In South London, an unlikely gang of kidnappers hatch a plot. Nick, an ex-bouncer, Dex, a charismatic sociopath, and Lisa, a motor-mouth junkie femme fatale. Their prey is a powerful, local businessman with an obsession for the poet Rilke. Thing is, each kidnapper has a very different agenda. Which means it's only a matter of time before the joking stops, and the ever threatening violence begins.
Rilke on Black is an eerie, crooked tale of sex, obsession and betrayal. Ken Bruen's dark contemporary thriller matches a razor sharp vernacular with a country music soundtrack to create a truly intoxicating and original mix

Her name was Cassie. She liked poetry. And guns. And money. She liked Cooper. That was his bad luck...
The harsh streets of South London are the perfect setting for this story of Cooper, a bank robber, who meets his match in Cassie who likes guns, money and poetry. Her Last Call To Louis MacNeice is the purest London noir, dark and dirty as the Thames by night. Ken Bruen, author of the acclaimed debut novel, Rilke on Black, takes the reader on a one-way ride - straight to the bitter end.
Praise for Rilke on Black: 'Boiled harder than salad eggs and much more likely to leave a nasty taste in your mouth.' The Big Issue
'Startlingly original' GQ Magazine
Ken Bruen is the author of several novels, including Rilke on Black, which was short-listed for the 1996 First Blood award. He lives in Galway, Ireland.

Carlos Lopez (Translator)

The Eye of Cybele is equal parts historical epic, whodunnit-style thriller, highbrow erotica and philosophical discourse. Set in late sixth-century BC - during the reign of Pericles - the novel fictionally recreates the behind-the-scenes scandals and political intrigues of Ancient Greece. Alclblades is a courageous Athenian General whose physical beauty, unparalleled Olympic achievements, and reckless bravery on the battlefield earn him the fanatical enthusiasm of the people and the desire of Lysis, a lusty and seductive temple prostitute. His main competitor is Nicias, one of the city's most powerful generals. When a sacred jewel called The Eye of Cybele mysteriously disappears, a sequence of deceptions, subterfuges and falled schemes ultimately undermines the self-serving ambitions of both Alclblades and Nicias.

Gerry Feehily (Translator)

In an unnamed country, a group of fugitives flee their native village after an attack by the army. Their houses bombed and ransacked, their husbands, children, parents killed, they are seeking sanctuary across the border. In the winter ice a man tries to unearth the remains of his mother and father from a mass grave, determined to take them to a proper burial place. A sadistic military commander, before a group of young officers and the terrified women they have abducted, outlines a terrifying plan of torture, rape and murder in order to prop up his country's crumbling empire. Meanwhile, in an underground gallery, a sniper hides, picking off innocents in a besieged city. His apocalyptic, hallucinatory voice provides Sniper with its main themes, the insanity of war and the terrifying exhllaration it excites in its perpetrators.

Nick Caistor (Translator)

When Pepe Carvalho's uncle asks him to find his son, Raúl, in Buenos Aires, Pepe is reluctant. All he knows about Argentina is 'tango, Maradona, and the disappeared' and he has no desire to find out more.
But family is family and soon Carvalho is in Buenos Aires, getting more caught up in Argentina's troubled past than is good for anybody. As he gets nearer to finding Raúl, he begins to realise the full impact of the traumas caused by a military junta who went so far as to kidnap the children of the political activists they tortured.
A few excellent tangos, bottles of Mendoza Cabernet Sauvignon and a sexy semiotician are no compensation for the savage brutality Carvalho experiences in his attempt to come to grips with Argentina's recent history.