Radio 4 - Afternoon Reading - this week

Two of this week's Afternoon Reading programmes - weekdays 3.30pm-3.45pm ("A short story or an abridged book, often by writers who are new to radio") are of particular interest to crime fiction readers:

Tuesday (30/10)

Blood in Stone by Frances Fyfield, read by Nicholas Gleaves.
John Smith sets off through the woods at night in search of the haunted house he grew up in, equipped with matches and cans of petrol.

Listen again here until next Tuesday. Frances Fyfield's next book, Blood from Stone, will be out in March 2008.

Friday (2/11)

The Lost Child by Brian McGilloway, read by Lloyd Hutchinson.
A couple hear a baby crying on their child monitor. Unfortunately, it's not their baby. A cry for help or a call from beyond the grave? Inspector Devlin investigates.

Brian McGilloway's series featuring Garda Inspector Devlin began this year, with the well regarded Borderlands

We Knew Him When...

Not before time, Irish author (and Euro Crime reviewer) Declan Burke has landed a publishing deal in the US. Today's Publishers Lunch has the following in their deals snippets: "Declan Burke's debut, pitched as "Elmore Leonard with a harder Irish edge". Read more about the good news on Declan's blog.

Read the Euro Crime reviews of The Big O, here.

(link to) an interview of Ariana Franklin

The (free postage and packing) online book shop, Book Depository, has an interview with historical crime fiction writer, Ariana Franklin. The interview is here and the Euro Crime bibliography page is here where you can read reviews of her first two books (under this pseudonym) plus see the titles of the next two Adelia books.

Eragon and on... (OT)

From Publisher's Lunch:

The third book in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance series will be published on September 23, 2008, Knopf Children's announced this morning. Originally envisioned as a trilogy, Paolini is expanding the story into a fourth book. He says in the announcement: "I plotted out the Inheritance series as a trilogy nine years ago, when I was fifteen. At that time, I never imagined I'd write all three books, much less that they would be published. When I finally delved into Book Three, it soon became obvious that the remainder of the story was far too big to fit in one volume. Having spent so long thinking about the series as a trilogy, it was difficult for me to realize that, in order to be true to my characters and to address all of the plot points and unanswered questions Eragon and Eldest raised, I needed to split the end of the series into two books."

Eragon has been licensed in 50 foreign languages, and the first two books have combined sales of over 12.5 million copies worldwide.

Kate Muir column in The Times - 'James Bond' for Girls

From 20th October edition of The Times, Kate Muir's column includes information on a couple of series that might appeal to the female teenage contingent:

Earlier this month at the Cheltenham Literature Festival – which my kids love because they get to stay the night in a real hotel with free bubble-bath miniatures – my daughter, my hangover and I were out at ten on a Sunday morning for a lecture on “Spy Girls and Stunt Girls: they show the boys how real sleuthing is done!”

Jonny Zucker, author of the Venus Spring, Stunt Girl action adventures, showed us the cover he wanted for his first book – blue with a girl silhouetted in kickboxing action poses – and what he actually got after tests with readers: a Pepto-Bismol pink cover with a pretty girl’s face and flicky, bouncy hair.

On the espionage side, Carol Hedges invented Jazmin Dawson, a girl spy, in reaction to all the Young Bond and Anthony Horowitz books for boys, and I suppose we can take heart from the fact that only one of the three covers in the series is pink. Aside from the prodigious unisex works of Potter, “Girls read boys’ books, but boys don’t read girls’ books,” shrugged Zucker, who also writes a boys’ adventure series.

Read the whole article about feminism, clothes and the colour pink here.

More Trial and Retribution

From the ever informative Digital Spy

Lynda La Plante's Trial and Retribution will return to ITV1 next year, it has been confirmed.

The network has commissioned a further 16 hours of the series which is now entering its tenth year on the air.

Corinne Hollingworth, ITV's head of continuing drama, said: "Lynda La Plante's Trial and Retribution has gone from strength to strength during its ten years on ITV, and we're absolutely thrilled to be able to give the audience eight more exciting two part episodes in 2008."

New reviews this week

Here are this week's new reviews, website updates and a competition reminder:

Latest Reviews:

In Mike Ripley's Crime File for October, he reviews 'King of Swords' by Nick Stone, 'The Herring Seller's Apprentice' by L C Tyler, 'The Noble Outlaw' by Bernard Knight and 'The Pere-Lachaise Mystery' by Claude Izner;

Maxine of Petrona has recently blogged about this book and now offers a glowing review of A Half Life of One by Bill Liversidge;

There's no stopping the flood of praise for Jo Nesbo and it continues with Norman Price's review of The Redbreast. You can enter the draw for a free copy here (but don't delay as the competition ends on the 31st);

I was intrigued and informed by Matt Rees' The Bethlehem Murders, but don't expect a cosy read. The original (US) title, 'The Collaborator of Bethlehem' feels more appropriate

and Declan Burke applauds Kevin Wignall's Who is Conrad Hirst? and finds it "as subtly devastating as an assassin in the night".


