Euro Crime

New Reviews: Cato, Cordy, Enger, Hochgatterer, Learner, Nickson, Smith, van der Vlugt, Wallace

2012-01-29T15:02:00.001Z

As well as reading the 9 new reviews, if you haven't already, do enter the competition which closes on 31st: win Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley (no geographical restrictions).

Here are this week's reviews:

Lizzie Hayes reviews Joyce Cato's , A Fatal fall of Snow the second in this culinary series and which is set at Christmas;

Susan White reviews The Colour of Death by Michael Cordy which is set in the US and covers synaesthesia and cults;

Lynn Harvey reviews Thomas Enger's Burned, tr. Charlotte Barslund now out in paperback, and she's keen to read the sequel;

Maxine Clarke reviews the follow-up to The Sweetness of Life by Paulus Hochgatterer, The Mattress House, tr. Jamie Bulloch (do read Maxine's review but please do not read the synopsis on book-selling websites which give far too much away);

Terry Halligan reviews T S Learner's The Map, a historical quest thriller set in Europe;

Michelle Peckham reviews Chris Nickson's Cold Cruel Winter now out in trade paperback (look out for February's competition sponsored by this author);

Laura Root reviews the final part of Tom Rob Smith's USSR trilogy, Agent 6;

Rich Westwood reviews Simone van der Vlugt's Shadow Sister, tr. Michele Hutchinson a Dutch suspense thriller

and Amanda Gillies reviews political thriller Killing the Messenger by Christopher Wallace.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Joyce Cato and Anya Lipska have been added to these pages this week.

New Non-Fiction guides to European Crime Fiction

2012-01-28T10:26:00.001Z

There are not one but two new guides to European crime writing published this month. The first is Barry Forshaw's very readable guide to Scandinavian crime fiction: Death in a Cold Climate. I received a proof copy of this and it's one I keep dipping in to, and I particularly like the insights offered by the translators

The other book, which has just been brought to my attention, and which should be out in a few days is The Dragon Tattoo and Its Long Tail: The New Wave of European Crime Fiction in America by David Geherin.

Here are the covers and official blurbs:

Death in a Cold Climate is a celebration and analysis of Scandinavian crime fiction, one of the most successful literary genres. Barry Forshaw, the UK's principal expert on crime fiction, discusses books, films and TV adaptations, from Sjowall and Wahloo's influential Martin Beck series through Henning Mankell's Wallander to Stieg Larsson's demolition of the Swedish Social Democratic ideal in the publishing phenomenon The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In intelligent but accessible fashion, the book examines the massive commercial appeal of the field along with Nordic cultural differences from Iceland to Denmark. Including unique interview material with writers, publishers and translators, this is the perfect reader's guide to the hottest strand of crime fiction today, examined both as a literary form and as an index to the societies it reflects. Includes Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbo, Hakan Nesser, Karin Fossum, Camilla Lackberg, Liza Marklund, Jussi Adler-Olsen, Arnaldur Indridason, Roslund & Hellstrom and many others.

The enormous popularity of Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy has raised awareness of other contemporary European authors of crime fiction. As a result, several of these novelists now reach a receptive American audience, eager for fresh perspectives in the genre. This critical text offers an introduction to current European crime writing by exploring ten of the best new crime and mystery authors from Sweden (Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell), Norway (Karin Fossum and Jo Nesbo), Iceland (Arnaldur Indridason), Italy (Andrea Camilleri), France (Fred Vargas), Scotland (Denise Mina and Philip Kerr), and Ireland (Ken Bruen) who are reshaping the landscape of the modern crime novel.

Favourite Discoveries 2011 (10)

2012-01-27T07:50:00.012Z

The final instalment of favourite discoveries of 2011 comes from Maxine Clarke who has chosen a tv series and a book.

Maxine Clarke's Favourite Discoveries of 2011

I think my two crime fiction discoveries of the year have been The Killing (though I prefer the straight translation of Forbrydelsen, The Crime) Danish TV series and the Norwegian novel Dregs by Jorn Lier Horst.

The Killing (series 1) was compelling and tense viewing. For me, the best thing about it was the character of Sarah Lund because at last here is a female TV detective who is a real person, not forced into any of the usual gender cliches that the medium seems to insist upon (and why I rarely watch TV drama). The obsessed personality of Sarah Lund as portrayed by Sofie Gråbøl reminded me of the last time I saw a filmed crime drama that had that same "something special" about the protagonist -- that was William Peterson's portrayal of Will Graham in the 1986 film Manhunter, from Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon. That film did not do well at the box office but who could forget the portrayal of the man who was prepared to give up everything in order to solve the crime? Sarah Lund as portrayed by Gråbøl has that same kind of focused, intense seriousness, indeed, the script takes her further than the Graham character in failing to provide a "happy ending", even better (as we can look forward to more stories about this amazing woman). There were aspects to the series that I did not like so much, but Sarah Lund and her jumper are, for me, as close to perfection as crime fiction can get.

The book discovery of the year for me was Dregs by Jorn Lier Horst translated by Anne Bruce. It may not be my favourite book of the year or the best crime novel ever written, but these days when it is so hard to find a straight-down-the-line, engaging, reliable police-procedural series - tough-minded but with a social conscience - this book was like a gift from heaven.

From the publisher's blurb:

Meet Chief Inspector William Wisting, an experienced policeman who is familiar with the dark side of human nature. He lives in challenging times for the Norwegian police force, meeting them with integrity and humanity, and a fragile belief that he can play a part in creating a better world.

Dregs is the sixth novel in a planned series of ten. The author is a retired Norwegian policeman whose role model (crime fiction-wise) is Henning Mankell and his Wallander series. The author says: "I would like to be a police officer like Wallander, an upright and good detective who led the work on major cases. A policeman with a conscience, integrity and humanity and an involvement in his community beyond the individual, a true commitment to my fellow human beings.

In Dregs I think he has succeeded in this and, vitally, has created a very readable story and interesting characters. More about this author and his books can be found in this wonderful interview at the Cyprus Well website.

Publishing Deal - Hilary Bonner

2012-01-27T07:50:00.004Z

A new publishing deal for Hilary Bonner has been announced. From The Bookseller:

Pan Macmillan has acquired two psychological thrillers by Hilary Bonner.

Publishing director Wayne Brookes bought world rights for The Cruellest Game and an as-yet-untitled novel. Pan Macmillan plans to publish the first title in 2013.

The Cruellest Game follows an apparently perfect family, tracing the "calamitous sequence of events" which follow "unexpected revelations of lies and duplicity".

Sarah Death on Book Cafe

2012-01-26T10:38:00.001Z

If you're a visitor to the FriendFeed Crime and Mystery Room (and if not do come along) then you'll have heard about this a few days ago.

I downloaded the podcast after Maxine at Petrona had mentioned it but only got round to listening to it last night.

16 January 2012
Jo Nesbø says that Per Wahlöö was the 'godfather of Scandinavian crime writing', creating the archetypical disillusioned, troubled but somehow dedicated detective now familiar to us from the work of Steig Larsson, Henning Mankell and Nesbø himself. Sarah Death, the translator of two new editions of Wahlöö's classic crime novels, explains why now's the time to discover him for ourselves.

Sarah Death, editor of Swedish Book Review, who as well as retranslating Per Wahlöö's Murder on the Thirty-first Floor and The Steel Spring is also working on Kristina Ohlsson's series, the first of which Unwanted was published in English last September.

In the 10 minute interview which begins the podcast, as well as discussing the Wahlöö books, Sarah suggests a refresh in translation of the Martin Beck series might not go amiss and also recommends Hakan Nesser and Lars Kepler. If you want further reading suggestions, have a look through the Euro Crime list of Swedish authors, many of whose books are reviewed on the site.

There is a little more information on the Per Wahlöö retranslations here.

To get the podcast - as well as subscribing through iTunes you can download the podcast here or you can listen again (for 3 more days only) here.

Riverside Lady - Cover Theme

2012-01-25T12:37:00.002Z

Yes, the mysterious lady walking along the Thames (presumably) gets another outing. This time she's on the upcoming Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd.

Other covers that she's appeared on and similar ones (that I know about) are shown below.

Whitechapel III - Start Date

2012-01-24T20:35:00.002Z

The third series of ITV's excellent Whitechapel begins next Monday at 9pm. There are six episodes comprising three two-part investigations which are inspired by three real-life crimes/criminals: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders, The Whitehall Mystery and The Zodiac Killer.

As far as I know, the Ratcliffe Highway Murders, unlike Jack the Ripper, haven't featured in much crime fiction. There is of course the non-fiction account, The Maul and The Pear Tree by P D James and T A Critchley which was reissued in 2010 and there will be Lloyd Shepherd's debut novel, The English Murder which is to be published 1 March.

Blurb: London, 1811. The twisting streets of riverside Wapping hold many an untold sin. Bounded by the Ratcliffe Highway to the north and the modern wonders of the Dock to the south, shameful secrets are largely hidden by the noise and glory of Trade. But two families have fallen victim to foul murder, and a terrified populace calls for justice. John Harriott, magistrate of the new Thames River Police Office, must deliver revenge up to them and his only hope of doing so is Charles Horton, Harriot's senior officer. Harriott only recently came up with a word to describe what it is that Horton does. It is detection.

Plymouth, 1564. Young Billy Ablass arrives from Oxford armed only with a Letter of Introduction to Captain John Hawkyns, and the burning desire of all young men; the getting and keeping of money. For Hawkyns is about to set sail in a ship owned by Queen Elizabeth herself, and Billy sees the promise of a better life with a crew intent on gain and glory. The kidnap and sale of hundreds of human beings is not the only cursed event to occur on England's first officially-sanctioned slaving voyage. On a sun-blasted islet in the Florida Cays, Billy too is to be enslaved for the rest of his accursed days.

Based on the real-life story of the gruesome Ratcliffe Highway murders, The English Monster takes us on a voyage across centuries, through the Age of Discovery, and throws us up, part of the human jetsam, onto the streets of Regency Wapping, policed only by Officer Horton.

Lady in Red - Cover Theme

2012-01-24T19:48:00.002Z

In one of those weird coincidences, today at work I placed copies of both of these books on the 'recently returned & popular reads' stand. The cover for the more recent Season Light is very striking and then I noticed they both had the same lady in them, albeit with a modified bodice.

NB. The actual cover of Season of Light comes with a sticker (of course) saying:
"We think if you like PHILIPPA GREGORY you'll love KATHARINE McMAHON"

Cited on To Tell The Truth

2012-01-23T20:13:00.001Z

I've had sight of an early copy of Anna Smith's To Tell The Truth which is published by Quercus on 2 February and on the reverse is a quote from Amanda Gillies' review of The Dead Won't Sleep, the first in the Rosie Gilmour series.

New Reviews: Anderson, Ferris, McDermid, Moffat, Stanley, Templeton & Website Updates

2012-01-22T15:12:00.001Z

Earlier today I discovered that Scotland will have its first dedicated crime festival in September: Bloody Scotland so I have gone with a Scottish theme today (with the exception of a review of the current (African) competition prize!)

...and the competition prize: Win Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley (no geographical restrictions).

Here are this week's reviews:

Amanda Gillies reviews Lin Anderson's sixth Rhona Macleod instalment, Final Cut (look out for Amanda's review of Picture Her Dead which I have in the queue to post, plus the first few books in this series are extremely cheap in Kindle and epub format at the moment);

Rich Westwood reviews Gordon Ferris's The Unquiet Heart the second in the post-WW2 Danny McRae PI series (also available at a good price on Kindle);

Laura Root reviews Val McDermid's non-series book, Trick of the Dark;

Amanda also reviews Blindside the third in this series by G J Moffat;

Michelle Peckham reviews the current competition prize, Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley calling it "a very entertaining read"

and Michelle also reviews Aline Templeton's Cradle to Grave the latest in the "Big Marge" series.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.

Website Update

State of play at 22.01.12:

The Author Websites page now lists 917 sites.

The New & Upcoming Releases pages have been updated (added since last weekend - Richard Crompton, R J Ellory, Mari Hannah, James McGee and Karen Maitland).

In Bibliographies there are now bibliographies for 1735 authors (8893 titles with links to 2174 reviews):

I've added new bibliographies for: George Arion, M K Bates, David Belbin, Nancy Bilyeau, Laurent Binet, Kevin Brophy, Peter James, Cottrell, Richard Crompton, Howard Cunnell, Maurizio De Giovanni, Hannah Dennison, Mark Douglas-Home, Zoran Drvenkar, Ruth Dugdall, Caryl Ferey, Camilla Grebe & Asa Traff, Alex Grecian, Tom Grieves, Paul Grossman, Penny Hancock, Mari Hannah, Antonio Hill, Hjorth-Rosenfeldt, Bogdan Hrib, Ewart Hutton, Victor Arnar Ingolfsson, Laurie R King, Peter Leonard, David Mark, Alex Marwood, Matt McGuire, Hakan Ostlundh, Chris Pavone, Oliver Potzsch, Jutta Progijt, Kate Rhodes, Jacqui Rose, Alexander Soderberg, Dag Solstad, Jason Steel, Oana Stoica-Mujea, Ferdinand von Schirach, Kate Williams, Tom Winship.

I've updated the bibliographies (ie added new titles) for: Geraint Anderson, Patti Battison, M C Beaton, James Becker, Mark Billingham Benjamin Black, Helen Black, Sara Blaedel, Richard Blake, Xavier-Marie Bonnot, Stephen Booth, Rhys Bowen, Gyles Brandreth, William Brodrick, Ken Bruen, Andrea Camilleri, C S Challinor, Sam Christer, Cassandra Clark, Rory Clements, Alex Connor, Julie Corbin, James Craig, Adam Creed, Julia Crouch, Judith Cutler, Diego De Silva, P C/Paul Doherty, Carola Dunn, Steven Dunne, Patrick Easter, R J Ellory, Giorgio Faletti, Conor Fitzgerald, James Forrester, Karin Fossum, Christopher Fowler, Nicci French, Robert Goddard, Ann Granger, Barry Grant, Alex Gray, J M Gregson, M R Hall, Patricia Hall, Oliver Harris, C S Harris, John Harvey, Elizabeth Haynes, James Henry, Paulus Hochgatterer, Arnaldur Indridason, Quintin Jardine, Michael Jecks, Roderic Jeffries, Paul Johnston, Susanna Jones, Alan Judd, Jim Kelly, Graeme/G W Kent, Bill Kitson, Bernard Knight, Tom Knox, Marek Krajewski, Roberta Kray, Lynda La Plante, Camilla Lackberg, T S Learner, Donna Leon, Peter Lovesey, Matt Lynn, Karen Maitland, Edward Marston, Andrew Martin, Faith Martin, Peter May, Kathleen McCaul, Andy McDermott, James McGee, M J McGrath, The Medieval Murderers, Danny Miller, G J Moffat, Susan Moody, R N Morris, Ian Morson, Colin Murray, Amy Myers, Hakan Nesser, Chris Nickson, Felix Palma, Caro Peacock, Anne Perry, Leif GW Persson, Sarah Pinborough, R T Raichev, Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, Linda Regan, Ruth Rendell, Craig Robertson, Imogen Robertson, Eileen Robertson, Rosemary Rowe, Pauline Rowson, Craig Russell, Giorgio Scerbanenco, Kate Sedley, Bob Shepherd, Frank Smith, Alexander McCall Smith, Roz Southey, Simon Spurrier, Gunnar Staalesen, Lyndon Stacey, Cath Staincliffe, Veronica Stallwood, Jon Stock, D J Taylor, James Thompson, Rebecca Tope, M J Trow, Nicola Upson, Roland Vernon, Jason Webster, Louise Welsh, Andrew Williams, Elizabeth Wilson, Laura Wilson, Jacqueline Winspear, Tom Wood, Simon Wood and Juli Zeh.

