The smart, electrifying noir thriller follow up to 'The Poison Artist', this may be read as a stand-alone novel. Who is Claire Gravesend? So wonders PI Lee Crowe when he finds her dead in a fine cocktail dress on top of a Rolls Royce in the most dangerous neighbourhood in San Francisco. As ever with this writer there are some quirky characters and an unpredictable plot following the harrowing apparent suicide when Claire seemingly plummeted to her death from the top of a tall building. Fresh from a surveillance job, the disbarred lawyer Lee Crowe becomes slightly obsessed with the apparent death of this beautiful woman. Claire's mother doesn't believe the coroner - her daughter did not kill herself, but questions about the Gravesend family pile up fast. Until Crowe finds their secret home in San Francisco. Sleeping in an upstairs bedroom, he finds Claire, and as far as he can tell, she's alive. A novel that is electrifying and builds from shock to shock. 358pp in large paperback with fairly large print.

Exclusive to this hardback edition is the inclusion of a short story entitled Pin. Full of betrayal, deceit and suspense, 'Die of Shame' is a novel about addiction. Every Monday evening, six people gather in a smart North London house to talk about addiction, share their deepest secrets, stories of lies, regret, and above all, shame. Then one of them is killed and it's clear one of the circle is responsible. Detective Inspector Nicola Tanner quickly finds her investigation hampered by the strict confidentiality that binds these people and their therapist together, so what could be so shameful enough to cost someone their life? And how do you find the truth when denial and deception are second nature to all of your suspects? 448pp.

1581. Young St Andrews academic Hew Cullan is unhappy with his life and disillusioned with the law. After his father's death, he is invited by the advocate Richard Cunningham to complete his legal education in Edinburgh as Richard's pupil at the bar. Among his father's things, Hew finds a manuscript entitled 'In Defence of the Law', directed to the Edinburgh printer, Christian Hall. At first, he resists its influence, but when a young girl is found dead on the beach at St Andrews, Hew is left unsettled and confused and resolves to take the book to press and agrees to Richard's offer. Embarking on his new life in the capital, he falls in love. His relationships are fraught with lies and secrets and lead to brutal murder on the borough muir. Hew suspects a link with the dead girl on the beach and as he begins his desperate search to find the killer, he finds that the truth lies closer to home. There are hints of a long-hidden mystery which draw him into a deadly game against an unrepentant foe. A superb historical thriller, 306pp in paperback.

It will be impossible to second guess the outcome of this emotional and addictive thriller. Two girls went out into the woods. Only one came back. For Tess, her older sister Bella is her whole world. She's clever and beautiful and popular, everything Tess isn't, and since the death of their mother, it's just been them and their grieving father. But now a new family has moved into the empty house on the edge of the woods, bringing with them a world of boys and alcohol, and Tess can feel her sister slipping away from her. Then the bodies of two local schoolgirls are found in the woods, and Tess is convinced that this new family has something to hide. The killer of the murdered local girls was never found. Ten years ago, Tess's sister died. Ruled a tragic accident, the only witness was Tess herself, but she has never been able to remember what happened that night in the woods. Now living in London, Tess has resolved to put the trauma behind her, but when an emergency call from her father forces her back to the family home, she discovers that sometimes the past cannot be laid to rest. A pacy and scary read. 385pp in large paperback.

Here are two great, neglected horror novels by Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, together in one volume for the first time. It is a double treat for lovers of blood-curdling fantasy fiction. The Lady of the Shroud, published here in its full and unabridged form, is a fascinating and engrossing concoction of a vampire tale, Ruritanian adventure story and science fiction romance. The novel fully demonstrates the breadth and ingenuity of Stoker's imagination. The spine-chilling The Lair of the White Worm features a monstrous worm secreted for thousands of years in a bottomless well and able to metamorphose into a seductive woman of a reptilian beauty who survives on her victim's life blood. The novel contains some of Stoker's most graphic and grisly moments of horror. 431 page Wordsworth paperback.

Isabel is feeling unsettled, adjusting to life as a new mother alongside her work as a philanthropist and as editor of the Review of Applied Ethics. With a desire to create some space in her busy life, she returns to lending a hand at her niece's delicatessen where surely the most taxing duty is the preparation of sandwiches. It is not long before her helpful nature draws Isabel into her customers' problems, specifically that of self-proclaimed matchmaker Bea Shannon. Bea has staged a potentially dangerous liaison involving enigmatic plastic surgeon Tony MacUspaig who may not be quite who he claims to be. Isabel's help is required in getting to the truth of the matter, but not even she is immune to misunderstandings or the neurotic fantasies that arise from keeping secrets. Brimming with discrete charm. 232pp, paperback.

As the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, Isabel Dalhousie does not allow herself to have enemies, until the arrival of two squabbling academics forces her to question her stance. Elsewhere in Edinburgh a little boy believes he had a previous life. Called upon to help, Isabel finds herself challenging her own views on reincarnation, the nature of grief, and crucially the positioning of lighthouses. The only thing she doesn't question is her personal life. Blissfully content with her young son and husband, Isabel embarks upon the next issue of her magazine - the Happiness issue - and discovers that happiness for most is not always what it seems. 247pp, paperback.

The apparent suicide of his policeman brother sets Denver crime reporter Jack McEvoy on edge. Surprise at the circumstances of his brother's death prompts him to look into a whole series of police suicides and puts him on the trail of a cop killer whose victims are selected all too carefully. Not only that, but they all leave suicide notes drawn from the poems of writer Edgar Allan Poe in their wake. More frightening still, the killer appears to know that Jack is getting nearer and nearer. An investigation that looks like the story of a lifetime might also be Jack's ticket to a lonely end. Jack follows his leads all the way to the inner circle of a federal investigation, and in doing so makes himself the most visible target for a murderer who has eluded the greatest investigators alive. An ingenious and irresistible thriller from the master of the genre. 481pp, paperback.

The confession of Laurence Jago, clerk, gentleman, reluctant spy. July 1794 and the streets of London are filled with rumours of revolution. Political radical Thomas Hardy is to go on trial for treason, the war against the French is not going in Britain's favour, and negotiations with the independent American colonies are on a knife edge. Laurence Jago, clerk to the Foreign Office, is ever more reliant on the Black Drop to ease his nightmares. A highly sensitive letter has been leaked to the press which may lead to the destruction of the British Army, and Laurence is a suspect. Then he discovers the body of a fellow clerk, supposedly suicide. Blame for the leak is shifted to the dead man, but even as the body is taken to the anatomists, Laurence is certain both of his friend's innocence and that he was murdered. But after years of hiding his own secrets from his powerful employers, and at a time when even the slightest hint of treason can lead to the gallows, how can Laurence find the true culprit without incriminating himself? With historical note on the year when war against Revolutionary France was one year old. 340pp and cast of characters in Downing Street, the Americans, the lawyers, the accused, the French and the writers like Thomas Paine, author of The Rights of Man.

Fabian Hightower has been killed in a car crash. At least that is what a policeman is asking Alex, his mother, to believe, but Alex knows she saw him that morning, at a time when he must have been dead. When the funeral is over, Alex tries hard to forget her bizarre experience, but her mind seems to be playing strange tricks on her, turning her grief into horror. When she turns to a medium, her worst fears are realised. Fabian has unfinished business and is determined to come back. But why? Whatever the answer, something terrifies the medium so much she refuses to return. Alex longs to turn to others for support, but there is a secret about Fabian that only she knows and a secret she must never share. A gripping novel of the paranormal which some have described as having a disappointing ending, first published in 1988. 290pp, paperback facsimile reprint.