Duncan Campbell
If it Bleeds

The brilliant new novel about contemporary London gangland crime by the hugely well reviewed author of The Paradise Trail (CAB 3637). Britain’s best known gangster, Charlie Hook, wants to tell his life story and chooses crime reporter Laurie Lane as his reluctant ghost. But the next day Hook is dead. Who has killed the last of the London Godfathers, the man who used to be a driver for the Kray twins? Laurie is having his own problems too – he’s suspected of fiddling his expenses and his country singer wife has left him for an older man– but he needs to find the killer to keep his job. Could the suspect be a Russian businessman with a love of Scottish poetry and something dodgy in his Hampstead garden?

Tracy Chevalier
Remarkable Creatures

When Mary Anning uncovers unknown dinosaur fossils in the cliffs near her home, she sets the scientific world alight, challenging ideas about the world’s creation and stimulating debate over our origins. Mary finds a champion in Elizabeth Philpot, who is also fossil-obsessed. Their relationship strikes a balance between loyalty and barely suppressed envy. Despite their differences in age and background, Mary and Elizabeth discover that, in struggling for recognition, friendship is their strongest weapon. Tracy Chevalier’s stunning novel of how one woman’s gift transcends class and gender to lead to some of the most important discoveries of the 19th century. Above all, it is a revealing portrait of the intricate and resilient nature of female friendship.

Gillian Flynn
Dark Places

Libby Day was just seven years old when her older brother massacred her family while she hid in a cupboard. Her evidence helped put him away. Ever since then she has been drifting, surviving for more than twenty years on the proceeds of the Libby Day fund. But now the money is running out and Libby is desperate. When she is offered $500 to do a guest appearance, she feels she has to accept. But this is no ordinary gathering. The Kill Club is a group of true-crime obsessives who share information on notorious murders – and they think her brother Ben is innocent.

Named one of the Best Books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly.