In Reference to Murder

December Bookstore Event Roundup

It's time for the monthly roundup of author events at mystery book stores around the U.S. and Canada. Take a break from addressing cards or wrapping presents and check out these opportunities coming up in December to meet a new or favorite mystery author:

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Book Carnival
http://home.earthlink.net/~bookcarnival/
Orange, CA
December 8, 1 to 2pm - Theresa Schwegel, Person Of Interest

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Book 'Em
South Pasadena, CA
http://www.bookem.com/

December 2, 1pm - Megan Abbott, Christa Faust, Naomi Hirahara, and Theresa Schwegel sign A Hell of a Woman

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Booked for Murder
Madison, WI
http://www.bookedformurder.com/

December 15, 2pm - Michael Wiley, Last Striptease

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Dead Write Books
Vancouver
http://www.deadwrite.com/dw.html

Dec 11, 7:30 pm (at  Vancouver Public Library), Michael Slade, Kamikaze and Swastika

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High Crimes
Boulder, CO
http://www.highcrimesbooks.com/events.html

December 13, 7pm - Theresa Schwegel will sign Person of Interest

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Murder by the Book
Denver, CO
http://www.murderbythebook.com/books-bookstores-mystery-author-events.asp

December 13, 5pm - Teresa Schwegal, Person of Interest

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Murder by the Book
Houston, TX
http://www.murderbooks.com/signings.php

December 1, 4:30 - Gumshoe Award nominee Duane Swierczynski will sign & discuss his new release, The Crimes of Dr. Watson: An Interactive Sherlock Holmes Mystery

December 6, 6:30 - Sue Grafton will sign T is for Trespass

December 8, 4:30 - Crime novelist Mark Coggins will sign & discuss his fourth August Riordan private eye novel, Runoff

December 12, 6:30 - Edgar Award nominee Gabriel Cohen will sign & discuss his new private eye novel, The Graving Dock

December 15, 4:30 - Christie Craig will sign & discuss Divorced, Desperate and Delicious, and Colleen Thompson will sign & discuss The Salt Maiden

December 18, 6:30 - 2007 Edgar Award nominee Bill Crider and co-author Clyde Wilson will sign & discuss their new crime novel, Houston Homicide

December 21, 6:00, Deanna Raybourn will sign & discuss the sequel to Silent in the Grave, titled Silent in the Sanctuary

December 24, noon to 1pm and 2-3pm - Murder By The Book manager & violinst McKenna Jordan (concertmaster for Houston's Opera in the Heights) will perform a medley of holiday favorites for customers.

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Murder on the Beach
Delray Beach, FL
http://www.murderonthebeach.com/pages/events.asp

December 6, 7pm - Aphrodite Jones will speak and sign her new book, The Michael Jackson Conspiracy

December 7, 7pm - Vicki Hendricks and Lynne Barrett will speak and sign their stories in the new anthology, Hell of a Woman, Busted Flush

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Mysterious Bookshop
New York, NY
http://www.mysteriousbookshop.com/

December 4, from 6:30-8:00pm - Judith Freeman will be discussing and signing The Long Embrace: Raymond Chdler and The Woman He Loved (Walter Mosley will be on hand to introduce her)

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Mysterious Galaxy
San Diego, CA
http://mysteriousgalaxy.booksense.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=storeevents

December 2, 2pm - Antonio Vianna signs Haunted Memories

December 7, 7pm - Jeanne Stein signs The Watcher; J.V. Jones signs A Sword from Red Ice; Celia May Hart signs One More Time; Theresa Schwegel signs Person of Interest

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Mystery Bookstore
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.mystery-bookstore.com/blog/

December 1, 11am - Cornelia Funke discusses and signs Igraine the Brave

December 1, 12:30 pm - Theresa Schwegel discusses and signs Person of Interest

December 1, 2pm - Megan Abbott presents A Hell Of a Woman with contributors Christa Faust, Naomi Hirahara, Charlie Huston, Eddoe Muller, Cornelia Read, Theresa Schwegel, Kevin Burton Smith and Robert Ward

December 1, 4pm - A Celebration for The Con Artist of Catalina Island by Jennifer Colt

