New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From Hodder Stoughton 1998 July-Sept

File Updated: 01/04/00

New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From Hodder Stoughton JULY-SEPT 1998

Simon Beckett Owning Jacob Published September 1998 by Hodder Stoughton at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0340685948

Justin Cartwright Leading the Cheers Published September 1998 by Hodder Stoughton at Ł17.99 ISBN: 0340637846

Acclaimed novelist Justin Cartwright's new book once again proves him to be the acute and witty master novelist of contemporary values.

Dan Silas returns to America for his high school reunion where he makes some unexpected discoveries. His former girlfriend tells him that her murdered daughter was his child and Gary, Dan's oldest friend, has suffered a breakdown and now believes himself to be an Indian chief. In an attempt to make sense of these disturbing facts, Dan digs further into their lives, with both tragic and comic results. Leading the Cheers is a rich portrayal of small-town life and a moving account of human striving - wrapped in Justin Cartwright's beautifully observed writing.

Judith Cutler Power On Her Own Published September 1998 by Hodder Stoughton at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0340707216 Artwork by: Cover photo: Millennium Picture Library & Tony Stone Images. Cover image manipulation: George Smith
A Kate Power Crime Novel
The first in a strong, gritty new crime series featuring Detective Sergeant Kate Power, newly arrived at Birmingham CID. Judith Cutler's new series is an authentic examination of the contemporary police force - and life for women within it.
Personal tragedy cut short Kate Power's accelerated-promotion career in the Met. She's lucky though - Birmingham CID gives her a job, and the chance to make a new start in the house her great-aunt has given her. Soon Kate discovers that she's trying to fix up the house from hell, with a garden to match. Domestic matches professional pressure: though most of her new colleagues are helpful and supportive, some just think that she's flesh meat to harass.
Some seem to think Kate's not pulling her weight in their current case of the abduction and abuse of young boys. Then her personal life starts overlapping with the investigation. Should Kate follow the conventional line of enquiry, or strike out on her own?

Judith Cutler was born and bred in Birmingham and writes about the city in her Sophie Rivers crime series as well as in this new novel. She is a part-time lecturer at Birmingham University and is Secretary of the Crime Writers' Association.

Martin Edwards The Devil in Disguise Published September 1998 by Hodder Stoughton at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0340718218 Artwork by: Jacket design: Slatter-Anderson. Jacket Photo:RSA Photography Ltd. Jacket photo:(Cityscape): Colin Raw/Tony Stone Images
See Review by Andrew Taylor - author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series

Sixth novel to feature Liverpool solicitor and amateur detective Harry Devlin, one of the most determined and likeable heroes in contemporary crime fiction.
When Liverpool lawyer and amateur detective Harry Devlin is consulted by a local arts charity, little does he realise he's about to tackle his most intriguing case. The Kavanagh trust hires him to contest the will of a former benefactor. But Luke Dessaur, Chairman of the Trust, has gone missing - and, as Harry is about to discover, beneath the Trust's respectable facade lies shocking secrets.
When Luke is found dead, fallen from the third floor window of a local hotel, Harry cannot resist delving deeper into the mysteries that surround the Trust. What was Luke doing there' Was it suicide? An accident? Or was he pushed? Then another death occurs and Harry, too, risks his life before he finally comes face to face with a desperate killer.

Praise for Martin Edwards
'Martin Edwards writes terrific crime novels about Harry Devlin...with bruised emotions, a nice line in self-deprecation and penchant for Mersey low-life' Marcel Berlins
'Mr Edwards' quietly effective mysteries are a pleasure to encounter' New Law Journal
'Good entertainment with no unnecessary frills' Sunday Telegraph
'The chameleon city of Liverpool provides a dramatic background for Edwards' Harry Devlin novels, revealing itself in all its seediness and splendour Val McDermid, Manchester Evening News
Martin Edwards is head of employment law at Liverpool and Manchester solicitors, Mace & Jones. He was born in Knutsford and now lives in Lymm, Cheshire with his wife and two children. As well as the Harry Devlin series, he has published many short stories and articles, edited five anthologies and written six non-fiction legal books.

