Thursday, 29 August 2013

CWA Dagger Shortlists announced!

Thursday August 29th: Today the Crime Writers’ Association announced the shortlists for the remaining three CWA 2013 Gold Daggers.  The eventual winners will be revealed on 24th October, at the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards 2013.

The shortlisted authors are:




Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer(Bantam/Transworld)
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes (HarperCollins)
Dead Lions by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)
Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman (Orion)



Ghostman  by Roger Hobbs (Transworld)
Ratlines by Stuart Neville (Random House)
The Sentinel by Mark Oldfield (Head of Zeus)
Capital Punishment by Robert Wilson (Orion)



Something You Are  by Hanna Jameson (Head of Zeus)
The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter by Malcolm Mackay (Mantle)
Norwegian by Night by Derek B Miller(Faber and Faber)
Shadow of the Rock by Thomas Mogford  (Bloomsbury)


CWA Chair Alison Joseph commented: “These 2013 CWA Dagger shortlists are all about inspirational story-telling and great writing. They show, once again, just why this genre continues to be so hugely popular and so greatly loved by readers.”
  

More information can be found at the CWA

Wednesday, 28 August 2013

Books to Look Forward to from Bitter Lemon Press

Every week, Roberto Marías crosses Rome on foot to arrive at his psychiatrist's office.  There, he often sits in silence, stumped by the ritual—but sometimes crucial memories come to the surface.  He remembers when he was a child and used to surf with his father.  He remembers the treacherous years he spent working as an under-cover Carabinieri, years that taught him how cynicism and corruption are not merely external influences, but also exist within us.  He has lived an intoxicating and crushing life, but now his psychiatrist's words, the hypnotic strolls through Rome, and a meeting with a woman named Emma—who like Roberto is ravaged by a profound guilt—are beginning to revive him.  Moreover, when eleven-year-old Giacomo asks Roberto to help him conquer his nightmares, Roberto at last achieves a true rebirth.  The Silence of the Wave is by Gianrico Carofiglio and is due out in September 2013.

 Film Tie-In Edition, previously published as 'Badfellas'.  The story is violent, pacy and full of black humour.  Imagine the Soprano family arriving in France, settling down in a small town in Normandy.  Fred Blake tells everyone he is writing a history of the D-Day landings.  In fact, Blake is Giovanni Manzoni, an ex-Mafia boss who grassed and is now in the FBI Witness Protection Program.  Having blown his cover a number of times in the US, the FBI finally sends him to France.  A coincidence beyond belief blows Fred's cover yet again and, with the arrival of the shooters from Newark, he is able to dive back into the violent life of crime he misses so much.  The Family/Badfellas is by Tonino Benacquista and is due to be published in October 2013.


The Man Who Loves Dogs is by Leonardo Padua and is due to be published in December 2013.  Cuban writer Iván Cárdenas Maturell meets a mysterious foreigner on a Havana beach who is always in the company of two Russian wolfhounds.  Iván quickly names him “the man who loved dogs”.  The man eventually confesses that he is actually Ramón Mercader, the man who killed Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940, and that he is now living in a secret exile in Cuba after being released from jail in Mexico.  Moving seamlessly between Iván's life in Cuba, Mercader's early years in Spain and France, and Trotsky's long years of exile, The Man Who Loved Dogs is Leonardo Padura's most ambitious and brilliantly executed novel yet.  It is the story of revolutions fought and betrayed, the ways in which men's political convictions are continually tested and manipulated, and a powerful critique of the role of fear in consolidating political power

Tuesday, 27 August 2013

Putting it Together: Selecting the Stories in Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives by Sarah Weinman

(photo credit: Michael Lionstar)
An anthology may have a great concept or an ideal news hook, but if the stories themselves aren't top-quality, the whole thing falls down. That's why, when Akashic first published Brooklyn Noir all the way back in 2004, it proved to be such a success: there were so many excellent stories set around the borough (where I've lived for the last three years) that it bolstered the very simple idea of short noir fiction rooted to a particular city or urban area. And there's simply no way the publisher could have kept the Noir series going, now dozens of volumes strong, without hundreds of quality stories.

