Toppled: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall By Paul Vidich

On the evening of November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall, an enduring symbol of the Cold War, came down. It was a momentous night. No shots were fired and no lives were lost, but it was the beginning of the end of the forty-year long Cold War. The repressive East German government fell and the Soviet Union collapsed two years later. 

The fall of the Berlin Wall is central to my new novel. I chose Berlin because I was fascinated by the Stasi at the end of the Cold War. When East Germany fell in 1990, the Stasi ran a comprehensive surveillance organization that employed 91,000 people and managed a network of one million informers. One in seven East Germans spied on friends, family, or neighbors. Across the Berlin Wall, West Berlin was a cosmopolitan home for artists, writers, bohemians, punk rockers who enjoyed their freedoms, and moved back and forth through border checkpoints. 

Few people know the unusual circumstances surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall, and how two men, a mid-level East German government bureaucrat who made what he thought was a clarifying change in a press release, and a loyal Stasi border control officer who disobeyed orders, helped shape the peaceful outcome that night.

Construction of the Wall began on August 13, 1961 in an East German effort to stem the flight of its population. More than a sixth of East Germany’s population had fled West for a mix of political, economic, and personal reasons. The Wall effectively cut Berlin in half. In the 28 years the Wall was in place, more than 140 people died trying to cross it.

By the summer of 1989, voices of discontent were being raised across East Germany, but particularly in East Berlin. Huge music festivals became peaceful political demonstrations, and as is the case everywhere, a generation of rebellious youth rose up and demanded more freedom to travel to the West. Two cities, side-by-side, one prosperous and free, the other grim, gray, and poor. East Berliners got West German television and they had only to open their eyes to see the magnitude of their deprivation.

On November 4, half-a-million people attended a massive demonstration in the heart of East Berlin demanding eased travel rules. The East German Politburo sought to defuse the tension by re-writing the travel restrictions and allowing people to emigrate, but the catch was, if you left you couldn’t return, and an exit visa was still required. These so-called “new” rules were intended to appeared relaxed, but the onerous visa requirement meant there was no real change.

There is always an incident, isn’t there? The unexpected event that in hindsight begins the unraveling. The press release announcing the change was written by Gerhard Lauter, a loyal, mid-level bureaucrat, who feared one-way emigration would destabilize the government. He inserted into the text an unauthorized reference to temporary travel. Gunter Schabowski, the dour, older politburo member who read the release at a crowded press conference, had not reviewed the script in advance he faithfully read the release with its reference to temporary travel.

One reporter shouted the crucial question, “When does this take effect?”

Schabowski scanned the unfamiliar text in his hands and picked out the words he saw printed: “Right away.”

Incredulous journalists left the room and reported that the Berlin Wall was now open.

Thousands of East Berliners, hearing those reports, walked to the fortified and heavily guarded border crossing at Bornholm Bridge, the major checkpoint between East and West Berlin. Harald Jäger, the loyal officer in charge, had watched the press conference in disbelief. No one had alerted him to the possible change in travel rules. 

Jäger immediately called his supervisor at Stasi headquarters who said that everything remained the same, without change, and the gate was to remain closed. Jäger and his men were stunned by the swelling crowd and Jäger kept calling Stasi headquarters, trying to get instructions, but his boss replied every time that it was business as usual. Jäger placed over 30 calls over the course of the night, all in a fruitless attempt to get instructions on how to handle the crowd’s demand that the gate be opened. At one point, he was quietly added to a Stasi headquarters conference call and he overheard one Stasi superior, not knowing Jäger was on the line, say, “Is this Jäger capable of assessing the situation realistically, or is he simply a coward?”

Jäger felt a wave of anger. He had been on duty for twelve hours, he was exhausted, and the crowd at the checkpoint had grown to tens of thousands, filling all the approach streets. Loud chants of, “Open the gates,” erupted regularly.

Jäger looked at his dozen frightened, heavily-armed officers and said words to the effect of, “Should we shoot all these people, or open up?” Jäger called his commanding officer and said, “I am ending all controls and letting the people out.”

The Berlin Wall opened at about 11:30 pm. NBC camera crews were on the West Berlin side. NBC producers had decided to air Tom Brokaw’s Nightly News from Berlin weeks before. Brokaw interrupted himself a few minutes into the broadcast, glancing over his shoulder, to see the first East Germans summit the Wall, arms raised and waving, faces bright with joy. The historic moment was broadcast live and seen around the world.

The Matchmaker: The Spy in Berlin by Paul Vidich (No Exit Press) Out Now.

Berlin, 1989. Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door. Nothing about her marriage is as it seems. Anne had been targeted by the Matchmaker - a high level East German counterintelligence officer - who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his 'Romeos' who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead. The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB. They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she's the only person who has seen his face - from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office - and she is the CIA's best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow. Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany. But what if Anne's husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice?

More information about the author can be found on his website. You can also follow him on Twitter @paulvidich and find him on Facebook. 