If you spot any errors or omissions do let me know.

Seeing Double

2012-01-22T12:10:00.005Z

Yvonne has just posted the new reviews up at Reviewing the Evidence, a site which kindly lets me link to their reviews to supplement those written by the Euro Crime review team. Yvonne is also able to access those books published over the pond.

Reading through the reviews, you'll see a remarkable similarity in two Minotaur Books' covers:

Event News: Bloody Scotland

2012-01-22T09:00:00.001Z

Scotland will have its own crime festival this year. Bloody Scotland will take place in Stirling, 14-16th September 2012. Peering at the photo on the website, joining Ian Rankin will be Lin Anderson, Tony Black, Alex Gray, Allan Guthrie, Alanna Knight, Stuart MacBride, The Mulgray Twins, Craig Russell and many others from this list of Scottish authors.

Follow the progress on twitter: @bloodyscotland
Website: Bloody Scotland

Scottish crime fiction is amongst the best in the world

It is the most popular genre amongst Scottish readers both in bookshops and in libraries, it generates countless screen adaptations, and yet at present none of our 40 plus literature festivals celebrates it.

Bloody Scotland is an innovative festival which will showcase Scottish crime writing and place it in an international context. We will shortly be announcing a stellar cast of leading crime writers.

Stirling is the natural location for a major new festival, with easy access from the cities and also nearby Falkirk, Linlithgow, and Perth. Bloody Scotland seeks to build on the existing strengths of Stirling’s own successful Off the Page festival… and forge something new.

Update on The International Dagger Eligibles

2012-01-20T14:12:00.002Z

I have been keeping the master list of 2012 International Dagger Eligibles list up to date, adding in new titles and linking in the reviews from the Euro Crime website. There have been one or two changes from when I first posted it.

One of the most significant is the change in publication date for Disgrace, the sequel to Jussi-Adler Olsen's Mercy (voted Euro Crime Reviewers' Favourite Read of 2011) from March to June which puts it into next year's list.

The cover has a Sarah Lund vibe - or is it just me?

Other movers are: Petros Markaris's Basic Shareholder which will now be published in 2013 (month unknown at the moment) and the eagerly awaited Last Will by Liza Marklund, whose English translator Neil Smith has informed me that the US edition will be April but a slightly different edition for UK and Australia will come out in September.

Now eight months into the Dagger year, what are the likely contenders so far? Lots of good titles/authors still to come of course...

Edgar Awards 2012 - Nominees

2012-01-20T12:08:00.003Z

The shortlists for the 2012 Edgar Awards have been announced. In the Best Novel category, there is much to please fans of translated and/or European crime fiction with four of the five nominees falling into one of those categories and all four have been reviewed on Euro Crime:

The Ranger by Ace Atkins (Penguin Group USA - G.P. Putnam's Sons)
Gone by Mo Hayder (Grove/Atlantic - Atlantic Monthly Press)
The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (Minotaur Books) tr. translated by Alexander O Smith & Elye J Alexander
1222 by Anne Holt (Simon & Schuster - Scribner) tr. Marlaine Delargy
Field Gray by Philip Kerr (Penguin Group USA - G.P. Putnam's Sons - Marion Wood Books)

Included in the Best Paperback Original category are Lucretia Grindle's The Faces of Angels (published in the UK in 2006), Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley (which will be reviewed soon and is currently the competition prize (no geographical restrictions)), as well as Frank Tallis's Vienna Twilight (UK: Deadly Communion).

The whole list of nominees and categories is listed on the The Edgars website.

Whitechapel III - Imminent

2012-01-17T19:36:00.002Z

My tv guide is featuring Whitechapel III in its next edition which means it should start sometime in the w/c 28 January. Here's the teaser trailer released on Christmas Day:

Luther wins Golden Globe

2012-01-16T08:48:00.004Z

More accurately Idris Elba has won a 2012 Golden Globe in the category Best Actor - Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for TV, for his portrayal of the character Luther in the series of the same name.

So far there have been two series of Luther, both are available on DVD and have been followed up by an original novel from the series creator, Neil Cross: Luther: the Calling which is reviewed here by Sarah Hilary for Euro Crime.

New Reviews: Goodwin, Harvey, James, Johnston, Kitson, Koppel, Marklund, Pastor, Price

2012-01-15T16:17:00.004Z

As well as the 9 new reviews, don't forget to see which title, author and translator made the top spot for the Euro Crime reviewers' favourite book of 2011.

The competition's still open: win Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley (no geographical restrictions).

Here are this week's reviews:

Susan White reviews the latest in the Yashim the Eunuch series by Jason Goodwin, An Evil Eye (and Susan has even tried some of the recipes featured in this series);

John Harvey's Good Bait features a new protagonist plus a couple of characters from earlier books including DCI Karen Shields from the heart-breaking Cold in Hand and is reviewed here by Maxine Clarke;

Michelle Peckham thinks Peter James's Dead Man's Grip signals that the series could be running out of steam;

The Silver Stain is a belated but welcome return for Paul Johnston's PI Alex Mavros, set in Greece, reviewed here by Geoff Jones;

Terry Halligan found Bill Kitson's latest DI Mike Nash, Back-Slash hard to put down;

I review Hans Koppel's She's Never Coming Back tr. Kari Dickson which I didn't enjoy very much;

Fortunately Lynn Harvey had a better experience with Liza Marklund's The Bomber which has been retranslated by Neil Smith;

Norman calls Ben Pastor's Liar Moon "grown-up crime fiction"

and Lizzie Hayes reviews Joanna Price's debut A Means of Escape set in the Glastonbury area (and incidentally is very cheap on Kindle at the moment).

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Mark Billingham, Kevin Brophy and Hakan Ostlundh have been added to these pages this week.

Photos of Nimes (the cat)

2012-01-12T20:58:00.001Z

I'd like to thank everyone for their kind words on the blog and in emails about our sad loss last week. Now the shock has passed, we've been able to reflect back on the life Nimes shared with us. Remembering how he used to follow us on walks round the housing estate we used to live on in Ipswich, how he seemed to find one of our other cats (when he followed Nimes back) and how he would lurk in the hedges of the cycle path and surprise us. When we moved to the Midlands we had several rented houses until we settled in out current house 14 years ago. When we moved in, we thought the house was secure and let him out of the cat box. A few minutes later we noticed a tabby setting off up the grassy knoll and off into the trees....he'd jumped out of the first-floor bathroom window! He came back a bit later no problem and was very much at home here. I mentioned he was partial to chicken, well the local squirrel population reduced when he was in his prime. Just the tails were left...

When we got him, he was 3 months old and had been rescued by the Cats Protection League who had got him from a vets where they didn't put down healthy cats. He was so nervous and would hide under the video recorder/tv stand. He eventually warmed up and was fairly sociable with people but was absolutely terrified at first of the new cats we got a few years later and would never pick a fight with another cat (unlike a certain Mr Fox). It was so pleasing to see Nimes just sleeping in the front garden, completely relaxed - so different from when we first got him.

I've been browsing through the digital photos and found a few nice ones from 2004 when he was 13. You'll see he was a bit of an omnivore. He also loved Skips and any other crisps.

Sleeping...

After some chicken:

"Arthuring" it with Pippa Jones for soup:

These two are a couple of years later when he was 15:

I know everyone thinks their cats are beautiful but he really was and good-natured too. Didn't mind being picked up and put up with the younger cats - and if he did get fed up a mighty paw would descend on the offender and that would be that!

When Two Cover Themes Meet

2012-01-12T10:25:00.002Z

What do you get when the Twilight-esque hands clasped theme meets an old favourite, butterflies in a glass jar?:

Diane Chamberlain's books are marketed as for fans of Jodi Picoult, and you can see a slight resemblance in cover style (ahem):

The Caller - Cover Opinions

2012-01-10T20:37:00.001Z

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is the US and UK covers for Karin Fossum's The Caller, tr. K E Semmel. The US release is not until August 2012. You can read an extract here. The UK mass-market paperback (with a new series look, I understand) will be out in July.

So what are your thoughts on the US (LHS) and UK (RHS) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with the books of Karin Fossum? Both have the same quote from Jo Nesbo.

If you have read it, how well do the covers match the story? (I actually thought that was a grave-stone on the US cover (which would sort of fit in) but I think it's just a gap in the trees.)

Read the Euro Crime review (by me) of The Caller.

Euro Crime reviewers favourite reads of 2011

2012-01-09T10:15:00.003Z

I've asked the recent contributors to Euro Crime to choose their five favourite European reads of 2011 and a total of 73 titles have been submitted. The following favourites come from the lists submitted by: Pat Austin, Mark Bailey, Maxine Clarke, Amanda Gillies, Terry Halligan, Lynn Harvey, Sarah Hilary, Geoff Jones, Michelle Peckham, Norman Price, Laura Root, Rich Westwood, Susan White and myself (there is some overlap with the 2010 favourites):

The most mentioned titles are:

4 votes:
Jussi-Adler Olsen - Mercy, tr. Lisa Hartford

3 votes
Asa Larsson - Until Thy Wrath Be Past, tr. Laurie Thompson
Jo Nesbo - The Leopard, tr. Don Bartlett

2 votes:
Thomas Enger - Burned, tr. Charlotte Barslund
Arnaldur Indridason - Outrage, tr. Anna Yates
Hakan Nesser - The Inspector and Silence, tr. Laurie Thompson
Johan Theorin - The Quarry, tr. Marlaine Delargy
Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place, tr. Sian Reynolds

The most mentioned authors (irrespective of title) are:

4 votes:
Jussi Adler-Olsen
Jo Nesbo
Fred Vargas

3 votes
Asa Larsson
Hakan Nesser

2 votes:
Alison Bruce
Thomas Enger
Arnaldur Indridason
Laurie R King
Roslund-Hellstrom
Johan Theorin

The most mentioned translators are:

6 votes:
Laurie Thompson

5 votes:
Lisa Hartford/Tiina Nunnally

4 votes:
Don Bartlett
Sian Reynolds

3 votes:
Marlaine Delargy

2 votes:
Charlotte Barslund
Neil Smith
Anna Yates

The breakdown by reviewer, with additional recommendations and any additional comments they have made, can be found on the website.

New Reviews: Becker, Bruce, Dahl, Ferris, Griffiths, Tallis & Reviewers' Top 5s

2012-01-08T20:34:00.003Z

As well as 6 new reviews, I have uploaded the Euro Crime reviewers' favourite reads of 2011, by reviewer. Tomorrow I will announce the favourite book, favourite author and favourite translator of 2011 (based on the aforementioned submissions!).

The competition's still open: win Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley (no geographical restrictions).

Here are this week's reviews:

Amanda Gillies reviews the latest from James Becker, The Nosferatu Scroll (or The Vampires of Venice for Dr Who fans...?) which continues the high standard of the earlier books;

Alison Bruce's, third DC Goodhew book, The Calling is listed in Susan White's 5 favourite reads of 2011;

Laura Root reviews K O Dahl's Lethal Investments, tr. Don Bartlett which is the first in the Oslo-based Gunnarstranda and Frohlich series;

Terry Halligan reviews Gordon Ferris's post World War II set Truth Dare Kill the first in the Danny McRae series;

Maxine Clarke reviews the fourth and latest in the increasingly popular Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths: A Room Full of Bones set in North Norfolk

and Lynn Harvey reviews Frank Tallis's Death and the Maiden the sixth in this historical series set in Vienna, which is now available in paperback.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Patti Battison, Rhys Bowen, Gyles Brandreth, C S Challinor, Cassandra Clark, Rory Clements, Julie Corbin, Peter James, Cottrell Howard Cunnell, Maurizio De Giovanni, Diego De Silva, Mark Douglas-Home, Nicci French, Alex Grecian, J M Gregson, Patricia Hall, C S Harris, Elizabeth Haynes, Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson, Roderic Jeffries, Laurie R King, Bernard Knight, Peter Lovesey, Faith Martin, Susan Moody, Amy Myers, Chris Nickson, Chris Pavone, Caro Peacock, Anne Perry, Oliver Potzsch, Jutta Profijt, Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, Linda Regan, Eileen Robertson, Rosemary Rowe, Pauline Rowson, Kate Sedley, Frank Smith, James Thompson, Rebecca Tope, Louise Welsh, Andrew Williams and Simon Wood have been added to these pages this week.

Nimes RIP

2012-01-06T19:54:00.002Z

Our eldest cat Nimes had to be put down today aged 20 1/2. He'd been deteriorating quickly so we took the sad decision to go to the vets. He was a quiet cat, nothing flashy about him but he was much loved by the humans and other cats in the household. We gave him a good life (and lots of chicken) and he has left us with some happy memories.

Is This a Red Kite I See Before Me?

2012-01-06T09:25:00.001Z

Pedant mode on...

Just spotted this cover for Charles Todd's newest Inspector Ian Rutledge, The Confession, which is set in the 1920s. On the cover of this book, set in London and Essex, there appears to be a red kite; a once common bird in London in Shakespeare's time but by the 20th century only found in Wales. The first sighting in London for 150 years was reported in 2006. They are much more common now due to an RSPB reintroduction programme - easiest way to see them is to go on the Chiltern railway line which goes through their English heartland of the Chilterns (eg Princes Risborough).

The Darkest Room on Radio 4 Extra

2012-01-05T19:09:00.002Z

I had a tip-off about this from a friend at reading group. The CWA International Dagger Award winning, The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin is being serialised on Radio 4 Extra. The first of five thirty-minute parts begins on Saturday at 23.30.

If you can't stay up then I imagine it will be on iPlayer very shortly afterwards!

Radio 4 Extra page.

Euro Crime review of The Darkest Room.

Johan Theorin's bibliography with reviews of all three books available in English.

New Richard & Judy and TV Book Club lists

2012-01-05T09:39:00.001Z

Amazingly the same book has been selected for both new seasons of the well-known UK book groups: Richard & Judy and the TV Book Club.

Richard and Judy's Spring 2012 Collection is listed in full here but the crime titles are:

Before I Go To Sleep by S J Watson

Midwinter Sacrifice by Mons Kallentoft, tr. Neil Smith

TV Book Club - the whole list is here but the crime titles are:

29 January - Before I Go To Sleep by S J Watson

19 February - Into The Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

You can currently pick up a free copy of Before I Go to Sleep at your local Birmingham library as it is Birmingham's Big City Read.