As such, when I began on what is now Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me. Would I be able to include this fabulous story by one of my favorite writers? Would I be able to find a fabulous story by one of my favorite writers? And could I find an appropriate story at all? Would a tantalizingly brief listing of a story by a possible candidate turn into a blazing gem a new audience could discover anew? There were so many different levels of inquiry I had to balance – and that's sticking solely to matters of content, not finance.

The first order of business was seeing which stories had recently been reprinted in other anthologies. I started with those because they were in print, generally easy to find, listed the relevant rightsholders, and their electronic files were readily available (which would make my publisher happy.) So I must thank Denise Hamilton for including Margaret Millar's stellar “The People Across the Canyon” in LA Noir 2 and Elizabeth George for doing the same with Nedra Tyre's stealth disturber “A Nice Place to Stay” in A Moment on the Edge: 100 Years of Women in Crime Fiction.

It's no fun, though, to repeat too many stories from anthologies past. So in a few instances, I would find a different story by another oft-anthologized author. Shirley Jackson's “Louisa, Please Come Home” and Patricia Highsmith's “The Heroine” were part of respective short story collections, but not reprinted elsewhere for some time. George included stories by Charlotte Armstrong, Dorothy Salisbury Davis and Joyce Harrington, but I ended up going with different ones: “The Splintered Monday”, “Lost Generation” and “The Purple Shroud”, respectively, because they seemed better suited to Troubled Daughters' domestic suspense theme. A different story by Dorothy B. Hughes appeared in Otto Penzler's Best American Noir of the Century,  but I went with “Everybody Needs a Mink”, a lighter-hearted, sly take on suburbia and living beyond one's means.

Other candidate authors required a lot more hunting. It took a long time to find an appropriate story by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, which seemed odd to me, as she was one of the key authors I knew I must include, based on novels like The Blank Wall and The Old Battle-Ax. But it wasn't until I followed some blind alleys to find myself poring through a bound volume of the long-gone American Magazine from the summer of 1949 that I found “The Stranger in the Car” – a novella, yes, but in perfect keeping with my chosen theme. It took almost as long to find something suitable by Vera Caspary, as she did not publish that many short stories, preferring to publish novels or write screenplays (or treatments.) But “Sugar and Spice” fit the bill for its exploration of the deepening jealousy between two women who, frankly, ought to have known better.

That left room for some unexpected surprises. While poring through a stack of old Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine issues last summer, I found “Mortmain” by Miriam Allen deFord, a writer I knew of dimly but not enough to know her reputation in the crime fiction world. I later learned she was better known for her science fiction stories and anthologies, her feminist radicalism and passion for social justice, and for writing true crime, but was also a vastly underrated mystery short story writer – which “Mortmain” demonstrates brilliantly. A similar “aha” moment happened at the Center for Fiction in New York City, where I spent several days poring through numerous old anthologies. In one of the annuals I found “Lavender Lady” by Barbara Callahan, which floored me on a first read and then again when finalizing the lineup.


The final tally of fourteen stories is as good as I could make it. But of course, there were authors I wished I could have included but could not because of suitability issues, publishing good stories too early or too late for my chosen time period, or other reasons. But there were certainly enough writers of domestic suspense to fill several volumes, not merely one. It's up to readers to decide if they wish to see more, though!

Sarah Weinman is the news editor for Publishers Marketplaceand writes the monthly “Crimewave” mystery and suspense column for the National Post. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the New York Observer, Slate, and the New Yorker online, among other publications.  

For more information, check out sarahweinman.com or domesticsuspense.com

One of the most anticipated collections of stories is published today, 27 August 2013.  The collection entitled - Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense.   The collection is edited by crime critic Sarah Weinman and is a salute to the real femmes fatales of the domestic suspense genre—and the deceitful children, deranged husbands, vengeful friends, and murderous wives they unleashed.

Weinman asks: Where would today’s bestselling authors like Gone Girl’s Gillian Flynn, Sue Grafton, or Tana French be without the pioneering women writers who came before them and created the psychological thriller?  In this new anthology, including hair-raising stories by Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, Vera Caspary, and more, Weinman brings together fourteen tales by women who—from the 1940s through the mid-1970s—took a scalpel to contemporary society and sliced away to reveal its dark essence. 