Other Website Updates:

The New Releases pages have been updated.


Current Competition (closing date 31 October):

Win one of five copies of The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo (UK, Europe, Commonwealth (excluding Canada))

(geographical restrictions are in brackets)

In London on Tuesday night?

From the Gallic Books website:

Armand Cabasson (author of The Officer’s Prey) and Claude Izner (author of The Eiffel Tower and The Pere-Lachaise Mystery) will be in London this month. They will be the centrepiece of an event hosted by the French Institute on October 30th at 7.30 pm: ‘ Gallic Crimes: from Napoleon to Fin-de-Siecle Paris. The authors will be interviewed (in English) by Barry Forshaw on the challenges of writing and researching crime novels set in the nineteenth century. Barry is the author of The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction. He is currently editing a two-volume encyclopedia of British Crime Writing, and writes for the Independent and the Express. He also edits the magazine Crime Time.

Tickets are available at the door for £3 (£2 for concessions)

Unfortunately I don't finish work until 7pm in Birmingham that night otherwise I'd have trekked down.

Delay in the weekend's reviews

This weekend's reviews will probably be delayed or postponed. It depends how I feel in a couple of days. My beloved cat, Cadgy, has died today after a short illness aged 15 and a half. The photo doesn't show how beautiful she was, like a little bear and the loudest purr imaginable for such a small cat. Fortunately she's not suffering now and I hope she didn't suffer whilst she was ill.

Ken Follett's change in direction

According to an article in The Book Standard:

Bestselling author of World Without End, Ken Follett, will write a new epic trilogy, called "The Century Trilogy," which will "focus on intense personal dramas set against the vast looming background of world-changing historical events" of the 20th Century. The series will follow a number of families and the three books will take place before and up to World War I, World War II and the Cold War.

Read the whole article here.

(a link to) an interview with Simon Levack

Simon Levack writes the Aztec mystery series, starring Yaotl, a slave, who has now had four printed adventures. You can read an interview with him on the Getting Medieval blog.

The fourth book, Tribute of Death, has had to be self-published due to insufficient sales of the previous books, despite critical acclaim. If you like this series and want to see more, Simon Levack's website gives the following tips:

Buy my books (well, you were expecting that!)
Borrow my books from your library - and if the library doesn't have one, request it!
Encourage your friends to read my books
Write about my books in your blogs, newsgroups and discussion lists
Get your reading groups to discuss my books
If you know any publishers, booksellers or anyone else who may have a commercial interest in what I've done, tell them about it!
Give this website address out to anyone who may be interested.

Tribute of Death is available to buy or download from lulu.com.

Prime Suspect 7 wins award

According to Digital Spy:

ITV's Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act won a top honour at this year's Prix Europa.

The Helen Mirren crime drama took the Special Prix Europa for series, mini-series or serial.

It's also available to buy on DVD.

Get Andy McNab on your mobile...

From today's Guardian:

Andy McNab, the former SAS man turned bestselling author, plans to hunt for new readers of his next book via mobile phones.

Posters advertising Crossfire, his latest novel out next month, will invite mobile phone users to request by text the first chapter, to be downloaded in audio or text version to their phones. They can also use the PayPal system to order the print version of the whole book.

McNab's pursuit of a new readers follows a trial this year when the paperback version of his book Recoil was available to order on mobiles.

Although that experiment generated only modest sales, McNab's technology partner, Spoken Entertainment, hopes mobile shopping will soon become more established. It points to the emergence of flat-rate internet charging plans for mobiles, which could encourage more people to use handsets to read and shop online.

McNab and Spoken Entertainment are also testing the market with a range of made-for-download audio stories. From next month, fans of the author can go to his web or mobile site and download 20-minute tales from the Spoken from the Front collection.

According to his website, these stories are already available:

Listen to Andy McNab's brand new series Spoken From The Front. This series of hard hitting spoken stories written and introduced by McNab have been developed especially for download, either directly to mobile phones or from the internet. The series is based on the experiences of soldiers fighting on the front line.

Go here to purchase the audio (£2.00 per story).

