Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman’s latest book for young children is Fortunately, the Milk (Bloomsbury £ 10.99), illustrated by Chris Riddell.

“You know what it’s like when your mum goes away on a business trip and Dad’s in charge. She leaves a really, really long list of what he’s got to do. And the most important thing is DON’T FORGET TO GET THE MILK.

Unfortunately, Dad forgets. So the next morning, before breakfast, he has to go to the corner shop, and this is the story of why it takes him a very, very long time to get back.

Featuring: Professor Steg (a time-travelling dinosaur), some green globby things, the Queen of the Pirates, the famed jewel that is the Eye of Splod, some wumpires, and a perfectly normal but very important carton of milk.”

New books -- round up

• Julianna Bagott - Fuse - Headline £ 12.99
• C Robert Cargill - Dreams and Shadows - Gollancz £14.99
• Lauren DeStefano - Fever - Harper Voyager £7.99

• Justin Gustainis - Play With Fire & Midnight at the Oasis - Solaris £7.99 (April 11th)
• Philip Mann - The Disestablishment of Paradise - Gollancz £14.99
• Chris Priestley - Through Dead Eyes - Bloomsbury £10.99 (March 14th) 

• Robert Silverberg - Tales of Majipoor - Gollancz £14.99
• John Wagner, Alan Grant, et al - Mean Team - 2000AD £13.99 (graphic novel/ March 14th)
• Ian Whates (ed) - Solaris Rising 2 - Solaris £7.99 (April 11th)

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

“There is something strange about Coraline's new home. It's not the mist, or the cat that always seems to be watching her, nor the signs of danger that Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, her new neighbours, read in the tea leaves. It's the other house - the one behind the old door in the drawing room. Another mother and father with black-button eyes and papery skin are waiting for Coraline to join them there. And they want her to stay with them. For ever. She knows that if she ventures through that door, she may never come back.”

It’s unlikely that you haven’t heard of Neil Gaiman’s fabulous children’s dark-fantasy novel, Coraline, or seen the film. It really is a creepy story – a modern day fairy tale. But did you know that it’s ten years old this year? In celebration, Bloomsbury is re-issuing Coraline, again with illustrations by Chris Riddell. There is the regular hardcover at £12.99 plus a signed limited edition (signed by both Gaiman and Riddell) at £25.00.  Due in the bookshops next month.

Mazecheat by B R Collins

Coming next month from Bloomsbury, aimed at the younger reader: Mazecheat by B R Collins (£6.99):

“Ario is a Cheat; somebody who designs and sells Cheat Codes to Gamerunners. Rick and Pir are Gamerunners; people who try to win their fortune by playing The Maze, the interactive computer game that is so much more than an ordinary computer game. MazeCheat is set in a futuristic cityscape where acid rain permanently falls.

But despite the dreary surroundings there is a something that enables everybody to escape their everyday life. And that is The Maze, the interactive computer game where you don't just play the game onscreen, you physically enter the world. Once in, you play - run, fight, avoid traps, choose your weapons - as if you are actually there. The hold of the game on everybody's minds means that the company behind it, CRATER, is all-powerful. But CRATER has a game expansion that is sinister to the extreme. In their new game, if you finally manage to beat it, it takes your brain and in particular your memories, to use as material for new games, for new Gamerunners, leaving you an empty shell. Except no one knows that yet.

And when something terrible happens to Pir in The Maze, Ario and Rick need to try to destroy this terrible expansion of the game that kills. But the all-seeing CRATER is also onto them and time is running out…”

Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas

I gather that Sarah Maas developed the world of Throne of Glass online. Bloomsbury is now publishing the novel – out in August (£6.99).

“In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake. She got caught.

Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament – fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny.”

Chime by Franny Billingsley

Coming in June is Chime by Franny Billingsley (Bloomsbury £6.99), which was shortlisted for the National Book Award in 2011. This is a “gothic romance with an undercurrent of fairytale and darkness”:

“Briony knows she is a witch. She knows that she is guilty of hurting her beloved stepmother. She also knows that, now her stepmother is dead, she must look after her beautiful but complicated twin sister, Rose. Then the energetic, electric, golden-haired Eldric arrives in her home town of Swampsea, and everything that Briony thinks she knows about herself and her life is turned magically, dizzyingly, upside down.”

The Dark End of the Street edited by SJ Rozan & Jonathan Santlofer

The Dark End of the Street edited by SJ Rozan & Jonathan Santlofer. Bloomsbury £7.99/$16.00

Reviewed by Peter Coleborn

I checked the city's two large bookshops recently and short story collections of crime fiction were a rarity. So this one promised to be a treat -- and it is a promise handsomely fulfilled.

