BookTalk
Book Talk with Smiffs book & card store , Nerja
April in Spain ( p ) by John Banville . On the idyllic coast of San Sebastian , Dublin pathologist Quirke is struggling to relax . And when he glimpses a familiar face in the twilight at the bar Las Arcadas , a woman who was meant to have died in a political scandal back in Ireland years earlier , any chance of a peaceful holiday is lost . After a call home , Detective St John Strafford is dispatched to Spain , but he ’ s not the only one on route : as a terrifying hitman hunts down his prey , they are all set for a brutal showdown ...
April in Spain 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 September , with availability in print this month or in early October . The Hotlist helps readers to budget for and plan book ordering .
Bad Eminence ( h ) by James Greer . Meet Vanessa Salomon , a privileged and misanthropic French-American translator . Her twin sister is a famous movie star , which Vanessa resents . Vanessa has just started working on an English translation of an experimental thriller by a dead author when she ’ s offered a more prominent gig : translating the latest book by an Extremely Famous French Writer who is not in any way based on Michel Houellebecq . As soon as she agrees to meet this writer , however , her other , more obscure project begins to fight back -leading Vanessa down into a literary hell of traps and con games and sadism and doppelgangers and , finally , the secret of life itself .
Oh William ( p ) by Elizabeth Strout . Lucy Barton is a successful writer living in New York , navigating the second half of her life as a recent widow and parent to two adult daughters . A surprise encounter leads her to reconnect with William , her first husband - and longtime , onagain-off-again friend and confidante . Recalling their college years , the birth of their daughters , the painful dissolution of their marriage , and the lives they built with other people , Strout weaves a
portrait , stunning in its subtlety , of a tender , complex , decadeslong partnership .
Spymaster ( p ) by Brad Thor . Across Europe , a secret organization has begun attacking diplomats . Back in the United States , a foreign ally demands the identity of a highly placed covert asset . In the balance hang the ingredients for all-out war . With his mentor out of the game , counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath must take on the role he has spent his career avoiding . But , as with everything else he does , he intends to rewrite the rules - all of them . In ‘ Spymaster ’, Scot Harvath is more cunning , more dangerous , and deadlier than ever before .
Flag of Truce ( p ) by David Donachie . Firebrand John Pearce has been promoted to lieutenant and is in a position of command on board HMS Faron when he returns to Toulon from his successful mission in Corsica . But although he returns with a prize in tow , he receives a mixed welcome from his colleagues . With the fierce Siege of Toulon escalating in violence and the massing forces of the revolutionary army preparing to attack , Pearce is entrusted with the task of escorting 5,000 radical French sailors to a port on the Atlantic coast where they are to be set free . But when the assignment goes awry , it is up to Pearce and his trio of friends , the Pelicans , to prevent judicial murder .
Twenty Eight Pounds Ten Shillings ( p ) by Tony Fairweather . After WW2 England was on her knees , so the call went out to the British Empire for volunteers to help rebuild the ‘ Mother Country ’. Young men and women from different Caribbean islands were quick to respond , paying the considerable sum of GBP28.10s to board HMT Empire Windrush - the ‘ ship of dreams ’ that would take them to their new lives . The motives and stories of these West Indian people is a key part of the Windrush story , one that has never been fully told . This narrative reveals what happened
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