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Entry Island
By Peter May. 2016
"A VIVID, FULLY REALIZED NOVEL OF LOST LOVE, YEARNING AND UNBEARABLE HARDSHIP." --Seattle Times"IN A WORD, SUPERLATIVE AND A BOOK…
TO GET LOST IN" --Deadly Pleasures MagazineOnly two kilometers wide and three long, Entry Island is home to a population of just more than 100 inhabitants, the wealthiest of whom has just been discovered murdered in his home. Covered in her husband's blood, the dead man's melancholy wife spins a tale for the police about a masked intruder armed with a knife. The investigation appears to be little more than a formality--the evidence points to a crime of passion by the wife. But homicide detective Sime Mackenzie is electrified by the widow during his interview, convinced that he has met her before, even though this is clearly impossible. Haunted by this strange certainty, Sime's insomnia is punctuated by vivid, hallucinatory dreams of a distant past on a Scottish island 3,000 miles away, dreams in which he and the widow play leading roles. Sime's conviction soon becomes an obsession. And despite mounting evidence of the woman's guilt, he finds himself convinced of her innocence, leading to a conflict between the professional duty he must fulfill and the personal destiny he is increasingly sure awaits him.The Measby Murder Enquiry
By Ann Purser. 2011
Cantankerous spinster Ivy Beasley has quickly learned that spending her golden years in the quaint village of Barrington won't be…
as quiet as she thought. Ivy hasn't been in assisted living at Springfields for long, but she's already found new friends, formed a detective agency, and solved a murder. And as autumn falls, Ivy and her team are asked to investigate a mysterious death in the village of Measby-in between card games, of course.The Hangman's Row Enquiry
By Ann Purser. 2010
A new series and a new sleuth from Ann Purser-author of the Lois Meade mysteries! Ivy Beasley, the beloved cantankerous…
spinster from the Lois Meade mysteries, has found a silver lining in her golden years as an amateur sleuth. She teams up with Gus, a mysterious newcomer to the small English village of Barrington who can't resist a little excitement even as he strives to keep his past a secret, and her own cousin, a widow with time on her hands and money in her purse. Together they're determined to solve the murder of Gus's elderly neighbor.Native Tongue
By Suzette Haden Elgin, Susan Squier. 1984
Called "fascinating" by the New York Times upon its first publication in 1984, Native Tongue won wide critical praise and…
cult status, and has often been compared to the futurist fiction of Margaret Atwood. Set in the twenty-second century, the novel tells of a world where women are once again property, denied civil rights and banned from public life. Earth's wealth depends on interplanetary commerce with alien races, and linguists ---a small, clannish group of families ---have become the ruling elite by controlling all interplanetary communication. Their women are used to breed perfect translators for all the galaxies' languages.Nazareth Chornyak, the most talented linguist of the family, is exhausted by her constant work translating for trade organizations, supervising the children's language education, running the compound, and caring for the elderly men. She longs to retire to the Barren House, where women past childbearing age knit, chat, and wait to die. What Nazareth comes to discover is that a slow revolution is going on in the Barren Houses: there, word by word, women are creating a language of their own to free them from men's control."Native Tongue brings to life not only the possibility of a women's language, but a rationale for one,"--Village Voice"Elgin takes up more than linguistics, of course--everything from religion to sex...the story is absolutely compelling."--Women's Review of BooksSuzette Haden Elgin is author of twelve science fiction novels and is widely know for her best-selling series The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense and for The Grandmother Principles. She is director of the Ozark Center for Language Studies and is professor emerita of linguistics at San Diego State University.Susan Squier is Julia Brill professor of English and Women's Studies at Pennsylvania State University.In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American Hero
By Lawrence Block, Max Allan Collins, Ed Gorman, Jeremiah Healy, S. J. Rozan, Otto Penzler, Dennis Lehane, Brendan Dubois, Ace Atkins, Parnell Hall, Lyndsay Faye, Reed Farrel Coleman, Gary Phillips, Matthew Clemens, Loren D Estleman. 2012
When Robert B. Parker passed in early 2010, the world lost two great men: Parker himself, iconic American crime writer…
