NEW BOOKS FOR LIT/BROWN 1997

Nicolas Freeling.One More River. Little Brown Nov 97 £15.99
John Charles is a 70-year-old English writer living in France. His wife left him some years ago, but he gets on perfectly well with his grown-up children, He is comfortably off, if not wealthy, he enjoys his comfortable house and is fond of his garden. One afternoon someone takes a shot at him, but misses. The would-be assassin does not return, but John cannot let the incident rest. He makes himself very visible, Keen to draw the gunman out, and while he does so, travelling through Europe, he draws out his own past, peeling back layer upon layer of self-deceit and self-deception. An allusive and clever ‘mystery' from the master of the subtle crime novel.
'Freeling is more than very good: he is first rate' Independent
Born and educated in England, Nicolas Freeling has lived in France for many years. He writes like nobody else, much imitated but always ahead of the fashion. 'Unique' is the word most generally used to describe his work.

Bruce Alexander. Watery Grave. Little Brown Sept 97 £15.99
A John Fielding Mystery
Sir John Fielding, the blind magistrate of Bow Street, has married the widow Katherine Durham. Some years ago he had persuaded the authorities to allow her son, Tom, to be conscripted into the Navy rather than be imprisoned for a youthful escapade. Now he is due to return after three years at sea, but his homecoming is marred by the murder of a fellow officer. Sir John agrees to investigate the affair - aided by his 'eyes', Jeremy Proctor - and uncovers a web of conspiracy designed to make a scapegoat of an innocent man. A beautifully realised historical mystery.
A rich and satisfylng mystery set against the swirling excitement of l8th Century London.
Bruce Alexander is the pseudonym of Bruce Cook, author of The Beat Generation. He lives in California.

Susanna Gregory.A Bone of Contention: Little Brown Aug 97 £16.99
The Third Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew.
Cambridge,1352. Physician Matthew Bartholomew is called away from his normal duties to examine some mysterious bones found in the King’s Ditch. Within a day he is again summoned to the Ditch when a body is discovered there. Is There a connection between what is probably a holy relic and a fresh murder, and do the two discoveries have any link with the disappearance of the daughter of the principal of one of the colleges? An engaging and intricate historical mystery.
The third Matthew Bartholomew mystery, following the high-selling A Plague on Both Your Houses and An Unholy Alliance.
Susanna Gregory Is the pseudonym of a Cambridge academic, who has previously worked In the Coroner’s Office.

Patricia Cornwell.Unnatural Exposure. Little Brown Oct 97 £16.99
A Dr Kay Scarpetta Mystery. See Review
Dr Kay Scarpetta has begun to think that the state of Virginia is the most recent stop on the travels of a psychopath, but before she can properly liaise with colleagues in different states and different countries, another body is found. Like the others it is discovered on a waste site, but Scarpetta sees evidence which makes her doubt It is the work of the same killer.
As she follows the forensic footprints, the victim's life draws her away from seeing the death as on individual killing, and leads her to face the probably that someone is on the point of releasing the smallpox virus back into a world which believes the disease has been eradicated - a belief which has led to all stocks of the vaccine being destroyed. Could such a mass murderer really exist, and what sort of mind would contemplate releasing such havoc?
Kay Scarpetta's compassion, professionalism and dignity once again bring an extra dimension to a crime novel of the highest calibre.
'One of the most interesting and singular bodies of work in popular fiction' Sunday Times
'Cornwell has confirmed her place in the highest ranks of thriller writers' Evening Standard
'Each of Cornwell's books is just as good as Its predecessor' Independent
'To those who want well-plotted thrills, Cornwell's descriptions of how we can die are as shocking as a shower in formaldehyde, but to those interested in the poetry of reality she offers something altogether more traditional and formidable' Amanda Craig
Patricia Cornwell's first novel, Postmortem, Introduced Dr Kay Scarpetta and won her five international awards for the best first crime novel of the year. Seven more have followed, Including the Gold Dagger-winning Cruel and Unusual, and a non-Scarpetta police procedural, Hornets Nest. She lives in Richmond, Virginia and also spends time in Los Angeles. New York and London.
Cover Photograph by Adrian Mott

Doug J. Swanson. 96 Tears. Pbk Little Brown Sep 97 £5.99
Jack Flippo finds himself embroiled in a very wacky household when he is hired by a wealthy serial-bride to check out the sudden appearance of a woman claiming to be her daughter. He soon discovers no one is who they seem to be, and most of them have good reason to be blackmailed or be extortioners. Fast, funny and with a plot Machiavelli would have been proud of. Doug Swanson has a Carl Hiaasen feel for the black humour of absurdity and an Elmore Leonard way with raunchy, punchy, wry dialogue. He won the John Creasey Award with his first novel, Big Town, and lives in Texas where he works on the Dallas Morning News.

