New Reviews: Bourland, Patterson-Marklund, Roslund-Hellstrom

Last call: Closing today. September's Competition which is open internationally:
Win one of three copies of From the Dead by Mark Billingham (Worldwide)

Here are this week's reviews, sorry there's only 3 this time but I'm away this weekend. Normal service should be resuming very soon!:

Terry Halligan reviews The Baker Street Phantom by Fabrice Bourland, tr. Morag Young;

I review the Patterson-Marklund collaboration that is: Postcard Killers (definitely not the next Stieg Larsson);

and Maxine Clarke reviews the "addictive thriller" Three Seconds by Roslund-Hellstrom, tr. Kari Dickson which is published today.

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

Blue Lightning - Cover Opinions

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is the US and UK hardback covers for Ann Cleeves's Blue Lightning, the fourth in the Shetland quartet (now to be a quintet I believe). The US edition was published yesterday.

So what are you thoughts on the US (LHS) and UK (RHS) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Ann Cleeves?

If you have read it, how well does the cover match the story?

Here is the Euro Crime review by Maxine of Blue Lightning.

Trailer - Roslund-Hellstrom on 3 Seconds

Three Seconds by Roslund-Hellstrom and translated by Kari Dickson, is published on 30 September by Quercus. The trailer below has the two authors introducing the plot.



Maxine's review of Three Seconds will be uploaded to Euro Crime in the next few days...

OT: Holiday Snaps

Here are one or two snaps from our recent holiday in Yorkshire/Lake District.

The bad weather - Settle Station


Incoming rain at Simon's Seat, Yorkshire



The good weather - climbing up Helvellyn (3rd highest peak in England):





There are some photos of "Wuthering Heights" on my teenage blog.

July 2010 Competition Winners

There were no competitions in June 2010.

The ten winners of Jail Bird by Jessie Keane were:

Jackie Antcliff
Inge Bex
Clair Chen
Esther Gerdzen
Cathy MacLennan
Katherine Penny
Zarah Robinson
Charles Sennett
Ruth Steel
Milly Youngman

The 3 winners of The Assassin's Prayer by Ariana Franklin were:

Janie Halsall
Lyndsey Robinson
Rosemary Trusdale

Congratulations to all the winners and I hope they enjoy their books.

August's competition winners will be announced shortly.

Following the Detectives

Following the Detectives: Real Locations in Crime Fiction edited by Maxim Jakubowski is released today. As well as Maxim the contributors are: Dick Adler, Declan Burke, Michael Carlson, David Stuart Davies, Martin Edwards, Barry Forshaw, John Harvey, Oline Cogdill plus well-known to Euro Crime readers: bloggers J Kingston Pierce, Peter Rozovsky and Sarah Weinman.

Publisher's Blurb: Whether it be the London of Sherlock Holmes or the Ystad of the Swedish Wallander, Dashiell Hammett's San Francisco or Donna Leon's Venice, the settings chosen by crime fiction authors have helped those writers to bring their fictional investigators to life and to infuse their writing with a sense of danger and mystery.

Following the Detectives follows the trail of over 20 of crime fiction's greatest investigators, discovering the cities and countries in which they live and work.

Edited by one of the leading voices in crime fiction, Maxim Jakubowski, each entry is written by a crime writer, journalist or critic with a particular expertise in that detective and the fictional crimes that have taken place in each city's dark streets and hidden places.

The book includes beautifully designed maps with all the major locations that have featured in a book or series of books - buildings, streets, bars, restaurants and locations of crimes and discoveries - allowing the reader to follow Inspector Morse's footsteps through the college squares of Oxford or while away hours in a smoky Parisian café frequented by Inspector Maigret, for example.

Aimed at the avid detective fan, the armchair tourist and the literary tourist alike, Following the Detectives is the perfect way for crime fiction fans to truly discover the settings of their favourite detective novels.

