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!