These are the first four books from Tim Roux, who has burst onto the writing scene during 2007 with the first volumes of his "End of the World Sextet" which, yes, presages the end of the world.

"Blood & Marriage", "Little Fingers" and "Shade+Shadows" tell the life stories of the key characters who meet in a Southern French village while on holiday (to be recounted in "The Ghoul Who Once", planned for 2009).

"Girl on a Bar Stool" is the story of God's final attempt to save the world in its present form, before it meets its inevitable destruction in "Fishing, for Christians", to be published September 2008).

So, all six books in order of publication are:

1. Blood & Marriage (2007)
2. Little Fingers! (2007)
3. Girl on a Bar Stool (2007)
4. Shade+Shadows (autumn 2008)
5. Fishing, for Christians (autumn 2008)
6. The Ghoul Who Once (planned for 2009)

Given his pedigree, his topics tend to be far from trivial, the main focus being on personal rights, and encompassing sexual preferences and identity, capital punishment, genocide, war, exile, torture, religious fanaticism, and medical ethics.

A bit dour, you might think, but actually Tim is often a very humorous and ironic writer somewhat in the spirit of Primo Levi.

Public reaction has been extremely favourable, emphasising Tim’s startling ability to give each book a distinctly different tone, his masterly treatment of often highly complex story structures, his beautifully natural yet elegant writing, and his compelling narratives.

Branding isn't real life, or is it?

When Adam Melton, the ambitious brand manager of Petrovsk Vodka went out on the town that night, he was hoping to pick up a beautiful girl and a few hints and tips from his target market, the vodka-swilling ladettes of Reading.

Meeting the sultry Yasemin at the bar in one of his favourite haunts, he got all that he was hoping for, and ominously more.

Now he has been condemned to save the world.

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How good can a killer get?

Following her mother’s suicide, Julia Blackburn vows to understand her tragic life. She knows one person she must confront – Mary Knightly. She knows where to find her. She hasn’t a clue what she did. And she knows nothing about her mother’s rapist.

Will she take revenge? Will she get away with it?

At its heart, “Little Fingers!” asks the troubled question: who does the greater wrong – those who ruin many lives with impunity, or those who kill to stop them?

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From Kingston-upon-Hull to the first genocide of the 20th century.

Driving down the Mediterranean to inspect the family papers held by his cousin in Narbonne, David Lambert reviews his own troubled times against the backdrop of his family who fled Germany in the 1880s on pain of death for mutiny and desertion, to face genocide, espionage, bombs, bullets, tragic accidents, murderous designs and that curious fruit cordial Great-Grandma used to make.

Classify under genealogy, or something.

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To be released in December 2007

Alan Harding is an alternative healer with a particularly unusual basis for his therapies, who marries the former wife of a controversial ambassador who survived an assassination attempt by Middle-Eastern terrorists.

When his wife, Jane, is kidnapped as retribution for her husband's crimes, everyone assumes that the kidnappers are referring to the ambassador's activities. However, the good doctor has his own dark secrets ........