NEW  BOOKS FOR SUMMER 1997

Tess Gerritsen. Life Support.  Headline  June 97  £16.99
The overnight ER rotation at Springer Hospital is a calm one, which suits Dr Toby Harper just fine. But no hospital could have been prepare for the man Toby' admited to Springer one quiet night. Delirious and in a critical condition from an apparent viral infection of the brain he barely responds to treatment. And then he disappears without a trace.
Toby knows she must find him. Her hunt is intensified when a second delirious patient dies in the hospital’s care. But even more chilling is the discovery that the infection can only be spread through direct tissue exchange.
As this disturbing news surfaces, Toby discovers the unthinkable: an evil deadly purposes behind the terrifying epidemic.
TESS GERRITSEN has retired from a successful practise as an internist to raise her children and concentrate on her writing. She is the author of one previous acclaimed thriller Harvest  

Jo Bannister.  No Birds Sing.  pbk Pan  June 97  £4.99
`The whole bloody town's gone mad,' exclaimed Chief Superintendent Shapiro to Liz Graham and Cal Donovan that morning. Certainly Castlemere had had its fair share of major crime during the previous forty-eight hours: a ram raid at a local jewellers, a train robbery in which Sergeant Donovan himself had been held hostage, the emergence of a dog fighting ring and the shocking rape of a local building society manageress...'
DI Liz Graham and DS Cal Donovan are not ones to shrink from violent situations, but neither could imagine the terrifying ordeals they are about to endure when they set themselves up as decoys...
With so few clues to work on, Liz and Donovan offer themselves as bait to the perpetrators. But the events that follow test their courage, strength and commitment to the absolute, terrifying limit....
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 a 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.  No Birds Sing is her fourth in this series.
'Sensitive and intelligent writing  highly  recommended'  Yorkshire Post
'Something a bit more special  Good stuff'  Northern Echo..
`The novel throbs with energy and the reader is absorbed from page .. one the best of the police procedure genre..' Yorkshire Evening Press
`Jo Bannister has come up, with a cracker'  Luton Herald & Post

 Anabel Donald. The Loop.   pbk  Pan  June 97  £5.99
Alex Tanner, TV resarcher and 0ccasional PI, jups at the chance of a short assignment in Chicago.  But she’s only in the windy city a few hours when a beautiful young model called Jams Treliving knocks on her door. The father of her uunborn chil has vanished - and she begs Alex to find him.
Unfortunatly Jams can offer few clues on where to look.  Except that Jacob was in the process of ‘finding himself’ - and he believed all his answers lay in ‘the loop’
Critical acclaim
The Glass Ceiling
Donald is an inventive write; with prose as sparkly  as a  string of diamonds:  Oxford Times
  A powerful sense of place, bringing the London of  the nineties  vividly to life in this fast, absorbing read. Val McDermid
‘Thrillerish, prodigiously lively crime novel . . . Most engaging’  Literary Review
 In at the Deep End
 A fizzy entertainment . . . done with a skill and velocity that demands a second helping.' Matthew Coady, Guardian
Please! And more!' Christopher Wordsworth, Observer 

  Catherine Arnold --- Imperfect Justice(pbk) --- Hodder  £5.99
When alleged Mafia underboss Angelo Uccello singles out Karen Perry-Mondori, partner in Florida'a largest law firm, to defend him against charges of cocaine trafficking, something compels her to consider taking on the case. Against the advice of her law partners, her husband and even her estranged mother, she decides to investigate Uccello’s assertions that he has been. set up by the FBI
As Karen gets to know Uccello, strange events begin to take place in both her professional and her private life:  an embittered colleague jeopardises Karen's professional standing; and she is greeted at home one evening by a horrifying surprise.
Initially devastated by this, she nevertheless manages to maintain her hold over the case.  With the support of her brother, Senator Robert Jameson, who has like his mother crawled out of the  woodwork after many years,  Karen examines all the evidence and eventually stumbles across far more than she ever bargained for.
Catherine Arnold was born in Brooklyn, New York, and earned degrees in both pharmacy and law at St John's University. She now practises general law and consults in pharmacy malpractice suits.  Imperfect Justice is her second novel.  Catherine Arnold lives in Florida, USA. 

