Crime Fiction Authors, Murder Mystery Books, Thriller Novel Reviews & True Crime at Tangled Web

Crime Fiction Authors, Murder Mystery Books, Thriller Novel Reviews & True Crime at Tangled Web - Publisher Macmillan 10 Jan-March

File Updated: 29/06/2011

New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From Macmillan Jan-March 10

John Banville The Infinities Pbk published March 2010 by Macmillan at £7.99 ISBN: 0330513915 Tweet

One long, languid midsummer's day, the Godleys gather at the family home of Arden to attend their father's bedside. Adam, the elder child, and Petra, only nineteen, find that relations with their stepmother, Ursula, and their dying father, old Adam, are as strained as ever. Adam's relationship with his wife, Helen, seems too on the brink of collapse and Petra, fragile and deeply troubled, finds deepest relief in her own pain. The gods, those mischievous spirits, watch silently, flitting through this dark menage. Unable to resist intervening in the mortals' lives, they spy, tease and seduce, all the while looking upon the antics of their playthings with a mixture of mild bafflement and occasional envy. Old Adam - husband, father and esteemed mathematician - has made his name grappling with the concept of the infinite. His own time on earth seems to be running out, and his mind runs to disquieting memories. Little does he realize, as he lies mute but alert in the Sky room, that the gods are capable of interposing themselves in the action, and even changing time itself when it pleases them. Overflowing with a bawdy humour, and a deep and refreshing clarity of insight, "The Infinities" is at once a gloriously earthy romp and a delicately poised, infinitely wise look at the terrible and wonderful plight of being human. In electrifying prose, Banville captures the aching intensity, the magic and enchantment, of a single midsummer's day in Arden.

John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of fourteen previous novels including The Sea, which won the 2005 Booker Prize. He has received a literary award from the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Dublin.

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Simon Brett The Shooting in the Shop Published March 2010 by Macmillan at £16.99 ISBN: 0230736378 Tweet

Christmas can be murder . . . Carole Seddon hates Christmas – it all seems rather a waste of time. So when her neighbour and best friend, Jude, drags her along to go shopping at a local store called Gallimaufry, she can feel her inner-Scrooge knocking. But the sales are on and even Carole can’t resist a bargain. Then, a few days later, Gallimaufry is burnt down and a body is discovered in the ashes. It seems like a tragic accident, but no-one can die of natural causes when a gun is involved. The victim was young, pretty and in a long-term relationship – who could possibly want her dead? With a host of suspicious characters – the infamous womanizer Ricky Le Bonnier with a string of ex-wives; Piers Duncton, a comedy writer who just isn’t that funny; or Anna Carter, the lonely dog walker – the lady detectives know they have their work cut out for them. And as they dig deeper they discover a host of half-truths and lies. It seems that someone in Fethering has a deep, dark, deadly secret – and is prepared to kill to keep it.

Simon Brett worked as a producer in radio and television before taking up writing full time. He is the much-loved author of the Fethering series, the Mrs Pargeter novels and the Charles Paris detective series. Married with three grown-up children, he lives in an Agatha Christie-style village on the South Downs.

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Suzanne Bugler This Perfect World Published March 2010 by Macmillan at £12.99 ISBN: 023074401X Tweet

Heddy Partridge was never my friend. I have to start with that.
Heddy Partridge was never my friend because I was pretty, popular, clever and blonde and my friends were pretty, popular, clever and generally blonde, too.
Heddy Partridge was none of these things.
Laura Hamley is the woman who has everything: a loving and successful husband, two beautiful children, an expensive home and a set of equally fortunate friends.
But Laura’s perfect world is suddenly threatened when she receives an unwelcome phone call from Mrs Partridge, mother of Heddy – the girl Laura and her friends bullied mercilessly at school. Heddy has been hospitalized following a mental breakdown, and Mrs Partridge wants Laura's help to get her released.
As Laura reluctantly gets drawn back into the past, she is forced to face the terrible consequences of her cruelty. But, as her secrets are revealed, so too is another even more devastating truth, and the perfect world Laura has so carefully constructed for herself begins to fall apart.
This Perfect World is the debut novel from a brilliant dark new voice.

Suzanne Buglerlives in South-West London with her husband and two sons. She has also written two novels for young adults: Staring up at the Sun and Meet Me at the Boathouse.

