New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From Picador 08 Jan-March

File Updated: 30/03/2009

New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From Picador JAN-MARCH 08

Andrea Camilleri Rounding the Mark Pbk published January 2008 by Picador at Ł7.99 ISBN: 0330442201

He began swimming in slow, broad strokes. The sea smelled harsh, stinging his nostrils like champagne, and he nearly got drunk on it ...In a fraction of a second, Montalbano realized he'd struck a human foot. Somebody else was floating right beside him, and he hadn't noticed. "Excuse me," he said hastily, flipping back onto his belly and looking over at the other. The person beside him didn't answer, because he wasn't doing the dead man's float. He was actually dead. And, to judge from the way he looked, he'd been so for quite a while. Increasingly disillusioned with his government and the world in general, Inspector Montalbano is considering retirement. He is starting to feel his age, and even his favourite restaurant has closed. But when he bumps into a dead body during a bracing swim, his detective instincts are aroused once more. Particularly when the most likely identity of the victim is that of a man already long buried ...

'Both farcical and endearing, Montalbano is a cross between Columbo and Chandler's Philip Marlowe, with the added culinary idiosyncrasies of an Italian Maigret' - "Guardian".

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Andrea Camilleri The Patience of the Spider Published January 2008 by Picador at Ł12.99 ISBN: 0330442236

'A brother,' he said. Jesus Christ! Now where'd this brother come from? Whose brother? Montalbano had known from the start that between all the brothers, uncles, in-laws, nephews and nieces, this case was going to drive him crazy. Chief Inspector Montalbano is on enforced sick leave. He is being vigorously looked after by his spirited girlfriend Livia, which unfortunately means his housekeeper an excellent cook has retreated in a fit of pique. Then when a local girl goes mysteriously missing, the whole community takes an interest in the case. But why are the kidnappers so sure that the girl's impoverished father and dying mother will be able to find a fortune? The ever-inquisitive Montalbano steps in, to get to the heart of the matter in his own inimitable style.

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Ottavio Cappellani Who Is Lou Sciortino? Pbk published February 2008 by Picador at Ł6.99 ISBN: 0330440756

Howard Curtis (translator)
Lou Sciortino, grandson of the most feared boss of the L.A. mafia, has Prozac in his pocket and the Godfather in his blood. He knows he can't escape The Family but settles for laundering their money in peace - or so he thinks. When a bomb explodes at his film company's offices he's sent to Sicily 'for some sunshine' but ends up on the trail of a wannabe rock star who may or may not be linked to the shooting of a policeman in Uncle Mimmo's shop. In this crazy world where your friends are not your friends, killers are glamorous in black Armani, and grandfathers to be feared above all men, can the inimitable Lou solve the murder? Ottavio Cappellani's mesmerizing debut is punchy, pacy and truly stylish: a page-turner that takes Italy's biggest cliche and explodes it from every angle.

'Cappellani's Catania has the brutality of Quentin Tarantino and the trash of Pedro Almodovar' - Corriere della Sera.
'Brilliant dialogue ...All the plot and rhythm of great cinema' - "Vanity Fair".
'Finally the post-modern and metropolitan Sicily has found its ideal chronicler ...A completely exhilarating story' - "La Repubblica".
'A debut novel as sharp as a knife' - "GQ".

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Jim Crace The Pesthouse Picador Pbk published January 2008 by Picador at Ł7.99 ISBN: 0330456903

The Pesthouse" finds the author not just on his own best form, but arguably the best form any English writer has shown in the last couple of years' - "Spectator". A devastated America exists in an imagined future. Its technologies are forgotten, its communities have splintered and its refugees, reversing the course of history, travel eastwards in search of safety and a new start. Among them are Franklin and Margaret, young, bereft, forced together by circumstance; but finding that love, courage and determination can endure even as a country breaks slowly apart. 'Evoking the cracked terrain of a depleted America, Crace proves himself a fine stylist, sensitive to the cadence of every sentence' - "Financial Times". 'Entirely compelling. The story is a gripping, harrowing adventure tale and Crace's language is extraordinary..."The Pesthouse" resonates like an unresolved chord' - "New Statesman". 'Gripping, exciting and oddly romantic' - "Daily Mail".

