Reissue Recap!

I received four books recently that are all coming out in a new format today, with a fifth publishing next week. What better way to celebrate all five than with an exclusive round-up column!

The first is the sequel to a crime debut I super loved for its investigator protagonist. Charlotte Vassell’s The In Crowd is now out in paperback, and continues the story of DI Caius Beauchamp as he solves crime while navigating the race and class politics of modern England. Here in the series’ sophomore novel, DI Beauchamp must investigate two cold cases which couldn’t possibly be related… or could they?

Early one morning, a men’s rowing team discovers a body floating face down in the Thames. Many years before, the chief executive of a clothing manufacturer walked off with a multi-million dollar corporate retirement fund and disappeared without a trace. Now, the discovery of this body forces that cold case to be reopened.

Meanwhile, DI Beauchamp has his own evening at the theater upended by the discovery of a corpse just a few seats away. Two decades ago, Eliza Chapel, a fourteen-year-old student at a girls’ boarding school in Cornwall, disappeared in the middle of the night under dubious circumstances. A second body means a second cold case reopened.

As DI Beauchamp — along with his associates Matt Chung and Amy Noakes — investigates these parallel missing persons cases, he finds himself ensnared in the unexpected political machinations of a duke-in-waiting. The deeply irritating Rupert Beauchamp (no relation, probably) returns in these pages, but I’m rather glad Nell doesn’t play a prominent role here, as I thought she was kind of a drip in the first book. Regardless, I’m looking forward to finding time to dive in and enjoy Caius, Matt and Amy’s company once more!

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Our next two books come from Booker Prize-winning author John Banville, a writer widely considered to be Ireland’s greatest living novelist. His first two thrillers, written under the pen name Benjamin Black, are getting a reissue with his own name on the cover for the very first time.

Christine Falls introduces readers to the brooding forensic pathologist known as Quirke. A heavy-drinking, detached man, he works in the bowels of the hospital — the morgue — and investigates suspicious deaths in 1950s Dublin. In the early hours of the morning following a hospital party, Quirke stumbles drunkenly down to his office to find his brother-in-law Mal reworking the file of the recently deceased young woman named Christine Falls.

Mal is not only well-connected, he also married the love of Quirke’s life. And while Quirke’s gut tells him that the truth might unsettle him, he can’t resist asking questions that expose not only the dark realities of both Christine and himself, but the formidable powers beyond them that are hard at work against them all. As he finds himself caught in a transatlantic conspiracy, he’ll have to fight the powers of the Catholic church and his own family in his pursuit of the truth.

The follow-up to this blockbuster debut is also publishing today, with every subsequent novel in the series coming out over the next few months from Holt. The Silver Swan is this thriller’s epic sequel, as a faked suicide entangles our irascible pathologist hero in a deadly web of cons and deceit.

Two years have passed since the events chronicled in Christine Falls. Quirke’s beloved Sarah has died, his surrogate father lies paralyzed by a stroke, and he himself has been sober for half a year. When a near-forgotten acquaintance asks him for help covering up his beautiful young wife’s apparent suicide, Quirke knows that he should stay well clear, for the sake of both his sobriety and his peace of mind. But his old itch to know more is irresistible. Before long, he’s probing further into the circumstances of Deirdre Hunt’s death, and diving far further than he’d ever anticipated into the web of drugs and illicit sex that may have ensnared his own daughter Phoebe.

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The 1950s are also the setting for our next book, Veronica Lancet’s viral sensation Fairydale. Atria will be publishing a paperback version of this 700+ page Gothic fantasy meets paranormal romance, with a never-before-seen epilogue too.

When Darcy O’Sullivan, an orphaned English teacher from Boston, receives a letter informing her that her biological father has passed away, she is surprised to find herself included in his will. There is only one condition: she must travel to the small coastal town of Fairydale to attend his funeral.

Unable to resist the combination of a sizeable inheritance with finally learning the truth of her birth, Darcy undertakes the trip. But the moment she steps foot in Fairydale, things start to go awry. There are odd rumors, odd deaths, and even odd men. Brooding Caleb Hale, part of the infamous Hale family, has set his sights on her and shows no intention of letting go. With each passing day, she falls deeper and deeper under Caleb’s spell, as he forces her to step out of her comfort zone and embrace her inner sensuality.

But each night, it’s another man who haunts her dreams. Amon d’Artan is a nobleman who lived two centuries ago. Amon is sweet and suave where Caleb is intense and dangerous. Soon she finds herself embroiled in a web of lies, deceit and inexplicable events that make her question her sanity. When an ancient evil threatens the town and everything Darcy holds dear, she must make the ultimate choice. But will she herself survive it?

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Finally, we have the reissue of Charlie Huston’s blistering debut novel Caught Stealing, in conjunction with the Darren Aronofsky movie adaptation starring Austin Butler, Regina King and Zoe Kravitz premiering next week! Originally published in 2004, this cult crime classic has long seemed destined for the big screen, and now gets its very own movie tie-in.

This first book in a series introduces readers to Hank Thompson, who used to play baseball in California but now tends bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. When two Russians in tracksuits drag Hank over the bar in order to beat him to a pulp, he gets the message: someone wants something from him. He just doesn’t know what it is, where it is or how to make them understand that he doesn’t have it.

Within twenty-four hours, Hank is running over rooftops, playing hide-and-seek with the NYPD, riding the subway with a dead man at his side, and counting a whole lot of cash on a concrete floor. All because, as he discovers, he agreed to do a favor for a neighbor. And all because once, in another life, the only thing Hank wanted to steal was third base — without getting caught.

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Let me know if you’re able to get to any of these books before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will help spur me to push any of them higher up the mountain range that is my To Be Read pile.

And, as always, you can check out the list of my favorite books in my Bookshop storefront linked below!