Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Ascension
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Venice
STATE:
COUNTRY: Italy
NATIONALITY: British
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/358954.Gregory_Dowling * https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/ascension-venice-1749-city-of-secrets/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Bristol, England; married, 1983; wife’s name, Patrizia; children: two sons.
EDUCATION:Graduated from Christ Church, Oxford University, 1978.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Educator and writer. Has taught in Naples, Siena, and Verona, Italy; Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy, associate professor of American literature, 1981–.
WRITINGS
Contributor to Time Out Guide to Venice. Nonfiction editor, Able Muse; editor, British section, Semicerchio.
SIDELIGHTS
Bristol-born academic Gregory Dowling is an associate professor of American literature at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, in Italy. His first “year of teaching in Italy,” said a contributor to Italian-mysteries.com, “led to ‘just one more.’” “His academic work,” notes a biographical blurb on the author’s home page, “mainly concerns British and American poetry; he has published a study of American narrative poetry,” Someone’s Road Home: Questions of Home and Exile in American Narrative Poetry, as well as a monograph on poet David Mason (David Mason: A Critical Introduction). He has edited a collection of new English poetry for an Italian audience, Giovane poesia inglese, and coedited Ambassadors: American Studies in a Changing World; Proceedings of the 17. International AISNA Conference (Roma, Centro Studi Americani, 6-8 November 2003). The title of the latter volume, declared Francesco Rognoni in the Modern Language Review, “pays homage to the centenary of Henry James’s The Ambassadors. However, as they point out, none of the papers collected here addresses the Master.” Rognoni stated that Dowling and his coeditors suggest that “the absence of James, an all-time favourite with continental critics, can be taken as indicating that Italian scholars are following their British and American colleagues in paying less attention to canonical writers.”
Dowling has also made a reputation as a translator of Italian works to English. His translations include Cristina Comencini’s The Missing Pages; Gian Franco Svidercoschi’s Letter to a Jewish Friend: The Simple and Extraordinary Story of Karol Wojtyla’s Jewish Friend; and The D. Case; or, The Truth about the Mystery of Edwin Drood, Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini’s take on Charles Dickens’s unfinished final novel, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” The D. Case traces the tale of Edwin Drood through the eyes of some of the greatest fictional detectives in the world, including G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret, Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer, Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s inimitable Sherlock Holmes. Working together, the fictional detectives try to solve the mystery posed by Dickens’s last work and derive a number of possible solutions. “With surrealism, science fiction, satire and literary criticism skillfully woven into the narrative,” declared a Publishers Weekly reviewer, The D. Case will appeal to a “wide range of readers.”
While he has been teaching literature at Ca’ Foscari for more than three decades, Dowling made his own debut as a mystery novelist in the mid-1980s with the publication of Double Take: A Mystery. The novel follows the adventures of Paul Stannard, a budding actor and Oxford student, who is approached by a man representing himself as part of the secret service to take part in an elaborate plot to disrupt the threat posed by a South American terrorist. Double Take was followed by three other novels: See Naples and Kill (published in England under the title Neapolitan Reel), Every Picture Tells a Story, and A Nice Steady Job.
See Naples and Kill introduces January Esposito, a part-English and part-Italian translator who is drawn into a farcical set of escapades by his half brother Luigi, a would-be gangster. Luigi is tapped as a potential witness to a plan that may end in the assassination of a prominent visitor to Pompeii. Soon he is in hiding, leaving January to track down the would-be assassins. “While the body count rises,” declared a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “Jan’s problem remains in determining who, including his brother, is on which side.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor assessed the book as “Pink Pantherish in parts, skewering Neapolitans, stuffy Brits, pomposities of every persuasion … but, all in all, a curious … cozy thriller.”
In Every Picture Tells a Story, stated a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “enterprising artist-forger Martin Phipps meets Venetian reporter Toni Sambon at a gallery opening,” on the very day that “he saves Toni from muggers.” Martin’s forged paintings, however, pay the price of his gallantry. Soon he is caught up in a widespread plot to finance terrorist activity through selling stolen art. January Esposito returns in A Nice Steady Job, in which the protagonist is coerced by his “slick half-brother Luigi,” wrote a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “to search for the missing son of the wealthy Sir Alfred Ainsley.”
In several of his works Dowling looks at the history of the Mediterranean in general and of his adopted homeland in particular. He has contributed to the Time Out Guide to Venice and has written about the city’s history and culture in Carnival in Venice: Photographs Celebrating the Art of the Mask and In Venice and in the Veneto with Lord Byron. “Istanbul … was a highlight of Byron’s rather unusual Grand Tour (the usual countries for such a tour being off-limits, due to the Napoleonic Wars). He was in the city between May and July 1810, admiring Hagia Sophia and the immense city walls and describing the Turkish burying grounds as ‘the loveliest spots on earth,’” Dowling said in a post to the blog Voyages to Antiquity. “Our next Byronic location—after fascinating visits to Thessaloniki, Meteora and Patmos—was Athens, where Byron lived, on and off, between Christmas 1809 and April 1811, describing it in a letter to his mother as ‘a place which I think I prefer upon the whole to any I have seen.’”
When Dowling returned to the mystery genre after a lapse of more than two decades, he took up this historical theme. Ascension is set in Venice in the eighteenth century and offers as its protagonist a tour guide named Alvise Marangon. The story begins when Alvise, explained a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “wins a brief argument with a gondolier over who will guide a young English traveler, Freddy Boscombe, and his tutor, Peter Shackleford.” “Second in the series of mystery thrillers set in mid 18th-century Venice,” explained Alice O’Keeffe in the Bookseller, The Four Horsemen “follows Ascension. After reluctant spy Alvise Marangon is arrested in a tavern brawl, he is summoned to meet the head of the city’s powerful secret service.” Alvise, stated a Fantastic Fiction reviewer, “is coerced into a top-secret investigation of [a] mysterious death”—that of one of the city’s agents. “Dowling’s storytelling is superb,” declared Historical Novel Society reviewer Lisa Redmond, writing about Ascension, “and the sights, sounds and smells of 18th-century Venice are brilliantly realised.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Bookseller, April 7, 2017, Alice O’Keeffe, review of Four Horsemen, p. 24.
Kirkus Reviews, December 16, 1988, review of See Naples and Kill; June 1, 1991, review of Every Picture Tells a Story.
Modern Language Review, January, 2009, Francesco Rognoni, review of Ambassadors: American Studies in a Changing World; Proceedings of the 17. International AISNA Conference (Roma, Centro Studi Americani, 6-8 November 2003), p. 148.
Publishers Weekly, January 1, 1988, review of See Naples and Kill; April 13, 1992, review of The D. Case; or, The Truth about the Mystery of Edwin Drood, p. 44; August 29, 1994, review of A Nice Steady Job, p. 64; August 1, 2016, review of Ascension, p. 50.
ONLINE
Birlinn, http://www.birlinn.co.uk/ (May 12, 2017), author profile.
Gregory Dowling Home Page, http://gregorydowling.com (May 12, 2017).
Historical Novel Society Web site, https://historicalnovelsociety.org/ (February 1, 2016), Lisa Redmond, review of Ascension.
Italian-mysteries.com, http://italian-mysteries.com/ (May 12, 2017), author profile.
Voyages to Antiquity, https://blog.voyagestoantiquity.com/ (November 3, 2014), Gregory Dowling, “In the Footsteps of Lord Byron, from Istanbul to Venice.”
Gregory-DowlingGregory Dowling grew up in Bristol, UK. He read English Literature at Christ Church, Oxford. He moved to Italy after graduating and has lived there since 1979, teaching in language schools in Naples, Siena, Verona and eventually Venice, where he has lived since 1981. He is now Associate Professor of American Literature at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He published four thrillers in the 1980s and 1990s and then devoted himself to academic work and translation. He returned to fiction in 2015, with his novel set in 18th-century Venice, Ascension. The sequel to Ascension is due out in July 2017, The Four Horsemen (Polygon and St Martins).
His academic work mainly concerns British and American poetry; he has published a study of American narrative poetry, a study of the poet David Mason, a guidebook to Byron’s Venice, and has co-edited two anthologies of 20th-century poetry. He has also published numerous essays and articles on writers from the Romantic period to the present day.
He has worked as non-fiction editor for the magazine Able Muse and is currently responsible for the British section of the Italian poetry magazine Semicerchio. He has also written numerous articles on Venice, and was responsible for the sightseeing pages of the first five editions of the Time Out Guide to Venice. He is on the board of the committee for a new museum in Ravenna devoted to Lord Byron, due to open in 2018.
Gregory Dowling
BIO
GREGORY DOWLING was born and educated in Bristol, and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. A year of teaching in Italy led to "just one more," and for the last twelve years Dowling has remained in Venice, where he teaches at the university and translates. He married Patrizia, from Verona, in 1983 and they have two sons.
Title
© Year
Set In
The January Esposito Series
See Naples and Kill
©1988 Naples
A Nice Steady Job
©1994
Verona
Every Picture Tells a Story
©1991
Venice
Gregory Dowling Book List
See Naples and Kill | A Nice Steady Job
Every Picture Tells a Story
Gregory Dowling
Gregory Dowling grew up in Bristol before studying English at Christ Church, Oxford where he obtained a First Class Degree. He moved to Venice in 1981, where he is Associate Professor of American Literature at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Gregory has published four novels, co-edited two anthologies of poetry, written various non-fiction books, and academic articles. He is non-fiction editor for the journal Able Muse and editor of the British section of the Italian poetry-journal Semicerchio, and writes for and regularly updates the sightseeing pages of the Time Out Guide to Venice.
Ascension
Publishers Weekly. 263.31 (Aug. 1, 2016): p50.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com.portal.oaklandcc.edu/
Full Text:
Ascension
Gregory Dowling. St. Martin's/Dunne, $26.99 (304p) ISBN 978-1-250-10852-4
At the start of this promising series launch set in mid-18th-century Venice from Dowling (Every Picture Tells a Story), Alvise Marangon, a Venetian-born, English-raised cicerone (tourist guide), wins a brief argument with a gondolier over who will guide a young English traveler, Freddy Boscombe, and his tutor, Peter Shackleford, about the city. During the tour, Boscombe takes an interest in Rosicrucian mysteries and the nobleman Piero Garzoni. After meeting charlatan Count Gelashvili, who lives with Garzoni, Boscombe abandons Marangon. When Boscombe finds Shackelford murdered, he runs to Marangon for help. Both men are arrested and brought before the Missier ' Grande (the chief of police), who gives Marangon a simple choice: either go to jail or become a "confidante" for the Missier Grande and spy on Garzoni. Marangon's new job allows him to display his acting abilities and his resourcefulness as he uncovers a deadly plot planned for Venice's celebration of the Feast of the Ascension. Readers will want to see more of Marangon and his vibrant city. (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Ascension." Publishers Weekly, 1 Aug. 2016, p. 50. General OneFile, login.portal.oaklandcc.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=lom_oakcc&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460285680&it=r&asid=4c43845e03656413a186a2af6a369fc4. Accessed 13 May 2017.
