ALLISON & BUSBY
Blue Murder: Cry Me a River (Jan., $25.95) by Cath Staincliffe. Det. Chief Inspector Janine Lewis grapples with a stabbing victim near death, a dying elderly man and a seven-year-old child as the only available witnesses and a suspect on the run.
ATRIA
Puppet (Jan., $24.95) by Joy Fielding. A beautiful young defense attorney is informed that her mother has shot and killed a complete stranger in the lobby of Toronto's Four Seasons hotel. Advertising. Author publicity.
BALLANTINE
Murder at Union Station (Nov., $24.95) by Margaret Truman is her latest Capital Crimes entry replete with presidential indelicacies, CIA thugs and a missing manuscript.
A Christmas Visitor (Nov., $16.95) by Anne Perry. A famous mathematician investigates a murder that rocks the holiday tranquility on an English estate. Advertising.
Dark Eye (Feb., $25.95) by William Bernhardt teams a criminal psychologist with her superior's son, a high-functioning autistic savant, in search of a killer who buries his victims alive. Advertising. Author publicity.
BALLANTINE/ONE WORLD
Dying in the Dark (Oct., $22.95) by Valerie Wilson Wesley revisits PI Tamara Hayle in this seventh episode. 6-city author tour.
BANTAM
Blind Alley (Sept., $25) by Iris Johansen pits forensic sculptor Eve Duncan against a killer who obscures the identify of his victims by leaving them literally faceless. 300,000 first printing. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
A Gentleman's Game: A Queen & Country Novel (Oct., $24) by Greg Rucka features lethal Tara Chace as head of special ops for the British secret intelligence who will do anything to defend her country from a second strike after a terrorist attack devastates London. 50,000 first printing. Advertising. Author publicity.
Cat's Eyewitness: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery (Feb., $TBA) by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown. A statue of the Virgin Mary cries tears of real blood. 75,000 first printing. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME
Wife of Moon (Sept., $22.95) by Margaret Coel continues the Wind River Mystery series as Father John O'Malley and Vicky Holden investigate two murders separated by a century.
The Tale of Hill Top Farm (Oct., $22.95) by Susan Wittig Albert launches a new series inspired by the life of Beatrix Potter.
Crewel Yule (Oct., $19.95) by Monica Ferris is the hardcover debut of her Needlecraft Mystery series with Betsy Devonshire, part-time sleuth and full-time shop-owner of Crewel World.
CARROLL & GRAF
Buzz Riff (Oct., $25) by Sam Hill brings back buzz junkie Top Kiernan for more criminal antics. An Otto Penzler book.
Now You See It (Nov., $25) by Stuart M. Kaminsky. In his 24th outing, Toby Peter meets up with magician Harry Blackstone and actor Cornel Wilde. An Otto Penzler book.
CDS BOOKS
Murder on the Majestic (Jan., $22.95) by Mitchell Graham mixes a budding shipboard romance and international intrigue with a plot to destroy a legendary luxury cruise ship.
CROWN
The Rottweiler (Nov., $25) by Ruth Rendell. The narrative alternates between the inner life of a serial killer dubbed the Rottweiler and the daily affairs of the ethnically diverse residents of a London neighborhood who fear him.
DELACORTE
Force Protection (Sept., $25) by Gordon Kent. Naval intelligence officer Alan Craik tracks terrorists targeting U.S. forces overseas while his U.S.-based wife defends her family against the same relentless enemy. 25,000 first printing. Advertising.
Absent Friends (Oct., $24) by S.J. Rozan. In the aftermath of 9/11, a colleague investigates a reporter's suicide. 50,000 first printing. Ad/promo.
DUTTON
Suspicion of Rage (Feb., $24.95) by Barbara Parker. Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana find themselves in a new mystery set in Cuba and south Florida. Advertising. Author tour.
FORGE
The Vanished Priestess (Oct., $23.95) by Meredith Blevins. Annie Szabo returns, this time aided by an ex-cop and magical plant medicine, to investigate the life and death of a cultural icon. Advertising.
The Last Dark Place (Dec., $23.95) by Stuart M. Kaminsky has Chicago detective Abe Lieberman involved in an extradition case that misfires. Advertising.
HARBOR HOUSE
The Rutherford Cipher (Sept., $24.95) by William Rawlings Jr. A descendant of a Confederate officer happens upon a diary that may lead to lost Confederate gold. Author tour.
HARCOURT
The Vanished Hands (Jan., $25) by Robert Wilson follows The Blind Man of Seville in which Javier Falcon pursues whether three deaths are suicides or murders. Advertising.
HEADLINE (dist. by Trafalgar Square)
The Tolls of Death: A Medieval West Country Mystery (Sept., $24.95) by Michael Jecks. The Cardinham Castle estate is home to an enigmatic double murder.
JUSTIN, CHARLES & CO.
Boyos (Sept., $24.95) by Rick Marinick. Antihero Jack "Wacko" Curran is familiar with guns, drugs and betrayal. Advertising. Author tour.
