Nick Stone

Guest: Author Nick Stone is one of Waterstone's 25 Authors of the Future. Nick's debut novel 'Mr.Clarinet' took crime and thriller readers by storm when it was published in 2006. He won the Crime Writer's Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of the year in 2006 and has been shortlisted for thr International Thriller Writer Award for the Best First Novel. He joined me to talk about his latest book 'King of Swords', a prequel to 'Mr.Clarinet'.

King of Swords by Nick Stone

This book is set in Miami, 1981. When Detective Max Mingus and his partner Joe are called to the scene of a death at Miami's Primate Park, it looks like another routine - if slightly bizarre - investigation. Until two things turn up: the victim's family, slaughtered; and a partly digested tarot card in the dead man's stomach; 'The King of Swords'. An increasingly bloody trail leads Max and Joe first to a sinister fortune-teller and her scheming pimp son, then to the infamous Solomon Boukman. Few have ever met the most feared criminal in Miami, but rumours abound of a forked tongue, voodoo ceremonies and friends in very high places. Against a backdrop of black magic and police corruption, Max and Joe must distinguish the good guys from the bad - and track down some answers. What is the significance of the King of Swords? What makes those who have swallowed the card go on a killing spree just before they die? And can Max find out the truth about Solomon Boukman, before death's shadow reaches his own front door?

Mr. Clarinet by Nick Stone

This title is winner of the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller of the year. Pied piper, soul stealer, or serial killer - who is Mr. Clarinet? It was a job Miami private investigator Max Mingus found hard to refuse: $10 million to locate billionaire's son Charlie Carver - missing now for over three years. Young Charlie disappeared on the island of Haiti, where over the decades scores of children have vanished. In a country dominated by voodoo, rumours abound of black magic and a mythical figure called 'Mr Clarinet', who for years has been tempting children away from their families. But could the truth be even more shocking than the legend? To find out, Max will have to succeed where previous detectives have not only failed - but where some have died. And suddenly, this job isn't all about finding Charlie or his killers for the money - it's just about staying alive.

The Fight by Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer's, "The Fight" focuses on the 1975 World Heavyweight Boxing Championship in Kinshasa, Zaire. Muhammad Ali met George Foreman in the ring. Foreman's genius employed silence, serenity and cunning. He had never been defeated. His hands were his instrument, and 'he kept them in his pockets the way a hunter lays his rifle back into its velvet case'. Together the two men made boxing history in an explosive meeting of two great minds, two iron wills and monumental egos.

Green River Rising by Tim Willocks

After three years' hard time, minding no-one's business but his own, Ray Klein wins his parole. That same day, the disciplinary perfection of Green River State Penitentiary is torn apart by tribal war, and the prison falls into the hands of its inmates. As the River sucks them all towards the abyss, Klein must choose either to claim his freedom and leave the ones he cares for to die, or risk everything and fight...

Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

It is Los Angeles, 11th January 1947. A beautiful young woman walked into the night and met her horrific destiny. Five days later, her tortured body was found drained of blood and cut in shelf. The newspapers called her 'The Black Dahlia'. Two cops are caught up in the investigation and embark on a hellish journey that takes them to the core of the dead girl's twisted life.

Not in My Name by Julie Burchill

It is a great and glorious tradition the world over - to vehemently state one thing and then do the exact opposite. Royals are doing it, reformed smokers are doing it, and politicians are virtually synonymous with it. Welcome to the heyday of hypocrisy. From the everyday hypocrites (cyclists, white hip-hop fans, reality television-haters) to the truly pungent stinking hypocrites (chav-haters, green campaigners and anti-Americans), Julie Burchill and Chas Newkey-Burden pull no punches in their witty harangue of those who shamelessly say one thing and do another. This book features modern hypocrites' favourite holiday destinations, musical and sporting heroes, and the hilarious Hypocrites' Ultimate Weekend.

Money by Martin Amis

This is the story of John Self, consumer extraordinaire. Rolling around New York and London, he makes deals, spends wildly and does reckless movie-world business, all the while grabbing everything he can to sate his massive appetites: alcohol, tobacco, pills, pornography, a mountain of junk food and more. Ceaselessly inventive and thrillingly savage, this is a tale of life lived without restraint; of money, the terrible things it can do and the disasters it can precipitate.

Oracle Night by Paul Auster

Several months into his recovery from a near-fatal illness, thirty-four-year-old novelist Sidney Orr enters a stationery shop in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn and buys a blue notebook. It is September 18, 1982, and for the next nine days Orr will live under the spell of this blank book, trapped inside a world of eerie premonitions and bewildering events that threaten to destroy his marriage and undermine his faith in reality...

Coming up next week, Author R.N.Morris to talk about 'A Gentle Axe' and 'A Vengeful Longing'.