NEW BOOK MACMILLAN 1997

Jo Bannister.  The Primrose Convention. Macmillan Aug 97 0 333 69961 0  £16.99
`Crafting her story with authority and sensitivity, Bannister writes in the tradition of Dorothy L Sayers ' .Publishers Weekly
Hunting down a missing person is not usually the job of an advice column - but then Rosie Holland is a very unusual  agony aunt....The Primrose Convention is the first in a lively and witty new series by the popular Jo Bannister, centred around the larger than life agony aunt Rosie Holland....
Primrose Holland, an ex-pathologist, writes the replies in the unconventional `Primrose Path', the problem page of The Skipley Chronicle - a Midlands local paper. Her answers to readers problems are always far from orthodox, frequently hilarious and often land her in deep water.  But never deeper than when a reader's bird-watching brother mysteriously disappears, and she becomes involved in the
search to find him - a search that quite literally takes her to the outer Hebrides. Rosie's solution to this reader's problem proves to be very dangerous indeed.
Jo Bannister was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, and grew up in Birmingham, Nottingham and now lives in County Down, Northern Ireland. After leaving school at sixteen, she joined the County Down Spectator as an office junior, leaving as editor in 1988 to pursue her career as an author. She has won several awards for her writing, including recognition from the Royal Society of Arts and the British Press Awards. She is also the author of the popular police series featuring Frank Shapiro, Liz Graham and Cal Donovan. 

Bill James. Panicking Ralph.  Macmillan Aug 97 0 333 67060 4 £16.99 See Review
‘He pocketed his Walther, then drove out towards the foreshore again, thinking that Christine might conceivably be alive.... This was one of the times when Ember could almost truly believe people were wrong to call him "Panicking Ralph".'
Shady drinking club owner Ralph Ember is determined to live down his nickname "Panicking Ralph" when he sets up his own drug syndicate.  But when a romantic afternoon with his mistress Christine ends in bloodshed, Ralph realises there are others with the same plans who will stand for no competition. But who are Ralph's rivals? Cultured villain Mansel Shale? Or the young and ambitious Keith Vine? Perhaps even ACC Desmond Iles and DCS Colin Harpur, about whom there are persistent rumours....
Bill James is lives in South Wales. He is the author of a critical work on Anthony Powell as well as many thrillers and crime novels. Panicking Ralph is the fourteenth in the well-known and highly acclaimed Harpur and Iles series, following most recently The Detective is Dead and Top Banana. The paperback of Top Banana is published in September by Pan. The fourth book in the series, Protection, was adapted for TV by the BBC in 1996 into a well-received two part drama starring Hwyel Bennett and Aneurin Hughes. 

Margaret Lawrence. Heart and Bones.  Macmillan July 97 0 333 69418 X  £16 99 See Review
  "Every so often an extraordinary novel is published. This year that novel is Margaret Lawrence’s brilliant, passionate, riveting Hearts and Bones." Carolyn Hart
A murder mystery a love story, a marvellously truthful evocation of another era and a heroine we can feel in our hearts and bones. " Lois Battle
  "It seemed for a moment that he must be thinking of some other man, and when he realised that the word murderer now applied to him, he laughed softly at the thought of it. She, too, would have laughed.  Nobody else in the village had heard her laugh, he was sure. Nobody knew her."
Hearts and Bones is an immensely passionate and haunting historical mystery. Set against the backdrop of a small town in Maine, USA in 1786, where the memories and after-effects of the bloody War of Independence are still fresh in the inhabitants minds. Our heroine, Hannah Trevor, is a woman of fierce independence, whose disregard for convention sets her apart from the other women, but as mid-wife she is intimately involved in the lives of all those around her, and valued accordingly.
When Hannah discovers the brutally murdered body of a young wife and mother she joins her friend, local constable and blacksmith, Will Quaid is his investigation. Piecing together the fragments of evidence proves to be a process that could cost Hannah dearly. A letter left, debatably in the dead woman's hand, names her three attackers, one of whom is Hannah's former lover, wealthy Englishman and war-veteran Daniel Josselyn. Hannah cannot believe that he is guilty, and the tragic but fascinating pattern that emerges from her own increasingly private investigation reaches out from a terrible wartime secret and threatens to ensnare everything and everyone she loves. Hannah Trevor is the kind of woman who will go to great lengths to protect and defend those things and people... 

