Peter Steiner's French series

A few years ago Peter Steiner's A French Country Murder was published with a cozy, Peter Mayle type cover. To coincide with the July (US) release of the follow-up L'Assassin, the first book has been given a matching cover and a new title for its paperback edition: Le Crime.

Synopsis: Former State Department expert Louis Morgon finds a murdered body on the doorstep of his charming little house in France, and he and the local gendarme team up to solve the murder.






















Synopsis: From the critically acclaimed author of Le Crime, published in hardcover as A French Country Murder, comes this electrifying sequel featuring former CIA operative Louis Morgon and his partner-in-crime-solving, Jean Renard, the gendarme of their small French village.

Louis Morgon is living a quiet life of good food, good wine, and good friends. When his house is burglarized, he thinks nothing of it. But the burglar and the motive for the burglary are not as simple as they seem. And the consequences of the seemingly trivial break-in will lead Louis and his loved ones to the end of the earth---and quite possibly to the end of their lives.

The UK release date is September, when I hope to give one of them a try.

Spooks: Code 9 coming soon to BBC3

The Spooks spin-off series, the six-parter Spooks: Code 9, will begin on BBC3 on 10th August at 9pm.


From the BBC press release:

The year is 2013. Thames House is gone and regional MI5 Field Offices have sprung up in its place. Are six young new recruits tough, moral and clever enough to protect Britain's future...?

London has been evacuated following a nuclear bomb and the country's power base has shifted north. In the wake of the attack, MI5 must completely restructure and establish field offices across the UK, working to gather intelligence from the very heart of local communities.

They need young, new officers on the ground – and fast. Luckily, Britain's youth is more than up to the challenge and is fighting back from the attack with a new sense of patriotism, combined with the hedonism that comes from being face to face with their own mortality. It is members of this new generation of patriots who help make up MI5's new Field Office 19.

New ITV Drama - Trinity

Charles Dance is back on the small screen after his turn in Andrew Taylor's Fallen Angel. This time it's in an eight-part crime drama revolving around Trinity college at the fictional Bridgeford University. From the ITV website:

For over 900 years Trinity has been an elite playground solely for the über-rich and powerful. But for the first time in its long and illustrious history, Trinity is about to throw open its doors to students from, well, the lower social classes.

Two weeks before Charlotte Arc is due to go to University to study medicine, her father is found dead in mysterious circumstances. Formerly a professor at Trinity, he left the institution suddenly and with no explanation. Convinced he was a changed man, and certain his death is linked to his abrupt departure, she enrols, determined to uncover the truth.

As Charlotte and her fellow students settle in, they begin to realise that all is not what it seems at Trinity. Beneath the glossy, glamorous veneer of wealth and privilege lurks a darker world, one governed by strict codes of conduct, secret societies such as the mysterious Dandelion Club, and the whims of a select group of over-privileged students used to getting their own way.

Trinity is expected to air later this year.

New Reviews: Franklin, Furst, Izner, James, Seymour, Templeton

Here are this week's new reviews and details of the current competition:

Latest Reviews:

Norman Price reviews Ariana Franklin's follow-up to her prize winning Mistress and the Art of Death - Death Maze (aka The Serpent's Tale) and finds it good but not as good as the first in the series;

Mike Ripley reviews the latest excellent espionage thriller from Alan Furst - The Spies of Warsaw;

Terry Halligan reviews Murder on the Eiffel Tower by Claude Izner, set during the Universal Exhibition of 1889;

Maxine Clarke reviews the newest from Peter James: Dead Man's Footsteps, a story that encompasses 9/11 in "a realistic, exciting yet dignified way";

Geoff Jones reviews E V Seymour's The Last Exile and his advice is to stick with it as it gets much better

and I review the latest available on audio book in the Marjory Fleming series by Aline Templeton: Lying Dead - it's a fine police procedural series coupled with a brilliant narrator in the shape of Cathleen McCarron.


Current Competitions:

Win a copy of The Bellini Card by Jason Goodwin*

* no restrictions on entrants (ends 31 July)

OT: Doctor Who Fix (at the Proms)

A special mini episode of Doctor Who, Music of the Spheres, was made for and shown at today's Doctor Who Prom. It briefly appeared on the website but if like me, you missed it you can watch it on YouTube. You can listen to the whole concert on radio 3's iplayer.

Website Bandwidth Upgrade - Competition details

The continuing and increasing popularity of the Euro Crime website is shown by the fact that it's been temporarily disabled due to a bandwidth exceedance. I have stumped up the readies to increase the capacity but I'm not sure how long it'll take to be processed. In the meantime, if you want to enter the competition, email karen at eurocrime dot co dot uk putting 'Competition Goodwin' in the subject line. Please note only one entry per household will be entered into the draw and there are NO geographical restrictions.

Which one of the following authors does not write a series set in Istanbul?

a) Barbara Nadel
b) Craig Russell
c) Mehmet Murat Somer

[All emails will be deleted after the closing date, once the winners have been notified.]

Book Depository interview Jason Goodwin

Jason Goodwin is interviewed over on The Book Depository site.

Jason Goodwin's series features Yashim the Eunuch. Read the Euro Crime reviews of: The Snake Stone and The Bellini Card and enter this month's competition to win a copy of The Bellini Card (no geographical restrictions).

The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa

Hot off the US press is Valfierno by Martin Caparros - a fictionalisation of the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911.

Synopsis: On August 22, 1911, the world was shocked by an audacious crime: Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. Although some people suspected subversive artists like Picasso or Apollinaire of perpetrating the theft, no arrests were made. Two years later, an Italian named Vincenzo Perugia was detained after attempting to sell the Mona Lisa to an antiques dealer in Florence -- but the mystery of the theft itself was never satisfactorily resolved.

In his spellbinding novel Valfierno, Martín Caparrós tackles this enigma, presenting us with a fascinating criminal unable to go to his grave without divulging the details of his outrageous heist. In tantalizing conversations with an American journalist, the Marqués de Valfierno sheds light on his past secrets, including his sordid origins as Bollino, son of a Buenos Aires servant woman, a man ultimately transformed into the most notorious con artist in the world. A sly and consummate entertainer, Valfierno reveals the shifting identities of the anonymous Argentine boy who has gone on to become a veritable artist, creating for himself the perfect role of wealthy aristocrat in Belle Époque Paris as he prepares for his crime.

Featuring an engaging cat-and-mouse drama and unforgettable characters, Valfierno is a brilliant fictionalisation of the greatest theft of the twentieth century, as well as a compelling psychological portrait of a true mastermind. Valfierno, Caparrós's eighth novel, won the prestigious Premio Planeta award in 2004.

Read an excerpt here. The UK publication date is 15 September.

Crime Scene 2008

The programme for Crime Scene 2008 is now online although public booking is not open until 15th August.

25-27 September

A film and literature festival devoted to the world's most popular fiction genre, TCM Crime Scene is screening at the ICA for the first time this year. We have international previews from around the globe, a Bertrand Tavernier retrospective and special TV events including an evening dedicated to Spooks. The literature section of the festival is based up the road at the rather elegant Waterstone's Piccadilly.

The literary events include appearances by Stella Rimington, Peter James, Christopher Fowler, Anne Perry and the popular Foul Play event by Simon Brett and co which has decamped from Harrogate to Crime Scene. There's also a preview of the new Poirot, Mrs McGinty's Dead, with the possible attendance of David Suchet and I quite fancy going to see OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies.

Old Publishing News - Tarquin Hall

I missed the original announcement about this series which is set in New Delhi and written by British journalist Tarquin Hall. The first book, The Case of the Missing Servant: A Vish Puri Mystery, is due out in May 2009.

From Publishers Weekly:

Amanda Murray at S&S has acquired U.S. rights to the first two books in a mystery series set in New Delhi and described as the Indian answer to Alexander McCall Smith's bestselling series set in Botswana. The books feature a fastidious sleuth named Vish Puri, and the first book is titled Vish Puri: The Case of the Missing Servant. Emma Parry made the deal, and rights have already been sold to McClelland & Stewart in Canada and to Hutchinson in the U.K. (via auction); to Record in Brazil and to Mondadori in Italy (via preempt). Author Tarquin Hall, who divides his time between England and India, is the author of three works of nonfiction, Salaam Brick Lane, To the Elephant Graveyard and Mercenaries, Missionaries and Misfits. S&S will publish the first book in spring 2009.

Another comparison to Alexander McCall Smith...

