New Doctor Who audio book read by David Tennant

A friend of mine kindly lent me The Resurrection Casket, a recent freebie in the Radio Times, which is one of three Doctor Who audio books issued in 2006 which were narrated by David Tennant, each lasting about two and a half hours. I've now got my mitts on The Stone Rose, thanks to the library, but no luck yet with The Feast of the Drowned.

I was very impressed with The Resurrection Casket which would make an exciting tv episode with its killer monster (Kevin), pirates and robots. The banter was just like in the tv show and it was well narrated by David Tennant (except for perhaps his impression of Rose!).

So, I was pleased to see that David Tennant has recorded a new title, which has been available as a download for a month now but has recently come out on cd.


Synopsis: The Doctor and Donna face monstrous insects and a ruthless robot exterminator in this thrilling, exclusive audio story, read by David Tennant. The TARDIS is lost in battle on a distant planet. When the Doctor sets off in pursuit, Donna is left behind, and finds herself accepting a commission in the Pioneer Corps. Something is transforming soldiers into monstrous beetles, and she could be the next victim. Meanwhile, the Doctor steals a motorbike and stages a jailbreak. Well, how hard can it be to find the TARDIS, rescue Donna, and negotiate a peace? But that's before the arrival of a brutal and remorseless mechanical exterminator, bent on wiping out the insects. It may be that nothing can stop it, because this robot's solution for the infestation is very simple: kill everything.

(NB. Amazon.co.uk currently have it for £4.)

Crime fiction posts will resume shortly!

OT: The X-Files: I Want to Believe - trailer

The trailer for the new X-Files film is online at xfiles.com, where there's also a few piccies in the gallery.

And yes that is Billy Connolly in the trailer.

The US release date is 25 July and for the UK, it's 1 August.

M C Beaton - Publishing Deal

M C Beaton's Hamish MacBeth series will continue for at least another four books. Amazon already lists Death of a Witch for February 2009 and from Publisher's Lunch:

M.C. Beaton's DEATH OF A VALENTINE, DEATH OF A CHIMNEY SWEEP, and DEATH OF A DOCTOR, three new titles in the Scottish Highland mysteries series featuring policeman Hamish Macbeth, to Celia Johnson at Grand Central, by Barbara Lowenstein at Lowenstein-Yost.

I've recently reviewed her latest, Death of a Gentle Lady.

Queen Vargas and Adamsberg the First

Fiona Walker alerted me yesterday to the fact that amazon.co.uk are listing a new offering from Fred Vargas for February 2009 - The Chalk Circle Man.

The lovely publicists at Harvill have advised me that this is in fact the first in the Adamsberg series (and I believe first published in French in 1996 as L'Homme aux Cercles Bleus).

Currently translated in the Adamsberg series are nos 2,3, 5 and 6:

Seeking Whom He May Devour (2004) #2
Have Mercy on Us All (2003) #3
Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand (2007) #5
This Night's Foul Work (2008) #6

Philip Glenister interviewed by the BBC

There's a seven minute interview with Philip Glenister, star of Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes and Cranford (see left), over on the BBC News website.

New Reviews: Beaton, Dahl, Lennon, Rygg, Sjowall & Wahloo and Wells

Here are this week's new reviews and details of the latest competition.

Latest Reviews:

I get to review the latest in the Hamish MacBeth series, Death of a Gentle Lady by M C Beaton, which is the 24th in the series but Constable are reprinting all the earlier ones at quite a rapid rate for those who have yet to become addicted;

Norman Price reviews the newly translated The Man in the Window by K O Dahl who like his fellow Norwegian Jo Nesbo has had his fifth book (The Fourth Man) translated before his third... Norman writes that Dahl is "one of the ever growing group of excellent Nordic crime fiction authors available in English";

Amanda Gillies reviews the second in the Tom Fletcher series by Patrick Lennon, Steel Witches, who, like Jim Kelly, sets his books in Cambridgeshire and both authors also appear to incorporate extremes of weather in their plots. Amanda calls it "a very fine piece of work";

Back to Norway and Maxine Clarke reviews the first of two books featuring Igi Heitmann, The Butterfly Effect saying that it "is a wonderful book;

Karen Chisholm helps out with Euro Crime's quest to review all ten of the Martin Beck books by Sjowall and Wahloo by reviewing the fourth (and some say the best) in this classic series, The Laughing Policeman

and Maxine provides a second opinion on Shirley Wells' Into the Shadows a book I enjoyed immensely and which Maxine says is "perfect for whiling away a wet Sunday afternoon".


Current Competition (closing date 31 May):

Win a signed copy of Spider by Michael Morley*

* UK/Europe only

Doctor Who meets Agatha Christie trailer

The trailer's now online for next week's episode of Doctor Who where he gets to meet Agatha Christie.

Watch it here.

The episode, The Unicorn and the Wasp, will be on at 7pm next Saturday.

The Chameleon's Shadow out in paperback

The latest title from Minette Walters, The Chameleon's Shadow, is now out in paperback.

The PanMacmillan website has a longish extract. I couldn't put it down when I read it earlier this year.

Sister Agnes on the Radio

Frrom Book2book:

Detective-nun, Sister Agnes, the heroine of Alison Joseph's popular crime series will be brought to life in a radio drama for BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour!

Celebrated actress Anne Marie Duff (best known for her roles in Shameless and The Virgin Queen and married to actor James McAvoy) will be starring in the role of Sister Agnes. The radio crime-story Sister Agnes Investigates was specially written for Women's Hour by Allison & Busby author Alison Joseph and adapted from her book Shadow of Death (out now in paperback, £6.99). The 5-part mini-series will be broadcast the week of May 19th, every day Monday to Friday at 10.45am and repeated at 7.45pm on BBC Radio 4.

About the author: Alison Joseph first worked as a presenter on a local radio station and then for Channel 4. She later became a partner in an independent production company and one of its commissions was a series presented by Helen Mirren about women and religion. Now an accomplished novelist, her Sister Agnes series so far comprises eight books, the latest two Darkening Sky and Shadow of Death published by Allison & Busby, with a ninth book, A Violent Act, due out in hardback this autumn 2008. Alison also writes original radio drama and has previously adapted novels for BBC Radio 4, including the award-winning production of Captain Corelli's Mandolin. She has also published various short stories. She lives in London with her husband and three children.

Bibliography so far for Alison Joseph, can be found here.