Favourite Discoveries 2011 (9)

2012-01-04T10:00:00.001Z

Today's instalment of favourite discoveries of 2011 comes from Sarah Hilary who has chosen a French crime tv series.

Sarah Hilary's Favourite Discovery of 2011

My new discovery (new to me) was Spiral, the French TV series with the best hero/heroine combination I've seen on television and, of course, Paris. A great hard-edged contrast to my favourite euro crime author of the moment, Fred Vargas.

There have been 3 series of Spiral shown on BBC4 and they can be bought on R2 DVD as individual box sets or as a combination of series 1 & 2 or series 1-3; at an average of £8 per series they are an absolute steal.

Fred Vargas's books (in English translation) are listed and reviewed here.

You can read Sarah's Euro Crime reviews here (by searching for her name).

Event News: UK Launch of The Boy in the Suitcase

2012-01-03T12:45:00.001Z

The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnette Friis is being launched at Foyles on 17th January.

DATE: 17th January 2012
LOCATION: The Gallery, Foyles, Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB
TIME: 6.30pm to 8.00pm

Celebrate with us the English language release of the award-winning Danish thriller The Boy in the Suitcase. The evening will feature a lively discussion with the authors chaired by crimefiction expert Barry Forshaw, author of Death in a Cold Climate: A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction and will include compelling insights from Scandinavian Crime enthusiast and founder of the legendary Nordic Noir Book Club Dr. Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (UCL).

Lene Kaaberbøl has sold more than two million books worldwide as a fantasy writer. Her collaborator, Agnete Friis, is a children’s writer. The bestselling Nina Borg series has been translated into nine languages and was a finalist for the coveted Scandinavian Glass Key Crime Fiction Award.

Blurb: Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother of two, is a compulsive do-gooder who can't say no when someone asks for help—even when she knows better. When her estranged friend Karin leaves her a key to a public locker in the Copenhagen train station, Nina gets suckered into her most dangerous project yet. Inside the locker is a suitcase, and inside the suitcase is a three-year-old boy: naked and drugged, but alive.

Is the boy a victim of child trafficking? Can he be turned over to authorities, or will they only return him to whoever sold him? When Karin is discovered brutally murdered, Nina realizes that her life and the boy's are in jeopardy, too. In an increasingly desperate trek across Denmark, Nina tries to figure out who the boy is, where he belongs, and who exactly is trying to hunt him down.

My Top 5 favourite reads of 2011

2012-01-02T10:50:00.002Z

Crime-wise I still read about 98% translated so it's no surprise my top five favourite crime novels that I read this year, are all translated crime novels though I'm more surprised that they are all Scandinavian. The pie charts I posted recently show that the translated crime scene is dominated by Swedish authors at the moment.

Top 5

Jussi Adler-Olsen - Mercy (apa The Keeper of Lost Causes) tr. Lisa Hartford (2011)
Anne Holt - Fear Not tr. Marlaine Delargy (2011)
Asa Larsson - Until Thy Wrath be Past tr. Laurie Thompson (2011)
Jo Nesbo - The Leopard tr. Don Bartlett (2011)
Roslund-Hellstrom - Three Seconds tr. Kari Dickson (2010)

Runner-up

Sergios Gakas - Ashes tr. Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife (2011)

There were some other books that I enjoyed very much and for which I have devised new awards:

The "mad as a box of frogs" award goes to...

Donato Carrisi for The Whisperer tr. Shaun Whiteside (2010)
A compulsive read, quite gory with a great twisty ending but goes deep into woo-woo territory near the end.

The "Keyser Soze" award - for an ending you'll never guess goes to the non-Euro Crime...

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino tr. Alexander O Smith & Elye J Alexander (2011)

and lastly,

The "David Attenborough" award for the most scientific information you can shoehorn into a crime novel goes to...

Sissel-Jo Gazan for The Dinosaur Feather, tr. Charlotte Barslund

Despite my flippant categories, I enjoyed and do recommend these last 3 books for something a bit different!

New Reviews: Bauer, Benn, Hunt, Kallentoft, May, Neville & a New Competition

2012-01-01T10:39:00.001Z

To introduce the New Year, a new competition and reviews of 6 books (5 of which are published on 5 January). There's a bit of a snowy-woods theme in terms of covers this week (see the Euro Crime homepage...)

Win Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley (no geographical restrictions).

Here are this week's reviews:

Maxine Clarke reviews Belinda Bauer's Finders Keepers which continues the Exmoor setting of the previous two books;

Laura Root reviews Tom Benn's promising debut set in Manchester, The Doll Princess the first in the hero/anti-hero Bane series;

Irish author Arlene Hunt's latest book The Chosen is set in the US, and Terry Halligan describes it as an exciting read;

Michelle Peckham reviews the mass-market paperback release of Mons Kallentoft's Midwinter Sacrifice, tr. Neil Smith and Michelle thinks lead character Malin is a close relation to The Killing's Sarah Lund;

Amanda Gillies reviews Peter May's second part of his 'Lewis trilogy' The Lewis Man which stand equally well in its own right

and Lynn Harvey calls Stuart Neville's third book, Stolen Souls "a seriously good crime novel".

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Sara Blaedel, Andrea Camilleri, Conor Fitzgerald, Barry Grant, Colin Murray and Ruth Rendell have been added to these pages this week.

Win: Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley

2012-01-01T09:37:00.002Z

Euro Crime has 5 copies of Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley to giveaway.

(Euro Crime reviews of the previous two books: A Carrion Death and A Deadly Trade.)

To enter the draw, just answer the question and include your details in the form below.

This competition is open to residents of the world and will close on 31 January 2012.
Only 1 entry per person/per household please.
(All entries will be deleted once the winner has been notified.)

The third novel in the fantastic Detective 'Kubu' Bengu crime series is set in the southern Kalahari area of Botswana - a place full of buried lost cities, incredible hidden wealth, ancient gods and, for thousands of years, home to the nomadic Bushmen.

When a fractious ranger named Monzo is found dead, fallen into a donga - a dry ravine - surrounded by three Bushmen, the local police arrest the nomads. Detective 'Kubu' Bengu is on the case, which reunites him with his old school friend Khumanego, a Bushman and now an advocate for his people. Khumanego believes the arrests are motivated by racist antagonism from the police, as the Bushmen are claiming that they were at the murder scene because they were trying to help. Soon after Monzo's death, Detective 'Kubu' learns of another case involving two botany students on their way back from a specimen-collecting trip but who were later found dead, seemingly poisoned, at a campground. Could the deaths be connected?

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For the Camilleri fan in your life...

2011-12-30T14:44:00.001Z

I've just been trawling amazon to see what Montalbano delights are in store. As well as the UK edition of The Potter's Field in May 2012, also listed are the US editions of The Age of Doubt (May 2012) and Hunting Season (Jan 2013).

In addition McFarland are publishing a companion guide, Andrea Camilleri: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Lucia Rinaldi, in July 2012:

Publisher's Blurb: This is the first comprehensive reference work in English dedicated to the writing of world-famous Italian mystery writer Andrea Camilleri. It includes entries on plots, characters, dates, literary motifs, and themes from the bestselling author’s detective stories and television crime dramas, with special attention to the serialized policeman Inspector Salvo Montalbano, Camilleri’s most famous character. It also equips the reader with background information on Camilleri’s life and career and provides a guide into the writings of reviewers and critics.

Happy Christmas & a Big Thank You

2011-12-24T16:16:00.003Z

Happy Christmas to the much appreciated readers of this blog and its sister Euro Crime website. Plus a big thank you to the Euro Crime review team, which has increased this year, and the publishers who send out the review books. As ever, I'm very grateful to those who've commented on the blog and sent comments, information and Christmas cards directly to me. I wish you all the best for 2012.

Is it Christmas yet?

Coming soon: more favourite discoveries of 2011; an article by Leigh Russell on her new book, Death Bed, which is available on Kindle now - 6 months ahead of its print release; the Euro Crime reviewers favourite reads of 2011; a new competition or two, and included in the next set of reviews, reviews of the latest books by Elly Griffiths and Stuart Neville.

Favourite Discoveries 2011 (8)

2011-12-22T11:41:00.004Z

Today's instalment of favourite discoveries of 2011 comes from Michelle Peckham who has chosen a Scandinavian crime tv series, though not The Killing. The series is based on the books by Gunnar Staalesen - and I wrote up a recent interview between him and his translator Don Bartlett: from Norway to Norfolk.

Michelle Peckham's Favourite Discovery of 2011

Missing both the dramatisations of Wallander and The Killing on BBC4, and feeling rather bereft, I ordered a 3 DVD set featuring Varg Veum from Amazon (Bitter Flowers / Sleeping Beauty / Yours Until Death). The series is based on the books by Gunnar Staalesen, of which I'd read Yours Until Death, and enjoyed. Unfortunately, not all the books are available in English, so the DVDs were actually a chance to discover more.

Varg Veum is a private investigator, based in Bergen, a 30ish rakish character, divorced, and attractive. He seems to have a knack for taking on cases that prove difficult, and always seem to bring him into contact with the police. The Norway setting adds to the interest, and these DVDs certainly made up for the lack of Scandinavian crime fiction on BBC4. Thoroughly recommended!

(This set is available in R1 and R2 - the R1 cover is on the right.)

Read Michelle's Euro Crime reviews here.

The titles by Gunnar Staalesen which have been translated into English - not many yet alas - are listed and reviewed here.

Favourite Discoveries 2011 (7)

2011-12-21T10:00:00.001Z

Today's instalment of favourite discoveries of 2011 comes from Terry Halligan who chooses his favourite book of 2011.

Terry Halligan's Favourite Discovery of 2011

The Warsaw Anagrams by Richard Zimler (Paperback: 336 pages (Feb. 2011) Publisher: Corsair ISBN: 1849013697)

It is the bitterly cold Autumn of 1940 and Erik Cohen, an elderly retired psychiatrist, is forced to move into an area within Warsaw that the Germans have created, to locate all the 400,000 Jews of that city. Erik is obliged to live with his niece and his beloved nine year old nephew, Adam, in a tiny flat. One, extremely cold day, Adam goes missing and after searching all over the place and questioning all their contacts, finally, the next day his body is found naked and entangled in the barbed wire fence that surrounds the ghetto. The boy's leg has been hacked off and a tiny piece of string has been left in his mouth.

Erik and niece are obviously, very upset about all of this and even more so, when a young girl's body is located also with one of her hands missing. Erik and his close friend Izzy start to look into all the possible clues associated with this, as both men feel that as Jews their lives are very limited and they need to ensure that all the children living in the ghetto are as safe from death as possible. It was a truly depressing time, the Germans having made an island where they control who goes in and out and what food and everything else goes in and out. This island is encircled with barbed wire and the only access points are guarded night and day by their armed soldiers. The inhabitants of the ghetto have to sell off all their possessions gradually, to buy food to live, as they get no income otherwise and as they do not know individually how long they will live, they have to go without and suffer the resulting hunger. As they cannot get any coal, even if they could afford it, as all possible supplies are cornered by the Germans to help the war effort, in this bleak Winter it is bitterly cold and they are having to burn furniture, or anything flammable in their fires to keep out the cold. But of course there is only a finite amount of furniture.

Erik discovers that the two dead children were members of a choir, he suspects that adult members of the same group could be involved in the deaths and then it becomes apparent that the girl who was killed was expecting a baby, the father of whom, was a gentile (a non Jew) living outside the ghetto. Erik wants to check that out more and needs to leave the ghetto to do so, which is very difficult and the preparations he makes are explained in detail. He needs to get fake papers forged by a criminal he knows, as he will have to go through a German check point. He decides to take Izzy along with him, which presents other difficulties. So as it goes on the two main characters have many adventures until at last the murderer is discovered and dealt with, but it doesn't end in a nice way.

I found this a deeply moving book. It deals with the Second World War but with an aspect of it that is not discussed too often, and the author has researched his subject extremely thoroughly and his characters live with much deprivation in the ghetto. I consider this book the best and most moving one that I've read for some time and I was deeply affected by it. This is the seventh book written by this author who indicates in a dedication at the beginning that many of his grand-uncles, aunts and cousins perished in the ghettos and camps of Poland during the War. A truly wonderful book, which I will not forget.

Read more of Terry's reviews here.

Favourite Discoveries 2011 (6)

2011-12-20T10:00:00.001Z

Today's instalment of favourite discoveries of 2011 comes from Amanda Gillies who chooses a film from a few years ago and which stars Rufus "Zen" Sewell.

Amanda Gillies's Favourite Discovery of 2011

My best discovery this year is definitely the movie Dark City, a futuristic fantasy about, unsurprisingly, a city that is kept in perpetual darkness and the people living there who don’t seem to release they never see the sun. It focuses on John Murdoch (played by Rufus Sewell) who wakes up in the bath to discover that he has no memory and can’t understand why the police are after him. To make matters worse, his beloved wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly) no longer recognizes him.

John sets out to get to the bottom of the strange goings-on and his discoveries will make your blood run cold. He is horrified when the clock strikes midnight and everyone, except him, falls asleep exactly where they are. Things get even worse when he meets the terrifying, black-clad, white-faced "strangers" and their weird side-kick, Dr. Schreber.

The film was written and directed by Alex Proyas, also known for I, Robot and The Crow, and came out in 1998. It is a clever mix of crime fiction, science fiction and fantasy. I absolutely loved the movie and was delightfully creeped out and fascinated for its entire 2.5 hours. The idea of a city being controlled, directed, and changed round the way this one is, really caught my imagination. It also has an amazing ending and left me exhausted. Loads of "Tingle Factor" and, essentially, the right level of "Yuk" to keep the viewer happy.

I can’t believe it took me so long to find Dark City and must have been one of the very few who hadn’t seen it!

Read more of Amanda's reviews, both crime and teenage/YA fiction.

Favourite Discoveries 2011 (5)

2011-12-19T10:00:00.001Z

Today's instalment of favourite discoveries of 2011 comes from Geoff Jones who chooses an American/Irish author who made quite a splash with her debut in 2007 and it went on to win the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Geoff Jones's Favourite Discovery of 2011

In 2011 I discovered this exciting writer. Her first novel In the Woods made its debut in 2007 to apparently much acclaim (I must have been preoccupied with something else!). She followed this up a year later with the equally well received The Likeness. Her third book, published in 2010, is the one that made me notice this great talent – Faithful Place.

Born in the USA but of Irish parentage, she has lived in Ireland and Italy as well as America. She now lives in Dublin and is married with a daughter. She writes very well about Ireland which is a place I don't know but she describes it so well I feel as if I’ve been there. Her characters are very believable and she has a unique method that a minor character in one book becomes the lead in a subsequent one – very clever.

If I had been asked several years ago who my favourite authors were, very few women would have figured in the top 10. Not sure why – I suppose I felt that only men could write grisly murder mysteries? How wrong could I be!! Today Lynda La Plante, Karen Campbell, Denise Mina and Val McDermid feature prominently. I can now add Tana French to the growing list.

