BOOK OF THE WEEK with Linda Jennings. Moriarty, Anthony Horowitz, ISBN 9781409109488 (Orion) BD7.800 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members
Hot off the Press … Sherlock Holmes is dead. Days after Holmes and his arch-enemy Moriarty fall to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls, Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York.
The death of Moriarty has created a poisonous vacuum which has been swiftly filled by a fiendish new criminal mastermind who has risen to take his place.
Ably assisted by Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard, a devoted student of Holmes’s methods of investigation and deduction, Frederick Chase must forge a path through the darkest corners of the capital to shine light on this shadowy figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, a man determined to engulf London in a tide of murder and menace.
Author of the global bestseller The House of Silk, Anthony Horowitz once more breathes life into the world created by Arthur Conan Doyle. With pitch-perfect characterisation and breath-taking pace, Horowitz weaves a relentlessly thrilling tale which teases and delights by the turn of each page.
Horrowitz is universally acknowledged as the most precise imitator of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s style of writing (only Horrowitz has earned the approval of the Doyle estate). As with House of Silk this book has received fabulous reviews and will be one of the ‘hot reads’ over Christmas. So, the game is afoot, what are you waiting for?
* Read it now in paperback
Lips Touch, Laini Taylor, ISBN 9781444731514 (Hodder) BD3.900 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members
From a writer of unparalleled, vivid imagination and emotional insight here is a lovely little collection of three stories for our teenage readers complete with gothic illustrations, to get them in the Halloween mood.
Three stories about the deliciousness of wanting and waiting for that moment when lips touch …
In Victorian times, goblins offered sumptuous fruits in exchange for maidens’ souls ... and were usually successful. But what does it take to tempt today’s savvy young women? Discover the answer in Goblin Fruit.
In Spicy Little Curses a demon and the ambassador to Hell tussle over the soul of a beautiful English girl in India. Matters become complicated when she falls in love and decides to test the curse placed upon her.
And, finally, in Hatchling six days before Esme’s 14th birthday, her left eye turns from brown to blue. She little suspects what the change heralds, but her small safe life begins to unravel at once. What does the beautiful, fanged man want with her, and how is her fate connected to a mysterious race of demons?
* My favourite read-of-the-week
Cat Out Of Hell, Lynne Truss, ISBN 9780099585343 (Hodder) BD4.500 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members
This is the mesmerising tale of a cat with nine lives, and a relationship as ancient as time itself and just as powerful, by acclaimed storyteller Lynne Truss, author of the bestselling Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
The scene: inside a cottage on the coast on a windy evening with curtains drawn. Tea has just been made. A kettle still steams. Under a pool of yellow light, two figures face each other across a kitchen table: A man and a cat.
The story about to be related is so unusual yet so terrifyingly plausible that it demands to be told in a single sitting. The man clears his throat, and leans forward, expectant.
‘Shall we begin?’ says the cat …
If you have ever been suspicious of that evil glint in your cat’s eye, this book might just confirm all your worst fears as you enter the world of a dead librarian, a charismatic cat and a mystery involving the Devil himself.