Books to Look Forward to from Constable and Robinson

Hunted by 9 international Intelligence Agencies for a terrorist atrocity he did not commit, hostage negotiator Danny Shanklin is now the world's most Wanted man, with a reward of $10,000,000 being offered for his capture dead or alive. Trapped in a deadly race against the clock, as well as protecting his family, Danny's got to track down the terrorists who framed him. And stop them before they get their hands on 6 lethal smallpox formulations, any one of which could trigger a global pandemic, which would leave only 1 in 3 people alive. With just a 7 foot Ukrainian mercenary and a ruthless female assassin hell-bent on avenging her father's death to help him, Danny soon finds himself being forced into becoming both predator and prey as he desperately tries to win the fight of his life. Wanted is the sequel to Hunted and is by Emlyn Rees.  It is due to be published in June 2014.

When Sorrows Come is by Matt McGuire and is due to be published in May 2014.  Belfast, 2 a.m, Tomb Street. A young man lies dead in an alley.  Cracked ribs, broken jaw, fractured skull.  With the Celtic Tiger purring and the Troubles in their death throes, Detective Sergeant John O’Neill is called in to investigate.  Meanwhile O’Neill’s partner, DI Jack Ward, a veteran detective, is receiving death threats from an unknown source.

 

The First Rule of Survival is the debut novel by Paul Mendelson and is due to be published in April 2014.  Seven years ago in Cape Town three young white South African schoolboys were abducted in broad daylight on three consecutive days. They were never heard of again. Now, a new case for the unpredictable Senior Superintendent Vaughn DeVries casts a light on the original enquiry; for him, a personal failure which has haunted him for those seven years and has cost him his marriage and peace of mind. A former British government agent, friend to DeVries, provides intelligence on this new case, but is any of it admissible? Struggling in a mire of departmental and racial rivalry, DeVries seeks the whole truth and unravels a complex history of abuse, deception and murder. Challenging friends, colleagues and enemies, DeVries comes to realise he doesn't know who is which any more. Set against the background of Cape Town and the endless rolling South African velt, this chilling thriller reveals layer after layer of abuse - physical, political and psychological.

 Kitsap County forensic pathologist Birdy Waterman is well-known for giving a voice to the voiceless: the corpses of people who are often victims of violent crimes. When an unidentified foot is found in Banner Forest, she teams up with homicide detective Kendall Stark to investigate. The pair soon discover that people all over town are hiding secrets – even Birdy – that can prove deadly if they are uncovered.  Unquiet Bones is by Gregg Olsen and is due to be published in June 2014.

From one of the best living exponents of new Sherlock Holmes stories, a collection of 12 new strange tales and unusual mysteries of the kind loved by Holmes aficionados. The stories, which include ‘The Adventure of the Crimson Arrow’ and ‘An Incident in Society’, faithfully recreate the atmosphere of Conan Doyle’s early Holmes stories, and are set during the 1880s and early 1890s, before Holmes’s disappearance at the Reichenbach Falls.  The Mammoth Book of the Lost Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes is edited by Denis O Smith and is due to be published in January 2014.

Hunting down a paeodophile priest, Carlyle finds himself up against his old adversary Christian Holyrod. The Mayor of London is responsible for hosting an upcoming visit by the Pope and does not want any more scandals involving the Catholic church. Carlyle, however, is not prepared to let crimes side, putting him on a collision course with both the mayor and the church. Without his sympathetic boss, Carole Simpson, to protect him, could this be the end of the line for Carlyle? Never one to fight only one battle at a time, he also has to deal with an armed robbery at an upscale jewellers in Mayfair...and a serious health scare for Helen, his wife.  A Man of Sorrows is the sixth book in the Inspector Carlyle series by James Craig and it is due to be published in February 2014.

When Vince Treadwell spots a famous jewel thief in Soho one night and the next day reads about a daring robbery at the Ritz, he takes it upon himself to investigate the case as the missing jewels belong to the beautiful French movie star Capuchine, with whom Vince is smitten. But it soon leads to murder - and he is the chief suspect. In prison and looking at a life sentence, Vince is offered a lifeline from his old friend at Interpol, Ray Dryden. He wants Vince to go undercover and return the jewels to the movie star, who is secretly dating hotshot producer, Carlo Messina. But in reality Messina is one of the biggest gangsters in Marseille , running a heroin pipeline to America. So after a daring prison escape, and armed with fake jewels, Vince finds himself on the French Riviera - and it just happens to be the eve of the 1965 Cannes film festival. Against the backdrop of movie star glamour, Vince soon finds himself embroiled in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the charismatic and psychotic criminal; a man for whom movies and reality are indivisible, and murder and mayhem are on the script.  Exit the Thief is by Danny Miller and is due to be published in March 2014.

