PROGRAMME 2016 Introduction JON RILEY C hoosing the name of the new imprint – riverrun – was more complicated than we could have imagined, but all along the solution was across the road. A river. riverrun has energy, poetry, momentum and is memorable. In time it will stand as a strong symbol for what we want to achieve. It is, of course, the first word of one of the most famous – and probably unread – books ever written, Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. We hope our imprint will attain the first quality and our books will avoid the second. With a strong backlist to feed its growth, riverrun is no mewling infant but is already in rude good health. riverrun will be a list of high quality literary fiction, serious non-fiction and the best in crime writing. We will publish books we intend to be international, as relevant to Sydney as Sydenham – which brings me back to Joyce: ‘in the particular is contained the universal.’ The inception of this new list is an invitation to develop my taste and that of the young editors whose energy, flair and acumen will make this a natural home for great writing and storytelling. Jon Riley Publisher, riverrun March 2016 Biographies Six Four HIDEO YOKOYAMA Niamh Mulvey Senior Commissioning Editor [email protected] • + 44 (0) 203 122 7086 I love writing that shows wit and charm; I cannot resist a wicked sense of humour; and I am always looking for a fresh take on the enduring themes of love, death, sex, exile, family and friendship – all the big things. My authors include the hottest new Irish writer around, Louise O’Neill, whose award-winning Only Ever Yours was hailed as this generation’s The Handmaid’s Tale and whose second novel Asking for It, was the most talked-about book of the summer in Ireland this year. At riverrun, I’d like to discover strange delights, unexpected insights and enduring literary panache. Richard Arcus Commissioning Editor [email protected] • + 44 (0) 20 3122 7091 I am thrilled to be involved in the riverrun launch. It is an energetic, hungry imprint that is perfectly aligned to my commissioning remit: which is for literary fiction and quality crime. I want the books I publish to be distinct and diverse, yet share a clear saleability and merit. And – whether it be through a boxfresh literary debut, a Japanese crime phenomenon, a journey into the history of polar exploration, or the latest translation from a Russian prizewinner – I really hope this comes across within the pages of this brochure. To give a more general sense of me, my literary favourites include Sophie’s Choice, Olive Kitteridge, American Psycho, The Sound and the Fury and Les Liaisons Dangereuses; while on the crime/thriller side I’d list The Devotion of Suspect X, The Dinosaur Feather, A Perfect Spy, Kolymsky Heights and Presumed Innocent. Rose Tomaszewska Editor [email protected] • + 44 (0)20 3122 7096 At Quercus, I’ve worked on the literary end of the list and I’ve taken on bestselling Canadian author Heather O’Neill and Barbara Bourland’s first commercial novel set in New York’s fashion industry, I’ll Eat When I’m Dead. I’m building a list of authors to nurture and grow; writing talent, imagination and originality will spark my interest. I range from historical fiction to feminist dystopia, folkloric themes, queer fiction and short stories. I love Helen Oyeyemi, Ali Smith, Eimear McBride, Jane Smiley and Miranda July. For riverrun I want new authors with something to say, whether conceptual, political or researched – and a fresh way of saying it, with energy, boldness, and distinctive prose. I’m always happy to be surprised, and to answer the phone or meet up to talk about books. 3 MARCH 2016 O ‘ ne of the most remarkable revenge dramas in modern detective fiction . . . will leave even the most observant reader gasping’ Sunday Times For five days in January 1989, the parents of a seven-year-old Tokyo schoolgirl sat and listened to the demands of their daughter’s kidnapper. They would never learn his identity. They would never see their daughter again. For the fourteen years that followed, the Japanese public listened to the police’s apologies. They would never forget the botched investigation that became known as ‘Six Four’. They would never forgive the authorities their failure. I’m struggling to think of a crime novel I found more original, suspenseful and ultimately rewarding. It’s also further proof of why big, long books are so very worth it. Richard Arcus For one week in late 2002, the press officer attached to the police department in question confronted an anomaly in the case. He could never imagine what he would uncover. He would never have looked if he’d known what he would find. Born in 1957, Hideo Yokoyama worked for twelve years as an investigative reporter with a regional newspaper north of Tokyo, before becoming one of Japan’s most acclaimed fiction writers. Six Four is his sixth novel, and his first to be published in the English language. 