Favourite Discoveries of 2016 (2)

Here is Geoff Jones' favourite crime discovery of 2016:

Geoff's Favourite Discovery of 2016

My discovery is Phil Rickman. A Lancastrian now living in Wales. He sets his Merrily Watkins series in Herefordshire. She is a priest, single mother and an exorcist.

Not a usual crime thriller, but mystery and death do appear, and there is a police detective - Frannie Bliss - who gets to know Merrily. Full of interesting characters including Merrily's partner the ex-hippy/musician Lol and her daughter Jane. When the series starts Jane is an awkward teenager and as it progresses she becomes a rebellious young woman! Amazon, on a daily deal, offered The Magus of Hay which is mainly set in the book town. I've now gone to the beginning. The paranormal is often in evidence, but this is a balanced well written series. The author has a stand-alone crime thriller The Cold Calling and the supernatural is very much in evidence. He has another series featuring Dr John Dee the Elizabethan magician. The books are always good value comprising of around 500 pages, very different but excellent. You believe in Merrily and enjoy her good times and suffer with her when things go wrong.

I'll definitely be reading more of this excellent series and also try his John Dee.

New Reviews: Downie, Fitzgerald, Fredrickson, Lake, Leather, Malone, Molay, Rhodes, Rickman

Here are nine reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, one has appeared on the blog since last time, and eight are completely new.

In recent days, I've put a call out for a couple more UK/Ireland based reviewers and if you like copycat cover posts, here's my non-crime 'handy' display.

NB. You can keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

Susan White reviews Ruth Downie's Tabula Rasa which is the sixth in the Roman Britain Ruso series but stands well on its own;

Lynn Harvey reviews Conor Fitzgerald's Bitter Remedy the fifth in the Italy-based Commissario Alec Blume series;

Geoff Jones reviews Jack Fredrickson's Silence the Dead, based on a true murder story in Illinois;

Terry Halligan reviews The Moonlit Door by Deryn Lake, the third in her Reverend Nick Lawrence series;

Terry also reviews Stephen Leather's White Lies which is the latest in the "Spider Shepherd" series, now out in paperback;

Amanda Gillies reviews Michael J Malone's Beyond the Rage;

Michelle Peckham reviews Frederique Molay's The City of Blood tr. Jeffrey Zuckerman the third in the 'Paris Homicide' series;

Michelle also reviews The Winter Foundlings by Kate Rhodes, the third in the Dr Alice Quentin series

 and Amanda also reviews Phil Rickman's stand alone, Night After Night.




Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Ludlow Crime Fiction?

I have spent a lovely day today at Ludlow, exploring the woods, town and of course tea-rooms. I have been to the castle before so didn't go inside this time but I will again one day.

I only know of one crime novel set in Ludlow but do let me know if there are more.

Phil Rickman's The Smile of a Ghost, the seventh in his Merrily Watkins series, is set in Ludlow:

The border town of Ludlow has it all: exquisite medieval streets, an imposing ruined castle, a parish church the size of a cathedral and a weight of history and legend. Wealthy people, famous people, have come to Ludlow to live. A sad teenage boy comes here to die ... dramatically, at sunset, in a fall from the ruins. Accident or suicide? Either way, no great mystery. Or is there? Robbie Walsh was the nephew of former Detective Sergeant Andy Mumford, newly - and reluctantly - retired from West Mercia CID. When Mumford's ailing mother becomes convinced she's still seeing her dead grandson in the old town, he brings in Merrily Watkins, parish priest, single mum and Deliverance consultant to the Diocese of Hereford. Is it dementia, delusion or something even more disturbing? Both scepticism and the dark underside of belief threaten Phil Rickman's engagingly open-minded heroine in this brilliantly structured, atmospheric thriller.

New Reviews: Chatterton, Craig, Hannah, Holt, Lawton, Leather, Rickman, Shepherd, Yates

This week's set of reviews, added to the Euro Crime website today, is a mixture of new reviews and a catch-up of those posted directly on the blog in the last two weeks, so you may have read some of them before if you're a regular :).

Keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

JF reviews Down Among the Dead Men by Ed Chatterton, the second in the DCI Frank Keane series, set in Liverpool and this time also LA;

Geoff Jones reviews James Craig's The Circus, the fourth in the DI John Carlyle series set in London;

Amanda Gillies reviews Monument to Murder by Mari Hannah, the fourth in the DCI Kate Daniels series set in Northumberland;

Lynn Harvey reviews Anne Holt's Blessed Are Those Who Thirst tr. Anne Bruce, the second outing for Oslo's Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen;

Norman Price reviews Then We Take Berlin by John Lawton, a non-Troy book which "...certainly meets the Troy standard of eccentricity, humour, meticulous historical research and readability";

Terry Halligan reviews Stephen Leather's True Colours, the tenth in the "Spider" series;

Rich Westwood reviews The Magus of Hay by Phil Rickman, the twelfth book in the Merrily Watkins series;

Terry also reviews Lynn Shepherd's A Treacherous Likeness the third in the Charles Maddox series, this time involving a mystery around the Shelleys

and Amanda also reviews Christopher J Yates's debut Black Chalk, starting her  review with: "Oh this book is seriously good".


Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Review: The Magus of Hay by Phil Rickman

The Magus of Hay by Phil Rickman, November 2013, 464 pages,Corvus, ISBN: 0857898655

Reviewed by Rich Westwood.
(Read more of Rich's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

THE MAGUS OF HAY is the twelfth book in the Merrily Watkins series that began in 1998. For the uninitiated, Merrily is a single mum with a rebellious daughter, the vicar of the fictional Herefordshire town of Ledwardine. At this point, I usually end up pointing out that these aren't Vicar-of-Dibley-esque cosy mysteries, but rich and sensitive stories with a deep-rooted sense of place.

There are also supernatural overtones, largely stemming from Merrily's role as Deliverance Office for the Diocese (exorcist, in other words), but there are always rational explanations for the crimes, if not the spooky goings-on.

THE MAGUS OF HAY reintroduces Robin and Betty Thorogood, a pagan couple who first appeared in 2001's A CROWN OF LIGHTS. They didn't have much luck in that book, and not much has improved in the interim. Robin is a dreamer and falls in love with the idea of starting a pagan bookshop in the bookselling town of Hay-on-Wye. A new set of troubles is about to begin for the couple as they settle in to the shop.

Meanwhile, an old man called David Hambling is found drowned under the waterfall just over the border in Herefordshire. Merrily's old friend DI Frannie Bliss goes to view the scene, and calls her in as an advisor as soon as he has discovered Hambling's idiosyncratic library.

Merrily is feeling a little lonely - temporarily abandoned by her boyfriend and her daughter - and is additionally being drawn into a potentially embarrassing situation with a bereaved headteacher who believes she is being haunted by her partner (and seems to like it). She welcomes the diversion, especially as it takes her out of her jurisdiction. Her knowledge and contacts soon reveal that Hambling was a formerly influential magical practitioner with a regrettable history of inspiring far-right activists.

DI Bliss also inadvertently inspires an ambitious young policewoman named Tamsin Winterson to conduct her own enquiries on the side. It is her disappearance which brings the two strands of the story together, as Robin soon becomes prime suspect in her murder. Unpleasant secrets get uncovered (literally in some cases) and the investigation brings Robin, Betty and Merrily into real danger.

The story is also about a unique town in danger of losing its hard-won individuality and becoming just another place. The locals are keen for Robin and Betty to rent the shop in order to prevent it becoming a nail bar. Phil Rickman talked to Crime Fiction Lover about Hay's history and declaration of independence,

THE MAGUS OF HAY is another strong entry in this series; well worth catching up with.

Rich Westwood, November 2013

New Reviews: Blackmore, Camilleri, George, Huber, Leonard, Rickman, Rowson, Vichi, Wilkinson

This week's set of reviews, added to Euro Crime today, is a mixture of new reviews and a catch-up of those posted directly on the blog in the last two weeks, so you may have read some of them before if you're a regular :).

Keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

Amanda Gillies reviews Alex Blackmore's debut, Lethal Profit, a thriller set in Paris;

I review Andrea Camilleri's latest Montalbano, translated by Stephen Sartarelli, The Treasure Hunt;

Terry Halligan reviews the new Lynley novel from Elizabeth George, Just One Evil Act;

Susan White reviews Linda Huber's debut, The Paradise Trees, a psychological thriller;

Laura Root reviews Peter Leonard's Back from the Dead, the sequel to Voices of the Dead;

Lynn Harvey reviews Phil Rickman's The Heresy of Dr Dee, now out in paperback;

Terry also reviews Death Surge by Pauline Rowson, the latest in her DI Andy Horton series set around the Solent;

Completing the set of reviews for Marco Vichi's first four Bordelli novels, is Michelle Peckham's review of Death and the Olive Grove, tr. Stephen Sartarelli, which is the second in the series

and Amanda also reviews Playing with Fire by Kerry Wilkinson, the fifth in the DS Jessica Daniel series set in Manchester.


Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Review: The Heresy of Dr Dee by Phil Rickman

The Heresy of Dr Dee by Phil Rickman, September 2013, 464 pages, Atlantic Books, ISBN: 0857897705

Reviewed by Lynn Harvey.
(Read more of Lynn's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

Elias's hands were lifted and, for a brief moment, it was as though the candleglow shone from the hollows of his palms.
Below them, the true source of it, a small planet of light.
It was no bigger than a cider apple.
Beryl, I guessed, a gemstone which comes in several colours and the shewstone possessed all of them.....

September, 1560, Mortlake.
A cold, sunless summer and talk is of portents and the End-time. Queen Elizabeth, two years into her reign, is already doubted by the people and natural philosopher and scientist John Dee has been consulted by the Queen only once since the spring. Dee now needs some kind of financial security, some kind of secure position. He is sitting with his neighbour as a scryer prepares to consult a shewstone. This consultation is seemingly on the neighbour's behalf but it is Dee who is anxious to see a scryer work a shewstone, just as he is anxious to possess such a stone. He has already implied to the Queen, who has a strong interest in the occult, that he has such a thing.

In Mortlake Dee is far from the London scandal surrounding his friend Robert Dudley whose young wife Amy, banished from court by Elizabeth alongside all the other “wives”, has died as a result of a fall from a flight of steps at the home of friends. London is alive with the gossip of the Queen's relationship with Dudley and that he has had his young wife killed so that he may marry the Queen. After what prove to be dramatic events during the scrying, the scryer tells Dee that there are rumours of a perfect shewstone owned by the one-time Abbot of Wigmore in the Welsh borderlands, the birthplace of Dee's father. Later Dee receives a letter from a cousin at court, a confidante of the Queen, summoning him to a riverside meeting next day. But as Dee arrives for the meeting he is escorted onto a barge by two men who say that the plan has changed. When their barge passes that of his cousin's, Dee stands up to call out but he is firmly advised not to do so – or they will slice his tongue from its root....

Phil Rickman's THE HERESY OF DR DEE is the second in his historical series centred upon the real-life character of John Dee, mathematician, astrologer and student of the occult. In this story Dee's drive to acquire a “shewstone” or “crystal” and Dudley's need to be away from London take them both on a journey to the Welsh borders. They travel with the entourage of a judge who has been sent to try a notorious Welsh bandit in an area steeped in the legends and brutalities surrounding the battle of Brynglas where Owain Glyndwr, the last Welsh-born Prince of Wales, triumphed over the English. They travel into a landscape shrouded in ancient folklore and magic and into company that is riddled with political and religious intrigue.

