Synopsis from amazon:
Nathaniel Parker of the Inspector Lynley Mysteries is one of twelve celebrities posing with a beloved pet for the 2009 PDSA Pet Pawtraits calendar. The cost of the calendar is £4.99 and can be bought via the PDSA website and PDSA shops.To Charlotte Clerk and Jon Riley at Quercus, world rights in Nick Stafford's first novel ARMISTICE. The novel is about a young soldier's death in the First World War, and about his fiancee's efforts to find out whether he was killed by friendly fire. For publication on Armistice Day 2009; the agent is Clare Conville at Conville & Walsh.and
To Susan Watt of HarperCollins, a Bernard Cornwell-style trilogy set in the Crimean War. TO DO AND DIE, the first of the trilogy, will be published in 2010 and opens with a regiment embarking for and fighting in the savage battles of what's regarded as the first modern war. Watt believes that "Patrick Mercer's writing takes the reader straight into the heart of battle, with all the courage and the cowardice, and also gives a compelling picture of the soldier's life, the cold, the comradeship, the food and the feuds and the fear of crippling injury or death". Mercer spent 20 years in the Army and commanded a battalion in Bosnia before becoming Today's Defence Correspondent. The MP for Newark and Retford is represented by Natasha Fairweather of A P Watt
Synopsis: Ulaan Bataar bakes in the heat of an unseasonably hot summer as it prepares to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the birth of the Mongol Empire. But the city is facing a series of unexpected crises - an apparent suicide bomber shot down by police in Suuk Bataar Square, a dead body in the City Museum re-enacting an incident from ancient Mongolian history, an explosion at a political rally, and yet another body found murdered nearby. For Doripalam, now boss of the Serious Crime Team, the crises are growing increasingly personal. As he struggles to keep control of his own personal and professional life, one of his own team is arrested.Solongo, Doripalam's wife is facing her own challenges and finds herself entangled with murder and with the fugitive officer. Worst of all, Nergui, now an influential figure in the Ministry of Security, appears to be pursuing an agenda all of his own. The roots of all this trouble lie in the past - in the history of the Mongol nation, as well as in the more recent legacies of the communist state. As the sun beats down, a chilling figure emerges - a figure from Nergui's past, an outcast, who has returned to exact revenge, both on Nergui himself and on the nation that rejected him.A look at the world of cryptic crosswords, offering up the secrets of these seemingly impenetrable puzzles.
Crossword setter Don Manley, AKA Quixote, reveals the tricks that compilers use to bamboozle and entertain solvers using a crossword he created especially for the programme.
We also find out why Britain became home to the cryptic crossword, how a crossword nearly put paid to the D-Day invasion and why London Underground is elevating the crossword to an art form.
Author Colin Dexter explains why Inspector Morse loved his crossword, Martin Bell reveals how his father became the first crossword setter of the Times without ever having solved one and the crossword editor of the Daily Telegraph opens up her postbag.
Also sharing their enthusiasm for cryptic crosswords are actors Prunella Scales and Simon Russell Beale, Val Gilbert of the Daily Telegraph and Jonathan Crowther, AKA Azed of the Times.
We have teamed up with Waterstone's for publication of Stephen King's new collection of stories JUST AFTER SUNSET. It's published on Thursday 13th November ... but Waterstone's Trafalgar Square will have copies on sale exclusively from 4.15pm on Wednesday 12th November.
This is the only store in the UK that will have copies before publication!
Also, the first ten people to buy JUST AFTER SUNSET will bag themselves a free DVD of the animated short story 'N' from the book.
EUROPEAN FILM 2008The winners will be presented during the Awards Ceremony on 6 December in Copenhagen.
IL DIVO, Italy
written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino
ENTRE LES MURS (The Class), France
directed by Laurent Cantet
written by Laurent Cantet, François Begaudeau & Robin Campillo after the novel of François Begaudeau
GOMORRA (Gomorrah), Italy
directed by Matteo Garrone
written by Maurizio Bracci, Ugo Chiti, Gianni di Gregorio, Matteo Garrone, Massimo Gaudioso & Roberto Saviano
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, UK
written and directed by Mike Leigh
EL ORFANATO (The Orphanage), Spain
directed by Juan Antonio Bayona
written by Sergio G. Sánchez
WALTZ WITH BASHIR, Israel/France/Germany
written and directed by Ari Folman
EUROPEAN DIRECTOR 2008
Laurent Cantet for ENTRE LES MURS (The Class)
Andreas Dresen for WOLKE 9 (Cloud 9)
Ari Folman for WALTZ WITH BASHIR
Matteo Garrone for GOMORRA (Gomorrah)
Steve McQueen for HUNGER
Paolo Sorrentino for IL DIVO
EUROPEAN ACTRESS 2008
Hiam Abbass in LEMON TREE
Arta Dobroshi in LE SILENCE DE LORNA (Lorna’s Silence)
Sally Hawkins in HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
Belen Rueda in EL ORFANATO (The Orphanage)
Kristin Scott Thomas in IL Y A LONGTEMPS QUE JE T’AIME (I’ve Loved You So Long)
Ursula Werner in WOLKE 9 (Cloud 9)
EUROPEAN ACTOR 2008
Michael Fassbender in HUNGER
Thure Lindhardt & Mads Mikkelsen in FLAMMEN & CITRONEN (Flame & Citron)
James McAvoy in ATONEMENT
Toni Servillo in GOMORRA (Gomorrah) and IL DIVO
Jürgen Vogel in DIE WELLE (The Wave)
Elmar Wepper in KIRSCHBLÜTEN - HANAMI (Cherry Blossoms)
EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER 2008
Suha Arraf & Eran Riklis for LEMON TREE
Maurizio Braucci, Ugo Chiti, Gianni di Gregorio, Matteo Garrone, Massimo Gaudioso & Roberto Saviano for GOMORRA (Gomorrah)
Ari Folman for WALTZ WITH BASHIR
Paolo Sorrentino for IL DIVO
Jack deals in cardboard, selling expensive and rare gaming cards to rich collectors. He makes plenty of money, travelling the world. He meets millionaire Henri, the man who has everything. Well, almost everything. Henri wants the elusive Okinawa Dragon, a one-off card given to a Japanese businessman who refuses to sell. A plan is hatched, and Jack is soon on his way to Osaka to complete Henri’s collection. There is only one way to get hold of something somebody doesn’t want to give.
