New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From Serpent's Tail 07 July-Sept

File Updated: 29/09/2007

New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From Serpent's Tail JULY-SEPT 07

Heidi W Boehringer Crossing the Dark Pbk published July 2007 by Serpent's Tail at Ł8.99 ISBN: 1852424982

See Review by Bob Cornwell

Mona, a high-ranking police officer, has rescued her teenage daughter Perdita from a dangerous criminal who has been using her as a sex slave. But rescue is not the same as recovery - Perdita is still suffering, and her social life and mental state seem to be irreparably damaged. As Mona struggles to reconcile her position as an enforcer of the law with the creeping suspicion that the legal system is skewed toward her daughter's captor, Cesar, she is pulled towards one wreckless moment. As both Mona and Perdita spiral into separate worlds of fear, isolation and despair, Mona, with the help of her fellow officer and confidant Nick, tries to save Perdita from the depression that threatens to overwhelm her. But what if Mona falls victim to her own fury and despair?

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Stella Duffy Mouths of Babes Pbk published July 2007 by Serpent's Tail at Ł7.99 ISBN: 1852424796

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

Saz Martin is settled into new motherhood with her partner Molly and their nine-month-old daughter Matilda. Things have not been easy since the birth - late nights, early mornings, and a sudden death have all taken their toll - but with Molly's return to full time work and Saz happily taking on the role of Matilda's prime carer, both women feel they are finally adjusting to parenthood and the demands of their new life. And then the phone rings. The door knocks. A well-known stranger arrives. Instead of moving forward into her role as a full time mother, Saz is forced to face her past, confronting people and events she had long ago hoped to forget. In a story of how the sins of our past always come back to haunt us, Stella Duffy reveals secrets no-one knew about Saz Martin, explores why Saz is who she is, and asks is it still possible to believe in our heroes - and our lovers - when their flaws are well and truly exposed?

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Danny King School for Scumbags Pbk published August 2007 by Serpent's Tail at Ł7.99 ISBN: 1852429720

Habitual teenage delinquent Wayne Banstead is expelled from yet another school for sticking up the tuck shop and finds himself hauled off to Gafin School for Misdirected Boys: a 'special school' for 'special children'. It plays host to the worst of the worst, the cream of teenage offending - thieves, bullies, arsonists and flashers. The teachers should have their work cut out, but things aren't quite what they seem at Gafin School. Far from rehabilitating the boys, the teachers seem intent on instructing them in how to get away with things. The pros, the cons and the downfalls are all set out like an algebra equation. Even the school motto is a bit dodgy: Heliarnos Eto Umminass, or Help Yourselves Boys. With careful tutoring, Wayne Banstead and classmates are about to take a step up into the big leagues. But in the big leagues, the big boys play for keeps. With lots of action, swearing and a great big robbery, Danny King's latest is definitely not for kids.

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Derek Raymond How the Dead Live Pbk published September 2007 by Serpent's Tail at Ł7.99 ISBN: 1852427981

This, the third novel in the "Factory Series", sees Raymond's nameless detective leave London for a remote village called Thornhill, where he's meant to be looking into the disappearance of a local doctor's wife. "How The Dead Live" is a haunting, fantastical novel, with a hellish country house at its centre; a mystery with little interest in the mystery, a police procedural with almost no procedure. Instead, and as ever with Raymond, it's a brilliantly unsettling investigation into love and damnation. This is life seen from the very bottom of the bottle - a fitting successor to classic noir writers such as Jim Thompson and David Goodis.

Derek Raymond was born Robin Cook in 1931. The son of a textile magnate, he dropped out of Eton aged sixteen and spent much of his early career among criminals. The Factory series followed his early novels, The Crust on Its Uppers and A State of Denmark. His literary memoir The Hidden Files was published in 1992. He died in London in 1994.

