Polygon New Titles 2017 by Birlinn Limited

Polygon | New Titles 2017

CONTENTS

FICTION Alexander McCall Smith – A Time of Love and Tartan: Scotland Street 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alexander McCall Smith – Chance Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alexander McCall Smith – The Good Pilot, Peter Wodehouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sheena Kalayil – The Bureau of Second Chances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Denzil Meyrick – Well of the Winds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Denzil Meyrick – One Last Dram Before Midnight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kevin MacNeil – Diary of an Alpaca . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charles E. McGarry – The Ghost of Helen Addison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gregory Dowling – The Four Horsemen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jane Menczer – An Unlikely Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Croft Dickinson – Dark Encounters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert J. Harris – The Thirty-One Kings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shirley McKay – 1588: A Calendar of Crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

FICTION – REISSUES Shirley McKay – The Hew Cullan Mysteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Helen Fitzgerald – The Devil’s Staircase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Helen Fitzgerald – Bloody Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gillian Galbraith – The Alice Rice Mysteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17 18 18 19

MUSIC Tom Doyle – Captain Fantastic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stuart Cosgrove – Memphis 68 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zoe Howe – Lee Brilleaux: Rock’n’Roll Gentleman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stuart Cosgrove – Young Soul Rebels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

20 21 22 22

BIOGRAPHY Alan Taylor – Appointment in Arezzo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Nick Perry – Escape to Ikaria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Nick Perry – Peaks and Troughs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

POETRY Michael Pedersen – Oyster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Robert Fergusson – Selected Poems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Kenneth Steven – Deirdre of the Sorrows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

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FICTION – NEW

ISBN 9781846973826 Price £16.99 Format 216 x 138mm D-hbk Rights UK & Commonwealth (exc. NA) Publication 03 August 2017 Extent 256pp

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A TIME OF LOVE AND TARTAN A 44 Scotland Street Novel WHEN HEAVY SNOW CUTS Alexander McCall Smith OFF KINTYRE, DCI JIM DAIf only Pat Macgregor had an inkling of the embarrassment – romantic, LEY BRIAN SCOTT professional, evenAND aesthetic – DS that flowed from accepting narcissistic ex-boyfriend Bruce Anderson’s invitation for coffee, she would never TO have saidARE yes. And ASSIGNED if only Matthew, her boss at thePROTECT art gallery, hadn’t wandered into his local bookshop and picked up a particular book at a ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. particularTHEIR time, he would never have knocked over his former English teacher or attracted the attentions of the police. Whether caused by ASsuchAN ANCIENT SOCIETY small things as a cup of coffee and a book, or major events such as Stuart’s application for promotion and his wife Irene’s decision to EMERGES THEis coming BLIZ-to serial go off and study for a PhD inFROM Aberdeen, change fiction’s favourite street. But for three seven-year-old boys – Bertie AND ITSandCREATION, Pollock, ZARDS, Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, Big Lou’s foster son Finlay – it also means a getting a glimpse of perfect happiness. THE RAT STONE, REVEALS Alexander McCall Smith’s delightfully witty, wise and sometimes GRISLY SECRETS, GHOSTS OF surreal comedy spirals out to include tennis-playing Rwandan Forest People, researches into levitating Celtic saints, bogus headhunters PAST COME TO HAUNT in PapuaTHE New Guinea and primary school performances of Beckett. But its heart remains where it has always been – true to life, love and THE SHANNONS. AS THE laughter in Edinburgh’s New Town. CURSE DECREES, 12th instalment of the Scotland Street series. DEATH IS COMING – BUT FOR WHOM AND FROM WHAT? Alexander McCall Smith is one of the world’s most prolific and most popular authors. After the publication of his highly successful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, which has sold over twenty-five million copies, he devoted his time to the writing of fiction and has seen his various series of books translated into over fortysix languages and become bestsellers throughout the world. These include the 44 Scotland Street novels, first published as a serial novel in the Scotsman, the Isabel Dalhousie novels, the Von Igelfeld series and the Corduroy Mansions novels.

FICTION – NEW IN PAPERBACK

CHANCE DEVELOPMENTS Unexpected Love Stories Alexander McCall Smith In this beguiling book, Alexander McCall Smith casts his eye over five chanced-upon photographs from the era of black-and-white photography and imagines the stories behind them. Who were those people, what were their stories, why are they smiling, what made them sad? What emerges are surprising and poignant tales of love and friendship in a variety of settings – an estate in the Highlands of Scotland, a travelling circus in Canada, an Australian gold-mining town, a village in Ireland, and the Scottish capital, Edinburgh. Some will find joy and fulfilment – others would prefer happier endings. Each of them, though, will find love, and that is ultimately what matters.

ISBN 9781846973703 ePub 9780857902658 Price £7.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights WEL exc. North America Publication 11 May 2017 Extent 240pp

‘The book is vintage McCall Smith and if anyone is looking for an early Christmas gift, they should look no further. A reader may wonder whether if there were no Alexander McCall Smith, he would have to be invented’ – Washington Times ‘These stories are full of insight and empathy...the first two, “Sister Flora’s First Day of Freedom” and “Angels in Italy” are works of depth and beauty that would not be shamed in the company of the world s great short stories’ – Kerryn Goldsworthy, Fairfax Papers

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Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party 9781846973956 £7.99 pbk

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ISBN 9781846974090 Price £9.99 Format 170 x 126mm hbk Rights UK & Commonwealth (exc. Canada) Publication 12 October 2017 Extent 224pp

