In Reference to Murder

Mystery Melange, Post-Thanksgiving Edition

The Walmart flash fiction challenge sponsored by Patti Abbott, Gerald So, and Aldo Calcagno brought forth a number of great entries. You can find the links to the stories on Patti's site. If you missed participating in that one, Gerald So has a new one for you: "Give me your flash on airport life in these benighted times. Same deal, 800 words, give or take." He's aiming for a December 15th publication of links, so let him know if you want to join in the fun.

J. Kingston Pierce over at The Rap Sheet posted his 45 Reasons to Go on Living, a/k/a 45 upcoming books he's looking forward to being released next year. Want more reasons to live? Declan Burke takes a look at books by femmes fatales due in 2010.

The Zealand-based writer and book reviewer, Craig Sisterson, posted a note about the Australian magazine for book lovers, Good Reading. Sisterson writes mostly crime fiction reviews for the publication and asked the question, "What crime/thriller authors would you like to see interviewed and featured in future?" Folks not living downunder can subscribe to Good Reading online including access to interviews and reviews.

Speaking of magazines, Sandra Seamans pointed out that several zines have their latest issues available, including Thug Lit, Gumshoe Review, Sex and Murder, and Pulp Pusher. I'd have to add to that Mystery Scene, out with its print holiday edition.

The winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel for 2009 was announced. Congratulations go to Tre Sekunder (Three Seconds) by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom. This is the fourth time the duo were nominated for the award.

In other international news, Sarah Weinman pointed out that the Chinese are discovering the mystery novel. The newspaper China Daily quoted Julia Chen, editor-in-chief of Feel Publishing Co Ltd, saying that "Interest in mystery and detective stories has seen a sharp spike in recent years."

Mystery Melange, Thanksgiving Edition

Harlequin has responded to criticism over recently-announced plans to set up a vanity-press publishing arm for authors it turns down by changing the name of the venture from Harlequin Horizons to DellArte Press. No word yet on whether that will be enough to appease the Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, and Science Fiction Writers of America so they continue to consider books by Harlequin for awards and Harlequin authors for organization membership.

• Variety has news that Tommy Lee Jones has left the pending movie based on Michael Connelly's novel The Lincoln Lawyer due to "creative differences over the script."

• Mystery Books News has a report on FOX TV's Spring schedule which was revealed this week. The lineup includes a new thriller, Past Life, based on the novel The Resurrectionist by M.J. Rose; the action drama Human Target, featuring a private detective and bodyguard who will stop at nothing to protect his clients; and an additional 9 episodes of the crime drama Lie to Me.

• Busted Flush Press's December reissue of Crossword Blues by author Ace Atkins featuring Nick Travers (an ex-New Orleans Saint turned blues historian at Tulane University) will include an original never-before-published Travers short story and a new foreward by music journalist
  Greil Marcus.

• If you want to earn a little extra money for the holidays, check the books in your bathroom. A first edition of Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species just sold at auction for $171,000. It had been kept on a toilet bookshelf for years until a family member realized what it was. Or just be friends with a professional football player who is also a book collector and decides to sell the copy of Alice in Wonderland once belonging to the original "Alice."

• Speaking of the holidays, Janet Rudolph prepared a listing of mystery novels themed around the holidays and Oline Cogdill has a nice posting about authors who use their books to help various charities.

• And for your Moment of Zen or Whimsy, or whatever you want to call it, here are the winners of Unshelved's annual Pimp My Bookcart.

Mystery Melange

•  Euro Crime has been posting a 3-part interview with Don Bartlett, the translator of Jo Nesbø and K O Dahl's crime fiction books from Norwegian to English. Nesbø and Don Bartlett have been shortlisted with a CWA Dagger Award, and in light of the wave of Scandinavian mystery novels over the past few years, it's interesting to hear from one of the folks who make it possible for English-speakers to enjoy those works, too.

• Speaking of Scandinavian crime fiction, Crime Scraps is reporting that the Swedish Crime Academy have selected the nominees for this year's best translated crime novel (the Martin Beck Award) and the best Swedish crime novel.

• Mystery Fanfare has news of a a mystery writing workshop in Berkeley featuring Cornelia Read, coming up November 21st and 22nd. Meanwhile thousands of miles away, Big Beat From Badsville has a link to an event for writers which combines a writing workshop with forensic science in Edinburgh.

• Deborah Elliott-Upton offers up 10 Myths About a Writer's Life at Criminal Brief, while Martin Edwards talks about how writers research place.

