NEW  BOOKS FOR SUMMER 1997

Sparkle Hayter   What’s A Girl Gotta Do.   Pbk No Exit Press  August 97  £6.99
Nothing is going right for Robin Hudson, a sexy, "slightly rumpled third-string reporter Rita Hayworth’s body." Her husband has left her for a prettier and much younger woman, and a blackmailer knows some of her worst secrets. To top it all off, Robin becomes a suspect in a brutal murder. Robin turns reluctant gumshoe to find the real killer and her name. But she is going to need more than wisecracks to avoid becoming a corpse herself.
Sparkle Hayter is a 38 year old Canadian stand -up comedian and Afghan War TV reporter. She presently lives in New York. 

Lawrence Block   There's a Burglar In The Library...   No Exit Press June 97  £14.99
'There is only one word for Lawrence Block: Fast! funny! Terrific!' - Ed McBain
An impossibly rare Raymond Chandler novel lures Bernie and his buddy Carolyn from New York to the hills of Western Massachusetts. Before they knows it, they're smack in the middle of Agatha Christie country. And the snow keeps falling. And the bridge is out. And the phone lines are out. And one by one, somebody's killing off the guests. And.-.shhhh! There's a Burglar In The Library...  

Gary Phillips  Violent Spring   pbk No Exit Press June 97  £6.99
A the body of a murdered Korean liquor store owner is unearthed at the intersection of Florence and Normandie. Against a background of increasing racial; tension, black private eye Ivan Monk searches for the killer. Then another body turns up. Monk is propelled towards a conclusion that may foment Violent Spring in the tarnished City of Angels.
Gary Phillips grew up and still lives in South Central L.A. He is project director of the Multi-cultural Collaborative. been filmed starring Laurence Fishburne. 

Edward Bunker   Dog Eat Dog   pbk No Exit Press July 97  £5.99 Troy an aloof mastermind, seeks an uncomplicated life but cannot get away from his hatred for the system. Diesel is on the mob’s payroll and Interest in his suburban home Is waning. Mad Dog is possessed by true demons within. One more hit, one more jackpot, and they’ll all besatisfied...
Edward Bunker was born In 1988 and spent over 25 years in and out of penal institutions. He was the youngest ever inmate of San Quentin. This is his fourth book. 

Charles Willeford   The Way We Die Now.   Pbk No Exit Press May 97 £4.99
Charles Willeford was a true original and in the four Hoke Moseley novels produced a small body of work which will stand the test of time. Like Eddie Bunker, Willeford was an old guy who had lived a life and was now reaping the rewards. A hobo at the age of 16, then a decorated marine, then a teacher of literature in Miami, Willeford also had two careers as a writer. His earlier novels in the 50s and 60: were hard boiled pulp, very downbeat and bleak in the style of Jim Thompson. No Exit publish three of these in the Charles Willeford Omnibus and Pick Up is probably the most depressing novel you will ever read. Then after his break, when he was presumably teaching and lost interest in writing, he suddenly produced the wonderful character of Hoke Moseley, Four books in four years, each one a classic and all slightly different in style. The novels are full of dry humour and have bizarre scenes which stay in the mind for ever. The Hoke Moseley novels are simply up there, way above and beyond most crime writer; wet dreams. Jerry Raine, manager of Murder One and author of Smalltime. 

Gary Lovisi  Hellbent On Homicide  . Do-Not-Press  24th May, 1997
1962, a sweet, innocent time in America after McCarthy and before Vietnam. A time of peace and trust, when girls hitch-hiked without a care. But for an ice-hearted killer, a time of easy pickings. Griff and Fats, Bay Citys hardest homicide detectives, are pitted against a monster who tortures and kills, but time is running out. Brooklyn-based crime guru (and editor of Hardboiled magazine) Gary Lovisis powerhouse debut novel is a major contribution to the hard-boiled school of detective fiction, a roller-coaster ride of sex, violence and suspense. Packaged with two Griff and Fats short stories for added value.
'This isn't a first novel, this is a book written by a craftsman who learned his business from the masters' Eugene Izzi

