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.

Guido Brunetti is baffled by the apparent murder of a seemingly innocuous immigrant man, until a connection to his own youthful past resolves the story of the man's death, and a decades-old disappearance. On a cold November evening, Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague alerts him that a hand has been seen in one of Venice's canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. He is forced to use the city's far richer sources of information - gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim to discover that he had been living in a small house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor. There Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim's interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s. As the investigation expands, the puzzle uses random information about real estate and land use, books and university friendships and then Brunetti stumbles over something that transports him back to his own student days, causing him to reflect on lost ideals and the errors of youth, on Italian politics and history, and on the accidents that sometimes lead to discovery. A story of justice and vengeance and with charming classical allusions which makes you smile. With maps on endpapers, 262pp fairly large print.

Elly Griffith described this Good Housekeeping Book of the Year as 'spellbinding' and Marian Keyes as 'unusual, beautiful, feminist, gripping, deserves to win prizes. I loved it so much.' It is a brave and timely novel which will fuel the debate on women's rights to walk safely through our streets and is not just another crime fiction novel about a dead girl. When she arrived in New York on her 18th birthday carrying nothing but $600 cash and a stolen camera, Alice was looking for a fresh start. Now just one month later she is the city's latest Jane Doe, an unidentified murder victim. Ruby Jones is also trying to start over. She travelled halfway round the world only to find herself lonelier than ever, until she finds Alice Lee's body by the Hudson River. From this first, devastating encounter, the two women form an unbreakable bond. Alice is sure that Ruby is the key to solving the mystery of her life - and death, and Ruby, struggling to forget what she saw that morning finds herself unable to let Alice go. Not until she is given the ending she deserves. With luminous prose, this is a brilliantly clever and original novel and a lyrical story of friendship from beyond the grave. 322pp, paperback with fairly large print.

It is the end of a wet English August and the Larkins, all ten of them, including little Oscar, the family's latest addition, bundle into the old Rolls and cross the Channel to escape the angry elements. But far from being the balmy, sunny and perfick spot Ma Larkin hoped for, France and the French prove not so welcoming to an eccentric English family. The tea's weak, the furniture breakable, and the hotel manager is almost as hostile as the wind and the rain they've brought with them. And when the manager learns that Ma and Pop are unmarried yet sharing a room, the trouble really begins. 'Very racy, earthy. Rabelaisian.' - The Spectator. 137pp, Penguin paperback.

'Teetotal!' Ma said. 'It's a libel. He'll never live it down. What's he going to say when anybody asks him to have one?' 'You'll have to strap him down... You'll have to put the handcuffs on.' After a mild heart attack caused by rather too much of what you fancy, Pop Larkin finds himself off the booze, off the good food, and off the good life generally much to his own and everyone else's horror and upset. Meanwhile Ma tries to find ways around 'doctor's orders', young Primrose is finding her own way round a rather flustered if not to say flushed Mr Candy, and high mid-summer pomps of tree and flower are evoked with gusto. 188pp, Penguin paperback.

A spellbinding collection of 15 stories from the multimillion copy, internationally bestselling author, this edition has an introduction by Lucinda Riley. In The Holiday, a wife surprises her husband of 25 years with a trip full of Mediterranean sunshine, red rocks and blue seas in an effort to rekindle the romance they had before they had children. Skelmerton takes the reader to the bright spring sunshine and sparkling waves of a Northumbrian village where old flames meet again. In A Place Like Home, a lonely young woman goes to recuperate in the Scottish countryside after a brief illness. The fruit orchards and fresh sea air offer much needed respite, but not as much as the handsome and mysterious farmer. Featuring some wonderfully memorable, clever and feisty female characters which will transport the reader to another time and place, the writer has a comforting, nostalgic style and signature insight into domestic hopes and yearnings. 285pp, paperback, line art.

A lone gunman takes the women and doctors at a controversial abortion clinic hostage. Nobody has ended up there by choice. As the tense negotiation for their release unfolds, hour by crucial hour, back in time through the day that brought the hostages and their captor to this moment, every certainty is questioned, every judgement thrown into sharp relief because matters of life and death look very different when you, or the ones you love, are staring down the barrel of a gun. The novel propels the reader through intertwining characters and uncovers motives in this unflinching exploration of what makes a life. Picoult?s technicolour prose is full of nuggets like: 'Coal, with time and heat and pressure, will always become a diamond. But if you are freezing to death, which would you consider the gem?' 355pp, paperback.

By the author the immensely popular North Country sagas, here is a compelling story of family heartbreak and tragedy. Can he find his children before everything is lost? Unable to cope with raising his children alone, Robert Sullivan abandons three year old Nancy and seven year old Jack to those he believes can provide them with a better life. However he quickly has a change of heart and goes back for them, but on the way there, he is involved in an horrific accident. Jack and Nancy are placed in the brutal regime of the Galloway Children's Home, where Jack's fiery temper lands him in trouble. Clinging together, the children find themselves at the mercy of the corrupt Clive Ennington. As Robert recovers in hospital he is determined to reunite his family, but he soon realises the terrible consequences of his cowardly actions, and wonders if he will ever see his children again. Pure escapism, you will find a few tears but believe in the characters by this gifted writer. 452pp, paperback.

An unforgettable and dramatic tale of the lingering power of past betrayals. Past tragedies have cast a menacing shadow on the happiness of two families. 10 years ago Louise Hunter's life was torn apart when her husband Ben killed himself, her brother-in-law Jacob was murdered and her sister Susan abandoned her new-born daughter. Louise remains haunted by guilt over the one night she spent with Ben's friend Eric, and refuses to return Eric's love. But after adopting Jinnie, she finds new happiness - until Susan decides she wants Jinnie back. Meanwhile Adam and Hannah, whose mother was killed with Jacob, are on the run. What Adam witnessed on that dreadful night has put them all in danger, but their beloved grandmother knows that one day they must return to the place where it all began. A novel of heartache, greed and jealousy by this popular storyteller. 292pp, paperback.

Jenna Metcalf was with her mother the night she disappeared in tragic and mysterious circumstances, but she remembers nothing. Over 10 years have passed and still Jenna reads and rereads her mother's journals, hoping to find some clue hidden there in the meticulous recording of her scientific research with elephants. Desperate for answers, Jenna uses all her savings to recruit the aid of a private detective, and a psychic. Jenna knows her mother loved her and knows she would not leave her, and she will not rest until she finds out what happened that night to Alice after the car accident, as she retraces the events of that fateful night, but nothing can prepare her for the answers that await. An addictive novel full of twists and turns. If this author has passed you by until now, try her out. 480pp, paperback.