whose books have sold more than 6 million copies worldwide, and his best-known creation, Spenser. Parker's Spenser series not only influenced the work of countless of today's writers, but is also credited with reviving and forever changing the genre.In Pursuit of Spenser offers a look at Parker and to Spenser through the eyes of the writers he influenced. Editor Otto Penzler-- proprietor of one of the oldest and largest mystery specialist bookstores in the country, New York's The Mysterious Bookshop, and renowned mystery fiction editor whose credits include series editor for the Best American Crime Writing and Best American Mystery Stories, among many others (and about whom Parker himself once wrote, "Otto Penzler knows more about crime fiction than most people know about anything")-- collects some of today's bestselling mystery authors to discuss Parker, his characters, the series, and their impact on the world.From Hawk to Susan Silverman to Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall, from the series' Boston milieu to Parker's own take on his character, In Pursuit of Spenser pays tribute to Spenser, and Parker, with affection, humor, and a deep appreciation for what both have left behind.The Wild Wood Enquiry
By Ann Purser. 2012
In a brand-new mystery from the author of The Measby Murder Enquiry, the cantankerous golden years gumshoe Ivy Beasley keeps…
her mental faculties sharp with a strict regimen of crime detection. Apart from the unwelcome noise made by the morning cleaning crew, life has been quiet at Springfields Home for the Elderly. Too quiet, in fact. Ivy and her team of sleuths, Enquire Within, have resorted to finding lost cats, and Gus is even threatening to return to his memoirs. But no sooner does he attempt to put a winning phrase together than he receives a call from his ex-wife, Katherine, who is in desperate needs of a place to hide. Though Gus has a difficult time getting a straight answer from Kath--just as it was in their many years of marriage--something is most certainly afoot, and soon Enquire Within is back in business. This time they have their hands full, not only with missing pets, but missing jewels, and evidence of foul play uncomfortably close to their too quiet home...Agatha Christie. Los planes del crimen: Y un relato inédito de la señorita Marple
By John Curran. 1928
La vida y la obra de Agatha Christie a lo largo de las décadas, desde el final inédito de su…
primer libro hasta las ideas que no llegó a emplear en el último, junto a nuevas obras y documentos nunca publicados hasta ahora, entre ellos un relato perdido de la señorita Marple. En esta continuación del aclamado Agatha Christie. Los cuadernos secretos, John Curran, archivista y experto en Christie, conduce al lector a través de las seis décadas de la carrera de Agatha Christie, desvelando las claves más notables de su éxito, además de una serie de extractos y relatos de sus archivos, inéditos hasta el momento. La obra cuenta con un prologo de David Suchet quien, para la mayoría de aficionados a Agatha Christie, es Hércules Poirot, tras veinte años interpretando de manera impecable al famoso detective belga en la televisión. La crítica ha dicho...«Esta edición es un lujo inexcusable para todos los amantes de la literatura de detectives en general y de la de Agatha Christie en particular».El Cultural de El Mundo «El reciente rescate de esta colección de cuadernos [...] nos abre una ventana al proceso creativo, caótico y fascinante, de la novelista más publicada de todos los tiempos».El País «Nos brinda la oportunidad de ver entre bambalinas a una escritora que poseyó dos dones excepcionales: la legibilidad y la confección de tramas endiabladamente encajadas».Qué leer «Christie siempre tendrá un lugar de honor entre los iconos de la escritura contemporánea».ABC de las Artes y las LetrasAgatha Christie. Los cuadernos secretos
By John Curran. 2009
Una fascinante exploración del contenido de los 73 cuadernos de notas de Agatha Christie recientemente descubiertos, que incluyen ilustraciones, extractos…
eliminados y dos novelas inéditas de Poirot. Cuando Agatha Christie falleció en 1976 se había convertido en la escritora más popular del mundo. Con unas ventas billonarias en todo el mundo y publicada en más de 100 países, había conseguido lo imposible: publicar más de un libro al año desde la década de 1920, y todos ellos éxitos de ventas. Tras la muerte de la hija de Agatha, Rosalind, a finales de 2004, se reveló un extraordinario legado. Entre sus objetos personales de la residencia familiar de Greenway se desenterraron los cuadernos privados de Agatha Christie, 73 volúmenes escritos a mano que habían permanecido en gran parte ignorados, probablemente debido a que la inconfundible caligrafía de Agatha era muy dificultosa de leer. Pero cuando el archivero John Curran comenzó a descifrar los cuadernos, se hizo evidente la magnitud de este tesoro escondido... Este libro abre la tapa del mayor secreto de Agatha Christie: cómo sus anotaciones, listados y borradores se convirtieron en los exitosos libros, obras de teatro y relatos que finalmente fueron. Argumentos alternativos, escenas eliminadas, incluso sus planes para libros que no llegó a escribir, la investigación de Curran revela una enorme riqueza de material inédito, incluidas dos novelas cortas de Hércules Poirot.Honour: Achieving Justice for Banaz Mahmod
By Caroline Goode. 2020
When Rahmat Sulemani reported his girlfriend Banaz missing, it quickly became clear to DCI Caroline Goode that something was very…