A Nice Steady Job
Publishers Weekly. 241.35 (Aug. 29, 1994): p64.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1994 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com.portal.oaklandcc.edu/
Full Text:
Gregory Dowling. St. Martin's/Dunne $20.95 (272p) ISBN 1-312-11035-9
While teaching English language in Verona, Italy, young January Esposito is persuaded by his slick half-brother Luigi to search for the missing son of the wealthy Sir Alfred Ainsley. Esposito, an indifferent teacher, is an equally unlikely sleuth. That, combined with Luigi's skewed cockney speech ("`This is Jan, me bruvver'") and an unremittingly flip, quickly wearisome, tone mar this third in a series, following Every Picture Tells a Story. Sir Alfred's son Piers, traveling in Italy with the lovely, long-legged Rita, was last seen talking to a drug dealer who was then murdered in the quaint village of San Giorgio Veronese. Esposito finds himself involved in a case that reaches back to the death of a WW II partisan hero and a lost silver statue dating from the Middle Ages. Dowling knows Italy and its history, but in this tale he deals less authoritatively with issues of plotting and finer points of characterization. (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"A Nice Steady Job." Publishers Weekly, 29 Aug. 1994, p. 64. General OneFile, login.portal.oaklandcc.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=lom_oakcc&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA15777716&it=r&asid=e199906a28cd07afc00fdc0246b69705. Accessed 13 May 2017.
The D. Case: The Truth About The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Publishers Weekly. 239.18 (Apr. 13, 1992): p44.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1992 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com.portal.oaklandcc.edu/
Full Text:
In modern Rome, as part to a forum on great unfinished works of art, a group of world-famous detectives convenes to discover the secret of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens's unfinished last work - here called the MED and reprinted in full. Listening to the tale in simultaneous translation are such luminaries as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Maigret, Nero Wolfe, Father Brown, Philip Marlowe, Lew Archer and Colonel D'Attilio - even the relentless Porfiry Petrovich from Crime and Punishment. Framing the story in its own mystery, Fruttero and Lucentini (The Sunday Woman) follow the detectives as they deconstruct the MED, practically chapter by chapter, and arrive at four hypothetical solutions. One of these is so controversial that the sleuths decide the public will not accept it, though they themselves believe it to be the truth. What is this "truth," and which of the detectives takes the lead in solving the case? With surrealism, science fiction, satire and literary criticism skillfully woven into the narrative, this novel is guaranteed to draw a wide range of readers. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The D. Case: The Truth About The Mystery of Edwin Drood." Publishers Weekly, 13 Apr. 1992, p. 44. General OneFile, login.portal.oaklandcc.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=lom_oakcc&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA12183829&it=r&asid=0a8f944194e7d40f9af00a9e01926ee8. Accessed 13 May 2017.
Fiction: this month sees three giants of crime writing taking a detour, in a significant breakaway from their better known series
Alice O'Keeffe
The Bookseller. .5750 (Apr. 7, 2017): p24.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The Bookseller Media Group (Bookseller Media Ltd.)
http://www.thebookseller.com.portal.oaklandcc.edu
Full Text:
It is always exciting to spot a trend in new fiction and this month sees not one, not two but three major crime writers, all best known for their individual juggernaut crime series, come out with a standalone novel. For readers who might be put off by starting with book number X in a long-established series, standalones can be great as a "way in" to a writer's work. And when you have those readers hooked--there's a hefty backlist.
Kathy Reichs, author of the forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan series which reached book 18 last year, publishes her first ever standalone novel Two Nights (Wm Heinemann) which features tough PI Sunday "Sunnie" Night on the case of a missing girl. Karin Slaughter, who writes both the Will Trent series and the Grant County series, delivers The Good Daughter (HarperFiction) which is tinged with psychological suspense and finally, from Michael Connelly of Harry Bosch fame comes The Late Show (Orion) about an LAPD cop working the night shift who can't let two cases go.
BOOK OF THE MONTH
COMMERCIAL
MATT HAIG
HOW TO STOP TIME
CANONGATE, 6TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781782118619
Tom Hazard has a secret: he may look like an ordinary 41-year-old man but he was born Estienne Thomas Ambroise Christophe Hazard--in 1581. Tom suffers from a rare condition, anageria, which means he ages very, very slowly. Aided by the mysterious Albatross Society, Tom has spent his 400-odd years on the planet moving countries and changing identities in order to avoid suspicion. How to Stop Time opens in present day London where Tom, craving normality, takes a job as a history teacher in a secondary school. But everywhere he is reminded of the last time he was in London, in 1623, when Rose, the love of his life, died of the plague. What follows is an addictive, time-travelling tale which unfolds at a cracking pace. It concerns love and loss but also has some profound things to say about the importance of living in the moment. It's Haig's sixth novel and while his books have always been well reviewed (The Humans was chosen as a world Book Night title in 2014), he reached another level with the non-fiction bestseller Reasons to Stay Alive. This will be Canongate's lead fiction title for the year and a "huge" publicity campaign is planned, including "unmissable" outdoor advertising and on the London Underground.
BookScan *****
LITERARY
ELIZABETH DAY
THE PARTY
FOURTH ESTATE, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780008194260
When Martin Gilmour won a scholarship to an expensive prep school, he left his humdrum suburban life behind and gained admission to a privileged world. Though he is acutely aware of his outsider status, Gilmour meets the dazzling and wealthy Ben Fitzmaurice, whom he follows to Cambridge, and then out into the world. The novel moves between Ben's lavish 40th birthday party and the past, revealing the secret that has bound the two men together. A cleverly structured, gripping read about obsession and betrayal which takes the reader into the heart of the Establishment. I couldn't put this down.
CRIME & THRILLER
STELLA DUFFY
THE HIDDEN ROOM
VIRAGO, 6TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780349007878
Stella Duffy might be more associated with literary novels nowadays but this psychological suspense tale, her first crime novel for many years, is a timely reminder that she has twice won a CWA dagger. This begins with a happy family: American-born architect Laurie, her wife Martha, and their three children who live in their dream house by the coast. But Laurie is hiding something--as a child in the US she was raised within a religious cult. The narration moves back and forth from England in the present day to Laurie's past in the US compound--and that past is about to crash into her present.
BookScan ***
LITERARY SHORT STORIES
MARY GAITSKILL
DON'T CRY
SERPENT'S TAIL, 20TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9781781255957
I have been a fan of Mary Gaitskill's since her dazzling debut novel, Two Girls, Fat and Thin, back in 1991 and I was delighted to see her third novel, The Mare, make this year's Baileys Prize longlist. Don't Cry is her third collection of short stories, actually published in the US in 2009 but only now appearing here, following her earlier collections Bad Behaviour and Because They Wanted To. Better late than never. From the man who steals a girl's soul during a one-night stand to a woman attempting to break a world record by having sex with a thousand men, this is an original and powerful collection from a writer is who not afraid to take risks.
LITERARY
NEEL MUKHERJEE
A STATE OF FREEDOM
CHATTO & WINDUS, 6TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781784740429
Third novel from the author of The Lives of Others, shortlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the Costa Best Novel Award, is a compelling read set in contemporary India that explores the attempts of five characters, each in different circumstances, to exchange the life they are leading for something better. Most vividly, Lakshman finds an abandoned baby bear in his village and plans to make money by "training" it as a dancing bear. Meanwhile Milly, born Manglu, is sent at eight years old to be a housemaid, far away from the village where her elder brother was mutilated by local Maoist guerrillas.
BookScan ***
CRIME & THRILLER
LISA JEWELL
THEN SHE WAS GONE
CENTURY, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781780896410
A bestselling author for nearly 20 years, Jewell made her debut in 1998 with Ralph's Party. Her earlier novels were positioned within the young female commercial fiction category with strong, believable characters negotiating their everyday lives, but more recently Jewell has moved into psychological suspense. Laurel Mack's 15-year-old daughter Ellie vanished 10 years ago, presumed by the police to have run away, but Laurel has never given up hope of finding her. Then one day she meets a stranger, who, shockingly, has a daughter who is the spitting image of Ellie at the same age. So what happened to Ellie? A real page-turner.
BookScan *****
LITERARY
ANTHONY QUINN
EUREKA
JONATHAN CAPE, 6TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781910702529
Fans of his earlier novels Curtain Call and Freya will be pleased to know that many of those characters return here, although this is emphatically not a sequel. This novel centres around Nat Fane, the vain and rather self-regarding screenwriter who won an Oscar early in his career but now desperately needs another hit with Eureka, an adaptation of a Henry James short story he is writing for the German wunderkind director Reiner Werther Kloss. Add to that sex, drugs, a young ingenue hoping for her big break, and a dodgy gangster, and you have a hugely entertaining read set in London's Swinging Sixties.
BookScan ***
FICTION
MICHAEL CONNELLY
THE LATE SHOW
ORION, 13TH, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781409145547
A young LAPD cop works the night shift in Hollywood but every morning has to turn her cases over to the day shift detectives. But there are two cases she can't bear to let go: a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and a young woman murdered in a nightclub shooting.
BookScan *****
NICCI FRENCH
SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN
MICHAEL JOSEPH, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780718179663
The AI doesn't explicitly say so but this could be the final case for psychotherapist Dr Frieda Klein, as this terrific series began with Blue Monday and continued with Tuesday's Gone, Waiting for Wednesday, Thursday's Child, Friday on My Mind and Saturday Requiem. The fresh corpse of an ex-policeman is found beneath Klein's floorboards, but the main suspect, murderer Dean Reeve, has been dead for seven years.
BookScan *****
C F IGGULDEN
DARIEN
MICHAEL JOSEPH, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780718186463
Launches the Empire of Salt trilogy, a blend of fantasy and historical fiction set in a world where magic battles technology for dominance.
BookScan*****
RACHEL JOYCE
THE MUSIC SHOP
DOUBLEDAY, 13TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780857521927
Latest novel from the author of the worldwide bestseller The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is described as a perfectly-pitched love story and a journey through music, which begins with a woman walking into a record shop in 1988.
BookScan *****
GEORGE R R MARTIN
A DANCE WITH DRAGONS
HARPERFICTION, 27TH, 75 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780008115449
Slipcase edition of the fifth volume of A Song of Ice and Fire adorned with the sigils of the major houses of Westeros. One for fans with very deep pockets, though.
BookScan *****
GEORGE R R MARTIN
THE MYSTERY KNIGHT
HARPERFICTION, 13TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780008253233
The AI is nearly blank, so all I can tell you is that this is a graphic novel.
BookScan *****
JAMES PATTERSON
FIFTY FIFTY
CENTURY, 13TH, 20 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781780897110
Nothing on the plot but this is the follow-up to Never Never. Also from Patterson this month is Deadly Cargo 2.49 [pounds sterling], in the Bookshots format (6531766).
BookScan *****
NATASHA PULLEY
THE BEDLAM STACKS
BLOOMSBURY CIRCUS, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781408878446
Second novel from the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is set in 1859. Merrick Tremayne has been sent from India to the magical forests of South America to find chinchona trees, whose bark yields quinine: the only known treatment for malaria.
BookScan *****
KATHY REICHS
TWO NIGHTS
WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 13TH, 20 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780434021116
Her first-ever standalone novel, featuring PI Sunday "Sunnie" Night, a tough, independent woman who is a near recluse at the start of the novel but is tempted back into the fray to search for a missing girl.
BookScan *****
PETER ROBINSON
SLEEPING IN THE GROUND
HODDER & STOUGHTON, 13TH, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781444786910
The 24th instalment in the Chief Inspector Banks series. A mass murder at a small church wedding in the Yorkshire Dales kicks off a manhunt and the shooter is run to ground. But Banks is plagued with doubts about exactly what happened outside the church that day, and why. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the first Banks novel, Gallows View.
