Erased but not forgotten

Jeff Peirce at the Rap Sheet features an extensive interview with PI Thriller Writer Thomas Kaufman, an author who started his career behind the camera lens – and we’re sure you’ve seen some of his work. With his recently released eBook collection Erased and Other Stories , it’s time to sample his written work, with the Willis Gidney thrillers Drink the Tea and Steal the Show. Help support Shots by buying these remarkable PI thrillers from the links [above] from our online bookstore [in partnership with Amazon].

Here’s an extract from the interview –

AK: Tell us a little about you series lead, Willis Gidney. Where did he spring from? And why use Washington, D.C., as the stories’ backdrop?

TK: Let’s answer your question with a question: Are you troubled by unsightly back story? Do you wish those troubling details could all be erased?

That’s what I thought when I was creating Willis Gidney. Why bother with back story? Just invent a guy who doesn’t have one. So Willis Gidney is a product of an author’s laziness. I decided to make his early life forgotten. Since I’d worked on Promises to Keep, I thought it’d be a good idea for Willis to have grown up homeless. Traumatic childhood, memory gone. Problem solved, right?

Wrong. It turned out I had quite a bit of research to do, relating not only to homelessness, but also D.C.’s juvenile justice system. Of course, this was a good thing in the long run, but lots of heavy lifting. Hey, I got into this racket for the easy money and loose women. Still waiting for both, I’m afraid.

AK: I hear that George Pelecanos, another writer who uses the U.S. capital as a backdrop, enjoys your work.

TK: George has said nice things about what I’m doing. He’s one of the best writers in America, in my humble opinion. He’s also a neighbor, and over the years he’s offered solid suggestions and insights about what I’m writing. George’s D.C. is different from mine, but that’s because we’re different people. I love his work, and reading his descriptions of D.C. is like reading great reportage. The only other writer I've read who is as insightful about D.C. is Edward P. Jones (check out his Lost in the City).

AK: Recently, Scottish author Ian Rankin, when he was being interviewed by the BBC about the return of protagonist John Rebus [in Standing in Another Man’s Grave], said that he might not get on with Rebus if he actually met the man. Might that same thing be true if you encountered Willis Gidney in a bar?

TK: Willis has got some issues, but it would be hard not to like the guy. I often think of him as a nephew who doesn’t take advice terribly well. But I think we’d get along. We’re a lot alike. In fact, if I were taller, younger, better looking, and had faster reflexes, we could be twins.

Read the complete interview from The Rap Sheet here 

Photo (c) 2012 A Karim "Tom Kaufman at the PWA Shamus Awards held during Bouchercon Cleveland"

Criminal Splatterings!

 According to The Bookseller, publishers Century have acquired two thrillers by US author Neely Tucker.  The first set in Washington DC in the 1990s is based on the Princeton Place murders in DC in 1998.  The book is entitled The Ways of the Dead.  More information can be found here.

Congratulations go to Cathi Unsworth whose novel Weirdo has had the film rights snapped up.  More information can be found here.  Weirdo was published in July 2012 by Serpent’s Tail

Interesting news!  Swedish husband and wife duo better known as crime writer Lars Keppler have launched a literary agency.  According to The Bookseller, the venture will be headed up by Head of Zeus rights director Elisabeth Brännström.

Debut crime novelist Luke Delaney’s novel Cold Killing has been optioned as the basis of a multi-part TV drama.  More information can be found here.

According to Booktrade.info Bitter Lemon Press have acquired the rights to a literary crime novel set in Bangalore.  Cut Like Wound by Anita Nair will be published in May 2014 and will be the first in a series featuring Inspector Gowda.

For those of you missing Dan Stevens, the late, lamented heartthrob of the wildly popular Downton Abbey, he is slumming it these days, portraying a drug trafficker in a new film currently being shot in Brooklyn.  Stevens stars in the film, A Walk Among the Tombstones, with Liam Neeson, who portrays a private investigator Stevens' character hires to uncover who murdered and kidnapped his wife.  The film, which will be released next year and is being written and directed by Scott Frank, is based on a Matt Scudder crime novel by Lawrence Block.  Scott Frank is well versed in the crime genre having writing credit for Get Shorty, Out Of Sight and an episode of Karen Sisco.

