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First Look: Acts of the Assassins

Acts of the Assassins is a new thriller by Richard Beard, coming our way in March 2015. A historical novel with contemporary elements, this book bends the concept of genre in a way we’ve never seen before and is one title we’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for.

Genre often influences – or even dictates, in some cases – the packaging of a book. So how do you package a title that doesn’t fit into one genre?

Here’s the team behind the cover design explaining how they approached this book:

Acts of the Assassins is a genre-bending, historical novel where biblical events happen in the present tense. The challenge for the jacket was to allude to the biblical setting but still tackle it as a modern, literary thriller. The answer came from looking at depictions of the 12 apostles, often presented side by side with their graphic halos, and likening them to human targets, with a hint of the grizzly fates that await them.’

About the book:

A charismatic cult leader is dead. One by one his followers are being assassinated. And in ever more macabre ways: sawn in half, beheaded, skinned alive.

Gallio does counter-insurgency. But the theft of a body he’s supposed to be guarding ruins his career. Bizarre rumours of the walking dead are swirling, there is panic in the air, and it’s his job to straighten out the conspiracy. He blows the case.

Years later, the file is reopened when a second body appears. Gallio is called back by headquarters and ordered to track down everyone involved the first time round. The only problem is they keep dying, in ever more grotesque and violent ways. How can Gallio stay ahead of the game when the game keeps changing?

Acts of the Assassins is about one man’s struggle to confront forces beyond his understanding. And about how lonely a turbulent world can be.

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