DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

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The following information was obtained from the
PostMortem Book website: www.postmortem.co.uk
All amounts are in pounds that have an exchange
rate of approximately $1.97 per pound.
**BILLINGHAM, Mark, IN THE DARK (Little
Brown, August). A rainy night in south London. A gun is
fired into a car which swerves on to the pavement, killing
the person standing at a bus stop. It seems that a chilling
gang initiation has cost an innocent victim their life. But the
reality is far more sinister...One life is wiped out and three
more are changed forever: the young man whose finger
was on the trigger; an ageing gangster planning a deadly
revenge, and the pregnant woman who struggles desperately
to uncover the truth. Two weeks away from giving
birth, how will she deal with a world where death is an
occupational hazard? In a city where violence can be
random or meticulously planned, where teenage gangs
clash with career criminals and where loyalty is paid for in
blood, anything is possible. Secrets are uncovered as fast
as bodies, and the story’s final twist is as breathtakingly
surprising as they come. 14.99
**CAIN, Tom, THE HOUSE OF WAR (Bantam
Press. July). The return of Samuel Carver protagonist of
The Accident Man, who recovers in a Swiss sanatorium
to discover the woman he loves has disappeared. His quest
to find her will uncover conspiracy and betrayal. 12.99
**CUMMING, Charles, TYPHOON (Penguin,
June). Hong Kong 1997 -- only a few short months of
British rule remain before the territory returns to Chinese
rule. It’s a febrile place. And in that claustrophobic
environment of uncertainty and fear the spooks are hard
at work, jostling for position and influence. So when an
elderly man emerges from the seas off the New Territories,
claiming to know secrets he will share only with the
Governor himself, a young MI6 agent, Joe Lennox, sees an
opportunity to make his reputation. But when the old man,
a high-profile Chinese professor, is spirited away in the
middle of the night by Joe’s superiors in collusion with the
CIA, it’s clear that there’s a great deal more than a young
spy’s career at stake. The professor, it seems, holds the
key to a sinister and ambitious plan that could have
awesome and catastrophic repercussions for China in the
twenty-first century. 18.99
**DOHERTY, Paul, NIGHTSHADE (Headline
August) January 1304 and Hugh Corbett, devoted emissary
of King Edward I, has been charged with yet another
dangerous mission. Scrope, an unscrupulous manor lord,
has reneged on his promise to hand over a priceless ornate
cross he stole from the Templars during the Crusades.
Furthermore, he has massacred as heretics fourteen
Deadly Pleasures
65
members of a religious order, whose corpses now hang in
the woods near Mistleham in Essex. The King, determined
to restore order sends Corbett to Mistleham in his stead.
But as Corbett reaches the troubled village, it becomes
obvious that the situation has worsened. A mysterious
bowman has appeared, killing townspeople at random. Is
one of the Brethren responsible, or have the Templars
arrived to wreak revenge? Can Corbett restore Mistleham
to peace, and return the treasure to the King, before
further blood is shed? 19.99
**DRAKE, Nick, TUTANKHAMUN (Bantam
Press, August). Tutankhamun, son of Akhenaten, has
inherited an empire that seems to be at the height of its
power and international glory. But the young King, just
eighteen years old, is faced with the political and personal
intrigues and conspiracies of the Court, where his godfather
Ay, and the General Horemheb are locked in a bitter
struggle for ascendancy. Tutankhamun must steer the
empire back from the brink of disaster and dissent to which
his father Akhenaten’s rule led the Two Lands of Egypt,
and re-assert the stability and authority of his famous
dynasty. Rahotep, chief detective of the Thebes division,
has his own worries -- his daughters are growing up in a
changing world of danger and instability, while out on on
the streets of Thebes things are falling apart; poverty and
dissent are breaking out into a nightmare of violence, gold
and corruption seem all-powerful, and the city’s shadowy
underworld is itself witnessing mysterious acts of shocking
brutality. Yet when he receives a mysterious invitation to
the secret halls of the Royal Palace, he cannot refuse.
What he finds there, and the quest on which he embarks,
will change his life. 12.99
**FORBES, Elena, OUR LADY OF PAIN
(Quercus, August). When a young woman’s naked body is
discovered deep in the snowy undergrowth of Holland
Park, ritualistically bound and gagged, the only clue is a
verse from a bizarre poem found stuffed in her mouth. The
woman is Rachel Tenison, a wealthy West End art dealer,
who outwardly seemed to lead a normal, fulfilled life.
However, as DI Mark Tartaglia and DS Sam Donovan
scratch away at the surface, a darker, secret side begins to
emerge. Then a tip-off spins everything in an entirely new
direction, suggesting that the case is linked to the murder
a year before in North London of Catherine Watson, a
university lecturer. Still haunted by the aftermath of ‘The
Bridegroom’ case three months before, which nearly
brought about their own deaths, Tartaglia and Donovan
are forced to confront their personal demons as they
struggle to find what these two very different women had
in common before the killer has a chance to strike again.
12.99
**FOWLER, Chris, THE VICTORIA VANISHES
(Doubleday, June). London pubs are meant to be safe
places where anyone can sit quietly with a drink, but not
anymore...One night, Arthur Bryant sees a drunken middleaged
lady coming out of a pub in a London backstreet. The
next morning, she is found dead at the exact spot where
their paths crossed. There’s a bizarre twist; the street itself