NEW BOOKS ORION 1997

Liz Evans. Who Killed Marilyn Monroe? Orion Sep 97 0 75281 154 1 £16.99
Introducing PI Grace Smith
Set in a down-at-heel English seasidc town, this bracing, funny, crime novel begins with the murder of Marilyn Monroe, a beach donkey found with its throat slit in a deserted outhouse. PI Grace Smith, too broke to be selective when it comes to work, is called in by the donkey's owner to investigate this bizarre crime - and finds herself drawn into another mystery surrounding the murder of a young woman. It soon becomes clear that the deaths connect and Grace has stumbled on a whole lot more than she bargained for...

Lawrence Block. The Matt Scudder Mysteries 2. Orion August 97 075280 540 1 £16.99
A Stab in the Dark. Eight Million Ways to Die. When the Sacred Ginmill Closes.
This collection comprises the second three Matt Scudder mysteries - consolidating the astonishingly successful and long career of of the greatest career PIs of the last two decades. Matt is an ex-cop who sometimes attends Al-Anon meetings, sometimes lights candles in church for those worse off than himself. He also does favours for friend, mixing with the worst of the Big Apple's crooks and prostitutes and some of the NYPD's finest. `Block is awfully good...a gift for fast and effortless storytelling’
LA Times

Ian Rankin. The Hanging Garden. Orion Dec 97 0 75280 721 8 £16.99
The latest Rebus mystery from the acclaimed authot of Black & Blue. Rebus's superiors have handed him a war crimes investigation that should tie him up on the telephone for decades, but present day Edinburgh is muscling in on Rebus's time. And when his daughter is the victim of a too-smooth hit and run the pressure is on to get out from behind the desk.
"With Black & Blue Ian Rankin joins the elite of British Crime writing' Marcel Berlins, The Times.

Tim Sebastian. Ultra. Orion Nov 97 0 75280 792 7 £16.99
A timely thriller from the bestselling Tim Sebastian which explodes the myths behind the chemical and biological weaponry deployed in the Gulf War.
When two aerosol canisters - each containing a biological agent so lethal that a single spray could contaminate up to 50 people at a time - go missing from a US government department, British journalist Peter Veronese is drawn into a terrifying search where it becomes difficult to distinguish right from wrong, the hunters from the hunted,and where even his scientist wife seems to be after his blood.

Johnny `Two Combs' Howard. Boat Troop. Orion Oct 97 0 75281 151 7 £16.99
First in a series of high action, immaculately researched novels based on real events in the history of SAS Boat Troop and written by a veteran, Johnny `Two Combs', creator of SAS: The Soldiers' Story. Sent in by ship or submarine, the SAS Boat Troop are eyually` at home and equally lethal anywhere in the world. What would have happened had the notorious mission against mainland Argentina during the Falklands war gone ahead - when the SAS were ordered in with no option of withdrawal?

Reay Tannahill. Mary. Orion Sep 97 0 75280 493 6 £16.99 In 1542, Mary, Queen of Scots, an eighteen-year-old Widow, returned to Scotland to ascend her throne. She was charming, beautiful, and quite unprepared for the brutal reality of ruling a wartorn country, rife with murderous intrigue. Her enemies closed in: John Knox, preaching damnation to queens and Catholics; her sanctimonious, power-hungry brother; and Elizabeth I, dazzling and unscrupulous.
The bestselling author of Return of The Stranger presents the most complex and compelling political murder story in British history.

Ian Rankin. The Black Book. pbk Orion 97 1 85797 413 1 £5.99
An Inspector Rebus Novel : 5 When a close colleague is brutally attacked, Inspector John Rebus is drawn into a case involving a hotel fire, an unidentified body, and a long forgotten night of terror and murder. Pursued by dangerous ghosts and tormented by the coded secrets of his colleague's notebook, Rebus must piece together a jigsaw no one - perhaps not even he - wants completed.
`Rankin ranks alongside P D James and Michael Dibdin as Britain's finest detective novelist' Scotland on Sunday
'Rankin captures, like no one else, that strangeness that is Scotland at the end of the twentieth century: He has always written superb crime fiction …but what he's also pinning down is instant history' Literary Review
`Rankin writes laconic, sophisticated, well-paced thrillers' The Scotsman
`One of the fastest-rising contemporary British sleuths is Ian Rankin's Inspector john Rebus. a character who's just begging for the right television treatment. Powerful characterisation and a strong sense of place dominate the Rebus novels . . . A talent not to be ignored' Time Out
`Rankin strips Edinburgh's polite facade to its gritty skeleton' The Times
`The intenal police politics and corruption in high places are both portrayed with bone-freezing accuracy. This novel should come with a wind-chill factor warning' Daily Telegraph

