Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Paganini’s Ghost by Paul Adam
Sept. 2014


PERSONAL INFORMATION:
Born 1958, in Sheffield, England; married; children: two sons.Education: Studied law at Nottingham University. Addresses:Home: Sheffield, England. Agent: United Agents; 12-26 Lexington St., London W1F 0LE, England; Zoe Pagnamenta, The Zoe Pagnamenta Agency, LLC, 30 Bond St., New York, NY 10012.
CAREER:
Writer, novelist, journalist, and screenwriter. Has worked as a journalist and as a writer for television and film.

WRITINGS:


Gianni Castiglione mysteries

The Rainaldi Quartet (Jan 2004)
Series: Gianni Castiglione mysteries, 1
(First book in series) When an elderly violin-maker is discovered murdered in the peaceful Italian countryside, his friends' investigation into his death sends them on a desperate search to uncover a priceless, long-lost Stradivarius violin as they match wits with a ruthless killer.

Paganini's ghost (Jan 2010)
Series: Gianni Castiglione mysteries, 2
A Parisian art dealer is found dead in his hotel room the day after a Paganini concert. In his wallet is a scrap of sheet music, torn from a page that belongs to the competition's winner. But how did the dead man get hold of it? And why? Detective Antonio Guastafeste asks violin maker Gianni Castiglione to help him navigate the curious world of classical musicians, their priceless instruments, and the unsavory dealers who prey upon them.

"Max Cassidy" Series; Mystery  Novels

  • An Exceptional Corpse, Crime Club (London, England), 1993.
  • Toxin, HarperCollins (London, England), 1994.
  • A Nasty Dose of Death, Crime Club (London, England), 1994.
  • Unholy Trinity, Little, Brown (London, England), 1999 , Arcade (New York, NY), 2000.
  • Shadow Chasers, Little, Brown (London, England), 2000.
  • Genesis II, Little, Brown (London, England), 2001.
  • Flash Point, Time Warner (London, England), 2003, published in the United States as Oracle Lake, St. Martin's Minotaur (New York, NY), 2007.
  • Sleeper, Time Warner (London, England), 2004, published in the United States as The Rainaldi Quartet, Thomas Dunne Books (New York, NY), 2006.
  • Enemy Within, Time Warner (London, England), 2005.
  • Knife Edge, Endeavour Publishing (England), 2008.
  • Escape from Shadow Island, Corgi (London, England), 2009, Walden Pond Press (New York, NY), 2010.
  • Paganini's Ghost, Minotaur Books (New York, NY), 2010.
  • Jaws of Death, Corgi Children's (London, England), 2010.
Read A-Likes

Daniel Jacobus Mysteries  by Gerald Elias
(First book in series) When a rare and valuable violin disappears after a concert, unpleasant and reclusive violin teacher Daniel Jacobus is blamed. Jacobus decides to prove his innocence by finding the violin.

English Ballad Mysteries by Deborah Grabien
(First book in series) The owner of a restored eighteenth-century cottage, British folk musician Ringan Laine discovers that the property is haunted, and is assisted by his girlfriend Penny in researching the identities of his otherworldly tenants.
Brahms Deception by Louise Marley
When music scholar Frederica Bannister goes back to 1861 to observe Johannes Brahms she soon falls under the spell of the brilliant composer, and when she fails to return, her bitter rival Kristian North is sent back to find her.

Cruel music; the third baroque mystery by Beverly Myers
Tito Amato returns from an operatic tour expecting to relax with his family. Instead he finds his merchant brother Alessandro imprisoned on a trumped-up smuggling charge, a capital crime in 1740 Venice...Spying as he serenades Cardinal Fabiani and his guests, Tito peers into the dark mirror of Roman politics.

Mozart's last aria  by Matt Rees
In 1791 Austria, Madame Maria Anna Berchtold von Sonnenburg journeys to Vienna to pay her final respects to her brother, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who died under mysterious circumstances, and becomes submerged in a world of suspicion and intrigue.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

White Heat by M. J. McGrath
August 2014
Melanie McGrath is a British author who has a particular interest in Inuit culture. In her book The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic, she recounts the tragic Canadian forced relocation of the Ungava Inuit people. During the Cold War, the United States and Canada together ran a weather station on Ellesmere Island. Because the Canadian government felt it would be beneficial to have permanent residents there, the government forced the Ungava Inuit to move twelve hundred miles north of their home and inhabit the island. The relocation was very difficult to the Ungava as Ellesmere Island, located in the arctic desert, is one of the harshest climates ever to be inhabited continually by people.
….
In 2011 McGrath published her first work of fiction, a novel called White Heat. The work is set in Ellesmere Island, Unmingmak Nuna, an area in the far north reaches of Canada. Edie Kiglatuk, a woman who is half white and half Inuit, works as a guide for hunters, fisherman, and explorers, as well as a part-time schoolteacher for her stepson Joe. One spring, Edie and Joe lead two white men across Jones Sound to Craig Island, but when they arrive one of the men is mysteriously shot and killed. Edie and Joe know that it was a murder, but the Inuit Council of Elders, fearing the loss of tourism, cover it up as an accidental death. Things become complicated when an investigator arrives to look into the matter.
….
"My fascination is with place and its role in human existence. I am interested in all kinds of places, real and imaginary. My greatest passion is for the borders and margins, those regions both literal and metaphorical where places intersect. That's where all the most interesting things happen."
EDIE KIGLATUK MYSTERIES
            White heat (Aug 2011)     #1
The boy in the snow: an Edie Kiglatuk mystery (Nov 2012)    #2
The bone seeker (Jul 2014)    #4

OTHER WRITINGS:

  • Motel Nirvana: Dreaming of the New Age in the American Desert (travel book), 1994.
  • Hard, Soft, and Wet (nonfiction),, 1998.
  • Silvertown: An East End Family Memoir,  2002.
  • The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic, 2007.
  • Hopping: The Hidden Lives of an East End Hop Picking Family, 2009.

READ ALIKES

Liam Campbell mysteries by Dana Stabenow
Description:(First book in series) After numerous tragedies in Anchorage, Alaska State Trooper Liam Campbell sets off for a small native town to start anew and resume his life on the force, but upon his arrival, he is thrown into a murder case and encounters an entirely new set of challenges.


Kate Shugak mysteries by Dana Stabenow
Description:(First book in series) When a National Park ranger is reported missing and the man sent to find him disappears as well, former investigator Kate Shugak decides to brave the cold wilderness of north Alaska to crack the case.
Reason:  Set in remote northern climes (Kate Shugak's an Alaska-based detective, Edie Kiglatuk a guide to Canada's Arctic regions) these mystery series let both the wilderness and native cultures power their suspenseful, compelling plots. -- Shauna Griffin

Alaska mysteries by Sue Henry
Also Known as:Jessie Arnold and Alex Jensen mysteries
Description:(First book in series) Sergeant Alex Jensen tries to find the person who is systematically killing the top competitors of the Alaskan Iditarod dogsled race.


Erlendur Sveinsson mysteries by Arnaldur Indridason
Also Known as:Inspector Erlendur series
Reykjavik murder mysteries
Description:Gloomy Scandinavian police detective Erlendur Sveinsson investigates murders in Iceland while struggling to keep his life together after a broken marriage and dealing with his drug-abusing daughter.


North of Boston by Elisabeth Elo
Description:Surviving a fishing boat collision that ends her friend's life, tough-talking Boston girl Pirio Kasparov, convinced that the incident was not an accident, is tapped by the Navy to participate in a research project at the side of a curious journalist who helps her unravel a dangerous plot involving the frigid whaling grounds off Baffin Island. A first novel