A New Sam Ryan (Silent Witness) ebook

I've been catching up with the library's collection of Bookseller magazines and I'd missed hearing about this. BOX Fiction are providing ebooks in ten instalments. The first part is free then subsequent parts, released weekly, are 69p each or you can buy the whole lot for £5.99.

This new venture kicks off with Nigel McCrery reprising his Sam Ryan creation in Titan. The first 5 parts are now available to buy and a second series is planned for 2012. Pilots have been commissioned from other authors.

Find out more at BOX Fiction.

New Reviews: Birkegaard, Briscoe, Child, Dugdall, Fleming, McCrery

Closing soon: October's Competition: Win a copy of Strangled in Paris by Claude Izner (UK only)

Here are this week's new reviews:

With the first of two books this week which may not be for the squeamish is Rich Westwood with his review of Mikkel Birkegaard's Death Sentence, tr. Charlotte Barslund;

Susan White reviews The Accused by Constance Briscoe her crime debut, already well-known as the author of the autobiographical Ugly;

Lynn Harvey reviews Lee Child's The Affair which takes Jack Reacher back to the beginning of his loner career;

Maxine Clarke reviews the CWA Award Winner, Ruth Dugdall's The Sacrificial Man;

Terry Halligan reviews James Fleming's conclusion to his Charlie Doig trilogy, Rising Blood

and Amanda Gillies reviews the second of the two books not for the faint-hearted: Nigel McCrery's Scream the third in the DCI Lapslie series set in Essex which is available in paperback.

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 David Belbin, Alex Connor, Ruth Dugdall, Paulus Hochgatterer, Bill Kitson, Alexander McCall Smith, Alexander Soderberg, Dag Solstad, Ferdinand von Schirach and Tom Winship have been added to these pages this week.

New Reviews: Arnold, Blake, Indridason, McCrery, Siger

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)

The Euro Crime Reviewers have spoken. Here are their favourite reads for 2010 in detail and summarised by most mentioned title, author and translator.

Here are this week's reviews:

Terry Halligan reviews Traitor's Blood by Michael Arnold the first in an English Civil War set series (and listed in Terry's top reads of 2010);

Amanda Gillies reviews the third in Richard Blake's Roman series featuring Aelric: The Blood of Alexandria;

Maxine Clarke reviews Arnaldur Indridason's Operation Napoleon, tr. Victoria Cribb an entertaining standalone adventure-thriller;

Laura Root reviews the third in the Chief Inspector Lapslie series from Nigel McCrery: Scream

and Terry also reviews Murder in Mykonos by Jeffrey Siger.

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

New Reviews: Black, Cabasson, Clark, Fox, Hilton, McCrery

January competition reminder: 3 copies of A K Shevchenko's Bequest are up for grabs. There are no geographical restrictions. Details of how to enter can be found here.

Here are this week's reviews:

Paul Blackburn reviews the third in Tony Black's Edinburgh based Gus Dury series - Loss;

Laura Root reviews Memory of Flames by Armand Cabasson, tr. Isabel Reid the most recent in this series of Napoleonic thrillers;

Amanda Brown catches up with the 14th century Abbess Hildegard in the paperback edition of The Red Velvet Turnshoe by Cassandra Clark;

Terry Halligan reviews the latest in the Anya Crichton, forensic pathologist series from Australian author Kathryn Fox: Blood Born;

Michelle Peckham reviews the paperback edition of the first of Matt Hilton's Joe Hunter thrillers: Dead Men's Dust

and Maxine Clarke reviews the second in Nigel McCrery's DCI Mark Lapslie series, Tooth and Claw.

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

New Reviews: Black, Downing, Haas, McCrery, Russell, Sussman

The closing date for the competitions is 23.59 on 30 November:

i)Win Beautiful Dead: Arizona by Eden Maguire (UK only)
ii)Win Sheer Folly by Carola Dunn (UK/Europe only)

Details on how to enter can be found on the Competition page

b) Here are the new reviews that have been added to the website today:

Amanda Brown reviews Murder in the Rue de Paradis by Cara Black which makes her want to revisit Paris;

Norman Price reviews David Downing's atmospheric Stettin Station set in Nazi Germany;

Michelle Peckham reviews Derek Haas's thriller, Hunt for the Bear;

Maxine Clarke liked Core of Evil by Nigel McCrery (nb. first published as Still Waters);

Amanda Gillies enthuses about Leigh Russell's debut novel, Cut Short

and Terry Halligan enjoyed The Hidden Oasis by Paul Sussman.

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

Bits and Pieces

A few things I've learnt recently:

Bernard Knight is writing a second series along with his 12th Century Crowner John series. The first book is called Where Death Delights and is set in 1955. It'll be published by Severn House next February.

Nigel McCrery's Still Waters has just been published in paperback under the title Core of Evil.

Michael Morley is now also writing as Jon Trace and his first book under this name is The Venice Conspiracy out in February.

There's a special Taggart v Rebus confrontation on Children in Need next Friday.

The current podcast for Simon Mayo's Book Review show features Black Water Rising by Attica Locke and Judgement and Wrath by Matt Hilton.

On Radio 4's Open Book programme on Sunday 15 November at 4pm, Mariella Frostrup talks to Frances Fyfield.

More New Tricks

Digital Spy reports that:

A fifth series of BBC One drama New Tricks has been given the go ahead following a successful fourth series, which peaked at 8.8 million viewers.

The show, made by Wall To Wall Television, has seen its audience increase week on week, and took a 38.5% audience share on its highest-rated episode.

Starring Amanda Redman, Dennis Waterman, Alun Armstrong and James Bolam, the new eight-part series will begin filming in London later this year.

Apparently the co-creator is Nigel McCrery of Silent Witness fame...