Ian Rankin. Mortal Causes. pbk Orion 97 1 85797 863 3 £5.99
An Inspector Rebus Novel : 6
It is August in Edinburgh and the Festival is in full swing A brutally tortured body is discovered in one of the city's ancient subterranean streets and marks on the corpse cause Rebus to suspect the involvement of sectarian activists. The prospect of a terrorist atrocity in a city heaving with tourists is almost unthinkable. And when the victim turns out to be the son of a notorious gangster Rebus realises he is sitting atop a volcano of ma-hem about to erupt.
'John Rebus, an outstanding creation. . . very ambitious and every confident with acute observation of the not so bonny side of Scotland, Mike Ripley, Daily Telegraph
'[Rebus,] is a superbly drawn character; matched by the edgy authenticity of the Scottish locale and dialogue. With Black & Blue Ian Rankin joins the elite of British crime writing’ Marcel Berlins, The Times

James Lee Burke Cimarron Rose. Orion --- May 97 £9.99
A brilliant departure for America's finest crime writer and creator of the Dave Robicheaux mysteries, set in a small Texas town riven by corruption and deceit.
Texan lawyer Billy Bob Holland is forced to confront the legacies of crimes old and new when he takes up the defence of local boy Lucas Smothers, a timid teenager accused of the rape and murder of a young girl. As the case unfolds, Billy Bob becomes convinced of the boy's innocence. Increasingly entangled in a web of lies, Billy Bob has three major worries: a corrupt sheriff's office, an undercover DEA operation in the town, and a psychotic convict with a grudge called Garland T. Moon. Loyal to his friends but clumsy in love, trying to do the right thing and haunted by his own mistakes, obsessed with a dream of the old West and struggling to live in the new, Billy Bob Holland is James Lee Burke's strongest character yet.
'I cannot understand why James Lee Burke has not attracted the British readership his excellence deserves. He is as good as Elmore Leonard and Charles Willeford at their best, which is the highest praise I can think of.
'His cop, Dave Robicheaux, Vietnam veteran, former alcoholic, a dignified, tormented outsider with a scarred past and anguish in his dreams, is the deepest, most fully developed character in American crime fiction.
'The dialogue crackles with vitality and realism. The plots are complex yet controlled; tension builds not with shock-bang crudity but in little subtle steps, hardly noticeable until a pulverising, shocking act takes place...
'the best of American writing, never mind just American crime writing.' Marcel Berlins, The Times
'Among the best American writers working today' Daily Telegraph
James Lee Burke is the author of fifteen previous novels including nine featuring Detective Dave Robicheaux, and a volume of short stories. James Lee Burke divides his time between Missoula, Montana and Louisiana.

Laurence Shames. Virgin Heat.---Orion July 97 £16.99 See Review
For ten years now Angelina Amaro has kept a secret so deep, so personal, that she couldn't share it with anyone. She is in love. In love with Sal Martucci, the man who betrayed her father, Mafia Capo Paul Amaro, and had him sent to prison. All these years she has pined for Sal, knowing that the intense - though chaste - love they shared would someday bring him back to her.
But Sal is now Ziggy Max, living with a new name and a new face, dodging cameras and cops, tending bar and running scams in Florida's Key West. He hasn't thought about Angelina for years (she never even put out, after all) - but he's sure thought about her father: a man who wants nothing more than to see Ziggy dead. If only he could find him.
And then fate plays its hand. Uncle Louie comes back from his Florida vacation, and at the party to celebrate Paul Amaro's release from jail plays his holiday video. And on that video Angelina sees, in glorious close-up, the hands of Sal Martucci mixing a cocktail. The very same hands that took her (some of the way) to ecstasy. And so she catches the next plane South. Leaving Paul Amaro to wonder where she has gone and, eventually, to put two and two together...
Virgin Heat is a tale of love, the mob, revenge, redemption and some minor cross dressing.
If you haven't discovered Laurence Shames yet, don't worry. There was a first time for everyone...
'Very cool, very hip and very probably true' WEEKEND TELEGRAPH
'Superior entertainment' NEW YORK TIMES
'Expertly blends fast-paced action with colourful dialogue and a tangible sense of place' CHICAGO TRIBUNE
'Sharp and ....... characters that will have you hooked on the whole ride' WASHINGTON POST
'Hilarious' PLAYBOY
'A delight from page one' MIAMI HERALD
'Howlingly funny, savvy' JAMES W. HALL
'Tough, blunt, remarkably tender' LINDA BARNES
Laurence Shames is the author of Florida Straits, Scavenger Reef, Sunburn and Tropical Depression. He divides his time between homes in Key West, Florida and Shelter Island, New York.
He won the CWA Last Laugh Dagger Award for the funniest crime novel of 1995 with Sunburn.