Lancashire-born Rickman worked as a journalist before becoming the author of a successful present-day series featuring Merrily Watkins, also set in the Welsh borders where Rickman has spent most of his adult life. His well-researched picture of John Dee is not one as full of occult menace as has been painted by other authors. Rickman has said “I like blokes who go through life slightly fearfully...” This is indeed true of the John Dee of this book. Rickman presents him as a trusting man who has a genuine belief in the “other worldly” as a provable reality and who devoutly wishes to experience at first hand a true communication with it in order to scientifically measure the methods of that communication.

Not a historical crime mystery as such, THE HERESY OF DR DEE is certainly a story of barbarities and mysteries. I did find a sense of disjointedness now and then, perhaps this is in the nature of its written language. But the book's undoubted strength is in atmosphere: the fear, mud, blood, bones and legends of the Borderlands.

Read another review of THE HERESY OF DR DEE.

Lynn Harvey, November 2013.

New Reviews: Bourland, Dean, Dryden, Hill, Kelly, Meredith, Rickman, Seymour, Winspear

Here are 9 new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today:

Earlier this week I reviewed on the blog, Fabrice Bourland's The Dream Killer of Paris tr. Morag Young the second in the Singleton and Trelawney series set in the 1930s;

Amanda Gillies reviews A M Dean's debut The Lost Library;

Lynn Harvey reviews Alex Dryden's thriller Death in Siberia the fourth in the Anna Resnikov series but Lynn says also works well as a standalone;

Maxine Clarke reviews Antonio Hill's The Summer of Dead Toys tr. Laura McGoughlin set in a steamy Barcelona [this will be in my top ten reads of 2012];

Geoff Jones reviews Jim Kelly's Death's Door, the fourth in his Valentine/Shaw series set in Norfolk [fans of his Dryden series please note that a new book in that series, Nightrise, has just come out];

Terry Halligan reviews the UK release of D E Meredith's debut Devoured which introduces Victorian forensic pathologists Hatton and Roumande;

Rich Westwood reviews Phil Rickman's The Heresy of Dr Dee the second in his Elizabethan series;

Terry also reviews E V Seymour's fourth 'Paul Tallis' thriller Resolution to Kill available on Kindle

and Susan White reviews the newest Maisie Dobbs from Jacqueline Winspear Elegy for Eddie - "a real joy".

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

New Reviews: Dickinson, Horst, Jungstedt, Mark, Meade, Regan, Rickman

Win Carnage by Maxim Chattam (UK only). Closes 31st March.

Here are this week's reviews:

Terry Halligan reviews the paperback release of the tenth in David Dickinson's pre WW1 series Death in a Scarlet Coat;

Last week I reviewed Dregs by Jorn Lier Horst, tr. Anne Bruce, an intriguing police-procedural set in a small Norwegian town;

Maxine Clarke reviews the just published Dark Angel by Mari Jungstedt, tr. Tiina Nunnally, the sixth in this Gotland based series, and a very good entry;

Geoff Jones reviews David Mark's debut, The Dark Winter set in Hull which introduces DS McAvoy;

Amanda Gillies reviews Glenn Meade's The Second Messiah which is about the danger of finding a new Dead Sea Scroll;

Lizzie Hayes reviews the first in Linda Regan's new series, Brotherhood of Blades which revolves around the inhabitants of a rundown housing estate

and Susan White reviews the paperback release of Phil Rickman's The Prayer of the Night Shepherd.

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 Elizabeth Darrell, Luke Delaney, P C/Paul Doherty, Elanor Dymott, Howard Linskey, Keith McCarthy, Brian McGilloway, Steve Mosby, Philip Sington, Sally Spencer and M J Trow have been added to these pages this week.

New Reviews: Adams, Beckett, Cleeves, Eastland, Higashino, Kaaberbol & Friis, Leather, Rickman, Russell

As is vaguely customary, a 6 review week is followed by a 9 review week...making roughly a review a day.

Win 3 Richard Nottingham mysteries by Chris Nickson (UK only).