The Third Gate is by Lincoln Child and is due to be published in June 2014. In the harsh locale of the northern Sudan, an archaeological team under the direction of renowned explorer Porter Stone attempts to locate the tomb of ancient pharaoh King Narmer, whose famed crown is supposedly possessed of mythical powers. After a series of harrowing and inexplicable occurrences befall the team and have them living in fear of a centuries-old curse, Professor Jeremy Logan is brought in to investigate. What he finds will raise new questions … and alarm.

Letters to My Daughter’s Killer is by Cath Staincliffe and is due to be published in April 2014.  Grandmother Ruth Sutton writes to the man she hates more than anyone else on the planet: the man who she believes killed her daughter Lizzie in a brutal attack four years earlier. Ruth's burden of grief and hatred, has only grown heavier with the passing of time, her avid desire for vengeance ever stronger. In writing to him Ruth hopes to exorcise the corrosive emotions that are destroying her life, to find the truth and with it release and a way forward. Whether she can ever truly forgive him is another matter - but the letters are her last, best hope.  Letters to My Daughter's Killer exposes the aftermath of violent crime for an ordinary family and explores fundamental questions of crime and punishment. How do we deal with the very human desire for revenge? If we get justice does reconciliation follow? Can we really forgive those who do us the gravest wrong? Could you?

The Lost Ones is by Ace Atkins and is due to be published in May 2014. When Army Ranger Quinn Colson, the new sheriff of Tebbehah County, is called out to investigate a child abuse case, what he finds is a horrifying scene of neglect, thirteen empty cribs, and a shoe box full of money. Janet and Ramon Torres seem to have skipped town - but Colson's sure they'll come back for the cash. Meanwhile, Colson's sister has returned - clean and sober for good she says. His friend Boom has been drinking himself into oblivion and picking fights at the local bar. And his old flame is pregnant. But Colson can't focus on his personal problems. He and Deputy Lillie Virgil are convinced that Janet and Ramon have a taste for guns, drugs, and human trafficking. Soon Colson and Virgil find a link between the fugitive couple and a drug cartel that controls most of the Texas border, taking their investigation far beyond the rough hills of northeast Mississippi...

Also due to be published in May by Ace Atkins is The Broken Places.  A year after becoming sheriff, Quinn Colson is faced with the release of an infamous murderer from prison.  Jamey Dixon comes back to Jericho preaching redemption, and some believe him, but for the victim’s family, the only thought is revenge. Colson has his work cut out for him, made all the worse by a tornado that hits nearby.  Communications are down, the roads are impassable – and the rule of law is just about to snap.

 A Brief Guide to Agatha Christie is by Nigel Cawthorne and is due to be published in June 2014.  Agatha Christie’s 80 novels and short-story collections have sold over 2 billion copies in more than 45 languages; more than any other author. When he died, Poirot, that ‘detestable, bombastic, tiresome, egocentric little creep’ in Christie’s words, received a full-page obituary in the New York Times. From her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, a Poirot mystery, to her last, Sleeping Murder, featuring Miss Marple, Cawthorne explores Christie’s life and fiction.

A pen pusher from Head Office soon finds himself pushing up the daisies...Local police stations all over the Scottish Highlands are being threatened with closure and this presents the perfect opportunity for Detective Chief Inspector Blair, who would love nothing more than to get rid of Sergeant Hamish Macbeth. Blair suggests that Cyril Sessions, a keen young police officer, visit the town of Lochdubh to monitor exactly what Hamish does every day. On hearing of Blair's plans Hamish is fully prepared to ensure young Cyril returns back to headquarters with a full report ...but before he can do that, Cyril is found dead and Hamish very quickly becomes the prime suspect for his murder... Death of a Policeman is by M C Beaton and is due to be published in February 2014.

