On the Bench - cover theme

I didn't realise when I put these together that there's a pair of copy-cat covers (Borkmann's Point and Run for Home). Never End is a US cover the others are UK.

The Hammett Prize 2010

The Hammett Prize 2010 has just been awarded at Semana Negra, from Reuters:

"the best crime novel written in Spanish, the Hammett Prize - named after U.S. author Dashiel Hammett - went to Argentine novelist Guillermo Orsi, for his book "La Ciudad Santa" (The Holy City).

Orsi's book tells of a cruise ship which runs aground in the wide but shallow River Plate, forcing the wealthy passengers to disembark in Buenos Aires, who then become bait for kidnappers.

"A city which, like many another megalopolis, but above all in South America, is riddled with corruption and violence, makes the perfect setting for a crime writer," Orsi said of the Argentine capital, where he lives.

Though this title is not yet available in English, Orsi's No-One Loves a Policeman tr. Nick Caistor was published in April by MacLehose Press so there is hope that The Holy City will follow.

TV News - Silk & Sherlock

A couple of bits of tv news from last week. Firstly, the BBC announced Silk a new legal drama starring Maxine Peake and Rupert Penry-Jones:

Maxine Peake, Rupert Penry-Jones, Natalie Dormer, Tom Hughes and Neil Stuke star in Silk, a thrilling new drama series for BBC One about the lives, loves and hard cases facing barristers on the front line of criminal law, written by Bafta award-winning writer Peter Moffat.

Maxine Peake is Martha Costello, in her thirties, single, passionate and a defence barrister applying for silk. Innocent until proven guilty are four words she lives by. But how does this fundamental principle stand up to examination by clients who are sometimes good, sometimes bad and sometimes evil?

Martha is faced with challenging cases and surprising clients. Her beliefs and prejudices, her conscience and her faith in the criminal justice system are tested to the limit over the course of the series.

Former barrister Peter Moffat makes a return to BBC One, providing an insider's view into this exciting, morally complex, highly-charged world.

Peter says: "Silk is based on my experience at the bar. I want to tell it as it really is. The extreme pressure, the hard choices, the ethical dilemmas, the overlap between the personal and the professional, principles fought for and principles sacrificed, the Machiavellian politics, the sex, the drinking, the whole story – life at the bar is the richest possible drama territory."

Joining Martha is Clive Reader, played by Rupert Penry-Jones. He's funny, gifted and dangerous. The same age as Martha, they're called to the bar together. Both are applying for silk – how they perform in court is vital to this process and Clive knows how to play the game.

Read the rest of the press release here.

And Steven Moffat's Sherlock starts on BBC1 next Sunday, "featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, Martin Freeman as Dr John Watson and Rupert Graves as Detective Inspector Lestrade". (For once Rupert Graves isn't playing a baddie!)

New Reviews: Cotterill, Fossum, Glynn, McKinty, Russell, Southey

Two competitions for July and one is open internationally:
Win one of ten copies of Jail Bird by Jessie Keane (Worldwide)
Win one of five copies of The Assassin's Prayer by Ariana Franklin (UK & Republic of Ireland only)

Here are this week's reviews:

Michelle Peckham reviews Colin Cotterill's The Merry Misogynist in which Dr Siri Paiboun has a serial killer to catch;

I take a look at the new Karin Fossum, Bad Intentions, tr. Charlotte Barslund which covers some familiar Fossum themes;

Maxine Clarke is very impressed with Winterland by Alan Glynn;

Terry Halligan reviews Adrian McKinty's Fifty Grand which has a Cuban detective searching for her father's killer, in Colorado;

Amanda Gillies reviews Leigh Russell's Road Closed, the second in her DI Geraldine Steel series

and Rik Shepherd reviews Secret Lament by Roz Southey set in an 18th century Newcastle whose population includes spirits of the dead.

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

Publishing Deal - Camilla Lackberg

Good news for US readers of Camilla Lackberg's series, translated by Steven T Murray, as the paperback deal has been agree. From Publishers Weekly:

Pegasus Books has sold paperback rights to Swedish international bestseller Camilla Lackberg’s first three books to Simon & Schuster. S&S’s Free Press and Pocket Books imprints acquired trade paperback and mass market rights to The Ice Princess and Lackberg’s next two books, The Preacher and The Stonecutter. Pegasus released Princess, a bestseller across Europe, in June (and Lackberg was featured in the June 28 PW). The two paperback editions will be released simultaneously by S&S next April.

The UK paperback edition of The Stonecutter will be released in March 2011 along with the hardback release of The Gallows Bird.

Summer read? The Toff at Butlin's

I've been having a clear out of some books that I know I'm never going to read. My tastes have changed over the last 10-15 years so what I bought then, often no longer appeals. I discovered this one and I just love the cover and I'm going to keep it though the pages are brown with age. My edition is 1958 but The Toff at Butlin's came out in 1954. Mr Butlin appears in it apparently and there is also a map of the camp!

In the gay atmosphere of a Holiday Camp, the Toff sets out to find three missing men - and quickly discovers an exciting and eventful trails leading to...murder!

Trailer Thursday - The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

I featured The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant recently on cover opinions. (The cover featured at the end of the trailer below is a third version.) This title is classed as adult in the US and teenage in the UK and my review is here. The UK trailer has just been released:



(One of my cats reacted to the cat miaow in the trailer!)

August Heat - cover opinions

Andrea Camilleri's August Heat tr. Stephen Sartarelli is the final 2010 International Dagger contender to have its covers scrutinised as Badfellas has the same cover for both the US and UK editions. (Previous cover opinion posts can be found here).

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

Here is the Euro Crime review, by Maxine, of August Heat.



I like both styles of covers but I do feel the UK ones can give too much of the plot away.

Publishing Deal - Jacqueline Winspear

From Publishers Weekly, good news for Maisie Dobbs fans:

Two-time Agatha Award winner and NYT bestselling author Jacqueline Winspear's 9th and 10th novels in the series featuring psychologist and investigator MAISIE DOBBS, again to Jennifer Barth at Harper, in a major deal, by Amy Rennert at the Amy Rennert Agency.

Jacqueline Winspear's euro crime bibliography page is here. The seventh Maisie Dobbs - The Mapping of Love and Death - was published in the US in March. No UK date set, as far as I know.

The Play's the Thing - Deathtrap

Deathtrap by Ira Levin will be on at the Noel Coward Theatre in London later this year. Previews begin on 21st August 2010, with the opening night on 7th September 2010 and it will then run into the new year.

Simon Russell Beale and Jonathan Groff star in a new Matthew Warchus production of Ira Levin's comic murder thriller 'Deathtrap'.

Groff plays the part of Clifford, a gifted young writer who befriends Sidney Bruhl (Russell Beale), a best-selling novelist and playwright. He turns up at Bruhl's Connecticut home with a new stage thriller which turns out to be superior to anything Bruhl has done.

Deathtrap took Broadway and the West End by storm in the 1980s and became a hugely succesful motion picture with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve.

Watch the trailer here.

Website updates - July

The migration of the euro crime database back into MS Access took longer than expected yesterday but it seems to be working ok now and my rusty skills are warming up.

I've just made the following updates to the website. If you spot any errors or omissions do let me know, especially author websites, books coming out etc.

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

The Author Websites page now lists 835 sites.

The New & Upcoming Releases pages have been updated.

In Bibliographies there are now bibliographies for 1561 authors (8025 titles with links to 1774 reviews):

I've added new bibliographies for: Michael Arnold, Veronyca Bates, Winston Bugle, Clem Chambers, Arne Dahl, James Forrester, Essie Fox, Johnathan Lewis, Graham Moore, Gerry O'Carroll, Martha Ockley, Leif G W Persson, Danielle Ramsay, Eileen Robertson, Bob Shepherd, M Stanford-Smith, Oliver Stark, Mari Strachan, D J Taylor, Alice Thompson, Caspar Walsh and Emily Winslow.

I've updated the bibliographies (ie added new titles) for: Boris Akunin, M C Beaton, Gyles Brandreth, Bob Burke, Tom Cain, Andrea Camilleri, Alex Chance, Lee Child, Martina Cole, Julie Corbin, Anna Dean, Alex Dryden, Ake Edwardson, Tom Egeland, Geraldine Evans, Ann Featherstone, John Francome, Simon Hall, Titania Hardie, Sam Hayes, Mandasue Heller, Peter Helton, Suzette A Hill, Matt Hilton, Bill James, Philip Kerr, Paul Lawrence, Stephen Leather, Simon Lelic, Stuart MacBride, Adrian Magson, Nigel McCrery, Val McDermid, Grant McKenzie, Jane McLoughlin, Stuart Neville, Catherine O'Flynn, S J Parris, Michael Pearce, Anne Perry, Sarah Rayne, Gerald Seymour, Jarkko Sipila, Andrew Taylor, Johan Theorin, L C Tyler, Cathi Unsworth, Esther Verhoef, Domingo Villar, Jan Costin Wagner, Martin Walker, Jill Paton Walsh, Laura Wilson and Felicity Young.

Upcoming Swedish Crime Fiction

I've begun a new amazon list: Scandinavian Crime Fiction Published in 2011. One of the items on the list is Mysterioso by Arne Dahl, tr. Tiina Nunnally which I was reminded of by a commenter on Petrona. It's not yet got a UK release date but the US release date is 15 February 2011.

Synopsis

The first novel in the gripping Intercrime trilogy.

