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  Cathi Unsworth

BOOKS

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ISBN-10: 1781257272
ISBN-13: 978-1781257272

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THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC

April 1943: four boys playing in Hagley Woods, Worcestershire make a gruesome discovery. Inside an enormous elm tree, there is the body of a woman, her mouth stuffed with a length of cloth. As the case goes cold, mysterious graffiti starts going up across the Midlands: 'Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?' 

To Ross Spooner, a police officer working undercover for spiritualist magazine Two Worlds, the messages hold a sinister meaning. He's been on the track of a German spy ring who have left a trail of black magic and mayhem across England, and this latest murder bears all the hallmarks of an ancient ritual. 
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At the same time, Spooner is investigating the case of Helen Duncan, a medium whose messages from the spirit world contain highly classified information. As the establishment joins ranks against Duncan, Spooner must face demons from his own past, uncover the spies hiding beneath the fabric of wartime society - and confront those who suspect that he, too, may not be all he seems ...

That Old Black Magic blends fact and fiction for a well researched, evocative tale about one of the weirder outposts of second world war British intelligence. (Laura Wilson Guardian 2018-02-17)

In wartime superstition runs rife, but we've had to wait for Cathi Unsworth to draw out the strange links between spies, sorcerers and superstition in this, her latest and best novel. From the bones of almost unbelievable true-life events involving witchcraft and conspiracy in the mist-shrouded British countryside, Unsworth brings to life a Dennis Wheatley-esque cast of characters both real and imagined, and spins a superbly sinister mystery that had me hugging myself with delight. (Christopher Fowler 2017-11-02)

With an exquisite feel for the English countryside, a sure eye for a lavish occult ritual and a colourfully sketched collection of raffish, bohemian characters, That Old Black Magic is a carnival of dark delights… (Declan Hughes, Irish Times 2018-03-24)



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ISBN-10: 1846689872

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 WITHOUT THE MOON

Hush, hush, hush. Here comes the Bogeyman...
London during the long, dark days of the Blitz: a city outwardly in ruins, weakened by exhaustion and rationing. But behind the blackout, the old way of life continues: in the music halls, pubs and cafes, soldiers mix with petty crooks, stage magicians with lonely wives, scandal-hungry reporters with good-time girls - and DCI Edward Greenaway keeps a careful eye on everyone.
Out on the streets, something nastier is stirring: London's prostitutes are being murdered, their bodies left mutilated to taunt the police. And in the shadows Greenaway's old adversaries in organised crime are active again, lured in by rich pickings on the black market. As he follows a bloody trail through backstreets and boudoirs, Greenaway must use all his skill - and everything he knows about the city's underworld - to stop the slaughter.

Using real-life material Unsworth has created a brilliant, swirling maelstrom of a story ... The vision of London after nightfall is amazing, an intermingling of prostitutes, spivs, villains, cops, communists, soldiers, journalists and psychics, hanging out in dark alleys, dodgy bars, seedy hotels (Doug Johnstone Independent)
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ISBN 9781846687921

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WEIRDO

In 1984, 15-year-old Norfolk schoolgirl Corrine Woodrow was sentenced indefinitely for the ritualistic murder of a schoolfriend. With rumours of Satanism surrounding her, Corrine became a notorious hate figure. But 20 years later, re-examination of forensic evidence suggests that the 'Wicked Witch of the East' didn't commit her crime alone.

Pensioned out of the Met after an altercation with a teenage gunman, Sean Ward finds himself investigating another juvenile delinquent when he agrees to take on Corrine's case for the QC determined to get her a re-trial. Travelling to the coastal resort where the crime unfolded, outsider Sean enters a world which has always known how to look after its own… 


'An outstanding addition to the British crime-writing scene… Unsworth's ability to render the period so vividly makes for an immersive reading experience, and there can scarcely be a better writer of this sort of stuff in the land... the psychology of that hormone-hammered adolescence that girls go through can rarely have been so well evoked,' says DOUG JOHNSTONE in THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

Bad Penny Blues Cover
ISBN 1846686784

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BAD PENNY BLUES

Police Constable Pete Bradley has done one year in the force and dreams of moving up the ladder. He's assigned as an aid to CID and working a routine nightshift with his partner when they stumble across a young woman's body. She was working as a prostitute when she was strangled, her body dumped by a riverbank. His search for her killer brings him deep into Soho's underbelly.

Meanwhile Stella, a young fashion designer with a promising career ahead of her, is woken by terrifying nightmares that echo the last hours of the dead women.

Sixties London explodes in all its ferocious colour, with fascists and Teds, migrants and hippies living in close proximity. Bad Penny Blues is a tender paean to the city, a novel with a twisted mystery at its heart.


