New Reviews: Brandreth, Calderon, Charteris, Duns, Keating, Rayne, Schenkel

Just one day left in May's competition - win a copy of Suffer the Children by Adam Creed. (There are no geographical restrictions on entrants.) Enter here.

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website. The theme this week is historical crime:

New Reviews:

I review the audio book version of Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders by Gyles Brandreth (1889-90);

Laura Root reviews The Creator's Map by Emilio Calderon (WWII);

Rik Shepherd reviews The Best of the Saint: Volume One by Leslie Charteris (1930s);

Michelle Peckham reviews Free Agent by Jeremy Duns (1969);

Mike Ripley reviews A Small Case for Inspector Ghote? by H R F Keating (1964);

Amanda Gillies reviews Spider Light by Sarah Rayne (present day with flashbacks);

and Maxine Clarke reviews Ice Cold by Andrea Maria Schenkel(1930s).

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.

International Dagger Speculation...

The shortlists for the CWA Daggers will be announced next month. As is customary on the eurocrime blog, here are the possible candidates for the International Dagger. The criteria for this category are:

Eligible books must be crime novels by the broadest definition including thrillers, suspense novels and spy fiction as long as the book was not originally written in English and has been translated into English for UK publication between June 1 2008 and May 31 2009.

Based on my database, here are the sixty-one titles I believe to be eligible. I have included the non European books that I know about, though there may be omissions of course. (Links are to Euro Crime reviews):

Boris Akunin - The Coronation
Boris Akunin - Pelagia and the Red Rooster
Selcuk Altun - Songs My Mother Never Taught Me
Karin Alvtegen - Shadow
Niccolo Ammaniti - The Crossroads
Jakob Arjouni - Chez Max
Xavier-Marie Bonnot - The Beast of the Camargue
Emilio Calderon - The Creator's Map
Andrea Camilleri - The Paper Moon
Martin Caparros - Valfierno: The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa
Jacques Chessex - Le Vampire de Ropraz
Philippe Claudel - Brodeck's Report
Giancarlo De Cataldo - The Father and the Foreigner
Pablo de Santis - The Paris Enigma
Hans Fallada - Alone in Berlin
Sebastian Fitzek - Therapy
Karin Fossum - Broken
Eugenio Fuentes - The Pianist's Hands
Jef Geeraerts - The Public Prosecutor
Michele Giuttari - A Death in Tuscany
Abdelilah Hamdouchi - The Final Bet
Thomas Hettche - What We Are Made Of
Paulus Hochgatterer - The Sweetness of Life
Arnaldur Indridason - Arctic Chill
Claude Izner - The Montmartre Investigation
Claude Izner - The Marais Assassin
Andrea H Japp - The Season of the Beast
Andrea H Japp - The Breath of the Rose
Mari Jungstedt - The Inner Circle (apa Unknown)
Hans-Werner Kettenbach - David's Revenge
Natsuo Kirino - Real World
Jan Kjaerstad - The Discoverer
Marek Krajewski - The End of the World in Breslau
Camilla Lackberg - The Preacher
Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Played With Fire
Carlo Lucarelli - Via delle Oche
Henning Mankell - The Pyramid (The Wallander Stories)
Esteban Martin and Andreu Carranza - The Gaudi Key
Deon Meyer - Blood Safari
Manuel Vazquez Montalban - Tattoo
Gianluca Morozzi - Blackout
Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer
Hakan Nesser - Mind's Eye (apa The Mind's Eye)
Hakan Nesser - Woman with Birthmark
Saskia Noort - Back to the Coast
Leonardo Padura - Havana Fever
Jean-Francois Parot - The Phantom of the Rue Royale
Arturo Perez-Reverte - The Man in the Yellow Doublet
Carmen Posadas - Child's Play
Roslund-Hellstrom - The Vault
Andrei Rubanov - Do Time Get Time
Andrea Maria Schenkel - The Murder Farm
Yrsa Sigurdardottir - My Soul to Take
Teresa Solana - The Not So Perfect Crime
Mehmet Murat Somer - The Kiss Murder
Domenico Starnone - First Execution
Johan Theorin - Echoes from the Dead
Simone van der Vlugt - The Reunion
Fred Vargas - The Chalk Circle Man
Esther Verhoef - Close-Up
Tanguy Viel - Beyond Suspicion

Which 5 or 6 will make it to the shortlist? Based on the euro crime reviews above my suggestions are: Karin Alvtegen The Shadow, Niccolo Ammaniti The Crossroads, Hans Fallada Alone in Berlin, Stieg Larsson The Girl Who Played with Fire, Johan Theorin Echoes from the Dead and Fred Vargas The Chalk Circle Man.

