You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Cycle of Violence, written with appealing verve and Colin Bateman’s unique blend of sinister violence and sidesplitting dialogue, is a thrill ride through Belfast’s most terrifying neighborhood with Miller, Ulster’s wisecrack
They say moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do. Well, as far as Dan Starkey's concerned, 'they' can stick it where the sun don't shine because right now helping his wife with the unpacking is the least of his worries... No sooner has Dan moved house, than his best mate, Mouse, is brutally murdered - leaving him to catch a killer, become editor of celebrity scandal magazine - Belfast Confidential - and compile the much-coveted Power List edition. But he's not the only one with a hit list to complete. Someone's systematically killing local celebrities and unless Dan can stop them, the magazine's going under and so is he... by about six feet.
'I was upstairs with a girl I shouldn't have been upstairs with when my wife whispered in my ear, 'You have twenty-four hours to move out'. The book that started it all, Bateman's first novel published in 1995. It introduced the world to the hapless, endlessly wily and witty Belfast journalist Dan Starkey. Dan shares with his wife an appetite for drinking and dancing. But when he meets Margaret, things get seriously out of hand. Terrifyingly, unbelievably, she is murdered. Before long Dan is a target himself, racing against time to crack the mystery.
A superbly gripping and blackly funny mystery by the king of the comic crime caper. He's the Man With No Name and the owner of No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast. But when a detective agency next door goes bust, the agency's clients start calling into his shop asking him to solve their cases. It's not as if there's any danger involved. It's an easy way to sell books to his gullible customers and Alison, the beautiful girl in the jewellery shop across the road, will surely be impressed. Except she's not -- because she can see the bigger picture. And when they break into the shuttered shop next door on a dare, they have their answer. Suddenly they're catapulted along a murder trail which leads them from small-time publishing to modern dance to Nazi concentration camps and serial killers!
For many years Dan Starkey has been a journalist of some repute - mainly ill. Now he is back with his wife Patricia, and while they try for a baby he is aiming to keep himself out of trouble. Had he not been caught in a rather awkward position when he received a phonecall from Big Davie Kincaird, he might not have decided to return to the village of Groomsport. And had he not drunk too much in order to cover the awkwardness of seeing this friend he hasn't known for 25 years, he might not have found himself agreeing to go on honeymoon... in Florida... for three weeks... with Big Davie. What else could possibly go wrong?
The hilarious new Mystery Man crime caper from the master of menace and mirth You don't say no to Dr. Yes, the charismatic plastic surgeon on the fast track to fame and fortune. But when the wife of obscure and paranoid crime writer Augustine Wogan disappears shortly after entering his exclusive clinic, the Small Bookseller with No Name is persuaded to investigate. As fatherhood approaches, our intrepid hero is interested only in a quick buck and the chance to exploit a neglected writer, but he soon finds himself up to his neck in murder, make-up and madness - and face to face with the most gruesome serial killer since the last one.
When friends turn into enemies, it's time for desperate measures...Bateman's superb new urban thriller is as riotiously entertaining as it is compelling...
Writer Ivan Connor is desperate. His publisher has turned down his wonderful new novel, his agent is out of ideas, and the only person to turn up at his latest reading is his mum. He's deeply jealous of the marketable Francesca Brady, a hugely successful author of fat romantic books for fat romantic people, whose expansive hair and bright red lipstick mock him from posters everywhere he goes. He's also living at home since his marriage broke up, and he's just collected the wrong child from school. But one night Connor stumbles on a route back to the top, via a beautiful model, two deranged psychopaths, a multi-million pound publishing fraud, true love and utter heartbreak.
When maverick movie star Sean O'Toole is forced to leave the glamour of Hollywood to make a film about an Irish gangster, he's not best pleased - and even less so when he finds out he'll be joined by hapless local journalist Dan Starkey, who is writing his biography. It's a job that plunges Dan into the murky underbelly of the movie business, and from the backstreets of Belfast to the fleshpots of Amsterdam and the glitz of the Cannes Film Festival. Along the way a smouldering romance threatens the frequently rocky balance of his marriage to Patricia while he battles his way through kidnap, extortion and murder, and all of it liberally sprinkled with Hollywood gold dust.
When notorious gangster 'Fat Sam' Mahood is murdered, the chief suspect is arrested nearby. But he seems to have suffered a breakdown. Incarcerated in a mental institution, he's known only as the Man in the White Suit. The suspect remains an enigma until Nurse Brenda calls on Mystery Man, former patient and owner of No Alibis, Belfast's finest mystery bookshop, to bring his powers of investigation to bear... However, before our hero can even begin, the Man in the White Suit is arrested for the murder of a fellow patient. But is he a double murderer or a helpless scapegoat? Intrigue, conspiracy, and ancient Latin curses all combine to give the Small Bookseller with No Name his most difficult case to date.