Julian Rathbone.The Last English King. Little Brown Nov 97 £16.99
On the Sussex Downs in 1066, the psychotic William and his gang of European mercenaries began the process which fragmented a civilisation. Walt, the last of Harold’s bodyguards, the one who survived Hastings, wanders across Asia Minor in the company of Quint, an intellectual renegade monk. On the way he unfolds the events that led up to the battle which affected the destinies of every English man and woman. With rare skill, Rathbone vividly recreates a civilisation that stubbornly remains alive in the collective memory to this day, and so identifies the roots of the still-held belief that every English person is born free and should stay free. Tender romance, savage war, courtly intrigues and some wry humour combine to make The Last English King an exhilarating roller-coaster ride into our past.
Julian Rathbone is the author of many books, including his only other history novel, Joseph, which was shortlisted for the Booker prize. He lives In Dorset.
'One of The very best story-tellers around' Daily Telegraph

Bernice Rubens.The Waiting Game. Little Brown Sep 97 £15.99
At The Hollyhocks old people's home, the inhabitants are ‘waiting for the scythe'. But while they are
waiting.,. Lady Celia runs a blackmailing business on the quiet, Mr Cross keeps a tally of fellow
residents' deaths on the back of his wardrobe, and then there is the rabid old Scots nationalist, and Mrs Green, a woman with a mysterious past. Hardly surprising in this environment that Mrs Bellamy decides she can't take any more and slits her throat. Meanwhile two newcomers disturb the life of the home further; Mrs Feinberg, a sprightly Jewish woman of whom the other residents are immediately suspicious, and the elegant Mr Rufus. Terrible secrets, unusual sexual preferences and dark humour are mixed to delicious effect in Bernice Rubens' wickedly wonderful new novel.
Bernice Rubens was born in Wales. She won the Booker prize for The Elected Member in 1970 and her novel A Five Year Sentence was also shortlisted for the award. She lives in North London.
Praise for Yesterday In the Back Lane:
'Rubens combines a sharply observant eye with a sympathetic psychological understanding... She writes like a dream. Nothing could be bettered in this most excellent novel' Evening Standard
She yet again demonstrates literary gifts of the highest order' Mail on Sunday

Ann Rule.In the Name of Love: True Crime Files Volume IV Pbk Little Brown Dec 97 £6.99
In her latest collection of fascinating case studies, former Seattle policewoman and bestselling author Ann Rule confirms her status as the Queen of True Crime. The title story is a gripping account of the shocking murder of Adrienne Jones by Diane Zamova and David Graham, students at the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy. This and other cases from her personal files bear the stamp of Ann Rule that makes her books such extraordinary page-turners.
'The undisputed master crime writer of the Eighties and Nineties' John Saul.

Paul Drewitt.A Diamond Fell Into My Pocket. Little Brown July 97 £16.99
Despite a wealthy background, Morris Spurling has been a thief and a gambler since his teenage years in London during the War. He graduated through the London Underworld to stealing jewels from auction houses, dealers and shops. He's been described as the best thief of his kind in Europe, a 'magician' who can make diamonds disappear from under the noses of dealers.
Now nearly seventy, he has been sentenced to more than forty years in prison in half a dozen countries. During his career as a diamond thief he has stolen tens of millions of pounds' worth of jewels. But the proceeds went, usually within hours, on the tables of The world's top casinos, from Sun City in South Africa to Las Vegas in America.
Millions of pounds later he ends up living in one room in a council hostel regretting his life of crime, despite the gambling, womanising and high society socialising he has indulged in for most of his life.
Paul Drewitt is a freelance writer and television producer and broadcaster.

Christopher Brookmyre.Country of the Blind. Little Brown Nov 97 0 316 64027 1 £15.99
HANG THESE BASTARDS NOW! ran the headline of one now ownerless Tory tabloid - the bastards in question being the four men who'd allegedly committed four murders in the course of a burglary; the tabloid-owner being Roland Voss, millionaire media mogul and one of the bodies. Along with his wife and two bodyguards, Voss had had a country weekend in Perthshire cut short by a cut throat.
Investigative journalist Jack Parlabane wasn’t too upset by his news - Voss had been a nasty piece of work, and Padabane had first-hand experience of his muscular methods. But suggestions That Voss might have been whacked on purpose - rather than merely the victim of a botched robbery - pique Parlabane's nose for a conspiracy. And he's not the only one who thinks the accused might be innocent.
Nicole Carrow, a young lawyer, had a curious meeting with one of the suspects a few days before Voss had his neck rearranged. He'd given her an envelope, along with Instructions to open it unless he turned up the following Monday. When he didn’t, Nicole opened up not only the envelope but a whole new world - a world of danger and deceit, of murder and betrayal, where defence is not a legal game but a fight for your life. A world that Jack Parlabane knows well.
The brilliant follow-up to Quite Ugly One Morning, Christopher Brookmyre's acclaimed and award-winning debut, Country of The Blind confirms his status as one of the most exciting new writers around.
Praise for Quite Ugly One Morning:
'Very violent, very funny. A comedy with political edge' Literary Review
The dialogue is a joy throughout and the plot cackles along with confident gusto and intelligence ... An assured debut by a talented writer' Marcel Berlins, The Times
Born in Glasgow In 1988, Christopher Brookmyre has worked as a journalist in London, Los Angeles and Edinburgh (where he now lives). His first novel, Quite Ugly One Morning, won The First Blood Critics Choice Award as the best first novel of 1996.
Cover photograph: Mark Pennington