Interesting article on the BBC website where writer and philosopher John Gray talks about Tom Ripley and the meaning of evil.  This was discussed on BBC Radio 4’s A Point of view.  The podcast can be heard here for a limited amount of time.

The BBC is to have a new season of drama and documentaries exploring the Cold War.  Staring off the season will be the film Legacy, which is based on the novel by Alan Judd and is set during the height of the Cold War in 1970s London.  More information can be found here.

Bill Nighy is set to reprise his roll as MI5 spy John Worricker in the second and third parts of the Worricker trilogy.  Unfortunately, the BBC have not yet said when it will be shown on BBC2.  However, more information can be found here.  Turks & Caicos and Salting The Battlefield follow Page Eight, which was shown back in August 2011.

As a result of winning the Best Single Drama at the recent BAFTA awards for the drama, Murder the BBC have commissioned a series based on it.  More information can be read here.

In more drama news from the BBC, it has been announced that BBC3 have acquired Orphan Black a suspenseful thriller from BBC America.  In Orphan Black, Sarah Manning, an outsider and orphan finds her life changing dramatically after witnessing the suicide of a woman who looks exactly like her.  She assumes her identity, her boyfriend and her bank account.  A second series of Orphan Black has already been announced by BBC America.

ITV have also announced that there is to be a second series of the well received The Bletchley Circle.  Set a year later in 1954 the ladies are reunited for their second case in the first two-part story when former Bletchley Park colleague, Alice Merren is accused of murder.  More information can be read here.

Fans of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple will be pleased to learn that filming has started on Endless Night. Once again, featuring Julia McKenzie playing Miss Marple, Endless Night is the third Agatha Christie Marple adaptation following A Caribbean Mystery and Greenshaw’s Folly to be commissioned by ITV.

Still on a Miss Marple roll, if you have not seen it yet then it is well worth seeing Murder, Marple and Me which got rave reviews whilst having its run at Edinburgh Fringe last year and has now transferred to London and is being shown at Ambassador Theatre for a very limited run. CWA Short Dagger Winner Stella Duffy directs murder, Marple and Me.  My review of the preview can be found here.  Murder, Marple and Me will have a run at The Ambassador Theatre from 11 June 2013 until 19 June 2013.  Contact The Ambassador Theatre for tickets.

Brilliant Twitter fiction by Sabine Durrant in the Guardian!

Interesting interview with Mark Billingham can be found in the Independent.  His latest novel is The Dying Hours.  The Independent also have an interview with James Runcie whose second novel in the Grantchester mysteries Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night has just been published.  The series has already been optioned for television by ITV. A recent interview with James Runcie can also been found on the Shotsmag.co.uk website.

Russ Litten also talks about the day he saw his double in Prague.

According to the Daily Record, Ian Rankin has for the first time revealed the home address of his famous fictional detective John Rebus.  Rankin had previously revealed his most famous character lived in Arden Street in Marchmont, Edinburgh but this time he has gone further and actually named identified the flat number.

Over in The Daily Mail, Ian Rankin has named his top ten greatest literary crime novels.  The full list can be found here and includes such names as Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Brighton Rock by Graham Greene and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.  The Daily Mail also has a list of top ten criminal mastermind crime writers.  The list includes some well-known names such as Patricia Cornwell, Harlan Coben, Ian Rankin and Lee Child.  The rest of the list can be found here.

According to The Scotsman Ian Rankin is joining Mark Thomson, artistic director of Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum, in writing the stage play Dark Road, which will premiere at the theatre during its 2013-14 season.  The play explores the disturbing world of serial killers.  It will be Ian Rankin's first foray into the playwriting.

According to publishers Allen & Unwin, Norwegian bestselling author Anne Holt’s novels are being developing as a series.  BBC1 is due to start with her novel 1222, which sees Detective Hanna Wilhelmsen looking into the mysterious deaths of survivors from a train crash, which took place high in the Norwegian mountains.  In more Anne Holt news, Yellow Bird production company have bought the film rights to Anne Holt’s three crime novels What is mine, What never happens and Madam President. The books are centred on inspector Yngvar Stubø and Inger Johanne Vik – a psychologist and lawyer with a previous career in the FBI.  They cooperate to solve different kind of crimes, such as kidnappings, murders and terrorist conspiracies.  Yellow Bird is best known for such films as the original Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the original Wallander series and Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters.

