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Falling into Crime comprises the first three of Penny Grubb’s private investigator crime novels. This re-edited trilogy follows Annie Raymond from her first chaotic venture into her chosen profession, through her early struggles, to her emergence as a true professional. It’s a page-turning, fast and turbulent ride, leaving Annie no space to appraise the ambition that took her life on this particular course. Once forced to face it, she knows that a fundamental re-evaluation is long overdue, but the push comes from an unwelcome source that proves more of a threat than anything she has faced before.

The trilogy includes the winner of the 2004 international Crime Writers’ Association Dagger, The Doll Makers, along with John Creasy Dagger nominee, Like False Money, and The Jawbone Gang.

Rory Redman’s exploits might drive his contemporaries to rage and himself to insolvency, but he has never put anyone in real danger – before now. His desperation for money drives him to accept a commission that he knows has crossed a line.

Do the job, collect the fee, and don’t look in the envelope.

All he has to do is keep a lid on his curiosity and his troubles are behind him. But Rory Redman was never one to deny an impulse. There is a heart-stopping inevitability about the way his choices funnel him ever further from safety and ever further from home. The mutual attraction between him and Ariadne Sowerby might be the route to salvation except that both strive to hide their feelings and Rory’s suicidal curiosity focuses on Klarissa Alterleta, the strange woman whose antics escalated his minor troubles into the stratosphere.

Makeover by Barbara Lorna Hudson is a sharply observed and hard-hitting work of women’s fiction that explores the twists and turns of life and relationships as it follows the fortunes of Lucille, twice divorced and twice the victim of abusive marriage, and Oxford don Walter, still mourning the death of his wife.

In their own very different worlds, they both know that they have to move on and grasp new opportunities, but neither is prepared for the severe lessons they have yet to learn.

Mark Henderson’s novel, The Engklimastat (“that which prevents or stops crime or law-breaking”) weaves a fast-paced story of drama, treachery and love around the question posed by the title; what would happen to modern society if crime became impossible? The story weaves nail-biting drama into moments of laugh-out-loud hilarity as it follows Henderson’s unlikely protagonists, the hapless Solomon Threep and the dynamic Theresa Greene, who are both used and pursued by the demon Hypostates. As the drama unfolds it becomes only too clear, with the logical inevitability that is Henderson’s trademark, how much modern society relies on crime just to function, let alone to flourish.

Listen to Mark's interview with Talk Radio Europe's Hannah Murray on 'the book programme' here.

The Star Protocol is a fast-moving science-fiction adventure, a first novel by the Marett brothers, Ramon and Simon, each of whom is an experienced writer. The story opens in the deserts of Iraq with a chase that becomes a hostage situation, as the hunters become the quarry. Delta Force soldiers, Will and Dash, along with their British MI6 colleague, John, are on the trail of a known terrorist who they have cornered inside the ancient temple of Ur. Flushing him out should be routine, but they are wary of ambush in this maze-like structure, and they must be quick, there are others hunting them and closing in. When they discover that there are civilian archaeologists inside who have been taken hostage, they are horrified. But when the temple shows its age-old secret, they find out what trouble really means.

Coming soon ...

The Triple Goddess is a fantasy extravaganza that mixes magic, legend, love and humour into a utopian/dystopian future world. Michael James’ debut novel charts the devastating consequences of freedom abused, of power misused and of evil intentions allowed to prosper. The world is advised to fasten its collective seatbelt because serious turbulence is on its way.

In Jack Mann’s science fiction epic, Gravity’s Arrow, 12-year-old Fhiro sits expectantly and impatiently at the edge of adulthood unaware of tensions in the world around him until catastrophe strikes and he and his family are forced to flee. They are disciples of the Creedate, but have spoken out against the expansionist goals of extremists who have taken over their religion. In a precipitous escape, it becomes clear that Fhiro’s parents have planned for this betrayal, and these preparations are not the only things they have kept hidden from Fhiro and his two siblings.