Stephen Amidon --- The Primitive --- Indigo Pbk (0 575 40017) £5.99 Out 30th May See Review
David has a superficially idyllic life - an attractive, intelligent wife, a dream house and a well paid sinecure. The Southern city where he lives has been destroyed by Wall street raiders and the career he loved has been replaced by copy writing for a red-neck real estate developer, but all is still apparently right with his world. Until, that is, he is involved in a car crash with a mysterious young woman, who is left with a broken arm and concussion - a woman with no clues to her identity at all . Unable to shake off a sense of responsibility, David helps her to remain anonymous and hidden in one of his boss's empty properties, in spite of many indications that she is not what she seems. As for the lust, what happens, happens, right?
Amidon drags his reader kicking and screaming along a rollercoaster of modern emotions. Read it. Will Self
Stephen Amidon performs an impressive balancing act in his erotic thriller...fusing a compassionate analysis of a high-risk love affair with an intriguing and original crime caper. Glyn Maxwell, Vogue
Ted Allbeury --- Beyond The Silence --- Coronet Paperback £5.99 Out on 2nd May
The startling story of a spy who wanted to be a good man - and therefore changed the course of history.
George Carling was the spymaster’s spymaster, the man who knew all the secrets of the Cold War. Now a newspaper says he was a traitor - that his espionage was too good to be honest. But Carling’s real secrets are deeper, and more astonishing. He in the man who knows about Kim Philby’s last great coup: the ultimate deception of the Cold War.
Allbeury was one of the most convincing spy writers when the cold war was in full swing. He has adapted to the new era with grace and imagination The Sunday Times
No one picks through the intelligence maze with more authority or humanity than Allbeury Mail on Sunday
W.J.Burley --- The Wycliffe Omnibus --- Gollancz (0 575 06249 5) £15.99 See Review
For all fans of the Cornish detective - a bumper volume of old favourites
In Wycliffe and the Windsor Blue, Superintendent Wycliffe investigates the seemingly motiveless murder of a man on the eve of his father’s funeral. In Wycliffe and the Four Jacks, a bestselling novelist lives a private nightmare when a sinister warning - a Jack of Diamonds - arrives at regular intervals. In Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin, the virgin of the local nativity play vanishes into thin air and her mother is shot dead through the skull.
There three favourites in one volume - all long out of print in hardcover - will be a treat for Wycliffe fans, old and new.
Gerry Byrne --- Ruby --- Gollancz (0 575 06245 2) £15.99
An entertaining debut in the Val McDermid tradition.
It’s goodbye welfare state, hallo enterprise culture, as the Hayden Aachen Consultancy opens for business, the skills developed in social work management being readily transferable to the private sector. In plain English, she’s sick of the mess and blood of other people’s lives.
But when a strapping transvestite called Evian (rhymes with ‘deviant’) has picked the locks and is swinging her great hairy legs on Hayden’s new desk before she’s even opened for business, it’s odds on the mess and blood will shortly follow. Evian’s friend Rusty, a.k.a. Ruby Tuesday, exotic dancer at the Paradise Now club has gone missing, leaving behind all her clothes and a pricy ruby given to her by a john called John.
Set mostly in Soho, Ruby is an entertaining debut, featuring a louche and varied cast of characters, and an engagingly human heroine.
Gerry Byrne lives in London, where she works in a women’s hostel in Soho. Ruby is her first novel.
D.G.Compton --- Back of Town Blues --- Gollancz (0 575 06253 3) £15.99 Out 16th May
Alec Duncan, King of Swing, it says on the billboard outside Tony's. A black man playing a white piano, just what you need to tart up a dodgy nightspot. Forty quid a night plus tips - about all a black Scots ex-copper with nimble fingers and a record of violence on the job can hope for.
Now, though , with Trevor Bladon, his girlfriend's killer, safely banged up for the rest of his life, it's time for Trevor to put it all behind him and get on with his life. But first he needs to sort out a couple of things with Trevor in his cell. He's not exactly sure why, but he goes anyway, and it's not a good idea. He ends up as a prime suspect in another murder.
In this sequel to Justice City, D.G.Compton returns to his portrayal of a tough and terrifying Liverpool, a few minutes into the future.
Praise for Justice City. Most impressive. For God's sake, keep it away from Michael Howard. Literary Review
...a profound and bitterly ironic meditation on the meanings of justice, crime, cruelty and punishment. Locus
Clare Curzon --- Close Quarters --- Little & Brown (0 316 87715 8) £15.99 Out on 2nd May. See Review
In the tranquil village of Mardham in the Thames valley a woman's body is found. Almost before the police investigation begins a resident is attacked, her assailant chopping off a hank of her hair before she escapes. Like the dead woman she is blonde, and the murderer also removed a tress of hair from the corpse. Are Mike Yeadings and his team faced with every policeman's nightmare, a random serial killer?
Clare Curzon has several identities. She has written crime fiction under the name Rhona Petrie, historical (and one paranormal psychology novel) as Marie Buchanan, and finally returned to crime as Clare Curzon. Most of her mysteries under this name have featured the highly successful Superintendent Mike Yeadings and his Thames Valley team.
Curzon is a prime puzzler, wickedly adept at red herrings and misdirections. John Coleman Sunday Times
Don Davis --- Death Cruise--- St Martin's Library Pbk (Non-fiction) (0 330 34865 5) £4.99 See Review
In his latest true crime book, bestselling author Don Davis recreates the story of a dream vacation that turned into a nightmare, with no escape for Joan Rogers and her two daughters, Michelle and Christie.
The three women were to have a holiday that they had dreamed of and the youngest daughter had been charting the days before their departure for months in anticipation. While in Florida they accepted an offer from a friendly stranger, Oba Chandler, to go on a sunset cruise of the beautiful Tampa Bay. Chandler, it turned out, was a brutally violent homicidal rapist who sexually abused Joan and the two girls before throwing them alive into the sea weighted down with concrete blocks.
The bodies were discovered were discovered three days after the attacks but the case was not resolved for a further five years when Chandler was brought before the law and executed. Death Cruise is one of six true crime stories by Don Davis which include The Milwaukee Murders which delved into the twisted mind of Jeffrey Dahmer, one of the most savage serial killers of all time.
Michael DiMercurio --- Attack Of The Seawolf --- Coronet Paperback Original £5.99 Out on 2nd May.
When an underground Chinese democratic movement becomes strong enough militarily to challenge the repressive government forces, all hell breaks loose.
In the ensuing civil war, smoking battle fields make satellite intelligence inconclusive.
Sent to the Gulf of Chili to monitor the situation covertly, the USS Tampa is captured by hard-line Chinese forces. Commanding the new state-of-the-art submarine USS Seawolf, Captain Michael Pacino sets out to rescue the Tampa and its commander, his erstwhile Naval Academy roommate. In the close quarters of the Gulf, Pacino must use all his ingenuity - and an armoury of equipment on the cutting edge of military technology - to avoid detection and retrieve the Tampa from Chinese hands...
John Dunning --- The Bookman's Wake --- Little & Brown (0 7515 1496) £7.99
Cliff Janeway, ex-policeman turned book-dealer, accepts a freelance job to collect a young woman who has skipped bail to Seattle. As well as the cash, it is the location which tempts him, as it is there that the Grayson Press operated producing beautiful editions of such authors as Edgar Allan Poe. But when he arrives in the city he realises he's been set up as a ferret to discover copies of a rare edition of The Raven , and he learns that various people known to have owned copies have met untimely deaths.
Bill Fitzhugh --- Pest Control --- Arrow Paperback Original £5.99 Out on 16th May. See Review 
Pest Control tells the story of Bob, a struggling exterminator with a dream. Bob’s abhorrence of pesticides, along with a keen marketing eye, has led him to a series on intriguing experiments cross-breeding Assassin Bugs. Bob dreams of creating an all-natural pest control process involving insecticidal insects. He has particularly high hopes of the hybrid offspring of the Jagged Ambush Bug (Phymata erosa) and the Thread-Legged Bug (Emesa brevicoxa).
Bob has lived in New York all his life, and God he hates it! He’s had it with the senseless violence, the filth, the shortage of parking spaces, and all those cockroaches. All he wants to do is get his family out of there. But he can’t go until he finishes his experiments. It’s a matter of pride and money.
Bob’s wife, Mary, (who dreams of having a perfect credit rating) leaves with their daughter after Bob tries his unproved method on one of his rare employment opportunities - a job that would have brought in some desperately needed cash.
Determined to win his wife back by succeeding at this odd quest, Bob relentlessly pursues his dream against fantastic odds. He is soon befriended by a man named Klaus, a nice guy with a tragic past who also happens to be the world’s best assassin. But Klaus won’t kill just anyone; you must deserve to die before he’ll take your contract. Unfortunately for Bob, Klaus is looking for a reason to kill him....
Bill Fitzhugh started life as a DJ. He then went on to take Psychology at the University of Washington. Pest Control started life as a screenplay which was optioned but did not go into production. It has now been turned into a novel.
Malcolm Forsythe --- Death of a Secretary HarperCollins (0 00 232594 2) £14.99
Forsythe carves out retribution with a scalpel, his ironies supremely dramatic. Sunday Times (of A Cousin Removed)
The death of Trudy Thornton presents DCI Millson and DS Scobie with a particularly sensitive investigation: Trudy worked for an Under Secretary of State, Charles Howard, who is possibly implicated in her murder. But other suspects proliferate: Trudy’s life was more complicated than ever her closest confidante realised, as becomes clear when it is discovered she was pregnant. It seems likely the father will prove to be the killer - if he can be tracked down. However, nothing in this inquiry is that clear cut as the two policemen find out all too soon.
Malcolm Forsythe, a former member of the Home Office, lives in Suffolk.
Kinky Friedman --- God Bless John Wayne --- Faber & Faber (0 571 17732 8) £8.99 Out on 5th May. See Reviews (1) & (2)
The one and only Kinkster - author of Elvis, Jesus & Coca-Cola & Armadillos and Old Lace is back, and more outrageous than ever.
Once again ensconced in his quaintly appointed Lower Manhattan loft, Kinky Friedman - Ace Private Eye - takes on the deceptively tame assignment of helping his pal Ratso find his true birth mother. But a job that begins with some ungenteel poking around in a dusty New York warehouse quickly leads to even untidier mayhem involving a couple of stiffs and an apparent plot to kill Ratso before he can uncover his ancestry (and possible inheritance). The trail shifts to Miami Beach, then back to Manhattan, and finally ends in the posh New York suburb of Chappaqua, where wrongs get righted, rights get read and readers get the full benefit of Kinky's irreverent wit and hilarious wisdom. It is the Kinkster at his considerable best.
Kinky Friedman --- Armadillos and Old Lace --- Faber & Faber (0 571 17462 0) £5.99 Out on 5th May.See Review
Kinky Friedman takes a break from big-city murder and mayhem by transporting himself to Texas. But he has scarcely arrived before his friend, Judge Knox, turns up at his ranch:
'I want to talk to you', said Judge Knox, 'about four little old ladies.'
'Four little old ladies?' I said. 'Do they want me to join them in a quilting bee?'
'No,' said the Judge. They're dead...'
Armadillos & Old Lace is Kinky Friedman in top form, mixing his irresistible irreverence with a great mystery.
The Sam Spade of South Texas. Only soft boiled. And hipper. And funnier. Friedman deftly herds his tale along the folkways of Texan culture with wit, some elegant writing, some magnificently bad puns and a nice sense of self-mockery. Mail on Sunday
Compact and superbly constructed Friedman’s novels read as if written either by Raymond Chandler high on prohibited substances or by a Mickey Spillane who has never heard of sex… but who was a dab-hand with one-liners... Gerald Kaufman
The adventures he stars in and writes about seem unlikely, but after a few pages, disbelief is stunned into suspension… Like him or loath him, Kinky outshines every other foul-mouthed crazy comedian/investigator around. Mail on Sunday
Kinky Friedman was an offbeat country singer-songwriter in the 1970’s, leading a band called Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys - recording such songs as They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore and the feminist anthem Get your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed. From 1966-1968 he served in the Peace Corps in Borneo. His novels to date are A Case of Lone Star, Greenwich Killing Time and When the Cat’s Away, which are available in one volume as The Kinky Friedman Crime Club, Musical Chairs and Frequent Flyers and Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola, featured in More Kinky Friedman, and Armadillos and Old Lace.
Carl Goldberg --- Speaking With The Devil --- Viking (0670 85557X) £20.00
Non-Fiction. See Review 
Speaking With The Devil offers a lucid and compelling analysis of the roots of malevolence and its destructive expression in society.
What distinguishes the disturbed from the truly evil? Why do seemingly senseless acts of malevolence - Jeffrey Dahmer's serial killings, Susan Smith's murder of her children - happen? Is malevolent behaviour something more than criminal behaviour? Carl Goldberg charts the causes and development of the malevolent personality and its resistance to self-examination. Approaching his subject from many perspectives - philosophy, theology, mythology, law, psychology and literature - he provides a cultural and historical overview of what we term 'evil'. Through that prism, the magnitude of evil's workings in the human mind are taken up.
In Speaking With The Devil, Carl Goldberg draws revealing case studies from his twenty-five years in clinical practice to produce a thorough analysis of the genesis of evil.
Carl Goldberg, PhD., a psychoanalyst and author of eleven books and numerous articles, is formerly associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and adjunct associate professor of social sciences at New York University. He lives in New York City.
Peter Haining (ed)---The Vampire Hunter's Casebook --- Little & Brown (0 7515 1460 8 ) £6.99
There have been many anthologies of vampire stories, but never one solely devoted to vampire hunters, those characters created by a number of the best-known horror writers. This anthology is devoted to the occult sleuth. Authors include: Arthur Conan Doyle, Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker & Anne Rice.
Jack Higgins --- Year of the Tiger --- Michael Joseph (0 7181 4138 5) £15.99 Watch Out for Review coming soon!
When Paul Chavasse looks out of the drawing-room window of his St Martin's Square house on a cold, grey November evening, he is unaware that the strange muffled figure standing opposite knows a great deal about his remarkable past. For Chavasse, now Chief of the Bureau, a little-known section of British intelligence, had been a leading player not only in the famous escape of the Dalai Lama in 1959 but also in the rescue from Chinese hands two years later of a scientist whose discoveries were vital to the West.
Set in the untamed mountains of Tibet and it's glorious monasteries and villages, this is a riveting story of physical and psychological endurance, with a startling twist in the tale
Our prime exponent of the popular novel. Sunday Express
Jack Higgins is the master craftsman of good, clean adventure... in the footsteps of Sapper and the great John Buchan Daily Mail
Frances Hill --- A Delusion of Satan - The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials --- Hamish Hamilton (0241 136725) £17.00
Non-fiction. Frances Hill helps us to understand exactly what happened, balancing critical insight with a sympathy that was sorely lacking in the Puritan community of Salem. A compelling account. Karen Armstrong
The Salem witch-hunt and trials have captured the attention and imagination of young and old for centuries. A Delusion of Satan guides the reader through the thickets of history and explains in clear and factual terms exactly what went on during that horrifying period between 1691 and 1693 when over one hundred men, women and children were shackled in the dank prison of Salem, charged with witchcraft. Many lost their lives, some their sanity. But what really happened?
It had started as a game of fortune-telling for a group of young girls, bored with the monotony of their Puritan lives. It descended into violent fits and group hysteria and the accusation that many of their neighbours were witches. One by one, a growing number of villagers were pulled into the web either as accusers or victims.
