International Dagger Speculation (2010)

The shortlist for the CWA International Dagger will be announced at CrimeFest on Friday. As one of the judges, I do know what's on the list so cannot comment but I shall be running the polls as in earlier years, for "what do you *think*will win" and "what do you *want* to win", once the official announcement's been made.

I thought I'd repost the list of titles published during the eligibility period, with links to Euro Crime reviews and perhaps people would like to comment below on which 6 titles would be in their shortlist. (Maxine has reviewed some more of the titles on Petrona):

Boris Akunin - She Lover of Death
Selcuk Altun - Many and Many a Year Ago
Barbara Baraldi - The Girl With the Crystal Eyes
Tonino Benacquista - Badfellas
Mikkel Birkegaard - The Library of Shadows
Sergio Bizzio - Rage
Armand Cabasson - Memory of Flames
Andrea Camilleri - August Heat
Raphael Cardetti - Death in the Latin Quarter
Massimo Carlotto - Poisonville (with Marco Videtta)
Donato Carrisi - The Whisperer
Jacques Chessex - A Jew Must Die
K O Dahl - The Last Fix
Leif Davidsen - The Woman from Bratislava
Tim Davys - Amberville
Tom Egeland - The Guardians of the Covenant
Marjolijn Februari - The Book Club
Marcello Fois - Blood from the Skies
Karin Fossum - The Water's Edge
Eugenio Fuentes - At Close Quarters
Michele Giuttari - The Death of a Mafia Don
Juan Gomez-Jurado - Contract with God
Luigi Guicciardi - Inspector Cataldo's Criminal Summer
Petra Hammesfahr - The Lie
Anne Holt - Death in Oslo
Arnaldur Indridason - Hypothermia
Claude Izner - The Predator of Batignolles
Christian Jacq - The Judgement of the Mummy
Tove Jansson - The True Deceiver
Andrea H Japp - The Divine Blood
Mari Jungstedt - The Killer's Art
Andrey Kurkov - The Good Angel of Death
Camilla Lackberg - The Stonecutter
Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest
Giulio Leoni - The Kingdom of Light
Henning Mankell - The Man from Beijing
Dominique Manotti - Affairs of State
Javier Marias - Your Face Tomorrow 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell
Petros Markaris - Che Committed Suicide
Patricia Melo - Lost World
Deon Meyer - Thirteen Hours
Zygmunt Miloszewski - Entanglement
Rita Monaldi & Francesco Sorti - Secretum
Jo Nesbo - The Snowman
Guillermo Orsi - No-one Loves a Policeman
Jean-Francois Parot - The Nicolas le Floch Affair
Arturo Perez-Reverte - Pirates of the Levant
Claudia Pineiro - Thursday Night Widows
Luis Miguel Rocha - The Last Pope
Santiago Roncagliolo - Red April
Emili Rosales - The Invisible City
Frank Schatzing - Death and the Devil
Andrea Maria Schenkel - Ice Cold
Bernhard Schlink - Self's Murder
Mehmet Murat Somer - The Gigolo Murder
Gunnar Staalesen - The Consorts of Death
Johan Theorin - The Darkest Room
Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa - Tuareg
Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa - Coltan
Carlos Ruiz Zafon - The Angel's Game
Juli Zeh - Dark Matter

OT: Swift Activity

Last year I posted on the day that the swifts had returned to where I live. Last Monday, the 10th, I spotted my first swift of this year and thought I must see how the date compares to last year. I've been forgetting to look and seeing a group of them this morning has reminded me. Very spookily, I saw them for the first time in 2009 and 2010 on 10 May...

New Reviews: Davidsen, George, Hilton, Markaris, Morris, Nova

This month's competitions:
Win a copy of Deadly Trade by Michael Stanley (Worldwide)
Win a copy of Bad Penny Blues by Cathi Unsworth (UK only).

Here are this week's reviews, (lots of third books this week!):

Maxine Clarke reviews The Woman from Bratislava by Leif Davidsen, tr Barbara J Haveland;

Terry Halligan says that Elizabeth George is back on form with This Body of Death;

Michelle Peckham continues to enjoy the Joe Hunter series by Matt Hilton, now on its third entry: Slash and Burn;

Maxine also reviews Che Committed Suicide by Petros Markaris, tr. David Connolly, the third in this Athens based series;

Pat Austin reviews the third of R N Morris's Porfiry Petrovich series, A Razor Wrapped in Silk calling it "a little gem"

and Norman Price reviews The Informer by Craig Nova set in 1930s Berlin.

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

Transatlantic Title Change Alert

It's just come to my attention that Sophie Hannah's The Other Half Lives (at title which I always think of and have to stop pronouncing in chemistry terms) is to be published in the US in June as the more mundane, The Dead Lie Down:



US synopsis:

Ruth Bussey once did something she regrets, and her punishment nearly destroyed her. Now Ruth is rebuilding her life and has found a love she doesn’t believe she deserves. Aidan Seed is also troubled by a past he can’t bear to talk about, until one day when he decides he must confide in Ruth. He tells her that, years ago, he killed a woman named Mary Trelease.

Ruth is confused. She knows first-hand that Mary Trelease is very much alive and takes her concern to Sgt. Charlotte “Charlie” Zailer of the Spilling Police. With her boyfriend, DC Simon Waterhouse, she decides to look into the matter, compelled by Ruth’s fear that something terrible may be about to happen. What she discovers propels her through London’s art scene, and the lives of five very odd people, to the unsettling secrets that bind them all.

This is not the first time this has happened with Sophie Hannah's books as, The Point of Rescue (UK) became The Wrong Mother (US).

Coming Soon from Simon & Schuster (UK)

I've received the latest catalogue from Simon & Schuster (July - December 2010). I'll be adding the following to the forthcoming releases page (if they're not already there):

June

Michael Jecks - The Oath (Knights Templar series)
Lynda La Plante - Blind Fury (Anna Travis)

July

N J Cooper - Lifeblood (paperback original, #2 Karen Taylor)
The Medieval Murderers - The Sacred Stone
Ruth Newman - The Company of Shadows
Kevin Power - Bad Day in Blackrock (paperback)

August

Neil Cross - Captured (paperback)
Jeremy Duns - Free Country (sequel to Free Agent)
Sarah Rayne - House of the Lost (paperback) (with a quote from the Euro Crime review of Ghost Song in the catalogue!)
Bob Shepherd - The Infidel (SAS-type thriller)

September

Michael Dobbs - The Reluctant Hero (paperback)
Bruno Hare - The Lost Kings (debut, Rider Haggard-esque adventure)
Bernard Knight - A Plague of Heretics (paperback)

November

Terence Strong - Dragonplague (paperback)

New Reviews: Eastland, French, Grimes, MacBride, Parot, Stanley

This month's competitions:
Win a copy of Deadly Trade by Michael Stanley (Worldwide)
Win a copy of Bad Penny Blues by Cathi Unsworth (UK only).