Books to Look Forward to From No Exit Press (Incl Oldcastle Books & Verve)

 February 2022

Berlin, 1989. Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door. Nothing about her marriage is as it seems. Anne had been targeted by the Matchmaker - a high level East German counterintelligence officer - who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his 'Romeos' who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead. The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB. They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she's the only person who has seen his face - from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office - and she is the CIA's best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow. Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany. But what if Anne's husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice? The Matchmaker is by Paul Vidich. 

March 2022

Shoot The Moonlight Out is by William Boyle. Southern Brooklyn, July 1996. Fire hydrants are open and spraying water on the sizzling blacktop. Punk kids have to make their own fun. Bobby Santovasco and his pal Zeke like to throw rocks at cars getting off the Belt Parkway. They think it's dumb and harmless until it's too late to think otherwise. Then there's Jack Cornacchia, a widower who lives with his high school age daughter Amelia and reads meters for Con Ed but also has a secret life as a vigilante, righting neighbourhood wrongs through acts of violence. A simple mission to strong-arm a Bay Ridge con man, Max Berry, leads him to cross paths with a tragedy that hits close to home.  Fast forward five years: June 2001. The summer before New York City and the world changed for good. Charlie French is a low-level gangster-wannabe trying to make a name for himself. When he stumbles onto a bowling alley locker stuffed with a bag full of cash, he brings it to his only pal, Max Berry, for safekeeping while he cleans up the mess surrounding it. Bobby Santovasco - with no real future mapped out and the big sin of his past shining brightly in his rearview mirror - has taken a job working as an errand boy for Max Berry. On a recruiting run for Max's Ponzi scheme, Bobby meets Francesca Clarke, born in the neighbourhood but an outsider nonetheless. They hit it off. Bobby gets the idea to knock off Max's safe so he and Francesca can escape Brooklyn forever. Little does he know what Charlie French has stashed there. Meanwhile, Bobby's former stepsister, Lily Murphy, is back home in the neighbourhood after college, teaching a writing class in the basement of St. Mary's church. She's also being stalked by her college boyfriend. One of her students is Jack Cornacchia. When she opens up to him about her stalker, Jack decides to take matters into his own hands.

April 2022

A Dangerous Language is by Sulari Gentill. When Rowland Sinclair volunteers his services as a pilot to fly the renowned international peace advocate, Egon Kisch, between Freemantle and Melbourne, he is unaware of how hard Australia's new Attorney General will fight to keep the reporter off Australian soil. In this, it seems, the government is not alone, as clandestine right-wing militias target Kisch...A Communist agent is murdered on the steps of Parliament House and Rowland finds himself drawn into a dangerous world of politics and assassination. Once again, he stands against the unthinkable with an artist, a poet and brazen sculptress by his side...

'When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw' - Nelson Mandela. 1964, Apartheid South Africa. Danie du Plessis, the son of a conservative Afrikaner family, is poised to start a glittering legal academic career at one of South Africa\'s leading universities, when he falls in love with a student, Amy Coetzee. But there\'s a problem: he\'s white, she\'s not. Facing arrest, imprisonment and ruin, the couple flee South Africa, and settle in Cambridge, where friends find them positions at the University. They marry and have two children, and have seemingly put the past, and South Africa, behind them. But in 1968 Art Pienaar enters their lives, and, insisting that they have a duty to fight back, enlists their help in increasingly dangerous schemes to undermine the South African regime. When Pienaar and a notorious drug dealer, Vince Cummings, are found murdered together, Danie\'s activities come to light, and he and his family find themselves in mortal danger. Danie is also threatened with criminal prosecution on behalf of a government desperate to maintain good relations with the apartheid regime. Danie knows he\'s sailed close to the wind. But has he become an outlaw? Can Ben Schroeder persuade a jury that the answer is no? To Become an Outlaw is by Peter Murphy. 

When Rowland Sinclair is invited to take his yellow Mercedes onto the Marouba Speedway, popularly known as the Killer Track, he agrees without caution or reserve.  But then people start to die... The body of a journalist covering the race is found in a House of Horrors, an English blue blood with Blackshirt affiliations is killed on the race track... and it seems that someone has Rowland in their sights... With danger presenting at every turn, and the brakes long since disengaged, Rowland Sinclair hurtles towards disaster with an artist, a poet and brazen sculptress along for the ride. Give The Devil His Due is by Sulari Gentill.

All The Tears in China is by Sulari Gentill. Shanghai in 1935 is a 20th century Babylon, an expatriate playground where fortunes are made and lost, where East and West collide, and the stakes include life itself. Into this cultural melting pot, Rowland Sinclair arrives from Sydney to represent his brother at international wool negotiations. The black sheep of the family, Rowland is under strict instructions to commit to nothing - but a brutal murder makes that impossible. As suspicion falls on him, Rowland enters a desperate bid to find answers in a city ruled by taipans and tycoons, where politics and vice are entwined with commerce, and where the only people he can truly trust are his long-term friends, an artist, a poet and a free-spirited sculptress.