Monday, 26 August 2013

Books to Look forward to From Little Brown

After enduring years at the mercy of an infamous serial killer, the people of Florence are relieved at the news of his death – until a senator and his butler are found brutally murdered.  Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara suspects that the case isn’t closed and as he becomes trapped in a spiral of vendettas and corruption, a powerful adversary is conspiring against him from the shadows.  When he’s confronted with dead ends and unreliable theories, discovering the truth is only the beginning for Ferrara as he finds himself face to face with something rotten at the heart of the city . . . The Dark Heart of Florence is the sixth book in the series by Michele Giuttari featuring Michele Ferrara and was published in July 2013.

The Devil's Revenge is by K N Shields and is due to be published in September 2013.  Grey
paused and studied the crudely drawn figure.  A rough shaped face, traced in ashes, stared back at them.  Above the face, a message: 'Hell Awaits' 1893.  A trail of footprints lead Deputy Archie Lean and criminologist Perceval Grey to the body of a murdered thief.  The victim's exposed flesh has been burnt beyond recognition and occult symbols mark the nearby walls.  But two days earlier this same man was lowered into his grave ...As Lean and Grey dig deeper, they're pulled into a maze of death, deceit and revenge as they try to prevent a devious murderer from unlocking an ancient and lethal power.  Rich in history, mystery and witchcraft, The Devil's Revenge is a historical thriller about the darkest of secrets.  Secrets that some would kill for...

June 1924.  On the brutal North East Ridge of Mount Everest, famous adventurers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine vanish into the snow-whipped night.  Daredevil explorer Richard Deacon devises a plan to follow in the men's footsteps, accompanied only by two friends.  Off piste and with no support team, the three men strike for Everest's peak and the most vicious climate on earth.  As the winds rise and the temperature and oxygen levels drop, Deacon and his companions hear howls in the distance.  Some dark creature is tracking them up the mountain, sending them scrabbling blindly into Everest's dangerous heights to escape it.  Soon they will discover what happened to Mallory's crew - but can they escape the same hideous fate?  The Abominable is by Dan Simmons and is due to be published in October 2013 it blends historical fact with spine-tingling drama.

Private investigator Jasmine Sharp's father was murdered before she was born, and her
mother went to self-sacrificing lengths in order to shield her from the world in which he moved.  Since her mother's death, all she has been able to learn is his first name - and that only through a strange bond she has forged with the man who killed him: Glen Fallan.  But when Fallan is arrested for the murder of a criminal her mother knew since childhood, Jasmine is finally forced to enter his domain: a place where violence is a way of life and vengeance spans generations.  Detective Superintendent Catherine McLeod has one major Glaswegian gangster in the mortuary and another in the cells for killing him - which ought to be cause for celebration.  Catherine is not smiling, however.  From the moment she discovered a symbol daubed on the victim's head, she has understood that this case is far more dangerous than it appears on the surface: deeper than skin, darker than blood; something that could threaten her family and end her career.  As one battles her demons and the other chases her ghosts, these two very different detectives will ultimately confront the secrets that have entangled both of their fates since before Jasmine was even born.  Flesh Wounds is by Christopher Brookmyre and is due to be published in August 2013.

1827 During a research trip to Loch Ness, Scotland, a young Charles Darwin encounters a mysterious and terrifying creature that provides the spark for his evolutionary theory.  2013 Almost two hundred years later, and hundreds of miles away in Paris, the Eiffel Tower is under attack.  Army engineer Tyler Locke is called in to help, and his expertise saves the day.  But Tyler doesn't know he's about to get pulled into a conspiracy so dark that it not only threatens those he loves, but could also ignite World War III.  Racing against time to discover the truth behind Darwin's discovery, Tyler must solve a series of cryptic clues to find a single manuscript that has been so well hidden it hasn't been seen since the Victorian age.  The Loch Ness Legacy by Boyd Morrison takes us from the remote shores of Loch Ness to the splendour of Versailles.  It is due to be published in December 2013.

