Detective Sargent Michael McCabe is a tough former NYPD cop who moves to Portland, Maine to forget his past and to provide a safe environment for his daughter, Casey. But he never dreamed that he would have to track down a serial killer who cuts the hearts out of young women who are still alive.

Phillip Spencer, a cardiac surgeon, tries to help with the investigation only to become a suspect himself. Michael teams up with detective Maggie Savage, a French medical student and a former Miami reporter to track down the psychopathic killer whose identity might be a friend of Spencer’s from medical school.

Hayman has succeeded  in writing a thriller that rivals the best thriller writers today and one hopes to hear from him for years to come.

AWAKENING

by SJ Bolton

An idyllic village is thrown into ­turmoil in the startling, heart-racing new thriller from the author of Sacrifice.

How did it all begin? I suppose it would be the day I rescued a new-born baby from a poisonous snake, heard the news of my mother’s death and encountered my first ghost . . .

Veterinary surgeon Clara Benning is young and intelligent, but practically a recluse. Disfigured by a childhood accident, she lives alone and shies away from human contact whenever possible. But when a man dies following a supposed snake bite, the victim’s post mortem shows a higher concentration of venom than could ever be found in a single snake.

Assisted by her softly spoken neighbour, and an eccentric reptile expert, Clara unravels sinister links to a barbaric ancient ritual, an abandoned house and a fifty-year-old tragedy that left the survivors fiercely secretive. Then the village’s inventive attacker strikes again, and Clara’s own solitary existence is brutally invaded.

For someone the truth must remain buried in the past — even if they have to kill to keep it there.

THE CUTTING

James Hayman

St. Martins Minotaur

From a formidable new voice in suspense fiction comes an edge-of-the-seat story of a homicide detective on the trail of a killer, who slays with exacting precision, and who harbors a terrifying motive

Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe moved from New York City to Portland, Maine, to escape a dark past: both the ex-wife who’d left him for an investment banker, and the tragic death of his brother, a hero cop gone bad. He sought to raise his young daughter away from the violence of the big city . . . so he’s unprepared for the horrific killer he discovers, whose bloody trail may lead to Portland’s social elite.

Early on a September evening, the mutilated body of a pretty teenaged girl, a high school soccer star, is found dumped in a scrap-metal yard. She had been viciously assaulted, but her heart had been cut out of her chest with surgical precision. The very same day a young businesswoman, also a blonde and an athlete, was abducted as she jogged through the streets of the city’s west end. McCabe suspects both crimes are the work of the same man—a killer who’s targeting the young—who is clearly well-versed in complex surgical procedures, and who may have struck before. Just as the investigation is beginning, McCabe’s ex-wife reemerges, suddenly determined to reclaim the daughter she heedlessly abandoned years earlier.

With the help of his straight-talking (and, at times, alluring) partner, Maggie Savage, McCabe begins a race against time to rescue the missing woman and unmask a sadistic killer—before more lives are lost.

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LAST KNOWN ADDRESS

Theresa Schwegel

St. Martins, Minotaur

Detective Sloane Pearson is new to the Sex Crimes Division but no stranger to being treated like an incompetent blonde by her hardened male co-workers. She’s also no stranger to hard-to-crack cases, and her latest is as tough as they come: A rapist is on the prowl, dragging women to deserted building sites or vacant apartment buildings peppered all over downtown Chicago, and forcing them to fight—knowing, of course, that he’ll win.

When a real estate agent Sloane knows is attacked by the violent predator, Sloane finds herself taking a case that threatens her secret plans to leave her long-time lover. Her personal bond with the victim and a would-be relationship with a man she interviews along the way lead Sloane down a dangerous path—one that poisons the investigation as well as her personal life.

Sloane’s balancing act topples when her father falls ill. Between coping with his weak heart and following the few weak leads she has, her case begins to go the way that many rape cases go: The victims fall away, one by one, suddenly unsure of what they saw or unwilling to relive the horrifying moments again and again.

When Sloane helps a hungry young Sun-Times reporter declare the case serial, she loses support: Her bosses demand she get a suspect or move on. Sloane stays on the case, though—no matter how much it strains her personal relationships. Even her partner claims she’s in too deep: He doesn’t believe there’s an arrest on the planet worth a cop’s life. Sloane disagrees: Someone’s got to take up the fight.

From the worst slums of Chicago’s west side to the glittering Loop skyscrapers, Sloane finds no shortage of suspects. As she loses everything she’d called home, she can only hope to find the rapist before she also becomes a victim.

ABANDON

by Blake Crouch

St. Martin’s, Minotaur

On Christmas Day in 1893, every man, woman and child in a remote gold mining town disappeared, belongings forsaken, meals left to freeze in vacant cabins; and not a single bone was ever found. One hundred thirteen years later, two backcountry guides are hired by a history professor and his journalist daughter to lead them into the abandoned mining town so that they can learn what happened. With them is a psychic, and a paranormal photographer—as the town is rumored to be haunted. A party that tried to explore the town years ago was never heard from again. What this crew is about to discover is that twenty miles from civilization, with a blizzard bearing down, they are not alone, and the past is very much alive.

DYING FOR MERCY

by Mary Jane Clark

William Morrow

When death shatters the serenity of the exclusive moneyed enclave of Tuxedo Park, New York, Eliza Blake, cohost of the country’s premier morning television show KEY to America, is on the scene. While attending a lavish gala at her friends’ newly renovated estate, Pentimento, Eliza’s host is found dead—a grotesque suicide that is the first act in a macabre and intricately conceived plan to expose the sins of the past involving some of the town’s most revered citizens.

Determined to find out the truth, Eliza and her KEY News colleagues—producer Annabelle Murphy, cameraman B.J. D’Elia, and psychiatrist Margo Gonzalez—discover that Pentimento holds the key. Nestled in the park’s sprawling architectural masterpieces, picturesque gardeners’ cottages, and lush, rolling landscape, the glorious mansion is actually a giant “puzzle house,” filled with ingenious clues hidden in its fireplaces, fountains, and frescoes that lead them from one suspicious locale to another—and, one by one, to the victims of a fiendish killer.

As Pentimento gives up its secrets, it becomes clear that no amount of wealth or privilege will keep the residents of Tuxedo Park safe. But just when Eliza unearths one final surprise, she comes face-to-face with a murderer who believes that some puzzles should never be solved.

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