The Mayday: A Jack Merchant and Sarah Ballard Novel (Nov., $24.) by Bill Eidson. Jack and Sarah wonder if the story of a foundered ship, a life raft adrift and a rescue-turned-kidnapping can possibly be true. Advertising.
KENSINGTON
Jingle Bell Bark (Sept., $22) by Laurien Berenson. Melanie is already overwhelmed with teaching and mothering when investigating a murder is added to her pre-Christmas to-do list.
Murder a la Mode (Jan., $22) by G.A. McKevett. Plus-sized PI Savannah Reid gets some lethal surprises when she appears on a reality-TV dating show.
Wiped Out (Feb., $22) by Barbara Colley. New Orleans house cleaner Charlotte LaRue is back and tailing the killer of a garden club member.
KODANSHA INTERNATIONAL
Shadow Family (Feb., $22.95) by Miyuki Miyabe is a police procedural in which an office worker's immersion into an Internet chat room leads to his undoing.
LITTLE, BROWN
London Bridges (Nov., $27.95) by James Patterson. In this 10th Alex Cross thriller, the Wolf is again wreaking havoc as terrorists seize the world's largest cities. Ad/promo.Author tour.
Drama City (Feb., $24.95) by George Pelecanos. After eight years in prison on a drug charge, Lorenzo Brown wants to go straight but old acquaintances have different plans. Ad/promo.7-city author tour.
Fleshmarket Alley: An Inspector Rebus Novel (Feb., $22.95) by Ian Rankin is set in the dark streets and seedy clubs of Edinburgh's red-light district. Ad/promo.7-city author tour.
Honeymoon (Feb., $27.95) by James Patterson and Howard Roughan. FBI agent John O'Hara suspects that the young investment banker's alluring and mysterious fiancée murdered him, but why? Ad/promo.Author tour.
LYONS PRESS
Bitch Creek (Sept., $22.95) by William G. Tapply introduces Stoney Calhoun, seeking his past after a lightning strike obliterated his memory.
MACADAM/CAGE
Identity Theory (Oct., $24.95) by Peter Temple. Information is the lethal weapon in an international game of cat and mouse. 25,000 first printing. $34,000 ad/promo.
MORROW
Double Shot (Nov., $24.95) by Diane Mott Davidson. Caterer/sleuth Goldy Schulz indulges her appetite for suspense in this new culinary whodunit. 250,000 first printing.
MYSTERIOUS PRESS
Good Morning, Darkness (Sept., $23.95) by Ruth Francisco. A woman disappears; the Mexican fisherman who admires her finds a severed arm; a detective is suspicious. Advertising.
Murder at the B-School (Oct., $24.95) by Jeffrey Cruikshank, a former faculty member at the Harvard Business School, limns a tale of murder and conspiracy in Harvard's graduate program. Advertising.
False Profits (Nov., $23.95) by Patricia Smiley. A divorced woman temporarily living with her mother turns reluctant sleuth when she is accused of stealing $11 million. Advertising.
Dangerous Women (Jan., $24.95), edited by Otto Penzler, anthologizes stories about dames to watch out for by such notables as Michael Connelly, Elmore Leonard and Anne Perry. Advertising.
NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
Murder She Wrote: A Vote for Murder (Oct., $19.95) by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain. Skullduggery is afoot on D.C.'s Capitol Hill.
NEW PRESS
Before the Frost: A Linda Wallander Mystery (Feb., $26.95) by Henning Mankell introduces a series translated from Swedish by Ebba Segerberg.
W.W. NORTON
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes (Nov., $75, boxed), edited by Leslie S. Klinger, is an illustrated two-volume edition that reassembles 56 classic stories in chronological order, and includes biographies, historical and cultural details. Advertising.
PAN BOOKS UK (dist. by Trafalgar Square)
The Prayer of the Night Shepherd: A Reverend Merrily Watkins Mystery (Sept., $24.95) by Phil Rickman. In this occult mystery series, the protagonist is a single mother, an Anglican priest—and an exorcist.
PANTHEON
The Sunday Philosophy Club: An Isabel Dalhousie Mystery (Sept., $19.95) by Alexander McCall Smith begins a series set in Edinburgh by the author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Advertising. Author publicity.
POISONED PEN PRESS
Blind Switch (Sept., $24.95) by John McEvoy revolves around an amateur boxer whose attempt to fix a horse race lands him in the middle of an FBI scheme.
The Coffin Trail (Nov., $24.95) by Martin Edwards. An Oxford historian/TV personality and his new lover purchase an idyllic cottage that was once home to an autistic youth suspected of a ritualistic murder.
First, Do No Harm (Nov., $24.95) by Larry Karp. Martin Firestone's acceptance to medical school compels his father to share a story about Martin's grandfather, a gifted doctor who may have covered up a murder.
Carnage on the Committee (Dec., $24.95) by Ruth Dudley Edwards is the 10th in the Robert Amiss series, wherein the judges of a prestigious literary prize are being knocked off.
RANDOM HOUSE
Dark Voyage (Sept., $24.95) by Alan Furst opens in 1941 Tangiers and concerns espionage at sea involving the captain of a Dutch tramp freighter. Ad/promo. Author tour.
