LIZA CODY

A new novel, with a new character. Hannah Abram, late of London's Metropolitan Police, is trying to establish herself as a private detective. To make ends meet, she's flipping burgers by a park and taking on clients whose problems are too small for the police to care about. Small, but not necessarily simple...

The book was published July 30th, 2024 and is available in hefty paperback and as an ebook:  from all major online suppliers.

I do hope the book's to your taste.

At the beginning of November, 2024, I took part in Mord Am Hellweg's British night. I read from - and, as you see, signed copies of - the excellent German translation of The Short-Order Detective. The sold-out event took place in a castle ("only a small one" as my interviewer said.) For more pictures look at my Picture page.

In Hayakawa's Mystery Magazine for September 2022, my story "When I'm Feeling Lucky" appears prominently, beginning on page 066. A dark story - check this illustration from the magazine - it's appeared in English only in my new story collection (illustrated below - My People.) I was pleased and amazed that the Japanese magazine wanted the story, and I'd love to know how they handled the five haikus that appear in it. The fact that my unlucky central character is a not very good poet wannabe took a lot of authorial chutzpah.

There are fifteen stories in all - genuinely my people:  women facing problems and often overcoming them. Two of the stories have never been published in English before. Others have appeared in various magazines and anthologies.

The book includes a "A Foreword of Warning" - I have some strong opinions about the freedoms that writers should be allowed. I've also included some notes on the stories.

The book is available from all online sellers and can be ordered in bookstores. It's also available in electronic formats.

One of my special pleasures is that the cover was designed by my grandson: I think it looks great, mixing images of a woman's outline and an urban setting.

I do hope you enjoy it.

GIFT or THEFT: my take on the Gothic novel.  I am delighted it's in paperback and electronically from all online sources. For a bit more information check my newsletter about it on the Newsletter page of this website.

Lady Bag, released at last from prison, is greeted by her friends and reunited with her best-loved companion greyhound, Electra.

She has been sober for months, and her friends want to keep her on the straight and narrow. What could possibly go wrong?

The one and only sequel to Lady Bag has been published at last. Look for it from your favourite booksellers.

About Crocodiles and Good Intentions

"It's an amazing achievement. Lady Bag excels herself. I was shocked, appalled, mystified, uplifted, tickled pink and hugely entertained. There's no person in all of literature anything like her… Above all, the human spirit (and some doggy spirit…) rises above all the privations and triumphs. Thanks for a terrific read."

Peter Lovesey, MWA Grand Master, CWA Diamond Dagger winner

Mat Coward (reviewing in The Morning Star):  "One of current fiction's most striking and exhilarating characters returns for a second outing… Amid the horrors of Lady Bag's new adventures, and inextricable from them, is some gaspingly funny comedy. Cody has command not only of comic dialogue but, which is much harder to pull off, a kind of verbal rendering of visual humour, as she choreographs her characters across the pages with perfect timing. 

They've been a long time coming, but the Anna Lee novels have now been republished electronically and in paperback and they're all available from Amazon. I'm so very pleased to be able to offer them again.

And, as a bonus, two more books are also freshly reissued the same ways: my novel Rift and the collection Lucky Dip and other stories.

"...made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up for a whole novel... Lady Bag is... perfectly realized..."

Sara Paretsky, MWA Grand Master, CWA Diamond Dagger winner

'The homeless narrator of Liza Cody's Lady Bag (iUniverse, £11.95) spends her days around the West End of London. She begs alongside her rescue dog, an ex-racing greyhound named Electra, self-medicating with slurps of Algerian red.

Then one day, by chance, she sees the man she calls the "Devil." Years ago, she paid for her misplaced faith in him with her home, her freedom and a good deal of her sanity. He, of course, got away scot free and now, it seems, he's lining up his next victim.

You won't read many fresher or more distinctive novels this year but it's the sharp writing as much as the unusual setting that makes this book such a joy.

Cody's dialogue is always funny and full of purpose, and here she's found her perfect protagonist - a creative mangler of platitudes, an uncontrollable shredder of pomp and hypocrisy.'

Mat Coward, in The Morning Star of 25 Feb 14

This is how the first chapter of MISS TERRY begins:

'If you could watch Nita Tehri while she was sleeping you'd probably get the wrong impression. She looks dishevelled and mellow, an independent modern woman alone in her double bed, in her own flat. Her hair fans out on the pillow like an open crow's wing. Her mouth is sweet with dreams–she's almost smiling. Relaxed, her arm is naked to the elbow because the sleeve of her Snoopy pyjama top is rucked up. With her hand curled near her face and she looks almost young enough to suck her thumb.

But sometimes the fates decide to play games with smiling young women.'

And here, the book before Miss Terry, can still be ordered from good bookstores and from online sources. There are paperback and hardback editions as well as low-cost electronic editions. There are already a couple of rave reader review ons the UK's Amazon site and one on the US Amazon site.

The electronic edition is available on Kindle, Nook and the other major electronic platforms at about $2.99. You can also get it to read on your computer even if you don't have an e-reader: for instance from iUniverse or Amazon.

And this is an early newspaper review from England's Morning Star:
"Adventurous in form, sparklingly written and with every page more gripping than the last, this bluesy novel may well be the already garlanded Cody's best yet." Mat Coward, 17 August 2011

To tell you the truth, I never thought that I'd ever have a website of my own. It's too technical. In fact, as someone who can cause a toaster to malfunction just by looking at it, I thought that even owning a computer would be an expensive catastrophe.

But in January, 2006, in the 21st century, l gave in and joined the 20th with my first computer.

Yes, until then I wrote everything longhand. Here's a page from GIMME MORE.

How 19th Century is that?

But there was one big advantage to working with paper and pencil: when stuck for words I could always draw.

Sometimes drawing clears my mind; sometimes it helps me think; sometimes it stops me thinking in spirals. Drawing, like a cup of tea, can be a remedy for many ills. It can also be a waste of time.

I did this drawing on the page next to the text that is circled above.

Now, as you can see, I have the sort of technology that allows me to continue writing by hand. It cuts out the typing stage in the life of a manuscript, but unfortunately it won't let me draw any more.