In Reference to Murder

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Miami, It's Murder

Edna Buchanan was one of the first female crime journalists in Miami, writing  for the Miami Beach Daily Sun and the Miami Herald as a general assignment and police-beat reporter, covering close to 5,000 murder cases. In 1986, she won a Pulitzer Prize for general reporting. After 18 years on the beat, she turned to writing books full time, both nonfiction and fiction, and a TV movie starring Elizabeth Montgomery as Buchanan was based on the memoir filled with her experiences, The Corpse Had a Familiar Face.

The author's novels include five standalones, a series with Sergeant Craig Burch of the Miami Police Department's Cold Case Squad and another series featuring Miami Daily News staffer Britt Montero, the American daughter of a Cuban patriot killed by Castro's firing squad. As the author herself describes her, Montero "she has a tender spot for the city's underdogs, but is smart and tough enough to pursue a story no matter where it takes her." The second outing with Montero was Miami, It's Murder, nominated for an Edgar award in 1995.

Miami opens with Montero getting pulled into the case of the Downtown Rapist who finds his prey in isolated bathrooms in the skyscraper office buildings of central Miami. At the same time, she's pursuing a string of bizarre revenge murders and also the cold-case sex murder of a small girl that could implicate a powerful candidate for the governor's race. Aided by her mentor, retired police detective Dan Flood who has a terminal illness, Montero tries to keep her personal and professional lives from spinning out of control when the Downtown Rapist starts sending her threatening messages, and she gets pressure from all sides—he Miami police, her newspaper employer and the gubernatorial candidate's hatchet men.

Buchanan penned nine novels featuring the tough yet tender Montero and her no-holds-barred investigative journalism, the last in 2007:

1. Contents Under Pressure (1992)
2. Miami, It's Murder (1994)
3. Suitable for Framing (1995)
4. Act of Betrayal (1996)
5. Margin of Error (1997)
6. Garden of Evil (1999)
7. You Only Die Twice (2001)
8. The Ice Maiden (2002)
9. Love Kills (2007)

For other worthwhile "Forgotten" titles, check out Patti Abbott's weekly feature on her blog.

Mystery Melange

Patti Abbott's latest flash fiction challenge is based around one of her favorite painters, Reginald Marsh. To join in, write a story in any genre of under 1,000 words based on one of Marsh's paintings by October 18th. If you don't have a blog, Patti will post it on hers, and she will also donate $5 for every story submitted to Union Settlement, a social service agency in East Harlem.

NoirCon 2012 is sponsoring a poetry contest, for—what else?—noir poetry. For the purposes of the contest, noir poetry is defined as (1) Poetry that makes reference to the subject matter, dialog or style of film noir or the hardboiled detective genre, or, (2) Poetry that invokes stark urban landscapes and atmosphere, and which either alludes to crime and perilous attachments or else seems to bear dark knowledge of this territory, or (3) Poetry that tells the story of tortured souls – lovers, psychopaths, obsessives – driven down deadly paths, following desperate plans that are doomed to failure. (Note: there is an entry fee.)

The first issue of Pulp Modern has been released. The quarterly e-zine features crime, fantasy, and western fiction. The debut edition includes tories by Jimmy Callaway, James Duncan, C.J. Edwards, Garnett Elliott, Melissa Embry, Edward A. Grainger, Glenn Gray, David James Keaton, John Kenyon, Chris La Tray, Yarrow Paisley, Matthew Pizzolato, Thomas Pluck, Stephen D. Rogers, Sandra Seamans, Copper Smith and a classic tale by pulp fiction pioneer Lawrence Block.

The first Crime Factory anthology is out, featuring stories culled from the online 'zine. Authors include Ken Bruen, Leigh Redhead, Charlie Stella, Dave Zeltserman, Dennis Tafoya, Roger Smith, Craig McDonald and Adrian McKinty, to cult favorites Frank Bill, Scott Wolven, Nate Flexer, Andrew Nette, Jedidiah Ayres, Josh Converse, Greg Bardsley, Hilary Davidson, Kieran Shea, Cameron Ashley, Patricia Abbott, Chad Eagleton, Jimmy Callaway, Steve Weddle, Keith Rawson, Anonymous-9, Jonathan Woods, Liam Jose, Dave White, and Chris F. Holm.

Gerald So has created a discussion list in Yahoo Groups to help writers, editors, and publishers spread information about reputable short story markets, including anecdotes of specific markets' editorial taste.

Sandra Seamans (via Patti Abbott) notes that Sean O'Kane, the editor of Plots With Guns, is looking to female crime fiction writers for more character-based stories and less shoot-em up stories.

Kerrie Smith's Mysteries in Paradise continues the EuroPass blog tour with a look at crime fiction in the Czech Republic.

The interview roundup this week includes author and law professor Alifair Burke from a Q&A with Jean Henry Mead, talking about Burke's two series with NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher and Portland Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid.

