Page Updated: 08/09/2004

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Stella Duffy - Page 2

Beneath The Blonde Wavewalker Calendar Girl

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First British Edition Serpents Tail (1997)

Paperback - Serpents Tail (2000)

Beneath The Blonde
Siobhan Forrester, lead singer of Beneath the Blonde. has everything a girl could want - stunning body, great voice, brilliant career, loving boyfriend. Now she has a stalker too. She can cope with the midnight flower deliveries and nasty phone calls, but things really turn sour when intimidation turns to murder.
Saz Martin, hired to seek out the stalker and protect Siobhan, embarks on a whirlwind investigation, travelling with the band from London to New Zealand via the rest of the world. As jobs go. this one shouldn't be too hard, except Siobhan isn't telling the whole truth and Saz isn't sure she wants to keep the relationship strictly business.
Beneath the Blonde is the third Saz Martin thriller, following the highly acclaimed Calendar Girl and Wavewalker, and confirming Stella Duffy's position at the forefront of the new wave of British crime fiction.
'It is a pleasure and a relief to read someone who is not only first-class but is also thoroughly in tune with today's attitudes, feelings and language. Saz Martin is… an ebullient heroine of courage and wry wit… Duffy's third novel removes her from the category of 'promising' and confirms without doubt that she's very near the top of the new generation of modern crime writers' Marcel Berlins, The Times
'Beach read of the summer' Independent on Sunday
'Stella Duffy's writing gets better with each book. Her grasp of complex narrative techniques leaves the reader wondering what's coming next' Val McDermid
'Always a pleasure to find a new Stella Duffy novel… a good read and highly recommended' Diva

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Paperback - Serpents Tail (2001)

First British Edition Serpents Tail (1996)

Wavewalker
See Review by Val McDermid - Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill
Saz Martin, detective hero of Calendar Girl returns - with a lover of her own - to investigate the activities of Dr Maxwell North, an internationally acclaimed therapist, healer and "guru". She has been hired by a mystery employer, the Wavewalker, who walks at the edge of the tides where the waves wash over footprints, and you can’t tell if you’re being followed or led....
The investigation starts in 70s San Francisco and crashes into her own 90s London life, as the secrets of Dr North’s healing ‘Process’ and a surplus of suicides combine to propel Saz into dangerous territory and a highly combustible conclusion. With all the excitement, wit and flair of Calendar Girl, Wavewalker confirms Stella Duffy’s place at the cutting edge of crime fiction.
'Visually, psychologically and emotionally compelling, and thoroughly recommended.' Diva
'The clever money should be on Duffy when the crime-writing Oscars are dished out.' Mike Ripley, The Daily Telegraph
'The downbeat denouement packs an unexpected, morbid wallop.' San Francisco Examiner
'Each chapter is satisfying in itself, but leaves you on cinema noir knife-edge. Don't start it at bedtime or you'll wind up with bags under your eyes.' Fiona Cooper
'A transatlantic, time hopping story that satisfies as a crime novel and displays the lightest of pc touches.' The List
'While Saz may not be up there with the Sherlocks, Marples and Columbos in the sleuthing stakes, her steamy, between-the sheets action with girlfriend Molly certainly beats them all Hands down.' The Big Issue
‘With Wavewalker, Duffy has moved up a gear, demonstrating a maturity of style and command of structure that many aspire to and few achieve. Clever, cunning and careful to avoid the obvious, Wavewalker is a real treat’ Val McDermid (in the Manchester Evening `News)
‘Britain is not exactly teeming with good, young, female crime-writers - so it is a pleasure and relief to read someone who is not only first-class but also thoroughly in tune with today’s attitudes, feelings and language’ The Times
‘A feisty little page-turner guaranteed to keep you up all night’ Big Issue

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First British Edition Serpents Tail (1994)

Paperback - Serpents Tail (1999)

Calendar Girl
Stand-up comic Maggie has fallen for 'the girl with the Kelly McGillis body', a mysterious woman who can't commit herself. Meanwhile South London detective Saz is hot on the trail of a woman known only as 'September', who commutes between London and New York in a whirlwind of drug smuggling, gambling and high-class prostitution. A murder brings Saz and Maggie and their respective mysteries together.
Smart and sexy, Calendar Girl is a lesbian thriller high on attitude and erotic content.
'Fabulous one-liners and an unremitting sense of time rushing past, time when nothing becomes clear enough to be cut and dried. Calendar Girl is for anyone who enjoys sexual steam and wit, and prefers a thriller served up with elegance and panache' Fiona Cooper
'There's a lot of lesbian love and sex in it, but it is also a fast, witty and clever crime story, with cracking dialogue and exuberant characters.' Marcel Berlins, The Times
'Steamy erotic moments, some smart one-liners and a few digs at Lesbian stereotypes ... Stella Duffy is definitely a name to watch' Forum
'Unusual, cleverly constructed recital of deception in relationships ... The downbeat denouement packs an unexpected, morbid wallop' San Francisco Examiner
'Smart and sexy, a lesbian thriller high on attitude and erotic content' Feminist Bookstore News
'A stylish genre book which also warns of the destructive power of lies and half-truths.' Gay Times
'Smart, sexy lesbian thriller' Lamda Rising News
'Flip, sassy, and fashionably underplotted' Kirkus Reviews
'Funny, sharp and sexy...An impressive debut' Telegraph

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