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THE GOOD PILOT PETER WODEHOUSE WHEN HEAVY SNOW CUTS Alexander McCall Smith OFF KINTYRE, DCI JIM DAVal was working as a land girl when the Americans arrived at the LEY AND DSa young BRIAN nearby airfield in 1944. Mike, AmericanSCOTT airman, came into her life soon after, and so too did Peter Woodhouse, a dog badly treated ASSIGNED PROTECT on aARE neighbouring farm and taken inTO by her aunt. THEIR ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. Little persuasion was needed for Mike to take Peter Woodhouse to the airbase and over time he became the mascot of the American squad, ASwithAN SOCIETY flying them ANCIENT whenever their Mosquitoes took to the skies. When their plane is shot down over Holland both Mike and Peter EMERGES FROM THE BLIZWoodhouse are feared lost. CREATION, But ZARDS, unknown to theirAND loved ones ITS at home, Mike and Peter Woodhouse survived the crash. Taken in by the Dutch resistance and with the help THE RAT STONE, REVEALS of Ubi, a German officer, the pair to remain in hiding till the end of the war when they are reunited with Val. We then follow Val, Mike SECRETS, GHOSTS andGRISLY Peter Woodhouse as they rebuild a life in England. AndOF Ubi as he returns to Germany at the end of the war and tries to build a new life THEHisPAST COME for himself. dream is to run a Wall of TO Death, aHAUNT circus ring that pitts motorcyclists against gravity as they attempt to stay upright at ever THEspeed... SHANNONS. AS THE increasing CURSE DECREES, DEATH IS COMING – BUT FOR WHOM TheAND President, The Board of Governors, FROM WHAT? and The Literary Arts Committee of The National Arts Club of America have presented The Medal of Honour for Achievement in Literature to Alexander McCall Smith. The Award Ceremony took place on Tuesday, 9th of May, 2017 at the home of The National Arts Club in New York City. Alexander is thrilled that his work has been recognised with such a prestigious award.

My Italian Bulldozer 9781846973550 £14.99 hbk

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THE BUREAU OF SECOND CHANCES Sheena Kalayil ‘Is going back the only way to start again?’ After more than thirty years in London, recently-widowed Thomas Imbalil returns to India. He spends his first months in uncluttered isolation in his house overlooking the Arabian Sea, in a small fishing village in Kerala. But when he agrees to look after his friend’s business, Chacko’s Optical Store, he meets and befriends Rani, the young assistant. Before long he discovers that Rani is using the store to run an intriguing side-business. He agrees to turn a blind eye to her operations until his friend returns, but this discovery makes him restless, and reminds him of the loneliness he is feeling and which lies ahead of him. ISBN 9781846973925 ePub 9780857909268 Price £8.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights WAL exc. North America Publication 01 June 2017 Extent 304pp

Rani also reveals herself as a much more complex individual than he had first imagined, and while he had envisaged a quiet re-acquaintance with his homeland, Thomas finds himself becoming more and more entangled with the lives of those around him.

'There is plenty of light, with passages that will make you smile, but it has its share of darkness, touching on caste and social expectations in India, as well as reflections on marriage, illness and parenting ... I raced through the last third of the book on the edge of my seat, desperate to know how it turned out' – The Bookbag, FIVE STARS

Sheena Kalayil was born in Zambia in 1970 where her parents were teachers seconded from Kerala, India. She arrived in the UK aged eighteen and, after graduating, worked all over the world. She now teaches at the University of Manchester and is currently completing a doctorate in Linguistics. She lives near Manchester with her husband and two daughters.

For fans of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Deborah Moggach’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, this is an evocative tale of life and morality in contemporary India

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ISBN 9781846973727 ePub 9780857909237 Price £8.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights English Language (UK & Commonwealth) Publication 06 April 2017 Extent 400pp

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WELL OF THE WINDS A D.C.I. Daley Thriller WHEN HEAVY SNOW CUTS Denzil Meyrick OFF KINTYRE, DCI JIM DAKinloch, 1945. A man is brutally stabbed to death on a lonely LEY AND BRIAN SCOTT beach. Seventy years laterDS an island postman discovers that an entire family have vanished without trace. ARE ASSIGNED TO PROTECT Fighting to cope with the loss of a close colleague and the THEIR ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. collapse of his family life, Jim Daley is once again thrust into the fray. With his long-time partner Brian Scott and the AN ANCIENT newAS superintendent Carrie Symington,SOCIETY he investigates the family’s disappearance and makes a disturbing discovery EMERGES FROM in the basement of their farmhouse.THE As they BLIZdelve further into the circumstances surrounding the missing family the ZARDS, AND ITStheCREATION, unfortunate Kinloch officers unleash full force of a vengeful conspiracy that will stop at nothing to protect itself. The sleepy THEisland RAT STONE, REVEALS Hebridean becomes a battleground, and Jim Daley and his companions are in the eye of the storm. GRISLY SECRETS, GHOSTS OF ‘Past meets present in Well of the Winds. Two investigations THE PAST COME TO HAUNT involving thoughtful intuitive coppers are presented in parallel as the tale unfolds across the decades … Fictional Kinloch THE SHANNONS. AS THE creates a different atmosphere to conventional “tartan noir” thrillers. This is a crime setting far from smoky pubs and the CURSE DECREES, DEATH bookies’ shops of the average city. Little fishing boats are IS more important in this tale than black marias’ – The Times COMING – BUT FOR WHOM AND FROM WHAT?

After studying politics, Denzil Meyrick worked as a police officer, distillery manager, freelance journalist and company director. He is originally from Campbeltown in Argyll, but now lives with his wife Fiona on Loch Lomondside.

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ONE LAST DRAM BEFORE MIDNIGHT The D.C.I. Daley Stories Denzil Meyrick Bringing together six short stories – two of which are previously unpublished – One Last Dram Before Midnight is the perfect Christmas gift for fans of Denzil Meyrick. These tales take us from Jim Daley’s early days pounding the beat in Glasgow as a young constable to a light-hearted whisky smuggling romp involving Hamish and some ghostly pipers. Praise for the series: ‘Touches of dark humour, multi-layered and compelling’ – Daily Record ISBN 9781846973789 ePub 9780857909367 Price £8.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights English Language (UK & Commonwealth) Publication 07 September 2017 Extent 400pp

‘The right amount of authenticity ... gritty writing ... most memorable’ – Herald ‘Universal truths ... an unbuttoned sense of humour ... Engaging and eventful’ – The Wall Street Journal

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ISBN 9781846974069 Price £9.99 Format 170 x 126mm A-hbk Rights World All Languages Publication 12 October 2017 Extent 112pp

