Deep Zone, James Tabor

Soldiers are getting sick in Afghanistan, normally treatable bullet wounds are somehow becoming infected by a virulent mutation of the ACE virus. It has a 90% kill rate and it’s spreading. Desperate to keep a lid on the virus and the story the White House puts together a team of scientists to pursue the only known cure, but there’s a catch. First off the cure only grows at the bottom of the Cueva de Luz-a supercave, deep in the Mexican jungle. Secondly the ‘sickness’ was man-made to make some people a lot of money and those people don’t want their potential profits to go to waste. Deep Zone is part medical mystery, part Washington power struggle and part race against time in a cave where it’s not only the sudden drops that could kill you.

Dublin Dead, Gerard O’Donovan

DI Mike Mulcahy now heads up a small team of drug squad officers but they need a big score or the axe of budget cuts will fall on his fledgling department. Their current investigation-the seizure of a massive drugs haul off the Cork coast-has stalled and that’s when his old flame Siobhan O’Fallon-star reporter and author of a book about her ordeal at the hands of ’the priest’ the previous year-crashes feet-first back into his life. She’s fleshing out one hell of a story involving a missing girl, money laundering, rumours of a Columbian hit man on the loose in Europe and a trail of broken bodies all somehow tied to the death of an Irish property developer. But Siobhan’s mental scars aren’t fully healed and this story could blow up in her face-with both barrels.

The Professionals, Owen Laukkanen

It started out as a joke, just like the degrees they’d struggled to earn. Snatch rich targets all over the country and make the spouse pay a sixty grand ‘finders fee’ for a safe return. Two years in and they’re a well-oiled machine until they kidnap the wrong man…

Now the law wants them behind bars and the mob wants them dead. Will anyone survive?

The Book of Lost Fragrances, M.J. Rose

An ancient perfume commissioned by Queen Cleopatra; with the power to recover past lives and link souls together. Its just a myth? Isn’t it? 

Days before the his holiness the Dalai Lama is due to visit Paris, TV host Jac L’Etoile’s brother Robbie goes missing; gone too is the artifact he discovered whilst cleaning up the wreckage of his father’s perfumers workshop, shards of pottery, covered in ancient markings and infused with a scent Robbie’s nose isn’t sensitive enough to detect.  Also heading for Paris is a group of hand-picked Chinese art students outwardly loyal to their government but carrying multiple hidden agendas.

Jac flies home from New York to search for her brother and her childhood illness returns with a vengeance; she’s having flashbacks of Ancient Egypt and older France. Hot on her heels is Dr. Malachai Samuels in search of another memory tool, one the Chinese government is desperate to acquire at any cost.  Jac will soon learn she is one half of a love story that transcends time; and leaves tragedy in its wake.

Leap Day Post

Haven't blogged for a while because 'Rollover' has kind of taken on a life of it's own. People are talking about it like it's already been published. I  had an e-mail from one of my ace tighteners in which she told me that she was going to read 10 pages before bed just to get a feel for it - and ended up reading the whole thing (first thirty pages).

If you haven't read Neil Gaiman's American Gods I would highly recommend it. We are doing this for bookclub and I got the chance to listen to an interview he did just after the book was published. He talked about ideas and characters coming to life in your head and I can relate, after all if the characters aren't alive to you how can you convince readers that they are worth investing in?

Anyway here are a bunch of new titles coming in March.

Trifecta!

Bumper crop of arcs crammed into my box yesterday, James Tabor the guy who wrote Blind Descent (NF) has written a thriller Deep Zone-looks good. I don't know anything about Frank Peretti but the arc of Illusion sounds right up my alley from the blurb and who doesn't love a prequel to the awesome Luther series. Neil Cross I think I love you.

Trail of the Spellmans, Lisa Lutz

After a ‘disappearance’ of two years that inquisitive family business Spellman Investigations is back and if Izzy doesn’t back away from a certain ‘chinese wall’ she could find herself out of a job. But first she’s got to find out why her mum Olivia is having someone else summarize her bookclub books and falling asleep in class while trying to learn Russian. Why Albert Spellman is muttering about ETAs. Her sister Rae has been kicked out of brother David’s house and is currently residing in a tree on the Berkeley campus. Coincidentally David’s daughter Sydney is say ‘banana’-a lot. 

Izzy has her own problems apart from a plethora of cases that seem to be falling on her shoulders, boyfriend Henry Stone wants everything she doesn't-marriage followed by children. And Izzy’s got a new drinking pal-Henry’s mother Gertrude. This is all building up to a Spellman family thanksgiving that starts at Category 1 and ends up as a full-blown Category 4. The Spellmans are back and better than ever.