On the Radar — You may well have read books from Denmark, France, Italy or even Japan, but have you come across one originally written in Gaelic before? Well, here’s your chance to discover some crime fiction from the heart of Eire. But there’s more – this week’s new books include titles set in Cannes, Devon, London and even in an Amish community in Pennsylvania. We’ve got a fun crime app for you too…
Deadly Intent by Anna Sweeney
We have featured novels translated into English from French and all manner of Scandinavian languages, but this book breaks new ground for Crime Fiction Lover. The original story was written in the Irish language. The author is an established radio and television producer from Dublin – real name Anna Heussaff – but has become a full time writer. The Gaelic title of the book is Buille Marfach and it’s set in rural Ireland in the present day. The characters include the ambitious young policeman Redmond Joyce and Aoife McDermott, owner of a country house who takes paying guests. One of Aoife’s guests is found unconscious on a footpath and later a man is murdered. Result – intrigue, investigation, and a shocking conclusion. Available on 27 March.
Pre-order now on Amazon
The Case of the Black Pearl by Lin Anderson
A former teacher, Lin Anderson now writes full time. Her latest book is set in the South of France and features Patrick de Courvoisier. He’s not only an Englishman, despite his exotic and distinctly alcoholic name, but an Englishman who solves crimes and fixes the unfixable. As he hovers on the fringes of the manic sales pitches and ego-fest that is the Cannes Film Festival, he is asked to investigate the disappearance of Angele Valette, star of the movie The Black Pearl. He is not the only one looking for the celebrity (and the eponymous jewel) and there are dark deeds and violence a-plenty to counterpoint the glamour and ostentatious display of the festival. Out on 1 April.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Snatched by Bill James
Welsh author Bill James has also written under the names David Craig and Judith Jones, as well as his real name, James Tucker. His main focus has been the 29 short but intense novels in the Harpur and Iles series, which started in 1985. There has always been a thread of black humour running through the author’s work. His slightly surreal vision comes to the fore here with George Lepage, an ambitious regional museum director. Lepage hopes that his latest exhibition – an unlikely display highlighting surgical skills in ancient Japan – will win him academic acceptability and, possibly, a knighthood. Things do not go to plan, however, as the dubious legacy of a former museum director, and some daring thefts, threaten his career. To be published on 1 April.
Pre-order now on Amazon
The Death of Pie by Tamar Myers
There cannot be too many authors who share Myers’ unusual CV. Born in what was the Belgian Congo to missionary parents, her literary output includes this, the 19th in her Pennsylvania Dutch series. The Death of Pie begins in a Pennsylvania village with the painful name of Hernia. For 109 years they have been holding an annual pie festival. During the 110th festival an acerbic critic of the local Amish and Mennonite communities is found dead, face down in one of the competing pies, and an inexperienced local police officer turns to amateur sleuth (and baker of the fatal pie) Magdalena Yoder for help. Available from 1 April.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Betrayed by Jacqui Rose
This is a novel very much in the Martina Cole and Mandasue Heller school of crime fiction. Expect a tough but vulnerable heroine who will fight like a tiger to protect herself and her children, a cast of alpha males strutting their stuff in a gritty London setting where the main marketable commodities are drugs, guns and girls. Bunny Barker and her daughter, Star, will need more than their basic street-fighting instincts to stay ahead of the game in world where compassion is for wimps, and kindness is a sign of weakness. Out on 27 March.
Pre-order now on Amazon
The Facts of Life and Death by Belinda Bauer
In a flood threatened Devon seaside town the last thing the inhabitants need is a serial killer on the loose. Young women are being targeted, and the killer has a irony. The town’s beach is what earns it money during the holidays, and the victims are being suffocated by having their faces shoved into its golden sands. The author tells the tale through the eyes of 10-year-old Ruby Trick. Ruby’s parents are on their uppers and are close to divorce. When the girl’s waster of a father joins a vigilante group trying to flush out the killer, events take a dramatic turn and despite her tender years Ruby faces the unsettling thought that her father might be connected to the killings. This latest book for the Wales-based author will be on the shelves from 27 March.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Prime Deception by Carys Jones
The author is based in the English county of Shropshire, and her debut novel (see our review) was a courtroom drama, set in the Deep South of America, and it was followed by Sunkissed, a historical novel set in 1853. Her third novel brings us much closer to home and features an English investigative journalist who digs out the dirty deeds of the well-to-do and famous. When he decides to publish a book which reveals more than he was ever able to get into the papers, his plan is thwarted by the apparent suicide of one of the people he’s written about. Did Lorna Thomas really kill herself? Laurie, her twin sister, is determined to get to the truth. To be published on 28 March.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Young Philby by Robert Littell
Littell has won both a CWA Steel Dagger and an Edgar award in the past, and he is best known for stories involving the CIA. Here he turns his attention to one of Britain’s most notorious double agents, Harold ‘Kim’ Philby. Littell picks up the story in pre-WWII Vienna. Philby’s experiences there, working with refugees from the Nazis, and later in the Spanish Civil War, set him firmly on the side of Stalin’s Soviet Union. This back story dramatises the formative years of the real life spy who finally defected to Moscow in 1963. The paperback of this book will be out on 27 March, but the hardback and Kindle versions are already available.
Buy now on Amazon
The Incredible Heist by Game Insight
We’ll conclude this week for this week with a new app that might just appeal to crime fiction lovers. The Incredible Heist is a hidden object puzzle game for the iPad. The basic premise is that you are confidence trickster who has to steal artifacts from all over the world to satisfy your rich employers. You are a relative novice, but you have a mysterious mentor who will teach you how avoid the long arm of the law, and bring home the goods. Essentially, you’ll be looking at cleverly created digital illustrations finding items that may be useful (or not) to your cause, and there are other cryptic puzzles too. For more interactive crime fiction, click here. Available for download now.