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DIARY OF AN ALPACA Kevin MacNeil WHEN HEAVY SNOW Illustrated by Moose Allain CUTS OFF KINTYRE, DCI JIM DAIf you haven’t met Archie the Alpaca, now’s your chance. LEY AND DS BRIAN SCOTT Prolific writer, social observer, grassiccino drinker, occasional ARE ASSIGNED PROTECT dancer and loyal friend, Archie seesTO the world like no-one else. Settle in with one of the beloved characters from cult favourite ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. TheTHEIR Brilliant and Forever for an experience you will never forget. AShisAN SOCIETY From remarksANCIENT on the volume of phone conversations, to training a parrot to hypnotise you to sleep, to a chance meeting EMERGES FROM with Kim Jong-un, Archie’s diary will THE teach youBLIZto think about everything you know just a little bit differently. ZARDS, AND ITS CREATION, Praise for The Brilliant & Forever THE RAT ‘Ultimately, this is a STONE, book about howREVEALS everyone has a story worth telling, and one worth hearing too. Terrific stuff’ GRISLY SECRETS, GHOSTS OF – Independent THE PAST COME TOheartbreaking’ HAUNT ‘Lyrical, satirical, funny and utterly, utterly – Heat Magazine THE SHANNONS. AS THE ‘It is a joy to read such an engaging, luminous novel’ CURSE DECREES, DEATH IS – The Guardian COMING – BUT FOR WHOM AND FROM WHAT? Kevin MacNeil is an award-winning writer from the Outer Hebrides now living in London. He is a novelist, poet, editor and screenwriter, and currently teaches Creative Writing at the University of Stirling. He is the author of The Brilliant & Forever (Polygon, 2016).

The Brilliant & Forever 9781846973376 £9.99 pbk

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THE GHOST OF HELEN ADDISON The First Leo Moran Murder Mystery

Charles E. McGarry This is the first in a brand new series of murder mysteries featuring a truly unique protagonist and touches of the supernatural. Leo Moran is not your average private detective. An avowed gourmet and wine connoisseur, he enjoys the pleasures of life to the hilt in the splendid isolation of his West End apartment. Ordinarily, his most pressing concerns involve which vintage of wine to pair with the finest organic steak, but at times he has more unsettling concerns: visions of violent crimes.

ISBN 9781846973796 ePub 9780857909336 Price £7.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World All Languages Publication 06 July 2017 Extent 256pp

After the ritualistic murder of a young woman in rural Argyll Leo decides to help the police. He arrives at a brooding, majestic landscape in the grip of winter and meets a host of strange and colourful characters who congregate in and around the Loch Dhonn Hotel – including the ghost of the victim. Frustrated by forces of evil summoned up by the killer, at first Leo fails to make headway, and his intemperance wears thin the patience of his allies and the police. Cast out and close to despair, Leo must draw on all his powers to unmask the murderer before he himself becomes the next victim.

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Charles E. McGarry lives in Glasgow where he was born and bred, although he spent several years living in London and Edinburgh. He has played in bands, is widely travelled and graduated from Glasgow University in 1994 with an honours degree in History and Politics. He currently works as a newspaper page designer and sub-editor, having formerly been a business analyst for British Telecom. He is the co-author of The Road to Lisbon (Arena, 2016). The Road to Lisbon 9781909715394 £7.99 pbk

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ISBN 9781846973840 ePub 9780857909305 Price £8.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World All Languages Publication 06 July 2017 Extent 352pp

THE FOUR HORSEMEN Gregory Dowling WHEN HEAVY SNOW CUTS After reluctant spy Alvise Marangon is arrested in a tavern brawl, he is summoned to meet the Missier head of OFF KINTYRE, DCIGrande, JIM DAthe city’s powerful secret service. Rather than being expelled from theLEY city, heAND is coerced into investigation of DSa top-secret BRIAN SCOTT the mysterious death of one of the service’s agents and the existence of a mysterious secret society. Formed four rakish ARE ASSIGNED TO byPROTECT noblemen, it is known as the Four Horsemen and dates back to the Ottoman Empire. ILLUSTRIOUS As Alvise delves into the case, he finds THEIR VISITORS. all the hallmarks of assassination and corruption, and is soon profoundly of his depth and on the run. SOCIETY ASoutAN ANCIENT This is the sequel to the bestselling Ascension. EMERGES FROM THE BLIZPraise for Ascension ZARDS, AND ITS CREATION, ‘Blends a laconic, amused style informed by American detective literature with a profound of Venetian geography THE RAT knowledge STONE, REVEALS and history. Stylish, clever and gripping’ – The Times, Historical Fiction Book of the Month GRISLY SECRETS, GHOSTS OF ‘a wonderful page PAST turner withCOME a fabulous castTO of characters’ THE HAUNT – Historical Novels Society THE SHANNONS. AS THE ‘Alvise is a terrific character, the murder mystery is absorbingly ingenious and, if you areDECREES, a sucker for Venice, the sights, sounds CURSE DEATH IS and smells of its streets and canals ooze up from the page’ – Daily Mail COMING – BUT FOR WHOM AND FROM WHAT?

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Fiction

Gregory Dowling is an Associate Professor of American Literature at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He has published four novels, coedited two anthologies of poetry, and written various non-fiction books and academic articles on Italian, British and American literature. He has a special interest in British and American writers in Italy, from the Romantic age onwards.

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AN UNLIKELY AGENT Jane Menczer London, 1905. Margaret Trant lives with her ailing, irascible mother in a dreary boarding house in St John’s Wood. The pair have fallen on hard times, with only Margaret’s meagre salary from a ramshackle import-export company keeping them afloat. When a stranger on the tram hands her a newspaper open at the recruitment page, Margaret spots an advertisement that promises to ‘open new horizons beyond your wildest dreams!’. After a gruelling interview, she finds herself in a new position as a secretary in a dingy backstreet shop. But all is not as it seems; she is in fact working for a highly secret branch of the intelligence service, Bureau 8, whose mission is to track down and neutralise a ruthless band of anarchists known as the Scorpions. ISBN 9781846973802 ePub 9780857909251 Price £8.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World English Language Publication 11 May 2017 Extent 400pp

'Fuelled by the heroine’s immense appeal, and the flawless plotting, this is an engrossing read, with many funny moments, and I rather hope this gifted debut novelist dishes up more detective delights in the very near future' – Joanne Owen, LoveReading

Margaret’s guilty love of detective fiction scarcely prepares her for the reality of true criminality, and her journey of selfdiscovery forms the heart of this remarkable novel, as she discovers in herself resourcefulness, courage, independence and the first stirrings of love.

