News

A Life of Crime, a biography of H. R. F. Keating by his widow, the actor Sheila Mitchell, will be published in June by Level Best Books. Apart from being a revealing portrait of one of our most revered crime writers, it also marks Sheila’s debut as an author at the age of 95. Harry’s series of novels featuring the delightful Inspector Ghote are being reissued by Severn House.

Fierce Chemistry is a comprehensive and controversial account of our society’s ambivalent attitude to drugs by Harry Shapiro. It will be published by Amberley Books in July.

Kit Fielding’s sparkling picaresque novel about the amiable Jimmy Penfold, one of a large travelling family who finds himself pushed into committing a series of crimes, will be published next summer by Coronet, following publication of Kit’s first novel about a ladies’ darts team, Thursday Nights at the Bluebell Inn. Jimmy Penfold’s adventures have already been optioned by BBC Television.

The prolific Alex (aka Mike) Walters launches a new crime series with Canelo this summer. Small Mercies is set in the Peak District and features D I Annie Delamere, whose partner is left-wing MP Sheena Pearson, a relationship that adds to the dangers Annie faces every day.

The Buried Spitfires of Burma, by Tracy Spaight and Andy Brockman, is the fascinating and headline-making story of a so-called treasure trove of wartime Spitfires that were supposedly dumped and hidden in Burma at the end of World War II. It is coming out in June from The History Press, and a documentary about it has already won prizes.

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