May 2022

Robert B Parker's Stone's Throw is by Mike Lupica. The town of Paradise receives a tragic shock when the mayor is discovered dead, his body lying in a shallow grave on a property on the lake. It's ostensibly suicide, but Jesse has his doubts... especially because the piece of land where the man was found is the subject of a contentious and dodgy land deal. Two powerful moguls are fighting over the right to buy and develop the prime piece of real estate, and one of them has brought in a hired gun, an old adversary of Jesse's: Wilson Cromartie, aka Crow. Meanwhile, the town council is debating if they want to sacrifice Paradise's stately character for the economic boost of a glitzy new development. Tempers are running hot, and as the deaths begin to mount, it's increasingly clear that the mayor may have standing in the wrong person's way.

Books to Look Forward to From No Exit Press

September 2020

In City of Margins by William Boyle the lives of several lost souls intersect in Southern Brooklyn in the early 1990s. There's Donnie Parascandolo, a disgraced ex-cop with blood on his hands; Ava Bifulco, a widow whose daily work grind is her whole life; Nick, Ava's son, a grubby high school teacher who dreams of a shortcut to success; Mikey Baldini, a college dropout who's returned to the old neighborhood, purposeless and drifting; Donna Rotante, Donnie's ex-wife, still reeling from the suicide of their teenage son; Mikey's mother, Rosemarie, also a widow, who hopes Mikey won't fall into the trap of strong arm work; and Antonina Divino, a high school girl with designs on breaking free from Brooklyn. Uniting them are the dead: Mikey's old man, killed over a gambling debt, and Donnie and Donna's poor son, Gabe. These characters cross paths in unexpected ways, guided by coincidence and the pull of blood. There are new things to be found in the rubble of their lives, too. The promise of something different beyond the barriers that have been set out for them. This is a story of revenge and retribution, of facing down the ghosts of the past, of untold desires, of yearning and forgiveness and synchronicity, of the great distance of lives lived in dangerous proximity to each other.

The opioid epidemic has reached Paradise, and Police Chief Jesse Stone must rush to stop the devastationWhen a popular high school cheerleader dies of a suspected heroin overdose, it becomes clear that the opioid epidemic has spread even to the idyllic town of Paradise. It will be up to police chief Jesse Stone to unravel the supply chain and unmask the criminals behind it, and the investigation has a clear epicenter: Paradise High School. Home of the town’s best and brightest future leaders and its most vulnerable down-and-out teens, it’s a rich and bottomless market for dealers out of Boston looking to expand into the suburbs. But when it comes to drugs, the very people Jesse is trying to protect are often those with the most to lose. As he digs deeper into the case, he finds himself battling self-interested administrators, reluctant teachers, distrustful schoolkids, and overprotective parents . . . and at the end of the line are the true bad guys, the ones with a lucrative business they’d kill to protect. Robert B Parker's The Bitterest Pill is by Reed Farrel Coleman

October 2020

'When the Devil laughs the whole damn world laughs with Him' A mind-bending thriller blending hard-boiled detective fiction, supernatural horror, and metaphysical noir that takes readers on a macabre journey into the occult, from the East Coast to Paris to the Vatican, as private investigator Harry Angel, seeking both answers about his true identity and revenge, hunts down Satan himself. Angel's Inferno is by William Hjortsberg

In the latest thriller featuring the legendary Boston PI, Spenser heads to the City of Angels to meet old friends and new enemies in a baffling missing person case that might shake Tinseltown to its core. Gabby Leggett left her Boston family with big dreams of making it as a model/actress in Hollywood. Two years later, she disappears from her apartment. Her family, former boyfriend, friends--and the police--have no idea where she is and no leads. Leggett's mother hires Spenser to find her, with help of his former apprentice, Zebulon Sixkill, now an L.A. private eye. Spenser barely has time to unpack before the trail leads to a powerful movie studio boss, the Armenian mob, and a shadowy empowerment group some say might be a dangerous cult. It's soon clear that Spenser and Sixkill may be outgunned this time, and series favorites Chollo and Bobby Horse ride to the rescue to provide backup. From the mansions of Beverly Hills to the lawless streets of a small California town, Spenser will need to watch his step. In Hollywood, all that glitters isn't gold. And not all those who wander are lost. Robert B Parker's Angel Eyes is by Ace Atkins,

November 2020

Vietnam, 1963.- A female Viet Cong assassin is trawling the boulevards of Saigon, catching US Army officers off-guard with a single pistol shot, then riding off on the back of a scooter. Although the US military is not officially in combat, sixteen thousand American servicemen are stationed in Vietnam 'advising' the military and government. Among them are Ellsworth Miser and Clovis Robeson, two army investigators who have been tasked with tracking down the daring killer. Set in the besieged capital of a new nation on the eve of the coup that would bring down the Diem regime and launch the Americans into the Vietnam War, Play the Red Queen by Juris Jurjevics is a tour-de-force mystery-cum-social history, breathtakingly atmospheric and heartbreakingly alive with the laws and lawlessness of war.