The Egyptologist (Sept., $24.95) by Arthur Phillips. The author of Prague offers a novel set in 1922 with an Egyptologist obsessed with finding the tomb of an apocryphal king. Ad/promo.Author tour.
In the Night Room (Oct., $21.95) by Peter Straub. When a children's book author feels a desperate need to rescue her dead daughter, another writer receives eerie e-mails written by deceased friends from his youth. Ad/promo.
Conviction (Jan., $26.95) by Richard North Patterson. Fifteen years after Rennell Price and his brother are convicted of a grisly murder, a pro bono lawyer, her husband and stepson, a recent Harvard law graduate, are all convinced that Rennell did not receive a fair trial. Ad/promo.
REGANBOOKS
Citizen Vince (Sept., $24.95) by Jess Walter is set against the 1980 presidential election and involves witness protection, petty thievery, local politics—and murder.
ST. MARTIN'S/MINOTAUR
A Taint in the Blood: A Kate Shugak Novel (Sept., $24.95) by Dana Stabenow. The Aleutian PI probes secrets and murder in an elite Alaskan family. Advertising. Author tour.
The Deadly Dance: An Agatha Raisin Mystery (Nov., $22.95) by M.C. Beaton. Raisin takes the plunge and opens her own detective agency. Advertising.
The Devil's Right Hand (Jan., $21.95) by J.D. Rhoades is a debut crime novel set in the South. Advertising.
Forests of the Night (Jan., $24.95) by James W. Hall. A tough female is intent on uncovering a conspiracy festering in Florida and the Great Smoky Mountains. Advertising. Author tour.
SCRIBNER
Entombed (Jan., $26) by Linda Fairstein. Probing New York City's literary history, Alexandra Cooper matches wits with Edgar Allan Poe.
Hidden River (Jan., $24) by Adrian McKinty is a noir thriller about an Irish ex-cop investigating the murder of a beautiful woman that he once loved.
Blood Memory (Feb., $25.95) by Greg Iles. After experiencing debilitating panic attacks, forensic expert Cat Ferry returns home to Natchez where clues to a family murder prove even more disturbing.
SIMON & SCHUSTER
Alice in Jeopardy (Jan., $25) by Ed McBain finds a resourceful young widow on the trail of her two children's kidnappers. 100,000 first printing. Advertising. Author publicity.
Bloodlines: An Irene Kelly Novel (Jan., $24) by Jan Burke. In 1978, Irene was a young reporter on a story about a buried car containing human remains; now married to homicide detective Frank Harriman, she finds old cases resurfacing. 100,000 first printing. Ad/promo. 12-city author tour.
SOHO CRIME
The Watcher in the Pine (Feb., $24) by Rebecca Pawel is the third in the Lt. Tejada mystery series set in post—Civil War Spain.
SUNSTONE PRESS
The Gatekeeper (Oct., $24.95) by Tom Whatley. The investigation of a woman's murder reveals mental illness and severely abused children.
TOBY PRESS
Heaven's Witness (Sept., $19.95) by Joseph Telushkin and Allen Estrin. Under hypnosis, a beautiful actress reveals details of a murder committed decades earlier with eerie parallels to a killing spree currently occurring in L.A. 15-city author tour.
UNIV. PRESS OF COLORADO
Chilling Effect (Sept., $23.95) by Marianne Wesson. In this thriller, lawyer Lucinda Hayes takes a stand against violent pornography and represents the mother of a murdered child.
VIKING
The Winds of Change: A Richard Jury Mystery (Sept., $25.95) by Martha Grimes. The superintendent, joined by Melrose Plant and Brian Macalvie, seeks the killer of an unidentified five-year-old waif shot in the back. Advertising.8-city author tour.MG selection.
Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders (Dec., $24.95) by John Mortimer relates Rumpole's very first case, a trial that put the barrister on the map.
Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin (Feb., $TBA) by Nancy Atherton. While spreading good cheer at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Lori Shepherd encounters a kindly retired legal secretary who promptly dies.
WALKER
Call for the Dead and
A Murder of Quality (Oct., $18 each) by John Le Carré celebrate 45th anniversaries with re-issues of the first and second George Smiley novels.
WARNER
Double Homicide (Oct., $23.95) by Jonathan and Faye Kellerman inaugurates a series with each volume containing two novels featuring different detectives solving crimes in two different cities—Boston and Santa Fe. Ad/promo.5-city author tour.
Hour Game (Oct., $26.95) by David Baldacci. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are on the trail of two murderers, one of whom is imitating the other. Ad/promo.
Night Fall (Nov., $26.95) by Nelson DeMille brings back Detective John Corey in a story inspired by real events—a steamy videotape of a couple making love on the beach may provide the critical clue to the crash of an airliner. Ad/promo. 10-city author tour.
The President's Assassin (Feb., $25.95) by Brian Haig. After the White House chief of staff is brutally murdered, army lawyer Sean Drummond has three days to prevent the assassination of the president, who has a $500 million bounty on his head. Advertising.
WESTBOW PRESS
Obsessed (Feb., $19.99) by Ted Dekker is a psychological thriller about a man gripped by an object and a person from his past.