BookScan *****
KARIN SLAUGHTER
THE GOOD DAUGHTER
HARPERFICTION, 13TH, 20.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780008150761
Standalone thriller with an edge of psychological suspense, says HC. Charlotte Quinn survived a terrifying attack on her family home 28 years ago. Now tragedy is about to strike again. A "major" marketing campaign to include outdoor advertising is planned, and Slaughter will visit the UK for a key city author tour.
BookScan *****
ALEXANDER MCCALL
SMITH UNTITLED
POLYGON, 27TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781846973826
Twelfth novel in the 44 Scotland Street series. Polygon publishes the hardback editions of this series with Little, Brown owning the paperback rights. Also out this month is the paperback of The Bertie Project, the 11th novel in the series, from Abacus (8.99, [pounds sterling] 0349142661)
BookScan *****
DANIELLE STEEL
THE DUCHESS
MACMILLAN, 13TH, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781509800254
A historical novel which is unusual for Steel, this follows the fortunes of aristocratic Angelique Latham in 19th-century England.
BookScan *****
SARAH WINMAN
TIN MAN
TINDER PRESS, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780755390953
Third novel from the author of When God was a Rabbit and A Year of Marvellous Ways. A love letter to human kindness and friendship, says Headline which will support with a "major" marketing and publicity campaign.
BookScan *****
SAM BOURNE
TO KILL THE PRESIDENT
HARPERFICTION, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780007413720
The US elects a volatile demagogue as president, backed by a ruthless chief strategist. When Maggie Costello discovers a plot to kill the president, she is faced with a moral dilemma--to save him, and leave the free world at the mercy of a crazed tyrant, or not save him, and risk plunging the country into civil war. HC will support with a "major" consumer marketing campaign.
BookScan *****
DONNA DOUGLAS
DISTRICT NURSE ON CALL
ARROW, 27TH, 5.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781784757151
In 1926, district nurse Agnes Sheridan takes up her first post in the West Yorkshire mining village of Bowden Main. Second in the Nurses of Steeple Street series.
BookScan *****
TIM WEAVER
UNTITLED
PENGUIN, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781405917841
Missing persons investigator David Raker meets case number eight: a man with no memory who was discovered unconscious and badly beaten on a beach 10 months earlier.
BookScan *****
LITERARY
NICOLA BARKER
H(A)PPY
WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 20TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781785151149
A post-post apocalyptic Alice in Wonderland, says Cornerstone, a story which tells itself and then consumes itself. Sounds intriguing, and she is always well reviewed.
BookScan *
DIKSHA BASU
THE WINDFALL
BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING, 13TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781408888711
A comedy of manners about social climbing in contemporary India. A man moves his family to one of Delhi's richest areas and is soon drawn into a game of feverish one-upmanship with his new neighbours.
LAUREN BERRY
LIVING THE DREAM
VIRAGO, 6TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780349008981
A Virago superlead, this debut follows two twentysomething women as they negotiate office life and search for meaning in their respective careers. Author Berry is the founding editor of satirical feminist magazine KnockBack.
NICKOLAS BUTLER
THE HEARTS OF MEN
PICADOR, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781509827893
Set over five decades in a changing America, this examines the lives of fathers and sons and what it means to be a good man through the story of nelson, a lonely 13-year-old at the start of the novel, and his friend Jonathan.
BookScan *
ZINZI CLEMMONS
WHAT WE LOSE
FOURTH ESTATE, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780008245931
Described as a fierce meditation on race, identity, sex and death, this is the story of Thandi, who is both American and South African but doesn't feel wholly either, and whose mother is dying.
TOMOYUKI HOSHINO
ME
AKASHIC BOOKS, 6TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], PB, 9781617754487
The unsettling story of a young man who suffers an identity crisis after getting caught up in the infamous Japanese telephone scam where the caller identifies himself only by saying "Hey, it's me" before persuading the other person to wire funds.
KA KURNIAWAN
VENGEANCE IS MINE, ALL OTHERS PAY CASH
PUSHKIN PRESS, 6TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], TBP, 9781782272441
Latest from the Indonesian author of Beauty is a Wound is the bawdy, pulpy tale of a sex-obsessed teenage boy who becomes a fearsome brawler as a way to vent his frustrations. Great title.
MICHEL LAUB
A POISON APPLE
HARVILL SECKER, 6TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781910701478
A man obsesses over the death of his first love, two decades later, in a novel that questions whether we can ever break free of the past. Author Laub was named as one of Granta's twenty "Best of Young Brazilian Novelists".
JEFFREY LENT
BEFORE WE SLEEP
BLOOMSBURY USA, 13TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781620404997
Sweeping, intergenerational story which follows a Vermont family from the Second World War to the dawning of the 1960s, as a daughter discovers her beloved dad is not her biological father and sets out to find the man who wrote a series of letters to her mother.
BookScan ***
ALISON JEAN LESTER
YUKI MEANS HAPPINESS
JOHN MURRAY, 13TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781848549623
A Western woman takes a job as nanny to two-year-old Yuki Yoshimura in Tokyo. As she becomes increasing attached to her small charge, she realises that the Yoshimura household is not quite as it first seemed. From the author of Lillian on Life ("so fresh and clever and subversive," says Kate Atkinson).
ANNELIESE MACKINTOSH
SO HAPPY IT HURTS
JONATHAN CAPE, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781910702543
First novel from the author of short story collection Any Other Mouth which won the Green Carnation Prize 2014. Thirty-something Ottila McGregor decides it is time to sort her life out and work out what it really takes to be so happy it hurts.
CARMEN MARCUS
HOW SAINTS DIE
HARVILL SECKER, 13TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781911215400
First novel from the performance poet and winner of New Writing North's Northern Promise Award. It is set in the 1980s on the North Sea coast where 10-year-old Ellie Fleck lives with her fisherman father and tries to come to terms with the absence of her mother who has had a mental breakdown.
KOPANO MATLWA
EVENING PRIMROSE
SCEPTRE, 27TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781473662261
Third novel from the author of Coconut and Split Milk explores race, poverty and gender in post-Apartheid South Africa through the eyes of Masechaba, a junior doctor in an under-resourced state hospital.
JENNIE MELAMED
GATHER THE DAUGHTERS
TINDER PRESS, 13TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781472241702
An isolated, end-of-the-world cult considers girls to be wives-in-training: at the first sign of puberty, they must marry and produce children. A dystopian debut for fans of Station 11, says Headline.
KATE MURRAY-BROWNE
THE UPSTAIRS ROOM
PICADOR, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781509837588
A young family stretch themselves to the limit to buy a Victorian townhouse in east London but soon come to regret it. First novel from the former Faber staffer, now a freelance editor and visual artist.
JEAN E PENDZIWOL
THE LIGHTKEEPER'S DAUGHTERS
W&N, 6TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781474605007
A woman with failing sight hires a teenage girl to read the recently discovered journals kept by her father, hoping to uncover a childhood mystery. But the journals reveal more secrets than she ever anticipated.
VICTORIA REDEL
BEFORE EVERYTHING
SCEPTRE, 6TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781473651821
UK debut for this American author. It follows five women, friends since sixth grade, through careers, marriage, children, divorce, addiction and fall outs, who must now come to terms with the terminal cancer diagnosis of one of their number.
RALF ROTHMANN
TO DIE IN SPRING
PICADOR, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781509812851
Another UK debut, although it is this German author's eighth novel, tells of a friendship tragically interrupted by war. In 1945 farmhands Walter and Fiete from northern Germany are forced to "volunteer" for the SS and find themselves embroiled in a conflict which is drawing to a desperate, bloody close.
ZOE WHITTALL
THE BEST KIND OF PEOPLE
HODDER & STOUGHTON, 13TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781473658080
A teacher at a prestigious Connecticut prep school is arrested for sexual impropriety with teenage girls on a skiing trip. His wife vaults between denial and rage, his 17-year-old daughter becomes a social pariah and his son, a lawyer, helps with his father's case when it comes to court. But how do you defend someone you love while wrestling with the possibility of his guilt?
CHRISTOPHER WILSOW
THE ZOO
FABER & FABER, 6TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780571334452
Stinging satire about 12-year-old Yuri Zipit, official food taster for the leader of the Soviet Union, who has a seat amid Stalin's inner circle and is witness to the madness within.
BookScan **
ANDREA BENNETT
TWO COUSINS OF AZOV
HARPERFICTION, 13TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780008159573
In 1990s Russia, two ageing men, one in a sanatorium, get the chance to discover that memories can heal as well as haunt. Second novel from the author of Galina Petrovna's Three-Legged Dog Story.
ROLAWD BUTI
YEAR OF THE DROUGHT
OLD STREET, 11TH, 9.99 [pounds sterling], PB, 9781910400371
In 1976, the drought is pushing a farmer to the brink of ruin when his wife invites a mysterious visitor to stay at the farm. In part a re-telling of Madame Bovary, says Old Street, which will bring Buti to the UK for the Edinburgh Festival.
J PAUL HENDERSON
LARRY AND THE DOG PEOPLE
NO EXIT PRESS, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781843448549
A tale of friendship, luck and the bond between man and dog from the author of Last Bus to Coffeeville, a 2016 World Book Night selection.
STEWART O'NAN
EVERYDAY PEOPLE
ALLEN & UNWIN, 6TH, 9.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781760293871
First UK publication of this critically acclaimed 2001 novel about one family's day-to-day struggle in an African-American neighbourhood in Pittsburgh during one fateful week in 1998.
STEWART O'NAN
WISH YOU WERE HERE
ALLEN & UNWIN, 6TH, 9.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781760293888
First published in the US in 2002, another rediscovered O'Nan novel about a family gathering which brings decades of suppressed tension to the surface.
JONATHAN TULLOCH
LARKINLAND
SEREN, 27TH, 9.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781781723951
A biographical novel about Philip Larkin that is also a love story and a mystery, says Seren. It's set, of course, in Hull, which is also the 2017 City of Literature.
BookScan **
LITERARY SHORT STORIES
CURTIS DAWKINS
THE GRAYBAR HOTEL
CANONGATE, 6TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781786891112
A short story collection which paints a vivid picture of prison life from an author who is himself serving a life sentence in the US, with no possibility of parole.
SARAH HALL
MADAME ZERO
FABER & FABER, 6TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9780571290017
Second short story collection from the twice Booker-shortlisted author explores the nature of intimacy. Hall won the BBC National Short Story Award for "Mrs Fox", and was shortlisted for "Butcher's Perfume", and both those stories are included here.
VARIOUS
THE CAINE PRIZE FOR AFRICAN WRITING 2017
NEW INTERNATIONALIST, 1ST, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781780264011
Includes five short stories shortlisted for Africa's leading literary prize, plus 12 short stories written at the Caine Prize Writers' Workshop. Since its inception in 2000, the prize has showcased the talents of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Leila Aboulela and NoViolet Bulawayo among many others.
FLEUR JAEGGY
I AM THE BROTHER OF XX
AND OTHER STORIES, 6TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781911508021
"Small-scale, intense, and impeccably focused", says the New Yorker
of these short stories by the Swiss writer. Includes the tale of a wife suspended in a bird cage, and of a 13th-century visionary who senses the foreskin of Christ on her tongue.