Yellow Bird are also according to Deadline.com producing a 10 part original series based on an idea by bestselling Norwegian crime novelist Jo Nesbø.  The political thriller will be entitled Occupied and is described as a political thriller set in a not so distant future where Russia has staged a "silk-glove" invasion of Norway to officially secure the oil import for the rest of the world. 

Deadline.com also reports that Stephen King's next thriller, Joyland, due to be published next month by Hard Case Crime, has been optioned for film, with Tate Taylor adapting the book and directing.  The project deals with a murder in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973.

And, if you are not already fed up with all things Dan Brown and his latest novel Inferno, here is a quick set of links to various things a lá Dan Brown or Inferno.  Jake Kerridge review of Inferno for the Telegraph can be found here.  One of course cannot ignore the article by Michael Deacon imploring us not to make fun of Dan Brown.  James Legge reports that with the publication of Inferno Dan Brown’s publishers aim to have the biggest sales since the Harry Potter series.  Boyd Tonkin’s review of Inferno in the Independent can be found here.  A nice round up of a number of reviews can also be found here.  John Crace in the Guardian has reduced Inferno to an easily digestible 600 words!  And if you still haven’t got anything else to do and would like to test your knowledge of Dan Brown, you might want to take the quiz on all things Dan Brown!

John Dugdale has an interesting article in the Guardian where he writes about the fact that bestselling writers know that image counts when it comes to wanting to have a memorable character.  Rachel Cooke in the Guardian reviews the Murder Mile by Paul Collicutt, an illustrated detective novel where a murder takes place as the race to break the four-minute mile is happening.

According to the Guardian, Channel 4 have announced an eight part series which is set in a "crumbling Victorian cop shop on the wrong side of Manchester.  Entitled No Offence it promises to be a police procedural with a difference.

Fans of 24 will no doubt welcome the return of the series.  Fox Entertainment have announced the return of the thriller featuring Keifer Sutherland as Jack Bauer.  However, it will be as a different format.  Renamed 24: Live Another Day it will return in a new 12 part series.  More information can be found here.

According to Cinemablend, the producers of James Bond have approached James Nolan to direct the next Bond film.  It is not however, a forgone conclusion that he will accept.

According to the Hollywood Reporter LA based British filmmaker Trevor Miller is set to direct Mark Boone Jnr of Sons of Anarchy in a contemporary film noir, which is set around the story of a surveillance contractor who drifts through Los Angeles at night photographing "cheating couples" and their illicit sexual acts.  He finds himself involved in intrigue, murder and deception when he sees the husband of the woman that he has fallen in love with burying the body of a woman in the desert.

USA network have also announced a number of drama projects as well.  These include The Arrangement, which is based on a short story by Elmore Leonard. 

In Bank after an unconventional act of heroism, a young FBI agent decides to the surprise of many to work in the bank crimes division in Los Angeles.  It takes a special kind of person to confront such an unrelenting tide of crime, leaving her peers suspicious of her intent.

Shadow Counsel is a legal thriller centered on Ethan, a former Army JAG attorney who is now working as a criminal lawyer in NY and is recruited by the FBI to crack an on-going investigation.  Ethan serves as a shadow counsel that is a secret lawyer who operates behind the scenes and completely off the record to circumvent existing roadblocks (hired attorneys, interrogators, etc.) in classified cases.  He finds himself in trouble and on the run with no one to trust.

According to Deadline.com.  Paris-based Backup Media has teamed up with Memento Films International to finance Cold in July an adaptation of the Joe Lansdale cult novel.  Cold in July tells the story of Richard Dane, who wakes up during a home invasion and kills his intruder in self-defence.  As if that was not bad enough, the intruder’s father is a badass ex-con with plans to avenge his son’s death in the Old Testament way, by killing Dane’s own son.

According to The Hollywood Reporter Simon Beaufoy is set to adapt Len Deighton’s spy novels for television.  He is developing an 18-part series based on Deighton’s classic Cold War novels featuring spy Bernard Samson.