New Reviews: Armstrong, Cato, Charters, Sansom, Varesi, Wagner

One competition for September and it is open internationally closes 30st:
Win one of three copies of From the Dead by Mark Billingham (Worldwide)

Here are this week's reviews:

Starting off this week with a rare excursion into true-crime: Amanda Gillies reviews A Matter of Life and Death by Sue Armstrong (subtitled: inside the hidden world of the pathologist);

Laura Root reviews a cozy set in Devon: Birthdays Can Be Murder by Joyce Cato;

Terry Halligan reviews the debut from Charlie Charters - Bolt Action which he loved;

Similarly, Pat Austin didn't want C J Sansom's latest Shardlake, Heartstone to end;

Maxine Clarke reviews a new to English, Italian author: Valerio Varesi's River of Shadows, tr. Joseph Farrell

and I review Jan Costin Wagner's long awaited sequel to Ice Moon: Silence, tr. Anthea Bell.

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

Review: Behind You by Linda Regan (audio book)

Behind You by Linda Regan, read by Christopher Oxford, (Oakhill Publishing Limited, April 2009, CD ISBN: 1846486238)

BEHIND YOU is the debut novel from actress Linda Regan and is set in the world of a pantomime over the Christmas period.

A performance of Dick Whittington is cut short when the principal girl, Lucinda, is killed during the "Underwater Ballet" scene - a scene in darkness where the cast cross the stage holding ultra-violet fish so that it looks like the fish are swimming. The death looks like an accident but DI Paul Banham's gut says it's murder. He calls in the murder team which includes his sergeant, Alison Grainger, whom he wants to get close to but finds he cannot, due to the unsolved murder of his wife and child eleven years before. Alison has her own demon - a self-image problem which leads her to hardly eat anything during the investigation.

The police interrogate the cast and get alibis and motives but reluctantly allow the show to go on but a second murder happens under their noses. One of the cast is arrested but the show still goes on. Has Banham got the right person or is it a “stitch-up”?

BEHIND YOU is an intriguing mystery set in a closed-world where the killer must be a member of the theatre company. Even-so it's hard to deduce who the murderer is. This has the set-up of a traditional old-school whodunnit with modern (bad) language and sexual liaisons thrown in. In fact the cast members are so inter-linked by marriage or sex that it would have been useful (to me) to have a cast-list and some family trees in the audio book slipcase. Being on audio, it's harder to backtrack so I did get a bit confused, though that's probably just me.

Whilst the mystery is quite good, and the theatre setting well detailed, the police characters are rather annoying – Banham's rather officious and his young DC Crowther is so immature that he misses the murderer creeping about as he's staring at the chorus girls changing, and Alison is convinced that if she loses 2lbs she'll be attractive.

I unfortunately didn't warm to Christopher Oxford's narration. His accents are good and his female voices are particularly well done but I found his main narration/Banham voice a bit stilted and cold.

The next in the series, PASSION KILLERS, isn't yet available on audio so I will have to order the paperback instead. I'm intrigued to see if Banham and Alison's relationship gets any further and whether any more is made of the unsolved murder of Banham's family.

Recent and Upcoming Titles of Interest

This week I've come across a few titles that though not all Euro Crime or translated, may be of interest to this blog's readers:

Zift by Vladislav Todorov (tr. Joseph Benatov) (out now, US edition)

December 21, 1963: Having served 20 years for a murder he didn't commit, "Moth" exits Central Sofia Prison anticipating his first night of freedom. Instead he steps into a new and alien world—the nightmarish totalitarianism of Communist Bulgaria. In his first hours of freedom he traverses the map of a diabolical city, full of decaying neighborhoods, gloomy streets, and a bizarre parade of characters.

A novel of grave wit, Zift unfolds in the course of a single, frenetic night, offering a fast-paced, ghoulish, even grotesque—but also enchanting—tour of shadowy, socialist Sofia. To achieve his depiction of totalitarian absurdity, Vladislav Todorov combines the methods of hardboiled American crime fiction and film noir with socialist symbols and communist ideological clichés.

An extract can be read via the publisher's website.

Treachery in the Yard: A Nigerian Thriller by Adimchinma Ibe (out now, US edition) - intended to be the first in a series. From the publisher's website:

A stunning police procedural debut from one of Nigeria’s young up-and-coming talents, Treachery in the Yard introduces an electrifying new setting to the world of international crime fiction.