Turncoat is by Anthony J Quinn. The sole survivor of a murderous ambush, a Belfast police detective is forced into a desperate search for a mysterious informer that takes him to a holy island on Lough Derg, a place shrouded in strange mists and hazy rain, where nothing is as it first appears to be. A keeper of secrets and a purveyor of lies, the detective finds himself surrounded by enemies disguised as pilgrims, and is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the purgatorial island, where he is forced to confront a series of disturbing secrets and ghosts in his own life.

Robert B. Parker’s beloved PI Sunny Randall returns on a case that blurs

the line between friend and foe…and if Sunny can’t tell the difference, the consequences may be deadly. When Sunny’s long-time gangster associate Tony Marcus comes to her for help, Sunny is surprised–after all, she double crossed him on a recent deal, and their relationship is on shakier ground than ever. But the way Tony figures it, Sunny owes him, and Sunny’s willing to consider his case if it will clear the slate. Tony’s trusted girlfriend and business partner has vanished, appears to have left in a hurry, and he has no idea why. He just wants to talk to her, he says, but first he needs Sunny to track her down. While Sunny isn’t willing to trust his good intentions, the missing woman intrigues her–against all odds, she’s risen to a position of power in Tony’s criminal enterprise. Sunny can’t help but admire her, and if this woman’s in a jam, Sunny would like to help. But when a witness is murdered hours after speaking to Sunny, it’s clear there’s more at stake than just Tony’s love life. Someone–maybe even Tony himself–doesn’t want this woman on the loose…and will go to any lengths to make sure she stays silent. Robert B Parker's Grudge Match is by Mike Lupica.

December 2020

'A good police force is one that catches more crooks than it employs' - Sir Robert Mark A clever, accomplished Cambridge graduate with a good job and an attentive lover, Imogen Lester seems to have the world at her feet. But when her parents are murdered abroad while working for the Diplomatic Service, she is suddenly thrown headlong into a murky world of espionage and organised crime. When she is charged with drug trafficking, even Ben Schroeder's skills may not be enough to save her - unless a shadowy figure from Ben's past can survive long enough to unmask a web of graft and corruption.. Verbal is by Peter Murphy.

Robert B Parker's Fool's Paradise is by Mike Lupica. When an unknown man is found murdered in Paradise, Jesse Stone will have his hands full finding out who he was–and what he was seeking. When a body is discovered at the lake in Paradise, Police Chief Jesse Stone is surprised to find he recognizes the murder victim–the man had been at the same AA meeting as Jesse the evening before. But otherwise, Jesse has no clue as to the man’s identity. He isn’t a local, nor does he have ID on him, nor does any neighboring state have a reported missing person matching the man’s description. Their single lead is from a taxi company that recalls dropping off the mysterious stranger outside the gate at the mansion of one of the wealthiest families in town. Meanwhile, after Jesse survives a hail of gunfire on his home, he wonders if it could be related to the mysterious murder. When both Molly Crane and Suitcase Simpson also become targets, it’s clear someone has an ax to grind against the entire Paradise Police Department.

January 2021

Evil Impulse is by Leigh Russell. Living with her colleague and long time love interest, Detective Inspector Ian Peterson, it seems that Geraldine Steel has finally found happiness. But life is never that simple. As a psychopath starts killing random women on the streets of York, Geraldine is abducted by a drugs syndicate who have been threatening her sister. Geraldine has everything to fight for, and her life is on the line...

February 2021

The small town of Red Bluff, Mississippi, has seen better days, but now seems stuck in a black-and-white photograph from days gone by. Unknowing, the town and its people are about to come alive again, awakening to nightmares, as ghostly whispers have begun to fill the night from the kudzu-covered valley that sits on the edge of town. When a vagabond family appears on the outskirts, when twin boys and a woman go missing, disappearing beneath the vines, a man with his own twisted past struggles to untangle the secrets in the midst of the town trauma. This is a landscape of fear and ghosts, of regret and violence. It is a landscape transformed by the kudzu vines that have enveloped the hills around it, swallowing homes, cars, rivers, and hiding terrible secrets deeper still. Blackwood by Michael Farris Smith is the evil in the woods, the wickedness that lurks in all of us.

March 2021

Moscow, 1985. The Soviet Union and its communist regime are in the last stages of decline, but remain opaque to the rest of the world—and still very dangerous. In this ever-shifting landscape, a senior KGB officer—code name GAMBIT—has approached the CIA Moscow Station chief with top secret military weapons intelligence and asked to be exfiltrated. GAMBIT demands that his handler be a former CIA officer, Alex Garin, a former KGB officer who defected to the American side. The CIA had never successfully exfiltrated a KGB officer from Moscow, and the top brass do not trust Garin. But they have no other options: GAMBIT's secrets could be the deciding factor in the Cold War.Garin is able to gain the trust of GAMBIT, but remains an enigma. Is he a mercenary acting in self-interest or are there deeper secrets from his past that would explain where his loyalties truly lie? As the date nears for GAMBIT’s exfiltration, and with the walls closing in on both of them, Garin begins a relationship with a Russian agent and sets into motion a plan that could compromise everything. The Mercenary by Paul Vidich.

