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