Abacus A Snowball In Hell Brookmyre Christopher

In perfect Brookmyre tradition this new thriller featuring Jack Parlabane contains a lot of body fluids, the Establishment at its most corrupt, relatively few dead bodies and a formidable display of black humour • Jack Parlabane, the investigative journalist who is not averse to breaking the law for the sake of a good story, has finally been caught on the petard of his own self-confidence and is experiencing accommodation courtesy of Her Majesty. The fledgling Scottish parliament is in catatonic shock after experiencing its first dose of Westminster sleaze. The Catholic Church of Scotland is taking full advantage of the politicians' discomfort and is riding high in the polls as the voice of morality • Behind the scenes the truth is obscured by the machinations of the spin doctors and in prison, aware he's missing out on a great story, Parlabane discovers that contacts and a pretty way with words are no defence against people he has helped to put away

It was a junket, a freebie. A 'team-building' weekend in the highlands for lawyers, advertising execs, businessmen, even the head of a charity. Oh, and a journalist, specially solicited for his renowned and voluble scepticism - Jack Parlabane. Amid the flying paintballs and flowing Shiraz even the most cynical admit the organisers have pulled some surprises - stalkers in the forest, power cuts in the night, mass mobile phone thefts, disappearing staff, disappearing guests: there's nothing can bring out people's hidden strengths or break down inter-personal barriers quite like not having a clue what's going on and being scared out of your wits. However, when the only vehicular access for thirty miles is cut off it seems that events are being orchestrated not just for pleasure

Do you believe in ghosts Do we really live on in some conscious form after we die, and is that form capable of communicating with the world of the living ...Aye, right • That was Jack Parlabane's stance on the matter, anyway. But this was before he found himself in the more compromising position of being not only dead himself, but worse: dead with an exclusive still to file. From his position on high, Parlabane relates the events leading up to his demise, largely concerning the efforts of charismatic psychic Gabriel Lafayette to reconcile the scientific with the spiritual by submitting to controlled laboratory tests. Parlabane is brought in as an observer, due to his capacities as both a sceptic and an expert on deception, but he soon finds his certainties crumbling and his assumptions turned upside down as he encounters phenomena for which he can deduce no rational explanation

The murder of a media moghul in his country mansion appears to be the result of him disturbing a gang of would-be thieves. The robbers are swiftly caught, but when they are unexpectedly moved to a different prison they escape. Back in Edinburgh, a young solicitor reveals to the press that one of the subjects had left a letter with her some time before the break-in which proves his innocence. Jack Parlabane, journo-extraordinaire, is intrigued, but when he approaches the lawyer he discovers someone else is trying to get near her - someone with evil intent, political connections of the highest order and a corrupt agenda. Fast-moving, blackly humorous and intriguingly credible

Real Life sucks. He's thirty, his dreams of becoming a rock star are long gone, and he's just discovered that responsibility has no Escape key • Back when they were students, just like everybody else, Ray Ash and Simon Darcourt had dreams about what they'd do when they grew up. In both their cases, it was to be rock stars. Fifteen years later, their mid-thirties are bearing down fast, and just like everybody else, they're having to accept the less glamorous hands reality has dealt them. Nervous new father Ray takes refuge from his responsibilities by living a virtual existence in online games. People say he needs to grow up, but everybody has to find their own way of coping. For some it's affairs, for others it's the bottle, and for Simon it's serial murder, mass slaughter and professional assassination

The occasion: high school reunion. The place: an oil rig converted into a tourist resort. The outcome: carnage • Gavin is creating a unique 'holiday experience', every facility any tourist who hates abroad will ever want, will all be available on a converted North Sea oil rig. To test the facilities he's hosting a reunion for his old school (none of his ex-classmates can remember him, but what the heck, it's free). He is so busy showing off that he doesn't notice that another group have invited themselves along -- a collection of terrorist mercenaries who are occasionally of more danger to themselves than to the public. And they in turn are unaware that Inspector MacGregor has got wind of their activities. Within twenty-four hours Gavin's dream has blown to the four winds, along with a lot of other things

