The Bone Readers


Book Description

WINNER OF THE JHALAK PRIZE 'The Bone Readers is a page-turner, but its insights and language are equally testament to a literary novel of impressive depth and acuity' Guardian Secrets can be buried, but bones can speak . . . After standing witness to a murder on the streets of the Caribbean island of Camaho, young Michael 'Digger' Digson is recruited into a unique plain clothes homicide squad, an eclectic group of semi-official police officers, led by the enigmatic DS Chilman. Digger becomes enmeshed in Chilman's obsession with a cold case, the disappearance of a young man. But Digger has a murder to pursue too: that of his mother, killed by a renegade police squad when he was a boy. He has two weapons at his disposal - his skill in forensics, and Chilman's latest recruit, the mysterious, observant Miss Stanislaus. Together, the two find themselves dragged into a world of dangerous secrets that demands every ounce of their courage to survive. This award-winning crime debut by highly acclaimed author Jacob Ross marks the thrilling start to a new series following forensics genius Michael Digson. 'It's masterly. I've started to read it again with increasing admiration' Crime Time 'A breath-taking, thought-provoking, and yes brilliant read. I know this is a book I shall go back to again and again' Sunny Singh 'Ross's novel is one that effortlessly draws together the past and the present, gender, politics and the legacy of colonialism in a top quality Caribbean set crime thriller. The Bone Readers is a wonderful read' Catherine Johnson 'By turns thrilling, visceral and meditative, and always cinematic' Musa Okwonga 'An unconventional crime novel, and one that exposes the dark underbelly of 'paradise'' Book Muse (blog) 'I was fascinated by Ross' ability to create characters with depth and diversity. A great read' Not Chai tea (blog) 'A unique read, paced to the islands where it takes place with a group of interesting characters I will enjoy following into future books' Word Dreams (blog) 'An engaging, poetic and twist-filled Caribbean crime-noir novel. Masterful' Book Witty (blog)




Murder in the Caribbean (A Death in Paradise Mystery, Book 4)


Book Description

‘Deftly entertaining ... satisfyingly pushes all the requisite Agatha Christie-style buttons’ Barry Forshaw, The Independent DEATH IN PARADISE is one of BBC One’s most popular series which averages 9 million viewers.




Crime Fiction in the Caribbean


Book Description

Crime Fiction in the Caribbean: Reframing Crime and Justice is the first academic book to focus on crime fiction by anglophone Caribbean writers. It explores how contemporary writers experiment with the crime genre in order to convey, contextualize, and comment on crime and justice in Caribbean countries. Lucy Evans reads crime fiction as a versatile mode of writing that can be politically engaged, and that-in a Caribbean context-can expose power structures embedded in the region's multi-layered history of colonial conquest, genocide of Indigenous populations, plantation agriculture, transatlantic slavery, and indentured labour. This book covers fiction set in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, Grenada, and Haiti, discussing novels by Elizabeth Nunez, Jacob Ross, Marlon James, Harischandra Khemraj, Esther Figueroa, Edwidge Danticat, Cherie Jones, and several others. Evans considers how fiction by anglophone Caribbean writers not only reflects upon the social realities of crime and crime control in the Caribbean, but also at times contests or complicates scholarly, popular, and legal perspectives. She argues that through their engagement with the crime genre, these writers raise pressing questions about what constitutes crime and justice in a Caribbean context, and about accountability. Looking beyond the traditional focus of crime fiction and criminology on individual acts of wrongdoing, their fiction highlights systemic social harms rooted in the region's colonial past. Reading crime fiction through the lens of criminological research, Crime Fiction in the Caribbean brings the study of literary writing into scholarly debate on crime in the Caribbean. At the same time, it extends the global turn in crime fiction studies, focusing on a region that has been sidelined even in studies which examine the genre's international dimensions.




Death by Honeymoon (Book #1 in the Caribbean Murder series)


Book Description

Cindy and Clint are enjoying their honeymoon when paradise quickly turns into hell. Clint drowns in a freak accident in the ocean. The local police are quick to insist that he was caught in a sudden riptide. But Cindy, left all alone, is not convinced. She realizes that the only way to get answers, and to save her own life, is to return to where it all began: Barbados.




Jamaica Me Dead


Book Description

It's opening game of the football season at Florida Field, and Monk DeVane, a former teammate of Zack Chasteen's, invites Zack and his girlfriend to a halftime party in one of the exclusive skyboxes. But they find chaos---there's a bomb under the chair of Darcy Whitehall, Monk Devane's boss and the rakish Jamaican owner of Libido, a chain of anything-goes Caribbean resorts. The bomb turns out to be a dud, but someone is putting the squeeze on Darcy Whitehall, and Monk DeVane enlists Zack to help protect his employer. When Zack arrives in Jamaica things quickly go to hell---more bombs (this time, for real), gnarly Jamaican politics, and the kinky diversions at Libido, where the prime spectator sport is watching guests frolic on the naked flume ride. As if that weren't enough, Zack's snooping around puts him in jeopardy with Freddie Arzghanian, king of the Caribbean money launderers. Suspenseful, laugh-out-loud funny, and with larger-than-life characters, Jamaica Me Dead is Bob Morris at his wicked best.