Her fourth book, Broken Harbour, is out in June 2012.

You can read reviews of Tana French's first three books here.

Geoff's reviews can be read here.

New Reviews: Ellis, Eriksson, Fowler, Higashino, Lambert, Williams

2011-12-18T19:45:00.001Z

As promised, a final set of reviews for 2011. More reviews will appear early in the New Year. Do please read the Euro Crime reviewers Favourite Discoveries of 2011 which I'll continue to post next week.

Here are this week's reviews:

Michelle Peckham reviews Joy Ellis's follow-up to Mask Wars, Shadowbreaker (which is set in my beloved Fens) and Michelle praises it highly;

Lynn Harvey reviews the recent UK release of Kjell Eriksson's The Princess of Burundi, tr. Ebba Segerberg the earliest of the "Ann Lindell" series available in English from an author Lynn likens to Henning Mankell (and for once the snowy cover is warranted);

Mark Bailey reviews the most recent of Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May series: Bryant & May and the Memory of Blood;

I review the much talked-about The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino, tr. Alexander O Smith & Elye J Alexander;

Maxine Clarke begins her review of Charles Lambert's Any Human Face (set in a Rome) by saying that it is "an excellent, well-written novel of suspense"

and Terry Halligan is impressed with Andrew Williams's To Kill a Tsar.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Geraint Anderson, Richard Blake, Julia Crouch, Steven Dunne, James Forrester, Ann Granger, Grebe & Traff, Quintin Jardine, Michael Jecks, Alan Judd, Tom Knox, Lynda La Plante, Matt Lynn, The Medieval Murderers, G J Moffat, Kate Rhodes, Craig Robertson, Imogen Robertson, Jacqui Rose, Bob Shepherd, Simon Spurrier, Jason Steel and Jon Stock have been added to these pages this week.

Favourite Discoveries 2011 (4)

2011-12-16T13:05:00.001Z

Today's instalment of favourite discoveries of 2011 comes from Rich Westwood who chooses a French author, probably not as well known as Fred Vargas but who shares some of her writing DNA.

Rich Westwood's Favourite Discovery of 2011

My discovery of 2011 is the Provençal crime fiction of Pierre Magnan.

I'm a sucker for an illustrated cover, and the breezy artwork by Nadine James is what first brought Pierre Magnan to my attention in my local library. However, the comedy of the books is darker than the covers might suggest.

The investigator Commissaire Laviolette is an interesting figure, but for me it is the secondary characters who make these books sing. Magnan offers up crusty collection of eccentrics, thoroughly doused in red wine, reeking of Gitaines and strange local cheeses, all closeted in cramped little Provençal communities and dealing with boredom and poverty any way they can: gossip, superstition, ancient feuds, modern rivalries, mushroom-hunting, obsession and, of course, murder.

A truffle-hunting pig proves a useful ally for the Commissaire in Death in the Truffle Wood, ultimately a story of culture clash between hippies and locals (it was written in the 70s). The book has some great snow-bound scenes which really rack up the tension and show an (for me) unexpectedly harsh side of Provence.

The Messengers of Death has a strong flavour of John Dickson Carr, opening with a retired village postman digging his own grave and features a fancy-dress murderer wielding an antique bayonet.

I’ve only managed to find these two titles in the Laviolette series in English, but if you like Fred Vargas (in particular if you enjoyed the cryptic scenes with the Normandy hunters in This Night's Foul Work), I'd definitely recommend seeking them out.

You can read Rich's Euro Crime reviews here (by searching for his name).

Discover which of Pierre Magnan's books are available in English (with reviews), here. (Death in the Truffle Wood and The Messengers of Death were both translated by Patrica Clancy and are still in print having been published 2006/7.)

Pierre Magnan's website is here (in French).

Favourite Discoveries 2011 (3)

2011-12-15T13:08:00.001Z

Today's instalment of favourite discoveries of 2011 comes from Lynn Harvey who blogs at Little Grey Doll as well as reviewing for Euro Crime. She has chosen a tv series and an author.

Lynn Harvey's Favourite Discoveries of 2011

It goes without saying that a Scandi-Noir fan like I thinks first of The Killing (original Danish version), because I was indeed hooked and transfixed by it, as was almost everybody. If I could, I would mention the other Scandi-series that had me glued to my telly chair this year: BBC4's showing of that most excellent Icelandic comedy of dysfunction, The Night Shift. But it has to be said that apart from petty pilfering and the violent onslaughts that the increasingly unhinged shift manager inflicts upon staff and customers alike, The Night Shift isn't really a crime story.

So it is with some surprise that I find that my most joyous crime-reading discovery of 2011 is set all the way over in South East Asia with the slightly off the wall crime novels of Colin Cotterill.

I reviewed Killed at the Whim of a Hat for Euro Crime. This is Cotterill's first outing with a new heroine, the woman journalist Jimm Juree, and is set in Thailand. But never having read any of Colin Cotterill's books before and in order to do my homework, I read one of his books set in Laos and featuring pathologist and reluctant shaman, Dr Siri Paiboun. The book that I chose was Curse of the Pogo Stick; foreign setting, social observation, a sense of the absurd, dark reality, black humour, and a helping of the paranormal - just my cup of tea. Although the title does make me wince a little, I love an imagination that can provide the visions of long-suffering shaman Dr Siri Paiboun's regular bruisings at the hands of a pair of tough guy skeletons in the Other Realm. Perhaps it is because I am also a fan of comics and graphic novels that this kind of visual imagination - Colin Cotterill is also a cartoonist - appeals to me. The book also describes the darker reality of life for a minority cultural group amidst the state and politics of 1970s Laos - so not all laughs then. Cotterill's writing is a truly happy discovery for me. So thank you, Euro Crime.

The Killing Series 1 & 2 will be available as a combined box-set from 19 December on R2 DVD, just in time for Christmas, or as individual series box-sets.

You can read Lynn's Euro Crime reviews here by searching for her name.

Colin Cotterill's books with reviews are listed here on the Euro Crime website.

Favourite Discoveries 2011 (2)

2011-12-14T10:00:00.002Z

Today's instalment of favourite discoveries of 2011 comes from Norman Price who blogs and reviews at Crime Scraps as well as at Euro Crime. Norman's choice is a tv series which I have been faithfully recording but have not yet watched.

Norman Price's Favourite Discovery of 2011

Braquo is a French crime series, showing on FX the channel that introduced The Wire to British TV. It is very exciting while raising the moral question of how far should the police go to solve crimes. Should they use the violent methods of the crooks they are attempting to catch, and should their loyalties be to their fellow cops or the law?

The four person squad at the centre of the series is a disparate group lead by Eddy, a grizzled veteran living on a houseboat on the Seine. Then there is Walter, a bald gambling addict whose wife is a chronic alcoholic unable to look after their children. Theo, a young violent coke addict who has a way with women. And Roxanne, who manages to look extremely sexy while alternating between a bad hair day, and a very bad hair day.

The squad are supported by their ex-boss and his crew, and opposed by nasty Internal Affairs cops, who are trying to catch them at the various crimes they are forced to commit to solve their numerous problems. When the cops are trying their hand at murder, robbery, drug dealing, kidnapping and blackmail you know that you are probably watching something French.

Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea but I am enjoying every episode.

Braquo will be available on R2 DVD just in time for Valentine's Day (6 February) at around £30.

You can read Norman's Euro Crime reviews here.

Discover French crime writers available in English, here.

Favourite Discoveries 2011 (I)

2011-12-13T12:55:00.005Z

As is customary here at Euro Crime towers I have asked my fellow reviewers to come up with their top 5 reads of 2011 - these will be collated and announced in January. As a bonus question, I asked them what their favourite crime fiction discovery of 2011 - be it book, film or tv series - has been. Mark Bailey kicks us off with his choice, one which I have also read thanks to Europa Editions which published these 2006-2008.

Mark Bailey's Favourite Discovery of 2011

Absolutely the best thing that I have read this year is Carlo Lucarelli's De Luca trilogy (Carte Blanche (Carta Bianca), The Damned Season (L'estate Torbida) and Via delle Oche ) – small delicately shaped morsels (the longest is 160 pages and all three together are shorter than your typical doorstop novel).

In the last days and aftermath of World War II Italy, the world of Commissario de Luca, a fundamentally good man driven by a desire for justice who is (and has been) forced by circumstance to work for people with evil in the hearts is, to my mind, one of the great creations of modern crime fiction. I have the award winning TV movie adaptions on my to-be-watched list for Christmas and can’t wait.

Reviews of the first two parts of the trilogy can be found on the Euro Crime website's bibliography page.

You can read Mark's reviews for Euro Crime here by searching for his name.

A link to the DVD on amazon for more information.

Another First (Fossum)

2011-12-12T09:30:00.001Z

It's rumoured that Jo Nesbo's first Harry Hole book, The Bat Man will be out in 2012 but there's no official confirmation yet. But, Karin Fossum's first Inspector Sejer is finally getting an English translation. In the Darkness, translated by James Anderson will be published on 19 July 2012, ten years after book two, Don't Look Back, was first published in English to much acclaim. The tenth in the Sejer series (and currently the last entry) was published this year in English, but English readers can hope that the missing seventh book also gets translated in due course (and we can find out where the psychiatrist girlfriend went perhaps?).
(Euro Crime bibliography is here)

The blurb from amazon:

Eva is walking by the river one afternoon when a body floats to the surface of the icy water. She tells her daughter to wait patiently while she calls the police, but when she reaches the phone box Eva dials another number altogether.
The dead man, Egil, has been missing for months, and it doesn't take long for Inspector Sejer and his team to establish that he was the victim of very violent killer. But the trail has gone cold. It's as puzzling as another unsolved case on Sejer's desk: the murder of a prostitute who was found dead just before Egil went missing.
While Sejer is trying to piece together the fragments of a seemingly impossible case, Eva gets a phone call late one night. A stranger speaks and then swiftly hangs up. Eva looks out into the darkness and listens. All is quiet.
Gripping and thought-provoking, In the Darkness is Karin Fossum's first novel featuring the iconic Inspector Sejer.

New Reviews: Cain, Cleeves, Cregan, Eriksson, Lewis, Morris, Pearson, Roslund-Hellstrom, Zouroudi

2011-12-11T12:28:00.001Z

The final set of reviews for 2011 will be uploaded next weekend. There are 9 new reviews this week (to make up for missing last week). Look out for some forthcoming blog posts from the Euro Crime review team on their new discoveries this year.

Here are this week's new reviews:

Terry Halligan reviews the fifth (and best so far he thinks) in Tom Cain's Carver series - Carver;

Lynn Harvey reviews her first but the fourth "Vera" book in Ann Cleeves's (now televised) series - Silent Voices which is now out in paperback;

Laura Root reviews the second of Sean Cregan's Newport set series, The Razor Gate which is an example of "futurist noir writing";

I review the latest title that has been made available in English in Kjell Eriksson's Ann Lindell series, The Hand That Trembles, tr. Ebba Segerberg;

Susan White reviews the second in Jonathan Lewis's DCI Bale and dog-handler Kate Baker series, Into Dust;

Geoff Jones reviews the fourth (and last I believe) of R N Morris's Porfiry Petrovich series, The Cleansing Flames;

Lynn Harvey also reviews the fourth in another series, Murder Club by Mark Pearson which features DI Jack Delaney and is set in London;

Maxine Clarke reviews Roslund-Hellstrom's Cell 8, tr. Kari Dickson

and Amanda Gillies reviews Anne Zouroudi's The Whispers of Nemesis, the fifth in the Hermes Diaktoros series.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by George Arion, James Becker, Nancy Bilyeau, Ken Bruen, Paul Grossman, Oliver Harris, James Henry, Antonio Hill, Hjorth-Rosenfeldt, Bogdan Hrib, Camilla Lackberg, Andy McDermott, Roger/R N Morris, Leif GW Persson, Sarah Pinborough, Oana Stoica-Mujea, Roland Vernon, Jason Webster, Kate Williams and Juli Zeh have been added to these pages this week.

OT: It's Blurry Cat-urday

2011-12-10T21:30:00.001Z

Not the best pictures in the world - Foxy is just too fast for the camera (!). He's sussed how to get out but hasn't got the leverage to move the handle.

I took the second and third photos after I'd walked into the lounge to see him on his back, motionless, legs pointing out. He'd moved a bit before I got back with my camera/phone...

Metro's Crime Fiction Gift Ideas

2011-12-08T14:33:00.001Z

In yesterday's Metro there was a books two-page spread and it included some gift ideas for "crime enthusiasts". It's quite a good list - though if you are already an enthusiast you perhaps may have read several of them - and very euro-centric. I can't find it on their website so here are their choices with links to Euro Crime reviews (with the exception of the last one):

Henning Mankell - The Troubled Man (tr. Laurie Thompson)

Jo Nesbo - The Leopard (tr. Don Bartlett)

Thomas Enger - Burned (tr. Charlotte Barslund)

Jason Webster - Or the Bull Kills You

Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place (tr. Sian Reynolds)

S J Watson - Before I Go to Sleep

Tom Franklin - Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (reviewed by Maxine at Petrona)

Birmingham's Big City Read

2011-12-08T09:38:00.001Z

Birmingham's Big City Read was launched last night:

"The idea of the Big City Read is to celebrate libraries, books and reading. Through the Big City Read Birmingham Libraries would like to encourage readers to try something new, to read and share their reading experience with other readers. We would like as many people as possible in Birmingham to read the same book, post reviews and pass it on. Our Big City Read book is Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson."

The book in question won the CWA John Creasey/New Blood Dagger 2011 and is reviewed on Euro Crime by Lizzie Hayes.

Pop along to your local Birmingham library and pick up a copy. It can be reviewed via email (details on the website listed below) or on the review sheet included with the book. (NB. limited stocks of the book are available.)

More details are on the Big City Read website.

Before I Go to Sleep is released in paperback on 5 January 2012.

Stranger Beware: Title Change Alert

2011-12-07T10:00:00.001Z

It seems that the mass market paperback release of Camilla Lackberg's The Gallows Bird on 15 March 2012 will be titled The Stranger. NB This title precedes The Hidden Child in the series (listed and reviewed here). Published on the same day will be The Drowning.

A New Sam Ryan (Silent Witness) ebook

2011-12-06T20:34:00.001Z

I've been catching up with the library's collection of Bookseller magazines and I'd missed hearing about this. BOX Fiction are providing ebooks in ten instalments. The first part is free then subsequent parts, released weekly, are 69p each or you can buy the whole lot for £5.99.

This new venture kicks off with Nigel McCrery reprising his Sam Ryan creation in Titan. The first 5 parts are now available to buy and a second series is planned for 2012. Pilots have been commissioned from other authors.

Find out more at BOX Fiction.