This week's new reviews

Here are this week's new reviews, website updates and a competition reminder:

Latest Reviews:

Here are my thoughts on the first three novellas from the Crime Express imprint: 'Trouble in Mind by John Harvey, 'Claws' by Stephen Booth and 'The Mentalist' by Rod Duncan;

Declan Burke's The Big O gets its second rave review on Euro Crime, this time from fellow Euro Crime reviewer Maxine Clarke;

Continuing with Maxine's reviews of the Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri, next up is number three, The Snack Thief;

Sunnie Gill reviews the latest Superintendent Mike Yeadings book, The Edge by Clare Curzon, which is the twentieth in the series and still going strong

and Terry Halligan is disappointed with the stories in Paul D Gilbert's The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes.


Other Website Updates:

The New Releases pages have been updated.


Current Competition (closing date 31 October):

Win one of five copies of The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo (UK, Europe, Commonwealth (excluding Canada))

(geographical restrictions are in brackets)

Bill Nighy as Charles Paris, on the Radio...

The eighth book in the Charles Paris series by Simon Brett, Murder Unprompted, is being dramatised on Radio 4. In four parts, the first one was yesterday, the next is a week later on the 26th (11:30-12:00).. You can listen again to part 1 here for seven days from broadcast.

Failed actor Charles Paris is played by the somewhat more successful, Bill Nighy.

Hardy Boys PC Games

The Hardy Boys have already appeared in a couple of the Nancy Drew PC Games but now they're going solo. From The Bookseller:

Franklin W Dixon’s Hardy Boys series will be turned into computer games in a partnership between games companies JoWooD and The Adventure Company, and Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing. The companies are developing a series of interactive games based on the boy detectives, which will be released worldwide over the next five years, beginning with the first title “The Tower Treasure” next autumn. “Fans have been waiting and we are set to deliver an adventure series that is certain to become a family classic,” said Albert Seidl, president and c.e.o. of JoWooD.

The series of games will remain true to the original stories and characters in The Hardy Boys and feature challenging and thought provoking puzzles. The books have sold more than 100 million copies in print, according to the publisher, and are riding a wave of classic retro popularity. The stories have been published by Simon & Schuster and Grosset & Dunlap since 1928, and a new series of Hardy Boys editions,
Undercover Brothers, was released earlier this year.

I know this isn't Euro Crime but I did enjoy reading the Hardy Boys and watching the tv series in the '70s!

TV - A Touch of Frost

Digital Spy reports that a new episode of A Touch of Frost is being filmed:

Sir David Jason is to star in a new episode of A Touch of Frost on ITV1.

The 90 minute episode is titled "In the Public Interest" and is now in production in Leeds. It will air next year.

"I'm delighted to be playing Jack Frost once again," said Sir David. "He's a great character and I'm very fond of him."

John Lyons and Bruce Alexander will return as Detective Sergeant Lyons and Superintendent Mullett respectively in the new episode along with Mel Martin, Tam Williams and Julia St. John. Adrian Lukis, most recently seen playing Doug Wright in The Bill, will play villain James Callum.

David Reynolds, ITV controller of comedy drama and drama features for ITV Yorkshire said: "There is a real appetite for crime drama and A Touch of Frost provides scope for a range of stories and characters. Viewers can expect this episode to keep them guessing, and there is a twist that will add further intrigue to the drama."

The final Frost book from the late R D Wingfield, 'A Killing Frost', will be out in April 2008.

Famous Five, relaunch and Blyton spin-off titles

I've already blogged about The Famous Five - how they are being made into a Disney cartoon and more recently about a show starring the grown-up Famous Five. Chorion who own the rights have even bigger plans, both tv and book-wise. Taken from an article in The Bookseller Daily at Frankfurt:

The Famous Five titles will be reborn as a 26-part series, and a mass of novelisations and tie-ins are planned. Chorion has also recruited the creative packager Working Partners to extend the Wishing Chair series of books, and is working with authors on a spin-off series based on The Faraway Tree’s Sylkie the fairy, and classic boarding school series St Clare’s. “Our objective is to make Blyton frontlist again,” says Norton’s deputy, Esra Cafer.

The company is also taking the proven St Clare’s formula to a new realm, with Mermaids of Glimmer Reef—a boarding school series set under the sea and inspired by a mermaid character in another of Blyton’s 8,000 stories. “We’ve looked deep within the Blyton portfolio and this is a true spin-off. It’s a completely new world, but using one of Blyton’s creations,” says Norton.

He argues these ambitious launches satisfy a need for “wholesome” books, as an alternative to the series that deal with adult themes. “There is a lot of age compression in the market,” says Norton. “A lot of the [Blyton] projects really are the best of both worlds. They are safe and value-driven, and they have a modern voice . . . I believe we can put an additional one million books a year into the hands of both fans and new readers.”

and yet more publishing deals!

