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:

http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2014/jun/09/crossword-novel-d-day-enigma-james-cary

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:

http://www.piqwiq.co.uk/piqwiq-about-us.html

 
Romancrimeblogger