Any other suggestions?

Life returns to ITV3

The bad news is that quirky cop show Life starring Damian Lewis has not been renewed but the good news is that here in the UK we still have the 21 episodes of series two to watch. The run begins on 3 June on ITV3 at 10pm. (Repeated on Friday 5 June at 9pm). The official ITV3 website is here but has not been updated yet for the new series.

Catch up with series one on DVD.

Review: Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders (audio book)

Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders by Gyles Brandreth, narrated by Bill Wallis (Chivers Audio Books, 10 CDs, Sep 2008, ISBN: 9781405684613)

This is the first in what I've heard is a projected ten books series. Three so far have been published and the first two are available in audio book format.

I've been intrigued by these for a while but finally pushed myself to try one as Gyles Brandreth was a guest at Crime Fest this year (and will be the toastmaster next year).

In Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders the story is quite straightforward. In the first few minutes Oscar strides into a house on Cowley Street and finds the body of a young boy, his throat is cut and he is surrounded by candles. The boy, Billy Wood, is a friend of Oscar's. However Oscar does not report his finding for 24 hours and when he returns to the room, the body is gone. The police won't investigate without a body so it's up to Oscar and his friend and narrator of these books, Robert Sherard, to solve the crime.

The downside to this book, for me, is the lack of actual detection. Very little information is uncovered and yet half way through, Oscar says he knows the murderer. But then nothing much happens again until the last three discs. The story ends with a classic "gather the suspects in the drawing room" session but the denouement won't completely surprise crime fiction fans. On the positive side, and what has made me reserve the next book in the series, Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death, is Oscar and his milieu. Oscar is a fascinating creature, with an endless supply of witticisms and is friend to the great and the good, such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry Irving and Millais. Listening to this book made me itch to learn more about these people and of course Oscar.

This book is set in 1889 - 1890, the next one begins is 1892. Unless Oscar gets very busy, it seems that some the later books in the series will have to take place after Oscar's stay in prison.

Bill Wallis provides a compelling narration as always, switching from an English accent to Irish and Scottish accents faultlessly and he gives Oscar the flamboyance you'd expect.

The US title for this book is Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance

The Euro Crime page with links to reviews and author website is here.

OT: Doctor Who - news

Today brings news of extra appearances by David Tennant as Doctor Who.

Firstly, he'll be in episodes 5 and 6 of this autumn's series of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Secondly, there's to be another animated series:

The BBC has commissioned seven animated episodes, which will be around six minutes long and which will be accessible via the red button. They are also due to be aired on Children's BBC.

New addition to Enid Blyton's 'Secret' series

I have to confess my memories of this series are very vague. I remember the first one, The Secret Island but am unsure about the remaining four yet it seems unlikely that I haven't read them...

According to The Bookseller, a sixth in the series is to be published, written by Blyton fan, Trevor Bolton:

A sixth book is to be added to Enid Blyton’s Secret Series—the first book in the series to have not been written by the original author.

The Secret Series chronicles the adventures of Mike, Peggy, Nora, Jack and their friend Prince Paul. The new story The Secret Valley has been written by life-long fan, Trevor Bolton, who has never been published before.

Award Publications is to publish the new story in paperback on 1st June. The publication date will coincide with the publisher’s launch of the series in a revamped design in paperback. The series was previously only available from Award in hardback. The paperback version has been re-set and digitized and the point size has been made larger.

Bolton was 'discovered' when his manuscript of The Secret Valley was circulated around the Enid Blyton Society—of which Bolton is a member. They thought it warranted publication and forwarded it to Chorion, which holds the rights to Enid Blyton works.