  Lawrence Sanders. McNally’s Gamble.  Hodder  June  97  £16.99
Featuring Archy McNally, `the Bertie Wooster of private detection'
  (The Guardian)
Mrs Edythe Westmore, like many a Palm Beach resident,, has a lot more money than sense. She's a prime target for southern Florida's infestation of dodgy financial advisers, and one of them suggest that she buys a  Faberge egg for a cool half a million dollars. Even Archy McNally's mother suspects that her friend is being taken for a ride, and asks her son to intervene.
Even Archy is unprepared for the number of eccentrics he encounters as he uncovers the truth about the elusive bauble. There is Frederick Clemens, the advisor with the egg: a smooth and plausible citizen, though one with a mysterious past and an unusual assistant. There’s Sydney  Smythe, an impoverished antique dealer with a strange reluctance to advise Archy. And there's Mrs Westmore's suspicious family: a sex-mad daughter and a son whose passion is searching for bones in Africa.
Archy knows a crime is about to be hatched but he can't figure out how. Then he devises a devilishly clever plan to encourage Clemens to act rashly - and unwittingly sets off a lethal chain reaction.
  `Lawrence Sanders has honed a voice for Archy McNally that is wonderfully infectious. You can't help falling for him.' Washington Post
 `For those who prefer their crime in very funny doses.'   Mike Ripley, Daily Telegraph
Lawrence Sanders , one of the world's most popular novelists, is the author of twenty-four international bestsellers including Deadly Sin and The Seventh Commandment series and the six Archy McNally novels: McNally's Puzzle is the most recent. He lives in southern Florida. 

  Linda Barnes.  Coldcase.. hb/pbk ?/Sep 97 Hodder  £16.99/5.99  See Review
Carlotta Carlyle’s long - awaited new case. 
Six-footed red-haired taxi driver Carlotta Carlyle is back. It’s a case that brings the private investigator even closer to her little sister, Paolina, and much too close to Paolina's father, a Colombian drug baron. Carlotta thinks his only redeeming feature will be his love for his daughter, but she's wrong....
Praise for Hardware Carlotta Carlvle's last case:
 `A thoroughly engaging character ...the books are never less than fast, funny reads' Daily  Mail
`Stands head aid shoulders above the competition'   Val McDermid
`Sparky, reader-friendly and thoroughly diverting.'    The Literary Review
`Good fun and gutsy thrills'   Time Out
`Barnes stays up there with Sue Grafton and few others.'    Sunday Times
Linda Barnes is the award-winning author of six previous Carlotta Carlyle novels, all available from Coronet Books: A Trouble of Fools, The Snake Tattoo, Coyote, Steel Guitar, Snapshot and Hardware. She lives near Boston, Massachusetts, with her husband and son. 

  Carol Higgins - Clark.  Iced.  pbk  Little Brown  June 97  £5.99
After looking into a case of hosiery to die for in Snagged the unsinkable Regan Reilly lands out in the cold in a real Aspen cliffhanger . . .
The frontier spirit is alive and well in Aspen, Colorado, despite an influx of the rich and famous - and Regan Reilly. Arriving to spend Christmas skiing and visiting friends, she wouldn't mind meeting a single man or two. She never expected to be rubbing shoulders, and risking her neck, with a gang at art thieves.
Million dollar paintings have been disappearing all over town. Suspicion falls on a congenial ex-con named Eben  Bean, who seems to have absconded with the loot. Regan not only knew and liked Eben, but also helped him to get his caretaking job. Now she may be the only one in town who believes he is innocent.
Is Regan right? Of course she is. But she finds herself on the slippery slopes of the crime trail in a desperate race to find Eben, stop another robbery, discover dirty deeds at the local dry cleaners and meet a more eligible bachelor than  Larry dentist to the stars . . . 

