Books published by Bitter Lemon Press

The latest in the Guido Guerrieri series. The setting is Bari in Southern Italy. Against his own instincts, defence attorney Guerrieri takes on an appeal against what looks like an unassailable murder conviction. The alleged perpetrator is the son of a former lover. A taught legal thriller and a meditation about the ravages of time.

The summer of 1992 had been exceptionally cold in southern Italy. That summer ushered in a spate of killings by the Mafia of judges and police officers, most of them assassinated near Palermo. The Sicilian killings and ensuing gang wars also infected Bari triggering an investigation by local Carabinieri officer Pietro Fenoglio.

From the author of The Aosawa Murders, one of the NYT Notable Books of 2020. The WSJ commented: "e;Part psychological thriller, part murder mystery-it is audacious in conception and brilliant in execution."e; The Globe and Mail said the book was "e;emerging as one of the most praised novels of the year."e; This gripping psychological thriller takes place in a desolate apartment in a Japanese city. The protagonists, Aki and Hiro, fell in love at university before becoming convinced that they were brother and sister, separated when young after Aki was adopted. After living together platonically for some years they went on a trek in the mountains, where their guide-their estranged natural father-died inexplicably. Each believes the other to be the murderer and are determined to extract a confession. The suspicion has destroyed their relationship and so they have decided to go their separate ways. But first, they feel compelled to discuss what happened that day. In the ensuing psychological battle of wills during their last night together, they retrace events and come to a stunning conclusion. The thriller--buried in a literary whodunit--explores the mysteries of romantic love, memory and attaining self-knowledge. Like the best Japanese crime writing it is an unflinching foray into the darker recesses of the soul, quietly suspenseful and elegantly constructed.

This atmospheric crime thriller laced with humor-described by some as a Coen Brothers take on Forrest Gump--is set in the village of Raufarhofn in the far north of Iceland. Kalmann Odinsson is the self-appointed Sheriff of his town. He is 34, neurodiverse and hunts Arctic foxes and catches gigantic Greenland sharks for a living. He was brought up by his grandfather who taught him how to hunt and fish and "e;nearly everything else a man needs to know about life"e;. Mocked--but also loved by some--for his innocence and unfiltered philosophical utterances, one of his many dreams is to find a wife. But he must first extricate himself from the mess he gets into when he discovers a frozen pool of human blood in the winter snow. When it becomes apparent that local bigwig Robert McKenzie has just gone missing, the hunt is on to find McKenzie's body and his murderer. In a macabre turn of events, McKenzie's hand is discovered in the belly of a shark that Kalmann brings in. It all ends well, but as Kalmann says, "e;It can all get pretty dark underneath a polar bear."e;

A psychological thriller set in Southern France. Brunet has followed on from the success of "e;the Summer of Reckoning"e; with this magnificent portrait of a woman and a mother, a beautiful and often poetic tale that is unflinching about social and personal violence. Set in Marseilles, this the story of Vanda, a beautiful woman in her thirties, arms covered in tats, skin so dark that some take her for a North African. Devoted to her six-year-old son Noe, they live in a derelict shed by the beach. She had wanted to be an artist; she is now a cleaner in a psychiatric hospital. But Vanda is happy living alone with her boy. "e;The two of them against the world"e;, as she says. Everything changes when Simon, the father of her son, surfaces in Marseilles. He had left Vanda seven years earlier, not knowing that she was pregnant. When Simon demands custody of his son, Vanda's suppressed rage threatens to explode. The tension becomes unbearable, both parents fully capable of extreme violence.

A Lebanese drug courier flushes the diamonds he is transporting down the Basel train station toilet before the police can seize him. The gems are found by a sewer maintenance worker determined to keep his lucky find. For the courier, finding the stones is a matter of life and death. His employers are on their way to "tidy things up".

It all begins with two murders, an old man and a prostitute, both strangled and left with their earlobes slit. Inspector Hunkeler of the Basel police investigates and is soon faced with the consequences of certain recent events in Swiss history that everyone wants to keep buried.

Veronica Rosenthal has retreated to a cousin's remote cottage in the province of Tucuman, to recuperate from the traumatic events in The Fragility of Bodies. She befriends two female tourists -an Italian and a Norwegian-- invites them to stay and starts a sexual relationship with one of them. After a party they attend together, Veronica travels on alone but days later discovers that the women have been murdered. Suspicion falls on a local Umbanda priest, but Veronica starts to uncover a web of corruption, abuse and femicide in which government, wealthy landowners and a high-ranking official from Argentina's 'Dirty War' are all implicated. Veronica's investigation, with its unforeseen political dimensions, has alarmed new enemies who will try to stop her at all cost.

Cuban investigator Mario Conde pursues a mystery spanning centuries of occult history. He is asked to track down a stolen statue of the Virgen de Regla-a black Madonna. A quest that spans twenty-first century Havana as well as the distant past, as he delves as far back as the Crusades in an attempt to uncover the true provenance of the statue.