More snippets from The Bookseller Daily at Frankfurt:

Italian bestseller goes to America
Old Street Publishing has sold North American rights for The Past is a Foreign Country by anti-Mafia prosecutor/detective novelist Gianrico Carofiglio. The psychological thriller "in the tradition of Patricia Highsmith" was a bestseller in Carofiglio’s native Italy. Old Street, which holds world English rights, sold to Marcia Markland at New York’s Thomas Dunne Books for hardcover publication.

Accent has heart for eight-book deal
Wales-based independent Accent Press has snapped up eight books in Nicholas Rhea's Constable detective series—the basis for UK TV's popular "Heartbeat" series. Accent m.d. Hazel Cushion sewed up the five-figure UK and Commonwealth paperback deal with Tim Bates at Pollinger.

Accent has also agreed to a deal conducted by Lesley Pollinger with Yorkshire Television, which produces the programme, to jacket all the books with "Heartbeat" pictures and branding. The titles will be rolled out between June and December 2008, in time for the 18th series, which airs in the autumn. All the titles will be paperback originals.

Set in the fictional Yorkshire village of Aidensfield in the late 1960s, "Heartbeat" is one of ITV’s most popular programmes, and attracts up to 16 million viewers. Rhea has written 25 books for the Constable series and is a consultant on the ITV show. The series was previously published by Headline. Cushion said: "'Heartbeat' remains popular because it taps into the interest that is out there for nostalgia. It is a major purchase for us. Accent has only been going for four years and to get an acquisition like this is very exciting."

The Tenderness of Wolves on Radio 4

Stef Penney's 'The Tenderness of Wolves' is being dramatised on Radio 4, starting today and finishing on the 26th.

Broadcast times are - 10.45-11.00am, repeated 7.45-8.00pm - and you can listen again for seven days after broadcast. More details on the Radio 4 Woman's Hour page.

Read the Euro Crime review of 'The Tenderness of Wolves', here.

More awards news

From the Random House website:

Mistress of The Art of Death by Ariana Franklin has won the award for Best Historical Crime Novel 2007 at the Gothenburgh Book Fair. The book has also been short-listed for the Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award.

Read the Euro Crime review, here.

Gerard Donovan Interview

The bookdepository interviews Gerard Donovon, author of 'Julius Winsome', asking him amongst other things, how he got the idea for JW and how he found American life.

Read Declan Burke's review of 'Julius Winsome' here.

New Reviews on Euro Crime

Here are this week's new reviews, website updates and a competition reminder:

Latest Reviews:

Maxine Clarke admits she's read Andrea Camilleri's Montalbano series out of order but I shall hopefully post her reviews in order, continuing with the second in the series, The Terracotta Dog;

Declan Burke reviews Julius Winsome by Gerard Donovan - another Irish author setting his book in Maine;

My latest audio book review is of A Passion for Killing by Barbara Nadel read by the marvellous Sean Barrett who also does the Wallander books;

Sunnie Gill reviews the latest Inspector Banks book, Friend of the Devil by Peter Robinson, which appears to be to the same high standard as his earlier books

and Maxine reveals that The Man Who Went Up In Smoke by Sjowall and Wahloo the second in the classic Martin Beck series is good enough to allow a swift purchase of the rest of the set.


Other Website Updates:

The Authors (594 homepages) page has been updated.

The New Releases pages have been updated.

In Books there are now bibliographies for 1153 authors.

I've added bibliographies for:
Ray Alan, Helen Black, S J Bolton, Xavier-Marie Bonnot, Karen Campbell, Tim Davys, Andrew Greig, Peter Grimsdale, Paul Hendy, Jacquemard-Senecal, Marek Krajewski, Stieg Larsson, Camilla Leckberg, Shona Maclean, Leo Malet, Michael Morley, Gianluca Morozzi, Andrea Marie Schenkel, Mehmet Murat Somer, Domingo Villar, Martin Walker, Jo Walton and David Wishart

and updated the bibliographies for:
Gilbert Adair, Jane Adams, M C Beaton, Victoria Blake, Anna Blundy, Stephen Booth, Dorothy Cannell, Chris Collett, Natasha Cooper, Elizabeth Corley, PC/Paul Doherty, David Downing, Nick Drake, Rod Duncan, Geraldine Evans, Karin Fossum, Ariana Franklin, Frances Fyfield, Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett, Michele Giuttari, Friedrich Glauser, Ann Granger, Susanna Gregory, Allan Guthrie, June Hampson, Sophie Hannah, Tom Harper, John Harvey, Veronica Heley, Mandasue Heller, David Hewson, Reginald Hill, Lesley Horton, Lis Howell, Declan Hughes, Claude Izner, L M Jackson, Katherine John, Simon Kernick, Philip Kerr, Bernard Knight, Roberta Kray, Carlo Lucarelli, Andrew Martin, R N Morris, Carmen Posadas, Craig Russell, Sally Spedding and Michael Walters.

