I thought I’d offer you something a little different this week: a series of autumnal landscapes to inspire and delight us, but all of them in settings featured in the books we have published thus far at Corylus (because we do like to travel with our reading and crime fiction). Maybe even a few hints as to upcoming titles! N.B. Of course, autumn is not necessarily the season during which the action in each book takes place. Here we go, in order of publication:
In Anamaria Ionescu’s Zodiac, four murders take place in four different locations, with four strange and different marks on the victims – and the only thing they have in common is that all of them were born in the little spa town of Voineasa in the Romanian Sub-Carpathians.
Voineasa, photo from BalneoMedica.ro
2. Bucharest is the setting for Teodora Matei’s police procedural Living Candles featuring the unlikely duo of Anton Iordan and Sorin Matache – a city of dark shadows, wet pavements and damp basements.
Photo credit: Gabriel Furtuna, on Reddit.
3. Snagov Lake to the north of Bucharest is the place where many Romanian politicians have their villas, and where they conspire with the media to cover up the politically embarrassing story of a vigilante killer in Sword by Bogdan Teodorescu.
Snagov Monastery on an island on Snagov Lake, photo credit: travelminit.ro
4. We first meet Sólveig Pálsdóttir’s police officer Guðgeir Fransson in The Fox, far away in exile in the picturesque but isolated settlement of Höfn on the east coast of Iceland.
Höfn landscape, from Rough Guide to Iceland.
5. Guðgeir is back in Reykjavik in the next book in the series, Silenced, in a tense story about appearances and reality, class and gender differences.
Iceland’s capital is also the setting for the forthcoming book Deceit by our new Icelandic author Jónína Leósdóttir.
Colourful Reykjavik in autumn, photo credit: Cristine Zenino.
6. Although the ‘port town in the west of France’ is never explicitly named in Jérôme Leroy’s clever novella Little Rebel, it might resemble Le Havre a little bit…
Photo credit: Arnaud Pointdefer on Instagram.
7. Some of the key conspiracy scenes in Bogdan Hrib’s spy thriller Resilience take place in Iasi in the north-east of Romania (close to the border with the Republic of Moldova).
The Culture Palace and panorama of Iasi, photo credit: Palas Iasi.
8. Óskar Guðmundsson’s hard-hitting tale of trauma and revenge The Commandments takes place in the supposedly tranquil north of Iceland in Akureyri. How can anything bad ever happen in this beautiful little town?
Akureyri, photo credit: Rajan P. Parrikar
9. Harm, the third book featuring Guðgeir Fransson and his team of investigators alternates between Reykjavik and the breathtaking scenery of the Westman Islands – you know, the ones that often feature in wishlists of remote houses in inaccessible landscapes.
Photo credit: Adventures Iceland.
10. Bonus entry: in our novella Skin Deep, our first book to be translated from Spanish (estimated publication date spring 2023), we meet a group of cross-border investigators in the Basque region. The body, however, is found in Biarritz.
Photo credit: euskoguide.com
Phew! Ten books since we launched at the start of 2020. That’s not bad, is it? Wonder where our literary travels will take us next! Well, the clue might lie in what I’m currently translating… And the action does take place in autumn!
It was my first time at the Bloody Scotland crime fiction festival, held in the beautiful ancient Scottish capital of Stirling, and what a festival it was, in its tenth anniversary year and its first full reincarnation since the start of the Covid pandemic. Thus far, I’ve attended literary festivals mostly as an avid reader, occasionally as a ‘correspondent’ for Crime Fiction Lover, but this time I was also there as a publisher, Corylus Books, since one of our Icelandic authors, Óskar Guðmundsson, had been invited to join the panel Fair Cops and Foul.
But before I describe the panels I attended, including of course our ‘own’, I should describe two hugely embarrassing moments.
The first is that Oskar’s book The Commandments had not arrived (Waterstones is still experiencing supply problems with their changed software), so people had to make do with getting the bookmarks signed instead (and hopefully buying the book online afterwards). Lesson learnt: next time I will carry books to any event in my own suitcase, just to be sure, injured arm or no injured arm.