Following a complicated but successful dismantling of a hostage situation, Detective Paul Hjelm is facing the prospect of a potentially career-ending investigation by Internal Affairs. Instead, he finds himself dropped into a new elite team of officers selected from across the country, whose mission is to find an elusive killer who has been targeting Sweden’s business leaders. The killer’s modus operandi: two distinctive shots straight through the head, bullets carefully pulled from the wall—a nighttime ritual enacted with Thelo­nius Monk’s jazz classic Misterioso playing in the background.

As Hjelm, his young partner Jorge Chavez, and the rest of the team follow one lead after another in a frantic search for the killer—navigating the murky world of the Russian Mafia and the secret societies of Sweden’s wealthiest citizens—they must also face one of Sweden’s most persistent ills: a deep-rooted xeno­phobia that affects both police and perpetrator.

Written with great energy, penetrating candor, and dark wit, and populated with characters whose motivations are as nuanced as they are unexpected, Misterioso is an utterly absorbing novel—an arresting introduction to this acclaimed author.

You can read more about it on Arne Dahl's website.

International Dagger Speculation (2011)

I know the winner of the 2010 CWA International Dagger hasn't been announced yet but 2011's official submissions should start arriving soon (I hope) from the publishers.

So here's the list so far of translated crime novels published between June 2010 and May 2011 ie the period of eligibility. There's 52 so far. I expect another few to be added at some point.

For ease of purchase/library reservation here they are listed by UK month of publication:

June 2010
Andrea Camilleri - The Wings of the Sphinx
Donato Carrisi - The Whisperer***************(delayed from May)
Giorgio Faletti - I Kill
Ernesto Mallo - Needle in a Haystack
Dacia Maraini - Train to Budapest
Pierre Siniac - The Collaborators*****

July 2010
Karin Fossum - Bad Intentions
Michele Giuttari - A Death in Calabria
Claude Izner - The Predator of Batignolles*
Marek Krajewski - Phantoms of Breslau
Hakan Nesser - The Inspector and Silence
Luis Miguel Rocha - The Holy Assassin (apa The Holy Bullet)****
Andrea Maria Schenkel - Bunker
Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Ashes to Dust

August 2010
Fabrice Bourland - The Baker Street Phantom
Camilla Ceder - Frozen Moment
Tom Egeland - Relic
Shuichi Yoshida - Villain
Jan Costin Wagner - Silence

September 2010
Boris Akunin - He Lover of Death
Pablo de Santis - Voltaire's Calligrapher
Liza Marklund - Postcard Killers (with James Patterson)**
Roslund-Hellstrom - Three Seconds
Valerio Varesi - River of Shadows

October 2010
Roberto Bolano - The Skating Rink
Massimo Carlotto - Bandit Love****
Arnaldur Indridason - Operation Napoleon
Liza Marklund - Red Wolf
Jean-Francois Parot - The Saint-Florentin Murders
Esther Verhoef - Rendezvous

November 2010
Shiro Hamao - The Devil's Disciple************* Moved to July 2011

December 2010
Anne Holt - 1222

January 2011
Claudie Gallay - The Breakers************
Jo Nesbo - The Leopard
Bernhard Schlink - The Gordian Knot
Simone van der Vlugt - Shadow Sister****

February 2011
Alessandro Perissinotto - Blood Sisters*********
Leif GW Persson - Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End
Teresa Solana - A Short Cut to Paradise****
Didier van Cauwelaert's - Unknown (apa Out of My Head)****************

March 2011
Hans-Werner Kettenbach -The Stronger Sex***
Camilla Lackberg - The Gallows Bird
Henning Mankell - The Troubled Man
Ferdinand von Schirach - Crime (short stories so ineligible?) ****************

April 2011
Esmahan Aykol - Hotel Bosphorus**********
Sebastian Fitzek - Splinter***********
Mari Jungstedt - The Dead of Summer********
Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place*******
Domingo Villar - Death on a Galician Shore

May 2011
Jussi Adler-Olsen - Mercy
Fabrice Bourland - The Dream Killer of Paris**************
Alfredo Colitto - Inquisition******
Sissel-Jo Gazan - The Dinosaur Feather************ Moved to June 2011
Lars Kepler - The Hypnotist

* This one may have been in the 2010 list but the publishing date has now moved.
** Not sure if this counts as I suppose it's partly written directly in English and partly translated from Swedish.
*** Added 22.7.10
**** Added 24.7.10
***** Added 2.8.10
****** Added 7.10.10
******* Added 22.10.10
******** Added 23.10.10
********* Added 24.10.10
********** Added 30.10.10
*********** Added 1.11.10
************ Added 12.11.10
************* Added 13.11.10
************** Added 17.11.10
*************** Added 22.11.10
**************** Added 4.3.11

What's in a Title?

Just for a bit of fun, I queried my euro crime database to see what the most popular title names are. There are nearly 9000 titles (so far) in the work in progress that is the (soon to be back in Access, hurrah) database. Two titles were repeated 5 times and 11 appear 4 times. I've restricted my post to these top two places.

Here are the more frequently used titles:

5 Times

Killing Time
Missing

4 Times

Angel of Death
Betrayal
Blood Ties
Cold Blood
Deadline
Innocent Blood
Last Rites
Nemesis
Requiem
Vanishing Point
Written in Blood

A few more statistics: 196 titles have "blood" in them, 567 have "death", 443 have "murder" but only 66 have "crime" and 57 have "mystery" in them.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest - cover opinions

Continuing my series of cover opinions about the 2010 International Dagger shortlist, this time it's the turn of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest by Stieg Larsson, tr. Reg Keeland.

So what are you thoughts on the US (LHS) and UK (RHS) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Stieg Larsson? (Note the location of the apostrophe in each case...)

(I've had a number of people come into the library having read #3 first and then reserving the first two.)

Here is the Euro Crime review by Maxine of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest.












Here is an article on the process behind the design of the US cover of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo which is in a similar vein to the above.

Henning Mankell on Open Book

Here's another programme to listen to online or download the podcast of, from the BBC Open Book website:

James Naughtie talks to Sweden’s most celebrated literary export: Henning Mankell. He talks about his creation, the detective Kurt Wallander – and his appearance in his fifth novel Sidetracked.

Here is Henning Mankell's Euro Crime bibliography with links to reviews.

New Reviews: Bolton, Leather, Owen, Rickman, Ridpath, Young & New Competitions

Two new competitions for July and one is open internationally:
Win one of ten copies of Jail Bird by Jessie Keane (Worldwide)
Win one of five copies of The Assassin's Prayer by Ariana Franklin (UK & Republic of Ireland only)

Here are this week's reviews:

S J Bolton continues her impressive run of stand-alone novels with Blood Harvest reviewed here by Michelle Peckham;

Paul Blackburn reviews the paperback edition of Stephen Leather's supernatural-crime thriller Nightfall;

Laura Root recommends Two Tribes by Charlie Owen if you "fancy a walk on the wild side of the police procedural";

Amanda Gillies heaps praise on Phil Rickman's new venture - Elizabethan crime - in her review of The Bones of Avalon;

Maxine Clarke thoroughly enjoyed Michael Ridpath's Iceland set Where the Shadows Lie

and Kerrie Smith reviews Take Out by Felicity Young set in Perth, Australia.

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

New Competition - Jail Bird by Jessie Keane

Euro Crime has ten copies of Jail Bird by Jessie Keane to giveaway. Just answer the simple question and include your details in the form below.

This competition is open internationally and will close on 31 July 2010.
Only 1 entry per person/per household please.
(All entries will be deleted once the winners have been notified.)

Murder, loyalty and vengeance collide in Jessie Keane's gritty fourth novel.

Blonde and beautiful Lily King is back on the scene - and not in a good way. Her family haven't missed her. Her husband, London villain Leo King, certainly hasn't, because he's dead. Lily killed him and did time for it.

At least, that's the story. Everyone believes it. But Lily knows it's not true. She knows she was fitted up by someone close to her.

Now, she's just hit thirty, she's out, and she doesn't do forgiveness.

But in her absence, things have moved on, the old order has changed, and now she's ready to reclaim her position as head of the King family.

Fuelled by vengeance and power, Lily King is back.

London won't know what hit it.

Global Reading Challenge - Update

Time to reveal my Global Reading Challenge progress - I believe I signed myself up for the 'Easy' challenge. There are also medium, expert and extremist levels which you can find detailed on the website.

The Easy Challenge
Read one novel from each of these continents in the course of 2010:
Africa
Asia
Australasia
Europe
North America (incl Central America)
South America

From your own continent: try to find a country, state or author that is new to you.

I have linked to reviews of 'new to me' authors. The YA (Teenage) books I've linked to are also in the crime/thriller genre.

Africa
Rift by Beverley Birch (audio book) (YA)

Asia
tbc

Australasia
Conspiracy 365: January by Gabrielle Lord (YA)

Europe
Badfellas by Tonino Benacquista

North America
Theodore Boone by John Grisham (Adult/YA)

South America
Thursday Night Widows by Claudia Pineiro

I haven't decided yet what to read for my Asia setting though I have a couple in mind. Suggestions welcomed both adult and YA crime/thriller.

The Play's the Thing - Sherlock Holmes

The Secret of Sherlock Holmes is to run from 20th July, for eight weeks, at The Duchess theatre in London's 'glittering West End':

Peter Egan and Robert Daws will recreate the partnership of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson on stage when The Secret Of Sherlock Holmes comes to the Duchess theatre from 20 July (previews from 15 July).


Premiered in 1988, Jeremy Paul’s play centres on a seemingly deadly encounter between Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective Holmes and his nemesis, arch criminal Professor Moriarty, at Reichenbach Falls. As secrets and betrayal are slowly revealed, Watson finds his loyalty and friendship tested to the very limit, Holmes is forced to turn his unswerving powers of deduction upon himself and the true relationship between Holmes and Moriarty is finally revealed.

Tickets can be booked via this website though there may be other ways(!).

2010 Crime Novel of the Year Award - shortlist

The shortlist for the 2010 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award has been announced:

In the Dark by Mark Billingham
The Surrogate by Tania Carver
A Simple Act of Violence by R.J. Ellory
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
Dead Tomorrow by Peter James
Gallows Lane by Brian McGilloway
Doors Open by Ian Rankin
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

You can see the longlist here.

From the press release:

Now in its sixth year, the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award was created to celebrate the very best in crime writing, and is open to British and Irish authors whose novels were published in paperback in 2009.

The winner of the prize will be announced by radio broadcaster and festival regular Mark Lawson on the opening night of the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate on Thursday 22nd July. The winner will receive a £3,000 cash prize, as well as a handmade, engraved beer barrel provided by T&R Theakston Ltd.

Unlike other literary awards, with the Crime Novel of the Year it's what readers think that really counts. Voting reopens from 1st to 21st July to help determine which of the 8 Shortlisted books will go on to take the prize.

Vote now at www.theakstons.co.uk

All votes received at Longlist stage will be reset to zero, so your favourite author will need your help to claim the prize!

The eventual winner will be decided by combining the result of this public vote with the votes of a panel of expert judges: Jenni Murray, BBC Radio 4 broadcaster and author; John Dugdale, Guardian Associate Media Editor; Natalie Haynes, comedian and journalist; and Simon Theakston, Executive Director of T&R Theakston Ltd.

Dalziel and Pascoe author Reginald Hill is also set to receive the inaugural Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award at the prize ceremony on 22nd July.

The Darkest Room - cover opinions

Continuing my series of cover opinions about the 2010 International Dagger shortlist, this time it's the turn of The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin.

The Darkest Room is currently available in one US edition and two UK editions.

So what are you thoughts on the US (LHS) and UK (RHSx2) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Johan Theorin?





My thoughts:

I don't particularly like the US cover as it doesn't resemble the setting of the book though it does (perhaps) convey the cold weather. I do like the fact that the translator's name, Marlaine Delargy, is on the front cover.

I like the UK trade paperback edition cover with its light-house (though the story revolves around twin light-houses) and at least gives the idea that the story is set by the sea.

But I absolutely loathe the UK paperback edition cover as it is in the current style of 'generic crime novel' cover ie distressed furniture (bath, chair, staircase) in a disgusting room. It makes it look like an urban setting which is far from the truth and worse it has an incorrect statement about the plot.

If you haven't read this book, I recommend not reading the blurb on the back cover which gives away more than I at least would like to know. Maxine's review of The Darkest Room, of course, does not give too much away.

I also don't like the title as it doesn't seem to fit the story that well.

Finally, the third part of the quartet, A Place of Blood, will be published in March.

The Girl Who Played With Fire - US opening

The UK is being pipped to the post by the US in the race to release the film of The Girl Who Played With Fire. The UK release date is set for 27th August but many places in the US will be showing it from the 9th July. You can see the locations on the official website.

Here are the respective posters, any thoughts?

US Poster

UK Poster

and here's the UK official website.

The Sea, The Sea

I noticed that Harlan Coben's latest paperback has the sea on the front and we've reviewed a couple of titles recently, which also have the sea on the cover: Diane Janes's The Pull of the Moon and Louise Welsh's Naming the Bones. I'm not sure how relevant the covers are to the contents of the first three but the fourth title, Genesis by Bernard Beckett, has a very appropriate cover. Genesis is a YA/Adult cross-over title - more science-fiction than crime though it does contain a crime - which came out last year and I reviewed it on my teenage blog.

OT: Roses & Cat Pots

About a year ago I reported on my successful trip to David Austin Roses. More by luck than judgement the roses we bought are doing ok and I took a picture earlier of one of them:


And if you live in the UK you may have seen this cute cat plant holder at garden centres. My mum took pity on me last week and bought me one. Note how I've carefully colour matched the (bought) plant to the (bought) pot - oh what a gardener I am...

Turquoise is the Colour

A few familiar and recently mentioned titles with blue-y covers plus a couple of upcoming titles at the top:

Euro Crime quoted on Hunt for the Bear

I received a review copy of the paperback release of Derek Haas's Hunt for the Bear and on the back cover there is a quote from "EUROCRIME"!

The quote is taken from Michelle Peckham's review of the trade paperback edition.


I have been cataloguing (some of) Euro Crime's citations on the blog.

Thirteen Hours - Cover Opinions

As with Hypothermia, US based readers of the 2010 International Dagger Shortlist will have to wait until September (7th) for the US edition of Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer.

