I first heard of Beverley (shown at right, with Mark Timlin) back when she worked at the UK’s Pan Macmillan, editing Colin Dexter and Minette Walters,
working on Rennie Airth’s 1999 masterwork, River of Darkness and generally acquiring a formidable reputation in the industry. And I’ve kept in touch with her ever since. Which has proved fortuitous, since she’s now the editorial director with Michael Joseph/Penguin.One of Beverley’s strengths is her ability to spot new talent. Among her early discoveries for Penguin was former journalist Jim Kelly, whose Philip Dryden novels (including The Coldest Blood, 2006) are set in the Fenland area of Britain’s East Anglia. Then last year, she and the Penguin team discovered Nick Stone, who debuted with Mr. Clarinet, recipient of the Crime Writers’ Association’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and has been nominated for the International Thriller Writers’ Best Thriller Debut Award. (The winner will be announced this summer during ThrillerFest, to be held this coming July in New York City. HarperCollins will release Mr. Clarinet in the States that same month.) Penguin has also recently acquired the UK rights to Chris Mooney’s The Missing, about which we wrote recently.
Under Beverley’s guidance, Penguin appears to be arming itself to conquer and keep the attention of Britain’s crime-fiction many readers. Its stable of writing talent is a remarkable mix of John Rickards, David Lawrence, Andrew Britton, Daniel Silva, Barry Eisler, Charles Cumming, Clive Cussler, Andrew Taylor, Nicci French (aka Nicci Gerrard and Sean French), P.J. Tracy, and Jilliane Hoffman, plus genre stalwarts such as John Buchan, Raymond Chandler, Ian Fleming, Erskine Childers, Georges Simenon, P.D. James, Dick Francis, and many others.
Earlier this year, Beverley was kind enough to invite me me, along with a bevy of other writers and reviewers (including Jane Jakeman of the New Statesman, Maxim Jakubowski and Laura Wilson from The Guardian, Mark Timlin of The Independent, and Mike Stotter from Shots) to Penguin’s annual Crime Dinner, held at The Crypt, in central London’s St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields church, near Trafalgar Square. It was an suitably creepy location for a gathering of folks who write about murder, mayhem, and malfeasance for a living. It was also valuable, though, from a journalist point of view, for after the sumptuous meal, Beverley treated us to a presentation on Penguin’s forthcoming crime-fiction titles.
So what does that the house think will make waves in 2007? Here are a few (with quotes from Penguin UK publicity materials):
• The Malice Box, Martin Langfield (February): “When Robert Reckliss is sent what seems to be a copper puzzle box, he has no idea his life is about to undergo violent transformation. That night, an acquaintance kills himself in curious circumstances; the following day, an old friend reveals the existence of an arcane weapon that could wipe the western world from the face of the planet. And the responsibility for hunting down this weapon, this Malice Box, lies with Robert. The weapon is primed to explode in seven days and Robert must undergo a quest--a series of trials around Manhattan--in order to track down the keys vital to prevent detonation. In a desperate race against the clock, Robert trails the streets of Manhattan guided by Terri, a mysterious psychic, and under the constant gaze of the sinister Watchman. Higher forces are battling to prevent him completing the quest ...”
• Frankie, by Kevin Lewis (March): “Homeless, streetwise and running away from a past she would rather forget, Francesca Mills is just another face on the streets of London. When a violent encounter leads to a man’s death, however, she is forced to leave the harsh world that has become her home and forge a new life elsewhere. On the run, Frankie unknowingly stumbles across a dangerous secret, a secret so powerful that men will stop at nothing to protect it. She tries to build a new life, but you can only stay anonymous when no one wants to find you. Hunted by both the police and shadowy assailants with powerful connections, the odds are stacked against a woman who will do whatever it takes to protect herself--and those who mean most to her ...”
• Absolution, by Caro Ramsey (June): “1984: It looked like a simple job. That was why they gave it to him. Guarding a woman--nameless and almost faceless after a savage acid attack--at a Glasgow hospital, PC Alan McAlpine has no idea that this simple job will haunt his career and change his life forever. 2006: Two decades later, Alan steps into Partickhill police station and back in time. Now a celebrated Detective Chief Inspector, McAlpine has been drafted in to lead the hunt for a man the press are calling ‘the Crucifixion Killer’. Two women are already dead, their mutilated bodies laid with arms outstretched. With his distinguished reputation,
McAlpine’s team are confident their new DCI will lead them to the killer. But the obsession that was born in a hospital room twenty-two years earlier has never quite left Alan. And now, it seems, it’s come back for a reason ...”• The Skeleton Man, by Jim Kelly (July): “For seventeen years the Cambridgeshire hamlet of Jude’s Ferry has lain abandoned, requisitioned for military training. The isolated, 1,000-year-old community is, it seems, famous for one thing--never having recorded a single crime. But when reporter Philip Dryden joins the Territorial Army on exercise in the empty village, its stainless history is literally blown apart. For shelling has revealed a hidden cellar under the pub. And inside hangs a skeleton, a noose around its neck ... Then, two days later, a man is pulled from the river near Ely--he has no idea who he is or how he got there. But he knows the words ‘Jude's Ferry’ are important, and he knows he is afraid ...”
Penguin is also high on King of Swords, Nick Stone’s “terrifying sequel” to Mr. Clarinet (due out in August), but is keeping details of the story tightly under wraps. Hmm …
And a heads-up for 2008: Ms. Cousins has acquired another debut novel, Spider, this one by Michael Morley, a former crime reporter, former psychological profiler, and now a television producer with Britain’s Endemol. Spider, I’m assured, will set to send the serial-killer genre into a new and exciting direction, taking the reader right into the minds of both a killer and an FBI agent as they play out a frantic game of cat-and-mouse across two continents. Sounds good, but groundbreaking? We shall see.
In closing her presentation, Beverley quoted a statement made by Maxim Jakubowski in The Bookseller, which shows just how aggressively Penguin is going after the crime/thriller market: “The Penguin Group is making concerted attack on [British rival Orion’s] domination. Penguin is reaping the rewards from its careful cultivation of existing authors, its exciting new signings and expensive imports.”
And here I was under the impression that penguins were such peaceful, gentle creatures …
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Have you ever wondered what a London literary dinner was like? Well, wonder no more. Click here to view a slide show of the recent Penguin fête at The Crypt.
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