UK Newsletter "M" is for Mystery

UK Newsletter

  The Special U.K. Edition of News comes out approximately once a month, sometimes more often. Each issue has blurbs on all the newest imports, and sometimes lists restocked items as well.
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JUNE 6, 2007

Special U.K. News from "M" is for Mystery... and More

Newsletter Posting Date: June 6, 2007

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Just in from England: a new shipment of recent releases, all first editions, and all but one are signed. Quantities are limited, so don't delay ordering.

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NEW AND RESTOCKED RECENT U.K. RELEASES

JOHN CONNOLLY: The Reapers (Hodder & Stoughton, $43.00) SIGNED. [Meet the author tomorrow, Sat., June 7th at 2:00 PM.] "The past comes back with a vengeance in bestseller Connolly's unsettling eighth novel to feature ex-NYPD detective turned disgraced PI Charlie 'Bird' Parker..." said Publishers Weekly. And Library Journal said: "Connolly's latest novel (after The Unquiet) features the enigmatic characters Angel and Louis, introduced in previous books as sometime associates of former detective Charlie Parker... This latest offering from Connolly is as dark and convoluted as his previous novels and just as enjoyable."
-- ALSO: The Unquiet (UK: Hodder & Stoughton, 2007, $24.00) SIGNED first edition hardcover; as new. Includes a limited edition CD soundtrack of music chosen by the author.

DAVID DONACHIE: A Flag of Truce (Allison & Busby, $47.00) SIGNED. John Pearce comes back from Corsica demanding that Captain Barclay of HMS Brilliant, the man who originally pressed him and his fellow Pelicans into the Navy, be tried at home by a civilian court. Against the background of the ongoing siege of Toulon and with the Revolutionary Army massing to attack, no-one in authority sees this as a good time to accede to his requests. Pearce eventually returns to the siege having survived conflict on both land and water only to find Barclay acquitted and exempt from further trial under the law of double jeopardy. Despite clear warnings not to do so he begins a romance with Emily Barclay, but mayhem surrounds the evacuation of Toulon and the revolutionary forces, including Napoleon Bonaparte, are closing in to retake the port.

SUSANNA GREGORY: The Butcher of Smithfield (Sphere, $49.00) SIGNED. London, 1663. Thomas Chaloner, just returned from a clandestine excursion to Spain and Portugal on behalf of the Queen, finds London dank and grey under leaden skies. He finds many things changed, including the Government slapping a tax on printed newspapers. Hand written news reports escape the duty, and the rivalry between the producers of the two conduits of news is the talk of the coffee houses with the battle to be first with any sort of intelligence escalating into violent rivalry.
-- ALSO: To Kill or Cure (Sphere, 2007, $39.00) SIGNED.

ANDREW GREIG: Romanno Bridge (Quercus, $38.00) SIGNED. The New Statesman said of the acclaimed author: "There is little doubt he is one of Scotland's major writers." A rugby-playing half-Maori named Leo Nagotoa stands in the sleet by Romanno Bridge in the Scottish Borders, trying to thumb a lift when his Destiny slithers up alongside him. A motorcyclist with a stolen ring walks into Rothiemurchus Forest until he finds a quiet place to die. A woman with an eventful past has signed the Official Secrets Act and gone to Dumfries to forget a man and keep out of trouble. In comfortable Crieff, a retired historian publishes an obscure article on the survival of the Stone of Destiny, then has his throat cut. A man with a long blade in a tan holster under his suit, a fondness for bird-watching, and memories of his short-lived Punk band Anger Management, has taken a commission to retrieve an object so valuable and mythic it might not exist. The hunt for the crowning stone of the Dalriadic kings, the Stone of Scone has begun.

MO HAYDER: Ritual (Bantam, $39.00) SIGNED. Just after lunch on a Tuesday in April, nine feet under water, police diver Flea Marley closes her gloved fingers around a human hand. The fact that there's no body attached is disturbing enough. Yet more disturbing is the discovery, a day later, of the matching hand. Both have been recently amputated, and the indications are that the victim was still alive when they were removed. DI Jack Caffery has been newly seconded to the Major Crime Investigation Unit in Bristol. "Tapping into the current western fascination with folk magic and alternative religion, Ritual is a vivid and thorough exploration of the clash between ancient superstition and modern science, with plenty of thrills and chills along the way," said the Guardian.