9781848665255 ROYAL HARDBACK £16.99 All Their Minds in Tandem All Things Cease To Appear DAVID SANGER ELIZABETH BRUNDAGE 7 APRIL 2016 T win Peaks in the 1800s – an enigmatic stranger unearths a small town’s secrets. The setting is October 1879. The stage is New Georgetown, West Virginia. A mysterious figure by the name of ‘The Maker’ has entered this small community and, almost immediately upon doing so, started entering the minds of the townsfolk. As we enter these characters’ lives, and lightly tread our way through their brains, their bedrooms, their backstories and beyond, we will see what it is they all hope for and hide – and learn just why The Maker has chosen to meet them. 7 APRIL 2016 I can never secondguess David’s sentences or his storytelling. That is incredibly refreshing and impressive for me as an editor, as well as a reader. Richard Arcus A searing portrait of two marriages, a psychopath and a community’s redemption, for fans of Donna Tartt and Jane Smiley. Upstate New York. The farmhouse stood on a hill. George got it cheap, though he didn’t say why. Catherine, home with their daughter, feels they’re not alone. Even her new friends don’t reveal what happened here. Nor where they’ve seen her husband. Reading this sends a slow, icy chill up my spine, but its emotive power is far greater than any psychological thriller. Rose Tomaszewska So when Catherine is found with an axe deep in her head, the story is just beginning. This is new American fiction at its most piercing, ambitious and chilling. David Sanger was born in Kent in 1984. He has previously worked for Faber & Faber and Scholastic Children’s Books. All Their Minds in Tandem is his first novel. The author of three previous novels and the recipient of a James Michener Fellowship, Elizabeth Brundage lives near Albany in upstate New York. 9781784293956 ROYAL HARDBACK £12.99 9781784296872 ROYAL HARDBACK £14.99 The Firemaker The Birdwatcher PETER MAY WILLIAM SHAW 21 APRIL 2016 T he first of Peter May’s China thrillers featuring Beijing detective Li Yan and American pathologist Margaret Campbell, reissued in paperback. LI YAN A grotesquely burned corpse found in a city park is a troubling mystery for Beijing detective Li Yan. Yan, devoted to his career as a means of restoring the respect his family lost during the Cultural Revolution, needs outside help if he is to break the case. MARGARET CAMPBELL The unidentified cadaver in turn provides a welcome distraction for forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell. Campbell, married to her work and having left America and her broken past behind, throws herself into the investigation, and before long uncovers a bizarre anomaly. 19 MAY 2016 Starting The Firemaker, the first of Peter May’s sixstrong China series, is akin to stepping onto a rollercoaster that boasts half a dozen knucklewhitening loops. Richard Arcus THE FIREMAKER ungeness, Kent. Police Sergeant William South has a reason for not wanting to be on the murder investigation. He is a murderer himself. But the victim was his only friend. A quiet, reticent birdwatcher, South finds himself paired with the strongwilled Detective Sergeant Alexandra Cupidi, newly recruited to the Kent coast from London. Together they find the body, violently beaten, inside a wooden chest. The man’s sister, broken hearted, cannot guess why he was murdered. What provokes normal men to murder? Shaw’s brilliance is in forging gripping drama from everyday reality. Rose Tomaszewska But soon – too soon – they find a suspect: Donnie Fraser, a drifter from Northern Ireland. His presence in Kent disturbs William – because he knows him. As a boy, South and his mother fled their home in County Armagh, and, for many reasons, he has never looked back. If the past is catching up with him, South wants to meet it head on. For even as he desperately investigates the connections, he knows there is no crime, however