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Oct 7, 2013

Bellman & Black, Diane Setterfield

Never harm a rook. Aged 10, William Bellman uses his catapult to dispatch a young rook. William, along with three other boys, Luke, Fred and cousin Charles deny the bird a decent burial, they will pay dearly for that disrespect.

William grows up to be a good businessman, and a loving husband and father. When tragedy strikes and threatens his most precious possession, William gets a visit from a Mr. Black. Black proposes a partnership and so a very strange (some would say macabre) new venture is born.

Preservationist, Justin Kramon

Stradler College: freshman Julia Stilwell’s second choice after Julliard. Still recovering from a recent tragedy Julia dates intense fellow music student Marcus before choosing Sam, the thirty-something guy who works at the college cafeteria. Sam showers Julia with attention while Marcus sulks in the background but with a brutal attacker terrorizing the college campus does Julia really know who to trust? She’s not just risking her life.

Mortal Bonds, Michael Sears

Jason Stafford and ‘the kid’ are back! Jason, who we first met in Black Fridays still has to visit his parole officer every week. Hired by the squabbling Von Becker family Jason is asked to locate a fortune that the FBI, SEC and many other interested parties have so far failed to find. And no one can ask the head of the household, he hanged himself in prison.

‘The kid’, is now six years old and thriving, his autism will always be a challenge and Jason still has a lot to learn about what sets him off, but the pair are coping. Until Angie, Jason’s duplicitous ex-wife announces a visit to New York. She’s coming for a month and bringing family.

Jason has the SEC and the Feds looking over his shoulder and a softly spoken aristocrat named Castillo telling him tales of dead lawyers and bearer bonds before offering his help. But the interests Castillo represents are deadly and they’ve just made the mistake of threatening Jason’s son.

October List, Jeffery Deaver

What is the October List and why does everyone want to get their hands on it?

Deaver’s tale, told in reverse, starts with murder suspect Gabriella Mackenzie being menaced by the man who kidnapped her six year old daughter and unspools from there. Gabriella’s only ally in all this is the moneyed and enigmatic Daniel Reardon, but is he dead too?

The Abominable, Dan Simmons

No one summited Mt Everest in 1925, or did they? Simmons gives us a secret 1925 recovery/summit expedition through the eyes of Jacob (Jake) Perry, then a young American climber. Jake and mountain guide JC Clairoux and poet and first world war survivor Richard Davis Deacon are to climb Everest in search of a minor noble, Lord Bromley who was attached to the fateful 1924 expedition that claimed Mallory and Irvine and who died in the company of a young Austrian during an avalanche.

Everest declares war on the small team led by Reggie Bromley, herself an accomplished climber, they encounter uncooperative monks, accidents, rumours of yeti roaming the mountain, but with cutting edge technology (for 1925) they are soon into the ‘death zone’ at 28,000 ft and their recovery mission becomes a fight for survival that could one day avert a war and the only way out is to head for the summit.

The Creeps, John Connolly

Connolly writes supernatural horror, most of the time. This latest installment in the adventures of Samuel Johnson, his beloved pup Boswell, and their friends (some of whom are not human but stay with me here) had me laughing out loud and reading some passages to my husband. These books are funny, smart, the footnotes are killer and showcase Connolly’s wicked sense of humour and his scientific knowledge.

Things have calmed down in the little village of Biddlecombe, sort of. Samuel is going out with the wrong girl, and he knows it. The only odd thing is the wandering statue of a long dead architect. But evil’s heart is beating in the depths of Biddlecombe’s abandoned toy shop and on opening night all hell’s going to break loose, again. Samuel and his friends are in a battle to save the multiverse from something even worse than the depths of hell.

A mapcap mash-up of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett with plenty of Monty Pythonesque humour thrown in. Horror has never been so much fun.

New for October (better late than never)

This post is a little late, if I were a juggler I'd have been drummed out of the circus for dropping my balls. If you could see my desk you would think I was trying to build a fort out of arcs! I'm in the middle of bunch of revisions and until one of my regulars came in last week I was convinced I had posted this so, oops! There is a raft of good stuff this month so, enjoy!