• Laura James over at Clews, makes note of three new regional true crime story collections focusing on southern Indiana, Miami, and Cincinnati. For short-story markets and news, Sandra Seamans has some updates.

• From Bish's Beat comes word of a bit of Australian Noir, an article by Ryan K. Linday in an upcoming issue of Crimina, the crime comic from Sean Phillips and Ed Brubackers.

Mystery Melange

• Aida Edemariam of The Guardian points out that the recent "balloon boy" hoax wasn't the first such incident, with one famous balloon hoax dating from April 1844. In that year, the New York Sun ran excerpts from a faked diary allegedly penned by the navigators of a hot air balloon called the Victoria, who crossed the Atlantic in "75 hours from shore to shore!" The author behind that hoax was none other than Edgar Allan Poe. Another interesting side note to the balloon story -- Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, posted in their forum the irony that Tom Piccirilli’s EQMM story "Between the Dark and the Daylight" was being announced as one of the nominees for best short story at Bouchercon's Macavity Awards ceremony as the true-life Heene family hoax was unfolding. Tom’s story is about a father who puts his son in the basket of a hot-air balloon and accidentally lets the balloon get away from him with only the boy on board. Even the setting, the Colorado Rockies, was the same, and in fact Balloon Boy and his family live five minutes from Piccirilli.

• It's a Crime! posted a note about a book review site, Flashlight Worthy, that provides book recommendations in the form of lists. On the main page of the site is a sample of such lists, including "Keystone Mysteries: The Best Mystery Books Set in Pennsylvania."

• Brian Lindemuth posted his choices for Top 50 Favorite Novels of the Decade on BSC Review, breaking them down by year of publication. As he notes, "This isn’t a record of the most influential, those that had the most impact or even the most popular. Just my favorites. I would gladly grab any one of these books today and read it again. And in some cases I have."

• From the Gumshoe Site comes the sad news of the death of Norma Fox Mazer from brain cancer. She wrote more than 25 books for young adults and children, winning two Lewis Carroll Shelf Awards, a Newbery Honor Book award, and an Edgar Award in the juvenile category for Taking Terri Mueller.

• The Library Journal has a review of two books lumped under the theme "Paging Jack Reacher Fans." Included are Noah Boyd's debut novel, The Bricklayer, and Stephen Hunter's I, Sniper: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel. The reviewers wonder if the same basic premise that launched Lee Child's ex-army MP Jack Reacher to best-sellerdom will work for Boyd's ex-FBI agent-turned-bricklayer Steve Vail, and call Swagger "a loner, a paladin, and a violent and politically incorrect corrector of injustice, a cousin to Lee Child's Jack Reacher."

• Dear Author has a long, but detailed posting on Reclaiming Your Copyright After Thirty-Five Years, something all authors should read in hopes of having more control over their book rights.

• And a couple of Hollywood angst stories:  the Mail Online takes a look at author anger over celebrities who write bad books (P.D. James is quoted as saying "What surprises me is that people are prepared to buy them because there's a celebrity on the cover") and it appears that Hollywood stars are being banned from Twitter. Seems that studios want to prevent actors from leaking film information and are even inserting clauses in their contracts to that effect.

This & That, the Story & Pub Edition

Crimespree's latest edition will be released this week, with a profile of Brian Azzarello, short fiction by Bryon Leigh and Larry Lefkowitz and a host of articles and features in what looks to be an entertaining issue.

W.W. Norton is publishing an anthology of hint fiction, with a call for submissions coming up in August. If you don't know what hint fiction is, check out Robert Swartwood's blog for winners from his recent contest, and also the page with more information on the anthology's submission guidelines.

You have eight more days (deadline: July 18) to submit your story of up to 600 words for NPR's "Three-Minute Fiction" contest. As the rules indicate, the story can be on any subject but has to be original and published. There is no financial compensation, but it will be read on the air, with national exposure.

And Suspense Thriller Zine is a new publication looking for submissions.

Mystery Melange

Maxine over at Petrona is having a little contest for Crimetwitterers. She's posted three well-known crime-fiction books summarized in fewer than 140 words each, and you can name those books or post your own book tweet-summaries. An award will be given to (1) the first person to identify the three books correctly and (2) the best Crimetwitter.

The Women of Mystery are giving away free print copies of Afraid, penned by Jack Kilbourn (a/k/a JA Konrath).

