New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From
Harper Perennial
08 July-Sept
New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From
Harper Perennial
JULY-SEPT 08
J.G. Ballard
Hello America
Pbk published September 2008 by Harper Perennial at £7.99
ISBN: 0007287038
A terrifying vision of the future from one of our most renowned writers - J G Ballard, author of 'Empire of the Sun' and 'Crash'. Following the energy crisis of the late twentieth-century America has been abandoned. Now, a century later, a small group of European explorers returns to the deserted continent. But America is unrecognisable - the Bering Strait has been dammed and the whole continent has become a desert, populated by isolated natives and the bizarre remnants of a disintegrated culture. The expedition sets off from Manhattan on a cross-continent journey, through Holiday Inns and abandoned theme parks. They will uncover a shocking new power in the heart of Las Vegas in this unique vision of our world transformed.
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J.G. Ballard
Crash
Pbk published September 2008 by Harper Perennial at £7.99
ISBN: 000728702X
The definitive cult, post-modern novel -- a shocking blend of violence, transgression and eroticism. When our narrator smashes his car into another and watches a man die in front of him, his sense of sexual possibilities in the world around him becomes detached. As he begins an affair with the dead man's wife, he finds himself drawn with increasing intensity to the mangled impacts of car crashes. Then he encounters Robert Vaughan, a former TV scientist turned nightmare angel of the expressway, who has gathered around him a collection of alienated crash victims and experiments with a series of erotic atrocities, each more sinister than the last. But Vaughan craves the ultimate crash - a head-on collision of blood, semen, engine coolant and iconic celebrity. First published in 1973 'Crash' remains one of the most shocking novels of the second half of the twentieth century and was made into an equally controversial film by David Cronenburg.
Like many of Ballard's other novels, the seeds for Crash were sown in a short story or, in effect, the series of stories that were eventually published as The Atrocity Exhibition (or Love and Napalm: Export USA). Described by Will Self as representing `the zenith of the experimental novel in English' and `a profound and disquieting book' by William Burroughs, The Atrocity Exhibition is composed of seemingly disconnected, almost shard-like tales, some made up of short listed paragraphs. Full of extreme imagery and, as its author admits, `rather obsessive sexual fantasies about the prominent figures of the day', it strove, in its fragmentary structure, to emulate the confused (and confusing) messages of news broadcasts, advertising billboards, television commercials and technical manuals. In an author's note readers were advised to `simply turn the pages until a paragraph catches your eye'.
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J.G. Ballard
Concrete Island
Pbk published September 2008 by Harper Perennial at £7.99
ISBN: 0007287046
A chilling novel about our modern world, from the author of 'Empire of the Sun' and 'Crash'. Robert Maitland, a 35 year-old architect, is driving home from his London offices when a blow-out sends his speeding Jaguar hurtling out of control. Smashing through a temporary barrier he finds himself, dazed and disorientated, on a traffic island below three converging motorways. But when he tries to climb the embankment or flag-down a passing car for help it proves impossible - and he finds himself imprisoned on the concrete island. In this twisted version of 'Robinson Crusoe', Maitland must learn to survive - using only what he can find in his crashed car. As in all Ballard's best work 'Concrete Island' provides an unnerving study of our modern lives and world. With his alienating, 'Ballardian' view of normal events, this is a unique novel from one of our finest writers.
J.G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, where his father was a businessman. After internment in a civilian prison camp, he and his family returned to England in 1946. He published his first novel, 'The Drowned World', in 1961. His 1984 bestseller 'Empire of the Sun' won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven Spielberg. His most recent novel is 'Kingdom Come', published in 2006, his autobiogaphy 'Miracles of Life' was published in 2008 to much acclaim.
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Kathy Marks
Trouble in Paradise
Pbk published August 2008 by Harper Perennial at £8.99
ISBN: 0007286147
A shocking expose of the terrible secrets at the heart of the Pitcairn Island community -- a tale of systematic child abuse and rape which stretches back over 40 years. Pitcairn Island -- home to the descendants of the mutineers of the Bounty -- has long been thought of as a tropical paradise. Wild and remote, it is Britain's most isolated outpost and a fantasy destination for many. But in 1999, British police, alerted by unsettling reports of a rape, descended on the island. Their investigation developed into a major enquiry which revealed that Pitcairn was the site of widespread and horrific sexual abuse instigated by the island men on girls as young as twelve. Scarcely a man on the island was untainted by the allegations, and almost none of the women had escaped, though most residents feigned ignorance, even when their own daughters were abused. Abusers included the magistrates and police officers as well as brothers and uncles. Few of the victims were able to leave the island; those who did never went back. Kathy Marks was one of only six journalists permitted to live on the island while she reported on the ensuing trial and witnessed Pitcairn's domestic workings first-hand.In this riveting account she documents a society gone badly astray, leaving lives shattered, codes broken and a paradise truly lost.