  James Tully. The Secret of Prisoner 1167 Was This Man Jack the Ripper?  Robinson on  June 97 £16.99
New research into hitherto highly confidential files has revealed sensational  new evidence which might provide an answer to the greatest conundrum in the history of crime: the identity of Jack the
Ripper This evidence also suggests that for nearly a century, Scotland Yard has been responsible for a cover-up to conceal its incompetence at the time of the murders
On 11 February, 1927, a strange old man presented himself at the gates of Britain’s Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Astonished warders quickly hustled him inside. For this was no ordinary visitor, and his involvement in the world's most famous murder case can now be told for the first time. After nine years of painstaking research, this extraordinary tale will  be told by James Tully in The Secret of Prisoner 1167: Was This Man the Ripper 

Bradford Morrow.  Giovanni’s Gift.  Flamingo  June 97  £16.99 See Review
Imagine a scene of rural serenity a night scene. Above the mountains surrounding this faraway place, the  stars are a menagerie of silver flickering motes. Imagine a solitary ranch, a man and woman asleep. It would be hard to fathom a purer vision of people at peace in the natural world. Who could
foresee that this tranquillity would be so brutally shattered by the night visitors?
When Grant hears of the campaign of malice being waged against his only living relatives, he abandons Rome and a crumbling marriage to do what he can to help them. His brash confidence is
quickly bruised as the night visits escalate in violence, and the death of Giovanni Trentas, a dear family friend found mutilated in a gorge above the ranch, takes on new meaning. When his aunt presents him with Giovanni's legacy-an old cigar box filled with  letters,  photos and seemingly random knick-knacks - Grant finds himself in possession of a puzzle that might hold the answers to much more than Giovanni's death. Grant’s unfolding passion for Giovanni3 daughter,  Helen,  forces  him  to  choose between loyalty and love as the night terrors come to their catastrophic end. 

Carolyn Terry.  My Beautiful Mistress.  Little Brown  June 97  £16.99
When Vere Cavendish  is murdered on the stage of his own theatre, it seems he has died as he lived - surrounded by beautiful women. He is one  the  famous actor-managers in the thriving London theatreland of the 1880s, a man in love with every kind of drama; they are the Stunning Leigh sisters. All, in their own way, were Cavendish's lovers, but only one became his murderer ...
Was it Marion? For respectable Victorian society, acting is an  immoral occupation, as cheap and degrading as prostitution. Faced with a bedridden mother, an insolvent father and the desperate need to feed her four younger sisters, however, it offers the impoverished household a measure of security and Marion a little fame and fortune - but her infatuation with Cavendish will also bring her great   personal suffering.
Or Frances, the gifted pianist and singer for whom Marion’s success is an endless source of shame and frustration? While she reluctantly profits from her sister's career and connections, Frances's musical ambitions lie dormant at home, their one brief flowering destroyed by the family's scandalous reputation.
Or Charley, the star-struck teenager who becomes Cavendish's leading lady, a woman prepared to do anything to protect the status she has fought so hard to achieve - even if it means foiling the dramatic ambitions of her sisters.
Or was it even Arabella and Imogen, the beautiful twins whose impassive facade hides a guilty secret?
With its vivid characters, unfolding suspense and climactic denouement, My Beautiful Mistress is not only a compelling murder-mystery and absorbing romantic saga, but a delightful insight into the decadent world of the Victorian stage.

The Mammoth Book of Dracula Edited by Stephen Jones Robinson  29th May  £6.99
With an introduction by Daniel Farson, Bram Stoker's great-nephew. The centenary of the first publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula in early June 1997 is marked by the publication of this extensive collection of vampire tales for the new millennium. Stephen Jones has gathered together classics by such writers as R. Chetwynd-Hayes and Manly Wade Wellman, tales from modem masters like Brian Lumley and Thomas Ligotti, and new, unpublished stories from Kim Newman, Michael Marshall Smith, Christopher Fowler, Graham Masterton and many others. And as a bonus, there is also a long lost version of Dracula from the Count's original creator, Bram Stoker, published here for the first time since 1897.
Count Dracula has had a delicious first 100 years, spreading evil and terror - not to mention book sales - to the far comers of the globe. This superb collection of stories presents many unique variations on the King of the Undead's character and activities as we reach and pass the year 2000. How will the King of Vampires adapt to the social and technological changes that are already shaping the beginning of the 21st century? Could modem medicine cure the Count's condition? How does the mythology perpetuated by literature and movies affect the existence of a real bloodsucker? What if Dracula found himself ruler of world controlled by vampires? Or perhaps political and ecological catastrophe will result in the count's final demise?
Stephen Jones is one of our most acclaimed anthologists of horror and dark fantasy. He is the winner of two World Fantasy Awards, two Horror Writers of America Bram Stoker Awards and the International Horror Cpitics Guild Award. His many books include the annual Best New Horror editions and many Mammoth horror collections for Robinson publishing. 

