Prostitute Lizzie Hardwicke accepts an opportunity to step out of her life at Ma Farley's Bawdy House in Soho and begin an undercover assignment for the Bow Street magistrate. Her temporary position as a costume seamstress on Drury Lane places her behind the scenes. She realises that what goes on in the wings is far more intriguing than the theatrics on stage. When a man is brutally hanged at the theatre and Lizzie discovers the body, she is once again thrown together with handsome Inspector Will Davenport. She will have to use every trick she has hidden up her sleeves to bring the culprit into the spotlight. Witty, even a little bit romantic, and with all the historical landscape of the mid 18th century. 330pp, paperback.

One of Brazil's most exciting novelists writes in a charming and chilling prose, drawing the reader directly into the mind of a man who has committed patricide. Part psychological thriller, part intellectual puzzle, the novel plays on some of humankind's most profound archetypes and fables, all the while lulling the reader with the brilliance of its voice. 'The day I killed my father was a bright day, although the light was hazy, without shadows or contours.' So begins this unforgettable work of suspense, tragedy and profound reflection on the human soul. It is a bold and stark book drawing on complex themes of religion, philosophy and literature in seeking to understand the nature of evil. Absorbing and at times quite funny, Sabino handles his subject with humour and imagination in a book which is chilling and sad, even on the same page, and we are driven to the conclusion with voyeuristic horror. The bleak relationship between son and father is told in a relatively short account in two parts, the first our protagonist narrating his experiences by addressing the reader to offer philosophical explorations as to why he felt compelled to abruptly end his father's life. Frequent literary and religious references are woven into the text to support his reasoning. The second section is an excerpt from a book he has written, presumably while incarcerated. The only connection between father and son had been money. His emotionally constipated father had funded his lifestyle in Paris where he met his gorgeous wife and has his allowance increased as a reward. 183pp, paperback.

From the author of the lost masterpiece 'Tony and Susan' comes a deeply intelligent and utterly thrilling novel about a kidnapped baby, a religious cult, and our collective need for gurus and gods, whether sacred or profane. Harry Field is an elderly professor looking after his baby granddaughter. He allows Oliver, the child's absentee father, to take her to the park. Only too late do Harry and his daughter Judy realise that the child has fallen into the hands of the cult to which Oliver belongs, a group led by Miller, a dangerous man who claims to be God. An edge-of-the-seat 'metaphysical thriller'. 338pp, paperback.

A secret room, a silent girl, a shocking truth. Evie Cormac was found at a murder scene six years ago, hiding in a secret room. She has never revealed her real name, why she was in that house, or what she saw. Forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven wants to help the traumatised teenager and thinks unravelling her secrets will free her from the past. But he has no idea what he is about to unleash. Ignoring her warnings, he digs deep into her past only to disturb a hornet's nest of corrupt and powerful people who have been waiting to find Evie, the final witness to their crimes. Unbeknownst to him, Cyrus is leading them straight to her. The truth could get them both killed. Told with a relentless pace, this is a clever, intriguing and compelling book, suspenseful and with a strong emotional pull. Before becoming a bestselling novelist, Michael Robotham covered the serial killings of Fred and Rosemary West as a journalist. 476pp, paperback.

As in his previous Inspector Troy novels, John Lawton is a master of amalgamating true-life events into his imaginative plots. London 1958. Chief Superintendent Frederick Troy of Scotland Yard, newly promoted after good service during Nikita Khrushchev's visit to Britain, is not looking forward to a European trip with his older brother, Rod. Rod has decided to take his entire family on 'the Grand Tour' for his 51st birthday - a whirlwind of restaurants, galleries and concert halls from Paris to Florence to Vienna to Amsterdam. But in Vienna Frederick Troy crosses paths with an old acquaintance, British spy turned Soviet-agent Guy Burgess, who will make an extraordinary confession: 'I want to come home.' Troy knows this news will cause a ruckus in London, but he doesn't expect that an MI5 man will be gunned down as a result and Troy finds himself suspected of the crime. As he fights to prove his innocence, Troy finds that Burgess is not the only ghost who has returned to haunt him. With convincing descriptions of people and places. 341pp, paperback.

Six gorgeously eerie stories exploring the deepest entwining of lust and repulsion, creation and dissolution, Eros and Thanatos. 'The Woman In the Window' opens with a naked woman seated in front of the window of an apartment she cannot afford. The reader enters the minds of both the woman and her married lover, each consumed by alternating thoughts of disgust and arousal, as he rushes to her door. In 'The Long-Legged Girl', an ageing, jealous wife crafts an unusual game of Russian roulette involving a pair of Wedgwood teacups, a strong Bengal brew, and a lethal concoction. Who will drink from the wrong cup, the wife or the dance student she believes to be her husband's latest conquest? 'The Experimental Subject' involves secret, forbidden research conducted on a naively trusting young woman by a laboratory of unscrupulous scientists at a major American university. In 'Night-Gaunts', a fantastic ode to H. P. Lovecraft, the young Horace Phineas Love Jr. is haunted by apparitions after the death of his tortured father. Revelling in the uncanny, and rich in conversation with other creative minds, the collection stands at the crossroads of sex, violence and longing as we interrogate the impulses within ourselves. Socially astute and stylishly written short stories. 333pp, paperback.

Cutting between a courtroom trial and the events surrounding it, you will be racing through to the final tense pages, full of betrayal, revenge and shocking revelations in this Jack Parlabane thriller from the Scottish crime writer. It tells the potent story of a woman who thought she was too late for love, the man who falls for her ambition, and the secret selves that are poised at any moment to end everything. Diana Jager is clever, strong and successful, a skilled surgeon and fierce campaigner via her blog about sexism in medicine. Yet it takes only hours for her life to crumble when her personal details are released on the internet as revenge for her writing. Then she meets Peter, kind, generous, and knows nothing about her past - the second chance she's been waiting for. Within six months they are married. Within six more, Peter is dead in a road accident, a nightmare end to their fairy-tale romance, but Peter's sister Lucy doesn't believe in fairy tales, and tasks disgraced reporter Jack Parlabane with discovering the dark truth behind the woman the media is calling the Black Widow. Still smarting from his own relationship wounds after a turbulent divorce, Jack's investigation into matters of the heart takes him to hidden places, both online and off, where most would never dream of having to go. 422pp.

'Seven gothic tales that plumb the depths of women who, whatever their age, always seem to stand on the threshold of the heart-breaking tides of adolescence...' - Kirkus Reviews. The latest collection from exquisite prose stylist Joyce Carol Oates focusses on the inner lives of vulnerable girls and women, some victimised, others provoked by deep emotional unrest, to commit violence against others. In the title story, a precocious 11-year-old named Jill is in thrall to an older male relative, the mysterious, attractive black sheep of the family. Without telling her parents she climbs into his sky blue Chevy to be driven to an uncertain, and unforgettable, fate. In 'The Crawl Space', a widow obsessively returns to the house she once shared with her husband, until an invitation from the new owners to come inside takes a turn for the menacing. In 'The Drowned Girl', a university transfer student becomes increasingly obsessed with the drowning/murder of another female student as her own sense of self begins to deteriorate. In the final story 'Welcome to Friendly Skies!' a trusting group of bird-watchers is borne to a remote part of the globe and to a harrowing fate. 237pp.

From Ireland's most lyrical crime fiction writer this is an addictive series setting a falling Irish angel Jack Taylor against a dangerous band of heretics. Bruen brings his elegiac talents to bear on a case involving a famously blasphemous red book and his equally profane anti-hero Jack Taylor. As well-versed in politics, pop culture, and crime fiction as he is ill-fated in life, Taylor is recovering from a failed suicide attempt. In need of money, and with former cop on his resumé, Taylor had been hired as a night-shift security guard. But his Ukrainian boss has him in mind for some unexpected off-the-books work. He wants Taylor to find what some claim to be the first true book of heresy, 'The Red Book', currently in the possession of a rogue priest who is hiding out in Galway after fleeing a position at the Vatican. Despite Taylor's distaste for priests of any stripe, the money is too good to turn down. M, the woman-of-many-guises who has had an eye on Jack's heart and mind for the past two years, reappears and turns out to be tangled up with the story of the Red Book, leading him down ever more mysterious and lethal pathways. The novel twists towards a violent end as Jack is increasingly plagued by ghosts and by the disposable and disposed of a city filled with as much darkness as the deepest corners of Jack's own mind. 330pp. Stylistically, very short sentences.

Another award-winning bestseller, here is an instalment from the iconic series featuring psychological profiler Tony Hill and former police detective Carol Jordan. In the north of England, a wedding crasher is luring single women away from weddings, only to leave the victims' bodies in their own burned-out cars in remote locations. With no personal clues or forensic traces left behind, it may be the toughest case Tony and Carol have ever had to face, and it's the first official case for Carol's elite Regional Major Incident Team. As the tension swells on all sides, it "comes together in an ending that hits like a bomb blast" Globe and Mail raved, but other critics have been disappointed. For Val's fans, at this price, see for yourself. 435pp, paperback.