Current Competition (closing date 31 October):

Win one of five copies of The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo (UK, Europe, Commonwealth (excluding Canada))

(geographical restrictions are in brackets)

The next Maisie Dobbs...

Jacqueline Winspear will begin writing the fifth in her award winning Maisie Dobbs series on Nov. 1st. The title is An Incomplete Revenge. I've just been reading her latest blog post on her research trip to the French battlefields of WW1. There are some moving photos accompanying the post which be seen and read here.

I reviewed the first two in the series for www.overmydeadbody.com - Maisie Dobbs and Birds of a Feather and Sunnie Gill reviewed the fourth in the series, Messenger of Truth for Euro Crime.

This week's The Bookseller online

Another magazine has put it's latest issue online due to the recent postal strike. Read the latest issue of The Bookseller here.

Awards announcements

From Publishing News:

French wins Clarion
Hodder author Tana French joins Kevin Spacey, P D James and Moira Stuart as winner of an IVCA 2007 Clarion Award. French won the Best Fiction Award for her debut novel, In The Woods*. The awards celebrate the role of the media industries in "promoting a sustainable world and making a significant positive contribution to our society."

*review of the paperback coming soon...

Award for Lovesey
Peter Lovesey has won the £1,500 Crime Writers' Association (CWA) Short Story Award for his story, Needlematch, in the Best British Mysteries IV anthology published by Allison & Busby.

David Suchet to do more Poirot films

From Digital Spy:

David Suchet is to reprise his role as Agatha Christie's Belgian sleuth in a series of four new Poirot films for ITV1.

An adaptation of Mrs McGinty’s Dead begins filming this autumn. The drama is being directed by Afterlife's Ashley Pearce and has been adapted by Nick Dear (Eroica, Byron).

Corinne Hollingsworth, ITV’s head of continuing drama said: "Poirot is one of ITV's most popular titles, and we're absolutely thrilled to be able to commission four more exciting films, featuring, once again, the incomparable David Suchet as Hercule Poirot."

Zoë Wanamaker will return in the role of Ariadne Oliver, a character which first appeared on screen in Cards On The Table in 2006. Some believe Christie based the eccentric crime novelist, who appeared in six novels with Poirot, on herself.

Phil Clymer from Chorion, which owns Agatha Christie Ltd, said: "We are thrilled that ITV are continuing to show support and enthusiasm for the world's most famous detective. We share an ambition with David Suchet that the entire Poirot library will be filmed in the next few years, and that ITV will continue to be our partners in crime."

Suchet last appeared as Poirot in four films for ITV in 2006, the first of which, The Mystery of The Blue Train, attracted a ratings peak of 8 million viewers. The Poirot stories are co-produced by ITV Productions, Chorion's Agatha Christie Ltd, and Boston public television station WGBH.

Publishing Deals

From Publishers Lunch:

Pseudonymous Swedish author Tim Davys' first novel AMBERVILLE, both a plot-twisting noir and a meditation on good and evil, featuring a highly unusual cast of stuffed animals (and no human characters) -- some of whom come to realize that their seemingly benign world is far from fluffy, to Alison Callahan at Harper, in a pre-empt, by Susanna Einstein at LJK Literary Management (world; excluding Swedish).

and from The Bookseller Digital Daily at Frankfurt:

Jane Wood at Quercus has done her first deal with her daughter Caroline Wood at the Felicity Bryan Agency. Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker is the first in a series of crime novels in the style of Alexander McCall Smith, set in rural France. Wood bought UK and Commonwealth rights exc Canada.

She also snapped up a début crime novel from historian Shona Maclean. The Redemption of Alexander Seaton is set in 16th-century Scotland and is narrated by a fallen priest. Wood bought UK and Commonwealth rights exc Canada in two books from Judith Murray at Greene & Heaton, and will publish in July 2008.

Detective Josephine Tey

Here's more about Nicola Upson's detective novel 'starring' Josephine Tey which is expected in March from Faber:

An Expert in Murder is the first in a new series which features Golden Age crime writer Josephine Tey as its lead character, placing her in the richly-peopled world of 1930s theatre which formed the other half of her writing life, and using real events as the basis for an original murder mystery.

It’s March, 1934, and Tey is travelling from Scotland to London to celebrate what should be the triumphant final week of her celebrated play, Richard of Bordeaux. The play has been the surprise hit of the season, with pacifist themes which strike a chord in a world still haunted by war, but a seemingly senseless murder – which takes place as soon as Josephine arrives in London and which Detective Inspector Archie Penrose feels sure is connected to her work – puts her reputation, and even her life, under threat.

