New UK fiction for February

Feeling in an evil mood today, I thought I'd share some of the new books due to be published in the UK in February 2011, courtesy of The Bookseller (5 November issue, starting on p. 25). The Bookseller still has not got around to noting whether any of these are simultaneously published in e-format (or maybe the publisher is not providing the information), but it's worth checking at online booksellers or the publishers' websites, as an increasing number of books are being published electronically and in print at the same time - pricing and geographical restrictions permitting, sadly.

Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End, by Leif G. W. Persson (Doubleday, £16.99) seems to be the only translated crime novel due out this month. The novel, first published in Sweden in 2002, has already been reviewed by Norman of Crime Scraps. It concerns the web of corruption and treachery uncovered by Superintendent Lars Johansson of the Stockholm police when a man dies falling from a tall building. The author is a criminologist and psychological profiler who has advised the Swedish Ministry of Justice, according to the blurb.

Big news for fans of US crime fiction is the publication of Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane (Little Brown, £16.99), featuring his series characters, investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, after a long gap while the author wrote other books. This time a 16-year-old girl is missing -again. She was kidnapped when she was 4, and Kenzie worked on that case. "The search will lead him to Boston's most dangerous streets", apparently. Another very popular US author, Elmore Leonard, has a new book out in February, Djibouti (W&N, £18.99), his 48th! This one is about a documentary film-maker who travels to the Horn of Africa to film pirates.

Other books that will be on my reading list are two series novels - David Hunter in The Calling of the Grave by Simon Beckett (Bantam, £12.99) - see this Petrona preview - and the new Vera Stanhope book, Silent Voices by Ann Cleeves (Macmillan, £17.99) - a Petrona preview is here. There is a new Tony Black novel, Truth Lies Bleeding (Preface, £10.99), a police procedural set in Edinburgh in which DI Rob Brennan, recently returned from psychiatric leave, investigates a violent death. And Sophie Hannah will I am sure do well with her latest, Lasting Damage (Hodder, £14.99), her sixth psychological suspense novel in which a woman sees a body in a house while browsing an online property website. Sounds intriguing.

On the thriller front, Simon Kernick offers The Payback (Bantam, £12.99), set in Manilla and about "two cops haunted by the past" - the titular payback being what's in store when they meet. Robin Cook's Cure (Pan Macmillan, £17.99) concerns biotech espionage as the death of a CIA agent is linked to companies dealing in stem-cell research; and Richard North Patterson's In the Name of Honour uses a court martial format to highlight the high cost of war- in this case the US army in Iraq, the case being about a soldier who shoots his commanding officer.

There are plenty of other novels: Sleep like the Dead by Alex Gray (Sphere, £12.99), a DCI Lorimer novel set in Glasgow; Blood and Ashes by Matt Hilton (Hodder, £12.99), in which Joe Hunter investigates a racist conspiracy; a geopolitical thriller End Game by Matthew Glass (Corvus, £12.99), a sequel to Ultimatum once again set in the Horn of Africa; The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing by Tarquin Hall (Hutchinson, £12.99) - a second outing for Delhi detective Vish Puri; and the inevitable "best sellers", in February's case The Confession by John Grisham (Century £12.99) about a man on death row, and Mortal Remains by Kathy Reichs (Heinemann, £17.99), the 13th case for forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan if anyone is counting. (Which reminds me that the 32nd J. D. Robb novel, Treachery in Death, is out also (Piatkus, £16.99), a series that started well with a fresh idea, but which has long since become mere formula, twice a year.)

Comments

[Margot Kinberg]

Maxine - OK, you really are evil!!! ;-). As if my TBR list weren't already out of control! Hmmphh! ;-). In all seriousness, though, those do sound like wonderful reads, and I am happy about that. I'm especially looking forward to the new Cleeves and the new Beckett. Thanks for sharing this.... I think ;-).

[Dorte H]

This is mean indeed! I suppose Simon Beckett and Ann Cleeves will have to go on the list, but we´ll see about the others.

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Your evil mood is our good fortune--I think, except for the budget as my library system won't get a lot of these books, or it will take a decade. Thanks for this. The rest is up to us, i.e., to get these books by any means necessary. What temptations.

[Bernadette]

I'm definitely sending you a t-shirt with 'evil wench' on the front :) I shan't be bothering with the Lehane (he underwhelms me) but there are others that I am intrigued by. I've only read one of Cleeves' Vera Stanhope books but I might just start from here and move forwards. There is a limit to how many series I can start from the beginning. It is a shame about the JD Robb books - I read the first few and did enjoy them but I think the series is long past its use-by date and I'd have rather she tried something else (though how would she find the time as I believe she writes several pure romance books each year too).

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Just finished "Blood Moon," a nice, tidy police procedural by Garry Disher. (And, it is not without character development, thinking, and human relations issues, so it's a bit more than crime, police investigation, culprit caught scenario.) It hit the spot, was what I needed this week.

[Maxine]

I'm looking forward to that one, Kathy.