New Reviews: Fuentes, Lennon, McGilloway, Rees, Shepherd, Tremayne

This month's competitions:

Win the complete Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson on Unabridged Audiobooks (UK & Ireland) (closes 16 April)
Win a copy of Daisychain by G J Moffat (UK only)

Here are this week's new reviews:

Maxine Clarke gives a 5 star rating to Eugenio Fuentes's At Close Quarters, tr. Martin Schifino;

Terry Halligan enjoyed the page-turner that is Cut Out by Patrick Lennon;

Maxine also says that Brian McGilloway is in top-form with The Rising the fourth in the Devlin series;

Laura Root says that Matt Rees maintains the same high quality even when his sleuth leaves Palestine for a trip to New York in The Fourth Assassin;

Michelle Peckham has mixed views on Lynn Shepherd's Murder at Mansfield Park though she enjoyed it overall

and Amanda Gillies starts her association with Sister Fidelma in the latest paperback - The Dove of Death by Peter Tremayne.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.

New Reviews: Gentle, Hayder, Morris, Rees

Two separate competitions are running in March. The prizes are Bleeding Heart Square by Andrew Taylor and The Herring Seller's Apprentice by L C Tyler.

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website:

New Reviews:

Amanda Gillies gives the thumbs up to Mary Gentle's historical-fantasy-adventure 1610: A Sundial In A Grave concluding her review "If you are looking for an absorbing read that will take you away to another place for a good long time, this is definitely the one for you";

Maxine Clarke reviews Skin by Mo Hayder which immediately follows on from Ritual starring Flea Marley and Jack Caffery;

Michelle Peckham is the third reviewer at Euro Crime to enjoy R N Morris's A Vengeful Longing, the second in this series featuring Crime and Punishment's Porfiry Petrovich

and Laura Root reviews the third in Matt Rees's Palestinian series, The Samaritan's Secret.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.

New Reviews & A New Competition

Here are this week's new reviews and details of the new competition:

Latest Reviews:

In Mike Ripley's latest Crime File he reviews: A Cure For All Diseases by Reginald Hill, Unforgotten by Clare Francis, Sacrifice by S J Bolton and Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis;

Maxine Clarke is unimpressed by Meltdown by Martin Baker (which seems to have had a lot of money spent on the marketing) calling it a "mechanically insipid effort" but she gives a suggestion for a better read in her review;

Maxine finds the latest Tony Hill book by Val McDermid, Beneath the Bleeding a thrilling read, only let down by the "ludicrous motivation" of the bad guy;

More praise for the re-emergence of Crime and Punishment's Porfiry Petrovich in A Vengeful Longing by R N Morris comes from Pat Austin

and Laura Root reviews the second in the Palestine set series by Matt Rees, The Saladin Murders (aka A Grave in Gaza).


Current Competition (closing date 31 March):

Win a copy of A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley (UK & Europe only)

(geographical restrictions are in brackets)

That Bethlehem book... :-)

Last year I posted about The Collaborator of Bethlehem by Matt Benyon Rees published in the US by Soho Press, with one of Soho's trademark tasteful covers. Mr Rees has kindly posted a comment on that post about the UK edition being out and that he actually prefers the UK cover art.

As you can see the title has changed to The Bethlehem Murders and the 'Benyon' middle name has been dropped.

A recent article in the Independent gives the reason for the alteration to the title - the Bethlehem title was changed for the British market because it sounds more like a mystery story and women in particular prefer that genre to the political thriller.

I have to say some women I know may find that spider on the front a bit creepy :-).

The Collaborator of Bethlehem - Matt Beynon Rees

Here's another tastefully covered offering from Soho Press and thus another book is added to the wishlist. 'The Collaborator of Bethlehem' by British author, Matt Beynon Rees, is billed as the first in a series of Palestine mysteries and the main character is history teacher, Omar Yussef.

Synopsis:
"For decades, Omar Yussef has been a teacher of history to the children of Bethlehem. When a favorite former pupil, George Saba, a member of the Palestinian Christian minority, is arrested for collaborating with the Israelis in the killing of a Palestinian guerrilla, Omar is sure he has been framed. If George is not cleared, he faces imminent execution.Then the wife of the dead man, also one of Omar Yussef’s former pupils, is murdered, possibly raped. When he begins to suspect the head of the Bethlehem al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is the true collaborator, Omar and his family are threatened. But as no one else is willing to stand up to the violent Martyrs Brigades men, who hold the real power in the town, it is up to him to investigate."

About the author:
From his website: "Matt Beynon Rees is a mystery novelist and journalist. As a reporter, he has covered the Middle East for over a decade, with the vast majority of that time spent amongst Palestinians and Israelis. He’s a Contributor for Time based in Jerusalem, where he was the magazine’s bureau chief from June 2000 until January 2006. He was born in Wales in 1967 and studied at Oxford University and the University of Maryland. Beynon Rees wrote award-winning stories about the violence of the Aqsa intifada for Time."

The US edition will be out in February 2007 and according to his blog, the UK version, retitled 'The Bethlehem Murders', will be out in June 2007.