Partners & Crime's hot new authors: James Church, Elizabeth Ironside and Cornelia Read

	THE BLADE ITSELF by Marcus Sakey St. Martin’s Minotaur 2007 With raves from every notable crime writer in the business, you've either heard about this first novel or you've been in solitary confinement. Danny Carter's contented, quintessential suburban life collides with a crunch when he runs into his old burgling buddy Evan, who is newly released from prison with a really nasty jones for making Danny's life miserable. Evan is a splendidly villainous character; he steals every scene. It's a creepy pleasure watching him make Danny squirm. Sakey's debut crime novel asks, "How far would you go to protect everything you love?" and that's exactly what you'll find out. This debut bodes very well for Sakey's future - which is guaranteed if his next novel is anywhere half as good as Blade. Collectors and readers for pleasure alike should snap this up. SIGNED $22.95
	A Corpse in the Koryo by James Church St. Martin’s Minotaur 2006 Every once in a while we encounter something completely different, and James Church’s first novel is one of them. Set in what is likely the most closed society in the world – North Korea – this is a police procedural with a distinctively Kafkaesque flavor. Inspector O is given a rather vague assignment to watch a certain border crossing early one morning, and when he fails to complete it to the satisfaction of his superiors he unintentionally sets off a secret firestorm of competing agendas among the nation’s security agencies. Church (not his real name, he’s still in the intelligence business) has created a hero worth admiring in O, and a definite particularity of place that will haunt you beyond the reading. Per Olen Steinhauer: “If you like fine writing, eye-opening characters and locales, and a quiet but purposeful intelligence wrapped inside a thrilling story, get ready to go to Church.“ SOLD OUT SIGNED $23.95
	The Accomplice by Elizabeth Ironside Felony & Mayhem 2006 We’ve taken the liberty of quoting Marilyn Stasio’s review from the November 5 issue of the NY Times Book Review for author’s first book to be released in hardcover in the US (we can’t say it any better!): “Like ''Death in the Garden,'' the novel that introduced American readers to Elizabeth Ironside's delicate but lethal storytelling style, THE ACCOMPLICE assembles its cast at a social gathering at an elegant English country house. The setting is gracious, the guests have lovely manners and the talk is civilized -- until workmen digging up the rose garden at Asshe House uncover the skeleton of a child. Although we tend to follow the account of Zita Daunsey, a close family friend and neighbor, Ironside exercises such subtle restraint on the story -- told from multiple perspectives in alternating chapters covering a half-century of events -- that its complexity can't be fully appreciated until the very end. For the purposes of the plot, these distinctive internal voices bind the story together, but an outside observer can only wonder what would happen if everyone blurted out their open, unguarded thoughts at the next garden party. “ SIGNED $24.00 Also, special Limited Manning Edition, SIGNED by the author (twice, once as Elizabeth Ironside and again as Catherine Manning), the publisher and the designer. SIGNED $50.00
	A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read Mysterious Press 2006 At turns vicious, comic, and provocative, the author’s first novel is told in one of the most seductive new voices we’ve ever read! Madeline Dare is a reporter in Syracuse, NY. She’s old money (so old it’s all gone) living in the working-class world with her blue-collar inventor husband and his family. When her still-wealthy cousin is implicated in the unsolved murders of two young women 20 years in the past, Dare sets out to clear his name. What first caught our attention was a sentence on the opening page, which reads: “Like maybe it was one long sly Dada-surrealist wink from the universe, a warning I should have been hip enough to catch.” EDGAR NOMINEE - Best First SIGNED $45.00