OUT LATEST SELECTION of new titles for the Library shelves has a somewhat different slant – they are unlikely stories and most of them happen to be true.

Nevertheless, they are every bit as intense as any of our usual selection of popular murder and mayhem titles.

Three of our new offerings are non-fiction, while the fourth is a multi-award-winning novel that also made it onto the London stage and is now rumoured to become a Hollywood movie shortly.

Out of my Depth

by Anne Darwin with David Leigh

WHEN ANNE DARWIN told the world – and her family – that her husband John had disappeared while canoeing in the North Sea, her life changed forever.

She lied to the police, the press, her friends and neighbours, insurance companies and her own sons. While her husband hid in their rental house next door, Anne had to face the music.

Now, for the first time, Anne opens up about an extraordinary chain of events: her decision to take part in her husband’s hare-brained scheme; her life and marriage before, during and after the crime spectacularly revealed; her harrowing time behind bars and the runaway train of deceit and guilt that followed their plan.

Anne’s fee for this book goes to the RSPCA and the RNLI.

David Leigh won the Press Club’s Scoop of the Year award and the National Association of Press Agencies’ news story of the year for uncovering the crime and his reporting on John Darwin, Canoe Man.

A Street Cat Named Bob

by James Bowen

JAMES BOWDEN WAS a homeless man living on the streets of London struggling with a drug addiction. During the day he would go busking to make a bit of money to support himself. Having spent time in hostels for the homeless, he was finally given his own flat.

On returning home one day James finds a ginger tom cat outside his flat. From that day on the pair formed a special attachment to one another.

James decided to call the cat Bob and most days, when James started out busking, Bob would join him. Bob would sit in the guitar case and watch as the people threw money into the case.

The story of the friendship James and Bob formed not only became an international best seller but also became one of the best-loved movies of 2016.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

by Mark Haddon

THIS IS A MURDER MYSTERY like no other. The detective – and narrator of this unusual tale – is Christopher Boone. Christopher is 15 and has Asperger’s syndrome. He knows a great deal about maths but very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched.

He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour’s dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey that will turn his whole world upside down.

SAS: Rogue Heroes

by Ben Macintyre

RECENTLY THE SUBJECT of a BBC drama-documentary, this is the first history of the SAS compiled from the regiment’s own archives.

It tells how, in the summer of 1941 at the height of the war in the Western Desert, a bored and eccentric young officer, David Stirling, came up with a plan that was radical and entirely against the rules: a small undercover unit that would inflict mayhem behind enemy lines.

Despite intense opposition, Winston Churchill personally gave Stirling permission to recruit the toughest, brightest and most ruthless soldiers he could find. So began the most celebrated and mysterious military organisation in the world: the SAS.

Now 75 years later, the SAS has finally decided to tell its astonishing story.

A TALE with a difference from classic thriller writer Frederick Forsyth, a new Detective Superintendent Roy Grice story from the pen of Peter James and the 25th instalment in Donna Leon’s Brunetti novels set in Venice headline the latest list of new titles added to the Library shelves this month.

The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue

by Frederick Forsyth

FROM FREDERICK FORSYTH, the grand master of international suspense, comes his most intriguing story yet – his own.

At 18, Forsyth was the youngest pilot to qualify with RAF. At 25, he was stationed in East Berlin as a journalist during the Cold War. Before he turned 30 he was in Africa controversially covering the bloodiest civil war in living memory. Three years later, broke and out of work, he wrote his game-changing first novel, The Day of the Jackal. He never looked back.

Forsyth has seen some of the most exhilarating moments of the last century from inside, travelling the world, once or twice on ‘Her Majesty’s Secret Service’. He’s been shot at, he’s been arrested, he’s even been seduced by an undercover agent.

Love You Dead

by Peter James

AN UGLY DUCKLING as a child, Jodie Bentley had two dreams in life – to be beautiful and rich. She achieved the first, with a little help from a plastic surgeon, and now she’s working hard on the second. Her philosophy on money is simple: you can either earn it or marry it. Marrying is easy, it’s getting rid of the husband afterwards that’s harder, that takes real skill. But hey, practice makes perfect…

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace believes a Black Widow is operating in his city. One with a venomous mind… and venomous skills. Soon Grace comes to the frightening realisation that he may have underestimated just how dangerous the lady is.

The Waters of Eternal Youth

by Donna Leon

THE 25th INSTALMENT in the Brunetti series set in Venice finds our Commissario drawn into investigating a 15-year-old cold case at the request of the grand Contessa Lando-Continui, a friend of Brunetti’s mother-in-law.

The Contessa’s teenage granddaughter, Manuela, was found drowning in a canal. Rescued at the last moment, she suffered severe brain damage and her life was never the same again. Out of a mixture of curiosity, pity and willingness to fulfill the wishes of a loving grandmother Brunetti re-opens the case.

But once he starts investigating Brunetti finds a murky past and a dark story at its heart.

DVD Corner

Our Girl (DS372)

Starring Lacey Turner

FROM ALBERT SQUARE to Afghanistan – actress Lacey Turner (Stacey Slater in Eastenders) takes on the role of Molly Dawes an army medic in Afghanistan.

Thrilled to find herself out of the ordinary and on the front line, she gets off to a bad start with her platoon leader Captain James (Ben Aldridge). One heroic act that saves a life while risking her own brings a new level of respect from her comrades.

But Molly is about to learn that not everything is as it seems.

PAST AND PRESENT are entwined in our latest reading recommendations. Sam Capra wants to know if he really witnessed his brother’s execution by extremists, while now-grown-up Clemency Smitten seeks to discover why she was adopted as a baby and what really happened to her parents.

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