December 1, 6pm - A Launch Celebration for Killer Riff by Sheryl J. Anderson

December 6, 7pm - A Toys for Tots Benefit with Sue Ann Jaffarian and Gay Toltl Kinman, signing Carols and Crimes, Gifts and Grifters

December 8, 1pm - Gabriel Cohen discusses and signs The Graving Dock

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Mystery Lovers Bookshop
Oakmond, PA
http://www.mysterylovers.com/books/events/index.php 

December 11, 7pm - Kathleen George celebrates publication of her third Pittsburgh-set mystery, Afterimage, at a pubication party

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Mystery Loves Company
Baltimore and Oxford, MD
http://mysterylovescompany.com/oxevents.htm

Oxford Store:

December 1, 1-5 pm - book signing & refreshments with Diane Marquette

December 2, 1-5pm - book signing & refreshments with Mary Ellen Hughes as part of  "Christmas on the Creek: Open House."

Other Events

December 9 (ANNAPOLIS), 2-4pm -  Read Between the Wines event sponsored by The Friends of the Annapolis Symphony featuring Donna Andrews, Marcia Talley, Mary Ellen Hughes, Ellen Crosby, Maria Lima, Clyde Linsley, Sandra Parshall, Lucia St Clair Robson, Mary Jo Putney, Sally MacKenzie, and Tracy Ann Warren 

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Once Upon a Crime Books
Minneappolis, MN
http://www.onceuponacrimebooks.com/

December 5, 7pm Monica Ferris, Knitting Bones

December 8, 1-3pm Anne Frasier, Garden of Darkness

December 18, 7pm - Michael Hachey, Means to an End

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Poisoned Pen
Scottsdale, AZ
http://www.poisonedpen.com/

December 1, 1pm - Mark Coggins, Runoff; Troy Cook, The One Minute Assassins; Tim Maleeny, Beating the Babushka

December 2, 1pm - Judson Roberts, Dragons from the Sea

December 2, 2pm - Molly Idle, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime

December 3, 7pm - Jenn Fisher, Clues for Real Life: The Classic Wit and Wisdom of Nancy Drew

December 7, 5pm - Sue Grafton, Signing T is for Trespass

December 10, 7pm - Gabriel Cohen, The Graving Dock, and Theresa Schwegel, Person of Interest

December 15, 2pm - John Maddox Roberts, signing SPQR XI: Under Vesuvius

December 22, 1pm - Dr Bill Bass, signing Beyond the Body Farm

December 29, 1pm - Judith Freeman, signing The Long Embrace; James Sallis, Salt River

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Prime Crime Books
Ottawa
http://www.primecrimebooks.com/

December 9, 1:30-2:30pm - R.J. Harlick will be signing Red Ice for a Shroud and Thomas Rendell Curran will be signing The Rossiter File

December 10, noon-4pm - The annual Prime Crime Christmas Party with members of The Ladies' Killing Circle signing When Boomers Go Bad

December 13, 1:30-3:30pm - Louise Penny signing Dead Cold and Still Life

December 16, 1:30-2:30pm - Barbara Fradkin will be signing her latest book, Honour Among Men and Rick Mofina will be signing his latest, Every Fear

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Seattle Mystery Bookshop 
Seattle, WA
http://www.seattlemystery.com/Events/events.html

December 6, noon - John MacLachlan Gray signs Not Quite Dead

December 8, noon - Gary McKinney signs Slipknot

December 15, noon - British Columbia's Wendy Roberts signs The Remains of the Day

December 18, noon - J.A. Jance signs Hand of Evil

December 22, noon - Kevin O'Brien signs One Last Scream

December 29, noon - Ann Rule will be signing Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder: Crime File Vol 12, and the paperback of Too Late to Say Goodbye; Donna Anders will be signing Sketching Evil

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Uncle Edgar's Mystery Bookstore
Minneapolis, MN
http://www.unclehugo.com/prod/

December 1, 1-2 pm - MaryJanice Davidson, Swimming Without a Net

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Well Red Coyote
Sedona, AZ
http://wellredcoyote.com/

December 6, 6-8pm - Diana Gabaldon, reception for her new Lord John book, Lord John and the Hand of Devils

December 8, 2 pm - Author Kathryn Lilley teaches you how to sharpen up your books with her "Stomping Out Your Story Killers" workshop (Lilley is the author of the new mass market paperback mystery, Dying to Be Thin)

Oxen Bouillon Cubes

John Le Carre supposedly once said that "Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes."

