New Reviews: Blake, Camilleri, Colfer, Judd, Lewis, Orsi, Quinn, Robertson, Tegenfalk

The range of reviews covers country-house, spy, police-procedural, historical, thriller and the settings include England, Germany, Burma, Argentina, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the USA.

Here are the new 9 reviews:

We continue our reviews of the reissue of four of Nicholas Blake's titles with Susan White reviewing Thou Shell of Death, a country-house mystery set at Christmas;

Rich Westwood reviews International Dagger winner Andrea Camilleri's The Track of Sand, tr. Stephen Sartarelli now out in paperback;

Lynn Harvey reviews Eoin Colfer's Plugged also out in paperback;

Terry Halligan reviews Alan Judd's Uncommon Enemy which has just been longlisted for the CWA's Steel Dagger;

Maxine Clarke reviews Simon Lewis's Border Run blurbed as "Lord of the Flies meets The Beach";

Amanda Gillies travels to Argentina for Holy City by Guillermo Orsi, tr. Nick Caistor calling it an "absolute belter";

Susan also reviews Susanna Quinn's Glass Geishas set in Japan;

Terry continues to be impressed by Imogen Robertson's historical series with the fourth, Circle of Shadows recently published

and I recently reviewed on the blog Stefan Tegenfalk's Anger Mode, tr. David Evans the first part in a Swedish trilogy.

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.

Spread the Word 2009 - Bad Traffic (free book offer II)

I mentioned recently that Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis had made it through to the 10 books to talk about phase of the Spread the Word promotion.

The publishers of Bad Traffic are again offering encouragement to fans of the book to register and vote at the Spread the Word website:

We'd be very happy to offer free books again to the first 10 voters who post up a comment on the website above and send it to me at nat@sortof.co.uk along with their home address.

The publishers and Simon Lewis also wish to thank all those who have voted his book onto the shortlist.

Ten Books to Talk About

The Spread the Word list has been narrowed down from 50 to 10 titles. From the website:

These top ten contemporary books with word-of-mouth appeal have reached the short list in a search to find the best book to talk about this year.

Votes cast here over the next month will decide one winning book, The Book to Talk About, to be announced on World Book Day 2009, Thursday 5th March.

The ten includes Euro Crime favourite - Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis and Natasha Mostert's Season of the Witch.

See the whole list here.

New Reviews: Brooke, Lewis, Rimington, Ripley

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

New Reviews:

Guest reviewer Sharon Wheeler reviews Maloney's Law by Anne Brooke;

Maxine Clarke and Terry Halligan review Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis, here and here respectively. Bad Traffic is one of fifty titles selected for the Spread the Word campaign;

Norman Price reviews Dead Line by Stella Rimington the fourth novel starring MI5 agent Liz Carlyle

and Laura Root reviews the latest Angel book from Mike Ripley - Angels Unaware.

There won't be any new reviews added next weekend as I shall be away in France. (I've almost chosen which books to take...) Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.

New Reviews & A New Competition

Here are this week's new reviews and details of the new competition:

Latest Reviews:

In Mike Ripley's latest Crime File he reviews: A Cure For All Diseases by Reginald Hill, Unforgotten by Clare Francis, Sacrifice by S J Bolton and Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis;

Maxine Clarke is unimpressed by Meltdown by Martin Baker (which seems to have had a lot of money spent on the marketing) calling it a "mechanically insipid effort" but she gives a suggestion for a better read in her review;

Maxine finds the latest Tony Hill book by Val McDermid, Beneath the Bleeding a thrilling read, only let down by the "ludicrous motivation" of the bad guy;

More praise for the re-emergence of Crime and Punishment's Porfiry Petrovich in A Vengeful Longing by R N Morris comes from Pat Austin

and Laura Root reviews the second in the Palestine set series by Matt Rees, The Saladin Murders (aka A Grave in Gaza).


Current Competition (closing date 31 March):

Win a copy of A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley (UK & Europe only)

(geographical restrictions are in brackets)

Publishing Deal - Simon Lewis in the US

From Publishers Lunch:

Simon Lewis's BAD TRAFFIC, dubbed "an eastern Western," featuring a Chinese cop who arrives on English shores searching for his daughter -- without knowing a word of the language -- and who winds up completely dependent on a Chinese migrant worker to help him bring down a ruthless smuggling ring, to Anna deVries at Scribner, in a two-book deal, by George Lucas at Inkwell Management on behalf of Sort Of Books (NA).

Read the Euro Crime review of Bad Traffic which has already been published in the UK and is receiving very good reviews in the media.

February's first reviews and competitions

Here are this week's new reviews and details of February's competitions:

Latest Reviews:

In Mike Ripley's January crime file, he reviews Death in Hellfire by Deryn Lake, The Templar by Paul Doherty, Death at Dawn by Caro Peacock and The Garden of Evil by David Hewson;

Fiona Walker reviews The Patience of The Spider by Andrea Camilleri which has just been published in the UK;

Maxine Clarke was relieved that Asa Larsson's The Savage Altar (aka Sun Storm) was every bit as good as she'd hoped;

Laura Root enjoyed last month's competition prize - Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis;

Maxine finds Sjowall and Wahloo's third Martin Beck book, The Man on the Balcony to be a "lean and compelling novel"

and I review the first in a new series: Into the Shadows by Shirley Wells - set in a small Lancashire village where the hunts for a domestic murderer and a serial killer collide.


Current Competitions (closing date 29 February):

Win a copy of A Vengeful Longing by R N Morris (no geographical restrictions)

Win a copy of Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn (UK & Europe only)

(geographical restrictions are in brackets)