When a claimant to the title of Lord Darlymple comes to an unexpected sticky end, the cry goes up: 'Was it murder?' The Honourable Daisy Dalrymple is recruited by her cousin Edgar - the current Lord Dalrymple - to help him find the next heir to the viscountcy. With the involvement of the family lawyer, they come up with four claimants who, along with Daisy, are invited to Fairacres, the family estate, to celebrate Edgar's fiftieth birthday. And they're a mixed bunch. A hotelier from Scarborough, a diamond merchant from South Africa, a mixed-race boy from Trinidad and a sailor from Jamaica. But then the sailor goes missing ...and so begins a series of inexplicable and troubling accidents, resulting in the death of one of the would-be heirs. Daisy and her husband, DCI Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, are left wondering who might be behind all of this and, more importantly ...who's next?  Heirs to the Body is by Carola Dunn and is due to be published in December 2013.

Chief Inspector Henrique Monroe of the Lisbon Police Department is not your usual cop, and his peculiar behaviour at crime scenes is legendary. But his colleagues put up with it because, in the end, Monroe’s the best of the best. But he has a double-sided secret. And when he’s called to investigate the brutal slaying of well-connected Portuguese businessman Pedro Coutinho, it’s not just the murder case that will unravel – but his own identity, too.  The Night Watchman is by Richard Zimler and is due to be published in June 2014.

Pagan Spring is by G M Malliet and is due to be published in March 2014.  Vicar Max Tudor feels that life at the moment holds no greater challenge than writing his Easter sermon. But when a guest is poisoned at a local dinner, Max knows a criminal atmosphere has once again enveloped his perfect village of Nether Monkslip. Connections to past crimes, some sparked by the paintings of a famous local artist, help Max unravel the clues – but will he be too late to restore peace to the village?

The British Museum in Bloomsbury is home to one of the Caryatids, a beautiful and priceless statue of a maiden that Lord Elgin brought to London in the 19th century. Lord Francis Powerscourt finds himself summoned by the museum to attend a most urgent matter: the Caryatid has been stolen and an inferior copy left in her place. Powerscourt agrees to handle the case discreetly – but then comes the first death: an employee of the British Museum is pushed under a rush-hour train before he and the police can question him. What had he known about the statue’s disappearance? And who would want such a priceless object? Powerscourt and his friend Johnny Fitzgerald embark on a mission that takes them deep into the heart of London’s Greek community and the upper echelons of English society to uncover the bizarre truth of the vanishing lady.  Death of an Elgin Marble is by David Dickinson and is due to be published in January 2014.

The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime Volume 11 is edited by Maxim Jakubowski and is due to be published in June 2014.  A superb collection of the year’s most outstanding short crime fiction published in the UK it showcases the impressive breadth of crime writing, from cosy tales of detection to noir mayhem and psychological suspense and terror. There are puzzles to solve, questions about the nature of society, but, above all, there is an abundance of first-class entertainment by writers of the calibre of Robert Barnard, Lee Child, Simon Kernick, Val McDermid and Zoë Sharp.

When Gordianus’ lover Bethesda is kidnapped by mistake, he must seek out her captors before they realise they have the wrong woman and dispose of her for good. A raid on the golden tomb of Alexander the Great, a shady troupe of travelling performers, highwaymen, amorous innkeepers, the politics of the pharaohs and an adventure on the Nile all combine to make this a rescue mission neither Gordianus – or Bethesda – will ever forget.  Raiders of the Nile is by Steven Saylor and is due to be published in May 2014.

 Night Kills is by John Lutz and is due to be published in June 2014.  Frank Quinn is sure he is hunting for a madman: someone is shooting young women in the heart and defiling their bodies, leaving only torsos to be found. Quinn, a former NYPD detective, is called on to the case by an ambitious chief of police and mobilises his team of brilliant law-enforcement misfits. But in the concrete canyons of New York, this shocking serial murder case is turning into something very different …

Late December. A 16-year-old girl is found dead on a train line. Detective Sergeant Lucy Black is called to identify the body. The only clues to the dead teenager’s last movements are stored in her mobile phone and on social media – and it soon becomes clear that her ‘friends’ were not as trustworthy as she thought. Lucy is no stranger to death: she is still haunted by the memory of the child she failed to save, and the killer she failed to put behind bars. And with a new boss scrutinizing her every move, she is determined that – this time – she will leave no margin for error. Hurt is a tense crime thriller about how, in the hands of a predator, trust can turn into terror.  Hurt is by Brian McGilloway and is due to be published in November 2013.

 

The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction is edited by Maxim Jakubowski and is due to be published in February 2014.  A truly mammoth collection of 7 decades of pure, unadulterated pulp fiction, jam-packed with tough guys and femme fatales. Join shady operators, voluptuous molls, ruthless bigshots and crooked – or just occasionally, honest – cops on a rollercoaster ride through the mean streets of popular literature in the company of outstanding writers of hardboiled crime such as Dashiell Hammett, Bill Pronzini and Micky Spillane, as well as some forgotten authors well worth rediscovering.