Time will tell if Dennis Lehane feels the same way one day. It was recently announced Lehane will have a third novel turned into a film, as Shutter Island comes to the screen with Martin Scorsese as director and Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo in leading roles. This, after the success of Mystic River in 2003 and Gone Baby Gone, currently showing in theaters.

In a recent interview for the Associated Press, Lehane insisted that his talent is not originality of plot, going so far as to say his plots ''could be found on an episode of CSI or Law & Order." He's merely happy to take credit for doing what he does very well, which is to write meaty, morally ambiguous, thought-provoking crime novels centered in the seamiest parts of Boston.

No, his explanation for his success is simpler: pure luck. Mysterious Bookshop owner Otto Penzler disagrees, saying of Lehane, ''He creates serious, real characters who have heart and are memorable, and his dialogue is absolutely believable.''

So, Lehane fans take heart; Shutter Island is scheduled to begin filming in 2008 with a release date in 2009.

There are a few good sites out there with bibliographies of mystery novels and crime fiction which have been turned into films. Check out The Film Site and Mystery Movies for some of the classics. There's also a section in The List of this blog, under Media, which has some additional links, mostly to film noir sites. 

Reading IS Fundamental

There is a fairly well-known anonymous saying (at least, I wasn't able to find any known attribution), that "Children are always the only future the human race has; teach them well." If that's true, what do we say about the recent National Endowment for the Arts report, "To Read or Not to Read," which indicates major declines occur between ages 9 and 17 in reading proficiency scores and time spent reading? The percentage of 9-year-olds who say they "read almost every day for fun" rose slightly, from 53 percent to 54 percent, between 1984 and 2004, and not surprisingly, average reading scores for 9-year-olds rose sharply. But the percentage of 17-year-olds reading almost every day for fun dropped from 31 percent in 1984 to 22 percent in 2004, with average reading scores showing steady declines.

Are authors worried about a vanishing consumer base in the future? We probably should be.

Certainly some are more optimistic than others. A few, like best-selling crime fiction author James Patterson have gone so far as to establish his Page Turner Awards given to individuals or groups who find original and effective ways to spread the excitement of books and reading.

Other authors have taken a different approach. Award-winning children's book authors Avi Wortis, Sarah Weeks, Katherine Paterson and Brian Selznickfrom lighted up the stage with a SRO performance last week as part of the National Council of Teachers of English conference held at New York City's Javits Center. They demonstrated the power of dramatizing literature with their Authors Readers Theatre, reading a scene from each of their works, which they have adapted for performance. Their goal is to model the form, so that teachers and librarians will take it back to students in their schools and encourage them to create their own theatrical adaptations, and they provide resources on their web site.

You'll also find agents like Loretta Barrett of Loretta Barrett Books getting into the action. Barrett, who is none other than MJ Rose's agent (MJ is author of the recent Reincarnationist), has long been an advocate for RIF, Reading is Fundamental, and serves on their board.

Here's a suggestion to all parents, family members, and friends of kids out there. In light of the recent toy recalls of products made in China, why not get something for every child on your Christmas list which is only NOT toxic, but actually could help instill a lifelong love of reading? Don't know where to start? Since this is a blog about mystery and crime fiction, check out the 2007 Edgar Award nominees for Best Young Adult and Best Juvenile mysteries:

Best Young Adult

• Buried by Robin Merrow MacCready (Penguin YR - Dutton Children's Books) (winner)
• The Road of the Dead by Kevin Brooks (Scholastic - The Chicken House)
• The Christopher Killer by Alane Ferguson (Penguin YR - Sleuth/Viking)
• Crunch Time by Mariah Fredericks (Simon & Schuster - Richard Jackson Books/Atheneum)
• The Night My Sister Went Missing by Carol Plum-Ucci (Harcourt Children's Books)

Best Juvenile

• Room One: A Mystery or Two by Andrew Clements (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers) (winner)
• Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake by Jennifer Allison (Penguin Young Readers - Sleuth/Dutton)
• The Stolen Sapphire: A Samantha Mystery by Sarah Masters Buckey (American Girl Publishing)
• The Bloodwater Mysteries: Snatched by Pete Hautman & Mary Logue (Penguin Young Readers - Sleuth/Putnam)
• The Case of the Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery by Nancy Springer (Penguin Young Readers - Philomel/Sleuth)

If you want more ideas, check out the Edgar awards archives dating back several years, also found on the MWA web site, or check with your local bookstore staff for suggestions.

A Rose By Any Other...Well, You Know

Every day, authors, agents, editors and publishers agonize over the various projects before them, trying to come up with the catchiest title that will have that Wow! factor. But does the title of a book matter? Paco Underhill, in his book, Why We Buy, cites a study of consumer behavior he did in a bookstore chain. One key finding: a consumer holds a book for two seconds before deciding to look further or put it back on the shelf. Book covers may have something to do with that as well, but when books are aligned on their spines on a shelf, it's the title that buyers will see.

An article in The New York Times last year talked about book titles and how they can make a difference. Case in point: In late 1924, a young writer sent his new novel, Trimalchio in West Egg, to Charles Scribner’s Sons. The publishers hated the title. The editor, Maxwell Perkins, urged F. Scott Fitzgerald to change the title, and the author quickly complied, substituting The Great Gatsby. Margaret Mitchell thought about calling her novel of the Old SouthTote the Weary Load, Not in Our Stars or Bugles Sang True before settling on Gone With the Wind. Joseph Heller’s World War II novel Catch-18 was renamed Catch-22 because Leon Uris was about to publish his own war novel, Mila 18.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

So what's an author/agent/editor/publisher to do? You could hire a consultant like Naseem Javed, president of ABC Namebank, a firm based in New York and Toronto that specializes in "corporate branding" (don't you just love "business speak"?). His suggestion: "Short, simple names like Titanic work well." Tim Moore of FT Press suggests finding a title that stands out from the crowd. Maybe keeping it simple is the key--on a recent Publisher's Weekly Bestseller list, out of 20 books, one had a one-word title; five had two-word titles; four had three-word titles; five had four-word titles; three had five-word titles; one had a seven-word title and one had an eight-word title. The point is, most honchos at major publishing companies believe that the simpler/shorter the title, the better. None of the titles were complex.

To get good ideas, check the bestseller lists and see what works (see Publishers Weekly above). And for a little bit of fun and a reminder perhaps of what NOT to title your book, check out the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's annual poll of the World's Worst Book Titles. This year's winner was Cooking With Pooh (as in "Winnie the").

Other bad titles (from their list and others):

• Who Drooled on My Shoulder? A Guide to Sleeping Well on Trans-Atlantic Flights
• Ennui for Dummies
• Everything You’ll Need to Remember About Alzheimer’s
• Curious George and the High Voltage Fence
• Letting It Go: a History of American Incontinence
• The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification
• The Joy of Uncircumcising!
• Daddy Drinks Because You Cry
• Coming Out: A Transsexual Debutante’s Surprise to the South
• Fart Proudly
• Foreskin's Lament
• Muscle Tendon Changing & Marrow Brain Washing Qigong
• Games You Can Play With Your Pussy
• The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Beating the Blues
• Book (by Whoopi Goldberg)
• You Are Worthless: Depressing Nuggets of Wisdom Sure to Ruin Your Day
• Tasty Dishes from Waste Items
• Beard on Bread (by James Beard)

One final note: although individual book titles can't be trademarked, there are some legal issues to consider. Check out Ivan Hoffman's site and an article on PubLaw.

2008 Raven Award Recipients

The Mystery Writers of America just announced the recipients of its Raven Awards for 2008, Kate's Mystery Books and the Library of Congress, Center for the Book. The Raven Awards have been given annually since 1953 for outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing, and are usually organizations or entities which help further the popularity and success of mystery fiction. Past recipients include authors, actors, fans, publishers, TV shows, plays, and radio shows, among others.