John Bookman - Book to his friends - is a tenured professor at the University Of Texas School Of Law.  He's thirty-five, handsome and unmarried.  He teaches Constitutional Law, reduces senators to blithering fools on political talk shows, and is often mentioned as a future Supreme Court nominee.  But Book is also famous for something more unusual.  He likes to take on lost causes and win.  Consequently, when he arrives at the law school each Monday morning, hundreds of letters await him, letters from desperate Americans around the country seeking his help.  Every now and then, one letter captures his attention and Book feels compelled to act.  Con Law is the first of a thrilling new series from Mark Gimenez the author of international bestsellers The Colour of Law and Accused. In Con Law, which was published in July 2013, Book investigates a murder in the corrupt world of deepest, darkest Texas.

Cross and Burn is by Val McDermid and is due to be published in October 2013.Guilt and grief have driven a wedge between long time crime-fighting partners psychologist Tony Hill and ex-DCI Carol Jordan.  But just because they're not talking, doesn't mean the killing stops.  Someone is killing women.  Women who bear a disturbing resemblance to Carol Jordan.  And when the evidence begins to point in a disturbing direction, thinking the unthinkable seems the only possible answer.  Cornered by events, Tony and Carol are forced to fight for themselves and each other as never before...

Four days before the dedication of the new Freedom Tower at ground zero in New York City, five passengers and a flight attendant bravely
foil the hijacking of a commercial jet en route to the city.  Thrust into the national spotlight, 'The Six' become instant celebrities, hailed for their bravery.  But iconoclastic New York Police investigator Jeremy Fisk believes there's more to this than a simple open-and-shut terrorism case.  Fisk -from the department's Intelligence Division - suspects that in reality this is an early warning signal that another potentially more devastating attack is imminent.  Fisk and his team spring into action, but as each promising new lead fizzles to nothing they realise that their opponents are smarter and more dangerous than anyone they've faced before.  The seemingly invisible enemy is able to exploit every security weakness, anticipating Fisk's every move.  And time is running out until ground zero day... The Intercept is the first in a new series by Dick Wolf featuring NYPD Special Agent Jeremy Fisk and is due to be published in August 2013.

The Camelot Code is by Sam Christer and is due to be published in October 2013.  What if King Arthur was more than a myth?  On a starlit summer's night in the Welsh mountains, an old man is torn from sleep as an ancient prophecy unfolds.  On the other side of the Atlantic, an American antiques dealer lies dying on the floor of his shop, blood ebbing from a fatal stab wound.  In San Francisco, Mitzi Fallon begins her new job as lead investigator for the FBI's Historical, Religious and Unsolved Crimes Unit.  When it emerges that a priceless Celtic relic has been stolen from the murdered antiques dealer, Mitzi finds herself drawn into a mystery that reaches from the heart of the modern US government back to a man once dismissed as myth: King Arthur. 

From the outside, the house was unremarkable.  Just one of many on an ordinary, suburban estate.  But inside was a different matter.  With pink ribbons and pink walls, stuffed toy animals everywhere and a dining table laid out for a tea party, it was a doll's house.  The doll was sitting at the table.  Life size, with blonde, pigtailed hair and rosy red cheeks, dressed in her best pink party dress.  Her finger and thumb curled round the handle of a fine china teacup.  An adult woman.  Covered in blood.  Eviscerated.  Dead.  In all his years on the force, DI Phil Brennan of the Major Incident Squad has never encountered a scene like it.  As he investigates, he uncovers more bizarre revelations and realises that he must act fast; the next murder has already been planned and the victim is close to home... The Doll’s House is the fifth book in the Brennan and Esposito’s series by Tania Carver and is due to be published in September 2013.

Death Angel is the sixteenth book in the Alex Cooper series by Linda Fairstein and was published in July 2013.  In New York's Central Park, Assistant DA Alex Cooper and Detective Mike Chapman race to track down a serial killer before yet another young woman is found dead.  Is the body found in the Ramble the first victim of a deranged psychopath, or could other missing women be connected to this savage attack?  The enormous urban park, a sanctuary in the middle of the city for thousands of New Yorkers and tourists who fill it every day, may very well become a hunting ground at night for a killer with a twisted mind...

