This month, three lucky winners will receive sets of:

• The Executioner, by Chris Carter (Simon & Schuster)
• Winterland, by Alan Glynn (Faber)
• Eye of the Red Tsar, by Sam Eastland (Faber)
• Burning Wire, by Jeffrey Deaver (Hodder & Stoughton)

The Executioner, by Chris Carter

Inside a Los Angeles church, on the altar steps, lies the blood-soaked, decapitated body of a priest. Carefully positioned, legs stretched out, arms crossed over the chest, the most horrifying thing of all is that the priest’s head has been replaced by that of a dog. Later, the forensic team discover that, on the victim’s chest, the figure 3 has been scrawled in blood.

At first, Detective Robert Hunter believes that this is a ritualistic killing. But as more bodies surface, he is forced to reassess. All the victims died in the way they feared the most. Their worst nightmares have literally come true. But how could the killer have known? And what links these apparently random victims?

Hunter finds himself on the trail of an elusive and sadistic killer, somone who apparently has the power to read his victims’ minds. Someone who can sense what scares his victims the most. Someone who will stop at nothing to achieve his twisted aim.

Winterland, by Alan Glynn

The worlds of business, politics and crime collide when two men with the same name, from the same family, die on the same night – one death is a gangland murder, the other, apparently, a road accident. Was it a coincidence? That’s the official version of events. But then a family member, Gina Rafferty, starts asking questions.

Devastated by her loss, Gina’s grief is tempered, and increasingly fuelled, by anger. The more she hears that it was all a coincidence – that gangland violence is commonplace; that people die on our roads every day of the week – the less she’s prepared to accept it. Told repeatedly that she should stop asking questions, she becomes more determined than ever to establish a connection between the two deaths – and in doing so she embarks on a path that will push certain powerful people to their limits.

‘Both a crime novel and a portrait of contemporary Ireland caught at a moment of profound change … Timely, topical, and thrilling, this is Ireland as it truly is.’ John Connolly

The Eye of the Red Tsar, by Sam Eastland

It is the time of the Great Terror.

Inspector Pekkala – known as the Emerald Eye – was once the most famous detective in all Russia, the favourite of the Tsar. Now he is the prisoner of the men he once hunted.

Like millions of others, he has been sent to the gulags in Siberia and, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, he is as good as dead. But a reprieve comes when he is summoned by Stalin himself to investigate a crime. His mission – to uncover the men who really killed the Tsar and his family, and to locate the Tsar’s treasure. The reward for success will be his freedom and the chance to re-unite with the woman he would have married if the Revolution had not torn them apart. The price of failure – death.

Set against the backdrop of the paranoid and brutal country that Russia became under the rule of Stalin, Eye of the Red Tsar introduces a compelling new figure to readers of crime fiction.

Burning Wire, by Jeffrey Deaver

New York is being held to ransom. Manhattan’s electricity grid has been the victim of a horrific attack… and more are planned.

While the FBI and Homeland Security try to determine who’s behind the carnage, Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs race to decode the forensics in order to prevent the next assault.

But all is not what it seems. Electricity can be as lethal as it is vital, and Lincoln Rhyme soon finds he’s up against a merciless killer with a unique weapon – one that can be found in everyone’s home and office.

And in the meantime, one of the few criminals to have ever slipped Rhyme’s net is under surveillance in Mexico. The deadly assassin known as the Watchmaker has set his murderous sights on innocent victims, whose identity is as yet unknown…

Lincoln Rhyme must race against the clock, juggling the two investigations, as they hurtle headlong toward their deadly outcomes.

The Questions

To win, answer two simple questions, the answers to which can be found somewhere on Bookdagger…

• Question 1: What is the title of Chris Carter’s first novel?
• Question 2: What is Inspector Pekkela known as in Sam Eastland’s Eye of the Red Tsar?

Terms and conditions

1. Closing date for entries: 5th August 2010.
2. Open to residents of the United Kingdom only.
3. Entry to the competition is by completion of the above form only. Anyone submitting multiple entries will be disqualified.
4. The winners will be selected at random from those correct entries received before the closing date.
5. Only the winning entrants will be contacted by Bookdagger. Our decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
6. The winner’s name(s) may be published on the Bookdagger website after the closing date of the competition.
7. The competition is not open to Bookhugger employees and their families, or to employees of Bookdagger publishers and their families.

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1. Geri Says:
   August 4th, 2010 at 8:15 pm

   Nothing better than a well written Crime Fiction to read, has got to be one of my favourites

2. Trish Lewis Says:
   August 5th, 2010 at 5:41 pm

   This is the first time I’ve come across your website via the loquax competition portal – great website – great books

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