A second killing confirms Penrose’s suspicions that somewhere amongst this flamboyant theatre set is a ruthless and spiteful murderer. As his investigations lead him from the romance of the West End to the stark reality of the trenches, he must confront his own ghosts in a search for someone who will kill and kill again to right the wrongs of a past generation.

Cleverly blending fact and fiction, An Expert in Murder is both a tribute to one of the most enduringly popular writers of crime and an atmospheric detective novel in its own right.

Get 'Out' by Natsuo Kirino for £1

The free workday paper, the Metro, has started a bookclub and the first book is 'Out' by Natsuo Kirino. You have to register your details to get a code that you can use at amazon.co.uk to get 'Out' for a pound. Postage is extra, though maybe if you spend £15 it's free...

Go to the Metro for more details.

News from Quercus

Petrona and I had a very nice lunch date yesterday with the publicity department from Quercus. As well as sparkling conversation and a super Italian meal, they gave us a proof of January's 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' by Stieg Larsson and their Spring 2008 catelogue.

They also let slip that Colin Cotterill and Nigel McCrery will be attending next year's Harrogate Crime Writing Festival.

Forthcoming titles from British and European authors are:-

January

The Natural Disorder of Things by Andrea Canobbio (printed in the US in 2006)
Death in Breslau by Marek Krajewski
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

February

A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr (Bernie Gunther)

March

Romanno Bridge by Andrew Greig

May

The First Fingerprint by Xavier-Marie Bonnot
Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill

June

The Duke's Agent by Rebecca Jenkins (first published in 1997)
The Murder Village by Andrea Maria Schenkel
The Outcast by Michael Walters

Lighter reading

I've made a slight deviation from Euro Crime reading for a few days and fallen back onto my pre Euro Crime reading fodder. I raced through 'The PMS Murder' by Laura Levine which is the fifth in her Jaine Austen series. Jaine is a freelance writer in LA with a cat named Prozac. This was a good entry with my favourite of the series being the second, 'Last Writes'. I'm looking forward to the next one...'Death by Pantyhose' (sounds better than death by tights?).

I wasn't ready to go back to the mean streets so I'm halfway through 'Love Her to Death' by Linda Palmer which is set in New York and is the second of the 'Daytime mysteries' featuring Morgan Tyler, soap opera writer/producer, who happens to live above Yoko Ono in the Dakota building. Much like Noreen Wald's series, Morgan has two equally attractive men vying for her affections. I enjoyed the first book, 'Love is Murder' very much and am planning on adding books three and four to the tbr at some point. For some reason amazon.co.uk lists no. 3 as unavailable so I may have to delve into amazon marketplace.

Normal reading service should be resumed shortly :-).

New Reviews

This week's new reviews:

Maxine Clarke reviews Calling Out For You by Karin Fossum calling it one of the best books of its year; Declan Burke reviews The Bloomsday Dead by Adrian McKinty the proposed last in the Michael Forsythe series; Laura Root reviews the latest Merrily Watkins book from Phil Rickman The Fabric of Sin now published by Quercus; also published by Quercus is Michael Walters and Maxine reviews the second in his Mongolian police procedural series The Adversary and lastly Terry Halligan reviews Mister Jacks by Tom Wilson


October's competition:

Random House have kindly donated five copies of 'The Redbreast' by Jo Nesbo to Euro Crime website and blog visitors. The competition is open only to residents of the UK, Europe or the Commonwealth (excluding Canada) and the closing date is 31 October 2007.

Just answer the following simple question and email the correct answer and your postal address to karen(at)eurocrime(dot)co(dot)uk putting 'Competition Nesbo blog' in the subject line. Please note only one entry per household will be entered in the draw.

Which one of these titles by Fred Vargas has not won the Duncan Lawrie International Dagger?
a) Have Mercy On Us All
b) The Three Evangelists
c) Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand

More details of the prize can be found on the competition page.

More cover similarities..

I mentioned this a while ago on the blog, covers looking similar and The Rap Sheep has written several long posts on "copycat covers". Here's another one for their consideration:














The Secret Life... came out in April 2006 from Weidenfeld & Nicholson. The Homecoming is out in January, from Pantheon Books. I don't believe it's a crime novel unlike his 'Self' series.

Publishing News print edition - free online this week

Because of the postal strike, the latest print edition of Publishing News is available to download as a .pdf. NB. It's 7MB.