Kate Mattes of Kate's Mystery Books is being honored with the Raven due to her tireless efforts in advancing the genre of mystery fiction. Ever since opening Kate's Mystery Books in North Cambridge, Massachusetts on Friday the thirteenth in 1983, Mattes has been spreading her enthusiasm for the crime-writing genre. Mattes, a founding member of the National Chapter of Sisters in Crime and the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, and her bookstore have been honored with numerous awards including Entertainment Weekly's Hot Spot in 1991 and The Women's National Association of Booksellers' "A Woman Who Made a Difference" award in 1987. Mattes previously hosted the monthly meetings of the MWA New England chapter for over ten years. She was also the first to promote nearly every crime writer in the Boston area by hand-selling their books to devoted customers and fans.

The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress is receiving the Raven Award in recognition of the constant support and dedication the Center has imparted to MWA and to literacy education as a whole. Established in 1977 under the direction of Dr. John Y. Cole, the Center for the Book works closely with more than 80 prominent civic and educational organizations to promote books, reading, libraries, and literacy. "MWA:Reads" is one of the many programs the Center for the Book champions through its Reading Promotion Partners Program, which includes prominent national and international non-profit organizations. Since 2001 the Center for the Book has played a major role in organizing the National Book Festival in Washington, DC, an event whic  attracts more than 120,000 visitors and features many MWA authors as frequent guest speakers. As one of the Library of Congress’s most dynamic and visible educational outreach programs, The Center for the Book – through its Books and Beyond Program – also jointly sponsors lectures with MWA.

Fortunate Son: A Life

And now from the department of "Where Do These People Find the Time," Shelf Awareness recently profiled the amazing and prolific Walter Mosely in its "Book Brahmins" feature, noting that Mosley is the author of 29 books and his work has been translated into 21 languages. What they didn't mention is that his short fiction has been published in a wide array of publications including Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine, The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, USA Weekend, Los Angeles Times Magazine and Savoy (a year-long serial of a new series called "The Tempest Tales" in homage to Langston Hughes' The Simple Stories), and his nonfiction has been published in The New York Times Magazine and The Nation.

This has been a good year for Mosley. Not only did he publish Blonde Faith, his latest installment in the Easy Rawlins crime fiction series, but he also published Killing Johnny Fry: A Sexistential Novel, as well as his long-awaited primer on writing, This Year You Write Your Novel.   (Note to Easy Rawlins fans:  despite its title, "Johnny Fry" is not a mystery novel, but more what Publishers Weekly called "deep erotica.")

Mosley also has helped to create a Publishing Certificate Program at the City College of New York aimed at young urban residents, the only such program in the country. Mosley has served on the board of directors of the National Book  Awards, and presently serves on the boards of the Full Frame Documentary  Film Festival, the Poetry Society of America and TransAfrica and is past  president of Mystery Writers of America (among many other projects and honors).

He was asked what books are on your nightstand now: 
Walter Isaacson's Einstein, Demystifying Chemistry and Hex and the City
by Simon R. Green

Favorite book when you were a child: 
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

Your top five authors:
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Albert Camus, Langston Hughes, Roger Zelazney
and Jack Kirby

Book you are an evangelist for:
Fantastic Four #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

Book you've bought for the cover: 
Jewel in the Skull by Michael Moorcock

Book that changed your life: 
The Stranger by Albert Camus

Favorite line from a book (in this case, a poem):
"I have wasted my life."--James Wright, from "Lying on a Hammock at
William Duffy's Farm"

Book you most want to read again for the first time: 
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Mysteries of Thanksgiving

While you're sitting around in a food coma, unable to move due to the extra ten pounds you just put on, why not pick up a mystery with a Thanksgiving theme? You can gather together the clan and ask the designated reader (the one who is still half-awake) to read aloud, maybe start a new family tradition. So here's the list:

William Bernhardt, editor, Natural Suspect. An oil tycoon turns up dead on Thanksgiving Day. A round-robin thriller written by Leslie Glass, Gini Hartzmark, John Katzenbach, John Lescroart, Bonnie MacDougal, Phillip Margolin, Brad Meltzer, Michael Palmer, Lisa Scottoline and Laurence Shames

Carole Bugge, Who Killed Mona Lisa? A 2001 classic whodunit set in a historic New England inn over Thanksgiving

Kate Borden, Death of a Turkey. As tourists arrive at Cobb's Landing to enjoy an authentic, colonial-style Thanksgiving, Mayor Peggy Turner would be thankful for nothing more than a clue as to who killed her neighbor.

