OVER 40 NEW STORIES FROM BRITAIN’S LEADING CRIME WRITERS Leading editor and reviewer Maxim Jakubowski has compiled another beguiling collection of the year’s best new short crime fiction from the UK. Ian Rankin’s perennially popular Edinburgh cop, Inspector Rebus, makes an unexpected comeback in a short, but intriguing story, ‘The Very Last Drop’, and the collection closes with another Rankin story, ‘Driven’. Making their first appearance in the series are many luminaries such as Kate Atkinson, Louise Welsh, Stephen Booth, Christopher Brookmyre, Colin Bateman, A. L. Kennedy, Sheila Quigley, Lin Anderson, Simon Kernick and David Hewson. Also represented are exciting up-and-coming...

It doesn't look like murder in a city full of death. A pandemic called 'The Sweats' is sweeping the globe. London is a city in crisis. Hospitals begin to fill with the dead and dying, but Stevie Flint is convinced that the sudden death of her boyfriend Dr Simon Sharkey was not from natural causes. As roads out of London become gridlocked with people fleeing infection, Stevie's search for Simon's killers takes her in the opposite direction, into the depths of the dying city and a race with death. A Lovely Way to Burn is the first outbreak in the Plague Times trilogy. Chilling, tense and completely compelling, it's Louise Welsh writing at the height of her powers.

Magnus McFall is no stranger to trouble, but he never expected a life sentence. He is arrested just as a pandemic called ‘The Sweats’ hits London. Growing public disorder results in emergency powers and he finds himself imprisoned without trial. An unlikely alliance with long-termer Jeb and a prison riot offer the opportunity of escape. The two men force their way through the devastated city and head north into countryside fraught with danger. Magnus is unsure if Jeb is an ally or an enemy and soon he is forced to decide how far he will go in order to survive.

Professor Murray Watson is rather a sad sack. His family, his career, his affair…not even drinking offers much joy. All his energies are now focused on his research into Archie Lunan, a minor poet who drowned 30 years ago off a remote stretch of Scottish coast. By redeeming Lunan's reputation, Watson hopes to redeem his own. But the more he learns about Lunan's sordid life, the more unlikely redemption appears.

Увлекательный роман известной шотландской писательницы Луизы Уэлш посвящен трагической гибели великого драматурга XVI века Кристофера Марло, которому некоторые критики приписывают авторство шекспировских пьес. Опираясь на исторические факты, писательница создала динамичное и захватывающее повествование, в котором нашли образное воплощение высокие и низкие свойства человеческой души: благородство дружба, ревность, страсть, предательство, ненависть, возмездие…

Каждый вечер обманывать достопочтенную публику, призывать древних богов лукавства, превращать воду в вино, умерщвлять прекрасных дев, которые затем восстанут вновь целые и невредимые, дарить циничным душам трепет чуда, привычно лгать взрослым, мечтая о том, чтобы они стали детьми. Ненароком, в виде одолжения малознакомому человеку, украсть фотографию из чужого прошлого – и твое будущее больше тебе не принадлежит. В сыром Глазго, в декадентском Берлине тайны чужой истории и твое собственное волшебство бросят тебе вызов – и ты либо примешь его и возродишься, либо поставишь на себе крест навсегда. Классический трюк «поймать пулю» – рискованное предприятие, особенно если у якобы жертвы имеются...