The New Cambridge Mysteries

Now published by Ostara’s Cambridge Crime imprint: The New Cambridge Mysteries by the award-winning Barbara Cleverly

From the CWA Historical Dagger winning author Barbara Cleverly, a collection of short stories of criminal activity in and around Cambridge in three distinct time frames representing Cambridge past, present and future.

Featuring World War I veteran turned policeman Detective Inspector Redfyre in 1922, the feisty and very contemporary Detective Constable Stella Kenton and, in a dystopian Cambridge future, Tom – a 65- year-old veteran of the Iraq war who has his own way of dealing with law and order in the year 2022.

Six Cambridge mysteries from Barbra Cleverly, the award-winning author of The Damascened Blade.

Barbara Cleverly was born in the north of England and graduated from the University of Durham but has spent most of her working life in Suffolk and Cambridge. Her first novel, The Last Kashmiri, was commissioned after submitting an outline in a competition for new writers organised by the Crime Writers’ Association and published to great acclaim in 2001, introducing her detective hero Joe Sandilands. Her third Sandilands novel, The Damascened Blade won the Ellis Peters ‘Historical Dagger’ award in 2004.

The New Cambridge Mysteries is published by Ostara Publishing under their Cambridge Crime imprint and is available as a trade paperback and eBook.

For all Ostara titles, see: www.ostarapublishing.co.uk .

Philip Kerr news about new standalone novel.

Quercus Press announce the publication of the first standalone novel in over a decade.  Prayer will be published at the end of September 2013.

Special Agent Gil Martins investigates domestic terrorism for the Houston FBI.  Once a religious man he has begun to question his faith and the existence of a God who could allow the senseless death and violence that he encounters in his job on a daily basis.

But Gil’s wife Ruth doesn’t see things the same way and his crisis of faith provokes a crisis in their marriage that culminates in her asking him to leave their home.  Through the kindness of a Catholic Bishop Gil finds himself living in a near deserted part of Galveston, a once beautiful coastal town that hasn’t yet recovered from the effects of Hurricane Ike.

At the same time Gil begins to investigate a series of unexplained deaths of famous atheists -who have been targeted by the religious right - that brings his own crisis of faith into uncomfortable focus.

When Esther, a disturbed woman, informs Gil that prayer has killed these men, Gil questions her sanity but as the evidence mounts up there might indeed be something in what she says.  But her shocking suicide after being released leaves some clues that lead to the Izrael Church of Good Men and Good Women and their charismatic Pastor, Nelson Van Der Velden.

  

Prayer is a novel of supernatural suspense that came out of Philip Kerr’s time spent with the domestic terrorism section within the Houston FBI.  Many of the crimes this particular section investigates have some sort of religious aspect and in this respect most of what is described in the book is entirely accurate and based on real life.

His ultimate purpose was not to write another book about the FBI, but instead to explore the role of religion and the meaning of faith in modern society.  Like William Peter Blatty’s book The Exorcist, it is a psychological thriller that gradually turns from being a kind of routine police procedural into a thoroughly modern Gothic horror story”

Philip Kerr is one of the most highly respected UK thriller writers and is generally considered the rightful successor to John le Carré.

He is the author of nine Bernie Gunther novels along with several stand-alone thrillers and a series for children.  If the Dead Rise Not won the 2009 CWA Ellis Peters Award for Best Historical Crime Novel and Prague Fatale got to No 13 on the New York Times bestseller list in hardback.  A Man Without Breath, Kerr’s most recent novel, reached number eight on the Sunday Times Bestseller list in hardback.  Kerr was one of the GRANTA BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS in 1993 – alongside the late Iain Banks, Louis de Bernières, Alan Hollinghurst, Kazuo Ishiguro, A.L. Kennedy, Hanif Kureishi, Ben Okri, Esther Freud, Will Self, Nicholas Shakespeare, and Jeanette Winterson.  He was born and raised in Edinburgh and now lives in Wimbledon, London.

Prayer by Philip Kerr is published in hardback and e-book by Quercus on 3 October 2013 at  £18.99 and £12.99 respectively.

Please contact Nicci Praça for more information on   0207 291 6604 or nicci.praca@quercusbooks.co.uk

Circles of Shadows and the Holy Roman Empire

Today’s guest blog is by Imogen Robertson who talks about the background to her latest novel Circle of Shadows.  Imogen Robertson is the author of the Westerman and Crowther series.  Island of Bones the fifth book in the series was shortlisted for the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award in 2011.  She has also been long-listed for the 2012 Dagger in the Library for her body of work.  Circle of Shadows is the sixth book in the series

Every novel comes about through a mix of accident and design.  Circle of Shadows was born out of a very selfish desire to find out more about the Holy Roman Empire in the 18th century, a book on an alchemist who set up his own version of Freemasonry, a silver swan and a carnival mask. 

I read German at university, and while I loved the literature it was not until I picked up a short biography of Goethe recently that I realised how little I knew about the context in which his work was written.  This was also about the time that Simon Winder’s wonderful Germania came out and his colourful accounts of some of the eccentricities of the small Courts of the 18th century sharpened my appetite even more.  When the time came to start thinking of the next Westerman and Crowther mystery I knew where I wanted to set it.  The states of the Empire that make up modern Germany were packed with the sort of colours and contrasts that make research of the period such a pleasure.  I sucked in stories of cabinets of curiosity, the subtleties of social hierarchy, the forward looking rulers who aimed to be philosopher kings and those whose energy and wealth were spent purely in the pursuit of pleasure.  The accounts of British travellers of the period are wonderful - fascinated, bemused impressed and uncomprehending in turn.  What, I thought, would Harriet and Crowther make of this?  

I cannot remember how I came across Iain McCalman’s book The Seven Trials of Cagliostro, but I’m very glad that I did.  This shaman or charlatan, depending on your perspective.  He had a colourful and varied career that took him across Europe, healing the sick, growing diamonds for the Cardinal de Rohan and setting up his own version of Freemasonry on the way.  Through him I found myself tumbling into the history of Freemasonry and its many offshoots which spread across Europe in the 1700s; some mystical, some philanthropic and some political.  He also sent me off looking for the philosopher’s stone.  Most people know that Newton was a dedicated alchemist, but I admit I was surprised to discover to what degree alchemy as a practical and spiritual practice was still being pursued long after his death. 

The silver swan automaton in Bowes has been entertaining visitors to that gorgeous museum for generations.  I remember it vividly from when I was a child, and I filmed it in my previous incarnation as a children’s TV director.  I knew I wanted to have someone in the Court who was an outsider like Harriet and Crowther.  A skilled craftsman, a foreigner who shared some common ground with them would be ideal, and so Adnan and Sami brothers who design and build automata were born. 

Then finally the carnival mask.  My partner and I headed off to Germany and spent a couple of weeks travelling in and around what is now Baden-Württemberg in the South West of the country.  We fell in love with the region.  The history of this part of Germany is complex and runs deep.  We saw the plain crowns of 11th century Kings, Roman bath houses and basilicas and the great baroque palaces built in imitation of Versailles.  We also went walking in the Black Forest and found, in a beautiful town called Gengenbach, the Museum of Fools.  It celebrates the customs of carnival where people dress in the masks of witches and party through the night to prepare for the arrival of Lent.  The masks worn in this and similar festivals across the area fascinated me and I thought of a man, drugged and confused, in the midst of those celebrations believing he was surrounded by monsters, then waking under guard accused of murder and with no memory of his innocence or guilt.  I had my opening scene.  So, accident and design.  It’s like a good stew; you gather up the ingredients and simmer.

For more information about Imogen Robertson and her work see her blog and her website.