NEW  BOOKS FOR HODDER & STOUGHTON 1997

Thom Racina.  Hidden Agenda   Hodder  Oct 97  0 340 67424 5  £16.99
Californian based Thom Racina has penned almost 4,000 episodes of American soap operas and has been nominated for five Emmy awards. Hidden Agenda is his second novel.
A taut psychological thriller full of thrills and twists galore.
Charismatic young TV news reporter Jonelle Patterson has a uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time. In fact it’s almost uncanny. Eventually she begins to suspect the unthinkable: that her employers at Network ONE are creating the news for Jonelle to report, even to the point of murdering innocent people. As Jonelle becomes to get close to the shocking truth, she finds herself lock in a desperate race against time before she becomes the next victim, culminating in a spectacular shoot-out at the White House. 

Ted Allbeury. Aid and Comfort  Hodder  Nov 97  0 340 69643 5  £16.99
Ted Allbeury was a lieutenant-colonel in the Intelligence Corps during WWII, and a successful executive in thr field of marketing, advertising and radio. This is his thirty-eighth novel.
Inspired by the recent case of American spy Aldrich Ames, this is the chilling believable tale of Arthor Casey Jarvis, a middle-ranking CIA officer prepared to betray his colleagues to the KGB, sending them to certain death in return for cash. Larry Getz, the CIA officer appointed to hunt down the traitor in their midst, finds himself up against a political system more concerned with protecting the individual’s right to privacy than seeking out the truth. 

Tim Heald (ed)  A Classic Christmas Crime  pbk  Hodder  Oct97  07472 5414 1  £6.99
Tim Heald - former chairman of the Crime Writers' Association and author of a dozen or so crime books - brings together a collection of christmas crackers by established writers including PD James, Susan Moody, Catherine Aird and H.R.F. Keating. Each contributor offers us a unique interpretation of both Christmas and crime.
Cover image by John Abbot - Telegraph Colour Library 

Robert L. Stevenson. Torchlight  Hodder  Oct 97  0 340 68273 6  £16.99
A descendant of the author of Treasure Island, Robert L, Stevenson is a first-class deep sea diver, Torchlight is his first novel.
A deep sea adventure and  political thriller in the bestselling tradition of Clive Cussler and Tom Clancy.
A Former naval SEAL is recruited by Gerhart German international arms dealer to recover $1 billion worth of gold coins from the wreck of an armoured cruiser torpedoed just after the USA joined the World War .Gerhart has devised an elaborate scheme to ensure that the US government will never pursue him again. He is also blackmailing the president of the USA. Former SEALs Henderson and Drake must fight for their lives as they desperately seek to unravel President Marshal’s secret past, and bring Gerhart to justice. 

Richard Pitman.  The Third Decree  Hodder  Oct 97  0340695048  £16.99
A former Champion Jockey, Richard Pitman has been a broadcaster with the BBC for the past 20 years. The Third Degree is his fifth racing thriller.
A fast-paced, unputdownable racing thriller ('Pitman is snapping at Dick Francis’s heels' - Racing Post) from former champion jockey Richard Pitman.
A vicious Chinese Triad group, The Third Degree, has lost thousands on a racing tip from leading trainer and ex-jockey Mattie Stuart. And want their money back Mattie must give them a certain winner. Or risk the consequences
In despair. Mattie turns to old friend Eddie Malloy for help. Jockey Eddie has earned an unwanted reputation for helping those who fail prey to racing's criminal fraternity but his attempt to bail out Mattie lands them both in much deeper trouble. 

Rochelle Krich.  Fertile Ground   Hodder  Dec 97  0 340 68050 4  £16.99
Rochelle Krich is the author of several previous novels. She lives in California.
A topical thriller which will appeal to the huge Faye Kellerman audience.
Dr Laura Benning's world is falling apart: her fertility clinic is  under police investigation  for embryo switching; Chelsea Wright, a student who donated 'eggs, has been murdered; Laura's medical licence may be suspended and her fiancé, the clinic director, has disappeared. Laura's search for him leads her to uncover a sinister scheme motivated by greed and to a remorseless killer who will stop at nothing. 