Books to look forward to from Constable and Robinson

David Dickinson’s Death in a Scarlet Coat is due to be published in January 2011. Master of the Hunt, the fifteenth Earl of Candlesby, has come to lead his riders once again. But this time he comes as a corpse, wrapped in blankets across his horse, a corner of his scarlet coat visible in the morning mist. Only three people see the body. One dies. Another vanishes. Now only one man knows how he was killed. Lord Francis Powerscourt is summoned to investigate murder in a crumbling house where the paper is peeling off the walls and the stuffed owls each only have one leg. The estate is virtually bankrupt as Powerscourt uncovers a world of jealousy, revenge and hatred, where the sons are as dissolute and dangerous as the father. The fifteenth earl had left a trail of duels, theft and adultery across the flatlands of Lincolnshire. It takes another death and a deadly chase under the crumbling estate before Powerscourt unlocks the secret of death in a scarlet coat.

Death of a Sweep is by M C Beaton and is due to be published in February 2011. In the south of Scotland, residents get their chimneys vacuum-cleaned. But in the isolated villages in the very north of Scotland, the villagers rely on the services of the itinerant sweep, Pete Ray, and his old-fashioned brushes. Pete is always able to find work in the Scottish highlands, until one

day when Police Constable Hamish Macbeth notices blood dripping onto the floor of a villager's fireplace, and a dead body stuffed inside the chimney. The entire town of Lochdubh is certain Pete is the culprit, but Hamish doesn't believe that the affable chi

mney sweep is capable of committing murder. Then Pete's body is found on the Scottish moors, and the mystery deepens. Once again, it’s up to Hamish to discover who’s responsible for the dirty deed — and this time, the murderer may be closer than he realizes.

Stormtide is a Webb Carrick murder mystery. Webb Carrick of the Scottish Fisheries Protection Service latest adventure takes him on a North Atlantic shark hunt in the waters of the storm-tossed Hebrides. Webb Carrick finds he has inadvertently strayed right into the middle of a smouldering feud between a renegade band of shark hunters and some vengeful local fishermen, angered by the drowning of a young girl – a feud which threatens to ignite when he boards a wrecked fishing boat and finds her skipper dead on deck. As furious charges and counter charges are hurled, murder and arson come to the islands with stealthy suddenness. But when the final stormtide breaks even Webb Carrick is staggered to discover how much is at stake in terms of life and death. Stormtide is by Bill Knox and is due to be published in February 2011.

Murder at the Villa Byzantine is the sixth crime novel to feature amateur sleuths Antonia Darcy and Major Payne. What role does the mysterious Miss Hope, former governess to the Bulgarian royal family, play in the bizarre murder at the Villa Byzantine? And does she in fact actually exist? Antonia Darcy and Major Hugh Payne attend a birthday party for one of their Hampstead neighbours, little knowing they will end up investigating the grisly death of one of Melisa

nde Chevret’s other guests. The ageing actress becomes a natural suspect when her love rival is killed. But after that first murder, another murder takes place at the Villa Byzantine. The owner of the exotically styled house is royal biographer Tancred Vane, but he swears he is innocent. And surely his new friend Catherine Hope, an elderly lady helping him with his research, can have nothing to do with it? It looks as though the victim’s daughter is to blame – but how likely is it that a teenage girl should have a dainty silk handkerchief bearing her monogram? And would she drop it so conveniently beside her mother’s dead body? Murder at the Villa Byzantine is by R T Raichev and is due to be published in February 2011.

Why Don’t You Come For Me is by Diane Janes and will be published in March 2011. Sometimes Jo still wakes suddenly, thinking she can hear Lauren’s cry. Although twelve years have passed since her baby daughter was abducted, photos of the child continue to arrive by post with the words, I Still Have Her, scrawled across the back. The police think it’s the work of a hoaxer but Jo has always believed them to be genuine – and until there is some hard evidence to the contrary, she will always hold on to the belief that Lauren is still alive. But if the pictures really do come from the kidnapper it means that they have been keeping track of Jo’s movements all these years – and recently Jo has begun to feel as if she is being watched – and that whoever has her daughter is getting closer. Is Jo’s husband right to dismiss her fears as paranoia, or might Jo herself be in danger? As her life begins to unravel Jo fears that the truth may lie in older events; in a half-forgotten childhood world, scarred by rumours of insanity and murder.

