Showing posts with label Jeremy Duns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeremy Duns. Show all posts

Sunday, 29 November 2015

Books to look forward to from Simon and Schuster

JANUARY 2016



Joe Goldberg came to Los Angeles to start over, to forget about what happened in New York. But in a darkened room in Soho House everything suddenly changed. She is like no one he's ever met before. She doesn't know about his past and never can. The problem is, hidden bodies don't always stay that way.  Hidden Bodies is by Caroline Kepnes.


The Sign of Fear is by Robert Ryan.  The skies above London hum with danger. And in the Channel enemies lie in wait...  Autumn, 1917. London is not the city that Dr John Watson and Sherlock Holmes once bestrode like giants. Terror has come from the sky and Londoners are scurrying underground in fear. Then a twin tragedy strikes Watson. An old friend, Staff Nurse Jennings, is on a boat-ambulance torpedoed in the Channel with no survivors. And his concert-going companion, Sir Gilbert Hardy, is kidnapped. Then comes the gruesome ransom demand, for Sir Gilbert and four others, which will involve terrible mutilation unless the demands are met. Help comes from an unlikely source when Watson finds himself face-to-face with his old ruthless adversary, the "She Wolf" Miss Pillbody. She makes him a remarkable offer and so an unlikely partnership is formed - the enemy spy and Sherlock Holmes's faithful companion, a detective duo which will eventually uncover a shocking case of state-sponsored murder and find Watson on board a German bomber, with a crew intent on setting London ablaze.

A time of turbulence 1975. A summit has been arranged between the Rhodesian government and various nationalist leaders, and is due to take place in railway dining car 49, midway along Victoria Falls Bridge. But Matthew Charamba, a key player in the battle for majority rule in Rhodesia, is hiding a deadly secret. A time of terror Claire and Erik are living in Stockholm, raising their son, Ben. But their quiet life is about to unravel in explosive fashion. Each have hidden pasts, to which the other is oblivious, and those pasts have come back to find them. Time for Paul Dark to take action. When his family is kidnapped, Paul Dark, the most resourceful and dangerous double-agent of the 20th Century, must take action or lose the most precious people in his universe.  Spy Out the Land is by Jeremy Duns.

APRIL 2016


The Amber Shadows by Lucy Ribchester. Bletchley Park typist Honey Deschamps spends her days at a type-x machine in Hut 6, transcribing the decrypted signals from the German Army, doing her bit to help the British war effort. Halfway across the world Hitler's armies are marching into Leningrad, leaving a trail of destruction and pillaging the country's most treasured artworks, including the famous Amber Room - the eighth wonder of the world. As reports begin filtering through about the stolen amber loot, Honey receives a package, addressed to her, carried by a man she has never seen before. He claims his name is Felix Plaidstow and that he works in Hut 3. The package is postmarked from Russia, branded with two censors' stamps. Inside is a small flat piece of amber, and it is just the first of several parcels. Caught between fearing the packages are a trap set by the authorities to test her loyalty or a desperate cry for help, Honey turns to the handsome enigmatic Felix Plaidstow. But then her brother is found beaten to death in nearby woods and suddenly danger is all around...

MAY 2016


Berlin 1943. August Schlegel lives in a world full of questions with no easy answers. Why is he being called out on a homicide case when he works in financial crimes? Why did the old Jewish soldier with an Iron Cross shoot the block warden in the eye then put a bullet through his own head? Why does Schlegel persist with the case when no one cares because the Jews are all being shipped out anyway? And why should Eiko Morgen, wearing the dreaded black uniform of the SS, turn up and say he has been assigned to work with him? Corpses, dressed with fake money, bodies flayed beyond recognition: are these routine murders committed out of rage or is someone trying to tell them something...  The Butchers of Berlin is by Chris Petit.

JUNE 2016

The Lost Swimmer by Anne Turner.  Rebecca Wilding, an archaeology professor, traces the past for a living. But suddenly, truth and certainty are turning against her. Rebecca is accused of serious fraud, and worse, she suspects - she knows - that her husband, Stephen, is having an affair. Desperate to find answers, Rebecca leaves with Stephen for Greece, Italy and Paris, where she can uncover the conspiracy against her, and hopefully win Stephen back to her side, where he belongs. There's too much at stake - her love, her work, her family. But on the idyllic Amalfi Coast, Stephen goes swimming and doesn't come back. In a swirling daze of panic and fear, Rebecca is dealt with fresh allegations. And with time against her, she must uncover the dark secrets that stand between her and Stephen, and the deceit that has chased her halfway around the world.