Detective Fiction in a Postcolonial and Transnational World


Book Description

Taking up a neglected area in the study of the crime novel, this collection investigates the growing number of writers who adapt conventions of detective fiction to expose problems of law, ethics, and truth that arise in postcolonial and transnational communities. While detective fiction has been linked to imperialism and constructions of race from its earliest origins, recent developments signal the evolution of the genre into a potent framework for narrating the complexities of identity, citizenship, and justice in a postcolonial world. Among the authors considered are Vikram Chandra, Gabriel García Márquez, Michael Ondaatje, Patrick Chamoiseau, Mario Vargas Llosa, Suki Kim, and Walter Mosley. The essays explore detective stories set in Latin America, the Caribbean, India, and North America, including novels that view the American metropolis from the point of view of Asian American, African American, or Latino characters. Offering ten new and original essays by scholars in the field, this volume highlights the diverse employment of detective fictions internationally, and uncovers important political and historical subtexts of popular crime novels.




Mango, Mambo, and Murder


Book Description

Cuban-American cooking show star Miriam Quiñones-Smith becomes a seasoned sleuth in Raquel V. Reyes's Caribbean Kitchen Mystery debut, a savory treat for fans of Joanne Fluke and Jenn McKinlay. Food anthropologist Miriam Quiñones-Smith's move from New York to Coral Shores, Miami, puts her academic career on hold to stay at home with her young son. Adding to her funk is an opinionated mother-in-law and a husband rekindling a friendship with his ex. Gracias to her best friend, Alma, she gets a short-term job as a Caribbean cooking expert on a Spanish-language morning TV show. But when the newly minted star attends a Women's Club luncheon, a socialite sitting at her table suddenly falls face-first into the chicken salad, never to nibble again. When a second woman dies soon after, suspicions coalesce around a controversial Cuban herbalist, Dr. Fuentes--especially after the morning show's host collapses while interviewing him. Detective Pullman is not happy to find Miriam at every turn. After he catches her breaking into the doctor's apothecary, he enlists her help as eyes and ears to the places he can't access, namely the Spanish-speaking community and the tawny Coral Shores social scene. As the ingredients to the deadly scheme begin blending together, Miriam is on the verge of learning how and why the women died. But her snooping may turn out to be a recipe for her own murder.




Kidnapped from the Caribbean


Book Description




Murder in Montego Bay


Book Description

First book in the exceptional new detective series set in Montego Bay, Jamaica with two memorable lead protagonists: Jamaican detective Ray Preddy and Glaswegian detective Sean Harris. In Montego Bay, Jamaica, privileged Chinese-Jamaican brothers Lester and Carter Chin Ellis have enjoyed a sheltered life as the heirs to the iced desserts empire Chinchillerz. One fateful night, following a fiery encounter with local law enforcement the brothers are taken to Pelican Walk Police Station, where Lester is detained for drunk driving, while Carter is released without charge. Within minutes of leaving the station Carter is shot dead in a drive-by, while his brother Lester is brutally assaulted in his cell. Discredited Detective Raytheon Preddy is put in charge of the case and is forced to accept the assistance of Detective Sean Harris, a Scottish lawman seconded to Jamaica. With his superiors watching his every move and the Chin Ellis family interfering with the investigation, Preddy is determined to catch the killer and save his career. "A veritable blockbuster of a crime novel " Peter Kalu, author of Yard Dogs




Trinidad Noir


Book Description

Eighteen authors share dark mysteries set on the sunny Caribbean island in this anthology. Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book is compromised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the geographic area of the book. As reflected herein, the Caribbean provides no shelter from the delicious terror of noir fiction. Features brand-new stories by Robert Antoni, Elizabeth Nunez, Lawrence Scott, Ramabai Espinet, Shani Mootoo, Kevin Baldeosingh, Vahni Capildeo, Willi Chen, Lisa Allen-Agostini, Keith Jardim, Reena Andrea Manickchand, Tiphanie Yanique, and more. Praise for Trinidad Noir “The volumes in Akashic’s locale-based noir anthology series set outside North America (Dublin Noir, etc.) offer more variety than those set in different major U.S. cities, and this one is no exception. The editors’ brief but insightful introduction makes clear that the sun and sea tourist image of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is at odds with the country’s political climate of excess and corruption and an element of society afloat in drugs and guns . . . . The two standouts are Keith Jardim’s mystical “The Jaguar” and Lawrence Scott’s “Prophet,” in which a series of child disappearances in a small but corrupt community builds to an appropriately bleak ending.” —Publishers Weekly