Mystery

Review: THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE by Claire North (Orbit)

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NorthC-SuddenAppearanceOfHopeUKAn intriguing novel about identity and isolation, thieves and scary tech…

My name is Hope Arden, and you won’t know who I am. But we’ve met before — a thousand times.

It started when I was sixteen years old. 

A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.

No matter what I do, the words I say, the crimes I commit, you will never remember who I am.

That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous.

Long-time readers will know that Claire North is one of my favourite authors. With each new novel (and novella, because we have to include the linked Gamehouse trilogy), North takes reading on a riveting journey of unexpected and thought-provoking directions. The Sudden Appearance of Hope is no exception, with one of the most intriguing characters I’ve read in a while. Well, maybe since North’s previous novel… I enjoyed this a lot. Continue reading →

Excerpt: VINYL DETECTIVE: WRITTEN IN DEAD WAX by Andrew Cartmel (Titan)

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CartmelA-VD1-VinylDetectiveUKFollowing our interview with Andrew Cartmel, yesterday, Titan Books has sent us an excerpt from Vinyl Detective: Written in Dead Wax. First, here’s the synopsis…

He is a record collector — a connoisseur of vinyl, hunting out rare and elusive LPs. His business card describes him as the “Vinyl Detective” and some people take this more literally than others.

Like the beautiful, mysterious woman who wants to pay him a large sum of money to find a priceless lost recording — on behalf of an extremely wealthy (and rather sinister) shadowy client. 

Given that he’s just about to run out of cat biscuits, this gets our hero’s full attention. So begins a painful and dangerous odyssey in search of the rarest jazz record of them all…

Vinyl Detective: Written in Dead Wax is out now, published by Titan Books.

Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Stuck in the Middle with Sherlock” by Paul Cornell

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CornellP-AuthorPicIt was the title that first came to me: Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? And from there, the pieces just fell into place. In the London of my Shadow Police novels, ‘ghosts’ are the collective memories of all Londoners, and so include fictional and mythical characters, as well as those who were once alive. Therefore, Sherlock Holmes would very much be present, in 221B Baker Street, as a phantom, visible only to those with ‘the Sight’, like my Metropolitan Police heroes. Perhaps the phantom’s cohesive presence could have been recently amped up, say by three different current versions of Sherlock Holmes all filming in London at the same time, creating ‘Sherlockmania’?

What if that ghost were to be ‘murdered’, found lying face down with a ceremonial dagger in his back? What’s the motive? What does killing a ghost even mean? Continue reading →

Quick Review: BEFORE THE FALL by Noah Hawley (Grand Central)

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HawleyN-BeforeTheFallUSAn excellent, gripping mystery

On a foggy summer night, eleven people — ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter — depart Martha’s Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs, the painter, and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul’s family.

With chapters weaving between the aftermath of the crash and the backstories of the passengers and crew members — including a Wall Street titan and his wife, a Texan-born party boy just in from London, a young woman questioning her path in life, and a career pilot — the mystery surrounding the tragedy heightens. As the passengers’ intrigues unravel, odd coincidences point to a conspiracy. Was it merely by dumb chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something far more sinister at work? Events soon threaten to spiral out of control in an escalating storm of media outrage and accusations. And while Scott struggles to cope with fame that borders on notoriety, the authorities scramble to salvage the truth from the wreckage.

This is a fantastic novel. I have very high hopes before reading Before the Fall, and I’m very happy to report that it exceeded my expectations. The story is told from a number of perspectives, each a passenger on the fateful flight. This is an excellent read, and certainly in my top five of the year (so far). Continue reading →

Interview with MATTHEW BLAKSTAD

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BlakstadM-AuthorPic2Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Matthew Blakstad?

Former child actor, then a director of fringe theatre, more recently a specialist on digital communications – and now, novelist. I’ve lived in South London most of my life. I’m married, no kids. No cats (allergic spouse). As you’ll guess if you’ve read my book I’m very much into tech culture but perversely I also love the natural world and wild places.

Your new novel, Sockpuppet, will be published by Hodder. It looks rather interesting: How would you introduce it to a potential reader?