From now through May 26th, St. Martin's Press is offering a free download of Jason Starr's new thriller Panic Attack.

Eurocrime's Karen Meek has posted links for the web sites of the 73 authors and translators who will be featured at this year's Crime Fest coming up this weekend.

Speaking of crime fiction conferences, Ali Karim has a fun look back at Bouchercon from last year as a teaser for this year's event, likening himself and Gerald So to "Harold and Kumar."

Oline Cogdill took a look at what's next for Charles Todd, author of the an Rutledge series set in the post-World War I era. His new series, starting with new series with A Duty to the Dead in August, will continue with that time period, centered on Bess Crawford, a battlefield nurse.

Maxim Jakubowski, co-owner of the recently-closed Murder One bookstore in London, will teach a course on mystery writer Raymond Chandler November 20-22 at Faber Academy.

The Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival is partnering with the supermarket chain Asda for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, open to paperbacks published in 2008 and voted for by the public.

The entire staff at Murder by the Book in Houston has chosen Alan Bradley's The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie as their pick for best mytery of 2009. "It doesn't happen very often that everyone here loves the same book, but we were all completely charmed by this one," said store owner McKenna Jordan. Bradley, by the way, is a first-time novelist at the age of 70.

Mystery Melange for Middle o' the Week

Mike Ripley of Shots Magazine reported recently award-winning author Kate Atkinson confirmed she's currently working on her fourth Jackson Brodie crime novel, the follow-up to When Will There Be Good News?, and that she is also planning a fifth crime novel, "an homage to Agatha Christie" with a cast of characters trapped in a country house hotel.

Judith Freeman of the LA Times wrote about a letter she received which led to a friendship with Dorothy Fisher, once Raymond Chandler's secretary, and one of the few people still alive who knew the author personally. She described Chandler as an exceptionally kind and thoughtful man, who, despite accounts of previous affairs with secretaries, treated her with respect, perhaps because she was only 17 when she began working for him.

Speaking of Chandler, the Baltimore Sun's Read Street blog summarized some of the offerings in the recent game "Write Like Raymond Chandler," with commenters providing even more.

Bookgasm and Harper Collins are featuring a contest for an Amazon Kindle 2 and a copy of Andrew Gross's new thriller Don't Look Twice, but hurry -- the deadline is May 1st.

In case you missed it, the Wall Street Journal carried an essay by Alexander McCall Smith on the intense personal relationships readers form with characters and how that can complicate the very real lives of authors.

Jill Paton Walsh’s third Lord Peter Wimsey novel, The Attenbury Emeralds is scheduled for publication in Fall 2010. The Dorothy Sayers Estate’s trustees asked Paton Walsh to complete an unfinished Sayers' story, Thrones, Dominations, which was published in 1998 and was successful enough to be followed by a second and now the third installment.

Elizabeth Foxwell reported on her blog the Bunburyist that 007 beat The Saint at auction:  the Leslie Charteris books featuring Simon Templar, aka The Saint, went unsold, whereas a few first-edition Ian Fleming titles fared better.

The Tony Hillerman novel contest announced rules for next year's competition, which is awarded to a first mystery novel set in the Southwest. Unfortunately, they are canceling the short story contest they've held for the past several years.

Books Expo America announced the assignments for author signings in both the booth and floor signing areas, with crime fiction notables including Brad Meltzer, JT Ellison, Rick Mofina, MJ Rose, Karin Slaughter, and Lee Child.

Irish eyes are smiling right now, at least among fans of Irish crime fiction. Declan Burke has a note about readings in Belfast with Brian McGilloway and Declan Hughes tomorrow evening and with Gene Kerrigan and Colin Bateman in Dublin on the 24th. Burke also offers his thoughts on the new dedicated award to crime fiction as part of the Irish Book Awards.  And the Irish times liked the "dark entertaining" new thriller by Irish author Gene Kerrigan, Dark Times in the City.

Oregon's Friends of Mystery announced the Spotted Owl Award which is given each year to the best mystery books written by authors from Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho or the Province of British Columbia. There were 11 finalists this year, due to a tie, with the nod doing to Executive Privilege by Phillip Margolin. 

Mystery Melange (and That's No Joke)

Here are some of the latest tidbits in the world of crime fiction...

MAGAZINES

Good news, bad news for online short fiction:  The spring issue of Mysterical-E is now available online, with their usual fun lineup of stories, columns, and interviews.  Unfortunately, Lunch Hour Stories is closing up shop. For the past four years, it's offered a subscription print publication to help writers, especially new and emerging writers, showcase their stories, but it's become yet another victim of the economy.

AWARDS

'Tis the season for awards, and here are some of the latest nominations:

• 2009 British Book Industry Awards announced the titles in several categories, including Crime Thriller of the Year, with nods to Martina Cole, Tom Rob Smith, Stieg Larsson, Linwood Barclay, C.J. Sansom, and Kate Atkinson. Shots Magazine has a contest to win tickets to the red carpet gala.

• Spinetingler Magazine posted its nominations for New Voice, Rising Star, Legend, Graphic Novel, Editor, Reviewer, Publisher, Special Services, Book Cover, and Best Short Story on the Web (with links to the stories).

• Thriller Writers International has nominees for Best Thriller, Best First Novel, and Best Short Story, and has will also his year be giving the Thrillermaster Award to David Morrell, honoring his influential body of work, and the Silver Bullet Award to Brad Meltzer for his outstanding charitable contributions.

• The Irish Book Awards for the first time is awarding the AIM Crime Fiction Award. Nominees this year include  Brian McGilloway, Tana French, Arlene Hunt, and Alex Barclay.
• The Short Mystery Fiction Society's Derringer Award finalists were announced yesterday.

• In case you missed it, the Lovey Awards, given at the annual Love is Murder Conference, can be found via the following link.

CONFERENCES

• Conferences are also back in full swing. A couple to add to the listing include UK's Lincoln Book Festival, May 13-17, where Michael Connelly will be a featured guest.

• Another is the Give Me a Clue Conference on April 25th, sponsored by the Central Jersey chapter of Sisters in Crime. Author/Agents participants include Shobhan Bantwal, Jeff Cohen, Peggy Ehrhart, Jack Getze, Chris Grabenstein, Shirley Hailstock, Carlotta Holton, Martha Jewett, Evan Marshall, Lily Tang, Ann Waldron, and Eileen Watkins

BOOKSTORES

• Things are finally looking up for the Chapters Literary Store in D.C., which may have found a new location to help keep it in business. One of the popular features at the old location before they had to vacate was the Mystery Monday Lunchtime Series. Fans of the shop can send along contributions to the address listed on the site link.

• More intriguing bookstore news:  Encinitas Book Tales (California) is launching "The Literary Walking Companions," a daily book club for walkers. Owner Patti McFarland said  "I'm 65. I need to walk. . . . It's about trying to be a little more healthy. Everybody is outside doing things because the weather is good. Why not start something like this?"

BLOG FUN

• The Guardian asks the question, Iranians love Sherlock Holmes, Poirot and Maigret. But why don't they have their own fictional detectives?

• Dave Rosenthal, Sunday editor of  the Baltimore Sun, posted a quiz on the paper's blog asking readers "to imagine Raymond Chandler writing today by completing descriptions like these: 1. as ____ as a Dick Cheney sneer. 2. as ____  as an A.I.G. exec asking for a bonus." 

Mystery Melange: the (Mostly) St. Patrick's Day Edition

“He who comes with a story to you brings two away from you” --Irish Proverb

• You can start your St. Patty's Day crime fiction parade with Declan Burke over at Crime Always Pays, where the Irish author/blogger lists titles by Irish authors to watch for in 2009.
  

• Janet Rudolph with Mystery Fanfare lists some St. Patrick's Day-themed murder mysteries you can curl up with while quaffing some green beer and her recipe for chocolate Guinness cake.
  

• Like Crime Always Pays above, Gerald Brennan's Crime Scene NI takes a look at Irish crime fiction year 'round, and started off the week by interviewing author Jo Bannister.
  

• Detectives Beyond Borders tips its hat to Irish fiction from time to time, but also posts like this one with a little rundown of Irish history.

• Declan Hughes has a couple of Irish events over the next while to mark the publication of the fourth Ed Loy novel, All The Dead Voices.

• The Library Journal invites you to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with the second annual Irish Book Awards. Finalists this year in the Irish Novel of the Year category include Ronan Bennet's historical thriller set in 1914 St. Petersberg, Zugwang, and Benjamin Black's The Silver Swan. The Ireland AM Crime Fiction Award shortlist won't be announced until April.

• Although not related exclusively to Irish novels, the Guardian's Tobias Jones takes a look at why detective stories set in "exotic" locations are becoming ever more popular.
  