Donna Leon --- The Death Of Faith --- May 1997 (Macmillan  £15.99)
`She reached a nervous hand up to her temple, and Brunetti saw her slide her fingers back, seeking the protective comfort of her wimple. But instead, she pulled her fingers away as though they had been burned.'
Commissario Guido Brunetti is kicking his heels, pondering the recent lack of crime in Venice, when a beautiful young woman appears at his office door.
Now calling herself Maria Testa, his visitor is more familiar to Bruuetti as Suor'Immacolata, the nun who once cared for his mother at the casa di cura in Dolo. But Maria has recently left her convent after the unexpected deaths of five patients.
Brunetti offers to make some enquiries, but his interviews with the principal heirs suggest no cause for concern. Nor does his meeting with the nursing home's chaplain Padre Pio Cavaletti.
Is Maria simply creating fears to justify abandoning her vocation? Or has she stumbled on to a deeply rooted, far more sinister scenario - and put her own life in very grave danger . . . ?

Donald Thomas --- The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes ---  June 1997 (Macmillan  £15.99) See Review
The alleged bigamy of King George V.....the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels in 1907.....the bizarre circumstances of the death of President Faure of France..... is to name but three of the historical dramas, until now shrouded in secrecy, that,  it  turns  out,  Sherlock  Holmes  actually  helped  Scotland  Yard  to investigate.
This wonderful volume is divided into seven short stories - investigations cleverly based on real historical events; they are, without doubt, tales worthy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself.
The stories cover the part played by the great detective in seven genuine major crimes or scandals of the day, which were too damaging to either the monarchy, government or the security of the nation to be revealed at the time.
Compiled by Dr Watson soon after Holmes's death these authentic stories have been kept. under lock and key at the Public Record Office.  Now, 70 years later, the fascinating Secret Casebook of Sherlock Holmes can finallyf be revealed...
Donald Thomas lives in Bath and is an acclaimed novelist, poet, playwright and biographer of the Marquis de Sade and Lewis Carroll.  He is also the author of the Inspector Swain mystery series, the most recent of which, The Arrest of Scotland Yard was published in 1993.

Ann Cleeves --- The Baby-Snatcher ---  May 1997 (Macmillan  £15.99)
When 15-year old Marilyn Howe turns up on Inspector Ramsay's doorstep he has little choice but to invite her in, for Marilyn is convinced that her mother has disappeared. But when Ramsay returns the young girl to her home, on the isolated coastal community known as the Headland, they find Mrs Howe safe and well. Six months later, Ramsay has more or less forgotten the strange incident, busy as he is on the trail of a local child abductor. Until he receives news that Mrs Howe has disappeared once more. Then a body is washed up on the beach, and he soon gets drawn into the strange relationships of the families living on the lonely Headland....
The Baby-Snatcher is the sixth in the increasingly popular, ingeniously plotted Inspector Ramsay traditional ‘whodunit’ series, following, most recently, Killjoy and The Healers.
‘Ann Cleeves is a gifted recruit to the traditional detective novel’ 20th-Century Crime & Mystery Writers 
`The Healers confirms her place in the premier league of British crime writers' Hampstead and Highgate Express
Ann Cleeves lives near Whitley Bay with her ornithologist husband and their two daughters, and sets her Inspector Ramsay novels in the Northumberland she know so well. Her first novel, A Bird in the Hand, was published in 1986 and the first Inspector Ramsay mystery in 1992.

Pauline Bell --- A Multitude of Sins  ---  May 1997 (Macmillan  £15.99) See Review  
When Linda Crowther seeks advice form Relate on how to ‘get rid’ of her husband, her counsellor Zoë Morgan assumes she simply needs to develop the strength to leave. But a week later Graham Crowther is dead. Has Linda resorted to a more violent way out?

