In this frenetic suspense novel from Murray and Wearmouth (the Awakened series), Maria Fontana, the head of Columbia University's psychology department, serves as a juror in the Manhattan trial of Wyatt Butler, an antique watch restorer accused of murdering eight children across several states. The jury splits 11 to one, with Maria the lone dissenting vote. When she openly admits she couldn't convict Butler based on the evidence, she creates a media uproar. Urged to take a sabbatical by her boss, Maria embarks on a transatlantic cruise to Britain with her 11-year-old twins and her boyfriend. After a severed head turns up in a cabin, Maria suspects Butler is aboard the ship and desperately tries to have her fears taken seriously before the body count rises. The authors maintain tension throughout and provide several clever twists, though some sloppy details, such as having Butler's trial open to the public but not the press, undercut suspension of disbelief. Fans of Brandon Webb and John David Mann's Steel Fear will want to check this one out. Agent: Brandi Bowles, United Talent Agency. (Sept.)

Nearly two years after serving on a jury that acquitted an accused serial killer, Maria Fontana and her fiancé, Steve, are on board the HMS Atlantia, on a transatlantic voyage to the United Kingdom. With them are Maria's two children and, apparently, a killer: when a disembodied head is discovered in one of the passenger staterooms, and, later, a child goes missing, Maria begins to suspect that Wyatt Butler, the alleged killer Maria voted to acquit at trial, is aboard the Atlantia. Why would Butler, who might literally have gotten away with murder, risk putting himself on a vessel with no easy means of escape to commit more murders? Perhaps someone else on the ship is a killer? But who? And why? Questions pile upon questions, keeping the reader in a constant state of apprehension. This is a really good thriller, claustrophobic and creepy and fast-paced. The authors are clearly having some fun with it (a severed head!), and the readers definitely will, too. (Bonus points for readers who can spot the authors' clever reference to their previous novel, 2020's creature feature Don't Move.)