Forthcoming books from Bitter Lemon Press.

 January 2023

Trouble is by Katja Ivar. Helsinki, June 1953, at the heart of the Cold War. Hella, now a reluctant private investigator, has been asked by her former boss at the Helsinki murder squad to do a background check on a member of the Finnish secret services. Not the type of job Hella was hoping for, but she accepts it on the condition that she is given access to the files concerning the roadside death of her father in 1942, at a time when Finland joined forces with Nazi Germany in its attack against the Soviet Union. German troops were sent to Finland, the Gestapo arrived in Helsinki and German influence on local government was strong, including demands for the deportation of local Jews. Colonel Mauzer, his wife and other family members were killed by a truck in a hit and run incident. An accident, file closed, they said. But not for Hella, whose unwelcome investigation leads to some who would prefer to see her stopped dead in her tracks.

February 2023

The attempted robbery of the armoured car in the back streets of Montevideo is a miserable failure. A lucky break for the intrepid Ursula Lopez who manages to snatch all the loot, more hindered than helped by her faint-hearted and reluctant companion Diego. Only now, the wannabe robbers are hot on her heels. As is the police. And Ursula's sister. But Ursula turns out to be enormously talented when it comes to criminal undertakings, and given the hilarious ineptitude of those in pursuit, she might just pull it off. She is an irresistible heroine. A murderess with a sense of humour, a lovable criminal with an edge and she is practically invisible to the men who dominate the deeply macho society of Uruguay. That Hand that Feeds You is by Mercedes Rosende.

March 2023

The Translator is by Harriet Crawley. Moscow 2017. Clive Franklin, a Russian language expert in the Foreign Office, is summoned unexpectedly to Moscow to act as translator for the British Prime Minister. His life is turned on its head when, after more than a decade, he discovers that his former lover, Marina Volina, is now the interpreter to the Russian President. At the embassy, Clive learns of a pending Russian assault on undersea cables linking the US to the UK which would paralyse communications and collapse the Western economy. Marina stuns Clive with the news that she's ready to help the UK to stop the attack, betraying her country for a new identity and a new life. Clive understands that it's a race against time. He becomes the go-between, relaying Marina's intelligence to MI6. He joins Marina as she trains for the Moscow marathon, an excuse to be together and an opportunity to exchange information. What are the odds that two translators, running the Moscow marathon with the FSB on their backs, can save the UK and much of Western Europe from economic meltdown?

May 2023

The Man in the Corduroy Suit is by James Wolff. British spy Leonard Flood is asked to investigate the poisoning in London of Willa Karlsson, a retired British secret service vetting officer suspected of being a Russian agent. British intelligence is terrified by the possibility that Moscow poisoned her upon her retirement since she was no longer useful to them. When Leonard discovers that he is also a suspect in the investigation and that Willa's story is less a story of betrayal than one of friendship, he must decide whether to hand her to her masters or to help her to escape.

June 2023

For Inspector Hunkeler the New Year begins with a most unwelcome phone call. He is summoned back to Basel from his holiday to unravel a gruesome killing in a gardening allotment on the city's outskirts. An old man known as Anton Fluckiger has been shot in the head and found hanging from a butcher's hook from the roof of his garden shed - like butchers hang the carcasses of dead animals. Hunkeler must deal not only with the quarrelsome tenants of the allotment but with the challenges of investigating a murder that has taken place outside his jurisdiction, across the French border in Alsace. The clues lead to the Emmental in Berne, and then events from the last weeks of the Second World War in Alsace come to light, the wounds of which have never healed in the region. The Murder of Anton Livius is by Hansjörg Schneider.

Books to Look Forward to from Bitter Lemon Press

January 2020

On a stormy summer day the Aosawas, owners of a prominent local hospital, host a large birthday party. The occasion turns into tragedy when 17 people die from cyanide in their drinks. The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer's, and the physician's bewitching blind daughter, Hisako, the only person spared injury. But the youth who emerges as the prime suspect commits suicide that October, effectively sealing his guilt while consigning his motives to mystery. The police are convinced that Hisako had a role in the crime, as are many in the town, including the author of a bestselling book about the murders written a decade after the incident, who was herself a childhood friend of Hisako' and witness to the discovery of the murders. The truth is revealed through a skilful juggling of testimony by different voices: family members, witnesses and neighbours, police investigators and of course the mesmerizing Hisako herself.  The Aosawa Murders is by Riku Onda. 

March 2020

The story takes place in the suffocating atmosphere of a social housing estate in the south of France. Sixteen-year-old Celine and her sister Jo, fifteen, dream of escaping to somewhere far from their daily routine, far from their surly, alcoholic father and uncaring mother, both struggling to make ends meet. That summer Celine falls pregnant, devastating news that reopens deep family wounds. Those of the mother Severine whose adolescence was destroyed by her early pregnancy and subsequent marriage with Manuel. Those of Manuel, grandson of Spanish immigrants, who takes refuge in alcoholism to escape the open disdain of his in-laws. Faced with Celine's refusal to name the father, Manuel needs a guilty party and Said, a childhood friend of the girls and conveniently Arab, seems to fit the role perfectly. In the suffocating heat of summer Manuel embarks on a drunken mission of revenge. A dark and upsetting account of an ailing society, filled with silent and murderous rage.  The Summer of Reckoning is by  Marion Brunet

June 2020

Deep as Death is by Katja Ivar.  Helsinki, March 1953. An unusually long and cold winter, everywhere frozen sea, ice-covered lakes and rivers. In a port city flooded with refugees, who cares if a young woman goes missing? An up-and-coming inspector who views this as an opportunity to advance his career. A heartbroken PI with a score to settle. They have yet to discover one thing: the most dangerous lies are those we tell ourselves. It all begins when Nellie, a prostitute working in a high-end brothel is found floating upside down in Helsinki Harbour. Not exactly a high priority case for the Helsinki police, so homicide chief Jokela passes the job to his former colleague Hella. It's beginning to look like a serial killer is at work when Elena, another lady of the night, narrowly escapes being driven into the harbour by her 19-year-old john. Problem was he had handcuffed her in the car. And to add further excitement to Hella's life, the madam is soon found dead in the garden outside the brothel.

July 2020

The Night of The Shooting Stars is by Ben Pastor.  It is just the beginning of a convulsed week, where danger lurks behind army headquarters, down sordid streets, and in the frightening Presidium of the Criminal Police. Bora is unexpectedly ordered by SS General Arthur Nebe, head of Kripo, to investigate the murder of a dazzling showman and clairvoyant, a major star since the days of the Weimar Republic. Bora's inquiry, supported by police inspector and former S.A member Florian Grimm, resurrects memories of the excessive and brilliant world of Jazz Age cabarets and locales. Around them, in the oppressive summer heat, constant allied bombing, war-weary Berlin teems with refugees and nearly a million foreign labourers. Soon enough the perceptive Bora realizes to his dismay that there is much more at stake than murder in a paranoid city where everyone suspects everyone, and where insistent rumours whisper about a conspiracy aimed at the very heart of the Nazi hierarchy. And then there is charming Emmy Pletsch, who works for Stauffenberg: could she be a key to understanding? Trying to solve the murder of the Weimar Prophet takes Martin Bora into the deadly whirlwind of an anguishing moral dilemma, as a German soldier and as a man. The 20 July plot and its dramatic implications as never told before.