Here are this week's 9 new reviews:

Lizzie Hayes reviews Jane A Adams's sixth Naomi Blake outing, Blood Ties;

Geoff Jones reviews Simon Beckett's fourth David Hunter novel, The Calling of the Grave, now out in paperback;

Maxine Clarke reviews the fifth in Ann Cleeves's "Vera" series, The Glass Room;

Lynn Harvey reviews the third in Sam Eastland's Inspector Pekkala series, Siberian Red;

Michelle Peckham reviews the paperback release of The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino, translated by Alexander O Smith & Elye J Alexander;

I review The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis, tr. Lene Kaaberbol set in Copenhagen and which is the first in the Nina Borg series;

Terry Halligan reviews the third in the supernatural PI Jack Nightingale series from Stephen Leather Nightmare;

Rich Westwood reviews Phil Rickman's The Lamp of the Wicked which touches on some true-life crimes, and is the fifth in the Merrily Watkins series which is being issued in paperback by Atlantic Books;

and Amanda Gillies reviews Craig Russell's third book in the Lennox series, The Deep Dark Sleep, set in 1950s Glasgow.

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 Jane Adams, John Connolly, Sebastian Fitzek, Tony/Anthony Hays, Anne Holt, Fabrice Humbert, Susan Elia MacNeal, Danielle Ramsay and Simon Urban have been added to these pages this week.

New Reviews: Bolton, Leather, Owen, Rickman, Ridpath, Young & New Competitions

Two new competitions for July and one is open internationally:
Win one of ten copies of Jail Bird by Jessie Keane (Worldwide)
Win one of five copies of The Assassin's Prayer by Ariana Franklin (UK & Republic of Ireland only)

Here are this week's reviews:

S J Bolton continues her impressive run of stand-alone novels with Blood Harvest reviewed here by Michelle Peckham;

Paul Blackburn reviews the paperback edition of Stephen Leather's supernatural-crime thriller Nightfall;

Laura Root recommends Two Tribes by Charlie Owen if you "fancy a walk on the wild side of the police procedural";

Amanda Gillies heaps praise on Phil Rickman's new venture - Elizabethan crime - in her review of The Bones of Avalon;

Maxine Clarke thoroughly enjoyed Michael Ridpath's Iceland set Where the Shadows Lie

and Kerrie Smith reviews Take Out by Felicity Young set in Perth, Australia.

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

Tudor Crime

Tudor era crime fiction seems to be quite popular at the moment. The latest in C J Sansom's Shardlake series, Heartstone, will be out in September:

It was summer, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII's invasion of France has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel. As the English fleet gathers at Portsmouth, the country raises the largest militia army it has ever seen. The King has debased the currency to pay for the war, and England is in the grip of soaring inflation and economic crisis. Meanwhile Matthew Shardlake is given an intriguing legal case by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr. Asked to investigate claims of 'monstrous wrongs' committed against a young ward of the court, which have already involved one mysterious death, Shardlake and his assistant Barak journey to Portsmouth. Once arrived, Shardlake and Barak find themselves in a city preparing to become a war zone; and Shardlake takes the opportunity to also investigate the mysterious past of Ellen Fettipace, a young woman incarcerated in the Bedlam. The emerging mysteries around the young ward, and the events that destroyed Ellen's family nineteen years before, involve Shardlake in reunions both with an old friend and an old enemy close to the throne. Events will converge on board one of the King's great warships, primed for battle in Portsmouth harbour.

In the meantime, S J Parris's Heresy has just been published:

Introducing the monk Giodarno Bruno, magician, scientist, and heretic in a new series of historical thrillers for fans of C.J.Sansom and 'The Name of the Rose' England, 1583 A country awash with paranoia and conspiracy -- but a safe haven for a radical monk on the run. Giordano Bruno, with his theories of astronomy and extraterrestrial life, has fled the Inquisition for the court of Elizabeth I. Here, he attracts the attention of Francis Walsingham, chief spymaster and sworn enemy of Catholic plotters. Bruno is sent undercover to Oxford, where the university is believed to be a hotbed of French dissent. Bruno quickly finds himself drawn into college intrigues, and distracted by a beautiful young woman. Before long, he is investigating a hideous series of murders, each linked by a letter offering clues. The letters suggest that each victim was guilty of heresy. But is Bruno being aided or misled - or is he himself the next target? Stalking a cunning and determined killer through the shadowy cloisters of Oxford, Bruno realizes that even the wise cannot always tell truth from heresy. But some are prepared to kill for it!