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Anne Cleeves Blue Lightning Published February 2010 by Macmillan at £16.99 ISBN: 023001447X Tweet

See Review by Martin Edwards - author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries

Shetland Detective Jimmy Perez knows it will be a difficult homecoming when he returns to the Fair Isles to introduce his fiancée, Fran, to his parents. It’s a community where everyone knows each other, and strangers, while welcomed, are still viewed with a degree of mistrust.
Challenging to live on at the best of times, with the autumn storms raging, the island feels cut off from the rest of the world. Trapped, tension is high and tempers become frayed.
Enough to drive someone to murder…
When a woman's body is discovered at the renowned Fair Isles bird observatory, with feathers threaded through her hair, the islanders react with fear and anger. With no support from the mainland and only Fran to help him - Jimmy has to investigate the old-fashioned way. He soon realizes that this is no crime of passion - but a murder of cold and calculated intention.
With no way off the island until the storms abate - Jimmy knows he has to work quickly. There's a killer on the island just waiting for the opportunity to strike again…

Ann Cleeves worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She now promotes reading as Harrogate Crime-Writing Festival's reader in residence, and is also a member of 'Murder Squad', working with other northern writers to promote crime fiction. In 2006 Ann was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger for Best Crime Novel, for Raven Black . Ann lives in North Tyneside.

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Robin Cook Intervention Published February 2010 by Macmillan at £16.99 ISBN: 0230743633 Tweet

I t’s been more than thirty years since New York City medical examiner Jack Stapleton’s college graduation and almost as long since he’d been in touch with former classmates Shawn Doherty and Kevin Murray. Once a highly regarded ophthalmologist, Jack’s career took a dramatic turn after a tragic accident that destroyed his family. But that, too, is very much in the past: Jack has remarried—to longtime colleague and fellow medical examiner Laurie Montgomery—and is the father of a young child. But his renegade, activist personality can’t rest, and after performing a postmortem on a young college student who had recently been treated by a chiropractor, Jack decides to explore alternative medicine. What makes some people step outside the medical establishment to seek care from practitioners of Eastern philosophies and even faith healers?
Jack’s classmate Shawn Doherty is now a renowned archeologist and biblical scholar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose taste for good wine and generally deteriorating health are taking a toll on his career. He has recently obtained permission for a final dig beneath Saint Peter’s, and despite his long-standing grudge against the Catholic Church, begins his research—which eventually takes him to Jerusalem and Venice —only to make a startling discovery with ecclesiastical and medical implications. And when Kevin Murray, now Bishop of the Archdiocese of New York, gets wind of Shawn’s findings, he’s desperate to keep them from the public. Kevin has strong political ambitions within the Church, but his association with Shawn threatens to undermine them. Kevin turns to his old friend Jack to help protect an explosive secret—one with the power to change lives forever.

Doctor and author

Robin Cook is widely credited with introducing the word ‘medical’ to the thriller genre, and over twenty years after the publication of his breakthrough novel, Coma, he continues to dominate the category he created. Cook has successfully combined medical fact with fantasy to produce a over twenty-seven international bestsellers, including Outbreak (1987), Terminal (1993), Contagion (1996), Chromosome 6 (1997) and most recently Foreign Body (2008)..

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Sue Grafton U is for Undertow Published January 2010 by Macmillan at £16.99 ISBN: 023070932X Tweet

In 1960s Santa Teresa, California, a child is kidnapped and never returned ...When the case is reopened after twenty years, a man - Michael Sutton - contacts private detective Kinsey Millhone for help. He claims to have recalled a strange and disturbing memory which just might provide the key to the mystery. He may have stumbled across the kidnappers burying Mary Claire Fitzhugh's body ...But Michael's account is indistinct - he was only six years old at the time of the kidnapping; and even members of his family try to discredit his evidence. But Kinsey is certain there is something vital within Michael's recollections. And even when what is eventually unearthed isn't what anyone expected, she can't quite let go of the case. As Kinsey gradually brings to light the stories of the protagonists involved in the tragedy, from Country Club parents to their free-living, hippy children, the truth finally begins to emerge. And while stepping back into the past, Kinsey discovers more about her own history too.

Sue Grafton has become one of the most popular female writers, both in the UK and in the US. Born in Kentucky in 1940, she began her career as a TV scriptwriter before Kinsey Millhone and the 'alphabet' series took off. She plans to take Kinsey all the way through the alphabet to Z. Sue lives and writes in Montecito, California and Louisville, Kentucky.

