Forthcoming books from Bitter Lemon Press

 January 2026

An Enigma by the Sea is by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini. In an exclusive resort in a dark, threatening pine forest on the coast of Tuscany, the rich and famous are gathering at their second homes for Christmas. On the morning that a husband and wife from one of the heavily-guarded villas go missing, a certain Count Delaude is washed up, battered to death, on the seashore. The cast list promises intrigue from the beginning. The count, a sponger and a sham had arrived under cover of dark with a beautiful young woman scheming to be a top model. Two comedians seclude themselves as they try to overcome a writing block. The depressive Signor Monforte, a retired academic, tries to woo a beautiful divorcee, while another, a woman this time, prepares to leave her husband. Two elderly spinsters and their Filipina maid are aghast at the awful predictions of their Tarot pack. The local police is inept, so Monforte finds himself in the role of detective, and is triumphant.

February 2026

The End of the Sahara is by Saïd Khatibi. On an early autumn morning in 1988, on the outskirts of an unnamed Algerian city, a local shepherd stumbles across the dead body of Zakia Zaghouani, a beautiful nightclub singer who ran away from her hometown and family, seeking a brighter future.  Incompetent and corrupt Inspector Hamid is perhaps the least likely to find the murderer. On their own, none of Khatibi’s characters can help us see and solve the crime. For that, we need a mosaic of many voices: Noura, the lawyer who represents Zakia’s fiancé; Ibrahim, who runs the VHS rental shop and whose mother is a cleaning lady at the hotel where Zakia worked; Kamal, the front-desk clerk at the hotel; Maimoun, the hotel’s owner; the Golden Sheikha, a rival singer; Zakia’s fiancé, Bashir; and more. Most of them are searching not just for Zakia’s killer, but for the stories of other ghosts flitting through their city, the ghosts of abused and murdered women; the ghosts of fathers who died during the country’s war for independence; and the ghosts of Algeria’s long colonial period.

April 2026

Holy F*ck is by Joseph Incardona.  Stella, a young prostitute working in the American south, has the miraculous power to heal her clients through sex. The scandalised Vatican sends contract killers after her. Stella works miracles. Literally. She heals the sick and the paralyzed, just like in the Bible. The Vatican is overjoyed-imagine, a real saint in the 21st century, and in the American South! The only hitch? Her method: Stella heals the people she sleeps with. And Stella sleeps around a lot-it's actually her job...

June 2026

Croatia, autumn 2022. The tourist season has ended, and Split settles into an uneasy quiet. Ines works the reception desk of a seaside hotel. Her mother, Katja, a cleaner, keeps the family afloat and cares for Ines and her younger brother, Mario. When Inspector Zvone is called to an abandoned factory on the city’s edge, he finds the body of seventeen-year-old Viktorija, daughter of a respected local doctor. The murder shocks the community and sends ripples through the lives of Ines, Katja, and Zvone—each forced to confront truths they would rather keep buried. As suspicion deepens and loyalties fracture, Mother of Sorrows becomes a devastating exploration of love, guilt, and denial. With quiet ferocity, Pavičić asks: what are we willing to sacrifice to protect those we love—and what are the consequences when we do? Mother of Sorrows is by Jurica Pavičić

Forthcoming books From Bitter Lemon Press

January 2025 

Runaway Horses is by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini. Siena, one of Italy's most beautiful cities, visited by all discerning travellers to Tuscany, is feverishly preparing for the Palio, a horse race dating back to the Middle Ages held every summer in the centre of the town. Milanese lawyer Enzo Maggione and his wife Valeria are unwittingly caught up in the maelstrom of plots, counterplots and bribes surrounding the race. They are even witnesses to the violent death of Puddu, the Palio's most celebrated jockey, found dead the day before the race. A murder mystery, a hilarious portrait of a fading marriage and a decadent society, and a history of the Palio all rolled up into one brilliant novel. What begins as a listless excursion to a medieval equestrian competition turns into a hallucinatory nightmare for Maggione and his wife, awakening their dormant libido for each other but, more dangerously, for others in their entourage. The death of the jockey is only one of the mysterious goings-on to be solved. It soon becomes clear that there are no bystanders in the Palio.

February 2025

The Best Enemy is by Sergio Olguin. A new investigation by Verónica Rosenthal, the audacious Buenos Aires journalist. Andrés Goicochea, a former director of the magazine where she works, and his ex-partner have been executed in cold blood. Her boss, Patricia, is in the hospital with a bullet in her lung. The authorities are trying to pass the murders off as a burglary gone wrong. Veronica has her doubts. The magazine’s investigation of a high-level corruption scandal seems more likely to have triggered the violence. A scandal perhaps influential Argentine businessmen perhaps involved with an Israeli linked to atrocities committed in Gaza years ago.

March 2025

Hunkeler, now a retired inspector of the Basel police force, is hospitalized and sharing a room with Stephan Fankhauser, an old acquaintance terminally ill with cancer. One night, a groggy Hunkeler wakes up to see a young nurse administering an injection to his friend. The following day Fankhauser is found dead. There was no autopsy, and Fankhauser was quickly cremated. Hunkeler resolves to get to the bottom of the matter. His maverick investigation will threaten Switzerland's carefully honed reputation of neutrality during WWII. Hunkeler's Secret is by Hansjorg Schneider.

May 2025

The story begins in 1989 on the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia. The investigation into a young woman’s disappearance falters as Yugoslavia plunges into a fratricidal war. Another three decades will pass before the truth is revealed. Inspector Gorki Šain, haunted by his failure to unravel the case the first time, returns to solve the crime in 2017. We are barely two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, only “an instant” before the shift from one world to another, the shift toward tragedy for a country ultimately forged by war. Red Water is by Jurica Pavičić.