BookTalk
BookTalk
Book Talk
with Smiffs book & card store, Nerja
James Patterson is in the
vanguard of novelists with pre-
Christmas blockbusters hitting
the bookstands. Criss Cross (l)
finds Alex Cross witnessing the
execution of Michael Edgerton,
a man he helped convict of
several murders. Then a body
turns up with a note signed by
‘M’, and Alex knows that the
nightmare is far from over.
Accused by Edgerton’s family
of framing him for murder,
Cross fights to clear his name
as the case against him builds.
As more notes, and more
bodies, start appearing, Cross is
determined to put an end to
this case once and for all.
work at the War Crimes
Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia, at the Hague,
Netherlands. She says: “What
makes people able to kill
another human being
fascinates me, and there really
is no definitive answer to that
question.”
In the general fiction lists,
guitar great Pete Townshend,
of The Who, debuts as a fiction
writer with The Age Of
Anxiety (l), which happens to
be a great rock novel, but that
is not the most important
aspect of it. The cultured, witty
(and unreliable) narrator of the novel captures the craziness of
the music business in a tale that shows Townshend’s sly sense
of humour and sharp ear for dialogue. First conceived as an
opera, The Age of Anxiety deals with mythic and operatic
themes including a maze, divine madness and long-lost
children.
Criss Cross leads off this month’s Soltalk Hotlist of titles, some
entirely new, others moving into small paperback format for
the first time or being reissued, sometimes after years out of
print. All are due for
publication on dates in
November, with availability in
print this month or in early
December. The Soltalk Hotlist
helps readers to plan and
budget for book ordering.
Grandmothers (l), by Salley
Vickers, is the story of three
very different women and
their relationship with the
younger generation: fiercely
independent Nan, who leads a
secret life as an award-winning
poet when she is not teaching
her grandson Billy how to lie;
glamorous Blanche, deprived
of the company of her beloved
granddaughter Kitty by her
hostile daughter-in-law, who
finds solace in rebelliously
taking to drink and shop
lifting; and shy, bookish Minna
who in the safety of a
shepherd’s hut shares with her
surrogate granddaughter Rose her passion for reading.
Through their encounters with each other they discover that
the past is always with us.
Other thrillers worth a look
include: Not Saying Goodbye
(l), by Boris Akunin; A Minute
To Midnight (l), by David
Baldacci; Nothing Important
Happened Today (p), by Will
Carver; The Whisperer (p), by
Karin Fossum; The
Accomplice (l), by Joseph
Kanon; The Siberian Dilemma
(l), by Martin Cruz Smith;
Final Option (l) by Clive Cussler; Under Occupation (l), by Alan
Furst; and, Into the Dark (l), by Karen Rose.
In the true crime genre,
Murder Knows No Borders (p),
by Nerja resident Marie
Kusters-McCarthy chronicles
26 stories from around the
world. This self-published
collection includes murder by
loved ones, family members
and best friends, and for a
variety of motives. They
include, among others, a story
about the Texan millionaire
who loved and married a naive
Welsh girl, and the tale of the
mail-order brides in search of
a better life. Irish-born
Kusters-McCarthy took to
writing after retiring from her
Traitors Of Rome (l), by Simon
Scarrow, finds Tribune Cato
and Centurion Macro, battle-
hardened veterans of the
Roman army, garrisoned at the
eastern border, aware that their
movements are constantly
monitored by spies from
dangerous, mysterious Parthia.
But there is a traitor in the
ranks. Cato and Macro race
against time to expose the
truth, while the powerful
enemy over the border waits to
exploit any weaknesses in the
Legion. The traitor must die.
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