Isserley spends much of her time driving up and down the A9 in Scotland in her old Toyota Corrolla, looking for male hitchhikers. After driving past a hitchhiker two or three times looking to see if he is well built and alone, she stops and offers them a ride.
Why does she do this?

All the reader is told about this book is that Isserley picks up well-built male hitchhikers. Of course this is not something you come across every day and it did sound intriguing. Along with the words ‘macabre mystery’ on the cover, it was enough to make me want to find out more.

Right from the first page I was drawn into this book which is quite possibly the strangest book I have ever read!

Michel Faber

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A glance to her left was all it took. If she had kept her eyes straight ahead, or looked to the right instead, she might never have become involved. She might have been spared…

There was a dead man in the street.

On a cold January morning in a small Sussex village, a man goes on a killing spree, shooting anyone in his path, as well as entering houses and buildings shooting anyone he happens to come across before eventually taking his own life, or at least that’s what everyone thinks.

Julia Trent however, knows otherwise. Having survived despite being shot at and badly injured, she knows there was a second man involved. A second man who fled the scene.

Tom Bale

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Harlan Coben is one of my favourite authors. I took this book on on holiday with me and read it in two days. I would have read it in a day if I had been at home, as I found it hard to put down. The only problem was, by reading it so quickly I had nothing left to read for the rest of my holiday!

The story centres around Grace Lawson. Happily married to husband Jack, and mum to their two children, her contented world is thrown into turmoil when she collects a set of photographs she had taken to be developed. Ignoring friends teasing that she should ‘get with it’ and enjoy the digital age, by using a digital camera, selecting and printing photo’s of your choice etc, Grace still prefers to take a film into the shop to be developed. Enjoying the anticipation and element of surprise on opening up your packet of prints.

Harlan Coben

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The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold has recently been adapted into a film, so it is a story that is quite popular right now. Based upon the rave reviews my colleagues gave it, I decided I would give it a go, even though it is not the type of book I would normally read. Susie Salmon was just fourteen years old when she was murdered in December 1973. Her murderer, George Harvey, was a neighbour, a man her father once talked to about fertilizer and whose border flowers her mother admired.

From heaven, Susie watches her family trying to come to terms with her death.

Alice Sebold

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Monster Love is a story centred around married couple Brendan and Sherilyn Gutteridge. A couple who are soulmates in every sense of the word, and totally wrapped up in each other. They both have great jobs and have climbed the ladder at the same firm where they met, and live in an expensive house and have expensive tastes. To the outside world, they are a couple so in love, and they keep themselves to themselves. However, are always very polite to everyone they meet. The only time they appear to socialise is when attending or holding work-related dinner parties, drinks parties etc, where they are always attentive and polite. The perfect couple it seems.

Carol Topolski

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Or She Dies is Gregg’s latest thriller published 2009. The plot centres around Patrick Davis, a screenwriter who has turned to teaching screenwriting at Northridge University following a legal complaint against him, his agent dropping him and subsequently finding himself suffering from writer’s block. Patrick’s marriage is not going too well either and he has taken to sleeping on the sofa every night. So when he receives a DVD in the post which shows footage of him and his wife Ariana in the house going about their business, Patrick’s life becomes even more complicated and stressful than it is already.

Gregg Hurwitz

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“He was to be her future. But what of his past…?”

When Holly Barrett meets Jack Dane on a bus trip returning home to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, she is enchanted by the good-looking, polite Englishman who has sat next to her whilst on his way to a job interview. Part of her can’t believe that he is interested in her, but interested he is, and Holly quickly falls head over heels in love.

Holly hasn’t had it easy. Losing both her parents very close together, finding herself pregnant at 18 and abandoned by her baby’s father.

Brooke Morgan

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“I See You” was first published in 2007. The story centres around author Drew Danner, who wakes up in hospital having suffered a brain haemorrhage. Drew cannot remember the past 24 hours at all and is shocked to find an LAPD officer standing over his bed.

As he is told about having a brain tumour removed, he is shown a photograph of a blood-spattered body of a woman. A woman he recognises as his ex-fiance Genevieve. However, if that wasn’t quite enough, he is then accused of her murder.

Although he can remember nothing Drew is convinced he is not to blame. However, the evidence is stacked against him.

Gregg Hurwitz

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Two Missing Children
Sixteen Years Apart
One Witness…

And there lies the outline of the plot for this debut psychological crime thriller from new author, Jane Casey. Jane was born and brought up in Dublin, but now lives and works as children’s books editor in London. Ebury Publishing believe she has a long-term career ahead and have bought two crime titles in a pre-emptive deal.

The story centres around young teacher Sarah Finch, whose brother, Charlie, went missing when she was a little girl aged seven and has never been found. The strain of never knowing what exactly has happened to Charlie, ripped Sarah’s family apart.

Jane Casey

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