She Came to the Castro by Mary Wings - The Women's Press  12th June  £6.99
The fourth Emma Victor Mystery
Emma Victor is short of cash. Very short of cash. It is time to get a bigger, more major assignment. The kind that pays big time. The kind that involves violence.
That assignment comes when Victor's boss, lawyer Willie Rossini, is called on to help a blackmail victim. Who has managed to shoot a video of Rossini's client in an evening of fierce passion? Just how dirty are they prepared to play? And can Victor put a stop to them before the whole political climate of San Francisco is affected?
'Quick, exciting and sophisticated.' Guardian
'All good fun, not least because it subverts the genre classically established by the great men of crime fiction.' Sunday Times
'She writes with a brisk charm' Colin Dexter, creator of Chief Inspector Morse 

Chicken Run by Alma Fritchley - The Women's Press  12th June  £6.99
The First Letty Campbell Mystery
When Letty Campbell warily agrees to let her land be used for a classic car auction, she has no idea what lies ahead. Why is her gorgeous ex, Julia, really so desperate for the auction to happen? Is the new love of Julia's life as suspicious as she seems? And why does Letty have a horrible feeling that she should never have got involved?
At least she has the farm, her irascible chickens and visits to Manchester clubs to take her mind off her worries - not to mention the newly appreciated charms of an old acquaintance who lives in the village.
Chicken Run is a lesbian comedy thriller for lovers of good clothes, old  cars, fresh air and roller coaster endings.
Alma Fritchley lives in Manchester. She has been together with her lover for six years and began writing to make her laugh. While she still laughs, Alma will keep writing. Chicken Feed, the sequel to Chicken Run, will be published in 1998, and a third Letty Campbell mystery is currently  in  preparation.

Along The Journey River by Carole laFavor - The Women's Press  12th June  £6.99
A Renee LaRoche Mystery
When irreplaceable Ojibwa artefacts are stolen from the school on the Ojibwa Red Earth reservation, the community turns to Renee LaRoche, a 'two-spirit' whose dreams give her a special insight into the lives of her people.
Her investigations rapidly reveal a long list of suspects: white racists from a neighbouring town; Billy Walking Dear, a financially troubled eighteen year old who has been spending too much time with alcohol and marijuana and too little time with his wife and child; and Jed Morriseau, the tribal chief, who has rejected Ojibwa traditions in favour of making a fast buck. Then Morriseau is found on the river flats - a bullet in his back.
Before she knows it, Renee is in the midst of a terrifying mystery, which must be resolved even as she struggles to deal with being a lesbian in a cross-cultural partnership, maintain her relationship, find time for her daughter, and sustain her commitment to her community, where she is not always among friends.
'The dialogue is excellent, the sense of place vivid and memorable. A fine novel.'  Lambda Book Report
'LaFavor has written a unique mystery filled with authenticity. Whether her heroine is strugglinq with her teenage daughter, trying to explain the ways of her people to her lover, or talking with her grandmother at the elders' council, laFavor has stayed true to the spirit of the Ojibwa people.' Megascene
'First rate.'  Washington Blade

Sideswipe by Charles Willeford - No Exit Press 19th June  £4.99
THE THIRD HOKE MOSELEY DETECTIVE THRILLER
A nervous breakdown, two daughters who want to quit school and a pregnant unmarried partner tells Hoke Moseley it is time to simplify his crazy life. Moving out of Miami to manage a small hotel seems a good idea - until psycho career criminal, Troy Louden, happens along with his makeshift gang that includes a little old man, a no-talent artist, a disfigured stripper and drags Hoke back to the job he thought he had left behind for ever. 