Read the Euro Crime review (by Maxine) of Thirteen Hours.

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

Queenan's Crime Scenes

There are a couple of podcasts still available on the BBC World Service website from when American writer Joe Queenan went to first Washington DC and then to Stockholm to look at crime fiction set there and speak to local residents, including crime authors. In the Stockholm edition he speaks to Jens Lapidus, Camilla Lackberg and Hakan Nesser as well as two (female) police officers, and if you haven't already come across the proper way to pronounce Larsson - it's more like Larshon.

The podcast is only 23 minutes long and well worth a listen. Download it from here.

OT: Night of the Living Trekkies

This one's in the horror genre but it sounds fun to a Trek fan like myself! Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin Anderson and Sam Stall will be published on 14 July in the UK.

Synopsis: Our story follows a rag-tag group of Trekkies en route to an annual Star Trek convention. Arriving with homemade uniforms, glued-on prosthetics, and plastic phasers, these fanboys know more than any rational adult should know about Kirk, Spock, Next Generation, particle physics, black holes, and Ricardo Montalban. But when aliens release a zombie plague upon the Earth, all of this Starfleet training suddenly becomes a lot more relevant. Our fanboys find themselves trapped in the Botany Bay Hotel and Convention Center - and desperate to escape. Some will be assimilated. Others will summon the courage of their favorite characters and perform brave feats of heroism. And one reluctant fan will discover his inner Trekkie, rise up, and take command of the crew.

Gone to the Dogs

As a change from cat-related mysteries, here are a couple of new books which feature dogs in prominent roles - not talking ones though:

No Going Back by Lyndon Stacey, published March 2010

The first in an exciting new mystery series featuring ex-police dog handler Charlie Whelan -

When two young sisters run away on Dartmoor, Charlie Whelan and his German shepherd, Taz, are called into action, and a desperate search quickly turns up one of the girls. However, rather than showing relief at being rescued, she seems terrified. Darkness halts their hunt for her elder sister, and Charlie returns home with one distressing question on his mind: just what were the girls running from?

Into Darkness by Johnathan Lewis, to be published 16 September 2010.

In the stinking mud of a great tidal river, a body lies half submerged. Sir Tommy Best, adored British actor, has fallen to his death through a hole in the walkway above. The saintly Sir Tommy was friend to the starving and penniless, to kings and stars. He was also totally blind and reliant on his brilliant guide dog, Suzy. But she is nowhere to be found. It seems unimaginable that Suzy would have led him into danger, so is it murder? And where is she? When she finally turns up, it is only to deepen the mystery. She is stressed and tense and soon Chief Superintendent 'Fatso' and Detective Chief Inspector Ned realise that only one person in the force can possibly help. Kate, police dog handler extraordinaire, known affectionately as the Dog Tart, suggests they find Nick Parsons, who trained Suzy, in the hope that he can get the dog to lead them to the truth. The search for Nick Parsons culminates in a highly unusual plan, in which Ned will become blind for one night and with Suzy the guide dog, re-enact Sir Tommy Best's last fateful walk. The truth which they uncover is utterly horrible.

Trailer - Bad Boy

Bad Boy, the latest in the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson will be out in the UK on 5 August and a couple of weeks later in the US.

Synopsis: When Juliet Doyle discovers a gun in her daughter’s bedroom, she turns to old friend DCI Alan Banks for advice. But Banks is taking a much-needed holiday, and it's left to DI Annie Cabbot to deal with the removal of the firearm. No one can foresee the operation's disastrous consequences, or that the Doyles will not be the only family affected.

Banks's daughter Tracy has fallen for the wrong boy. Her flatmate’s boyfriend is good-looking, ambitious, and surrounded by an intoxicating air of mystery. He's also very dangerous. When Tracy warns him that the police might be on his tail, he persuades her to go on the run with him, and flattered by his attention, she agrees. Before she knows it, a deadly chase across the country is set in motion.

And on his return, completely unsuspecting of Tracy's perilous situation, Banks is plunged into his most terrifying, personal case yet.

The trailer below shows Peter Robinson speaking about Bad Boy and the Yorkshire Dales setting of his series:

Hypothermia - Cover Opinions

US based fans of Arnaldur Indridason's Erlendur series will be pleased to know that Hypothermia will be out there on 14 September (also in Kindle edition). Hypothermia is on the short-list for the 2010 CWA International Dagger.

Read the Euro Crime review (by Maxine) of Hypothermia.

So what are you thoughts on the UK (LHS) and US (RHS) covers? Would either entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Indridason?
(Incidentally at the time of writing, the blurb on amazon.com is actually for The Draining Lake!)