Here are this week's reviews:

Rik Shepherd reviews Eye of the Red Tsar by Sam Eastland, the first in the Inspector Pekkala series;

Maxine Clarke reviews the latest from Nicci French: Complicit;

Terry Halligan reviews the twenty-second outing for Richard Jury in Martha Grimes's The Black Cat;

Paul Blackburn reviews Dark Blood by Stuart MacBride, the sixth in the Logan McRae series;

Laura Root reviews the latest in the Nicolas Le Floch series, The Nicolas Le Floch Affair by Jean-Francois Parot, tr. Howard Curtis

and Michelle Peckham reviews one of this month's competition prizes: A Deadly Trade by Michael Stanley.

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

OT: Castle & books

The tv show Castle has become one of my guilty pleasures. It's showing on Alibi on Wednesdays at 9pm. It's along the lines of The Mentalist with a (male) outsider coming in and showing the (female) detective and her team how it's done. In this case Rick Castle is a best-selling crime writer.

I recently found out that there are books being published as if they were written by Rick Castle - the ones that he is writing in the show, his Nikki Heat series. (Almost as confusing as how there are Bones books based on the tv series, which are based on the books by Kathy Reichs.)

In the trailer below, Stephen J Cannell and Michael Connelly join in the fun:



Update: You can read the first ten chapters of the first book in the series, Heat Wave, at the Castle website.

Creme de la Crime - Ebooks & Interviews

The well-regarded specialist press, Creme de la Crime has teamed up with Creative Content Ltd to have their titles made available as ebooks. The first four titles were released under the eCC imprint on 30 April:

Working Girls by Maureen Carter
The Crimson Cavalier by Mary Andrea Clarke
Dead Woman’s Shoes by Kaye C Hill
Broken Harmony by Roz Southey

You can read about each title at the Creative Content Ltd website and the e-books can be bought at the usual places.

To celebrate the launch, the four authors were interviewed and Euro Crime has been granted permission to run the interview on this blog:

Kaye C Hill - Dead Woman’s Shoes

Kaye’s sparky sleuth Lexy Lomax lives on the Suffolk coast where, when not writing, Kaye herself, spends as much time as possible - it’s a place that she finds incredibly mysterious and atmospheric making it a perfect setting for Dead Woman’s Shoes.
Kaye is currently working on her third novel in the series which will be out early in 2011.

Maureen Carter -Working Girls

Maureen has worked extensively in newspapers, radio and television and still freelances in the business… As a journalist she worked closely with the police, covering countless crime stories, interviewing many victims and has reported on several murders…
Originally from Staffordshire, Maureen lives and writes in the West Midlands.

Roz Southey - Broken Harmony

Roz Southey has a passion for the often contentious world of 18th century music-making in the north east of England; in fact, she has a PhD in it!
Roz lives in the north east herself and lectures at the International Centre for Music Studies in Newcastle Upon Tyne.

Mary Andrea Clarke - The Crimson Cavalier

By day, Mary Andrea Clarke is a responsible civil servant - but by night, she is a mystery woman! Her love of crime fiction led her to join the vibrant group of readers and writers who organise many events and meetings all over the UK.
She lives in Surrey and has completed her next novel which is due for publication in August 2010.

1. If you could choose any actress to play the lead role on TV or reading an audio version of your titles, who would you choose?

Kaye C Hill

This is a tough one! I think someone who was a tomboy - not glamorous - perhaps Sharon Small who plays DS Barbara Havers in the Inspector Lindley Mysteries ? - as for an audio book reader I would choose someone with a laconic, humorous voice like Jennifer Saunders or Jo Brand.

Maureen Carter

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the actress Liz White playing WPC Annie Cartwright in Life on Mars - I’d never seen her before, but apart from her eye colour, she was Bev Morriss made flesh - she is SO close to how I see Bev in my mind…
As for who’d read an audio book, that’s trickier - voices are incredibly important - the voice says so much about you from the moment you open your mouth - one thing I don’t hear though is a Birmingham accent !
If I had the chance I would LOVE to narrate the book myself!

Roz Southey

Charles Patterson is a real person to me emotionally and I’m quite scared about giving him someone else’s face, because then he will become unreal and merely a character in a book…he is himself and no-one else…
I also think the reader should imagine the character for him/herself - I don’t spend too much time on physical description beyond the basics - the personalities and their interactions are the most important thing…
As far as his voice is concerned I hear him with a Northern English voice with perhaps a hint of Geordie or the North East - definitely educated but very definitely from Newcastle…as far as specific voice, I feel that any decent actor ought to be able to do that sort of voice or accent anyway, but nobody specific comes to mind…

Mary Andrea Clarke

Catherine Zeta Jones! She has a lively and spirited presence which would bring Georgiana Grey to life on-screen.
Anne Cater did an excellent job of reading The Crimson Cavalier and I think my fellow crime writer Linda Regan would also be a good choice - if I had the chance, I would LOVE to narrate the audio myself as I think it would be a really exciting experience…

2. How do you structure the layout and plot lines of your books? Do you have a clear plot line or do things twist, turn and develop as you go along?

Kaye C Hill

I start off with a vague plan…then fill in detail as I go along. Characters appear and do and say things which can surprise me as much as the reader! I usually know who the murderer is but have been known to change him or her when I’m three-quarters through writing the book! I keep a notepad for ideas and often sit in the garden or a nice outdoor place and scribble away ideas and then transfer those ideas to my computer…those ideas can be fleshed out more easily on paper rather than if I used a voice recorder…I also tend to write and check/improve as I go along rather than write a full draft and then return to the start and then re-read and make changes - I think you need to be reminded of what you’ve written as you’re writing…I tend to write more in the mornings and aim to do around a thousand words per day…

Maureen Carter

I generally write a two or three page outline around a central plot and usually, a sub-plot…this also includes major developments in the core characters’ lives both professionally and personally - so I start with clear ideas about the book’s opening, close and several key scenes along the way…but I’m free to go where the fancy takes me!
I always have a notepad with me and by on the bed-side table so that I can make notes and maybe even odd the bit of dialogue…you can get some great ideas in the early hours and if you don’t write them down, you can so easily forget them…
I tend to write in “office hours” and tend not to wait around for inspiration to strike, I like to get on with it, setting myself a minimum number of words per day to keep me on track and I don’t believe in such a thing as “writers block”…