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Patrick O'Brian
Blue at the Mizzen
Pbk published July 2008 by Harper Perennial at £7.99
ISBN: 0007275633
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. All twenty books are being re-issued by Harper Perennial with stunning new jackets.
This is the twentieth book in Patrick O'Brian's highly acclaimed, bestselling series chronicling the adventures of lucky Jack Aubrey and his best friend Stephen Maturin, part ship's doctor, part secret agent. The novel's stirring action follows on from that of 'The Hundred Days'. Napoleon's hundred days of freedom and his renewed threat to Europe have ended at Waterloo and Aubrey has finally, as the title suggests, become a blue level admiral. He and Maturin have -- at last -- set sail on their much postponed mission to Chile. Vivid with the salty tang of life at sea, O'Brian's writing is as powerful as ever whether he writes of naval hierarchies, night-actions or the most celebrated fictional friendship since that of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. 'Blue at the Mizzen' also brings alive the sights and sounds of revolutionary South America in a story as exciting as any O'Brian has written.
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Patrick O'Brian
The Hundred Days
Pbk published July 2008 by Harper Perennial at £7.99
ISBN: 0007275625
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. All twenty books are being re-issued by Harper Perennial with stunning new jackets.
This Aubrey-Maturin novel brings alive the sights and sounds of North Africa as well as the great naval battles in the days immediately following Napoleon's escape from Elba. Aubrey and Maturin are in the thick of the plots and counterplots to prevent his regaining power. Coloured by conspiracies in the Adriatic, in the Berber and Arab lands of the southern shores of the Mediterranean, by night actions, fierce pursuits, slave-trading and lion hunts, 'The Hundred Days' is a masterpiece.
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Patrick O'Brian
The Road to Samarcand
Pbk published July 2008 by Harper Perennial at £7.99
ISBN: 0007262779
From the stormy South China Seas to the steppes of Central Asia, this is the gripping story of a young man's adventurous spirit leading him on a journey full of fearsome tribes, great danger, friendship and treasure. When Derrick's missionary parents are tragically murdered he is entrusted to his gruff uncle Sullivan, Captain aboard the Wanderer. After surviving a killer typhoon on the South China Sea, and meeting up with his elderly and eccentric cousin, they set off across land to discover the treasures of Central Asia. Along the way Derrick befriends a fierce young Mongol warrior who saves his life, and helps to defeat a ruthless Chinese warlord. Given a gift of priceless jade, the group is pursued into the inhospitable mountains of Tibet where they are caught between the fierce ascetic mountain monks, and a terrifying creature that stalks them through the snow.
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Pat Shipman
Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari
Pbk published August 2008 by Harper Perennial at £8.99
ISBN: 0060817313
Mata Hari was the prototype of the beautiful but unscrupulous female agent who uses sexual allure to gain access to secrets, if she was indeed a spy. In 1917, the notorious dancer Mata Hari was arrested, tried, and executed for espionage. It was charged at her trial that the dark-eyed siren was responsible for the deaths of at least 50,000 gallant French soldiers. Irrefutably, she had been the mistress of many senior Allied officers and government officials, even the French Minister of War: a point viewed as highly suspicious. Worse yet, she spoke several European languages fluently and travelled widely in wartime Europe. But was she guilty of espionage? For all the publicity Mata Hari and her trial received, key questions remain unanswered. These questions concern not only her inadequate trial and her unproven guilt, but also the events in her personal life. What propelled Margaretha Zelle, destined to be a Dutch schoolteacher, to transform herself into Mata Hari, the most desirable woman in early 20th-century Paris? She danced before enthusiastic crowds in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Monte Carlo, Milan and Rome, inspiring admiration, jealousy, and bitter condemnation.
Pat Shipman's brilliant biography pinpoints the powerful yet dangerous attributes that evoked such strong emotions in those who met Mata Hari, for hitherto the focus has been on espionage, not on exploring the events that shaped her life and caused her to transform herself from rural Dutch girl to international femme fatale.
Pat Shipman is a professor of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University. Her book 'Wisdom of the Bones' (co-authored with Alan Walker) won the 1997 Rhone-Poulenc Prize for science writing.
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