Crime Fiction Authors, Murder Mystery Books, Thriller Novel Reviews & True Crime at Tangled Web - Publisher Pan 06 July-Sept
File Updated: 30/06/2011
New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From Pan July-Sept 06

David Baldacci The Camel Club Pbk published July 2006 by Pan at £6.99 ISBN: 033044123X

See Review by Ian Morson Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger

The man known as Oliver Stone has no official past. He spends most days camped opposite the White House, hoping to expose corruption wherever he finds it. But the stakes are raised when he and his friends, a group of conspiracy theorist misfits known as The Camel Club, accidentally witness the murder of an intelligence analyst. Especially when the authorities are seemingly happy to write it off as a suicide. For Secret Service agent Alex Ford, monitoring the 'investigation', the suicide verdict doesn't ring true. As punishment for sticking his nose where it doesn't belong, he is reassigned to bodyguard duties. His abilities are tested to the limit when he is sent to protect the President during a visit to his hometown, where a terrorist cell has spent months plotting an event that will shake the world. Meanwhile, America's powerful intelligence chief Carter Gray is unnerved when he glimpses the face of an old acquaintance in Arlington Cemetery - but it is the face of a man supposedly long dead... And as The Camel Club is poised to expose a conspiracy that reaches into the heart of Washington's highly secretive corridors of power, Alex Ford finds out that his worst nightmare is about to happen...

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Hal Duncan Vellum The Book of All Hours: 1 Pbk published August 2006 by Pan at £7.99 ISBN: 0330438360


A magnificent, fantastical literary epic of Heaven and Hell in direct conflict, employing sleeper agents who will murder, rape and torture at their master's command, and where even the heroes will be lucky to save their own skins

It's 2017 and the End Days are coming. Beings that were once human are gathering to fight in one last great war for control of the Vellum - the vast realm of eternity on which our world is just a scratch. But to a draft-dodging Irish angel and a trailer-trash biker girl called Phreedom, it's about to become brutally clear that there's no great divine or diabolic plan at play here, just a vicious battle between the hawks of Heaven and Hell, with humanity stuck in the middle.
In this final conflict, the most ancient gods and the most modern humans are equally fate's fools, struggling to save their own slans, their own souls, but sometimes ... just sometimes ... sacrificing everything in the name of humanity

Hal Duncan lives in Glasgow, and this is his debut novel.

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G M Ford Red Tide Pbk published August 2006 by Pan at £6.99 ISBN: 0330420151 Artwork by: Cover photograph: © Getty Images


Something has been let loose in the city - an airborne horror that leaves a tunnel full of corpses below the streets of Seattle just as experts from fifty nations are gathering downtown for an international symposium on chemical and biological weapons. As the city grinds to a halt, disgraced journalist Frank Corso finds himself evacuated from his friend Meg Dougherty's first photographic exhibition. Determined to find a way into the tunnel to discover what has happened, he unwittingly establishes himself as prime suspect in this deadly conspiracy. While Meg, unaware of the nightmare unfolding across town, returns home to a terrifying scene of her own, Corso is hauled in by the police. He soon learns of one brutal death that could be linked to the impending destruction of thousands - perhaps millions - of innocent lives. And now he must elude the SPD and pursue the terrorists himself before an infinitely more devastating attack annihilates his city.

' This book gathers momentum like a runaway monorail car. You simply can't get off until the ride is over.' - "Booklist".

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Wendy Jean Unstolen Pbk published July 2006 by Pan at £6.99 ISBN: 0330445189


The thing about being the unstolen one is that you'd better be strong, you'd better stay safe, you'd better not rock any boats or surely they will sink. People depend on you, people who can't take any more stress in their lives and you'd better count yourself lucky because after all, you weren't taken, you're still here and you better be grateful for all that's been given to you because your brother sure didn't get anything ...Bethany Fisher's life has always been overshadowed by her missing brother. Four-year-old Michael was abducted when Bethany was a baby and no trace of him was ever found. Twenty years later, Bethany is a college graduate and has a small son of her own. But her life is thrown into turmoil one evening when her mother follows a man home from the supermarket and savagely beats him to death. What could have made this mild, middle-aged woman suddenly snap? Packing the emotional punch of "The Lovely Bones", this powerful novel explores how the comforting lies we tell ourselves can be ultimately more destructive than confronting difficult truths.

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Julie Parsons The Hourglass Pbk published September 2006 by Pan at £6.99 ISBN: 0330445499

See Review by Judith Rhodes

Irish Independent 'Another great accomplishment . . . it has a gripping underlying menace that makes it a spellbinding read.'

