Crime Fiction Authors, Murder Mystery Books, Thriller Novel Reviews & True Crime at Tangled Web - Publisher HarperCollins 06 Jan-March
File Updated: 19/07/2010
New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From HarperCollins Jan-March 06

Jeanne Kalogridis The Borgia Bride Pbk published February 2006 by HarperCollins at £6.99 ISBN: 0007148836 Tweet This Book

See Review by Bernard Knight ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series

Philippa Gregory 'The sumptuous story of a young woman ... The events of her life are gripping, from sexual passion to mortal danger.'

A sumptuous historical novel of passion, betrayal, scheming and incest, set in the Vatican during the 15th century.

'This sweeping historical novel tells the dramatic tale of that most intriguing of Renaissance women', - Lucrezia Borgia. Incest. Poison. Betrayal. Three wedding presents for the Borgia bride! Italy 1492 Pope Alexander VI is elected. And so begins the Borgia reign of terror. Alexander murders, bribes and betrays to establish his dynasty. No one is immune. Rome is a hotbed of accusation and conspiracy. Every day, the River Tiber is full of new bodies. Sancha de Aragon, daughter of King Alfonso II of Naples, arrives in Rome newly wed to Alexander's youngest son, Jofre. Their marriage protects Naples against the ambitions of the French King Louis and gains Spanish support for the Borgias. But Rome is very different to her beloved Naples. The debauchery of the Borgia inner-circle is notorious: every lust is indulged and every indiscretion overlooked. Sancha is no innocent: she possesses an indomitable spirit which allows her to survive in the snake-pit, but her ancestors once rivalled the Borgias in cruelty and Sancha's greatest fear is that blood will out. Lucrezia Borgia's vicious jealously stings Sancha at first, but gradually the two young women develop a cautious friendship. Lucrezia, adored by her father but used ruthlessly as a political tool, seems deceptively innocent and sympathetic, and their bond strengthens when Lucrezia is married to Sancha's treasured brother, Alfonso. But when Sancha falls in love with Cesare Borgia, her husband's enigmatic older brother, she has no idea of how bizarre and internecine are the family's true ties. Alexander is rather more than an indulgent father; Lucrezia not the innocent she appears; and Cesare's ambition burns wildly. The only safe relationship with the Borgias is none at all: as Sancha, her brother and Naples are soon to discover!

Jeanne Kalogridis was born in Florida in 1954. She earned a BA in Russian and an MA in Linguistics from the University of South Florida and went on to teach English as a Second Language at the American University in Washington, D.C. She now lives with her partner on the West Coast of the US, sharing a house with two dogs and a bird. Her interests include yoga, Tibatan Buddhism, the occult, languages, art, and reading everything ever published.

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Dean R. Koontz Velocity Pbk published January 2006 by HarperCollins at £6.99 ISBN: 0007196970 Tweet This Book


The new fast-moving thriller from Dean Koontz is the story of an innocent man forced by a serial killer to choose who will be murdered next. William Wiles is an easygoing thirty-something, a bartender who lives a quiet life alone until a serial killer singles him out - not to kill him, but to force him to decide who the next victim will be. On his SUV Billy finds the first note: 'If you don't take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blonde schoolteacher. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have four hours to decide. The choice is yours.' Billy pays an informal visit to an acquaintance, Lanny Olson, who is a policeman, and who thinks the note is a prank. The schoolteacher dies. The next note reverses the choices: if Billy takes the note to the police, a mother of two young children will die. If he doesn't, an unmarried man who won't be much missed will die. Lanny has to take this note seriously but the deadline runs out before he can decide how to make his involvement official. Billy doesn't hear from him again because Lanny himself, unmarried, who will not be much missed, has become the next victim. There will be more communications from the killer, more hideous choices, with ever tighter decision times, and with each choice Billy is drawn deeper into an accelerating nightmare, which steadily becomes more personal, more confrontational, until he is isolated, with no one to turn to and no one to rely on but himself. Finally he must risk everything to save the intended victims .

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Stuart MacBride Cold Granite Pbk published January 2006 by HarperCollins at £6.99 ISBN: 0007193149 Tweet This Book

See Review by Cath Staincliffe author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries and the series creator of TV Blue Murder

The debut thriller from a bright new Scottish talent set to rival Ian Rankin.

It's DS Logan McRae's first day back on the job after a year off on the sick, and it couldn't get much worse. Four-year-old David Reid's body is discovered in a ditch, strangled, mutilated and a long time dead. There's a killer stalking the Granite City and the local media are baying for blood. If that wasn't enough, Logan also has to contend with a new boss, DI Insch, who doesn't suffer fools gladly and thinks everyone's a fool, and his own ex-girlfriend, the beautiful but chilly Isobel MacAlister, who also happens to be the chief pathologist. The only good news is WPC 'Ball Breaker' Watson, Logan's new guardian angel. The dead are piling up in the morgue almost as fast as the snow on the streets, and Logan knows time is running out. More children are going missing. More are going to die. If Logan isn't careful, he's going to end up joining them. Set in Aberdeen, where the rainy season lasts all year, criminal gangs vie for supremacy on the streets and the oil industry brings an influx of wealth and vice, this is a gritty, powerful and page-turning debut thriller by a writer with a wonderfully observant eye and a characteristically Scottish sense of gallows humour.

