NEWS

THE POSTMAN DELIVERS … Watch Her Disappear

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IT SEEMS ONLY YESTERDAY that former reviewing colleague Eva Dolan took the crime fiction world by storm with her astonishing debut Long Way Home. This tale of a pair of coppers, DI Zigic and DS Ferreira, tackling hate crime in one of Britain’s most ethnically diverse cities, Peterborough, shone a sharp light on the uncomfortable truth behind the exploitation of migrants by powerful vested interests. Next came Tell No Tales, and then After You Die.

Watch Her Disappear, the latest episode in the career of Zigic and Ferreira is expected to be on the shelves in January 2017, and it reminds us that hate crime can involve other issues than the colour of someone’s skin or the language they speak. A wave of sexual assaults has left Peterborough women wary and fretful, but when the next victim – a fatality – is revealed to have been a genetic man, the case becomes something different altogether.

Eva Dolan is also a great fan of playing poker. Recently, she tweeted,
“If I divide my advance by my wordcount tonight I’ve earned more playing poker than writing. Which means poker is now my day job, I think.”

I’m no gambler, but if I were, I think would be putting a decent sum on the fact that Watch Her Disappear will be another success for one of our best young writers. Watch the review section on Fully Booked for an in depth look nearer the publication date.

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November 4, 2016 0

ON MY SHELF …21st October

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Ross Armstrong is certainly a talented actor, as anyone familiar with his appearances on British television screens in such favourites as Foyle’s War and Jonathan Creek will testify. His RADA training also equipped him for weightier fare such as Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Royal Shakespeare Company. But a novelist too? So it seems, as his debut novel The Watcher is due out just after Christmas. The kind people at Harper Collins have just sent me an ARC of the novel, so what’s it all about?

It seems to take as its central plot device the well used trope of someone observing from a distance what appears to be a crime – or at least a mysterious happening. Bryan de Palma used the device in his 1984 thriller Body Double, which was itself an homage to the 1954 Hitchcock classic Rear Window. More recently, we all know what a runaway success Paula Hawkins has had with The Girl On The Train. Armstrong’s observer – or perhaps voyeur – is a young woman called Lily Gullick, an ornithologist with the obligatory pair of excellent binoculars. Her optics enable her to spy on her neighbours, and she indulges her imagination by inventing stories about them and their lives. But then one of her fantasy dramas take a very real turn, as one of Lily’s subjects – an elderly woman – is found dead.

Lily has been watching. But she soon learns, as one of the unforeseen consequences of the old woman’s death, that someone has also been watching her, and what was just a harmless bit of nosey-parkering is, all of a sudden, a matter of life and death. Follow this link to pre-order The Watcher as a Kindle or a hardback.

Gil Hogg, although living in the West London district of Fulham, is a New Zealander. His novel Rendezvous With Death is far from a debut, as Hogg’s first novel A Smell of Fraud was published as long ago as 1976. He returns with a story which begins in the explosive atmosphere of present day Pakistan.

Nick Dyson has abandoned his career as a barrister in London to act as personal assistant to a British diplomat – Robert Laidlow – in Islamabad. What seemed like a smart career move goes dramatically wrong when the diplomat is kidnapped. While the authorities are busy blaming the usual suspects – Islamic extremists – it dawns on Dyson that the criminals may in fact be working for a powerful European businessman with an implacable grudge against Laidlow and his family, and that his own head may be the next to roll.

Rendezvous With Death came out at in Kindle at the end of September and you can take a closer look plus a glimpse of Gil Hogg’s earlier books by visiting his author page. If you fancy a print version, then you can order one from the Troubador home page.