  SLEUTHS,SIDEKICKS AND STOOGES: An annotated bibliography of detectives, their assistants and their rivals in crime, mystery and adventure fiction, 1795-1995
Joseph GREEN and Jim FINCH Published by The Scolar Press £70.00
This is a major reference work on crime, mystery and adventure fiction in English. With over 7,000 entries from American and British crime fiction writing, listed alphabetically by detective, it provides a wealth of information about the sleuths, their sidekicks and the police chiefs who try to thwart them.
In addition, each entry provides publication details for the books in which the detective appears (for both the UK and the US) and gives biographical details of the author. For ease of cross-reference, the volume is indexed by sidekick, protagonist, author and title.
No other bibliography of fiction in this field covers as many detectives and gives information on their aides and their rivals. 

John Ramsey Miller.   The Last Family.  pbk Arrow  June 97  £5.99.
Paul Masterson had been the Drug Enforcement Agency's toughest, most successful agent. But then one of his busts went wrong. Several agents were left dead, and Masterson himself horribly injured and forced to retire. Worst of all, the leader of the drug runners - Martin Fletcher, a DEA agent gone bad - then escaped from prison, only to find his wife and baby dead, killed in their South American hideaway.
Fletch holds Masterson and his former colleagues to blame, and swears to avenge the murder of his family. Methodically, ruthlessly, and with ingenious savagery, he obliterates the families of the agents involved in the operation. Now only one family remains on his death-list: Masterson's own. But Masterson is out of practice, and Fletcher, mercilessly, gleefully, is closing the ring on the last family.
THE LAST FAMILY is an explosive, irresistible thriller debut that strikes terror at the very heart of every reader, every family.
John Ramsey Millers was born and brought up in Mississippi. His career has included stints as a visual artist, advertising copywriter and journalist. He is the author of a non-fiction book, As Nasty as They Wanna Be, about an obscenity trial in Florida. THE LAST FAMILY is his first novel. He currently lives with his wife and three sons in North Carolina, where he is writing fiction full-time. 

Paul Carson.   Scalpel.  Heinemann  Aug 97  £10.00 See Review
A killer is stalking the corridor's of Dublin's Central Maternity Hospital.  A young laboratory assistant is found brutally murdered at her bench. The only clue is a blood-stained scalpel. The Gardai investigation, led by DS Kate Hamilton, is blocked by a wall of silence from hospital staff, desperate to protect their reputations. DS Hamilton suspects the murderer is among them. As she closes in on the killer, she little realises that the hunter has become the hunted. In the same week, the newborn baby of one of Ireland's top industrialists is kidnapped, a baby born at the Central Maternity Hospital only days before.A place of safety has become a place of terror and every patient's nightmare is about to come true. Step off the edge into terror...
PAUL CARSON is a doctor based in south Dublin where he runs an Asthma and Allergy clinic for children. He has published a number of health books and, as well as writing regularly for various medical journals, he is on the editorial board of Modern Medicine in Ireland. Scalpel is his first novel. Dr Carson is married and has two children. 

Christopher West.  Death of a Red Mandarin.  Collins Crime  June 97  £14.99 See Review
Enter the Dragon ....
Midnight, June 30th 1997. For the last time, the Union jack is lowered on the flagpost outside government house: for the first time, the red, five-star flag of the People's Republic China is raised in its place ...
How much do we know about Hong Kong's new masters? Mention of China seems to summon up stereotypes - the cruelty and fanaticism of the Cultural Revolution, the horror of Tiananmen Square - but what is life really like in the `Middle Kingdom'?
Chris West has written three crime novels set in China, all featuring Chinese protagonists. His interest is in the interaction of major political/philosophical changes and the daily lives of ordinary people. He writes: "China is changing incredibly fast. It is not becoming `Westernized', as we like to think here, but modem in its own distinctive way. The assimilation of Hong Kong will speed this process - so much so that I find myself wondering who is taking over whom on 1 st July. Maybe it makes as much sense to talk of Hong Kong taking over South China on that date ..."
Christopher West was born in 1954. He got a first in Philosophy at LSE, and has travelled widely in Asia. As well as the Chinese crime novels, he has written a travel book about China (Journey to the Middle Kingdom, published in 1991). He has written for the national press, especially the Independent on Sunday for whom he reviewed travel books.