And in more news about book adaptations, according to TV Guide.com, TNT have ordered 10 episodes of the drama Legends, which is based on the novel by Robert Littell of the same name, is about an undercover agent named Martin Odum who works for the FBI's Deep Cover Operations division.  Martin can transform himself into a completely different person for each job, but starts to question his own identity when a stranger suggests that he is not the man he believes himself to be.  It will feature Sean Bean who can currently be seen in Games of Thrones.  The series will be shown in 2014.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Blair Underwood is set to star as Raymond Burr in the remake of Ironside.  It has been picked up by NBC.  The remake of the 1960s series stars Blair Underwood as a tough, sexy but acerbic police detective relegated to a wheelchair after a shooting who, hardly limited by his disability, he pushes and prods his handpicked team to solve the most difficult cases in the city.

Lesley Thomson and The Detective's Daughter

Lesley Thomson is the author of three books.  Her latest book The Detective's Daughter was recently released.

I heard Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google saying that Google are going to offer us the chance to relive memories as hologram projections. In our sitting rooms this ‘digital memory’ will take us back to ‘how we felt’.  Reality and fiction fused, I thought.

I discovered Streetview about three years ago and until corrected thought it was called ‘Streetwise’. For me, this is more apt because I don’t view the streets, I inhabit them. I’m a dab hand with the controls and swiftly get about. I’m not hooked on social network sites like Twitter or Facebook, despite being a sociable creature, I let the minutes add up to hours while solitary, I click my way along streets, across roads and down lanes.

My first exploration was of a borough in London that I didn’t know where a character in The Detective’s Daughter goes to. I have still not been there, but after clicking my way around it, I feel that I have. My memory of lingering on a grassy verge, negotiating landmarks and making sense of where the park was in relation to houses – hardly varies from my memory of places I have literally visited. After this ‘visit’ I saw its potential for committing and solving fictional crime. Of course this wasn’t new; issues of privacy and security: what to show, leave out or blur, are ongoing with countries bringing in limiting legislation and creating ‘no-go’ zones.  But for a crime writer, Streetview does more than tell me if there are trees or houses in a London square, it takes me there.

I click my way across the city, under railway bridges, along the sides of busy roads without risking being snatched up in the slipstream of the traffic, mugged or worse. It’s always light on Streetview. In ‘Peeping Tom’ Mark Lewis the murderer, captures (and kills) what he sees with his camera. While he is filming the police carrying the corpse out onto a Soho street, a woman demands to know which newspaper he’s with; he has been seen. In ‘Lights Out For the Territory’, which I’ve just finished, Iain Sinclair is stopped by a police officer when he’s photographing a cluster of cameras on a pole in King William Street. Sinclair, or me when I went there recently, can’t move between the tall grey buildings without being spotted on CCTV. On Streetview I walk here and I’m invisible; I leave no footprints. It’s a medium for the perfect murder. The villain can return to the scene of the crime without being seen. Okay so it’s not real time, but then time is a whole other thing on Streetview.

Sinclair journeys through London and step by step outlines his route. I fired up Streetview and joined. He wrote ‘Lights Out’ over fifteen years ago, and many shops have gone, the buildings boarded up or under new management. Some are still there, looking as Sinclair describes. Others while vanished from the high street are on internet directories at the same address. If I hadn’t gone there on Streetview I’d have thought that the florist that supplied the funeral wreaths for the Krays was still on the corner of Roman Road; another kind of footprint.

More information about Lesley can be found on her website.  She may also be found on Facebook.

HWA Goldsboro Crown Shortlist

The HWA Goldsboro Crown shortlist was announced on Friday 17 May 2013.

 

A “strong and diverse” shortlist for the Goldsboro Books and Historical Writers Association debut historical fiction prize 2013 has been revealed.

Judges have already predicted a hard-fought contest between titles to claim the final prize, with Goldsboro Books owner David Headley saying “picking a winner will be immensely hard and is, in many ways, invidious; any one of these novels could win”.

The shortlist is-

After the Lockout by Darren McCann (Fourth Estate)

Park Lane by Frances Osborne (Virago)

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan (Virago)

 The English Monster by Lloyd Shepherd (Simon & Schuster)

and The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman (Black Swan).

The prize covers books published between 1st October 2011 and 30th September 2012. 


The winner will be announced at a History in the Court event at Goldsboro Books in Cecil Court, London, on 26th September, and the Historical Writers Association will also announce the first recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award at the same time.