Jane Menczer was born in Winchester and now lives in Cambridge. She has worked in a West End theatre, as a nanny, as a waitress, and as a bookseller. Working with Germaine Greer on her dissertation awakened an interest in all the talented and heroic woman from other eras who have been overlooked or forgotten, and directly influenced the creation of the character of Miss Trant. Jane currently teaches drama at a comprehensive school near Cambridge.

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ISBN 9781846974083 ePub 9780857909503 Price £9.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-hbk Rights World All Languages Publication 31 October 2017 Extent 192pp

DARK ENCOUNTERS A Collection of Ghost Stories William Croft Dickinson WHEN HEAVY SNOW CUTS Introduction by Alistair OFF KINTYRE, DCIKerr JIM DALEY AND DS BRIAN SCOTT First published in 1963 by Harvill Press, Dark Encounters is an elegantly spine-tingling collection of ghost set in the ARE ASSIGNED TOstories PROTECT brooding landscape of Scotland and often referring to real people,THEIR places and objects. ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. From a AS demonic book ANCIENT that brings its readers to an early death AN SOCIETY to the murderous spectre of a feudal baron, these tales are a welcome addition to the long and distinguished canon of EMERGES FROM THE BLIZScottish ghost stories. ZARDS, AND ITS CREATION, For those who seek the unnerving and the inexplicable, Dark Encounters is guaranteed raise the hairs onREVEALS the back of your THE RATtoSTONE, neck. GRISLY SECRETS, GHOSTS OF This edition features a rare story – ‘The Macgregor Skull’ – whichTHE was thePAST last story COME ever written by the author and TO HAUNT posthumously serialised in the Scotsman in 1963. THE SHANNONS. AS THE CURSE DECREES, DEATH IS WilliamCOMING Croft Dickinson (1897–1963) cameFOR to study WHOM history at – BUT St Andrews in 1915. Military service in the trenches in France during AND the First World War interrupted his studies but in 1921 FROM WHAT? he graduated with a First and went on to teach history at the London School of Economics. In 1944 he was appointed Fraser Professor of Scottish History and Paleography at the University of Edinburgh, during which time he founded and edited the Scottish Historical Review, and where he remained until his death. Apart from his historical works, Dickinson wrote many books for children and ghost stories; stories and legends were an essential part of the historical narrative to him. Alistair W.J. Kerr graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1975 and served in the diplomatic service until 2009. He is the author of a military biography Betrayal: The Murder of Robert Nairac GC (Cambridge Academic, 2015) and is a long-standing admirer of William Croft Dickinson’s work.

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THE THIRTY-ONE KINGS Richard Hannay Returns Robert J. Harris Towards the end of John Buchan’s last novel Sick Heart River, Edward Leithen, reflects that, with the outbreak of a second world war, all his companions of old will be called to action once more. In The Thirty-One Kings the tale of their adventures is finally told ... June 1940.

ISBN 9781846973918 ePub 9780857909374 Price £12.99 Format 216 x 138mm Demy Hbk Rights World All Languages Publication 05 October 2017 Extent 256pp

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As German troops pour across France, the veteran soldier and adventurer Richard Hannay is called back into service. In Paris an individual code named ‘Roland’ has disappeared and is assumed to be in the hands of Nazi agents. Only he knows the secret of the Thirty-One Kings, a secret upon which the whole future of Europe depends. Hannay is dispatched to Paris to find Roland before the Germans overrun the city. On a hazardous journey across the battlefields of France Hannay is joined by old friends and new allies as he confronts a ruthless foe who will stop at nothing to destroy him. The lights are going out across Paris and time is running out for the world as both sides battle for the secret of the ThirtyOne Kings.

Robert J. Harris was born in Dundee and studied at the University of St. Andrews where he graduated with a first class honours degree in Latin. He is the designer of the bestselling fantasy board game Talisman and has written numerous books including Leonardo and the Death Machine, Will Shakespeare and the Pirate’s Fire and the popular World Goes Loki children’s series. He lives in St. Andrews with his wife, Debbie.

John Buchan was a Scottish diplomat, barrister, journalist, historian, poet and novelist. He published nearly 30 novels and seven collections of short stories. After spells as a war correspondent, Lloyd George’s Director of Information and Conservative MP, Buchan moved to Canada in 1935. He served as Governor General there until his death in 1940.

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ISBN 9781846973819 ePub 9780857909114 Price £8.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World All Languages Publication 07 September 2017 Extent 352pp

Praise for Shirley McKay ‘Shirley McKay’s command of plot, place and character makes these 16th century St Andrewsset mysteries a delight ... Like all the best historical novelists she paints a vivid picture of times past. In these absorbing and scholarly stories she shines a light into the darkness of 16th century Scotland’ – Alan Massie, The Scotsman

Fiction

1588: A CALENDAR OF CRIME NewWHEN in Paperback HEAVY SNOW CUTS Shirley OFFMcKay KINTYRE, DCI JIM DASet in the year ofAND the Armada, 1588: BRIAN A Calendar of Crime brings LEY DS SCOTT together five short stories featuring Hew Cullan, together with Frances, Meg and other characters the Hew AREGiles, ASSIGNED TO from PROTECT Cullan series. From the gruesome murder of a candlemaker to Spanish ghosts onILLUSTRIOUS Hallowmas, Shirley McKay VISITORS. delivers five THEIR gripping tales of mystery that will keep you reading long into the night. TheAN stories ANCIENT are being released throughout the year AS SOCIETY as stand alone eBooks before being gathered into the Calendar of CrimeEMERGES anthology. FROM THE BLIZ‘A fascinating evocation AND of the everyday of ordinary Scots ZARDS, ITSlifeCREATION, in the 1500s as well as series of first-rate stories ... McKay is to be congratulated for the continued quality and inventiveness THE RAT STONE, REVEALS of her tales’ – The National GRISLY SECRETS, GHOSTS OF ‘If you’re a fan of period drama but the prospect of reading a heavy tome puts you off, Shirley McKay’s new book is ideal. It’s THE PAST COME TO HAUNT five gripping tales, from the grotesque murder of a candlemaker to vanishing and a story set aroundAS Christmas that THEcorpses SHANNONS. THE makes it perfect for popping into someone’s stocking this year’ – Press &CURSE Journal DECREES, DEATH IS COMING – BUT FOR WHOM AND FROM WHAT? Shirley McKay was born in Tynemouth but now lives with her family in Fife. At the age of fifteen she won the Young Observer playwriting competition, her play being performed at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs. She went on to study English and Linguistics at the University of St Andrews before attending Durham University for postgraduate study in Romantic and Seventeenth-Century prose. She was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger. Shirley works as a freelance proofreader.

