Voices of the Dead

Faber and Faber 2012, Paperback, 336 pages, £12.99

Detroit, 1971.

Harry Levin, scrap metal dealer and holocaust survivor, learns that his daughter has been killed in a car accident. Travelling to Washington DC, he’s told by Detective Taggart that the German diplomat, who was drunk, has been released and afforded immunity; he will never face charges. So Harry is left with only one option – to discover the identity of this man, follow him back to Munich and hunt him down.

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Elmore Leonard writes …

An important difference between Peter’s books and mine, he writes his prose on a computer while I put down the words with a ballpoint pen. That’s all right. David Mamet said, “I think there are people who are sufficiently driven that even a computer is not going to stop them from writing well.”

And Pete is sufficiently driven.

After twenty-five years running a successful advertising agency – all while reading hundreds of popular novels and making judgments about their worth – Peter has attacked the world of fiction with a vengeance, writing five novels in the past five years and his publisher is after him to write another, a sequel to Voices of the Dead.

The key to writing successful books is developing the right voice to tell the stories, one that’s natural to the writer and flows without strain or too many words and uses the voices of the people in the book, their attitudes, showing rather than telling who they are. Peter read a lot of Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck – not so much the popular names on the Times’ list – none of the authors who have a co-writer on the cover along with theirs, though much smaller. It causes you to wonder who actually wrote the book. Peter has read my ‘Ten Rules of Writing’ and it shows; he always leaves out the parts readers tend to skip.

I remember him giving me the manuscript of his first novel Quiver with some hesitation, expecting me to begin marking up the pages to underscore awkward sentences, tired expressions. But right from the start I liked Quiver and Peter’s dead-on style; no long-winded parts of it over-written, no show-off descriptions that say, “Hey, look at my writing.” I think my only suggestion was to move a key scene to a place where it would get more attention. Reading his work since I haven’t done much more than circle typos.

Four books later Voices of the Dead shows a remarkable leap in story content, a terrific plot told with Peter’s ability to write quiet scenes packed with suspense.

The story takes place in 1971. Ernst Hess, a diplomat visiting the German Embassy in Washington, is still a dedicated Nazi 25 years after the war, loving the time he was an SS officer in charge of a killing squad; and he’s still at it, looking for Jews he might have missed.

In the other corner is Harry Levin, who escaped from a Nazi death camp when he was a boy. Now Harry’s a scrap-metal dealer in Detroit who goes one on one with the cunning Nazi.

Read the first chapter and you won’t sell this scrap dealer short.

• Read the extract and enter the January competition to win a copy of Voices of the Dead

Carnage

Gallic Books 2012, Paperback, 102 pages, £6.99

When a massacre takes place in a Harlem school, Lamar, A New York detective for twelve years, is called to the scene. A student, aged seventeen, has shot everyone in his path before shooting himself. Having collected all the evidence, Lamar reconstructs the blood-soaked morning of the killer. Ten days later, a second massacre occurs at a school in Queens. Once more, a student kills multiple victims before turning the gun on himself. A new massacre occurs elsewhere…

• Read the extract

Voices of the Dead

Faber and Faber 2012, Paperback, 336 pages, £12.99

Detroit, 1971.

Harry Levin, scrap metal dealer and holocaust survivor, learns that his daughter has been killed in a car accident. Travelling to Washington DC, he’s told by Detective Taggart that the German diplomat, who was drunk, has been released and afforded immunity; he will never face charges. So Harry is left with only one option – to discover the identity of this man, follow him back to Munich and hunt him down.

• Read the extract

Buried Secrets (Nick Heller 2)

Headline 2012, Paperback, 480 pages, £6.99

Nick Heller returns in an explosive new thriller.

When PI Nick Heller moves back to Boston to set up his own agency, he soon gets an urgent case even closer to home than expected. Alexandra Marcus – teenage daughter of hedge fund titan Marshall Marcus – has been kidnapped. But it’s no ordinary kidnapping – and it’s not even clear what they want. She’s been abducted by professionals and buried alive in an underground casket. A video camera is streaming her desperate pleas live over the internet. With only a limited supply of food and water, her time is quickly running out.

A close friend of the family, Nick is more determined than ever to catch the perpetrators. But when Marshall is arrested for fraud, Nick uncovers some powerful enemies and a conspiracy that reaches up to the very highest levels of government. Faced with opponents well-protected by wealth and position, Nick must play a dangerous game if he hopes to flush out those responsible before Alexa is buried for good…

• Read the extract
• Watch the trailer
• Read Lee Child’s exclusive short story

The Questions:

To win, answer the following questions… (some of the answers are on the website, or why not try a quick Google…)

• Question 1: What car does Heller drive?
  
