Winter 2008

Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award

Isis and Soundings authors were well-represented on the shortlist for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.

Shortlisted titles include All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye by Christopher Brookmyre, also available on CD, Stuart MacBride's debut Cold Granite, The Death Ship of Dartmouth by Michael Jecks, also available on CD and Graham Hurley's Blood and Honey.

The eventual winner was Two Way Split by Alan Guthrie, and was announced at the Harrogate Crime Festival.

Crime Writers' Association Daggers 2007

Congratulations to Stuart MacBride, this year's winner of the CWA Dagger in the Library. Awarded for his body of work, Stuart was presented with his dagger at a black tie dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel in London on 5th July. All three of the Logan McRae books, Cold Granite, Dying Light available on CD and Broken Skin available on CD are available in unabridged audio.

Richard & Judy Summer Read 2007

Richard & Judy have announced their new line-up of Summer reads, and we're pleased to say that this includes the superb The Savage Garden available on CD by Mark Mills. Due to be featured on the 8th August, this is a gripping mystery, set in post-war Tuscany.

Rodney David Wingfield

Isis is very sad to report the death of R. D. Wingfield who died on Tuesday 31st July 2007 after a long battle with cancer.

He leaves behind the legacy of DI Jack Frost, who featured in his novels: A Touch of Frost available on CD, Frost at Christmas available on CD, Hard Frost available on CD, Night Frost available on CD and Winter Frost also available on CD.

Frost will don his maroon scarf and tatty overcoat for one last time when A Killing Frost is published in 2008.

Wingfield was a private man and deeply modest about his own considerable skills as a writer. He was a true maverick, sparky and never dull. He will be sorely missed.

John Gardner

We also bid farewell to John Gardner, who died on 3rd August, aged 80. The author of more than 50 thrillers, including Angels Dining at the Ritz available on CD, Bottled Spider and Troubled Midnight.

In 1981 Gardner was chosen to continue the series of Bond novels. His most recent novels feature policewoman Suzie Mountford, with the last of these being released in audio in November.

Michael Dibdin

Isis Publishing is sad to report the death of crime writer Michael Dibdin, who has died at the age of 60, after a short illness.
Best known for his Aurelio Zen series, including Vendetta available on CD Medusa available on CD and Back to Bologna available on CD Dibdin was a prolific and well-respected crime writer. He wrote 16 books, 11 featuring Zen, and was a regular reviewer for newspapers. His final novel End Games has been recently published to great acclaim.

Isis Publishing is sad to report the death of one of our bestselling authors - American novelist, playwright and screenwriter Sidney Sheldon. He died at the age of 89 following complications from pneumonia at hospital near Palm Springs, California.

Sheldon turned to novel writing at the age of 50, and almost all of his books have been number-one international bestsellers. His first book was acclaimed by the New York Times as "the best first mystery of the year" and received an Edgar Award. There are more than 275 million copies of his books in print throughout the world, including The Sky is Falling available on CD and Windmills of the Gods also available on CD

THE ART OF JOSH KIRBY
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 16 June to 30 September 2007

The first retrospective exhibition of science fiction artist Josh Kirby. Born in Liverpool in 1928 and trained at Liverpool School of Art, he began his career producing film posters, moving to book and cover art for magazines. Some of his more famous work includes the first cover of Ian Fleming's Moonraker and the poster for Monty Python's Life of Brian and he is best known for his cover illustrations of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

The Sky One version of Terry Pratchett's Hogfather averaged 2.6 million viewers when shown in December making it the number one rated multichannel commission in UK TV history. This title is available on cassette and CD along with others from the Discworld series.

Congratulations to Christopher Brookmyre, the 2006 winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. Awarded at the Hay Literary Festival, the unorthodox prize is the honour of having a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig named after the winning novel All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye This title is also available on CD

The Torment of Others, also available on CD, the latest in Val McDermid's excellent Dr Tony Hill series, has been shortlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Drawn from a longlist of 20 titles, votes are now being cast for the 6 shortlisted titles via Ottakars. The winner will be announced at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival in July.

The Crime Writer's Association Daggers shortlists have been announced recently. With a new sponsor, the Duncan Lawrie Dagger is now the largest award for crime fiction in the world. A number of Isis and Soundings favourites and newcomers feature on the shortlists, details below.

Contenders for the Duncan Lawrie Dagger include Simon Beckett's debut, The Chemistry of Death, also available on CD.
Raven Black, also available on CD, written by Ann Cleaves and Laura Wilson's latest psychological thriller A Thousand Lies, also available on CD.

Making the shortlist for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger is Isis bestseller Mo Hayder with her latest chilling novel, Pig Island, also available on CD.

She faces stiff competition from two more of our fantastic thriller writers, Daniel Silva, shortlisted for The English Assassin, and Nick Stone, author of Mr Clarinet, also available on CD.