ThrillerFest 2012 is already open to registrations and adding to their lineup. In addition to ThrillerMaster Jack Higgins, 2011 ThrillerMaster R.L. Stine, Lee Child, John Sandford, and Ann Rule, D.P. Lyle adds that NASA scientists will also be on hand to discuss some cool scientific advances that will interest all crime fiction and thriller writers. If you register prior to September 30th, you can receive a conference discount.

Didn't make it to Bouchercon? You can listen to CD or MP3 archive recordings of most of Bouchercon's ninety-plus panels available from WW Tapes. (Hat tip to Peter Rozovsky from Detectives Beyond Borders.)

Crime Tech

Federal law enforcement authorities are turning to new tech gadgets such as a little known cellphone-tracking device called a Stingray. The Stingray is designed to locate a mobile phone even when it's not being used to make a call (and often used without a search warrant). It works by mimicking a cellphone tower, getting a phone to connect to it and measuring signals from the phone. In addition to the FBI using it track bad guys, it can help search-and-rescue teams find people lost in remote areas or buried in rubble after an accident.

A new technology calle Shotspotter can help police figure out exactly where a gun was fired, faster than many people could make a 911 call. The system combines acoustic technology with computer programs (used by nuclear power plants and tornado warning systems) to track gunshots down and maybe even stop them. A callback system from Dialogic Communications can even give officers an aerial photo of the gunshot location.

Japanese researchers have found that footsteps are as unique as fingerprints, and can identify people with 99.8 per cent accuracy. "Even if they have the same foot size, even if they have the same shape, [people] load their feet differently, and they do it consistently," Todd Pataky of Shinshu University says. Similar sensors that cost $20,000 could be used in airports to identify passengers as they walk barefoot through security. (Maybe up next, a footstep database for police?)

A new tool that could become a private eye's best friend is not much bigger than a dragonfly. It's a spy drone camera that can also sniff out Wi-Fi and Intercept phone calls. Combined with a GPS car tracker, your typical (or fictional) P.I. could conduct a surveillance and video record the subject without leaving his office. Law enforcement agencies around the country are already using various versions of drone technology.

A shopping mall in Sydney, Australia, recently added a new functionality to its iPhone app for shoppers to find their car, if they've forgotten where they parked it, by entering its license plate number. The local police are looking into the technology to see if they could also use it to find stolen or unregistered vehicles.

On the lighter side: Do you want to look like a criminal and still stay all nice and toasty warm this winter? Have an extra $75 lying around? Then the "Thuggie" is just for you. It's a new take on the popular Snuggie blanket that its manufacturer claims is a freakishly oversized hoodie that will "make you forget pants altogether.'"

And for men who have grocery shopping as one of the items of their "honey do" list, here's a little something to make you feel a little more...well, manly. Or at least rest assured that no one will argue with you over that last T-bone that's on sale for your upcoming game-day BBQ. What are they? Grocery bag brass knuckles. Don't say I didn't give you any Christmas gift ideas this year.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Universal is planning a remake of the classic movie Scarface from 1983 that starred Al Pacino as a notorious gangster (which was itself a remake of the 1932 Paul Muni-George Raft  movie). However, the studio says this film is "not a sequel or outright remake," despite the fact it will be helmed by Martin Bregman, the producer who made the Pacino version.

Actor Jeremy Renner, who starred in The Hurt Locker and earned an Oscar nomination for The Town, is working with Black Bear Pictures to adapt J. North Conway's true-crime book King of Heists: The Sensational  Bank Robbery of 1878 That Shocked America. Renner will portray George Leslie, who secretly put together a crew and masterminded a heist of nearly $3 million in cash and securities from the Manhattan Savings Institution in 1878.

Charlize Theron is in talks to star in and produce Cities of Refuge, a crime thriller by Brandon Willer, optioned by Inferno Entertainment. Theron would star as a female investigator brought in to solve a brutal murder and kidnapping in which things aren’t what they seem (which is a vague generic plotline, but the project is still in its early phases).

20th Century Fox is adapting Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel, a futuristic murder mystery about a time with an overpopulation problem and where robots are banned from Earth. When an Ambassador who wants to ease the anti-robot laws is found murdered, a detective and a "human-looking robot" are assigned to the case.

Millennium Entertainment has acquired the US rights to Rampart, a movie co-written by crime novelist Elmore Leonard and director Oren Moverman, which they hope to release later this year. The film stars Woody Harrelson as Dave Brown, a cop long ago unleashed from the rules of the Los Angeles Police Department, and is based in part on a real LAPD scandal from the 1990s. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

A lost Alfred Hitchcock movie was screened in L.A. this past week. The only copy of the 1923 film The White Shadow was found in a New Zealand garden shed along with other films hoarded by former cinema projectionist Jack Murtagh, who died in 1989. Although Hitch didn't direct this one, he wrote it, designed the sets, edited the footage and director Graham Cutts's assistant.

The Steven Soderbergh movie remake of the 1960s TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is attracting a lot of attention from the casting agencies in Hollywood. The actors being considered are a who's who of the current A-list men including Ryan Gosling, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Alexander Skarsgard, Bradley Cooper, Ryan Reynolds, Chris Pine, Christian Bale, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jon Hamm, Russell Crowe, Robert Pattinson, Michael Fassbender and Ewan McGregor.

