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.

New Reviews: Baker, Burdess, Campbell, Fallada, Seeber, Smith

Keep an eye out for details of May's competition, coming very soon...

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

New Reviews:

Firstly, in case you missed it, Crimeficreader's review of John Baker's Winged With Dead was uploaded earlier this week;

Terry Halligan reviews the third of Wendy Burdess's historical mysteries, A Criminal Affair, which has a highwayman known as the "Courteous Criminal"(!);

Maxine Clarke reviews Karen Campbell's After the Fire and concludes with "I'm very much looking forward to reading more by this talented, thoughtful author";

Book of the week is Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin, written in 1947 but only published in translation this year and is reviewed here by Norman Price who writes that it "was a privilege to read this brilliant novel";

Maxine also reviews Lullaby by Claire Seeber - a psychological thriller with Martina Cole-ish overtones

and Laura Root reviews Tom Rob Smith's follow-up to Child 44, The Secret Speech calling it "a remarkable meld of history, politics and thriller".

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

Another Awards Shortlist for Child 44

The Costa Book Awards 2008 shortlists have been announced and of particular interest to crime fiction fans is that the Man Booker Prize longlisted Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith has been shortlisted for the First Novel Award. The full shortlist is:

First Novel Award
Poppy Adams - The Behaviour of Moths
Sadie Jones - The Outcast
Jennie Rooney - Inside the Whale
Tom Rob Smith - Child 44

What the Costa judges said about Child 44:

"This gripping, unputdownable thriller is an exciting new addition to the genre."

Karen Chisholm concluded her Eurocrime review:

"there's been considerable research into the background of CHILD 44, but the book doesn't read as a research tome - it reads as a story of fear, manipulation, power struggles, petty jealousy, brutality, cruelty, madness, loss, survival and humanity."
Read the whole review, here.

All the categories and nominees for the Costa Book Awards 2008 can be found on the website.

Child 44 shortlisted for Desmond Elliott prize

Also courtesy of Publishing News:

CHILD 44 BY Tom Rob Smith is the William Hill 1/2 favourite to win the inaugural Desmond Elliott Prize, worth £10,000. Published in the UK by Simon & Schuster, it has appeared in 22 countries - though the novel, about a Stalin-era serial killer, is banned in Russia. Three film offers are on the table, including one from Ridley Scott. The other novels in contention are Gifted by Nikita Lalwani (Viking), with odds of 2/1, and Sunday at the Cross Bones by John Walsh (Fourth Estate), which is 3/1.

According to the Desmond Elliott Prize website:

The Desmond Elliott Prize is a new biennial prize for a first novel written in English and published in the UK. Worth £10,000 to the winner, the prize is named after the literary agent and publisher, Desmond Elliott.

Charismatic, witty, and waspish, Elliott lived his life with sparkle. He drank only champagne, always crossed the Atlantic on Concorde and lunched at Fortnum and Mason. His office was in Mayfair and he had houses in St James’s and on Park Avenue. Desmond Elliott’s ethos to support new writers will live on in the shape of the prize.

When choosing the winner, a panel of 3 judges will look for a novel which creates a “buzz”, a book with “word of mouth” appeal. In addition, the judges will look for the following qualities:

* a novel which is a page-turner but which makes you pause for thought
* an intelligent book with broad appeal

Child 44 is the only crime novel of the three and is reviewed on Euro Crime here.

New Reviews

Here are this week's new reviews and details of an extra competition to the two mentioned last weekend:

Latest Reviews:

This week we go to America, Norway, France, Russia and Botswana in our reviews, starting with Lee Child's Jack Reacher in his latest paperback incarnation - Bad Luck and Trouble reviewed by sock knitter extraordinaire Pat Austin;

I review the second of the Vik-Stubo series by Anne Holt which is set in Norway and France - The Final Murder (US: What Never Happens) - I preferred this to the first book enormously;

Continuing in France, Laura Root reviews the first book to feature Nicholas Le Floch - The Chatelet Apprentice by Jean-Francois Parot set in pre-revolutionary Paris;

Karen Chisholm reviews the much publicised Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith set in Stalinist Russia;

Moving onto Botswana, Maxine Clarke calls - A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley a "rip-roaring read"

and back in France, Maxine has good things to say about Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker.