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Rachael King The Sound of Butterflies Pbk published February 2008 by Picador at Ł7.99 ISBN: 0330449176

It is 1903. Thomas Edgar, a passionate collector of butterflies, is offered the chance of a lifetime: to travel to the Amazon as part of a scientific expedition. Hoping to find the mythical butterfly that will make his name and immortalise that of his wife, Sophie - for if he finds it, he will call it the Papilo Sophia - he eagerly accepts the invitation, and embarks on a journey that will take him to a whole new world. On his return, Sophie greets her husband at the railway station, and is appalled by the change in him: he is thin, obviously sick, and apparently so traumatised by what he witnessed while he was away, he has been rendered mute. As Thomas struggles to find the words to describe what he's seen, it's unclear whether or not Sophie - and their marriage - will be able to withstand what he has to tell her, for the story that unfolds, the story behind Thomas's silence, is one of great brutality. Like the butterflies Thomas is so obsessed by, the butterflies that he catches and kills, it's a story of men who have been dazzled by surface splendour and wealth, and consequently refuse to acknowledge its underlying cruelty. But when that cruelty ends in murder, the question for Thomas - and Sophie - is whether or not he should be the one to speak out. Written in rich, sensuous prose, and taking the reader from the demure gentility of Edwardian England to the decadence of Brazil's rubber boom, "The Sound of Butterflies" is a compelling and noteworthy debut.

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Diane Wei Liang Eye of Jade Pbk published March 2008 by Picador at Ł7.99 ISBN: 0330447734

Mei is a modern, independent Chinese woman. She runs her own business in Beijing, working as a private investigator; she owns a car; she even has that most modern of commodities, a male secretary. One day, 'Uncle' Chen - no relation but a close friend of her mother's - comes to Mei with a case to investigate. He asks her to find the Eye of Jade, a Han dynasty artefact of great value. The Eye of Jade was taken from its museum during the years of the Cultural Revolution when Red Guards swarmed the streets, destroying many remnants of the past. Mei's investigations reveal a story that has far more to do with the past, and her own family history, than she could ever have expected. This story forces her to delve into that dark part of China's history, Mao's labour camps and the countless deaths for which no-one was ever held responsible. It exposes the agonising choices made during the Revolution, to kill or be killed, to love or to live. Eye of Jade is a fascinating glimpse of city life in modern China. Liang captures vividly Beijing's bustle and noise, from seedy gambling dens and cheap noodle bars to the splendour of the Forbidden City. Through a rich cast of characters including immigrant workers and government officials, she examines the sometimes uneasy relationship between China's brutal communist past and its increasingly capitalist present.

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Diane Wei Liang Butterflies for the Dead Published March 2008 by Picador at Ł12.99 ISBN: 0330447769

Deep in the outback of China, prisoner 3424 is released from camp and seven years of gruelling work in the mines. A young man named Lin, he was imprisoned for activism in the protests at Tiananmen Square. His student ideals were crushed, and now he makes his long way back to Beijing. In the heart of the city, private detective Mei Wang is hired on the case of a missing person by talent magnate Mr Peng, a contact of her glamorous sister Lu. The subject in question is Kaili, a gorgeous young pop star, whose life was not as glittering as it first appeared. As the case rapidly slides into murder, Mr Peng chooses a corporate cover-up over the risk of finding out too much of the messy truth.But Mei is compelled by her instincts to do just that, and is drawn on a trail that takes her from the high rises and boulevards into the old hutong district, where superstitions are very much alive. Following a mysterious clue in a beautiful handmade paper butterfly, she uncovers events that take her back to her own memories of the heady days of Tiananmen that ended so brutally. Mei was lucky - Lin not so - but she plunges into the risky game of investigating the truth in a new society still catching

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