|
|
Louis Bayard
The Pale Blue Eye
Published June 2006 by John Murray at £17.99
ISBN: 0719567033
Artwork by: Design: edwardberrison.com Jacket photo: T H Woodward
'April 19th, 1831. In two or three hours I'll be dead.' So begins the
chilling last testament of Gus Landor, a retired police constable,
whose numerous talents include code-breaking, riot control and
'gloveless interrogation'. A young cadet has been found hanged at a
military academy on the shores of the Hudson River. Before his
body can be buried, however, it is stolen and his heart brutally
carved out.
Fearing a scandal, the top brass at West Point have summoned
Landor to help catch the culprit, and keep his discoveries away
from prying eyes. As Landor embarks on a thrilling adventure to
solve the case, he uncovers a series of dark secrets and finds
unlikely assistance in the form of a mischievous young cadet
named Edgar Allan Poe.
In this brilliantly atmospheric historical mystery, Louis Bayard
presents a gripping tale of murder, intrigue and suspense.
Praise for Mr Timothy:
`Vigorous, well imagined and thoroughly entertaining. Louis Bayard
can write up a storm' Literary Review
`A vividly imagined historical thriller' Elle
'A Dickensian thriller strong on atmosphere' Sunday Telegraph
`Fabulous ... shimmering ... one truly engaging book'
Entertainment Weekly
Louis Bayard lives in Washington
DC. His first novel, Mr Timothy, is
available in paperback.
Kalisha Buckhanon
Upstate
Pbk published April 2006 by John Murray at £6.99
ISBN: 0719567300
Kalisha Buckhanon was born in 1977. UPSTATE is her first novel.
Malcolm Gaskill
Witchfinders
Pbk published April 2006 by John Murray at £8.99
ISBN: 0719561213
|
|
Declan Hughes
The Wrong Kind of Blood
Published May 2006 by John Murray at £12.99
ISBN: 0719567459
Artwork by: Designed: edwardbettison.com
Ed Loy hasn't been back to Dublin for twenty years. But now his
mother is dead, and he has returned home to bury her. He soon
realizes that the world waiting for firm is very different from the one
he left behind all those years ago.
'Tommy said you found people who were missing,' Linda Dawson
tells him the evening of his mother's funeral. Linda's husband has
disappeared. She doesn't want the police involved. So reluctantly
Loy agrees to investigate.
And suddenly in this place where he grew up-among the Georgian
houses, Victorian castles and modern villas of Castlehill - Loy finds
himself thrown into a world of organized crime, long-hidden secrets,
corruption and violence. And murder.
Declan Hughes has spent
twenty years working in the theatre
in Ireland, as director, playwright
and running Ireland's leading
independent theatre company. The
Wrong Kind of Blood is his first novel.
The second Ed Loy Mystery will be
published by John Murray in 2007.
Julian Rubinstein
The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber
Pbk published June 2006 by John Murray at £8.99
ISBN: 0719563054
A true-life screwball Ealing Comedy caper set in the twilight of the Eastern block. After escaping grim Romania for more liberal Hungary in the late '80s Attila Ambrus found that living on own his will wasn't getting him very far. Becoming goalie/janitor for a third-division ice hockey team brought no fortune and little glory: he was the least successful player in the country's least successful squad. His moneymaking ruses - fur smuggling, grave digging, roulette - fared little better. Then a night of whiskey drinking led him to holding a bank up with a plastic gun while wearing a fright wig - and the Robin Hood of Eastern Europe was born. This is the extraordinary tale of 29 robberies as backhandedly conducted by Attila and his ice-hockey henchmen as they were investigated by Lajos Varju, the Iron Curtain's answer to inspector Clouseau. Varju's inspiration is Columbo: he is assisted by a ballet-teacher forensics expert who wears a top hat and tails on the Job. Thus for 27 of his heists Attila gets away - and after a Jall breakout still manages a couple more. Stories abound of Eastern Europe slipping off its communist skin and slipping on leopard-skin hot pants, but it's a story like this that really screws in the light bulbs. In Julian Rubinstein's tale anti-hero Attila is immortalized as the most charming outlaw since the Sundance Kid, and we're all invited to his zany party.
A true-life screwball Ealing Comedy caper set in the twilight of the Eastern bloc
Julian Rubinstein began his career as a sports reporter and writer. He has written for the New York Times, Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated, been selected for the Best American Crime Writing anthology and cited twice by the Best American Sports Writing. He is a contributing editor to Details. He spent three years researching this book and was the only non-Hungarian journalist allowed access to Attila Ambrus.
Kate Westbrook
The Moneypenny Diaries
Pbk published May 2006 by John Murray at £6.99
ISBN: 0719567424
The Moneypenny Diaries 'edited' by Kate Westbrook
From her colonial childhood in Kenya to her death in 1990, Jane Moneypenny led an extraordinary, clandestine life. Positioned at the heart of British intelligence she had a ringside seat at the political intrigues that shaped world history. But, contrary to popular belief, she was not simply a bystander while James Bond saw all the action. As her diaries make startlingly clear, Miss Moneypenny played a central role in the build-up to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the threat of all-out nuclear war.
But a life of espionage has personal as well as political ramifications. For Jane Moneypenny, the price was high. Romantic relationships with outsiders were necessarily built on lies - sometimes on both sides - and you could not trust the motives of anyone. The impact of Jane Moneypenny's career on her emotional life was even more profound as, with her access to classified information, she began to investigate the mysterious circumstances of her father's presumed death while in service.
Guarding so many secrets and with no one to confide in, she found herself breaking the first rule of espionage. Unbeknownst to anyone, she kept a diary. This became an outlet for her innermost thoughts and, despite the risk of discovery, for state secrets. It should never have been made public...
