New Reviews: Garnier, Johnston, Kelly, McCarry, Nadel, Ridpath, Rimington, Taylor, Weaver

This week's set of reviews, added to Euro Crime today, is a mixture of new reviews and a catch-up of those posted directly on the blog in the last two weeks, so you may have read some of them before if you're a regular :).

Jut a reminder: I've now set up a Euro Crime page on Facebook which you can like.

Susan White reviews Pacal Garnier's Moon in a Dead Eye, tr. Emily Boyce set in a French gated community;

Terry Halligan review's Paul Johnston's The Black Life, the sixth in the PI Alex Mavros series;

Michelle Peckham reviews the recent paperback release of Erin Kelly's The Burning Air, calling it "a strong, psychological thriller";

Amanda Gillies reviews Charles McCarry's spy thriller, The Shanghai Factor;

Rich Westwood reviews Barbara Nadel's An Act of Kindness, the second in the Hakim and Arnold series and set just before the 2012 London Olympics;

Lynn Harvey reviews the first of two Second World War related titles this week with Michael Ridpath's Traitor's Gate being based on a true event;

Terry also reviews Stella Rimington's seventh and latest outing for MI5's Liz Carlyle, The Geneva Trap which is now out in paperback;

In D J Taylor's The Windsor Faction, reviewed here by Norman Price, the author takes a "what if" situation and presents an alternative version of the 1930/40s

and Geoff Jones reviews Tim Weaver's Never Coming Back the fourth in his David Raker, missing persons investigator series.



Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

New Reviews: McDermid, McGilloway, Masters, Meyer, Moffat, Rimington, Sherez, Williams, Winspear

Here are 9 new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today:

Maxine Clarke reviews Val McDermid's The Vanishing Point, a standalone with a couple of brief cameos from an earlier book;

Lynn Harvey reviews the paperback release of Brian McGilloway's Little Girl Lost which she is pleased to see is the first in a new series;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Priscilla Masters's Smoke Alarm, the fourth in the Martha Gunn, Coroner, series;

Earlier this week Michelle Peckham reviewed Deon Meyer's Dead Before Dying tr Madeleine van Biljon and we also interviewed the author;

Amanda Gillies reviews G J Moffat's Protection, the fourth in this series which has takn a different (and more appealing to Amanda) direction;

Geoff Jones reviews the paperback release of Stella Rimington's Rip Tide;

Terry Halligan reviews Stav Sherez's A Dark Redemption which is the first in a new police series;

Terry also reviews Andrew Williams's The Poison Tide set in the First World War

and Susan White reviews Jacqueline Winspear's eighth Maisie Dobbs book, A Lesson in Secrets now out in paperback and a series Susan calls "a real treat".

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

New Reviews: Child, Churton, French, Juul, Nickson, Rimington, Ryan, Slan, Thorpe

Here are 9 new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today:

JF reviews Lee Child's seventeenth Jack Reacher adventure: A Wanted Man;

Terry Halligan reviews Alex Churton's debut, The Babylon Gene;

Michelle Peckham reviews Tana French's Broken Harbour, the fourth in the Dublin Murder Squad series;

Maxine Clarke reviews Pia Juul's The Murder of Halland tr. Martin Aitken;

Geoff Jones reviews the fourth in the historical Richard Nottingham series by Chris Nickson: Come the Fear;

Susan White reviews Stella Rimington's The Geneva Trap, the seventh in the Liz Carlyle series;

Amanda Gillies reviews William Ryan's The Bloody Meadow the second in the Korolev series set in 1930s Russia;

I review the first in the Jane Eyre Chronicles by Joanna Campbell Slan, Death of a Schoolgirl

and Lynn Harvey reviews Adam Thorpe's Flight.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

New Reviews: Brandreth, Cain, Franklin, Kallentoft, Leonard, Rimington, Smith

October's Competition: Win a copy of Strangled in Paris by Claude Izner (UK only)

Here are this week's new reviews:

Susan White reviews Gyles Brandreth's fourth book featuring Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers (US title is Oscar Wilde and the Vampire Murders);

