New Book Wednesday: 20th May 2020
Hello! This is the first of a new weekly series where we will discuss the latest books published by Lume Books. Every Wednesday we publish brand new fiction and non-fiction, and we get really excited about it, so we thought we’d share it with you! Here goes our first New Book Wednesday.
Batting on the Bosphorus: A Skoda-powered Cricket tour through Eastern Europe by Angus Bell
First up is an incredible true story about Angus Bell’s travel’s through Eastern Europe and the connections between the world of cricket and the KGB, MI6 and the Tamil Tigers. It’s been called ‘hilarous’ by Rory MacLean in The Guardian and has even featured as the BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.
“Scotsman Angus Bell is innocently working for the Montreal mafia when a psychic tells him an infant ghost is feeding him ideas. He’s told he’ll be leaving North America to embark on a travelling media project.
When the words “cricket and Ukraine” pop into his head, he uncovers a cricketing world across Central and Eastern Europe. From tournaments on ice in Estonia to university leagues in the crumbling Crimea, Slavs and Finno-Ugrics are playing the Englishman’s game. Angus sets off in his Škoda to smack them all for six.
With fingerless ‘Tamil Tigers’ in Prague, a bomb plotter in the Austrian Alps, mafiosos and an MI6 secret agent making the teamsheets, Angus soon discovers a shadowy side of Eastern European cricket.
He becomes the first man to hit a ball between continents, and ends up captain of an international team. Between games, he is pursued by the KGB, becomes embroiled in a drug bust on the Midnight Express, and seeks emergency treatment from a Romanian dentist. His passengers include a Guatemalan anarchist, a Ukrainian chicken and an Irish tobacco farmer.
Batting on the Bosphorus is a hilarious and unique traveller’s tale, taking the reader 8,000 miles through Balkan minefields, border bribes and Sarajevo graveyards at 2 a.m. It redefines the spirit of cricket, and will make the game’s most sworn enemy a fan.”
Queen Coal: Women of the Miner’s Strike by Triona Holden
Next is another non-fiction book, former BBC correspondent Triona Holden’s account of the women involved in the miner’s strike. Similarly to how the excellent film Pride explores the history of the LGBT community’s involvement in the strike, this fascinating account focuses on the women of the protests. There were wives, mothers, daughters, who all became political activists when forced to stand up for their livelihood, their tradition, and their identity. It promises a truly brilliant story of some incredible women.
“Over thirty years ago the miners’ strike changed the industrial landscape of Britain forever. The battle between the miners’ leader, Arthur Scargill, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, effectively killed off Britain’s mining industry. The impact spread well beyond the headlines.
In this timely and important book, Triona Holden, one of the BBC correspondents who reported on the 1984/5 strike, revisits some of the wives, daughters and mothers of the miners. These unsung heroes found the strength and courage not only to stand and fight alongside their men but to become political activists in their own right. But what happened when the strike collapsed?
Queen Coal marks the passing of a way of life but also celebrates the irony that this brutal rupture was very often the beginning of a new and better livelihood. What is good and inextinguishable about the mining communities lives on in these women’s articulate, funny and frank stories.”
Red Means Run: A Virgil Cain Mystery by Brad Smith
Red Means Run is the exciting first instalment in the Virgil Cain Mystery series. It’s thrilling, racy, and tense – a perfect mystery to pass the time in quarantine with!
“When superstar lawyer Mickey Dupree gets a legendary record producer off a murder charge, the victim’s husband, Virgil Cain, is overheard telling a crowded bar that ‘someone ought to blow Mickey’s head off’.
So when Mickey turns up dead on a golf course, Virgil naturally finds himself prime suspect. After being thrown into jail by dim-witted detective Joe Brady, he realises the police have no interest in actually solving the case. He manages to escape police custody In a desperate situation and with only the detective Claire Marchand on his side, Virgil realises he must prove his innocence by finding the killer himself – before the killer finds him.”
Judgement at Poisoned Well by Pike Bishop
Following on from Diamondback, this is the second installment in Pike Bishop’s Diamondback Series. It is a classic violent western with ruthless conflict set against the beautiful backdrop of the American Wild West.
“Barbed wire can be an ugly thing…
Used to cordon off land for grazing cattle, barbed wire is ugly. Used to strap a human being to a burning tree, it’s uglier still. Drawn into the barbed wire wars of Poisoned Well, Cord Diamondback becomes embroiled in a range war with the devil.
Lilith DuBois, leader of a religious cult, wants land for her people. Gena Scarf, whose lust for power is matched only by her lust for Diamondback, wants grazing land for her cattle. Both women are beautiful, both are passionate and both are as deadly as rattlesnakes.
Cord Diamondback, a man who has lost his very identity in a quest for revenge, has nothing more to lose. He takes on a task other men would run from — to bring peace to Poisoned Well…”
So a very exciting New Book Wednesday this week, and we’ll be back with even more books next week to keep you busy during these difficult times. Stay safe!