Forever and a Day

A wealthy woman strangled six hours after she's arranged her own funeral. A very private detective uncovering secrets but hiding his own. A reluctant author drawn into a story he can’t control. What do they have in common? Unexpected death, an unsolved mystery and a trail of bloody clues lie at the heart of Anthony Horowitz's new thriller. Spread the word. The word is murder.

It is November 1890 and London is gripped by a merciless winter. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are enjoying tea by the fire when an agitated gentleman arrives unannounced at 221b Baker Street. He begs Holmes for help, telling the unnerving story of a scar-faced man with piercing eyes who has stalked him in recent weeks.

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the tattered manuscript of Alan Conway's latest novel, she has little idea it will change her life. She's worked with the revered crime writer for years, and his detective, Atticus Pund, is renowned for solving crimes in the sleepy English villages of the 1950s. As Susan knows only too well, vintage crime sells handsomely. It's just a shame that it means dealing with an author like Alan Conway.... But Conway's latest tale of murder at Pye Hall is not quite what it seems.

When a troubled model falls to her death from a snow-covered Mayfair balcony, it is assumed that she has committed suicide. However, her brother has his doubts, and calls in private investigator Cormoran Strike to look into the case.Strike is a war veteran - wounded both physically and psychologically - and his life is in disarray. The case gives him a financial lifeline, but it comes at a personal cost: the more he delves into the young model's complex world, the darker things get - and the closer he gets to terrible danger...

On a warm July evening in 1985, a middle-aged man stood on the pavement of a busy avenue in the heart of Moscow, holding a plastic carrier bag. In his grey suit and tie, he looked like any other Soviet citizen. The bag alone was mildly conspicuous, printed with the red logo of Safeway, the British supermarket. The man was a spy. A senior KGB officer, for more than a decade he had supplied his British spymasters with a stream of priceless secrets from deep within the Soviet intelligence machine. No spy had done more to damage the KGB. The Safeway bag was a signal: to activate his escape plan to be smuggled out of Soviet Russia.

On a crowded tourist beach in Portugal, US operatives use a high-tech drone to watch a French arms dealer flirt with a beautiful woman. It's only when she leaves that they realise she has shot him dead. In Iran, protests are growing against the oppressive regime, whipped up by a charismatic student. Most external observers are excited, but on the ground a spy of questionable loyalty senses something is badly amiss. 

File Note Strictly Confidential - Authorised Personnel Only. Subject: James Bond. Age: 13. Description: dark hair that falls in a comma above his brow, despite efforts to control it; blue eyes; tall for age; surprisingly strong; fluent French, good German. Essential components: a ruthless villain who will stop at nothing; a girl - blond, green-eyed, named Wilder Lawless; a fast car.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Fox by Frederick Forsyth. The 18th novel from best-selling thriller writer Frederick Forsyth, the man who defined the genre. The Fox is based on the stories of British hackers Gary McKinnon and Lauri Love and centres around an 18-year-old schoolboy with Asperger’s Syndrome who is able to penetrate intricate firewalls to access the secrets at the highest level of foreign governments and other major organisations.

Inspector Betty Church - one of the few female officers on the force - has arrived from London to fill a vacancy at Sackwater police station. But Betty isn't new here. This is the place she grew up. Time ticks slowly in Sackwater. Having solved the case of the missing buttons, Betty's called to the train station to investigate a missing bench. But though there's no bench, there is a body. A smartly dressed man, murdered in broad daylight, with two distinctive puncture wounds in his throat. While the locals gossip about the Suffolk Vampire, Betty Church readies herself to hunt a dangerous killer.

When his guardian dies in suspicious circumstances, 14-year-old Alex Rider finds his world turned upside down. Forcibly recruited into MI6, Alex has to take part in gruelling SAS training exercises. Then, armed with his own special set of secret gadgets, he's off on his first mission to Cornwall, where Middle-Eastern multi-billionaire Herod Sayle is producing his state-of-the-art Stormbreaker computers - but there's more to Sayle than meets the eye....