duplicitous or cruel, that can compare to the great lie of his childhood. An unlikely partnership develops between Li and Campbell as they follow the resulting lead. A fiery and volatile chemistry ignites: exposing not only their individual demons, but an even greater evil - a conspiracy that threatens their lives, as well as those of millions of others. Peter May is the internationally bestselling and award-winning author of the Lewis trilogy, the Enzo Files and the standalone novels Entry Island, Runaway and Coffin Road. The Firemaker is the first thriller in his China series featuring Beijing detective Li Yan and American forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell. D The Birdwacther is a crime novel of suspense and powerful humanity that opens scars from old terrors and faces the fear of retribution. 9780857053961 PAPERBACK £7.99 9781784297220 ROYAL HARDBACK £12.99 The Man Who Wanted to Know Blackwater D. A. MISHANI JAMES HENRY 2 JUNE 2016 C alled on a stormy day to his first murder scene as the new commander of investigations, Inspector Avraham Avraham is astounded to discover he knows the victim: a middle-aged woman who had been assaulted in the past. His only lead is an eyewitness claiming he saw a policeman going down the building’s staircase a few minutes after the murder. Eager to solve his first murder case, Avraham is determined to follow this lead even though it puts him in conflict with the entire police force. It’ll take him to Mazal Bengtson – a young woman who doesn’t know anything about the murder. She remembers the day of the storm for a different reason. And she will change everything Avraham thought about the case. 14 JULY 2016 Just describing this novel brings back tears – Mishani is a groundbreaking writer who unveils the dark crimes happening behind closed doors. Rose Tomaszewska J anuary 1983, Colchester CID. A new year brings new resolutions for Detective Inspector Nicholas Lowry. With one eye on his approaching fortieth birthday, he has given up his two greatest vices: smoking, and the police boxing team. As a result, the largest remaining threat to his health is now his junior colleague’s reckless driving. If Detective Constable Daniel Kenton’s orange sports convertible is symbolic of his fast track through the ranks, then his accompanying swagger, foppish hairstyle and university education only augment his uniqueness in the department. Yet regardless of this, it is not DC Kenton who is turning station heads. WPC Jane Gabriel is the newest police recruit in Britain’s oldest recorded town. Despite a familial tie to top brass, Gabriel’s striking beauty and profound youth have landed her with two obstacles: a young male colleague who gives her too much attention, and an older one who acts like she’s not there. D. A. Mishani has become internationally renowned for his Avraham Avraham series. Set in a normal suburb in Tel Aviv, Israel, these quiet, tense thrillers build up to shattering revelations that shake the foundations of home, human relationships and love. Set in unreconstructed post-Falklands Essex, this brilliant new police procedural series is a darkly comic vision of a country and a police force very much at unease with itself. Jon Riley January 1983, Blackwater Estuary. A new year brings a new danger to the Essex shoreline. An illicit shipment, bound for Colchester with 100 kilograms of powder that will frantically accelerate tensions in the historic town, and leave its own murderous trace. 9781784296902 ROYAL HARDBACK £18.99 Lowry, Kenton and Gabriel must now develop a tolerance to one another, and show their own substance, to save Britain’s oldest settlement from a new, unsettling enemy. 9781780879772 ROYAL HARDBACK £12.99 A Field Guide to Reality Minds of Winter JOANNA KAVENNA ED O’LOUGHLIN 7 JULY 2016 E liade Jencks knows the only reason people call at midnight is to tell you someone has died . . In this darkly ironic novel – a quest for truth, a satire, a memento mori – Joanna Kavenna displays fearless originality and wit in confronting the strangeness of reality and how we contend with the disappearance of those we love. 4 AUGUST 2016 This novel is full of brilliant jokes and beautiful images, but its depiction of grief is true and tender. Rose Tomaszewska T he new novel from Booker longlisted Ed O’Loughlin begins with a chance encounter at the top of the world. Fay Morgan and Nelson Nilsson have each arrived in Inuvik, Canada, 