NO-ONE LOVES A POLICEMAN by Guillermo Orsi

NO-ONE LOVES A POLICEMAN Guillermo Orsi Translated by Nick Caistor MacLehose Press (maclehosepress.com) £7.99 Argentina, December 2001. Against the background of a country in economic free-fall, we meet Pablo Martelli, a sixty-something bathroom appliance salesman with a history in the National Shame, an elite branch of the police force which lived up to their nickname […]

ALTAR OF BONES by Philip Carter

ALTAR OF BONES Philip Carter Simon & Schuster (www.simonandschuster.co.uk) £12.99 Thrillers and I have had something of a rocky relationship this year, going from one extreme (The Obelisk) to the other (Sanctus). Philip Carter’s Altar of Bones, I’ll say right at the outset, comes somewhere close to the Sanctus end of the spectrum. Carter is, […]

THE MAP OF TIME by Felix Palma

THE MAP OF TIME Felix Palma Translated by Nick Caistor HarperCollins (www.harpercollins.co.uk) £12.99 Released: 9 June 2011 I’m a big fan of fiction that uses actual historical figures or events as part of its fabric. Fiction like Caleb Carr’s The Alienist or Matthew Pearl’s The Dante Club. So, I was excited when Felix Palma’s The […]

COMEDY IN A MINOR KEY by Hans Keilson

COMEDY IN A MINOR KEY Hans Keilson Translated by Damion Searls (www.damionsearls.com) Hesperus Press (www.hesperuspress.com) £9.99 Hesperus Press are new to me. For a while now, it seems, they have been publishing long overlooked foreign fiction that has never before been translated to English, or hasn’t been available for a long time. Hans Keilson, still […]

THE OBELISK by Howard Gordon

THE OBELISK Howard Gordon (www.howardmgordon.com) Simon & Schuster (www.simonandschuster.co.uk) £12.99 Here’s a good concept for one of those rollercoaster-ride thrillers that I like to read from time to time, the type of book that doesn’t require much concentration, but delivers entertainment by the bucketful: Gideon Davis is a peacemaker, a man working for the US […]

THE DEMI-MONDE: WINTER by Rod Rees

The Demi-Monde: Winter Rod Rees Quercus (www.quercusbooks.co.uk) £16.99 The Demi-Monde in the title of Rod Rees’ new novel – a novel that forms the first part of a quadrilogy – refers to an advanced virtual reality environment commissioned by the US government to simulate so-called “Asymmetric Warfare Environments” – places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where […]

SANCTUS by Simon Toyne

Sanctus Simon Toyne (www.simontoyne.net) HarperCollins (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) £12.99 Released: 14 April 2011 Welcome to Ruin in Southern Turkey. Home of the Citadel, a thousand-foot-high black mountain that houses a secretive holy order, around which the city has grown, and which is the most-visited historical site on the planet. The monks within the mountain serve a single […]

THE BREACH by Patrick Lee

The Breach Patrick Lee (www.patrickleefiction.com) HarperCollins (www.harpercollins.com) £6.99 There are authors I read because I thoroughly enjoy their work, and they provide me with meaty substance that keeps me reading for days or weeks. There are other authors whose work I enjoy, but for an entirely different reason: they give me a sense of escapism, […]

THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS by John Wyndham

The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham Penguin Modern Classics (www.penguinclassics.co.uk) £8.99 John Wyndham’s classic, post-apocalyptic novel turns 60 this year. I first read it maybe 20 years ago, because it seemed to fit in the same category as books like Robert C. O’Brien’s Z FOR ZACHARIAH and William Golding’s LORD OF THE FLIES, […]

THE FACILITY by Simon Lelic

The Facility Simon Lelic (www.simonlelic.com) Mantle (mantle.panmacmillan.com) £12.99 Simon Lelic’s first novel, the quietly horrific RUPTURE, made him an instant “must-read”. THE FACILITY, his second novel, bleaker and tougher than the first, but no less enjoyable, has cemented that impression, leaving […]