Jim Thompson. Omnibus 2.  Pbk Picador June 97 0 330 34451 X  £8.99
  After Dark My Sweet, A Hell of a Woman, Savage Night, A Swell Looking Babe, Nothing More Than Murder
`My favourite crime novelist- often imitated but never duplicated' Stephen King
Quentin Tarantino is a big fan of Jim Thompson. As are a lot of film-makers: The Killer Inside Me, The Getaway with Kim Basinger and Alex Baldwin, Pop. 1280 became Coup de Torchon, The Kill-Off, After Dark My Sweet and Stephen Frears' version of The Grifters with Angelica Huston and John Cusack. Two more are currently in progress; Steven Halnberg's production of A Swell-looking Babe and This World Then the Fireworks with Gena Gershon. No wonder The Independent named
him `the hippest writer in Hollywood' for Jim Thompson is pulp fiction at its best.
Omnibus 2 illustrates why the name of Jim Thompson is synonymous with the roman noir. Once described as a dime-store Dostoevsky', his brilliant writing has a controlled desperation and his dark, dramatic vision and sinister interior monologues have won him the sort of acclaim rarely awarded to writers of mass-consumption paperbacks; as Stephen  King commented, `What makes (them) literature  is his unflinching examination of the psyche wired up like a nitro bomb'.
James. Meyers Thompson was born in Amadarko, Oklahoma, in 1906.  He began writing fiction at a young age, selling his first story when he was only fourteen. In all, he wrote twenty-nine novels and two screenplays (for Stanley Kubrick). Four of his novels are collected in the first  Jim Thompson Omnibus: The Getaway, The Killer Inside Me, The Grifters and Pop. 1280, also published by Picador.
  `Thompson is top of the pulp league' Guardian 

H.R.F. Keating.  Asking Questions.  Pbk Pan Aug 97 0 330 35226 1 £5.99
From the 1996 Cartier Diamond Dagger award winner comes the latest in his highly popular Bombay set Inspector Ghote series...
‘HRF Keating has created in Ganesh Ghote an enchanting and engaging inspector.’  PD James
‘This latest book is a fine addition to the canon.’ Crime Time
At the Mira Behn Institute for Medical Research someone is smuggling out a dangerous drug, made from the venom of highly poisonous snakes.  Inspector Ghote's suspect is the snake-handler Chandra Chagoo. But Chagoo is now lying dead on the Boor of the Reptile Room, a Russell's viper slithering across his back At first it seems a tragic accident. But then Ghote starts asking questions. Questions for which - before very long - he'd rather not know the answers....
HRF Keating was the crime book reviewer for The Times for 15 years.  He has served as Chairman of the CWA and the Society of Authors, and in 1987 was elected President of the Detection Club. He has twice won the CWA Gold Dagger award and in 1996 won the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award.  Keating as written many novels, as well as plays and non-fiction, but is probably most famous for the Inspector Ghote series which are set in India.  The first in the series, The Perfect Murder was made into a film by Merchant Ivory. In November Macmillan publish his new book in the `Detective' series, The Soft Detective. HRF Keating lives in London. 

Janet Laurence.  Westminister Bridge. Macmillan Sept 97 0 333 65490 0 £16.99
With a wonderful and evocative mixture of historic fact and fiction, Janet Laurence has recreated l8th century London society in an extremely colourful and entertaining story.
'They'd not been a day out of Venice before a fellow passenger...had insisted on dragging out his details, and then giving a silent whistle, his inquisitive brown eyes popping out. 'The  Antonio Canal, the topographical artist Canaletto?  The one who paints all the famous views of Venice for visiting aristos?.... Deserting your homeland are you?'....'There is a new bridge across the Thames,' he'd said with some of the excitement he'd felt on first learning of this. 'At Westminster.'
It is 1746 and Canaletto arrives in London, eager to exploit his popularity with English collectors. In the rapidly expanding city he anticipates many promising views for his brush, including the new Westminster Bridge, now nearing completion after many delays. Canaletto's feet have barely touched English soil before it emerges that someone is trying to kill him.  Could this have anything to do with the scandal surrounding Westminster bridge - a bridge on which he makes a truly grisly
discovery?
Janet Laurence is also the author of the successful  culinary mystery series featuring Darina Lisle. She began her career as a cookery writer for the Daily Telegraph and later for county Life. Janet lives in Somerset.
1997 is the 300th anniversary of Canaletto's birth. 