Roz Southey

I start writing with a clear idea of roughly what’s going to happen…but I have thought about the basic idea for some months beforehand and at some point I start seeing scenes in my mind: the opening scene, a couple if climactic scenes in the middle - usually the last scene too - when those characters in those scenes start talking to me, I know it‘s time to start writing…the first draft is always in long hand and then I transfer it to my computer for editing and tidying…I always build the books around a true event, person or trend from the 18th century…
I liken this first draft to the sort of research I do as an academic: I’m not making any of it up, I’m finding out what happened…my subconscious mind is free to offer me all sorts of characters and plot twists that my conscious mind just wouldn’t come up with…
Then I have to plan the novel in detail from the first draft, cutting or enlarging and making sure the plot hangs together an makes sense - this becomes the second draft, then finally when I’m convinced the structure is right I move on to tidying the language etc…
I like to start my writing day around 7:45am and I’ll do an hour or so, then have a walk and then another couple of hours - this is the really serious stuff and I’m at my best in the morning…and then I ease back a little over lunchtime and then get back into it mid-afternoon until around 5pm…and I LOVE Mondays as I always feel fresh, but it’s important to write regularly and treat it in a business-like way…
I tend not to set myself a daily word limit…

Mary Andrea Clarke

I have a general outline for the entire book, but plot each chapter as I go along using a mind map - this helps with tangents and off-shoots…The initial draft for my first book was written in long-hand but now I write direct to my laptop - I spend an hour each day on my commute to work so try to write as much as I can then, but otherwise it’s back on the computer after I’ve had something to eat and working into the night…Weekends are better as I can have a whole day but as far as structure and plot is concerned I either have a notebook or my laptop with me so that I can keep note of ideas and plotlines…

3. Your book is publishing in ePUB/eBook format with Creative Content at the end of April. Do you have any specific views on the digital marketplace as an out let for your titles and what do you think of the new devices like the Kindle?

Kaye C Hill

I think it’s important to move with the times…Much as I love the look and feel of traditional books, I also admire the sleek electronic versions! And also that you can store so many titles on them…I don’t have one at the moment, but we do intend to get one - you can’t fight it and especially the younger generation who are at ease with the technology will embrace it…

Maureen Carter

I’m really excited about the ePub of Working Girls. I want people to read my books and anything which helps readers access my work is - in my book - a good thing…
As for the new devices - yes please! I definitely want a Kindle because it also allows audio downloads and I think this is so important especially perhaps to the older reader who may be averse to an eReader as such, but would be swayed by the audio options - it’s a great thing for them…we would be silly not to embrace the eBook as the sales increases, particularly in the USA are quite extraordinary…

Roz Southey

I do have a reputation for being a little behind with technology..! I love the smell of a new book in my hands, but I do feel however, that anything which encourages people to read is itself to be encouraged enormously and eReaders can be incredibly useful for packing large numbers of books into a small space for travel etc…I may be a little late, but the idea of eBooks is beginning to excite me! It’s interesting also that I teach 18 and 19 year olds that have barely bought a CD in their lives, all of their music comes from downloads, so with this aspect and audio downloading being a feature on some eReaders, it makes for exciting times…and attitudes certainly are changing…

Mary Andrea Clarke

It’s very exciting to see reading moving into the digital world. It’s a helpful option for the reader to have another medium to enjoy books, and which can offer a wide range of titles in an easily mobile format. The Kindle and the iPad can bring a lot more books - even audio downloads to the reader which is a great addition. A great way to take a lot of books on holiday without exceeding the baggage limit!

4. Did you set out to create a series based character or was that accidental?

Kaye C Hill

It was always my intention to make Lexy Lomax the main character in a series of whodunits - the first book provides the background and contains certain strands if intrigue that I unravel from one book to the next…I realised that all the elements of Lexy’s character couldn’t be resolved in the first book so set out to set up certain things that the reader can recognise as they start to read the next book…some aspects can also just run and run from book to book but there are always the connections and sub-plots which are important… I am a big fan of “series” based writing a great example is Sue Grafton who has created a character in her books with an intriguing past and slowly revealed things book to book…I am also very impressed by Lindsey Davis’s writing - she has a PI character set in Imperial Rome…I also very much like Alexander McCall Smith and of course Agatha Christie…

Maureen Carter

It wasn’t my intention to create a series and certainly not a series based around Bev Morriss. She first appeared as a minor character in an unpublished novel I wrote years ago…There was something about her I liked, so when I embarked on writing Working Girls I brought her centre stage - to me Bev is like a breath of fresh - if feisty - air!

Roz Southey

Yes, for two reasons…One is mercenary: a writer’s books are more likely to remain in print if they are in a series - people finding later books always want to go back and read the first ones…and secondly (and chiefly), it allows the writer to develop the main character (or in my case four main characters) over a period of time, showing them growing and changing which makes them much more real…

Mary Andrea Clarke

The Crimson Cavalier was started as a standalone novel, but as the book progressed, ideas developed for other books featuring Georgiana.

5. How do you go about your research?

Maureen Carter

Having been in journalism for over twenty years, so researching and finding things out is second nature to me and if there’s a particular aspect of the plot that I need help with, I tend to phone someone I know who could put me in touch with someone in that specific area - that way you don’t just get the facts, you get some anecdotal stuff as well - I don’t do it ALL when I sit down to write a book, I tend to do some and then for a particular plot twist or something I do more - I tend to like to meet these people and take a portable recorder with me which helps build up a stronger contact…

Roz Southey

I was lucky in that almost all of my research was done before I started writing novels…I did a PhD on music-making in the North East of England during the 18th century - as part of that, I read my way through four centuries worth of newspapers form that period and took out all the references to music…there were also a lot of gossipy stories there, which I couldn’t use in my academic work and it’s these I’ve used as the basis for the novel…I absorbed the 18th century by osmosis so to speak, so the research was done painlessly..!
So many important events occurred during this period I’m always amazed when people say it’s not very interesting as “nothing much happened” this period has always interested me and I’ve learned so much more through doing my PhD…
One of my editor’s comments relating to Broken Harmony was that it seemed that all that people seemed to eat was ale and game pie and nothing else, so I had to separately research that aspect - what people would have eaten..!
The other thing in trying to view a period in the past is to set yourself IN that period and realize that the WAY people thought at that time is simply not the way we think now…and this can only come through reading things like 18th century newspapers and by doing that you start to think as they would have thought - on a daily basis…and having worked around this period for 5 years, I was just immersed in the whole period and the way people thought at the time…

Mary Andrea Clarke

I tended to do the bulk of my research about the period and particularly highwaymen before the first novel and tend to renew and refer back to that as I go along, but if it‘s something I just don‘t know or am not familiar with I would always do the main research before starting to write…and I am always reading - another way to pass the time during my daily commute!
I had read a lot about the Regency period in my youth and that has continued and that has helped a lot when it comes to research and background…

6. Is there any one person who inspired you to become a writer?

Kaye C Hill

I’m not sure whether they inspired me, to start writing but I have always liked the novels of Alexander McCall Smith and Lindsey Davis in particular, but I like to read many different authors.

