Arthur Lyons --- Other People's Money --- No Exit Press Pbk (0 948353 96 1) £4.99 Out 27th June Watch out for Review coming soon!
Jacob Asch is back in his tenth case and is involved with smuggling, small time fraud, big time art dealing and pre-Hittite gold artefacts in his search for his missing co-detective
Asch is one of our very best fictional private eyes USA Today
Jacob Asch is a saint with a gun , all Chandlered up and ready to Hammett if necessary Nick Kimberley, Guardian
John Ramsey Miller --- The Last Family --- Century (0 7126 7780 1)
Paul Masterson was the toughest, most successful agent. But then one of his busts went wrong. Worst of all, the leader of the drug runners escaped, only to find his wife and baby dead. He swears to avenge their deaths - and he does so, over the course of the next few years savagely killing the families of all the DEA agents involved in the operation. Now only one family remains to be killed - Masterson's own. The killer is merciless and ingenious, he is closing in on Masterson's family, and Masterson is sorely out of practice.
John Ramsey Miller is a native son of Mississippi. His career has included stints as a visual artist, advertising copy writer and journalist. He is also the author of As Nasty as they Wanna Be. He lives with his wife and three sons in North Carolina.
Ian Morson --- Falconer And The Face Of God --- Gollancz (0 575 06048 4) £14.99 Watch out for Review coming soon!
Ellis Peters has put a Mills & Boon rose-tint on the Middle Ages; this is much better written, much more satisfying Oxford Times (of Falconer’s Crusade)
It is Christmas in Oxford, when Stefano de Askeles brings his troupe of jongleurs to town. Things have not been going well - poor Gyles de Multon was killed on stage in Winchester, and Stefano’s pawing of Margaret the tumbler has her husband wild with jealousy. But with a new venue to play they are hopeful that matters will improve.
Master William Falconer, meanwhile, has been scouring the back alleys of Oxford in search of an alchemist who can help his mentor, Roger Bacon, in his researches. Thus it is that he witnesses the final rehearsal of de Askeles’ play - and the death of an unfortunate stand-in. it seems that someone wants de Askeles dead...
Here is the third Falconer novel in what shows every sigh of developing into a classic series of medieval mystery.
Ian Morson was born in 1947 and read modern languages at Oxford University. He now works in local government and lives in Berkhamsted.
Janet Neel --- A Timely Death Constable (0 09 476080 2) £14.99 See Review
John Creasey award winner Janet Neel's fifth crime novel. The murder of William Price, fraudulent property dealer found hanged in women's underwear creates an insurance bonanza for the many beneficiaries. Francesca Wilson and her husband Chief Superintendent John McLeish are both involved in the solution.
Ingrid Noll --- Hell Hath No Fury HarperCollins (0 00 232574 8) £14.99 Out 20th June See Review
Germany’s Queen of Crime Observer
When Rosmarie Hirte, a successful insurance broker known and respected for her moderation and cool, falls in love with the handsome Professor Witold Egnstern, she knows that, at fifty-two, this might be her last chance....
But the odds are against her and, terrified that the outside world will undermine the relationship, Rosemarie spins an intricate and deadly web into which she lures and then destroys all those who come too close to the object of her obsessive and dangerous love. Soon the only possible next step is to her own downfall....
Hell Hath No Furymarks the first appearance in English of a European crime writer who has been hailed as the next Patricia Highsmith.
If this author is going to continue killing in such an amusing way, it will be a pleasure to read her next book. Frankfurter Rundschau
Ingrid Noll was born in Shanghai in 1935 and studied German and Art History at Bonn University. She has become Germany’s most successful thriller writer with just three novels, the first of which, A Cock is Dead, received world-wide acclaim when it was published in Germany in 1991 - the author being compared to Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell. Ingrid Noll has subsequently written The Heads of My Loved Ones and The Pharmacist.
Meg O'Brien--- A Bright Flamingo Shroud --- The Women's Press (0 7043 4463 7) £5.99
A wise-cracking, street-smart heroine in the V.I. Warshawski mould..... Fast-moving, feisty and fun The Sunday Times
Jesse James has learnt never to rely on the men in her life. When the going gets tough, they're sure to leave. Just like the grandfather she never knew. But now her grandfather is back - if the man who knocked on her door is who he claims to be.
He's a down-and-out conman, a liar and a thief, but he needs Jesse's help. 'Gramps' has swindled a dangerous many and is in hiding for his life. Against her better judgement, Jesse allows herself to get involved. But once the man who claims to be her relative is safe, Jesse herself becomes the target of a vicious, cold-blooded rage...
Meg O'Brien's keenly awaited fifth Jesse James mystery, A Bright Flamingo Shroud continues the adventures of one of the brightest new stars in women's crime fiction today.
Meg O'Brien is a real find. Credible characters, wonderful dialogue. A bestseller. Ted Allbeury
Cinematic effects and irresistible emotional appeal. Publishers Weekly
A verve and naturalness unmatched since Sue Grafton teamed up with a Gatling Gun. Clues
Meg O'Brien is the author of four other acclaimed Women's Press mysteries featuring Jesse James, Salmon in the Soup, The Daphne Decisions, Eagles Die Too and Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow.
