Paula Longhurst's Blog, page 19

Redemption Point, Candice Fox

Ted and Amanda are still in the PI business, investigating the murder of two bar tending millennials at a hole in the wall dive in Crimson Lake. Amanda is ‘assisting’ newly promoted DI Pip Sweeny. 
Ted has a homicidal house guest, Claire Bingley’s distraught father who makes it plain that Ted better find who really hurt his daughter or Ted will pay the price.

Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djeli Clark

A simple case of smuggling puts the entire city of Cairo at risk.

1912: The Ministry of Alchemy Enchantments and Supernatural Entities polices all of Egypt. For Agent Hamed Nasr and his new partner agent Onsi Youssef the case of a haunted tram car in Cairo seemed textbook but when an exorcism goes awry and women are hurt the agents realize they have something much more dangerous on their hands.

Clark serves up an alternate history Cairo with futuristic steampunk elements and magic interwoven with suffragettes, secret societies, wily smugglers and sentient automatons.

If you want a taste of Clark's work check out the brilliant short story A Dead Djinn in Cairo

Clark also wrote the novella The Black God's Drums, set in an alternate version of New Orleans which came out last year. I can't wait to see what he writes next!

St. Nicholas Wrecking and Salvage, Dana Haynes

St. Nicholas is anything but a salvage company: operating out of Cyprus ex US Marshal Michael Finnigan and former spy Katalin Fiero Dahar are bounty hunters. Their prey? The seemingly untouchable war criminals, money launderers and smugglers slimed across Europe. What Finnigan and Fiero are doing may be illegal but it's necessary.
Tasked with bringing down child traffickers preying on the caravans of Muslim refugees fleeing Syria, the duo plan to pose as buyers to draw out the ring leader but he isn't their main problem; that would be the paranoid Kosovar military commander with a unit of troops willing to die for him and an intelligence network already alerted to St Nicholas' presence.  He's decided to mount a preemptive strike on the European Courts of Justice in the Hague.

Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna, Mario Giordano

Donna Poldina is back! 
Poldi’s life in Sicily as chronicled by her nephew is jogging along nicely; until the water for the whole of Via Baronessa is cut off and a dear friend’s dog is poisoned. Poldi sees the mafia at work, after all a local judge has just been found murdered but Poldi’s lover, Commissario Vito Montana won’t let her into his investigation; so Poldi starts her own. 
She assembles a team, a rather creaky one and it doesn’t take long for the fur to start flying. A complicated web of vineyards, water rights, a dodgy psychic, activist groups, some cranky German tourists a not-so-undercover FBI agent and even the mafia conspire to stop Poldi and her pensioners from solving the case. Can Poldi prevail? and if she succeeds she could lose Montana forever.

Freefall, Jessica Barry

Maggie Carpenter gets the visit every parent dreads, her daughter Allison has died in a fiery plane crash. The pilot, drug company CEO Ben Gardner is found at the scene but Allison’s body has not yet been recovered. Maggie doesn’t know why Allison was on the plane; she hasn’t seen or spoken to her estranged daughter for years.

Allison isn’t dead, well not yet; but she’s alone in the wilderness being hunted by a relentless foe. If he finds her, he will kill her...

Author life in...

DecemberThe less said about Christmas the better,  I wanted a quiet Christmas but be careful what you wish for. You may get it! Moving on, plenty of winter storms which means lots of snow and that - in turn - means water in the reservoirs. It also means a killer workout because someone has to shovel all of that snow off the drive and the paths. The rebuilt extention has become C's fabrication room (he's building me a new costume for comic con in April)Book 3 now has a name, 'Robust Revenge' and I'm knee deep in rewrites for the second draft. I've got a pretty good idea what the cover art is going to be (hint, it involves a motorbike)I'm doing something a little out of my comfort zone next year. In March of 2019 I'll be at the brand new First Pages writing conference here in Utah, not as an attendee; I'll be giving a talk on all things mystery. First Pages is for people who think they might want to write a book which is where every writer starts out. A short round up of what happened in the last three months. Several weekends away, including one down to Vegas to go and see Penn and Teller, gambling, glitz, glamour, magic, perfect! End of November my first ever trip to Disney and Universal Studios with a NASA day thrown in. The whole thing was fantastic.

Lost Man, Jane Harper

From the author ‘The Dry’ comes a stand-alone psychological thriller.
The outback isn’t a place to go walkabout without water. What caused Cam Bright, experienced homesteader, loving husband and father to leave his fully stocked truck and walk almost 10 miles to the stockman’s grave where he perished? It’s a question his brothers Nathan and Bub are struggling to answer. As the family gathers for Cam’s funeral, Nathan begins to speculate on who would want Cam dead; this far into the back of beyond there are only a limited amount of suspects.

Gutter Prayer (Black Iron Legacy #1), Gareth Hanrahan

Cari was a sneak thief, a runaway until the falling Tower of Law in Guerdon made her a saint. She and her friends Spar and Rat were supposed to take the fall while another faction stole a god. Far below, the tunnel dwellers; guardians of an ancient gate that holds back unspeakable evil plot with factions on the surface and high above, the Black Iron Gods sense their impending release. 
Only Cari with the help/hindrance of a rag-tag bunch of cut-throats, a dabbling alchemist, Eladora, Cari’s bookish cousin and a very tired but pissed off saint named Aleena can hold the Black Iron Gods in check and save the city.

The Suspect, Fiona Barton

Reporter Kate Walters and her young protege, Joe get the scoop on a couple of missing teens courtesy of her old contact DI Bob Sparkes. The 18 year olds went on a three month backpacking tour in Thailand and haven’t posted on social media for over a week. Both sets of parents are going crazy but how well do they know their daughters?
For Kate the story has a very personal connection, her oldest is also travelling in Thailand and she hasn't seen him for over two years. A nasty twist of fate propels Kate and her family to the front page and not under her byline.

Golden Tresses of the Dead, Alan Bradley

Arthur W.Dogger & Associates have landed their first client, asked to retrieve stolen letters of an ‘inappropriate nature’ by a Mrs. Prill daughter of the famous, wealthy and currently hospitalized Dr. Brocken. Dogger and Flavia are told they come 'highly recomended'.

Flavia is on the case, however she’s also pursuing the miscreant who left a nasty surprise in Feely and Dieter’s wedding cake and an even nastier one in Mrs Prill's pantry.