American Sherlocks is edited by Nick Rennison. Sherlock Holmes is the most famous of all fictional detectives but, across the Atlantic, he had plenty of rivals. Between 1890 and 1920, American writers created dozens and dozens of crime-solvers. This thrilling, unusual anthology features stories about 15 of them, including Professor Augustus SFX Van Dusen, ‘The Thinking Machine’, even more cerebral than Holmes; Craig Kennedy, the so-called ‘scientific detective’; Uncle Abner, a shrewd backwoodsman in pre-Civil War Virginia; Violet Strange, New York debutante turned criminologist; and Nick Carter, the original pulp private eye.

April 2021

In the latest thriller featuring the legendary Boston PI, Spenser and his young protégé Mattie Sullivan take on billionaire money manager running a network of underaged girls for his rich and powerful clients. Ten years ago, Spenser helped a teenage girl named Mattie Sullivan find her mother's killer and take down an infamous Southie crime boss. Now Mattie--a college student with a side job working for the tough but tender private eye--dreams of being an investigator herself. Her first big case involves a fifteen-year-old girl assaulted by a much older man at one of Boston's most prestigious private clubs. The girl, Chloe Turner, only wants the safe return of her laptop and backpack. But like her mentor and boss, Mattie has a knack for asking the right questions of the wrong people. Soon Spenser and Mattie find ties between the exploitation of dozens of other girls from working class families to an eccentric billionaire and his sadistic hench woman with a mansion on Commonwealth Avenue. The mystery man's wealth, power and connections extend well beyond Massachusetts - maybe even beyond the United States. Spenser and trusted ally Hawk must again watch out for Mattie as she unravels a massive sex-trafficking ring that will take them from Boston to Boca Raton to the Bahamas, crossing paths with local toughs, a highly-trained security company, and an old enemy of Spenser's--the Gray Man--for a final epic showdown. Robert B Parker's Someone to Watch Over Me is by Ace Atkins.

When We Fall is by Carolyn Kirby. England, 1943. Lost in fog, pilot Vee Katchatourian is

forced to make an emergency landing where she meets enigmatic RAF airman Stefan Bergel, and then can’t get him out of her mind. In occupied Poland, Ewa Hartman hosts German officers in her father’s guest house, while secretly gathering intelligence for the Polish resistance. Mourning her lover, Stefan, who was captured by the Soviets at the start of the war, Ewa is shocked to see him on the street one day. Haunted by a terrible choice he made in captivity, Stefan asks Vee and Ewa to help him expose one of the darkest secrets of the war. But it is not clear where everyone’s loyalties lie until they are tested.

June 2021

In The Bones of Wolfe by James Carlos Blake, Rudy and Frank Wolfe are engaging in routine miscellaneous business—some legitimate and some less so—for their family when they stumble upon a stash of high-quality pornographic films in a raid. The plot thickens when their Aunt Catalina, the family matriarch aged 115, recognizes her long-lost sister in one of the young performers. Catalina tasks the boys with tracking the girl down, however improbable a connection may be. This proves to be no simple task. Soon, Rudy and Frank find themselves moving away from world of porn and towards the upper echelons of the Sinaloa drug cartel, where the mysterious woman has become a particular favorite of the head narco. For their aunt, the woman, and themselves, Frank and Rudy must find a way to get her out without alerting the cartel. A tropical storm complicates their quest, but their sprawling family may save them from this obstacle, too.

Books to Look Forward to from No Exit Press and Oldcastle Press

November 2019

Reap The Whirlwind is by Mark Timlin.  Poor old Nick Sharman may be dead and gone, but there's still life left in the old dog yet - as Mark Timlin shows in this collection of stories about his memorable detective. Follow Sharman as he rocks through the underworld of 90s London and beyond with more than a helping hand from his old mate Detective Inspector Robber, both men still sharp as a pair of tacks. There's murder, mayhem and maybe a few laughs on the way - plus an interesting soundtrack.

December 2019

Doesn’t trust the police.  She used to be one…. Harden by ten years on the murder squad, DNA analyst Doctor Sian Love had seen it all.  So when she finds human remains in the basement of her new house, she knows the drill.  Except this time its different.   This time, its personal.  Dead Flowers is by Nicola Monaghan 

Trust Me I’m Dead is by Sherryl Clark.  She hasn't seen her brother in years. Now, he's dead.  When Judi Westerholme finds out her estranged brother has been murdered, she assumes it's connected to his long term drug addiction. Returning home, she is shocked to discover he had been clean for years, had a wife – now missing – a child and led a respectable life. But if he had turned his life around, why was he killed in a drug deal shooting? And where is his wife?  Desperate to know what really happened, Judi sets out to uncover the truth, even though it means confronting her own traumatic past. But she's not the only one looking for answers...