After working on one of the worst mass killings in US history, Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta returns home to recover, but an unsettling call drives her straight back to work. The body of a young woman has been discovered inside the sheltered gates of MIT, draped in ivory linen and posed in a way that is too deliberate to be the killer's first strike. A preliminary examination reveals that the body is covered in a fine dust that under ultra-violet light fluoresces blood-red, emerald-green and sapphire-blue, and physical evidence links this to another series of disturbing homicides in Washington, DC. As she pieces together the fragments of evidence, Scarpetta discovers that the cases connect, yet also seem to conflict, drawing herself and her team deeper into the dark world of designer drugs, drone technology, organised crime, and shocking corruption at the highest level.  Dust is by Kay Scarpetta and is due to be published in October 2013.

Ash Rashid is a detective with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and one of the few Muslims on the force.  Never one to play by the rules, Ash has decided he wants out of the police.  So the last thing he wants to get involved in is a fresh murder investigation.  But when Ash hears that, the mother of his daughter's best friend has been killed in a brutal hit and run he steps in to help.  And when some of his colleagues prove reluctant to investigate, Ash swiftly gets caught up in an explosive mix of election-year politics, crime and police corruption.  The Outsider is the stunning new thriller from Chris Culver and is due to be published in August 2013.

In an idyllic neighbourhood of Copenhagen, a young woman, Susanne Hansson, is discovered in her apartment bound and gagged, the victim of an extraordinarily brutal rape attack.  Detective Inspector Louise Rick soon learns that Susanne met the rapist on a popular online dating site, something Susanne shamefully tries to hide.  Events quickly spiral out of control as a horrified Louise realises that the rapist is using the website to target specific women for future attacks.  It's not long before the next assault leads to its victim's death and Louise finds herself in the middle of a full-blown murder investigation.  Undercover and in danger in a world of faceless dating, Louise must try and stop a murderer who has shocked Copenhagen to its core.  But how much is she willing to risk in order to catch a killer?  Blue Blood is the Danish number one bestseller by Sara Blaedel brings you a heart-pounding thriller that will make you ask yourself who you're really talking to online.  Blue Blood was published in July 2013.

Casting the First Stone is by Frances Fyfield and is due to be published in November 2013.  A year after her husband's death, young widow and art collector Diana Porteous listlessly roams the beach near her home.  Her friend and agent Saul takes action, introducing her to his stylish, anarchic sister, Sarah, to pep her up.  They plan that Di should rediscover her talents as a thief, as well as art expert, to recover stolen paintings - and begin with Steven, the neighbour's son, who is amassing works of art in a strange building in London, including work stolen from his mother.  But if Di is interested in his illicit treasures, he is equally fascinated by hers - and in the secrets still held in that house by the sea...

As Botswana awaits the familiar blessing of the rains and the resumption of the eternal cycle, seismic upheaval is taking place at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.  Not only is Mr J. L. B. Matekoni attempting to reform himself into a modern husband, but after her marriage to Phuti Radiphuti, Mma Ramotswe's challenging but irreplaceable associate Mma Makutsi has joyful news.  With the arrival of an heir to the Double Comfort Furniture Empire and Mma Makutsi busy with motherhood, cobras and a senior aunt, Mma Ramotswe must grapple alone with tea-making, detective work and a new uncertainty.  Disturbing developments over the will of a local dignitary, Edgar Molapo, point to fraud and a shocking family secret, while tracing the source of a smear campaign against the Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, in which notorious troublemaker Violet Sephotho may or not have a hand, proves to require a keen eye and an open mind.  But the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is resilient and adaptable, and change brings salutary lessons: that our enemies are not always obvious, that a snake under the bed may be an ally, and that a mother's love conquers all.  The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon is by Alexander McCall-Smith and is due to be published in October 2013.
 
Inspector Singh Investigates: A Calamitous Chinese Killing is by Shamini Flint and is due to be published in September 2013.  Inspector Singh is on a mission to China, against his better judgment.  The son of a bigwig at the Singapore Embassy has been bludgeoned to death in a back alley in Beijing.  The Chinese security insist that he was the victim of a robbery gone wrong, but the young man's mother demands that Singapore's finest (in his own opinion) rides to the rescue.  But solving a murder in a country that practices socialism 'with Chinese characteristics' is a dangerous business.  And it soon becomes apparent that getting to the bottom of this calamitous killing will be his toughest case yet...