• Question 2: What is the title of Nick Heller’s first adventure?
  
• Question 3: In the extract, what car does Lorenzo drive?

Terms and conditions

1. Closing date for entries:  25th January 2012.
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 Bookdagger employees and their families, or to employees of Bookdagger publishers and their families.

Buried Secrets (Nick Heller 2)

Headline 2012, Paperback, 480 pages, £6.99

Nick Heller returns in an explosive new thriller.

When PI Nick Heller moves back to Boston to set up his own agency, he soon gets an urgent case even closer to home than expected. Alexandra Marcus – teenage daughter of hedge fund titan Marshall Marcus – has been kidnapped. But it’s no ordinary kidnapping – and it’s not even clear what they want. She’s been abducted by professionals and buried alive in an underground casket. A video camera is streaming her desperate pleas live over the internet. With only a limited supply of food and water, her time is quickly running out.

A close friend of the family, Nick is more determined than ever to catch the perpetrators. But when Marshall is arrested for fraud, Nick uncovers some powerful enemies and a conspiracy that reaches up to the very highest levels of government. Faced with opponents well-protected by wealth and position, Nick must play a dangerous game if he hopes to flush out those responsible before Alexa is buried for good…

• Read the extract

Buried Secrets (Nick Heller 2)

Headline 2012, Paperback, 480 pages, £6.99

Nick Heller returns in an explosive new thriller.

When PI Nick Heller moves back to Boston to set up his own agency, he soon gets an urgent case even closer to home than expected. Alexandra Marcus – teenage daughter of hedge fund titan Marshall Marcus – has been kidnapped. But it’s no ordinary kidnapping – and it’s not even clear what they want. She’s been abducted by professionals and buried alive in an underground casket. A video camera is streaming her desperate pleas live over the internet. With only a limited supply of food and water, her time is quickly running out.

A close friend of the family, Nick is more determined than ever to catch the perpetrators. But when Marshall is arrested for fraud, Nick uncovers some powerful enemies and a conspiracy that reaches up to the very highest levels of government. Faced with opponents well-protected by wealth and position, Nick must play a dangerous game if he hopes to flush out those responsible before Alexa is buried for good…

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Jack Reacher on Nick Heller, by Lee Child

Some say it was Virginia and some say it was North Carolina but all agree it was a bar.  Everyone was drinking domestic beer, except Reacher, who was drinking coffee, and inevitably after an hour the talk turned to guys people knew.  Reacher sat quiet, not really part of the group, content to ignore the war stories and the tall tales, until the name Nick Heller came up.  Someone said Heller had been one of General Hood’s boys, and was therefore suspect, because everyone knew Hood was as bent as a nine dollar bill.  Reacher shook his head and spoke for the first time in an hour.

“No,” he said.  “Heller worked for Hood, but he was never one of the boys.  In fact the smart money said Heller was the guy who would take Hood down one day.”

“You know Heller?” someone asked.

“No,” Reacher said again.  “But I met a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.  And I heard things.”

“And?”

“I made a mental note, that’s all.  Heller’s OK.”

“As good as us?”

“Better.”

“Than you too?”

Reacher smiled.  “He’s in the rear view mirror.  A little closer than some.”

“What’s he like?”

“He drives a Land Rover.  A thing called a Defender.  British.  Like a Willys jeep without the frills.  That’s about all you need to know, right there.”

“So he’s a caveman, like you.”

“No, that’s where it gets complicated.  He’s very smart with technology.  I heard he did a couple of years in D.C. with one of those hi-tech Beltway firms.  Like the CIA, but private.  Better paid.  And more efficient, obviously.”

“I heard he’s in Boston,” someone said.

Reacher nodded.  “There was an issue.”

“What kind?”

“Ethical, probably.  Heller’s got a backbone.  Guys like that have problems in D.C.”

“His dad was a crook.”

“Financial,” Reacher said.  “They’re all crooks.  But Heller’s OK.”

“Would you trust him?  You?”

“Probably,” Reacher said.  “He’s a stand-up guy.  Apparently he went to bat for his brother a year or so ago.  No reason to, but he did.  It was a bad situation, too.  But he came out ahead.  Some very nice moves.  There’s a nephew, they say.  Weird kid, but Heller does his best.  And his mother is still on the scene.  Someone once told me a guy who gets along with his mother can’t be all bad.”

“Who told you that?”

“My mother.”

“What’s he doing in Boston?  Private eye?”

“Not exactly,” Reacher said.  “More like a private spy.  He put together a crew up there.  They do the CIA stuff in the office, and then he goes and does the black ops stuff himself.  One stop shopping.”

“Is he a Red Sox fan?”

“I hope not.”

“Still, Boston.  Quiet up there.”

“Not very,” Reacher said.  “Guy I met was talking about a kidnapping.  Some rich girl taken out of a night club.  Billionaire father, and so on and so forth.  Some serious Russians involved.  I mean, serious as lung cancer.  But it turned out OK.”

“That was Heller?”

“Lips are sealed, but I don’t see who else it could have been.  It was done about ninety percent the same way I would have done it.  Which means it had to be Heller.  There’s no one else that good up there.”

“You’ve got competition,” someone said.

Reacher smiled again.

“Human nature,” he said.  “There are always new guys.  Law of averages says some of them will be good.”

“Would you call him?  If you were in trouble in Boston?”

“I don’t have a phone,” Reacher said.  “But I’d be happy enough if he happened to show up.  We could do some damage together, that’s for damn sure.”

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer

Simon & Schuster Ltd 2011, Mass Market Paperback, 192 pages, £7.99

Laura Palmer – the sweet-faced beauty of “Twin Peaks” – hid her darkest deeds and twisted dreams in a secret diary from the time she was twelve years old…

Until the day she was murdered – and a quiet rural community began to fall apart at the seams.

The diary contains important clues to the identity of her killer. For the inhabitants of Twin Peaks it begins a mystery that will reach out to obsess them all…

• Read the extract

The Maul and the Pear Tree

Faber and Faber 2010, Paperback, 400 pages, £7.99

On the 7th December 1811, a young linen draper and his family were cruelly murdered at night in their home at 29 Ratcliffe Highway in Wapping. Twelve days later, a publican and members of his household were slaughtered in similar fashion, just half a mile away.

The slaying of these innocent families created public hysteria amongst Londoners – whipped up by newspapers revelling in the gruesome details of the atrocities. Ill-equipped to investigate, on Christmas Eve the police hastily arrested the first suspect they could find, John Williams, and when he hung himself in prison on Boxing Day, it was taken as confirmation of his guilt.

180,000 people turned out to see Williams’ body paraded through Wapping, before he was buried with a stake through his heart at the crossroads of Cable Street and Cannon Street Road on New Year’s Eve. Yet it is now acknowledged that he was – in all likelihood – an innocent man.

At the birth of the British press, the Ratcliffe Highway Murders case was both the first national crime sensation and an early example of ‘tabloid justice’ – engendering a widespread terror that led subsequently to the formation of the Metropolitan Police.

• Read the extract

Death Comes to Pemberley

Faber and Faber 2011, Hardcover, 320 pages, £18.99

The year is 1803, and Darcy and Elizabeth have been married for six years. There are now two handsome and healthy sons in the Pemberley nursery, Elizabeth’s beloved sister Jane and her husband, Bingley, live within seventeen miles, the ordered and secure life of Pemberley seems unassailable, and Elizabeth’s happiness in her marriage is complete.

But their peace is threatened and old sins and misunderstandings are rekindled on the eve of the annual autumn ball. The Darcys and their guests are preparing to retire for the night when a chaise appears, rocking down the path from Pemberley’s wild woodland, and as it pulls up, Lydia Wickham, an uninvited guest, tumbles out, screaming that her husband has been murdered.

In a pitch-perfect recreation of the world of Pride and Prejudice, P. D. James elegantly fuses her lifelong passion for the work of Jane Austen with her talent for writing detective fiction. She weaves a compelling story, combining a sensitive insight into the happy but threatened marriage of the Darcys and the excitement and suspense of a brilliantly crafted detective story.

Death Comes to Pemberley enshrines the qualities her readers have come to expect: psychological and emotional richness of characterisation, vivid evocation of place, and a credible and superbly structured plot, in a powerful and distinguished work of fiction.

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Already Gone

Simon & Schuster Ltd 2011, Paperback, 368 pages, £6.99

When two men attack Jake in a car park and cut off his ring finger, he tries to dismiss it as an unlucky case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But when events take a more sinister turn and Diane goes missing, Jake knows he can no longer hide from the truth.

As he embarks on a mission to find Diane, Jake finds himself dragged back into the life he thought he had walked away from forever and the days ahead begin to unfold in terrifying ways…

• Read the extract