Need More Road
Written by Stephen Jared — Eddie Howard is almost 50 years old. He has worked in the same bank and lived in the same house in Barstow, California, his entire adult life. It is the early 1950s and Eddie spends his days working and his nights and…
Sinner Man
Written by Lawrence Block — Donald Barshter is your typical 1950s train commuting Connecticut salesman. At the opening of Sinner Man, Barshter is 32, has a closet full of Brooks Brothers suits, and a country club membership. One fateful day, he skips his life insurance job to instead…
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
When this book launched its author explained that the Magpie Murders too over two years to write, but the idea for it came to him way back when he was adapting the Chief Inspector Barnaby books by Caroline Graham for The Midsomer Murders TV series. He’s written…
A Coin for the Hangman by Ralph Spurrier
It’s a curious thing for an author to make himself a character in his own book, and proves slightly unnerving to start with. However, the fictional version of Ralph Spurrier does not detain us for too long. A book dealer, in the story he buys…
Black Wings Has My Angel
This re-issued Elliott Chaze novel offers up a delicious trip into the noir past, and holds you in its grip. Originally published in 1954, the first-person narrator of Black Wings has all the sardonic humour of Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe, but instead of a PI he’s…
The Other Side of Silence by Philip Kerr
Ex-cop Bernie Gunther feels life has come full circle. In his younger days, between spells with Berlin’s Kriminalpolizei, he was the house detective for the city’s celebrated Adlon Hotel. Then came World War II and Gunther’s nimble foxtrot around Nazi Germany where he worked for the likes…
First look: Gunther returns in The Other Side of Silence
Philip Kerr’s damaged but noble German cop Bernie Gunther is back for another episode and here’s your chance for a first look at The Other Side of Silence. Gunther bestrides the 20th century. We know he fought in World War I but Kerr has kept that…