Beyond high iron gates fastened shut with a length of chain, lies the stark, beautiful Trawbawn. Here, haunted by a dark, mysterious past and largely ignored by the people of nearby Skibbereen, lives the frail Lydia Beauchamp. But old Ma Beauchamp's private existence is interrupted when a stranger arrives - a young man called Adam who wanders into the vast grounds of Trawbawn and becomes one of Lydia's most welcome contacts with the outside world. When Lydia sets her new confidante a challenge, he eagerly accepts - Adam must travel to Dublin to find her estranged daughter. But it is a task tainted by an air of menace. For what terrible past has driven a daughter from her mother? And what true motive lies behind Adam's generous act? Soon the unlikely friends are entwined in a deadly game, and a pursuit born of an old lady's desire for peace mutates into a terrible, relentless need for revenge ...

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Mattew Reilly Seven Ancient Wonders Pbk published August 2006 by Pan at £6.99 ISBN: 0330426575


The bestselling author of Scarecrow and Area 7 takes us on a thrilling, non-stop treasure hunt across the world

It is the biggest treasure hunt in history, with several rival nations involved in a headlong race to locate the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Exactly 4,500 years ago, a magnificent gold capstone sat at the peak of the Great;Pyramid of Giza. It was a source of immense power, reputedly capable of bestowing upon its holder absolute global power. But then it was divided into seven pieces and hidden, each piece separately, within the seven greatest structures of that age.
Now it's 2006 and the coming of a rare solar event means it's time to locate the pieces and rebuild the capstone. Everyone wants it - from the most powerful countries on earth to gangs of terrorists ... and one daring coalition of eight small nations. Led by the mysterious Captain Jack West Jr, this determined group enters a global battlefield filled with booby- trapped mines, crocodile-infested swamps, evil forces and an adventure beyond imagining.

Matthew Reilly's previous novels, Contest, Ice Station, Temple, Area 7 and Scarecrow, have been massive bestsellers in every continent.

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Greg Rucka Perfect Dark - Initial Vector Pbk published July 2006 by Pan at £6.99 ISBN: 0330445081


The year is 2020. Hyper-corporations control everything. In the name of domination, these sprawling organisations have recruited their own military forces to fight clandestine battles against one another. Enter ex-bounty hunter Joanna Dark: young, beautiful and lost, her run-in with dataDyne, the world's most powerful organisation, has left her with a wound only vengeance can heal. But, Daniel Carrington, the charismatic founder of the Carrington Institute, believes Joanna's deadly skills may be the key to victory over their mutual enemy - an enemy he has been fighting for years.
"Initial Vector" is the first of three "Perfect Dark" science fiction thrillers, which take readers into a shadowy, mysterious new world of espionage, conspiracy and global conflict. Set partly in London and Wales, "Initial Vector" takes place six months after the events in "Perfect Dark Zero".

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Lisa Scottoline Devil's Corner Pbk published July 2006 by Pan at £6.99 ISBN: 0330418718


Thelma and Louise meets Starsky and Hutch - for girls

The moment that Vicki Allegretti, a Philadelphia- born, wise-cracking, lively and energetic attorney, is held at gunpoint by a teenager, she realizes that investigating drug dealers is even more dangerous than she'd anticipated. Then she meets Reheema Bristow, a suspect with brains, beauty and attitude to boot, and Vicki loses it with her, earning herself a suspension from work.
It's all too much for Vicki, and ever hot-headed, she decides to track down the teenager who nearly killed her. Her search leads her to another encounter with Reheema, and soon the women realize that they can help each other out. Downtown Philly may have seen some sights, but none quite so fast, feisty and fashionable as the Vicki and Reheema duo, snaking through the snow on wheels no car shop would sell a speedway driver, let alone a couple of girls out for a ride ...

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Scott Turow Ordinary Heroes Pbk published September 2006 by Pan at £6.99 ISBN: 0330441337


A tour de force of historical fiction... All parents keep secrets from their children. My father, it seemed, kept more than most... Whilst mourning the death of his father, Stewart Dubin, a journalist covering the courtroom beat, decides to research the life of a man he had always respected, always admired, but possibly never quite loved... As a young, idealistic lawyer, David Dubin had been sent to the European Front during the last terrible months of the Second World War - ostensibly to bring charges against a brave American hero, Robert Martin, who had suddenly, inexplicably, gone local. No longer following orders from his superiors, Martin has become a liability and General Rollie Teedle wants him neutralised. But as Dubin learns more about Martin and the demons possessing him, he finds himself falling in love with Martin's enigmatic ex mistress - a woman of incredible courage and dangerous anger. And someone who will do anything to protect her comrade-in-arms... Stewart discovers a journal written by his father - and realises that he had risked everything to let his captured hero go - the disgrace of a court-martial, and a possible death sentence. But he also learns of his incredible courage in the face of battle, reads first-hand of the shattering moral consequences for those caught in the chaos of war and, finally, the secret he had died protecting... A tour de force of historical fiction, ORDINARY HEROES, will have the same impact on readers as BIRDSONG, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT and THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE.

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