File Updated: 01/04/00

New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From Constable JAN-MARCH 1998
Brian Battison Flying Pigs Published March 1998 by Constable at £16.99 ISBN: 0 094 78550 3
For forty years hard-nosed gangster Billy Mason ran rings around the law. So why did he freely confess to a murder that hadn't even been reported? The case smacks of police corruption. Private investigator Matthew Shelley is asked to help journalist Karen Chandler, commissioned to write a series of articles about the murder for Profile magazine. Could a child's model car, left at the crime scene, be the key with which to unlock the truth?

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Janie Bolitho Framed in Cornwall Published March 1998 by Constable at £16.99 ISBN: 0 094 78340 3
Dorothy Pengelly - elderly, reclusive and harmless, is found dead. Suicide? One of her few friends, artist and photographer Rose Trevelyan, is not convinced. In seeking the truth, Rose not only uncovers the sordid secrets of other people's lives but also learns a lot about herself. As she is drawn further into danger she realises she must relinquish her own past if she is to achieve her ambitions of twenty years ago.

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Marjorie Eccles Killing Me Softly Published February 1998 by Constable at £16.99 ISBN: 0 094 78130 3

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Juliet Hebden Pel and the Precious Parcel Published February 1998 by Constable at £16.99 ISBN: 0 094 78160 5
Chief Inspector Pel of the Police Judiciaire de la Republique de France is called in to investigate when a group of hooded men hold up an aeroplane and make off with a package belonging to a prestigious cosmetics firm. The firm claim that the mysterious parcel contained valuable perfume samples. But, if this is true, why was the package described as looking like a sack of potatoes, and why was it so heavy?

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Alan Hunter Over Here Published February 1998 by Constable at £16.99 ISBN: 0 094 78120 6
See Review by John Boyles
A party of American ex-fighter pilots on a nostalgic visit to their old airbase in Toddington are shocked to find a skeleton in an abandoned Nissen hut. The next day Chief Superintendent George Gently receives an anonymous note: Ask The Yanks About Milly Read. Went Missing 1944 After A Dance At The Camp. One Who Knows. A joke? The airmen must re-live events at that long-ago party so that Gently can finally bring a murderer to justice.

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Maureen O'Brien Mask of Betrayal Published January 1998 by Constable at £16.99 ISBN: 0 094 78090 0 Artwork by: Cover photograph: Attard Photolibrary. Design: Metafor.
See Review by Frances Hickey
By the time the police discover the woman's body in Kate Creech's bath it has decomposed so much that it is barely recognisable as a person. Unsurprising, perhaps, as it has lain undiscovered for seven weeks while Kate has been away playing the lead in a Greek Tragedy in Coventry. Kate claims to have no idea who the dead woman might be, but the wily Detective Inspector John Bright suspects Kate is not playing quite fair with the police. He is right. Fearing that both victim and murderer are part of her social circle, she goes on the run to do some detective work of her own. But in whatever direction she turns it seems she brings in her wake John Bright, waiting for her to lead him to the unpalatable truth …
Maureen O'Brien trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and has spent her life as an actress playing numerous leading roles in both the theatre and television. She has appeared in programmes such as Dr Who, Taggart, Cracker, The Bill, Moll Flanders and Jonathan Creek. Her latest film role is Mrs Lawrence in the feature film Land Girls.
Maureen started writing ten years ago with a radio script, Going On, followed by her first novel, Close-Up On Death Headline 1989 which introduced Detective Inspector John Bright. Her play The Cutting was nominated for the Evening Standard Drama Awards and the London Fringe Awards.

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