Related to: 'Bedlam'

If society has the B-list celebrities it deserves, it now has a killer to match. Except that Simon Darcourt is a great deal more successful in his career choice than the average talent show contestant. He's also got the media taped - by the simple expedient of by-passing them completely and posting real-time coverage of his killings on the internet. He's got viewing figures to make the world's TV executives gasp in envy, and he's pulling the voyeuristic strings of every viewer by getting them to 'vote' to keep his captives alive. Angelique De Xavier, his previous nemesis, is drafted onto the police team trying to bring this one-man celebrity hate-fest to an end. But she can't do it alone, she needs the magical skills of her lover, only she doesn't know where Zal is and meanwhile a whole load of celebs are, literally, dying to be famous. An intelligent satire, a thriller with exhilarating pace - Christopher Brookmyre at his best.

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. Perhaps, in a world in which he can find himself elected rector of an esteemed Scottish university, anything truly is possible. One thing he knows for certain, however: Death is not the end - it's the ultimate undercover assignment.

The senior pupils of St Peter's High School are on retreat to a secluded outdoor activity centre, coming to terms with the murder of a fellow pupil through the means you would expect: counselling, contemplation, candid discussion and even prayer - not to mention booze, drugs, clandestine liaisons and as much partying as they can get away with.Not so far away, the commanders of a top-secret military experiment, long-since spiralled out of control, fear they may have literally unleashed the forces of Hell.Two very different worlds are on a collision course, and will clash in an earthly battle between science and the supernatural, philosophy and faith, civilisation and savagery.The bookies are offering evens.

Detective Catherine McLeod was always taught that in Glasgow, they don't do whodunit. They do score-settling, vendettas and petty revenge. And however she looks at it, the discovery of a dead drug-dealer in a back alley means she's going to be busy. Meanwhile, aspiring actress Jasmine Sharp is reluctantly - and incompetently - working for her uncle Jim's private investigation business. When Jim goes missing, Jasmine has to take on the investigator mantle for real, and her only lead points to a professional assassin who has been dead for twenty years. Soon Jasmine stumbles into a web of corruption and secrets that leaves her running for her life.

COULD YOU FIND A HOTEL FOR A HARPY? OR A BAR FOR A BIGFOOT? Following the disaster that was her last job, Zo? is searching for a fresh start as a travel writer in New York City. After stumbling across a seemingly perfect position, though, Zo? is blocked at every turn because of the one thing she can't take off her r?sum? - human. Not to be put off by anything - especially not her blood-drinking boss or death goddess co-worker - Zo? delves deep into the monster world. But her assignments turn deadly when the careful balance between humans and monsters starts to crumble with Zo? right in the middle.

Frances Angel, drunk and disgruntled, arrives in Italy to attend the I Zingari Art School, leaving behind her dazzling career as a successful theatrical impresario and returning to a distant and painful past. She falls into an eclectic group of performance artists, ex soldiers and a housewife who really just wants to paint something to match her settee. In the village a scale replica of the La Scala opera house becomes the setting for the great drama of Francis' past to be played out on the world's smallest stage. Francis expected to find some answers but what she didn't expect was romance and quite so much farce.