On the 1st April, the first in a new series - Bones of Avalon - from Phil Rickman will be published:

Religious strife, Glastonbury legends, the bones of King Arthur and the curse of the Tudors...can Renaissance man John Dee help the young Queen Elizabeth to avoid it? It is 1560. Elizabeth Tudor has been on the throne for a year, the date for her coronation having been chosen by her astrologer, Dr John Dee, at just 32 already famous throughout Europe as a mathematician and expert in the hidden arts. But neither Elizabeth nor Dee feel entirely secure. Both have known imprisonment for political reasons. The Queen is unpopular with both Roman Catholics and the new breed of puritanical protestant. Dee is regarded with suspicion in an era where the dividing line between science and sorcery is, at best, indistinct. And the assignment he's been given by the Queen's chief minister, Sir William Cecil, will blur it further: ride to the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, bring back King Arthur's bones. The mission takes the mild, bookish Dee to the tangled roots of English magic and the Arthurian legacy so important to the Tudors. Into unexpected violence, spiritual darkness, the breathless stirring of first love...and the cold heart of a complex plot against Elizabeth. With him is his friend and former student, Robert Dudley, a risk-taker, a wild card...and possibly the Queen's secret lover. Dee is Elizabethan England's forgotten hero. A man for whom this world - even the rapidly-expanding world of the Renaissance - was never enough.

On the 29th April, Revenger, the sequel to Martyr by Rory Clements will be out:

1592. England and Spain are at war, yet there is peril at home, too. The death of her trusted spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham has left Queen Elizabeth vulnerable. Conspiracies multiply. The quiet life of John Shakespeare is shattered by a summons from Robert Cecil, the cold but deadly young statesman who dominated the last years of the Queen's long reign, insisting Shakespeare re-enter government service. His mission: to find vital papers, now in the possession of the Earl of Essex. Essex is the brightest star in the firmament, a man of ambition. He woos the Queen, thirty-three years his senior, as if she were a girl his age. She is flattered by him -- despite her loathing for his mother, the beautiful, dangerous Lettice Knollys who presides over her own glittering court -- a dazzling array of the mad, bad, dangerous and disaffected. When John Shakespeare infiltrates this dissolute world he discovers not only that the Queen herself is in danger -- but that he and his family is also a target. With only his loyal footsoldier Boltfoot Cooper at his side, Shakespeare must face implacable forces who believe themselves above the law: men and women who kill without compunction. And in a world of shifting allegiances, just how far he can trust Robert Cecil, his devious new master?

Available on import (to the UK) we have the first in a new series from Peg Herring, Her Highness' First Murder which came out in January:

Elizabeth Tudor is as appalled as everyone else when headless corpses litter the streets of London, but when one of her own ladies is murdered, she vows to stop the killer. Her new friend Simon Maldon wants to help, and they join with a sergeant of the King’s Welsh Guard to investigate. Is the killer Elizabeth’s castellan? A creepy cleric who manages her household accounts? A madman captured on the grounds?

Religion seems to be a factor, since the murdered women are dressed in nun’s robes. Is it due to the fact that Henry’s beheaded two wives or that he’s outlawed Catholicism in England? The answers aren’t clear, but danger soon stalks the two young people. As the guardsmen search frantically for the depraved killer, Simon finds himself a prisoner, alone and in trouble. Elizabeth’s life is threatened as well. It may be too late for one of them, maybe both, to emerge from Her Highness’ first murder alive.

Queen Elizabeth I also appears in a seven book series by Karen Harper.

Forthcoming titles from Corvus

Yesterday I received the new catalogues for Corvus and Atlantic Books.