Crime Writers contribute to Imagined Lives

2011-12-05T12:35:00.002Z

A new exhibition opens at the National Portrait Gallery this week called Imagined Lives, the accompanying book has been available for a couple of weeks. The authors involved in this imagining of lives for unknown portrait subjects include crime writers John Banville (aka Benjamin Black), Alexander McCall Smith and Minette Walters as well as non-crime writers Tracy Chevalier, Julian "Downton Abbey" Fellowes, Terry Pratchett, Sarah Singleton and Joanna Trollope.

You can read an extract from False Mary (which is the cover on the book below) written by Alexander McCall Smith on the NPG website.

Eight internationally acclaimed authors have invented imaginary biographies and character sketches based on fourteen unidentified portraits. Who are these men and women, why were they painted, and why do they now find themselves in the Collection of the National Portrait Gallery? With fictional letters, diaries, mini-biographies and memoirs, Imagined Lives creates vivid stories about these unknown sitters from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

OT: Spell it as you Say it?

2011-12-04T16:22:00.001Z

Taking the usual walk to town I spotted another offending window display:

However if you say Accessories in the local accent it does approximate to Accessroies. Super Hero's what though, I wonder?

I wonder if the sign writer is also responsible for Chloe's Consessions as the shops are only two doors apart:

8 Minute trailer for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

2011-12-02T21:46:00.002Z

An extended trailer has been released for the US remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo which is to be released in the UK on 26 December.

The Return of Harry Hole

2011-12-02T19:54:00.001Z

The Vintage podcast, for Day 1 of Advent has a short extract from Jo Nesbo's Phantom, read by the author, and which is to be published in March. It describes the return of someone who has been away for 3 years in a warmer climate and who sees how how Oslo is different and yet the same. From the publisher's blurb below I assume the man is Harry Hole...

Oslo Opera House=>

Listen here or download via iTunes.

Summer. A boy, Gusto, is lying on the floor of an Oslo apartment. He is bleeding and will soon die. He is trying to make sense of what has happened. In order to place his life and death in some kind of context he begins to tell his story. Outside, the church bells chime.
Autumn. Former Police Detective Harry Hole returns to Oslo after three years abroad. He seeks out his former boss at Police Headquarters to request permission to investigate a homicide. But the case is already closed; a young junkie, Gusto, was in all likelihood shot by a pal in a conflict over drugs. Harry is granted permission to visit the accused boy in prison. There, he meets himself and his own history. It’s the start of a solitary investigation of the most impossible case in Harry Hole’s life. And while Harry is searching, Gusto continues his story.

A man walks the dark streets of night-time Oslo. The streets are his and he has always been there. He is a phantom.

Romanian Crime Fiction

2011-12-01T18:56:00.003Z

Profusion International Creative Consultancy is introducing some Romanian crime fiction titles to an English-speaking audience:

In 2011 Profusion initiates a brand new publishing venture featuring a series of Romanian crime fiction, along with a shocking true crime story. These books are different. They are thrilling, and they also illuminate the reality of a secret Romania, once behind the Iron Curtain, now a vital European partner.

Behind the tumult of the new, lies a past of intrigue, terror and pitch black comedy. The Profusion Crime Series outlines the map and blazes a trail through this hidden history.

1. Kill the General by Bogdan Hrib, tr. Ramona Mitrica, Mike Phillips, and Mihai Risnoveanu was published last week in paperback and on Kindle (quite cheaply for 1 month):

Bogdan Hrib's KILL THE GENERAL is an explosive thriller - and not just because it talks about Chernobyl and a bloody revolution.

“Stelian Munteanu, lover, killer and Bucharest boy, is a hero who tells us more than we ever imagined about our times. Stelian, a book editor with a sideline in international police work, has to kill a man, a general whose book he’s just published. Will he pull the trigger? Kill the General is an exciting and suspenseful thriller. It is also a complex and detailed character study of an individual - a roller coaster ride through the transitions which have taken place over the last decades in Romanian history.” (Mike Phillips)

“It’s early. The city is sleeping. I cannot pull the trigger. The time is flying. If I don’t make a decision now... I have no guarantee that the general will still be here the following night. I should get this job done and get the hell out of here!”

2. Attack in the Library by George Arion, tr. Ramona Mitrica, Mike Phillips, and Mihai Risnoveanu was published on 15 November and is also currently available at a reduced price on Kindle.

“GEORGE ARION's Attack in the Library is one of the classic narratives of Romanian popular fiction. Written during the dictatorship of the 1980s, it weaves a gripping narrative out of the bars, the housing estates and restaurants of Bucharest. Arion's characters queue for food, cope with power blackouts, sweat in the heat and struggle with the privileges and influence of the elites.“ (Mike Phillips)

“Andrei Mladin, living Romanian journalist! Still living, I should say.”

“Exactly in the chapter indicated by the voice, there were fifty 100-lei banknotes. I felt the embrace of sheer panic. Right then the telephone rang again: ‘Mladin! Have you found the money?’ All I heard after that was the sound of the phone hanging up.”

3. Anatomical Clues by Oana Stoica-Mujea, tr. Ramona Mitrica, Mike Phillips, and Mihai Risnoveanu will be published on 20 December.

“Iolanda Stireanu is a brilliant criminal investigator. She is also crippled by mental instability and the fact that she can’t leave her flat.

Anatomical Clues is a gripping, grotesque exploration of damaged psychologies - a tale, which, like Iolanda, will creep into your head and stay there.” (Mike Phillips)

“The eyes had been plucked and laid carefully on the living room table, in between two withered roses. Everything was in perfect order, and it was just these eyes which didn’t fit with the rest of the picture. On the other hand, they were not strikingly out of place. There was, however, no sign of the body to which they must have belonged.”

Ellis Peters Historical Award - Winner

2011-11-30T20:41:00.002Z

Thanks again to to Crime Scraps, I hear that the Ellis Peters Historical Award has been won by Andrew Martin for The Somme Stations. Also shortlisted were (with links to reviews on Euro Crime):

Rory Clements Prince (John Murray)
Sam Eastland The Red Coffin (Faber & Faber)
Gordon Ferris The Hanging Shed (Corvus)
RN Morris The Cleansing Flames (Faber & Faber)
Imogen Robertson Island of Bones (Headline)

The judging panel said of The Somme Stations: “Martin’s novels featuring railway detective Jim Stringer reveal their treasures in subtle fashion with a winning synthesis of period atmosphere, intriguing plotting and a passion for steam railways.”

Read more about each book on the CWA website.

From next year this award will again be a CWA Dagger award:

"The CWA has also announced some changes to the award, effective from 2012. The Ellis Peters award will once again become a CWA Dagger and submission dates will gradually move to correspond with the other CWA awards. Already entries are being accepted from UK publishers via the specialised Daggers website for publishers.

The changes are in line with the CWA’s commitment to increase the profile of their non-TV Dagger awards. It’s planned that the Ellis Peters and the other Dagger awards will be presented as part of a new awards ceremony in summer 2012. The new rules are being finalised and will be published shortly on the Daggers website.

OT: New York in the Snow (Cover Theme)

2011-11-30T20:32:00.004Z

I saw a big advert for Carmen Reid's new book at the Tube station last week and I thought the cover looked awfully similar (from memory) to an older book by Tricia Ashley. What do you think?

NB. It appears that there is a slight crime aspect to The Jewels of Manhattan.

Maj Sjowall wins the Big Caliber Prize of Honour

2011-11-29T14:54:00.000Z

I've received the news via an email that Maj Sjowall has won the Big Caliber Prize of Honour at the International Festival of Crime Fiction, in Wroclaw (Poland).

The previous winners of this award are: Joanna Chmielewska, Boris Akunin, Aleksandra Marinina, Jeffery Deaver, Leonid Jozefowicz, Tatiana Poles, Marek Krajewski and Jo Nesbo.

Maj Sjowall together with Per Wahloo wrote the classic Martin Beck series which is reviewed here.

From Norway to Norfolk: Staalesen & Bartlett

2011-11-28T10:14:00.001Z

On the 18th, Petrona and I trundled off to the British Library for the Crime Across the Continent study day. The last session of the day, included:

Gunnar Staalesen and Don Bartlett (courtesy of the Royal Norwegian Embassy), From Norway to Norfolk; author and translator in conversation.

Here're my notes from the session. They are a bit illegible at times so I apologise for any errors in transcription.

GS writes PI novels in the classic style. When he was 11/12 he read his first grown-up book, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sjowall and Wahloo were a watershed between the old and new crime writing. Reading US authors made it possible for a young, left-wing, Norwegian writer to write detective stories. Two great plotters were Agatha Christie and Ross MacDonald. Ibsen was a good Norwegian writer.

[GS's lead character is called Varg Veum] Varg = wolf, Veum = Sanctuary/holy place, outlaw in norse. Veum is an ordinary family name, Varg not so much in use!

He wrote two police-procedurals (like Sjowall and Wahloo) before starting the Varg Veum series (which are hugely successful in Norway; his birthday is celebrated and there is a statue in Bergen where they are set). He's currently writing no. 16.

He didn't choose a social worker profession for VV so he could write social criticism but rather he wanted a character who would want to get to the bottom of something and would protect the "losers", the "weak".

Modern Scandinavian crime writers are on the left side of politics.

He doesn't feel there is a Norwegian crime style but there is a Scandinavian. However nature is more apparent in Norwegian crime novels as the cities are very small eg Bergen is surrounded by mountains. Norway is the most egalitarian county in Scandinavia as there is no nobility; oil has changed society.

He knows exactly when VV's birthday is - 15/10/42 - which is celebrated every year in Bergen. The current book is set in Spring 2002. He wants to get to 20 books in the series. Takes a year to write but three to six years for the ideas to become useable. He mostly knows the end of the book before beginning it.

DB says that GS's books are a translator's heaven: short, linear, a wonderful central character and full of humour.

The point was raised about the fact that DB is the third translator to work on GS's books and how did he tackle that? He looked at the earlier books for technical things like names and ranks to keep a consistency over the series.

DB was asked how he coped with dialect used by the minor characters. The high risk approach of translating dialect is using a recognisable English or American dialect eg Brooklyn in the Camilleri books. DB favours the low risk approach by just thinking how they might speak in English.

DB visited Bergen before translating The Consorts of Death and walked around street by street so he knew exactly where certain events took place.

DB limits himself to 4 translations a year. This year he did 2 Jo Nesbos and will be doing another 2 in 2012.

GS said he had no influence on the Varg Veum tv series. Big changes were made to his stories eg in one episode all that was left of the original was half of the title, however it was good pay for half a title!

Cold Hearts, number 15 in the series is to be published next February by Arcadia and follows on from The Consorts of Death, both translated by Don Bartlett. I'm really looking forward to it.

Reviews and Gunnar Staalesen's bibliography (of titles in English) can be found on the Euro Crime website.

New Reviews: Black, Campbell, Krajewski, Neville, Sjowall & Wahloo, Thomas

2011-11-27T16:46:00.003Z

Here are this week's new reviews:

Mark Bailey reviews Truth Lies Bleeding the first in a new series by Scottish author, Tony Black;

Staying in Scotland, Amanda Gillies reviews Karen Campbell's Shadowplay and summarises her many words of praises in the phrase: "it rocks!";

Marek Krajewski's Mock series is a bit like Marmite, several of the Euro Crime review team have enjoyed it a lot, but Michelle Peckham had the opposite response when she read the latest, Phantoms of Breslau, tr. Danusia Stok, now out in paperback with a new look (though the older cover style may give the potential reader a better idea of the content! eg The End of the World in Breslau);

Lynn Harvey reviews Stuart Neville's Collusion now out in paperback and is the sequel to 'The Twelve';

Maxine Clarke reviews the tenth and final entry in the Martin Beck series by Sjowall and Wahloo The Terrorists, tr. Joan Tate which is as fresh as it was 36 years ago

and Terry Halligan reviews David Thomas's (aka Tom Cain) Blood Relative.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Benjamin Black, Susanna Jones, M J McGrath, Hakan Nesser and Felix Palma have been added to these pages this week.

Marilyn & Watching the Detectives

2011-11-25T20:25:00.003Z

What connects, Brother Cadfael, Foyle ('s War), (my dear) Inspector Japp and Wallander?

I've mentioned before that the UK has an apparently tiny pool of actors and you will spot four familiar faces who have played detectives on the tv, in My Week With Marilyn.

My Week With Marilyn covers the time when Marilyn was filming The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier at Pinewood studios and is based on the diary/memoir of Colin Clark, a young man who became friendly with Marilyn for a short while.

Of the four "detectives", Kenneth Branagh (Wallander) has the largest role as Laurence Olivier, Philip Jackson (Japp) is playing an ex-policeman, Michael Kitchen (Foyle) is something to do with showbiz and Derek Jacobi (Cadfael) works at Windsor Castle.

Lots of other familiar British actors abound including: Judi Dench, Dominic Cooper, Dougray Scott (unrecognisable as Arthur Miller) and Emma Watson.

I enjoyed the film and it makes me want to watch The Prince and the Showgirl which I've never seen and read the original books that this film was based on.

A Death in Summer - Cover Opinions

2011-11-25T08:55:00.001Z

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is the US and UK covers for Benjamin Black's A Death in Summer, the fourth in his Quirke series, which is set in 1950s Dublin.

The US editions are on the left, the hardback edition is out now, and the trade paperback (below) will be out in March; the UK edition (on the right) is also already available.

So what are your thoughts on the US (LHS, below), and UK (RHS) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with the books of Benjamin Black?

If you have read it, how well do the covers match the story?

NB. Elergy for April was given the same cover opinions treatment last year.

Blurb: When newspaper magnate Richard Jewell is found dead at his country estate, clutching a shotgun in his lifeless hands, few see his demise as cause for sorrow. But before long Doctor Quirke and Inspector Hackett realise that, rather than the suspected suicide, ‘Diamond Dick’ has in fact been murdered.

Jewell had made many enemies over the years and suspicion soon falls on one of his biggest rivals. But as Quirke and his assistant Sinclair get to know Jewell's beautiful, enigmatic wife Françoise d’Aubigny, and his fragile sister Dannie, as well as those who work for the family, it gradually becomes clear that all is not as it seems.

As Quirke’s investigations return him to the notorious orphanage of St Christopher’s, where he once resided, events begin to take a much darker turn. Quirke finds himself reunited with an old enemy and Sinclair receives sinister threats. But what have the shadowy benefactors of St Christopher’s to do with it all?

Against the backdrop of 1950s Dublin, Benjamin Black conjures another atmospheric, beguiling mystery.

DVDs for your Wish-List

2011-11-24T18:56:00.002Z

Despite being top of the charts for a while due to its success in Ireland, The Guard was only on for a week in my area and I was unable to get to a showing. However the DVD is released on 16 January 2012.

Blurb: The Guard is a critically acclaimed Irish black-comedy, where Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson, In Bruges) a small-town cop with a rather unorthodox approach to his police work must join forces with straitlaced FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle, Ocean's Eleven trilogy) to take on an international cocaine-smuggling ring.

