New fiction books for April

There is a heatwave across Europe, and Goose and his three sisters gather at the family's house by Lake Orta in Piedmont, Italy. Their father, a famous artist, recently remarried a much younger woman and decamped to Italy to finish his masterpiece. Now he is dead. And there is no sign of his new wife and or his final painting. Though the siblings have always been close, the things they learn that summer - about themselves, their father and their new stepmother - will drive them apart before they can come to any kind of understanding of what their father's legacy truly is.

During one of the fiercest conflicts the world has ever known, three strangers' lives collide as they confront the raining bombs of their present and the explosive secrets of their past. Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his book shop, The Book Keep. Mourning the recent loss of his wife, Ignatius forms a kinship with both children, and in each other they rediscover the spirit of family each has lost.

Susan Ryeland has had enough of murder. She's edited two novels about the famous detective, Atticus Pünd, and both times she's come close to being killed. Now she's back in England and she's been persuaded to work on a third. The new 'continuation' novel is by Eliot Crace, grandson of Miriam Crace who was the biggest selling children's author in the world until her death exactly twenty years ago. Eliot believes that Miriam was deliberately poisoned. And when he tells Susan that he has hidden the identity of Miriam's killer inside his book, Susan knows she's in trouble once again.

Detective Jack Warr is haunted by the gruesome legacy of serial killer Rodney Middleton and reeling from a series of events that has left him deep in depression. Refusing the Met-offered counselling service, Jack instead finds solace instead through renewing a dangerous friendship with the artist and master forger, Adam Border. When a body is discovered nailed to a giant cross in a framer's shop, Jack feels a connection to the case even though it is not in his jurisdiction. But is his involvement that of a detective or witness?

Meet Major Bricket, an infrequent resident of Highfield House in Stunston Peveril, Suffolk. In the past the Major's work assignments have prevented him from spending much time there and a result, there is an air of mystery around him. But now the Major has retired and has come home for good in his open-topped little red sports car - and what a homecoming it is, for lying spreadeagled on his lawn in the summer sunshine is the corpse of a clown. Coincidence that the circus has come to Stunston Peveril for the annual four-day village fair? Yet none of their quota of clowns is missing - or at least, nobody is saying. Or is the body that of an unfortunate early guest at the village's highlight of the social calendar, the Fincham Abbey Costume Ball? Fortunately Major Bricket's past clandestine career means that he is now very well placed to solve the mystery of the dead clown on his camomile lawn.

Thayer Wren, brilliant CEO of Wrenfare Magitech, is dead. As the 'father of modern technology,' he leaves an incredible legacy. But which of his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children could inherit the Wrenfare throne? Meredith, head of her own profitable company, has recently cured mental illness. If only her journalist ex-boyfriend wasn't set on exposing what she really is: a total fraud. Arthur, second-youngest congressman ever, wants to do everything right. Except his wife might be leaving, and he's losing his re-election campaign. Heading Wrenfare could relaunch his sinking ship. Eilidh was a world-famous ballerina, until a life-altering injury. Gaining the company might finally validate her worth. On the pipeline of gifted kid to clinically depressed adult, nobody wins. Yet as they gather to read his final words, which Wren will come out on top?

Pen and Alice, childhood best friends from Toronto, are in their first year at the University of Edinburgh. Each has come to the city for her own reasons. Pen knows her divorced parents back in Canada are hiding something from her. She believes she'll find the answer here in Scotland, where an old friend of her father's - now a famous writer known as Lord Lennox - lives. When she is invited to spend the weekend at Lennox's centuries-old estate with his enveloping, fascinating family, Pen begins to unravel her parents' secret, just as she's falling in love for the first time. Meanwhile Alice, an aspiring actor, sees university as her route to the West End and beyond. The star of this year's theatre production, she's making the most of the power she wields as an object of desire - until an affair with her tutor begins to slip from her control.

Witnesses, CCTV, even DNA. All the evidence is there. Your husband is a murderer. Or is he? Everything points to his guilt - except the fact that he was with you. Four hundred miles away. Apart from one single hour. Imagine a world where the guilty always get punished, where there's an almost perfect conviction rate: a flawless justice system. You had an unshakeable faith in it. Right up until they took him away. The system was built to protect people - or so you thought. You need to find out what happened in that missing hour.

Florence Grimes is a 31-year-old party girl who always takes the easy way out. After a dismal end to her girlband career, she's living in West London, single, broke and unfulfilled with only her son Dylan to keep her afloat. But then Alfie Risby, the ten-year-old heir to a frozen food empire and Dylan's school rival, mysteriously vanishes on a class trip, and Dylan becomes a prime suspect. Florence needs to find Alfie and clear her son's name or risk losing him forever. The only problem? She doesn't have any detective skills, all the other school mums hate her, and she's just found Alfie's backpack hidden under her son's bed.

On a bright summer day in 1989 New England, Abi, three years old, vanishes from her aunt's secluded home. Upstairs, her young cousins are looking out of the window. Something is unfolding in the distance at the edge of the forest - something sinister that is watching them back. The adults don't seem to notice that the youngest of the group has disappeared. Too busy bickering over politics and reminiscing about the family's domineering late matriarch, Beezy, they leave the children with no choice but to get Abi back themselves. As the cousins embark on a quest through their grandmother's sprawling estate, buried family secrets come to light and long-awaited plans are set in motion. Will they lose themselves while trying to find her?