Quick Review: THE OPERATOR by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Crime)

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Joe DeMarco returns, facing off against a ruthless lawyer working for an unscrupulous billionaire

It’s fixer versus fixer, and only one can win

Joe DeMarco is a capable man. He works as a fixer for John Mahoney, the former Speaker of the House (though DeMarco prefers the term “troubleshooter”). He’s the one Mahoney calls upon when there’s a situation that requires creative problem solving.

Carla Andretti — a cutthroat lawyer at one of the world’s top firms — is a fixer too. On behalf of the ultra-wealthy tech-mogul Leo Cage, Carla helps her boss conquer whatever he desires, even if she too must bend the law to make it happen.

When one of Leo’s schemes begins to crumble, it threatens to expose them both on a massive scale, forcing Carla to do what she does best: fix the situation. In order to keep her and Leo’s names clean, she’ll have to go after the people responsible for the unraveling. The only problem? Joe DeMarco’s onto her — and he knows all too well the tricks of the trade.

In Mike Lawson’s 20th novel starring Washington fixer Joe DeMarco, the protagonist finds himself facing off against another fixer, one who is far more ruthless, and working for a tech billionaire. It’s a fast-moving, gripping thriller, and delivered everything I have come to expect from Lawson’s long-running, excellent series. Continue reading →

Excerpt: THE FIST OF MEMORY by Wole Talabi (DAW)

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Tomorrow, DAW Books are due to publish the latest novel by Wole Talabi: The Fist of Memory — a first-contact novel sure to appeal to fans of Arrival, Contact and sci-fi in general. To mark the occasion, CR has a short excerpt from the novel to share with our readers! Here’s the synopsis:

A strange alien spacecraft suddenly appears in the sky in this electrifying, action-packed first contact novel set in near-future Nigeria from award-winning author Wole Talabi

When a non-communicative alien spacecraft suddenly appears in the sky, global powers are thrown into turmoil. 

But for Tope, a principled Nigerian assassin with a talent for lethality in the employ of the mysterious witchdoctor known as “Baba,” it’s all just business as usual. At least until a job goes wrong, and Tope is caught in the scramble—a high stakes game of power and politics for the future that is to come. Joined by Itumeleng, a South African astronomer plagued by mysterious dreams, they must find a way to survive, navigate their complicated pasts, and come to understand how they, and all of humanity, are connected to the alien craft before it lands and the world changes forever. But it won’t be easy. There are sinister forces marshalled against them, including a strange assassin obsessed with a single memory.

The Fist Of Memory is a first contact thriller unlike any other; a meditation on the nature of reality, memory and connectedness.

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New Books (September-October)

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Seems to be a pretty busy biblio-time of the year, so not only do I have another one of these posts so soon after the last, but I have yet another almost finished. Looks like the next 12 months or so are going to be great for readers of all genres and stripes. A little bit for everyone, and plenty of opportunities to try something new and unusual.

Featuring: RJ Barker, Laurie Blake, Adrian Daub, Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan, Arlan Ettinger, John Grisham, Michael Lewis, Ben Macintyre, Val McDermid & Jo Sharp, Richard Swan, Evan Calder Williams, Emily Wilson

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Upcoming: VERSIONS OF A MURDER by Paula Daly (Minotaur/Wildfire)

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I’ve been a fan of time-loop stories—in which a character cycles through the same moment, day, or event—ever since I watched Groundhog Day (like, I’m sure, many people my age). Another favourite example, if not my actual favourite, is The First Fifteen lives of Harry August by Claire North—seriously, if you haven’t read it, yet, go give it a try. In May, Minotaur Books are due to publish the new novel by Paula Daly, Versions of a Murder, which looks like a very interesting take on the idea:

Versions of a Murder takes the idea of restarting at the same moment in time over and over, and spins it into a compelling suspense novel about a young woman who tries to catch a serial killer across numerous lifetimes.

What if you had to relive the day of your murder over and over?

Opening on one ordinary morning in 1974, junior doctor Heidi Quick awakens from a quick nap to find herself rushing about her day on a busy hospital ward. When a snowstorm closes in, she accepts a ride home from her senior colleague Dr Fred Preston, only for her night to turn shockingly fatal when Preston murders her in her apartment. Even more shocking is when Heidi wakes and relives that day again.

