A Dr Ruth Galloway mystery which is highly atmospheric and one of the excellent and delightful series. Two women are murdered in the shrine town of Walsingham, north Norfolk, not far from Dr Ruth Galloway's home. It's a place famous for hosting visions of the Virgin Mary and full of superstition. DCI Nelson finds it a frustrating town in which to separate fact from religious myth. A friend of Ruth's who is a priest has been receiving threats and the letter writer knows far more about her than they should, and the letters suggest Ruth's friend will be next. There is an avenging angel on the loose in Walsingham and Ruth had better pray that she and Nelson find them before they strike again. 358pp with Who's Who from the mystery series. Paperback.

'Oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. They nest in Time. They make the flesh that holds fast and binds eternity.' 'Is Death important? No. everything that happens before Death is what counts.' 'Evil has only the power that we give it. I give you nothing. I take back. Starve. Starve. Starve.' For over 70 years Ray Bradbury inspired generations of readers to dream, think and create with his close to 50 books. Now reprinted in this Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks paperback with an introduction by Michael Dirda, we can enjoy once again Bradbury's most poignant evocation of the hopes and frustrations of smalltown life, in a timeless rite-of-passage book. It's the week before Halloween, and Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois. The siren song of the calliope entices all with promises of youth regained and dreams fulfilled. As the two boys trembling on the brink of manhood set out to explore the mysteries of the dark carnival's smoke, mazes and mirrors, they will also discover the true price of innermost wishes. The novel describes late October so well you can almost smell the woodsmoke and Mr Dark is the perfect villain among the assorted freaks of the carnival and the menagerie of ghouls. 262pp, paperback.

A classic novel about smuggling, intrigue and love. Harry Morgan is an honest man who is forced into running contraband between Cuba and Key West to make a living during the Depression from his motorboat in Florida. His adventures lead him into the world of the wealthy and dissipated yachtsmen who throng the region and involve him in a strange and unlikely love affair. Although he normally takes out fishing parties, sometimes his boat can be put to other uses and if the money offered is worth his while, Harry will run guns, rum and men to and from Cuba, but he is playing a dicey game. In this harshly realistic, yet oddly tender and wise novel, Ernest Hemingway perceptively delineates the personal struggles of both the 'haves' and the 'have nots' and his hardest hero risks not just his living, but his life. By turns funny and tragic, lively and poetic, this is literary high adventure at its finest. 180pp, paperback.

A haunting thriller with intriguing characters and surprising twists about the secrets that families keep. The Keane sisters grew up together at Raven House, a luxurious riverside home that their mother inherited. On the day of a party at the house, tension fills the air as Jess, Natalie and Teresa all fear the exposure of things they're desperate to hide. The beautiful evening is marred by tragedy and the celebration turns into a nightmare when a young life is lost. It is a haunting reminder of a shocking event five years earlier. As guests eye their companions with suspicion, it's the family who have the most to hide. They turn on one another, with breathtaking malice and irrevocable consequences. Years later the sisters are barely hanging on to the scraps of their relationship. As another family celebration looms, long-held secrets come rushing to the surface. Someone is determined that the past will stay dead and buried and will stop at nothing to prevent their mistakes being uncovered. Which sister has the most to hide? 384pp, paperback.

By the author of the bestselling Cromwell series and 'The Mirror and the Light', this suspenseful novel is a masterpiece of dark humour and even darker secrets and has now made it on to the Collins Modern Classics series. Alison Hart, a medium by trade, tours the dormitory towns of London's orbital ring road with her flint-hearted sidekick Colette, passing on messages from beloved dead ancestors. But behind her plump, smiling persona hides a desperate woman. She knows the terrors the next life holds, but must conceal them from her wide-eyed clients. At the same time she is plagued by spirits from her own past who infiltrate her body and home, becoming stronger and nastier the more she resists. The novel was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. 451pp, paperback.

With titles like The Chocolate War, The Birthday Lunch, Oystercatcher, A Market Tale and Fifty Million Bubbles, you may be sure that champagne and gastronomy will feature as well as cosy crime in Dangerous Vacation. A bumper collection of delightful stories featuring Bruno, Chief of Police, France's favourite cop, all the stories are set in the beautiful Dordogne valley and the ravishing Périgord region of southwest France with its lush hillsides and spreading vineyards, delicious local wines and world-renowned cuisine. Bruno strides through the tales staying calm, settling local disputes, and keeping safe his beloved town of St Denis. On only one occasion does he panic when his friend Ivan, proprietor and chef of the town's popular eatery, suddenly collapses on the eve of a large anniversary dinner and asks Bruno to take over the restaurant. Can he save the day? 272pp in large format softback with fairly large print.

