NEW BOOKS FOR SUMMER 1997

Anne Hart. Agatha Christe’s Miss Marple. pbk HarperCollins July 97 £3.99
'I have had a lot of experience in solving little problems that have arisen.' Most of the 'little problems' tackled be Miss Marple occurred in the pretty rural village of St Mary Mead and came in the shape of murder, robbery and blackmail. In the 40 years of her career, she even solved cases as far afield as London and the Caribbean. But though she usually masqueraded ‘as everybody’s favourite great aunt', what was she really like?
In this authorised biography of the world’s most famous female sleuth, Anne Hart combs through the 12 novels and 20 short stories in which Miss 'Marple appeared, uncovering clue after clue and
amassing all the evidence to solve the most difficult case of them all - the mystery of Miss Marple.A
‘A great treat for Agatha Christie addicts.' Daily Mail

Frank Smith. Stone Dead. Constable July 97 £16.99
Peter Foster's live-in girlfriend, fashion model Lisa Remington, has disappeared. `Off’ working in France,' he tells anyone who asks, but as time goes on, with no word from Lisa, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain the fiction - especially when a body is found buried beneath a pile of stones on Fosters property. The dead man, he tells Chief Inspector Paget, is Sean Merrick, Lisa's estranged husband, who has been trying to force her to return to him. But Foster swears he had nothing to do with Merrick's death.
As for Lisa, he insists that she is still in France, but he cannot say exactly where she is or how long she will be gone. In search of answers Sergeant John Tregalles goes to London, but what he finds there turns everything they know about the case upside down. Nothing is as it seems, and the finger of suspicion points once more to Foster
Frank Smith's previous books include Fatal Flaw, Dragon 's Breath, Sound the Silent Trumpets, The Traitor's Mask and Defectors Are Dead Men.

Judi James. The Wedding Suit. HarperCollins Aug 97 £16.99
A sweeping novel of passion, corruption, greed and murder set against the background of the British fashion industry in the 19th and 20th centuries.
When the head of a leading fashion empire is murdered, it is Kitty, his daughter, who wants to keep the company afloat amidst the family squabbles to sell out to multi-national competition.
She is even more determined when she learns about Rosa, the Jewish immigrant who is her ancestor, and who founded the company in London's East End a century before. As she discovers the real world behind the glamorous couture salons - the sweatshops of the streets of Spitalfields and the persecution of the immigrants- Kitty resolves to succeed in this trade that is in her blood, to build on Rosa's courage and determination, and to solve the dark mystery that surrounds her father's death, which is threatening her chances of love and happiness.
In The Wedding Suit Judi James offers a topical and intriguing story that will thrill, shock, move and entertain, as well as a fascinating exposé of the British fashion industry, both past and present.

Gwendoline Butler. Coffin's Game. Collins Crime July 97 £14.99
Her [Gwendoline Butler's] inventiveness never seems to flag; and the singular atmosphere of her books. compounded of jauntiness and menace, remains undiminished.' TLS
In the aftermath of a terrorist expulsion in London’s Second City, a battered corpse is found in a damaged building. But it is soon evident that this is no bomb victim. A sadistic killer has mutilated the remains, removing the fingertips and leaving the face unrecognisable. The only clue to the corpse’s identity is a handbag found at the scene. Its owner: Stella Pinero, actress wife of Chief Commander John Coffin,.
The investigation which follows is complicated by Coffin’s retool to believe that the remains could be Stella’s, and Chief Superintendent Archie Young faces the unenviable task of questioning a superior officer as to the sort of men his wife was in the habit of associating with. Meanwhile, the secretive Inspector Lodge of the Terrorist Investigation Squad harbours fears of his own.
When a second body is discovered, Coffin finds himself drawn into a nightmarish game. The murder inquiry reveals terrible truths as it unfolds, bringing pain and bitterness to John Coffin as he is forced to confront death and treachery in his own backyard.

Jennie Melville. Revengeful Death. Macmillan July 97 £15.99
Mary March had been having some murderous thoughts as she walked through the Great Park in Windsor that October morning. So perhaps it was fate that she should find the first victim....
A few hours later, in the mysteriously recently abandoned home of her neighbour Alice Hardy, Mary discovers the body of a young man, his face painted red, white and blue - and his thymus gland expertly cut from his chest. A note sent to Mary gruesomely claims that this murder is just a 'taster - an animal's thymus gland is an edible delicacy. High ranking policewoman Charmian Daniels is brought in to head the investigation, but is Mary all she seems? Is she the persecuted or, in fact, the
persecutor?
Better than ever, ,Jennie Melville adeptly draws out a dark and disturbing story of picturesque disquiet. Revenaeful Death is the new book in her highly original series featuring the astute and enigmatic Charmian Daniels.
Jennie Melville is the pseudonym of Gwendoline Butler, author of the equally popular Inspector Coffin novels. Jennie lives in Windsor, where she sets her Charmian Daniels books.

David Williams. Dead in the Market. pbk HarperCollins June 97 £5.99 See Review
A neurotic, barren wife acquires a baby illegally. Seventeen years on, with her husband now a prosperous Welsh businessman, someone discovers her secret and blackmail begins.
A murder follows in Cardiff’s vibrant Central Market in the front of Thousands of Shoppers. - but, bizarrely, there is no witnesses.
Chief Inspector Merlin Parry, aided as ever by Sergeant Gormer Lloyd, tackles a baffling human drama that intrigues right up to the nail-biting denouement, the whole leavened with masterly characterisation and polished wit. With Death in the Market David Williams, creator of Mark Treasure, has unassailably established yet another enduring sleuth on the popular whodunit scene.