The second is that I had never met Oskar in person, so I only had his author photo to guide me. I ended up that first day approaching all the tall men with white hair and asking: ‘Are you Oskar?’ I must have become so notorious and obnoxious that when a group of people met Oskar in the bar later, they immediately said: ‘Ah, you’re the Oskar that woman kept looking for!’
This was the Oskar I was looking for – and someone brought their own copy of The Commandments from home to get it signed, so at least I saw ONE copy!
Filthy Rich: Jo Spain, Ellery Lloyd and Julie Mayhew
I came late to this panel on Friday, because of my missing book woes, so imagine my surprise when I walked in and I saw four people rather than the three that I was expecting and Steph Broadribb on the panel, whom I wasn’t expecting! I very nearly thought I had gone to the wrong event. It turns out that Steph was replacing Julie at the last minute, and that Ellery Lloyd is a husband and wife writing team. They didn’t talk that much about the rich and privileged (at least not the second half of the session, which was all I managed to catch), but I did get quite envious hearing about the way that the writing duo worked together, brainstorming plot points and each one writing one of the different POVs in the book.
Truth and Lies: Lisa Unger, Ruth Ware, Jane Casey
This was one of the best panels I’ve attended in recent memory, moderated in such a supportive and fun way by Jacky Collins of Dr Noir fame. The three authors clearly enjoyed each other’s work and built upon each other’s answers. A good discussion was had about strong heroines having to overcome the often peculiar challenges of the modern world: cyberstalkers, online dating, running away and creating a new identity etc. I enjoyed it all so much that I bought their books immediately afterwards and got them signed: clearly, I am the ideal target audience of such festivals.
Vaseem and Abir’s Red Hot Night of a Million Games
Mick Herron, Helen Fitzgerald and Luca Veste facing the barrage of questions from Vaseem Khan.
Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee are not only very talented (and likeable and mischievous) writers and excellent podcasters, they clearly are destined to become spectacular gameshow hosts (out-Osmaning Richard Osman in reverse?). They somehow managed to persuade or coerce six crime writers to be on their quiz show. They were such good sports, miming, singing, acting, answering questions and occasionally simply collapsing in helpless giggles, as we all did in the audience.
Martyn Waites as Hannibal Lector, CL Taylor as a librarian and Elly Griffiths as (obviously!) Boris Johnson.
Cosy Makes a Comeback: Martin Edwards, Jonathan Whitelaw, SJ Bennett
Martin Edwards is not only a walking encyclopedia when it comes to Golden Age crime (he is also the consultant to the British Library Classic Crime series), but also a prolific crime writer himself, but he is not very keen on the term ‘cosy crime’. Ultimately, the subjects are all quite dark (murder, punishment, despair), and there is quite a bit of variety within the genre itself. Although the panel argued that cosy crime never really went away, it is currently experiencing even more of a boom, perhaps as a result of the beautiful British Library series, or the new attempts at cosy crime of Richard Osman, Rev Coles and others. In fact, Jonathan Whitelaw said he deliberately chose to write in this style with his Bingo Hall Detective, featuring a son-in-law and mother-in-law detecting duo, because of Osman’s success. Meanwhile, SJ Bennet, who writes a series featuring the Queen as an amateur detective, managed to escape the obvious question: will she continue writing this series now that the Queen is dead?
Moderated by the new MC Beaton, RW Green.
Fair Cops and Foul: Mari Hannah, Óskar Guðmundsson and James Oswald
We missed the Scotland/England football match, sadly, but it was worth it for this thoughtful and entertaining panel, ably moderated by artist and journalist Frankie Burr. The trio talked about a sense of social justice and other common sensibilities in Scotland, Northern England and Scandinavia, about portraying strong, stubborn women in their fiction, and whether they feel like police apologists after some recent events.