Heidi becomes locked in a time loop—one that resets not with the sunrise, but with her death. Each time she dies, she wakes again in 1974, memories intact, and haunted by a single unchanging truth: someone she trusts wants her dead. But that someone is a respected colleague, Fred Preston, whose charm and authority mask a darkness rooted in a real-life UK serial killer case.

The repercussions of this reverberate through the following years as Heidi relives versions of her life—sometimes days, sometimes decades—as well as versions of her murder. Soon, Heidi realizes that due to a twist of time and fate, she has a singular chance to both work out why she is being murdered and also determine how she can save future victims and lead a meaningful life. With each iteration, the lines between destiny and choice, victim and perpetrator, past and future blur, as Heidi tries to stop Preston once and for all.

Versions of a Murder is an utterly page-turning, inventive, absorbing and often moving novel, part gripping suspense, part quest for survival and justice, that considers the choices we make in life while also drawing out a cat and mouse story, as we root for Heidi from the start—and again and again and again.

Really looking forward to reading this.

Paula Daly’s Versions of a Murder is due to be published by Minotaur Books in North America (May 4th, 2027) and Wildfire in the UK (May 6th).

Follow the Author: Goodreads, Instagram

Upcoming: ORPHEUS by M. R. Carey (Orbit)

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Like many people, I discovered M. R. Carey‘s books with the excellent, best-selling The Girl With All the Gifts. I remember devouring that novel in two sittings, each time well into the night. He’s become an author who I’ll always look out for. Recently, he’s been writing a lot more science fiction, and while I have fallen quite far behind (curse the linear nature of time and limited number of books one can read while also having to work!),* each of his SF novels has looked fantastic — Outlaw Planet, in particular. Next year, Orbit are due to publish his latest, Orpheus, which sounds particularly interesting:

On a planet where one half is forever in sunlight and the other in endless night, a young colonist must venture into the deadly Nightside to uncover the truth about the disappearance of his mother…

HUMANITY CAN’T SURVIVE THE NIGHTSIDE

On the distant colony world of Tessix, the sun never moves in the sky. One side of the planet burns under endless noon, whilst the other is a frozen wasteland in perpetual darkness. Human life is only possible in a narrow strip of land where the terraforming project almost worked.

Growing up on the borderland between light and dark, under the fading sun globes of Tanner’s Hook, fifteen-year-old Bead Plessey clings to his friends and his fantasies. Bead dreams of one day escaping the grim realities of life on Tessix – the declining population, the ruthless autocracy of the Noonday government, and the monstrous Daspa that come out of the nightside to feed on human blood.

When a stranger turns up at Bead’s home asking for lodgings, he brings the possibility of change. But who is Jud Valery, and where has he come from? Is his interest in Bead benign or sinister? And how is he connected to the disappearance of Bead’s mother, Omrid, eight years before? Looking for answers, Bead assembles an ill-assorted band of allies – but their investigation takes them far beyond Tanner’s Hook, into the nightside and into the long-buried secrets that shaped their world.

M. R. Carey’s Orpheus is due to be published by Orbit Books in North America and in the UK, on February 16th, 2027.

Also on CR: Guest Post “On Writing Strong Women”; Review of The Girl With All the Gifts

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads

* This is basically a given, now. So maybe I should stop writing it into my posts…

Excerpt: RIVER OF DREAMS by Robin Blackburn McBride (Guernica Editions)

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Today, we have an excerpt from River of Dreams, the latest novel by Robin Blackburn McBride. The novel, which blends elements of metaphysical fiction, feminism, historical settings, and elements of the supernatural, is out now, published by Guernica Editions. The excerpt (chapter 3), follows after the synopsis.

A near-tragic accident. A life-changing phenomenon. A calling she couldn’t foresee.

Toronto, 1914. Avery Conlon’s world turns upside down in an instant. Overhearing a comment that casts doubt on her blood ties with the mother raising her, the despairing twelve-year-old runs away―but ends up falling through a river of ice. Dragged out and on the edge of death, she awakens with secret, heightened powers of perception… and a vision of a strange woman.