Fed up with watching the same two Inspector Montalbano episodes on BBC4? Then here's some good news. 5 March 2012 sees the release of the first collection (R2) containing:

"The Snack Thief, The Voice of The Violin, The Shape of Water, The Mystery of The Terracota Dog. In Italian with English Subtitles"

TV News: Nemesis

2011-11-24T09:38:00.001Z

The BBC have announced a new 8-part spy drama, Nemesis, starring Melissa George as a "complex and mysterious Bourne style female spy unlike anyone we've seen on TV before" (by the by, a role she sort of played in Alias):

Nemesis is an original eight-part suspense thriller set in the world of international espionage.
At the heart of the drama is Sam played by Melissa George (The Slap, In Treatment), a highly skilled operative for an elite private intelligence firm who survives an attempt on her life that may have been orchestrated by members of her own team. Once she returns to the firm, she performs her secretive duties without knowing who to trust and who wants her dead.
Adam Rayner (Hawthorne, Mistresses) plays Sam’s colleague at the firm and love interest. The dedicated and complex members of the firm operate in the shadows, must often confront life and death situations on secret missions and are sometimes unaware of who or what they are fighting for.
Filming has started and will take place on location in Scotland, London and Morocco.

Read the whole press release here.

Finnish Sweets (Candy)

2011-11-22T20:34:00.001Z

Because of my love of Root Beer, I'm on the Cybercandy email list. They supply sweets and drinks from all over the world and in the current newsletter there is an advert for Finnish sweets:

"It's not just about Salmiakki and salty liquorice! Finnish Candy is not to everyone's tastes but when we're low on stock a lot of you never Finnish letting us hear about it."

Browse and order from Cybercandy online or visit one of their shops in London, Birmingham or Brighton.

If Finnish crime fiction is more your thing, then check out the authors listed on the Euro Crime website.

Branches - Cover Theme

2011-11-21T16:10:00.001Z

The cover on the left is a recent US crime novel which is currently in the Goodreads best mystery/thriller nominees section for 2011. The cover on the right is the US edition of a young adult book I loved in 2009 (my review).

New Reviews: Dobbs, Goddard, Johnston, Keenan, Monroe, Penney

2011-11-20T19:40:00.001Z

Here are this week's new reviews:

Geoff Jones reviews Michael Dobbs' Old Enemies, the fourth in the Harry Jones series, and which is now out in paperback;

Laura Root reviews Robert Goddard's twenty-second book, Blood Count which is also now now out in paperback;

Amanda Gillies reviews Paul Johnston's Maps of Hell which is the third in his Matt Wells series;

Susan White reviews Shy Keenan's debut fiction novel, The Stolen Ones which made for uncomfortable reading;

Terry Halligan reviews Aly Monroe's third Peter Cotton novel, Icelight which has just been listed in the Daily Telegraph's "Top 5 thrillers of 2011"

and Maxine Clarke reviews The Invisible Ones, the long awaited second book from Stef Penney and which Maxine thinks may even be better than the massively successful The Tenderness of Wolves.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Michael Dobbs, Zoran Drvenkar, Robert Goddard, Penny Hancock, Giorgio Scerbanenco, Veronica Stallwood and Elizabeth Wilson have been added to these pages this week.

Feathered Dinosaurs

2011-11-19T10:00:00.005Z

I spotted this article in the Evening Standard on my way home after my day out at the British Library's Crime Across the Continent event:

A fossilised dino-bird that confirmed Darwin's theory of evolution is to be the centrepiece of a new £2m gallery at the Natural History Museum, it was confirmed today.

Archaeopteryx lithographica, a 147 million-year-old fossil with both bird and reptile features, will go on display at The Treasures Gallery.

Usually I would have read the article and passed on without much of a second thought but having just read The Dinosaur Feather by Sissel-Jo Gazan it struck a chord. If you read Maxine's review you'll see why.

The Dinosaur Feather, ably translated (as usual!) by Charlotte Barslund, is an unusual book but one that despite its scientific background is not too heavy and I read it quite quickly. Gazan is one of a relatively small but increasing number of Danish crime authors available in English translation.

You can read more about Dino-Birds at the Natural History Museum website.

Publishing Deal - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

2011-11-17T14:19:00.002Z

From today's Bookseller:

Weidenfeld & Nicolson has acquired a new novel by bestselling Shadow of the Wind author Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

W&N fiction publishing director Kirsty Duneath bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Australia, New Zealand and Canada.... to The Prisoner of Heaven, the third in the cycle of novels that began with The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game.

W&N will release as a hardback in the UK on 21st June 2012.

The book returns to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the Sempere & Sons bookshop, beginning one year after the close of The Shadow of the Wind when a mysterious stranger enters Sempere & Sons, looking for a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.

The Last Kashmiri Rose - Cover Opinions

2011-11-16T19:07:00.001Z

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is the US and UK covers for Barbara Cleverly's The Last Kashmiri Rose which was reissued in US paperback in August by Soho Press (bottom left cover). The Last Kashmiri Rose was first published in 2001 and the series currently numbers nine with 2011's The Blood Royal.

So what are your thoughts on the US (LHS), and UK (RHS below) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with the books of Barbara Cleverly?

If you have read it, how well do the covers match the story?

I read this book in October 2004. I didn't write a formal review but summarised it on one of my monthly read posts:

[] for F2F reading group book where the theme is Eastern Crime (I've just started The Winter Queen by Akunin, also for this theme). Golden Age style mystery in a Golden Age setting at least for the British in India. It's 1922 and officers' wives have been dying - one a year in March. Sandilands is sent from Calcutta to confirm that the deaths were murder and to find the perpetrator. First half is excellent where we get the backstory on all the deaths. It loses its way in a romance/affair sub plot in the middle and then picks up for a dramatic showdown with the killer. Will read more! ps The UK covers are exquisite.

I never did finish The Winter Queen and have yet to read more Sandilands books but I recommend it nonetheless.

US---------------------------------------------------------------UK

Blurb: In a land of saffron sunsets and blazing summer heat, an Englishwoman has been found dead, her wrists slit, her body floating in a bathtub of blood and water. But is it suicide or murder? The case falls to Scotland Yard inspector Joe Sandilands, who survived the horror of the Western Front and has endured six sultry months in English-ruled Calcutta. Sandilands is ordered to investigate, and soon discovers that there have been other mysterious deaths, hearkening sinister ties to the present case.

Now, as the sovereignty of Britain is in decline and an insurgent India is on the rise, Sandilands must navigate the treacherous corridors of political decorum to bring a cunning killer to justice, knowing the next victim is already marked to die.

Read an excerpt here.

Translation News

2011-11-15T21:00:00.002Z

I've been told that the follow-up to Jussi Adler-Olsen's Mercy - Disgrace - is being pushed back to June (from March). Proofs should be around in a couple of months. No news on the translator yet. If this happens Disgrace will be eligible for the 2013 International Dagger not the 2012.

The sequel to Lars Kepler's The Hypnotist, The Nightmare (out May 2012), is being translated by Laura A Wideburg. She has previously translated the three Inger Frimansson books available in English and reviewer Maxine, at the time, praised her translations. Laura Wideburg's website also states that she is working on a Helene Tursten novel (presumably 2012's Night Rounds?)

More Poirot & Marple on ITV1

2011-11-14T14:50:00.002Z

Separate announcements today have revealed that 5 more Poirots and 3 more Marples are on their way.

From The Telegraph:

Five new films, based on a mixture of novels and short stories, will go into production next year.

Suchet said: ''I'm more than delighted to be reprising my role as Poirot. It's been my life's ambition to bring this amazing canon of works to completion on ITV.
The new films include Curtain, which is Poirot's last case and sees the detective, immobilised with arthritis, call on his old friend Captain Hastings to help him as they return to the scene of their first ever case to try to prevent another murder.

And in an ITV press release:

ITV is delighted to announce that acclaimed stage and television actress Julia McKenzie will return to her role as Miss Marple.

Three Marple films including Caribbean Mystery have been commissioned from ITV Studios and Agatha Christie Ltd.

A Caribbean Mystery will be the first film to be shot during the summer of 2012 with two further films Endless Night and The Seven Dials Mystery produced during the autumn of 2012.

New Reviews: Bauer, Fowler, Gomez-Jurado, Hannah, Leather, Russell, Walker, Walters

2011-11-13T15:00:00.001Z

Here are this week's new reviews:

Michelle Peckham reviews Belinda Bauer's sequel to the award-winning Blacklands, Darkside which is now out in paperback;

Rich Westwood reviews Christopher Fowler's Bryant & May off the Rails and catches up with London's oldest serving detectives...;

I review Juan Gomez-Jurado's The Traitor's Emblem, tr. Daniel Hahn which is more history than mystery;

Susan White reviews Sophie Hannah's Little Face and also reviews the "Flipback" format it came in;

Terry Halligan reviews Stephen Leather's sequel to Nightfall, Midnight which continues the story of Jack Nightingale with his sold-off soul;

Amanda Gillies adds Craig Russell's character "Lennox" to her list of favourites, here in in his second outing: The Long Glasgow Kiss;

Lynn Harvey reviews the fourth in Martin Walker's Bruno, Chief of Police series set in France: The Crowded Grave

and Maxine Clarke reviews Trust No One by Alex Walters (already known to Euro Crime readers as Michael Walters) which is set in Manchester (rather than Mongolia).

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by M K Bates, Laurent Binet, Patrick Easter, Karin Fossum, Christopher Fowler, Tom Grieves, Ewart Hutton, Arnaldur Indridason and Craig Russell have been added to these pages this week.

International Dagger Speculation (2012) & Pie Charts

2011-11-12T11:39:00.002Z

Sorry these charts are a bit small. I've managed to create them using OpenOffice Calc and MS Paint.

I'm a bit obsessed with the International Dagger eligibles as books have begun arriving and that's what I'll be reading for the next 5 months. I've broken down my unofficial eligibles list into: by country and by gender (there is one male & female team). As you can see from the raw data table at the bottom the odds are slightly in favour of a male Swedish winner as has been the case for the previous two years, followed by an Italian male or Swedish female, but who can predict at this early stage?

Raw Data

NB. This is a snapshot of the eligibles list as of today which will no doubt change and doesn't take into account the instances where an author has more than one book eligible of which only one can be submitted eg Nesbo, Lackberg, Larsson, Eriksson, Kallentoft and Vichi.

OT: At least the apostrophe's there

2011-11-11T18:36:00.001Z

Following on from last year's Miss Spell incident, today I spotted this new sign in the window of a "beauty" shop:

Publishing News: Paul Johnston & Jim Kelly

2011-11-10T15:21:00.003Z

Severn House's new imprint Creme de la Crime is picking up a lot of well-known British authors. Coming soon are the fourth books in series by Paul Johnston and Jim Kelly.

It's been a seven year wait for The Silver Stain the fourth in Paul Johnston's Greece-set Alex Mavros series. In the intervening years, MIRA reissued the paperbacks of the first three, retitling the first, A Deeper Shade of Blue as Crying Blue Murder. The Silver Stain will be published on 29 December (UK) and 1 April 2012 (US).

Hired by a Hollywood film company to trace a missing employee in Crete, private investigator Alex Mavros is plunged into a vortex of hatred. The company is shooting a movie about the invasion of Crete by the Germans in 1941 - and their activities are stirring up old resentments among the islanders. The bitterness of the past bursts into the present when one of the film's consultants is found dead, hanged by the neck. Suicide - or murder Mavros investigates and is drawn into an ever-widening conspiracy.

No such long wait for fans of Jim Kelly's Shaw and Valentine series as it'll only have been a year since the last title, Death Toll. Death's Door, the fourth in the North Norfolk-set Shaw and Valentine series will be published on 26 January 2012 (UK) and 1 May 2012 (US)

On a hot August day in 1994, 76 holidaymakers travel to an island off the North Norfolk coast. Only 75 return alive - a young man is murdered, the case left unsolved. Twenty years later, using state-of-the-art forensics, the DNA results of a bloodsoaked towel prompts DI Peter Shaw to summon all 75 original suspects to a mass screening. but one of them, the beautiful Marianne Osbourne, is found dead in her bed. Is there a link to the 1994 murder DI Shaw and DS Valentine become immersed in the dark secrets of an isolated community.

These books should be easily available in your public library system. If you prefer to buy then there's usually a cheaper trade format edition a few months after the hardback release.

Retranslations, I'm picking up good vibrations..

2011-11-09T10:00:00.004Z

There are several books being published with a new translation in the "Dagger year" ie June 2011 to May 2012 which are not eligible for consideration as they have already been published in English. So as not to lose them as it were, I'll be linking this post to the 2012 International Dagger eligibles list.

First up is Liza Marklund's The Bomber which, complete with "from the bestselling co-author of Postcard Killers" sticker will be published on 24 November by Corgi in a fresh translation by Neil Smith.

All she wants for Christmas...is to survive.

Seven days. Three killings. And one woman who knows too much...

Crime reporter Annika Bengtzon is woken by a phonecall in the early hours of a wintry December morning. An explosion has ripped apart the Olympic Stadium. And a victim has been blown to pieces.

As Annika delves into the details of the bombing and the background of the victim, there is a second explosion. These chilling crimes could be her biggest news story yet. When her police source reveals they are hot on the heels of the bomber, Annika is guaranteed an exclusive with her name on it.

But she is uncovering too much, and soon finds herself the target of a deranged serial killer...

I've already listened to this one in the original 2002 translation by Kajsa Von Hofsten (which sounded like an American translation) and enjoyed it very much: my review.

Next up, are Per Wahlöö's two books featuring Chief Inspector Jensen: Murder on the Thirty-first Floor and The Steel Spring which were published with a translation by Joan Tate in the 1960s. Sarah Death's new translations will be published by Vintage on 15 December.

In an unnamed country, in an unnamed year sometime in the future, Chief Inspector Jensen of the Sixteenth Division is called in after the publishers controlling the entire country's newspapers and magazines receive a threat to blow up their building, in retaliation for a murder they are accused of committing. The building is evacuated, but the bomb fails to explode and Jensen is given seven days in which to track down the letter writer. Jensen has never had a case he could not solve before, but as his investigation into the identity of the letter writer begins it soon becomes clear that the directors of the publishers have their own secrets, not least the identity of the 'Special Department' on the thirty first floor; the only department not permitted to be evacuated after the bomb threat.

Chief Inspector Jensen is a policeman in an unnamed European country where the government has criminalised being drunk, even in private at home, and where the city centres have been demolished to devote more space to gleaming new roads. Recovering in a hospital room abroad after a liver transplant, Jensen receives a note instructing him to return home immediately, but when he reaches the airport he discovers that all flights home have been cancelled and all communication from within his homeland has ceased. One of the last messages sent requested urgent medical help from abroad and when Jensen is piloted across the border it soon becomes clear that an epidemic has ravaged the country.

Look out for the Wahlöös in a W H Smith's Scandi promotion after Christmas.

Finally, in February, Liza Marklund's Vanished from Corgi, which is Neil Smith translation of the book published in 2004 as Paradise.

