The Bryce Is Right

I’ve hugely enjoyed Alex Barclay’s Ren Bryce novels to date, so I’m very much looking forward to HARM’S REACH (HarperCollins), the latest in the Colorado-set books to feature the bi-polar FBI agent. To wit:

FBI Agent Ren Bryce finds herself entangled in two seemingly unrelated mysteries. But the past has a way of echoing down the years and finding its way into the present...
  When Special Agent Ren Bryce discovers the body of a young woman in an abandoned car, solving the case quickly becomes personal. But the more she uncovers about the victim’s last movements, the more questions are raised.
  Why was Laura Finn driving towards a ranch for troubled teens in the middle of Colorado when her employers thought she was headed to Chicago? And what did she know about a case from fifty years ago, which her death dramatically reopens?
  As Ren and cold case investigator Janine Hooks slowly weave the threads together, a picture emerges of a privileged family determined to hide some very dark secrets – whatever the cost.
  If you love HOMELAND, you’ll love the Ren Bryce series, featuring an unforgettable FBI agent heroine whose bi-polar disorder is at times her greatest asset, and at others her downfall.

  HARM’S REACH will be published on February 27th. For all the details, clickety-click here …

Crime Always Pays: Advance Review Copies

As all three regular readers of this blog will know, I have a new book on the way – CRIME ALWAYS PAYS (Severn House), which will be published in the UK on March 27th. It’s a comedy crime caper, with the gist running a lot like this:

Karen and Ray are on their way to the Greek islands to rendezvous with Madge and split the fat bag of cash they conned from Karen’s ex, Rossi, when they kidnapped, well, Madge. But they’ve reckoned without Doyle, the cop who can’t decide if she wants to arrest Madge, shoot Rossi, or ride off into the sunset with Ray …

  For a flavour of the book, clickety-click here for Chapter One.
  I’d like to get the word out about the book, as you might imagine, so I’d be very grateful indeed if you feel moved to share this post with anyone you think might enjoy a crime caper comedy.
  And if you’re a book blogger or website editor based in Ireland or the UK, and you’d like to receive an e-book advance review copy, just drop me a line at dbrodb[at]gmail.com, letting me know who you write for. If I haven’t come across your blog / website before, I’d be delighted to add your link to my blog-roll.

The Sound Of Silence

Stuart Neville publishes THE FINAL SILENCE (Harvill Secker) in July, the third of Stuart’s novels – after COLLUSION (2010) and STOLEN SOULS (2011) – to feature DI Jack Lennon. Quoth the blurb elves:

Rea Carlisle has inherited a house from an uncle she never knew. It doesn’t take her long to clear out the dead man’s remaining possessions, but one room remains stubbornly locked. When Rea finally forces it open she discovers inside a chair, a table – and a leather-bound book. Inside its pages are locks of hair, fingernails: a catalogue of victims.
  Horrified, Rea wants to go straight to the police but when her family intervene, fearing the damage it could cause to her father’s political career, Rea turns to the only person she can think of: DI Jack Lennon. But Lennon is facing his own problems. Suspended from the force and hounded by DCI Serena Flanagan, the toughest cop he’s ever faced, Lennon must unlock the secrets of a dead man’s horrifying journal.

  For all the details, clickety-click here …

The Dark Side Of Kilmoon

There’s a goodly number of Irish crime writers who have been influenced by Californian authors – yours truly among them – but here’s a novel twist: a Californian writer setting her crime debut in Ireland. Lisa Alber – for lo! It is she, etc. – will publish KILMOON (Muskrat Press) next month. To wit:

Californian Merrit Chase doesn’t know what she’s in for when she travels to an Irish village famous for its matchmaking festival. She simply wants to meet her father, a celebrated matchmaker, in hopes that she can mend her troubled past. Instead, her arrival triggers a rising tide of violence, and Merrit finds herself both suspect and victim, accomplice and pawn, in a manipulative game that began thirty years previously.
  When she discovers that the matchmaker’s treacherous past is at the heart of the chaos, she must decide how far she will go to save him from himself and to get what she wants, a family.
  Lisa Alber evokes a world in which ancient tradition collides with modern village life and ageless motivators such as greed and love still wield their power. KILMOON captures the moodiness of the Irish landscape in a brooding mystery that explores family secrets, betrayal, vengeance, and murder.

  For more on Lisa Alber, clickety-click here …

A Place Of Her Own

There’s a new Tana French (right) novel on the way, although the bad news is that we’ll have to wait until August to see THE SECRET PLACE (Hodder & Stoughton). What’s it all about? Quoth Tana:

Q: What are you working on now?

A: “I’m partway through my fifth book, which is currently called The Secret Place. The narrator this time is Stephen Moran, Frank’s young sidekick from Faithful Place. Frank’s daughter, Holly, now sixteen, shows up at Stephen’s work with a postcard she found on the noticeboard where girls in her school can post their secrets anonymously —a postcard with a photo of a murdered teenage boy, and the caption ‘I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.’ And this time Frank does come back …”

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

One To Watch: Anna Sweeney

It’s looking like it’s going to be a very interesting year for debutant Irish crime fiction in 2014, with Liz Nugent, Siobhan MacDonald and Sinéad Crowley already lined up to publish. Another name to conjure with is Anna Sweeney, who publishes DEADLY INTENT (Severn House) later this month. Quoth the blurb elves:

Maureen lies unconscious on a lonely track. Her husband blames a fellow holidaymaker at Nessa McDermott’s country house on Ireland’s enchanting Beara peninsula. Two days later, a man's body is found, strangled and dumped. Amid a frenzy of police, media and family pressures, former journalist Nessa has to find her own answers - but meanwhile, ambitious young policeman Redmond Joyce is also hellbent on identifying the murderer, and conflict between them grows as they close in on the horrifying truth. Translated from the Gaelic, this novel introduces a talented author with keen observation and detail, and marks the beginning of a series with Nessa and her ambitious policeman acquaintance.

  To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time we’ve had an Irish crime novel translated from Irish into English. Of course, ‘the best of my knowledge’ isn’t exactly encyclopaedic … If anyone can set me straight as to previous examples, I’m all ears.

Hungry Like The Wolf

A new novel from John Connolly is always a treat around these here parts, and something we missed out on in 2013, so there’s an added anticipation to THE WOLF IN WINTER (Hodder & Stoughton), the latest Charlie Parker story. To wit:

The next pulse-pounding thriller in John Connolly’s internationally bestselling Charlie Parker series.
  The community of Prosperous, Maine has always thrived when others have suffered. Its inhabitants are wealthy, its children’s future secure. It shuns outsiders. It guards its own. And at the heart of the Prosperous lie the ruins of an ancient church, transported stone by stone from England centuries earlier by the founders of the town …
  But the death of a homeless man and the disappearance of his daughter draw the haunted, lethal private investigator Charlie Parker to Prosperous. Parker is a dangerous man, driven by compassion, by rage, and by the desire for vengeance. In him the town and its protectors sense a threat graver than any they have faced in their long history, and in the comfortable, sheltered inhabitants of a small Maine town, Parker will encounter his most vicious opponents yet.
  Charlie Parker has been marked to die so that Prosperous may survive.
  Prosperous, and the secret that it hides beneath its ruins …

  THE WOLF IN WINTER will be published in April. For all the details, clickety-click here …