Mary Daheim, Fowl Prey. A 1991 cozy set in Vancouver, where bed-and-breakfast hostess Judith McMonigle has headed for a pre-Thanksgiving getaway

Jeanne M. Dams, Sins Out of School.  Agatha-winner Dams's seventh mystery. A traditional American Thanksgiving dinner unexpectedly leads Dorothy Martin, now nearly 70 and settled in the medieval town of Sherebury with her retired police constable husband, Alan Nesbit, into a murder case.

Claire Daniels, Final Intuition. A 2006 cozy wherein a Thanksgiving holiday ends badly when ailing Aunt Daphne is poisoned during the turkey dinner

Katherine V. Forrest, The Beverly Malibu. LAPD homicide detective Kate Delafield investigates the Thanksgiving Day murder by strychnine poisoning of a retired movie director.

Chris Grabenstein, Hell for the Holidays. This brand-new book (October 2007) is Grabenstein's second holiday thriller featuring FBI agent Christopher Miller and sidekick Lieutenant Cimino, which includes terrorists planning an attack on Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

Jane Haddam, Feast of Murder. Armenian-American and former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian spends Thanksgiving aboard a personal replica of the Mayflower.

Lee Harris, Thanksgiving Day Murder. This 1995 cozy surrounds the Thanksgiving disappearance of the beautiful, young wife of a wealthy man.

Robin Hathaway, Doctor Makes a Dollhouse Call. Physician detective, Dr. Andrew Fenimore has to solve a Thanksgiving Day puzzle featuring a dollhouse and a murder.

Richard Hawke, Speak of the Devil. A debut PI novel/thriller with a shooting spree during Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade

J. A. Jance, Shoot Don't Shoot. Joanne Brady lands in Phoenix for a pre-Thanksgiving crash course in police training and in the middle of the mystery of an imprisoned husband.

Harry Kemelman, The Day the Rabbi Left Town.  Rabbi David Small steps in after a fierce Thanksgiving storm delivers up a corpse in a snowbank.

Clyde Linsley, Death of a Mill Girl. The plot of this mystery, set in mid-19th century New England, centers around Thanksgiving, but also takes a harsh view of the conditions of New England fabric mills of the day.

Georgette Livingston, The Telltale Turkey Caper. This 1996 book is the fifth in a series of cozies featuring veterinarian Jennifer Gray.

Margaret Maron, Up Jumps the Devil. North Carolina judge Deobrah Knott embarks on a Thanksgiving Day investigation into the murder of a man from her father's moonshine-making past.

Ralph McInerney, Celt and Pepper. The action of this mystery novel takes place at Notre Dame over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Leslie Meier, Turkey Day Murder. This 2002 novel is one of Meier's many holiday-themed mysteries featuring amateur sleuth Lucy Stone. 

Ann Ripley, Harvest of Murder. Garden show host Louise Eldridge's Thanksgiving plans are interrupted by a brutal murder in her own backyard.

Sarah R. Shaber, Snipe Hunt. A Thanksgiving vacation on a small island off the North Carolina coast turns up a WWII mystery.

Angela Zeman, The Witch and the Borscht Pearl. A comedianne's attempt to make a comeback via a live Thanksgiving Day national TV special leads to murder.

'Tis the Thanksgiving season, which means taking a moment to appreciate the blessings of life. Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum or on the Iraq war issue, the fact remains that there are thousands of U.S. and allied troops who won't be home tomorrow enjoying turkey and grandma's sweet potato casserole (the one with the marshmallows on top).

Fortunately, there are many organizations out there providing avenues for folks to send along care packages, and some which specialize in sending books:

Books for Soldiers
Operation Paperback 
Give Books
Books a Million

You might check around with the local independent stores near you, too, as some also have similar programs, such as Here Be Books in Summerville, SC, and the Second Story Book Shop in Chappaqua, NY.

Although the mission of this blog is geared toward books, if you are interested in more traditional care packages, check out the list of links on the following National Guard site. Something to keep in mind during your day-after-Thanksgiving shopping this year.

Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters

Yesterday's guest on NPR's Diane Rehm show was Daniel Stashower, one of the editors of a book released November 1st, Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Stashower, most recently the author of The Beautiful Cigar Girl, is an award-winning mystery novelist, an Edgar Award winner and the recipient of the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellowship in Detective and Crime Fiction Writing. He is also the author of Teller of Tales, a widely praised biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The book includes 623 letters spanning the years from 1867, when as a young boy Arthur Conan Doyle was sent to boarding school, to his mother's death in 1920. As the Associated Press wrote, "given the Victorian times, [these letters] are not very revealing. But the reader does get vivid glimpses of the creator of Sherlock Holmes as a student in Germany, a ship's surgeon on a whaling voyage and a volunteer surgeon in the Boer War. The editors are Doyle fans out to protect his reputation, so some matters are shrouded over."

Although it's not particularly a revelation, in some of the letters, Doyle writes of his ambivalent feelings towards Sherlock Holmes and views the Holmes tales somewhat unemotionally, recognizing their monetary value more than their literary merit.  Yet he retained pride of authorship and strove to make them as good as he could.

The following FAQ Site has background information about the book.

Sidenote #1:  When you listen to the archived radio segment above, be forewarned (if you've never listened to the show before) that Diane Rehm suffers from spasmodic dysphonia – a neurological disorder that attacks the voice.

Sidenote #2:  The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes by Andrew Lycett, will be published in the U.S. in December 2007, if you can't get enough on the subject of Doyle and Holmes.

The Show Must Go On

This is probably a dicey subject, considering the current strike on Broadway, but news that The 39 Steps is coming to the Great White Way after a successful London run, coupled with the passing of Ira Levin, creator of the mystery play Deathtrap, cries out for a look at mysteries on the stage.

The 39 Steps was originally a book by John Buchan, a combination mystery/thriller/adventure novel, later made by Alfred Hitchcock into a movie by the same name. The London play is more faithful to Hitchcock's 1935 film version and is more a spoof or playful celebration of the Golden Age spy/thriller genre, with a cast of only four actors, who play about 130 roles between them. It had a pre-Broadway run which ended in September and current plans (subject to the strike, of course), are for it play at the American Airlines Theatre January 15 through March 23.

If you want to talk about long-running plays, there is certainly the most famous,  Mousetrap, by Agatha Christie, now in its 55th year with over 21,000 performances, still going strong at London's St Martin's Theatre. Off-Broadway has its workhorse in the form of the Warren Manzi murdery mystery Perfect Crime, which began in 1991 and has given over 8,000 performances to date. The Charles Playhouse in Boston, The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and The Chicago Theatre Downstairs have been staging the interactive murder mystery Shear Madness by Paul Portner long enough to have made the Guinness Book of World Records in order as the first, second, and third longest-running plays in the history of American theater, with over 10,000 performances in Boston and 8,500 performances in D.C.

Other mystery plays have graced the stages of London and Broadway, in addition to other regional venues, including others based on Agatha Christie works. One current and Tony award-winning play, is Curtains, written by John Kander, Fred Ebb, Peter Stone and Rupert Holmes. It concerns a backstage murder in a company that's testing a new musical in Boston. A theatre-loving detective gets entangled in the case and with members of the cast. It's billed as "the musical comedy whodunit."

The Edgar Awards, given by the Mystery Writers of America, has a category for "best play." The 2007 winner was Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, by Steven Dietz, who took two of Sir Athur Conan Doyle's short stories "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Adventure of the Final Problem", blending them together. It's been performed in over a hundred companies thus far, with others coming up in 2008 in Lawrence, KS, and  Little Rock, AR in April, and  St. Paul, MN in May. 

The International Mystery Writers Festival is all about mystery plays, with contest and staged performances in Owensboro, KY, drawing big names like Angela Lansbury. In 2008, the festival will be staging the U.S. premiere of Agatha Christie's lost play Chimneys.

And then, of course, there is Ira Levin, whose five-character mystery thriller Deathtrap, about Sydney Bruhl, a playwright with writer's block, his wife, his talented student, his lawyer and the psychic next door, was one of the biggest hits in Broadway history, running for for 1,793 performances. It was later made into a film with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve. Although it's not being shown on any of the major stages right now, here's hoping that Levin's passing will inspire new productions in 2008 and beyond.