OT(ish): A Guide to the Birds of East Africa

A review of this new novel, A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson, in today's Metro (yes it does have its uses) certainly piqued my interest and I hope my dad's not reading this as I foresee this as a probable birthday present. It's not a crime novel but Joanne Harris describes it as 'sort of Wodehouse meets McCall Smith'.

Synopsis: Reserved, honourable Mr Malik. You wouldn’t notice him in a Nairobi street – except, perhaps, to comment on his carefully sculpted comb over – but beneath his unprepossessing exterior lies a warm heart and a secret passion. Not even his friends at the Asadi Club know it, but Mr Malik is head-over-heels in love with the leader of the Tuesday morning bird walk of the East African Ornithological Society, Rose Mbikwa.

While Mr Malik hesitantly plans how he will ask Rose to the annual Hunt Ball, flashy Harry Kahn arrives in town and makes it clear that he too has Rose in his sights. When Mr Malik blurts out his feelings at the Club a wager is set - whoever sees the most birds in a week will ask Rose to the ball.

With boats, planes and guides to get him to the choicest bird-watching spots in Kenya, Harry Kahn's soon noting down everything from pearl-breasted swallows to spur-winged plovers. But Mr Malik's not so easily beaten and with unorthodox methods and far-flung adventures of his own, he's determined to stay in the game.

Read the first chapter online.

Publishing Deal - Zoe Ferraris

Zoe Ferraris's The Night of the Mi'raj, published as Finding Nouf in the US, which was shortlisted for this year's CWA 'New Blood' Dagger is to have a sequel. From Publishers Lunch:

Zoe Ferraris's PILGRIMAGE, a sequel to the recently published literary mystery FINDING NOUF, following a Muslim detective into the Saudi desert as he helps an American woman find her missing husband, and continues to manage the conflict between his religious beliefs and his desire for a family, to Anjali Singh at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, by Julie Barer at Barer Literary (NA).

Danish Noir Film - Kandidaten

Due out in Denmark in October according to IMDB is Kandidaten, a noir thriller. Synopsis:

Jonas Bechmann, a defense attorney, is a man of the system. Until the day he himself is accused of murder. Taking matters into his own hands, he throws himself into the hunt for a group of blackmailers who threaten to expose him as the killer. But nothing is what it appears to be, and the blackmail links back to his father's death under mysterious circumstances a year and a half earlier.

Watch the trailer on the Twitch site.

Just a Link

I was already interested in reading Siren of the Waters by Michael Genelin, which stars "Slovakian police commander Jana Matinova" and then I saw this comment in a review of it:

But I do know that fictional crime east of Germany time and again beats fictional Eurocrime.

Read the rest of the review on the Stacked blog.

Aiveen becomes Ava (McCarthy)

Just to confuse me, it seems as if new Irish writer Aiveen McCarthy will now be published as Ava McCarthy. Her first book is due in May 2009, called The Insider.

Blurb from amazon.co.uk:

A cutting-edge international thriller set in the world of hackers, techno-thieves and inside traders for fans of John Grisham. Henrietta 'Harry' Martinez lost her investment banker father, Sal, at a young age. He taught her everything he knew - about taking risks and calculating odds. But Sal made a bad gamble when he went into business with 'The Prophet', an anonymous trader who claims Harry owes him now her father's jailed for fraud. It's twelve million euros. Or her life. With no money and little time, Harry must track down Sal's crooked partners and escape the people on her trail -- journalists, police and hired killers. But Harry has her own skills, honed by her father, skills her enemies haven't anticipated. Now, from the London Stock Exchange to the casinos of the Bahamas, the chase is on. The stakes are high. And the bets are off!

Publishing Deals

From Publishing News:

Patrick Janson-Smith, now happily installed at HarperCollins and back from being fêted in New York, has made his first buys for his Blue Door imprint. He has secured WEL rights from Judith Murdoch to Anne Berry's debut The Hungry Ghosts, a novel set mostly in 1960s Hong Kong and telling the story of Alice Safford, the unloved and unwanted third girl in a family of four siblings who becomes possessed by the angry ghost of a Chinese rape victim. Janson-Smith describes it as "an absolute stunner of a novel: a family saga with magical-realist overlays, beautifully written and compulsively readable”. Berry, who was born in Aden and grew up in Hong Kong, now lives in Surrey.

