Books published by Bitter Lemon Press

"e;A master crime writer . . . Seicho Matsumoto's thrillers dissect Japanese society."e;The New York Times Book Review"e;A stellar psychological thriller with a surprising and immensely satisfying resolution that flows naturally from the books complex characterizations.Readers will agree that Matsumoto (19091992) deserves his reputation as Japans Georges Simenon.-Publishers Weekly.While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the news that his wife Eiko has died of a heart attack. Eiko had a heart condition so the news of her death wasnt totally unexpected. But the circumstances of her demise left Tsuneo, a softly-spoken government bureaucrat, perplexed. How did it come about that his wifewho was shy and withdrawn, and only left their house twice a week to go to haiku meetingsended up dead in a small shop in a shady Tokyo neighborhood?When Tsuneo goes to apologize to the boutique owner for the trouble caused by his wifes death he discovers the villa Tachibana near by, a house known to be a meeting place for secret lovers. As he digs deeper into his wife's recent past, he must eventually conclude that she led a double life... Seicho Matsumoto was Japan's most successful thriller writer. His first detective novel, Points and Lines, sold over a million copies in Japan. Vessel of Sand, published in English as Inspector Imanishi Investigates in 1989, sold over four million copies and became a movie box-office hit.

FOURTH IN THE MARTIN BORA SERIES.SPELLBINDING MULTI-LAYERED CRIME NOVEL SET IN UKRAINE AS THE GERMANS REGROUP AFTER THE DISASTER OF STALINGRAD.FOR FANS OF PHILLIP KERR (BERNIE GUNTHER SERIES), ALAN FURST (SPIES OF THE BALKANS).THE HERO, MAJOR MARTIN BORA, IS AN ARISTOCRATIC GERMAN OFFICER OF THE ILK OF CLAUS VON STAUFFENBERG, TORN BETWEEN HIS DUTY AS AN OFFICER AND HIS INTEGRITY AS A HUMAN BEING.Ukraine, 1943. Having barely escaped the inferno of Stalingrad, Major Martin Bora is serving on the Russian front as a German counterintelligence officer. Weariness, disillusionment, and battle fatigue are a soldiers daily fare, yet Bora seems to be one of the few whose sanity is not marred by the horrors of war.As the Wehrmacht prepare for the Kursk counter-offensive, a Russian general defects aboard a T-34, the most advanced tank of the war. Soon he and another general, this one previously captured, are found dead in their cells. Everything appears to exclude the likelihood of foul play, but Bora begins an investigation, in a stubborn attempt to solve a mystery that will come much too close to home.

Praise for the Martin Bora series:"e;The tone of Liar Moon has a flu-like grimness, appropriate the 1943 setting. Pastor is excellent at providing details (silk stockings, movie magazines, cigarettes) that light up the setting."e;Booklist"e;Lumen's plot is well crafted, her prose shap . . . a disturbing mix of detection and reflection."e;Publisher's WeeklyRome, 1944. While the Allies are fighting their way up the Italian peninsula, Rome lives the last days of Nazi occupation. Their world is falling apart as the German Army, the Gestapo, and the SS vie for power while holding glittering and debauched parties. But this is also a time of Italian partisan attacks, arrests, and mass executions, all to the sound of Allied artillery bombardment just outside the walls of the city.Baron Martin von Bora, an officer in the Wehrmacht, has the complex and delicate task of solving not one, but three murders. A young German embassy secretary has "e;accidentally"e; fallen to her death from a fourth-floor window, and a Roman society lady and a headstrong cardinal of the Roman Curia are found dead in her apartment. The cardinal is personally known to Bora and, like the officer, secretly active in the resistance against the Third Reich. With Italian police inspector Sandro Guidi at his side, Bora sets off to establish the truth. Different as they are, the two men confront crime, war, and dictatorship in the awareness that the dignity of man comes at a price beyond all imagination.

Baghdad Central is a noir debut novel set in Baghdad in September 2003. The US occupation of Iraq is a swamp of incompetence and self-delusion. The CPA has disbanded the Iraqi army and police as a consequence of its paranoid policy of de-Ba'athification of Iraqi society. Tales of hubris and reality-denial abound, culminating in Washington hailing the mess a glorious "e;mission accomplished."e;Inspector Muhsin al-Khafaji is a mid-level Iraqi cop who deserted his post back in April. Khafaji has lived long enough in pre- and post-Saddam Iraq to know that clinging on to anything but poetry and his daughter, Mrouj, is asking for trouble. Nabbed by the Americans and imprisoned in Abu Ghraib, Khafaji is offered one way outwork for the CPA to rebuild the Iraqi Police Services. But it's only after United States forces take Mrouj that he figures out a way to make his collaboration palatable, and even rewarding. Soon, he is investigating the disappearance of young women Translated bys working for the US Army. The bloody trail leads Khafaji through battles, bars, and brothels then finally back to the Green Zone, where it all began.This is a first novel by Elliott Colla, an American writer totally immersed in Middle Eastern affairs. He is a professor of Arabic literature at Georgetown University, and a well-known Translated by from the Arabic of local fiction and poetry. He lives between Washington, DC, and the Middle East.

A young transvestite found strangled in a Havana park. The stifling death of a beloved Cuba.

Pablo Borla's marriage is reduced to confrontations with his wife over their daughter's rebellious ways and his firm builds only repellent office blocks destroying the fabric of old Buenos Aires. It all changes with the arrival of a young woman who brings to light a murder committed decades ago by those in his office. A murder everyone assumed was forgotten.Claudia Pieiro, after working as a professional accountant, became a journalist, playwright and television scriptwriter and in 1992 won the prestigious Plyade journalism award. She has more recently turned to fiction; All Yours (finalist for the 2003 Planeta Prize) and Thursday Night Widows.

Praise for Ben Pastor's Lumen: Pastors plot is well crafted, her prose sharp. . . . A disturbing mix of detection and reflection.Publishers Weekly "e;Rivets the reader with its twist of historical realities. A historical piece, it faithfully reproduces the grim canvas of war. A character study, it captures the thoughts and actions of real people, not stereotypes.The Free Lance-Star And dont miss Lumen by Ben Pastor. . . . An interesting, original, and melancholy tale.Literary Review Italy, September 1943. The Italian government switches sides and declares war on Germany. The north of Italy is controlled by the fascist puppets of Germany; the south liberated by Allied forces fighting their way up the peninsula. Having survived hell on the Russian front, Wehrmacht major and aristocrat Baron Martin von Bora is sent to Verona. He is ordered to investigate the murder of a prominent local fascist: a bizarre death threatening to discredit the regimes public image. The prime suspect is the victims twenty-eight-year-old widow Clara. Haunted by his record of opposition to SS policies in Russia, Bora must watch his step. Against the backdrop of relentless anti-partisan warfare and the tragedy of the Holocaust, a breathless chase begins. Ben Pastor, born and now back in Italy, lived for thirty years in the United States, working as a university professor in Vermont. The first in the Martin Bora series, Lumen, was published by Bitter Lemon Press in May 2011.

The fourth Guerrieri in the series. An investigation into the disappearance of a poor little rich girl in Southern Italy.

"e;Exceptional. If there has been a more honest, calm, and profoundly moving memoir written in the last few years, then I've missed it."e;Times Literary SupplementHow would you make sense of your life if you thought it might end tomorrow? In this captivating and best-selling memoir, Vesna Goldsworthy tells the story of herself, her family, and her early life in her lost country. There follows marriage, a move to England, and a successful media and academic career, then a cancer diagnosis and its unresolved consequences. A profoundly moving, comic, and original account by a stunning literary talent.

"e;Pastor's plot is well crafted, her prose sharp. . . . A disturbing mix of detection and reflection."e;Publishers Weekly"e;A mystery, it rivets the reader until the end and beyond, with its twist of historical realities. A historical piece, it faithfully reproduces the grim canvas of war. A character study, it captures the thoughts and actions of real people, not stereotypes."e;The Free Lance-StarPart wartime political intrigue, detective story, psychological thriller, and religious mystery, Ben Pastor's debut follows a German army captain and a Chicago priest as they investigate the death of a nun in Nazi-occupied Poland.In October 1939 Captain Martin Bora discovers the abbess, Mother Kazimierza, shot dead in her convent garden. Her alleged power to see the future has brought her a devoted following; her work and motto, "e;Lumen Christi Adiuva Nos"e; ("e;Light of Christ, help us"e;), appear also to have brought some enemies.Father Malecki has come to Cracow, at the pope's bidding, to investigate Mother Kazimierza's powers. The Vatican orders him to stay and assist Bora in the inquiry into her killing. Stunned by the violence of the occupation and the ideology of his colleagues, Bora's sense of Prussian duty is tested to the breaking point. The interference of seductive actress Ewa Kowalska does not help matters.Ben Pastor, born in Italy, has lived for thirty years in the United States, working as a university professor in Vermont. She is the author of other novels, including The Water Thief and The Fire Walker (St. Martin's Press).

Roberto Marais is haunted by his past as an under-cover carabinieri. A time of cynicism and corruption, in the world he investigated, and in his own soul. A meeting with Emmalike Roberto ravaged by guiltbegins to revive him. When her teenage son asks Roberto to help him conquer his nightmares, Roberto at last achieves a true rebirth.

Third in the Guerrieri series: a legal thriller by an Italian prosecutor. Turow with wry humor.

When no lawyer accepts to represent Marina in her attempt to bring her boyfriend to trial for assault and battery, Guerrieri takes the case. No witnesses willing to testify and a hostile judge: just his kind of case. Doesnt hurt that hes attracted to Sister Maria, the young woman protecting Marina, who shares his love for martial arts.

A black immigrant is accused of child murder in Italy; the court procedural is tainted with racism.

Scorching novel from a star of Cuban fiction. The return of Mario Conde.

"e;A scathing satire of Spanish society, hilarious dialogue, all beautifully dressed up as a crime novel."e;--Krimi-Couch"e;A first novel that's spread like wildfire by word of mouth."e;--El Avui"e;Teresa Solana is great proof of the vitality of the roman noir in Catalan. . . . A wonderfully ironic hymn to the city of Barcelona."e;--Diari de BalearsAnother day in Barcelona, another slimy politician's wife is suspected of infidelity. Lluis Font discovers a portrait of his wife in an exhibition that leads him to conclude he is being cuckolded by the artist. Concerned only about the potential political fallout, he hires twins Eduard and Pep, private detectives with a supposed knack for helping the wealthy with their "e;dirty laundry."e; Their office is adorned with false doors leading to nonexistent private rooms, a mysterious secretary who is always away, and a broken laptop computer picked up on the street. The case turns ugly when Font's wife is found poisoned by a marron glace from a box of sweets delivered anonymously.This is a deftly plotted, bitingly funny mystery novel. A satire of Catalan politics and a fascinating insight into the life and habits of Barcelona's inhabitants, diurnal and nocturnal.Teresa Solana lives in Barcelona. Born in 1962, she studied philosophy and worked as a literary translator and essayist. She has written several novels kept quietly in her drawer. A Not So Perfect Crime, her first published title, won the 2007 Brigada 21 Prize for the best Catalan mystery novel.

"e;An agile novel written in a language perfectly pitched for the subject matter, a ruthless dissection of a fast decaying society"e;Jose Saramago, Nobel Prize winnerThe English translation of hit novel Las Viudas de Los Jueves!';Pieiro's clever U.S. debut.. . illuminates the hypocrisies of the country's upper classes after 9/11.'Publishers Weekly';Pieiro is particularly skilful at exposing the social forces undermining Argentine society, and the fragility of personal relationships. We learn the surprising truth of the three men's death in the final chapter; the build-up to it is riveting.'The Times (London)"e;Pieiro builds up tension through banal, domestic details and the accretion of despair in everyday marital and professional struggles. There may be bloody murder at the centre of this novel, but the dystopia portrayed is an indictment not solely of an assassin but of Argentina's class structure and the willful blindness of its petty bourgeoisie."e;Times Literary Supplement';A razor-sharp psychological and social portrait not only of Argentina, but of the afluent Western world as a whole.'Rosa MonteroThree bodies lie at the bottom of a swimming pool in a gated country estate near Buenos Aires. It's Thursday night at the magnificent Scaglia house. Behind the locked gates, shielded from the crime, poverty, and filth of the people on the streets, the Scaglias and their friends hide lives of infidelity, alcoholism, and abusive marriage. Claudia Pieiro's novel eerily foreshadowed a criminal case that generated a scandal in the Argentine media. But this is more than a story about crime. The suspense is a byproduct of Pieiro's hand at crafting a psychological portrait of a professional class that lives beyond its means and leads secret lives of deadly stress and despair. It takes place during the post-9/11 economic meltdown in Argentina, but it is a universal story that will resonate among credit-crunched readers of today.The film of Thursday Night Widows, by Argentine New Wave and award-winning director Marcelo Pieyro is coming soon with trailers available online.Claudia Pieiro was a journalist, playwright, and television scriptwriter and in 1992 won the prestigious Pleyade Annual Journalism Award. She has more recently turned to fiction and is the author of literary crime novels that are all bestsellers in Latin America and have been translated into four languages. This novel won the Clarin Prize for fiction and is her first title to be available in English.

A scorching novel from a star of Cuban fiction. The third in the Havana Quartet series.

Cora killed a man on a summer afternoon by the lake and in full view of her family and friends. Why? What could have caused this quiet, lovable young mother to stab a stranger in the throat, again and again, until she was pulled off his body? For the local police it was an open-and-shut case. But Police Commissioner refused to close the file.

Scorching novel from a star of Cuban fiction. The fourth of the Havana Quartet series.

A brutally mutilated body is discovered washed up in the bay of Havana. The body of Miguel Forcade Mier, head smashed in by a baseball bat, genitals cut off by a dull knife. Forcade, once an official in the Cuban government responsible for the confiscation of the belongings of the bourgeoisie fleeing the revolution, was an exile in Miami.

Prosecutor Szackis investigation of a murder in a Polish town reveals the poisonous anti-Semitism that haunts all who live there.