It’s a thriller, set in the very near future. An online celebrity starts dishing dirt on a politician, but this online voice is nothing but a chatbot – an artificial persona created by software. So how is a fake personality causing mayhem in the real world? Two very different women – a middle-aged politician called Bethany Lehrer, and a young software developer called Dani Farr – need to find out fast who’s behind this malicious campaign before it takes their lives to pieces.

Along the way, the book asks questions about how our online life is changing us – at the erosion of our privacy, the trolling of women, and the shift of power away from governments and towards the big technology companies. Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE LAST BOOKANEER by Matthew Pearl (Penguin)

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PearlM-LastBookaneerUSPBOk, The Last Bookaneer is already out. But the paperback is published by Penguin in April, and I wanted an excuse to share the cover, which I rather like. Matthew Pearl‘s novels always look interesting, but for some reason I’ve never got around to reading one. Here’s the synopsis for his latest:

book′a-neer′ (bŏŏk′kȧ-nēr′), n. a literary pirate; an individual capable of doing all that must be done in the universe of books that publishers, authors, and readers must not have a part in

London, 1890 — Pen Davenport is the most infamous bookaneer in Europe. A master of disguise, he makes his living stalking harbors, coffeehouses, and print shops for the latest manuscript to steal. But this golden age of publishing is on the verge of collapse. For a hundred years, loose copyright laws and a hungry reading public created a unique opportunity: books could easily be published abroad without an author’s permission. Authors gained fame but suffered financially—Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, to name a few — but publishers reaped enormous profits while readers bought books inexpensively. Yet on the eve of the twentieth century, a new international treaty is signed to grind this literary underground to a sharp halt. The bookaneers are on the verge of extinction.

The astonishing story of these literary thieves’ epic final heist. On the island of Samoa, a dying Robert Louis Stevenson labors over a new novel. The thought of one last book from the great author fires the imaginations of the bookaneers, and soon Davenport sets out for the South Pacific accompanied by his assistant Fergins. But Davenport is hardly the only bookaneer with a mind to pirate Stevenson’s last novel. His longtime adversary, the monstrous Belial, appears on the island, and soon Davenport, Fergins, and Belial find themselves embroiled in a conflict larger, perhaps, than literature itself.

Matthew Pearl is also the author of The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow, The Last Dickens, The Professor’s Assassin and The Technologists.

Upcoming: THE COUNTENANCE DIVINE by Michael Hughes (Hodder)

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HughesM-CountenanceDivineUKI stumbled across this on Hodder’s website yesterday, and my eye was caught by that stunning cover. There wasn’t a synopsis on the publisher’s page, but there was on Amazon. Here it is:

In 1999 a programmer is trying to fix the millennium bug, but can’t shake the sense he’s been chosen for something.

In 1888, five women are brutally murdered in the East End by a troubled young man in thrall to a mysterious master.

In 1777 an apprentice engraver called William Blake has a defining spiritual experience; thirteen years later this vision returns.

And in 1666, poet and revolutionary John Milton completes the epic for which he will be remembered centuries later.

But where does the feeling come from that the world is about to end?

That sounds pretty interesting, and has been described as “a brilliant cross between David Mitchell and Hilary Mantel,” which is certainly intriguing. The Countenance Divine is published in the UK by Hodder, on August 11th, 2016.

Upcoming: THE WHISTLER by John Grisham (Hodder/Doubleday)

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Grisham-WhistlerUKNew Grisham! I know a lot of people look down on Grisham and his popularity (the number of times I’ve heard people sneer his name… depressing), but I’m a big fan. His novels don’t always hit the mark, but aside from maybe three, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them. This next novel sounds really interesting, too. Here’s the synopsis:

We expect our judges to be honest and wise. Their integrity and impartiality are the bedrock of the entire judicial system. We trust them to ensure fair trials, to protect the rights of all litigants, to punish those who do wrong, and to oversee the orderly and efficient flow of justice.

But what happens when a judge steps out of bounds, breaks a law, compromises ethics, or even takes a bribe? It’s rare, but it happens.