Sam Morpeth is growing up way too fast, left to fend for a younger sister when their mother goes to prison and watching her dreams of university evaporate. But Sam learns what it is to be truly powerless when a stranger begins to blackmail her • Who would you turn to? • Meanwhile, reporter Jack Parlabane has finally got his career back on track, but his success has left him indebted to a volatile, criminal source. Now that debt is being called in, and it could cost him everything • What would you be capable of? • Thrown together by a vindictive and mysterious mutual enemy, Sam and Jack are about to discover they might be each other's only hope

The latest in the hugely popular 44 Scotland Street series from the worldwide bestselling author, Alexander McCall Smith • Life for Bertie seems to be moving at a pace that is rather out of his control. Upstairs, at 44 Scotland Street, his father Stuart is powerless to stop over-bearing Irene and her determination that Bertie will travel to deepest, coldest Aberdeen on a three-month sojourn. Can his friend Ranald Braveheart Macpherson save the day? And can the boys execute a great escape? Meanwhile, further up in the New Town, Bruce Anderson's property development plans are thwarted by a sudden crisis of conscience that leads to a shocking revelation. And, in Big Lou's cafe, it seems that love might blossom at last • Warm hearted, humorous and always wonderfully wise, Love in the Time of Bertie offers philosophical insight as well as sartorial elegance

Sir Alfred Munnings, retiring President of the Royal Academy, chooses the 1949 Annual Banquet to launch a savage attack on Modern Art. The effect of his diatribe is doubly shocking, leaving not only his distinguished audience gasping but also many people tuning in to the BBC's live radio broadcast. But as he approaches the end of his assault, the speech suddenly dissolves into incoherence when he stumbles over a name - a name he normally takes such pains to avoid - that takes him back forty years to a special time and a special place • Summer in February is a disturbing and moving re-creation of a celebrated Edwardian artistic community enjoying the last days of a golden age soon to be shattered by war. As resonant and understated as The Go-Between, it is a love story of beauty, deprivation and tragedy

When Polly and Theo Noble book the Casa Luna, near Cortona, for their summer holiday they plan a civilised Anglo-American house-party with Theo's brother Daniel, Daniel's girlfriend Ellen, and Polly's old schoolfriend Hemani in an idyllic Tuscan setting. Their children Tania and Robbie will have Hemani's son Bron to play with, and Theo's mother, Betty is expected keep her grandchildren under control by force of a personality that can curdle mayonnaise at a hundred paces. Even Ivo Sponge, the notorious journalist with whom Ellen was once entangled, should do little to spoil their pleasure. But the Casa Luna is a place where strange things happen, and anyone who lives there risks unexpected joys and sorrows. As both children and adults find it increasingly difficult to tell what is fantasy and what is reality, the tiny winged creatures who have persuaded Tania to brew a love potion start to take over

Impromptu in Moribundia is a satirical fable about one (nameless) man's trespass (through a fantastical machine called the 'Asteradio') into a parallel universe on a far-off planet where the 'miserably dull affairs of England' are mirrored and transformed into an apparent idyll of bourgeois English imagination • Moribundia is the 'physical enactment of the stereotypes and myths of English middle-class culture and consciousness.' Yet the narrator comes to discover that he has stumbled among a people characterised by 'cupidity, ignorance, complacence, meanness, ugliness, short-sightedness, cowardice, credulity, hysteria and, when the occasion called for it . . . cruelty and blood-thirstiness

Life is dangerous when you have everything to lose • Famous, beautiful and talented, Heike Gunn has the world at her feet. Then, one day, she simply vanishes • Jack Parlabane has lost everything: his journalism career, his marriage, his self-respect. A call for help from an old friend offers a chance for redemption - but only if he can find out what happened to Heike • Pursued by those who would punish him for past crimes, Parlabane enters the world of Heike's band, Savage Earth Heart, a group at breaking point. Each of its members seems to be hiding something, not least its newest recruit Monica Halcrow, whose possible relationship with Heike has become a public obsession • Monica's own story, however, reveals a far darker truth. Fixated on Heike from day one, she has been engulfed by paranoia, jealousy and fear, as she discovers the hidden price of fame