Olivia Jones has lived a life of privilege and good fortune.  But on the eve of her wedding, she discovers two shocking facts.  One - she was adopted.  Two - her biological parents are notorious serial killers.  And now the secret's out, she's in immediate danger.  Running for her life, Liv must face reality in the most brutal and terrifying way.  But then she is confronted with a tantalising hope - is it possible that her parents weren't guilty of the murders after all?  And if so, who did commit them?  Arriving at the remote town of Cainsville, Liv believes she has found the perfect place to hide while she uncovers the truth.  But Cainsville is no ordinary town - and Liv's arrival was no accident.  Omens is a gripping and atmospheric thriller about a town where secrets are soaked into every stone - and omens should never be ignored...  Omens is by Kelley Armstrong and is due to be published in August 2013.

The Discourtesy of Death is by William Brodrick and is due to be published in November 2013.  An anonymous letter sent to Larkwood's Prior accuses Peter Henderson, an academic celebrity renowned for daring ideas, of a grotesque murder: the calculated killing of Jenny, his disabled partner, believed by everyone to have died peacefully two years previously from a sudden attack of cancer.  But for this letter, there is no evidence, no suspect and no crime.  Time has moved on.  Lives have been rebuilt.  Grief and loss are tempered by a comforting thought: a paralysed woman, once an acclaimed dancer, had died quickly and painlessly, spared a drawn out illness; a life marked by agonising misfortune had come to a merciful end.  But now Anselm has been told the truth behind the soothing lie.  He must move cautiously to expose the killer and the killing.  He must think of young Timothy, Jenny and Peter's son.  A boy who is still learning to live without his mother.  And so Anselm begins his most delicate investigation yet, unaware that Jenny's adoring father is also thinking of Timothy's future; that this urbane former army officer is haunted by the memory of torture and shoot-to-kill operations in Northern Ireland; that he remains capable of anything, if he thinks it's for the best; that he has set out to execute Peter Henderson.  Death, dying and killing, however, were never so complicated.

Destroyed by fire years ago, the infamous Philadelphia State Hospital was known as a warehouse for the criminally insane.  But one man never left.  By night, Luther walks Philadelphia's backstreets, drawing to him the mad, the corrupt, and the fallen.  By day, he roams the catacombs beneath the city, killing his prey.  Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano are called to a bizarre murder scene: a man has been killed by a railroad spike driven into his head and left sitting on a bench in a local park.  But it is just the beginning of a trail of evil that leads back to the hospital and the nightmares it still contains...  The Stolen Ones is by Richard Montanari and was published in July 2013.

He looked at his hands, covered with her blood, at the spreading pool of red on the floor, the wild spatters of it on the walls.  An artist, he mused.  Maybe he should be an artist.  Murder doesn't stop for Thanksgiving.  As the household of NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her billionaire husband Roarke prepares for an invasion of family and friends, an ungrateful son decides to stop the nagging from his parents - by ending their lives.  Soon Jerald Reinhold is working his way through anyone who has ever thwarted him in his path to an easy life.  Eve is increasingly frustrated in her efforts to cover all the potential victims as Jerald stays a terrifying step ahead.  As the festivities begin, Eve is desperate to identify which victim on Jerald's long list will be the next, so she can stop the killing spree... Thankless in Death is by J D Robb and is due to be published in September 2013.

Watching You is by Michael Robotham and is due to be published in August 2013.  Marnie Logan often feels like she's being watched.  Nothing she can quite put her finger on - a whisper of breath on the back of her neck, or a shadow in the corner of her eye - and now her life is frozen.  Her husband Daniel has been missing for more than a year.  Depressed and increasingly desperate, she seeks the help of clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin.  Joe is concerned by Marnie's reluctance to talk about the past, but then she discovers a book packed with pictures, interviews with friends, former teachers, old flames and workmates Daniel was preparing for her birthday.  It was supposed to be a celebration of her life.  But it's not the story anyone was expecting...