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle, searching for answers about a disappeared family member: Nelson for his older brother, Fay for her grandfather. They soon learn that these two men share an unexpected link: in the form of one of the greatest enduring mysteries from the annals of polar exploration. This is the enigma of the ‘Arnold 294’ chronometer – recorded as lost along with Sir John Franklin’s 1845 Arctic voyage to find the Northwest Passage, yet which would impossibly reappear on a British mantelpiece some 150 years later. This almost mythical timepiece, Fay and Nelson will come to discover, ties them and their families to a journey that echoes across two centuries. Beautiful, ethereal drawings illustrate this haunting journey through time, space and human understanding. Joanna Kavenna is the author of The Ice Museum, Inglorious (which won the Orange Prize for New Writing), The Birth of Love, Come to the Edge and A Field Guide to Reality. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Guardian, Observer, Telegraph, Spectator, London Review of Books and New York Times. She has held writing fellowships at St Antony’s College Oxford and St John’s College Cambridge. In 2011 she was named as one of the Telegraph’s 20 Writers Under 40 and in 2013 was listed as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Prior to reading this novel, I knew nothing about the history of polar exploration, or the isolated towns of northernmost Canada. It left me fascinated by both. Richard Arcus In a feat of extraordinary scope and ambition, Ed O’Loughlin moves between a frozen present and an-ever thawing past, from the globe’s Arctic ceiling to its Antarctic floor, and from the minds of two everyday drifters to those of polar history’s most celebrated figures. Minds of Winter is a novel about ice and time and their ability to preserve and kill – but it is above all a story about how that which we search for the hardest can often still elude us. 9781780872292 ROYAL HARDBACK £12.99 978 1780871721 ROYAL HARDBACK £16.99 Citizen Clem A Yorkshire Tragedy JOHN BEW ANTHONY CLAVANE 1 SEPTEMBER 2016 ‘ W onderful . . . the sagacity, scholarship and charm make this a Life so nearly complete that it need never be written again’ TLS, on Castlereagh Clement Attlee was a slightly built, pipe-smoking and unassuming man who presided over the groundbreaking administration of 1945-51 and is often referred to as Britain’s greatest peace-time Prime Minster. Yet Attlee was often underestimated; fooling those who compared him unfavourably to his rival, Churchill, and undercutting their doubt with dry wit and proof of his steady, insightful leadership. In 1945, he won an overwhelming mandate to carry out the most radical manifesto ever presented by a major party. 1 SEPTEMBER 2016 A definitive biography of Britain’s great Labour prime minister which poses questions – and answers – to the problems of the left today, by the author of the magnificent Castlereagh. Jon Riley It is difficult to think of another individual better placed to show how Britain changed from the high imperialism of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee of 1887, through two world wars, depression, nuclear age and Cold War, and the transition from empire into commonwealth. Celebrated biographer John Bew pierces the reticence of Attlee and explores the intellectual foundations and core beliefs of one of the most important figures of twentiethcentury Britain. He reveals a public servant and patriotic socialist, who never lost sight of the national interest and whose view of humanity and belief in solidarity was grafted onto the Union Jack. T he story of the 1980s through the prism of Yorkshire sport, and of the county’s subsequent decline and then re-emergence. A Yorkshire Tragedy is a lament for a disappearing world but also a celebration of the buoyancy that remains at the heart of the county’s sporting identity. Extensively researched, and featuring many interviews with the decade’s sportsmen, managers, miners, fans and local politicians, it casts a new light on an era that read the last rites for Yorkshire’s – and the country’s – collective, working-class culture. Anthony Clavane is the chief sports writer for the Sunday Mirror, and the award-winning author of Promised Land and Does Your Rabbi Know You’re Here? This personal account of the decline in the sporting might and political and cultural