New fiction books for March

After a bruising encounter with a terrorist group, Detective Kamil Rahman has decided to hand in his resignation to the Met and set up a detective agency with his friend Anjoli. But when his boss asks him to go to India to investigate the murder of a British engineer who was found with eighteen arrows stuck in his body, Kamil agrees to take the case, as long as Anjoli can accompany him. When they arrive in Mumbai, they find someone is on a gruesome killing spree, striking down those connected to the engineer in increasingly macabre ways. Meanwhile, an old friend of Kamil's gets in touch to beg for his help: he believes his family are cursed, and that he is going to die on his 47th birthday, just like his father and grandfather before him. As the body count rises, Kamil is torn between solving a very real murder case and protecting his friend from a grisly - if far-fetched - fate. Can he catch a killer and prevent an ancient curse before more people lose their lives?

A scholarship kid with straight As and big dreams, Evie Gordon always thought that she'd be someone. But after graduating, she finds herself drowning in debt and working as an SAT tutor for the super-rich of Los Angeles. Everything changes when she arrives for a weekly lesson at the Victors' mansion to discover pure carnage: the bloody remains of Mr and Mrs Victor sullying their beautiful back garden, and a woman crying for help from within the walls of the family's estate. Within moments, Evie and the woman go from bystanders to suspects to fugitives. Anointed the new Charles Manson by the press, Evie is finally someone. At the heart of a nationwide manhunt, Evie is desperate to clear her name. But first she'll have to break down the barriers of her new companion - who is inscrutable, surprisingly skilled at being on the run, and quickly becoming the most important person in Evie's upside-down life.

Winter, 1900. A little boy washes up on the beach of a small fishing village in Scotland, barely alive. He bears an uncanny resemblance to teacher Dorothy's son, lost to the sea many years before. When the village is snowed in, Dorothy agrees to look after the child until he can be returned home. But, as the past rises to meet the present, long-buried secrets in this tight-knit community start to come to light. And Dorothy finds herself thrown together again with the reclusive fisherman Joseph, after years of keeping their distance.

A year after the devastating events that took place in 'Fool Me Once', a secret from former Detective Sami Kierce's college days comes back to haunt him. Present day is hard enough for Kierce, but his past isn't through with him yet. Malaga, 2000. Sami Kierce, a young man backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning. He is covered in blood. There's a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of a woman. Anna. Dead. He begins to scream. New York City, 2025. Kierce, now a disgraced detective, is teaching night classes when he recognises a familiar face in the crowd. Anna. It's unmistakably her. But as soon as he makes eye contact with her, she runs. For Kierce there is no choice. He knows he must find this woman and solve the mystery that still haunts his every waking moment. His investigation will bring him face-to-face with his past. Soon he discovers that some secrets should stay buried.

The story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires. Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until - betrayed and brokenhearted - she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka's bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka's housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America - but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve. In 'Dream Count', Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state?

It is 1895, and turn-of-the-century Paris is as chaotic as it is glamorous. Industry and invention have created ever greater wealth and terrible poverty. One autumn morning, an anarchist boards the Granville to Paris express train, determined to make her mark on history. Aboard the train are others from across the globe: the railway crew who have built a life together away from their wives, a little boy travelling alone for the first time, an artist far from home, a wealthy statesman and his invalid wife, and a young woman with a secret hidden under her dress. All their fates are bound together as the train speeds towards the City of Light.

In August 1944, with Germany on the verge of defeat, Heinrich Himmler, holds a clandestine meeting in Strasbourg with elite industrialists and bankers. Their covert organisation, codenamed The Spider, is tasked with helping senior SS officers to escape the clutches of advancing allied forces. In November 2024, a stolen USB stick containing the coded names of prominent politicians - neo-Nazis who are members of the Spider Network - falls into the hands of the Chief Inspector of the Buenos Aires police and the head of internal security at the White House. The pair join forces to expose the dark legacy.

A picture-perfect village. A harrowing crime scene. A web of secrets. A victim who knew all of them. Introducing Detective Nicola Bridge, in the debut novel from Chris Chibnall. Jim Tiernan, landlord of the White Hart pub, has been found dead, the body staged with macabre relish on an isolated country road. As soon as she starts asking questions, Nicola realises everyone in the village has something to hide.

Ward D is the hospital's mental health unit and as a medical student, Amy is required to gain experience on the floor. But little do her colleagues know it may force her to confront a past she's fought hard to forget. The night starts. The countdown begins. As the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within the ward's tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger. Amy never wanted to spend the night on Ward D. Now she might not make it out alive.

Members of the Detection Club, the most prestigious group of crime writers in the world, celebrate the eightieth birthday of their former president - the original king of cozy crime, Simon Brett - with this collection of all-new short stories. From police procedurals to the sharpest satire, from historical mystery to dark and twisted chillers, these twenty-two original tales, written by some of Britain's most remarkable bestselling authors, are essential reading for crime and mystery fans.