FICTION – REISSUES HUE & CRY (Hew Cullan 1) 1579, St. Andrews. A thirteen-year old boy meets his death on the streets of the university city of St. Andrews and suspicion falls upon one of the regents at the university, Nicholas Colp. Hew Cullan, a young lawyer recently returned home from Paris, uncovers a complex tale of passion and duplicity, of sexual desire and tension within the repressive atmosphere of the Protestant Kirk and the austerity of the academic cloister. ISBN 9781846971525 ePub 9780857900180 Price £8.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World All Languages Extent 320pp

FATE & FORTUNE (Hew Cullan 2) 1581: young St Andrews academic Hew Cullan is unhappy with his life and disillusioned with the law. After his father’s death he is invited by the advocate Richard Cunningham to complete his legal education in Edinburgh as Richard’s pupil at the bar. Embarking on his new life in the capital, he falls in love. But his relationships are fraught with lies and secrets and lead to a brutal murder on the borough muir. ISBN 9781846971808 ePub 9780857900197 Price £8.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World All Languages Extent 320pp

TIME & TIDE (Hew Cullan 3) 1582, St Andrews. In the swell of a storm, a battered ship is wrecked in St Andrews harbour. The cargo of the ship appears a welcome windfall but it soon brings devastation to the town as petty squabbling turns to hysteria and tragedy. Hew traces the ship to its source in Ghent, where he uncovers a strange secret. He returns once more to the role of advocate and finds his deepest principles being tested to the core. ISBN 9781846972188 ePub 9780857900432 Price £8.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World All Languages Extent 304pp

FRIEND & FOE (Hew Cullan 4) St Andrews, 1583. The young king James VI is confined at Falkland palace, plotting his escape. Dissension rages between Kirk and Crown, the king and his ‘lord enterprisers’, and between the separate factions of the church. In St Andrews the death of a young soldier, implicating Hew’s sister and Giles’s wife Meg, leads Hew to an astonishing discovery, and towards his blackest hour, his fortunes inextricable from those of James himself. ISBN 9781846973222 ePub 9780857901811 Price £8.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World All Languages Extent 320pp

Fiction

FICTION – REISSUES

BLOODY WOMEN Helen Fitzgerald WHEN HEAVY SNOW CUTS Returning to Scotland to organise her wedding, Catriona is OFFwith KINTYRE, DCItoJIM overcome the jitters. She decides tie upDAloose ends before settling permanently in Tuscany, and seeks out her exLEY Only AND DS BRIAN SCOTT boyfriends. problem is, they all end up dead and Catriona is the prime suspect. ARE ASSIGNED TO PROTECT ‘Funny, moving, horrifying and compelling’ THEIR ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. – Times Literary Supplement AS AN ANCIENT SOCIETY EMERGES FROM THE BLIZZARDS, AND ITS CREATION, THE RAT STONE, REVEALS GRISLY SECRETS, GHOSTS OF THE PAST COME TO HAUNT THE SHANNONS. AS THE CURSE DECREES, DEATH IS THE DEVIL’S STAIRCASE COMING – BUT FOR WHOM Helen Fitzgerald AND FROM WHAT? ISBN 9781846973987 ePub 9780857905789 Price £7.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights WAL exc. Holland & Germany Publication 11 May 2017 Extent 256pp

Bronny, a young Australian, finds herself down and out in London. She’s a sweet girl who has spent her teenage years in a fearful, cautious bubble. She’s never taken drugs, had sex or killed anyone. Within six weeks she’s done all three. A group of backpackers break into an abandoned London townhouse seeking a rent-free life of debauchery. But Bronny keeps being woken by scary noises coming from the basement. She thinks it’s her imagination. It isn’t ... ISBN 9781846973994 ePub 9780857905796 Price £7.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights WAL exc. Holland & Germany Publication 11 May 2017 Extent 224pp

Fiction

FICTION – REISSUES

BLOOD IN THE WATER (An Alice Rice Mystery 1) This thrilling police-procedural debut from crime writer Gillian Galbraith introduces readers to Alice Rice, Edinburgh’s latest fictional detective and a new female presence in the macho world of crime detection. Smart and capable, but battling disillusionment and loneliness, Alice races against time and an implacable killer to solve a series of grisly murders amongst the professional elite of Edinburgh’s well-to-do New Town.

ISBN 9781846974007 ePub 9780857900135 Price £7.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World English Language Publication 11 May 2017 Extent 192pp

WHERE THE SHADOW FALLS (An Alice Rice Mystery 2) When the body of a retired sheriff is discovered in his grand house in the New Town of Edinburgh, Detective Sergeant Alice Rice finds herself hunting his killer. The search leads her to an unfamiliar world where wind-farm developers – with millions of pounds at stake – and protesters face each other with daggers drawn. Just as Alice thinks an answer is beginning to emerge, the sheriff’s lover is killed in an apparent hit-and-run accident. An unlikely coincidence or, as the search widens, is Alice now investigating a double murder? ISBN 9781846974021 ePub 9780857900340 Price £7.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World English Language Extent 224pp