Read the rest of the article, here and refresh your memory about the originals at this Enid Blyton site.

Crime Fest: Translators panel

Apologies for the murky photo. I have lightened it up a bit. Click on it for a 'better' look. From left to right, the panel members are:
Ann Cleeves, champion of translated crime fiction (especially Scandinavian), Tiina Nunnally who has translated Karin Fossum and Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, Don Bartlett, translator of Jo Nesbo and K O Dahl, Roz Schwarz, co-translator of Dominique Manotti and Reg Keeland (aka Steven T Murray) translator of Stieg Larsson's trilogy and many other Swedish crime novels.


(I hope I convey what was said reasonably accurately. I am paraphrasing but if I've missed anything or misconstrued something, please let me know.)

Firstly, good news for Harry Hole's many fans. The first one in the series The Snowman is to be the next one available in English and we have Don Bartlett to thank for bringing Jo Nesbo to publishers' attention and lobbying for a translation.

The panel were asked whether they ever turned anything work down. Don said possibly if it was too grisly and the panel agreed that they would turn a book down if they had no affinity for the book. Tiina said they didn't really have a lot of choice in what they were given to translate but she might turn it down if there was a child victim. She might lobby for a translation if she spots something. Roz added that she might turn down a piece of work if the deadline was too tight.

Scandinavian crime fiction is very popular in Germany so Reg said that he checked amazon.de to see what was being translated. He contacted Camilla Lackberg's agent directly about translating her books.

The panel were asked whether they read the whole book before translating. Some did and some only read fifty pages before starting. Tiina said that she wanted it to be as much a surprise as when you read it for pleasure. Roz said she read the whole book and then did a draft into English and that's when the work begins. Don said he'd read through the whole book (Devil's Star I think) but then had to work on another book so had to reread it. He said that Jo (Nesbo) has a dry wit like the British and he sees Harry as a dry northerner.

Roz said it was important to keep to the spirit and voice of the original but especially with humour you can't always translate a joke at a certain place in the book so you use another joke a few pages later. Don added that you wonder how much of the original language to leave in eg do you translate the Norwegian police ranks?

Rather than translating from the original language, often the English translations will be used as a basis for a translation into another language eg Albanian.

Don enjoyed translating the novel The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles by Roy Jacobsen and Tiina was fond of the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy and is currently awaiting the second book from Mikkel Birkegaard. Roz's favourite was The Star of Algiers by Aziz Chouaki and Reg said the Larsson trilogy was the best project he'd worked on. (He translated all three in just ten months.)

Don commented on the out of order translation of the Harry Hole series which began with no. 5 The Devil's Star then went back to no.3 The Redbreast thus ruining the internal arc in books 3 to 5. The Devil's Star had had big sales and that's why it was chosen and technically the books will stand-alone. K O Dahl's books are getting a similar treatment.

As you can see this was a very interesting discussion, well chaired by Ann. Roz is hoping to run a workshop at next year's Crime Fest where the participants will do a bit of translating themselves.

Crime Fest: Reviewers' Gallery

I must get a better camera for next year's Crime Fest. All my photos are very dark and the zoom/wideangle button doesn't work.

Here's a subset of the Euro Crime review team:

Maxine, Michelle, Amanda B and Norman (click on the photo for a better look)

Their reviews can be found here.

New Reviews: Barclay, Child, Forbes, Mills, Stock, Weeks

Just one week left in May's competition - win a copy of Suffer the Children by Adam Creed. (There are no geographical restrictions on entrants.) Enter here.

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website. The theme this week is thrillers:

New Reviews:

A big welcome to New Zealand based writer/reviewer Craig Sisterson who joins the review team today. His opening review is of Alex Barclay's Blood Runs Cold;

Michelle Peckham reviews the paperback edition of Nothing to Lose by Lee Child;

Amanda Brown reviews the last of Colin Forbes's Tweed books - The Savage Gorge;

Book of the week is Mark Mills's The Information Officer reviewed here by Mike Ripley;

I review the audio book version of Dead Spy Running by Jon Stock (the audio version pre-dates the print version by about a month);

Maxine Clarke reviews the second in the Johnny Mann series by Lee Weeks: The Trafficked

and finally for a bit of non-euro crime, Amanda Gillies reviews Library of the Dead by Glenn Cooper.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.