Rich Westwood reviews Tom Cain's Dictator also the fourth in the series;

Lynn Harvey reviews the fourth and last Adelia Aguilar from the late Ariana Franklin which is now out in paperback, The Assassin's Prayer (US title is A Murderous Procession);

Maxine Clarke reviews the first in the Superintendent Malin Fors series from Mons Kallentoft: Midwinter Sacrifice, tr. Neil Smith;

Terry Halligan reviews Peter Leonard's All He Saw Was The Girl, set in Rome;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Stella Rimington's Rip Tide, the sixth in the Liz Carlyle MI5/6 series

and Amanda Gillies reviews the first of Anna Smith's new series, The Dead Won't Sleep, set in Glasgow.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Gordon Ferris, Mons Kallentoft, Matt Benyon Rees, Michael Ridpath, Anna Smith and Jan Wallentin have been added to these pages this week.

New Reviews: Camilleri, Cooper, Gardiner, Nickson, Rimington, Seymour

Competitions for June:
Win four books by S J Bolton (UK & Ireland)
Win 8 children's crime fiction books (UK Only)

Do please vote in the International Dagger polls (top right of blog).

Here are this week's reviews:

I review two Father Paolo Baldi mysteries (radio plays) now released on audio book: Death Cap & Devil Take the Hindmost;

Maxine Clarke reviews The Track of Sand by Andrea Camilleri, tr. Stephen Sartarelli the twelfth in this delightful series;

Lizzie Hayes reviews N J Cooper's third Karen Taylor book, Face of the Devil set on the Isle of Wight;

Sarah Hilary reviews "official friend to Euro Crime" author Meg Gardiner's The Memory Collector;

Geoff Jones reviews Chris Nickson's second outing for Richard Nottingham, Cold Cruel Winter set in 1730s Leeds;

I also review the audio book of Stella Rimington's Present Danger narrated by Maggie Mash

and Terry Halligan reviews Gerald Seymour's The Dealer and the Dead now out in paperback.

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

Review: Present Danger by Stella Rimington (audio book)

Present Danger by Stella Rimington, narrated by Maggie Mash (Whole Story Audio Books, September 2010, ISBN: 9781407435848, 9 CDs)

Present Danger is the fifth book to feature MI5 agent Liz Carlyle. When a personal relationship between Liz and her boss that's been brewing in the last four books looks like it could come off, the powers that be decide to interfere and post Liz to Northern Ireland. MI5 has taken over the intelligence gathering role there and Liz will be back to her role of agent-running.

Her arrival does not go smoothly when her hire car has a blow-out and she's very nearly seriously injured. However old friends from earlier books, Dave Armstrong and Judith Spratt are on hand to help her settle in.

Dave gets some tip-offs that lead Liz's team to look closely at one Seamus Piggott, a Boston-Irishman who has expressed a desire to kill both police and MI5 agents. A mistake by Dave means that Piggott may get his wish...

Present Danger has Liz travelling between France and Ireland and working with French intelligence agent Martin Seurat in a tense hunt to find Piggott and his entourage before the unthinkable happens.

As always with this series, Present Danger gives the reader that inside view into the very private world of the intelligence services and the reader is left wondering how much is true and how much is fiction. The plot does hinge on some unprofessional actions by both Liz, Dave and Judith but it makes for an interesting listen and and a very tense final few chapters. It's a solid thriller but not as gripping as say At Risk. There is regular recapping and sometimes surveillance scenes are described in detail and are of interest - to see how these things are done - but do not add much to the plot. A personal vendetta motif runs through this series and Present Danger is no different.

Also as usual I enjoyed Maggie Mash's narration. Her Liz is a very cool customer and one that may be moving on from the romantic yearnings of the previous books. Regular listeners to this series may have noticed that Peggy Kinsolving's accent has moved from the Midlands to Northern over time but a slightly puzzling thing is that Dave has had a Northern Ireland accent in the last couple of audio books but in Present Danger he is occasionally referred to as English - I don't know if that's how he's seen by the Irish or if he is actually English in the books. Nonetheless whatever the accents used, Maggie Mash performs them well and I hope it won't be too long before the next book, Rip Tide, is made available on audio book.