January 2020

In the aftermath of a mass shooting at a mosque in Quebec, the local police apprehend Amadou Duchon - a young Muslim man at the scene helping the wounded - but release Etienne Roy, the local priest who was found with a weapon in his hands. The shooting looks like a hate crime, but detectives Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty sense there is more to the story. Sent to liaise with a community in the grip of fear, they find themselves in fraught new territory, fuelled by the panic and suspicion exploited by a right-wing radio host. As Rachel and Esa grapple to stop tensions shutting the case down entirely, all the time, someone is pointing Esa in another direction, a shadowy presence who anticipates his every move. A Deadly Divide is a piercingly observed, gripping thriller that reveals the fractures that try to tear us all apart: from the once-tight partnership between detectives Esa and Rachel, to the truth about a deeply divided nation.  A Deadly Divide is by Ausma Zehanat Khan.

February 2020

The Coldest Warrior is by Paul Vidich.  In 1953, at the end of the Korean War, Dr. Charles Wilson, an Army bio-weapons scientist, died when he “jumped or fell” from the ninth floor of a Washington hotel. As his wife and children grieve, the details of his death remain buried for twenty-two years.  With the release of the Rockefeller Commission report on illegal CIA activities in 1975, LSD is linked to Wilson’s death, and suddenly the Wilson case becomes news again. Wilson’s family and the press are demanding answers, suspecting the CIA of foul play, and men in the CIA, FBI, and White House conspire to make sure the truth doesn’t get out.  Enter agent Jack Gabriel, an old friend of the Wilson family who is instructed by the CIA director to find out what really happened to Wilson. It’s Gabriel’s last mission before he retires from the agency, and his most perilous as he finds a continuing cover-up that reaches to the highest levels of government.  Key witnesses connected to the case die from suspicious causes, and Gabriel realizes that the closer he gets to the truth, the more he puts himself and his family at risk.

March 2020

Robert B Parker’s Blood Feud is by Mike Lupica.  Sunny Randall is "on" again with Richie, the ex-husband she never stopped loving and never seemed to be able to let go, despite her discomfort with his Mafia connections. When Richie is shot and nearly killed, Sunny is dragged into the thick of his family's business as she searches for answers and tries to stave off a mob war. But as the bullets start flying in Boston's mean streets, Sunny finds herself targeted by the deranged mastermind of the plot against the Burke family, whose motive may be far more personal than she could have anticipated...

April 2020

Southern Cross Crime is by Craig Sisterton.  Australian and New Zealand crime and thriller writing is booming globally, with antipodean authors regularly featuring on awards and bestseller lists across Europe and North America, and overseas readers and publishers looking more and more to tales from lands Down Under.   Hailing from two sparsely populated nations on the far edge of the former Empire – neighbours that are siblings in spirit, vastly different in landscape – Australian and New Zealand crime writers offer readers a blend of exotic and familiar, seasoned by distinctive senses of place, outlook, and humour, and roots that trace to the earliest days of our genre. Southern Cross Crime is the first comprehensive guide to modern Australian and New Zealand crime writing. From coastal cities to the Outback, leading critic Craig Sisterson showcases key titles from more than 200 storytellers, plus screen dramas ranging from Mystery Road to Top of the Lake. Fascinating insights are added through in-depth interviews with some of the prime suspects who paved the way or instigated the global boom, including Jane Harper, Michael Robotham, Paul Cleave, Emma Viskic, Paul Thomas, and Candice Fox. 

May 2020

The opioid epidemic has reached Paradise, and Police Chief Jesse Stone must rush to stop the devastation in the latest thriller in Robert B. Parker's Jesse Stone series.  When a popular high school cheerleader dies of a suspected heroin overdose, it becomes clear that the opioid epidemic has spread even to the idyllic town of Paradise. It will be up to police chief Jesse Stone to unravel the supply chain and unmask the criminals behind it, and the investigation has a clear epicenter: Paradise High School. Home of the town's best and brightest future leaders and its most vulnerable down-and-out teens, it's a rich and bottomless market for dealers out of Boston looking to expand into the suburbs.  But when it comes to drugs, the very people Jesse is trying to protect are often those with the most to lose. As he digs deeper into the case, he finds himself battling self-interested administrators, reluctant teachers, distrustful schoolkids, and overprotective parents...and at the end of the line are the true bad guys, the ones with a lucrative business they'd kill to protect.  Robert B Parker’s The Bitterest Pill is by Reed Farrel Coleman. 

A Testament of Character is by Sulari Gentill.  In fear for his life, American millionaire Daniel Cartwright changes his will, appointing his old friend Rowland Sinclair as his executor.  Soon murder proves that fear well founded.  When Rowland receives word of Cartwright’s death, he sets out immediately for Boston, Massachusetts, to bury his friend and honour his last wishes. He is met with the outrage and anguish of Cartwright’s family, who have been spurned in favour of a man they claim does not exist.  Artists and gangsters, movie stars and tycoons all gather to the fray as elite society closes in to protect its own, and family secrets haunt the living. Rowland Sinclair must confront a world in which insanity is relative, greed is understood, and love is dictated; where the only people he can truly trust are an artist, a poet and a passionate sculptress.