News page updated

Just a reminder to visit the Euro Crime News page, currently being hosted on Friend Feed. No registration required - it's just a page of links, like the old format, but is a lot quicker for me to update. (Which I did earlier today). Visit it here.

If you like that, you'll love our crime and mystery room - here - where, if you do register with Friend Feed, you can add links and 'chat' with equally devoted crime fiction fans.

Website updates

I've made the following updates to the Euro Crime website today. I've also rearranged the side-bar a little and removed the 'Discussions' link as I wasn't keeping it up to date.

The Author Websites (783 sites) page has been updated. (This is a summary list of the authors' own home-pages)

The New Releases pages have been updated. (Also links to releases by year/type for 2008 & 2009)

In Bibliographies there are now bibliographies for 1450 authors (7477 titles with links to 1497 reviews). (Accessible by name or nationality)

I've added new bibliographies for: Susanne Alleyn, Selcuk Altun, Andrew Barlow, Stephanie Barron, Carrie A Bebris, Mikkel Birkegaard, Sean Black, Alan Bradley, Ian Breckon, Frances Brody, Emilio Calderon, Javier Calvo, Rebecca Cantrell, Donato Carrisi, Jane Casey, Camilla Ceder, C S Challinor, Joanna Challis, Erskine Childers, Alan Clements, Rory Clements, Neil Coombs, Julie Corbin, Lauren Crow, Fay Cunningham, Saul David, Stephen Davison, Steven Dunne, Escober, Matias Faldbakken, Ann Featherstone, Charles Finch, Helen Fitzgerald, Rosemary Furber, Marc Gee, Matthew Glass, Rebecca Gowers, Steve Haberman, C S Harris, Paul Harris, Timothy Holme, C David Ingram, J Robert Janes, Margot Justes, Lars Kepler, Bill Kitson, Tom Knox, Giles Kristian, Janet Laurence, Paul Lawrence, Tobsha Learner, Frances Lloyd, Matt Lynn, Tom Macauley, Patrick Marrinan, James McCreet, Fiona McIntosh, Shirley McKay, China Mieville, Cyrus Moore, Ruth Newman, Llwyd Owen, Louise Pakeman, Richard Jay Parker, S J Parris, Sarah Pinborough, Simon Robson, Emile Rosales, Priscilla Royal, Fay Sampson, Andrew Saville, Mel/Melvin R Starr, Penny Sumner, Abbie Taylor, Rhys Thomas, Jon Trace, Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa, Dan Wells, Andrew Williams and Eve Zaremba.

Plus I've updated the bibliographies (ie added new titles) for: Jane Adams, Boris Akunin, Lin Anderson, David Armstrong, Maureen Ash, David Ashton, Ray Banks, Jo Bannister, James Becker, Sam Bourne, Rhys Bowen, P J Brooke, Christopher Brookmyre, Nick Brownlee, Tom Cain, Colin Campbell, Duncan Campbell, Massimo Carlotto, Paul Charles, Alys Clare, Mary Andrea Clarke, Julian Clary, John Connor, Lesley Cookman, Natasha (NJ) Cooper, Sarah Cox, Adam Creed, Deborah Crombie, Clare Curzon, Judith Cutler, Elizabeth Darrell, David Stuart Davies, Lindsey Davies, Anna Dean, Giancarlo De Cataldo, David Dickinson, P C/Paul Doherty, Ruth/R S Downie, David Downing, Margaret Duffy, Carola Dunn, Marjorie Eccles, Ake Edwardson, R J Ellory, Gavin Esler, Geraldine Evans, Penelope Evans, Chris Ewan, Dick Francis, Guy Fraser, Nicci French, Inger Frimansson, Frances Fyfield, Michele Giuttari, Alan Glynn, Robert Goddard, J G Goodhind, Ann Granger, Clio Gray, Susanna Gregory, J M Gregson, Allan Guthrie, Steven Hague, Raymond Haigh, Richard Haley, M R Hall, Simon Hall, Sophie Hannah, Cora Harrison, Veronica Heley, Mandasue Heller, Matt Hilton, Anne Holt, Graham Hurley, Bill James, Andrea H Japp, Quintin Jardine, Michael Jecks, Katherine John, Jessie Keane, H R F Keating, Christobel Kent, Simon Kernick, Philip Kerr, Claire Kilroy, Patrick Lennon, Giulio Leoni, Kevin Lewis, Douglas Lindsay, Peter Lovesey, Sheila Lowe, Stuart MacBride, Barry Maitland, Dominique Manotti, Scott Mariani, Edward Marston, Faith Martin, Priscilla Masters, Ken McClure, Nigel McCrery, Andy McDermott, Russel D McLean, Catriona McPherson, Jenni Mills, Grace Monroe, Michael Morley, Amy Myers, Barbara Nadel, Hilary Norman, Martin O'Brien, Pamela Oldfield, Nick Oldham, Margie Orford, Jean-Francois Parot, David Peace, Caro Peacock, Michael Pearce, Andrew Pepper, Arturo Perez-Reverte, Anne Perry, Ann Purser, Sheila Quigley, Ian Rankin, Ruth Rendell, Stella Rimington, David Roberts, Peter Robinson, Luis Miguel Rocha, Betty Rowlands, Pauline Rowson, Simon Scarrow, Gerald Seymour, EV Seymour, John Paxton Sheriff, Roger Silverwood, Carol Smith, Mehmet Murat Somer, Roz Southey, Brian Thompson, M J Trow, James Twining, Cathi Unsworth, Martin Walker, Paul Waters, Camilla Way, Lee Weeks, Michael White, Neil White, Stella Whitelaw and Anne Zouroudi.

K O Dahl - The Last Fix (sneak peek)

K O Dahl's next book to be available in translation is The Last Fix, which is published on 4 June in the UK. Though it's the third to appear in English, it's the second in the 'Oslo Detectives' series. The Man in the Window is the third in the series and The Fourth Man is the fifth. All three books have been translated by Don Bartlett.

Part 1

The Girl on the Bridge

1
The Customer

There was something special about this customer, she was aware of that at once, even though he wasn't doing very much - that is to say she noticed the door open, but as the person in question went to the holiday brochure shelf instead of walking straight to the counter, Elise continued to do what she was doing without an upward glance. She sat absorbed in the image on the screen, trying to organise a trip to Copenhagen for a family of three while the mother on the telephone dithered between flying there and back or squeezing their car on to Stena Saga and taking the ferry crossing so that they were mobile when they arrived.

BBC4 Enid Blyton programme this autumn

From Digital Spy:

The BBC is producing three major one-off films about the careers of British icons Margot Fonteyn, Gracie Fields and Enid Blyton.

The films will premiere this autumn on BBC Four as part of a special drama season.

"These films are sympathetic but frank dramatisations of women in the spotlight and how their backstage lives play out," said BBC Four controller Richard Klein.

"Once again, BBC Four is championing strong dramas that seek to give insight into some of Britain's most famous artists, reflecting complex lives, conflicting pressures and very human behaviour."

Blyton will be played by Helena Bonham Carter, who stars alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Denis Lawson in the drama.

George Smiley on the Radio

BookBrunch reported today on the upcoming Radio 4 dramatisations of the George Smiley novels:

Radio 4 is dramatising John le Carré’s eight Smiley novels beginning this Saturday (23 May) with Call for the Dead. The dramatisations will run throughout 2009 and into 2010.

The transmission dates are: A Murder of Quality, Saturday Play 30 May; The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Classic Serial 5, 12 and 19 July; The Looking Glass War, Classic Serial 20 and 27 September; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Classic Serial 29 November, 6 and 13 December; The Honourable Schoolboy, Classic Serial 24 and 31 January, 7 February; Smiley's People, Classic Serial April 2010; and The Secret Pilgrim, 2010.