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M R Hall The Disappeared Published January 2010 by Macmillan at £12.99 ISBN: 0230709850 Tweet

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

Two young British students, Nazim Jamal and Rafi Hassan vanish without a trace. The police tell their parents that the boys had been under surveillance, that it was likely they left the country to pursue their dangerous new ideals. Seven years later, Nazim’s grief-stricken mother is still unconvinced. Jenny Cooper is her last hope.
Jenny is finally beginning to settle into her role as Coroner for the Severn Valley; the ghosts of her past that threatened to topple her, banished to the sidelines once more. But as the inquest into Nazim's disappearance gets underway, the stink of corruption and conspiracy becomes clear . . .
As the pressure from above increases, a code of silence is imposed on the inquest and events begin to spiral out of all control, pushing Jenny to breaking point. For how could she have known that by unravelling the mysteries of the disappeared, she would begin to unearth her own buried secrets?

M. R. Hall is a screenwriter, producer and former criminal barrister. Educated at Hereford Cathedral School and Worcester College, Oxford, he lives in Monmouthshire with his wife and two sons. Aside from writing, his main passion is the preservation and planting of woodland. In his spare moments, he is mostly to be found amongst trees.

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David Hewson The Blue Demon (Nic Costa 8) Published February 2010 by Macmillan at £12.99 ISBN: 0230529364 Tweet

Twenty years ago, a mysterious group called the Butteri committed a series of bizarre crimes evoking the lost race of the Etruscans, and leaving in their wake a several bodies, a cryptic message, and a kidnapped child. Now, the leaders of the G8 are descending on Rome for a summit at the Quirinale Palace. But when a politician is found ritually murdered, seemingly by a strange young man dressed as the Etruscan blue demon, detective Nic Costa suspects that the old case was never really solved. The Butteri have returned - and are planning to unleash a devastating sequence of attacks on the city. Officially sidelined from the investigation but encouraged by the wily old Italian President, Dario Sordi, Costa and his team start to dig deeper into the past. There are still too many questions left unanswered - and much more to the history of the Butteri than anyone wants to admit.

David Hewson was born in Yorkshire in 1953. He was a journalist from the age of seventeen, working most recently for the Sunday Times. He has also written several novels, as well as a number of travel books. The author lives in Kent.

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David Hosp Among Thieves Published January 2010 by Macmillan at £10.00 ISBN: 0230707238 Tweet

On the night of the St Patrick celebrations in 1990, some of the world's most famous and valuable paintings were stolen from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. They were never recovered, and there were no clues as to their whereabouts - that is until now. When Boston attorney Scott Finn takes on well-known thief, Devon Malley as a client, he gets much more than he bargained for. Not only is he asked to care for Devon's teenaged daughter, Sally, while Devon awaits bail, but his investigations into what he believed was a case of petty theft, lead him to the underworld of Boston's organized crime gangs, links with the IRA and the realization that he may be close to solving the mystery of the stolen paintings all those years ago. But an Irishman who, at nine years old, saw his entire family murdered before his eyes is determined to avenge their death. His commitment to the cause is frightening and unrelenting, and he will never give up until the job is finished...

David Hosp is a trial lawyer who has spent a portion of his time working pro bono on behalf of wrongly convicted individuals, and, although fiction, this story has its roots based on fact and experience. He finds time to write his novels on his daily commute by boat across Boston harbour. He lives with his wife and family in the city.

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Richard North Patterson The Spire Published February 2010 by Macmillan at £12.99 ISBN: 0230705650 Tweet

A young college president struggles to save his once prestigious alma mater, Caldwell College, from a financial scandal which may be linked to the murder of a student, some seventeen years previously.
The Caldwell campus is dominated by a large bell tower known as The Spire. The Spire ornaments the school yearbook, stationary, all publications. Steeped in lore, it tolls every hour of the school day; or to mark notable events such as athletic triumphs. But in 1993, the body of Angela Hall, a black student, was found at the foot of the Spire. Raped and murdered, she seemed oddly like a sacrifice to the newly-ominous college landmark…

Richard North Patterson is the author of fifteen previous bestselling and critically acclaimed novels, including Balance of Power, The Race and Eclipse. Formerly a trial lawyer, Patterson was the SEC's liaison to the Watergate special prosecutor and has served on the boards of several Washington advocacy groups. He lives in San Francisco and on Martha's Vineyard with his partner, Dr Nancy Clair.

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