Read another Euro Crime review of Present Danger.

CrimeFest Day 3 - Random House Competition

Random House are running a new competition each day of CrimeFest, which began on Thursday. The third competition is for 3 books by Stella Rimington. Looking at the entry page they appear to be the first three books in the MI5 Agent Liz Carlyle series: At Risk, Secret Asset and Illegal Action.

Enter the competition here (UK & Ireland only and closes midnight 25th May 2011.

Deadline - cover opinions

Stella Rimington's Deadline is the fourth in her Liz Carlyle series set in Britain's MI5/MI6 milieu.

There are three covers to consider today: the US one on the left which came out in June 2010 (hardback) (the white text says "a novel from the former head of Britain's MI5"), the UK hardback on the right (2008) or the UK paperback (2009, below).

So what are you thoughts on the US and UK covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Stella Rimington? (I think she's probably better known in the UK than US.)

Here is the Euro Crime review, by Norman, of Dead Line.

New Reviews: Genelin, Guthrie, Joensuu, Le Fanu, O'Byrne, Rimington

Three competitions are currently running:

i)Win a copy of Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz (US only, closes 9 Nov)
ii)Win a copy of Beautiful Dead: Arizona by Eden Maguire (UK only)
iii)Win a copy of Sheer Folly by Carola Dunn (UK/Europe only)

Details on how to enter can be found on the Competition page

Here are the new reviews that have been added to the website today:

Norman Price reviews Siren of the Waters by Michael Genelin the first of a series featuring Slovakian detective Jana Matinova;

Amanda Gillies enjoys Allan Guthrie's Killing Mum a novella in the Crime Express range;

Maxine Clarke reviews Finnish author Matti Joensuu's To Steal Her Love;

Laura Root reviews the Gothic sounding classic Wylder's Hand by J Sheridan Le Fanu;

Michelle Peckham reviews The Crime Writer's Guide to Police Practice and Procedure by Michael O'Byrne and says it's of interest to non-writers as well

and Terry Halligan reviews the latest from former MI5 head Stella Rimington - Present Danger.

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

New Reviews: Brooke, Lewis, Rimington, Ripley

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

New Reviews:

Guest reviewer Sharon Wheeler reviews Maloney's Law by Anne Brooke;

Maxine Clarke and Terry Halligan review Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis, here and here respectively. Bad Traffic is one of fifty titles selected for the Spread the Word campaign;

Norman Price reviews Dead Line by Stella Rimington the fourth novel starring MI5 agent Liz Carlyle

and Laura Root reviews the latest Angel book from Mike Ripley - Angels Unaware.

There won't be any new reviews added next weekend as I shall be away in France. (I've almost chosen which books to take...) Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.

The Quercus approach to Stella Rimington

From Publishing News:

HAVING ACQUIRED FORMER MI5 chief Stella Rimington for the fourth novel in her Liz Carlyle series - following three previous bestsellers published by Random House - Quercus is planning to re-position her to appeal to a more female readership when it publishes Dead Line in October with a striking female image on the jacket. It is the latest example of a publisher seeking to boost its market for a particular author by altering the jacket and overall packaging. Little, Brown is currently planning to reposition Nora Roberts to make her appeal to a broader audience, following research which showed that her readers weren't happy with her being solely billed as romance.

“Women are heavy readers of crime novels, and we believe there is an untapped market for women buying thrillers,” says Quercus Sales Director David Murphy. “Stella's novels have a strong female character, but we believe women readers may have been put off by the masculine look of her previous books.” Rimington's editor at Quercus, Jane Wood, adds: “Random House did a brilliant job with Stella, but as the first woman Director General of MI5 with great appeal herself to women as a role model, and writing about a strong female heroine, she should have strong appeal to women who like to read thrillers.” There will also be a filmed interview with Rimington for David Freeman's Meet the Author website to be shot in the apartment of Quercus Chairman Anthony Cheetham, once owned by Sir Winston Churchill.

The challenge for Quercus is to reach a new female readership without alienating the core male market for thriller fiction.