Rankin Davis.  Hung Jury  Hodder  Nov 97  0 340 69472 2  £16.00 See Review
In his mid-thirties, Rankin Davis is a successful Criminal barrister based in Newcastle. Hung Jury is his third novel.
A taut, intricately plotted, gripping British leagal thriller from the bestselling author of The Right to Silence and Abuse of Process.
When the Attorney General is kidnapped by a Ukrainian terrorist who demand as his ransom the acquittal of his  lover, Dr Jenny Fox, for the murder of research scienitist, Dr Charles Easterman, a race against time is on as the jury on  the  case  deliberate  their  verdict.   It  soon  becomes  clear  to
jury member Alex Parrish that there is a massive set up and conspiracy involved to protect  the chemical  power industry, and that at least one member of the jury is not all he or she seems.
Can Parrish get to the truth in time to save the Attorney General’s life.
Jacket illustration: Chris Moore.

Raymond Benson.  Tomorrow Never Dies  Hodder  Oct 97  0  34070741 0  £16.99
Raymond Benson wrote The  James: Bond Bedside Companion and is the author of the latest James Bond novel, Zero Minus Ten : He lives near Chicago.
Bond is back again on the big screen in what is sure to be the biggest film (the budget is £35,0001000) for Christmas 1997. And the highly-acclaimed Raymond Benson is writing the official novel of the film.
Once again, Pierce Brosan stars as James Bond, this time up against a power-mad media mogul - played by Jonathan Pryce - in a story that ranges from the snowy Khyber Pass to a sea battle off  Hong Kong. Once more the stakes are high: only James Bond can prevent the outbreak of a third world war. 

 Quintin Jardine A Coffin For Two    Headline. Oct97   0 7472 1778 5  £16.99
After cracking their first case together as a private investigation team, Oz Blackstone and Primavera Phillips find themselves simultaneously in love and in the money. And where better to lie back and contemplate life than the picturesque village of St Marti, on the rugged Costa Brava.
But soon they find their new home may not be quite so idyllic as it looks. Beneath the surface bubbles a brew of intrigue, deception - and murder. Before long Prim and Oz find themselves helping to evict a skeletal squatter whom the locals fear might harm the tourist trade, as well as trying to authenticate a previously undiscovered Dali  masterpiece bought by a gullible at a highly unconventional auction.
Some very dark secrets come to light, and as they close in on the identity of St Marti's unwanted resident, and the truth about the unknown Dali, Prim and Oz stand on the threshold of uncovering one of the century's most amazing stories......
 Quintin Jardine is an independent public relations consultant and writer. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Skinner crime series, as well as the first Oz Blackstone novel, Quintin Jardine lives in East Lothian.
Jacket image: Image Bank/Head Design 

Aline Templeton.  Past Praying For  pbk  N.E.L.  Oct 97  0 340 68270 1  £5.99
'Aline Templeton presents the reader with an appealing heroine...  self-aware and intelligent.' Donna Leon, The Sunday Times
'Templeton's a considerable writer both intelligent and intuitive.' Philip Oakes, The Literary Review
They are affluent, comfortable and complacent - or so thinks the Reverend Moon shocked by the materialistic lifestyle of her Thames Valley parishioners. It is only when her brother, a forensic psychologist, visits that she is made aware of the uneasy undercurrents and tensions which pervade the well-heeled village.
Someone is hiding a childhood trauma so severe that is has fractured their personality.  But who is it?
When the poison pen letters start and arson leads to death, the Reverend Moon finds herself drawn to the heart of the problem. But even the professional skills of her brother may not be enough to discover the answer before more lives are lost.....
Aline Templeton grew up in Scotland and read English at Girton College, Cambridge. She has worked in education and broadcasting, and is a Justice of the Peace. She lives in Perthshire where her husband is Warden of Glenalmond College. Her previous book was Last Act of All
Cover photograph: Simon Marsden 

Lindsay Maracotta.  The Dead Celeb   Hodder  Oct 97  0 340 65770 0  £16.99
Lucy Freers is back and so are the bodies.
 'There he was truly stone-cold dead, I had no doubt. I'd recently had some experience in encountering the newly deceased; I recognized only too well the gruesomely unnatural splaying of the arms and legs, the almost comical dirty-old-man leer of the rigid face.'
The dead body this time belongs to Jeremy Lord, one of the hottest, and most hated, directors in Hollywood. The initial verdict is death by natural causes but Lucy discovers that it was murder. There are no shortage of suspects, not only his three ex-wives but also Lucy's husband Kit.
As Lucy begins her quest to uncover the truth, she discovers not only a killer but that sex and skulduggery is still very much the name of the game for the rich and famous in Hollywood
The Dead Cleleb, gives a fascinating insight into the real people who inhabit the Hollywood Hills. It's a blurring of fact and fiction by an author who knows where the bodies are buried.
Lindsay Maracotta is an insider - living and working in Hollywood as a screenwriter, script doctor and television producer. She has written for stars such as Goldie Hawn, Jessica Lange and Robert Redford. She also writes articles for numerous magazines, including Harpers, Rolling Stone and Esquire. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, a feature film consultant. Turnaround ...You're Dead her fifth novel.
Jacket photograph: David Rudkin 

