“where a good crime C r i m e can be had by all” c h r o n i c l e Issue #279 April 2009 Carolyn HART Death Walked In 304pp Pb $18.95 Death on Demand Mystery #18. Max Darling hasn't been interested in crime since his brush with a seductive young woman put him in danger of losing his freedom. He even refuses to talk to a woman who calls for help and says she is afraid. The caller leaves word she has hidden something in the house Max and his wife, Annie, are restoring. When Annie finds out, she hurries to the woman's home, only to discover she's been murdered. Evidence links the dead woman to a fortune in gold coins that has recently gone missing. Was this mysterious woman killed for the coins? The woman's son is accused, but Max believes in his innocence, and Max and Annie plunge wholeheartedly into the investigation. Due Apr (American) “This tight, Agatha Christie-style puzzler will keep readers guessing to the end.” - Publishers Weekly Dan BROWN Angels and Demons 496pp Pb $21.95 Film tie-in edition. (Movie released 14 May). World-renowned Harvard symboligist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyse a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is a deadly vendetta Donna LEON against the Catholic Church by a About Face 320pp Tp $32.95 centuries-old underground organisation - Guido Brunetti #18. At a dinner party, Comissario Brunetti meets the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Franca Marinello, the wife of a prosperous businessman and is Vatican from a powerful time bomb, charmed by her love of Virgil and Cicero. A few days later, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the Brunetti is visited by Carabinieri Maggior Filippo Guarino from mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra. the nearby city of Marghera. As part of a wider investigation into Together they embark on a frantic hunt Mafia takeovers of businesses in the region, Guarino wants through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs and the most information about the owner of a trucking company who was secretive vault on earth - the long-forgotten Illuminati lair. Due found murdered in his office. He believes the man's death is Apr (American) connected to the illegal transportation of refuse - and more “A breathless, real-time adventure... Exciting, sinister material - in his company's trucks. No stranger to mutual suspicion and competition between rival Italian police fast-paced, with an unusually high IQ” departments, Brunetti is nevertheless puzzled by the younger - San Francisco Chronicle man's paranoid behaviour. Eventually Guarino agrees to email a photo of his suspect, but by the time the photograph arrives, he Anzac Day himself is dead. Was he killed because he got too close? And Saturday 25 Apr 10am - 5pm why is it that Franca Marinello has often been seen in the company of the suspect, a vulgar man with Mafia connections and a violent past? Also avail in CD $49.95 Due Apr (American) Easter Hours “A splendid series... with a backdrop of the Good Friday 10 Apr (Public Holiday) Closed Saturday 11 Apr (Public Holiday) 8.30am - 6pm city so vivid you can almost smell it.” Sunday 12 Apr 10am - 5pm - The Sunday Telegraph (London) Monday 13 Apr (Public Holiday) 10am - 5pm 2 Modern Crime Susan Wittig ALBERT M C BEATON Nightshade 304pp Pb $18.95 Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful Peter ABRAHAMS China Bayles Mystery #16. China is of Poison 272pp Pb $17.99 Delusion still reeling from her father’s death and Agatha Raisin #19. 336pp Pb $18.95 has no interest in her half-brother Miles’ Agatha must uncover 20 years ago, Nell Jarreau investigation. When fate forces her to get the truth behind jam identified Alvin ‘Pirate’ DuPree involved, China realises it’s time to bring tampering at the as the murderer who killed her the past to light - or else it will haunt her church fete, keep the boyfriend right in front of her - and she forever. Then she discovers that Miles church funds safe from later went on to marry the detective, may be keeping secrets himself. Now, theft - all while falling now the police chief, who made the one fresh murder and several cold cases for handsome George, arrest. She and Clay raised a daughter will force China Bayles to face her dark who may have secrets and had a happy life – but now, past. Due Apr (American) of his own. Due Apr exonerated by recently uncovered Sandra BALZO (English) evidence, Pirate is free, leaving Nell Bean There, Done That M C BEATON haunted by doubt, guilt and fear... Due 192pp Tp $27.95 Death of a Travelling Man Apr (American) A Maggy Thorsen Coffee (1999) 272pp Pb $17.99 mystery. Here’s a tip: if Hamish