Waking Raphael

1933: in a country rocked by corruption trials involving government, big business and the Vatican, people in the idyllic small city of Urbino, Raphael's birthplace, appear more concerned with love affairs than politics, their only worry an outbreak of spurious miracles. Then Count Malaspino returns after years away and his support for the restoration of Raphael's 'La Muta' ('the mute woman') drives a living mute to an act of violence. Does this woman know something terrible about Malaspino's past? Did she witness a literally 'unspeakable' crime that could shatter the peace of Urbino? Both a political thriller and an examination of our miraculous capacity for restoration, WAKING RAPHAEL recreates an Italy where the comic and the tragic, the romantic and the violent, are brilliantly evoked.

'The splendid, golden Italian light that softened the edges of objects while at the same time mysteriously making them clearer and more resonant filled Charlotte up like a rich, heavy wine. She thought: I will always know this place; I have already known it.'

Both a political thriller and an examination of our miraculous capacity for restoration, Waking Raphael recreates an Italy where the comic and the tragic, the romantic and the violent are tightly interwoven.

BOMBAY ICE

'Only bribery or collective insanity could prevent it being shortlisted for best thriller of the year.' Sunday Times

'Bombay Ice is terrific. A thriller that thinks. Leslie Forbes has gone for broke. Bombay Bollywood in all its gaudy glory: castrati, murder, monsoons, lepers and movie moguls. That sort of daring is brave at the best of times. In a first novel it is as rare as hen's teeth.' Christopher Hope

FISH, BLOOD AND BONE

'Gripping from the outset...a dizzying tale of murder and family mystery.' Publishers Weekly

'An intelligent, breathlessly paced thriller...a cracking good read.' Time Out New York

' A learned whodunit in the tradition of the Name of the Rose... ' Wall Street Journal