DYING OF THE LIGHT (An Alice Rice Mystery 3) Midwinter, a freezing night in Leith, near Edinburgh’s red light district. A policewoman’s flashlight stabs the darkness in a snow-covered cemetery. The circle of light stops on a colourless, dead face. So begins the hunt for a serial murderer of prostitutes in Gillian Galbraith’s third Alice Rice mystery, Dying of the Light. Partly inspired by the reallife killings of prostitutes in Ipswich, this novel explores a hidden world where sex is bartered for money and drugs. ISBN 9781846974014 ePub 9780857900357 Price £7.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World English Language Extent 224pp

Fiction

MUSIC – NEW

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC Elton John’s Stellar Trip through theHEAVY ’70s WHEN SNOW CUTS TomOFF Doyle KINTYRE, DCI JIM DALEY AND DS BRIAN SCOTT ARE ASSIGNED TO PROTECT THEIR ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. AS AN ANCIENT SOCIETY EMERGES FROM THE BLIZAND ITS CREATION, CaptainZARDS, Fantastic is an intimate look at the rise, fall and rise again of John’s fame-and-drug fuelled decade, with a final section THE REVEALS bringing his life RAT up to the STONE, present. Published to coincide with his seventieth birthday and based on one-to-one interviews, GRISLY SECRETS, GHOSTS this book boasts a supporting cast that includes John Lennon,OF Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Groucho Marx, Katherine Hepburn, THE PAST COME TO HAUNT Princess Margaret and Elvis Presley. THE ‘The go-to guy if SHANNONS. you want to coax confessionsAS from aTHE superstar’ – Mojo on Tom Doyle CURSE DECREES, DEATH IS ‘Doyle focuses mainly on one decade of the musician’s career, COMING BUT FOR the ‘70s, but what a decade– it was’ – Publishers WeeklyWHOM AND FROM WHAT? In August 1970 Elton John achieved overnight fame after a rousing performance at the Troubadour in Los Angeles; over the next five years he was unstoppable, scoring seven consecutive number 1 albums and sixteen Top 10 singles in America. But behind his outré image and comedy glasses lay a desperately shy individual, conflicted about his success, his sexuality, and his narcotic indulgences. In 1975, at the apex of his fame, John attempted suicide yet, after announcing his retirement in 1977 at the age of thirty as well as coming out as a gay man, he gradually found his way back to music.

ISBN 9781846973741 ePub 9780857909244 Price £16.99 Format 234 x 156mm R-hbk Rights EL UK & Commonwealth ex. Canada Publication 21 March 2017 Extent 304pp

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Tom Doyle is an acclaimed music journalist, author and long-standing contributing editor to Q, whose work has also appeared in Mojo, the Guardian, Marie Claire, Elle, The Times and Sound on Sound. Over the years he has been responsible for key magazine-cover profiles of Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, Kate Bush, Elton John, R.E.M. and U2, among many others. Man on the Run 9781846972928 £9.99 pbk

Music

MUSIC – NEW

MEMPHIS 68 The Tragedy of Southern Soul Stuart Cosgrove This is the story of an eventful and tragic year in a city synonymous with soul music, a follow-up to Stuart Cosgrove’s cult soul classic Detroit 67. Memphis 68 opens in the aftermath of the death of Memphis’s most famous recording artists, Otis Redding, who dies in a plane crash in the final days of 1967. The story follows the fortunes of Redding’s label Stax/Volt Records as their fortunes implode and are born again. Memphis is a city uncomfortable with the modern world and has yet to adjust to the era of civil rights and racial integration. As the tense year unfolds, the city dominates world headlines with the assassination of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

ISBN 9781846973734 ePub 9780857909381 Price £16.99 Format 234 x 156mm R-hbk Rights World All Languages Publication 05 October 2017 Extent 256pp

Praise for Stuart Cosgrove ‘Witty, humorous and, on more than a few occasions, hard hitting in equal measures and a damn good read too’ – Scootering Magazine ‘Sheer poetry…it truly is a personal history, but it weaves its way through our own history as well’ – Dave Rimmer, soul-source.co.uk

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Detroit 67 9781846973666 £9.99 pbk

Stuart Cosgrove was a fanzine writer on the northern soul scene before joining the black music paper Echoes, as a staff writer. He became media editor with the NME and a feature writer for a range of newspapers and magazines. In 2005 he was named Broadcaster of the Year in the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Awards and in 2012 he won numerous awards including a BAFTA and Royal Television Society award for Channel 4’s coverage of the London Paralympics 2012.

Music

MUSIC – NEW

LEE BRILLEAUX: ROCK ‘N’ ROLL GENTLEMAN ZoëWHEN Howe HEAVY SNOW CUTS Lee Brilleaux, uniquely charismatic star of JIM proto-punk R&B reprobates OFFtheKINTYRE, DCI DADr Feelgood, was one of rock’n’roll’s greatest frontmen. But he was also one of its greatest gentlemenDS – a class act with heart, fire, wanderlust and LEY AND BRIAN SCOTT a wild streak. Published with the blessing of Lee’s widow Shirley, this is an exhilarating, eye-opening collection of exclusive interviews, memories and ARE ASSIGNED TO PROTECT unseen drawings and images – the first comprehensive appreciation of Lee BrilleauxTHEIR and a book no Dr Feelgood fan would wish to be without. ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. AS AN ANCIENT SOCIETY EMERGES FROM THE BLIZZARDS, AND ITS CREATION, THE RAT STONE, REVEALS GRISLY SECRETS, GHOSTS OF THE PAST COME TO HAUNT THE SHANNONS. YOUNG SOUL REBELSAS THE CURSE DECREES, DEATH IS A PERSONAL HISTORY OF COMING – BUT FOR WHOM NORTHERN SOUL AND FROM WHAT? Stuart Cosgrove ISBN 9781846973499 ePub 9780857902641 Price £9.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights AL UK & Commonwealth Publication 13 April 2017 Extent 272pp

Young Soul Rebels is a compelling and intimate story of northern soul, Britain’s most fascinating musical underground scene. The book sweeps across fifty years of British life and places the northern soul scene in a social context – the rise of amphetamine culture, the policing of youth culture, the north– south divide, the decline of coastal Britain, the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry, the rise of Thatcherism, the miners’ strike, the rave scene and music in the era of the world wide web. ISBN 9781846973932 ePub 9780857908940 Price £9.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World All Languages Publication 06 April 2017 Extent 320pp

