Books to Look Forward to from Profile Books (Incl Serpent's Tail, & Viper Books)

October 2020

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley a new edition of this seminal novel is being published. 'I need to find somebody and I might need a little help looking...' It's the summer of '48 in the city of Angels and there's heat on the streets when Daphne Monet hits the sidewalk. Heat when she disappears with a trunkload of somebody else's cash. Easy Rawlins is a war veteran just fired from his job. Drinking in a friend's bar, he wonders how to meet his mortgage when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will locate Miss Monet, a blonde with a reputation. It's a simple decision, but for one thing. Nobody warned him - better the devil you know... In the sleazy, fearful city, Easy must rely on his instincts, not just to solve the case, but to save his own life.

January 2021

Dear Reader, Enclosed are documents relating to the events surrounding the Fairway Players' staging of All My Sons, and the tragic death of one of its members. Another member is currently in prison for the crime. We have reason to suspect that they are innocent, and that there were far darker secrets that have yet to be revealed. We believe that the killer has given themselves away. It's there in writing, hidden in the emails, texts, and letters. In the events surrounding the charity appeal for little Poppy Reswick, and the question of whether that money was truly being used to fund her life-saving cancer treatment. Will you accept the challenge? Can you uncover the truth? Do you dare? The Appeal is by Janice Hallett.

The Rosary Garden is by Nicola White. It was Ali who found the body of a murdered newborn baby, hidden in the garden of her convent school. In an Ireland riven by battles of religion and reproduction, the case becomes a media sensation, even as the church tries to suppress it. But this is not the first dead baby Ali has found. For Detectives Vincent Swan and Gina Considine, the pressure to discover the identity of the dead child is little help against a community with secrets to protect. Gina knows all too well how many of Ireland's girls are forced to make difficult decisions in terrible circumstances, silenced by shame. Is Ali one of those girls? Because what evidence there is, points to Ali herself...

February 2021

This mother's day you will call her mummy. Glamorous, beautiful Mummy has everything a woman could want... except for a daughter of her very own. So when she sees Kim - heavily pregnant, glued to her phone and ignoring her eldest child in a busy shop - she does what anyone would do. She takes her. But little foul-mouthed Tonya is not the daughter that Mummy was hoping for. Meanwhile Kim is demonised by the media as a 'scummy mummy', who deserved to lose Tonya and ought to have her other children taken too. Haunted by memories of her own childhood and refusing to play by the media's rules, she begins to spiral, turning on those who love her. Though they are worlds apart, Mummy and Kim have more in common than they could possibly imagine. But it is five-year-old Tonya who is caught in the middle... Call me mummy it'll be better if you do. Call Me Mummy is by Tina Baker.

March 2021

The Last House on Needless Street is by Catriona Ward. This is the story of a serial killer. A stolen child. Revenge. Death. And an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street. All these things are true. And yet they are all lies... You think you know what's inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you've read this story before. That's where you're wrong. In the dark forest at the end of Needless Street, lies something buried. But it's not what you think...

April 2021

The Plague Letters is by V L Valentine. What is one more corpse, when all around you are dying... London, 1665. Hidden within a growing pile of corpses, one victim of the pestilence stands out: a young woman with a shorn head and pieces of twine delicately tied around each ankle. Symon Patrick, rector of St. Paul's Covent Garden, cannot say exactly why this corpse amongst the many in his churchyard should give him pause. Longing to do good, he joins a group of medical men who have gathered to find a cure for the plague, each man more peculiar and splenetic than the next. But there is another - unknown to The Society for the Prevention and Cure of Plague - who is performing his own terrible experiments upon unwilling plague-ridden subjects. It is Penelope - Symon's unwanted yet unremovable addition to his household - who may yet shed light on the matter. Far more than what she appears, she is already on the hunt. But the dark presence that enters the houses of the sick will not stop, and has no mercy... This hugely atmospheric and entertaining historical thriller will transport readers to the palaces and alleyways of seventeenth-century London.

May 2021

It’s the summer solstice weekend, and 150,000 people descend on a farm in the northeast of England for an open-air music festival. At first, a spot of rain seems to be the only thing dampening the fun – until a mystery bug appears. Before long, the illness is spreading at an electrifying speed and seems resistant to all antibiotics. Can journalist Zoe Meadows track the outbreak to its source, and will a cure be found before the disease becomes a pandemic? A heart-racing thriller, Resistance imagines a nightmare pandemic that seems only too credible in the wake of Covid-19. Resistance is a graphic novel by Val McDermid and Illustrated by Kathryn Briggs. 

Murder Takes a Holiday is edited by Cecily Gayford. For most of us, a summer holiday is an

opportunity to escape from it all: to lounge on warm sands or sip a cool drink in the shade of a city square. But, as the characters in this murderously good collection of classic crime stories discover to their cost ... trouble has a nasty habit of finding you out. From a body found on a beach without a single footprint, to a lemonade stand whose wares appear to have been poisoned and a Wimbledon final ruined by the mysterious disappearance of the championship player, these tales of murder and malice will take you on the trip of a lifetime. So pour that glass of Pimms, grab your sunhat and indulge your dark side: these stories will chill you to your very core, even in a heatwave …

Would you save the man who destroyed your life. When paramedic Megan Lowe is called to the scene of an attempted murder, all she can do is try to save the victim. But as the man is lifted onto a stretcher, she realises she knows this man. She hates him. Why should she save his life when he did everything in his power to ruin hers? Jess Foster is on her way home when she receives a text from Megan. Someone else must hate him as much as we do. The two women haven't spoken in years, not since the night when they were just the teenage girls who no-one believed. And yet this man will bring them together once again. But what terrible secrets are they hiding, and who is telling the truth? You Had It Coming is by B M Carroll.

Audible’s Prescient Crime Thriller of the Month

 

Book reviewers when congregated [even online in these weird days of Covid-19], often mutter “same old, same old” when discussing some of the latest crime thriller releases. A common wish from the literary community is the desire for something new, something fresh, something unexpected. This reminded me of an intriguing comment legendary Publisher Christopher MacLehose once said, introducing a book back in 2008 at the London Press Club, a debut novel that would breakout into the mainstream, not just circled by the wagons of genre –

He informed us that the job of the publisher is to bring books to the public that they didn’t want; books that they didn’t anticipate; and books that would nonetheless make an impression and challenge their way of thinking.

Read More from that launch HERE

I was delighted to sample a debut that is far from the ‘same old, same old’, and an extraordinary novel that this month's Audible crime and thriller selection.

It’s entitled Deadly Sacrifice by Stella Oni and like the award-winning and celebrated debut, My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, it has comes from an author with a Nigerian heritage – BUT that’s where the similarity ends, because Deadly Sacrifice is something entirely different, and darker.

So, what’s this month’s Audible Crime Thriller of the month about?

When a childs severed hand is found, DC Toks Ade and DS Philip Dean are put on the case. Thrown into a world of Nigerian traditional customs, ritual sacrifice, and international trafficking, they must find the guilty parties before more children are lost and more limbs are found. A chilling new thriller introducing Detectives Toks Ade, Philip Dean, and investigative author Coretta Davis.

And we present an interview with Stella Oni HERE

Stella was born in Clapham, London, brought up in Nigeria and lives in the UK. She has a degree in Linguistics and African Languages from the University of Benin and a MSc in Information Systems and Technology from City University, London. Stella works as a Business Intelligence Analyst and writes on culture, food, travel, health & wellbeing. Stella believes that her experience of growing within two worlds has given her a unique perspective and she is happy to share this. She has been shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize, UK. She is a regular contributor to Thrive Global and currently runs the culture blog African Britishness-a celebration of being African and British.

Audible’s production of this startling debut is brought to life by the actress (Reanne) Weruche Opia known for her roles in I May Destroy You for BBC/HBO, Inside No.9 and Bad Education for the BBC and Top Boy for Channel 4 – as well as narrating Audible’s production of Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, The Serial Killer, among other audio books.

Deadly Sacrifice is also one of the books that celebrates diversity in the Twenty in 2020 literary promotion culminating from a year-long project from Jacaranda Books in association with Words of Colour Productions.

Following a hugely popular call-out for unpublished Black British writers, independent publisher Jacaranda has picked twenty top submissions to publish over the course of 2020. Apart from the crime and thriller genre, the Twenty in 2020 celebration also traverses literary fiction, poetry, memoir, history, romance and more, and together works to add to the diversity of literature, characters and authors available to UK readers—and to inspire a whole new generation of readers, writers and publishing professionals.

If you are not an Audible member, you can join Audible and take advantage of their £7.99 / month subscription, even taking Deadly Sacrifice as your free book, as part of their introductory offer – click HERE for more information on joining Audible.

Audible UK are to be applauded for the support they provide the crime and thriller fiction genre, especially as the importance of audiobooks increases within publishing. They commission new work such as the pseudonymous Alex Callister’s thrillers as well as supporting the genre, including sponsoring one of Crimefest’s annual awards. Previous Audible crime and thriller selections we enjoyed can be accessed HERE, HERE and HERE.

We’d like to advise our trusty Shots Readers that you are welcome to attend the launch of Deadly Sacrifice, which is occurring next week as a free online event [due to the pernicious ubiquity of this surreal COVID-19 situation].

Mark your diaries - The book launch will take place on Thurs 17 Sept from 6.30pm to 8.30pm and will include an introduction, author Q&A with editor, publisher & writer Kadija Sesay, plus readings of extracts from the book by the author.

For more information from The Arts Council on registering for this free event, click HERE. We hope to see many of you there next week, but behind the safety of a PC or Smart-Phone screen.

Stella Oni can be found on Twitter > @SOnithewriter with more information HERE and HERE and actress Weruche Opia’s Twitter > @WerucheOpia can be found HERE

Photo credits: Audible UK, Stella Oni, Weruche Opia, Jacaranda Books, Foyles Charing Cross Rd, Words of Colour Productions, Amazon UK, BBC, HBO, The Arts Council and MIDAS.

Shots Magazine would like to thank Ben McCluskey of Midas Public Relations, for his help with this feature, as well as the team from Audible original productions [UK].

Books to Look Forward to From No Exit Press

September 2020

In City of Margins by William Boyle the lives of several lost souls intersect in Southern Brooklyn in the early 1990s. There's Donnie Parascandolo, a disgraced ex-cop with blood on his hands; Ava Bifulco, a widow whose daily work grind is her whole life; Nick, Ava's son, a grubby high school teacher who dreams of a shortcut to success; Mikey Baldini, a college dropout who's returned to the old neighborhood, purposeless and drifting; Donna Rotante, Donnie's ex-wife, still reeling from the suicide of their teenage son; Mikey's mother, Rosemarie, also a widow, who hopes Mikey won't fall into the trap of strong arm work; and Antonina Divino, a high school girl with designs on breaking free from Brooklyn. Uniting them are the dead: Mikey's old man, killed over a gambling debt, and Donnie and Donna's poor son, Gabe. These characters cross paths in unexpected ways, guided by coincidence and the pull of blood. There are new things to be found in the rubble of their lives, too. The promise of something different beyond the barriers that have been set out for them. This is a story of revenge and retribution, of facing down the ghosts of the past, of untold desires, of yearning and forgiveness and synchronicity, of the great distance of lives lived in dangerous proximity to each other.

The opioid epidemic has reached Paradise, and Police Chief Jesse Stone must rush to stop the devastationWhen a popular high school cheerleader dies of a suspected heroin overdose, it becomes clear that the opioid epidemic has spread even to the idyllic town of Paradise. It will be up to police chief Jesse Stone to unravel the supply chain and unmask the criminals behind it, and the investigation has a clear epicenter: Paradise High School. Home of the town’s best and brightest future leaders and its most vulnerable down-and-out teens, it’s a rich and bottomless market for dealers out of Boston looking to expand into the suburbs. But when it comes to drugs, the very people Jesse is trying to protect are often those with the most to lose. As he digs deeper into the case, he finds himself battling self-interested administrators, reluctant teachers, distrustful schoolkids, and overprotective parents . . . and at the end of the line are the true bad guys, the ones with a lucrative business they’d kill to protect. Robert B Parker's The Bitterest Pill is by Reed Farrel Coleman

October 2020

'When the Devil laughs the whole damn world laughs with Him' A mind-bending thriller blending hard-boiled detective fiction, supernatural horror, and metaphysical noir that takes readers on a macabre journey into the occult, from the East Coast to Paris to the Vatican, as private investigator Harry Angel, seeking both answers about his true identity and revenge, hunts down Satan himself. Angel's Inferno is by William Hjortsberg

In the latest thriller featuring the legendary Boston PI, Spenser heads to the City of Angels to meet old friends and new enemies in a baffling missing person case that might shake Tinseltown to its core. Gabby Leggett left her Boston family with big dreams of making it as a model/actress in Hollywood. Two years later, she disappears from her apartment. Her family, former boyfriend, friends--and the police--have no idea where she is and no leads. Leggett's mother hires Spenser to find her, with help of his former apprentice, Zebulon Sixkill, now an L.A. private eye. Spenser barely has time to unpack before the trail leads to a powerful movie studio boss, the Armenian mob, and a shadowy empowerment group some say might be a dangerous cult. It's soon clear that Spenser and Sixkill may be outgunned this time, and series favorites Chollo and Bobby Horse ride to the rescue to provide backup. From the mansions of Beverly Hills to the lawless streets of a small California town, Spenser will need to watch his step. In Hollywood, all that glitters isn't gold. And not all those who wander are lost. Robert B Parker's Angel Eyes is by Ace Atkins,

November 2020

Vietnam, 1963.- A female Viet Cong assassin is trawling the boulevards of Saigon, catching US Army officers off-guard with a single pistol shot, then riding off on the back of a scooter. Although the US military is not officially in combat, sixteen thousand American servicemen are stationed in Vietnam 'advising' the military and government. Among them are Ellsworth Miser and Clovis Robeson, two army investigators who have been tasked with tracking down the daring killer. Set in the besieged capital of a new nation on the eve of the coup that would bring down the Diem regime and launch the Americans into the Vietnam War, Play the Red Queen by Juris Jurjevics is a tour-de-force mystery-cum-social history, breathtakingly atmospheric and heartbreakingly alive with the laws and lawlessness of war.

Turncoat is by Anthony J Quinn. The sole survivor of a murderous ambush, a Belfast police detective is forced into a desperate search for a mysterious informer that takes him to a holy island on Lough Derg, a place shrouded in strange mists and hazy rain, where nothing is as it first appears to be. A keeper of secrets and a purveyor of lies, the detective finds himself surrounded by enemies disguised as pilgrims, and is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the purgatorial island, where he is forced to confront a series of disturbing secrets and ghosts in his own life.

Robert B. Parker’s beloved PI Sunny Randall returns on a case that blurs

the line between friend and foe…and if Sunny can’t tell the difference, the consequences may be deadly. When Sunny’s long-time gangster associate Tony Marcus comes to her for help, Sunny is surprised–after all, she double crossed him on a recent deal, and their relationship is on shakier ground than ever. But the way Tony figures it, Sunny owes him, and Sunny’s willing to consider his case if it will clear the slate. Tony’s trusted girlfriend and business partner has vanished, appears to have left in a hurry, and he has no idea why. He just wants to talk to her, he says, but first he needs Sunny to track her down. While Sunny isn’t willing to trust his good intentions, the missing woman intrigues her–against all odds, she’s risen to a position of power in Tony’s criminal enterprise. Sunny can’t help but admire her, and if this woman’s in a jam, Sunny would like to help. But when a witness is murdered hours after speaking to Sunny, it’s clear there’s more at stake than just Tony’s love life. Someone–maybe even Tony himself–doesn’t want this woman on the loose…and will go to any lengths to make sure she stays silent. Robert B Parker's Grudge Match is by Mike Lupica.

December 2020

'A good police force is one that catches more crooks than it employs' - Sir Robert Mark A clever, accomplished Cambridge graduate with a good job and an attentive lover, Imogen Lester seems to have the world at her feet. But when her parents are murdered abroad while working for the Diplomatic Service, she is suddenly thrown headlong into a murky world of espionage and organised crime. When she is charged with drug trafficking, even Ben Schroeder's skills may not be enough to save her - unless a shadowy figure from Ben's past can survive long enough to unmask a web of graft and corruption.. Verbal is by Peter Murphy.

Robert B Parker's Fool's Paradise is by Mike Lupica. When an unknown man is found murdered in Paradise, Jesse Stone will have his hands full finding out who he was–and what he was seeking. When a body is discovered at the lake in Paradise, Police Chief Jesse Stone is surprised to find he recognizes the murder victim–the man had been at the same AA meeting as Jesse the evening before. But otherwise, Jesse has no clue as to the man’s identity. He isn’t a local, nor does he have ID on him, nor does any neighboring state have a reported missing person matching the man’s description. Their single lead is from a taxi company that recalls dropping off the mysterious stranger outside the gate at the mansion of one of the wealthiest families in town. Meanwhile, after Jesse survives a hail of gunfire on his home, he wonders if it could be related to the mysterious murder. When both Molly Crane and Suitcase Simpson also become targets, it’s clear someone has an ax to grind against the entire Paradise Police Department.

January 2021

Evil Impulse is by Leigh Russell. Living with her colleague and long time love interest, Detective Inspector Ian Peterson, it seems that Geraldine Steel has finally found happiness. But life is never that simple. As a psychopath starts killing random women on the streets of York, Geraldine is abducted by a drugs syndicate who have been threatening her sister. Geraldine has everything to fight for, and her life is on the line...

February 2021

The small town of Red Bluff, Mississippi, has seen better days, but now seems stuck in a black-and-white photograph from days gone by. Unknowing, the town and its people are about to come alive again, awakening to nightmares, as ghostly whispers have begun to fill the night from the kudzu-covered valley that sits on the edge of town. When a vagabond family appears on the outskirts, when twin boys and a woman go missing, disappearing beneath the vines, a man with his own twisted past struggles to untangle the secrets in the midst of the town trauma. This is a landscape of fear and ghosts, of regret and violence. It is a landscape transformed by the kudzu vines that have enveloped the hills around it, swallowing homes, cars, rivers, and hiding terrible secrets deeper still. Blackwood by Michael Farris Smith is the evil in the woods, the wickedness that lurks in all of us.