David Kessler. The Other Victim   Hodder  Nov 97  0 340 68902 1  £16.99
David Kessler lives in London after many years in Israel. His first novel, A Fool for a Client, was published early in 1997
A brilliant thriller set in the worlds of  high finance and genetic engineering, where the stakes are high and the players deadly.
In London a gifted teenager is mugged and murdered. At the same time, a millionaire financier disappears. The connection between them is Gold
Gold is a perfume that has taken the country by storm. It sells at an outrageous price, addicts both men and women. Maverick lawyer Emmett Freeman sees the connection between the two crimes and the perfume - but can he uncover the shocking truth in time. 

Marc Olden.  The Ghost  Hodder  Nov 97  0 340 68253 3  £16.99
When Ross, a 30-year-old cop with the NYPD goes on an undercover operation, she is followed by her deep cover cop or 'ghost' whose identity isn't known to other undercover members of the unit. They make a good team, Ross with her instincts and her ghost with his experience. Until he finds a terrible secret in her past. And begins to stalk her instead of protecting her Ross soon finds herself caught up in a lethal game of cat and mouse.
' Breathtaking, riveting cop thriller from Mare Olden; Superior to just about all thriller writers' - Kirkus Reviews
Marc Olden the bestselling author of seven brilliant and chilling novels, most recently The Exchange Students. 

J D Robb.  Rapture in Death  Hodder Oct 97  0 340 67486 5  £16.99
NYPD lieutenant Eve Dallas operates in a world where virtual reality games have replaced TV sets, mood-altering drugs are legal and prostitution is licensed the late 21st century. She is caught up in the puzzling suicide of a technician who has just hanged himself after a virtual reality trip - it seems that the same techniques used to create pleasure also prompt the mind to destroy itself.
J D Robb, is the pseudonym for one of America's bestselling writers. She has written three previous Eve Dallas mysteries. 

Patricia Wendorf.  The Toll House  Hodder  Oct 97  0 340 67173 4  £16.99
Recently widowed, Nina Franklin buys the charming little cottage known as The Toll House to be closer to her beloved grandson. But she doesn't admit she's lived in Ashkeepers village before - and has memories of it that are too disturbing to share. When she finds an ancient leather-bound volume in the garden shed, she settles down to read The History of the Village of Ashkeepers by Montague George Barnacle and finds within its pages a story of treachery and betrayal that has unsettling echoes of her own.
Patricia Wendorf has written several well-reviewed novels, including The Sunday Times bestseller,
Larksleve. She lives in Leicestershire. 

Jeannine Kadow. Shooting Stars  Hodder  Oct 97  0 340 67173 4  £16.99
A former Vice President of Television Sales for Warner Brothers, Jennine Kadow is a commercial photographer who lives in New York and the south of France.
A riveting fast paced cop thriller combining elements of Fatal Attraction and Heat.
You’re putting  your career on the line if you’re a New York City policeman and you suspect the Police Commissioner’s daughter of being responsible for s string of violent murders. Murder’s of cops that no one is investigating because they committed suicide.
Streetwise cop Ed Gavin Can’t believe his best friend and partner put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger - not without help. And fears Gavin’s new handsome young partner, Jon Strege could be the next on the list. 

Clive Egleton. Blood Money  Hodder  Sep 97  0 340 69691 5  £16.99
The master of the action-packed thriller is back with his sixth Peter Ashton story
Ashton's wife is the one who discovers the butchered bodies at the Yorkshire safe-house - the first act in a story where crime, fanaticism and politics all lead to violent death. Peter Ashton picks his way through a maze of Cuban gangsters, Islamic fundamentalists and renegade Russian intelligence officers to uncover a lethal plot which could destabilize the economy of the whole western world.
Clive Egleton is the author of twenty-five highly acclaimed thrillers. He lives on the isle of Wight. 

