Crime Express relaunch

Here they are then, normal size (as opposed to the A6 flapped size of the earlier books, which authors loved and bookshops did not), with great covers. Each book is £4.99 and is a novella. Great covers for the relaunch by Gavin Morris. The books will be available via the trade sometime late March but can be supplied post free UK from here, now: http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/crime_express_p0195.aspx. There's more info on them there too

Crime Express relaunch

In the spring we are relaunching the Crime Express series with three new titles and a reprint of our best seller from the first series. Authors (and buyers) liked the cute A6 books with French flaps, but booksellers found them hard to handle, so from spring new titles and any reprints will come out in standard size, if rather thin reflecting the books' status as long short stories/short novellas. Around 15,000-20,000 words anyway. The earlier books can all be found on www.fiveleaves.co.uk but meantime we are moderately excited about the new look. All the covers are designed by Gavin Morris, brought in to give that new look to the series. None of the books can be ordered yet. Email us on info (at) fiveleaves.co.uk if you would like to be notified when they can be.

March of Time - London

Another chance to see Ken Worpole talking about Alexander Baron, and Ray Banks takes his Gun to a reading more exotic than normal:

Wednesday 10 March: 8.00pm
The Classic Slum? Fiction, myth and history on Hackney's wild borders. A new edition of Alexander Baron's novel, King Dido, published by Five Leaves, brings the shocking history of the 'Old Nichol' slum in Shoreditch to life again. For the Victorians and the Edwardians this handful of streets on Hackney's borders represented everything that was evil and unredeeming in decent society. Yet were they quite as bad as they were thought to be? In this joint talk, historian Sarah Wise, author of The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum, and Ken Worpole, who has written the introductory essay to the new edition of King Dido, discuss the many ways in which journalists, social campaigners and novelists have sought to provide a definitive picture of these once notorious streets.Stoke Newington Bookshop, 159 Stoke Newington High Street, London N16 0NY
Tickets: £2 (includes a glass of wine and discount on featured books).
Info: 0207 249 2808
Fri 12 March: 7.00pm
AVANT! NOIR
Music from Led Bib & Get The Blessing, Dark fiction from Toby Litt, Cathi Unsworth, Courttia Newland & Ray Banks (author of Gun, published by Five Leaves). Visuals from Huzzah!! Noir
A night of criminal fiction, comic art and music of a darker hue. Enter a world where murder smells like honeysuckle and lunch is drunk from a bottle. In Toynbee Theatre’s art deco, velvet auditorium, four authors present a selection of bleeding-edge crime stories, intercut with animated chapters of online, collaborative comic strip Huzzah!! Noir.
Toynbee Theatre £10 / £12 door
Info: www.londonwordfestival.com
Tuesday 16 March: 7.30pm
Alexander Baron - novelist of London's street life and politics. The Guardian described Alexander Baron (1917 - 1999) as 'the greatest British novelist of the last war and among the finest of the postwar period.' Jewish-born in Hackney, Baron was amongst those idealists who tried to fight in Spain, who got caught up in political and literary life in London, fought in several major wartime battles, and who, after the war became the author of a series of gripping novels about war and London life in the East End, and in Soho. Three of the most famous are From the City, from the Plough (1948), The Lowlife (1963) and King Dido (1969).This talk will be given by writer Ken Worpole, who knew Baron.
Upstairs Room, The Wheatsheaf Pub, 25 Rathbone Place, London W1.Tickets: £3.00
Info: http://www.sohemians.com/SOHabout.html