Miss Marple Collection

Miss Marple Novels Collection

By Agatha Christie

Introduced by Laura Thompson and illustrated by Andrew Davidson

23 May 2013, £100, 4-volume set

The Folio Society is publishing a special four-volume edition of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple novels, featuring The Murder at the Vicarage, The Body in the Library, A Pocket Full of Rye and Sleeping Murder. Born in 1890, Agatha Christie wrote 80 crime novels and short-story collections, 2 autobiographies and 8 novels under the pen name Mary Westmacott. Sales of Christie’s books exceed 2 billion worldwide – only Shakespeare and the Bible outsell her – confirming that, over 120 years since her birth, she retains her position as the grand dame of crime fiction.

In a newly commissioned introduction, award-winning author and Christie biographer Laura Thompson explores the life experiences that inspired Christie to create Miss Marple, the ‘deceptive simplicity’ of the novels and their shrewd grasp of human nature. Andrew Davidson’s beautiful, nostalgic images use unusual angles and perspectives to add suspense. The illustrations he has created for this new 4-volume set follow on from the evocative artwork in The Folio Society’s single-volume edition of the Miss Marple Short Stories.

Classic crime, presented for a new generation

Murder at the Vicarage

‘When she really hits her stride, as she does here, Agatha Christie is hard to surpass.’ Saturday Review of Literature

To say that Colonel Protheroe is not popular in the village of St Mary Mead would be an understatement. Even the mild-mannered vicar has been heard to remark that anyone who murdered him ‘would be doing the world at large a service’. Shortly afterwards, Protheroe is found shot dead in the vicarage study. From the Colonel’s faithless wife to the vicar himself, everyone in the village seems to have had a motive to kill the Colonel, but who actually fired the gun? The unlikeliest of sleuths comes forward in the shape of Miss Jane Marple. Murder at the Vicarage is the first ever mystery to feature Miss Marple.

 

 The Body in the Library

‘It is hard not to be impressed.’ Times Literary Supplement

Agatha Christie spent years devising this novel with its ingenious variation on the now-familiar theme of the body in the library. She laid down certain conditions for herself: the library must be a highly orthodox and conventional library, while the body must be a ‘wildly improbable and highly sensational body’. When Mrs Bantry tells her husband that the maid has discovered the body of a beautiful, blonde young woman in their library, his reply is, ‘Nonsense, old girl; you’ve been dreaming.’ But it is no dream, and Mrs Bantry has no choice but to call upon her friend Miss Marple to discover who committed the murder, before they strike again.

A Pocket Full of Rye

‘This is the best of the novels starring Christie’s Miss Marple’ New York Times

Mr Rex Fortescue appears to have everything: a booming financial empire, a glamorous secretary and an even more glamorous wife – until one day, he drops dead over his morning tea. Inspector Neele, called to investigate, is puzzled to find that the dead man’s pockets contained cereal grains – in other words, he died with a pocket full of rye. When one of Fortescue’s servants is found dead with a clothes-peg on her nose, Miss Marple is compelled to point out to the Inspector that they may be dealing with a case of murder by rhyme. Filled with twists and turns, A Pocket Full of Rye is a virtuous display by Christie.

Sleeping Murder

‘A puzzle that is tortuous, surprising and finally satisfying’ Sunday Express

Gwenda and Giles Reed, a young married couple, have emigrated from New Zealand to England. Gwenda is delighted with her new house in a seaside Devon resort – until a sequence of sinister events begins. Gwenda knows details about the house that she could not possibly know – and she feels a mysterious terror every time she climbs the stairs. In her attempt to discover the truth, she calls in Miss Marple, who helps her uncover a ‘perfect’ crime committed years before. Agatha Christie wrote Sleeping Murder, the final Miss Marple novel, while living in London during the Blitz, but held it back for publication until after her death in 1976. Miss Marple’s last case is the ideal end to a brilliant career.

Illustrations from L-R: The Murder at the Vicarage, The Body in the Library, A Pocket Full of Rye, Sleeping Murder

For over 65 years The Folio Society has been publishing beautiful illustrated editions of the world's greatest books. We believe that the literary content of a book should be matched by its physical form. With specially commissioned illustrations, many of our editions are further enhanced with introductions written by leading figures in their fields: novelists, journalists, academics, scientists and artists.

There are hundreds of Folio Society editions currently in print covering fiction, biography, history, science, philosophy, children's literature, humour, myths and legends and more. Exceptional in content and craftsmanship and maintaining the very highest standards of fine book production, Folio Society editions are created to last for generations.

