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.

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

July

A daughter disappears in the middle of the night.  What happens in the aftermath of this tragedy – after he search is abandoned, after the TV crews move on to cover the latest horrific incident – is the story of Coyote.  There is a marriage and a detective.  There is a storm, a talk show host, and a roasted boar.  People are murdered and things are hidden.  Coyote skulk in the woods, a man stands by the fence, and a tale emerges within this familiar landscape of the violent unknown.  Coyote is by Colin Winnette.

August

 

1 July 1969.  The investiture of the new Prince of Wales.  When Arianwen Hughes is arrested driving with a homemade bomb near Caernarfon Castle her case seems hopeless.  Her brother Caradog, her husband Trevor, and their friend Dafydd are implicated in the plot, the evidence against them damning.  Ben Schroeder’s as a barrister is riding high after the cases of Billy Cottage and Sir James Digby.  But defending Arianwen  will be his greates challenge yet.  Trevor may hold the key to her defence, but he is nowhere to be found.  The Heirs of Owain Glyndŵr is by Peter Murphy.

September

Robert B Parker’s The Devil Wins is by Reed Farrel Coleman. In the wake of a huge storm, three bodies are discovered in the rubble of an abandoned factory building in an industrial part of Paradise known as The Swap. One body, a man’s, wrapped in a blue tarp, is only hours old. But found within feet of that body are the skeletal remains of two teenage girls who had gone missing during a Fourth of July celebration twenty-five years earlier. Not only does that crime predate Jesse Stone’s arrival in Paradise, but the dead girls were close friends of Jesse’s right hand, Officer Molly Crane. And things become even more complicated when one of the dead girls mothers returns to Paradise to bury her daughter and is promptly murdered. It’s up to police chief Jesse Stone to pull away the veil of the past to see how all these murders are connected . . .

November

Henk van der Pol is a 30 year term policeman, just for a few months off retirement.  When he finds a woman’s body in Amsterdam Harbour, his detective instincts take over, even though it’s not his jurisdiction.  Warned off investigating the case, Henk soon realises he can trust nobody, as his search for the killer leads to the involvement of senior police officers, government corruption in the highest places, Hungarian people traffickers, and a deadly threat to his own family.  The Harbour Master is by Daniel Pembrey.

Dark Brilliance: Agatha Christie, poisonous plants and murder mysteries By Daniel Pembrey

Agatha Christie lived close to Chelsea Physic Garden during the 1920s and 1930s and was almost certainly a regular visitor, so it seemed fitting that it should host the above-named event on Tuesday, 2^nd February. It didn’t disappoint.

   Chelsea Physic Garden almost certainly counted Agatha Christie as a regular visitor

The speakers tried not to be too over-awed by the real star of the show, who couldn’t be there in person but who is now estimated to have sold nearly four billion copies of her novels. Christie was discussed in depth by novelists Rebecca Chance and Helen Smith, as well as scientist Kathryn Harkup whose book A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie was recently published by Bloomsbury.

“It's always great to talk Christie and poisons but it's even better when you have such enthusiastic and knowledgeable fellow panel members,” said Kathryn Harkup. “The audience were brilliant and came up with some very intriguing questions. A great night all round.”

(The following day, Kathryn was nominated for a prestigious Agatha Award in the Best Nonfiction category.)

A full house for the panel that featured Rebecca Chance, Kathryn Harkup and Helen Smith

Rebecca Chance made wide-ranging use of her knowledge of Golden Age detective fiction, showing how inventively Christie deployed poisons. “The audience was very enthusiastic and curious about the twin subjects of Christie and poison, with a sidebar to other Golden Age authors,” commented Rebecca. “We could have talked all night!” Rebecca also paid tribute to current leaders in the genre such as Val McDermid, whose Beneath the Bleeding got a prominent mention.

Taking a cue from Christie’s founding role in the Detection Club, Helen Smith talked about starting up BritCrime, the popular crime author collective. The panel was honoured that Jane Isaac, a BritCime author, had travelled from Northamptonshire to be there.

Helen Smith also emphasised the importance of settings in both Christie’s stories and her own. “The Chelsea Physic Garden was the perfect location to discuss Agatha Christie and poisons,” she said. “I'm always looking for inspiration for inventive ways to murder people in my Emily Castles mystery series. Poison is a very useful murder weapon because there's no need for physical strength to administer it, so its use casts suspicion on the widest number of suspects. The lively discussion generated plenty of ideas for future books.” 

The speakers agreed that central to Christie’s enduring appeal was her plotting, but also noted both the darkness of her writing and, contrastingly, her sense of humour. The audience asked plenty of questions at the end, particularly on the relative advantages of different poisons. A gastronomic theme emerged. How much garlic does it take to kill someone? What about potatoes? 

A full twenty minutes of audience Q&A followed … and! … Rebecca Chance found her light

With that in mind, the panel members retired to a local pub afterwards. Curiously, the private dining room that they were shown into bore a striking resemblance to the set of And Then There Were None …Thankfully the food at The Coopers Arms was excellent and everyone returned home safely.

It was a magical and authentic evening, the more so as Abi Onatade (@Abi_Spks), Caroline Raeburn (@RaeburnCaroline), Claudia Clare (@ClaudiaCeramics), Ian Patrick (@imdambassador), Jeanette Hewitt (@jmhewitt), Joy Kluver (@JoyKluver) and No Exit Press were there too. Here’s hoping for other such events, soon!

Daniel Pembrey moderated this event, which forms part of an ongoing series, the next one being a Salon littéraire at the Luxembourg Embassy in London on May 12^th featuring the (currently) Luxembourg-based crime writer Ruth Dugdall.