The mission: to give some air time to self-published crime authors out there. The medium: New Talent November on Crime Fiction Lover. The message: Why not one of these books and support an up-and-coming author? If you do pick up one of these novels and read it, let us know what you think of it.
Sewing the Shadows Together by Alison Baillie
The shadow of the past hangs heavily over Sarah and Tom. 30 years ago, Tom’s sister Shona was raped and murdered, aged 13. Now, a DNA test shows that the man convicted of the crime didn’t do it. The pair become involved in the investigation into who did kill her, and suspicions fall closer to home than anyone expected in a story that moves from Edinburgh to the Outer Hebrides to South Africa.
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Deadly Fare by David Liscio
Boston’s Logan International Airport may strike you as a place that would drive someone to murder, and in this book it actually happens. Beautiful young women are disappearing and State Police Lt Hannah Summers begins to see a pattern across a series of old and new cases. As the body count reaches five, the public is panicking, and the district attorney presses for results. Meanwhile, a wealthy local family hires a private investigator to find their missing daughter. Are he and Summers after the same quarry? Liscio is a Massachusetts-based, award-winning investigative reporter whose experience covering crime inspired this novel and the setting.
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A Box Full of Darkness by Derek Fee
Detective Superintendent Ian Wilson has his fifth outing in this intriguing cold case mystery, set in Northern Ireland, where the long tail of The Troubles continues to twitch. Wilson’s at a bit of a low point, having lost his partner and his job. Now he’s been given a barren case file on a murder that occurred more than 40 years before. As Wilson probes the old case, what he learns is that someone is bent on destroying him. And this case may be the means. Derek Fee, quite popular with readers, is a former European Union diplomat who makes his home in Connemara.
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Killing Laura by Alex M Lacey
Steve Finch is a blacklisted actor from New York, trying to make his way in Los Angeles when he meets and falls in love with Laura. This new romance has a couple of big problems, right off the bat. First, it turns out she was deeply involved in a big dope deal, which Steve unwittingly sabotaged. This pisses everybody off, especially an ex-pimp named Sean, a psychopath who likes to cut people’s faces. Author Alex M Lacey received a Northern Writers’ Award for this debut novel.
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The Unspeakables by Peter F Jemison
Animal rights advocate Iain Lauder knows foxes are still being hunted in rural Northumbria, despite the UK ban, and devises an anonymous protest against the principal perpetrators of the continued slaughter. Unfortunately, the hunt participants discover his identity and soon both he and his fiancée have become the hunted. The story goes well beyond animal cruelty, involving violence, drugs, and murder as the pair are pursued. Jemison was born in Newcastle and before turning to fiction had a varied career in metallurgy, insurance, and teaching.
Available here from Amazon.
Action Orient by Raymond Embrack
Embrack embraces the action hero ethos and his satirical, hardboiled thrillers are as unstoppable as a runaway train. His protagonist Peter Surf specialises in high-risk jobs and has appeared in at least three previous novels. Action Orient is built around the theft of a US F-35 fighter jet made of solid gold, the SWAG-35, and Surf is hired to get it back. He needs the gig and the bounty because the taxman is after him. As he works, he encounters a delicious collection of rich and dangerous suspects, any one of whom would be happy to kill him. Washington, DC-based Raymond Embrack has considered himself a writer since he got his first typewriter.
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The Corpse Lodging by EJ Henry
In September 1818, in an isolated Isle of Man village, fisherman Euan Creghan prepares for a week at sea. His thoughts are never far from the deaths of four men in a storm the year before. When foul weather takes Euan’s boat and his body isn’t unrecovered, his spirit is not at peace. In April 2013, Ed Donovan watches for Somali pirates as his ship sails near the Horn of Africa. The traumatising events that follow lead him to hoped-for sanctuary on the Isle of Man, in an old house where strange things begin to happen… EJ Henry, a York resident, will donate 10 percent of book profits to York Against Cancer.
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Dollar Signs: Texas Lady Lawyer vs Boots King by Manning Wolfe
This legal thriller is full of colourful Texan characters. Sassy Austin lawyer Merit Bridges sets out to stop powerful business interests from seizing the property of unsuspecting citizens. Meanwhile, her nemesis, snakeskin boots-wearing con man Boots King, gets a simple order: ‘Stop her!’ But she’ll do whatever she must to protect her clients, even in the face of Boots’s escalating intimidation. Wolfe is an Austin attorney. According to her, she writes “Fast-paced thrillers with a salting of Texas bullshit.”
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Zero Day by TL Williams
Author Williams has written an on-the-pulse novel about the risk of cyber attacks on the US economy and banking sector. Set in Chongqing, China, and the CIA headquarters outside Washington, the only way to stay ahead of the hackers rests with the perilous decision of Li Jiang, a senior Public Security Bureau officer, to reveal their plan. Former Navy SEAL Logan Alexander is sent to debrief Li and assess his reliability. But will CIA brass trust Li? Or, for that matter, Alexander? Williams is a veteran CIA officer with 30 years’ experience in clandestine human intelligence operations worldwide.
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The Throes of Crime by Erik Arneson
This collection of 26 wildly varied short stories and six true crime essays brings together Arneson’s work which is dark but also has a sense of humour to it. Calculating hitmen, corrupt politicians, sociopathic rock singers, incompetent private investigators, sword-wielding orangutans, and people bent on revenge – they surprise at every turn. Among the stories is The Murder of Ernest Trapnell, a finalist for the Derringer Award. All proceeds from the book go to a scholarship fund for students in Wilmot, South Dakota, established in memory of Arneson’s parents.
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Earlier during New Talent November, sponsored by Orenda Books and Bloodhound Books, we brought you 10 further self-published crime novels to try.