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Rafael Reig Blood on the Saddle Pbk published August 2007 by Serpent's Tail at Ł7.99 ISBN: 1852424869
Artwork by: Cover design:Wall Design. Cover photo: Getty Images

Michel Houellebecq (Translator)

Dickens & Clot Investigations Ltd, a detective agency in a waterlogged, semi-buried Madrid of the near future, has a couple of unusual specialities: helping distraught authors and taking on Manex Chopeitia. The authors are frantically in search of characters who've quit the page and assumed a life of their own; Manex Chopeitia is the legendary Big Brother of the genetic-engineering company that rules over both the capital and the destiny of the US-Iberian Federation.
Carlos Clot - a paunchy, sartorially inept and alcoholic private eye - cycles, boats and gumshoes his way around a drug- and drink-sodden metropolis. With the help of a cowboy sidekick, on the loose from an unfinished manuscript, Carlos is on a personal quest to put some dodgy people (both 'real' and 'fictional') in their place.

`The melancholic private eye Carlos Clot is the new Spanish anti-hero... one of the funniest and most provocative novels of the last few years. Reig has managed to fill this crazy novel with all you need: short and very sweet' El Pais

Born in Asturias in 1963, Rafael Reig studied Philosophy and Humanities in Madrid and later in New York, where he wrote his PhD thesis on 19th-century literary depictions of the prostitute. Today Reig combines university teaching with his writing and editing activities. His latest novel is Guapa de cara (`A Pretty Face') published in Spain in 2004: he lives in Madrid.

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Rafael Reig A Pretty Face Pbk published September 2007 by Serpent's Tail at Ł8.99 ISBN: 1852429224

Narrated by the ghost of a murdered woman, "A Pretty Face" is set in the Madrid of Reig's previous novel, "Blood on the Saddle". It's the recent past reinvented so that it seems like the future: the oil has run out; the Spanish Communist Party has been overthrown by a US Army invasion; Spain is now part of the USA and Anglo is the official language. The rich live in gated communities, the poor wherever they can, in fear of genetic engineers who are testing neuroprotein K666, which might conquer death itself. The late Lola Eguibar, writer of children's fiction and daughter of the retired discoverer of K666, uses her post-mortal invisibility to unravel the events preceding her killing. She has a sidekick too, the equally unreal Benito, a randy, one-eyed, teenage character from her series of successful kids' novels. A remarkable blend of crime, science fiction and satire, "A Pretty Face" is bursting with Rafael Reig's inimitable power of imagination and sense of mischief.

Born in Asturias in 1963, Rafael Reig studied Philosophy and Humanities in Madrid and later in New York, where he wrote his PhD thesis on 19th-century literary depictions of prostitutes. Today Reig combines university teaching with his writing and editing activities.

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Bethan Roberts The Pools Pbk published August 2007 by Serpent's Tail at Ł10.99 ISBN: 1852424990

It is middle England, mid-1980s. It is the kind of place where nothing ever happens. Except something has happened. A sixteen year old boy called Robert had been killed, down by the pools. And half a dozen lives will come unravelled. There's Kathryn and Howard, Rob's parents. Kath has been making the best of her second marriage after the love of her life died young. Howard has been clinging onto a family life he hardly expected to have. There's Joanna, the teen queen of nowheresville. She's been looking for a way out, escape from her parents' broken marriage. She thought Rob might take her away from all this, but lately she's started to think Rob might have other plans. And then there's Shane, with the big hands and the fixation on Joanna. Bethan Roberts' strikingly assured debut novel subtly reveals the tensions and terrors that underpin apparently ordinary lives, and can lead them to spiral suddenly out of control. I know Shane's not coming. I sit on the seat of the twitchers. I know he's not coming. But I wait. I grip the seat until my fingers go dead, and I wait for him. Pink hoop earrings, pink pencil skirt. I'm ready, should he stride past, Walkman blasting. I'm ready, but I know he won't come. No one's seen him since that night. Not even me. Rooks scream in the spiky trees. Everything's frozen, even the air. It bursts in my lungs when I inhale. The only thing moving is the steam in the sky. It coughs out of the power station cooling towers. It never stops.

Bethan Roberts was born in Oxford and brought up in nearby Abingdon. She has MAs from Sussex and Chichester universities and teaches creative writing at Chichester and for the Open University. Roberts was awarded a Jerwood/Arvon Young Writers' Prize for The Pools.

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