• Mike Ripley's column at Shots Magazine includes also includes a piece on four Irish novels coming out shortly after St. Patrick's Day, including a debut thriller from Ava McCarthy.
  

• Definitely not Irish, but intriguing all the same, is a new thriller anthology with a release date of June, titled Thiller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down. Sponsored by the International Thriller Writers, the book is edited by Clive Cussler and includes stories by the likes of Sean Shercover, Jeffrey Deaver, Barry Eisler, Brad Meltzer, et al.
  

• Vanity Fair takes a fun look at Sir John Mortimer's "finest arguments, both in and out of court."
  

• Booklist offers up its Best Adult Genre Fiction awards in the Adrenaline and and Mystery categories. Winner of the former is Blue Heaven by C. J. Box and the latter, The Garden of Evil by David Hewson (who also contributes a story for the Thriller 2 anthology above).
  

• Getting back to our St. Patty's Parade, here's a site for, well, parades. This link will let you know where any St. Pat's parade in the world is taking place.
  

• And, at long last, it's what you've been thirsting for -- "green" green beer.

Mystery Melange

David Simon of the Washington Post reports on the dying breed of the crime beat reporter.

The Crimespree Magazine blog is offering up free books in order to promote book sales in general. If you go to a store, buy a new book, and send along a picture of yourself in the store with the new book, and you'll be entered in a drawing for the freebies.

In one of Oline Cogdill's new columns for the Mystery Scene Magazine blog, she mentions that Bill Crider will also be starting a new column this month, titled Short and Sweet, which will place the spotlight on short stories.

Good news is hard to come by these days, but literary agent Nathan Bransford puts a positive spin on the future of books.

Web production company EQAL has joined forces with CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker to build a Web offshoot for Zuiker's crime novel Dark Chronicles, featuring original video contetnt as well as blogs and a social community.

Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), the best-selling children's author, has collaborated with composer Nathaniel Stookey on The Composer Is Dead, a classical-musical mystery for children. "It's like Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf meets Law & Order," says Handler

Actor and leading Tweep (Twitter person), Wil Wheaton, tried a new Twitter marketing gimmick that may portend the shape of things to come -- he offered up PDF copies of his book Sunken Treasure for $5.

The Telegraph's report on the Dubai Literary Festival included a writeup of a lively debate over bringing books to the screen, with thriller-writer and film producer Peter James (Roy Grace crime series) and Anthony Horowitz (Alex Rider novels).

Barry Forshaw defends Agatha Christie against all of her detractors in an article for The Independent, adding that "a great many of us are perfectly happy to immerse ourselves in the idyllic Albion of Christie's novels."

Borders Bookstores are featuring March Mystery month, and their online Crime Scene columns has some reviews and suggestions.

If you happen to be in the UK in early April, you can sign up for a 4-day crime fiction writing seminar featuring Mark Billingham and Laura Wilson.

Yesterday saw the first great Queryfall Day on Twitter. Agent Colleen Lindsay started it all, and many agents and editors joined in posted about their queries in real time. As Lindsay posted in her blog, "The idea is to educate people about what exactly it is in a query that made us stop reading and say 'Not for me.'" Some of the true query-bites included the following (hat tip to Publishers Marketplace):

• "Please be advised of my request that you consider reviewing a page-turning novel that I have recently completed."
• "I'M TYPING MY QUERY IN ALL CAPS SO YOU WILL BE SURE TO NOTICE IT."
• "Have you ever wondered what it's like to be pulled up a waterfall or to be flushed down a toilet?"
• "This is my first attempt at writing a fictional novel."
• "...this, the first book in a seven-book series..."
• "I've been working on this novel for twenty five years."
• "This book is The Notebook meets The Lord of the Rings."
• "It's a unique combination of memoir and novel."
• "My book is the first in an imagined autobiography of my tragedy."
• "This is groundbreaking work that will change the way we view everything!"
• "My book is differentiated from Twilight because the vampires have wings, and are half-breed angels."
• "I've been rejected by three other publishers who said my work was interesting."
• "I've queried more than 50 agents and have gotten nowhere and now I'm querying you."
• "I don't think you're the right agent for me, but could you pass my query along to some of your colleagues?"
• "I hope you don't mind that I found your personal email address..."
• "I know you don't represent children's literature, but I hope you'll make an exception in my case."

And speaking of social networking, Petrona posted this picture seen on a bus.