He has also bought EDS Dylan Thomas Prize-winner Rachel Trezise's novel Shades of Crazy, which will "do for Cardiff what Trainspotting did for Edinburgh". Hers is "a beguilingly original voice” and she writes about "the underbelly of society with both insight and humour”. Broo Doherty of Wade & Doherty was the agent, and the deal was for UK/Commonwealth.

Finally, Janson-Smith has acquired Dead Spy Running, "one of the classiest thrillers I've read in ages”. Bought from Claire Paterson of Janklow & Nesbit, it is the first of a series written by the Daily Telegraph's Jon Stock.

Next year's Harrogate dates

I hope to blog some more about the recent Harrogate crime writing festival but whilst I remember, the next year's dates are different to what was advertised in the brochure etc. I'll update the events page asap but the new dates are: 23-26 July 2009. See you there!

Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year - Winner

As anyone who's interested probably knows by now, Stef Penney's The Tenderness of Wolves won the Theakston's prize - £3000 and a miniature beer casket - last Thursday. Maxine (Petrona) and I were there, and were very pleased to see the sole female representative win. For a more objective reason as to why she's a worthy winner, read Maxine's review of The Tenderness of Wolves.

Also, from the Guardian:

Speaking to the Guardian earlier today, the chairman of the judges, Val McDermid, was keen to claim Penny's novel for the crime fiction genre. "This is a book about a murder and its consequences," she said, "and that's a crime novel almost by definition."

According to McDermid, the distinction between crime and literary fiction is becoming increasingly blurred and irrelevant. She described the decision as a straightforward judgment on the quality of the books in front of the panel: "The consensus was that this was the outstanding book."

The judges had no intention to shift the public's perception of crime fiction, she said, adding that crime writers have been writing quality fiction for years. "If it changes people's attitude to crime fiction that's a bonus," she continued, "but it wasn't the judges' motivation."

New TV drama from Anthony Horowitz

From Digital Spy:

ITV1 director of television Peter Fincham has commissioned a new "event" drama based around a car crash.

The serial of five hour-long instalments will feature "the largest collision ever shot in the UK" and centre on a group of people thrown together by the smash.

Collision is penned by Foyle's War writer Anthony Horowitz, with Mike Walker (Does God Play Football?), and is scheduled to air in February.

"Beyond the crumpled cars and the beleaguered emergency services are a series of invisible dramas that are rarely told, from Government cover-ups and smuggling, to embezzlement and murder," said an ITV preview.

"The serial ends with a devastating twist that will show all this death and mayhem was caused by the tiniest and most insignificant detail."

Harrogate - Nordic Crime Readers Group Session

I've had a couple of requests as to which titles/authors were mentioned in this session so here they are to the best of my memory...

Ann (Cleeves) started off by asking people how they'd found the Mari Jungstedt books Unseen and Unspoken. The poor quality of the translation was commented on which lead to Ron Beard from Quercus commenting on a similar problem with Helene Tursten's The Torso which also has an American translation. Ann then moved on to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson which Maxine Clarke and I enthused about.

Also sitting in with the session was Johan Theorin who explained about some of the Swedish crime fiction prizes including The Sherlock which was cancelled in 1987 due to lack of suitable entries. The genre was kick-started by Henning Mankell in the 1990s.

Ann mentioned that Mankell's books always start with a vivid scene eg a chair in the middle of an empty road - a technique she has nicked - and hopes that the Kenneth Branagh tv series will brings his books back to prominence.

Maxine spoke more about Helene Tursten and the debt owed to the masters, Sjowall and Wahloo the husband and wife team who wrote ten books starring Martin Beck, after whom a prize has been named.

Ann then went round the other Nordic countries beginning with Norway; Karin Fossum's work was touched on, in particular Black Seconds and Don't Look Back and then (my personal favourite) Jo Nesbo including my plea for people to read The Redbreast first.

Then representing Denmark - Leif Davidsen. Lime's Photograph was praised and I mentioned the excellent The Serbian Dane.

For Iceland, of course Arnaldur Indridason and there was some discussion of the Dagger winning Silence of the Grave.

And for Finland, Maxine spoke up for Ice Moon by Jan Costin Wagner a haunting book written by a German author who spends half the year in Finland.

A general discussion of recommendations brought up the Eric Winter series by Ake Edwardson and The Beast by Roslund-Hellstrom.

Many more authors can be found on the Euro Crime website, by country: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.