But there is so much more to Bloody Scotland than just the panels – although I did feel that they were particularly well chosen and carefully put together (I have attended some fairly random ones at other crime festivals in the past). There is the football match (Scotland won 6-4 this year, and both sides the bruises to show for it the next day), the Torch Procession (which I didn’t catch this year, as it was on Thursday night), music and whisky love at the Curly Coo bar (some surprisingly talented musicians among the crime writers). And, of course, the beautiful setting of Stirling itself. Well worth spending a few extra days!
The view from the castle.
The St Rude Kirkyard from the other side of the castle.
Robert the Bruce statute in front of the castle. By way of contrast, the Rob Roy statue near the Albert Halls was awful – looked like he had a nasty skin condition.
Above all, I enjoyed meeting old friends and making new ones.
With Ayo Onatade of Shotsmag.
With Dr Noir Jacky Collins
With Marcia of Lizzy Siddal blog fame, who kindly took many of the pictures I have included here today.
It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that, unless you are a huge publisher who can spend massive amounts of marketing money, or a celebrity author, the only way to raise your profile within the crime fiction community is by word of mouth and by attending these kind of events and networking. You may well see me next at Capital Crime and Iceland Noir!
I’m on holiday for the next two weeks and not sure how much time or internet access I will have for posting anything new (other than Friday Fun posts, which I’ve scheduled already). So here is a quick summary of the month of March and see you in mid-April!
Reading
Not a massive quantity of books this month (eleven rather than the twelve shown in the picture, because I read the Doina Rusti in both Romanian and English). I decided somewhat upon a whim to dedicate this month primarily to the small number of contemporary Italian books I have on my shelf (I’ve read hardly anything published after Lampedusa’s The Leopard, and most of the translations were in Romanian rather than English, because I believed the cultural and linguistic similarities would be helpful). I read a total of six Italian books, which I divided up into two blog posts of mini-reviews:
Non-fiction: Alberto Prunetti’s Down and Out in England and Italy (trans. and Natalia Ginzburg: The Little Virtues
Fiction: all very moving in different ways – Andrea Bajani’s If You Kept a Record of Sins (trans. Elizabeth Harris), Concita de Gregorio’s The Missing Word (trans. Clarissa Botsford – which I think is more fictional than non-fictional, although it is based on a real case and real people), Italo Svevo’s A Perfect Hoax (trans. J. G. Nichols) and Claudia Durastanti’s Cleopatra Goes to Prison (trans. Christine Donougher).
Not sure I can generalise about modern Italian literature on the basis of just a few books, but all of the ones I seem to have picked have been remarkable in their acute observation and restrained style. Quite, quite different from the exuberant, virtuoso storytelling style of The Book of Perilous Dishes, which makes 18th century Bucharest really leap off the pages.
To finish off my Italian sojourn (and because finally my library reservation arrived, after several months), I loved reading about Alan Taylor’s account of his friendship with Muriel Spark when he met her at her house in Arezzo. I love Spark’s writing, but was always doubtful I’d have enjoyed meeting her in person – but this is a loving (not gushing) memoir which slightly changed my mind about her.
Gwendoline Riley’s My Phantoms was very well written and subtle – but oh boy, if you English consider that a difficult mother-daughter relationship (when they only see each other once a year in London for their birthdays), you have no idea how difficult the parent-child relationship can be in other cultures!
I had seen the film adaptation of Dorothy B. Hughes’ In a Lonely Place, but of course with Humphrey Bogart in the main role, it was never going to be as dark and mean as the book. Remarkable depiction of psychological self-justification and unravelling – perhaps the book that American Psycho wanted to be but didn’t quite manage.
Although I wished Down and Out in England and Italy could have had more wit and depth, the only book that disappointed me this month was The Twyford Code (I loved the unusual storytelling style in the first book The Appeal, but the audio transcripts here got annoying and repetitive rather quickly, and it was trying a bit too hard to be clever).
