Long Time Dead
by Tony Black

Gus Dury is back on the drink. While in hospital after a hit-and-run accident, his best friend, Hod, asks him to investigate the ritual, on-campus hanging of an Edinburgh University student. The murder victim's mother is a high-profile actress, who has promised a big-money reward. Gus, desperate for money, goes undercover at the university, taking a janitor's job, and soon uncovers a similar ritualistic hanging which took place in the 70s. Few of the students are prepared to talk about it - until another one of their group turns up dead by the same method. But Gus now moves into very dangerous waters as he begins to discover what and who is really behind it all - and he becomes the next target for the executioner.

Spartacus: Rebellion
by Ben Kane

The mighty slave army led by Spartacus has carried all before it, shredding the armies of three praetors, two consuls and one proconsul. Outside Mutina (Modena) on the plain of the River Po, he has defeated Gaius Cassius Longinus, proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul and general of an army of two legions. Now the road home lies before them - to Thrace for Spartacus and to Gaul for his seconds-in-command, Castus and Gannicus. But storm clouds are massing on the horizon. Crixus the Gaul, once Spartacus's most powerful general, has defected, taking his men with him. In Rome, the hugely rich Marcus Licinius Crassus will be given ten legions and told to put an end to the slave rebellion - whatever it takes. Meanwhile a potentially fatal difference of opinion is opening up between Spartacus on the one hand and Castus and Gannicus on the other. He wants to lead his men over the Alps and away home. They want to turn back south and march on Rome itself, believing that the Republic can be brought to its knees. This division between the warrior commanders will lead to a critical turning point in the course of history and bring Spartacus himself to his day of reckoning. Rebellion has become war. War to the death.

No Return
by Brett Battles

An F-18 Navy fighter careens out of the blue sky above the Mojave desert. A TV cameraman, who grew up in a small town just miles away, can see what is going to happen next. Frantically, Wes Stewart races to the downed jet and tries to save the pilot's life. When the plane explodes, Wes escapes without harm - and plunges into a murderous conspiracy. It's been fifteen years since Wes has been back to the desolate landscape of his childhood. Now, he finds himself up against the US military, the local police and someone who is tracking his every move. In the moments he spent with the dying pilot, Wes discovered something that could get him killed. But while he tries to untangle a web of lies and secrets surrounding the crash, another danger is stalking him. And this one he will never see coming.

The Flower Reader
by Elizabeth Loupas

With her dying breath, Mary of Guise entrusts a silver casket containing explosive secret papers to the young Scottish heiress, Rinette Leslie. She makes Rinette promise to keep the casket hidden and only to give it to Mary, Queen of Scots, now on her way home from France to ascend the throne.

But Rinette makes a terrible mistake - she cannot resist showing it to her beloved young husband, before consigning the casket to its hiding place. This fatal decision will lead them into a maze of conspiracy and murder, in which they - and the beautiful castle by the sea, which is Rinette's inheritance - become the targets of ruthless men who seek to possess the casket at all costs.

Unable to tell friend from foe at court, and desperate to protect the queen's secrets, Rinette has one powerful weapon which may save her - the ancient art of floramancy, through which she can interpret the language of flowers and sometimes predict the future. But if the flowers should stay silent, who can she trust then?

Murder Mile
by Tony Black

In a cold, windswept field on the outskirts of Edinburgh, lies the brutally mutilated body of a young woman. As DI Rob Brennan looks at the tangled mass of limbs and blood, he feels his heart freeze.

Like Fiona Gow five years earlier, this girl has been strangled with her own stockings, sexually mutilated and her eyes have been gouged out. Is this the work of an Edinburgh Ripper? The press certainly think so.

Rob Brennan is determined to uncover the truth - however painful that might be. But truth is hard to come by in a world of police rivalries, media hysteria and copycat crime.