Mantle Spring 2019 Catalogue

MANTLE

MANTLE

Blood & Sugar Laura Shepherd-Robinson 1781. An investigation into a gruesome murder on the Deptford Docks leads to a dark secret that could change the very core of British society . . .

‘A page-turner of a crime thriller . . . This is a world conveyed with convincing, terrible clarity’ C. J. Sansom Blood & Sugar is the thrilling debut historical crime novel from Laura Shepherd-Robinson.

June, 1781. An unidentified body hangs upon a hook at Deptford Dock – horribly tortured and branded with a slaver’s mark.

‘Laura Shepherd-Robinson has written a story that is not only a page-turner of a crime thriller but, to an extent unusual in historical novels, one where you feel you really are listening to a voice from the eighteenth century’ C. J. Sansom ‘Utterly compelling . . . The next star of historical crime fiction has arrived’ R. N. Morris ‘A book to be savoured. Characters and setting so vividly depicted, and a story both bold and heart-breaking. I can’t recommend it enough’ Jo Jakeman, author of Sticks and Stones ‘A striking historical thriller that exposes the horrors of Britain’s slave trade . . . Few first novels are as accomplished as this’ Andrew Taylor

Some days later, Captain Harry Corsham – a war hero embarking upon a promising parliamentary career – is visited by the sister of an old friend. Her brother, passionate abolitionist Tad Archer, had been about to expose a secret that he believed could cause irreparable damage to the British slaving industry. He’d said people were trying to kill him, and now he is missing . . .

To discover what happened to Tad, Harry is forced to pick up the threads of his friend’s investigation, delving into the heart of the conspiracy Tad had unearthed. His investigation will threaten his political prospects, his family’s happiness, and force a reckoning with his past, risking the revelation of secrets that have the power to destroy him.

And that is only if he can survive the mortal dangers awaiting him in Deptford . . .

Laura Shepherd-Robinson was born in Bristol in 1976. She has a BSc in Politics from the University of Bristol and an MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics. Laura worked in politics for nearly twenty years before re-entering normal life to complete an MA in Creative Writing at City University. She lives in London with her husband, Adrian. This is her first novel.

24/01/2019 • £16.99 • 9781509880775 • Fiction • Hardback Royal • 448pp • Rights: WEL Excluding US CAN 24/01/2019 • £13.99 • 9781509880782 • Fiction • Trade Paperback • 448pp • Rights: WEL Excluding US CAN

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The Overnight Kidnapper Andrea Camilleri Three cases of overnight kidnapping baffle the Vigàtan police force in Andrea Camilleri’s twenty-third Inspector Montalbano mystery.

The Overnight Kidnapper is the twenty-third Inspector Montalbano mystery, from the international bestselling author Andrea Camilleri.

After a hectic morning involving two rather irritating cases of mistaken identity, Inspector Montalbano finally arrives in his office ready to hear about the cases troubling Vigàta that week. What he discovers is unnerving. A woman on her way home from work has been held up at gunpoint, chloroformed and kidnapped, but then released just hours later – unharmed and with all her possessions – into the open countryside.

Later that day, Montalbano hears from Enzo, the owner of his favourite restaurant, that his niece has recently been the victim of the exact same crime. Before long, a third instance of this baffling overnight kidnapping has been reported.

‘Montalbano’s colleagues, chance encounters, Sicilian mores, even the contents of his fridge are described with the wit and gusto that make this narrator the best company in crime fiction today’ Guardian

As far as Montalbano can tell, there is no link between the attacker and the victims. So what exactly is this mystery assailant gaining from these fleeting kidnappings?

And what can he do to stop them? Montalbano must use all his logic and intuition if he is to answer these pressing questions before the kidnapper finds his next victim . . .

‘Among the most exquisitely crafted pieces of crime writing available today . . . Simply superb’ Sunday Times ‘One of fiction’s greatest detectives and Camilleri is one of Europe’s greatest crime writers’ Daily Mail

Andrea Camilleri is one of Italy’s most famous contemporary writers. His books have sold over 65 million copies worldwide.

He lives in Rome. The Inspector Montalbano series, which began with The Shape of Water, has been translated into thirty-two languages and was adapted for Italian television, screened on BBC4. The Potter’s Field, the thirteenth book in the series, was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association’s International Dagger for the best crime novel translated into English. In addition to his phenomenally successful Inspector Montalbano series, he is also the author of the historical comic mysteries Hunting Season and The Brewer of Preston.

07/02/2019 • £16.99 • 9781509840816 • Fiction • Hardback Demy • 288pp • Rights: WEL Excluding US CAN Non-Exclusive EU & EFTA 07/02/2019 • £13.99 • 9781509840823 • Fiction • Trade Paperback • 288pp • Rights: WEL Excluding US CAN Non-Exclusive EU & EFTA

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The Glovemaker Ann Weisgarber Utah, 1888. As one woman awaits her husband’s return home, a stranger arrives on her doorstep . . .

From the critically acclaimed author of The Personal History of Rachel DuPree comes The Glovemaker – a stunning historical novel for fans of Cold Mountain.