Ray Bryant.The Satisfaction House. Pbk Little Brown Aug 97 £5.99 See Review
Johnny Smith - an ordinary boy with an ordinary name - lives in a fairytale world, a world ruled over
a wicked old witch who rewards little boys' naughtiness by taking them away and gobbling them up. It is a world that becomes his reality through the indoctrination of a cruel and hateful mother and a freak accident during a thunderstorm when his friend is ‘taken’'. He knows he must be good. He knows he must obey the omnipotent authority he serves, and do everything She commands. If he does he will be granted happiness in his own little Satisfaction House. If he fails, a terrible fate awaits him. After reading .Johnny’s story, fairytales will never seem the same again, Ray Bryants gripping psychological thriller marks the arrival of a major new talent.
Ray Bryant works as a computer systems manager for the Police Complaints Authority and won the
Sunday Express short story prize and the You magazine blockbuster novel competition in the same
month.

Tom Holland. Deliver Us From Evil. Little Brown Sep 97 £14.99
Deep winter, the year 1659. A killer is abroad on Salisbury Plain. Bodies have been found, horribly mutilated, dumped upon ancient holy pagan sites, Captain Foxe, officer with the Parliamentary militia, is called upon to investigate the series of grisly crimes, but he soon comes to fear that they have a more than mortal cause. A long- buried evil, it seems, is awakening - an evil from the very depths of Hell.
For Robert, the son of Captain Foxe, the rising tide of darkness will result in exile - from his home, from his family, from all that he had loved. Introduced to the fabulous temptations of Restoration London by the ravishing - and blood-drinking' - Milady, he will discover a new life, glimpsing powers which might win him his revenge. But for every prize, something must be forfeited -dare Robert pay the price that is asked of him?
Tale of horror, soaring love story, blood-soaked thriller - Deliver Us From Evil is all these things and more. Once again Tom Holland weaves fantasy with scrupulously documented historical fact to create a dazzling work of the imagination. From the dark mysteries of Stonehenge to the decadence of the court of Charles II, from the labyrinthine Ghetto of Prague to the virgin forest of the New World, Deliver Us From Evil presents storytelling at its very best.
Tom Holland is the author of The Vampyre, Supping With Panthers and Attis. He lives in London.
Praise for Supping With Panthers:
'Goes at a cracking pace with its wit, superb sense of humour and literary cross-references ... this novel is an expert mix of the fantastical and the real' Alice Thompson The Scotsman
'High entertainment' The Times

Richard La Plante. Mind Kill. Little Brown Sep 97 £15.99
Mind Kill, the fourth book in the Fogarty / Tanaka thriller series, takes you from the arena of physical violence and drops you in the land of the ‘Diablero' - a sorcerer, a madman who kills through the power of his mind. A man who so thoroughly understands the relationship between mind and body, he enters his victims through their dreams, takes over their thoughts and destroys them. A man who has been locked in a prison cell for 16 years. How do you stop such a man? Tanaka must find out to save Fogarty’s Life..
Praise for Steroid Blues:
'A decent, pacy thriller' Mail on Sunday
'A powerful, tense story' Today
Richard La Plante has a degree in clinical psychology and has worked as a psychiatric counsellor. He has also led a rock band and worked as an actor, as well as training many top sports personalities. After two fantasy novels he turned to writing thrillers and has also written for television. He now lives in America.

Ellis Peters.The Seventh Cadfael Omnibus. Little Brown Sep 97 £10.99
The seventh collection of Ellis Peters' beloved Cadfael mediaeval whodunnits contains The Holy Thief Brother Cadtaefs Penance and A Rare Benedictine. Her original and popular hero enriches these subtle mysteries with his wisdom, his knowledge of herbs and his understanding of the foibles of human nature. A wonderful collection to complete the Brother Cadtael Omnibus series.
'Cadfael springs to life in her books ... a man of warmth, humanity and engaging nosiness'
Sunday Express
The late Ellis Peters was the creator of the Inspector Felse series, the Heaven Tree Trilogy and many individual novels as well as the Brother Cadfael Chronicles - now even more popular due to Derek Jacobi's portrayal on television. She was awarded the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger and was created OBE before her death in 1996.