Maureen Carter

I’ve read voraciously all my life and I always wanted to be a writer…I guess that’s one of the reasons I became a journalist…I can’t pinpoint a single person who inspired me to write fiction, but the opening line of Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell blew me away and I thought when I read it how could anyone not want to read on! Another writer that I am in awe of is John Le Carre - I think his prose is extraordinarily good and A Perfect Spy is a perfect book!
As far as being influenced by a writer, I know a number of writers who choose not to read another author when they are writing themselves - they don’t want to pick up someone else’s style…I totally disagree with that because if you have strong voices and a strong writing style, you aren’t going to be affected…also, if you’re not reading what’s out there, then you’re not really keeping abreast of things…so I say that if you’re a writer, you have to write all the time and you have to read all the time but always keep your own distinctive voice..!

Roz Southey

Well linking to the last question I quite enjoy 18th century writers though I haven’t read any for a while, but I like Ellis Peters who said she was interested in why nice people do nasty things… and that has certainly influenced me in that I am very interested in the relationship between the murderer and the victim…I also read a lot of American crime fiction in general, people like James Elroy and Elmore Leonard - I very much like that gritty style…

Mary Andrea Clarke

I tend to absorb what I can from lots of different writers…when I start to write I think a lot of what I’ve read returns from my subconscious mind, you almost don’t realise you’ve remembered it..!
I used to read a lot about the tudor period from Jean Plaidy and she was always very well researched and could really bring characters to life…she also used to write as Victoria Holt…

7. Is there any one thing that your readers would be surprised to know about you?

Maureen Carter

Well I do share an absolute passion for Johnny Depp very much like Bev as he is her fantasy figure! I think he is one of the best actors and he has a wonderful voice and is truly captivating on-screen…

Roz Southey

Well, I’m very much into local history and particularly the valley where I was brought up - we lived in a house which dates back to around the 1520’s and on the window, various people from over the years had carved their names and dates and there were two I remember from 1804 and 1836 I think… so this to me was like history made real when you live there every day and with my very fluid feeling about time sometimes merging into one, past present and future and I think my upbringing was what sparked my interest in history - the house is still standing and I am actually writing about the history of that house…oh and I’m a very keen gardener !

Mary Andrea Clarke

I was in a fencing club when I was at University!

These last two questions were specific to Kaye and Mary

Kaye C Hill

Is a Private Investigator a career you ever saw for yourself and do you know any personally that inspire Lexy’s character?

Writing about a private eye is definitely a case of wish fulfillment…when I was a kid I really wanted to be a private detective and used to go around solving “crimes” in the street with my big tin foil badge saying “Kaye C Hill, Private Investigator” pinned to my raincoat ! I don’t know any private investigators personally but I was approached by one who had read the books and wanted to offer advice - but at a price - I didn’t take up the offer but I think the world of official private investigating is only a few steps away from the world of un-official private investigating which is really what Lexy does - she just keeps stumbling into situations - so there aren’t necessarily any “rules” to learn but it is always useful to pick up any tips whenever I can…

Mary Andrea Clarke

Were you at all inspired by the novels of Georgette Heyer in setting your novels in the Regency period and if so, which of her novels is a favourite?

Yes - her novels did contribute inspiration, but I wanted a different angle…a single woman working around the restrictions of the period to solve a crime…My favourite of her books is Sylvester where the heroine secretly writes a novel…

Many thanks to Creative Content for sharing the above interview.

Translated Crime Fiction Survey - Results

Last September I posted a link to a survey on translated crime fiction which several people commented on* and I hope many more contributed to. My reading group also completed it.

The author has been back in touch to say that his dissertation is now available to read in full. It's in pdf format so can be downloaded - it's 113 pages - here. (*See p37-38 for references to these comments.)

An abridged version, Selling Ice to Eskimos? Swedish Crime Fiction and the World of Publishing, was published in the Swedish Book Review.

Hector and the Search for Happiness

I've just finished Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord, tr. Lorenzo Garcia recently published by Gallic Books. It's not a crime novel but tells the story of Hector, a psychiatrist who sees a lot of patients who are unhappy for no medical reason. So when he goes on holiday he decides to make it a working one and discover what makes people happy or unhappy. His journey takes him from China to Africa, to the country of 'More' (US?) and back again. Told in a deceptively simple style, with self-knowing references this is an amusing and thought-provoking short tale. I did wonder what Hector would have made of Mma Ramotswe if they'd met!

You can read the first chapter at Hector's Journeys.

Having worked in local government all my working life, I was particularly amused by this passage about a management style that was fashionable a while back:

"Hector didn't really see why she [Clara] had two bosses at the same time, but Clara explained that it was because of something called 'matrix management'. Hector thought that this sounded like an expression invented by psychiatrists, and so he wasn't surprised that it created complicated situations and drove people a bit crazy."

Win A Deadly Trade by Michael Stanley

Win 1 of 5 copies of A Deadly Trade by Michael Stanley - open worldwide.

Set amid the beauty and darkness of modern Botswana, the second in the fantastic crime series featuring the opera-loving wine connoisseur Assistant Superintendant David 'Kubu' Bengu of the Botswana Police Force.

When a mutilated body is found at a tourist camp in northern Botswana, the corpse displays the classic signs of a revenge killing. But when fingerprints are analysed Detective 'Kubu' Bengu Kubu makes a shocking discovery: the victim is already dead. He was slain in the Rhodesian war thirty ago. Kubu soon realises that nothing at the camp is as it seems. And as the guests are picked off one by one, time is running out. With rumours of horrifying war crimes, the scent of a drug-smuggling trail and mounting pressure from his superiors to contend with, Kubu forgets there is one door left unguarded -- his own. And as he sets a trap to find a murderer, the hunters are closing in on him...

Read the Euro Crime review of #1 in the series, A Carrion Death.

(You may need to tab through the last fields to reach the submit button.)

The return of Jan Costin Wagner

I'm so excited about this one. Jan Costin Wagner wrote the haunting Ice Moon which was a big hit with the Euro Crime team a few years ago. At long last a sequel is being published in English in August, translated by Anthea Bell - Silence.

NB. Cover and blurb are taken from the Harvill Secker catalogue and may not represent the final product.

One ordinary summer’s day a young girl disappears while cycling to volleyball practice. Her abandoned bike is found in exactly the same place that another girl was assaulted and murdered thirty-three years previously. The perpetrator was never brought to justice so the authorities suspect the same killer has struck again. The eeriness of the crime unsettles not only the police and public, but also someone who has been carrying a burden of guilt for many years...

Detective Kimmo Joentaa calls upon the help of his older colleague Ketola, who worked on the original murder, in the hope that they can solve both cases. While they are following up leads, the ripples from the impact of the new disappearance spread and Kimmo discovers that the truth is not always what you expect.

New Reviews: Cameron, Child, Grace, Hilton, Macken, Zeh

This month's competition:
Win a copy of Daisychain by G J Moffat (UK only) - closing very soon (look out for a new competition to replace this one shortly)
and a new one for May (open now):
Win a copy of Bad Penny Blues by Cathi Unsworth (UK only).

This week's reviews are mostly a mixture of thriller and science based crime fiction:

Pat Austin reviews Kenneth Cameron's The Second Woman set in 1900s London;

Maxine Clarke reviews 61 Hours by Lee Child;

Amanda Gillies reviews globe-trotting thriller Quantum by Tom Grace;

Michelle Peckham reviews the paperback edition of Matt Hilton's second Joe Hunter novel, Judgement and Wrath, set in Miami;

Terry Halligan reviews the fourth in the GeneCrime series from John Macken: Control

and Maxine also reviews the "philosophical thriller", Dark Matter by Juli Zeh, translated by Christine Lo.

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

Publishing Deal - Ake Edwardson

A publishing deal for Ake Edwardson was announced recently on Publishers Lunch:

Ake Edwardson's SAIL OF STONE and ROOM NO. 10, originally published by Norstedts and selling over 5 million copies worldwide in 21 countries, to Bob Bender at Simon & Schuster, in a very nice deal, for publication in 2011 and beyond, by Peter Riva at International Transactions (world English).

Penguin US have recently published the first in the DCI Erik Winter series, Death Angels and will publish The Shadow Woman in September, which I believe is book two in the series. Cover and blurb aren't available at the moment.

Both titles: Sail of Stone and Room No. 10 are Erik Winter books. Looking at Ake Edwardson's website (in Swedish) Sail of Stone is the sixth in the series and possibly Room No. 10 is the seventh.

One Book - One Cover - Two Titles II

Well these two are almost the same cover. The one on the left is the UK edition which came out in May 2009. The one on the right is the US edition due out in July 2010.

A Time of Mourning/The Drowning River by Christobel Kent is the first of the series, set in Florence and featuring PI Sandro Cellini.













US Blurb:

Meet Sandro Cellini, Florence’s answer to Donna Leon’s Guido Brunetti.

One wet November in Florence, the grieving widow of an eminent Jewish architect comes to visit Sandro Cellini, good husband, disgraced ex-policeman, and recently turned PI, to ask him to investigate her husband’s suicide. Cellini takes her on out of sympathy, although this first case makes a downbeat start to his new career. There seems no doubt that Claudio Gentileschi, a Holocaust survivor and lifelong depressive found drowned on a bleak stretch of the River Arno, did take his own life, and initially Cellini imagines that his only duty is to support the widow through her time of mourning.

But as Cellini doggedly retraces the architect’s last hours through the worst rains since the devastating floods of 1966, a young Englishwoman is found to have gone missing from the city’s community of hard-drinking, high-living art students, and Sandro’s search turns abruptly into something grimmer and more urgent than he could have imagined, as he uncovers a network of greed and corruption that is hidden under a veneer of tradition and refinement.

The Drowning River is a spot-on, atmospheric new mystery, the first in a series featuring Cellini.

Laura Wilson's first Stratton book received a similar treatment.

New Competition time

I've just added a new competition to the website. The prize is Bad Penny Blues by Cathi Unsworth and it's open to UK residents (only).

I've set up a google docs form for people to submit their entries. I hope it works ok. The form, which includes a "tricky" question, can be found here.

There're a few days left to enter the Daisychain competition, also UK only.

UK release dates for Millennium films

Quercus have sent out a press release today with the eagerly awaited dates for the release of the films The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest:

STIEG LARSSON’S MILLENNIUM TRILOGY RETURNS

TO IGNITE UK CINEMAS THIS AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE – In cinemas 27 August

THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS’ NEST – In cinemas 26 November

Hot on the heels of the successful UK theatrical release of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO in March, Lisbeth Salander will return to cinemas in THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE on 27 August.

Can't wait to see them though tackling Hornets' must have been a challenge!

A Talent of Translators at LBF

Maxine aka Petrona and I met up for day two of The London Bookfair. We weren't expecting the panel about South African crime fiction to go ahead but we went along anyway and luckily for us, Deon Meyer had been in Europe for a couple of weeks so was able to attend along with Gillian Slovo. The panel was moderated by the new CWA Chair, Tom Harper. After their interesting discussion about crime and crime fiction in the new and old South Africa, we got to shake hands with Deon Meyer and compliment him on Thirteen Hours.

After a pit-stop for coffee we headed back down to the floor and by chance passed the HarperCollins stand where we intercepted one of our favourite translators: Don Bartlett (interviewed on this blog). He brings to English-speaking crime fans, Jo Nesbo, K O Dahl and the most recently translated Gunnar Staalesen. Readers of The Strand magazine will be able to read a non-Harry Hole short story from Jo Nesbo in a future edition. It also sounds like Jo will be back in the country for the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and possibly the Cheltenham Literature Festival. Gunnar Staalesen will be appearing at the Edinburgh Festival in conversation with Ian Rankin. Don says the next Harry Hole book, The Leopard, is around 700 pages. Roll on next March for that one.