Lynda La Plante. Trial and Retribution.  Pbk Pan Sep 97 0 330 35297 0 £5.99
 It is every mother's nightmare.
 Her child is missing, found murdered.
 Her lover is the prime suspect.
 It is every police officer's dread.
A child murder. A circumstantial case.
 It is every solicitor's dream.
 Twelve men and women will decide the verdict. But only you can decide if justice is done for the victim. 

Jay Bonansinga.  The Killing Game. Macmillan Sep 97 0 330 34723 3 £5.99
Veteran hit-man Joe Flood is informed he has a terminal illness - and decides to end it all by putting out an open contract on himself via the Internet. The bounty will be six million pounds, on offer to every professional assassin, terrorist, mob enforcer, KGB cutthroat and homicidal maniac crawling the planet. The contest starts at midnight and, as he awaits his own deadline, Joe receives news that the clinic has misdiagnosed, and suddenly he is desperate to survive. But already predatory footsteps are advancing along the corridor.
 All Joe can do now is flee: out of the window and down the alley-becoming the desperate prey in a terrifying cross- country pursuit of relentless violence and destruction. 

Walter Mosley. A Little Yellow Dog.  Pbk Picador Sep 97 0 330 33472 7 £6.99
JFK is President and Ezekiel (aka Easy) Rawlins has a job as a school janitor. The only dog allowed on the school premises is Pharoah, who belongs to Idabell Turner a curvaceous teacher whose husband has murder on his mind. Before the day is over, Idabell is gone, leaving Easy with her dog, and the handsomest corpse Easy has ever seen is found in the school garden.
`Great writing with depth and feeling, twisting plot, brilliant dialogue and wonderful characters
  Tribune  

Dick Francis. To the Hilt.  Pbk Pan Nov 97 0333 35225 3 £5.99
 Alexander Kinloch found solitude and a steady income painting in a bothy on a remote Scottish mountain. Until the morning the strangers arrived to rough him up, and Alexander was dragged reluctantly back into the real and violent world he thought he had left behind.
Millions of pounds are missing from his stepfather's business.  A valuable racehorse is under threat. Then comes the first ugly death and the end of all Alexander's doubts. For the honour' of the Kinloclvs he will face the strangers . . . Committed up to the hilt . . .
 The new intentional bestseller from Dick Francis is a brilliantly executed tale of top racing, big money and crime.
Dick Francis is the author of thirty-four intentional  bestsellers. His awards include the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger for best novel and the Diamond Dagger for his outstanding contribution in the field. In 1996 the Mystery Writers of America made him a Grand Master,  for a lifetime's achievement. 

Paul Erdman.  The Set-Up. Macmillan  Aug 97 0 333 58034 6 £16.99
On a visit to Switzerland, leading US banker Charles Black is arrested and thrown in jail. He is then accused of using privileged information to commit massive frauds, embezzling over $450 million. The case against him seems iron-clad, and he can expect thirty years' hard labour in a Swiss prison.
 Charlie realizes he's been framed, but cannot identify his enemy. Desperately seeking diplomatic and legal help, his wife Sally is frustrated at every turn. Even back in the USA, no one seems willing to get involved, so his case looks hopeless. Then a mysterious stranger offers Sally a rescue deal, which for three million dollars seems cheap at the price.
But escape won't mean the end of their nightmare . . . 

Bob Wolffinden. Hanratty:  The Final Verdict.  Macmillan Oct 97 0 333 71015 0  £16.99
James Hanratty was executed on 4 April l 962. It was one of the last executions to take place in Britain, and has remained the most controversial of all. The murder for which he was convicted and killed was known as the A6 Murder Case. Even as the verdict was announced, misgivings were voiced
about the conviction. Since the day of Hanratty's execution, a campaign has been waged to clear his name.
 Thirty-five years later, Hanratty: The Final Verdict pieces together all the evidence for the first time. Bob Woffinden evokes beautifully the atmosphere of the time, and skilfully unravels the labyrinthine crime  and flawed police operation to reveal the truth behind one of che most extraordinary
criminal cases of the century.
 Bob Woffinden is a journalist and independent television  producer. His documentary Hanratty: The Mystery of Deadman’s Hill has formed che basis for rhe evidence submitted to the Home Office requesting that the case be referred to appeal. 