The Calling by Alison Bruce and is the third in the DC Goodhew series and is due to be published in July 2011. Kaye Whiting went to buy a birthday present and didn’t come back. She isn’t dead, or physically injured. But she is alone and very, very scared. Fifty miles away in Cambridge town centre a deeply disturbed young woman is standing by a payphone. She kno

ws she often feels compelled to do harmful things and is driven by a desire to make a call. DC Goodhew is

one of the detectives assigned to find Kaye and when her body is discovered the only clue to the potential murderer is a woman’s voice on his answerphone saying, ‘K

aye isn’t the first and won’t be the last…’

The Witness is by Cath Staincliffe. A senseless crime, a community in fear, would you dare stand up and be counted? Would you bear witness knowing how high the cost might be? Four bystanders in the wrong place at the wrong time. Witnesses to the shocking shooting of a teenage boy. A moment that changes their lives forever. Fiona, a midwife, is plagued by panic attacks and unable to work. Has she the strength to testify? Mike, a delivery driver and family man, faces an impossible decision when his frightened wife forces him to choose – us or the court case. Cheryl, a single-mother, doesn’t want her child to grow up in the same climate of fear. Dare she speak out and risk her own life? Zak, a homeless man, offers to talk in exchange for witness protection and the chance of a new start. Ordinary people in an extraordinary situation. Will the witnesses stand firm or be prevented from giving evidence? How will they cope with the emotional trauma of reliving the murder under pitiless cross-examination? A compassionate, suspenseful and illuminating story exploring the real human cost of bearing witness. The Witness is due to be published in April 2011.

Death’s Other Kingdom is the third Inspector Max Romero mystery. 23rd February 1981 – an attempted military coup in Spain. Thirty years later, young journalist Mariana Mora learns that her father’s death that day was suicide. She doesn’t believe it. As Granada moves through its winter cycle of pageants and rituals, Inspector Max Romero investigates assaults on two young women. Both had received threatening notes. And then Mariana is found dead. The police are convinced they are dealing with a serial assailant but Max discovers a link to the death of Mariana’s father. The ghosts of the coup are still powerful and deadly. Death’s Other Kingdom is by P J Brooke and is due to be published in July 2011.

Blotto, Twinks and the Rodents of the Riviera is by Simon Brett. There is consternation at Tawcester Towers! While giving a guided tour of the house’s Long Gallery Blotto is stunned to discover that two of the family portraits – a Gainsborough and a Reynolds – are missing. Tawcester Towers has been the victim of art thieves! Blotto is forced to summon his brilliantly intelligent sister Twinks who instantly deduces that a gang of international art thieves based in Paris has stolen the paintings. So Blotto and Twinks instantly set off in the former’s Lagonda for France! Their investigations in Paris bring them into contact with the absinthe-soaked art community of the Rive Gauche, but after an attempt on his life at the Folies Bergere, Blotto is persuaded by Twinks that it is to Nice they must travel, as the criminal mastermind La Puce runs his evil empire from there, funded by the proceeds of many European art collections – including those from Tawcester Towers. The French Riviera is a gay old place, and following various lead, Twinks makes contacts with many expatriates and Americans all leading the good life, including the famous silent movie star Mimsy La Pim, who Blotto finds himself curiously drawn to. But after a particularly decadent party it is discovered that La Puce has kidnapped Mimsy – and so it is up to Blotto and Twinks to save the starlet from many fates worse than death and restore the fortunes of Tawcester Towers to boot! Blotto, Twinks and the Rodents of the Riviera is due to be published in July 2011.

Warsaw Anagrams is a chilling mystery set in Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto. Autumn 1940. The Nazis seal 400,000 Jews inside a small area of the Polish capital, creating an urban island cut off from the outside world. Erik Cohen, an elderly psychiatrist, is forced to move into a tiny apartment with his niece and his beloved nine-year-old nephew, Adam. One bitterly coldwinter’s day, Adam goes missing. The next morning, his body is discovered in the barbed wire surrounding the ghetto. The boy’s leg has been cut off, and a tiny piece of string has been left in his mouth. Soon, another body turns up – this time a girl’s, and one of her hands has been taken. Evidence begins to point to a Jewish traitor luring children to their death. The Warsaw Anagrams is by Richard Zimler and is due to be published in February 2011.