Frances Hill draws on the insights of modern psychology and feminism to ask: who were the real perpetrators of evil during this tragic period? And what was their motivation?
Francis Hill is the author of two novels, Out of Bounds and A Fatal Delusion. She is also a journalist, has reported in both New York and London, and has reviewed fiction for The Times and the TLS.
Chester Himes --- The Harlem Cycle Volume 1: A Rage in Harlem, The Real Cool Killers and The Crazy Kill --- Payback Press Pbk (086241 596 9) £6.99
Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, Harlem's toughest pair of cops, are Chester Himes' most memorable fictional creations. Renowned for their meanness and always armed with their legendary nickel-plated Colts, they patrol the streets of Harlem and attempt to keep some semblance of law and order.
Gathered together for the first time are the first three novels in what Himes described as his domestic thrillers - otherwise known as the Harlem cycle. Combining fantastic plots with blood-soaked realism, Himes produced some of the greatest crime novels ever.
Chester's writing was no third-hand bullshit gleaned from some secondary source.....every sentence of every page reeks of authenticity. Melvin Van Peebles
A crime writer of Chandlerian subtlety though in a vein of sheer toughness very much his own The Times
Maxim Jakubowski (ed) --- The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction --- Robinson (1 85487 507 8) £6.99 See Review
Fast action and wild, wild pleasure: a massive collection of seven decades of pure, unadulterated pulp fiction. Join the shady operators, voluptuous molls, ruthless bigshots, crooked and sometimes honest cops in the company of such superlative writers as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James M.Cain, Ed McBain, John D.MacDonald, James Ellroy and more than twenty other leading lights of the hardboiled school of writing.
Maxim Jakubowski founded London's Murder One bookshop and for some years has edited the award-winning New Crimes anthology series. He lives in London.
Charles Maclean --- The Silence --- Viking (0670 80181X) £16.00
One sweltering August week, the uneasy calm of Tom and Karen Welford's charmed life is disturbed by a rash of incidents that reveal the dark side of their marriage and draw them into a web of guilt, erotic obsession and fear.
A beautiful woman with a shadowy past, Karen has been leading a double life she knows is threatened by imminent exposure. With the clock ticking, she leaves her husband and disappears, taking with her their only child, a withdrawn, traumatised four-year-old, who hasn't spoken for six months, but who has witnessed enough for Karen to live in simultaneous gratitude for and terror of his silence.
When a Brooklyn loanshark with ties to organised crime entraps both Karen and Tom in his carefully orchestrated plans, they find themselves in a situation whose nightmarish complexity they can scarcely comprehend, let alone influence or predict.
The Silence combines a taut, brilliantly constructed narrative that builds urgently to an edge-of-your-seat climax that exercises the intelligence as well as chills the blood.
Charles Maclean, born in 1946, is the author of several works of non-fiction including The Wolf Children. His last suspense novel, The Watcher, received outstanding critical acclaim. He lived for 10 years in New York before returning to his native Scotland where he farms and runs the famous Creggans Inn.
Ed McBain --- Romance --- NEL Paperback £5.99 Out on 16th May. Watch our for Review coming soon!
The new 87th Precinct Novel
New York cops, off-Broadway theatre, rivalry, jealousy, love and mystery - only McBain could bring it all together in such a feisty, sharp, electric manner.
Kling is in love - again, but it will be a struggle to win her, and anyway, he’s playing this one close to the chest. Not least because she is as black as he is blond.
He and Carella are caught up in knife attack on an actress that develops into a couple of murders, but the theatrical waters are muddied, and it is only Carella’s instinct that tells him the main suspect is not the perp. Time is running out, and there are no obvious answers. What they need is a lucky break..
McBain is at his best with his characters involved in another twisting, turning, fast moving murder mystery. Romance is not only the emotional level on which Bert Kling is working, but also the name of the play being rehearsed off-Broadway - it’s star is murdered and one of the cast is the murderer - a plot reflected harshly by true life.