Peter James Novella THE PERFECT MURDER chosen for World Book Night 2014!

Peter James’ novella THE PERFECT MURDER has been chosen as one of the 20 titles for World Book Night 2014.

World Book Night is a celebration of reading and books, which sees passionate volunteers apply to give away books to non-readers to share their love of reading. There are hundreds of events from small community gatherings to author readings and audiences of thousands. World Book Night is celebrated on April 23 in the UK, Ireland and the USA. Find out more here and apply to be a book-giver.

THE PERFECT MURDER was published as part of the Quick Reads 2010 programme to promote adult literacy. Victor and Joan, married for 20 years, barely communicate. He is so fed up with his job and distracted by his visits to his favourite prostitute, that he hardly notices his wife’s constant ridicule. Joan has resigned herself to the fact that he never looks at her. She even puts up with his constant snoring. But unknown to Victor, Joan is taking her sweet revenge: spending large amounts of money on sexy new underwear on his credit card to impress her secret lover. Bills mount, Victor loses his job.  The only way he can achieve his dream is to get Joan out of the picture. But he’s not the only one with murder on his mind.

THE PERFECT MURDER has been adapted into a play by award winning writer Shaun McKenna and will open at the Orchard Theatre, Dartford on Wednesday 8th January 2014, before touring to venues such as the Theatre Royal in both Bath and Brighton. The Perfect Murder will star Les Dennis, one of Britain’s most-loved actors and entertainers who is currently starring as King Arthur in the West End in Spamalot. See more here.

Peter James is the author of the Roy Grace crime novels: the 9th in the series, DEAD MAN’S TIME, is still high in the paperback bestseller lists, and the 10th, WANT YOU DEAD, will be subject to a massive promotion campaign when Macmillan publish it in last Spring 2014.  Peter’s novels are published in 36 languages.

Praise for Peter James

'Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business.' -- Karin Slaughter

'Exceptional, knock-your-socks-off.' -- Washington Post

Deon Meyer’s KOBRA Launched in South Africa

The Afrikaans edition of Deon Meyer’s KOBRA is now out in South Africa. Deon Meyer will be promoting the book around the country; see his website for more details.

Benny Griessel is back in a brand new thriller. And this time he, with the help of his Hawks colleagues Mbali Kaleni and Vaughn Cupido, has to take on the top police brass, Britain's MI6, South Africa's own State Security Agency - and the temptations of the bottle. In the beautiful Franschhoek wine valley, at an exclusive guest house, three bodies are found, each with a very professional bullet through the head. A fourth guest is missing. And he just might be a very, very important man in the fight against terrorism. And organised crime …

Deon Meyer lives in Cape Town. His books are sold in 23 countries, and have been awarded many prizes around the world: the Deutsche Krimi Prize in Germany, the ATKV Prize in South Africa, and Le Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and Le Prix Mystère de la Critique in France. His novel THIRTEEN HOURS was shortlisted for the 2010 CWA International Dagger, and HEART OF THE HUNTER, was longlisted for the 2005 IMPAC Prize and selected as one of Chicago Tribune's '10 best mysteries and thrillers of 2004'.

Praise for Deon Meyer:

Meyer is a writer to take seriously - the best crime writer out of South Africa." -- Crime Time

'With Deon Meyer you can't go wrong. He's a writer whose work I admire, wait for and then devour.' -- Michael Connelly

Mulholland Books Reissue Entire Ted Allbeury Backlist

Hodder & Stoughton are happy to announce the publication of the complete backlist of bestselling thriller writer Ted Allbeury on the Mulholland UK imprint. BCN inc Can rights were acquired in 42 titles from Carole Blake of Blake Friedmann. 

Ted Allbeury was a lieutenant-colonel in the Intelligence Corps during World War II, and later a successful executive in the fields of marketing, advertising and radio. He began his writing career in the early 1970s and became well known for his espionage novels, but also published one highly praised general novel, THE CHOICE, and a short story collection, OTHER KINDS OF TREASON. His novels have been published in twenty-three languages. He died on 4th December 2005.

Editor Dominic Gribben said: ‘I’m thrilled that we’ll be making Ted’s work available again, both to his existing fans and to a new generation of thriller readers who have yet to discover him. He truly was a master of his craft.’

Contemporary and friend Len Deighton said: ‘When I say Ted Allbeury knows where the bodies are buried I mean it literally. Armed only with German conversational skills learned at the Berlitz School, he was the only Englishman dropped by parachute into Germany during the war. That he survived is a measure of his brains, skills and tough determination.

‘After the war he made many illegal border crossing until things went wrong and Ted was left in a German farmhouse with his hands nailed to a kitchen table. His own people found him before he bled to death; the other side know how to do these things. It was a warning and it worked: Ted retired and became a very fine writer. He had done enough.