Folio Society titles can now be bought as a single book purchase from www.foliosociety.com, by telephone on 0207 400 4200 or by visiting The Folio Society Bookshop, 44 Eagle Street, London, WC1R 4FS.

For media enquiries please contact Annabel Robinson or Kate Cooper at FMcM Associates on 020 7405 7422 or email annabelr@fmcm.co.uk ; katec@fmcm.co.uk

Books to Look Forward to from Head of Zeus!

Alli Carson was once First Daughter, only child of the US President. Then, after a car crash killed her father and hospitalised her mother. Alli battled her grief and threw herself into her FBI training at the elite Fearington Institute. Alli thought she had nothing more to lose...but she was wrong. On the same night that her mother dies from her injuries, Alli's boyfriend is brutally murdered - and she is the only suspect. Suspended from her work, bewildered and alone, Alli must find a way to contact the one person she can trust: National Security Adviser, Jack McClure. Jack knows that Alli is innocent.  So who would want to frame her for murder?  With Fearington in lockdown, they must navigate a treacherous underworld of violence and intrigue to uncover the truth...  Blood Trust is the third book in the Jack McClure series by Eric Van Lustbader and is due to be published in July 2013.

Kiyomi Ishida was just twenty years old when she left Japan for a better life in London. Now nicknamed Seven, she’s had to work her way up to gain access to The Underground, an exclusive club that fuels the night time urges of the gang lords, traffickers, and madams that stalk the streets of south London.  Resourceful and ruthless, Seven will do anything to fund her future; preferably a future far away from here. But as she becomes associated with a mercenary Russian gang, Seven must decide. How many people will she betray to further her own ends?  Girl Seven is the second book in the London Underground series by Hanna Jameson and is due to be published in December 2013.

It was Danielle and Gracie's secret. A teenage adventure. A 1000 mile drive along the spine of the Rocky Mountains to visit Danielle's boyfriend in Montana. Their parents were never to know. But now the girls have simply vanished. The only person who knows they're missing is Danielle's boyfriend. He persuades his father, an ex-cop, to search for them. But he too simply disappears. Its up to his new partner, war widow and single mother Cassie Dewell to find them. Her investigation will introduce her to the FBI's Highway Serial Killer Task Force, force her to confront a spate of roadside sexual mutilations and murders and lead her into the lair of a predator who styles himself The Lizard King.  The Highway is by C J Box and is due to be published in August 2013.

The Abomination is the first book in the trilogy by Jonathan Hole and is due to be published in October 2013.  THE VICTIM: On the steps of Santa Maria della Salute lies the body of a woman, wearing the robes of a Catholic priest. In the eyes of the Church, she is an abomination. THE INVESTIGATOR: Captain Kat Tapo has matched the victim's tattoo to graffiti in an abandoned asylum. Now she's been ordered to close the case. THE HACKER: Carnivia.com is a virtual Venice that holds the city's secrets. Only its reclusive creator can help Kat unearth the shocking truth...THE ABOMINATION has arrived.

The Bull Slayer is the second book in the series featuring Pliny the Younger by BruceMacbain and is due to be published in July 2013. THE ROMAN EMPIRE, 109 AD the frontier province of Bithynia is a cesspit of sedition, rotten with corruption and seething with hatred of Rome. When a rich Roman official is found dead on a desolate hillside; two riderless horses tethered in a nearby wood, it is assumed he was killed as a protest against Emperor Trajan's unlimited power. But Pliny the Younger, newly appointed Governor of Bithynia, is not so sure. Who was the other rider? What were the two of them doing in the middle of nowhere? And what links this murder to a secret cult of the Persian sun god, Mithras - the Bull Slayer?  But as Pliny pursues one baffling lead after another, he is being betrayed where he least expects it: his beautiful wife, neglected and lonely in an alien city, falls desperately in love with a handsome young provincial – an affair which threatens to ruin Pliny’s career.

When a movie producer hurtles to his death from the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, an apparent suicide, it shocks the film community and puts a two hundred million dollar production in jeopardy. A female colleague comes forward claiming it was murder, but the police are sceptical.  Preoccupied by a sudden drug war between the tong gangs of Chinatown and the mob, they listen to her story and send her packing. She turns to private detective Cape Weathers, who believes her just enough to let her pay his day rate. Then two Russian gangsters show up on his doorstep and tell him to drop the case or die. Cape and his partner Sally - a female assassin raised by the Triads - take on the Russian mob, a major movie studio, and a recalcitrant police department by enlisting the help of rogue cops, computer hackers, and an investigative journalist who just doesn't give a damn. But with a sniper on their trail, the challenge will be staying alive long enough to learn the truth.  Beating the Babushka is the second book in the San Francisco Noir series by Tim Maleeny and is due to be published in October 2013.