Leah Ruth Robinson. Intensive Care. Macmillan 97 £16.99 See Review
A serial murder is prowling Manhattan’s Upper West Side, leaving a child’s doll at the scene of each brutal crime. Dr. Evelyn Sutcliffe has crossed his path and survived. Others have not been so lucky.
Addicted to the adrenaline rush of life-and-death emergency medicine, Dr Sucliffe has seen for herself what the so-called `Babydoll Killer` is capable of - observing his handwork with the cool detachment
her work requires. But when yet another brutalising victim is brought into ER, Dr Sutcliffe can no longer control her emotions. This time it is someone she knows: a medical student and a respected colleague. A friend.
Throughout an unbearably tense summer in the city, the deaths pull Evelyn deeper into the razor’s edge bedlam of the ER - and as she falls into the seemingly secure embrace of a handsome, if secretive fellow physician, all the evidence is beginning to suggest the unthinkable: that someone in Evelyn’s own world - a world dedicated to saving lives- is coldly carrying out the murders.

Nevada Barr. Endangered Species. pbk/hb Headline July/Aug 97 £5.99/£16.99
Nevada Barr studied acting at the University of California, and spent several! years working in the art and theatre worlds. At Thirty-six, she had a complete career change and became a park .ranger. Since then Nevada has worked on Isle Royale in Lake Superior, at Guadalupe
Mountains in Texas, Mesa Verde in Colorado and is now a ranger at Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi.
Track of the Cat introduced park ranger sleuth Anna Pigeon and won the Agatha and Anthony Awards for the Best First Mystery Novel of The Year. A Superior Death, Mountain of Bones and Firestorm also feature Anna Pigeon and are available from Headline.
I have never read a better mystery debut. It clearly ought to stand as one of the best mystery novels of the year' USA Today
Outstanding evocations of creatures and climate Distinctly different from standard crime fare. Informed Intelligent, altogether excellent' Literary Review
An evenful. characterful story with a slam-bang denouement, all set in a wilderness environment Barr knows,loves and describes with poetic passion'
Los Angeles Times
Brilliant nature writing with a beautifully crafted mystery as a bonus' Sara Paretsky

Agatha Christie. While the Light Lasts. HarperCollins Aug 97 £14.99
A brand new collection of unpublished stories by the Queen of Crime.
Like Many of her contemporaries,. Agatha Christie wrote stories for magazines in the 1920s ,and ‘30s, and most eventually found their way into her books of short stories. Now, 21 years, after her death, detective work worthy of Christie herself has uneathed seven ‘new’' stories, plus early magazine versions of two Poirot short stories which she later extended for book publication.
The House of Dreams is the first story Agatha Christie ever wrote and recounts the effects of a macabra recurring dream on a mans life. The Actress tells of a woman who turns the tables on her blackmailer, The Edge is a gripping tale of jealousy and infidelity, and in Christmas Adventure Poirot is caught up in some unseasonal mayhem. The Lonely God is an unlikely love about two lost lost souls who meet in the British Museum, while in Manx Gold two young heroes race against time to discover buried treasure. Within a Wall tells of tragic love triangle between a portreit painter, his wife and his daughter’s godmother. After The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest, another early Poirot story which Agatha Christie would later rework, the book concludes with While the Light Lasts, where a Rhodesian tobacco plantation is the setting for an unexpected visitor from beyond the grave…

Stephen Bogart. As Time Goes By. pbk Pan July 97 £5.99 See Review
There has been a murder in Tinsel town . . . someone doesn't want the sequel to be made . . .
`Though the action is set in the 1990's, it evokes the, film noir of the 1940's . . . good fun.'
Charles Spencer, Sunday Telegraph
In fast-paced, fast-talking sequel to Play It Again, New York private eye RJ Brooks has to act quickly before he ends up on the wrong side of a set of prison bars . . .
It was like a slug in his guts. Andromeda Studios were about to make a cheap sequel to the classic black and white film that starred RJ's mother and father. RJ makes his objections known very strongly and very loudly. So when the movie's lawyer is found dead soon after meeting him, the police believe RI had the motive and the opportunity.
And it is not just his enemies in the police force with whom RJ has to contend. For it soon becomes clear that a killer is about to strike again, this time in Hollywood, and he's setting RJ up to take the wrap . . .
Stephen Humphrey Bogart is the son of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. As Time Goes By is the second in his series featuring private investigator RJ Brooks, following Play It Again. Stephen Bogart has also written a biography of his father, entitled Bogart: In Search of My Father.
Praise for Play It Again
`The Characters are real, the dialogue is killer bee, the book smells like New York. '
Kinky Friedman.

Ingrid Noll. Hell Hath No Fury. pbk HarperCollins July 97 £5.99
Ingrid Noll was born in Shanghai in 1935, but later moved to Bonn and studied German and Art History there. Hell Hath No Fury is her first Crime novel, and has received worldwide attention. She has subsequently written Head Count and The Pharmacist, which will be published next year
Hailed as 'Germany's Queen of Crime' (Observer),Ingrid Noll’s novels have now sold over 700,000 copies in Germany alone and have been translated into more than ten languages.