A prizewinning novel and you will never guess the ending. A photograph is hung on a gallery wall for the very first time since it was taken two decades previously, showing a slaughter house in rural Ireland, a painting of the Virgin Mary on the wall, a meat hook suspended from the ceiling - and from its sharp point, the lifeless body of a man hanging by his feet. The story of who he is and how he got there casts back into Irish folklore, of widows cursing the land, and of the men who slaughtered its cattle by hand. But modern Ireland is distrustful of ancient traditions, and as the BSE crisis in England presents get-rich opportunities in Ireland, few care about The Butchers, the eight men who roam the country slaughtering the cows of those who still have faith in the old ways. Few care that is except for Fionn, the husband of a dying woman who still believes; their son Davey, who has fallen in love with the youngest of the Butchers; Gra, the lonely wife of one of the eight; and her 12 year old daughter Una, a girl who will grow up to carry a knife like her father, and who will be the one finally to avenge the man in the photograph. 'A masterful plot about pandemic and upheaval' - Irish Times. 292pp, paperback.

With Hitchcockian flair, Megan Miranda shrewdly examines what becomes of the people at the centre of those rare, sensational news stories that capture the nation's attention. In a hauntingly atmospheric and gorgeously written page turner, here is an unnerving and extremely classy thriller. When Arden Maynor was six years old, she was swept away in a terrifying storm and went missing for days. Against all odds she was found alive, clinging to a storm drain. Fame followed, and so did fans, creeps and stalkers and as soon as she was old enough, Arden changed her name and left Widow Hills behind. 20 years later Olivia as she is now known is plagued by night terrors. She often finds herself out of bed in the middle of the night, sometimes streets away from her home. Then one evening she jolts awake in her yard, with the corpse of a man at her feet. She is about to become the centre of the story, once again. Sleepwalking in her garden, it seems the trauma of her past has resurfaced and her new life might be about to unravel. Her fears are compounded when someone in her grocery store calls her by her old name. Soon she starts to doubt everyone around her. Why is her neighbour Rick so keen to tidy the crime scene and why have her belongings been moved? Why is the sleep specialist she has been seeing so keen for her to take part in a sleep trial and why is the son of the dead man trying too hard to say he believes her? 323pp, paperback.

A young woman emerges from a coma. Who is she, and why was she dumped unconscious in a hospital car park upon a dark night? She is unable to recall anything, even her name. Then Ada Shaftsbury, a boisterous shoplifter she meets in a homeless hostel, takes up her cause and names her Rose. Peter Diamond is already investigating a suspicious death - a woman has plunged from the roof of Bath's Royal Crescent during a party, and none of the guests seem to know who she is. Badgered by Ada and galvanised by another gruesome death, Diamond takes on the case and is soon forced to admit that Rose is the key. But she has disappeared, and Diamond's own dark night is just beginning. Lovesey amply demonstrates his gifts as the grand master of the contemporary whodunnit in this elaborate plot with architecture as perfect as the city he writes about. 344pp, paperback.

The gifted Venetian detective returns in his 31st case, this time investigating the Janus-faced nature of yet another Italian institution. What role can or should loyalty play in the life of a police inspector? It's a question Commissario Guido Brunetti must face when he is approached for a favour by Elisabetta Foscarini, a woman he knows only casually. However her mother was good to Brunetti's mother, so he feels obliged to at least look into the matter privately. Foscarini's son-in-law Enrico Fenzo has alarmed his wife by confessing their family might be in danger because of something he's involved with. Since Fenzo is an accountant, Brunetti logically suspects that the cause of danger is related to the finances of a client, yet his clients seem benign - an optician, a restaurateur, a charity established by his father-in-law. However when Foscarini's daughter's place of work is vandalized, Brunetti asks his own favours - that his colleagues assist his private investigation which soon turns official as they uncover the dark nature and the wobbly line between the criminal and non-criminal world. Written in an elegant, witty prose, Donna Leon uses the relatively small canvas of Venice for rips about Italian life, sexual styles and best of all the kind of ingrown business and political corruption that seems to lurk just below the surface. Endpapers have maps, 294pp with fairly large print.