New Reviews: Armstrong, Cato, Charters, Sansom, Varesi, Wagner

One competition for September and it is open internationally closes 30st:
Win one of three copies of From the Dead by Mark Billingham (Worldwide)

Here are this week's reviews:

Starting off this week with a rare excursion into true-crime: Amanda Gillies reviews A Matter of Life and Death by Sue Armstrong (subtitled: inside the hidden world of the pathologist);

Laura Root reviews a cozy set in Devon: Birthdays Can Be Murder by Joyce Cato;

Terry Halligan reviews the debut from Charlie Charters - Bolt Action which he loved;

Similarly, Pat Austin didn't want C J Sansom's latest Shardlake, Heartstone to end;

Maxine Clarke reviews a new to English, Italian author: Valerio Varesi's River of Shadows, tr. Joseph Farrell

and I review Jan Costin Wagner's long awaited sequel to Ice Moon: Silence, tr. Anthea Bell.

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

Publishing Deal - Charlie Charters

From The Bookseller:

Hodder & Stoughton has signed a two-book deal with debut thriller writer Charlie Charters, for an undisclosed sum.

The first book, entitled Bolt Action, will be published in July next year as a paperback original, with the second - as-yet-untitled- following a year later.

Set on a plane - where, since the 9/11 attacks, the door between the cockpit and the cabin must be locked - Bolt Action tells the story of what happens when the pilot and crew have all been poisoned.

By chance, a renegade group of British ex-soldiers, fleeing the attentions of MI5, are on board.

Hodder described the novel as "the ultimate terrorist spectacular, played out as the world watches, blogs and tweets", which would appeal to fans of Tom Clancy, Jack Higgins, Duncan Falconer, Tom Cain and Andy McNab.

Read the whole article here.