June 2020

Robert B. Parker's beloved PI Sunny Randall returns on a case that blurs the line between friend and foe...and if Sunny can't tell the difference, the consequences may be deadly.  When Sunny's long-time gangster associate Tony Marcus comes to her for help, Sunny is surprised--after all, she double crossed him on a recent deal, and their relationship is on shakier ground than ever. But the way Tony figures it, Sunny owes him, and Sunny's willing to consider his case if it will clear the slate.    Tony's trusted girlfriend and business partner has vanished, appears to have left in a hurry, and he has no idea why. He just wants to talk to her, he says, but first he needs Sunny to track her down. While Sunny isn't willing to trust his good intentions, the missing woman intrigues her--against all odds, she's risen to a position of power in Tony's criminal enterprise. Sunny can't help but admire her, and if this woman's in a jam, Sunny would like to help.  But when a witness is murdered hours after speaking to Sunny, it's clear there's more at stake than just Tony's love life. Someone--maybe even Tony himself--doesn't want this woman on the loose...and will go to any lengths to make sure she stays silent.  Robert B Parker’s Grudge Match is by Mike Lupica.

Sherlock’s Sisters by Nick Rennison is also being published in June.

A clever, accomplished Cambridge graduate with a good job and an attentive lover, Imogen Lester seems to have the world at her feet.  But when her parents are murdered abroad while working for the Diplomati Service, she is suddenly thrown headlong into a murky world of espisonage and organised crime.  When she is charged with drug trafficking, even Ben Schroeder’s skills may not be enough to save her – unless a shadowy figure from Ben’s past can survive long enough to unmask a web of graft and corruption.  Verbal is by Peter Murphy.

July 2020

Gabby Leggett left her Boston family with dreams of making it big as a model/actress in Hollywood. Two years later, she disappears from her apartment. Her family, former boyfriend, friends--and the police--have no idea where she is and no leads. Leggett's mother hires Spenser to find her, with help of his former apprentice, Zebulon Sixkill, now an L.A. private eye.  Spenser barely has time to unpack before the trail leads to a powerful movie studio boss, the Armenian mob, and a shadowy empowerment group some say might be a dangerous cult.  It's soon clear that Spenser and Sixkill may be outgunned this time, and series favourites Chollo and Bobby Horse ride to the rescue to provide backup. From the mansions of Beverly Hills to the lawless streets of a small California town, Spenser will need to watch his step. In Hollywood, all that glitters isn't gold. And not all those who wander are lost.  Robert B Parker’s Angel Eyes is by Ace Atkins. 

DS Geraldine Steel knows well that circumstances are rarely as simple as they first seem.  As she struggles to shake off her suspicions about a controlling family patriarch, who also happens to be a highly unpopular local council leader, tensions, coincidences and complications begin to pile up – and then a body is found.  Deadly Revenge is by Leigh Russell.

Books to Look Forward to From No Exit Press, Oldcastle Books and Pocket Essentials

January 2017

1947 and Gregor Reinhardt has been hired back onto Berlin's civilian police force. The city is divided among the victorious allied powers, tensions are growing, and the police are riven by internal rivalries as factions within it jockey for power and influence with Berlin's new masters.  When a man is found slain in a broken-down tenement, Reinhardt embarks on a gruesome investigation. It seems a serial killer is on the loose, and matters only escalate when it's discovered that one of the victims was the brother of a Nazi scientist.  Reinhardt's search for the truth takes him across the divided city and soon embroils him in a plot involving the Western Allies and the Soviets. And as he comes under the scrutiny of a group of Germans who want to continue the war – and faces an unwanted reminder from his own past – Reinhardt realizes that this investigation could cost him everything as he pursues a killer who believes that all wrongs must be avenged... The Ashes of Berlin is by Luke McCallin.

  

March 2017

Boundary is by Andrée A Michaud. It’s the Summer of 1967, The sun shines brightly over

Boundary Pond, a lake on the US-Canadian border. Holiday makers enjoy the summer, happy and carefree. Zaza Mulligan and Sissy Morgan play in the hot sand. Children run along the beach as the hours tick away to the sound of the radio blaring out the latest hits and the smell of barbecues. Life seems idyllic.  But then Zaza disappears, and the skies begin to cloud over...

