KING OF SWORDS

Now available in the UK in hardcover (Penguin/Michael Joseph)

Now available in continental Europe in trade paperback (Penguin/MJ)

UK paperback (Penguin) publication - August 15th 2008

US hardcover (HarperCollins) publication - 1st December 2008

Miami, 1981 – aka: Cocaine Central, Murder Capital USA, the new Dodge City ….

When Detective Max Mingus and his partner Joe are called to the scene of a death at Miami's Primate Park, it looks like another routine - if slightly bizarre - investigation. Until two things turn up: the victim's family, slaughtered; and a partly digested tarot card in the dead man's stomach - "The King of Swords".

An increasingly bloody trail leads Max and Joe first to a sinister fortune-teller and her scheming pimp son, then to the infamous Solomon Boukman. Few have ever met the most feared criminal in Miami, but rumours abound of a forked tongue, voodoo ceremonies, human sacrifice, zombies and friends in very high places.

Against a backdrop of black magic and police corruption, Max and Joe must distinguish the good guys from the bad - and track down some answers. What is the significance of the "King of Swords"? What makes those who have swallowed the card go on a killing spree just before they die? And can Max find out the truth about Solomon Boukman, before death's shadow reaches his own front door ...

King of Swords is a prequel to Mr Clarinet.

Praise For King of Swords

Barry Forshaw

If you're looking for rough-edged crime fiction that will seriously unsettle you (and many of us seek exactly that), then King of Swords does the business - look no further

Jon Swift - Citizen.co.za

This is a superbly drawn and heady mixture of the dark arts, violence and corruption on both sides of what passes for the law. Don’t miss Mingus.

Freddy Gray - Catholic Herald

"With Stone's talent, do not be surprised if Max Mingus becomes one of the great fictional detectives of our time".

Peter Guttridge - The Observer

With his second novel, King of Swords, Stone really gets into his stride ... This is brilliantly assured storytelling: fast-paced, funny, frightening.

Daily Express

"King of Swords rivals some of the greats of the thriller genre with its deep and detailed evocation of the rotten spirit at the heart of 1980s Miami"

Laura Wilson - The Guardian

"Stone really scores in his extraordinary portrait of a city at boiling point, a giant Molotov cocktail of racial tension, police corruption, voodoo, and the cut-throat trade in women and drugs"

Jane Jakeman - The Independent

"This is highly evocative writing, carrying a powerful and original story"

Sharon Wheeler - Reviewingtheevidence.com

"If you thought George Pelecanos was out there by himself as the king of race-ridden US cities and of crime fiction that drilled to the heart of society, think again. Stone is a magnificent talent"

Daily Sport

"The man who brought you the ground-breaking Mr Clarinet has done it again, and even better than before"

Bookmunch

"King of Swords is better than Mr Clarinet, which is pretty high praise. What it does, though, is cement Stone's reputation as a writer of fierce crime fare"

Crimescenescotland.com

"A healthy mixture of thriller and hardboiled crime novel, with a little hint of the supernatural thrown in to spice it up, King of Swords is not only the perfect follow up to Mr Clarinet but a damn fine crime thriller in its own right. If you haven’t read Stone before, I’d suggest you start right now"

Mike Ripley - The Birmingham Post

King of Swords delivers thrills and frights with the rocking rhythm of a runaway train and the shock of getting a voodoo doll and a packet of pins through the post.

Melbourne Times

"A highly entertaining read"

Jonathan Gibbs - Metro (Best Crime Books of 2007)

"A gruesome, adrenaline-fuelled masterpiece"