Detective Peterside is drawn into the politics of Nigeria when a bomb goes off at Mr. Pius Okpara’s home. Mr. Okpara is locked in a conflict with a political rival, as both men are seeking their party’s nomination prior to the general election.

As Detective Peterside investigates, one murder leads to another and soon events appear to be spiraling out of control. The more he digs, the more corruption surfaces. Soon he is not sure whom to trust, including even his own mentor.

An intriguing blend of locale and familiar police procedure, Treachery in the Yard provides a unique brand of international suspense.

Looking ahead - The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (tr. Alexander O. Smith) will be published in the US in February 2011 and in the UK in August 2011. [Petrona and I were given a glowing recommendation of this title by a publicist from a rival company to the one publishing the UK edition.]

Yasuko lives a quiet life, working in a Tokyo bento shop, a good mother to her only child. But when her ex-husband appears at her door without warning one day, her comfortable world is shattered. When Detective Kusanagi of the Tokyo Police tries to piece together the events of that day, he finds himself confronted by the most puzzling, mysterious circumstances he has ever investigated. Nothing quite makes sense, and it will take a genius to understand the genius behind this particular crime...One of the biggest-selling Japanese thrillers ever, and the inspiration for a cult film, The Devotion of Suspect X is now being discovered across the world. Its blend of a page-turning story, evocative Tokyo setting and utterly surprising ending make it a must-read for anyone interested in international fiction.

The cover above may not represent the final cover. More information on the book and the author can be found in the publisher's catalogue (pdf).

Apps for Martina Cole & Mark Billingham

I haven't got an i-anything but I've stumbled across mentions of apps for Martina Cole and Mark Billingham recently:


For the first time, MARTINA COLE: THE EXTRAS iPhone app gives you exclusive access to Martina Cole’s world and the inside scoop on her bestselling novels.

This is the definitive guide to Martina and is perfect for all her fans and those of you who are just discovering her fantastic writing. Covering all of her bestselling novels from DANGEROUS LADY to HARD GIRLS, the app allows you to:

Watch Martina talk about her novels
Read the first chapter from each of her bestselling books
Find out more about Martina in an exclusive extended biography
Have instant access to buy the books you haven’t read

Find out more here.

And it was recently announced in The Bookseller that a Mark Billingam/Tom Thorne app would be released on 7 October:

Little, Brown will be launching an app for Mark Billingham's DI Tom Thorne crime novels, in what it is calling an "unprecedented partnership" with Sky and Trade Mobile.

The app will be available free for users of iPhone and Android handsets from 7th October, coinciding with a new six-part TV series, "Thorne", broadcasting on Sky 1 HD.

The publisher said the app would "act as a companion to the Thorne series of novels and the TV series thorne, offering exclusive material including author videos, images, an interactive map of Thorne's London, a playlist, as well as stills, trailers and interviews from the new Sky 1 series".


Readers of Billingham's novels Sleepyhead and Scaredycat (re-issued by Little, Brown as TV tie-in editions on 7th October) will also be able to use the App to go "BeyondTheStory", with Trade Mobile's searchable page technology providing extra detail relating to characters, locations and plots.

Skin - Cover Opinions

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is three covers for Mo Hayder's Skin, the fourth in the Jack Cafferty series and the second to be set in the Bristol area.

So what are you thoughts on the US (LHS), UK (RHS) and Canadian (below, middle) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Mo Hayder?

If you have read it, how does the cover match the story?

Here are Euro Crime reviews of Skin, by Maxine and Michelle.

TV News: The Field of Blood (Denise Mina)

The BBC Press Office has today released details of an upcoming tv adaptation of Denise Mina's The Field of Blood:

Set in Glasgow, 1982, crime drama The Field Of Blood centres on would-be journalist Paddy Meehan, a young copygirl working in a newspaper office.

Stuck in an almost exclusively male-dominated world of limited opportunities and cynicism, Paddy dreams of becoming an investigative journalist – believing that in miscarriages of justice, reporters are sometimes the only hope.

Funny, smart, and feisty, Paddy seizes an opportunity to kick start her career and becomes embroiled in a dark murder case. For Paddy, it's the opportunity of a lifetime but comes at great personal cost...

