New Reviews: Cooper, Cottam, Dahl, Duns, Griffiths, Hayder, Kitson, Lewis, Seymour

Here are this week's reviews, a bumper bundle of 9:

Michelle Peckham reviews Glenn Cooper's The Tenth Chamber set in France and revolving around a secret method of longevity;

Amanda Gillies reviews F G Cottam's ghostly The Magdalena Curse;

Maxine Clarke reviews The Man in the Window by K O Dahl, tr. Don Bartlett (we're anticipating a new Dahl in translation in 2011);

Laura Root reviews Jeremy Duns's 1960s set spy thriller Free Country;

Rik Shepherd reviews the paperback edition of Elly Griffiths's The Janus Stone;

Amanda Brown reviews the paperback edition of Mo Hayder's Ritual;

Paul Blackburn reviews Minds that Hate by Bill Kitson, the latest in his DI Mike Nash series;

Geoff Jones reviews Kevin Lewis's Scent of a Killer which is the second outing for DI Stacey Collins;

and Terry Halligan reviews EV Seymour's latest Paul Tallis thriller: Land of Ghosts in which he's sent to Russia.

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

New Reviews: Cooper, Harris, Lelic, Meyer, Robertson, Taylor

This month's competitions:

Win the complete Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson on Unabridged Audiobooks (UK & Ireland)
Win a copy of Daisychain by G J Moffat (UK only) new

Here are this week's new reviews:

Amanda Gillies reviews Glenn Cooper's The Tenth Chamber;

Michelle Peckham reviews Blueeyedboy by Joanne Harris;

Maxine Clarke reviews A Thousand Cuts (UK: Rupture) by Simon Lelic;

and Maxine also reviews euro crime favourite Deon Meyer's Thirteen Hours, tr. K L Seegers (Jack Bauer eat your heart out);

Terry Halligan reviews Imogen Robertson's Instruments of Darkness set in the 18th Century

and Laura Root reviews the 1930s set At The Chime of a City Clock by D J Taylor.

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

New Reviews: Casey, Cooper, Nesser

Due to time pressures, there's a cut-down update this week. Here are this week's new reviews:

Michelle Peckham reviews The Missing by Jane Casey, a debut novel being promoted on posters at your local train station;

Amanda Gillies reviews Glenn Cooper's Book of Souls and

Maxine Clarke reviews Hakan Nesser's Woman With Birthmark, tr. Laurie Thompson.

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

New Reviews: Barclay, Child, Forbes, Mills, Stock, Weeks

Just one week left in May's competition - win a copy of Suffer the Children by Adam Creed. (There are no geographical restrictions on entrants.) Enter here.

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website. The theme this week is thrillers:

New Reviews:

A big welcome to New Zealand based writer/reviewer Craig Sisterson who joins the review team today. His opening review is of Alex Barclay's Blood Runs Cold;

Michelle Peckham reviews the paperback edition of Nothing to Lose by Lee Child;

Amanda Brown reviews the last of Colin Forbes's Tweed books - The Savage Gorge;

Book of the week is Mark Mills's The Information Officer reviewed here by Mike Ripley;

I review the audio book version of Dead Spy Running by Jon Stock (the audio version pre-dates the print version by about a month);

Maxine Clarke reviews the second in the Johnny Mann series by Lee Weeks: The Trafficked

and finally for a bit of non-euro crime, Amanda Gillies reviews Library of the Dead by Glenn Cooper.

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

Review: Library of the Dead by Glenn Cooper

Occasionally a non "euro crime" review book turns up in my parcel box and in this instance I knew that reviewer Amanda Gillies would probably enjoy it and she did...

Library of the Dead by Glenn Cooper (21 May 2009, paperback, 416 pages, Arrow Books Ltd, ISBN: 0099534452)

This is a debut novel for Glenn Cooper and it is simply awesome! It starts out looking and feeling like another pretty much straightforward hunt for a serial murderer, but this couldn't be further from the truth. It follows three separate timelines and the hunt for the killer is only the very tip of the iceberg.

Set in New York, Las Vegas and, finally, Los Angeles, the 2009 section of the story is fast paced and full of tension. It centres on the lives of two former college room-mates after they meet up for a 25-year anniversary dinner. One of these, Will Piper, is a disgraced FBI special agent who just wants to make it to retirement with as little pressure, and as much alcohol, as possible. The other, Mark Shackleton works in computer security for Area 51 – the infamous, top secret, government facility that is supposedly involved in UFO research.

The second timeline is just post WWII and concerns a mysterious Anglo-American co-operation that sees Winston Churchill called in to assist with a very serious matter not long after his defeat in Parliament. He telephones Harry Truman with the news of a disturbing discovery and an urgent request for help. The consequences of their actions pave the way for the modern American security system, in order to bury a terrible secret that must never become general knowledge.

The earliest timeline starts some 1,400 years earlier and is, perhaps, the most disturbing of all. It is based in an abbey on the Isle of White and concerns the terrifying consequences of the birth of a seventh son of a seventh son on the 7th day of the 7th month in the year 777. This part of the story sets the rest of it in motion and triggers the horrifying murder spree in New York that Will Piper is called in to solve in 2009.

It takes the reader a while to work out what exactly is going on, but the fact that you manage to do so, or think you do, before all is revealed doesn't spoil things at all. Your self satisfaction is extremely short-lived as the very last page of the book leaves you with your mouth hanging open after an ending you had no idea was coming.

Extremely well-written, imaginative and captivating. The adjectives that could be used to praise this novel only end up sounding cheesy. I am extremely pleased with my timing for picking up this book – the Easter weekend meant that I could read it non-stop until it was done. Not only is Glenn Cooper a gifted and imaginative author, he is currently the CEO of a biotech company in Massachusetts and his accurate 'science speak' is a very welcome breath of fresh air.
Reviewed by Amanda Gillies.

The US edition will be published in July under the title of Secret of the Seventh Son.

You can read more about Glenn Cooper and his book(s) on his website at http://www.glenncooperbooks.com/content/index.asp.

More reviews by Amanda Gillies can be found on the Euro Crime review list page - just use the search function on your browser to find her name.

Cloaked Men in Corridors (Cover theme)

The first three are published later this year. The top two are from the same imprint (Arrow). The last one came out a few days ago but the man's run off.




To be fair, I think the finished cover for Shirley McKay's book will be slightly different to the above. See here.

UPDATE: Mustn't forget this one, though no corridor: