France is the new Scandinavia?

At one of the panels at CrimeFest, it was said that France was going to be the new Scandinavia in terms of new translated crime authors. Whilst we're awaiting this (welcome) situation you can sample some new books set in France but written by North Americans.

Firstly, and I'm looking forward to this one very much, Canadian author M L Longworth has begun a series set in Aix-en-Provence a place I've not yet visited but want to. M L Longworth has been living there for the last 15 years. Death at the Chateau Bremont is published in the US in June by Penguin:


Set in charming and historic Aix-en-Provence, France, Death at the Château Bremont introduces readers to Antoine Verlaque, the handsome and seductive chief magistrate of Aix, and his on-again, off- again love interest, law professor Marine Bonnet. When local nobleman Etienne de Bremont falls to his death from the family château, the town is abuzz with rumors. Verlaque suspects foul play and must turn to Marine for help when he discovers that she had been a close friend of the Bremonts. This is a lively whodunit steeped in the rich, enticing, and romantic atmosphere of southern France.

I'm slightly sceptical about this next one (though willing to be convinced): Paris to Die For by Maxine Kenneth which features Jackie Bouvier/Kennedy/Onassis as sleuth... Paris to Die For is published by Grand Central Publishing in July in the US.

Inspired by an actual letter in the John F. Kennedy Library written by Jackie and revealing her job offer from the newly formed CIA

Young Jacqueline Bouvier's first CIA assignment was supposed to be simple: Meet with a high-ranking Russian while he's in Paris and help him defect. But when the Comrade ends up dead, and Jackie-in her black satin peep-toe stiletto heels-barely escapes his killer, it's time to get some assistance. Enter Jacques Rivage, a French photographer and freelance CIA agent who seems too brash and carefree to grapple with spies, though he's all too able to make Jackie's heart skip a beat.

Together the two infiltrate 1951 high society in the City of Lights, rubbing shoulders with the likes of the Duchess of Windsor, Audrey Hepburn, and Evelyn Waugh. Jackie, no longer a pampered debutante, draws on her quick intelligence, equestrian skills, and even her Chanel No. 5 atomizer as a weapon to stay alive in the shadowy world of international intrigue-and to keep her date with a certain up-and-coming, young Congressman from Massachusetts . . .

Will you be reading either/both of these?

Doctor Who and Varg Veum

I've recently read the Doctor Who graphic novel, The Only Good Dalek which was my first graphic novel and it looks beautiful but doesn't take long to read! You can sample the first few pages at the publisher's website. The story is written by Justin Richards and the illustrator is Mike Collins.

The connection with Euro Crime is that Mike Collins has drawn five graphic novels based on Gunnar Staalesen's PI hero, Varg Veum (I'm not sure if they are the books or other stories). Here are the covers of some of them:

New Reviews: Bolton, George, Hayes, Jungstedt, McKinty, Tyler

Competition for May:
Win a copy of Stagestruck by Peter Lovesey UK & Europe only (closes 4 June)

Do please vote in the International Dagger polls (top right of blog).

Here are this week's reviews:

Michelle Peckham reviews Now You See Me by S J Bolton, a more urban outing than the previous three standalone novels but just as enjoyable it would appear;

Susan White is disappointed with Elizabeth George's This Body of Death, now out in paperback;

Amanda Gillies reviews Sam Hayes's Someone Else's Son also out in paperback and calls it "truly superb";

Maxine Clarke reviews the fifth Inspector Knutas book, set on Gotland, The Dead of Summer by Mari Jungstedt, tr. Tiina Nunnally;

Terry Halligan reviews Adrian McKinty's Falling Glass set in Northern Ireland

and earlier this week on the blog I reviewed L C Tyler's Ten Little Herrings the second outing for mismatched duo Elsie and Ethelred.

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

International Dagger 2011 - Polls

As has become traditional, I have now set up two polls relating to the International Dagger. They will close on 20 July 12:00 am. The announcement of the winner of the International Dagger 2011 will be made on 22 July at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival.

The first poll is for:

Which book do you want to win.

The second poll is for:

Which book do you think will win.

The polls can be found on the RHS of the blog. We'll see how much correlation there is between the two polls - and you can see the results of last year's polls here.

Apologies: The Camilleri is of course The Wings of the Sphinx, no idea why I wrote Phoenix! (twice!!) Now the poll has been voted on I cannot correct it.

Trailer - Case Histories

Here's a teeny teaser trailer for the Jackson Brodie series based on Kate Atkinson's books and starring Jason Isaacs.





The six-parter series will be showing on BBC One shortly, I don't have the exact date but I'm guessing it'll fill the Sunday evening slot.

There is an interview with Jason Isaacs on the BBC website.

Crime Fest: Creating Believable Sleuths

The second panel of the day (on Thursday) was creating believable sleuths and the panel from left to right are: Paul Johnston, Christopher Wakling, L C Tyler , Anne Zouroudi and Zoe Sharp.


Donna over at Big Beat from Badsville has already written this panel up in enviable detail, so I suggest you toddle over and read her report if you haven't done so already.

CrimeFest - Cosies

I have shrunk these photos down somewhat so people can view them on phones etc but unfortunately they are a bit fuzzy.

The opening panel on "Cosies" featured from left to right:

Deryn Lake, Dolores Gordon-Smith, Lauren Henderson, Carola Dunn and Frances Brody.


Here are some random jottings and thoughts from the panel:

Frances Brody's third book in the series will be out in September and her books should be published in the US next year. Deryn Lake's historical novels (as Dinah Lampitt) will be reissued under the Lake name. (I first knew of this author as Dinah Lampitt and devoured her Pour the Dark Wine about the Tudor Seymours which I read in 89 or 90). The Mills of Gold is the first in a new series and there is a new John Rawlings, Death at the Wedding Feast, published in July. Carola Dunn's Anthem for Doomed Youth is the darkest in the Daisy series so far.

There was some discussion of what the term cozies/cosies mean eg between people who know each other well. Cozies more of a US term? Usually used as a pejorative term. The murder methods may not be cosy (at one point Deryn Lake rattled off her book titles and the murder methods in them) but the level of detail would be low and no forensics involved.


The panelists agreed about enjoying house hunting for their characters. Another thing that identified cosies was that the killer didn't take trophies!


Lauren Henderson (whose crime books I wouldn't describe as cosies!) is currently writing YA and bonk-busters (as Rebecca Chance). She commented that her YA (clean) was not selling in the UK as not gloomy enough.

The Killing - News

Quite a bit of news about The Killing (Danish original) announced today. Firstly it won a BAFTA last night in the International category, holding off Boardwalk Empire, Glee and Mad Men.

This was followed up by news in the Bookseller that Pan MacMillan are to novelise the series:

Pan Macmillan has acquired the novelisations to Danish TV series "The Killing", shown on BBC4 in the UK this spring and which triumphed at last night’s Baftas.

Senior commissioning editor for fiction Trisha Jackson [] bought world rights following a "hotly contested auction" for the novelisations of the first two series.

Pan Macmillan plans to publish the novelisation of series one in autumn 2012, with negotiations understood to be underway with a "very well-reviewed and highly respected crime author" to write the novels from [scriptwriter Soren] Sveistrup's scripts.

Jackson said: "I knew from watching episode one that this was a book we had to have. The plotting and content are brilliant—revealing, layer by layer, countless red herrings, twists and turns and numerous possible suspects. Sarah Lund is the female detective crime fiction has been waiting for. We see The Killing being a major publishing event across the world."

But here's something you may not have seen, the results of the Euro Crime poll that ran for a week and attracted 66 votes. I lost quite a lot with the Blogger crash:

Have watched The Killing (Danish) and will watch The Killing (US)	4 (6%)
Have watched The Killing (Danish) and might watch The Killing (US)	12 (18%)
Have watched The Killing (Danish) and will not watch The Killing (US)	23 (34%)
Have not watched The Killing (Danish) but might watch The Killing (US)	4 (6%)
Am watching The Killing (US)	17 (25%)
What is The Killing!	6 (9%)

So, over a third of those who voted do not intend to watch the US remake of The Killing which in the UK, is to be shown on Channel 4 later this year.

Review: Ten Little Herrings by L C Tyler

Ten Little Herrings by L C Tyler, Paperback, 247 pages, August 2010, Pan, ISBN: 0330472135

I read and reviewed L C Tyler's first "Herrings" book over three years ago and when the fourth dropped through the letterbox recently I realised it was about time I read the next one, and the next and the next...

I really enjoyed THE HERRING SELLER'S APPRENTICE which introduced crime writer Ethelred and his agent Elsie. The ending of APPRENTICE, seemed to me, to leave the author with some work to do to set up a series. However L C Tyler has managed beautifully and cleverly to construct a way in which there can be more Elsie and Ethelred mysteries.

In TEN LITTLE HERRINGS, Elsie and Ethelred are thrust into a classic country house murder set-up. Ethelred is in France and Elsie joins him to escort him home having flushed him out of hiding by cancelling his credit cards. The run-down hotel has been hosting a stamp fare and there are a number of guests still there who turn out not to be quite as unknown to each other as they'd like to make out. When there is a murder, the only possible conclusion is that it was one of the guests whodunnit. A second death has the police locking down the hotel and banning anyone from leaving.

And so the guests become amateur sleuths with Elsie taking it very seriously and getting herself questioned by the police on a frequent basis. Her love of chocolate also gets her into some scrapes (eating the evidence anyone?), meanwhile Ethelred has a reason for being at this hotel which he keeps close to his chest.

As in the first book, the narrative alternates between the two main characters - each having their own font type - and the reader gets to see the story from two viewpoints - often wildly different!

TEN LITTLE HERRINGS is very amusing and I especially love reading Elsie's chapters with whom I perhaps, worryingly, can often identify. I don't think the crime plot works as well in TEN LITTLE HERRINGS as it did in APPRENTICE (which is a hard act to follow) as though I love a good puzzle-style mystery this one didn't grab me that much, however what kept the pages turning for me was the humour and to see what mad-cap things Elsie would get up to next. The next in the series is THE HERRING IN THE LIBRARY which has just won the 'Last Laugh Award', and I definitely won't be leaving it three years before I read it.

TEN LITTLE HERRINGS was shortlisted for the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original.

Crime Fest Quiz 2011

We were lucky enough to have Martin Edwards join our Friend Feeders team (aka the International Bloggers) at the Crime Fest 2011 quiz last Thursday.

As well as Martin and myself from the UK the team included Danish blogger Dorte and Australian blogger Kerrie and their husbands (not shown!).

Though the questions set by Peter Guttridge were incredibly hard and/or obscure I knew that with Martin involved we had a good chance of repeating the 2010 win and he we did.

Kerrie, Dorte, Me with Martin standing-up.

The prize was 3 bags of books and audio-books which have found good homes.

CrimeFest Day 4 - Random House Competition

CrimeFest has now finished and I plan to write some of it up over the next week. The final competition from Random House is for the 4 books by S J Bolton: Sacrifice, Awakening, Blood Harvest and Now You See Me.

Enter the competition here (UK & Ireland only and closes midnight 25th May 2011.

CrimeFest Day 3 - Random House Competition

Random House are running a new competition each day of CrimeFest, which began on Thursday. The third competition is for 3 books by Stella Rimington. Looking at the entry page they appear to be the first three books in the MI5 Agent Liz Carlyle series: At Risk, Secret Asset and Illegal Action.

Enter the competition here (UK & Ireland only and closes midnight 25th May 2011.

CrimeFest Day 2 - Random House Competition

Random House are running a new competition each day of CrimeFest, which began yesterday. The second competition is for 4 books by Simon Beckett. Looking at the entry page they appear to be the four books in the Dr David Hunter series: The Chemistry of Death, Written in Bone, Whispers of the Dead and The Calling of the Grave.

Enter the competition here (UK & Ireland only and closes midnight 25th May 2011.

CWA International Dagger 2011 - Shortlist

The shortlist for the International Dagger has just been announced here at CrimeFest. The nominees are:

Andrea Camilleri - The Wings of the Sphinx tr. Stephen Sartarelli
Ernesto Mallo - Needle in a Haystack tr. Jethro Soutar
Jean-Francois Parot - The Saint-Florentin Murders tr. Howard Curtis
Roslund-Hellstrom - Three Seconds tr. Kari Dickson
Valerio Varesi - River of Shadows tr. Joseph Farrell
Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place tr. Sian Reynolds
Domingo Villar - Death on a Galician Shore tr. Sonia Soto

I'll be setting the usual polls up soon. What do you think of the choices?

CrimeFest Day 1 - Random House Competition

Random House are running a new competition each day of CrimeFest, which begins today. The first competition is for 3 books by Tom Harper. Looking at the entry page they appear to be: The Book of Secrets, The Lost Temple and The Lazarus Vault.

Enter the competition here (UK & Ireland only and closes midnight 25th May 2011.

International Dagger 2011 - Shortlist Speculation

The shortlist for the CWA International Dagger will be announced on Friday. I have permission to exclusively reveal that there will be 7 titles shortlisted rather than the usual 6. So can you predict what they will be? Do please leave your selections, from the list below, in the comments box.

Jussi Adler-Olsen - Mercy
Boris Akunin - He Lover of Death
Esmahan Aykol - Hotel Bosphorus
Roberto Bolano - The Skating Rink
Fabrice Bourland - The Baker Street Phantom
Fabrice Bourland - The Dream Killer of Paris
Andrea Camilleri - The Wings of the Sphinx
Massimo Carlotto - Bandit Love
Donato Carrisi - The Whisperer
Camilla Ceder - Frozen Moment
Alfredo Colitto - Inquisition
Pablo de Santis - Voltaire's Calligrapher
Tom Egeland - Relic
Giorgio Faletti - I Kill
Sebastian Fitzek - Splinter
Karin Fossum - Bad Intentions
Claudie Gallay - The Breakers
Sissel-Jo Gazan - The Dinosaur Feather
Michele Giuttari - A Death in Calabria
Anne Holt - 1222
Arnaldur Indridason - Operation Napoleon
Claude Izner - The Predator of Batignolles
Mari Jungstedt - The Dead of Summer
Lars Kepler - The Hypnotist
Hans-Werner Kettenbach -The Stronger Sex
Marek Krajewski - Phantoms of Breslau
Camilla Lackberg - The Gallows Bird
Ernesto Mallo - Needle in a Haystack
Henning Mankell - The Troubled Man
Dacia Maraini - Train to Budapest
Liza Marklund - Red Wolf
Jo Nesbo - The Leopard
Hakan Nesser - The Inspector and Silence
Jean-Francois Parot - The Saint-Florentin Murders
Alessandro Perissinotto - Blood Sisters
Leif GW Persson - Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End
Luis Miguel Rocha - The Holy Assassin (apa The Holy Bullet)
Roslund-Hellstrom - Three Seconds
Andrea Maria Schenkel - Bunker
Bernhard Schlink - The Gordian Knot
Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Ashes to Dust
Pierre Siniac - The Collaborators
Teresa Solana - A Short Cut to Paradise
Didier van Cauwelaert's - Unknown (apa Out of My Head)
Simone van der Vlugt - Shadow Sister
Valerio Varesi - River of Shadows
Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place
Esther Verhoef - Rendezvous
Domingo Villar - Death on a Galician Shore
Shuichi Yoshida - Villain
Jan Costin Wagner - Silence

New Reviews: Adler-Olsen, Kepler, Krajewski, Lackberg, Lewis, Marks

New competition for May:
Win a copy of Stagestruck by Peter Lovesey UK & Europe only

I've added a few more reviews of those titles eligible for the 2011 CWA International Dagger, a topic which I'll be revisiting on the blog before the announcement of the shortlist on Friday, so do check back.

(I'll be at CrimeFest next weekend so there won't be any new reviews next Sunday.)

Here are this week's reviews:

Maxine Clarke reviews Mercy by Jussi Adler-Olsen, tr. Lisa Hartford, the first in the Department Q series;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Lars Kepler's debut The Hypnotist, tr. Ann Long;

I review Marek Krajewski's somewhat seedy but compulsive Phantoms of Breslau, tr. Danusia Stok which though it is the third in the series is set before the previous two;

Maxine also reviews the fourth in the Erica Falck/Patrik Hedstrom series, The Gallows Bird by Camilla Lackberg, tr. Steven T Murray;

Susan White reviews Jonathan Lewis's debut, Into the Darkness

and Geoff Jones reviews Howard Marks's Sympathy for the Devil.

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

Win: Stagestruck by Peter Lovesey

Euro Crime has 5 copies of Stagestruck by Peter Lovesey to giveaway. To enter the draw, just answer the question and include your details in the form below.

This competition is open to UK & Europe residents and will close on 4 June 2011.
Only 1 entry per person/per household please.
(All entries will be deleted once the winner has been notified.)

Clarion Calhoun is a fading pop star wanting to launch an acting career. The audience at her debut on stage at Bath's Theatre Royal are expecting a dramatic evening - but what they get is beyond their wildest imagination. When Clarion is rushed to hospital with third degree burns, rumours spread through the theatrical community and beyond. In the best theatrical tradition, the show goes on, but the agony turns to murder. The case falls to Peter Diamond, Bath's top detective - but for reasons he can't understand, he suffers a physical reaction amounting to phobia each time he goes near the theatre. As he tries to find its root in his past, the tension at the Theatre Royal mounts, legends come to life and the killer strikes again ...

Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year 2011 - Longlist

Due to the the Blogger problems and then work, I wasn't able to post this when it came out so apologies for the "old news". I like to record it on the blog for posterity :).