JOYCE CAROL OATES
DIS MEM BER
HEAD OF ZEUS, 6TH JUNE, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781786693976
Seven short stories from the queen of American Gothic.
BookScan *
CRIME & THRILLER
JEFF ABBOTT
BLAME
SPHERE, 18TH, 13.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9780751557312
Standalone thriller from the author of Panic. Two years ago, Jane Norton crashed her car on a lonely road, killing her friend David and leaving her with amnesia. She apparently left a note reading: "I wish we were dead together." Slips from March.
BookScan **
ACE ATKINS
THE FALLEN
CORSAIR, 6TH, 13.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9781472152985
A Mississippi sheriff is on the trail of a bank-robbing gang he suspects may be ex-Army Rangers, like himself.
BookScan *
SIMON BERTHON
WOMAN OF STATE
HQ, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780008214364
First novel from the BAFTA-award winning j investigative filmmaker (for BBC Northern Ireland's "Spotlight" and ITV's "World In Action") follows an Irish woman from a one-time IRA mission undertaken when she was 18 years old, to Westminster in the present day where she is Home Office Minister of State for I Security and Immigration.
PARKER BILAL
DARK WATER
BLOOMSBURY
PUBLISHING, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9781408864500
An Iraqi scientist specialising in chemical warfare is on the run in Istanbul and seeking asylum in the West. Private Investigator Makana is the man to bring him to safety. Sixth in the series.
BookScan *
CARLO BONINI AND GIANCARLO DE CATALDO
SUBURRA
EUROPA EDITIONS, 22ND, 12.99 [pounds sterling], PB WITH FLAPS, 9781609454074
An urban development bill that would see the small Italian seaside town of Ostia turned into a gambling paradise is of great interest to the local Mafia who start to bribe or blackmail MPs to ensure the bill is passed. This will be a Netflix original series in 2017.
STEPHEN BOOTH
DEAD IN THE DARK
SPHERE, 13TH, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 978075156758 8
New Cooper & Fry thriller. In the Peak District's dark subterranean world of abandoned mines, DI Cooper hunts for a missing man who, 10 years earlier, was accused of killing his own wife.
BookScan ***
TOM BOUMAN
FATEFUL MORNINGS
FABER & FABER, 6TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9780571333363
His 2015 debut Dry Bones in the Valley won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller and the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. In rural Pennsylvania, Officer Henry Farrell finds that an old acquaintance is the prime suspect in the disappearance of his girlfriend.
C J BOX
PARADISE VALLEY
HEAD OF ZEUS, 25TH, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781786693181
After a plot to trap the serial killer known as the Lizard King goes terribly wrong, disgraced investigator Cassie Dewell turns lone wolf to bring him down with no allies and no support.
BookScan *
SIMON BRETT
BLOTTO, TWINKS AND THE STARS OF THE SILVER SCREEN
CONSTABLE, 18TH, 19.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 978147211828 8
Seventh adventure to feature the aristocratic brother and sister sleuthing duo. "Crime writing just like in the good old days, and perfect entertainment," praises the Guardian. BookScan **
ADAM BROOKES
THE SPY'S DAUGHTER
SPHERE, 27TH, 19.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 978075156643 7
Concludes the espionage trilogy which began with Night Heron and Spy Games. Journalist turned MI6 agent Philip Magan finds that protecting a talented young woman makes him the target of more than one secret service.
BookScan **
CLARE CARSON
THE DARK ISLE
HEAD OF ZEUS, 1ST JUNE, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781786690548
Final part of the Sam Coyle trilogy follows The Salt Marsh and Orkney Twilight. Sam grew up with a father who was an undercover agent, until he was killed in the line of duty. Now she has travelled to Hoy, in orkney, to piece together the puzzle of his past.
ARNE DAHL
WATCHING YOU
HARVILL SECKER, 6TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781911215493
Begins a new series from the Swedish crime writer featuring detectives Sam Berger and Molly Bloom. At each abandoned crime scene there is a tiny, hidden clue: someone is sending Berger a cryptic message, one that only he will understand.
BookScan *
A A DHAND
GIRL ZERO
BANTAM PRESS, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780593076668
Second in the Bradford-set DI Harry Virdee series, "doing for Bradford what 'The Wire' did for Baltimore", says TW, follows Streets of Darkness. The murder of his niece launches a vengeful hunt for a trafficking ring. A TV series is in the offing with Dhand writing the script. Slips from April.
JOSEPH FINDER
THE SWITCH
HEAD OF ZEUS, 13TH, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781786693846
Standalone thriller with a timely premise: Michael Tanner accidentally picks up the wrong laptop from airport security. What he doesn't know is the owner is a US senator, and the laptop contains top secret files that should not be on there.
BookScan **
RYAN GATTIS
SAFE
PICADOR, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781509843756
From the author of All Involved, another LA gang thriller about a gangster-turned-double-agent who wants out and a DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) safecracker who goes rogue and steals thousands from a safe belonging to an LA crime lord.
BookScan **
A L GAYLIN
IF I DIE TONIGHT
CENTURY, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9781780896373
Jackie's son Wade becomes the suspect in a carjacking that resulted in the death of a 17-year-old boy. Wade is vilified on social media, then Jackie receives a message from her son on Facebook: By the time you read this, I'll be dead.
BookScan ***
L V HAY
THE OTHER TWIN
ORENDA, 3RD, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781910633786
When her sister India falls to her death from a bridge, Poppy returns home to Brighton for the first time in years. Unconvinced by the official explanations, she begins her own investigation.
RICHARD LANGE
THE SMACK
MULHOLLAND BOOKS, 13TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9781444790047
A conman down on his luck decides to investigate a rumour about a crew of American soldiers who smuggled $2m out of Afghanistan and supposedly stashed the money in a Los Angeles apartment.
SHARI LAPENA
A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE
BANTAM PRESS, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780593077405
More twisty domestic noir from the author of The Couple Next Door. A man returns home after work to find his wife is missing. She was in a car accident on the wrong side of town, say the police, who think she was up to no good.
BookScan ****
STEPHEN LEATHER
LIGHT TOUCH
HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781473604124
The 14th Dan "Spider" Shepherd thriller finds him getting close to an undercover cop to find out if she has gone over to the dark side.
BookScan ****
ERIC VAN LUSTBADER
ROBERT LUDLUM'S THE BOURNE INITIATIVE
HEAD OF ZEUS, 13TH JUNE, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781786694232
Sequel to the Bourne Enigma sees Jason Bourne flushed from his cover, hunted by assassins, wounded and nearly killed. He is then forced to join forces with his enemy, a powerful Somali terrorist named Keyre.
BookScan ****
BROOKE MAGNANTI
YOU DON'T KNOW ME
ORION, 13TH, 13.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9781409100898
Second thriller from the author of the Belle de Jour books, who also has a PhD in forensic pathology, concerns the death of a party girl and the pathologist assigned to investigate her corpse.
MEL MCGRATH
GIVE ME THE CHILD
HQ, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780008215590
Standalone psychological thriller that marks a change in direction for McGrath, author of Arctic mysteries featuring the Inuit detective Edie Kiglatuk. Dr Cat Lupo aches for another child, so when young Ruby Winter arrives in the middle of the night, it seems like fate. But Cat is soon questioning if her decision to help Ruby has put her own child at risk ...
LOTTIE MOGGACH
UNDER THE SUN
PICADOR, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781509815524
Second novel from the author of Kiss Me First (shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and soon to be a major TV series for E4). A British woman finds her dream life in Spain collapsing and things take a turn for the worse when she rents out her finca to a local businessman who may have something to do with a body that washes up on the beach.
MATTHEW RICHARDSON
MY NAME IS NOBODY
MICHAEL JOSEPH, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780718183417
Debut novel from a 26-year-old former political speechwriter is an espionage thriller introducing Solomon Vine, a spy once fast-tracked for the top but now suspended. When MI6's Head of Station in Istanbul is abducted from his house, Vine, as his oldest friend, is approached. Officially suspended, Vine can only operate outside the chain of command.
MICHELLE RICHMOND
THE MARRIAGE PACT
MICHAEL JOSEPH, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780718186104
Alice and Jake join a secret society known as the Pact as they think it will be a fun way to keep their marriage fresh. They are wrong. Rights have sold in 24 territories with film rights optioned by 20th Century Fox.
BookScan *
MICHAEL ROBOTHAM
THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS
SPHERE, 11TH, 19.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 978075156276 7
This psychological thriller is a new direction for the author best known for his eight-book series featuring clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin. Everyone has an idea of what their perfect life is. For Agatha, it's Meghan Shaughnessy's.
BookScan ***
SIMON SCARROW
PLAYING WITH DEATH
HEADLINE, 13TH, 19.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781472213440
Historical novelist Scarrow (Eagles of the Empire series) takes a surprising new direction with this contemporary thriller featuring FBI Agent Rose Blake, who is finding it hard to shake the memory of a close encounter with a serial killer-one who is still free.
BookScan ****
HOLLY SEDDON
DON'T CLOSE YOUR EYES
CORVUS, 6TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781786492173
Second novel from the author of Try Not to Breathe (a WHS Fresh Talent choice) is the tale of twin sisters who were torn apart as children but share a lifetime of secrets. Corvus will support with an "extensive" pre-order marketing and publicity campaign.
BookScan ****
DANIEL SILVA
THE HOUSE OF SPIES
HARPERFICTION, 13TH, 20 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780008104733
Super spy Gabriel Allon returns in the sequel to The Black Widow.
BookScan *
JOHN GORDON SINCLAIR
WALK IN SILENCE
FABER & FABER, 6TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9780571326631
In Albania a British lawyer searches for a kidnapped boy. She has money but his kidnappers want the freedom of one of their gang members-a man who is about to face trial in the UK.
BookScan *
SCOTT TUROW
TESTIMONY
MANTLE, 27TH, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781509843329
The new prosecutor at the Hague's International Criminal Court examines his first case: the disappearance of 400 Roma refugees--an apparent war crime left unsolved for 10 years.
BookScan **
ELENA VARVELLO
CAN YOU HEAR ME?
TWO ROADS, 27TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781473654877
Varvello's first novel to be published in English is a coming-of-age story set in the cloying heat of an Italian summer in 1978. Elia's father loses his job and appears to go mad, a young boy is murdered and a girl climbs into a van and vanishes ...
CATH WEEKS
MOTHERS
PIATKUS, 6TH, 13.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 978034941064 7
A mother struggles with the thought of her aspiring ballerina daughter leaving home at 10, especially in the light of the devastating secret she has kept for so many years.
LOUISE WELSH
NO DOMINION
JOHN MURRAY, 13TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781848546578
Final part of the Plague Times trilogy set in a post-apocalyptic orkney Islands and Glasgow follows A Lovely Way to Burn and Death is a Welcome Guest.
ISABEL ASHDOWN
LITTLE SISTER
TRAPEZE, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781409167945
After 16 years apart, sisters Jessica and Emily are reunited. The past is now behind them, Emily thinks, but then her baby disappears while in Jess' care ...
BookScan *
TAMMY COHEN
THEY ALL FALL DOWN
BLACK SWAN, 13TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781784162467
Psychological suspense set in a high-risk psychiatric unit where the patients are disappearing one by one. A spate of suicides, or something even worse? TW will support with Cohen's "biggest marketing campaign to date". Slips from June.