John Gano --- Arias of Blood  ---  June 1997 (Macmillan  £15.99)
As George Sinclair's hastily reassembled Floria Tosca Grand Opera Company prepare to present La Traviata at London's Mansion House - residence of the Lord Mayor - with only six days to spare, a mysterious and cunning killer is on the loose. Calling himself 'Solomon' he has already struck three times having warned his victims, all successful business-men, in advance each time.
The opera company soon become entwined with murder, as an orgy of blood and death begins to flow from their performance.  When the . combined forces of London's Special Branch and Interpol fail to trace Solomon, how can George hope to do any better?
John Gano is the pseudonym of Freddie Stockdale, whose two great passions of opera and criminology come together in his Floria Grand Opera Company books. In 1981 he founded the real Pavilion Opera Company and is the author of several non-fiction works on the subject. The inevitable insight he has into the world of opera means that Arias of Blood, along with his previous book Death at the Opera, are gloriously authentic. His knowledge of criminology is equally well informed having specialised when reading law at Cambridge. John  Gano is also the creator of the Inspector Proby series.  Freddie Stockdale is married and lives in Chiswick, West London.

R.M.Eversz --- Shooting Elvis  ---  June 1997 (Pan pbk  £5.99)
See Review
Half an hour before, the worst that Mary Alice Baker expected was a parking ticket. But then she blew up LAX airport. By mistake.
There was no way she could have known that loving Wrex was a big mistake. And no way that Wrex could have known that the shy and loving Mary Alice could get angry. And then get even. Changing her image, changing her name and changing her life, Nina Zero becomes a fugitive from the law and as she takes on her pursuers in a succession of bone-chilling confrontations she rockets to tabloid fame.
Nina’s story is the first ever road movie to race across the page, a pounding blend of Pulp Fiction and Thelma and Louise, a savagely wicked confession of an accidental terrorist who ends up Shooting Elvis - and more...

Chris Petit --- The Psalm Killer  ---  June 1997 (Pan pbk  £5.99)
A novel of astonishing power - part political and psychological thriller, part murder manhunt, The Psalm Killer plunges us into a terrifying world that invites comparisons with the murderous labyrinths of Thomas Harris.
1985: a killer stalks the streets of that most divided of cities, Belfast, where death is easier to arrange than crossing the road.
Detective Inspector Cross’s quarry might simply be someone who has made sectarian violence his vocation, except this killer cuts across political and religious boundaries, with a viciousness reminiscent of a particularly grisly episode in the recent tortured history of the city. The investigation draws in a young policewoman, and to unmask the killer, she and Cross must enter a maze of conspiracy, paranoia and tainting secrecy. At its centre lurks a violence beyond their worst imaginings - a violence from which there is no escape, a nightmare world without exit, where political and sexual terror form part of the same deadly trap.
Then as they uncover the motives and layered identity of the killer the evil closes in...

Peter Guttridge. No Laughing Matter.  Headline  May 97  £ 16.99
NO LAUGHING MATTER is the first in a hugely entertaining new crime series by Peter Guttridge.
.Journalist Nick. Madrid is helplessly locked in an advanced. yoga. Position when a naked woman plummets past his window to her death. She is one of 250 comics attending the biggest comedy festival in the world. Nick turns gumshoe  in  Montreal,  the mean streets of the  Edinburgh  festival,  and Hollywood to find her killer. He is helped by Bridget Frost, the Bitch of the Broadsheets, whose pushy and tacky exterior conceals, well, a pushy and tacky interior.
Nick tangles with cynical Hollywood agents, New Age hustlers, a man who hammers nails into his head for a living, wannabe comics and movie stars, rich couples addicted to Twelve Step Recovery programmes - and a toad with an unexpected taste for cigarillos - before he discovers the truth lurking among the dark secrets of Hollywood's biggest stars.
Peter Guttridge was born in Burnley, Lancashire and educated at Oxford and Nottingham Universities. A freelance journalist specialising in literature, film and comedy, for the past ten years he has written for a range of newspapers and magazines, including the Independent, The Times and the Telegraph. He also writes about - and doggedly practises - astanga vinyasa yoga. He lives in Sussex.
"A fast moving, laugh-a-line frolic...we gasp with amazement and amusement"    Reginald Hill
"Great fun. A comedy thriller with the quick fire patter of a stand-up gig and twists enough to keep you guessing to the end."   Deborah Moggach 

