Patricia Marques’s debut THE COLOURS OF DEATH (17 June, Hodder & Stoughton) is crime fiction with a twist. Set in a Lisbon where a small percent have telepathy or telekinesis, it sees an inspector (herself telepathic) investigating the death of a high-up at the Institute that oversees the Gifted. AC Wise’s WENDY, DARLING (out now, Titan) is a dark, feminist take on Peter Pan, in which the grown-up Wendy returns to Neverland to get her daughter back after Peter abducts her. Neal Asher’s JACK FOUR (out now, Tor) is set in his Polity universe. The titular Jack is a human clone, created to be sold, and bought by the alien Prador for their experimentation program. But no clone should possess the knowledge that’s been loaded into his mind… Terry Miles’s mind-bending RABBITS (out now, Tor) is spun off from the podcast of the same name. Concerning an underground game which involves finding patterns in the everyday world, it’ll be up your street if you dig pop culture references and conspiracy theories. In continuing series: there’s a new novel by “Walker Dryden” (Mike Walker and John Scott Dryden) based on Tumanbay, their Radio 4 drama about the capital of an empire built on the slave trade. In THE POISON THRONE (24 June, Orion), it’s been occupied by the fanatical cult of Maya. Finally, Megan E O’Keefe’s space opera The Protectorate concludes with third entry CATALYST GATE (24 June, Orbit). Can Sanda Greeve and her crew save humanity from destruction at the hands of alien intelligence Rainier and her clones?
Fingers crossed, eh ?