New fiction for June

Daniel Clement has suffered a secret humiliation and to recover, takes respite at the monastery where he was a novice. But the monastery doesn't allow Daniel a break, for there are tensions building there too, as the secret past of novice master Father Paul is emerging. Tension mounts and a murder ensues. Meanwhile back at Champton, Daniel is the subject of village gossip, his mother Audrey is up to something again, there's trouble at the dress shop, up at the big house, and the puppies are running riot. Can Daniel be reconciled with detective Neil and solve the mystery?

When Hannah Holby, darling of UK morning TV, dies live on screen in front of millions of viewers, the nation is devastated. More devastated still when it becomes clear that her death was not an accident. The evidence points to one culprit: celebrity chef Sebastian Brooks. But junior barrister Adam Green is about to discover that the case is not as open-and-shut as it first seemed. And although Hannah's angelic persona would suggest otherwise, she was not short of enemies in the glittery TV world. Can Adam uncover the truth?

Unconventional Detective Declan Miller has a problem. Still desperate to solve the murder of his wife, a young man has just appeared on his doorstep with a briefcase, containing a pair of severed hands. Miller knows this case is proof of a contract killing commissioned by local ne'er do well Wayne Cutler - a man he suspects might also be responsible for his wife's death. Now Miller has leverage, but unfortunately he also has something that both Cutler and a villainous fast-food kingpin are desperate to get hold of.

On a boat heading out into the North Sea, Ellen Brooke steels herself to spend almost a month locked inside a hyperbaric chamber with five other divers. They are all being paid handsomely for this work - to be lowered each day inside a diving bell to the sea bed, taking it in turns to dive down and repair oil pipes that lie in the dark waters. It is a close knit team and it has to be: any error or loss of trust could be catastrophic. All is going to plan until one of the divers is found unresponsive in his bunk. He hadn't left the chamber. It will take four more days of decompression, locked away together, before the hatch can be opened. Four more days of bare steel, intrusive thoughts, and the constant struggle not to give way to panic. Mind games, exhaustion, suspicion, and, most of all, pressure. And if someone does unlock the door, everyone dies.

Notting Hill, London. One May evening, seventeen-year-old Maggie Parker's mother walks out of their front door and doesn't return. With her little brother in tow, desperate to find her mother, Maggie is drawn into a labyrinthine world of antiques and shadowy figures, far from the grand stucco terraces. There she befriends another young person living on their wits. But can he help solve the mystery of her mother's disappearance? Twenty-one years later, in a Parisian apartment, Maggie's phone rings and her hard-won grown-up life shatters. While in London, the new owner of the Parker's old Notting Hill house is excavating a basement, unaware of what might lie beneath, and the clock starts ticking on buried secrets.

October, 1891. Butte, Montana. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and balladmaker, but also a doper, a drinker and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington. A thunderbolt love affair takes spark between Tom and Polly and they strike out west on a stolen horse, moving through the badlands of Montana and Idaho. Briefly an idyll of wild romance perfects itself. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunsmen are soon in hot pursuit of the lovers, and closing in fast.

London, 1839. Where the cemeteries are full and there is money to be made in death, Bonnie and Crawford lead a life of trickery, surviving off ill-gotten coin and nefarious schemes. But one hot evening, their luck runs out. A man lies in a pool of blood at Bonnie's feet and now she needs to disappear. Crawford secures her a position as lady's maid in a grand house on the Thames, still deep in mourning for its late mistress. As Bonnie comes to understand this family - the eccentric Mr Moncrieff, obsessively drawing mausoleums grand enough for his dead wife, and their peculiar daughter Cissie, scribbling imaginary love letters to herself from the mysterious Lord Duggan - she begins to question what really happened to Mrs Moncrieff and whether her own presence here was planned from the beginning. Because Crawford is watching, and perhaps he is plotting his greatest trick yet.

Washington Poe has a story to tell. And he needs you to listen. You'll hear how it started with the robber birds. Crows. Dozens of them. Enough for a murder. He'll tell you about a man who was tied to a tree and stoned to death, a man who had tattooed himself with a code so obscure, even the gifted analyst Tilly Bradshaw struggled to break it. He'll tell you how the man's murder was connected to a tragedy that happened fifteen years earlier when a young girl massacred her entire family. And finally, he'll tell you about the mercy chair. And why people would rather kill themselves than talk about it. Poe hopes you've been paying attention. Because in this story, nothing is as it seems.

Midway through his life, an artist begins to paint upside down. In Paris, a woman is attacked by a stranger in the street. A mother dies. A man falls to his death. Couples seek escape in distant lands. The novel 'Parade' sets loose a carousel of lives. It surges past the limits of identity, character, and plot, to tell a true story - about art, family, morality, gender, and how we compose ourselves.

It's been raining for a long time now, for so long that the lands have reshaped themselves and the cities have retreated to higher storeys. Old places have been lost. Arcane rituals and religions have crept back into practice. Sisters Isla, Irene and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their estranged father dies. A famous architect revered for making the new world navigable, he had long cut himself off from public life. They find themselves uncertain of how to grieve his passing when everything around them seems to be ending anyway. As the sisters come together to clear the grand glass house that is the pinnacle of his legacy, they begin to sense that the magnetic influence of their father lives on through it. Soon it becomes clear that others have also taken an interest in both his estate and in them, and that perhaps their inheritance may not be theirs alone.

After a morning that starts with a terrible migraine, an accidentally strong concoction of painkillers, and a bump on the head, Clover Hendry is not quite herself. And as she walks out of work at 9.47am, for once Clover isn't worrying about the consequences. For once, she's going to live for herself - if only for a day. Full of a joyful recklessness, Clover Hendry is taking the day off. But will her new-found freedom uncover long-buried secrets?

Have you been wondering what happened to your favourite characters Ruth Galloway and Harry Nelson? Dive into this collection of stories and find out. Here are stories to suit all tastes. There are ghost stories and mini cosy mysteries; tales of psychological suspense and poignant vignettes of love and loss. There's a creepy horror story to make you shiver and a tale narrated by Flint, Ruth Galloway's cat, to make you smile.