March 2021

Moscow, 1985. The Soviet Union and its communist regime are in the last stages of decline, but remain opaque to the rest of the world—and still very dangerous. In this ever-shifting landscape, a senior KGB officer—code name GAMBIT—has approached the CIA Moscow Station chief with top secret military weapons intelligence and asked to be exfiltrated. GAMBIT demands that his handler be a former CIA officer, Alex Garin, a former KGB officer who defected to the American side. The CIA had never successfully exfiltrated a KGB officer from Moscow, and the top brass do not trust Garin. But they have no other options: GAMBIT's secrets could be the deciding factor in the Cold War.Garin is able to gain the trust of GAMBIT, but remains an enigma. Is he a mercenary acting in self-interest or are there deeper secrets from his past that would explain where his loyalties truly lie? As the date nears for GAMBIT’s exfiltration, and with the walls closing in on both of them, Garin begins a relationship with a Russian agent and sets into motion a plan that could compromise everything. The Mercenary by Paul Vidich.

American Sherlocks is edited by Nick Rennison. Sherlock Holmes is the most famous of all fictional detectives but, across the Atlantic, he had plenty of rivals. Between 1890 and 1920, American writers created dozens and dozens of crime-solvers. This thrilling, unusual anthology features stories about 15 of them, including Professor Augustus SFX Van Dusen, ‘The Thinking Machine’, even more cerebral than Holmes; Craig Kennedy, the so-called ‘scientific detective’; Uncle Abner, a shrewd backwoodsman in pre-Civil War Virginia; Violet Strange, New York debutante turned criminologist; and Nick Carter, the original pulp private eye.

April 2021

In the latest thriller featuring the legendary Boston PI, Spenser and his young protégé Mattie Sullivan take on billionaire money manager running a network of underaged girls for his rich and powerful clients. Ten years ago, Spenser helped a teenage girl named Mattie Sullivan find her mother's killer and take down an infamous Southie crime boss. Now Mattie--a college student with a side job working for the tough but tender private eye--dreams of being an investigator herself. Her first big case involves a fifteen-year-old girl assaulted by a much older man at one of Boston's most prestigious private clubs. The girl, Chloe Turner, only wants the safe return of her laptop and backpack. But like her mentor and boss, Mattie has a knack for asking the right questions of the wrong people. Soon Spenser and Mattie find ties between the exploitation of dozens of other girls from working class families to an eccentric billionaire and his sadistic hench woman with a mansion on Commonwealth Avenue. The mystery man's wealth, power and connections extend well beyond Massachusetts - maybe even beyond the United States. Spenser and trusted ally Hawk must again watch out for Mattie as she unravels a massive sex-trafficking ring that will take them from Boston to Boca Raton to the Bahamas, crossing paths with local toughs, a highly-trained security company, and an old enemy of Spenser's--the Gray Man--for a final epic showdown. Robert B Parker's Someone to Watch Over Me is by Ace Atkins.

When We Fall is by Carolyn Kirby. England, 1943. Lost in fog, pilot Vee Katchatourian is

forced to make an emergency landing where she meets enigmatic RAF airman Stefan Bergel, and then can’t get him out of her mind. In occupied Poland, Ewa Hartman hosts German officers in her father’s guest house, while secretly gathering intelligence for the Polish resistance. Mourning her lover, Stefan, who was captured by the Soviets at the start of the war, Ewa is shocked to see him on the street one day. Haunted by a terrible choice he made in captivity, Stefan asks Vee and Ewa to help him expose one of the darkest secrets of the war. But it is not clear where everyone’s loyalties lie until they are tested.

June 2021

In The Bones of Wolfe by James Carlos Blake, Rudy and Frank Wolfe are engaging in routine miscellaneous business—some legitimate and some less so—for their family when they stumble upon a stash of high-quality pornographic films in a raid. The plot thickens when their Aunt Catalina, the family matriarch aged 115, recognizes her long-lost sister in one of the young performers. Catalina tasks the boys with tracking the girl down, however improbable a connection may be. This proves to be no simple task. Soon, Rudy and Frank find themselves moving away from world of porn and towards the upper echelons of the Sinaloa drug cartel, where the mysterious woman has become a particular favorite of the head narco. For their aunt, the woman, and themselves, Frank and Rudy must find a way to get her out without alerting the cartel. A tropical storm complicates their quest, but their sprawling family may save them from this obstacle, too.

The TripFiction ‘Sense of Place’ Creative Writing Competition

This autumn, as the world finally takes its first tentative steps into a post pandemic world, we invite adventurous writers to create new stories. Ideas that transport people to a place where imaginations can escape from the claustrophobia of locked down lives and restricted travel. Welcome to the TripFiction ‘Sense of Place’ Creative Writing Competition.

There are very few rules and guidelines: we want to encourage creative adventure and freedom. It might be a fully formed short story, a travelogue or a more personal memoir. It might be set in Shetland, Shanghai, Shoeburyness or Shaker Heights, Ohio. It might be rooted in history, love, humour, romance, crime or food. It’s entirely up to you.