Films
The eight films I’ve watched this month can be divided into :
heartwarming (Studio Ghibli to the rescue once again, with a rewatch of Howl’s Moving Castle and wistful new entrants From Up on Poppy Hill and The Tale of Princess Kaguya)
sinister (featuring strong-minded and cruel female leads: Lady Macbeth and Black Medusa or dodgy, damaged male leads in The Master)
‘talkie’ comedies (where the script and dialogue are the most important components, Manhattan Murder Mystery and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
Other Activities
This month I got a chance to remember how rewarding but also energy-consuming it is to work with primary-school children. I ran an assembly and a couple of translation workshops for six and seven-year-olds, introducing them to my favourite little penguin, Apolodor, an intrepid but not very bright traveller from a well-loved Romanian children’s book in verse by Gellu Naum. As students during Communist times, we adapted the story for the stage… and promptly got censored for daring to talk about travelling abroad. But this time, the story had a happy ending and the children enjoyed it a lot (although not necessarily the ‘having to translate it’ bit).
After a brief hiatus while we were all busy translating and working on other projects, Corylus is now back on track with editing and finalising our next two titles, which should be out before the summer. I sent out our very first newsletter, and there was so much I wanted to say that I had to be really, really selective, so as not to make it an overlong reading experience. In future months, I hope to talk about international crime fiction more widely, have guest contributors, cover reveals and exclusive additional material (such as short stories). If you think you’d like to be part of the Corylus family, you can sign up for the newsletter on our homepage.
I should in theory wait until tomorrow or the 1st of December to write my monthly summary, but I have other plans for this week, so will wrap up a little earlier. It has felt like a very long month, with the exception of my 4-5 days in Yorkshire, which simply flew by. With the exception of those few days of real holiday, my first in two years, I have been mostly ill (in fact, I had a headache for two of my days in Yorkshire too). I don’t know if my tussle with Covid in October left my body drained and my immune system struggling, but I seem to have caught every single one of the bugs from school and university, with at most a day or two of feeling fine in-between.
So, for anyone wondering where I got all my energy from – wonder no more, for my batteries have well and truly gone this month! I have just about managed to keep the day job going, spent most of my weekends in bed, and have resigned myself that I will be missing out on various projects I wanted to be involved in that have a 30th November deadline.
The only event I was able to attend (on one of the few days when I felt fine) was the Corylus event at the Romanian Cultural Institute in London on the 16th of November, where I got to speak together with the two Bogdans that I’ve been translating: Bogdan Teodorescu and Bogdan Hrib in a debate about BalkanNoir: Is Romania the Wild Wild East of Crime Fiction. The discussion was recorded and I hope we can share the link with you very soon.
Enforced bed rest and a wet mush of a brain might not be conducive to writing or translating, but it worked fine for reading, although admittedly some books were chosed for ease of reading – rather like porridge with honey to soothe a sore throat. I read no less than 18 books, helped by the fact that many of them were novellas. I have even reviewed quite a few of them.
My German Literature Month reads were all novellas, with one exception, so I managed to participate in #NovNov as well.
Brian Moore: The Doctor’s Wife (a review comparing the two of them coming soon)
Catherine Fox: Angels and Men
ECR Lorac: These Names Make Clues
Abir Mukherjee: A Necessary Evil
Bella Ellis: The Vanished Bride – all the four above were reviewed in a vlog
Alan Johnson: The Late Train to Gipsy Hill – imagine a fun spy novel, more goofy than seriously chilling, despite the rather serious subject matter
Christine Mangan: Palace of the Drowned – which did not live up to the blurb and premise – Venice in winter, an author suffering from writers’ block and waning popularity, a creepy old palazzo, an over-eager young fan. Let’s just say that it was verbose rather than truly atmospheric, neither Death in Venice nor The Talented Mr Ripley.
Margaret Kennedy: The Feast – review to come, hopefully
Surprisingly, only a third of the books I read this month were foreign language books – all of them German. Ten of the eighteen were by women writers and five were in the crime genre (a very low percentage by my standards).
Reading plans for December will be all about snow and frozen climes: Russians and Scandinavians will have pride of place, so that I can snuggle indoors under many blankets while the blizzard rages outside.