George P Pelecanos --- Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go Serpent’s Tail Mask Noir Pbk (1 85242 529 6) £8.99 Watch out for Review coming soon!
After a night of drinking, Nick Stefanos passes out in a public park. Some time before dawn he wakes up when he hears a car door slam, and then a voice, You already been a punk. Least you can do is go out a man. Then a dull popping sound and a quiet splash.
And that’s how Stefanos gets drawn into the murder of Calvin Jeter. The investigation takes him through the roughest part of the nation’s capital and the blackest parts of the human soul.
George P Pelecanos is the author of four crime novels. He lives in Maryland where he works for a film company.
George Pelecanos has staked out an entirely less glamorous side of Washington in his crime novels. It’s the city made and ignored by the politicos, where people pursue grubbier dreams and take shorter, but just as fatal falls into failure. Pelecanos aims straight and truly into the abyss. Washington Post Book World.
Kate Ross --- Whom the Gods Love --- New English Library Pbk (0 340 64924 0) £5.99 Watch out for Review coming soon!
Regency dandy and amateur sleuth Julian Kestrel returns in his third mystery to bring the manners and mores of 1820s London vividly to life. When Sir Malcolm Falkland, the father of an old friend, implores Julian to find his son's killer, Kestrel think he can hardly refuse. Alexander Falkland's social circle was similar to Julian's, so when he embarks on the investigation, Kestrel thinks he will be on familiar ground. But he soon realises that London's fashionable scene can be a strange and evasive place where all is not quite what it seems - deceit prevails - and anyone, from student to servant to member of parliament, could be the murderer.
Kate Ross is a trial lawyer with a prominent law firm in Massachusetts. Visit a web site devoted to Kate Ross
Authentic in detail, commanding in narrative and written with flair these Kestrel novels are really quite exceptional. Irish Independant
Charles Spencer --- Full Personal Service --- Gollancz (0 575 06128 6) £15.99
We first met portly showbiz writer Will Benson in I Nearly Died, in which he learned just how dangerous giving bad notices can be. Now he has left Theatre World for the loucher but possibly safer world of soft-porn publishing. Although he is settled in connubial bliss with the lovely Kim, certain aspects of their marriage (don’t ask) necessitate the occasional visit to a tart with a heart in Pimlico. When one day Will finds that his predecessor has overstepped the mark, to say the least, he finds himself once again forced into the role of reluctant private eye....
Charles Spencer was born in 1955 and educated at Charterhouse and Balliol. After spells on the Evening Standard, the Stage and the London Daily News, he became theatre critic of the Daily Telegraph in 1991. He lives in Surrey.
Praise for I Nearly Died
Excessively funny, extremely entertaining and only occasionally offensive, this is not a book to miss Evening Standard
John Straley --- The Curious Eat Themselves --- Gollancz (0 575 06128 6) £15.99 See Review
...an excellent plot against Alaska’s gigantic and bizarre backdrop. Cynical and poetic - a fine read Janwillem van de Wetering
Cecil Younger works as an investigator for the public defender in Sitka. In this second Alaskan mystery a woman hires him to investigate a sexual assault she insists took place at an isolated mining site where she worked as a cook.
It might have remained a straightforward case of assault if she had not also been probing the environmental safeguards of the gold-mining operation, and if, subsequently, she had not been found dead in the esturial waters of Ketchkan township, Alaska.
The Curious Eat Themselves is a tense and fascinatingly atmospheric novel from the highly praised author of the Shamus Award-winning The Woman Who Married a Bear.
John Straley lives in Sitka, Alaska, with his young son and his wife, a marine biologist who studies whales.
Alice Templeton --- Past Praying For --- Constable (0 09 476060 0) £14.99
When the reverend Margaret Moon, plump, short-sighted and down-to-earth, is sent to her first charge as vicar of the parish, she is disgusted by the complacency of the well-heeled parishioners of the Thames Valley village of Stretton Noble. It is only when her brother, a forensic psychologist, comes to visit that she is made aware of the uneasy undercurrents and tensions which pervade village society.
When the poison letters start and arson leads to death, Margaret finds herself drawn closer and closer to the heart of the problem.
Hannah Wakefield--- Cruel April --- The Women's Press (0 7043 4475 0) £5.99
A Dee Street Crime Thriller
Dee Street, a London solicitor and iron-willed investigator is back. Confronting her most dangerous and challenging case....
Dee Street doesn't want to fall out with her old friend, Janey Riordan. After all, Janey has just found her a key defence witness for an upcoming murder trial. But Janey still owes Dee's law firm a lot of money and no amount of favours can replace the cash. Now she's refusing to pay and, even worse, is drawing Dee into a nasty, and very public, argument.
