The Ben Hope series of conspiracy thrillers have been around for more than ten years, with the twenty-first book due out this year. Unfortunately, until now, the earliest books have not been available locally, which kept away those who like to start a series at the beginning. Late January sees the re-issue of the first three, with others to follow later in the year. The stories themselves have a contemporary setting, but are usually linked with events in history interwoven with mysterious conspiracies, secret societies and lost artefacts or information. They always have plenty of action and suspense and take the reader to all sorts of exotic locations. These are particularly for those who like Dan Brown, Daniel Silva or Steven Berry, but they’re also just great holiday books too. From the ruins of Cathar strongholds in France searching for an elixir of life supposedly discovered by an early twentieth century alchemist through to the truth behind the mysterious death of Mozart and a series of disappearances at an archaeological dig and the possibility of a Revelations style apocalypse, and that’s just the first three books! Scott Mariani is huge in the US and I’m looking forward to seeing what local readers think of him.