Learning to navigate her new abilities to sense what others cannot, and dreaming repeatedly of a mysterious silvery boy, Avery vows to track down the truth of her past. As a young adult in the 1920s, she becomes a nurse at a hospital for the insane where her gift for healing leads to possible answers about her mother, Avery’s second sight, and whether her uncertain future can include real love.

Will Avery step into her greatest destiny?

In this enthralling narrative of one woman’s journey, author Robin Blackburn McBride explores the power of intuition and giving voice to the silenced. And as the character grows from a vulnerable young girl to a strong person seeking to take charge of her fate, readers will delight in this suspenseful tale of self-discovery and romance.

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Excerpt: MOTHER MAY I by Harry Hunsicker (Oceanview)

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Next month, Oceanview Publishing will publish Mother May I by Harry Hunsicker. The novel is a thriller that follows former CIA operative Meg Dalton, who uncovers evidence that the daughter she lost 15 years ago may still be alive.

To mark the upcoming release, we have a short excerpt to share with our readers. Here’s what it’s about:

She lost everything. Except the will to fight.

When former CIA operative Meg Dalton finds a shocking clue that suggests her long-missing daughter might still be alive, she’s forced into a desperate, high-stakes search for the truth. Fifteen years after little Ivy vanished without a trace at a Texas fair, Meg has built a career as a covert “operator”―a soldier-for-hire who takes on dangerous black ops missions for the government.

But during a botched assignment in Los Angeles, Meg encounters a woman wearing her daughter’s distinctive butterfly necklace, and everything she believes unravels. As Meg defies her handlers and goes rogue to chase the lead, she’s thrust into a deadly conspiracy linking global espionage, human trafficking, and her own past sins.

Hunted by both her employers and foreign agents, Meg must decide how far she’s willing to go―and what lines she’ll cross―to uncover the truth and reclaim her child.

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Excerpt: GROTESQUE by Elliott Dunstan (Wolsak & Wynn)

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Next week, Wolsak & Wynn will publish Grotesque, the latest book by Elliott Dunstan , the Ottawa-based “poet, historian, author, cook, proud anarchist, drag performer, and otherwise man of many hats.” To mark the occasion, we have an excerpt to share with our readers. The novel is a “darkly erotic fairy tale of death and redemption. Here’s the full synopsis:

Bedhyndann is a small seaside town in Cornwall. A town that travellers feel uncomfortable in. A town where sailors often choose to stay on their ships rather than coming into port. A town where the golem Denvyth has lived for nearly two hundred years and where he has been waiting for his master, the sorcerer Arderne, to return for one hundred and fifty of those. To pass the time he amuses himself at the siren Victoire’s private club, helping the humans around him fulfill their most dangerous desires. Until he crosses paths with Summers, a client who wants more from Denvyth than he should and who has the clues to unlock the secret of Arderne’s disappearance.

But Arderne sought to release an old god and once Denvyth follows his master’s last instructions and finishes the sorcerer’s spell, what he unleashes could make him the monster he’s always feared being and destroy the world.

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Excerpt: FIND ME WHERE IT ENDS by Cassandra Khaw (Tor Nightfire)

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Next week, Tor Nightfire will publish the latest horror novella from the always-excellent Cassandra Khaw: Find Me Where it Ends! Every new book by Khaw is something to celebrate, so we’re very happy to be able to share an advance excerpt with our readers. Before we get to the excerpt, here’s the synopsis:

A woman wakes up to find the black hound of Death at her front door in this hauntingly beautiful tale…

Antigone is no stranger to death.

For the women of her family, death always comes in the form of a black dog.

When Antigone’s own black dog arrives, she isn’t afraid. She invites it inside, where it soon becomes a daily source of companionship and comfort. It also forces her to reflect on the life she’s led — the parts of herself she’s hollowed out for the sake of others, and the bone-deep exhaustion that’s hounded her every step.

Her Death’s arrival must be a sign, permission to finally let go. To rest. Because while mortality is inevitable, living is a choice.

But a good death comes at a price.

And now, on with the excerpt…!

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