In Reference to Murder

National Bookstore Day

Publishers Weekly is sponsoring their first annual National Bookstore Day, and participating stores are offering up promotions, discounts, author signings, raffles and contests to celebrate the day. Several mystery bookstores are involved, including The Poisoned Pen, Book'Em Mysteries, "M" is for Mystery, Mysterious Galaxy, Centuries and Sleuths, Mechanicsburg Mystery Book Shop, and Mystery on Main Street. But there are other bookstores listed, too, so consider stopping by one of your local bookstores and picking up a few early Christmas presents (and a little something for yourself).

it may be tempting to order a book from an online discounter, but consider everything local stores give to the community, not the least of which in this day and age are jobs and taxes for local coffers. Plus, it's kinda hard to attend a real-live author booksigning or talk via binary bits.

Noir at the Bar

The latest Noir at the Bar event, sponsored by Peter Rozovsky of Detectives Beyond Borders, is coming up Wednesday evening with guest Dennis Tafoya, author of Dope Thief. Booklist wrote of Tafoya's debut novel, “The plotting is solid, and the action has a hard, violent edge that recalls Richard Price,” while Publishers Weekly called him a "writer to watch." Join Tafoya and screenwriter Pete Dexter who will be reading from his own new novel Spooner, at Philadelphia's Pen and Pencil Club, beginning at 6 p.m.

The Agatha Christie Week Wrap

Today marks the last day of Agatha Christie Week, and in case you missed some of the festivities, there's still a little time left to celebrate:

The official Agatha Christie web site has information and links about the activities that have been taking place in the UK.

The Guardian newspaper online offered up several Christie bonbons during the week, including an essay by Val McDermid about how she and Christie have parallels in their writing, the Guardian's pick of the Top 10 Agatha Christie stories, a quiz, and (if you live in the UK), a contest to win a Christie-style desk chair and a set of several Christie novels.

Kerrie Smith's Mysteries in Paradise blog sponsored an Agatha Christie week blog tour or carnival, as they are sometimes known, with several other bloggers signing on to post their own commemorations.

If you hurry (and live in the U.S.), you have until midnight tonight to obtain a free download of The Case of the Missing Will, by Agatha Christie, read by David Suchet, from AudioFile Magazine. The magazine's website also has conversations available with "the voices of Agatha Christie," narrators Hugh Fraser (Captain Hastings on the BBC television series Agatha Christie’s Poirot) and Rosalind Ayres, who narrated and directed several audio books of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple stories.

Library Love

The Library of Congress is gearing up for the National Book Festival later this month with some author podcasts, including crime fiction authors George Pelecanos and James Patterson.

In October, the American Library Association is sponsoring Teen Read Week, an annual literacy initiative. The event will be celebrated at thousands of libraries across the U.S., and if your local library isn't participating yet, they still have time to register through September 18th. The theme this year is "Read For The Fun Of It," and the top list of teen picks includes some YA mysteries and thrillers.

A Tour of Noir

If you find yourself in the Los Angeles area this month (and you can also find your way through the smoke), Esotouric Tours has a couple of noir-themed events coming up. On September 12th, it's the Birth of Noir tour based on the films of James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity). On September 19th, you can take John Buntin's L.A. Noir tour, based on Buntin's true-crime book of "the haunts, hits, and harems where some of the most shocking and influential moments of 20th century crime history played out."

If hard-boiled is more your taste, Esotouric has two Raymond Chandler tours in October, Raymond Chandler's Bay City on the 17th and Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles on the 24th.

Once you've whetted your appetite for tours and saved up a few more pennies, you can also sign up for the Smithsonian's Classic Mystery Lovers England or the Stockholm City Museum's Millennium Tour, following the sights and sites featured in Steig Larsson's crime fiction trilogy.

Awesome Agatha

This Saturday, the Daily Mail will publish a long-lost Hercule Poirot story by Agatha Christie. "The Capture Of Cerberus" was pieced together from 60-year-old notebooks by author John Curran, who came across the material in 2005 after being invited to examine Dame Agatha's papers at Greenway, her holiday retreat. It's completely different from a short story with the same title published in 1947 and revolves around a Nazi dictator who bears a "thinly disguised resemblance to Adolf Hitler." Its overtly political theme was quite possibly the reason it wasn't published in a collection of her stories in 1940.

While we're on the subject of Agatha Christie and forgotten works, the International Mystery Writers Festival in Owensboro, Kentucky, just wrapped up its annual event which included four rare BBC plays by Christie. NPR affiliate WNIN recorded the plays live for local radio broadcast, but those recordings will be re-mixed and sweetened for wider national radio syndication. Stay tuned...

A Salon of Mystery

Janet Rudolph, editor of Mystery Readers Journal and the "Mistress of Mystery," also sponsors frequent literary salons in Berkeley, California, featuring prominent mystery authors. Tomorrow afternoon's guest is Linwood Barclay, winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel for Too Close to Home. His latest novel, hot off the presses, is Fear the Worst about an ordinary man’s desperate search for his daughter which leads him into a dark world of corruption, exploitation, and murder. Seating is limited for the event, but there may be a few reserved spots left if you check with Janet.

Also click on over to Janet's blog Mystery Fanfare, a companion to the Journal. For dessert, check out another blog she operates, a decadent blog on chocolate (a personal favorite).

An Agatha Christie Week

No, not this week — September 13 to 20, when the annual Christie Week takes place in the UK to celebrate the mystery author through readings, discussions, plays, and "tea dances."  Authors Kate Mosse, Val McDermid and Jasper Fforde will appear together at the Southbank Centre in London on September 16th as part of a discussion, and there will also be a talk during the festival by Agatha Christie’s grandson Mathew Prichard. Other events take place during the Reading Festival of Crime Writing (September 10-12), the Throckmorton Literary Festival in Warwickshire, and during the Agatha Christie Festival in Torquay, all held during the same time period. One book discussion will center around Murder on the Orient Express, seeing as how this is the 75th anniversary of that work's publication.

Noir at the Bar is Back

Peter Rozovksy's Noir at the Bar is back, this time in the Gateway City. Tonight join Peter as he reads from his story, "Uncage Me," followed by Malachi Stone reading from his novel St. Agnes's Eve, Jedidiah Ayres reading one of his short stories, and the evening's headliner, Theresa Schwegel, whose latest book Last Known Address was just released. The fun begins at 8pm at the Delmar Restaurant and Lounge in St. Louis.

It Was 40 Years Ago Today...

"Beautiful, beautiful. Magnificent desolation."  -- Buzz Aldrin 

"Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand." --
Neil Armstrong