Purged by Peter Laws

Debut crime novel, first in a series, by Baptist minister Peter Laws

Introducing Matt Hunter, a sociology professor, who also assists the police over religiously-motivated crimes…

“A tight and gripping story…Purged [is] a book that is nigh impossible to put down and will leave the reader hooked from start to finish…let’s welcome Matt Hunter to the world of macabre crime fiction. He’s a damaged, complicated and interesting man, and we’re looking forward to spending more time with him.”

— Starburst Magazine

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Purged by Peter Laws
Allison & Busby / 16 February 2017 / £12.99 / trade paperback 

Matt Hunter lost his faith a long time ago. Formerly a minister, now a professor of sociology, he’s writing a book that debunks the Christian faith while assisting the police with religiously motivated crimes. 

On holiday with his family in Oxfordshire, Matt finds himself on edge in a seemingly idyllic village where wooden crosses hang at every turn. The stay becomes more sinister still when a local girl goes missing, followed by further disappearances. Caught up in an investigation that brings memories to the surface that he would prefer stay buried deep, Matt is on the trail of a killer determined to save us all.

Peter Laws is an ordained Baptist minister with a taste for the macabre. He writes a monthly column in The Fortean Times and also hosts the popular podcast and YouTube show The Flicks That Church Forgot which reviews horror films from a theological perspective. He regularly speaks and preaches at churches and has spoken at movie premieres, beer tasting evenings and paranormal conferences. He lives with his family in Bedfordshire.  Unleashed, the next Matt Hunter novel, will be published in 2018.  He is currently writing a non-fiction book for Icon Books exploring why we are drawn to the morbid (to be published in 2018). He's travelling the country drinking with vampires, hunting werewolves and meeting the women who collect dead babies (in Reborn doll form). 

Follow Peter on twitter @revpeterlaws and find out more at www.peterlaws.co.uk.  
He is available for interview, events and to write features.

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Kill the Father by Sadrone Dazieri

Published in hardback by Simon & Schuster on 9 February 2017 at £12.99

• Introducing an exciting new author, Sandrone Dazieri, with a brilliant, original and compelling debut thriller.
• A bestseller throughout Europe
• First in a planned series featuring Colomba Caselli and Dante Torre

“Absolutely electrifying. Kill the Father is one of those rare treasures: a page-turning thriller—in every sense of the phrase—that is also brilliantly nuanced and rich with insight into the complex and compelling minds of those, good and bad, who inhabit its pages. This novel is the new definition of a one-sitting read.”

— Jeffery Deaver

Two people, each shattered by their past, team to solve a series of killings and abductions...

‘The world is a curving wall of grey cement.  The world has muffled sounds and echoes.  The world is a circle two times the length of his out-stretched arms.  The first thing the boy learned in that circular world were his new names.  He has two.  Son is the name he prefers.  He has a right to it when he does the right things, when he obeys, when his thoughts are clear and quick.  Otherwise, his name is Beast.  When he’s called Beast, the boy is punished.’

When a woman is beheaded in a park outside Rome and her six-year-old son goes missing, the police unit assigned to the case sees an easy solution: they arrest the woman’s husband and await his confession. But the Chief of Rome’s Major Crimes unit doubts things are so simple. Secretly, he lures to the case two of Italy’s top analytical minds: Deputy Captain Colomba Caselli, a fierce, warrior-like detective still reeling from having survived a bloody catastrophe, and Dante Torre, a man who spent his childhood trapped inside a concrete silo. Fed through the gloved hand of a masked kidnapper who called himself “The Father,” Dante emerged from his ordeal with crippling claustrophobia but, also, with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and hyper-observant capacities.

All evidence suggests that the Father is back and active after being dormant for decades. Indeed, he has left tell-tale signs that signal he’s looking forward to a reunion with Dante. But when Columba and Dante begin following the ever-more-bizarre trail of clues, they grasp that what’s really going on is darker than they ever imagined.

SANDRONE DAZIERI is the bestselling author of more than fifty screenplays. Kill the Father, the first in a planned series featuring Colomba Caselli and Dante Torre, is his British debut.

Early Praise for Kill The Father

• 'Ingenious’ John Verdon
• 'A mind-bending, stunningly original page-turner’ - Jonathan Kellerman
• 'An intense, gripping, and entirely unforgettable story…A thriller of the highest order.’ - Christopher Reich
• '[A] dazzling U.S. debut.... Told in brutal, often wrenching detail, this is not an odyssey for the faint of heart.’ - Publishers Weekly
• 'A dark treat for mystery buffs.’ - Kirkus Reviews
• 'Don't be surprised if Kill the Father becomes the next Big Thing in international crime fiction.' - Booklist, starred review

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Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now? by Ian Dunt

Paperback / Canbury Press / 17 November 2016 / £7.99
The ultimate guide to Brexit: How our divorce from Europe will change life in the UK forever. 

“I wanted to write a book which could be read in a few hours, but allow someone to win arguments about Brexit for the next decade. This is the biggest story of our lifetime, but the debate around it is filled with sloppy thinking, half-truths and self-interested speculation. It’s almost impossible for people to find one single, readable account of what is really going on. Hopefully this book will address that.”

— Ian Dunt

Our departure from the European Union is filled with propaganda, myth, and half-truth – but the risks of a chaotic Brexit are very real. Mishandling the negotiations with Brussels could lower our global status, diminish our quality of life, and throw our legal system into turmoil. 

With the help of constitutional and trade experts, Ian Dunt argues that:

• The current approach to Brexit will be a catastrophe for the British economy. The UK urgently needs to agree transitional controls to avoid a financial cliff edge in 2019, which would thump the City and manufacturing. Two years is simply not long enough for what the government wants to do, but the May government shows no signs of pursuing an interim deal.
• Brexit massively increases the power of the government: Theresa May’s great repeal bill will feature powers allowing ministers to use statutory instruments to alter forty years of entwined EU/UK law without the need for parliamentary debate. So far no democratic safeguards have been announced to ensure the Government does not misuse this power. If the effect of Brexit is as calamitous as expected, ministers will be encouraged to deliver trade deals by unilaterally reducing workers rights, environmental standards and consumer protections.  
• Brexit will hurt the poor first: Manufacturing communities will be first hit by tariffs and non-tariff barriers. The working communities who voted for Brexit will be the first to be hurt by it.

Dunt also offers solutions, and suggests we should be negotiating diplomatically with European partners while also leveraging what advantages the UK has on market size and military capabilities.

Ian Dunt is editor of Politics.co.uk and a pundit on Newsnight, Channel 4 News and other shows. In this book he is joined by dozens of experts from trade, law and politics to map out how Brexit will redefine Britain in the years ahead.  Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now? is the ultimate guide to the least-understood issue of our time.

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The Liberation by Kate Furnivall

Paperback original / Simon & Schuster / £7.99 / 3 November 2016

Author of internationally bestselling The Russian Concubine returns with an unforgettably powerful story of love, loss and the long shadow of war.

‘Set in Sorrento and Naples this is a thrilling roller-coaster of a read, seductive, mysterious and edgy. I LOVED it’  Dinah Jefferies

The Liberation is set in Italy in 1945 as British and American troops attempt to bring order to the devastated country and Italy’s population fights to survive. Caterina Lombardi is desperate – her father is dead, her mother has disappeared and her brother is being drawn towards danger. One morning, among the ruins of the bombed Naples streets, Caterina is forced to go to extreme lengths to protect her own life and in doing so forges a future in which she must clear her father's name. An Allied Army officer accuses him of treason and Caterina discovers a plot against her family. Who can she trust and who is the real enemy now? And will the secrets of the past be her downfall?

Detailed research and wonderfully drawn characters make this a powerful, gripping read.

Kate Furnivall is the author of eight novels, including the international bestseller The Russian Concubine. She lives in Devon.

Praise for Kate Furnivall

• ‘Wonderful . . . hugely ambitious and atmospheric’ Kate Mosse 
• ‘The definition of a terrifically well-written page-turner’ Dinah Jefferies
•  ‘A thrilling plot ... Fast-paced with a sinister edge.’ Times 
• ‘Gripping . . . poignant, beautifully written ...will capture the reader to the last’ Sun 
• ‘Truly captivating’ Elle  
• ‘Perfect escapist reading’ Marie Claire  
• ‘An achingly beautiful epic’ New Woman
• ‘A rollicking good read’ The Daily Telegraph 
• ‘Breathtakingly good’ Marie Claire  

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Mercy Killing by Lisa Cutts

Paperback original / Simon & Schuster / 20 October 2016 / £7.99

Award-winning writer and Detective Constable Lisa Cutts returns with gripping and authentic new series featuring Detective Inspector Harry Powell

‘I SO enjoyed Mercy Killing. Taut. Tense. Insider knowledge leaps from every page’ 
Simon Booker, author of Without Trace

'Brutal, harrowing and compelling…Lisa Cutts has a unique voice: empathetic, observant, incisive. ‘
Elizabeth Haynes, author of Into the Darkest Corner

Could you ever justify murder…?

‘Usually Friday nights were Albie Woodville’s favourite part of the week.  He went home to his second-floor flat, shut the door, and after a simple meal purchased from the reduced section of his local Co-op, he settled down in front of his television to watch the programmes he had recorded that week.  However, something was wrong this particular Friday...
Albie heard the noise of the wood breaking and instantly knew that today was the day.’

The death of a local sex offender places the police officers at East Rise incident room under immense pressure – they must treat this case like any other murder, but they know what Albie Woodville did and can feel little sympathy. Except, as the investigation progresses, it becomes clear this isn’t just a one-off killing – someone is out for revenge... 

Lisa Cutts is the author of two previous police procedural novels, based on her twenty years of policing experience. She works as a detective constable for Kent Police and has spent ten years in the Serious Crime Directorate dealing mostly with murders and other serious investigations.  Her debut novel, Never Forget, won the 2014 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for best thriller