BookScan ***
FRIEDRICH DURRENMATT
SUSPICION
PUSHKIN VERTIGO, 13TH, 4.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781782273400
The second Inspector Barlach mystery in which he hopes to force a former Nazi doctor to reveal himself by checking into his clinic. But the tables are soon turned.
HELEN FIELDS
PERFECT PREY
AVON, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780008181581
Second in the Scottish-set DI Luc Callanach and DI Ava Turner series (Perfect Remains) follows an investigation into a killer who roasts his victims to death.
BookScan ***
CAZ FREAR
SWEET LITTLE LIES
ZAFFRE, 13TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781785763359
Winner of the R&J Search for a Bestseller competition. Cat Kinsella observes her beloved father flirting with 17-year-old Maryanne Doyle. When Maryanne later disappears, Cat's father denies ever having met her. Eighteen years later, Cat is a detective constable with the Met when evidence from a murder scene links the victim with the still-missing Maryanne.
TETSUYA HONDA
SOUL CAGE
TITAN BOOKS, 18TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781785651717
Japanese detective Lt Reiko Himekawa investigates a murder case that begins with the discovery of a severed hand in a van on the outskirts of Tokyo.
BookScan *
K J HOWE
THE FREEDOM BROKER
HEADLINE, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781472240323
Launches a new series featuring Thea Paris, a kidnap and ransom specialist, who faces a challenge close to home when her billionaire father is taken.
AUSMA ZEHANAT
KHAN THE UNQUIET DEAD
NO EXIT PRESS, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781843449447
I didn't get to this one, sadly, but it sounds very good and was widely praised in the US ("an outstanding debut" said the New York Times). A man is found dead at the foot of the Scarborough Bluffs. The detectives investigating discover he was involved in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. Can a single murder avenge that of many? Based on real events of the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.
KRISTEN LEPIONKA
THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK
FABER & FABER, 6TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780571334759
A teenager disappeared 15 years ago, the same night her parents were murdered in their surburban ohio home. Her boyfriend was convicted and sits on Death Row. With his execution only weeks away, his sister hires PI Roxane Weary to look again at the case.
CHARLES E. MCGARRY
THE GHOST OF HELEN ADDISON
POLYGON, 6TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781846973796
Launches a new mystery series featuring private detective Leo Moran whose life of epicurean pleasure is rather disrupted by his visions of violent crimes. Here he decides to help the police investigate a ritualistic murder in Argyll, only to find himself haunted by the victim.
MAILE MELOY
DO NOT BECOME ALARMED
VIKING FICTION, 6TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780241305461
Suspense novel which hinges on every parent's worst nightmare: children disappearing while on holiday, in this case when the cruise ship on which their respective families are staying docks in Central America. Ann Patchett called it "an alarmingly good novel". one for fans of The Slap, says Penguin.
BookScan *
AMANDA REYNOLDS
CLOSE TO ME
WILDFIRE, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781472245137
A woman falls down the stairs at home, and wakes up in hospital with partial amnesia. She cannot remember the last year, or what happened the night she fell. This has been optioned for TV by Kim Cattrall, who is attached to star.
LISA STONE
THE DARKNESS WITHIN
AVON, 13TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780008236694
First crime novel from Cathy Glass, author of 17 fostering memoirs including The Silent Cry, writing under another name. This follows a boy given a heart transplant whose personality is then transformed for the worse.
MIKE THOMAS
SPLINTER
ZAFFRE, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781785760648
Cardiff-set police procedural follows DC Will MacReady as he hunts for the gunman who opened fire in a mosque.
BookScan *
HESTER YOUNG
THE SHIMMERING ROAD
ARROW, 27TH, 6.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781784750305
Journalist Charlie Cates has had a dream--a bullet, blood in water--so real that it haunts her waking hours. Is it a premonition? Then she learns the mother she never knew has been murdered in Arizona.
HISTORICAL CRIME & THRILLER
P F CHISHOLM
GUNS IN THE NORTH
HEAD OF ZEUS, 13TH, 20 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781786694713
Omnibus edition of the Sir Peter Carey Elizabethan mysteries: A Famine of Horses, A Season of Knives and A Surfeit of Guns.
SARAH DUNNAKEY
THE COMPANION
ORION, 27TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781409168553
In 1930s Yorkshire, Billy Shaw is chosen to become the companion of Jasper Harper, a wild boy who lives with his eccentric mother Edie and uncle Charles, brother and sister authors who have come up from London to write in peace. When Edie and Charles are found dead, it is ruled a double suicide--but is it really?
GRAHAM HURLEY
AURORE
HEAD OF ZEUS, 1ST JUNE, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781784977856
Continues the trilogy which began with Finistere charting the shadowy pas de deux between rival Allied and German intelligence services during the Second World War. An RAF wireless operator is selected for a covert mission in occupied France. BookScan *
M R C KASASIAN
DARK DAWN OVER STEEP HOUSE
HEAD OF ZEUS, 1ST JUNE, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781784978099
London, 1884 and the final case for the Gower Street Detectives.
ANDREW MARTIN
SOOT
CORSAIR, 6TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781472152435
York, 1799. When a renowned cutter of shades (or silhouettes) is found dead, it is clear that the murderer must be one of the artist's last sitters. The people depicted in the last six shades made by him become key suspects. But who are they? And where are they to be found?
BookScan *
CATRIONA MCPHERSON
DANDY GILVER AND A SPOT OF TOIL AND TROUBLE
HODDER & STOUGHTON, 13TH, 19.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781473633445
Scotland, 1934. Aristo private detective Dandy Gilvei heads to Castle Brewer to solve the mystery of a missing ruby necklace and a tragic family curse.
ELIZABETH PETERS AND
JOAN HESS
THE PAINTED QUEEN
CONSTABLE, 25TH, 19.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781472126825
The 20th novel in the Amelia Peabody series, completed after Elizabeth Peters' death by her close friend, mystery novelist joan Hess. Egypt, 1912, and Amelia Peabody and her dashing archaeologist husband Radcliffe Emerson search for a priceless stolen bust of Queen Nefertiti.
BookScan **
SARA SHERIDAN
RUSSIAN ROULETTE
CONSTABLE, 27TH, 19.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781472122391
Brighton, 1956. Sleuth Mirabelle Bevan steps in when her detective boyfriend is taken off a gruesome murder case which involves poisoned gin, call girls and gambling.
BookScan ***
S D SYKES
CITY OF MASKS
HODDER & STOUGHTON, 12TH, 19.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781444785845
Venice, 1358. Awaiting passage to the Holy Land, Englishman Oswald de Lacy finds a dead man on the night of the carnival and is dragged into a murder investigation that takes him deep into the mysterious city. Slips from June.
BookScan *
GREGORY DOWLING
THE FOUR HORSEMEN
POLYGON, 6TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781846973840
Second in the series of mystery thrillers set in mid 18th-century Venice follows Ascension. After reluctant spy Alvise Marangon is arrested in a tavern brawl, he is summoned to the meet the head of the city's powerful secret service.
KATE GRIFFIN
KITTY PECK AND THE DAUGHTER OF SORROW
FABER & FABER, 6TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780571315208
London, 1881, and 18-year-old Kitty Peck has inherited Paradise, a sprawling criminal empire on the banks of the Thames, but is determined to do things differently to her fearsome grandmother.
BookScan **
CAVAN SCOTT
SHERLOCK HOLMES: CRY OF THE INNOCENTS
TITAN BOOKS, 28TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781783297160
A catholic priest arrives at 221B Baker Street only to utter the words "il corpe" before dropping down dead.
BookScan **
HISTORICAL
EVE CHASE
THE VANISHING OF AUDREY WILDE
MICHAEL JOSEPH, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780718180096
Second novel from the author of Black Rabbit Hall. It is 1959 and the four Wilde sisters, known as the Wildings, are spending the summer at Applecote Manor for the first time since their cousin Audrey mysteriously vanished five years earlier. Slips from June.
BookScan ***
CATHERINE CHIDGEY
THE WISH CHILD
CHATTO & WINDUS, 6TH 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781784741105
A portrayal of the way ordinary Germans were drawn in by the Nazi propaganda about a perfect Germany. Slips from March.
SARAH FRANKLIN
SHELTER
ZAFFRE, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781785762994
England, 1944. Connie has been transferred from Coventry to the Forest of Dean to train as a lumberjack as part of the war effort but she is nursing a huge secret--and running from a tragic past.
REBECCA F JOHN
THE HAUNTING OF HENRY TWIST
SERPENT'S TAIL, 6TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781781257142
Debut novel with an intriguing premise: London, 1926, and after his wife's sudden death, Henry Twist is left to bring up their newborn baby. one evening he meets a strange man named Jack who reminds him very strongly of his late wife. Has his wife returned to him? or has he conjured Jack from thin air? or is it a sophisticated con trick? Welsh author John was the first unpublished writer to be shortlisted for the prestigious Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award in 2015.
JANE JOHNSON
COURT OF LIONS
HEAD OF ZEUS, 6TH, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781786694331
In present day Granada, a woman finds a scrap of paper hidden in one of the ancient walls of the Alhambra, which has lain undiscovered since before the Fall of Granada in 1492.
BookScan **
JENNIFER MCVEIGH
LEOPARD AT THE DOOR
VIKING, 13TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780241247617
A love story set during Kenya's Mau Mau uprising featuring 18-year-old Rachel Fullsmith who returns to Mombasa after six years away to find that everything on her family's Rift Valley farm has changed. From the author of The Fever Tree, an R&J Book Club pick.
BookScan ****
SABINA MURRAY
VALIANT GENTLEMEN
GROVE PRESS, 6TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9781611855203
One of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2016, this follows the lives and friendship of poet and Irish patriot Roger Casement, best known for his role in the 1916 Easter Rising, and English sculptor Herbert Ward.
MERRYN ALLINGHAM
THE SECRETS OF SUMMERHAYES
HQ, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780008193850
It's 1944 and London teacher Beth is evacuated to Summerhays House in Sussex. From the author of the Daisy's War trilogy.
BookScan **
TERRI FLEMING
PERCEPTION
ORION, 13TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781409170624
Sequel to Pride and Prejudice, featuring Mary Bennett and her sister Kitty who are uninterested in following in the footsteps of their elder sisters who are now happily married off, Elizabeth to Mr Darcy and Jane to Mr Bingley. Mrs Bennett, however, has other ideas ... July 2017 is the 200-year anniversary of Jane Austen's death.
HELEN STEADMAN
WIDDERSHINS
IMPRESS BOOKS, 1ST, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781911293040
Inspired by true events, this tells the story of the women who used herbs to cure the sick, and the men who persecuted them for witchcraft.
BEATRIZ WILLIAMS
UNTITLED
HARPERFICTION, 13TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780008132675
Northern France, 1917, and Virginia Fortescue has thrown convention to the wind to drive ambulances for the American Red Cross.
HISTORICAL ADVENTURE
CHRISTIAN CAMERON
THE GREEN COUNT
ORION, 13TH, 19.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781409172796
Third in the Chivalry series (after The Ill-Made Knight and The Long Sword) reaches 1365 and having survived the bloody trials of Alexandria, Sir William Gold is readying for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to ease the burden on his soul.
BookScan *
PAUL FRASER COLLARD
THE TRUE SOLDIER
HEADLINE, 13TH, 19.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781472239044
Sixth in the Jack Lark series and our roguish hero arrives in Boston in 1861, just as Civil War looms.
