Margie Orford’s thrilling South African crime series has a new UK home with Head of Zeus, who are kicking off on 27 February with the publication of WATER MUSIC in ebook and trade paperback. The first four Clare Hart titles are also available at the same time on ebook – LIKE CLOCKWORK, BLOOD ROSE, DADDY’S GIRL and GALLOW’S HILL.
The Clare Hart series has been published in France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Russia and the Czech Republic, and rights have also been sold in Denmark, Norway and Iceland. Harper Witness will publish in the US later this year.
In WATER MUSIC, a baby is found half-frozen but alive on a Cape Town hillside and a talented young cellist disappears from her music school. Clare Hart, with personal problems of her own, has a great deal to unravel, against the clock.
Margie Orford was interviewed on Open Book on BBC Radio 4 last week to talk about WATER MUSIC and South African crime writing. If you have access to BBC iPlayer you can listen to her here. She will be in the UK later this year to promote her new book.
Margie Orford, has been described as 'the Queen of South African Crime Fiction'. She was born in London and grew up in Namibia, the setting for BLOOD ROSE, the second novel in the series, which is also optioned for film. A Fulbright Scholar, she was educated in South Africa and the United States. She is Executive Vice-President of South African PEN, the patron of Rape Crisis and of the children's book charity, the Little Hands Trust. She lives in Cape Town.
Praise for Margie Orford and WATER MUSIC:
‘Margie Orford writes with great human insight, at times with poetic beauty, and always the ever-present deep, dark undertow of menace.’ – Peter James
'Orford plots so brilliantly that to stop reading is as harrowing as to carry on.' – Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph
‘Clare Hart is back, and she returns in style… the tension racks up, and up, and up… WATER MUSIC should see Orford win many, many more fans, and she’s not exactly short of them already. Read it.’ – The Big Issue
‘I loved the twists and turns of this book and the truly unknowable nature of the next chapter’ – Lizzi Thomasson, The Bookseller
‘Margie Orford gives genre writing swagger, she makes it look good…every detail in WATER MUSIC convinces. Every sentence is clipped, pared down, muscular, every emotion captured with poise and precision. WATER MUSIC is Orford’s best work yet.’ – Jonathan Amid, Slipnet