Philip Hook The Soldier in the Wheatfield Published July 1998 by Hodder Stoughton at Ł14.00 ISBN: 0 340 68216 7

A taut, sophisticated thriller interweaving the contemporary art world and World War II suspense. When Parnello Moran buys a landscape at auction in New York worth 20 times its estimate, it is immediately stolen from him. All its recent owners have met violent deaths; gradually Parnello uncovers a deeper past, which links a German Wehrmacht officer with a terrible crime on the Russian front in 1941, then again with the July 1944 plot against Hitler. Parnello is threatened on all sides, until a trip to Russia leads him to the biggest surprise of all - and to the secret of the soldier in the wheatfield .

Elizabeth Ironside The Art of Deception Published August 1998 by Hodder Stoughton at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0 340 61684 3 Artwork by: Cover photo of woman: Klaus Kampert, Insert photo of man: J, Walker/SOA.
Elizabeth Ironside won the Crime Writers Association John Creasey award and was shortlisted for the Betty Trask Award for her first novel A Very Private Enterprise. H. R. F. Keating described it as;
'A first thriller intriguingly set in Delhi that's imbued with reality'.
Death in the Garden, her second novel, was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger:
'A most accomplished writer' James Melville, Ham & High
'Superbly handled ... a masterly example of classic crime fiction ' Birmingham Post

Her new novel is a spellbinding story of love, deception, and murder by an author every bit as accomplished as Minette Waiters and Ruth Rendell:

Nicholas is slightly bemused when his wife decides to leave him. Distressing at the best of times, his separation proves to be the catalyst for his life to take a terrifying transformation. Alone in London he rescues a beautiful and mysterious woman from a brutal mugging and steadily finds himself embroiled in a world of violence and lies.
Simultaneously, his speculations about whether a famous painting is a forgery make him a bitter enemy. Looking at the painting he realises that the eyes deceive, allowing you only to see what you expect to see. The truth is concealed by time and layers of paint. The woman conceals her past in the same way, her involvement with the Russians and the reasons why her life is so obviously in danger. But now Nicholas is involved, and obsessed by finding out more.
In life, as in art, discovering what is real and what is imagined can be a dangerous pastime.

Set in seemingly respectable London and lethally dangerous Moscow, The Art of Deception confirms triumphantly that Elizabeth Ironside is one of our most accomplished writers of crime fiction.

Elizabeth Ironside has travelled widely and lived in France, India and Russia. Having married a diplomat soon after leaving Oxford she abandoned the idea of a set career and turned her hand to anything that came up. Checking translations of Conrad's letters for a Conrad scholar in Warsaw, teaching French in India, English literature in London, did a doctorate in Paris, and in Moscow hunted for food and petrol as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Paul Johnston The Bone Yard Published July 1998 by Hodder Stoughton at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0 340 69492 0 Artwork by: Cover image: Bill Gregory
See Review by Bob Cornwell
Paul Johnston's first novel, Body Politic: received widespread critical acclaim and went on to win the Crime Writers' Association Best First Novel prize. The John Creasey Memorial Award. The book sold to America and four companies are currently competing for the film rights.
The Bone Yard, Paul Johnston's second novel is set in Edinburgh. It is Hogmany 2021. New Labour has failed, and in the disastrous break-up of Britain city states have formed fiefdoms, walling themselves off from other warring parts. Edinburgh, the 'perfect' city republic is ruled by Platonic Guardians, supposedly from duty as Plato argued. Electricity, food and even sex is rationed. Clothing vouchers are issued to citizens and there is a ten pm curfew. Television. private cars, telephones, holidays and cigarettes are banned. The city is drug free and crime is almost non-existent.
When the mutilated body of a man is found, private investigator Quintilian Dalrymple is called in to investigate. The killer's calling card is a cassette inside the body. It is a recording of Eric Clapton playing 'Tribute to Elmore.' When two more bodies are found the City Guardians realise that a psychotic serial killer, with an obsession with the blues, is on the loose. But what is the connection between the small blue tablet which can cause a massive increase in mental alertness and sexual potency and the cassette playing 'Electric Blues'? Why does the Medical Directorate try to cover up the murder of an old man and what is the significance of The Bone Yard?
The Bone Yard is an Orwellian vision of the future - a novel about the morality of power and the violence bred by corruption.