Friday, 25 November 2011

Books to look forward to from Simon & Schuster

London, 1811. The twisting streets of riverside Wapping hold many an untold sin. Bounded by the Ratcliffe Highway to the north and the modern wonders of the Dock to the south, shameful secrets are largely hidden by the noise and glory of Trade. But two families have fallen victim to foul murder, and a terrified populace calls for justice. John Harriott, magistrate of the new Thames River Police Office, must deliver revenge up to them and his only hope of doing so is Charles Horton, Harriot's senior officer. Harriott only recently came up with a word to describe what it is that Horton does. It is detection. Plymouth, 1564. Young Billy Ablass arrives from Oxford armed only with a Letter of Introduction to Captain John Hawkyns, and the burning desire of all young men; the getting and keeping of money. For Hawkyns is about to set sail in a ship owned by Queen Elizabeth herself, and Billy sees the promise of a better life with a crew intent on gain and glory. The kidnap and sale of hundreds of human beings is not the only cursed event to occur on England's first officially-sanctioned slaving voyage. On a sun-blasted islet in the Florida Cays, Billy too is to be enslaved for the rest of his accursed days. Based on the real-life story of the gruesome Ratcliffe Highway murders, The English Monster takes us on a voyage across centuries, through the Age of Discovery, and throws us up, part of the human jetsam, onto the streets of Regency Wapping, policed only by Officer Horton. The English Monster is based on the Ratcliffe Highway murders, and is by Lloyd Shepherd. It is due to be published in March 2012.


The Chamber is the pulse-pounding new thriller from the Executive Producer of 24. When Gideon Davis, ex-international peacemaker, is approached by a man claiming to have information about an impending terrorist attack, even though his career with the government is over, something makes him sit up and listen. Calling on Nancy Clement, his old FBI colleague, Gideon decides to hand the evidence over to new boss, Ray Dahlgren. But when Dahlgren refuses to take Gideon seriously, he is left with only one option – to launch his own investigation. Enlisting the help of his brother, Tillman, to infiltrate a white supremacist group that may be involved, Gideon is thrown into the thick of a revenge plot designed not only to overthrow the government but to bring an end to democracy itself. But when things get messy, Gideon and Tillman will need Nancy’s help if they are to slot the final piece of the puzzle into place and prevent disaster. The Chamber is by Howard Gordon and is due to be published in January 2012.

A neutral capital straddling Europe and Asia, Istanbul has spent the war as a magnet for refugees and spies. Even American businessman Leon Bauer has been drawn into this shadow world, doing undercover odd jobs and courier runs for the Allied war effort. Now as the espionage community begins to pack up and an apprehensive city prepares for the grim realities of post-war life, he is given one more assignment, a routine job that goes fatally wrong, plunging him into a tangle of intrigue and moral confusion. Played out against the bazaars and mosques and faded mansions of this knowing, ancient Ottoman city, Leon’s attempt to save one life leads to a desperate manhunt and a maze of shifting loyalties that threatens his own. The new but untitled novel is by Joseph Kanon and is due to be published in May 2012


The Inquisitor is the debut novel by Mark Allen Smith and is due to be published in March 2012. Meet Geiger, a professional torturer whose methods know no bounds. He is about to embark on his most challenging subject yet...himself. Geiger’s business is extracting information. A meticulous torturer, his methods range from the brutal to the psychologically complex, and he will stop at nothing to get the job done. His clients are referred to him from international corporations, government agencies and organised crime; his skills are in worldwide demand. Geiger only has one rule: that he will never work on a child. So when a client presents Geiger with a twelve-year-old boy, his instinct is to walk away. But the alternative – the unknown horror that might await the boy elsewhere – is too awful for him to contemplate. Geiger’s history is a blank page, even to himself. In accepting this assignment in an attempt to save the boy, he will discover that history, no matter how torturous that proves to be.