Fid Backhouse.  By Other Means  Hodder Dec 97  0 34070725 9 £16.99
An ingenious, tautly plotted political thriller set in an alternative Britain.
Following the assassination of Prime Minister Derek Minton-Briant, tension mounts as the all-powerful Intelligence Organisation hunts down the killer - and seeks to preserve its own influence in the political vacum following the PM's death. As bullets  fly and the violence escalates, Intelligence becomes convinced of an American connection with a highly-placed double-dealer in the UK. Just who is the mastermind behind this clever conspircy to gain control of Britain!
Suffolk-based former journalist Fid Backhouse has worked on a variety of magazines including Mirabelle and Woman's Realm. By Other Means is his first novel. 

Conor Cregan. Ground Zero  Hodder  Dec 97 0 340 68935 8  £16.99
A brilliantly researched thriller in the bestselling tradition of Frederick Forsyth and Glenn Meade.
1945. The Americans have now accumulated enough Plutonium 239 to make the bomb. But one of the ambulances transporting the plutonium from the factory in Washington State to Los Alamos in New Mexico is intercepted. It is later found at the bottom of a canyon in Utah. Empty. What happened to that plutonium: the Germans who stole it and the British commando unit sent to recover it, is at the heart of Conor Cregan's exciting new chase thriller.
A former journalist, Conor Cregan's previous novels include With Extreme Prejudice, House of Fire and Valkyrie. He lives in Dublin. 

Graham Lancaster. Playback  Hodder  Nov 97  0 340 66712 5  £16.99
Graharn Lancaster is co-founder of one of the UK's leading PR consultancies. His previous books have been widely published and translated around the world.
In the highly competitive world of medical research, multinational drug companies are searching for the ultimate cure-all vaccine, the one drug that could wipe out all the diseases that beset man. In the race to be first, ethics are often a casualty; but Sir James Barton, flamboyant head of Temple Industries, has just stepped over the line by kidnapping a human guinea-pig.
Michael Crichton meets The Hot Zone in a terrifyingly topical thriller that takes biotechnology to its ultimate conclusion.
'Ideas a-gogo' The Times 

John Nichol  Vanishing Point  Hodder  Nov 97  0 340 67183 1  £16.99
John Nichol spent fifteen years in the RAF. During the Gulf War he was captured and held as a POW. He retired in 1996 to concentrate on his writing career.
A rollecoaster ride of action, heroism and intrigue destined to establish Gulf War hero John Nichol as one of our leading thriller writers.
In the exciting, contrioversial and tropical new thriller from the bestselling author of Point of Impact, Flight Lieutenant Mark Hunter, shot down in Iraq, is now watching his comrades being tortured by debililating diseases. But the sinister contamination seems to reach beyond Gulf War Syndrome and into the corridors of power themselves. He needs the help of Dr Natalie Kennedy from The UN if he is to penetrate the stonewall of silence and uncover the deadly secrets of Desert Storm buried in the Gulf War. 

Chris Stewart.  Shattered Bone  Hodder  Oct 97  0 340 69320 7  £16.99
Chris Stewart is a USAF pilot who files Stealth bombers - among other aircraft.
World War Three is set to become a terrifying reality.
'Shattered Bone' is the code phrase used to signify the theft,  hijacking, or  unauthorised  flight of a  B-IB ('Stealth')  bomber  loaded  with  nuclear weapons. Which is what happens when a young Russian deep-penetration agent who has created a cover for himself as a USAF pilot is activated to play a vital part in the power struggle of his 'home' ex-Soviet republic against a Russia ambitious to rebuild the old Soviet empire. 

Elizabeth George.  Deception on the Mind  Hodder  Nov 97  0 340 68881 5  £16.99
Balford-lc-Nez is a dying seatown on the coast of Essex, But when a member of the town's small but growing Asian community is found dead near its beach, the sleepy town ignites. Working without her long-time partner, Detective Inspector Lynley, Sergeant Barbara Havers must probe not only the mind of a murderer and a case very close to her own heart, but also the terrible price people pay for deceiving others and themselves.
Immensely well plotted... a first class, page turning read’ The Times
'Gripping from start to finish’  Daily Mail 

Glenn Kleier.  The Last Day  Hodder  Oct 97  0 340 69585 4  £16.99
An electrifying thriller which poser the question: what could happen in our cynical televisual age if someone  popped up with a credible claim to being the second Messiah?
Moments before midnight on New Years Eve 1999. A time of intense speculation for millions, but for John Feldman, Jerusalem correspondent for a major satellite news network, a pause before the inevitable let-down. But something incredible does indeed come to pass. A geological event of staggering proportions, following reports of the  emergence of a woman with extraordinary powers. Is she a divine emissary, the product of bizarre science, or something far more sinister! 