Music

BIOGRAPHY – NEW

Appointment in Arezzo Friendship with

Muriel Spark

APPOINTMENT IN AREZZO Friendship With Muriel Spark Alan Taylor This book is an intimate, fond and funny memoir of one of the greatest novelists of the last century. This colourful, personal, anecdotal, indiscrete and admiring memoir charts the course of Muriel Spark’s life revealing her as she really was. Once, she commented sitting over a glass of chianti at the kitchen table, that she was upset that the academic whom she had appointed her official biographer did not appear to think that she had ever cracked a joke in her life. Alan Taylor here sets the record straight about this and many other things.

alan taylor

ISBN 9781846973758 ePub 9780857909398 Price £12.99 Format 216 x 138mm Demy hbk Rights World All Languages Publication 13 November 2017 Extent 244pp

With sources ranging from notebooks kept from his very first encounter with Muriel and the hundreds of letters they exchanged over the years, this is an invaluable portrait of one of Edinburgh’s premiere novelists. The book will be published to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Muriel’s birth in 2018. Muriel Spark D.B.E, C.LITT. was born in Edinburgh in 1918. A poet and novelist, she wrote short stories, radio plays, children’s books, reviews and essays, as well as critical biographies of nineteenth-century literary figures including Emily Brontë and Mary Shelley. She died in 2006.

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Glasgow: The Autobiography 9781780273532 £17.99 hbk

Alan Taylor has been a journalist for over 30 years. He was deputy and managing editor at the Scotsman, and for the last 15 years has been Writerat-Large for The Sunday Herald. He has contributed to numerous publications, including The TLS, The New Yorker and The Melbourne Age, and edited four acclaimed anthologies – The Assassin’s Cloak (2000), The Secret Annexe (2004), The Country Dairies (2009) and Glasgow: The Autobiography (2016).

Biography 23

BIOGRAPHY – NEW

ISBN 9781846973765 ePub 9780857909404 Price £9.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World All Languages Publication 05 October 2017 Extent 320pp

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Peaks and Troughs 9781846973833 £9.99 pbk

24 Biography

ESCAPE TO IKARIA All at Sea in the Aegean Nick Perry DS Leaving DALEY their Welsh hill AND farm behind, Nick,BRIAN Ros and their children arrive on the little-known island of Ikaria in 1978, SCOTT ARE ASSIGNED having impulsively boarded the first ferry leaving Athens.TO Tomorrow Will Do tells the story of how they become involved THEIR with thePROTECT islanders and their way of life. NickILLUSTRItries his hand at anything to get by: night fishing out in the Aegean, unloading OUS VISITORS. AS forAN ANthe potato boats from Samos, mixing cement wayward house-builder Datsun Jim, and tending the gardens of the CIENT old monastery where aSOCIETY solitary nun, Sister EMERGES Ulita, controls the village’s water supply. FROM THE BLIZZARDS, AND This delightful sequel to Peaks and Troughs is warm-hearted, CREATION, THE RAT moving ITS and inspirational. STONE, REVEALS GRISLY ‘I think it is beautifully written, very evocative, very engaging, not judgemental … I’m enjoying it so much, very warm hearted’SECRETS, – Jonathan Ross on GHOSTS Peaks and Troughs OF THE PAST COME TO HAUNT THE SHANNONS. AS THE CURSE DECREES, DEATH IS COMING – BUT FOR WHOM AND FROM Nick Perry spent his WHAT? childhood in Dorset, out in the countryside daydreaming most of the time. He was educated at Parkstone Sea Training School before leaving for London where he worked for ATV Television. He travelled around Europe moving from job to job until he came into money. On impulse he bought a hill farm in North Wales, some experiences of which form the backdrop to Peaks and Troughs. He lives with his wife Arabella in the Wiltshire countryside where he spends his time writing, walking and listening to classical music.

BIOGRAPHY – NEW IN PAPERBACK

PEAKS AND TROUGHS In at the Deep End, High in the Hills Nick Perry As 1970 dawns Jack, brother Nick and his family set off from swinging London to fulfil their dream of living off the land in the wild unforgiving hills of North Wales. They know nothing of farming or what battles lie ahead with the weather and their neighbours, or the ingenuity needed to survive. But armed with the Farmer’s Weekly and protected by their youthful idealism and sense of the ridiculous they begin their adventure.

ISBN 9781846973833 ePub 9780857909121 Price £9.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World All Languages Publication 20 July 2017 Extent 320pp

Peaks and Troughs is a warm-hearted, humorous and inspirational tale of life in all its drama – birth, death, tragedy, comedy, disappointment and hope – with the star player being one Rattlerow King David the 57th, a prize boar whose prodigious sex drive literally saves Nick’s bacon. ‘It’s a simple book, whose narrative contours seem to match the experience it relates and the landscape in which it happens. A perfect Christmas present’ – The National

PEAKS AND TROUGHS WAS SELECTED FOR THE BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB IN NOVEMBER 2016

Biography 25

POETRY – NEW

ISBN 9781846973970 ePub 9780857909350 Price £9.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World All Languages Publication 07 September 2017 Extent 128pp

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OYSTER Michael Pedersen illustrated by Scott Hutchinson DALEY AND DS BRIAN Oyster is the second collection from prize-winning Edinburgh poet Michael Pedersen. This collection, illustrated byTO Scott SCOTT ARE ASSIGNED Hutchison, better known as front man of Scottish indie band Frightened Rabbit, is the much anticipated follow up to 2013’s PROTECT THEIR ILLUSTRIPlay With Me, also published by Polygon. OUS VISITORS. AS AN ANMichael Pedersen has a growing reputation and can count amongCIENT his fans Irvine Welsh, Stephen Fry, Young Fathers and SOCIETY EMERGES Liz Lochhead. FROM THE BLIZZARDS, AND Praise for Michael Pedersen ‘Michael’s are so physical youTHE can almost touch the ITSpoems CREATION, RAT images in them. Fabulously sensual and alive. I adore poetry like this’ – Stephen Fry REVEALS GRISLY STONE, ‘If youSECRETS, like poetry that is cool, smart, hilariousOF and quirky and GHOSTS THE can just suddenly rip your heart out, Michael Pedersen is your man’ –PAST Irvine Welsh COME TO HAUNT THE ‘Leading the way in new Scottish writing’ – ScotsmanCURSE SHANNONS. AS THE ‘Reminded us how vibrantDEATH a thing poetry IS can (and probably DECREES, COMshould) be’ – Skinny ING – BUT FOR WHOM AND Michael Pedersen his a prize-winning FROM WHAT? poet from Edinburgh. He also dabbles in film-scripts, plays and pop songs. Michael has performed all over the world and is the co-founder of micro publisher and record label Neu! Reekie!. Michael has won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship and The John Mather’s Trust Rising Star Award, is a Canongate Future 40, and a Callum McDonald Memorial Award finalist.