Return of The Killing

2011-11-07T16:18:00.003Z

The second series of The Killing will start on 26 19 November at 9pm on the wonderful BBC4. It looks like we're getting two hour chunks again as episodes 3 & 4 are on the following week.

It's been two years since former detective Sarah Lund was divested of her investigative role and transferred to a low-key job in the country, but when the body of a female lawyer is found murdered in macabre and puzzling circumstances, Lund's former boss at Copenhagen police HQ finds that he has no choice but to call her back in to assist with the investigation.
Initially reluctant, Lund soon becomes engrossed with the case. As police grapple with what few clues they possess, newly appointed Minister for Justice Thomas Buch strives to oversee some intricate political negotiations between parliamentary parties over the introduction of a series of new anti-terrorism laws. At the same time, soldier Jens Peter Raben awaits release from the psychiatric ward he was committed to following a nervous breakdown.
Over the course of 10 gripping episodes, the worlds of crime, politics and the military become increasingly intertwined. With more dead being added to the list of murder victims as the series progresses, Lund's mission becomes a race against time to find the culprit and prevent further killings...

Here's a wordless trailer:

New Reviews: Anderson, Glynn, Hill, James, Nesser, Perry, Pryce

2011-11-06T19:55:00.001Z

Here are this week's new reviews:

Lynn Harvey reviews the seventh (or eighth if you count the novella) in the Rhona MacLeod forensic scientist series from Lin Anderson: The Reborn and gives it a very strong thumbs-up;

Terry Halligan reviews Alan Glynn's Bloodland which he enjoyed very much;

Sarah Hilary reviews Susan Hill's latest Simon Serrailler, The Betrayal of Trust which deals with both a cold murder case and the issue of assisted dying;

[Professor] Michelle Peckham thinks that Peter James's standalone Perfect People is an interesting read though it is more science fiction than crime fiction;

Maxine Clarke reviews the latest in the 'Van Veeteren' series by Hakan Nesser, The Unlucky Lottery, tr. Laurie Thompson though it's his sidekick Munster who leads the investigation this time;

Rich Westwood reviews the twenty-seventh in the Pitt series by Anne Perry: Dorchester Terrace and suggests readers new to Perry, might want to start a bit earlier in the series

and Susan White reviews Malcolm Pryce's latest Aberystwyth Noir - The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by M C Beaton, Helen Black, Xavier-Marie Bonnot, Stephen Booth, William Brodrick, Sam Christer, James Craig, Adam Creed, Judith Cutler, Hannah Dennison, Paul Doherty, Carola Dunn, Giorgio Faletti, Caryl Ferey, Alex Gray, M R Hall, Patricia Hall, John Harvey, Paul Johnston, Jim Kelly, Graeme/G W Kent, Marek Krajewski, Roberta Kray, T S Learner, Donna Leon, Peter Leonard, David Mark, Edward Marston, Andrew Martin, Alex Marwood, Peter May, Kathleen McCaul, Matt McGuire, Danny Miller, Ian Morson, R T Raichev, Roz Southey, Gunnar Staalesen, Lyndon Stacey, Cath Staincliffe, D J Taylor, M J Trow, Nicola Upson, Laura Wilson, Jacqueline Winspear, Simon Wood and Tom Wood have been added to these pages this week.

The Redeemed - Cover Opinions

2011-11-05T20:24:00.001Z

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is the US, Canadian and UK covers for M R Hall's The Redeemed which is about to come out in UK paperback with a new look for the series. The fourth book in the series, The Flight, (Feb 2012) has a similar feel to below.

So what are your thoughts on the US (LHS), Canadian (RHS), UK (HB & pb below) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with the books of M R Hall?

If you have read it, how well do the covers match the story?

Read the Euro Crime review by Maxine of The Redeemed.

More Tudor Crime - M J Trow

2011-11-03T19:28:00.003Z

I've mentioned the increasing number of books set in Tudor times. M J Trow, author of 2001's Who Killed Kit Marlowe? A Contract to Murder in Elizabethan England and the crime series featuring Lestrade and Maxwell (the latter being very popular in my library) has begun a new series featuring one Christopher "Kit" Marlowe under Severn House's Creme de la Crime imprint. The first book, Dark Entry came out in May and the second, Silent Court, will be out in December.

Cambridge, 1583. About to graduate from Corpus Christi, the young Christopher Marlowe spends his days studying and his nights carousing with old friends. But when one of them is discovered lying dead in his King's College room, mouth open in a silent scream, Marlowe refuses to accept the official verdict of suicide. Calling on the help of his mentor, Sir Roger Manwood, Justice of the Peace, and the queen's magus, Dr John Dee, a poison expert, Marlowe sets out to prove that his friend was murdered . . .

Dr John Dee also appears in Phil Rickman's new series which began with The Bones of Avalon.

Severn House's books are stocked in libraries (and the slightly cheaper trade paperback and Kindle versions appear to be available a few months after the hardback release).

Without You - Coming Soon to ITV1

2011-11-03T08:42:00.004Z

According to my tv guide, ITV1 will be showing Without You next month. Without You is a two-part drama based on Nicci French's What to Do When Someone Dies and stars Anna Friel and Marc Warren. Here's the tv programme blurb:

School teacher Ellie Manning and her husband Greg are trying for a baby. One evening Greg doesn't return home from work and when the police knock on the door, Ellie is horrified to learn he has been killed in a terrible car accident. The police tell Ellie that Greg wasn't alone, a woman sitting in the passenger seat was also killed. A tormented Ellie begins to question: who is the mystery woman and was Greg having a secret affair?
Drowning in grief yet unable to accept Greg's infidelity, Ellie sets out to prove it to her sceptical friends and family. She borrows her best friend's identity to infiltrate the mystery woman's workplace and leaves no rock unturned to find out the truth, even if it puts her own life at risk.

Publishing Deal - Alexander Söderberg

2011-11-01T10:06:00.002Z

I hung back from posting about this for a while as it wasn't immediately clear if this was a crime trilogy (though would all the fuss be about something you couldn't tag with the phrase "new Stieg Larsson/Jo Nesbo"?) however more news has come out clarifying the matter. Plus it's just been announced that the UK rights have been bought by Harvill Secker:

From Booktrade

Liz Foley at Harvill Secker has acquired UK and Commonwealth (excluding Canada) rights to Swedish trilogy THE ANDALUCIAN FRIEND by Alexander Söderberg, in a deal with agent Leyla Belle Drake from the Sweden-based Salmonsson Agency. The deal is part of a group Random House world English-language deal which will see Crown publish in the USA and Random House of Canada in Canada in spring 2013. The novel was hailed as the book of the Frankfurt book fair with rights already sold in hotly contested auctions in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Norway and Denmark.
THE ANDALUCIAN FRIEND is the first book in a trilogy following Sophie, an ordinary Swedish woman, a nurse and single mother, who gets dragged into an incendiary conflict between two powerful crime syndicates and a group of corrupt police officers.

and from Publishers Weekly:

The series, which is set in Sweden, follows a nurse and single mother who is thrust in the middle of a showdown between two powerful criminals, as well as a group of corrupt cops. Not surprisingly, Crown is pitching Soderberg as the next big Scandinavian literary star.

The Silence - Trailer

2011-10-31T12:53:00.001Z

I was recently invited to an early showing of The Silence, based on Jan Costin Wagner's novel Silence. Unfortunately I couldn't attend but it is now on at a couple of cinemas in London: the Odeon in Panton Street and the Greenwich Picture House. I'm not sure if it's on anywhere else at the moment.

Silence is the second book in the Kimmo Joentaa series but for the film the setting has been moved from Finland to Germany.

It's quite a gruelling read, which you can see from the trailer:

New Reviews: Birkegaard, Briscoe, Child, Dugdall, Fleming, McCrery

2011-10-30T11:53:00.001Z

Closing soon: October's Competition: Win a copy of Strangled in Paris by Claude Izner (UK only)

Here are this week's new reviews:

With the first of two books this week which may not be for the squeamish is Rich Westwood with his review of Mikkel Birkegaard's Death Sentence, tr. Charlotte Barslund;

Susan White reviews The Accused by Constance Briscoe her crime debut, already well-known as the author of the autobiographical Ugly;

Lynn Harvey reviews Lee Child's The Affair which takes Jack Reacher back to the beginning of his loner career;

Maxine Clarke reviews the CWA Award Winner, Ruth Dugdall's The Sacrificial Man;

Terry Halligan reviews James Fleming's conclusion to his Charlie Doig trilogy, Rising Blood

and Amanda Gillies reviews the second of the two books not for the faint-hearted: Nigel McCrery's Scream the third in the DCI Lapslie series set in Essex which is available in paperback.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by David Belbin, Alex Connor, Ruth Dugdall, Paulus Hochgatterer, Bill Kitson, Alexander McCall Smith, Alexander Soderberg, Dag Solstad, Ferdinand von Schirach and Tom Winship have been added to these pages this week.

Event News: Crime Scene: Europe (NYC)

2011-10-28T11:58:00.002+01:00

If you can't make the upcoming Crime Across the Continent event in London then perhaps you can get to New York's Crime Scene: Europe, an enticing collection of literary and film presentations between 15 and 20 November. I've been sent a shortened version of the press release:

Europe is in the midst of a crime wave—a surge of creative and innovative detective fiction that pays its respects to the traditions of noir while incorporating the psychological novel, the political thriller, and the border-crossings that reflect the increasingly globalized culture of the EU. The eighth annual New Literature from Europe Festival organized by eight European Cultural Institutes in New York, will present a series of readings and discussions in Manhattan and Brooklyn from November 15-17, 2011, with writers Caryl Férey (France), Zygmunt Miłoszewski (Poland), Ana Maria Sandu (Romania), Stefan Slupetzky (Austria), José Carlos Somoza (Spain), and Jan Costin Wagner (Germany), joined by U.S. guest author Dan Fesperman.

A special film series complements this year’s spoken word programs, featuring both adaptations of crime novels and new approaches to the genre that play with the conventions of film noir. Presented in collaboration with the Museum of the Moving Image from November 18-20, 2011, the series ranges from Czech and Austrian films of the ‘40s and the early ‘50s rarely seen in the U.S., to contemporary productions from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Romania, including the critically acclaimed works Aurora by Cristi Puiu and The Double Hour by Giuseppe Capotondi. Authors Zygmunt Miloszewski and Jan Costin Wagner will be present to discuss film versions of their novels featured in the Festival.

All literary events are free and open to the public. For tickets for the film screenings, visit www.movingimage.us.

You can read a longer version of the press release with authors bios here.

You can follow New Literature from Europe on Facebook.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo & Empire & Clothing

2011-10-26T20:04:00.002+01:00

I've very recently read Mark Kermode's The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex in which he devotes a whole chapter (and there're only 6 so it's a good portion of the book) to the plight of films not in the English language and those usually dreadful, misguided English-language remakes. He also asks, when was the last time you saw a "foreign language" film gracing the front cover of a film magazine like Empire. In the book he can't think of an example however he may have discovered once since, I don't know. He also complained how his announcing the BAFTA (for Film Not In The English Language) for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was cut from the BBC's programme as though it was of little interest.

Compare these points with the current cover of Empire and its coverage of "the film event of the year".

Plus I don't know what Dr K will think of Julian Sands' involvement.

Thanks to Petrona for the Empire cover suggestion.

And...just in from the Guardian... H&M have a new clothing range inspired by Lisbeth Salander:

Separated at Birth?

2011-10-25T19:53:00.002+01:00

One of these is a British pop star and the other a well-known Swedish actor:

Event News: Crime across the Continent

2011-10-24T12:47:00.001+01:00

On Friday 18 November there is a fabulously enticing day of lectures for anyone interested in translated crime fiction, at the British Library. One of Euro Crime's favourite translators will be speaking. Here's the programme:

This study day, organised by the European Studies department of the British Library, explores contemporary crime fiction from across Continental Europe.
The speakers will include academics, publishers, writers and translators. Among the topics covered will be crime fiction as a vehicle for social and political analysis, both contemporary and historical, and the part crime fiction has to play in the transmission of European cultures. The day is principally as a seminar for researchers but the contributions will appeal to an audience of specialists and non-specialists.
Programme
09:30-10:00 Registration
10:00-11:15 Beyond the whodunnit
Chair: Christopher MacLehose, MacLehose Press
Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College, London), Crime and Happiness: Scandinavian Crime Fiction and End of the Welfare State.
Aka Morchiladze, Crime fiction as device.
Angela Kimyongür (University of Hull), Dominique Manotti and the roman noir.
Break
11:30-13:15 Looking back at history
Chair: Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen
Giuliana Pieri (Royal Holloway, London), Camilleri’s “historical” crime novels: Sicily, Italy and the Risorgiment.
Olga Sobolev (London School of Economics), Boris Akunin and the Rise of Russian Detective Genre.
Claire Gorrara (Cardiff University), Past crimes, present memories: French crime fiction and the Second World War.
Danusia Stok, The force of setting in the fiction of Marek Krajewski.
Lunch
14:15-15:00 The Scandinavian Crime Fiction Phenomenon
Barry Forshaw, Through a Glass Darkly: Mankell, Larsson and Nesbø.
Break
15:30-17:15 Translating cultures/languages
Chair: Ros Schwarz
Gary Pulsifer (Arcadia Books), EuroCrime in the wake of the Nordic Invasion.
Amanda Hopkinson (City University), Catalan cops and Spanish seductions: making crime pay.
Gunnar Staalesen and Don Bartlett (courtesy of the Royal Norwegian Embassy), From Norway to Norfolk; author and translator in conversation.

I'm very tempted to go, though I worry I'll be out of my depth!

Book a place (the price is £20) via the British Library's website.

Website Updates - October

2011-10-21T10:40:00.001+01:00

Unfortunately there won't be any new reviews this weekend as I'm not around but last night I refreshed the website and added extra countries to the bibliographies page. These country listings are based on the author's place of birth, rather than where they are now living or any new nationality they may have taken or the country they are writing about, which may be different to where they were born.

Website Update

State of play at 20.10.11:

The Bibliographies page now has more authors by 'Countries', plus I've removed the 'Eastern Europe' catch-all and put in the individual countries.

The Author Websites page now lists 906 sites.

The New & Upcoming Releases pages have been updated (added since last weekend: Tom Benn, Jane Casey, Michael J Malone, VM Whitworth and Felicity Young).

In Bibliographies there are now bibliographies for 1691 authors (8680 titles with links to 2090 reviews):

I've added new bibliographies for: Tom Benn, Philip Carter, Patrick Conrad, Dean Crawford, Bernhard Jaumann, Eva Joly & Judith Perrignon, Vilmos Kondor, Selma Lagerlof, Rosamund Lupton, Mark Mackay, Michael J Malone, D E Meredith, A D Miller, Mark Peterson, Sam Ripley, Norman Russell, Alex Sharp, Christopher Wallace, Jan Wallentin and V M Whitworth..