Here are 19 stories by some of the finest crime writers around with tales themed on sex and violence. I'm pleased to report that we do not get a series of serial killers hacking hapless victims and then having sex with their corpses; oh no, we get some sophisticated and thoughtful stories that explore the boundaries of sex and crime. And sometimes the sex part is barely present; it's somewhere in the background or in the past. Sometimes it's love gone awry; sometimes, it's just lust -- and power. It's all about control.

I'll only mention a few stories, the ones that stood out for me. "Dragon's Breath" by Madison Smartt Bell deals with drugs in New York. Meanwhile, "Scenarios" by Lawrence Block is a humorous examination of the serial killer -- rather the potential to be one. "The Heredity Thurifer" by Stephen L Carter is about a 30 year old murder that haunts a community and is, in effect, a rather good ghost story.

"Sunshine" by Lynn Freed and "Daybreak" by SJ Rozan both have similar themes and similar penalties for the villains -- much deserved, I say. "Tricks" by Laura Lippman is all about serial relationships while "Deer" by Janice YK Lee shows how an unexpected event -- the dead deer -- can fracture friendships. "Midnight Stalkings" by James Grady reminded my of Mr & Mrs Smith (the movie) but in a good way; it's a twist-in-the tail story that works well. "The Creative Writing Murders" by Edmund White is an effective story of ambition in academia, and how deaths appear to be beneficial to the protagonist. Co-editor's Jonathan Santlofer's "Ben & Andrea & Evelyn & Ben", one of my favourites, is about the breaking relationship between Ben and his wife Andrea.

In fact, all good fiction deals with people and their relationships with others and their world, and how they deal with it -- or not. And that's one of the strengths of this anthology: it's a microcosm of humanity touched by, and touching sexual crime. There were just two or three stories that didn't work for me, but out of 19 ... well, that's like worrying over a zephyr whilst being battered by a hurricane. (Besides, an anthologist once told me that he doesn't expect an individual reader to like every story in a book -- if he or she did, they'd be that anthologist.)

The Dark End of the Street is a brilliant collection of stories, no doubt about it. The writing is crisp and the stories (with the aforementioned proviso) gripping. These are noir crime tales that eschew rote detectives and wise-ass, cynical cops. If Crime Wave magazine is on your reading list you should get hold of this book. An additional treat are the illustrations scattered throughout. These, by Santlofer, capture the black & white & grey tones of the genre. I really enjoyed this book: recommended.

Dead End of the Street competition

Think you can write like Lee Child, Michael Connelly or Val McDermid?

Want to get some advice on how to write the perfect short crime story?

Top crime writers SJ Rozan and Jonathan Santlofer will answer the ten best questions on how to write crime fiction, exclusively from Bloomsbury.
Send in your question to marketing@bloomsbury.com by Friday 3 September 2010. The most thrilling and chilling questions will be answered and posted here on Monday 6 September 2010. And if your question makes the cut you will win a copy of The Dark End of the Street and the new novels from debut crime writers, Conor Fitzgerald and Jason Eliot.

The Dark End of the Street

Coming in September from Bloomsbury, The Dark End of the Street is a new crime anthology, edited by SJ Rozan and Jonathan Santlofer. Yes, that's right: Bloomsbury is publishing an anthology. Excellent news! According to the blurb: "a glittering line-up of some of today's finest writers weave fresh and memorable stories from the classic themes of sex and crime [...to provide a...] suspense-filled cocktail of dark-haired vixens and cold-blooded killers, of crimes of passion and premeditated revenge." It adds that this book is "a rare treat for fans of great fiction."

It certainly looks very promising and I aim to start reading it a.s.a.p. There are 19 original stories in this book, including tales by Lawrence Block, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Jonathan Lethem, Val McDermid and Joyce Carol Oates. I especially like the title of the last story in the book: "The Creative Writing Murders" by Edmund White. (I've just realised: the stories appear in alphabetical order [by author]; don't think I've noticed that in an anthology before.)

In addition to all the words, the book is illustrated by Jonathan Santlofer -- noirish pictures that suit the subject matter.

I hope the book sells well for Bloomsbury, if only to encourage them and other publishers to do more of the same, please. Out on 6 September as a paperback original at £7.99.

The Dogs of Rome by Conor Fitzgerald

"It's one of the hottest days of the year. Chief Inspector Blume is enjoying a rare solitary lunch when an unwelcome phone phones call intrudes with news of a brutal killing. Arturo Clemente is no ordinary victim. His widow is an elected member of the Senate. Blume must fight to gain control of the investigation.

When shortcuts sanctioned by one of his superiors are uncovered, it seems events are being manipulated. The complex and uncomfortable truth Blume unravels will shock him, and his struggle for justice may yet cost more innocent lives."

The Dogs of Rome by Conor Fitzgerald is published by Bloomsbury on 9 August (trade paperback, £11.99). The author has lived in Ireland, the UK, the US and Italy -- but probably not simultaneously. In fact, he currently lives in Rome with his wife and two children.