OVER 40 NEW STORIES FROM BRITAIN’S LEADING CRIME WRITERS

Leading editor and reviewer Maxim Jakubowski has compiled another beguiling collection of the year’s best new short crime fiction from the UK. Ian Rankin’s perennially popular Edinburgh cop, Inspector Rebus, makes an unexpected comeback in a short, but intriguing story, ‘The Very Last Drop’, and the collection closes with another Rankin story, ‘Driven’.

Making their first appearance in the series are many luminaries such as Kate Atkinson, Louise Welsh, Stephen Booth, Christopher Brookmyre, Colin Bateman, A. L. Kennedy, Sheila Quigley, Lin Anderson, Simon Kernick and David Hewson. Also represented are exciting up-and-coming talents such as Nick Quantrill, Jay Stringer, Paul D. Brazill and Nigel Bird.

Andrew Taylor has written over 25 crime novels, and won many awards for his books. His best selling historical crime novel THE AMERICAN BOY was selected by Richard and Judy's book club. This new story is set in Bleeding Heart Square in the 1930s. In case you were wondering, there is no 'Bleeding Heart Square' in London, but there is a 'Bleeding Heart Yard'. It is apparently named after Elizabeth Hatton, a 17th century society beauty who was murdered one night in 1626 after a ball, and her body found in the Yard torn limb from limb and with her heart still bleeding on the cobblestones, a story that is used in this book to describe the origins of Bleeding Heart Square.

At the start of the book, Lydia has a violent argument with her husband, Marcus. She decides to leave him and her life of privilege to take refuge with her father in his rooms at 7 Bleeding Heart Square, to live in much reduced circumstances. She does not know her father well, as her mother divorced him when she was young. But she is determined to stay with him, and not to give in to her mother (re-married and now Lady Cassington) and return to live with Marcus, to keep up appearances. The current owner of the house is a shady character called Serridge. Narton, a policeman, suspects Serridge of murdering the previous owner, Phillipa Penhow, about four years ago. Ms Penhow, a rich spinster, had become smitten with Serridge. He persuaded her to buy a remote farmhouse in Essex, and to move there to live with him, until she disappeared shortly afterwards. When questioned, Serridge claimed that she met an old boyfriend and moved away to America with him, but no-one has heard from her since. Narton recruits Rory, a young man he sees hanging about the square, to help him find evidence that Serridge is to blame. Rory wants to find out what happened to Ms Penhow, because she is the aunt of his girlfriend Fenella. It also turns out that Lydia's father is somehow connected to Serridge, not only through their time together in the army during the First World War, but also because he used to own the farm in Essex that Serridge persuaded Ms Penhow to buy.

The main mystery to be solved in the book is whether Serridge murdered Ms Penhow for her money, or whether she really did move to America. However, in true Dickensian fashion, there is a whole host of characters, and many subplots that contribute to the main story. Ms Penhow's infatuation with Serridge, and the consequences of that, are gradually revealed through excerpts from her diary, read by an unknown person, who has somehow acquired the diary. These convey her initial optimism and subsequent slide into despair, and raise the hope that perhaps she did just run away after all. Meanwhile, with the help of Narton, Rory starts to find out what really happened to Ms Penhow, while gradually realising that Fenella no longer wants to marry him, and struggling to find himself a job as a journalist. A third subplot describes how Lydia starts to make a new life for herself, her growing friendship with Rory after he also moves into 7 Bleeding Heart Square, and her own part in discovering what happened to Ms Penhow.

The book evokes the period partly through its descriptions of the British Fascist movement, and Marcus's involvement in it, and through the stark differences between the lives of the wealthy and those of the poor. It is a hugely enjoyable book, in which the many different threads, and rich detail, are skilfully woven together. It was an exciting read, and I had to restrain myself from turning to the ending to find out what happened before finishing the book. But, I'm afraid when I finally did get there, I was a bit underwhelmed by the final unveiling of the fate of Ms Penhow, and I don't think this was just because I hadn't been paying enough attention to the clues dotted through the story. Despite this, and because the story of Ms Penhow is in some ways almost incidental, mostly serving as a means to throw the various characters together, one can just about forgive the ending, and simply enjoy the rest of the book. One to recommend, but I don't think it's going to make my top five of the year.

Winner of the CWA Historical Dagger for Fiction

The Richard and Judy Best Read of the Year (nominee)

***

'An enticing work of fiction… Taylor takes account of both a Georgian formality and a pre-Victorian laxity in social and sexual matters; he is adept at historical recreation, and allows a heady decor to work in his favour by having his mysteries come wrapped around by a creepy London fog or embedded picturesquely in a Gloucestershire snowdrift' -Patricia Craig, TLS

'Without question, the best book of 2003, and possibly the best book of the decade, is Andrew Taylor's historical masterpiece, The American Boy. A truly captivating novel, rich with the sounds, smells, and cadences of nineteenth-century England' -Manda Scott, Glasgow Herald

'Long, sumptuous, near-edible account of Regency rogues – wicked bankers, City swindlers, crooked pedagogues and ladies on the make – all joined in the pursuit of the rich, full, sometimes shady life. A plot stuffed with incident and character, with period details impeccably rendered' -Literary Review

'Taylor spins a magnificent tangential web… The book is full of sharply etched details evoking Dickensian London and is also a love story, shot through with the pain of a penniless and despised lover. This novel has the literary values which should take it to the top of the lists' -Scotland on Sunday

'It is as if Taylor has used the great master of the bizarre as both starting-and finishing-point, but in between created a period piece with its own unique voice. The result should satisfy those drawn to the fictions of the nineteenth century, or Poe, or indeed to crime writing at its most creative'-Spectator

'Andrew Taylor has flawlessly created the atmosphere of late-Regency London in The American Boy, with a cast of sharply observed characters in this dark tale of murder and embezzlement' -Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph

'Madness, murder, misapplied money and macabre marriages are interspersed with coffins, corpses and cancelled codicils… an enjoyable and well-constructed puzzle' -Tom Deveson, Sunday Times

***

Interweaving real and fictional elements, The American Boy is a major new literary historical crime novel in the tradition of An Instance of the Fingerpost and Possession. Edgar Allan Poe is the American boy, a child standing on the edge of mysteries. In 1819 two Americans arrive in London, and soon afterwards a bank collapses. A man is found dead and horribly mutilated on a building site. A heiress flirts with her inferiors. A poor schoolmaster struggles to understand what is happening before it destroys him and those he loves. But the truth, like the youthful Poe himself, has its origins in the new world as well as the old. The American Boy is a 21st-century novel with a 19th-century voice. It is both a multi-layered literary murder mystery and a love story, its setting ranging from the coal-scented urban jungle of late Regency London to the stark winter landscapes of rural Gloucestershire. And at its centre is the boy who does not really belong anywhere, an actor who never learns the significance of his part.

1786, Jerusalem College Cambridge. The ghost of Sylvia Whichcote is rumoured to be haunting Jerusalem since disturbed fellow-commoner, Frank Oldershaw, claims to have seen the dead woman prowling the grounds. Desperate to salvage her son's reputation, Lady Anne Oldershaw employs John Holdsworth to investigate.

Do you ever search in vain for exactly the right word? Perhaps you want to articulate the vague desire to be far away. Or you can’t quite convey that odd urge to go outside and check to see if anyone is coming. Maybe you’re struggling to express there being just the right amount of something – not too much, but not too little. While the English may not have a word for it, the good news is that the Greeks, the Norwegians, the Dutch or possibly the Inuits probably do.

Whether it’s the German spielzeug (that instinctive feeling of ‘rightness’) or the Indonesian jayus (a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that you can’t help but laugh), this delightful smörgåsbord of wonderful words from around the world will come to the rescue when the English language fails. Part glossary, part amusing musings, but wholly enlightening and entertaining, The Greeks Had a Word For It means you’ll never again be lost for just the right word.

Thirty-five short stories from the top names in British crime fiction, by the likes of Lee Child, Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith, Jake Arnott, Val McDermid, and more.