ADRIAN GOLDSWORTHY
VINDOLANDA
HEAD OF ZEUS, 1ST JUNE, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781784974688
AD98, the Roman army base at Vindolanda lies on the wild northern frontier of Britannia and Flavius Ferox is the centurion tasked with keeping the peace.
BookScan **
JAMES WILDE
PENDRAGON
BANTAM PRESS, 13TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780593076040
From the author of the Hereward series, this is the first in a brand new series about the legend of King Arthur. AD 367 and in a forest beyond Hadrian's Wall, six Roman army scouts have been murdered in a ritual killing ...
BookScan **
COMMERCIAL
CLARE FISHER
ALL THE GOOD THINGS
VIKING, 1ST JUNE, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780241275757
Beth, 21, is in prison for an unnamed crime. Her counsellor Erika asks her to write a list of all the good things in her life--and ultimately to confront the bad thing she has done. A "major" debut for Viking.
CARRIE HOPE FLETCHER
ALL THAT SHE CAN SEE
SPHERE, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780751563177
Following her fiction debut On the Other Side, Little, Brown is committed to growing Fletcher--who is also an actress, singer and YouTuber--into a brand author. This combines romance, magic and food I'm told, one for fans of Cecilia Ahern.
BookScan ***
KATHY LETTE
BEST LAID PLANS
BANTAM PRESS, 13TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780593071359
Sequel to The Boy Who Fell to Earth continues the story of Lucy and her 20-yearold autistic son Merlin who is desperate to lose his virginity. Cue Lucy trying to find a prostitute--and getting arrested for kerb-crawling. Lette is currently turning the novel into a one-woman show which she will use to promote the book.
BookScan **
FRANCES MAYNARD
THE SEVEN IMPERFECT RULES OF ELVIRA CARR
MANTLE, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781509842117
Elvira Carr is 27 years old and neuro-atypical. When her overbearing mother, with whom she lives, is taken into care following a stroke, Elvira must try to navigate a world that is full of people she doesn't understand.
SHARON PYWELL
THE ROMANCE READER'S GUIDE TO LIFE
DUCKWORTH OVERLOOK, 13TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780715652121
Think The Lovely Bones crossed with a pirate romance, says Duckworth, of this tale of two sisters who plan to set up a cosmetics empire after the Second World War before one of them disappears.
FIONA WALKER
THE COUNTRY SET
HEAD OF ZEUS, 13TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781784977238
Begins a brand new series, but this is also a return to classic territory for Fiona Walker. In the monied Cotswold village of Compton Magna, glamorous Ronnie Ledwell returns to take over her father's stud farm, years after causing a scandal when she abandoned her husband and children to run off with her lover.
BookScan ****
MANDY BAGGOT
SINGLE FOR THE SUMMER
EBURY PRESS, 27TH, 6.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781785036729
On a girls' holiday in Corfu, Tess makes a promise to her best friend Sonya that she'll stay single for the summer. But it's a promise she will struggle to keep.
FANNY BLAKE
OUR SUMMER TOGETHER
ORION, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781409159926
Latest from the wonderful Blake is the uplifting tale of 61-year-old Caro, a busy mother, grandmother and daughter, who finds love later in life after a sudden divorce.
BookScan *
REBECCA CHANCE
KILLER AFFAIR
PAN, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781447282914
More sex, glamour, betrayal and murder, in a tale about a British reality TV star from the author of Killer Heels.
BookScan ***
KAT FRENCH
THE BED AND BREAKFAST ON THE BEACH
AVON, 13TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780008236755
Three women leave England (one is divorced, one is an empty nester and one has recently been made redundant) to run a B&B on a Greek island. It's a move that will test their friendship to the limits.
BookScan ***
MOIRA FORSYTH
A MESSAGE FROM THE OTHER SIDE
SANDSTONE PRESS, 20TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781910985731
Two sisters living several hundred miles apart manage to conceal the truth about their respective marriages. Fifth novel from Forsyth, who is also the editorial director of Sandstone Press.
MELANIE GIDEON
VALLEY OF THE MOON
HARPERFICTION, 27TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780007425532
A harassed single mother stumbles upon an idyllic community in the Californian countryside, while her son is staying with his grandparents in San Francisco. She discovers a sense of belonging she didn't know she was looking for, but can she stay?
BookScan **
EMYLIA HALL
THE THOUSAND LIGHTS HOTEL
HEADLINE REVIEW, 13TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781472218023
Third novel from the author of The Book of Summers, a 2012 R&J Book Club pick, and A Heart Bent Out of Shape. A girl's search for the father she has never met brings her to a hotel on the island of Elba.
BookScan ***
ANN LEARY
THE CHILDREN
CORVUS, 6TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781786491626
The arrival of a young man's fiancee at his wealthy family's Connecticut lake house brings simmering resentments to the surface.
HOLLY MARTIN
SUMMER AT ROSE ISLAND
ZAFFRE, 13TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781785763137
A young woman falls in love with White Cliff Bay, and the mysterious lighthouse keeper of Rose Island who is hiding a tragic past.
BookScan ***
ALI MCNAMARA
THE SUMMER OF SERENDIPITY
SPHERE, 13TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780751566208
Serendipity Parker is house-hunting for a wealthy client on the west coast of Ireland when she finds the perfect property. But there's a problem--nobody seems to know who owns it. From the author of The Little Flower Shop by the Sea.
BookScan ***
COLLEEN OAKLEY
CLOSE ENOUGH TO TOUCH
ALLEN & UNWIN, 6TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781760294137
A reclusive young woman with a debilitating medical condition--she is allergic to people--is forced to leave her mother's home and make her own way in the world. Second novel from the former editor of US Marie Claire.
BookScan **
MELISSA PIMENTEL
JENNY SPARROW KNOWS THE FUTURE
MICHAEL JOSEPH, 27TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780718186449
A young woman accidently gets hitched while on a girls' weekend in Vegas. Third novel from the author of Age, Sex, Location and The One That Got Away.
BookScan **
LYNDA STACEY
HOUSE OF SECRETS
CHOC LIT, 4TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781781893746
First novel from the winner of Choc Lit's 2015 Search for a Star competition. A woman on the run escapes to the hotel run by her estranged father, Wrea Head Hall in Yorkshire. But the house holds a secret.
LUCY VINE
HOT MESS
ORION, 13TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781409172208
No boyfriend, a mouldy flat, weird flatmates and an office job she hates: twentysomething Ellie Knight is finding that her life is not turning out the way she thought it would. Freelance journalist Vine (Grazia, Heat, Cosmo) was inspired to write after becoming fed up with the plethora of "happily ever afters".
SAGA
ROSIE CLARKE
LIZZIE'S WAR
ARIA, 13TH, 20 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781786693129
Sequel to Lizzie's Secret. London, 1940, and Lizzie Larch must make a success of her hat-making business if she is to provide for herself and her young child.
BookScan **
NADINE DORRIES
THE MOTHERS OF LOVELY LANE
HEAD OF ZEUS, 1ST JUNE, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781784975098
Third in the Lovely Lane series follows Noleen Delaney, a night cleaner at St Angelus hospital in Liverpool, who must support her five children. "Massive" promotion is promised.
BookScan ***
EVIE GRACE
HALF A SIXPENCE
ARROW, 13TH, 5.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781784756222
Launches a new Victorian saga trilogy following the lives of two families in the village of overshill, the well-to-do Rooks and the poorer Carters. Parts two and three (Half a Heart and Half a Chance) will follow in 2018.
DI MORRISSEY
THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER
PAN, 13th, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781447283218
A strong-willed heiress is determined to defy Edwardian convention but she will pay a high price to keep the home she loves so much.
NICOLA PRYCE
THE CAPTAIN'S GIRL
CORVUS, 6TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781782398851
Second in the 18th-century Cornish-set saga follows Pengelly's Daughter. Cornwall, 1793, and Celia Cavendish has been promised in marriage to the brute Viscount Vallenfor but has plans to escape.
BookScan **
SFF
R SCOTT BARKER
THE UNHOLY CONSULT
ORBIT, 6TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9780356508719
Concludes the epic fantasy Aspect-emperor series set in a world of myth, war and sorcery.
BookScan ***
MATTHEW BLAKSTAD
LUCKY GHOST
HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781473624757
Crossover SF/crime involving an all-consuming game in which players can trade real life emotions for digital currency. Emoticoins are changing the face of the global economy but someone, or something, seems to be controlling the game for their own nefarious purposes.
MAX BROOKS
MINECRAFT: THE ISLAND
CENTURY, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781780897745
The first official Minecraft novel. There are 100 million registered players of the game, apparently, and it is the second most played game in history.
GAVIN CHAIT
OUR MEMORY LIKE DUST
DOUBLEDAY, 27TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780857523686
His speculative fiction debut Lament for the Fallen was praised by the Guardian as "exhilarating ... a compulsively readable, life-affirming tale". This is a novel of the near future yet seems ripped from today's headlines: jihadis, a refugee crisis, war, environmental collapse and the world's largest energy company behaving very badly.
CHRISTIE GOLDEN
STAR WARS: INFERNO SQUAD
CENTURY, 27TH, 19.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781780894829
Picks up immediately after the end of the film "Rogue one"; after the theft of the Death Star plans and the destruction of the battle station the Empire is on the defensive. Enter the Inferno Squad.
BookScan **
JOHN HORNOR JACOBS
INFERNAL MACHINES
GOLLANCZ, 27TH, 16.99 [pounds sterling], TPB, 9780575124134
The return of Fisk & Shoe, unlikely heroes, very likely mercenaries, in the sequel to The AIncorruptibles.
TOM LLOYD
PRINCESS OF BLOOD
GOLLANCZ, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781473213203
Book two of The God Fragments follows Lynx, an honest man in a lawless world.
BookScan *
ED MCDONALD
BLACKWING
GOLLANCZ, 20TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781473222014
Gritty epic fantasy. When a raven tattoo rips itself from his arm to deliver a desperate message, Galharrow must investigate a long-dead sorcerer's legacy.
ANTHONY RYAN
THE LEGION OF FLAME
ORBIT, 6TH, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780356506401
The Draconis Memoria series continues. Epic fantasy with magic, adventure and dragons from the author of the Raven's Shadow trilogy.
BookScan **
CHARLES STROSS
THE DELIRIUM BRIEF
ORBIT, 13TH, 18.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780356508283
The Laundry, the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from the supernatural, is no longer secret and career spy Bob Howard finds himself being interviewed on television about 11 asylum seekers. Ben Aaronovitch is a fan.
BookScan *
DAVID ZINDELL
THE IDIOT GODS
HARPERFICTION, 13TH, 14.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780007252275
An epic tale told by an orca whale who leaves his home waters at the top of the world to seek out the Idiot Gods but finds himself in the prison of Sea Circus, forced to eat dead fish.
BookScan *
NINA ALLAN
THE RIFT
TITAN BOOKS, 11TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781785650376
Julie goes missing aged 17. It will be 20 years before her sister Selena sees her again and Julie has an incredible tale to tell--she has been living on another planet.
ADAM CHRISTOPHER
KILLING IS MY BUSINESS
TITAN BOOKS, 25TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781783296910
Robot noir in 1960s Los Angeles.
BookScan *
DAVID DRAKE
THE WAY TO GLORY
TITAN BOOKS, 4TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781785652233
The Republic of Cinnabar Navy military SF series reaches book four.