From the press release at Booktrade:

Now in its seventh year, the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, in partnership with Asda, and this year in association with the Daily Mirror, was created to celebrate the very best in crime writing and is open to British and Irish authors whose novels were published in paperback from 1st January 2010 to 31st May 2011.

A major accolade in the crime writing field, the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award is unique in that it is the only one of its kind which is largely voted for by the general public. As of today (Friday 13th May), the public will have until Sunday 5th June to vote for their favourite title at www.theakstons.co.uk and the result of this vote will determine the six titles that make it onto the shortlist.

The longlist in full (links are to Euro Crime reviews):

Blacklands, by Belinda Bauer (Corgi)

From the Dead, by Mark Billingham (Sphere)

Blood Harvest, by S J Bolton (Corgi Books)

61 Hours, by Lee Child (Bantam Books)

Winterland, by Alan Glynn (Faber)

A Room Swept White, by Sophie Hannah (Hodder)

The Woodcutter, by Reginald Hill (Harper Fiction)

Rupture, by Simon Lelic (Picador)

Sister, by Rosamund Lupton (Piatkus)

Dark Blood, by Stuart MacBride (Harper Fiction)

Fever of the Bone, by Val McDermid (Sphere)

Fifty Grand, by Adrian McKinty (Serpent's Tail)

Still Bleeding, Steve Mosby (Orion)

The Twelve, by Stuart Neville (Vintage)

Random, by Craig Robertson (Simon & Schuster)

The Holy Thief, by William Ryan (Pan Books)

The Anatomy of Ghosts, by Andrew Taylor (Michael Joseph)

A Capital Crime, by Laura Wilson, (Quercus)

The shortlist will be announced on 1st July, and the eventual winner will be decided by a panel of judges including this year's Festival chair Dreda Say Mitchell, the journalist and novelist Henry Sutton, the winner of a Daily Mirror reader competition and Simon Theakston, Executive Director of T&R Theakston Ltd.

Cast your vote here.

US version of The Killing to be on Channel 4

The news we've all been waiting for (?) - The US remake of The Killing is to be shown on Channel 4 later this year.

From the press release:

Channel 4 has secured the UK premiere free-to-air broadcast rights to Series 1 and 2 of Fox Television Studios' version of cult smash The Killing.

From writer, executive producer and series showrunner Veena Sud (Cold Case), The Killing is based on the wildly successful Danish television series, ‘Forbrydelsen' which centres around the murder of a young girl in Seattle and the subsequent police investigation. The series ties together three distinct stories around the murder, and as it unfolds it becomes clear that there are no accidents; everyone has a secret, and while the characters think they've moved on, their past isn't done with them.

Season 1, which consists of 13 x1 hour episodes, will receive its U.K. premiere on Channel 4 in 2011.

Of the acquisition Jay Hunt says: 'We are thrilled to acquire The Killing. This intense, atmospheric crime thriller redefines the genre and will sit perfectly alongside Channel 4's stable of award-winning, critically-acclaimed US shows.'

Steve Cornish added: "Following the continued success of other Fox series on Channel 4, we are delighted to be partnered with them on this moving and captivating drama."

Soaked in atmosphere, the slow burning, crime thriller stars Mireille Enos (Big Love) as Sarah Linden, the lead homicide detective that investigates the death of Rosie Larsen; Billy Campbell (Ghost Town, TV's The Practice) as Darren Richmond, Seattle's City Council President and now running for Mayor; Joel Kinnaman (Snabba Cash, God Save The King) as Stephen Holder, an ex-narc cop who joins the homicide division in the investigation to find Rosie's killer; Michelle Forbes (True Blood) as Rosie's mother, Mitch Larsen; and Brent Sexton (Flightplan, TV's The Mentalist) as Rosie's father, Stan Larsen.

I believe there is a different murderer so how likely are you to watch it after watching the Danish version? I've set up a poll on the top-right of the blog. Please cast your vote.

Update

The poll seems to have been lost but I will reinstate it later. These comments have also been lost:

Ivan has left a new comment on your post "US version of The Killing to be on Channel 4":

I will be very interested to see if the Sarah Linden character is as prominent as Sara Lund. I can't see a US crime series being made with a female solo lead (let alone one in a baggy jumper). I'm expecting the 24-style elements to be played up, and more violence/gore.
A lot will also rest on the actors Larsen's mother and father, both of which were absolutely superb in the Danish version.

upkerry11 has left a new comment on your post "US version of The Killing to be on Channel 4":

The American version stinks compared to the original. It's also available minutes after its aired via bittorrent.