For almost four years, men came to my cabin carrying trouble on their backs, each one haunted and looking over their shoulders . . . They showed up during the spring, they appeared in the summer and early fall. But never now, never in January . . .

Winter, 1888. In the inhospitable lands of Utah Territory, glovemaker Deborah Tyler awaits her husband’s return home after months working across the state. But as his due date comes and goes without a word, Deborah starts to fear the worst. Facing a future alone, matters are only compounded when a desperate stranger arrives on her doorstep. And with him, trouble.

‘The Glovemaker, Ann Weisgarber’s engrossing, troubling, honest-to-goodness third novel, is as stark and touching as the lives described, as tense and testing as the Utah backlands where it’s set, as fine as any fiction you will read this year’ Jim Crace, author of Harvest and The Melody ‘A compelling story balanced on the knife edge between religion and ethics, crime and sin, compassion and fear’ Mary Doria Russell, author of Doc and Epitaph ‘I loved everything about this book – the characters, the plot, the vivid and unique setting – but most of all I loved the fact that it felt so raw and honest’ Juliet West, author of The Faithful

For although the man claims to just need a place to rest for the night, he wouldn’t be here in the bitter month of January if he wasn’t on the run. And where he goes, lawmen are sure to follow. Lawmen who wouldn’t think twice about burning Deborah’s home to the ground if they thought she’d helped their fugitive.

With her husband’s absence felt stronger by the minute, Deborah must make a decision. A decision that will change her life forever . . .

Ann Weisgarber was born and raised in Kettering, Ohio. She has lived in Boston, Massachusetts, and Des Moines, Iowa, but now splits her time between Sugar Land, Texas, and Galveston, Texas. Her first novel The Personal History of Rachel DuPree was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers. Her follow-up book, The Promise, was a finalist in the Western Writers of America Best Historical Fiction Awards. The Glovemaker is her third novel.

21/02/2019 • £16.99 • 9780230745773 • Fiction • Hardback Royal • 304pp • Rights: World 21/02/2019 • £13.99 • 9781509889914 • Fiction • Trade Paperback • 304pp • Rights: World

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I Thought I Knew You Penny Hancock Who do you know best? Your oldest friend?

Your child?

And who do you believe when one accuses the other of something terrible?

Can you always believe the people you love?

Jules and Holly have been best friends since university.

They tell each other everything, trading revelations and confessions, and sharing both the big moments and the small details of their lives: Holly is the only person who knows about Jules’s affair; Jules was there for Holly when her husband died. And their two children – just four years apart – have grown up together.

So when Jules’s daughter Saffie accuses Holly’s son Saul of a terrible crime, neither woman can possibly be prepared for what this means – for their families or their friendship. Especially as Holly refuses to believe her son is guilty.

‘Enthralling and addictive with relationships so real I can’t believe they’re not still continuing somewhere . . . Utterly brilliant’

For fans of He Said/She Said and Anatomy of a Scandal, Penny Hancock’s I Thought I Knew You is about secrets and lies – and whose side you take when it really matters.

Lisa Jewell ‘Brilliantly written and totally gripping.

I loved it’ S. J. Watson on Tideline ‘A truly compelling story that captures exactly the complexity of friendship and motherhood and how everything we think we know can be challenged in one heartbreaking instant . . . Wonderful’

Penny Hancock is the author of Tideline, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick, The Darkening Hour and A Trick of the Mind.

She works at Anglia Ruskin University, supporting students with their writing, and lives in Cambridge. She is married with three children.

Jenny Quintana, author of The Missing Girl

07/03/2019 • £12.99 • 9781509867851 • Fiction • Hardback Demy • 384pp • Rights: World 07/03/2019 • £12.99 • 9781509867868 • Fiction • Trade Paperback • 384pp • Rights: World

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The Mobster’s Lament Ray Celestin New York is in the spotlight for the third instalment in Ray Celestin’s critically acclaimed City Blues quartet, and this time mobsters, money and murder are at the heart of the investigations.

Ray Celestin heads to New York City, for the third book in his award-winning City Blues quartet, The Mobster’s Lament.

New York, 1947. Private Investigator Ida Davis has been called from Chicago by her old friend Michael’s daughter, Maeve, to investigate a miscarriage of justice case. A young man has been framed for a killing spree in a Harlem flophouse, and is set to receive the death penalty for a crime he didn’t commit. But as they delve into the case, Ida and Maeve realize the murders in the flophouse were part of a much greater series of killings spanning decades and continents.

‘Celestin’s promise of two further instalments of this lively, jazz-based series can only be cause for celebration’ Sunday Times on Dead Man’s Blues ‘His first book was one of the best crime novels of its year and this sequel is even better. VERDICT: 5/5’ Sunday Express on Dead Man’s Blues

Ray Celestin’s debut novel, The Axeman’s Jazz, won the Crime Writers’ Association’s New Blood Dagger and was shortlisted for the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year Award.

His second novel, Dead Man’s Blues, was shortlisted for the CWA’s Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year. The Mobster’s Lament is the third instalment in his City Blues quartet. He lives in London.

Whilst in the city, Ida reconnects with her old friend Louis Armstrong, and discovers him at his lowest ebb.