BookScan *
MANUEL GONZALES
THE REGIONAL OFFICE IS UNDER ATTACK!
DEL REY, 13TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781785036019
This tale of super-powered female assassins who protect the world from annihilation was praised in the US.
CHRISTINA HENRY
LOST BOY
TITAN BOOKS, 18TH, 7.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781785655685
A retelling of the story of Captain Hook and how he went from Peter Pan's favourite lost boy to his greatest enemy.
BookScan ***
DALE LUCAS
FIRST WATCH
ORBIT, 13TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780356509365
Action fantasy adventure as two misfits team up to solve a murder in the crime-ridden city of Yenara where orcs, humans, elves and dwarves live cheek by jowl.
K S MERBETH
WASTELANDERS: RAID
ORBIT, 27TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780356507736
A bounty-hunter gets mixed up with the raider crew she set out to capture in a lawless, post-apocalyptic America. Set in the world of Bite, Merbeth's debut, although this also works as a standalone, I'm told.
VIVIAN SHAW
STRANGE PRACTICE
ORBIT, 27TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780356508870
First in a contemporary fantasy series introduces Greta Helsing, doctor to London's supernatural community, who spends her days treating the undead for a host of ills: vocal strain in banshees etc. Then a sect of murderous monks start attacking Londoners and Greta must use her unusual skills to keep the city safe.
SFF SHORT STORIES
KEVIN HEARNE
BESIEGED
ORBIT, 13TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9780356509570
Short story collection set in the world of the Iron Druid Chronicles and featuring handsome, tattooed Irishman Atticus O'Sullivan who happens to be 2,000 years old. Includes seven original tales.
GHOST
HELEN LEWIS
THE HOUSE WITH OLD FURNITURE
HONNO PRESS, 20TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PB, 9781909983663
A woman grieving the death of her eldest son moves from London to west Wales with her younger boy but there is something very odd about their new house.
HORROR
SARA BAIN
BAN SITH
URBANE, 13TH, 8.99 [pounds sterling], PBO, 9781911129363
Libby Butler investigates the legend of the Highland Ban-Sith, a female spirit who can be seen and heard howling by the person who is going to die ...
JOSH MALERMAN
BLACK MAD WHEEL
HARPERFICTION, 27TH, 9.99 [pounds sterling], PB, 9780007530090
A washed-up us rock band seek inspiration on a journey through a desert to track down the source of a strange and debilitating sound.
BookScan **
ONES TO WATCH
CRIME & THRILLER
HAYLEN BECK
HERE AND GONE
HARVILL SECKER, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781911215561
Haylen Beck is the pen name for Stuart Neville and this is inspired by his love of American crime writing.
It opens on an isolated road in the Arizona desert where Audra is driving her two young children, desperate to put as much distance between her and her abusive husband as possible. She is pulled over by the local sheriff for a minor driving offence--and then things start to go very wrong. PRH will promote with an "unmissable" publicity campaign. The film rights have already sold. Slips from April.
COMMERCIAL
JULIE COHEN
TOGETHER
ORION, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781409171744
Orion's "focus" fiction title for 2017, this is billed as an epic, sweeping love story that breaks all the women's fiction genre rules. It's told backwards over five decades and opens early in the morning with 80-year-old Robbie leaving a letter for his beloved wife Emily, who is still asleep in bed. She will later find his clothes neatly folded at the water's edge. The novel then spools all the way back to 1962, revealing the story of a couple with a terrible secret-one they will do anything to protect.
BookScan **
CRIME & THRILLER
LAURA MARSHALL FRIEND REQUEST
SPHERE, 27TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9780751569155
Debut psychological thriller with a great hook: out of the blue, Louise receives a Facebook request from an old school friend, Maria-who has been missing, presumed dead, for 25 years. She was last seen alive on the night of a school-leavers' party. Two narrative strands develop-the present day and the past, as Louise is forced to delve into her unhappy memories of school, and the old friends she once tried so hard to impress. This was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Award as an unfinished manuscript-often a good sign. Little, Brown will support.
CRIME & THRILLER
RILEY SAGER
FINAL GIRLS
EBURY PRESS, 13TH, 12.99 [pounds sterling], HB, 9781785034022
A super-lead psychological thriller with a "huge" marketing campaign, this carries an endorsement from Stephen King: "If you liked Gone Girl, you'll like this." As individuals the three girls were the survivors of separate massacres but the press grouped them together and dubbed them the Final Girls, like something out of a slasher movie. But now something terrible has happened to one of them, and the other two finally meet. Each is keeping a dark secret, and someone wants them dead.
HISTORICAL
TOM TIVNAN
THE ESQUIMAUX
SILVERTAIL BOOKS, 20TH, PBO, 10.99 [pounds sterling], 9781909269675
A stunning jacket for this historical literary novel, a debut from my esteemed colleague Tom Tivnan, inspired by the true story of native Greenlander John Sackhouse. In 1816, Sackhouse, adrift in a kayak in the North Atlantic, is rescued by a passing whaler. But the crew do not trust him, and plot his demise, until a spectacular event changes everything. When the boat lands at Nantucket, John finds himself in a strange new world and becomes entangled in an intense love triangle with the whaler captain's wife--while hiding his own dark secret.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
O'Keeffe, Alice. "Fiction: this month sees three giants of crime writing taking a detour, in a significant breakaway from their better known series." The Bookseller, 7 Apr. 2017, p. 24+. General OneFile, login.portal.oaklandcc.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=lom_oakcc&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA489813864&it=r&asid=5e5d078b7d2a963cae193d3ae8bb2577. Accessed 13 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A489813864
Ambassadors: American Studies in a Changing World. Proceedings of the XVII International AISNA Conference
Francesco Rognoni
The Modern Language Review. 104.1 (Jan. 2009): p148.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2009 Modern Humanities Research Association
http://www.mhra.org.uk.portal.oaklandcc.edu/Publications/Journals/mlr.html
Full Text:
Ambassadors: American Studies in a Changing World. Proceedings of the XVII International AISNA Conference. Ed. by MASSIMO BACIGALUPO and GREGORY DOWLING. (Universita di Genova--Quaderni di Palazzo Serra, 14) Rapallo: Busco. 2006. 520 pp. 35 [euro]. ISSN 1970-0571.
As the editors acknowledge in their foreword, the title of this volume (and of the 2003 American Studies Conference in Rome of which it constitutes the proceedings) pays homage to the centenary of Henry James's The Ambassadors. However, as they point out, none of the papers collected here addresses the Master. The 2003 conference also marked the thirtieth anniversary of AISNA, the Italian Association for American Studies, and many contributors consider the course of American studies in Italy and in Europe. The absence of James, an all-time favourite with continental critics, can be taken as indicating that Italian scholars are following their British and American colleagues in paying less attention to canonical writers.
The volume opens with four major essays. Historian Tiziano Bonazzi addresses the 'labyrinth of Euro-American relations', urging that we have to 'reformulate the whole idea of western civilization, uprooting it geographically and making it a global model' (p. 16). The younger scholar Bart Eeckhout considers the 'Spatial Turn in American Studies', in a speculative and theoretical paper that concludes, however, in disarmingly down-to-earth fashion: 'Is the spatial really special? [...] not unless we make it interesting, which can only mean: not unless we make it serve our interests in intelligent ways' (p. 35). The other essays, by Anna Maria Martellone and Stefania Piccinato, usefully survey the development in Italy of American history and of African-American Studies (respectively).
The forty-eight papers that comprise the bulk of Ambassadors are the product of eight workshops. The first of these, 'AISNA at Thirty: Aspects and Breakthroughs of American Studies in Italy' (pp. 62-171), provides assessments of some key figures in the development of the discipline: Rolando Anzilotti, a friend and collaborator of Robert Lowell, Glauco Cambon, teacher of comparative literature and sensitive critic of poetry, the eclectic scholar-gypsy Elemire Zolla, and Carlo Izzo, author of an important history of American literature and (in the 1930s) associate and translator of Ezra Pound. These profiles are extremely useful contributions to the history of culture and scholarship, and to the study of individual writers. Seven further workshops range from explorations of 'Transatlantic Communication and the Unmaking of the World' (Philip Roth, Susan Sontag, Thomas Merton, etc.) to 'Italian-American Cultural Representations of Italy' (from Neapolitan songs to Lawrence Ferlinghetti). One especially lively gathering of papers examines 'U.S. Media Ambassadors', discussing such figures as the DJ and Talk Radio host (Umberto Rossi), the gangster (Pierre Lagayette), the American baseball hero (Luca Briasco), and even 'Charles Manson: American Icon' (Stephen Perrin). A less controversial and more discursive workshop considers the role of the academy as a cultural ambassador, with papers on the impact of study-abroad programmes (Mark Bernheim), faculty and student-exchange programmes (Giovanna Franci), and new American studies programmes in Eastern Europe (Rodica Mihaila).
One workshop bears the provocative title 'What Was Modernism?'. Its papers offer theoretical perspectives (Jonathan Culler, Ronald Bush, Anderson Araujo) as well as practical readings of Marianne Moore (Paola Nardi), Mina Loy (Antonella Francini), Derek Walcott (Andrea Molesini), and 'contemporary modernist' Amy Newman (Paola Loreto). But the reader will seek in vain for a simple answer to the title question.
The last two workshops are more compact, one of them considering 'The Impact of African American Studies' (Annalucia Accardo on Grace Paley) and the other addressing from a historian's perspective the timely issue of 'Democracy in America after Two Centuries'. As an indication of how Ambassadors often succeeds in surprising the reader, the latter workshop contains a paper in Italian by Ferdinando Fasce, ominously entitled 'Esportare la democrazia?', which, however, turns out to be devoted to an important radio show of the 1950s, Americas Town Meeting of the Air, a programme that fostered faith in US democracy by stimulating exchange. Fasce's paper concludes with an anecdote about an occasion when the Americans involved with the radio show found that they could not dine together in a Washington hotel, some of them being black. Fasce quotes from a report:
In Europe, the Middle East, in Asia and Africa the twenty-six Americans could associate together in complete democracy--in Washington they could not. One wonders what the episode will do to the recently renewed faith in US democracy which the Town Meeting party created. One can only hope that along with the news of discrimination by the Hotel Carlton will travel the fact that right across the street the Statler Hotel served the party promptly and courteously. (p. 509).
FRANCESCO ROGNONI
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF MILAN
Rognoni, Francesco
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Rognoni, Francesco. "Ambassadors: American Studies in a Changing World. Proceedings of the XVII International AISNA Conference." The Modern Language Review, vol. 104, no. 1, 2009, p. 148+. Academic OneFile, login.portal.oaklandcc.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=lom_oakcc&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA192853109&it=r&asid=521c01cc3b2f9f2e3393a8c366de4e65. Accessed 13 May 2017.
KIRKUS REVIEW
The same evening that enterprising artist-forger Martin Phipps meets Venetian reporter Toni Sambon at a gallery opening, he saves Toni from muggers and glimpses a stolen canvas by Cima da Conegliano in his bag, and the following night, two men break into Martin's flat and burn all his own paintings when he won't (can't) tell them where Toni is. His own opening ruined by the holocaust, Martin takes off for Venice to track down the Cima--and tumbles into a frothy stew of art theft to finance a crew of murderous terrorists who leave their victims fingerless, and who have their sights on Martin. Not to worry, though--the slapstick edge to Martin's face-offs with the bad guys and his reunion with his old flame Lucy Althwaite keep his spirits high for the first two thirds of this buoyant tale, until the multiple threats, kidnappings, Rube Goldberg escapes, and revelations of guilt become too silly to be amusing. This lighthearted romp from Dowling (Double Take, See Naples and Kill) would be just about perfect if it ended a hundred pages earlier.