An American spy in China. Name: Unknown. Status: Sleeper. He's meant to be laying low, polishing his Mandarin and awaiting further instructions from Washington. But Shanghai is a difficult city to sleep in, especially when his nights are taken over by the seductive but enigmatic Mei - a woman with secrets he'd rather not hear. Then he is tasked with a delicate operation. Infiltrate the core of the Chinese intelligence service. Distinguish friend from foe. Report to a single contact at HQ. Trust no one. Tell no one. Pushed out into the cold, in a city of millions he's suddenly very, very alone. But in Shanghai city you're never truly alone. Faceless strangers linger in the shadows, watching your every move. No one is safe from the Guoanbu. Not even a spy with no name.  The Shanghai Factor is by Charles McCarry and is due to be published in July 2013.

A car tumbles through darkness down a snowy ravine. A woman without a name walks out of a dust storm in Africa. And in the seething heat of Lagos City, a criminal cartel scours the Internet, looking for victims. Lives intersect. Worlds collide. And it all begins with a single email: 'Dear Sir, I am the daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, and I need your help...' At once a chilling thriller about a lonely woman avenging her father's death and an epic portrait of morality and corruption across the globe, Will Ferguson's Giller Prize-winning novel plunges into the labyrinth of lies that is '419', the world's most insidious Internet scam.  419 is due to be published in September 2013.

Master of War is by David Gilman and is due to be published in August 2013.  England, 1346: For Thomas Blackstone the choice is easy - dance on the end of a rope for a murder he did not commit, or take up his war bow and join the king's invasion of France. As he fights his way across northern France, Blackstone will learn the brutal lessons of war - from the terror and confusion of his first taste of combat, to the savage realities of siege warfare. Vastly outnumbered, Edward III's army will finally confront the armoured might of the French nobility on the field of Crecy. It is a battle that will change the history of warfare, a battle that will change the course of Blackstone's life, a battle that is just the first chapter in a book of legend - Blackstone: Master of War.

In a freezing river in rural Cork, a black-cloaked figure lies bloated and lifeless. It is the

body of a Catholic priest, and he's been bound, garrotted...and castrated. Horrific stories about child abuse in the Church are only just coming to light in Ireland. So this must be a revenge killing by someone who couldn't face the courts. Detective Katie Maguire, of the Irish Gardaí, is not so sure. Two more castrated priests have been found violently murdered, and now her investigation is being obstructed at every turn. Katie's home life is in turmoil, and she knows she must soon choose between her boyfriend and her job. But when she unearths a sinister cover-up that will shake the very foundations of mystical Catholic belief, that choice becomes a matter of life or death.  Broken Angels is the second book in the Kate Maguire series by Graham Masterton and is due to be published in September 2013.

Sandrine is by Thomas H Cook and is due to be published in August 2013. How did Sandrine die? There was no forced entry. She had been gradually stockpiling prescription drugs. A lethal quantity of Demerol was found in her blood. But did the beautiful, luminous Sandrine Madison really take her own life? The District Attorney doesn't think so. Neither does the local newspaper. And so Sandrine's husband must now face a town convinced of his guilt and a daughter whose faith in her father has been shaken to its core. But, as he stands in the dock, Samuel Madison must confront yet more searing questions: Who was Sandrine? Why did she die? And why - how? - is she making him fall in love with her all over again? A psychological thriller from a true master, Sandrine will hold you in its spell until its unexpected end.

1954: Comandante Guzman has been posted deep into the Basque country to confront a man known only as 'El Lobo'. High in the mountains, Guzman will have to fight for his life, not only against El Lobo, but also against someone who has been searching for him for a very long time...2010, Madrid: Forensic Investigator Ana Maria Galindez has spent seven months in hospital recovering from the blast that nearly killed her. Her obsession with Guzman's fate has disturbed long dormant forces. Now she shall reap the consequences: she will be purposely humiliated, abandoned by colleagues and friends, accused of murder...and worse.  The Exile is by Mark Oldfield and is due to be published in October 2013.