Good men have stepped over the line. Now they need to cover up their actions, and for that they need to bury Harry Jones... Fifty young Americans are on their way back from a day’s outing to Brussels. But their rapture at returning home is cut short when a bomb blows their plane from the skies above Kent, killing them all. The savage media reaction to the atrocity will sweep away a powerless Prime Minister and his followers at the next election. In nothing less than a coup, Britain is about to be taken over – unless Harry Jones can stop it. But Harry, no longer an MP, finds his path strewn with obstacles. Caught in a web of betrayal by his closest friends, is there anyone who will believe what Harry has to say? The Sentimental Traitor is by Michael Dobbs and is due to be published in February 2012.


The Moscow Option is by Jeremy Duns and is due to be published in February 2012. Double agent Paul Dark must confront his past to save himself and the world. October 1969. Moscow. A terrible mistake twenty- four years ago led to Paul Dark being recruited into Soviet intelligence, and he has paid a heavy price for it. Now locked up in a cell, Dark

has nothing for company but the ghosts of his past when he is woken in the early hours and taken to a secret location. There, he discovers that the Soviets believe they are about to face a nuclear attack by the West – and are planning to strike first as a result. Dark realizes at once that the truth can be found in the final days of the Second World War, and the final mission he undertook as a loyal British agent. Now the fate of the world rests on his shoulders: a traitor long past his best, who is soon the subject of a massive man-hunt. Dark needs to make it to a small Baltic island before it’s too late – and the clock is ticking.


From a prison cell, in which he has been held on suspicion of breaking the Official Secrets Act, Charles Thoroughgood awaits not only his bail, but also the reappearance of the woman whom all the major roads in his life have led back to. After his years in the army and then with MI6, Charles has begun a new chapter in his life with the Secret Intelligence Agency, shadowing the movements of a suspected double agent. Charles knows that he has nothing to hide, and as he casts his mind over the course of recent events, he begins to suspect a more sinister motivation, both personally and politically, behind his incarceration. Uncommon Enemy is by Alan Judd and is due to be published in February 2012.


Snakes & Ladders is by Sean Slater who is in real life Vancover Police Officer Sean Sommerville. When Homicide Detective Jacob Striker discovers that a string of recent suicides might actually be covered-up murders, his investigation quickly leads him to the Riverglen Mental Health Facility. The victims were all patients from the support group overseen by Dr Erich Ostermann. And when Striker discovers Larisa Logan – a friend of his, and a patient of Ostermann – has gone missing, his investigation goes into overdrive. The evidence tells him one very important fact: that Larisa knows something about the murders. Even worse, she is trapped. She can’t return to the hospital because her own life is in danger, her only chance of living is to escape. Racing against time and a chilling adversary, Striker searches desperately for Larisa. It is a dangerous game they play where one move can catapult you to a place of dominance and one wrong step can leave you sliding to your doom. It is a game of psychopaths. It is Snakes & Ladders. Snakes & Ladders will be published in March 2012.


The Elixir is by Dean Crawford and is due to be published in May 2012. While carrying out an autopsy on a body recently brought into a morgue in Santa Fe, county coroner Alexis Cruz makes a surprising discovery. Lodged in the dead man's femur is a musket ball which, carbon dating reveals, was fired some 200 years earlier in the American Civil War. But before she can notify the authorities, Alexis disappears. The DIA call in Ethan Warner and his partner, Nicola Lopez, to find the missing coroner. But the closer they come to unlocking the terrifying truth, the nearer they unknowingly bring a warped and dangerous individual to achieving a catastrophic goal.


It’s 1327 and England is in turmoil. Edward II has been removed from the throne and his son installed in his place. Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, tasked with guarding Edward II, has failed and now rides to Exeter to inform the sheriff of the old king’s escape. In Exeter, the sheriff has problems of his own. Overnight, the body of a young maid has been discovered, lying bloodied and abandoned in a dirty alleyway. The city’s gates had been shut against the lawlessness outside, so the perpetrator must still lie within the sanctuary of the town. When Baldwin de Furnshill arrives, he is tasked with uncovering the truth behind this gruesome murder. But, in a city where every man hides a secret, his task will be far from easy. City of Fiends is by Michael Jecks and is due to be published in June 2012.