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Michael Marshall Blood of Angels Pbk published February 2006 by HarperCollins at £6.99 ISBN: 0007163975 Tweet This Book


Michael Marshall Smith (who dropped the "Smith" to write The Straw Men) lives in north London with his wife Paula, and is currently working on screenplays and his next book, while providing two cats with somewhere warm and comfortable to sit.

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Val McDermid The Grave Tattoo Published February 2006 by HarperCollins at £17.99 ISBN: 0007142854 Tweet This Book

See Review by Martin Edwards - author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries

Present-day murder has its roots in the eighteenth century and the mutiny on the Bounty in this highly acclaimed new psychological thriller. A 200 year-old-secret is now a matter of life and death. And it could be worth a fortune. It's summer in the Lake District and torrential rain has uncovered a bizarrely tattooed body on a hillside. Could it be linked to centuries-old rumours that surround Fletcher Christian, mutinous First Mate on the ill-fated Bounty, a legendary massacre on the strange island of Pitcairn, and Christian's possible return to England? Jane Gresham wants to know. An expert on Wordsworth, she has a theory that the Lakeland poet, a childhood friend of Christian's, had harboured the fugitive and turned his tale into an epic poem -- which has since stayed hidden. But as she follows each lead, death is hard on her heels. The 200-year-old mystery is putting lives at risk. And it isn't just the truth that is waiting to be discovered, but a bounty worth millions of pounds!

Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years, spending the last three as Northern Bureau Chief of a national Sunday tabloid. She divides her time between Northumberland and Cheshire.

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James McGee Ratcatcher Published February 2006 by HarperCollins at £10.00 ISBN: 0007212666 Artwork by: Jacket illustration: Paul Young. Jacket photo: Joe Partridge Tweet This Book


Regency London is vividly brought to live in this extraordinary page-turner, the first in a series of historical thrillers featuring Bow Street Runner Matthew Hawkwood - a complex and fascinating hero. Hunting down highwaymen was not the usual preserve of a Bow Street Runner. As the most resourceful of this elite band of investigators, Matthew Hawkwood was surprised to be assigned the case - even if it did involve the murder and mutilation of a naval courier. From the squalor of St Giles Rookery, London's notorious den of theives and cutthroats, to the palatial homes of the aristocracy where knights of the realm conduct themselves in a manner unbecoming to their rank, Hawkwood relentlessly pursues his quarry. And as the case unfolds, and another body is discovered, the true agenda behind the robbery begins to emerge: the stolen naval dispatch pouch held details of a French plot that, if successful, will send the Royal Navy's entire fleet scurrying to port in terror, leaving Napoleon to rule the waves. With no way of knowing who can be trusted, Hawkwood must engage in a desperate race against time to prevent the successful execution of the Emperor's plot.

James McGee was an army brat who grew up in Gibraltar, Germany and Northern Ireland. After jobs in banking, sales and the airline industry, both in the UK and abroad, he became a bookseller.

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Stephen Miller A Game of Soldiers Published March 2006 by HarperCollins at £12.99 ISBN: 0007191200 Tweet This Book


One man, many conspirators, a world on the brink of war," A Game of Soldiers "is a brilliant, atmospheric thriller, perfect for all readers of Fatherland. In St Petersburg, beside the glittering court life of the Romanovs, the people are seething. It is not only the Bolsheviks but also the new men, the tycoons grown wealthy in the booming economy and the more vigorous aristocrats who are impatient with their idle, incompetent rulers. Pyotr Ryzkhov, a government agent, is used to keeping his head down, minding his own business. He is providing a bodyguard for a key member of the government, when he witnesses the death of a child prostitute. The immediate cover up and the vulnerability of the girl drives him to probe into what he is sure is murder. But he suddenly finds his enquiries deliberately hampered. As the investigation widens, financiers, policemen, government officers, foreign diplomats, even the Minister of Justice, seem to be involved in an ever larger circle of fraud and violence. Then another brutal killing - this time of a leading banker - gives him the final clue and leads to the desperate journey to Serbia and the incident at Sarajevo that was to reverberate around th

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Paulina Simons The Girl in Times Square Pbk published March 2006 by HarperCollins at £6.99 ISBN: 0007118937 Tweet This Book


This is a stunning and powerful contemporary love story, from one of the best storytellers in this century. Lily's life is turned upside down with the disappearance of her flat mate, incredible revelations about her family and a personal discovery, all of which will affect her forever... What if everything you believed about your life was a lie? Meet Lily Quinn. She is broke, struggling to finish college, pay her rent, find love. Adrift in bustling New York City, the most interesting things in Lily's life happen to the people around her. But, Lily loves her aimless life! Until, her best friend and roommate Amy disappears. That's when Spencer Patrick O'Malley, a cynical, past his prime NYPD detective with demons of his own, enters Lily's world. And, a sudden financial windfall, which should bring Lily joy instead becomes an ominous portent of the dark forces gathering around her. But, fate isn't finished with Lily. She finds herself fighting for her life as Spencer's search for the missing Amy intensifies, leading Lily to question everything she knew about her friend and family. Startling revelations about the people she loves force her to confront truths that will leave her changed

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