A couple of snippets I extracted:

Nick Sayers has bought a further trio of historical novels by Robyn Young, author of Brethren and Crusade. Requiem, which concludes that trilogy, is scheduled for 2009. The new books will form the Insurrection trilogy, and the action is set in 13th century Scotland, England and France. Sayers bought from the eponymous Rupert Heath.

and

The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is to feature on TV, on BBC over Christmas, directed by Anthony Minghella, no less, from a script co-written with Richard Curtis. Abacus releases the tie-in edition on 6 December, and it should provide yet another sales bonanza for the entire series in book and audio form.

September's Euro Crime Competition Winners

Here are the winners of September's Euro Crime competition (and the correct answer):

Days of Atonement by Michael Gregorio

Which of these Faber titles won the 2007 Edgar for Best Novel?

c) The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin

Winners:

Peter Cleasby
Doug Floyd
Melanie Gardiner
Karolyn Holden
Phil Moulds

Enter this month's competition here.

CWA Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award - shortlist

Again from Book2book:

The Crime Writers' Association is delighted to announce the shortlist for this year's CWA Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award - the prestigious prize for the best historical crime novel of 2007.

The winner will be announced by the Chair of judges, Janet Laurence, at a party to be held at Six Fitzroy Square, London W1, on Wednesday, November 7th, from 6.30-8.30pm. The award is sponsored by the Estate of Ellis Peters and her publishers, the Headline Book Publishing Group and the Little, Brown Book Group.

This year's shortlist contains a wide-ranging selection, from Henry II's England to post-war Munich and Tuscany, via the Victorian railways, and nineteenth century Istanbul and Canada. All are to be greatly enjoyed.

The shortlist, in alphabetical order by author, is as follows:

Ariana Franklin - MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH - Bantam Press

Judges' comments: 'Ariana Franklin has found a unique female protagonist, an Italian doctor trained in the study of death and brought to England as assistant to a renowned investigator charged by Henry II with the solving of murder. In this seductive book, characters leap into life, scenes form a closely woven and colourful tapestry, the central figure of Adelia, the mistress of the art of death, has an unusual charm, and the plot darkens as the story progresses.'


Jason Goodwin - THE SNAKE STONE - Faber and Faber

Judges' comments: 'A second outing for Jason Goodwin's eunuch sleuth, now having to dedicate his talents to clearing his name from the accusation of murder in nineteenth century Istanbul. The loving evocation of the city, its food, architecture, ethnic diversity and rivalries, and the political unrest that seethes as the Sultan lies dying, provides a compelling backdrop to a tale that twists and turns, and involves a host of memorable characters, including a magnetic heroine. The climax in the city's underground water system is thrilling.'


Philip Kerr - THE ONE FROM THE OTHER - Quercus

Judges' comments: 'Philip Kerr's German PI protagonist, Bernie Gunther, is working in 1949 Munich. This is a tale where nothing is what it seems on the surface, where the difficulty for Bernie is to distinguish one thing from another, whether it concerns war crimes, murder, dirty deals, or what the motives are for engaging his services. In a complex, multi-layered tale, characterisation, period atmosphere and the eventual unfolding of the facts all ring true and provide a satisfying whole.'


Andrew Martin - MURDER AT DEVIATION JUNCTION - Faber and Faber

Judges' comments: 'Another attractive mystery featuring the engagingly straight-forward pre-First World War railway detective, Jim Stringer. Andrew Martin marries together a cast of memorable and totally believable characters with a devious plot involving a secret society. Railways weave their own spell as lightly incorporated period detail assists in producing an absorbing crime novel that is peppered with atmospheric train journeys in the depths of winter.'


Mark Mills, THE SAVAGE GARDEN, HarperCollins

Judges' comments: 'Post war Tuscany, a sixteenth century garden and a wartime killing are woven together in an atmospheric and psychologically involving novel. The mysteries of the garden, the tensions in the family Docci, the emerging personality of the Cambridge architectural student who teases out much more than the secrets of the historic garden, all combine in a compelling read from the author of the highly regarded THE WHALEBOAT HOUSE (originally published as AMANGANSETT).'


Stef Penney - THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES - Quercus

Judges' comments: 'A marvellously evoked tale of murder and the disappearance of a seventeen-year-old boy into the icy wastes of Canada in the second half of the nineteenth century. The unlocking of the murder mystery involves the solving of past crimes as well as the present, explores the question of personal and ethnic identity, commercial corruption, parent/child relationships, greed, loyalty and love; major themes that the first-time author tackles with authority and imagination.'


The CWA Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award judging panel consisted of:

Janet Laurence (Chair): Author of two crime series, one set in the eighteenth century featuring the Italian painter, Canaletto; honours degree in history.

Sir Bernard Ingham: former Chief Press Secretary to Margaret Thatcher, and author of numerous books covering both his time in politics and his beloved Yorkshire.