The Mangle Street Murders is the first in the Gower Street Detective series by M.R.C Kasasian and is due to be published in September 2013. March Middleton has moved to Gower Street to live with her curmudgeonly guardian, Sidney Grice, London's most famous personal detective. She is intelligent, witty, and talkative. He things young women should be seen and not heard. But he grudgingly allows her to join his latest murder case: a young woman is dead and her loving husband is the only suspect.  Their investigations lead the pair to the darkest alleys of the East End: every twist leads Sidney Grice to think the husband guilty; but March is convinces that he is innocent. And as the case threatens to foment civil unrest, Sidney Grice finds his reputations is not the only thing in mortal danger...

The Killing Machine is by Phillip Hunter and is due to be published in November 2013. Massive, glowering, and ugly as sin, former soldier and ex-boxer Joe has always invited violence.  But now Hackney’s most vicious gangs all want to kill him.  As he tries to unravel the knot of events that have made him a target, Joe is drawn back into his past, back to the memory of the only woman he ever loved.  Brenda was a prostitute who dreamed of something better.  Now she’s dead, and her murder, unsolved haunts Joe every night.  Then a twelve year old runaway enters his life.  Kid is traumatised, mute, and sees Joe as her saviour.  Life has made Joe a machine.  Can Kid – as Brenda once did – make him again?

Cat DeLuca's short, stormy marriage was a crash course in infidelity - his, not hers. But two years of unholy matrimony taught her everything she needed to know to launch the Pants On Fire Detective Agency. Now armed with spy glasses, camera, chocolate and a beagle named Inga, Cat specializes in avenging-all-cheated-upon-women. Sticks and Stones: Cleo Jones' husband stole her money, took her dog and slept with her sister - so she can't feel too guilty about shooting him full of buckshot. But she didn't kill him - despite swearing that she would. So when his corpse is found with a large calibre bullet hole in his chest, guess who's the number one suspect? Shame no one but Cat believes Cleo is innocent. So who did pull the trigger? Turns out there is no shortage of suspects.  Sticks and Stones is the second book in the Pants on Fire Detective Agency series by KJ Larsen and is due to be published in September 2013.

The Dangerous Edge of Things is the first book in the series featuring Tai Randolph by Tina Whittle and is due to be published in August 2013. Tai Randolph has just moved to Atlanta. She thought inheriting a Confederate-themed gun shop was her biggest headache - until she finds a young but dead woman in her brother's driveway. With her brother missing and her firearms connection, the siblings are the Atlanta Police Department's number one suspects. Tai is determined to clear their name. But it doesn't look good. Where's her brother? What's his connection with the dead woman? Why is she being tailed by a private security company? Why will no one tell her the truth? Tai is lead from tasteful suburbia to the cold-eyed glamour of Atlanta's adult entertainment scene to the gilded treachery of the city's most exclusive enclaves. The closer she gets to the truth, the less likely she is to survive. To live long enough to clear her name, she's going to have to trust the most dangerous man she's ever met.

Two books by Ben Cheetham are due to be published in December 2013.  The first is Blood Guilt. Can you ever atone for the death of another by your own hand?  The paperback launch of this bestselling, feverish race-against-time thriller.  Harlan Miller used to be the best detective in Sheffield. But after the death of his son, his life spiralled out of control. One booze-soaked night, he killed a man, was charged, and went down for manslaughter.  Now, after four years in prison, Harlan is free, consumed by guilt, and desperate to atone for the death he caused. Then something happens, something terrible, yet something that offers Harlan a chance at the redemption he craves – the dead man’s son is abducted. And Harlan’s purpose is clear.  He must save the boy to avenge the father.  The second is Angel of Death. In the pursuit of justice, would you break the law? DI Jim Monahan must protect a damaged woman from her criminal past.  In Sheffield, a bankrupt businessman has murdered his family. It seems like an open-and-shut case: a desperate man resorting to desperate measures. In Middlesbrough, a woman named Angel is heading south.  She is a woman alone. A prostitute. Now a murderer. And she has only one thing on her mind: revenge.   Two crimes, a hundred miles apart, but a terrible secret connects them. And although the courts may not agree, DI Jim Monahan has all the proof he needs to bring down justice on a group of particularly vicious criminals...