Publishing Deal - Andrew Taylor

In The Bookseller yesterday, news of a publishing deal for Andrew Taylor with HarperCollins:

Crime and thriller publisher Julia Wisdom signed world English-language rights to The Ashes of London and two more 17th-century-set novels.

The Ashes of London is set in 1666 as the Great Fire of London rages, when a murder victim is found in the ashes of St Paul’s Cathedral.

New Reviews: Eastland, Griffiths, Higashino, Jameson, Persson, Taylor

Six new reviews have been added to Euro Crime today:

Terry Halligan reviews Sam Eastland's The Red Moth, the fourth in the Inspector Pekkala series, and set in 1941;

Michellle Peckham reviews Elly Griffiths's Dying Fall, the fifth in the Ruth Galloway series, usually set in Norfolk but this time the setting is in the North-West

I review Keigo Higashino's Salvation of a Saint, tr. Alexander O Smith with Elye J Alexander, the second novel to feature Tokyo Detective Kusanagi and his friend Yukawa;

Lynn Harvey reviews Hanna Jameson's debut, Something You Are;

Norman Price reviews Leif GW Persson's Linda, as in the Linda Murder, tr. Neil Smith the first in a new series featuring (the non-pc) Evert Backstrom

and Sarah Hilary reviews Andrew Taylor's The Scent of Death set in New York just after the War of Independence.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

The Anatomy of Ghosts - Cover Opinions

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is the US and UK covers for Andrew Taylor's The Anatomy of Ghosts.

So what are you thoughts on the US (LHS) and UK (RHS) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Andrew Taylor? The US edition was published on 25 January and a UK paperback edition will be out 17 February (with a similar cover to the hardback).

If you have read it, how well do the covers suit the story?

Read the Euro Crime review by Amanda of The Anatomy of Ghosts.

You can read an extract from The Anatomy of Ghosts here.

New Reviews: Beaton, Carrisi, Chessex, McKenzie, Siger, Taylor, Walsh

Two competitions for January, both close 31st January:
1.Win Assassins of Athens by Jeffrey Siger UK only
2.Win A Noble Killing by Barbara Nadel (International)

I'd like to welcome Lizzie Hayes to the Euro Crime fold. She has donated a sizeable collection of reviews of recent books, which I'll be running over the next few weeks.

Here are this week's reviews:

Lizzie Hayes reviews the most recent Agatha Raisin from M C Beaton: Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body;

I review Donato Carrisi's The Whisperer, tr. Shaun Whiteside which has won several prizes in Italy;

Maxine Clarke reviews Jacques Chessex's A Jew Must Die, tr. W Donald Wilson published by Bitter Lemon Press ;

Michelle Peckham reviews Grant McKenzie's debut novel: Switch, a thriller set in the US;

Terry Halligan reviews one of this month's competition prizes: Assassin of Athens by Jeffrey Siger;

Amanda Gillies loved Andrew Taylor's latest: The Anatomy of Ghosts

and Lizzie also reviews The Attenbury Emeralds by Jill Paton Walsh, Lord Peter Wimsey's first case.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.

New Reviews: Black, Izner, Parker, Taylor & a New Competition

The third and final competition for February is up and running. NB This one will close on 28th. The 'Martin Beck' competition has now closed and the winner will be announced soon.

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website.

New Reviews:

Maxine Clarke reviews A Place of Safety by Helen Black and concludes that she was "impressed by the author's commitment and her ability to tell a good story while maintaining a clear moral voice";

Laura Root reviews the second book from French sisters "Claude Izner" who continue their tour of Paris's tourist sites with The Pere Lachaise Mystery;

Amanda Gillies was disappointed with what she felt was the poor execution of a great idea in Michael Parker's The Devil's Trinity

and Michelle Peckham reviews the paperback edition of Bleeding Heart Square by Andrew Taylor writing that it's "a hugely enjoyable book, in which the many different threads, and rich detail, are skilfully woven together".

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.

The new competition is for a copy of The Reunion by Simone van der Vlugt. (Closing date is 28st February, one entry per household and UK entrants only.)

The existing competition is for a copy of The Doomsday Prophecy by Scott Mariani. (Closing date is 21st February, one entry per household and UK/Europe entrants only.)

Previously on Radio 3 - Andrew Taylor on Poe

You can listen to Andrew Taylor talking about Poe's childhood for a few more days on iplayer:

Andrew Taylor investigates Edgar Allan Poe's childhood in England and the inspiration behind his own bestselling novel The American Boy.

And in case you missed the announcement, Andrew has won the Cartier Diamond Dagger 2009 Award (from the CWA website:)

“The recipient of the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award is chosen by the members and committee of the CWA and is very much an honour awarded by the author’s peers and thus makes it special.”

Andrew is a very nice man (a very nice man) and not only is a marvellous writer but also a great supporter of new talent.

BookZone - top picks for April

I enjoy reading the column with Sue Baker's monthly selection at BookZone. April's issue has just come out and there's an interesting comment on Andrew Taylor's new book, Bleeding Heart Square:

Hot foot from listening to a recording of Riceyman Steps, I was back again in a decaying and run-down London. Here, we are in the 1930s and a mystery based on a real-life Victorian murder. It's crime, but I'd hate to think of it being ghettoised, with lovers of good fiction missing this absorbing and sinister story. There's a big trade and consumer campaign to come and I'd expect to see this high in the bestseller charts.

Read the whole column here (before scuttling back to your ghetto...).

Bleeding Heart Square - trailer vs synopsis

Andrew Taylor has pointed me towards the trailer for his new book, Bleeding Heart Square, due out on the 29th May.



Synopsis from amazon.co.uk: 'If Philippa Penhow hadn't gone to Bleeding Heart Square on that January day, you and perhaps everyone else might have lived happily ever after...' It's 1934, and the decaying London cul-de-sac of Bleeding Heart Square is an unlikely place of refuge for aristocratic Lydia Langstone. But as she flees her abusive marriage there is only one person she can turn to - the genteelly derelict Captain Ingleby-Lewis, currently lodging at no 7. However, unknown to Lydia, a dark mystery haunts 7 Bleeding Heart Square. What happened to Miss Penhow, the middle-aged spinster who owns the house and who vanished four years earlier? Why is a seedy plain-clothes policeman obsessively watching the square? What is making struggling journalist Rory Wentwood so desperate to contact Miss Penhow? And why are parcels of rotting hearts being sent to Joseph Serridge, the last person to see Miss Penhow alive...? Legend has it the Devil once danced in Bleeding Heart Square - but is there now a new and sinister presence lurking in its shadows?