A frightened phone call from her young daughter sends Jenny Carter into the darkness of Quarry Woods, seventeen years after she swore she’d never return. What she finds there triggers a journey back to a horrific event in her own childhood – an event which now threatens the present.
To Ravi Mirchandani at Atlantic, WEL rights in THE NOSTRADAMUS PROPHECIES, a debut thriller by Mario Reading. Mirchandani believes it is "wonderfully readable, a page-turning commercial thriller which takes one not only into the world of Nostradamus but also - fascinatingly - into a gypsy world I knew nothing of. The book is a real departure for Atlantic." The agent is Oliver Munson of Blake Friedmann, and translation rights have been sold in 12 countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Brazil and Japan; more deals will be finalised in the wake of Frankfurt.
Penguin is teaming up with TV channel Crime & Investigation Network to launch an online crime game, Monkeys, Skulls and Crosses. The game is scripted by Michael Morley, author of the Penguin thriller Spider.
The game puts users into the role of detective, interviewing suspects, inspecting the crime scene and hunting for clues in order to solve a murder case. It will be advertised on the CI channel.
CI Marketing Director James Pestell said: "It has been great to work with a fantastic publishing brand and prolific author who are committed to using digital to get closer to their readers."
Manufacturer's description:
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.
So many books, so little time.The fifty titles include both fiction and non-fiction. The crime fiction selections include The Bloomsday Dead by Adrian McKinty and Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis.
Thousands of books are published every year, and only a small percentage makes the mark that it should.The World Book Day team asked publishers large and small to submit books they thought deserved to reach a wider readership – most specifically those that would make good subjects for discussion, those that don’t merely entertain, but give greater food for thought.
From the many submissions received, we have selected fifty titles we feel fulfil the criteria. Each and every one brings something different, refreshing and stimulating.
This is an opportunity to vote for your favourite book on the list, so that we can find The Book to Talk About 2009.
Voting on the long list will end on 2nd January 2009. A short list of ten titles will be announced on 30th January 2009 and voting will recommence. The winner will be announced on World Book Day - Thursday 5th March 2009.
McKinty is a rare writer, one who can combine the conventionally muscular prose of crime fiction with a lyrical flair for language, and the blend is a compelling one. Forsythe is himself a fascinating character, brusque and blunt in his public exchanges, lethal when trapped in a tight spot (of which there are many in this furiously-plotted tale, which loosely follows the path laid down by both Leopold Bloom and Odysseus), yet possessed of a poet's soul during his interior monologues. The violence is graphically etched into the page, as if stamped there by the force of its authenticity, but McKinty never forgets that his first priority is to entertain, leavening the bleakness with flashes of mordant humour.Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis is a rare thing: all three reviews, on the Euro Crime website, are united in their praise and desire to see more from this writer.
BAD TRAFFIC is a compelling and page-turning thriller. The main characters are convincingly drawn, and Simon Lewis vividly depicts the cultural and language barriers that Jian and Ding Yi experience. I look forward to further books in the Inspector Jian series.Maxine Clarke begins her review:
BAD TRAFFIC is a book that epitomises all that is great about the crime-fiction genre. It has a tight plot that unfolds at breakneck pace; it depicts an alien world vividly; there is a range of believable and sympathetic characters; it constantly unsettles the reader; and the events it describes seem as if they could really happen. Although the book has strong elements of the noir genre, with its atmosphere of Greek tragedy in which events and characters fulfil the dictates of fate and there is an absence of sentiment, the book is by no means boiled as hard as noir often can be - hope and humanity are there to be found, like specks of jewels glistening in the depths.and Terry Halligan concludes his review:
I found this book hugely entertaining and a real page turner and I look forward to reading the next books of this deeply, atmospheric thriller writer.Voting and commenting on the titles requires a simple registration. The free book offer comes from Sort of Books, the publishers of Bad Traffic, who are:
offering free books to the first 25 voters who post a comment about Bad Traffic on the Spread the Word website. All you need to do is email the comment and your postal address to nat@sortof.co.uk.
Maria Rejt at Pan Macmillan has bought three novels in a new historical crime series set in Moscow during Stalin’s Great Terror. Rejt paid a six-figure advance at auction for British and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) in the series, written by William Ryan, doing the deal with Andrew Gordon at David Higham.
The series features Captain Alexei Korolev who in the first novel, The Holy Thief, is given the case of investigating a serial killer who is on the loose in Moscow, just as Stalin unleashes his own killing spree. The Holy Thief will be published as a lead title on the Macmillan list in early 2010.
Synopsis from the mogzilla website:
