We're kicking off this week's DHH News Roundup with the first of three cover reveals. First up, the gloriously witty and unputdownable debut from Ola Tundun, Roommates (September 2023, Storm Publishing):
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Perfect job? Check.
Perfect home? Check.
Perfect fiancé? Check.
None of this is by accident. Ariella is a card-carrying perfectionist.
On the other side of the city lives Ariella’s polar opposite. Caleb Black is an unrepentant smart-ass, seat-of-his-pants, arrogant party-boy getting through life on charisma and raw sex appeal (his words).
So why, one night, does Ariella turn up with her bags, asking to rent Caleb’s spare room?
Ariella has done a complete 180 on her life. And nothing good could ever come of this … Could it?
Perfect home? Check.
Perfect fiancé? Check.
None of this is by accident. Ariella is a card-carrying perfectionist.
On the other side of the city lives Ariella’s polar opposite. Caleb Black is an unrepentant smart-ass, seat-of-his-pants, arrogant party-boy getting through life on charisma and raw sex appeal (his words).
So why, one night, does Ariella turn up with her bags, asking to rent Caleb’s spare room?
Ariella has done a complete 180 on her life. And nothing good could ever come of this … Could it?
 | We also have three fabulous publication days to celebrate this week! Anita Frank's The Good Liars is a thrilling WW1 murder mystery, and dubbed by author M. W. Craven as "claustrophobic, addictive and utterly compelling." In the hot summer of 1914 a boy vanishes, never to be seen again. Now, in 1920, the once esteemed Stilwell family of Darkacre Hall find their already troubled lives thrown into disarray when |
new evidence leads to the boy’s case being reopened – and this time they themselves are under police scrutiny.
As the dead return to haunt the living, old resentments resurface and loyalties are tested, while secrets risk being unearthed that could destroy them all.
As the dead return to haunt the living, old resentments resurface and loyalties are tested, while secrets risk being unearthed that could destroy them all.
| Also published this week was the brand new book from Icelandic author, Ragnar Jónasson and co-written with Icelandic PM, Katrín Jakobsdóttir - Reykjavík. What happened to Lara Marteinsdóttir? Iceland, 1956. Fifteen-year-old Lára spends the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. The mystery becomes Iceland's greatest unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there? |  |
Thirty years later in August, 1986, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lara's case. But as he draws closer to discovering the secret, and with the eyes of Reykjavík upon him, it soon becomes clear that Lara's disappearance is a mystery that someone will stop at nothing to keep unsolved...
Our next cover reveal this week comes in the form of the debut police procedural from T. M. Payne, Long Time Dead (March 2024, Thomas & Mercer):
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A cold case that’s no longer cold. A suspect who’s been murdered. A silenced witness.
DI Sheridan Holler is used to solving crimes on Liverpool’s streets, but after a decayed corpse turns up in a cemetery, she finds herself reopening not one but two cold cases. Seven years earlier, two women were gunned down and the only suspect, small-time drug dealer John Lively, was never seen again. Case closed. Until the body in the cemetery is identified as his.
Holler needs to work out if Lively was killed out of revenge for the murders, or was just a victim of the criminal world he inhabited. When shocking evidence is revealed about the murder weapon, Holler’s cold case starts to look hopeless once more.
But defeat is not an option. Driven by the unsolved and traumatic murder of her brother when they were children, DI Holler’s pursuit of justice is relentless. As old wounds are reopened, the police close in on the women’s killer, but the threat of them striking again is all too real. Can DI Holler put the pieces of the puzzle together before anyone else winds up dead?
DI Sheridan Holler is used to solving crimes on Liverpool’s streets, but after a decayed corpse turns up in a cemetery, she finds herself reopening not one but two cold cases. Seven years earlier, two women were gunned down and the only suspect, small-time drug dealer John Lively, was never seen again. Case closed. Until the body in the cemetery is identified as his.
Holler needs to work out if Lively was killed out of revenge for the murders, or was just a victim of the criminal world he inhabited. When shocking evidence is revealed about the murder weapon, Holler’s cold case starts to look hopeless once more.
But defeat is not an option. Driven by the unsolved and traumatic murder of her brother when they were children, DI Holler’s pursuit of justice is relentless. As old wounds are reopened, the police close in on the women’s killer, but the threat of them striking again is all too real. Can DI Holler put the pieces of the puzzle together before anyone else winds up dead?
 | Last week, it was announced that seven short stories from M. W. Craven have been given the green light and will be released as audiobooks. The collection, Cut Short, features the stories Once In A Red Moon; Why Don't Sheep Shrink?; A Permanent Solution; The Killing Field; Strange Ink; Dead Man's Fingers and Mondo Bizzarro. It will be published on the 5th December 2023, and is available for pre-order now! |
| E. V. Seymour's brand new psychological thriller, The Widow's Boyfriend, was published this week and is now available in eBook. Verity's widowed mother thinks her new boyfriend is the perfect gentleman, handsome and distinguished. Verity thinks he's a lying conman. Can she prove it...? |  |
Our final cover reveal comes in the form of the highly-anticipated third book from bestselling and award-winning author, Stuart Turton. The Last Murder at the End of the World will be published by Bloomsbury Raven in March 2024.
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Solve the murder to save what's left of the world.
Outside the island there is nothing: the world destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island: it is idyllic. 122 villagers and 3 scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they're told by the scientists.
Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And they learn the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay.
If the murder isn't solved within 92 hours, the fog will smother the island – and everyone on it.
But the security system has also wiped everyone's memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer – and they don't even know it…
Outside the island there is nothing: the world destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island: it is idyllic. 122 villagers and 3 scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they're told by the scientists.
Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And they learn the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay.
If the murder isn't solved within 92 hours, the fog will smother the island – and everyone on it.
But the security system has also wiped everyone's memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer – and they don't even know it…
 | Finally, we are very happy to welcome author Beth Lewis to the Agency. Beth, who is the author of books including The Wolf Road and Children of the Sun, joins David H Headley's list and will be working with him on her new novel, set in the Gold Rush era. |
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