A young girl is taken.  A father is silenced.  The lies run deep.  It's the one mystery Supervisory Special Agent Caitlyn Tierney has never solved: her father's suicide after he had to arrest his best friend for murder.  It drove Caitlyn to become one of the FBI's best - and most unorthodox - agents.  So when the man she holds responsible for her father's death pleads her assistance in finding his missing daughter, Caitlyn is horrified.  But, as whispers of half-understood conversations from her childhood begin to come back to her, the agent inside Caitlyn must admit that something doesn't feel right.  Her search brings her back to her North Carolina hometown, now vibrant with new money, old lies, and an unknown enemy who will do anything to keep Caitlyn from the learning the truth ... Black Sheep is by C J Lyons and is due to be published in October 2013.

Always Watching is by Chevy Stevens and is due to be published in November 2013As a psychiatrist, Nadine Lavoie wants to help people, but she has dark troubles of her own - some she can't even think about and some she can't even remember.  When a distraught young woman is taken to the hospital where Nadine works, it triggers horrific memories for Nadine.  Digging deeper, she forces herself to confront her past and the damage done to her when she and her brother were brought to a remote commune as children.  What happened to the innocent girl she once was?  Why was her family destroyed?  Nadine has no idea that by asking these questions, she will put herself in a danger she could never have imagined.

Help me!  When a young woman rushes into Sam Capra's San Francisco bar and utters these desperate words, Sam feels compelled to help.  Only a moment later she is attacked by two killers.  Together, they manage to overpower the men, she saving Sam's life in the process and then vanishing into the night.  On discovering that one of the attackers is no mere thug, but, shockingly, one of the most powerful investors in America, Sam searches for the beguiling woman who asked for help and unearths a deadly network run by some of the most powerful and influential people in the world... Downfall is by Jeff Abbott and is due to be published in December 2013.
 
The Devil’s Sanctuary is by Marie Hermanson and was published in July 2013. Is this Heaven ...or Hell?  Estranged identical twins Daniel and Max have a complex relationship, so when Daniel goes to visit his bi-polar brother in a remote and expensive Swiss 'recovery' clinic, he has no idea what really lies in wait for him.  Lulled by the routine and peacefulness of the clinic, Daniel finds himself unquestioningly accepting Max's plea for help in taking care of some business, and the brothers swap places for a few days.  But soon Daniel realises Max isn't coming back, and that the clinic is far from a place of recovery.  Struggling to get anyone to believe who he really is, Daniel finds himself trapped in a cruel and highly secretive prison: this is no sanctuary; it's a living nightmare...

Friday, 23 August 2013

Elmore Leonard Remembered

Over at The Rap Sheet, the hardest working editor in Crime Fiction, Jeff Peirce is running a wonderful homage to Elmore Leonard, featuring many names from the genre all paying their respects.

Included in part one of this feature is a contribution by the Shots Editors -

I was fortunate to have met Elmore Leonard a few years ago in London, when the British Crime Writers’ Association presented him with its Diamond Dagger award for lifetime achievement. My friend and Shots editor Mike Stotter was excited that day. He had been heavily influenced by Leonard’s work, and it had even given him the confidence to pen his own Westerns, all the way from London.

Mike went on to write about that event for Shots, recalling:

I managed to grab five minutes with Dutch and I told him that he was my inspiration in writing Westerns, and he was genuinely pleased. I also had with me a hardback copy of The Fatal Frontier, which contained my very first short story (actually an extract from McKinney’s Revenge, my first full-length Western). I asked Dutch to sign it for me. He took a look at the cover, and said, “This is an odd one.” To which I replied, “It’s the first anthology in which I have a story published alongside you.” He laughed and said, “Well, a Brit Western writer. Well done.”

Read part one of The Rap Sheet’s Homage to Elmore Leonard here

Photos © A Karim 10th May 2006 The London Savoy, Elmore Leonard receiving the CWA Diamond Dagger Award [for lifetime achievment from Monsieur Arnaud Bamberger of Cartier [Top]; Colin Dexter listening to Elmore Leonard's acceptance speech; Mike Stotter and Elmore Leonard and at bottom, London critics Barry Forshaw, Ali Karim and Mike Stotter congratulating Elmore 'Dutch' Leonard for his outstanding contribution to the Crime Fiction Genre



















So let us celebrate the legacy Elmore Leonard left us, and as we imagine him riding into the sunset, remember he is leaving behind some wonderful writing and cinematic works for future generations to discover.