Don suggested we go to the translators lounge, and after a detour at PanMacmillan, we did so and exchanged a few words with Ros Schwarz, co-translator of Dominique Manotti's books and Sarah Death editor of Swedish Book Review and were then introduced to Charlotte Barslund, translator of the three most recent (in English) Sejer books by Karin Fossum and Kari Dickson, translator of Anne Holt's Vik & Stubo series and finally we chatted to Anna Paterson who translated Missing by Karin Alvtegen and is now the news editor at Swedish Book Review.

On Monday I made a solo-run to LBF and met Neil Smith, manning the Swedish Arts Council stand with Sarah Death on behalf of the people unable to attend from Sweden. Neil is translating the new Liza Marklund, Red Wolf and also Liza's contribution to The Postcard Killers, co-written with James Patterson.

It was lovely to meet the translators who are responsible for bringing such great crime fiction to a wider audience.

Patterson & Pearson team up

James Patterson is collaborating for the first time with a British writer (after this year's European venture with Liza Marklund for The Postcard Killers). From The Bookseller:

Cornerstone has signed a deal for a collaboration between US author James Patterson and British thriller writer Mark Pearson. It is the first time that Patterson has collaborated with a British author.

Private London will be the second title in a new Patterson series, entitled Private, and will be published in May 2011 by Century, with a paperback to follow from Arrow.

The third in Mark Pearson's DI Jack Delaney series, Death Row, due out in July has a cover quote from Mr Patterson: "A very good writer...Mark Pearson really brings to life the gritty underbelly of London".

DVD release date for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will be released on DVD on 12 July. RRP is £19.99. Play.com is listing it at £12.99 at the moment. Will you be buying it? I think I will be unless the film is re-shown when The Girl who played with Fire is released.

More on Stieg Larsson

I picked up a copy of the Quercus catalogue today at the London Book Fair and it has the following publications for the autumn this year relating to Stieg Larsson. For around £50 - a boxed set of the Millennium Trilogy, tr. Reg Keeland, "with an accompanying volume containing background material":

Revised hardback editions, with maps, of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, plus original material.

The fourth volume includes an essay by Eva Gedin, Larsson's publisher, on working with the author; an email correspondence between Larsson and Eva Gedin; an essay by John-Henri Holmberg, placing Stieg Larsson in the context of the resurgence of Scandinavian crime writing; a poster of the best jackets of the Millennium Trilogy from around the world; maps and photographs.

and also Stieg Larsson, My Friend by Kurdo Baksi, tr. Laurie Thompson:

Five years after his death, Stieg Larsson is best known as the author of the Millennium Trilogy, but during his career as a journalist he was a crucial protagonist in the battle against racism and for democracy in Sweden, and one of the founders of the anti-facist magazine Expo. Kurdo Baksi first met Larsson in 1992; it was the beginning of an intense friendship, and a fruitful but challenging working relationship.

In this candid and rounded memoir, Baksi answers the questions a multitude of Larsson's fans have already asked, about his upbringing; the recurring death threats; his insomnia and his vices; his feminism - so evident in his books - and his dogmatism. What was he like as a colleague? Who provided the inspiration for his now-immortal characters (Baksi is one of the few who appears in the trilogy as himself)? Who was Lisbeth Salander?

New Reviews: Camilleri, Krajewski, Mankell, Nesbo & Sjowall & Wahloo

This month's competition:

Win a copy of Daisychain by G J Moffat (UK only)

This week's reviews are all of translated crime fiction:

Maxine Clarke reviews the US edition of Andrea Camilleri's The Wings of the Sphinx, tr. Stephen Sartarelli (the UK edition is out in June);

Laura Root reviews the paperback edition of Marek Krajewski's The End of the World in Breslau, tr. Danusia Stok;

Double Henning Mankell reviews this week, as reviewers Terry Halligan and Michelle Peckham contrast the books of Faceless Killers and The Fifth Woman, both translated by Steven T Murray, with their BBC TV counterparts;

Maxine also reviews Jo Nesbo's The Snowman, tr. Don Bartlett which she says is the best yet

and Terry Halligan enjoyed The Locked Room by Sjowall and Wahloo.

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

I'm Loving Angels Instead (Covers)

I'm sure there are more of these but my brain's gone blank at the moment. The hardback of The Lovers by John Connolly was published in 2009 but the paperback edition has dropped the statue theme. Whereas both editions of The Valkyrie Song by Craig Russell feature a stone angel. Ruth Newman's Twisted Wing came out in paperback in February.
Update from comments: Elizabeth George's This Body of Death (US edition)
Update from brain: Frank Tallis's Deadly Communion
Update from MaxCrime catalogue: Hitler's Angel by Kris Rusch (6/10)











Update: US edition of Speak No Evil published in June:

Publishing Deals - Bourne & Russell

A couple more brief reports of publishing deals - for established authors this time:

Quercus has commissioned two new Glasgow thrillers from Craig Russell. (The Bookseller)

and

HarperCollins has signed up three new books from journalist Jonathan Freedland writing as Sam Bourne.

[HarperCollins] said it had been a "superb team effort" to take the novelist "from a standing start to being the UK's bestselling thriller writer with sales of well over one million on TCM in less than five years". (The Bookseller)

Euro Crime quoted on Close-Up

One of Maxine at Petrona's recent posts alerted me to the fact that her review is quoted on the first page of the paperback edition of Esther Verhoef's Close-Up. I popped into the library on the way back from collecting my new glasses this morning and there it was on the quick pick stand:



Interestingly, the library has classed it as "adventure" rather than thriller or crime and Waterstone's shelves it in the fiction not crime section.

Read all of Maxine's review here.

Government Crime

A couple of publishing deals have been announced for former Government employees. Today in The Bookseller:

The Interceptor by Cameron Addicott will be published in paperback on 22nd July, priced £7.99. Addicott was an investigator for HM Customs and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) for 20 years. Addicott worked with fellow undercover Customs officers in the Alpha Projects unit. He intercepted and decoded phone calls, gaining a glimpse into the private lives of notorious criminals

...."It's like a real life version of ‘The Wire' but he's talking about a 90 mile an hour chase around the M25 rather than driving through Los Angeles. Drug busts are taking place in Little Chef rather than somewhere like Boston. The fact that it's written about somewhere close to home makes it exciting."

and on Book2Book:

Rowland White, Publisher at Orion, has acquired debut thriller writer ­– and ex-MI6 field operative ­– Matthew Dunn from agent Luigi Bonomi at LBA in a substantial pre-emptive deal for three books. All three will feature Dunn's charismatic British MI6 operator Will Cochrane.