Starting with Corvus, here are a couple of the highlights:

The first in a new series from Phil Rickman in February 2010 called The Bones of Avalon:

Religious strife, Glastonbury legends, the bones of King Arthur and the curse of the Tudors...can Renaissance man John Dee help the young Queen Elizabeth to avoid it? It is 1560. Elizabeth Tudor has been on the throne for a year, the date for her coronation having been chosen by her astrologer, Dr John Dee, at just 32 already famous throughout Europe as a mathematician and expert in the hidden arts.

But neither Elizabeth nor Dee feel entirely secure. Both have known imprisonment for political reasons. The Queen is unpopular with both Roman Catholics and the new breed of puritanical protestant. Dee is regarded with suspicion in an era where the dividing line between science and sorcery is, at best, indistinct. And the assignment he's been given by the Queen's chief minister, Sir William Cecil, will blur it further: ride to the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, bring back King Arthur's bones.

The mission takes the mild, bookish Dee to the tangled roots of English magic and the Arthurian legacy so important to the Tudors. Into unexpected violence, spiritual darkness, the breathless stirring of first love...and the cold heart of a complex plot against Elizabeth. With him is his friend and former student, Robert Dudley, a risk-taker, a wild card...and possibly the Queen's secret lover. Dee is Elizabethan England's forgotten hero. A man for whom this world - even the rapidly-expanding world of the Renaissance - was never enough.

Merrily Watkins will return in February 2011.

and Michael Ridpath's first book in the Fire & Ice series, Where the Shadows Lie, will be published in June 2010:


Amid Iceland’s wild, volcanic landscape, rumours swirl about the secret sale of a long-lost ancient manuscript containing a saga about a ring of terrible power. The manuscript, guarded by one family for nearly eight centuries, was shown to J.R.R. Tolkein in the 1930s and was the spark that inspired The Lord of the Rings. That alone is enough to make the manuscript worth killing for...but what if, as some think, the ring exists too?

Untangling murder from myth is Iceland-born, Boston-raised homicide detective Magnus Jonson. Seconded to the Icelandic police force for his own protection after he runs afoul of a drug cartel back in Boston, Magnus also has his own reasons for returning to the country of his birth for the first time in nearly two decades – to investigate the unsolved murder of his father.

Binding Iceland’s landscape and history, secrets and superstitions in a strikingly original plot that will span several volumes, Where the Shadows Lie is a thrilling new series from an established master.

The second book in the series is scheduled for June 2011.

The Corvus catalogue can be viewed as a pdf file.

New Reviews: Barclay, MacLean, Rickman, Sjowall & Wahloo

I was going to label this column as "three fat books and a thin one". I'd been going for a theme of 500+ page books but couldn't find a fourth. You can guess which one is the thin one, it's the one first published in the 1970s.

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

New Reviews:

Amanda Brown reviews Alex Barclay's Blood Runs Cold which appears to be the start of a new series which features female FBI agent, Ren Bryce;

Terry Halligan reviews Home Before Dark by Charles MacLean a creepy psychological thriller;

Laura Root reviews the newest Merrily Watkins from Phil Rickman: To Dream of the Dead

and Maxine Clarke reviews the seventh in the classic Martin Beck series by Sjowall and Wahloo: The Abominable Man.

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

The competition is back - go here to see how you can win a copy of The Paper Moon by Andrea Camilleri.

Phil Rickman's radio show

Maybe the mystery of Caro Peacock will be revealed on Phil Rickman's radio show on BBC Radio Wales, later this evening...

17:32 Phil the Shelf

5/7. Phil Rickman talks to writers Ariana Franklin, Caro Peacock and Robert Goddard. The Shelf Starter comes from Sarah Hollins from Aberdare.

The show is "Phil Rickman's round-up of the best in new books, including the Shelf Starter slot where listeners' manuscripts get the big novel treatment."

More information on the programme is on Phil Rickman's website and you can listen again online here.

Phil Rickman writes the Merrily Watkins series, now published by the nice people at Quercus.