Slow Burn is by Ace Atkins. The fire at a boarded-up Catholic church raged hot and fast, lighting up Boston's South End and killing three fire-fighters who were trapped in the inferno. A year later, as the city prepares to honour their sacrifice, there are still no answers about how the deadly fire started. Most at the department believe it was just a simple accident: faulty wiring in a century-old building. But Boston fire-fighter Jack McGee, who lost his best friend in the blaze, suspects arson. McGee is convinced department investigators aren't sufficiently connected to the city's lowlifes to get a handle on who's behind the blaze - so he takes the case to Spenser. Spenser quickly learns not only that McGee might be right but that the fire might be linked to a rash of new arsons spreading through the city. Spenser follows the trail of fires to Boston's underworld, bringing him; his trusted ally, Hawk; and his apprentice, Sixkill, toe-to-toe with a dangerous new enemy who doesn't play by the city's old rules. Spenser has to find the firebug before he kills again - and stay alive himself.

April 2017

Night Market is by Daniel Pembrey. When Henk van der Pol is asked by the Justice Minister to infiltrate a team investigating an online child exploitation network, he can hardly say no – he’s at the mercy of prominent government figures in The Hague. But he soon realises the case is far more complex than he was led to believe… Sometimes, to catch the bad guys, you have to think like one. . ..

Former CIA Agent George Mueller arrives in Havana in August 1958—the last months before

the fall of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista—to look into the activities of Toby Graham, a CIA officer suspected of harboring sympathies for the rebel forces fighting the unpopular Batista regime. Mueller knew Graham as an undergraduate and later they were colleagues in Berlin fighting the Soviet NKVD. Under the guise of their long acquaintance Mueller is recruited to vet rumors that Graham is putting weapons, covertly provided by the CIA to Batista, into the hands of Castro’s forces. Public exposure of the CIA weapons mission, and the activity of one rogue agent, threaten to embarrass the agency.  Mueller uncovers a world of deceit as the FBI, CIA, and State Department compete to influence the outcome of the revolution in the face of the brutal dictatorship’s imminent collapse. Graham, meanwhile, is troubled by the hypocrisy of a bankrupt US foreign policy, and has fallen in love with a married American woman, Liz Malone.  The Good Assassin is by Paul Vidich.

American Noir is Barry Forshaw who is acknowledged as a leading expert on crime fiction and films from Britain and the European countries, but a further area of expertise is American crime fiction, film and TV, as demonstrated in such books as The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction and Detective. After the success of earlier entries in his ‘Noir’ series -- Nordic Noir, Brit Noir and Euro Noir -- he now tackles the largest and, some might argue, most impressive body of crime fiction from a single country, the United States, to produce the perfect reader's guide to modern American crime fiction. The word ‘Noir’ is used in its loosest sense: every major living American writer is considered (including the giants Harlan Coben, Patricia Cornwell, James Lee Burke, James Ellroy and Sara Paretsky, as well as non-crime writers such as Stephen King who stray into the genre), often through a concentration on one or two key books.  Many exciting new talents are highlighted, and Barry Forshaw’s knowledge of – and personal acquaintance with – many of the writers grants valuable insights into this massively popular field. But the crime genre is as much about films and TV as it is about books, and American Noir is a celebration of the former as well as the latter. US television crime drama in particular is enjoying a new golden age, and all of the important current series are covered here, as well as key important recent films.

May 2017

A hand gripped her upper arm so suddenly it made her yelp. Biting her lower lip, she spun

round, lashing out in terror. As she yanked her arm out of his grasp, her elbow hit the side of his chest. Struggling to cling on to her, he lost his footing. She staggered back and reached out, leaning one hand on the cold wall of the tunnel. Before she had recovered her balance he fell, arms flailing, eyes glaring wildly as he disappeared over the edge of the platform onto the rails below. . .  Two murder victims and a suspect whose alibi appears open to doubt... Geraldine Steel is plunged into a double murder investigation which threatens not only her career, but her life.  When her previously unknown twin Helena turns up, her problems threaten to make Geraldine's life turn toxic in more ways than one.  Deadly Alibi is by Leigh Russell

June 2017

Calling Down the Storm by Peter Murphy is the story of two separate but strangely parallel lives: the life of a defendant on trial for murder, and the life of the judge who presides over his trial.   April 1971. When DI Webb and DS Raymond arrive at Harpur’s Mews in Bloomsbury in response to a 999 call, a horrific scene awaits them. Susan Lang is lying on the ground, bleeding to death. Her husband Henry is sitting nearby, holding a large, blood-stained knife. In shock, Henry claims to have no memory of the events that led to his wife’s death leaving his barrister, Ben Schroeder, little to defend a potential charge of murder.  Unknown to his strict Baptist wife Deborah who lives in the family home in Guildford, Mr Justice Conrad Rainer has a secret life in his London flat, a life as a high-stakes gambler. In his desperation for money to fund his gaming, he has already raided his own and Deborah’s resources, and now he has crossed another line – one from which there is no return. To his horror, as the trial of Henry Lang starts, Conrad discovers a sinister connection between the trial and his gambling debts, a connection that could cause his world to unravel. And then, there’s the other terrible secret he is hiding in his flat. In a rare case in which the judge is in greater peril than the defendant on trial in his court, both Henry and Conrad have called down the storm on to their heads. Their lives are on the line, and time is running out.