October 21, 2016 0

ON MY SHELF …October 2016

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Author Emma Kavanagh

The Missing Hours by Emma Kavanagh
No-one can doubt the Welsh author’s background training to write taut crime thrillers. For many years, after gaining her doctorate in Psychology, she trained police firearms officers and military personnel to cope with the aftermath of that crucial moment when the trigger is pulled. In this novel she tackles the story of a woman psychologist who, with her husband, ran a consultancy advising the families of kidnap victims. Selena Cole’s husband is dead, killed in a Brazilian terrorist attack. Now, she goes missing from a children’s playground, while supervising her young daughters. When she returns, 24 hours later, she has no recollection of where she has been or what has happened to her. DC Leah Mackay and D.S Finn Hale must investigate if there is any connection between Selena Cole’s disappearance and a murder. This novel came out in hardback and Kindle earlier in the year, but you can check out the soon-to-be-released paperback version here.

House of Bones by Annie Hauxwell
Hauxwell’s flawed heroine Cathy Berlin returns in a mystery which has its roots in an incident in the colonial Far East in 1961. Berlin is not in good shape.

“The blanket of fog shrouding London was a perversion of the season. It drifted in dense clouds across the capital as Catherine Berlin followed a hearse through the grand arch of the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium. She wondered how long it would be before she passed under it feet first.”

As Berlin struggles with her drug addiction, she tries to clear her mind to understand the links between a seemingly motiveless murder, a rich Chinese student with powerful friends, and a decidedly bent Peer of the Realm. The author was born in London’s East End but emigrated as a teenager with her parents to Australia. She has worked as a nurse, a taxi driver and a lawyer, but left the judicial world, to settle as a private detective and screenwriter. She lives in Castlemaine, Victoria, but is regularly in Europe – whether to go on vacation, or because research beckons her here. House of Bones is out now, in Kindle and paperback.

The Black Friar by S. G. MacLean
Maclean takes is back a good bit further than 1961, and we are in the London of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate. It is 1655, and Cromwell’s rule is threatened by a variety of political and military plots. When a body, clothed in the robes of a Dominican monk, is found walled into the ruins of a monastery, investigator and soldier Damian Seeker soon learns that the corpse is that of an elusive secret agent who worked for John Thurloe – Cromwell’s spymaster. In a city divided by warring religious zealots, and with Royalists conspiring to restore the Stuart monarchy, Seeker must also discover the fate of a number of abducted children. Shona MacLean, who is the niece of Alistair MacLean, Scotland’s most successful thriller writer and author of Where Eagles Dare, also manages to give a couple of celebrity ‘walk-on’ parts to Andrew Marvell and Samuel Pepys. The Black Friar is available from 6th October.

October 4, 2016 0

THE POSTMAN DELIVERS … Gimenez and McQuaile

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THE ABSENCE OF GUILT by Mark Gimenez
As we saw in The Colour of Law (2013) lawyer A. Scott Fenney is used to dealing with unpopular cases. Back then, it was a heroin-addicted black prostitute, absolutely no-one’s idea of a sympathetic defendant. Now, he is a newly appointed U.S. District Judge, and before him is a man who many consider to be the embodiment of evil on earth – Omar al Mustafa, a notorious and charismatic Muslim cleric known for his incendiary anti-American diatribes on social media. Even the POTUS has been publicly clapping his hands with glee at the prospect of Mustafa’s downfall. There’s just one tiny problem; there is no evidence to support the cleric’s conviction. With a widely expected attack on America by ISIS just weeks away, Fenney is faced with the most difficult decision of his life. The book is out in hardback on 6th October, and is published by Sphere. Check out buying options here.

WHAT SHE NEVER TOLD ME by Kate McQuaile
This domestic psychological thriller came out on Kindle earlier this year, and is now available in paperback. McQuaile is a graduate of the Faber Writing Academy, and her debut novel from Quercus tells the story of a woman, Louise Redmond, who is left feeling desolate after a failed marriage. She has never known who her father was, and when she travels home to Ireland to be at the bedside of her dying mother, her search to discover her past takes a sinister turn. Check out McQuaile’s author page on Amazon.