My inspiration for writing the Darkening Hour by Penny Hancock

Today’s guest blog is by Penny Hancock who is the author of the novel Tideline and the forthcoming novel The Darkening Hour which is due to be published on 29 August 2013.

The Darkening Hour opens in Deptford market with Mona, a carer dressed in a blue overall, taking her elderly charge for a walk to the river.  The following morning a body washes up, its bloodied head wrapped in the very kind of overall worn by Mona, and Mona has disappeared.

The Darkening Hour is a psychological thriller that traces the relationship between Mona and her woman employer Dora.  Dora is a successful radio presenter who places a lot of store by her own standing in the world, both at work and within her family.  Both women are struggling to support elderly parents and a child, both women have absent lovers, yet rather than being drawn together by their similarities, misunderstandings gradually drive a wedge between them.

In my early notes for The Darkening Hour I still have a newspaper cutting headed ‘Woman kept as slave by London Doctor.’

This story fascinated and horrified me, not least because the doctor was a woman.  Maybe erroneously I had associated people trafficking with men, and modern day slavery with prostitution and child labour.  But the more I looked into this story, the more I uncovered further cases of migrant domestic workers exploited or abused by their female employers.  I spoke to some of them, women who had left children or parents at home to earn money to pay for their education or healthcare.  Some had ended up virtually or literally enslaved.  Earlier this month there was another case of a wealthy woman who had confiscated her domestic workers passports so that they were incarcerated inside the house to work gruelling hours for almost no pay.

You might ask why domestic workers who find themselves in exploitative situations don’t just leave?  But the UK has recently altered the migrant domestic worker visa so that they are tied to the family they come to work for; without their employers they become illegal.  Given that they have often left desperate situations and accumulated debts in order to take on domestic work far from their own countries, going home is not an option either.  This leaves them trapped in the family they arrived with and vulnerable if they are treated badly.

It strikes me as a particularly shameful indictment of modern day living that the law means such situations are allowed to develop.

But more intriguing to me in terms of the story, is what psychological forces underlie the abuse some women are guilty of perpetrating?  Unlike people traffickers who are in it for the money, women who exploit domestic workers are usually already extremely wealthy -money is not a motivation.  So what else would lead a woman to de-humanize the very person they have employed to help them?  And what lengths might an abused woman go to, to free herself from such a situation?
  
In the Darkening Hour, I explore the steps I imagine an employer might be led down and
the misunderstandings that might drive her to abuse her position of power.

Dora, my fictional wealthy employer has fragile self-esteem.  She has employed Mona to care for her father, who has dementia, and her unemployed son, in order to maintain her standing at work.  But handing over the care of the two people she loves leads in its turn to jealousy.  As Mona gains her father and son’s affections Dora feels threatened that her own status even within her family is being taken from her.  And because her self esteem is so frail, it is easily punctured when her job is cut, and so she takes out her frustration and fears on the person she most easily can do; Mona.

Meanwhile, Mona herself is no angel.  Having to leave her own mother and child in order to care for another woman’s father is clearly not a choice, is borne of necessity, so Mona resents her position at times.  She crosses certain lines, taking what start out to be small measures to maintain her dignity, stubbornly refusing to admit to these when Dora questions her.  She works hard, but has her sights set on a goal that is invisible to Dora- a secret that she is jealously guarding.  Her silence, her steadfast work ethic also threatens Dora, and things slowly descend into conflict and misunderstanding.
  
Both women depend on each other, and yet neither wants to.  And so the conflicts mount, as they are thrown together through outside pressures, and with one of them bound to snap at some point and, since the novel is a psychological thriller, and must fulfil the expectations of the genre, with of course, ultimately, that battered body in the river!

The story explores the themes of status both within the family and at work, visibility versus invisibility, and raises questions about what and who we value and why.

More information about Penny Hancock and her writing can be found on her website or on Facebook.  You can also follow her on Twitter @pennyhancock