Stuart Pawson. Last Remainder.   Headline  May97  £16.99
Featuring Yorkshire's Detective Inspector Charlie Priest
Detective Inspector Charlie Priest's day hasn't got off to a great start. Late for work for the first time in twenty years, thanks to the sloe gin he consumed the night before, he’s faced with the grim evidence of a crime in the local park before a call comes in to say that a new constable on the beat has discovered a body. Set in the bustling fictional town of Heckley and against the wild East Pennine landscape, Last Reminder is the latest crime novel featuring Charlie Priest, a detective
with more convictions to his credit than most Yorkshiremen have had roast dinners.
STUART PAWSON was born in Leeds and now lives in Fairburn, Yorkshire. He has worked for British Coal and, more recently, in the Probation Service, as a mediator between offenders and their victims. His earlier novels include The Picasso Scam, The Mushroom Man and The Judas ,Sheep. 

Iris Johansen.  Long After Midnight.  Hodder  May 97  £16.99
The Ugly Duckling, Iris Johansen's bestselling debut suspense novel catapulted her into the front rank, of suspense writers in the US. Her second novel, Long After Midnight, is already attracting critical acclaim in the States and will be the first novel by this gifted writer to be published in the UK.
Gifted research scientist, Kate Denby is at the zenith of her career and on the brink of making a discovery that has the potential to save the lives of millions. And this golden touch is not just limited to the lab - young, beautiful and devoted to her nine - year-old son, she believes that she has finally carved out a safe and secure life for herself. She couldn't be more wrong....
Kate's discovery promises to be an enormous medical breakthrough but it also threatens to bankrupt a hugely powerful pharmaceutical giant, which they just won't stand for. As her research progresses a nightmare scenario begins to unfold, Kate finds herself being stalked by a dangerously unpredictable killer who is prepared to destroy anybody and anything that stands in his way. Her only hope is to put her trust in a complete stranger, a man with nothing to lose, and whose interest in her may well be more personal than purely professional.....
Long After Midnight, is a chilling tale of murderous greed, deadly passions and one woman's desperate battle to stop her carefully constructed world from crumbling down around her.
  Praise for Long After Midnight
  `Cracking dialogue....suspenseful plotting.'  Publishers Weekly
  `A lively engrossing ride by a strong new voice.'  Kirkus Reviews
  `Fast-moving'   Cosmopolitan 

Ross Macdonald.  Blue City.  Pbk  Allison & Busby  May  97  £6.99
He was a son who hadn't known his father very well. It was a town that held a, murder close to its heart- his father's murder.
Johnny Weatherly was home from a war and wandering. When he discovered that his father had been assassinated on a street comer and that his father's seductive young wife had inherited a fortune, he started knocking on doors.  When the doors opened, Johnny  stepped into a world of gamblers, whores, drug-dealers and blackmailers;  a milieu in which his father had once moved freely.  Now Johnny Weatherly was going to solve a case of murder - by pitting his rage, his courage, and his lost illusions against the brutal underworld that called this town its own.
Ross Macdonald was born near San Francisco in 1915. His first book was published in 1944.  A president of the Mystery Writers of America, he won several awards including both the Silver Dagger Award by the Crime Writers' Association of Great Britain and the Grand Master Mystery Award by the Mystery Writers of America. He died in 1983.
`Creates marvellous books.' Time Out
`Carried form and style about as far as they would go, writing classic family tragedies in the guise of private detective mysteries.' The Guardian
`Sharp prose, an absorbing tempo, and above all - a hard-boiled hero.' San Francisco Chronicle
`The writer who elevated the hard-boiled private-eye novel to a new "literary" form.'  MARCIA MULLER 