September 21, 2016 0

ON MY SHELF – Mid September 2016

I realise that the weather has been violently different elsewhere in the UK this week, but here in Cambridgeshire we have had three golden days – and evenings – such as I cannot ever remember, looking back over all my many Septembers. It won’t last, of course, and the recent arrival of four new crime fiction books reminds me that there are colder and darker days ahead which will be made more bearable by some excellent reading material.

The Book of Mirrors by E O Chirovici looks to be Penguin’s big promotion for the early autumn. There’s an excellent cover with peep-through perforations, and the promo pack includes a very tasty spiral bound notepad/sketchbook. The author, Eugen Ovidu Chirovici, was born in Transylvania, which all fans of the lethal Count Dracula will know is in modern-day Romania. The story? It’s one part literary novel, in that Chirovici examines the nature of memory and recollection; a second part aims to be stylish, and the author openly admires Raymond Chandler and Mario Vargas Llosa for their flawless technique. The third part, perhaps most importantly, is that we have a cracking CriFi story about a cold-case crime and a lost manuscript which contains clues to the identity of a killer.

Buying options for The Book Of Mirrors

The Vanishing Year by Kate Moretti certainly wins title of the month award, as those of us in the UK cling on desperately to every vestige of summer, while preparing ourselves stoically for yet another northern winter of rain, diminishing days, and media hysteria over football results. Moretti’s novel focuses on Zoe Whittaker, a woman whose life has metamorphosed from desperation and danger into one of luxury, love and positive vibes. But the past is never very far away, and when Zoe’s life comes under threat from those she thought had been cast aside, just as a dream dies at the dawn of day, she must make a decision which will either bring salvation – or damnation.

Buying options for The Vanishing Year

Get Lucky by Paul Eagles is one of those confessional ‘Jack The Lad’ stories about someone who has lived his life at the sharp end. It is, I suppose, True Crime, but aficionados of the genre will know that they will need several pinches of salt in order to separate the fact from the fantasy. Basically, Eagles tells his life story thus far. It is as far removed from anything you and I have experienced as is Tennyson from E J Thribb. But, I suppose, there lies the charm. We are invited to gasp and gawp at the goings on, charmed by the fact that we could never, ever have got away with things in the way that Mr Eagles describes.

Buying options for Get Lucky

The Child Garden by Catriona McPherson tells the story of one of those ‘special’ schools set up in the 1970s, when people still believed that Hippy peace and love was a viable and cogent philosophy. Conventional schools were simply prisons for young minds, Bob Dylan reminded us of “the mongrel dogs that teach”, and, just for a nanosecond, in someone’s mind, there seemed to be a way forward. The school in question was called – clearly with the irony meter turned off – ‘Eden’. Inevitably, it folded, with its alumni and teaching staff scattered to the four winds. But a sinister suicide during the school’s heyday returns to haunt former pupils, and they learn that the dead have ingenious ways of speaking to the living.

Buying options for The Child Garden

September 14, 2016 0

THE POSTMAN DELIVERS … Coben & Byron

HOME by Harlan Coben
The New Jersey based author is one of the bigger beasts in the crime fiction jungle, and he has created one of the more distinctive ‘accidental detectives’ in the genre. Myron Bolitar, the 6 feet 4 inches tall former basketball player, has already won three major awards for his creator, an Edgar (for Fade Away), a Shamus (Drop Shot) and an Anthony (Deal Breaker). In this latest adventure for the sports agent, he tackles the case of a disappeared boy who has, almost inevitably, been assumed dead. But now he shows up after a decade. Is he the real deal, or is he part of a sinister and devious scam? Home will be out in a variety of formats on 22nd September, and you can check the details here.

BODY ON THE BAYOU by Ellen Byron
Away from the city lights we go and we pay a visit to the town of Pelican, Louisiana, and as the title suggests we can expect plenty of alligators, snakes, spoonbills and other assorted fauna who make their homes in the mysterious watery glades. But this isn’t a wildlife Ellen B documentary – it’s a case of murder. Byron (right) reintroduces the characters she created in Plantation Shudders (2015) and this time the Crozat family have another murder on their hands when a woman’s body is found floating on the still waters of their plantation. The publicity tells us that the Crozats have “a gumbo potful of suspects on their hands.” Just to be clear, this isn’t Southern Noir, but more an example of Southern Cosy, and it’s out on 13th September. Find out more here.
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August 31, 2016 0

FLASHMAN REVISITED?