influence of the northern powerhouse of Yorkshire since the 1980’s is passionately argued and important in its analysis. Jon Riley 9781780879895 ROYAL HARDBACK £30.00 978184866512 5 ROYAL HARDBACK £20.00 The Fourth Sacrifice Dr Knox PETER MAY PETER SPIEGELMAN 8 SEPTEMBER 2016 T HE SECOND OPINION. The Chinese police have once more been forced to enlist the services of American forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell: this time to investigate a series of four horrific ritual executions that have taken place in Beijing. THE THIRD DEGREE. Detective Li Yan is determined to discover just how one of the victims in particular, an American diplomat, became caught up in the slaying. And he is arguably even more determined to have nothing to do with Campbell. 22 SEPTEMBER 2016 This riveting thriller shows the development of the relationship between Margaret and Li, which adds real depth to the story. Jon Riley D r Adam Knox returns in disgrace from working in Africa wiser and more cynical. His new clinic tends to the vagrant, vulnerable and victimized of LA’s streets. It earns from the villains willing to pay for discretion. Knox’s cynicism remains, until the night a beaten Romanian woman abandons her son on his operating table. His struggle to rescue them will lead Knox into the cruel business of LA’s most powerful family. House meets The Wire in this fast, funny thriller by the author of Thick as Thieves. Jon Riley Peter Spiegelman is the prize-winning author of Red Cat and Thick As Thieves. He lives in Connecticut. THE FOURTH SACRIFICE. The polarity that once attracted Li and Campbell eventually pulls them back into partnership. Yet the closer they are drawn to the truth, the nearer they come to a killer The Fourth Sacrifice is the second of Peter May’s six China thrillers, which riverrun are reissuing in paperback throughout 2016 and 2017. 9781784292690 PAPERBACK £7.99 9781782066934 ROYAL HARDBACK £13.99 Taking Izmail You Know What You Could Be: Tuning into the 1960’s MIKHAIL SHISHKIN ANDREW GREIG AND MIKE HERON 6 OCTOBER 2016 T his singular book offers two contrasting yet related memoirs of youthful music making in the 1960s. Mike Heron for the first time writes vividly and wittily of his formative years in dour, brewery-smelling Presbyterian Edinburgh. Armed only with a love of Buddy Holly, Fats Domino and Hungarian folk music, he plays in school cloakrooms, graduates to a rock dance band, discovers the joy of a listening folk audience, starts writing songs, wishes he was a Beatnik all while training as a reluctant indentured accountant. When asked to join Robin Williamson and Clive Palmer, the Incredible String Band are formed. Their wildly innovative, astounding music was to become indelibly linked with the latter Sixties. 3 NOVEMBER 2016 Poignant, funny and revealing, this memoir of youth and music-making are an essential addition to the growing number of music books on the period. Jon Riley Andrew Greig was a frustrated provincial schoolboy when he heard their songs. It changed everything. With a school mate he formed a band in their image. Undaunted by a lack of information, experience and ability, Fate & Ferret (the ampersand was crucial) improvised mediaeval gear, populated back-country Fife with Pan, satyrs, nymphs and Apollo, met the String Band, caught the fish lorry to London to hang around Joe Boyd’s Witchseason office, watching at the fringes of the blooming Underground scene. Forty years later he and Mike re-met at a Dr Strangely Strange reunion, became friends and now perform together. A ground-breaking novel from Russia’s most prominent contemporary writer, published in English for the first time. The Izmail of the title is a border fortress town, taken and lost by Russian forces numerous times in history. Here it is taken as a metaphor for the task of mastering life itself, and the scope of the task is conveyed through a masterfully interwoven panoply of scenes from different times and settings in Russia. In this tour de force of structure, style and scholarship the interaction of the scenes creates a genuine sense of the complexity of life. I find Shishkin’s writing to be almost relentlessly profound, and am constantly catching myself nodding knowingly along to his sentences Richard Arcus As Mikhail Shishkin’s father says to him in the autobiographical chapter ‘Conclusion’: ‘This life, Mishka, has to be taken like a fortress!’ Among other things, Taking Izmail is a writer’s brilliant storming of that fortress. Born in 1961 in Moscow, Mikhail Shishkin is one of the most prominent names in contemporary Russian literature, and is the only author to have won all three major Russian Literary Prizes. These entwined stories will delight anyone who has loved the ISB. 9781784293000 ROYAL HARDBACK £20.00 9781784294106 ROYAL HARDBACK £18.99 The Easy Way Out The Killing Room STEVEN AMSTERDAM PETER MAY 3 NOVEMBER 2016 M easure 961 has been passed. Now, the terminally ill can choose to end their lives in dignity, in the presence of loved ones . . . and a healthcare professional, of course. Enter Evan. An experienced nurse, he spends his hospital shifts sitting with patients as they experience their last moments of consciousness. It may not be everyone’s idea of a dream job, but Evan feels uniquely qualified. 17 NOVEMBER 2016 Funny yet deeply serious, smart yet sensitive . . . a dream date, basically. Except a book. About death. Niamh Mulvey Evan is a life-long drifter, something he picked up from his formidable mother, Viv. Following the (more classic) suicide of Evan’s father, Evan and Viv spent years moving from town to town, never stopping long enough to put down roots; never getting close to anyone but each other. T HE NEW CASE. When a mass grave is discovered in Shanghai, detective Li Yan is sent from Beijing. Here, he must work with Mei Ling, deputy head of Shanghai’s serious crime squad. THE NEW COLLEAGUE. Mei Ling is a formidable woman: a fact that is not lost on Li’s on-off lover, forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell. This is my personal favourite in this wonderful series. Jon Riley THE KILLING ROOM.Li, Campbell and Mei Ling are now entering the arena of a sickening nemesis, and opening a door behind which lies each of their very worst nightmares. The Killing Room is Peter May’s third novel featuring Li Yan and Margaret Campbell. It will be followed in 2017 by Snakehead, the fourth installment in the acclaimed series. But now Viv is ill, not terminally so, just a regular old souldestroying, dignity-robbing, quality-of-life-impairing illness. And she’s keen that Evan’s professionalism, not to mention his grief, do not get in the way of her right to choose her own way out . . . Steven Amsterdam was born and raised in New York City. He now lives in Melbourne where he works as a palliative care nurse. He has written two critically acclaimed and award-winning books: Things We Didn’t See Coming and What the Family Needed. 9781786480835 DEMY £12.99 978 1784291686 PAPERBACK £7.99 The Apprentice of Split Crow Lane JANE HOUSHAM 3 NOVEMBER 2016 F ive-year-old Sarah Melvin was walking alone down Split Crow Lane looking for her mother when she disappeared. Later that night a couple, walking home from the pub, tripped over her body. She was the child of Irish immigrants, drawn to the factories of the north-east. Her murderer was of a different class, whose unusual illness stopped him ever rising above apprentice; but who would eventually make clear exactly why he killed Sarah, in a way that would scandalise the whole country, yet to him made a ghastly logic. A beautifully written reconstruction of a nineteenth-century child murder which led to a confession still shocking to readers today. Jon Riley In this searing examination of the investigation and trial, Jane Housham uncovers a wealth of information that rocks our perception of Victorian society. In lively, empathic prose, she exposes attitudes towards mental health, the justice system and the media, the community of Irish travellers and the structure of family and village life to craft a moving and vital account. 9781786481580 ROYAL HARDBACK £20.00 Riverrun Riverrun THE PAPERBACKS THE PAPERBACKS 7 JAN B FORMAT 9781784290320 £8.99 4 FEB B FORMAT 9780857054029 £8.99 3 MARCH B FORMAT 9781848666313 £8.99 10 MARCH B FORMAT 9780857389404 £8.99 5 MAY B FORMAT 9780857054098 £8.99 16 JUNE B FORMAT 9780857384782 £8.99 10 MARCH B FORMAT 9781782064275 £8.99 16 JUNE B FORMAT 9780857384782 £8.99 30 JUNE B FORMAT 9780857054296 £8.99 14 JULY B FORMAT 9781784293130 £7.99 7 JULY B FORMAT 9781784293208 £7.99 21 APRIL B FORMAT 9780857053961 £7.99 4 AUGUST B FORMAT 9781782067993 £9.99 8 SEPTEMBER B FORMAT 9781784292690 £7.99 17 NOVEMBER B FORMAT 9781784291686 £7.99 ‘We are about writers and writing’ JON RILEY, PUBLISHER OF RIVERRRUN
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