Simon Russell Beale will play spymaster George Smiley, who first appears in Call for the Dead - published in 1961 as the Berlin Wall went up - as a security officer in The Department. In later books Smiley works for The Circus. He is described as a bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged, deceptively ordinary, constantly cuckolded, morally perplexed and steel-trap-minded man, possessing "the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin".

John le Carré said: "Simon Russell Beale is unique. No living actor can match his understanding of language, or his interpretation of character. He will make a superb Smiley, and I feel deeply honoured."

Call for the Dead is on at 2.30pm Saturday 23 May for 90 minutes. The cast also includes Kenneth Cranham, Eleanor Bron and Anna Chancellor. The Radio 4 programme information is here.

There is a 2008 interview with Simon Russell Beale at the National Theatre website all about books.

The queue for Gone Tomorrow...

I noticed today that Lee Child's Gone Tomorrow has 185 reservations on it at Birmingham Library. They don't come much more popular than that. J K Rowling and Martina Cole being the only real contenders. James Patterson's 8th Confession which has been out slightly longer (I think) has 127.

Review: Library of the Dead by Glenn Cooper

Occasionally a non "euro crime" review book turns up in my parcel box and in this instance I knew that reviewer Amanda Gillies would probably enjoy it and she did...

Library of the Dead by Glenn Cooper (21 May 2009, paperback, 416 pages, Arrow Books Ltd, ISBN: 0099534452)

This is a debut novel for Glenn Cooper and it is simply awesome! It starts out looking and feeling like another pretty much straightforward hunt for a serial murderer, but this couldn't be further from the truth. It follows three separate timelines and the hunt for the killer is only the very tip of the iceberg.

Set in New York, Las Vegas and, finally, Los Angeles, the 2009 section of the story is fast paced and full of tension. It centres on the lives of two former college room-mates after they meet up for a 25-year anniversary dinner. One of these, Will Piper, is a disgraced FBI special agent who just wants to make it to retirement with as little pressure, and as much alcohol, as possible. The other, Mark Shackleton works in computer security for Area 51 – the infamous, top secret, government facility that is supposedly involved in UFO research.

The second timeline is just post WWII and concerns a mysterious Anglo-American co-operation that sees Winston Churchill called in to assist with a very serious matter not long after his defeat in Parliament. He telephones Harry Truman with the news of a disturbing discovery and an urgent request for help. The consequences of their actions pave the way for the modern American security system, in order to bury a terrible secret that must never become general knowledge.

The earliest timeline starts some 1,400 years earlier and is, perhaps, the most disturbing of all. It is based in an abbey on the Isle of White and concerns the terrifying consequences of the birth of a seventh son of a seventh son on the 7th day of the 7th month in the year 777. This part of the story sets the rest of it in motion and triggers the horrifying murder spree in New York that Will Piper is called in to solve in 2009.

It takes the reader a while to work out what exactly is going on, but the fact that you manage to do so, or think you do, before all is revealed doesn't spoil things at all. Your self satisfaction is extremely short-lived as the very last page of the book leaves you with your mouth hanging open after an ending you had no idea was coming.

Extremely well-written, imaginative and captivating. The adjectives that could be used to praise this novel only end up sounding cheesy. I am extremely pleased with my timing for picking up this book – the Easter weekend meant that I could read it non-stop until it was done. Not only is Glenn Cooper a gifted and imaginative author, he is currently the CEO of a biotech company in Massachusetts and his accurate 'science speak' is a very welcome breath of fresh air.
Reviewed by Amanda Gillies.

The US edition will be published in July under the title of Secret of the Seventh Son.

You can read more about Glenn Cooper and his book(s) on his website at http://www.glenncooperbooks.com/content/index.asp.

More reviews by Amanda Gillies can be found on the Euro Crime review list page - just use the search function on your browser to find her name.

(OT) Bought for the cover alone...(cats & crime)

The Cat, The Quilt and The Corpse by Leann Sweeney, published on 5 May and is the first of a new series.

Synopsis: Recently widowed Jillian Hart is rebuilding a life for herself and her three beloved cats--Chablis, Syrah and Merlot--as a quilter in a small South Carolina town. The quilts she makes are for cats as smart, special, and sweet as her own, and business is thriving.