Jane Adams.  Bird. Macmillan  Sep 97 0 33 68748 5 £16.99
Jane Adams is a really exciting new talent, and certainly one to watch.  Her first book, The Greenway was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Award and the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award, and was followed last year by Cast the First Stone.
Val McDermid wrote of the former - `Few Debut novels achieve this level of suspense',
The Times `The Greenway hinted at a promising crime-writing talent; Cast The First Stone amply confirms that view'
The Sunday Times
called the latter `grippingly edgy
"`I knew you'd come Bird." Marcie smiled again and patted the old man's hand. It was the third time he had said those words in the half-hour she had been sitting beside him'.
Jack Witney is dying and his beloved grand-daughter Marcie, his `Bird' who he raised and who once idolised him, has come to his bedside to forgive him the past. From Jack's ramblings as he slips in and out of consciousness, it becomes clear that he cannot achieve the peace in death that he craves - worse than what caused him to alienate Marcie, some terrible vision is hounding him to his grave. A woman, he insists, is constantly there standing over him. A woman with a noose around her neck.
Despite bitter opposition from her grandmother, Marcie seeks to uncover the secrets of her Grandfather's, and consequently her, past lowly the story of Jack's life unravels itself and Marcie becomes terrifyingly sucked in as she wakes from a nightmare one night to find deeply bitten rope marks around her throat.....
Jane .Adams lives in Leicester and this, her third book, is set in and around the Lincolnshire Wolds, giving a remarkable sense of place that reflects the gloriously spooky. and atmospheric tone of the book.
Cover photo Richard Ivey 

Jennie Melville.  Revengeful  Death. Macmillan July 97 0 333 69275 6 £l6.99
A Charmian Daniels mystery
Mary March has been harbouring murderous thoughts - so perhaps it's fate that she discovers the first victim. But why has the corpse's face been painted red, white and blue? And why has the heart been cut out? 

H.R.F. Keating. The Soft Detective. Macmillan Nov 97 0 333 71737 6 £16.99
Winner of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger 1996 for outstanding services to crime literature
Detective Chief Inspector Phil Benholme has the reputation for being too soft - but he simply tries to see both sides of every story And if he hadn't on this occasion, Professor Unwala's death, in the study of his cluttered home, would have been recorded as a tragic accident.
For Benholme's open-minded approach reveals that Unwala - winner of a Nobe1 Prize in 1945 - was murdered.
Was the old man a victim of violent robbery? Or of a racist assault by Britforce troopers? Or did the Professor know something about the Hampton Hoard, a collection of Celtic coins worth one million pounds and thought to be buried somewhere nearby? Clearly Inspector Benholme has a  number of leads to follow up. Unfortunately they soon begin to point to one person - Conor Benholme.
What does a 'soft cop' do when his teenage son is also his prime suspect . . . ?
H. R. E Keating is most famous for the Inspector Ghote series, the first of which, The Perfect Murder; was made into a film by Merchant Ivory and won a CWA Gold Dagger Award.
Jacket photograph: Tony Hutching

Margaret Murphy.  The Desire of the Moth.  Macmillan Oct 97 0 333 71166 1 £16.99
Shortlisted for the First Blood Award 1996 for Goodnight My Angel
Dorothy Hardy and Ann Lee have two things in common. Both are social workers with connections to the Calderbankchildren's home. And both have been abducted . . .
Could their disappearance have anything to do with the child abuse scandal centred around the home? Is some sort of vendetta being waged against Calderbank Borough Council staff
But there is another link between the two women - their former colleague Dr Christine Radcliffe, a sophisticated, self possessed consultant psychologist. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Jameson, in a race to find the women alive and well, cannot ignore this connection. Especially when their prime
suspect, Philip Greer, is Christine's foster brother.
And when Christine herself is clearly nursing a dark, violent  secret from her past . . .
 The Desire of the Moth is Margaret Murphy's second novel.Her first novel, Goodnight, My Angel, was published to much critical acclaim. 