In fact, I should be grateful, because for me it hasn’t been too bad. I am not one of the brave and dedicated frontline key workers that I so much admire and whom we all depend on for what semblance of a normal life we still have: medical staff, pharmacists, supermarket workers, delivery drivers, public transport, utilities providers and of course teachers.
All I had to worry about, for the three weeks until the actual lockdown was my children still going to school (one of them on the train), and me bringing the disease back into the house, with my commute to London and having my office in a very public building which only closed down on the 20th of March. Of course, I also worry about my parents right at the other end of Europe, stuck in the capital city rather than in their house in the countryside (on the other hand, the hospitals are closer and better equipped in Bucharest), both with underlying health conditions and both approaching 80 very soon. Like any recently divorced parent with a very acrimonious financial settlement that is still hugely resented by the ex, I do worry about the possible practical consequences of me falling seriously ill. I may need to get in touch with a solicitor friend of mine and make a will.
Other than that: I’m used to food shortages, to curtailment of liberties, to being essentially under house arrest… it brings back memories of my childhood. Not fond ones, no: I have no ‘stiff upper lip and carry on’ nostalgia. But I know that we survived those times (some less gloriously than others), so I’m hopeful we can survive this. My boys are fortunately old enough to keep themselves occupied whether the school assigns a lot of work or not. We have adopted a new feline member of the family, sweet, elderly Barney, and we are busy trying to get our ‘only child’ Zoe to accept him.
However, my reading and writing have both dwindled considerably. Not only because I am extremely busy with work during the week and feel exhausted all the time. Not only because of the bouts of insomnia which continue to plague me (and probably everybody else at the moment). Almost certainly because I am scrolling helplessly and fruitlessly on my phone for far too long, but also because I find it difficult to concentrate on anything for longer than half an hour. Add to that the fact that WordPress has decided now is the right time to make changes to their writing and formatting of blog posts and a general sense of feeling ‘what’s the point’, and you can understand why I’ve not even updated my blog regularly.
If I look back at March, however, there have been some lovely moments which seem to be as far away now as if we were seeing them through the wrong end of a telescope. On the 1st of March, I was fortunate enough to see the kimono exhibition at the V&A and on the 11th of March the exhibition on the portrayal of pregnancy in art at the Foundling Museum. I also attended an immersive adaptation of The Time Machine on the beautiful premises of the London Library and reviewed the show just a week or so before it shut down. I’d probably have delayed going to see all of these if I hadn’t been jolted by others. Moral of the story: never put off things you enjoy doing because you ‘don’t have time right now’.
The London Book Fair was cancelled, but I had a meeting on the 11th with my fellow Corylus Books founders and we discussed plans for publishing and promoting books this year and the next. It is possibly the worst time to launch a new publishing house and bring out books in translation by authors that nobody has heard of (yet). We also have problems with the actual printing and distribution of physical copies. So, much as I hate having to link to Amazon, this is the only way to find the two books we already have out now. Perhaps later in the year we will be able to attend all those crime festivals and organise all those book launches that we had planned.
Last but not least, I did read eleven books, and most of them have been of the lighter, more escapist variety, with quite a bit of armchair travelling.
Crime fiction:
Will Dean: Black RiverTuva Moodyson is back in forlorn Gavrik in the north of Sweden at the height of Midsommar madness to try and find her missing friend. With a full cast of dodgy characters, including snakes, the author proves that the Swedish forests can be creepy regardless of the season.
Graeme Macrae Burnet: The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau Set in a sleepy provincial town on the Franco-Swiss border, not far from Strasbourg, this too is a creepy tale of loners, outsiders and personal obsessions.
David Young: Stasi 77 A series that I’ve really enjoyed, but somehow missed reading this particular book. The links to the end of the Second World War and hidden Nazis operating within the East German state were particularly harrowing (and historically accurate, although I wasn’t previously aware of it). Perhaps my favourite of the series thus far.