Maureen Lyle: Journalist and regular reviewer of crime fiction, also playwright on literary, historical and musical subjects.

Jessica Mann: Author of twenty crime novels, journalist and reviewer, whose latest book was a non-fiction account of the overseas evacuation of children during the Second World War.

Colin Murray: Long career in publishing, now works as a freelance editor, specialising in crime, science fiction and fantasy, and has recently published his first crime novel.

Craig Russell's Jan Fabel series to be televised

Book2book are reporting that German tv will produce a series of films based on the Jan Fabel series by Craig Russell:

Craig Russell (represented by Julian Friedmann of the Blake Friedmann Agency, London) and The Lisa Filmproduktion GmbH in Vienna have today agreed a deal whereby the series of Jan Fabel novels will be made into feature length television films in German. They will start with Brother Grimm, published in German by Luebbe earlier this year.

The Lisa Filmproduktion GmbH specialises in the production of feature films and TV series. So far they have produced approximately 200 feature films and they are currently producing a series of up to ten TV movies each year (for ARD, ZDF, RTL Television). Apart from its production activities Lisa Filmproduktion holds a library of some 350 titles, available for worldwide licensing.

The novels – three published so far in English (BLOOD EAGLE, BROTHER GRIMM, ETERNAL) – have been licensed to publishers in 21 languages. The UK publisher, Hutchinson (an imprint of Random House) and the German publisher Luebbe have commissioned Russell to write books 4-6 in the series.

Read the whole article here.

2008 CWA Dagger Entry details

From the CWA website:

Entries are now invited for the 2008 Daggers, the prestigious awards that celebrate the very best in crime and thriller writing. In all there are ten awards in contention, and nominations are invited for the Duncan Lawrie, International, Steel, Non-Fiction and New Blood Daggers.

Any UK publisher may enter books provided that the book is relevant to the appropriate award and was published between June 1 2007 and May 31 2008. (For the biennial Non-Fiction Dagger the earlier date is June 1 2006.) The final closing date is April 17 2008. Further details, including how to obtain the full rules and entry form, are on the 2008 Daggers pages.

The 2008 Debut Dagger Competition will open on 15 November 2007 and close on February 15 2008. The rules are currently being finalised and they will be posted on this website in mid-October.

The judges for the International Dagger are:
Chair: Adrian Muller
Ruth Morse
Peter Guttridge
Susanna Yager

Possible candidates for the International Dagger include so far:-

Boris Akunin - The State Counsellor
Michel Benoit - The Thirteenth Apostle
Andrea Camilleri - Rounding the Mark
Andrea Camilleri - The Patience of the Spider
Ottavio Cappellani - Who Is Lou Sciortino?
Gianrico Carofiglio - The Past Is Another Country
Gianrico Carofiglio - Reasonable Doubts
K O Dahl - The Man in the Window
Annauld Delalande - The Dante Trap
Ake Edwardson - Frozen Tracks
Karin Fossum - Black Seconds
Michele Giuttari - A Florentine Death
Friedrich Glauser - The Spoke
Juan Gomez-Jurado - God's Spy
Frode Grytten - The Shadow in the River
Petra Hammesfahr - The Sinner
Peter Hoeg - The Quiet Girl
Anne Holt - The Final Murder (apa What Never Happens)
Arnaldur Indridason - The Draining Lake
Claude Izner - The Pere-Lachaise Mystery
Mari Jungstedt - Unspoken
Marek Krajewski - Death in Breslau
Stieg Larsson - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Camilla Leckberg - The Ice Princess
Carlo Lucarelli - The Damned Season
Henning Mankell - Kennedy's Brain
Dominique Manotti - Lorraine Connection
Deon Meyer - Devil's Peak
Julia Navarro - The Bible of Clay
Jo Nesbo - House of Pain
Arturo Perez-Reverte - The Painter of Battles
Rafael Reig - A Pretty Face
Andrei Rubanov - Do Time Get Time
Bernhard Schlink - Self's Deception
Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Last Rituals
Mehmet Murat Somer - The Prophet Murders
Martin Suter - A Deal with the Devil
Fred Vargas - This Night's Foul Work
Domingo Villar - Blue-Water Eyes

Website updates including a new competition

I've brought the News page up to date, with links to reviews and interviews in the major UK papers.

October's competition is now online. Win a copy of the forthcoming paperback of The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo (nb. some geographical restrictions apply).


View the trailer for The Redbreast here.

The Big Thrill - new column

The latest edition of the ITW newsletter has gone online and sees the inaugural must read column from Scottish bookseller and crimescenescotland web guru, Russel McLean called A View from the Trenches.