Play With Me 9781846972607 £9.99 pbk

Poetry

Scott Hutchison is a Scottish singer, songwriter, guitarist and artist. He is best known as the founding member and primary songwriter of the indie rock band Frightened Rabbit, with whom he has recorded four studio albums.

POETRY – NEW

ROBERT FERGUSSON Selected Poems edited and introduced by James Robertson ‘O thou, my elder brother in misfortune, By far my elder brother in the Muse . . .’ – Robert Burns on Robert Fergusson. Written in 1787 after Burns had paid for a memorial stone to be erected over Fergusson’s grave in the Canongate Kirkyard.

ISBN 9781846970351 ePub 9780857908865 Price £12.99 Format 216 x 138mm D-pbk Rights World All Languages Publication 09 March 2017 Extent 224pp

Born in Edinburgh in 1750, Robert Fergusson has long been acknowledged as a crucial influence on Robert Burns, not least by Burns himself. But Fergusson was also a remarkable poet in his own right. For the few years in which he wrote, before dying in tragic circumstances at the age of 24, his work delighted readers with its vigour and craft. Although he wrote much verse in English – in the then fashionable Augustan style – it is his Scots verse with its great warmth, humanity, satire and outrageous comedy that is his enduring legacy. His work covers a wide range of human emotions and experience, and his subject matter ranges from drunken encounters with the notorious City Guard to quieter reflections on pastoral themes. The poems are as fresh and appealing now as they were during the Age of Enlightenment in which they lived.

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The Book of the Howlat 9781780273754 £12.99 hbk

James Robertson is one of Scotland’s most significant writers, whose novels include Joseph Black (winner of the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year 2003/2004), The Testament of Gideon Mack (longlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2006), And the Land Lay Still (2011) and The Professor of Truth (2013). He is general editor of Black and White Publishing’s Itchy Coo imprint, which produces books in Scots for young readers.

Poetry

POETRY – NEW

ISBN 9781846973888 Price £8.99 Format 198 x 129mm B-pbk Rights World All Languages Publication 18 May 2017 Extent 72pp

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A Song Among the Stones 9781846972126 £9.99 pbk

Poetry

Glen Lyon 9781780271774 £7.99 pbk

DEIRDRE OF THE SORROWS Kenneth Steven DALEY DS BRIAN The story of DeirdreAND of the Sorrows is widely known in Ireland, yet all but forgotten across the water in Scotland. SCOTT AREwhich ASSIGNED This great tragic love story, has its roots in theTO ninth or tenth century, is very much shared by both countries. For PROTECT THEIR Deirdre, according to the legend, fled withILLUSTRIher lover Naoise to Argyll. The oldest song in Scotland is believed to be Deirdre’s OUS AS AN ANhaunting farewellVISITORS. to her adopted land as she returns once more to Ireland. CIENT SOCIETY EMERGES In this new sequence, Deirdre of the Sorrows, Kenneth Steven FROM THE BLIZZARDS, AND beautifully reimagines the legend of this love story; he brings back to life Deirdre’s journey and attempts to capture its ITS CREATION, THE RAT timeless power. REVEALS GRISLY Praise STONE, for Kenneth Steven ‘Strong and impressive work’ – A. J. Alvarez SECRETS, GHOSTS OF THE ‘There is a grave beauty in these lines, revealing a poetic voice TOSmith HAUNT of greatPAST sensitivity’COME – Alexander McCall on Evensong THE SHANNONS. AS THE CURSE ‘An atmospheric, wintry tale of fragile human relationships set in a beautiful but unforgiving landscape’ – James Robertson on The DECREES, Ice and Other Stories DEATH IS COMING – BUT FOR WHOM AND FROM WHAT? Kenneth Steven spent his first years in Helensburgh, but the bulk of his childhood and adolescence was spent in Highland Perthshire. He was born to writing parents, his father was a journalist and his mother a social historian. Kenneth has always been first and foremost a poet. Fourteen of his collections have been published over the years, and he has made many poetry related programmes for BBC Radio. Birlinn published his novel, Glen Lyon, in 2013. www.kennethsteven.co.uk.

POETRY â&#x20AC;&#x201C; NEW

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Birlinn Limited was established in 1992 by Managing Director Hugh Andrew, and is comprised of a number of imprints. Birlinn publishes Scottish and general UK interest books, from biography to history, military history, cookery and Scottish Gaelic. The name comes from the old Norse world ‘birlinn’, meaning a long boat or small galley used especially in the Hebrides and West Highlands of Scotland in the Middle Ages. BC Books is a new children’s imprint, launched in 2015. It is designed to provide writing and illustration of the highest quality for young readers in Scotland and beyond. Birlinn is dedicated to nurturing young readers and helping them discover a passion for reading that will last a lifetime. Polygon publishes literary fiction and poetry, both classic and modern, from Scottish writers such as Robin Jenkins, George Mackay Brown and the author of the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith, as well as selected music and film titles. International writers including Jan-Philipp Sendker are also published under this imprint. Polygon was originally set up by students of Edinburgh University in the late 1960s.

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Arena Sport is Birlinn’s sport imprint. The sport books range from football and rugby, to golf and cycling. These books have an international as well as national appeal. Arena’s first titles were published in June 2013. John Donald publishes academic books.

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