‘A normally tacit man he said I had squeezed these memories out of him. Well, that's what research is all about - but this seems the right time to break my silence.”

EBook editions of A Choice of Enemies, Snowball, The Judas Factor, Palomino Blonde and The Special Collection will be published on November 14th. All forty-two will be available by mid-2014.

For more information visit www.hodder.co.uk/Authors/Ted+Allbeury and sign up to the Hodder & Stoughton crime and thriller community newsletter at www.crime-lines.co.uk.
 

For further information please contact:

Veronique Norton, Hodder & Stoughton Press Office

020 7873 6174 Veronique.Norton@hodder.co.uk

More Prize Attention for THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE

Manu Joseph’s second novel THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE has been shortlisted for the Hindu Prize, which he previously won in 2010 with his first novel SERIOUS PEOPLE. His new novel has also been longlisted for the 2014 IMPAC Dublin Literary award. 

The 2013 Hindu Prize shortlist consists of five books, featuring writers Sonora Jha, Amandeep Sandhu, Anees Salim and Manjul Bajaj, as well as Manu Joseph. The winner will be announced on 13 January, 2014, during The Hindu Lit for Life Festival in Chennai. 

The IMPAC Dublin longlist features writers Colm Tóibín, Hilary Mantel and Richard Ford. The shortlist will be announced on 9 April 2014, with the winner announced on 12 June 2014. There is a prize of €100,000 for the winning writer.

THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS is also longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian literature. The shortlist will be announced at the London Schook of Economics on the 20th of November. Thereafter the final winner would be announced at the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival in Jan 2014.

Set in Madras in the 1990s, where every adolescent male is preparing for the toughest exam in the world, THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE is a powerful and darkly comic story involving an alcoholic's probe into the minds of the sober, an adolescent cartoonist's dangerous interpretation of absolute truth, an inner circle of talented schizophrenics and the pure love of a 12-year-old boy for a beautiful girl.

THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE is published by John Murray in the UK, Norton in the US and HarperCollins in Canada and India. Earlier this year it was a Top Ten bestseller in Holland, where Podium publish, and it has just been released as a lead title for C.H. Beck in Germany. 

Manu Joseph’s first novel, SERIOUS PEOPLE, won the Hindu Best Fiction award, and was shortlisted for various prizes including Man Asian Literary Prize and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. Later this month he will be in Belgium, with events including a public interview in Leuven on 26 November and a Reading Club in Passa Porta on 28 November.

Praise for Manu Joseph:

'Manu Joseph really is a fine storyteller. His narrative is rich with detail.' - Antara Dev Sen, The Asian Age

'Manu Joseph is brilliant' - Tom Sutcliffe, BBC Radio 4

'A searing new voice.' --  Megan O'Grady, Vogue

Praise for THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE:

'A cocktail of character, culture and religion … exquisitely phrased without an excess of sentimentality.' -- The Daily Telegraph

'Tense and intriguing … [with] striking observations… THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE is an engaging read that leaves readers with plenty to think about afterwards.' -- David Hebblethwaite, We Love This Book

'Both wittily funny and darkly serious.' -- Harry Ritchie, Daily Mail

 

Tony Park on his trans-continental tour to promote THE PREY

Tony Park has been promoting his new novel THE PREY in both Australia and South Africa, in a tour lasting from 30 October til 20 December. Currently in Australia, he is visiting a variety of cities, including Sydney, Perth and Adelaide. For more information, see Tony’s blog.

THE PREY is the tenth action-packed novel from the ‘master of the African thriller’, a #1 Bestseller in Australia, where he is published by Macmillan Australia. Quercus publish all Tony Park’s titles in the UK. See more about THE PREY here. 

Australian writer Tony Park fell in love with South Africa on a short trip in 1995 and he and his wife now divide their time between their home in Sydney and a home near the Kruger Park.

Praise for TONY PARK:

'An author who is starting to challenge the veteran Wilbur Smith for the title of 'master of the African thriller'' -- Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail

'Tony Park is one of Australia's best thriller writers and his African-based novels are consistently entertaining and thought-provoking.' -- Canberra Times

'Park's heroes are tough, blokey types - soldiers and coppers - and his heroines sassy and smart, but Africa always steals the show…a great way to spend a winter evening, transported to somewhere warm and exotic.' -- Georgia Gowing, The Independent Weekly

'He just gets better and better. His descriptions of the southern African bush and mountain jungles are so vivid you can just about feel the sun on your skin and smell the dust and animals.' -- Frank Walker, Sun Herald

'If you like action adventures, with a spy theme, some education - either travel or technological - and a little romance, then this guy's for real…Rip-snorting romps that keep you guessing at all levels. What puts this into the top echelon of the genre is that the people, even the heroes, are fallible human beings.' -- June Joyce, Waikato Times