Upcoming Books & Bits

Normally anything with "footy" in it would have me diving for cover, but I may manage to drag myself in front of the TV this Sunday for the screening of Valentine's Day - firstly because Rhys Muldoon's in it and secondly because the script is written by Peter Temple and, well, I love Peter Temple's sparse, funny, pointed writing style.  For more check out:

Valentine's Day on ABC 1

Technorati Tags: Peter Temple Upcoming Books and Bits What We're Talking About Australia

PRESS RELEASE

AUSTRALIA’S INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS

LAUNCH NEW ANNUAL BOOK PRIZE

THE ‘INDIE’ AWARD

Australia’s independent booksellers will show their support for Australian authors with the launch of their major new prize, The Indie Award.

The $18,000 prize will honour an Australian author for the best book of the past twelve months, with the winner to be announced on Monday 6^th October 2008. The award is being managed by Leading Edge Books, a group of independent bookstores with member stores across Australia, both metropolitan and regional, including many of Australia’s iconic independent bookshops. The award will demonstrate independent booksellers’ commitment to Australian books and writers, with over 120 bookshops working together to sponsor this annual award.

Leading Edge Books General Manager Chris Burgess says the launch of The Indie Award is an exciting initiative for independent booksellers.

“Independent bookshops make up over 20% of all books sold in Australia and maintain a strong and vibrant position in the market. This compares very favourably with about 10% in the UK and only 5% in the US. Independent bookstores hold a special place in the hearts of their customers as havens of enjoyment, stimulation and relaxation in an ever-busier world. We feel the launch of The Indie Award sees them take their rightful place in the spotlight as key supporters of Australian authors. Their incredible passion and knowledge of books makes them uniquely placed to judge and recommend the best Australian books of the past year to their customers and the general reading public.”

Over 100 titles have been submitted to The Indie Award panel in the categories of Fiction, Debut Fiction, Non Fiction and Children’s Books. Independent booksellers around the country are now madly reading, with the winner from each of the four categories to be announced on 25^th August. The winner of The Indie Award for the book of the year will be chosen by the booksellers from the four shortlist category winners and announced on Monday 6^th October.

The initiative has received wide support from across the entire industry as these messages indicate:

“Everywhere else in the English-speaking world, bookselling has become the province of chains, of massive centralisation, of venality and a steady loss of competence on the shop floor. Thank God we still have booksellers passionately committed to our shared reading culture. This is something we must not give up. For nearly thirty years I've made a living from writing fiction in this country with the steady support of independent bookshops. This year I've been lucky enough to have a novel reach the top of the bestseller lists. A literary novel at number one. Hand-sold all the way there by people who take books personally.”

Tim Winton, Author

“The independent bookselling sector is stronger, more vibrant and more important in Australia than anywhere in the English-speaking world. This is good for authors, good for publishers and above all good for readers. As independent publishers we applaud our bookseller colleagues for their initiative in creating and sponsoring this award.”

Patrick Gallagher, Executive Chairman and Publishing Director, Allen & Unwin

For media enquiries and further information contact: Chris Burgess

On telephone: 02 9497 4022  Fax: 02 8208 3274  E: burgessc@leadingedgegroup.com.au

Technorati Tags: Crime Fiction Upcoming Books and Bits What They're Talking About What We're Talking About Australia

TETHERED - Amy MacKinnon

Daisies for innocence; Irises for hope; Asphodel for eternal sorrow Clara Marsh is an undertaker. She spends her solitary life among the dead, preparing their last baths, beautifying their bodies, and bidding them farewell with a bouquet from her own garden. But Clara's carefully structured life shifts when she discovers a neglected little girl, Trecie, playing in the funeral parlour, desperate for a friend. It changes even more when Detective Mike Sullivan starts questioning her again about a body she prepared three years ago, an unidentified girl found murdered in a nearby strip of woods. Unclaimed by family, the community christened her Precious Doe. When Clara and Mike learn Trecie may be involved with the same people who killed Precious Doe, Clara must choose between her solitary but steadfast existence and the perils of binding one's life to another. Clara's search for the girl pulls her into a spiralling series of events that threaten to endanger the few people Clara has grown to love - and finally brings her own tragic and long-buried past to the surface.Darkly atmospheric and tautly written, TETHERED is a haunting and ultimately heart-breaking novel that explores the themes of love, loss, faith and redemption.

THE TURNAROUND - George Pelecanos

On a hot summer afternoon in 1972, three teenagers drove into an unfamiliar neighborhood and six lives were altered forever.  Thirty five years later, one survivor of that day reaches out to another, opening a door that could lead to salvation. But another survivor is now out of prison, looking for reparation in any form he can find it.  THE TURNAROUND takes us on a journey from the rock-and-soul streets of the '70s to the changing neighborhoods of D.C. today, from the diners and auto garages of the city to the inside of Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital, where wounded men and women have returned to the world in a time of war. A novel of fathers and sons, wives and husbands, loss, victory and violent redemption.