The Girl Who Played With Fire - UK Trailer

The official UK trailer for The Girl Who Played With Fire has been released. I'm so looking forward to seeing this when it's released on 27 August:

Book Video Awards 2010

I've managed to get my hands on the latest edition of The Bookseller and there's an article in it which I can't find online so I shall type parts of it in:

Novels by crime writers including James Ellroy and Jo Nesbo are to be turned into book trailers as part of the third annual Book Video Awards.

The winning students are to make four 90-minute (seconds?) films based on Blood's a Rover by James Ellroy, Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason, Blood Harvest by S J Bolton and Jo Nesbo's The Snowman. Each have received £5000 to make their films which will then be used to promote the titles on author and fan sites including YouTube and Amazon.

The public will be able to vote for their favourite video on www.foyles.co.uk in September. The overall winner will be announced in October.

Lightbulbs - cover theme #2

I posted these lightbulb covers last year and I've recently found two more that qualify:






Additions:

New Reviews: Campbell, Doherty, Hughes, James, Jungstedt, Rayne

Here are this week's reviews:

Terry Halligan reviews the paperback edition of Karen Campbell's After the Fire which is a strong contender for his top 5 of 2010;

Craig Sisterson goes to Ancient Egypt with Paul Doherty's The Anubis Slayings;

Michelle Peckham enjoyed the new Ed Loy, PI from Declan Hughes: City of Lost Girls;

Maxine Clarke is disappointed with the "mind of a killer" scenes in Peter James's Dead Like You but enjoys The Killer's Art by Mari Jungstedt, tr. Tiina Nunnally much more

and Amanda Gillies has high praise for Sarah Rayne's new chiller (set in the Fens), House of the Lost.

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

Trailer - Lockdown

Sean Black's debut thriller, Lockdown will be out in paperback on 24 June:

New York. It may be Christmas in New York, but for ex-soldier turned elite bodyguard Ryan Lock, it's business as usual: his mission is to protect one of America's most ruthless businessmen. A Bloody Shoot-Out. Suddenly gunshots ring out. People run for cover. Innocent people are mown down. Amid the chaos, Lock's hunt for the killers turns into an explosive game of cat and mouse. A Deadly Secret. Lock's search for the truth takes him from the rooftops of a New York skyscraper to a heavily fortified warehouse on the Hudson where he confronts one of the world's most dangerous women. As the clock ticks towards midnight on New Year's Eve, all routes into and out of Manhattan are sealed, and Lock realises that not only is his own life in terrible danger but so are the lives of millions of others...

What are the odds?

Thanks to Roger Cornwell sending this via the Dagger judges group. Apparently you can bet on which title will win the Golden Dagger for Non Fiction and the International Dagger:

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest - Stieg Larsson 9/4
Hypothermia - Arnadur Indridason 10/3
Thirteen Hours - Deon Meyer 4/1
August Heat - Andrea Camilleri 9/2
Badfellas - Tonino Benacquista 9/2
The Darkest Room - Johan Theorin 9/2

Quick Euro Crime Poll Update:

1) Want to win is currently a close tussle between Hypothermia and Hornets' Nest.
2) Think will win is, well, Hornets' is streaking away.

Plenty of time left to cast your votes in the polls on the top-right of this blog.

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden - cover opinions

This comparison's slightly different to usual. The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant is being published in the US on 10 August in Hardback. The UK edition came out last year in paperback.

For me, the title alone caught my attention on the UK edition however the cat would get *my* attention on the US cover!

US -------------------------------------------------------UK



What's interesting is that the UK edition is marketed at teenagers and was shortlisted for the 2009 Booktrust Teenage Prize (the eventual winner was the equally cross-over The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman) and is also shortlisted along with The Graveyard Book for the 2010 CILIP Carnegie Medal. In the US however, it is categorised (on amazon at least) an adult edition.

Either way it's a great read for fans of mysteries whatever their age. My review is on my teenage blog.

Thorne - teaser trailer

I've been seeing this trailer for Thorne on SkyOne and have found it at the Little, Brown website:



David Morrissey is playing DI Tom Thorne from Mark Billingham's series. The first two books, Sleepyhead and Scaredy Cat are being televised and are due to be shown in August.

New Reviews: Connolly, Gray, Kelly, Rayne, Robertson, Timlin

Here are this week's reviews:

Pat Austin reviews the latest Charlie Parker from John Connolly, The Whisperers;

Paul Blackburn reviews the seventh of Alex Gray's Glasgow set series Five Ways to Kill a Man;

Maxine Clarke reviews the debut novel by Erin Kelly The Poison Tree, which has been likened to Barbara Vine's A Fatal Inversion;

Michelle Peckham reviews the paperback edition of Sarah Rayne's Ghost Song;

Terry Halligan reviews the second of Imogen Robertson's 18th Century series, Anatomy of Murder

and Geoff Jones reviews Mark Timlin's Guns of Brixton.

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

April 2010 Competition Winners

Here are the winners of April's competitions.

