I Want Jack For Christmas

It's a shame that there isn't more Torchwood themed merchandise out right now. I really could do with a few stocking fillers; a soundtrack album perhaps, or action figures (they're coming next year!), or maybe even a new book or two - seen as though I've re-read the original three so many times that I can recite most if the words backwards.

Well, just for me then, here's news on the next set of books (which most sites reported about last week; I'm just being so very slow...)

"Trace Memory"
by David Llewellyn


Tiger Bay, Cardiff, 1950: A mysterious crate is brought into the docks on a Scandinavian cargo ship. Its destination: the Torchwood Institute. As the crate is offloaded by a group of local dockers, it explodes, killing all but one of them, a young Butetown lad called Michael Bellini.

Fifty-eight years later, a radioactive source somewhere inside the Hub leads Torchwood to discover the same Michael Bellini, still young and dressed in his 1950s clothes, cowering in the vaults.They soon realise that each has encountered Michael before - as a child in Osaka, as a junior doctor, as a young police constable, as a new recruit to Torchwood One.

But it's Jack who remembers him best of all. Michael's involuntary time-travelling has something to do with a radiation-charged relic held inside the crate. And the Men in Bowler Hats are coming to get it back.

"The Twilight Streets"
by Gary Russell


There's a part of the city that no one much goes to, a collection of rundown old houses and gloomy streets. No one stays there long, and no one can explain why - something's not quite right there.

Now the Council is renovating the district, and a new company is overseeing the work. There will be street parties and events to show off the newly gentrified neighbourhood: clowns and face-painters for the kids, magicians for the adults - the street entertainers of Cardiff, out in force.

None of this is Torchwood's problem. Until Toshiko recognises the sponsor of the street parties: Bilis Manger.Now there is something for Torchwood to investigate. But Captain Jack Harkness has never been able to get into the area; it makes him physically ill to go near it. Without Jack's help, Torchwood must face the darker side of urban Cardiff alone...

"Something in the Water"
by Trevor Baxendale


Dr Bob Strong's GP surgery has been treating a lot of coughs and colds recently, far more than is normal for the time of year. Bob thinks there's something up but he can't think what.

He seems to have caught it himself, whatever it is - he's starting to cough badly and there are flecks of blood in his hanky. Saskia Harden has been found on a number of occasions submerged in ponds or canals but alive and seemingly none the worse for wear. Saskia is not on any files, except in the medical records at Dr Strong's GP practice.

But Torchwood's priorities lie elsewhere: investigating ghostly apparitions in South Wales, they have found a dead body. It's old and in an advanced state of decay. And it is still able to talk. And what it is saying is 'Water hag'...

The books are released 4th March 2008 priced £6.99 each.