Look out for these: Introducing Piqwiq, a new imprint plus two great thrillers, both written with that quintessentially wry British humour
I’ve seen a few articles recently about Amazon’s continuing
dispute with publisher Hachette and have to confess to feeling more than a
little sorry for authors who are finding it harder and harder to break into the
publishing market and even then, often making very little out of their
craft. So I was surprised to stumble
across a new imprint, Piqwiq, which claims to offer “exceptionally well-priced
quality e books” and also to provide authors with enhanced royalties. Now, I can’t really comment with any
authority about Piqwiq’s commercial model or whether the authors really do get
a lot more in royalties from this publisher compared to other imprints, however,
I would like to talk about two of the books they hve on their growing
publications list.
The first in Unknown Unknowns by Adam Bromley. Kat Foster is a career Civil Servant, who for
all the right reasons makes a bad career move during a formal banquet by
punching an American Captain into a mound of profiteroles. Kat’s boss giver here a chance to redeem
herself by travelling to Ozerkistan’s capital, Ozerk City to meet “The Chemist”,
and verify his claim of having valuable information about a defunct Soviet
chemicals weapon programme codenamed Pandora.
Foster travels to Ozerkistan, a lawless
state unrecognised by any other country, not realising that she’s not the only
person with The Chemist in their sights and the competition is basically not
very nice!
The novel is a thriller, but written with a dry wit and
humour that makes in quintessentially British, providing comic relief from the serious
underlying themes of the book. I though
it a great mix of character, plot and humour that is genuinely entertaining
because it doesn’t take itself too seriously, but also doesn’t degenerate into
outright farce.
The second novel Crossword ends in violence (5) is by James
Cary, following the fortunes of John Fellowes, owner of The Bookman Bureau, a
company that sets crosswords and puzzles, slowly slipping into financial
oblivion. Fellowes finds out that
his grandfather Carl Bookman may have actually been a German spy during the
Second World War. After all, how does
one account for the D Day codewords Overlord and Neptune appearing in a crossword
in 1944 compiled by someone of German origin? Fellowes sets out to clear his grandfather’s
name, ably helped by Amanda, the bored enterprising and very attractive accountant
from the office one floor below Fellowes’.
I’m not sure whether I should describe this novel as more
comedy than thriller, but it’s most entertaining. I found Fellowes’ character really engaging,
particularly the way his mind works, translating everything that’s happening
around him into crossword clues. The
Fellowes/Amanda partnership is fun and the hunt for the truth about Fellowes’ grandfather
brings more than one surprise into the open.
If like me you find the themes of crosswords, puzzles and
clues attractive, here’s a link to a blog post by James Cary where he talks
about his new novel:
I hope things work out well for Piqwiq – if you want to find
out more about them and their growing stable of authors and novels, here’s a
link to their website:
Romancrimeblogger
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