But the one thing your entry must include is a strong sense of place: the destination at the heart of your story will be as important a character as the protagonists and the plot.

Further information about rules, guidelines and closing date can be found here.

Happy Birthday!!!! Goldsboro Books 21st Anniversary

©Goldsboro Books

Happy birthday!!! It's not everyday you get to celebrate one of your favourite shop's 21^st birthday. A big achievement especially since some shops don't even make it to their 10^th anniversary and independent bookshops are incredibly important.

2020 has a lot to answer for. Some good, some bad. The good? Of course the fact that Goldsboro Books is celebrating its 21^st Anniversary this year. The bad, the fact that due to Covid-19 we can't really celebrate this wonderful occasion. Boo hoo!

Independent bookshops are a lifeline for many reasons. The staff are always knowledgeable, they love books and they are also great at hand selling books. Goldsboro Books do this so wonderfully and always with great aplomb!

Goldsboro Books current shop has of course a good lineage. Back in 1961 when the current shop was an antique shop, it was the site of a murder, followed by the first successful prosecution featuring the new Identikit system.

You would not be surprised if I were to say that my relationship with Goldsboro Books goes back quite a long way. I first hear of Goldsboro books even before they had their first shop in Cecil Court. At the time Thalia Proctor who is now the Editorial Manager for Sphere at Little Brown word for them and she used to travel to where David and Daniel were living and work out of their house.  Thalia of course used to tell me about all the wonderful books that they sold. 

©Ayo Onatade

With Goldsboro books initially being established in 1999 it was not until February 2002 that they first moved to 1 Cecil Court. For me it was brilliant as every time I was in the area I would pop into the shop. I could say that my excuse was to see Thalia which was partly true but it was also due to the fact that I just thought that it was a fantastic shop and I could drool over some of the first editions that I would have loved to own but could (and still cannot) afford. They are for example by authors such as Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, Erle Stanley Gardner, Patricia Highsmith, Raymond Chandler etc (you can see where I am going here) and for me it was as if you had walked into an Aladdin's cave. It was always easy for me to describe to friends exactly where the shop was as I always used the ballet shop on the corner as a reference point. 

When they moved into the first shop not only did I finally get to meet David but also Daniel. To be fair I am not sure what David made of me or me of him when we first formally met. David's sense of humour is of course well known and sometimes if you hear the two of us together you would think that we disliked each other but nothing could be further than the truth. David is of course from Yorkshire but luckily for me I was already used to “Yorkshire mannerisms” due to the fact that one of the Judges that I worked for is from Yorkshire as well. 

©Ayo Onatade

Four years later in August 2006 Goldsboro Books moved a couple of doors down to number 7 Cecil Court. They remained there until 2011 when they moved further down to the opposite end of the court to numbers 23 to 25 Cecil Court. Of course a much bigger shop but that is not surprising. Why you may ask? Goldsboro Books reputation has increased over the years and it has a vast number of 1^st edition books in stock so of course it needed bigger space. The shop was further enlarged in June 2015 when they took over and knocked through number 27 Cecil Court. It is of course a quite distinctive shop. It always has fabulous window displays and they always draw crowds. Cecil Court of course is also said to be the inspiration for Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter books by J K Rowling. Unsurprisingly when the tours are taking place they always seem to stop outside Goldsboro Books. I fancy that they think that it is Flourish and Blotts Bookseller.

One of my favourite things about the shop is that despite the fact that I read mainly crime fiction, Goldsboro cover all all sorts of books and that includes Children's and Young Adults along side genre fiction and some literary fiction. I am yet to go into the shop and not feel an immense sense of joy. Furthermore, whenever independent bookshops are being mentioned and discussed then Goldsboro Books always gets mentioned. 

© Ayo Onatade

There are so many good things about Goldsboro, they hold wonderful book launches. It is in fact the place to hold your book launch. They are the only bookshop that I know hold events for the different genres. We have had Crime in the Court which I believe was the very first one of these events. The first ever Crime in the Court took place on 21 June 201l whilst the first ever History in the Court taking place in September 2011 as well. They have also held Romance in the Court and of course Science Fiction and Fantasy. For authors it is the place to go to sign stock and they have occasionally been known to be the only shop that some international authors sign stock.

Goldsboro Books have been heavily involved in sponsoring a number of awards as well. They have been sponsors of the CWA Gold Dagger Award and the Romantic Novelists Association Historical Romantic Novel Award to name a few. There is also the Glass Bell Award which is their own award. Launched in 2017 it does not cover any specfic genre. and is judged solely by the staff at Goldsboro Books. The nominated books have always been incredibly ecletic. This year for example they had an all female shortlist.