DOORS OPEN - Ian Rankin

For the right man, all doors are open...Mike Mackenzie is a self-made man with too much time on his hands and a bit of the devil in his soul. He is looking for something to liven up the days and perhaps give new meaning to his existence. A chance encounter at an art auction offers him the opportunity to do just that as he settles on a plot to commit a 'perfect crime'. He intends to rip-off one of the most high-profile targets in the capital - the National Gallery of Scotland. So, together with two close friends from the art world, he devises a plan to a lift some of the most valuable artwork around. But of course, the real trick is to rob the place for all its worth whilst persuading the world that no crime was ever committed. But soon after he enters the dark waters of the criminal underworld he realises that it's very easy to drown...

Technorati Tags: Crime Fiction Upcoming Books and Bits

BLOOD OIL - James Phelan (international thriller, Aus author)

Ex-Navy operative Lachlan Fox returns.Now working as an investigative journalist, Lachlan Fox has been visiting some of the world's trouble spots.  But a trip to Africa brings him face to face with a horror that could change him forever. Set in Nigeria, the US and the UK, BLOOD OIL is about terrorism, oil supply and poverty.  The central ideas (as with all James Phelan's thrillers) come from world news and current affairs.From New York to Nigeria, Fox and his best mate Alistair Gammaldi race to unravel a sinister plot before each step is put into action.Lachlan Fox is going to prove, again, that there is a hero in all of us.

LEFT TO DIE - Lisa Jackson

One by one, the victims are carefully captured, toyed with, then subjected to a slow and agonizing death. Piece by piece, his exquisite plan takes shape. the police can't yet see the beauty of his work, but soon, very soon, they will. In the lonely woods around Grizzly Falls, Montana, four bodies have been discovered.  Detectives Selena Alvarez and Regan Pescoli have been hoping for a career-making case, but this is a nightmare. Even with the FBI involved, Selena and Regan have nothing to go on but a killer's cryptic notes, and the unsettling knowledge that there is much worse to come. When Gillian Rivers opens her eyes, she's trapped in a mangled car.  Then a stranger, claiming to be a trail guide named Zane MacGregor pries her free. Though she's grateful, something about him sets Jillian on edge. And if she knew what lay out there in the woods of Montana, she'd be truly terrified. Because someone is waiting...watching... poised to strike and make Jillian the next victim...

Technorati Tags: Crime Fiction Upcoming Books and Bits Hachette Livre

PROMISE NOT TO TELL - Jennifer McMahon

From Publishers Weekly

Part mystery-thriller and part ghost story, McMahon's well-paced debut alternates smoothly between past and present. In the fall of 2002, 41-year-old Kate Cypher, a divorced Seattle school nurse, returns to New Hope, the decaying Vermont hippie commune where she grew up, to visit her elderly mother, Jean, who's suffering from Alzheimer's. Kate has avoided New Hope since the grizzly, unsolved murder of her fifth-grade friend, Del Griswold, 31 years earlier. Kate fears she betrayed Del, a free-spirited farm girl. Did her betrayal cause Del's death? Who killed Del? Another local girl is murdered in a similar manner at the time of Kate's return. Could the killer be loose again? Meanwhile, Jean appears to be possessed with Del's spirit and may have the answers to these questions. As Kate investigates, she learns stunning truths about many events and people from her youth.

McMahon does a particularly good job of portraying the cruelty of school children.

THE ASSASSIN - Stephen Coonts (action thriller)

While on the trail of Al Qaeda lieutenant Abu Qasim, ex-burglar turned CIA operative Tommy Carmellini photographs an American mobster boarding a yacht in the harbor of the island of Capri. Tommy's boss, Jake Grafton, sends him to find the link, if there is one, between the mobster, Fioratti, and Al Qaeda. Meanwhile Fioratti is busy planning a terror-for-hire strike that will make him rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Soon Tommy and Jake are embroiled in a stew of American mobsters, killers and thieves, and the clock is ticking...

AN ICE COLD GRAVE - Charlaine Harris

Harper Connelly was struck by lightning as a teenager, and now she can find the dead. In her third case, Harper and Tolliver, her stepbrother, are hired to find a missing grandson. But the truth is far worse than a single dead child, for numerous teenage boys, all unlikely runaways, have disappeared from Doraville, North Carolina. Harper soon finds the eight bodies, buried in the half-frozen ground, but then, still reeling from coming into contact with her first serial killer, she is attacked and injured. Now she and Tolliver have no choice but to stay in Doraville while she recovers, and as she reluctantly becomes part of the investigation, she learns more than she cares to about the dark mysteries and long-hidden secrets of the town: knowledge that makes her the most likely person to be next to end up in an ice-cold grave.

Upcoming in October:
Ian Rankin's first stand-alone thriller in over a decade - DOORS OPEN

TETHERED - Amy MacKinnon, a "hauntingly atmospheric crime novel set within the dark confines of a funeral home".

DEXTER BY DESIGN - Jeff Lindsay
 

Technorati Tags: Crime Fiction Upcoming Books and Bits Hachette Livre