Lacy Stolz is a lawyer working as an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. After ten years, only two of her cases have seen judges removed from office, and both of those were for incompetence.

That all changes when she is approached by a disbarred lawyer with a new name, a new identity, a new address. He goes by Rick, and Rick claims to know someone close to a Florida circuit court judge so corrupt that he (or she) has stolen more money than all other crooked judges combined. And not just crooked judges in Florida. All judges, from all states, and throughout U.S. history.

The judge was responsible for the construction of a large casino on Native American land. A small but lethal gang of organized thugs financed the building of the casino and is now, like the judge, helping itself to a sizable cut of each month’s cash. It’s a sweet deal; everyone is making money.

The whistleblower stands to collect millions under Florida law. Rick files a complaint. Lacy Stolz is assigned the case. She immediately knows this one could be dangerous. Could, in fact, be deadly.

The Whistler is due to be published in the UK by Hodder, and in North America by Doubleday (no US cover at the time of writing, and they also haven’t updated his page to include the title or details).

Upcoming: MISTER MEMORY by Marcus Sedgwick (Hodder)

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SedgwickM-MisterMemoryUKI’m a fan of Marcus Sedgwick’s work — I thought his previous novel for adults, A Love Like Blood, was superb. Ever since finishing that, I’ve been eagerly awaiting his next novel. And, in July, Hodder will be publishing Mister Memory. Here’s the skinny:

In Paris, at the end of the nineteenth century, a man with a perfect memory murders his wife. But that is only the start of the story… A dazzling literary mystery from prizewinning author Marcus Sedgwick.

In Paris in the year 1899, Marcel Després is arrested for the murder of his wife and transferred to the famous Salpêtrière asylum. And there the story might have stopped.

But the doctor assigned to his care soon realises this is no ordinary patient: Marcel Després, Mister Memory, is a man who cannot forget. And the policeman assigned to his case soon realises that something else is at stake: for why else would the criminal have been hurried off to hospital, and why are his superiors so keen for the whole affair to be closed? 

This crime involves something bigger and stranger than a lovers’ fight — something with links to the highest and lowest establishments in France. The policeman and the doctor between them must unravel the mystery… but the answers lie inside Marcel’s head. And how can he tell what is significant when he remembers every detail of every moment of his entire life?

Mister Memory is due to be published in the UK by Hodder, on July 14th, 2016. For more, check out the author’s website, and follow him on Twitter and Goodreads.

Upcoming: POISON CITY by Paul Crilley (Hodder)

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CrilleyP-1-PoisonCityUKThis novel sounds like it could be quite fun. I still don’t read very much urban fantasy, which is strange to me — I love it as a genre of TV show and movie. This has been billed as “Rivers of London meets Zoo City… perfect for grown-up fans of Harry Potter” — that’s a pretty confident boast. If it’s true, though, this novel could be huge. Here’s the synopsis:

The name’s Gideon Tau, but everyone just calls me London. I work for the Delphic Division, the occult investigative unit of the South African Police Service. My life revolves around two things — finding out who killed my daughter and imagining what I’m going to do to the bastard when I catch him.

I have two friends. The first is my boss, Armitage, a fifty-something DCI from Yorkshire who looks more like someone’s mother than a cop. Don’t let that fool you. The second is the dog, my magical spirit guide. He talks, he watches TV all day, and he’s a mean drunk.

Life is pretty routine — I solve crimes, I search for my daughter’s killer. Wash, rinse, repeat. Until the day I’m called out to the murder of a ramanga — a low-key vampire — basically, the tabloid journalist of the vampire world. It looks like an open and shut case. There’s even CCTV footage of the killer.

Except… the face on the CCTV footage? It’s the face of the man who killed my daughter. I’m about to face a tough choice. Catch her killer or save the world? I can’t do both.

It’s not looking good for the world.

Paul Crilley‘s Poison City is due to be published by Hodder in the UK, on August 11th, 2016. For more on Paul’s writing and novels, be sure to check out the author’s website, and follow him on Twitter and Goodreads.