Ann Granger.  A Word After Dying.  Pbk  Headline  May 97  £5.99 See Review
While holidaying in a country cottage, Meredith Mitchell and Superintendent Markby are drawn to the obituary in the local paper of Olivia Smeaton. The racy old lady died, they are told by their journalist neighbour who wrote the article, in. an accident involving a loose slipper sole. Nothing suspicious in that, but while Alan is more interested in buying Olivia's house than the circumstances of her vacating it, Meredith is intrigued by unsettling events; the mystery death of Olivia's pony, violent acts of vandalism and the connection with a dusty junk shop run by the local white witch.
And, as Alan begins to suspect that this may be a police matter after all, interviews with local villagers reveal that the contents of her will had left some people less than happy...
Ann Granger has worked in embassies in various parts of the world. She met her husband, who was also working for the British Embassy, in Prague and together they received postings to places as far apart as Munich and Lusaka.  They are now permanently based in Bicester, near Oxford.
'A pair of delightful sleuths. More please!'  Margaret Yorke 

Penelope Evans. Freezing.  Pbk  Black Swan  May 97 £6.99 See Review
The Last Girl received rave reviews when it was published in I995: 'by any standards it is a startlingly
accomplished first novel that leaves us on tenterhooks for the second' said the Daily Telegraph.  Penelope Evans' chilling second novel. Freezing, more than fulfills this promise. It is every bit as tense, psychologically perceptive, compelling and sinister as The Last Girl.
When a nameless girl is brought in, drowned, to the mortuary where Stewart Park works as a photographer he becomes obsessed with her frozen beauty. Stewart's domestic life is more than a little unsettling: Dad, who's given to consuming but short-lived crazes, has recently installed Lady the pit bull terrier as part of his home-security campaign, and Stewart’s small nephews, Lee and Lenny, are constantly dumped on him by his evasive sister Mary.  Lee and Lenny are behaving in an inexplicably withdrawn fashion, Mary appears to be keeping dubious company, and Stewart can’t help worrying that destructive Dad will one day break into his bedroom and take apart his precious computer small wonder, then, that Stewart devotes himself to finding out all he can about the drowned girl.  His enquiries - and their consequences - begin to take over his life.  Advancing into a dark and vicious world he had never even dreamt of. he realises. belatedly, that he is a hopelessly ill-equipped player in a very sinister game... 

Elise Title.   Bleeding Hearts.  pbk  Little Brown  May 97  £5.99
An obsessive, intelligent killer is on the loose in San Francisco. His victims are all successful career women whose bodies are found with their hearts torn out.
Dr Melanie Rosen, a respected psychiatrist has become a local star, following her detailed profiling of the killer on television. Within hours she becomes his fifth victim.
Her sister, Sarah, is devastated, but with so many emotional problems of her own, seems incapable of facing reality. However, she is destined to be drawn into the investigation. When scraps of Melanie’s diary appear unexpectedly, she learns that her high-achieving sister was not the model of perfection she had always believed in.
Her private journals show a woman who delights in danger and degrading, sadistic sex and, more horrifying, reveal details about her upbringing which may hold the key to her murder.
Meanwhile hysteria is building up in the city, and the police feel pressure from the top to produce a result before ·Romeo' strikes again.
To force the killer into the open, the police investigators must persuade Sarah to tempt him to woo her. Somehow she must find the strength within herself to resist his murderous advances and succeed where no one has before - in surviving his seduction.
Elise Title, who was a psychotherapist, draws upon her experience to build up the tension to a heart-stopping denouement.
ELISE TITLE, a practising psychotherapist for fifteen years also worked with inmates in high security prisons. Bleeding Hearts is her first novel of psychoexual suspense. She lives in New-England.