Filming on The Field Of Blood, a thrilling investigative drama, begins in October with casting to be announced in the coming weeks. The drama will transmit on BBC One Scotland in 2011.

Caroline Parkinson, Creative Director, Creative Scotland, said: "Creative Scotland is delighted to be working with Andrea Calderwood at Slate North and BBC Scotland, in bringing to life the first of the Paddy Meehan series, The Field of Blood by Denise Mina to Scottish audiences. A gripping two-part thriller, it will be set and filmed in Glasgow and Creative Scotland hopes that this marks the first in a long series from this impressive team."

(The Paddy Meehan series was intended to be 5 books but it seems to have stopped at 3.)

TV News: Inspector George Gently's back on Sunday

Two more episodes of Inspector George Gently have been filmed and the first, Gently Evil, will be on Sunday night at 8.30pm (according to my tv guide) on BBC1.

Here are some details from the BBC Press Office:

Martin Shaw returns as old-school detective Inspector George Gently in the crime drama set in the Sixties, written by Peter Flannery.

It's 1966, and when a young woman is found murdered in an idyllic coastal village in Northumberland, Gently and Bacchus find themselves investigating a family with unimaginable secrets.

Initially it appears that the woman's estranged husband, Alan Charlton, father of their enigmatic young daughter Agnes, is responsible for the killing. Then they meet the child's uncle, Darren Paige.

With a rogue reporter, Max Osgood, desperate to get an exclusive story on the family, the police have their work cut out.

As Gently and Bacchus investigate the disturbed family, they discover an alarming truth.

In an added complication, Bacchus is having marriage problems and becomes jealous of Gently when he realises how close the older man has become to his wife, Lisa, and toddler Leigh-Ann.

Some background information on the filming (now in England and not Ireland) can be found on the BBC Press Office website

Incidentally, is Bacchus the most irritating policeman on tv?

Whitechapel II

The second series of Whitechapel, starring Rupert Penry-Jones, will this time focus on descendants of the Kray twins. I don't know when it'll be shown but it looks to be in ITV's Autumn/Winter schedule.


From ITV's press release:

Rupert Penry-Jones, Phil Davis, and Steve Pemberton will appear in a second series of the critically acclaimed serial drama Whitechapel.

Whitechapel II once again draws on a set of iconic cult crimes born out of the area. After Jack the Ripper comes the gangster brutality of the Krays, and in Whitechapel II the paranoia of this era and the faded glamour of the former East End overlords will characterise the drama.

Peter Serafinowicz (The Peter Serafinowicz Show) will play DCI Cazenove and Craig Parkinson, (Lark-Rise to Candleford) will play twins, Jimmy and Johnny Kray.

Returning to write the second series are Ben Court and Caroline Ip and Sally Woodward Gentle will executive produce the series.

Woodward Gentle said: "Whitechapel II will be as sharp, intense and as visually distinctive as the first series with the gangster culture of the Krays never far away. Once again the streets of Whitechapel yield an extraordinary story and we are delighted, if slightly scared, to be going back there again."

Collusion - Cover Opinions

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is the two covers for Stuart Neville's latest book: Collusion.

So what are you thoughts on the US (LHS) and UK (RHS) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Stuart Neville?

If you have read it, how does the cover match the story?

Here is the Euro Crime review, by Laura, of Collusion.

OT: Off on Holiday Tomorrow

It's been nearly two years since I've had a proper holiday ie stopped away from home for more than three nights, so I'm very excited about stopping away for nine nights from tomorrow. I shall be online from time to time(possibly blogging) and contactable via twitter (but not email).

Can you guess where I'm stopping from these three books? (Two nights in the first one, four nights in the second and three nights in the third.)


Review of In a Dry Season.


Review of The Serpent Pool.


Here's an extra clue:

OT: More Cat photos

I bought a new camera today - a digital compact as the old one would only do about 10 shots before the battery went flat and the zoom didn't work and we're off on holiday on Friday.

A few test snaps, restricted by the fact I haven't got a memory card for it yet.

All taken with the zoom feature...