The first thriller, titled Megiddo after the codename of the book's villain, has the British spy leading a joint US/UK team hunting an Iranian terrorist mastermind before he's able to launch a devastating attack in the West. The pursuit turns out to be a great deal more personal and desperate than Cochrane could ever have imagined.

The books will be published on White's new imprint, launched next year.

The Botticelli Secret

I came across this one via the Read It First programme where you get a sample of a different book each week.

The Botticelli Secret by Marina Fiorato will be published on 6 May in the UK.

Opening line: Florence looks like gold and smells like shit.

Synopsis: Gloriously fresh and vivid, with a deliciously irreverant heroine, The Botticelli Secret is Marina Fiorato’s most ambitious achievement to date. When Luciana Vetra is asked to pose for a painter friend, she doesn’t mind serving as the model for the central figure of Flora in Sandro Botticelli’s masterpiece Primavera. But when the artist dismisses her without payment, she steals an unfinished version of the painting—only to find that someone is ready to kill her to get it back. As friends are murdered around her, Luciana turns to the one man who has never desired her beauty, novice librarian Brother Guido. Fleeing Venice together, Luciana and Guido race through the nine cities of Renaissance Italy, pursued by ruthless foes who are determined to keep them from decoding the painting’s secrets.

Want to read more?: Read the first chapter here (pdf).

Nordic Noir films at ScreenLit

As part of the ScreenLit festival in Nottingham, there will be a Nordic Noir film track. It sounds fabulous and I wish I could go but work and visitors means I'm indisposed.

The programme includes films based on books by Arnaldur Indridason, Karin Fossum, Gunnar Staalesen and Sjöwall & Wahlöö and of course The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Plus a talk by Barry Forshaw on his book about Stieg Larsson: The Man Who Left Too Soon and some Wallander episodes (English and Swedish). The whole programme is here and a pass to all the events is £45.

Publishing Deal - Oliver Harris

The briefest of news from The Bookseller about a new crime series:

Jonathan Cape has bought UK, EU & Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) at auction from Greene & Heaton to a new crime series by Oliver Harris.

The two books feature Nick Belsey, a London police detective who has hit rock bottom.­

New Reviews: Fuentes, Lennon, McGilloway, Rees, Shepherd, Tremayne

This month's competitions:

Win the complete Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson on Unabridged Audiobooks (UK & Ireland) (closes 16 April)
Win a copy of Daisychain by G J Moffat (UK only)

Here are this week's new reviews:

Maxine Clarke gives a 5 star rating to Eugenio Fuentes's At Close Quarters, tr. Martin Schifino;

Terry Halligan enjoyed the page-turner that is Cut Out by Patrick Lennon;

Maxine also says that Brian McGilloway is in top-form with The Rising the fourth in the Devlin series;

Laura Root says that Matt Rees maintains the same high quality even when his sleuth leaves Palestine for a trip to New York in The Fourth Assassin;

Michelle Peckham has mixed views on Lynn Shepherd's Murder at Mansfield Park though she enjoyed it overall

and Amanda Gillies starts her association with Sister Fidelma in the latest paperback - The Dove of Death by Peter Tremayne.

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

OT: Foxy catches some Zeds

Having woken us up at 4am, Foxy's been having a sleep this lunchtime:

Trailer - The Poison Tree

Hodder have pointed me to this trailer for Erin Kelly's debut, The Poison Tree which is published in June:

"It is the sweltering summer of 1997, and Karen is a strait-laced, straight-A university student. When she meets the impossibly glamorous Biba, a bohemian orphan who lives in a crumbling old mansion in Highgate with her enigmatic brother Rex, she is soon drawn into their world – but something terrible is about to happen, and someone's going to end up dead.."

The storyline does sound Barbara Vine-like and other comparisons on the blurb include Tana French and Sophie Hannah.

Juli Zeh's new book - cover/title opinions

Until I received an email from a US publicist I hadn't appreciated that Juli Zeh's Dark Matter, tr. Christine Lo is to be published as In Free Fall in the US. So this time, which cover and/or title might attract you to the book? I've also included the two different blurbs below.

UK on the left, US on the right



UK Blurb

Sebastian and Oskar have been friends since their days studying physics at university, when both were considered future Nobel Prize candidates. But their lives took divergent paths, as did their scientific views. Whenever Oskar comes to visit from his prestigious research post in Geneva, there is tension in the air, and it doesn't help their friendship that he feels Sebastian has not lived up to his intellectual capacities, having chosen marriage and fatherhood as an exit strategy. A few days after a particularly heated argument between the two men, Sebastian leaves his son sleeping in the back seat while he goes into a service station. When he returns, the car has disappeared without trace. His phone rings and a voice informs him that in order to get his son back he must kill a man. As Sebastian's life unravels, the only person he can safely reach out to is Oskar. Then Detective Schilf comes on the scene, with a most unorthodox method of uncovering the truth. With intelligence, wit, precision, and grace, Juli Zeh crafts a philosophical thriller which uses the clash of the ideal and the material worlds, the bending of reality, and the search for a definition of time to explore the ideas of guilt and innocence and the infinite configurations of love.

US Blurb

A child is kidnapped but does not know it. One man dies, two physicists fight, and a senior constable falls in love. In the end, everything is different . . . yet exactly the same.” —Prologue

A rising star who has garnered some of Europe’s most important literary prizes, Juli Zeh has established herself as the new master of the philosophical thriller. With In Free Fall, she now takes us on a fast-paced ride through deadly rivalry and love’s infinite configurations.

Against the backdrop of Germany and Switzerland, two physicists begin a dangerous dance of distrust. Friends since their university days, when they were aspiring Nobel Prize candidates, they now interact in an atmosphere of tension, stoked by Oskar’s belief that Sebastian fell into mediocrity by having a family. When Sebastian’s son, Liam, is apparently kidnapped, their fragile friendship is further tested. Entrusted with uncovering the truth, Detective Superintendent Schilf discerns a web of blackmail, while at the same time the reality of his personal life falls into doubt. Unfolding in a series of razor-sharp scenes, In Free Fall is a riveting novel of ideas from a major new literary voice. With the recent success of works in translation, such as Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire, Zeh is poised to take off.

Scandinavian Reading Challenge

Maxine posted about this the other day leading Amy of The Black Sheep Dances to drop me an email at Euro Crime. The Scandinavian Reading Challenge is to read 6 Scandinavian novels from now to the end of the year.