Disgraced British spy August Drummond is on his way to Istanbul when he sees a passenger throw away directions to a cemetery just before being arrested. August can't resist the temptation to go in his place. But when he is confronted by a terrifying figure from Islamic State, he realizes he's about to face the greatest challenge of his career.

The setting: Montevideo's crumbling Old Town. The gig: an armoured truck robbery. The cast: Diego, a failed kidnapper, Ursula Lopez, an amateur criminal with an insatiable appetite, El Roto, a notorious but inept hoodlum. Dr Antinucci, a shady lawyer with big plans. And finally, Leonilda Lima, a washed-out police inspector.

The first biography of Frances Graham, the muse of leading Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones. Her life is a study in power - artistic, social, political, familial, local -interestingly played out from a perennial position of weakness. The 'Portrait of a Muse' is the tale of a remarkable woman living in an age on the cusp of modernity.

Berlin, July 1944, a few weeks before the attempted assassination of Hitler by Claus von Stauffenberg. Bora is ordered to investigate the murder of a dazzling clairvoyant, a major star since the days of the Weimar Republic, with deep connections to those in power. But there is more at stake: Bora and Stauffenberg inevitably meet.

Helsinki, March 1953. Feisty Homicide cop Hella Mauzer has returned from her exile in Lapland. Fired by the police, now a reluctant PI, she investigates the death of Nellie, a high-end prostitute found floating in Helsinki Harbor. The second in the Hella Mauzer series, to follow on from the success of "Evil Things".

In the 1960s 17 people die of cyanide poisoning at a large party at the Aosawas, owners of a prominent clinic in an ancient castle city on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The only survivor is their teenage daughter Hisako, blind, beautiful, admired by all, but soon suspected of masterminding the crime.

A new and 50% enlarged, entertaining, but fundamentally serious selection of the most rewarding places to visit in Italy. Towns, villages, museums and individual monuments are described. A guide book in its own right, but above all a thoughtful, opinionated and supremely well-informed guide, supplement and corrective to conventional guides.

Veronica Rosenthal is a successful young journalist with a healthy appetite for men and bourbon. She decides to investigate the suicide of a train driver in Buenos Aires involved in the supposed accidental death of young men hit by his locomotive at speed.

A beautifully written and moving memoir of one of the great British photographers of the twentieth century. "A moving book, lyrically written, a portrait of an artist and a marriage, but also a meditation on the creative impulse and the artistic temperament.' Country Life

In this new crime title from Padura, Cuba's most celebrated living author, Police InspectorMario Conde investigates a murder in the Barrio Chino, the rundown Chinatown of Havana.

Spain, summer 1937, the civil war rages. A Wehrmacht officer assigned to Franco's Spanish Foreign Legion investigates the murder of the poet Frederico Garcia Lorca, as does his opponent, an American member of the International Brigades.

Lapland Finland, 1952, at the height of the Cold War. A misunderstood, flawed, whip-smart Finnish woman police detective investigates a murder on the Finno-Russian border. But that is but the beginning of her involvement. In fact, the locals have been the victims of a crime so evil it is beyond anything any of them could have ever imagined.

This beautifully illustrated book contains an account of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's walks and explorations in the Lake District based on the jottings in his notebooks and his vast correspondence.

Jonas is a British spy out in the cold. When his father is kidnapped and held for ransom by ISIS in Syria, he takes matters into his own hands and begins to steal the only currency he has access to: secret government intelligence. He heads from London to Beirut with the documents and eventually crosses into Syria to seek his father's abductors.

A selective autobiography of the most successful, most celebrated and most important architectural historian of his generation. Elegant and moving reminiscences with significant Irish, catholic and architectural resonance by a well established and much loved writer with many successful books in the catalogue.

A FINE LINE is a terrific novel, a legal thriller that is also full of complex meditations on the life of the lawyer and the difficult compromises inherent in any system of criminal justice. A book that is intensely rewarding at many levels.Scott TurowThe fifth in the best-selling Guido Guerrieri series. When Judge Larocca is accused of corruption, Guerrieri goes against his better instincts and takes the case. Helped by Annapaola Doria, a motorbike-riding bisexual private detective who keeps a baseball baton hand for sticky situations, he investigates the alleged links to the mafia. Of course Guerrieri cannot stop himself from falling for Annapaola's exotic charms.The novel is a suspenseful legal thriller but it is also much more. It is the story of a judge who, to quote Dostoevsky, "e;lies to himself and listens to his own lies, so gets to the point where he can no longer distinguish the truth, either in himself or around himself."e;

An entertaining selection of the most rewarding places to visit in one of the most historically significant countries in the world. A guide book in its own right, but above all a thoughtful, opinionated, and supremely well informed supplement and corrective to conventional guides.

Retired Havana police inspector Mario Conde is back. A sweeping novel of art theft, anti-Semitism, contemporary Cuba, and crime from a renowned Cuban author.

Occupied Crete 1941. A Wehrmacht officer investigates the murder of a Swiss Red Cross representative, a friend to SS-Chief Himmler.