wrong. In fact, Banaz had contacted her local police station multiple times before, even listing the names of the men she expected to murder her in a so-called 'honour' killing. Her parents didn't seem worried, but Banaz had already accused them of being part of the plot.DCI Goode's team took on the investigation before they even had proof that a murder had taken place. What emerged was a shocking story of betrayal and a community-wide web of lies, which would take the team from suburban south London to the mountain ranges of Kurdistan, making covert recordings and piecing together cell phone data to finally bring the killers to justice.In his preface, the anonymous author of Courtesans and Opium describes his book as an act of penance for thirty…
years spent patronizing the brothels of Yangzhou. Written in the 1840s, his story is filled with vice and dark consequence, portraying the hazards of the city's seedy underbelly and warning others against the example of the Fool.Chinese literature's first true "city novel," Courtesans and Opium recounts the illustrious career of a debauched soul enveloped by enthralling pursuits and romantic illusions. While socially acceptable marriages were arranged and often loveless, brothels offered men accomplished courtesans who served as both enchanting companions and sensual lovers. These professional sirens dressed in the latest styles and dripped with gold, silver, and jewels. From an early age, they were taught to excel at various arts and graces, which transformed the brothel into a kind of club for men to meet, exchange gossip, and smoke opium at their leisure.The Fool's fable follows five sworn brothers and their respective relationships with Yangzhou courtesans, revealing in acute detail the lurid materialism of this dangerous world—its violence and corruption as well as its seductive but illusory promise. Never before translated into English, Courtesans and Opium offers a brilliant window into the decadence of nineteenth-century China.Blood Hunt
By Ian Rankin. 1995
The horror has just begun... A brilliant thriller from the No.1 bestselling author of A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES.'No…
one writes more gripping stories than Rankin' TLSIt begins with a phone call. Gordon Reeve's brother has been found dead in his car in San Diego. The car was locked from the inside, a gun was in his hand. In the US to identify the body Gordon realises that his brother has been murdered. What's more, it's soon obvious that his own life is in danger.Once back in Scotland he finds out his home has been bugged by professionals. But Reeve is a professional too. Ex-SAS, he was half of a two-man unit with someone he came to fear, then to hate. It looks like his nemesis is back...A gripping mystery about a woman trying to find out the truth behind the death of her best friend and…
introducing a brilliant detective duo - perfect for fans of Peter James, Angela Marsons and James Oswald. A DEAD GIRLA vulnerable young woman, fresh out of the care system, is trying to discover the truth behind the sudden death of her best friend.A MURDERED POLICE OFFICERThe charred body of a policeman - currently the subject of an internal investigation - is found in the burnt-out-shell of his car on the Southend seafront.A CRIME WORTH KILLING FOR?To DS Frank Pearson and DC Catherine Russell of the Essex Police Major Investigation Team, the two events seem unconnected. But as they dig deeper into their colleague's murder, dark secrets begin to emerge.Can Pearson and Russell solve both cases, before more lives are destroyed?A twisty, gripping novel that introduces a brilliant new detective duo. If you like Peter James, Angela Marsons and James Oswald, then you'll love this crime debut. TRULY EVIL, the gripping second book in the series is out now. ****Praise for Burned and Broken:'Immensely impressive' The Times'The investigation into a copper's dramatic death in downbeat Southend scoops a cast of equally downbeat characters into its net, and tensions rise as their stories fold around each other. An accomplished debut' Sunday Times'Emotional, intelligent, sensual and with such a strong voice, Burned and Broken by Mark Hardie is a crime debut that deserves huge success' Harry Illingworth (Goldsboro Books)'I absolutely LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this book and I would recommend it to anybody. I can't wait to read more investigations led by DS Frank Pearson and DC Cat Russell' Amanda Oughton (Ginger Book Geek)'The story is easy to follow without being too simple, and the novel really manages to evoke a sense of atmosphere and reality within its pages. I didn't find myself becoming distracted whilst reading at all, and raced through it in hours. I will certainly be reading any future novels, particularly in this series which I wholeheartedly enjoyed' Laura Naz (Snazzy Books)The Wrong Goodbye
By Toshihiko Yahagi. 2004
A classic slice of Japanese hard-boiled noir paying homage to the master of the genre: Raymond ChandlerThe Wrong Goodbye pits…