Then Janey is found murdered - and all the evidence points to Dee. Forced to clear her name, Dee begins to investigate. Could Janey really have been involved in blackmail? Or was it something much, much worse...? An engaging first person heroine with real depth and a distinctive voice. Time Out
Enormously attractive ... Friendly, ordinary, honest, doubtful, with an unself-righteous integrity, this voice is intimate and even sexy. Nicci Gerrard, Women's Review
Lively, entertaining and legally accurate. Guardian
Witty, thrilling and compulsive. More please. Tribune
Riveting Patricia Craig, London Reviewof Books
Excellent and original Daily Telegraph
Hanna Wakefield is the author of two acclaimed Dee Street mysteries, A February Mourning and The Price You Pay - both published by the Women's Press. She lives in London.
Hard Questions --- Ian Watson --- Gollancz (0 575 06189 8) £16.99 Out June 20th Watch out for Review coming soon!
A terrifying and gripping techno-thriller which poses hard questions about the reality of existence.
Cambridge researcher Clare Conway travels to Arizona for the Hard Questions conference about the mysteries of the human mind, little realising that a lurid newspaper story is about to transform a routine trip into a terrifying, murderous confrontation.
Clare is unwittingly drawn to the attention both of charismatic cult leader Gabriel Soul and a coterie of industrial spies, all convinced that she holds priceless knowledge about the quantum computer, a new generation machine which uses multiple pathways in parallel universes to operate thousands of times faster than any previous computer. It may be the doorway to life after death... but it could also cause catastrophic civil war in America, as today's realities disintegrate in the face of tomorrow's survival.
One of Britain's consistently finest science fiction writers New Scientist
The short stories are spring-loaded with wit and intelligence The Times (of The Coming of Vertumnus)
Scattershot, antic, inventive and utterly free from traditional science fictional earnestness Locus
Ian Watson is one of the most highly respected authors in science fiction. He is the author of The Embedding, which won the Prix Apollo, The Jonah Kit, which won the British Science Fiction Award and the Orbit Award, and many other novels and collections of short stories. He was awarded the Prix European de Science Fiction for his achievements as a novelist in 1985.
Todd Wiggins --- Zeitgeist --- Gollancz Paperback Original (0 575 06316 5) £9.99 [Hardback - £15.99 (0 575 06234 7) A fin de siecle fantasy in which Tom Robbins meets Quentin Tarantino It’s 1999, and one woman is about to get the journalistic scoop of a lifetime: an interview with America’s most wanted criminal on the eve of his execution, and event that will usher in the new millennium at 12.01, 2000. Eight months age, he was a free man. Then, virtually overnight, he and three imperfect strangers found themselves in the run with every cop, journalist and TV viewer in America howling for their blood, and all for crimes they (largely) didn’t commit.
A more ill-matched group would be difficult to imagine: and Oxford-educated Welsh bisexual with a taste for sex and violence; a black nationalist cyber-junkie Internet terrorist; an excommunicated priest who happens to be Jewish, schizophrenic and drop-dead gorgeous; and a militant feminist martial artist whose mother heads a witches’ commune. Not surprisingly they don’t like each other very much.
This is their story. It is also the story of a beautiful girl who never says a word, but carries a terrible secret... and then there’s the writer, a high-class Manhattan hooker with designs on the Nobel Prize for literature and her own reasons for wanting to tell the story of the man on Death Row.
Todd Wiggins is twenty seven, and grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Having gained a baccalaureate in music in 1991, he spent three years as a book editor and literary agent in New York City. He now lives in London with his wife, novelist Tricia Sullivan.
Charles Willeford --- Miami Blues --- No Exit Press (1 874061 56 4) Pbk £4.99 June 5th See Review
Freddy Junior Frenger, a blithe psychopath fresh out of San Quentin, flies into Miami airport with a pocketful of stolen credit cards and disappears, leaving behind the corpse of a Hare Krishna. Soon homicide detective Hoke Moseley is pursuing Fenger and his airhead hooker girl-friend through the posh hotels, Cuban Ghettos and seedy suburban malls of Miami, the setting of their dangerous game of hide and seek, and of this searing and brilliant novel.
No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford..... Elmore Leonard
I've just taken down Miami Blues in one fevered gulp and must tell you that it is absolutely brilliant in every regard - the definitive Miami novel. Stanley Ellin
David Williams --- Dead in the Market HarperCollins (0 00 232589 6) £14.99 Out June 20th Watch out for Review coming soon!
Good plot, well-concealed clues and the whole put together with wit and elegance. Daily Mail (of Last Seen Breathing) A neurotic, barren wife acquires a baby illegally. Seventeen years on, with her husband now a prosperous Welsh businessman, someone discovers her secret and blackmail begins. A murder follows, on a Saturday morning, in Cardiff’s covered Central Market in front of a thousand shoppers - except, astonishingly, there are no witnesses. Chief Inspector Merlin Parry here tackles a baffling human drama that intrigues right up to the nail-biting dénouement, the whole leavened with masterly characterisation and polished wit. The promise of the first book is enhanced by a robust sequel of superbly crafted thriller writing, said Michael Boon, reviewing the second Inspector Parry mystery in the Western Mail. With the third, Dead in the Market, David Williams has unassailably established an enduring new detective on the popular whodunit scene.
David Williams has been nominated for many CWA awards and is also the author of the successful Mark Treasure crime series.