'More than just a murder story. If Dalrymple and Davie are the moving parts in the machinery of the novel, the menacing structure within which they work is the city itself.' The Scotsman

PAUL JOHNSTON was born and brought up in Edinburgh. He was educated at Fettes, the school he spectacularly destroys in his first novel, Body Politic. His father, Ronald, a master-mariner, wrote successful maritime thrillers. Paul went to Oxford University and then joined a British shipping company which bored him stiff. He moved to the tiny island of Antiparos with his wife and daughter in 1987 and took up writing full-time, teaching English to earn money. His first novel, Body Politic was published in 1997. He now divides his time between the UK and Greece.

David Kessler Tarnished Heroes Published September 1998 by Hodder Stoughton at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0340708352

Stephen King Bag of Bones Published September 1998 by Hodder Stoughton at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0340718196

A powerful, distinctive tale 'combining the romantic suspense of Rebecca and that sense of otherworldly terror that permeates The Haunting and The Uninvited' - Stephen King.

When Mike Noonan's wife dies unexpectedly, the bestselling author suffers from desperate writer's block. Haunted by terrible nightmares which draw him to Sam Laughs, their once happy home, Mike finds the familiar Western Maine town in the tyrannical grip of millionaire Max Devore. Devore is determined to get custody of his deceased son's child. When three-year-old Kyra and her young mother turn to Mike for help, Mike is powerless to resist them. But there are other sinister forces at Sam Laughs determined to stand in their way...

Charlotte Lamb Deep and Silent Waters Published September 1998 by Hodder Stoughton at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0340712821
A novel of murder, sexual desire and jealousy from the queen of dark romance,
Laura would never have gone to Venice had she known Sebastian would be there: despite his animal magnetism, the director of the film for which she's been nominated best supporting actress - and her former lover - has an aura of darkness and death about him. And people do die around Sebastian - deaths for which he always has a motive...

Her novels 'are rip-roaringly, mind-bogglingly,.. heart- poundingly successful' Radio Times
Charlotte Lamb is Mills & Boon's top-selling author. Her novels have been translated into many languages and are bestsellers around the world. She lives with her husband on the Isle of Man.

Frederic Lindsay A Kind of Dying Published August 1998 by Hodder Stoughton at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0 340 69535 8 Artwork by: Jacket illustration: Bill Galoway. Photo: Angus Ogilvy, The Edinburgh Photographic Library

People go missing all the time; often because that's what they've chosen to do. So when he's sent to investigate a disappearance, Detective Inspector Jim Meldrum begins to ask himself why the Chief Constable and so many of his colleagues are taking such a big interest m an apparently routine case. The missing man, a wealthy businessman, John Bellman lived a quiet life out of the public eye. What makes his disappearance so important?
Meldrum's search for the truth takes him to Oslo where a Norwegian policeman appears to have evidence that Bellman was connected to one of the most dangerous neo-Nazi groups to emerge since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The trail leads to London, where Bellman's daughter will ask her own price of Meldrum to help in the search. From there, Meldrum's pursuit of the truth takes him deep into a New England forest and finally back to Edinburgh where he uncovers the old roots of a spreading evil.

Praise for Kissing Judas
'Lindsay's book is intelligent, entertaining, gripping and well-written... Ian Rankin, Scotland on Sunday
,..a superb piece of crime fiction. Edinburgh Evening News
Frederic Lindsay is a writer of stunning psychological insight and this compelling new novel confirms his reputation as 'one of the most interesting writers to have emerged in Scotland this decade' (Allan Massie, The Scotsman). Frederic Lindsay was born in Glasgow and now lives in Edinburgh where he is actively involved in the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish PEN. He has written for the theatre, radio, TV and film, and is the author of one previous Jim Meldrum novel, Kissing Judas which is available in Coronet and four other highly acclaimed novels, Brond, Jill Rips, A Charm Against Drowning and After the Stranger Came. His first novel, Brond, was televised in a three-part adaptation by Channe4