Macbeth #9. The doctor’s drugs your ex-husband’s have gone missing. Money vanishes. mistress-cum-missus And neighbours suddenly become KEY asks for your help in unneighbourly and Hamish uncovers a proving that he bizarre story he may never be able to academic cheated on her while forget. Due Apr (English) he was married to you, banking M C BEATON just say no. And, Death of a Gentle Lady whatever you do, canine detectives 224pp Pb $17.99 don’t invite her in... Hamish Macbeth Mystery #24. Hamish is clerical Never one to heed her own advice, willing to get rough to solve the riddle of coffeehouse owner Maggy Thorsen does a seemingly gentle lady’s mysterious cosy/malice domestic just that when Rachel Slattery Thorsen demise. Due Apr (English) comes knocking on her door. When the Elizabeth BECKA culinary/food new Mrs Thorsen disappears that same Unknown Means evening, Maggy is torn between wanting 336pp Pb $23.00 fbi to see her cheating ex fry and protecting Evelyn James #2. Evelyn James is called to their son’s college fund. Due Apr investigate two different murders of feline detectives (American) women in very high security penthouse Leslie Esdaile BANKS suites. When her best friend Marissa is forensic Blind Trust (2005) attacked by the same man, things get 304pp Pb $16.95 personal. She is also distracted by horse racing mystery When Laura Caldwell set out to bring pressure from her detective boyfriend down Philadelphia’s most prominent and about their future together and by a crime Journalists corrupt families, she wasn’t sure she’d scene in the salt mine underneath Lake survive. But now she’s ready to enjoy the Erie. A third murder convinces her that medical fruits of her victory, millions in the bank the killer’s choice of victim is anything and a new romance with detective James military but random. (American) Carter. However, her adversaries have Alex BERENSON started taking their revenge and Laura native american The Silent Man 432pp Tp $32.95 knows her past is coming back with a John Wells #3. CIA special agent John police procedural vengeance. The families want their Wells and his fiancée Jennifer Exley are money and their power returned and targeted by assassins and Exley is political/legal they want to destroy Laura in the process. gravely injured. Discovering that the (American) assailants were Russian, he leaves for psychological Nevada BARR Moscow. What he finds there is a Winter Study 496pp Pb $23.95 terrifying plan set in motion by terrorists private eye Anna Pigeon #16. Soon after Anna who have infiltrated Russia’s nuclear Pigeon joins the famed wolf study team complex. Due Apr (American) romantic suspense of Isle Royale National Park, giant wolf Cara BLACK prints are found and a female member of Murder in Belleville (2000) sport the team is savaged, Anna is convinced 356pp Pb $24.99 they are being stalked and what was Aimée Leduc #2. Aimée barely escapes spy once a beautiful, idyllic refuge becomes a death as she pursues terrorists amongst place of unnatural occurrences and Algerian nationalists and Islamic suspense/thriller danger beyond the ordinary. Due Apr fundamentalists who are part of an (American) underground North African network in Pb = Paperback Paris. Due Apr (American) Tp = Trade Paperback (slightly larger) Hb = Hardback AUTHOR’S NATIONALITY AT END OF BLURB CRIME CHRONICLE www.abbeys.com.au 3 Cara BLACK Simon BRETT Chelsea CAIN Murder in the Marais (1999) The Poisoning in the Pub Sweetheart 320pp Pb $19.99 224pp Pb $24.99 400pp Hb $54.99 Archie and Gretchen #2. Investigative Aimée Leduc #1. Aimée is approached by Fethering #10. journalist Susan Ward is about to print a rabbi to decipher a 50-year-old Fethering residents, the story of her career - proving long- encrypted photograph and deliver it to Jude and Carole, get rumoured allegations about a respected an old woman in the Marais, the old more than they senator’s affair with a young girl, but the Jewish quarter of the city. When she bargained for when a day before her story is published, the does so, she finds herself caught up in a lunchtime meal in senator is killed in a car crash. Detective dangerous game with links to both their local pub leaves Archie Sheridan is trying to rebuild a life modern politics and crimes from WWII. everyone with food with his family. But he remains haunted Due Apr (American) poisoning. Then, by beautiful, ruthless serial killer Cara BLACK when Ray, a young Gretchen Lowell - the woman who Murder in the Sentier man with the mental tortured him, then saved his life. Now (2002) 336pp Pb $24.99 age of a five-year-old, is found in the that she is safely behind bars, Archie is Aimee Leduc #3.