Nick Oldham  Nightmare City   Hodder  October 97  0 7472 1780 7  £17.99 See Review
It's the world's brashest, trashiest seaside resort, alive with daytime fun and night time thrills - Blackpool, city of dreams. And for some, like Detective Inspector Henry Christie , a city of nightmares.
Match day is never enjoyable for the police, their hands are full of petty crime and the cells are full of yobs. It's a good time for serious criminals to pull a stroke. But shooting up a newsagents and killing a police officer demands priority action. Even though the local police are first on the scene, the North West Organised Crime Squad are called in. Christie would be jealous of missing out on a juicy case if he wasn't so busy trying to stem the tide elsewhere.
What D.I Henry Christie doesn't realise is that all the events in this growing crimewave are linked together by a conspiracy that is about to spread indiscriminate pain.
Nick Oldham was born in Blackburn, Lancashire in 1956. He has been a police officer since the age of nineteen, spending the majority of his service in operational roles. His first novel, A Time For Justice - also set in the world of policing in northwest England was published in 1996. He is married and lives in with his family on the outskirts of Preston.
Jacket photograph by David Grogan 

Martin Booth The Doctor, The Detective and Arthur Conan Doyle   Hodder & Stoughton Aug 97 £20.00
It has been said that if Arthur Conan Doyle had never written or done anything else of note but create Sherlock Holmes he would still be famous today, but that without his celebrated detective he might well have been forgotten. Such a circumstance would have been an unjust fate, for Conan Doyle's own life was as exciting and fascinating as that of any ripping yarn hero. Born into an illustrious Roman Catholic family, he suffered a difficult, poverty-stricken childhood with an alcoholic father. After training as a doctor, he abandoned medicine to pursue a literary career which brought him great wealth: he was the first block-buster popular novelist. No adventure or opportunity passed Arthur Conan Doyle by: he took a voyage on an Arctic whaler, was an all-round sportsman and inveterate traveller, popularised sking in Switzerland, served as a doctor in the Boer War, twice stood as a prospective member of parliament, advocated divorce law reform, invented safety aids in the Great War and famously championed against injustice. A man of enormous self-confidence, he had the courage of his convictions, knew where his duty lay and was never afraid to become embroiled in controversy: in later life, he conducted an exhaustive crusade to spread the doctrines of spiritualism, for which he was widely ridiculed and in the pursuit of which he spent a large portion of his fortune. He was also dictatorial, doggedly stubborn, rejected all criticism and would never admit he was wrong about anything. Arthur Conan Doyle was, in short, an enigma. The Doctor, The Detective and Arthur Conan Doyle is a detailed and extensively researched biography which offers for the first time the true source of Sherlock Holmes' cocaine habit and presents to a new generation of readers a modem day interpretation of the life of this paradoxical and highly versatile author, the father of detective fiction.
Martin Booth was born in 1944 and educated in Hong Kong. A critically acclaimed novelist, he is the author of Hiroshima Joe, A Very Private Gentleman and Adrift in the Oceans of Mercy, in addition to being the biographer of Jim Corbett, the famous tiger hunter turned conservationist. Martin Booth is also known as a children's novelist and non-fiction writer, his latest book being the highly praised Opium, A History. 

Dexter Dias.  Rule of Law  pbk Coronet  Nov 97  0 340 66715 X   £5.99
Dan Beckett is in a bit of trouble. A top flight barrister with a reputation as a fighter, Beckett has been forced into a distinctly uncomfortable position - not to say uncomfortably dangerous. He is manoeuvred into prosecuting the enormously emotive case against establishment figure Major Simon Montford in a power play that: can only mean disaster for his career at the bar.
:Montford is accused of war crimes in the UK's first prosecution of this nature since Nurernberg, but Beckett has secrets from his own past that make him the prey of an unknown aggressor. His beloved daughter is the target if Beckett goes ahead with the case, but darker forces in the upper levels of the judicial system make it impossible for him to withdraw. The arrival of his estranged father from the Jewish quarter of New York provides a further hitch, but even Beckett cannot guess at the agenda his father is following ... it seems possible that the old man's memories of a Nazi concentration camp might just be the spark to ignite the final conflagration.
Dexter Dias is a barrister specialising in criminal defence. At the time of writing this he is acting in a murder trial. Some of the highest profile cases to go through the legal system have heard his voice, and as a member of a maverick chambers dealing only with defence, this passion for the law is: tellingly revealed in his writing.
Cover illustration: Steve Crisp