I've updated the bibliographies (ie added new titles) for: Harry Bingham, S J Bolton, Gyles Brandreth, Simon Brett, Declan Burke, Jane Casey, Agatha Christie, Michael Cordy, Elisabeth J Duncan, Gordon Ferris, Elly Griffiths, Lucretia Grindle, David Hodges, Arlene Hunt, Maxim Jakubowski, P D James, Peter James, Tobias Jones, Mons Kallentoft, Christobel Kent, Barry Maitland, J D Mallinson, Liza Marklund, Glenn Meade, Zygmunt Miloszewski, Harri Nykanen, Martin O'Brien, Anne Perry, Matt Benyon Rees, Phil Rickman, Michael Ridpath, Jarkko Sipila, Anna Smith, Cath Staincliffe and Felicity Young.

If you spot any errors or omissions do let me know.

Snow Angels - Cover Opinions

2011-10-19T12:23:00.001+01:00

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is the US and UK covers for James Thompson's Finland-set Snow Angels.

So what are your thoughts on the US (LHS - complete with "If You liked The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, you'll love this!" sticker)) and UK (RHS) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with this title?

If you have read it, how well do the covers match the story?

Read the Euro Crime review by Terry of Snow Angels.

New Reviews: Brandreth, Cain, Franklin, Kallentoft, Leonard, Rimington, Smith

2011-10-16T10:35:00.003+01:00

October's Competition: Win a copy of Strangled in Paris by Claude Izner (UK only)

Here are this week's new reviews:

Susan White reviews Gyles Brandreth's fourth book featuring Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers (US title is Oscar Wilde and the Vampire Murders);

Rich Westwood reviews Tom Cain's Dictator also the fourth in the series;

Lynn Harvey reviews the fourth and last Adelia Aguilar from the late Ariana Franklin which is now out in paperback, The Assassin's Prayer (US title is A Murderous Procession);

Maxine Clarke reviews the first in the Superintendent Malin Fors series from Mons Kallentoft: Midwinter Sacrifice, tr. Neil Smith;

Terry Halligan reviews Peter Leonard's All He Saw Was The Girl, set in Rome;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Stella Rimington's Rip Tide, the sixth in the Liz Carlyle MI5/6 series

and Amanda Gillies reviews the first of Anna Smith's new series, The Dead Won't Sleep, set in Glasgow.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Gordon Ferris, Mons Kallentoft, Matt Benyon Rees, Michael Ridpath, Anna Smith and Jan Wallentin have been added to these pages this week.

Ellis Peters Historical Award - Shortlist

2011-10-14T11:23:00.002+01:00

Thanks to Crime Scraps, I hear that the Ellis Peters Historical Award Shortlist has been announced. Here are the six contenders, with links to reviews on Euro Crime:

The Crime Writers’ Association has announced the shortlist for this year’s prestigious Ellis Peters Historical Award. The six books on the shortlist are:

Rory Clements Prince (John Murray)
Sam Eastland The Red Coffin (Faber & Faber)
Gordon Ferris The Hanging Shed (Corvus)
Andrew Martin The Somme Stations (Faber & Faber)
RN Morris The Cleansing Flames (Faber & Faber)
Imogen Robertson Island of Bones (Headline)

CWA chair Peter James said: “Historical fiction remains as popular as ever and has seen the creation of some of crime writing’s most enduring characters. This year’s books continue that fine tradition.“

The winner will be announced on November 30 at the Athenaeum in London.

Read more about each book on the CWA website.

More Ways to Own the Millennium Trilogy

2011-10-13T09:36:00.004+01:00

News of two new editions of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy have come my way this week. Firstly a press release from MacLehose/Quercus about this luxury edition which comes with a doodle:

MacLehose Press are delighted to announce that a special, leather and stud bound, one-off boxed set edition of the MILLENNIUM TRILOGY will be auctioned at Sotheby’s on the 15th Dec to help raise money for Stieg Larsson’s magazine, Expo.

The Boxed set includes the letter of rejection from the Joint Committee of Colleges of Journalism in Stockholm to applicant 493 [Stieg Larsson] and features a charming doodle by Stieg Larsson on the back of the letter.

Part of the letter is visible in this recent Guardian article.

You can read the whole Sotherby's press release (pdf) on the Euro Crime website.

The second bit of news comes from Publishers Weekly regarding graphic novel versions of the three books:

Working in conjunction with the estate of Stieg Larsson and the Hedlund Literary Agency, DC Entertainment and its Vertigo imprint will adapt Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy novels—the books have sold more than 60 million copies— into a series of graphic novels. Each book in the trilogy will be adapted into two graphic novel volumes available in print and digital formats. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo graphic novel volumes will be released in 2012 and graphic adaptations of The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nests will be released in 2014.

Dan DiDio, copublisher of DC Entertaiment, parent company of DC Comics/Vertigo, said, “The intricate characters and stories Larsson created in the Millennium Trilogy are a perfect match for the graphic novel format, where we can bring Lisbeth Salander to life in entirely new, visually compelling ways.”

“Stieg always liked comics and it will be exciting to see the unforgettable characters he created come to life on the comics page,” said Joakim Larsson, younger brother of the journalist and novelist, who died in 2004.

And finally, here's the jacket of the US-film-tie-in edition which will be available from 27 October, the film is out 26 December:

Review: Doctor Who: The Eye of the Jungle by Darren Jones (audio book)

2011-10-12T09:32:00.003+01:00

Doctor Who: The Eye of the Jungle by Darren Jones, read by David Troughton (AudioGO, July 2011, 2 CDs (1hr 30mins), ISBN: 9781408468159)

In The Eye of the Jungle the Doctor takes Amy and Rory to the Amazonian jungle in 1827. Shortly after leaving the TARDIS they are surrounded by crocodiles. They are saved by Oliver Blazington, a mercenary/hunter who is there to capture animals for his boss Garrett who will subsequently exhibit them at London Zoo. However the locals are restless as domestic animals and people are disappearing and the priest's housekeeper refers to an "Eye" that seems to be involved.

Needless to say, the time-travellers soon discover the Eye for themselves and must save themselves from a fate worse than death...

This is an entertaining adventure, revealing the Doctor's empathy for not just humans but other animals too and he maintains his refusal to be used as a weapon by those who are taking the missing life-forms. I loved the fact that cd1 ended on a cliff-hanger worthy of classic Doctor Who tv episodes. Also that Amy and Rory don't require saving, rather the reverse.

David Troughton, son of 2nd Doctor, Patrick, and who appeared himself in the 10th Doctor episode Midnight takes over the narration duties this time round. His Doctor doesn't sound much like Matt Smith but does sound similar to Clive Mantle's Doctor in The Coming of the Terraphiles; his Amy is a bit wobbly but he does get Rory's inflection down to a T. Impersonations, intended or otherwise, aside he does a good job with the story-telling.

The sound-effects continue to improve. In the early days there was nothing, that was replaced by a smidge of music but now if someone drops something you hear a clang. They don't overpower the narrator this time round, which has been a complaint of mine before.

The Eye of the Jungle is a solid adventure in this series of "exclusive" audio adventures. My personal favourite so far has been The Runaway Train narrated by Matt Smith and the least engaging has been, The Ring of Steel which though narrated well by Arthur Darvill, has a run-of-the-mill story. (NB. I still have a couple more to listen to.)

Winners: CWA Awards (Gold, Fleming, Creasey), TV & Film Daggers 2011

2011-10-11T10:08:00.002+01:00

The winners of the second round of CWA Daggers were announced on Friday night. Quotes from the winners can be found on the press release and more information is available on the CWA's website. The TV and Film Dagger winners are also listed below.

CWA GOLD DAGGER 2011
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (Pan) - WINNER
Snowdrops by A.D Miller (Atlantic Books)
The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina (Orion)
The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Orion)
CWA IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER 2011, SPONSORED BY IAN FLEMING PUBLICATIONS LTD

Before I Go To Sleep by S.J Watson (Doubleday)
Cold Rain by Craig Smith (Myrmidon)
The Good Son by Michael Gruber (Corvus)
The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Orion) - WINNER

CWA JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD) DAGGER 2011
Before I Go To Sleep by S.J Watson (Doubleday) - WINNER
Kiss Me Quick by Danny Miller (Robinson)
The Dead Woman of Juárez by Sam Hawken (Serpent’s Tail)
The Dogs of Rome by Conor Fitzgerald (Bloomsbury)

ITV3 PEOPLE’S BESTSELLER DAGGER 2011
David Baldacci - The Sixth Man (Macmillan)
Lee Child - Worth Dying For (Bantam)
Mark Billingham - Good As Dead (Little, Brown) (pub. 18.8.11)
Peter James - Dead Man’s Grip (Macmillan) - WINNER
Peter Robinson - Before the Poison (Hodder) (pub. 18.8.11)

THE FILM DAGGER

True Grit (Paramount Pictures) - WINNER
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Momentum Pictures)
Brighton Rock (Optimum Releasing)
Source Code (Optimum Releasing)

THE TV DAGGER

Case Histories (Ruby Films, BBC One) - WINNER
Luther (BBC One)
The Shadow Line (Company Pictures, BBC Two)
Zen (Left Bank Pictures, BBC One)
Vera (ITV Studios, ITV1)

THE INTERNATIONAL TV DAGGER

The Killing, (Arrow Films, BBC4) - WINNER
Boardwalk Empire (HBO, Sky Atlantic)
Castle (ABC Studios, Alibi)
Dexter (Showtime Networks, FX Channel)
Spiral (Son Et Lumiere, BBC 4)

BEST ACTRESS DAGGER

Sofie Gråbøl for The Killing (Arrow Films, BBC4) - WINNER
Brenda Blethyn for Vera (ITV Studios, ITV1)
Maxine Peake for Silk (BBC One)
Olivia Williams for Case Sensitive (Hat Trick Productions, ITV1)
Sue Johnston for Waking the Dead (BBC One)
Kelly Reilly for Above Suspicion (La Plante Productions, ITV1)

BEST ACTOR DAGGER

Idris Elba for Luther (BBC One) - WINNER
Lars Mikkelsen for The Killing (Arrow Films, BBC4)
Steve Buscemi for Boardwalk Empire (HBO, Sky Atlantic)
Jason Isaacs for Case Histories (Ruby Films, BBC One)
Rufus Sewell for Zen (Left Bank Pictures, BBC One)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR DAGGER

Rafe Spall for The Shadow Line (Company Pictures, BBC Two) - WINNER
Bjarne Henriksen for The Killing (Arrow Films, BBC 4)
Søren Malling for The Killing (Arrow Films, BBC 4)
John Lithgow for Dexter (Showtime Networks, FX Channel)
Aidan Gillen for Thorne (Stagereel / Cité Amérique, Sky One)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS DAGGER

Ann Eleonora Jørgensen for The Killing (Arrow Films, BBC 4) - WINNER
Kelly Macdonald for Boardwalk Empire (HBO, Sky Atlantic)
Ruth Wilson for Luther (BBC One)
Amanda Abbington for Case Histories (Ruby Films, BBC One)
Tara Fitzgerald for Waking The Dead (BBC One)

Author to look out for - Dror Mishani

2011-10-10T19:57:00.002+01:00

There was a brief mention in Publishers Lunch (Publisher's Weekly) of a US deal for Dror Mishani's Missing File, the first in a new Israeli series featuring Inspector Abraham Abraham, which I believe will be in translation. More information is behind the paywall but it does seem that the UK rights have been bought, possibly by Picador.

Synopsis taken from the Liepman International Rights Catalogue:
Sixteen-year-old Ofer, who left his home in Holon one morning on his way to school, disappeared without leaving a trace. Police inspector Abraham Abraham, guilt-ridden and determined to find the missing boy, is gradually consumed by the frustrating investigation that takes over his life. It seems that the more he finds out about the boy and his life, the further he gets from the truth. And only one man, Ofer’s older neighbour and private teacher Zeev Avni, has something to tell him. But will the neighbour’s strange story save the investigation before it’s too late?

One to look out for I think...

New Reviews: Bayard, Cotterill, Durbridge, Hannah, McDermid, Neville, Ohlsson & New Competition

2011-10-09T21:06:00.002+01:00

New Competition: Win a copy of Strangled in Paris by Claude Izner (UK only)

Here are this week's new reviews:

Amanda Gillies reviews Louis Bayard's The School of Night set in modern day, and Elizabethan England;

Lynn Harvey reviews Colin Cotterill's Killed at the Whim of a Hat which is now out in paperback and she makes an unexpected comparison with a well-known US series...;

I review the audio version of Francis Durbridge's Tim Frazer Again read by Anthony Head;

Susan White reviews Sophie Hannah's Lasting Damage which is now out in paperback, and which reminded her of Barbara Vine's earlier work;

Maxine Clarke reviews the new Tony Hill-Carol Jordan from Val McDermid, The Retribution;

Terry Halligan reviews Stuart Neville's debut, The Twelve aka The Ghosts of Belfast (US) which he thought was brilliant and original

and I also review the debut from Kristina Ohlsson: Unwanted, tr. Sarah Death which is gripping despite being a bit predictable.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Declan Burke, Patrick Conrad, David Hodges, Arlene Hunt, Eva Joly & Judith Perrignon, J D Mallinson, Zygmunt Miloszewski, Harri Nykanen, Sam Ripley and Norman Russell have been added to these pages this week.

Win: Strangled in Paris by Claude Izner

2011-10-09T20:14:00.000+01:00

Euro Crime has 10 copies of Strangled in Paris by Claude Izner to giveaway. To enter the draw, just answer the question and include your details in the form below.

This competition is open to UK residents and will close on 31 October 2011.
Only 1 entry per person/per household please.
(All entries will be deleted once the winner has been notified.)

Why would anyone strangle a humble seamstress with no known enemies? When newly-married bookseller Victor Legris is asked to solve the murder of Louise Fontaine in the abattoir district of La Villette, he is initially baffled by the case. But as the investigation progresses, Victor, along with his assistant and brother-in-law Joseph, discovers that in belle-époque Paris young girls with no money or background are as ruthlessly preyed on as ever they were...

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The Killing T-Shirts

2011-10-07T18:56:00.004+01:00

I've stumbled over these The Killing inspired t-shirts over at Den of Geek (where I read my Dr Who reviews!). Available in different colours and sizes, I'm tempted by the removal van one!
Browse the range/order here.

Philip Kerr's non Bernie Project

2011-10-07T11:49:00.001+01:00

Philip Kerr's latest and eighth Bernie Gunther book, Prague Fatale will be out later this month. He has another iron in the fire in the shape of writing a script for a Princess Diana bio-pic. From The Guardian:

Producer Stephen Evans, whose previous credits include The Madness of King George and The Wings of the Dove, is planning a $50m film about the princess, and has hired Ken Wharfe, Diana's former head of private security, and her former private secretary, Commander Patrick Jephson, to provide authenticity. No one has yet been cast in the lead role, nor has a director been attached, but Evans has commissioned a script from crime novelist Philip Kerr.

The project has been in development for two years, and apparently will focus on the difficult period of her life during her marriage to Prince Charles and their subsequent divorce in 1996 – but will not tackle her relationship with Dodi al-Fayed.

Read the whole article here.