Thursday 31 December 2015

Paperback day... and a BIG announcement

The Samaritan is out in UK paperback at all good bookshops today.

But you'll see it particularly well-displayed if you go into any branch of WHSmith, because...


Yep.

I'm delighted to be able to announce (at last) that The Samaritan has been selected for the Richard and Judy Spring 2016 Book Club. This is a massive deal, and it's really a dream come true for my book to get this kind of recognition.

Head over to the Smiths blog to check out the other great-sounding novels on the list, and you'll also find a preview chapter from The Samaritan, Richard & Judy's excellent review of the book, some book club questions, and a Q&A with yours truly.

You can buy the book from today from bookshops and supermarkets, online and off, but if you buy from WHSmith you'll get the special edition with exclusive bonus content.


The Richard and Judy book club is a fantastic way to reach new readers, and I'm honoured to be chosen as one of only eight from hundreds of submitted books. I can't wait to see what people make of The Samaritan and Carter Blake. 

If you like the book, I'd love to hear from you - you can tweet me, drop me an email, like my Facebook page, or just comment here at the blog. And if you want to find out when the next book is coming up, sign up for my mailing list. 

That's enough from me - happy 2016 and happy reading!

You can buy The Samaritan now from: 

Paperback
WHSmith

ebook
Kindle
Audio

Go to masoncross.net to find out publication dates for the United States and foreign territories.





Wednesday 30 December 2015

Settings and Samaritans

The Samaritan is out in mass-market paperback tomorrow, available to buy at all good bookshops. 
To get you in the mood, here's a piece I wrote in the summer for the Bloody Scotland blog on the inspiration for the book.

Settings and Samaritans

Bloody Scotland blog, 2nd July 2015

One of the questions I get asked all the time is, “Is it difficult to write American thrillers when you live in the UK?” Just to be awkward, my answer tends to be yes and no.
Yes, it can be a challenge, because it inevitably involves a little more research to write about another country than about your immediate surroundings. But also no, because all fiction involves creating the writer’s own world, where you make the rules, put words in the mouths of the characters and choose the settings. We’re making all this stuff up anyway, so why does it matter where it’s set?
To me, there are three things that really matter in a story: people, situations, and what-ifs.
There aren’t a whole lot of similarities between Glasgow, Scotland and Los Angeles, California. Obviously the climates are freakishly similar and both cities are filled with astoundingly beautiful people – aside from that, not much. But one thing the two metropolises do have in common is geographic. They’re both built in a depression: Glasgow fills the Clyde Valley, LA sprawls across the Los Angeles Basin. It means you can escape the urban sprawl for a while and look down on it to get some perspective. A useful thing to be able to do in both cities.
Where I live, you can get into the car and be above the city in minutes, on the quiet country roads in the elevated green belt south of the city. I’ve always loved that view. You can look down on the buildings and the streetlights and the million unique stories and have a contemplative Harry Bosch moment.
One spring night a couple of years ago, I was driving on one of those roads. I wasn’t having a deep Harry Bosch moment, I was having a returning-from-Sainsbury’s moment. About halfway home, I crested a hill and saw the city spread out before me. And this time, I saw something else.
A car, stopped by the side of the road. As I got closer I realised the car had broken down. Almost simultaneously, I saw another vehicle parked just around the corner. In my headlights I saw a woman watching, arms clutched around herself for warmth as a man crouched down by the front tyre, in the process of changing a flat.
I was glad somebody had already stopped for the stranded driver: a Good Samaritan. It would be no fun to be stuck out here waiting for the AA.
I passed by them and continued on my way, but I’d already started to think. I thought about what a strange, in-between place it was: dark, lonely and isolated, but in view of a city and suburbs home to more than a million people. I thought about how quickly it can get lonely when you leave the city. I thought about how lucky it was that somebody had been passing the stranded driver and been willing to help. And then I wondered what would have happened if the Good Samaritan wasn’t so good.
All of a sudden, I had an idea for a book, and I knew it would work in Los Angeles as well as it would work on a back road south of Glasgow.
Because when you get down to it, what country a thriller is set in isn’t the important thing. What’s important is people, situations, what-ifs. Like you, stranded on a dark, lonely road, forced to accept help from the first stranger who stops.
What if he’s a Bad Samaritan?

Wednesday 23 December 2015

The Samaritan - first American reviews



The first couple of American reviews are in for The Samaritan, and I'm delighted that they're both great write-ups:


"Fans of Jeffery Deaver—that other thrill-master who can’t resist piling on the climactic twists even as the lights are coming up and you’re looking for your umbrella—should be enthralled." - Kirkus

"even jaded genre readers will be absorbed by Cross’s second thriller featuring manhunter Carter Blake" - Publishers Weekly


The Samaritan is published in the US by Pegasus Books on February 1st, 2016, and you can pre-order the US hardcover or ebook right now:


http://pegasusbooks.com/books/the-samaritan-9781605989532-hardcover

Tuesday 22 December 2015

Una Fuga Sospetta - foreign editions galore


The Killing Season has just been published in Italy by Fanucci under the title Una Fuga Sospetta (A Fleeing Suspect), which is the sixth language it's been translated into. If you speak Italian, you can buy it here.

Now that a few of the foreign language editions have come out, I thought it would be fun to look at how the cover and title changes in different territories. You can find buy links for all of these on the new foreign editions page on my website.
 
http://www.amazon.de/Rushhour-Killer-Thriller-Mason-Cross/dp/344248121X/
Der Rushhour Killer (The Rush Hour Killer) - Goldmann, Germany

http://www.lsamsterdam.nl/boek/het-jachtseizoen/
Het Jach Seizoen (The Hunting Season) - Luitingh Sijthoff, Holland
Av Mevsimi (Hunting Season) - Panama, Turkey
Sezona Umorov (Season Murders) - Ucila, Slovenia

Сезонът на убийствата (Season Killings) - Obsidian, Bulgaria

And finally - not a foreign language, but just for the sake of completeness, here's the slightly different American cover:


http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Season-Novel-Mason-Cross/dp/1605986909/
Pegasus, USA
It's really cool to see how the book is adapted to different languages and markets, and I can't wait to see some more soon. If they're half as good as the cover for the forthcoming German publication of The Samaritan (or Blood Instinct - awesome title), I'll be a very happy international author indeed.

http://www.amazon.de/Blutinstinkt-Thriller-Mason-Cross/dp/3442481317/

Monday 21 December 2015

The Samaritan - UK paperback

I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of receiving a box of new books; it's one of my absolute favourite things about being a writer.

These are the UK paperbacks of The Samaritan, with an awesome new cover.

 
 
 

 ...and there's even a sneak preview of the third Carter Blake book in the back!


The Samaritan is out in paperback on 31st December - so if you're looking for a new book for the new year, you can preorder here:

Sunday 6 December 2015

Killing Season - Turkish edition



I've been fairly impressed with the quality of my foreign edition covers so far, but this new Turkish edition is a strong contender for best of the bunch...



Love it.

Av Mevsimi (The Hunting Season) is out now from Panama. If you read Turkish (or are handy with Google Translate), there's a nice review here.

I suspect Turkish may not be Google Translate's strong point, if only because it's given Caleb Wardell the terrifying new moniker 'The Chicago Typewriter'.