Foxy on the shed, surveying his domain:


Three of the four:



The fourth on the bin:


and I liked it so much I made it my wallpaper:

Free Audio Book of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

A very kind blog follower has just let me know that The Guardian's free audio book download on Saturday was Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The print edition is reviewed here on Euro Crime.

This is a free download of the abridged edition read by Martin Wenner (nb. 7hrs 26 compared to 18hrs 15m for the unabridged).

The offer is here but you've only got until 12 September.

The Assassin's Prayer - Cover & Title opinions

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is the two titles and two covers for Ariana Franklin's latest book to feature 12th century 'doctor', Adelia Aguilar: A Murderous Procession (US) and The Assassin's Prayer (UK).

So what are you thoughts on the US and UK covers and titles? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Ariana Franklin?

If you have read it, how does the cover/title match the story?

Here is the Euro Crime review, by Norman, of The Assassin's Prayer/A Murderous Procession.

Website Offline temporarily

The Euro Crime website is moving to a different web host so it's offline at the moment whilst the files are being transferred.

Please check back soon.

If you've sent an email to the eurocrime email account between 9 and 11pm this evening it may have bounced back. The email is now working ok so please resend :).

New Competition - Win From the Dead by Mark Billingham (world-wide)

Euro Crime has three copies of From the Dead (hardback) by Mark Billingham to giveaway. Just answer the simple question and include your details in the form below.

This competition is open internationally and will close on 30 September 2010.
Only 1 entry per person/per household please.
(All entries will be deleted once the winners have been notified.)

When Donna Langford receives a very recent photo of her ex-husband in the post, she gets the shock of her life. Because she's just spent ten years in prison for organising his murder. When her daughter goes missing, Donna believes there can only be one man responsible and hires Anna Carpenter, a determined young private investigator, to find him. DI Tom Thorne worked on the Alan Langford case, so when Carpenter brings the photo to him, he refuses to believe that the man whose body was found in a burned-out car ten years before can still be alive. But when a prison inmate that he and Anna interview is viciously murdered, Thorne starts to understand that Langford is not only alive, but ready to get rid of anyone who could threaten his comfortable new life in Spain...

Review: The Sounds of Crime Anthology (audio book)

The Sounds of Crime Edited by Maxim Jakubowski with stories by Lawrence Block, Mark Billingham, Christopher Fowler, Peter James and Val McDermid, read by multiple narrators (Whole Story Audio Books, September 2010, CD ISBN: 978 1 40743 572 5)

The Sounds of Crime is a collection of especially commissioned short stories on the theme of "audio". The stories are not available in print. Each story is about 30 minutes long and there is a short introduction from editor Maxim Jakubowski at the beginning of the collection.

Dolly's Trash and Treasures by Laurence Block narrated by Buffy Davis
This is probably my favourite of the set. Set in America, Dolly a compulsive hoarder is visited by a series of officials with the story conveyed almost completely through dialogue between Dolly and her visitors. An atmospheric and very creepy story in which my sympathy switched as the tale progresses.

Meet Me at the Crematorium by Peter James narrated by Eve Karpf
Fed up with her bullying husband Trevor, Janet travels to Germany to start a new life with a man she's recently met over the internet. But the story doesn't go the way you'd expect from such a description...

Happy Holidays by Val McDermid narrated by Mike Grady
This is a mini Tony Hill-Carol Jordan outing as they are faced with a case of murders being committed on festive days such as Bonfire Night. Tony fears a Santa will die at Christmas. This is a good sampler of this series which is well known, at least in the tv version Wire in the Blood, for its unpleasant methods of murder and this one includes a couple of memorable descriptions.

The Walls by Mark Billingham narrated by Eric Meyers
Best known for the London Tom Thorne series (soon to be on SkyOne), Mark Billingham writes this unsettling tale in America. A man and woman arrive at the same hotel. The man says he's a contractor, the woman's there for a family reunion of sorts, but one them is lying. Attraction and necessity takes its course - giving a new meaning to the phrase "you'll hate yourself in the morning".