Murder in Midsummer A collection of stories set in holiday locations (not always in summer, despite the title). Mostly famous authors, with lesser known stories. As always with such a collection, some of the stories are better than others, but overall a fun book to dip into.
Rebecca Bradley: A Deeper Song DI Hannah Roberts is back with a bang and a sharp squeal of the brakes. Preoccupied by family problems, she nearly runs over a young man who darts out in front of her car. He is covered in someone else’s blood but cannot tell them anything, as the accident has provoked a temporary (?) amnesia. Soon Hannah herself is in danger and her team need to gather all of their wits and collaborative skills to find her.
Margot Kinberg: A Matter of Motive A start of a new series by American author Margot Kinberg, featuring rookie murder investigator Patricia Stanley. A man is slumped over the steering wheel of his car, apparently the victim of a heart attack. Or was it? Both family and co-workers seem to have plenty of things to hide, although they keep emphasising what a nice guy Ron Clemons was.
Other:
Debbie Harry: Face It She does not mince her words, does she? The beautiful, rebellious, cool as anything singer reveals as much as she damn well pleases in this memoir, including her vulnerabilities. Still an icon.
Malorie Blackman: Knife Edge Second book in the Noughts and Crosses series, which I read to coincide with the TV adaptation. Such an interesting concept, although I did find the writing aimed at a younger audience than me.
Philip Pullman: The Book of Dust I was smitten with the original trilogy but only got a chance to read this prequel now. An exciting story, even if we know the final outcome (that baby Lyra did end up safely at Jordan College). Above all, I like the rich descriptive, yet never dull style, which offers something for both adults and younger readers.
Tiffany Tsao: The MajestiesThe story of a rich Indonesian family of Chinese descent, with a mass murder from the outset and a smidgen of science-fiction added into the mix. A wonderful book – about families, the lies we tell each other and tell ourselves, the differences between perceptions of the Chinese in the east and in the west… and about insects.
David Foenkinos: The Mystery of Henri Pick An unexpectedly light and humorous offering by Foenkinos, satirizing the pretentiousness of the Parisian literary society. Could a pizza maker who never was seen reading a book truly have written an almost perfect novel? Erudite, charming, delightful.
Meanwhile, if you find my reading concentration anywhere, do let me know, won’t you? As you can see, I have a whole pile of books planned for April!
You may have noticed that I’ve been far less present online since the start of this year. There are several reasons for that: some boring, and some very pleasant indeed.
In this latter category, I am proud to be part of a very exciting initiative. I am one of four friends and literary addicts who have decided (probably against any common sense) to set up a publishing venture to bring more translated fiction to the English-speaking world. Our baby is called Corylus Books, we are planning to launch at the London Book Fair and we are still in the process of setting up our website. But we do have a Twitter handle @CorylusB and a couple of books all ready to go.
Who Are We?
We are passionate readers of crime fiction and literature in translation. We have close connections to several countries, chief among them Romania, Iceland and the UK, of course. We are eager to build bridges between different cultures… and one of the best ways to do that is via literature. The four of us are writers, translators, academics, bloggers, festival organisers, reviewers and publishers, so we have a broad and complementary set of skills. We are starting with crime fiction, because that is a genre we know and love, but we are open to any interesting stories that are well told. We always like a slice of social commentary with our fiction as well.
Corylus is the Latin name for the hazel tree which produces hazelnuts. According to the Celts, hazelnuts confer wisdom and inspiration. In German fairytales, the hazel branch offers the greatest protection from snakes and other dangerous creatures. Last but not least, the Romanian name for hazel is ‘alun’ and the song ‘Alunelu’, alunelu’, hai la joc!’ is one of our best-known folk dances. Plus, like all good deciduous shrubs, it grows profusely in the right climate. All splendid metaphors for our venture.
We all have full-time jobs in addition to this passion project – which is where the madness comes in. So, whilst we are ambitious, we will start small and grow gradually. Nevertheless, we have some some exciting works in the pipeline.
