New Reviews: Dawson, Duns, Ferris, Gakas, Grindle, Janes, Knight, Lackberg

Here are this week's reviews:

Terry Halligan reviews Sequence by Adrian Dawson, writing that it was "the best that I've read this year";

Geoff Jones reviews Jeremy Duns's Song of Treason (formerly known as Free Country) which is out in paperback;

Lizzie Hayes recommends post-war thriller, The Hanging Shed by Gordon Ferris which has done well on Kindle;

I review Ashes by Sergios Gakas, tr. Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife which I enjoyed very much despite it being darker than my usual reads;

Lynn Harvey reviews Lucretia Grindle's The Lost Daughter which is the second in her Italian police series, and covers more than just a crime;

Susan White reviews the paperback release of Diane Janes's Why Don't You Come For Me? which she found unsettling;

Amanda Gillies goes back to the 12C to review the paperback edition of Bernard Knight's A Plague of Heretics

and Maxine Clarke reviews the latest (in English) from Camilla Lackberg, translated this time by Tiina Nunnally: The Hidden Child.

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

New Reviews: Duns, Gowers, Marrinan, Peace, Schenkel, Waites

These are the last reviews I'll upload this year but I am aiming to post a new set on 2 January 2011. I'll soon be collating the Euro Crime reviewers' favourite reads of 2010 and will post the result as soon as it's complete.

Terry Halligan reviews the paperback release of Free Agent by Jeremy Duns the first in a spy-thriller trilogy;

Michelle Peckham reviews The Twisted Heart by Rebecca Gowers which contains both a literary mystery and a love story;

Terry also reviews, and praises highly, Patrick Marrinan's legal thriller Degrees of Guilt;

Amanda Gillies reviews the Quercus hardback release of David Peace's 1977 the second part of the Red Riding Quartet;

Maxine Clarke reviews Bunker by Andrea Maria Schenkel, tr. Anthea Bell

and Laura Root reviews the US hardback release of Martyn Waites' Speak No Evil which she calls "quality British noir".

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

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: Brandreth, Calderon, Charteris, Duns, Keating, Rayne, Schenkel

Just one day 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 historical crime:

New Reviews:

I review the audio book version of Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders by Gyles Brandreth (1889-90);

Laura Root reviews The Creator's Map by Emilio Calderon (WWII);

Rik Shepherd reviews The Best of the Saint: Volume One by Leslie Charteris (1930s);

Michelle Peckham reviews Free Agent by Jeremy Duns (1969);

Mike Ripley reviews A Small Case for Inspector Ghote? by H R F Keating (1964);

Amanda Gillies reviews Spider Light by Sarah Rayne (present day with flashbacks);

and Maxine Clarke reviews Ice Cold by Andrea Maria Schenkel(1930s).

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

Free Agent by Jeremy Duns (extract)

The first part of Jeremy Duns' trilogy of Cold War spy novels, Free Agent, will be published in the UK next week (July in the US). Here's a look at the first chapter:

Chapter 1

Sunday, 23 March 1969, Hampshire

As I edged the car onto the gravel, the front door of the house swung open and Chief's steely grey eyes stared down at me.

'What the hell took you so long?' he hissed as I made my way up the steps. But before I could answer, he had turned on his heels.

I followed the sound of his slippers gently slapping against the floorboards, down the dark oak-lined corridor. I knew from years of working for him that the best thing to do when he was in this sort of mood was not to react - his gruff tone usually gave way quite quickly, and more often than not he ended our sessions treating me like the son he'd never had. So I resisted the temptation to tell him I had driven up in record time, and instead hung my coat on one of the hooks in the hallway. Then I walked into the living room and seated myself in the nearest armchair.

It had been a while since I'd last visited Chief out here, but little had changed. There were a couple of porcelain birds I didn't remember, and a new bois clair bookcase that looked similar to the one he had in his office. But the framed photographs on the piano, the portrait of his father above the mantelpiece and the golf bag propped against the fireplace were all still in place. A selection of books and papers were spread across a garish Turkish carpet at the foot of one of the armchairs, and a sideboard within easy reach was home to a telephone, an inkwell and what looked like a half-eaten egg sandwich. He still hadn't learned to cook since Joan's death, it seemed.

I imagined him nibbling the sandwich as he had barked down the telephone at me less than two hours earlier. He had refused to give any hints as to what he wanted to discuss, and I was naturally intrigued. What could be so urgent that it couldn't wait for tomorrow's nine o'clock meeting? One possibility that had nagged at me all the way from London was that he had somehow found out I was seeing Vanessa and was so furious he wanted to sack me on the spot.

I thought back over the day. Had I been careless somewhere? We had visited a small art gallery in Hampstead in the morning but there hadn't been another soul in the place apart from the owner, and after that we had spent the entire afternoon at her flat, pushing the sheets to the bottom of the bed. Then I'd headed to mine for a quick shave and change of clothes. We had arranged to meet at Ronnie Scott's at midnight: there was a hot young group from the States she wanted to see. But then the call had come through, with the request to come and see him at my 'earliest convenience'.

It wasn't convenient at all, of course. Vanessa and I rarely had a whole weekend together, and it had taken careful planning - perhaps not careful enough, though.

Read on here.

Publishing Deal - Jeremy Duns (2)

First the UK rights and now the US rights have been snapped up according to Publishers Lunch:

Jeremy Duns' FREE AGENT, set between London and Nigeria during the Biafran War, about an MI6 agent on the run as a suspected KGB double-agent and intent on tracking down the only woman he ever loved whom he has thought dead for the past 24 years, to Kathryn Court at Viking, in a pre-empt, by Joe Veltre at Artists Literary Group, on behalf of Antony Topping at Greene & Heaton (US).

Publishing Deal - Jeremy Duns

From Publishing News:

At Simon & Schuster, Mike Jones has acquired UK/Commonwealth ex Canada to Free Agent plus two further novels by Jeremy Duns from Antony Topping at Greene & Heaton. Set between London and Nigeria at the time of the Biafran War, Free Agent, Duns' debut, introduces us to MI6 agent Paul Dark, on the run as a suspected double agent and intent on tracking down the only woman he ever loved… “An intense, twisting thriller with innumerable cliff-hangers,” according to Jones.

Read more about the author and his new book at his website.