Current Competitions (closing date 30 April):

Win a copy of The Trophy Taker by Lee Weeks*

Win a copy of The Death Maze by Ariana Franklin**

Win a copy of An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson**


* UK/Europe only
**No geographical restrictions on entrants

Tom Rob Smith Interview - Amazon.co.uk

Tom Rob Smith is the current focus of the New and Emerging Authors section on Amazon.co.uk. You can read the first chapter of Child 44 there plus there's an exclusive (but short) interview with the man himself, 44 Stalinist statistics and a discussion forum (currently quiet).

Let's Try This Again - Tom Rob Smith on the radio

Apparently last week's interview with Tom Rob Smith on Radio 4's Front Row will now be aired today instead.

Front Row is on at 19-15 to 19.45 and you can listen again for 7 more days after the date of broadcast.

The description from last week:

Child 44
Mark Lawson talks to British crime writer Tom Rob Smith, whose novel Child 44 has been hyped as Gorky Park for the 21st century in its portrayal of a Russian policeman searching for a child serial killer in modern Moscow.

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith is published by Simon and Schuster.

Radio 4 - the Smiths: Tom Rob and Alexander McCall

On Radio 4's Front Row this week, a couple of crime fiction highlights which you can listen to online for a few more days by clicking on the dates below:

Monday 25th February

Child 44
Mark Lawson talks to British crime writer Tom Rob Smith, whose novel Child 44 has been hyped as Gorky Park for the 21st century in its portrayal of a Russian policeman searching for a child serial killer in modern Moscow.

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith is published by Simon and Schuster.


Thursday 28th February

Alexander McCall Smith
The creator of the bestselling Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Alexander McCall Smith joins John Wilson to talk about the latest adventures of Botswana's 'foremost solver of problems', Precious Ramotswe, and to discuss a new adaptation of the novels, directed by Anthony Minghella.

The Miracle at Speedy Motors, by Alexander McCall Smith, is out in March.
The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency will be shown on BBC1 at Easter.

Metro interview of Tom Rob Smith

Today's Metro has Tom Rob Smith in its '60 Second Interview' slot. The much publicised Child 44 is out next week:

Why all the excitement about Child 44?
It’s hard to say why. I tried to make it as entertaining as I could, but I didn’t think it would sell around the world – that’s come as a surprise. I didn’t think it was very commercial. It’s set in Russia in the 1950s and some people have told me they found that interesting and thought the detective story was exciting, but I didn’t have a formula for writing it.

Read the rest of the interview here and visit his website to watch the trailer etc.

Ridley Scott to direct 'Child 44'.

It's not due out until 2008 but Tom Rob Smith's, 'Child 44', is already set to hit the big screen. 'Child 44' is set in the Soviet Union on the eve of Stalin's death, and based in part on real events. According to cinematical:

Ridley Scott is to direct an adaptation of Child 44, British television writer Tom Rob Smith's debut novel.

Full details of Scott's upcoming projects can be found on the cinematical site.

The new Robert Harris?

From the Publisher's Lunch newsletter:

28-year-old screenwriter Tom Rob Smith's debut novel CHILD 44, pitched as in the tradition of Robert Harris and Martin Cruz Smith, set in the Soviet Union on the eve of Stalin's death, and based in part on real events, to Suzanne Baboneau at Simon & Schuster UK, at auction, for publication in spring 2008, by James Gill at PFD.

From his agent's page:

Tom Rob Smith is 28. He graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2001 with a First-class degree in English Literature and in the same year was awarded the Harper-Wood Creative Writing scholarship to the Italian University of Pavia. He has worked as a screenwriter ever since. His UK television work includes Doctors and Dream Team, and he also storylined Cambodia's first ever soap opera for the BBC World Service Trust. He has a number of feature-film screenplays in development, including Somewhere in the Shadow, adapted from a short story by Jeff Noon, as well as a number of projects for television. His debut novel Child 44 will be published in 2008. Rights have been sold in the UK, US, France, Netherlands, and Italy.

Born in England to a Swedish mother and an English father, Tom lives and works in London.