Our Books
Anamaria Ionescu: Zodiac
Four murders in four different locations, each body showing a strange mark (possibly a zodiac sign?). The only thing the victims seem to have in common is that they were all born in the little spa town of Voineasa in the Romanian sub-Carpathian region. The fast-paced narrative switches between the streets of Bucharest and the wooded hills of Voineasa. Sergiu Manta has been forced to work in the shadowy world of state-supported asassins, but he knows it’s not him who’s been carrying out these murders. In the course of the investigation, he locks horns with the local police inspector determined to crack the case. The novel cleverly blends well-worn serial killer tropes with an inside look at a secretive special-ops team.
Teodora Matei: Living Candles
If you enjoy travelling the world virtually through your crime fiction, then Living Candles is the perfect book to convey the atmosphere of the Romanian urban environment. Or at least the murkier side of it: the blocks of flats where the neighbours all know each other’s business, the pensioners gossiping on the bench outside the entrances, the machismo impregnating the atmosphere so thickly, you could cut it with a knife.
These two will be out very soon and ARCs should be available for a blog tour by end of March. So let me know in the comments if you think you might want to take part, and I can give you more details.
Bogdan Teodorescu: Sword
The third book is a political thriller which I have only just finished translating (and still need to edit). It’s called Spada in the original Romanian (Sword in English) and it is by political analyst and professor of election campaigning Bogdan Teodorescu. It was translated into French a few years ago and did quite well there, with Le Monde and other publications reviewing it positively. Among our blogger friends, Emma from Book Around read and reviewed it, called it a ‘stunning political thriller’ and said what a shame it wasn’t translated into English. We are once more in serial killer territory, but the focus here is not at all on the investigation, but instead on how the crimes become a pretext for politics. It is unnervingly, chillingly accurate of the political situation not just in Romania but in many other countries at the present time. So I am delighted that we will finally be able to share it with you! Here is my attempt at a blurb.
Romanian cover of the 2nd edition of Spada. Cover reveal of English edition to follow!
A petty criminal is found dead in the streets of Bucharest,killed with a single stab to the throat. Initially, the police believe it’s a fight between gangs, but when two more deaths follow in quick succession, all with the same MO, it becomes clear that Romania’s capital city is facing one of its first recorded instances of a serial killer. The press are eager to run sensationalist reports and give the killer the nickname Sword, after the weapon used. But there is an added complication: all the victims are from the Roma (gypsy) minority, and all of them have a police record. While the police struggle to find any leads, politicians have no qualms about using the case to score points against their opponents. Is this some misguided vigilante – and will the majority population start seeing Sword as a saviour rather than a criminal? The race is on to find the killer before interethnic clashes engulf the country, but a series of blunders at all levels leads to an escalation of conflict. Originally published in 2008, the novel is remarkably candid and prescient about racism, the rise of fake news, manipulation of the truth and political corruption. This astute political thriller will remind readers of TV shows like Borgen or West Wing.
Sólveig Pálsdóttir: The Fox
Icelandic author Sólveig Pálsdóttir has only been writing for seven years, but she is a rising star in her native country. She’s been translated into German and we hope to introduce her to an English-speaking audience in late summer/early autumn.
Icelandic cover of The Fox.
A young woman, one of Iceland’s immigrant community, vanishes without trace soon after arriving in the village of Höfn, so suddenly that there are doubts that the vulnerable young woman had even been there at all. Her disappearance, some suspicious events in the town and an isolated farm spark the interest of Reykjavík police officer Guðgeir, who is spending time working as a security guard in Höfn while he recovers from trauma in both his professional and his private life.
Finally, if you are attending the London Book Fair on the 10th of March, come and speak to us at the Romanian pavilion/stand. We will be talking about our new venture, our books and our future plans in an event organised by the Romanian Cultural Institute that day. Also, if you are coming to Newcastle Noir on 1-3 May 2020, you will have the opportunity to hear the author of Sword speak and get your hands on drippingly new (ink barely dried) copies of the English translation of the book.
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