MAREK KRAJEWSKI: Death in Breslau (Quercus, $43.00, not signed). Trans. from the Polish by Danusia Stok. Breslau was a German city on the border of Czechoslovakia. It is now, since World War II, Wroclaw, in Poland. Marek Krajewski has written a quartet of novels which unfold the history of this exceptional city, standing on the faultline and crossroads of 20th century Europe. Breslau 1933: the mutilated body of a young woman, an aristocrat, is found dead on a train. Eberhard Mock is called in to deal with the case, and is assigned an assistant, Herbert Anwaldt, an orphan.The investigation leads them deep into the city's dirty underbelly, where perverted aristocrats cavort with prostitutes, corrupt ministers torture confessions from lowly Jews and Freemasons guard their secrets with blackmail and daggers. What makes Krajewski's story so uncommonly powerful is the stifling atmosphere he conjures of a city in the grip of the Gestapo. Krajewski's Eberhard Mock quartet of novels enjoyed massive success in Germany and Poland and is now being translated into the major European languages.

DONNA LEON: The Girl of His Dreams (Heinemann, $42.00) SIGNED. On a rainy morning, not long after the funeral of his mother, Commissario Brunetti and Ispettore Vianello respond to a 911 call reporting a body floating near the steps in one of Venice's side canals. Reaching down to pull it out, Brunetti's wrist is caught by the silkiness of golden hair, and he sees a small foot - together he and Vianello lift a dead girl from the water. But, inconceivably, no one has reported a missing child, nor the theft of the gold jewellery that she carries. "...[This], the 17th book in this superlative series, restates Leon's theme with more intensity than usual," said the New York Times.

PAT McINTOSH: The Rough Collier (Constable, $49.00) SIGNED. When the peat-cutters came to report the dead man, Gil Cunningham was up in the roof-space of his mother's house, teaching his new young wife swordplay.They believe the corpse to be that of a local missing man. His wife and the widow who runs the local coal mine are sure the body belongs to someone else, but then they find themselves accused of having killed him by witchcraft. And if the corpse is not the missing man, who is it? Gil and Alys try to get to the heart of the matter. Together they uncover more murders than they bargain for, and encounter the chilling secret at the heart of the mystery.

R. T. RAICHEV: Assassins at Ospreys (Constable Crime, $49.00) SIGNED. When one of mystery writer Antonia Darcy's admiring readers, Bee Ardleigh, becomes over friendly, Antonia finds it just a bit of a bore. But when she and husband Major Hugh Payne are persuaded to visit Bee at Millbrook House, they begin to suspect it's something more sinister." Splendidly old-fashioned sleuthery ... skilfully probes the surface smoothness of country houses ... couldn't put it down," said Hugh Massingberd. And from Publishers Weekly: "The kind of old-school English mysteries that fans of Christie and Sayers love ... but this will be pleasing to more than traditionalists..."
-- ALSO: The Death of Corinne (Constable, 2007, $44.00) SIGNED.

MARTIN WALKER: Bruno, Chief of Police (Quercus, $81.00) SIGNED. The eponymous Captain Bruno Courrèges is in charge of a modest force in the town of St. Debis in the Périgord region of France (allowing Walker, of course, to utilize things he’d gleaned for his previous novel set in the region), and Bruno is not your typical hard-hitting copper: he never carries the gun he owns, and barely needs to arrest people. But suddenly all is turmoil in the town as inspectors from Brussels swoop on the rural market, making many enemies. Bruno is worried by the fact that this phenomenon is invoking memories of the town's ignoble Vichy France past. Then an old man from a North African immigrant family is murdered. "Hugely enjoyable and absolutely gripping. A flying start to a great series. Bruno will be the Maigret of the Dordogne," said Antony Beevor.

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