Marilyn Todd.  Man Eater.  Macmillan Nov 97 0 333 71658 2 £16.99
The celebrated Claudia Seferius is back! This time, for once, she decides to put business before pleasure, and just look what happens. She loses her cat, she gets beaten up - and, more importantly she gets framed for murder.....
One the eve of the Roman Games festivities the last thing you'd expect sassy Claudia to be doing is heading in the opposite direction. The vineyard she has inherited from her late husband is being threatened with arson, and she must go and straighten things out in her own inimitable way. However, events manage to get totally out of control, and before sunrise Claudia has been framed for murder.
Marilyn Todd was born in Harrow, Middlesex, but now lives in West Sussex with her husband, one dog and two cats. For the last ten years she has run her own secretarial business from home. Man Eater follows the acclaimed I, Claudia and Virgin Territory.
Cover photograph: Paul Postle.

Priscilla Masters.  And None Shall Sleep. Macmillan Oct 97 0 333 69274 8 £16.99
A Joanna Piercy mystery
Jonathan Selkirk, ruthless high-powered solicitor, recognises a threat when he sees one - and he's in little doubt that a letter suggesting he 'make a will' is intended to frighten him. Indeed, only hours later he is recovering in the Leek Cottage Hospital with a suspected heart attack.
Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy is also at the hospital that morning. She is the victim of a road accident, and inadvertently finds herself at the scene of the crime when late that night Selkirk mysteriously disappears from his private room. Has he discharged himself, or has he been abducted?
The discovery of a dead body two days later leaves Joanna coping not simply with a murder investigation, and a badly broken arm, but also with the arrival of the Regional Crime Squad. For the formidable Superintendent Karen Pugh believes the murder is the work of a professional contract killer - and the small village of Leek is where they are going to trap him.
'It is always a joy to discover a new crime writer with a sure touch and the capacity to shock. More, please, and soon.' PETER LOVESEY
Jacket photograph by Joe Partridge

Colin Dexter.  Death is now My Neighbour.  Pbk Pan Sep 97 0 330 35034 X  £5.99
 As he drove his chief down to Kidlington, Lewis returned the
conversation to where it had begun.
`You haven't told me what you think about this fellow Owens - the
dead woman’s next-door neighbour.'
 `Death is always the next-door neigbbour;’ said Morse sombrely.
 The residents of Bloxham Drive were accustomed to acts of minor vandalism and the odd spot of joy-riding - but they were unprepared for cold-blooded murder . . .
Summoned to Number 17, Chief Inspector E. Morse discovers the body of a young woman, Rachel James - shot through her kitchen window at point-blank range. Unfortunately few of the shocked residents can be particularly helpful about what they saw or heard that fateful morning.
But the discovery of a cryptic `seventeenth-century' love poem and a photograph of Rachel with a mystery grey-haired man is enough to set Morse on the trail of a killer . . .
Until he faces a greater, far more personal crisis . . .
Colin Dexter has been awarded the 1997 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for outstanding services to crime literature.

Hammond Innes.  Delta Connection.  Pbk Pan Aug 97 0 330 35027 7  £5.99
His latest spellbinding intentional adventure.
 For Paul Cartwright, a young English mining engineer, the quest begins at the huge Black Sea port of Constantza. After the killing of one of the secret police, he is forced to escape by way of the Danube Delta, in the company of a strange young woman. As she recounts the horrors of her past life, a picture emerges of Vikki, her mysterious, domineering sister -
known as `the Little Sultana'.
 Years previously, Cartwright had first encountered Vikki as a little girl dancing alone in front of a captivated restaurant, and they had since met occasionally through the years. But is Vikki really the daughter of a sultan? Where is the realm she claims for her own? Above all, what is the hidden wealth that now draws the Russian Mafia into the search? Mystery will continue to dog Cartwright’s footsteps through the Khyber  Pass and up into the `lost' vastnesses of the Pamirs. And, though the way ahead seems suicidal, somewhere in those towering mountains must lie the answers.
 The author of thirty outstanding international adventures, Hammond Innes lives in Suffolk.