The Last Good Man is by Danish duo Anders Rønnow Klarlund and Jakob Weinreich who are jointly known as AJ Kasinski. According to Jewish scripture, there are thirty-six

righteous people on earth. Without them, humanity would perish. In Beijing, a monk collapses in his chamber. A fiery mark has spread across his back and down his spine. In Mumbai, a man who served the poor dies suddenly. Similar deaths are reported around the world – the victims all humanitarians, all bearing the same death mark. In Copenhagen, it falls to veteran detective Niels Bentzon to investigate. He is told to find eight ‘good people’ of Denmark and warn them. But Bentzon is trained to see the worst in people and he becomes increasingly skeptical as he realizes that not everyone perceived to be good is truly good. It is only when Niels meets Hannah that the pair begin to piece together the puzzle. There have been thirty-four deaths and there are two more to come. According to the pattern, Bentzon and Hannah can predict the time and place of the final two. The murders will occur in Venice and Copenhagen. And the time is now. The Last Good Man is due to be published in March 20.


Tideline is by Penny Hancock and is due to be published in January 2012. One winter's afternoon, voice coach Sonia opens the door of her beautiful riverside home to fifteen-year-old Jez, the nephew of a family friend. He's come to borrow some music. Sonia invites him in and soon decides that she isn't going to let him leave. As Sonia's desire to keep Jez hidden and protected from the outside world becomes all the more overpowering, she is haunted by memories of an intense teenage relationship, which gradually reveal a terrifying truth. The River House, Sonia's home since childhood, holds secrets within its walls. And outside, on the shores of the Thames, new ones are coming in on the tide...


Kill Shot is by Vince Flynn and is due to be published in February 2012. For months, Mitch Rapp has been steadily working his way through a list of the men responsible for the slaughter of 270 civilians including his own girlfriend in the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing - bullet by bullet. His next target - a Libyan diplomat - should be easy. Prone to drink and currently in Paris without a bodyguard, Rapp quickly tracks the man down and sends a bullet into his skull while he's sleeping. But in the split second it takes the bullet to leave the silenced pistol, everything changes. The door to the hotel room is kicked open and gunfire erupts all around Rapp. When the news breaks that Libya's Oil Minister has been killed along with three innocent civilians and four unidentified men, the French authorities are certain that the gunman is wounded and still on the loose in Paris. As the finger-pointing begins, Rapp's handlers have only one choice - deny any responsibility for the incident and race to do damage control. Rapp has become a liability, and he must not be taken alive by the French authorities. But alone in Paris, on the run from the authorities and from his own employers, Mitch Rapp must prepare to fight for his life.


For generations the Freyls have ruled Springfield, Illinois, capital of a state of great lakes and rivers. Now convicted killer David Marion threatens their invincibility, and he threatens it from within their own ranks. Water: it’s blue gold, and the price on world markets is soaring. When Springfield gets a new mayor, it finds its supply under threat, not only from corporations out for the money but from a disease that appears from nowhere, that nobody can identify and nobody can treat. None of this interests David Marion until his own past surfaces and he finds himself caught between multinational leviathans at war over America’s heartland. The Blue Death is by Joan Brady and is due to be published in April 2012.


34-year-old psychotherapist Siri Bergman is terrified of the dark. Living alone in an isolated area east of Stockholm, she has tried hard to convince herself that she has moved on since her husband, Stefan, died in a diving accident several years ago. But when she goes to bed, Siri leaves all the lights on and she can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching her through the windows at night. So when one night she wakes up to find that the house is pitch black, and the torch she keeps by her bed for back up is not where she thought she’d left it, it seems that Siri’s worst fears have been realized. And when the lifeless body of Sara Matteus, one of her patients, is found floating in the water near Siri’s house, events quickly spiral. It is clear that Siri is in great danger, and she is thrown headlong into the centre of a murder investigation, which will put each of her closest friends under the spotlight and force her to re-live her troubled past. Some Kind of Peace is by sisters Camilla Grebe & Ã…sa Träff, one is a writer and the other a psychologist. It is due to be published in May 2012.


The Medusa Society is an all-female secret society with a chilling mission. Intent on establishing a new world order, they will set out to destroy New York City and bring down the dollar. Nothing will stand in their way. The new but untitled novel is by Philip Carter and is due to be published in May 2012.