Who remembers the adventures of that frightful cad, Harry Flashman? The writer George MacDonald Fraser picked up a thumbnail sketch of the boy who was a significant character in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, a forgotten ‘classic’ written by Thomas Hughes, published in 1857. Hughes’s Flashman was a bully of the worst kind, but in a succession of best selling novels, Fraser followed his anti-hero’s adult career through the pivotal events of the 19^th century, including the American Civil War, The Crimean War, various encounters with Otto von Bismarck, the Zulu wars and several escapades in Afghanistan and Imperial India.

Now, the publishers of Get Lucky, an autobiography of Paul Eagles, say:

“Get Lucky is the true story of a rogue, sometimes lovable but often otherwise.”

Get Lucky So was Mr Eagles a late 20^th century Flashman? In some ways he seems to have all the charm of the fictional ne’er-do-well. He talks his way into posh company, is equally at home whether womanising, boozing or brawling, and thinks nothing of stealing a priceless Rubens painting from a Dutch museum.

The term demi monde seems to have been invented just to fit the company Paul Eagles kept in the final years of the Naughty Nineties – that’s the 1990s, not the 1890s, just so we’re clear. It seems that there was no drinking den unvisited, no sleazy Mediterranean club unpatronised – and no grim French jail left untenanted.

Paul Eagles rubbed shoulders with some fairly heavy characters during his day job as a lovable rogue, including the Mafia, and the dubious, faceless fixers behind the rise, decline and fall of the disgraced Australian businessman Alan Bond. Now, he has written his life story, and Troubador Books say:

“it’s a quirky and idiosyncratic tale, as much an entertainment
as it is the story of one lucky man’s unconventional life.”

Look out for an interview with Paul Eagles in the next couple of weeks on Fully Booked, and we hope to be offering a copy of this intriguing True Crime book as a prize in an upcoming competition.

August 23, 2016 0

COMPETITION WINNER …!

THE QUESTION WAS …..Which world famous novelist became Walter Mosley’s mentor, and encouraged him to start writing?

The answer is – Edna O’Brien. She was one of his tutors while he was taking a course in creative writing at City College in Harlem, New York. Her words:

“You’re Black, Jewish, with a poor upbringing; there are riches therein.”

– inspired him and convinced him that he could become a great writer. Thanks to all those who took part in the competition, and the lucky person who was drawn out of the hat of correct answers was DOUG KLEIN Jr, of Leesburg, Ohio. Your prize is on its way, Mr K!

August 21, 2016 0

THE POSTMAN DELIVERS … The Thieves of Threadneedle Street

YOU CAN GO VIA THIS LINK to the excellent feature our guest writer Nicholas Booth has written about one of the most daring attempts at fraud ever attempted in England. Had the gang succeeded, the British banking system might well have collapsed. As it was, those running The Bank of England were just made to look rather foolish.

THE THIEVES OF THREADNEEDLE STREET is a beautifully produced book, and the cover shows a contemporary version of our modern court room sketches, and we can see the gang in all their bristling moustachioed glory.

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SOME BOOKS feel good in the hands and are pleasing to the eye, even before you have turned the first page. This, published by The History Press, is one such book. It is impeccably researched and well sourced, with a comprehensive index. Nicholas Booth’s guest feature on Fully Booked is entertaining as it is, but it merely scratches the surface of an amazing episode in Victorian financial and criminal history.Head over to Amazon to see your options if you want to get your own copy of this book.

BIDWELL DID THE CRIME and served the time, but when he was finally released from prison, he didn’t waste a moment in putting his remarkably tale into print to try and cash in on his infamy. His book sits alongside the lovely back dustjacket of Nicholas Booth’s modern version of the story.

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