New Reviews: Cato, Cordy, Enger, Hochgatterer, Learner, Nickson, Smith, van der Vlugt, Wallace

As well as reading the 9 new reviews, if you haven't already, do enter the competition which closes on 31st: win Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley (no geographical restrictions).

Here are this week's reviews:

Lizzie Hayes reviews Joyce Cato's, A Fatal Fall of Snow the second in this culinary series and which is set at Christmas;

Susan White reviews The Colour of Death by Michael Cordy which is set in the US and covers synaesthesia and cults;

Lynn Harvey reviews Thomas Enger's Burned, tr. Charlotte Barslund now out in paperback, and she's keen to read the sequel;

Maxine Clarke reviews the follow-up to The Sweetness of Life by Paulus Hochgatterer, The Mattress House, tr. Jamie Bulloch (do read Maxine's review but please do not read the synopsis on book-selling websites which give far too much away);

Terry Halligan reviews T S Learner's The Map, a historical quest thriller set in Europe;

Michelle Peckham reviews Chris Nickson's Cold Cruel Winter now out in trade paperback (look out for February's competition sponsored by this author);

Laura Root reviews the final part of Tom Rob Smith's USSR trilogy, Agent 6;

Rich Westwood reviews Simone van der Vlugt's Shadow Sister, tr. Michele Hutchinson a Dutch suspense thriller

and Amanda Gillies reviews political thriller Killing the Messenger by Christopher Wallace.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Joyce Cato and Anya Lipska have been added to these pages this week.

Reviews: Cordy, Edwardson, Franklin, Sapper, White, Winspear

There are three competitions running this month; the prizes are: The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke, Relics of the Dead by Ariana Franklin and Blood Law by Steven Hague (some restrictions apply).

Here are this week's reviews, which stick a bit closer to home this time round:

Michelle Peckham reviews the mass market paperback edition of The Source by Michael Cordy summing it up as "one for the beach";

Maxine Clarke reviews the paperback edition of Frozen Tracks by Ake Edwardson writing that it "a satisfying read, both in terms of plot and characterisation";

Norman Price reviews Relics of the Dead by Ariana Franklin (apa Grave Goods in the US). He finds lead character Adelia "a beguiling heroine in a fascinating historical setting" (Win a copy this month);

Rik Shepherd is unimpressed by Bulldog Drummond by Sapper wondering why it's such a 'classic';

Amanda Gillies reports that it's business as usual in Neil White's strong Garrett/McGanity series, of which Last Rites is the third

and Terry Halligan praises Jacqueline Winspear highly for her latest Maisie Dobbs outing, Among the Mad.

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

New Reviews: Cordy, Harrod-Eagles, Lake, Sjowall & Wahloo

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

New Reviews:

Amanda Gillies reviews The Source by Michael Cordy which is more than a 'Da Vinci Code' clone;

Amanda Brown reviews the latest in the witty DI Bill Slider series by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles - Game Over;

Terry Halligan reviews the twelth John Rawlings mystery by Deryn Lake: Death in Hellfire

and Maxine Clarke reviews the sixth in the Martin Beck series by Sjowall and Wahloo - Murder at the Savoy which is to the same high standard as the earlier five.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here plus for those thinking about their favourite books of 2008, there's a list (generated from my database) of British/European crime novels (written by British/Europeans) published in the UK in 2008, here. (I haven't yet updated it to include non-Europeans writing about Europe).

More new reviews will be added in January. The competition will also be back - win a copy of The Paper Moon by Andrea Camilleri.

Publishing Deals

From this week's Publishers Lunch:

Film
Film rights to John Burdett's BANGKOK 8 and his two subsequent police thrillers set in Bangkok, featuring Buddhist police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, in a new option to Millennium Films, with James McTeigue (V For Vendetta) directing, by Ron Bernstein, at auction, on behalf of Jane Gelfman at Gelfman Schneider. (Foreign book rights are represented by Betsy Robbins at Curtis Brown UK.)

UK
Two new thrillers by Simon Kernick, the first featuring a kidnap-attempt gone badly wrong, again to Selina Walker at Transworld, by Amanda Preston of LBA (UK/Commonwealth).

Michael Cordy's thriller THE SOURCE, about the surprise deciphering of the elusive Voynich manuscript at Yale's Beinecke Library by a young female professor, leading to the discovery of what seems to be a Garden of Eden deep in the jungles of Peru -- and a fight between the Vatican and various scholars for possession of the secrets which the garden contains, again to Bill Scott-Kerr at Bantam UK, by Patrick Walsh at Conville & Walsh. US rights will be submitted shortly.