DEAD She May Well Be

Ingrid Black’s latest, CIRCLE OF THE DEAD, is getting a nice little push from Penguin, said push including the publication of an extract from the novel on said flightless bird-type publishing company’s interweb yokeybus. If you ask me, which no one ever does, I’d say that said extract is a bit on the skimpy side, and doesn’t really offer enough for a reader to sink his or her teeth into. Mind you, why would want to bite your monitor screen? And is it even physically possible? Questions, questions …
  Anyhoos, here beginneth the extract:

‘What is it?’ I said.
  ‘Missing person,’ she sighed. ‘Nineteen. Out drinking last night with friends. Left about midnight to make her way home. This morning one calls round to see how she is. Turns out she hadn’t come home all night. Her parents assumed she’d stayed with friend.’
  ‘What’s it got to do with the Murder Squad?’
  ‘The Assistant Commissioner asked me to take a look at it,’ said Fitzgerald. ‘She knows the family. They’re worried. There’s no answer from her cellphone.’
  ‘Do they fear the worst?’
  ‘They’re her parents. Parents always fear the worst.’
  And maybe they were right to do so …

For the rest of the extract, clickety-click here …

Like The Descent Of Their Last End, Upon All The Living And The Dead

If it’s autumn, it must be Ingrid Black. CIRCLE OF THE DEAD, the fourth Black novel in five years, and featuring her series heroine Saxon, finds the husband-and-wife writing team in serial killer territory, to wit:

Ex-FBI agent Saxon has dealt with many killers in her time but nothing can prepare her for the night of horror ahead ... It’s early evening on Halloween when the Dublin Murder squad are called out to the home of wealthy businessman Daniel Erskine. There, in his basement, they discover Daniel’s tortured body. Then, just hours later, his friend Oliver Niland also meets a gruesome end. As special adviser to the Dublin Murder squad, Saxon teams up once again with Chief Superintendent Grace Fitzgerald to track down a killer who’s closer than they think. But why has he targeted Daniel and Oliver? And what is the significance of the group known as the Second Circle to which they both belonged? The other members of the group might have the answers – but can Saxon and Fitzgerald get to them before it’s too late?

  Well, here’s hoping they do. Mind you, at a whopping 496 pages in paperback, you’d be inclined to believe that quite a few of the Second Circle are due some form of grisly comeuppance. Meanwhile, I’m wondering why Ingrid Black isn’t a household name. Saxon has that ballsy lesbian thing going on, she’s ex-FBI, and the woman is a more attractive Jessica Fletcher in terms of body-count. Like, what more do you want, people?
  Oh, and courtesy of the “Is It Just Me?” department: Is there any chance that ‘The Dead’ part of the title is a nod to the James Joyce short story of the same name, given that the novel kicks off with the worst snowstorm Dublin has seen in half a century? If anyone out there is in the know, pray tell ...