The winner of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy on audio book is:

Geoff Dagger

The winners of Daisychain by G J Moffat are:

Georgina Docherty
Marita Duff
Helen Jones
Jane Middleton
Jean Stewart

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

May's competition winners will be announced shortly.

Teaser Poster for The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Played With Fire film is due to be released in the UK on 27 August. A teaser poster was released recently at LoveFilm:





There are 7 more stills from TGWPWF at Blogomatic3000.

An Interview with Leigh Russell

Euro Crime, in the shape of reviewer Amanda Gillies has recently interviewed author Leigh Russell about her books and her route to getting published.

Amanda has already reviewed Leigh's first book, Cut Short which is the beginning of the DI Geraldine Steel series. The second book, Road Closed which has just been released, will be reviewed shortly.

ROAD CLOSED, the second novel about DI Geraldine Steel, has just been published by No Exit Press. Euro Crime caught up with its author, Leigh Russell, and asked her a few questions….

Can you remember what first got you writing?

I was walking through my local park one rainy day. As I approached a tangled copse of trees and shrubs by a bend in the path, a man came round the bed walking towards me. I don’t know where the idea came from but I wondered what I would do if I walked on and saw a body in the bushes… and I’d seen this man, I could identify him… I walked on, and there was no body in the bushes, but when I reached home I started writing the story. Who was the girl in the bushes? Had anyone noticed when she didn’t come home? Perhaps she had a boyfriend who used to knock her about. Would the police suspect him? Then there was the killer’s story… Finally I had to bring in the police… Within six weeks I’d written 85,000 words spinning out of that one random thought.

So, was it a hard slog to find a publisher for CUT SHORT or was the whole process easier than you thought?

Having completed my manuscript I thought I might as well have a go, so I found three publishers who specialise in crime fiction and sent them what I’d written. I didn’t expect to hear from any of them but two weeks later I had a phone call from my publishers and a couple of months later they signed me up for three books.

ROAD CLOSED, your second book, is just out. Has the build-up been as exciting as it was with CUT SHORT or are getting used to it all now?

ROAD CLOSED was printed ahead of schedule as WH Smith’s Travel want to promote it in June. A month ahead of its official publication date it is already selling on amazon, with only 5 copies left in stock and more on the way. I didn’t expect to feel so excited about my second book – but I am! What with writing my third book, DEAD END, and promoting my first, CUT SHORT, I’ve had no time to stress about how ROAD CLOSED will be received, but it seems to be selling well.

Are you pleased with the way in which CUT SHORT has sold?

I’ve been completely bowled over by the success of my first book, which has been reprinted three times in its first year.

What’s it been like, doing numerous book signings and keeping the momentum going? Where on earth have you found time to carry on with your writing?

I enjoy getting out and about meeting readers, whether or not they decide to buy my book, and people in general have been very friendly and generous. Time is my main problem as I still work full-time. Fortunately I write very fast…

Can you give away any secrets about ROAD CLOSED to your Euro Crime fans? You know, just to keep us going …

Geraldine is in for a surprise in ROAD CLOSED, and the killer’s identity isn’t apparent from the start as it was in CUT SHORT. I’m not going to tell you any more – but I hope you’ll read the book and find out!

What kind of books do you like to read yourself and which author do you admire the most?

One of the sad aspects of my life right now is that since I started writing, I have very little time to read. I do enjoy crime fiction, especially psychological thrillers, but my tastes are fairly eclectic. My favourite authors include F Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, Dickens, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, and in my own genre Simon Beckett, PD James, Ruth Rendell, Frances Fyfield and, of course, Jeffery Deaver who took the time to email me to let me know he’d read CUT SHORT and “loved it!”

So, what next, for you as well as Geraldine?

I am finishing the first draft of DEAD END, and my publisher has already put in an offer for a fourth book in the series, so it looks as though Geraldine Steel is going to be around for a while. As for me, I’ll continue writing, giving talks at literary festivals, colleges and libraries, giving interviews on BBC Radio and online, trotting round the country signing in bookshops…

Finally, do you have any tips for those of us that think we have a novel in us somewhere?

It is very exciting to be a published author, but for me the main buzz is the writing, so my advice is to enjoy writing for its own sake. If you find a publisher, that is a bonus.

Thank you very much for interviewing me here, with such searching questions. I am grateful to you for writing such a glowing review of CUT SHORT; I really hope you enjoy ROAD CLOSED just as much.

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us, Leigh.
We are really looking forward to reviewing ROAD CLOSED and wish you all the best with it.

You can read more about Leigh and her books at her website.

The Ice Princess - Cover Opinions

The US edition of Swedish author Camilla Lackberg's The Ice Princess is being published on the 15th. In addition her website has just been relaunched at www.camillalackberg.com.

So which one of these covers would entice you to pick the book up if you'd not heard of Camilla Lackberg before? US is on the left, UK on the right.

The Euro Crime review of The Ice Princess is here.