Here's the procedure:

Reading goal:
"Skal" 6 books before year end


Leave a comment to sign up with your email address and goal. Sign up as a follower as well. I'll contact you and provide a badge for your blog if you wish (just ask). Additionally, I'll have a sidebar widget listing participants by their name or blog name.


There will be prizes to all who complete the 6 book challenge. Prizes not selected yet, but most likely a new book by a Scandinavian author. Maybe a jar of herring. Suggestions accepted!

Sign up on The Black Sheep Dances.

Should you need any crime suggestions: reviews and bibliographies of Scandinavian crime writers (that have been published in English) can be found here on the Euro Crime website

New Reviews: Cooper, Harris, Lelic, Meyer, Robertson, Taylor

This month's competitions:

Win the complete Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson on Unabridged Audiobooks (UK & Ireland)
Win a copy of Daisychain by G J Moffat (UK only) new

Here are this week's new reviews:

Amanda Gillies reviews Glenn Cooper's The Tenth Chamber;

Michelle Peckham reviews Blueeyedboy by Joanne Harris;

Maxine Clarke reviews A Thousand Cuts (UK: Rupture) by Simon Lelic;

and Maxine also reviews euro crime favourite Deon Meyer's Thirteen Hours, tr. K L Seegers (Jack Bauer eat your heart out);

Terry Halligan reviews Imogen Robertson's Instruments of Darkness set in the 18th Century

and Laura Root reviews the 1930s set At The Chime of a City Clock by D J Taylor.

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

Website updates - April

Doesn't time fly? It's hard to believe the last time I did a major update of the website was December.

As before, I've refreshed a good portion of the Euro Crime website:

The Author Websites page now lists 822 sites.

The New & Upcoming Releases pages have been updated.

In Bibliographies there are now bibliographies for 1539 authors (7935 titles with links to 1791 reviews):

I've added new bibliographies for: Jussi Adler-Olsen, Fabrice Bourland, Suzanne Bugler, Joyce Cato, Charlie Charters, Roy Chester, Ron Clooney, Donna Fletcher Crow, Matt Dickinson, J A P Duval, Jason Elliot, Joy Ellis, Robert Fannin, Eliza Graham, Lucretia Grindle, Penny Grub, David Hodges, Maxim Jakubowski*, Graham Johnson, John Kilgallon, Charles Lambert, Matthew Loukes, G M Malliet, Howard Marks, Eduardo Mendoza, James Miller, Chris Nickson, Maureen Reynolds, A K Shevchenko, Dan Smith, Peter Taylor, Loren Teague, James Thompson, Jenny White and Edward Wilson.

I've updated the bibliographies (ie added new titles) for: Jane Adams, Ray Alan, Alex Barclay, Robert Barnard, Emily Barr, James Barrington, James Becker, Simon Beckett, Michael Bond, Alison Bruce, Ken Bruen, Colin Campbell, Maureen Carter, CJ Carver, Tania Carver, Mary Andrea Clarke, Rory Clements, Nicholas J Clough, Simon Conway, Lesley Cookman, Judith Cutler, Elizabeth Darrell, Louise Doughty, David Downing, Angela Dracup, Margaret Duffy, Christopher Fowler, Dick Francis, Guy Fraser, Tana French, Gillian Galbraith, Brent Ghelfi, Michele Giuttari, J G Goodhind, Dolores Gordon-Smith, Andrew Grant, Michael Gregorio, Tarquin Hall, Joanne Harris, Veronica Heley, Reginald Hill, Susan Hill, Arnaldur Indridason, Michael Jecks, Paul Johnston, Jessica Keane, Christobel Kent, Bill Kitson, Marek Krajewski, Lynda La Plante, Deryn Lake, Stephen Leather, Frances Lloyd, Claire Lorrimer, Dacia Maraini, Liza Marklund, Edward Marston, Faith Martin, K T McCaffrey, Ava McCarthy, Keith McCarthy, Ken McClure, James McCreet, James McGee, Andy McNab, The Medieval Murderers, Denise Mina, Jo Nesbo, Hakan Nesser, Ruth Newman, Malcolm Noble, Hilary Norman, J A O'Brien, Pamela Oldfield, Stuart Pawson, Mark Pearson, Anne Perry, John Pilkington, Ann Purser, Caro Ramsay, Ruth Rendell, Imogen Robertson, Peter Robinson, Roslund-Hellstrom, Jack Ross, Jean Rowden, Alan Rustage, Robert Ryan, Fay Sampson, C J Sansom, Ian Sansom, Andrea Maria Schenkel, Bernhard Schlink, Claire Seeber, Roger Silverwood, Chris Simms, Alexander McCall Smith, Frank Smith, Roz Southey, Sally Spencer, Mark Timlin, Marilyn Todd, Simon Tolkien, Kerry Tombs, Rebecca Tope, Peter Tremayne, Nicola Upson, Pip Vaughan-Hughes, Lee Weeks, Louise Welsh, Neil White, Stella Whitelaw, Jacqueline Winspear and Carlos Ruiz Zafon

*Maxim, do let me know if I haven't got yours right. I got a bit confused.

March Competition Winners

I've just sent out emails to the sponsors and winners of last month's competitions.

The winners of The Preacher and The Stonecutter by Camilla Lackberg are:

Deryck Johnson
Ceri Kay
Clementina Kyeremateng
Mrs Roma Pearshouse
Keith B Walters

The winners of Tell-Tale by Sam Hayes are:

Sharon Buesnel
Eleanor Flatley, USA
Michael O'Sullivan
Vanessa Rozee
Mark Tucker

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

April's competitions can be found here including a new one, added today.

Publishing Deal - Maxim Jakubowski

News in The Bookseller yesterday about Maxim Jakuboswki's new book, I Was Waiting for You:

Independent publisher Accent Press has signed a deal with Murder One owner and erotic thriller author Maxim Jakubowski.

Managing director Hazel Cushion bought world rights to I Was Waiting For You directly from Jakubowski for a five-figure sum.

Accent will publish the book—"a tightly written crime noir novel", which features Cornelia, the "fearless stripper and killer for hire"—as a paperback on 1st November.

Read the whole piece, here.

Best International Crime Crime

The Mammoth Book of Best International Crime, edited by Maxim Jakubowski came out in 2009. There are 36 short stories from around the globe and I've scanned in the Contents pages so you can see the range of authors.

I've dipped in and read Camilla Lackberg's entry: A Really Shitty Day, translated by Susan Lloyd which gives the background to Patrik Hedstrom being single in The Ice Princess!