homicide detective Eiji Futamura against a shady Chinese business empire and U.S. military intelligence in the docklands of recession Japan. After the frozen corpse of immigrant barman Tran Binh Long washes up in midsummer near Yokosuka U.S. Navy Base, Futamura meets a strange customer from Tran's bar. Vietnam vet pilot Billy Lou Bonney talks Futamura into hauling three suitcases of "goods" to Yokota US Air Base late at night and flies off leaving a dead woman behind. Thereby implicated in a murder suspect's escape and relieved from active duty, Futamura takes on hack work for the beautiful concert violinist Aileen Hsu, a "boat people" orphan whose Japanese adoption mother has mysteriously gone missing. And now a phone call from a bestselling yakuza author, a one-time black marketeer in Saigon, hints at inside information on "former Vietcong mole" Tran and his "old sidekick" Billy Lou, both of whom crossed a triad tycoon who is buying up huge tracts of Mekong Delta marshland for a massive development scheme. As the loose strands flashback to Vietnam, the string of official lies and mysterious allegiances build into a dark picture of the U.S.-Japan postwar alliance. Translated from the Japanese by Alfred BirnbaumBloody Murder: The Homicide Tradition in Children's Literature
By Michelle Ann Abate. 2013
"Off with her head!" decreed the Queen of Hearts, one of a multitude of murderous villains populating the pages of…
children's literature explored in this volume.Given the long-standing belief that children ought to be shielded from disturbing life events, it is surprising to see how many stories for kids involve killing. Bloody Murder is the first full-length critical study of this pervasive theme of murder in children’s literature. Through rereadings of well-known works, such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, and The Outsiders, Michelle Ann Abate explores how acts of homicide connect these works with an array of previously unforeseen literary, social, political, and cultural issues. Topics range from changes in the America criminal justice system, the rise of forensic science, and shifting attitudes about crime and punishment to changing cultural conceptions about the nature of evil and the different ways that murder has been popularly presented and socially interpreted. Bloody Murder adds to the body of inquiry into America's ongoing fascination with violent crime. Abate argues that when narratives for children are considered along with other representations of homicide in the United States, they not only provide a more accurate portrait of the range, depth, and variety of crime literature, they also alter existing ideas about the meaning of violence, the emotional appeal of fear, and the cultural construction of death and dying.Being Cool: The Work of Elmore Leonard
By Charles J. Rzepka. 2017
An in-depth look into the life and work of the man who defined "cool" for crime fiction, Elmore Leonard.Widely known…
as the crime fiction writer whose work led to the movies Get Shorty and Out of Sight, Elmore Leonard had a special knack for creating "cool" characters. In Being Cool, Charles J. Rzepka looks at what makes the dope-dealers, bookies, grifters, financial advisors, talent agents, shady attorneys, hookers, models, and crooked cops of Leonard's world cool. They may be nefarious, but they are also confident, skilled, and composed. And they are good at what they do. Taking being cool as the highway through Leonard's life and works, Rzepka finds plenty of byways to explore along the way.Rzepka delineates the stages and patterns that characterize Leonard’s creative evolution. Like jazz greats, he forged an individual writing style immediately recognizable for its voice and rhythm, including his characters' rat-a-tat recitations, curt backhands, and ragged trains of thought. Rzepka draws on more than twelve hours of personal interviews with Leonard and applies what he learned to his close analysis of the writer’s long life and prodigious output: 45 published novels, 39 published and unpublished short stories, and numerous essays written over the course of six decades.Baghdad Central
By Elliott Colla. 2014
Baghdad Central is a noir debut novel set in Baghdad in September 2003 The US occupation of Iraq is…
a swamp of incompetence and self-delusion The CPA has disbanded the Iraqi army and police as a consequence of its paranoid policy of de-Ba athification of Iraqi society Tales of hubris and reality-denial abound culminating in Washington hailing the mess a glorious mission accomplished Inspector Muhsin al-Khafaji is a mid-level Iraqi cop who deserted his post back in April Khafaji has lived long enough in pre- and post-Saddam Iraq to know that clinging on to anything but poetry and his daughter Mrouj is asking for trouble Nabbed by the Americans and imprisoned in Abu Ghraib Khafaji is offered one way out-work for the CPA to rebuild the Iraqi Police Services But it s only after United States forces take Mrouj that he figures out a way to make his collaboration palatable and even rewarding Soon he is investigating the disappearance of young women translators working for the US Army The bloody trail leads Khafaji through battles bars and brothels then finally back to the Green Zone where it all began This is a first novel by Elliott Colla an American writer totally immersed in Middle Eastern affairs He is a professor of Arabic literature at Georgetown University and a well-known translator from the Arabic of local fiction and poetry He lives between Washington DC and the Middle EastSherlock Holmes in Portrait and Profile
