From electrifying horror author Nick Cutter comes a haunting new novel, reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and Stephen King’s It, in which a trio of mismatched mercenaries is hired by a young woman for a deceptively simple task: check in on her nephew, who may have been taken against his will to a remote New Mexico backwoods settlement called Little Heaven. Shortly after they arrive, things begin to turn ominous. Stirrings in the woods and over the treetops—the brooding shape of a monolith known as the Black Rock casts its terrible pall. Paranoia and distrust grips the settlement. The escape routes are gradually cut off as events spiral towards madness. Hell—or the closest thing to it—invades Little Heaven. The remaining occupants are forced to take a stand and fight back, but whatever has cast its dark eye on Little Heaven is now marshalling its powers…and it wants them all. It’s weird, I was struck with a couple of different impressions almost immediately I started reading Little Heaven. Firstly, eating a ham sandwich when you’re reading horror was a rookie mistake. Secondly, and more importantly, I felt in some respects I was reading a Western. So much so I had…

Sixteen years. That’s how long Clyde Barr has been away from Colorado’s thick forests, alpine deserts, and craggy peaks, running from a past filled with haunting memories. But now he’s back, having roamed across three continents as a hunter, adventurer, soldier of fortune, and most recently, unjustly imprisoned convict. And once again, his past is reaching out to claim him. By the light of a flickering campfire, Clyde received a frantic phone call for help from Jen, the youngest of his three older sisters. Then the line goes dead. Clyde doesn’t know how much time he has. He doesn’t know where Jen is located. He doesn’t even know who has her. All he knows is that nothing short of dying will stop him from saving her. Tagging along with Clyde on this strange, desperate, against-all-odds rescue mission is a young woman named Allie whose motivations for hurtling into harm’s way are fascinatingly complex. As the duo races against the clock, it is Allie who gets Clyde to see what he has become and what he can be. Time for another debut novel and this time out we’re into the realms of the old school thriller. When we first meet Clyde…

Kick Lannigan, 21, is a survivor. Abducted at age six in broad daylight, the police, the public, perhaps even her family assumed the worst had occurred. And then Kathleen Lannigan was found, alive, six years later. In the early months following her freedom, as Kick struggled with PTSD, her parents put her through a litany of therapies, but nothing helped until the detective who rescued her suggested Kick learn to fight. Before she was thirteen, Kick learned marksmanship, martial arts, boxing, archery, and knife throwing. She excelled at every one, vowing she would never be victimized again. But when two children in the Portland area go missing in the same month, Kick goes into a tailspin. Then an enigmatic man Bishop approaches her with a proposition: he is convinced Kick’s experiences and expertise can be used to help rescue the abductees. Little does Kick know the case will lead directly into her terrifying past… I like to throw the odd crime novel into my reading schedule every now and again. Like historical fiction, I’ve only started reading crime in the last couple of years, but in that short period of time I’ve been lucky enough to read some fine examples…

Detective Robert Hunter of the LAPD’s Homicide Special Section receives an anonymous call asking him to go to a specific web address – a private broadcast. Hunter logs on and a show devised for his eyes only immediately begins. But the caller doesn’t want Detective Hunter to just watch, he wants him to participate, and refusal is simply not an option. Forced to make a sickening choice, Hunter must sit and watch as an unidentified victim is tortured and murdered live on the Internet.   The LAPD, together with the FBI, use everything at their disposal to electronically trace the transmission, but this killer is no amateur, and he has covered his tracks from start to finish. And before Hunter and his partner Garcia are even able to get their investigation going, Hunter receives a new phone call.  A new website address. A new victim. But this time the killer has upgraded his game into a live murder reality show, where anyone can cast the deciding vote. When it comes to crime and thrillers it makes sense to grab a reader’s attention from the very first page. One by One certainly achieves this as it hits the ground running. Within a…

Scholar. Warrior. Samurai. His name was Bennosuke, son of the great Munisai Shinmen, known throughout the empire as one of the greatest warriors who ever lived. His destiny was to become a great warrior like his father – a Samurai, one of the most feared and respected in the world. But before fame comes action, and Bennosuke must prove himself on the battlefield before he can claim his inheritance. And in his way stands the vengeful Kensaku, son of Lord Nakata, the face of the enemy, a man who is determined to kill Bennosuke. It is a battle between honour and vengeance, pride and reputation. And Bennosuke must look death in the eye before he can call himself a warrior. Before he can call himself Musashi, the greatest warrior of all time… I have an interest in the Far East and particularly in stories that delve into the region’s turbulent past. Strangely, the one time period I have always had a little difficulty with is feudal-era Japan. From a fiction standpoint, I’ve tried to read Shogun by James Clavell on more than one occasion and I’ve always ended up getting bogged down by the hugeness of it all. The massive…

I do hope that everyone is having a relaxing and enjoyable festive season. Now that most of the serious over-indulgence is done with for another year, I thought it was about time to take a look at what new book-related loveliness is due in 2013. Here are my top ten books I’m looking forward to reading in the next six months or so. Hope you enjoy. Ack-Ack Macaque by Gareth Powell Publication Date: 3rd January Publisher: Solaris Genre: Simian Steampunk Science Fiction The Blurb: In 1944, as waves of German ninjas parachute into Kent, Britain’s best hopes for victory lie with a Spitfire pilot codenamed ‘Ack-Ack Macaque.’ The trouble is, Ack-Ack Macaque is a cynical, one-eyed, cigar-chomping monkey, and he’s starting to doubt everything, including his own existence. A century later, in a world where France and Great Britain merged in the late 1950s and nuclear-powered Zeppelins circle the globe, ex-journalist Victoria Valois finds herself drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse with the man who butchered her husband and stole her electronic soul. Meanwhile, in Paris, after taking part in an illegal break-in at a research laboratory, the heir to the British throne goes on the run….

Fifteen years ago a young girl was brutally attacked as she picked flowers in a meadow near her parents’ Swedish country home. The crime went unreported; the victim silenced. Cut to the present. It is a bleak February morning in Stockholm, when Alex Recht’s federal investigation unit is assigned to two new cases.  A man has been killed in a hit and run. He has no identification on him, he is not reported missing nor wanted by the police. Investigative Analyst Fredrika Bergman has the task of finding out who he is. At the same time, a priest and his wife are found dead in their apartment. All evidence suggests that the priest shot his wife and the committed suicide. But is that all there is to it? Two different cases, seemingly unrelated. But it is not long before the investigations begin to converge and the police are following a trail that leads all the way back to the ’90s, to a crime that was hushed-up, but whose consequences will reach further and deeper than anyone ever expected. The cover of Silenced has a sticker on it that boldly proclaims “For fans of The Killing”. I’ve seen the television series…

Siri Bergman is terrified of the dark She lives alone, an hour outside Stockholm where she practices as a psychotherapist, her nearest neighbor far away. Siri tells her friends that she has moved on since her husband died in a diving accident. But when she goes to bed at night, she leaves all the lights on, unable to shake the feeling that someone is watching her. With the light gone, the darkness creeps inside.  One night she wakes to find the house pitch black, and the torch by her bedside has vanished. Later, the body of one of her young patients is found floating in the water nearby. Thrown headlong into a tense murder investigation, Siri finds herself unable to trust anyone, not even her closest friends. Who can she turn to for answers? The truth is hidden in the darkness. Siri is a curious character, it’s almost as though she displays two distinctly different personalities to the outside world. On one hand she is a strong, successful, self-assured doctor, but there is also the other Siri who is beset with doubt, afraid of the dark and still traumatised by the loss of her husband, Stefan. Though these are only…

When staying alive is the only game worth playing… Detective Jacob Striker has had more than his fair share of brushes with death. But this one really shocks him. When he is called to attend a suicide at a decrepit apartment on the bad side of town, the case unexpectedly brings him one step closer to home. This time the victim is not just another sad statistic – the end product of mental illness and drug addiction – this time it’s someone Striker knows and cares about. And one thing is obvious to Striker: this wasn’t a suicide. LIFE Striker’s investigation quickly leads him to the Riverglen Mental Health Facility. The victim was a patient from the support group overseen by psychiatrist Dr Erich Overmann. And when Striker discovers that Larisa Logan – a dear friend of his, is also a patient of Dr Overmann – has gone missing, his investigation goes into overdrive. OR Racing against time and a chilling adversary, Striker searches desperately for Larisa. It is a dangerous game they play, where on right step can catapult you to a place of dominance – and one wrong step can leave you sliding to your doom. DEATH? Jacob Striker comes…

Mitch Rapp is a man on a mission For months, Mitch has been working his way through a list of men responsible for the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing – bullet by bullet. His next target – a Libyan diplomat – should be easy. Prone to drink and currently is Paris without a bodyguard, Rapp quickly tracks the man down and sends a bullet into his skull while he’s sleeping. But at the moment he squeezes the trigger, the door to the hotel room is kicked open and gunfire erupts around him. A wounded Rapp escapes with his life, but when the news breaks in France he is a wanted man. His handlers have only one choice. Rapp has become a liability, and he must not be taken alive. Alone in Paris, on the run from the authorities and from his own employers, Mitch Rapp must prepare to fight for his life. Kill Shot suffers the unenviable task of try to be all things to all people. It needs to please all the existing Mitch Rapp fans out there, as this is the twelfth book in the series I imagine that there are quite a few, as well as draw in…

Jake Reese is an ordinary guy with an ordinary job, trying to block out the memory of his violent past by planning for the future with his new wife, Diane. But the past has a habit of refusing to stay buried… When two men attack Jake in a car park and cut off his ring finger, he tries to dismiss it as an unlucky case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But when events take a more sinister turn and Diane goes missing, Jake knows he can no longer hide from the truth. As he embarks on a mission to find Diane, Jake finds himself dragged back into the life he thought he had walked away from forever and the days ahead begin to unfold in terrifying ways… Occasionally I enjoy reading a novel that is totally different from my usual tastes. Sometimes I need to take a break from horror, science fiction, and fantasy, so that when I do return to them I do so with fresh eyes. A good thriller is the perfect way to do this. Any book that I choose though, still has to meet the same criteria I look for in other…

Humanity has always believed it is the only intelligent species of life in the universe. But while excavating in Israel, an archaeologist unearths a tomb that has remained hidden for 7,000 years. Inside lies a secret of such magnitude that the story of mankind is instantly rewritten – and its future thrown into terrible danger. Only one man can piece history back together again. Only one man will risk everything to prevent a catastrophe that could tear the world apart.  That man is Ethan Warner. I always envisaged that putting together a decent thriller novel is much like making a cake. There is a recipe that outlines all the key ingredients that need to be included to make it turn out perfectly. The instructions would probably read something like this. Start with a slightly jaded hero, if you can get one who has a troubled past so much the better. Add a couple of dashes of political intrigue and, if you have it, a sprinkling of potentially controversial subject matter. Mix well with a secondary narrative that will eventually shed additional light on the first, then after around six hundred pages you’ll have an ideal thriller. Covenant is a pretty good example…