They also host author events as well. They have held events with authors such as Sophie Hannah and Stuart Turton, Gregg Hurwitz, Pierce Brown and Michael Connelly. 

For me Goldsboro Books will always be the shop that I will recomemnd when asked. They also run a fantastic book of the month club which has recently been renamed Prem1er. If yo don't belong then you should seriously consider doing so. It is on of the best way's of getting hold of some brlliant books most of which go on to be incredibly collectable. 

©Goldsboro Books

As part of Goldsboro Books 21^st anniversary celebrations there is a wonderful anthology to look forward to. The anthology includes original stories from a wide range of well known authors such as Ian Rankin, Oyinka Braithwaite, Paul Burston, John Connolly, Ragnar Jónasson and Adele Parks to name a few. I for one am looking forward to reading this collection.

So whilst we have not had a chance to celebrate this year, I do hope that when life gets back to some semblance of normality all the friends of Goldsboro Books will have the opportunity to help you celebrate properly. Thank you for 21 years of friendship, books and support to authors and customers. May Goldsboro Books be around for many more years as you continue to bring us intriguing and wonderful books.

Until then happy birthday to Goldsboro Books, David, Daniel, Pavla, Emily and all the other members of staff. 

THE STRAND MAGAZINE CRITICS AWARDS

The Strand Magazine announced the winners of the 2020 Strand Critics Awards on Friday night at a fun Zoom Party which had people joining from varioous places. Andrew Guilli did the introduction and Hank Phillipi Ryan officiated the event. Great fun! It was wonderful to be part of the announcements as it is normally held in New York and I would not have been able to attend. Therefore hosting it on Zoom was a brilliant way to gather us all together.. The Awards recognize excellence in the field of mystery fiction and publishing.

Life Time Achievement Awards

Tess Gerritsen and Walter Mosley

Best Murder Novel

The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz (Harper)

Best Debut Novel

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

Publisher of the Year

Bronwen Hruska of Soho Press

Emma Christie on Telling The Truth on Social Media

True or false: We all lie on social media. 

If you’re honest, I think you’ll admit we rarely tell the whole truth.

Sometimes our lies are tiny and barely perceptible; a beaming smile that makes us look much happier than we really feel; a thumbs-up on someone else’s post when really we don’t care about the fact they’ve managed to grow a tomato. Or maybe a friend shares photos of their children dribbling their baked beans at dinner and you feel the need to respond saying they’re cute, when in reality you’re wishing someone would grab a damp cloth and wipe them down. I’m sure we’ve all done it, and will keep doing it. 

But why don’t we just tell the truth?

Why use social media to deceive others? 

Are lies always just one click away?

This is one of several themes I explore in my debut novel, The Silent Daughter. Set in Edinburgh, mostly in the rain, it follows a news reporter called Chris Morrison as he searches for his missing daughter, Ruth. He also investigates the possibility that Ruth’s disappearance is connected to a recent accident that left his wife Maria in a coma.

Social media plays an important role in the story as Chris realises the idyllic world his globetrotting daughter has always presented online may well be wildly different to the life she actually lives when she’s out of their sight. 

The Silent Daughter highlights the fact that, most of the time, we don’t really stop to question the truth of what our friends and family post online. And why would we? If your best friend says he’s hiking up north, we just assume he’s telling the truth. 

But as someone who’s travelled extensively in fairly exotic locations – I spent almost five years travelling and working in Central America – I’ve often thought how easy it would have been for me to invent stories, safe in the knowledge that nobody back home would question it. Most people had never even heard of the places I was visiting – so even if they did have doubts about the life I was presenting, they’d have had no way of checking.

Was my life really as blissful as I claimed in those sunset photos I posted on Facebook? Were those really my toes wriggling in the sand of that beautiful beach? Did I even take that photo? And in fact, was I even there? In reality, you’ll never know. 

Long gone are the days when I went backpacking with ten rolls of camera film sealed in a freezer bag so they’d be safe and dry until I got them developed back in Scotland. Twenty years ago when I was sharing stories with other travellers on the road we’d often spend a while describing places and how to reach them. Nowadays, we pull out our phones and show off an endless gallery of photos and digital maps. The internet has transformed our ability to share images – and it’s not just travellers who are obsessed with taking and sharing photos.

Hands up if you’ve ever taken a photo of your lunch and posted it online? Yes, me too.

As a fiction writer I work hard to maintain my online presence and I try to present an authentic picture of my life – but there are undoubtedly times when I post with a motive in mind. Maybe I want to be applauded for something I’ve achieved or perhaps I’m looking for sympathy or attention on difficult days. And sometimes I simply need reassurance that people are interested in what I’m doing and what I have to say – and a few thumb-ups is all it takes.