By Walter Klinefelter. 1963
Currently, no doubt, the picture of Sherlock Holmes in most peoples minds is that of Basil Rathbone but that was…
not always so The evolution of that famous profile in the deerstalker cap, smoking a curved pipe, is a story in itself This picture account of Holmes' illustrators traces the history of Holmesian portraiture in England and the United States over a period of nearly sixty years. Not every illustrator saw Holmes as Dr Watson described him. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an alertness and decision. In spite of this authoritative description, Holmes' first illustrator, D H Friston, portrayed him in 1887 as gaudily dressed, side whiskered dandy Even more heretical were the crude sketches by Charles Doyle published in 1888 His most famous English illustrator, Sidney Paget, started to picture Holmes as we know him Frederick Dorr Steele's drawings of Holmes span almost forty years, from a series in Colliers Weekly in 1903 to an advertisement for Basil Rathbone's Hound of the Baskervilles in 1939. Both scholarship and devotion have produced this treasure trove of 65 illustrations and the story-by story-account that accompanies them As Vincent Starret says, scholarship aside, it is a fascinating research that admirers of the Master on all levels will hail with satisfaction. Walter Klinefelter, a long time devotee of Holmes and stalwart Baker Street Irregular, is the author of many books including Ex Libris A Conon Doyle: Sherlock Holmes.Globalization and the State in Contemporary Crime Fiction
By Andrew Pepper, David Schmid. 2016
Why has crime fiction become a global genre? How do writers use crime fiction to reflect upon the changing nature of…
crime and policing in our contemporary world? This book argues that the globalization of crime fiction should not be celebrated uncritically. Instead, it looks at the new forms and techniques writers are using to examine the crimes and policing practices that define a rapidly changing world. In doing so, this collection of essays examines how the relationship between global crime, capitalism, and policing produces new configurations of violence in crime fiction - and asks whether the genre can find ways of analyzing and even opposing such violence as part of its necessarily limited search for justice both within and beyond the state.Tropic Moon
By Georges Simenon, Norman Rush, Marc Romano. 1967
Newly translated for this edition.A young Frenchman, Joseph Timar, travels to Gabon carrying a letter of introduction from an influential…
uncle. He wants work experience; he wants to see the world. But in the oppressive heat and glare of the equator, Timar doesn't know what to do with himself, and no one seems inclined to help except Adèle, the hotel owner's wife, who takes him to bed one day and rebuffs him the next, leaving him sick with desire. But then, in the course of a single night, Adèle's husband dies and a black servant is shot, and Timar is sure that Adèle is involved. He'll cover for the crime if she'll do what he wants. The fix is in. But Timar can't even begin to imagine how deep.In Tropic Moon, Simenon, the master of the psychological novel, offers an incomparable picture of degeneracy and corruption in a colonial outpost.Dark Music: The gripping new thriller from the author of THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB
By David Lagercrantz. 2022
A gripping new thriller from the bestselling author of THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB"A classic murder mystery . .…
. one Holmes himself would have loved to solve" Independent"A nerve-racking political thriller with the most exciting detective duo in a long time. Bring on their next case" Romy Hausmann, author of Dear Child"A rich, engrossing novel" Literary ReviewThe launch of a new series inspired by Sherlock Holmes. A murder investigation brings together two unlikely allies in a race to uncover a shadowy international conspiracy.Professor Hans Rekke: born into a wealthy Stockholm family, world authority on interrogation techniques, capable of vertiginous feats of logic and observation . . . But he might just fall apart when the going gets tough, leading to substance abuse and despair.Micaela Vargas: community police officer, born to Chilean political refugees in a tough suburb, with two brothers on the shady side of the law.Vargas feels she has something to prove. She's tenacious and uncompromising, but she needs Rekke's unique mind to help her solve the case. Rekke has it all - wealth, reputation - but also a tendency to throw it all away. He needs Vargas to help him get back on an even keel so he can focus his mind on finding the killer before they're both silenced for good.Translated from the Swedish by Ian Giles