John Katzenbach. State of Mind. Little Brown Aug 97 £15.99
In the very near future a new state is forming in America, carving out land across other state boundaries to form a secure sanctuary for the law-abiding who have lost the fight against the spiralling crime and decadence of the late 20th century. Known to the authorities but not to the populace, a serial killer has managed to bypass the strict controls and is operating anonymously in the supposed new Utopia. His modus operandi is recognised from similar, but 20-year-old killings elsewhere and there is only one thing which will entrap him - his own family, who were the only people to ever escape from him. His son agrees to form part of the bait, but before he does he has to confront the knowledge that he was fathered by a monster, and also decide whether, if he has to, he has the mental ability to kill his own parent.
A powerful and timely thriller which touches on all our fears of violence, and which poses uncomfortable questions about everyone's individual identity.
'Katzenbach is a writer of subtlely and brutal toughness' New York Times
John Katzenbach has written five outstanding thrillers: In The Heat of the Summer (which was adapted for the screen as The Mean Season), The Traveller, Day of Reckoning, Just Cause and The Shadowman. Before becoming a full-time novelist he was a crime reporter on the Miami Herald. He lives in Massachusetts.

Jonathan Kellerman. Survival of the Fittest. Little Brown Dec 97 £15.99
An Alex Delaware Novel
A retarded child is ritually murdered while on a school outing in a nature reserve. The police, led by Milo Sturgis, have got nowhere and are hampered by the girl's parents: she was the daughter of an Israeli diplomat and her father refuses to allow any publicity for fear that the killing was anti-Semitic and that the death would encourage others.
But Milo suspects the murderer is more ‘ordinary’', and with the help of Alex Delaware, tries to trace any previous murders of retarded or disabled children. With painstaking research they reveal a ghastly trail of slaughter. In the midst of this they realise there is another investigator followlng their tracks - Daniel Shavari from .Jerusalem, who last appeared in The Butchers Theatre- and whose orders may go beyond merely identiifying the killer.
With skill and empathy, Jonathan Kellerman has crated a Thriller of savage tension, and a novel which lays bare the selfish preoccupations of today’s ‘civilised’' society.
Praise for Jonathan Kellerman:
'Elegant, ironic and ingenious as ever' Linear Review
'Kellerman has built up an impressive reputation by writing consistently stylish and literate novels that offer a rich mixture of psychological tension and bleak but acute and compassionate social observation' James Melville
Jonathan Kellerman's series of psychological thrillers featuring Dr Alex Delaware are intentional best-sellers. He lives in California with his wife Faye, also a novelist, and their four children.

Christopher Fowler. Disturbia. Little Brown pbk July 97 07515 1910 3 £7.99
Christopher Fowler caused a sensation with the publication of his best-selling novel Spanky.
'Compulsive ... Gruesome, gory and great fun' Time Out
'The hippest and sharpest horror writer around' i-D
then came... Psychoville
'With devastating insight. Fowler proves that horror can be far closer to home than things that go bump in the night A writer of extraordinary imagination' Sunday Express
'Ghoulishly .irresistible' The Times
now there's more... Disturbia
It's 2am and Vincent Reynolds is running for his life though the stormswept London streets. He's discovered a secret and wants to tell the world - if he can stay alive till dawn.
His adversary - an English gentleman obsessed with puzzles. Playing his deadliest game.
His allies - a motley crew of insomniacs, misfits and street people.
His only hope - to discover the solutions to ten lethal challenges that will lead him, from dusk till daybreak, through the nightlife of a secret city hidden even to its inhabitants...
Christopher Fowler is the director of a film promotion company and lives in London. He is the author of the novels Roofworld, Rune, Red Bride, Darkest Day, Spanky and Psychoville and of the short story collections City Jitters, The Bureau of Lost Souls, Sharper Knives and Flesh Wounds.

Daina Graziunas & Jim Starlin.Thinning the Predators. Pbk Warner Sep97 0 7515 1871 9 £5.99
David Vandemark is nobody's victim, a vigilante serial killer and everyone's hero.
Ira Levitt, an FBI veteran, has been chasing Vandemark for years, and he believes a series of murders among the Hispanic community in New York will lure him into a trap.
Then both of them discover that the Hispanic killings are a sociological experiment that appears to have the blessing from high up on Capitol Hill. Should Levitt stop the vigilante, or risk everything by joining forces with Vandemark to stop the bloodshed and uncover the political conspiracy?
Plunging deep beneath the horror of violence to the moral nightmares below, Thinning the Predators reveals the terrifying pathologies lying at the heart of modern crime ... and the redemptive forces that could yet defeat them.
Cover Illustration by Tony Greco