The Deceivers by Christopher Fowler narrated by John Hasler
This has a Tales of the Unexpected feel to it. Presented as a monologue, the young narrator tells of how he and a friend relieved the boredom of living in a small town on the Devon-Cornwall border and the unforeseen consequences.

I enjoyed The Sounds of Crime. The stories are well written, as you'd expect from these top crime authors. Each story held my interest throughout. Stories of this length are very suitable for commuters or those who struggle a bit to fit in a full length audio book or for someone to just sample the audio book experience. The narrators are very good with special credit to Buffy Davis who made Dolly very memorable.

OT: Snoozing Cat

Foxy resting his weary head on my pillow. He has been known, when it's cold, to get under the covers as well as put his head on the pillow!

Crime Event at the Indie Alliance Weekend

I've had press releases from Faber and Quercus about this upcoming event at Foyles in London:

Saturday 11 September and Sunday 12 September
INDIE ALLIANCE WEEKEND

Brought to you by the Independent Alliance with PD James, Geoff Dyer, Emily Woof, Philip Kerr & many more…
It may sound like something from Star Wars, but really the Independent Alliance is a network of independent publishers, joined together to ensure their extraordinarily diverse output reaches the widest audience possible. Publishing everything from internationally best-selling crime-writers, to Booker Prize winners, to those undiscovered gems only an independent house can unearth, this weekend they bring to Foyles a vast array of authors for two full days of literary events - including discussions on counterculture and how to write non-fiction, and speed-dating Indie-style. Join us for one or both days, as we celebrate independence in all its forms.

The crime event is:

2pm – 3.15pm: Crime Time
PD James (Faber), Philip Kerr (Quercus), Adam Creed (Faber), & Elizabeth Wilson (Serpent’s Tail)
The popularity of crime novels never seems to wane, but what is it really that captivates us so about crime? Is there a winning formula for the ultimate whodunit, or is any setting, any character ripe for murder and intrigue? Our distinguished crime writers discuss.

(Chaired by Peter Guttridge.)

One ticket covers the whole day and the costs are £15 one day/ £25 both days (concessions are available) and can be purchased via the events page at Foyles bookshop.

Upcoming Talks at the Italian Cultural Institute

I've just received the following press release about a series of talks at the Italian Cultural Institute which will involve several crime writers:

“IN CONVERSAZIONE”
AN INNOVATIVE SERIES OF LITERARY TALKS
AT THE ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE

The series, curated by Maxim Jakubowski, will feature 8 leading English-speaking writers in conversation, discussing why they so often write about Italy, Italians and Italian Culture.

The warm love affair between British & American and Italian literature and culture is a treasured relationship that goes back several centuries, and this will prove an invaluable occasion to examine its contemporary relevance and examples as writers like Sarah Dunant, Iain Pears, Michelle Lovric, Lindsey Davis, David Hewson, Donna Leon, Tobias Jones, and Maxim Jakubowski will appear in conversation with critic Barry Forshaw, author Lauren Henderson and Maxim Jakubowski to discuss their appreciation of all things Italian.

Expect revelations, surprises and intimate confessions!

27 September 7pm SARAH DUNANT with Maxim Jakubowski
11 October 7pm IAIN PEARS with Barry Forshaw
15 November 7 pm MAXIM JAKUBOWSKI with Barry Forshaw
6 December 7pm MICHELLE LOVRIC with Maxim Jakubowski
17 January 7pm LINDSEY DAVIS with Lauren Henderson
21 February 7pm DAVID HEWSON with Barry Forshaw
DONNA LEON with Maxim Jakubowski ( specific date in April to be advised)
09 May 7pm TOBIAS JONES with Lauren Henderson

Contact: Anna Mondavio Tel. 020 7396 4409 anna.mondavio@esteri.it

Italian Cultural Institute 39, Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8NX

rsvp.icilondon@esteri.it

Bruno, Chief of Police - Cover Opinions

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is the four different versions of the cover for Martin Walker's Bruno, Chief of Police, the first in the currently three-book series.

So what are you thoughts on the US and UK covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Martin Walker?

Here is the Euro Crime review, by Maxine, of Bruno, Chief of Police.

Hardbacks: US & UK



Paperbacks: US & UK