His big band is bankrupt, he’s playing to empty venues, and he’s pretty much a has-been, until a promoter approaches him with a strange offer to reignite his career . . .

Meanwhile, nightclub manager and mob fixer Monk Lattner is tasked by the ‘boss of all bosses’, Frank Costello, to track down some money which was left in the city by the recently deceased mobster and founder of Las Vegas, Bugsy Siegel. Monk goes on a journey through the underbelly of New York in search of the money, and uncovers a conspiracy stretching all the way to the top of society, that brings him into contact with Ida and Maeve, and forces him to confront demons from his own harrowing past . . .

Celestin’s third instalment in his City Blues quartet shows New York City during one of the most pivotal moments in its history – from its dive bars to its luxury apartments; its merchant-barons to its low-lifes – and the rise of the mob to the height of its power.

21/03/2019 • £16.99 • 9781509838936 • Fiction • Hardback Royal • 496pp • Rights: WEL 21/03/2019 • £13.99 • 9781509838943 • Fiction • Trade Paperback • 496pp • Rights: WEL

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As Long As We Both Shall Live JoAnn Chaney Grieving husband? Or cold-blooded killer?

JoAnn Chaney examines the dark side of marriage in this startling thriller.

What happens when you’re really, truly done making your marriage work?

As Long As We Both Shall Live is JoAnn Chaney’s wicked, masterful examination of a marriage gone very wrong . . .

‘My wife! I think she’s dead!’ Matt frantically tells park rangers, as he explains that he and his wife, Marie, were hiking when she fell off a cliff into the raging river below.

They start a search, but they aren’t hopeful: no one could have survived that fall. It’s a tragic accident.

But when police discover Matt’s first wife also died in suspicious circumstances, they have a lot more questions for him.

‘This outstanding dark debut . . . is breathtaking from first page to the last’ Daily Mail on What You Don’t Know ‘A masterclass in character study, a beautifully woven story, and truly chilling at its core, this is a literary crime-novel not to be missed!’

Is Matt a grieving husband, or a cold-blooded killer?

Detectives Loren and Spengler dig into the couple’s lives to see what they can unearth. And they find that love’s got teeth, it’s got claws, and once it hitches you to a person, it’s tough to rip yourself free.

So what happens when you’re done making it work?

Sarah Pinborough, author of Behind Her Eyes, on What You Don’t Know ‘A scary and insightful debut from a writer of real promise’ Mail on Sunday on What You Don’t Know

JoAnn Chaney is a graduate of UC Riverside’s Palm Desert MFA program. She lives in Colorado with her family. Her debut, What You Don’t Know, was published to critical acclaim.

As Long As We Both Shall Live is her second novel.

04/04/2019 • £12.99 • 9781509824274 • Fiction • Hardback Royal • 368pp • Rights: WEL Excluding US CAN Non-Exclusive EU & EFTA 10/01/2019 • £12.99 • 9781509824250 • Fiction • Trade Paperback • 368pp • Rights: WEL Excluding US CAN Non-Exclusive EU & EFTA

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A Thousand Ships Natalie Haynes A feminist retelling of the Trojan War – giving voices to the women the myths forgot . . .

In A Thousand Ships, broadcaster and classicist Natalie Haynes retells the story of the Trojan War from an allfemale perspective.

This is the women’s war, just as much as it is the men’s, and the poet will look upon their pain – the pain of the women who have always been relegated to the edges of the story, victims of men, survivors of men, slaves of men – and he will tell it, or he will tell nothing at all. They have waited long enough for their turn . . .

In the early hours of the morning, Creusa wakes up to the deafening sound of her city on fire. Troy – the home in which she has been held hostage for the last ten years, as Greeks and Trojans fought out their seemingly endless war – has finally fallen. Over the next few hours, the only life she has ever known will turn to ash . . .

‘Haynes is master of her trade, crafting perfect sentences and believable characters who speak and think in delicately nuanced language. [She] succeeds in breathing warm life into some of our oldest stories to show how remarkably little basic human relationships and emotions have changed’

From this one event, Natalie Haynes spins out a tale of the long-running lead-up to and the devastating consequences of the fall of Troy, and the catalyst that started it all . . .

Playfully and powerfully told from an all-female perspective, A Thousand Ships gives voices to the women, girls and goddesses the traditional tales overlook.

Telegraph ‘Passionate and gripping . . . Haynes balances a fresh take on the material with a deep love for her sources’ Madeline Miller, Orange Prizewinning author of The Song of Achilles and Circe

Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. She is the author of The Amber Fury, which was shortlisted for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year award; The Children of Jocasta, a feminist retelling of the Oedipus and Antigone stories; and a non-fiction book about Ancient History, The Ancient Guide to Modern Life. She has written and presented two series of the BBC Radio 4 show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics. In 2015, she was awarded the Classical Association Prize for her work in bringing Classics to a wider audience.

02/05/2019 • £16.99 • 9781509836192 • Fiction • Hardback Demy • 352pp • Rights: WEL Excluding US CAN 02/05/2019 • £13.99 • 9781509836208 • Fiction • Trade Paperback • 352pp • Rights: WEL Excluding US CAN

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