, 2012).

Watt Key returns to the themes of survival and justice in his newest novel for middle grade readers, Fourmile. Twelve year old Foster is attempting to adjust to a life without his father—an impossible task as he is confronted by his mother’s violent, abusive boyfriend, Dax. Hope arrives in the unlikely form of a stranger, a former soldier named Gary Conway, who quickly becomes part of Foster’s farm life in southern Alabama. Perhaps with Gary’s help, Foster can reconnect with his mother, get rid of Dax, and gain his life back. But Gary has his own secrets.

[Don’t we all?]