Pub Date: July 23rd, 1991
ISBN: 0-312-05815-2
Page count: 384pp
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 20th, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1st, 1991
KIRKUS REVIEW
Introducing January Esposito--a half-British, half-Neapolitan unemployed translator (of sorts) whose brother Gigi (for Luigi) desperately wants to be a big-time gangster, Gigi pops round to visit, borrows about a hundred quid, then leaves--just before the goons arrive, dump Jan in the car, and high-tail it after him. What's Gigi done? Taped a private conversation, which suggests an English bloke will assassinate someone--a Royal?--who will soon visit Pompeii. Quicker than you can order pasta in Naples, the goons are dead, Gigi is hiding, and Jan is lurking around in the old country, avoiding family members and trying to identify the voices on the tape. One seems to belong to Brendan Cullop, bon vivant, daredevil extraordinary; the other? Perhaps Pas-quale. Bumbling along, Jan enlists the aid of Sarah Ryan--who by the end has chased the bad guys to a villa, and helped Jan narrow the possible hit targets. Together, they'll skedaddle to the Pompeii ruins and avert a Royal tragedy--but not before Gigi is done in by his gangster idol and the final ciao's are a bit teary. Pink Pantherish in parts, skewering Neapolitans, stuffy Brits, pomposities of every persuasion. But, all in all, a curious mix resulting in a cozy thriller--with irrespressible high spirits and nifty, non-routine plotting. January would be welcome a second time.
Pub Date: Dec. 16th, 1988
Publisher: St. Martin's
Gregory Dowling, Author St. Martin's Press $0 (284p) ISBN 978-0-312-02277-8
This lively and colorful tale involves the inventively named January Esposito. Recently fired from his London job because of a practical joke, dumped by his girlfriend, Jan is asked for help by his desperate half-brother, Gigi, who appears to be on the run from some very tough characters. The tough guys rough up Jan, who manages to elude them in time to foil an attempted murder by Gigi, but then becomes involved in two other shootings. His only clue a tape recording of what appears to be arrangements for a murder, Jan follows his brother to Naples, where they both have extensive family ties and where they spent time as children. There Jan tracks down a shady lawyer, Vincenzo Amedeo, who is apparently an agent for an international assassin. Others involved are an international playboy and his girlfriend, a mild-mannered little English teacher and an Italian journalist. While the body count rises, Jan's problem remains in determining who, including his brother, is on which side. Along with creating a most engaging protagonist, Dowling ( Double Take ) describes Naples with a loving eye. (Dec )
Reviewed on: 01/01/1988
Release date: 01/01/1988
The Four Horsemen (2017)
A novel by Gregory Dowling
Mid-18th-century Venice.
After reluctant spy Alvise Marangon is arrested in a tavern brawl, he is summoned to meet the Missier Grande, head of the city's powerful secret service. Rather than being expelled from the city, he is coerced into a top-secret investigation of the mysterious death of one of the service's agents and the existence of a mysterious secret society. Formed by four rakish noblemen, it is known as the Four Horsemen and dates back to the Ottoman Empire. As Alvise delves into the case, he finds all the hallmarks of assassination and corruption, and is soon profoundly out of his depth and on the run.
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Hardback Editions
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thumb Title: The Four Horsemen
Author(s): Gregory Dowling
ISBN: 1-250-10854-3 / 978-1-250-10854-8 (USA edition)
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July 2017 : UK Paperback
thumb Title: The Four Horsemen (The Alvise Marangon Mysteries)
Ascension
By Gregory Dowling
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Gregory Dowling’s fifth novel, his first foray into historical territory, is set in mid-18th century Venice and introduces a charming protagonist in the form of cicerone or tour guide Alvise Marangon. Having grown up mostly in England, Alvise makes guiding British tourists his specialty, but he gets more than he bargained for when he offers to guide the young Mr. Boscombe and his tutor, Mr. Shackleford. Soon Alvise is entangled in the city’s criminal underbelly, finding himself arrested, robbed, beaten up and finally persuaded to join the city’s secret network of spies to uncover a criminal threat that goes to the highest levels of Venice’s aristocratic society.
This is a wonderful page turner with a fabulous cast of characters from the gambling dens to the theatres, the booksellers to the taverns, the courtesans to the gondoliers. Alvise is able to use his innate sense of theatre and charm to move fluidly between all the classes, and this also makes him a perfect spy. Dowling’s storytelling is superb, and the sights, sounds and smells of 18th-century Venice are brilliantly realised. Although the plot is resolved, the book has the feel of the first in a series so I hope there will be a return for Alvise. This book would be ideal for fans of Diana Bretherick and Robin Blake.
In the footsteps of Lord Byron, from Istanbul to Venice
Posted: 3 Nov 2014,
by Gregory Dowling
In: Lecturers, On board the Aegean Odyssey, Passengers' journals
Professor Gregory Dowling, lecturer at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and author of ‘In Venice and in the Veneto with Lord Byron’, recounts his experiences cruising from Istanbul to Venice on board Aegean Odyssey, and compares his own exploits with those of the famous poet.
As the name of the cruise, “The Holy City of Byzantium”, indicated, the main theme of our voyage from Istanbul was the Byzantine Empire. But it could almost as well have been dedicated to Lord Byron, since many of the sites we visited were also places that the poet had loved and described, in his letters, journals and poems.
Istanbul, where we began our holiday in the superb Hyatt Hotel was a highlight of Byron’s rather unusual Grand Tour (the usual countries for such a tour being off-limits, due to the Napoleonic Wars). He was in the city between May and July 1810, admiring Hagia Sophia and the immense city walls, and describing the Turkish burying grounds as “the loveliest spots on earth.”
Prof Dowling & the view from Süleymaniye Mosque
Professor Dowling & the view from Süleymaniye Mosque
Our next Byronic location—after fascinating visits to Thessaloniki, Meteora and Patmos—was Athens, where Byron lived, on and off, between Christmas 1809 and April 1811, describing it in a letter to his mother as “a place which I think I prefer upon the whole to any I have seen”. The clearest testimony to the Greek’s affection for Byron is the splendidly theatrical statue to the poet in the public gardens, which we saw on our bus-tour around the centre of the city.
Monastery of Saint John the Theologian, Patmos
Monastery of Saint John the Theologian, from our visit to Patmos
It was not only his role in Greece’s struggle for independence that endeared the poet to the Greeks. There was also his attack on Lord Elgin, who was busy removing (or plundering, as the Greeks—and Byron—would have it) the marbles from the Parthenon while Byron was in the city.
Naturally enough, during our visit to the Parthenon Museum, the name of Lord Elgin came up several times in less than favourable descriptions from our guide. Whatever one’s feelings on the subject (and they still run high, on both sides), it is worth remembering that the removal of the sculptures was a controversial topic even as it was taking place.
Statue of Lord Byron in Athens
Statue of Lord Byron in Athens
Mention, too, was made during our visit to the museum, of the partial destruction of the Parthenon by the Venetians (it was their bombardment that ignited the Turkish ammunition-dump inside the building), and so as a British citizen and resident of Venice I felt a double obligation to keep a tactfully low profile.
From Piraeus we sailed to Gythion, visiting the fascinating remains of the Byzantine city of Mystra (a place with no Byronic associations). The next port of call was Preveza. This was where Byron first set foot in Greece (apart from one brief landing at Patras), on 23 September 1809. From Preveza the poet and his friend Hobhouse made an excursion to the ruins of the Roman city of Nicopolis, which we ourselves passed on our way to Arta. More than anything else the two men were struck by the wild landscape of the country.
From Preveza we sailed to Corfu. The Ionian islands were a jumping-off point for the numerous philhellenes who came from Britain and other places in Europe to join the struggle against the Turks. The British presence on Corfu has clearly left its mark on the island, and it was refreshing for once to hear our guide express a positive view of the British legacy to the island, both in terms of infrastructure and culture. The most obvious sign of this presence was the cricket-pitch that lay directly alongside the promenade; no-one was actually playing that morning, and the pitch is so small that I would feel a little nervous to be sitting at any of the cafes on the Liston while a game was in progress. On the other side of the pitch is the small sea-front park dedicated to the writers Gerald and Lawrence Durrell, who both lived many years on the island.
The sculpture dedicated to Lawrence Durrell, Corfu
Lawrence Durrell’s statue, Corfu
From Corfu we sailed to Dubrovnik, which, my guide-book assures me (as do numerous other printed and online articles and travel blogs), Byron once described as ‘the Pearl of the Adriatic’, but Byron in fact never visited or described the city.
We then crossed the Adriatic to visit a city that Byron really did know well: Ravenna. He came here from Venice in 1819, drawn by his love for the young Countess Teresa Guiccioli, married to Count Alessandro Guiccioli. We passed the Palazzo Guiccioli, on our way to San Vitale; the building is currently encased in scaffolding as major restoration work is under way in order to transform it into a museum devoted both to the poet and to the city’s involvement in the Risorgimento movement.
The final destination of the cruise was for us, of course, a return home—and, as so often in Venice in summer, it was an especially hot and humid one. Venice was Byron’s home for three years, from 1816 until 1819, and it played a major part in his development as a poet. It was in Venice that he became a great poet, rather than just a fashionable one, writing the works on which his literary reputation is based today: ‘Beppo’, ‘The Vision of Judgement’ and ‘Don Juan’.
Cruising into Venice
MV Aegean Odyssey cruising into Venice
Our cruise concluded with an enjoyable drinks-party in the garden of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum on the Grand Canal, the eclectic home of another famous foreign resident of the city. Her chosen medium was the visual arts but, like Byron, she too had found the city a liberating place to live. And she too liked the contrast between old and new, so that her modern art collection is set off against the carved Byzantine throne that takes pride of place in her garden. And so, despite the fact that we had sailed away from Istanbul, it doesn’t seem inappropriate to conclude with Yeats’s famous lines:
‘And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.’
—————
Gregory Dowling, our lecturer in Venice
Gregory Dowling
Gregory Dowling graduated in English literature at the University of Oxford in 1978. Since 1979 he has lived in Italy. He has taught in Naples, Siena, Verona and, since 1981, in Venice. He is now Associate Professor of American Literature at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. His academic publications include a book on American narrative poetry, a book on Byron’s Venice, a co-edited anthology of American poetry about Venice and numerous articles on British and American literature. He has written the sightseeing pages of the Time Out Guide to Venice.
He is non-fiction editor for the journal Able Muse Review and is responsible for the section on British poetry of the Italian poetry journal Semicerchio. He has translated widely from the Italian. He has also published four thrillers set in England and Italy and is currently writing a crime novel set in eighteenth-century Venice.
In his lecture ‘Venice Today: City of Culture or Mass-Tourism?‘, Gregory will present the problems facing this beautiful but fragile city, still medieval in its structures and even its transport system, in the age of mass tourism.
Gregory will return to lecture on board Aegean Odyssey on the following cruise:
• God Created the Kornati Islands – July 2015
If you are also into the arts, and wish to experience a real European Grand Tour, join us on:
• The Grand Tour: Enrich the Mind with Knowledge… – May 2015