But when she returns from an overnight quilting show, she discovers Chablis sneezing--and since Chablis is allergic to humans, that can only mean one thing: Someone has broken into her house. When she realizes her Abyssinian Syrah is missing, Jillian suspects catnapping.

Spurred by Chablis and Merlot's mournful meowing, she investigates--and discovers more missing cats and a murder. Now she's got to save more than one cat in trouble--not to mention herself.

Publicity campaign for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

The Bookseller reports on the publicity campaign that Quercus will launch to promote final part of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy and has exciting news about the film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:

Quercus imprint MacLehose Press has revealed its six-figure consumer-facing marketing plan for the third instalment of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy.

The final book in the trilogy, entitled The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest, comes out in October. The publisher is expecting to run a tie-in promotion with the film of the first of the three novels, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which has already been released in Sweden. It is expected that the film will be released on a major scale in the UK this autumn, although a date has not been confirmed.

As with the previous two titles, MacLehose will be making use of social networking, by securing a further 10 million Facebook adverts, and the company is launching a consumer website, which will feature competitions, news on further editions and "all things Larsson" throughout the year. A book club may also be run through the site.

The campaign also includes a "major" broadsheet deal, which will centre around a special "Larsson Day", with features in the arts section, and banner advertising on the unnamed newspaper's website. There will be feature coverage and celebrity recommendations across national media and television.

Read the whole article here and also the Euro Crime reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has been nominated for three Anthony Awards: Best Novel, Best First Novel and Best Cover Art (US cover). The winners will be announced at Bouchercon in October.

The Closer re-opens on Channel 4 this weekend

I'm a big fan of The Closer which has already been shown on More 4. The second series is finally getting its terrestrial debut...but in the wee hours of the morning.

From the Channel 4 website:

C4 Sunday 24 May 2.55AM
C4 Tuesday 26 May 3.05AM
C4 Friday 29 May 3.00AM
C4 Saturday 30 May 2.50AM

Series one of The Closer is available on amazon for a mere £8.

Here's a promo clip from episode one of series four (not yet shown in the UK) which showcases some of the humour provided by Lt Flynn...

Michael Connelly - Radio 5 & Crime Fest interview

Last Thursday's Simon Mayo Book Review programme reviewed Michael Connelly's The Scarecrow and John Boyne's The House of Special Purpose. You can listen to Michael Connelly being interviewed as well as the glowing reviews of the panel on this website (podcast can also be downloaded) but don't hang around as the programme doesn't seem to be archived.

Michael Connelly (MC) was the international guest of honour at Crime Fest and was interviewed by Peter Guttridge (PG) last Saturday. Here are my notes:

MC said that he never used to reveal how long it took him to write his books as people assume speed detracts from quality. With some prodding from PG he said that The Poet took 3 months, The Scarecrow 6 months and a Harry Bosch novel 10 - 11 months.

MC is now finishing off a Harry Bosch novel (and according to the website it will be out in October) - called Nine Dragons, a third of it will be set in Hong Kong and it sets up several of the next books. Harry is now in his late 50s so is unlikely to be carrying the badge much longer. Mickey Haller, from The Lincoln Lawyer, will appear in one chapter of Nine Dragons. MC also said that he had sowed some seeds in earlier books which would allow him to write a prequel at some point and he discussed a couple of sub-plots he'd written but now wished he not closed off so quickly.

MC says he writes in the journalistic style ie succinct and to the point. A good day involves writing between 4 am and noon and he ensures that the story moves along by a minimum of one step a day. He will be writing Harry Bosch until he dies/stops writing.

MC's sister runs his website and there is some bonus material for The Scarecrow: twelve websites in the book can be accessed and also a bonus video. Rachel Walling does not appear in The Scarecrow for some pages, so the video shows what she was doing for that time. Two parts are now available and the last part will follow on 26th May. Each part is about 25 minutes long. MC did say that if you don't want to get a picture in your head of Rachel Walling then best to not watch the video.

In both interviews he also discussed the terminal state of the newspaper industry.