I’m sure I’m not the only one. 

And without a doubt the images I post on social media make my life seem pretty wonderful almost all of the time. I’m not saying that isn’t true – I feel very blessed - but obviously I have darker days too; times when doubts and worries linger for longer than I’d like. 

The lives we present online rarely match the reality 100%. And it’s vital to acknowledge that these days, images are king. I’ve heard a few people jokingly say the following phrase, but there’s truth to it: If there isn’t a photo, it didn’t really happen. 

In The Silent Daughter, I’ve turned that idea on its head. If there IS a photo, does that mean it

DID happen? I’ll let you - and my characters - work that one out for yourselves. 

The Silent Daughter by Emma Christie is published 3rd September by Welbeck, £8.99 in paperback original. 

Deceit runs in the family . . . Chris Morrison is facing his worst nightmare. His wife is in a coma. His daughter is missing.. And the only thing more unsettling than these two events . . . is what might connect them. Some secrets can change a family for ever.

Bloody Scotland McIlvanney Prize Finalists revealed

BLOODY SCOTLAND INTERNATIONAL CRIME WRITING FESTIVAL REVEALS FOUR FINALISTS FOR THE MCILVANNEY PRIZE 2020

sponsored by The Glencairn Glass with match funding from Culture & Business Fund Scotland

The annual McIlvanney judges lunch was a virtual Bank Holiday breakfast this year with Karen Robinson in London, Stuart Cosgrove in Glasgow and James Crawford in Edinburgh.

All were impressed by the variety and diversity of the finalists, with titles of dark humour, historical research, ambitious and innovative writing which demonstrate the sheer range of the crime genre and continuing strength of Scottish crime writing.

The list includes two who were finalists / bemused winners last year when Manda Scott announced that she was sharing the prize (Ambrose Parry & Doug Johnstone); an author who is also shortlisted for the 2020 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize (Francine Toon) and someone who provided and operated the audio, lighting and staging for the first Bloody Scotland Festivals and only started writing three years ago (Andrew James Greig). When he heard he was a finalist he said: “As a sound engineer I pinned a lapel mic on William McIlvanney at what was to be his last appearance at Bloody Scotland in 2014. I never imagined that in six years time I’d become a writer myself and be a finalist for the prize that bears his name."

The Shortlist for the McIlvanney Prize 2020 are

Whirligig by Andrew James Greig (Fledgling Press)

A Dark Matter by Doug Johnstone (Orenda)

The Art of Dying by Ambrose Parry (Cannongate Books)

Pine by Francine Toon (Transworld)

The judges praised Whirligig by Andrew James Greig (Fledgling Press) for an ‘ambitious, innovative concept and the most intricate modus operandi for killing the victims of any book this year..... a real page turner'

They described Pine by Francine Toon (Transworld) as ‘an impressive and atmospheric novel, with a portrait of remote rural Scotland, bringing in issues of school bullying, mental health and alcoholism. Very readable and engaging, It's also beautifully written.’

It’s the third time in five years that Doug Johnstone has been a McIlvanney Finalist. A perennial favourite at the Festival his latest book, A Dark Matter (Orenda) was described by the judges as ‘a brilliant idea, a heartwarming portrait of a family with three generations of women set in an undertakers. A confident, entertaining novel with dark humour, pace and energy'.

The Art of Dying is the second collaboration by husband and wife team, Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman. Chris won the McIlvanney Prize in 2016 with Black Widow and as Ambrose Parry they were finalists for the McIlvanney Prize last year. The judges loved the ‘original setting in Victorian Edinburgh’ and praised the ‘fascinating medical research’ and the ‘implicit love affair building between the two main characters – the medically trained man, and the untrained women (who is clearly the smarter of the two).’

The winner will be revealed from Stirling on Friday 18 September at 7pm and all the finalists are involved over the festival weekend. Andrew James Greig is on The Never-Ending Panel as is Doug Johnstone and Ambrose Parry; Chris Brookmyre (50% of Ambrose Parry) and Doug will also be participating in The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers – Behind the Music and Crime at the Coo Online and Francine Toon has contributed to the debut short story in association with new sponsors of the two prizes, the Glencairn Glass.

Marisa Haetzman (the other 50% of Ambrose Parry) summed it up when she said “It’s little surprise to say that this is the best news we’ve had all year.”

Shortlisted authors for the Debut Prize 2020 are:-

Hold your Tongue by Deborah Masson (Transworld)

The Crown Agent by Stephen O'Rourke (Sandstone)

See Them Run by Marion Todd (Canelo)

Pine by Francine Toon (Doubleday)

The authors shortlisted for the Debut Prize will collaborate on a short story to be co-ordinated by author and board member, Gordon Brown aka Morgan Cry, in association with The Glencairn Glass.