Set against the background of 1960's  London Bad penny Blues explores the murky world of the unsolved ‘Jack the Stripper’ murders of the 1960s in which the bodies of eight working girls were found in or along the Thames. The killings sparked the biggest manhunt in Metropolitan Police history, but the killer was never found. In Bad Penny Blues Cathi aims not to solve the mystery, but rather, as she puts it, to “create a parallel universe in which an explanation can be offered that ties together a series of intriguing coincidences uncovered during the course of my research.”

“Bad Penny Blues is so fully a thing in itself, slowly developing its own rules, playing by them, teaching them to the reader, breaking them, then enforcing them even more strongly, until, with the book over, the world does not look quite as settled as it did before the book started.” – Greil Marcus
 
“Bad Penny Blues is the English Black Dahlia and will establish Cathi Unsworth as the First Lady of Noir Fiction.”  – David Peace
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ISBN 1846686407

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THE SINGER

1981: Vincent Smith meets Steve Mullin and Lynton Powell at a Sex Pistols gig in Doncaster, where he tries to kiss Sid Vicious’ bass and gets a bloody nose. With this baptism they form Blood Truth with drummer Kevin Holme. Notoriety soon follows. Riots in the audience, fighting with journalists and Vincent’s self-styled persona as The King of Nothing stoke up their reputation as the most incendiary act around.

But when Vincent falls in love with beautiful American singer Sylvana it all starts to go horribly wrong. Plagued by her jealous ex-boyfriend, gradually ostracised by the rest of the band and developing a frightening appetite for bad drugs, it takes only six months from their wedding day to Sylvana’s suicide. Vincent breaks up the band and disappears, fading into cult obscurity.

2001: Journalist Eddie Bracknell sees a video of one of Blood Truth’s performances and is hooked. Yearning for the days when music really meant something, he decides to investigate what really happened to Vincent Smith. He gets a book deal and all the right contacts, but somehow he can’t get all the different angles to fit together. Was Vincent a genius or a psychopath? A visionary or a self-obsessed junkie? Eddie knows he has a dynamite story, but to truly make his name he will have to find Vincent Smith and bring him back from obscurity in the flesh.


‘An astonishingly evocative and emotional telling of the tale, a heartbreaking elegy for the blank generation’ Jake Arnott

‘Brilliantly paced, plotted and stylish crime novel from the hugely talented and highly original Cathi Unsworth’ Henry Sutton, Daily Mirror

‘A cracking page-turner that feels authentic, authoritative and evocative. And it’s beautifully written. This is a bloody good book’ Val McDermid

‘The best novel I have read about the punk era, and an absorbing mystery... a sad memory of an exciting, destructive and doomed era’ Marcel Berlins, The Times

‘The ultimate punk noir ,’ Billy Chainsaw, Bizarre

ISBN 9781852428921

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THE NOT KNOWING


What happens when psychopaths in the entertainment business meet psychopaths in the killing business? Set in London in the early 1990s, this is the story of movie wünderkind Jon Jackson, who has revitalised the gangster genre with his hit film Bent; Diana Kemp a young journalist on the make; and Simon Everill, a talented but troubled writer. All three have secrets that connect them, but who knows how much will only be revealed when a killer cuts between their worlds of rackety Camden Town pubs and exclusive Soho clubs, binding them in blood.

‘Unsworth has a sense of pace, growing unease, menace, terror and horror that is rare in a book for a first-time author… the best debut I’ve read for some time’ Marcel Berlins, The Times

‘…it cleverly explores questions of sexual identity and the deep roots of evil with pinpoint accuracy’ Maxim Jakubowski, The Guardian ‘It’s brash, trashy and fabulous!’ crimesquad.com

‘Brilliantly executed with haunting religious imagery, interesting minor characters, great rock’n’roll references and a spectacular ending… a cool and clever debut. Sleep on it at your peril’ Diva

‘I got the gist of it’ Shane MacGowan

ISBN 9781852429300

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LONDON NOIR


The city of William Blake and Jack the Ripper; the Bow Street Runners and The Krays; Bedlam and Newgate; the Pistols and the Clash – London is the ancient capital of crime. London Noir is an A-Z of what lies beneath the official city maps. It takes you on a tour from the mythic East End, where modern day gangsters hide behind a political front; to the bohemian West, where priests pray and police prey on their flocks. In the North unearthly sacrifices are taking place to terrible Gods and in the South strange beasts emerge from beneath the concrete walkways. This is a London of dream and nightmare, shadows and fog.

Contributors: Barry Adamson, Desmond Barry, Daniel Bennett, Ken Bruen, Max Décharné, Joolz Denby, Ken Hollings, Stewart Home, Patrick McCabe, Joe McNally, Mark Pilkington, Sylvie Simmons, Jerry Sykes, Cathi Unsworth, Martyn Waites, Michael Ward, John Williams

‘A-Z of everything that's evil but inescapably seductive about the city. Just don’t go south after midnight.’ Dazed & Confused

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