Cold as the Grave is by CWA New Blood Dagger shortlisted author Craig Robertson. November 1992. Scotland is in the grip of its coldest winter in 30 years and Lake Menteith in the Trossachs is frozen over. A young man and woman walk across the ice to the historic island of Inchmahome which lies in the middle of the lake. Only the man comes back. Four months later, as staff prepare the ruined abbey for summer visitors, they discover the remains of the body of a girl, her skull violently crushed. Her identity is unknown. Twenty years on, retired detective Alan Narey is still troubled by the unsolved crime. Determined to relieve her father’s torment, DS Rachel Narey, now returns to Lake Menteith and unofficially ‘reopens’ the cold case. Rachel discovers that the one man her father had instinctively suspected of being the killer has died. The police are not prepared to admit that there is anything more to the accident and Rachel must investigate the link without their help. But when she prepares a dangerous gambit, using a covert email operation to uncover the killer's identity, she puts herself in more danger than she could ever have imagined. Cold as the Grave is due to be published in June 2012.

Friday, 11 November 2011

Newsy Stuff!




Publishing phenomenon Martina Cole hit another milestone this week, becoming the first British female novelist who writes for an adult audience to break the £50m sales mark since records began. The amount of money spent on physical editions of her books since 1998 is a eye watering £50.3m. Put another way, if you were to place all of her 7.3m books sold end to end, they would stretch roughly the distance between central London and Budapest as the crow flies (or 902 miles).


Just heard that across the pond, movies getting pilot series adaptations include a drama at ABC based on The Lincoln Lawyer - the Micky Haller series written by Michael Connelly. Lionsgate will co-produce with Lakeshore Entertainment, which was also behind the film. "Lawyer" screenwriter John Romano and Michael Connelly, the novelist who created the property adapted to film, will co-write the pilot script and exec produce along with Joel Gotler and Lakeshore's Gary Lucchesi and Tom Rosenberg. Protagonist Michael "Mickey" Haller is a character in five different novels by Connelly, presumably giving producers a lot more material to use. It wouldn't be the first time a legal-themed movie was made into a TV show, with NBC set to bring an adaptation of "The Firm" to the small screen in the midseason.

Additionally, ABC has put in development Anti-Mafia Squad, a drama based on the 2009 Italian series Squadra Antimafia – Palermo Oggi. Additionally, NBC is eying straight-to-series orders for 2 Bryan Fuller-written dramas: a Munsters reboot and Hannibal, based on the Hannibal Lecter character. Fuller is developing a script against a 13-episode commitment, meaning that the project won’t go through a pilot stage but straight to series if NBC like the script. The latter will make Ali Karim more excited than a chocoholic in a chocolate factory.


For those of you that have (like me) been reading about the plagiarism by Q R Markham and the furore surrounding it, you may wish to read the extremely interesting post by Jeremy Duns on his blog The Debrief and also Duane Swierczynski’s Secret Dead Blog both of whom “blurbed” the book. Alison Flood of the Guardian has also written an article about it.

Wednesday, 9 November 2011

Press Release from Mulholland Books re: Q R Markham's Assassin of Secrets



Hodder & Stoughton To Withdraw Q.R. Markham’s ASSASSIN OF SECRETS

As has been reported in the US press overnight, the Mulholland Books imprints of Little Brown in the US and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK were alerted on Tuesday that the novel ASSASSIN OF SECRETS by Q.R. Markham, due to be published in the UK on Thursday 10th November, contained numerous plagiarised passages. After an investigation, the decision was taken by both companies to withdraw the book from sale.

A spokesperson for Hodder & Stoughton said “We take copyright issues very seriously, as we do all aspects of the publishing process. We deeply regret having acquired a book for our list that we can no longer accept as an original work, and in partnership with Little, Brown we have acted immediately to recall the book from distributors and retailers.’

Hodder & Stoughton asks that wholesalers and retailers return the book for full credit. Any consumers who seek a refund should return to the retailer where they purchased the book.

For queries contact Clare Harington, Group Communications Director, on 07778810764 or clare.harington@hachette.co.uk




The incident has been picked up by the media and blogs pretty rapidly. Spy thriller writer Jeremy Duns blog The Debrief has a very good and interesting post on the situation, so has Edward Champion’s blog Reluctant Habits.

An Article from the Wall Street Journal Online can be found here. Digital Journal also have more news about the withdrawal of the book and so have Fox News and Huffington Post.


One does wonder how on earth this managed to get past so many people and be published?