Following on from winning Best First Novel at the Canadian Crime Writers Arthur Ellis Awards, Louise Penny's superb Still Life, has been shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger. The next title in the series Dead Cold, is now available on cassette and CD

Awarded to an author for a body of work, the Dagger in the Library shortlist is nominated by UK libraries and readers' groups. Shortlisted authors include Jim Kelly for The Moon Tunnel, Carla Banks for The Forest of Souls, Anthony Horowitz for The Killing Joke, and Cath Staincliffe for Hit and Run, also available on CD.

Mo Hayder's third novel, Tokyo, was awarded the Elle magazine Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle in the Crime category in Paris. Previous winners include Harlen Coben and Dennis Lehane.

We will reproduce more reviews soon, and we very much hope you enjoy any of these recommended titles that you buy from this site.

Site News & User Guidelines

Website Fault: An Important Message to All Our Customers

As several of our customers have discovered to their inconvenience, the Isis Publishing website has been suffering from an annoying technical problem for the past month or more.

The effect of the fault has been to "freeze" the top toolbar: none of its buttons work, so one cannot access the Advanced Search function, nor navigate to other areas of the site, such as FAQs, Contact Us and so on. In addition, the Quick Search function, within the top bar will not work. Hence, on accessing the site, the user is unable to navigate anywhere except to the Special Offer or New Titles sections, or to this News and Updates - which can be reached by following the link in the lower frame.

This problem has proved extremely difficult for our technicians. It apparently occurs at random, affecting one's PC at one time, but not at another; of two PCs on the same desk, one may access the whole site, while another is stuck on the Homepage. The problem cannot be artificially replicated, and so is extremely hard to isolate and address.

Please be assured that we really do understand how annoying it is to encounter this obstacle to browsing the site. We are, however, able to offer some solutions to the problem. It is possible for us, with your prior agreement, to process an order via e-mail, and should you experience repeated failure to access the site, please contact Peter.Johnson@isis-publishing.co.uk to discuss this option.

In the meantime, however, there is a way of getting past the obstacle by following a few simple instructions.

If, having accessed the Homepage, the top toolbar - including Quick Search - fails to function, please:

Place the cursor over the part of the site you need to visit (say Advanced Search) and right click

From the drop-down menu that appears, select Open this Link in New Window

The page you require should now have appeared. If necessary, maximise it to full page view

PLEASE NOTE: You will not be able to see the top toolbar in this newly opened, second "site". This should not affect you if you intend to search for, and buy, a given title, or to browse through an author's selection, and then buy. After making your purchase, Return to Store will take you back to the Homepage. To return to the homepage from other parts of the site, you may need go to the Address Box on your browser, select the Isis website address from the drop-down menu and select Go.

Obviously, this is not an acceptable solution to the difficulty, and our technical team are continuing to cure it. In the meantime, however, we beg your indulgence and ensure you that we will do everything to ensure that your order is processed and despatched to you quickly and efficiently.

"Credit Card Number Refused"

Recently we have received several calls and e-mails from customers who have experienced difficulty ordering from the site. At the Checkout, they have entered their address and payment details only to have the same screen present itself, with all details left entered, save only the credit card number.

Actually, the fault rarely lies with the credit card number: whenever any field on the form is filled incorrectly, the card number is automatically blanked out as part of the site's security protocols. In all probability the difficulty lies in the way another field has been filled in.

In general, the main problem lies with failure to enter data in the required format or to fill in mandatory fields (starred in red on initial form). Either type of error will be pointed out in red on the new Checkout form. If you cannot see these error messages, you may need to adjust the resolution on your browser.

Other than this, the most common problems derive from the way data is entered in the following fields:

Names: these should contain text only: no full stops

1. Addresses: these should never include # symbols

2. Dates: these must be entered in UK/European style i.e. day-month-year, and not the US manner (month-day-year)

3. Postcodes: this is a mandatory field. If your country does not use them (e.g. New Zealand, Irish Republic), you must still enter one. We suggest you use the a 2-letter abbreviation of your country's name (e.g. NZ or IR) and the numbers 001. This is acceptable to the system, and will not result in your order being misdirected.

4. Switch Card issue numbers: this field is starred as mandatory, but only for Switch Card orders; if using any other card, leave blank.

If these guidelines are followed, your order should always be processed smoothly. Please note that any failure by the system to process an order does not mean that the title is out of stock. If you receive a message telling you your order cannot be fulfilled, always re-check the form for mandatory field errors or mis-keyed data, and try again. If you still experience difficulties, please e-mail your problem to sales@isis-publishing.co.uk.

We apologise to any of you who have experienced any of these problems. While the vast majority of our customers order without any difficulty, it is our policy to treat every purchase as an act of confidence in our products and service and we will always fulfil an order if humanly and technically possible.