In A Bedlam of Bones there is more blackmail, mayhem and murder for the humbug-crunching vicar, his dog, and the cat. After the unsettling exploits in the Auvergne the vicar and his companions try to resume a life of moderate respectability. But the recent events cast a long

shadow and they are soon in the grip of sinister repercussions. Who is the menacing blackmailer stalking the previous blackmailer and the bishop? Can the bishop survive the threat of being ‘outed’? Why is there a body in the polyanthus bed and can Lavinia Birtle-Figgins really be as dippy as she seems? These and other imponderables immerse the Reverend Francis Oughterard in a fresh web of danger and subterfuge while his animal ‘minders’, Maurice and Bouncer, try their best to make sense of all this human bedlam. A Bedlam of Bones is by Suzette Hill and is due to be published in May 2011.

In the international bestseller Roma, Steven Saylor told the story of the first thousand years of Rome by following the descendants of a single bloodline. Now, in Empire, Saylor charts the destinies of five more generations of the Pinarius family, from the reign of the first emperor, Augustus, to the glorious height of Rome’s empire under Hadrian. Through the eyes of the Pinarii, we witness the machinations of Tiberius, the madness of Caligula, the cruel escapades of Nero, and the chaos of the Year of Four Emperors in 69 A.D. The deadly paranoia of Domitian is followed by the Golden Age of Trajan and Hadrian—but even the most enlightened emperors wield the power to inflict death and destruction on a whim. But at the novel’s heart are the wrenching choices and seductive temptations faced by each new generation of the Pinarii. One unwittingly becomes the sexual plaything of the notorious Messalina. One enters into a clandestine affair with a Vestal virgin. One falls under the charismatic spell of Nero, while another is drawn into the strange new cult of those who deny the gods and call themselves Christians. However diverse their destinies and desires, all the Pinarii are united by one thing: the mysterious golden talisman called the fascinum handed down from a time before Rome existed. As it passes from generation to generation, the fascinum seems to exercise a power not only over those who wear it, but over the very fate of the empire. Empire is by Steven Saylor and is due to be published in May 2011.

A serial killer holds New York in his grip. He does not choose his victims. Nor does he watch them die. But then there are too many of them for that. The explosion of a twenty-two storey

building, followed by the casual discovery of a letter, lead the police to face up to a dreadful reality: some of New York’s buildings were mined at the time of their construction. But which ones? And how many? A young female detective hiding her personal demons behind a tough appearance, and a former press photographer with a past he’d rather forget, and for which he still seeks forgiveness, are the only hope of stopping this psychopath. A man who does not even claim responsibility for his actions.

A man who believes himself to be God. I am God is by Giorgio Faletti and is due to be published in June 2011.

The Counterfeit Madam by Pat McIntosh is due to be published in June 2011. Gil Cunningham had hoped that the first time he set foot in the brothel on the Drygate it would also be his last, but by the time all was settled he felt quite at home within its artfully painted chambers. The bawdy house, along with the neighbouring property and two more in Strathblane, are all part of a deal offered to Gil and his wife Alys by the forceful Dame Isabella. Her proposal also involves Gil’s young ward, and matters are further confused by an outbreak of counterfeit coins in Glasgow, which Gil has been ordered to investigate. Then Dame Isabella is found dead in strange circumstances, and the more Gil pursues the cause of her death, the more false coins he finds. And then the bawd-mistress, the enigmatic Madam Xanthe, gets involved and rumours circulate that the Devil is abroad in Strathblane. By the time Gil and Alys have untangled matters, some very surprising – and sinister – thing have come to light.

Devil-Devil by G W Kent is an exotic crime series set in the Solomon Islands featuring Sergeant Kella and Sister Conchita. It’s 1960 and Sergeant Ben Kella of the Solomon Islands police force is only a few days into a routine patrol of the most beautiful yet dangerous and primitive areas of the South Pacific. Yet, already, he has been cursed by a magic man, stumbled across evidence of a cult uprising and failed to find an American anthropologist who has been scouring the mountainous jungle in search of a priceless erotic icon. To complicate matters further, at a local mission station, Kella discovers the redoubtable Sister Conchita secretly trying to bury a skeleton, before a mysterious gunman tries to kill her. Mission-educated yet an aofia – the traditional peacemaker of the islands – Kella is forced to link up with Sister Conchita, an independent and rebellious young American nun, in order to track down the perpetrators of a series of bizarre murders. Devil-Devil is due to be published in June 2011.