TV

ABC's supernatural show Once Upon a Time debuts next month, but apparently the network thinks another fairy-tale series might be a good move. The unnamed pilot centers on a female cop who, after pursuing a seemingly unsolvable case, discovers a magical world that exists within New York City.

Continuing its pilot-buying spree, ABC has also given the greenlight to several other project including: a new legal drama pilot from Steven Bochco (L.A. Law, Philly and Raising the Bar); Zero Hour, a mystery drama from Prison Break creator Paul Scheuring; and two pilots focusing on intelligence agencies, Safehouse (CIA) and Murder Season (FBI).

Fox has bought The Raiding Party, a drama project from Breakout Kings creator Nick Santora about three brothers and their overbearing mother who carry on the successful family business of robbing banks.

Thriller writer Jeffrey Archer is on a roll. With a movie deal already in hand for some of his books, his 1999 novel The Eleventh Commandment is being developed as a TV series by Gale Anne Hurd. The story follows Connor Fitzgerald, a CIA assassin who battles his own boss and Russian military amibitions as he tries to save the world.

Melissa George is set to star in the BBC-Cinemax spy thriller series Nemesis, which was created by former X-Files executive producer Frank Spotnitz. George will play a skilled operative with an elite private intelligence firm who survives an attempt on her life that might have been orchestrated by members of her own team.

Fox has purchased a script (reminiscent of the former TV show Alias) that's a procedural thriller focused on the orphaned 17-year-old daughter of a CIA operative who is recruited to become an operative herself.

Sherlock Holmes mania continues in the movies and TV, not just in the U.S. and the U.K., but apparently also in Russia, with a new adaptation starring Igor Petrenko as Sherlock Homes and Andrey Panin as Dr. Watson.

Joshua Jackson, who stars as Peter of Fox's Fringe, has written three issues of a tie-in graphic novel for the series, which explores pivotal events that take place between the third and fourth seasons, as well as alternate scenarios.

PODCASTS/RADIO

Geoffrey Gray recounts the events of the infamous and unsolved D.B. Cooper plane hijacking in his new book, Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper, as he talks with Guy Raz, weekend host of All Things Considered.

In honor of his new book The Cut, author George Pelecanos offers NPR a playlist of songs that correspond with specific characters or scenes, or "are just cool in their own right."

GAMES

A video game based on the popular crime drama NCIS is coming in October, although the 3D version is apparently only going to be available in Europe and not the U.S. Game makers says users will be able to "investigate crime scenes as agents Ziva David and Tony DiNozzo, conduct forensics analyses as Abby Sciuto, perform victim autopsies as Ducky Mallard, interrogate and break suspects as special agent Gibbs, and use satellite tracking to apprehend bad guys on the run as special agent McGee."

Focus Home Interactive is creating a Sherlock Holmes game for the Nintendo 3DS titled "Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Frozen City," set during a mysterious London snowstorm so cold that even the Thames is starting to freeze. 

Ban the Book Banning

Banned Books Week starts today, in what has become an annual event sponsored by the American Library Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and many more organizations. The purpose: to promote free and open access to information, even if the unformation and ideas are considered unorthodox or unpopular.

Book banning was in the news just this week with three items: the Republic county school board in Missouri banned two books from the school library, Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut's classic tale of the firebombing of Dresden during World War II, and Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler, which tells of a girl trying to recover after the death of her boyfriend (they're now kept in a separate room only parents can check out); the Charlton Public Library in Massachuetts lifted a century-old ban on Eve's Diary, a satirical version of the Adam and Eve story that had nude illustrations (not photos, mind you); and the Algerian International Book Fair banned 400 books.

I saw someone make the argument recently that in this day and age of digital books anyone can download, there really isn't such a thing as truly banned books. But many people still don't have ready access to computers or digital devices, in this country and around the world. And that argument doesn't even take into account the issues of free speech that are involved. I'm reminded of the words from 1776 attributed to founding father Stephen Hopkins, delegate from Rhode Island to the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, "I've never heard, seen nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn't be talked about."

Of course, the ironic thing about book banning is that it tends to bring attention to the very books it wants to make disappear; the Springfield-Greene County Library District (which includes the public library in Republic) has 21 copies of Slaughterhouse-Five and 36 holds, and 11 copies of Twenty Boy Summer and and 37 holds, and the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in Indianapolis is offering a free copy of the author's book to any Republic student who requests it.

Friday's Forgotten Books - Mistletoe from Purple Sage

Barbara Burnett Smith did voiceover work in radio and television commercials for two decades and also owned a company that provided communication and leadership classes. But as the daughter-in-law of mystery writer, Thomas B. Dewey, Barbara was bitten by the writing bug herself and joined a writers group that included feedback from authors Susan Rogers Cooper and Jeff Abbott. The result was Writers of the Purple Sage, nominated in 1994 for an Agatha Award for best first mystery novel.

That first novel introduced a series featuring Jolie Wyatt, a radio station reporter and aspiring writer who went on to be the protagonist in four more books, including Mistletoe from Purple Sage in 1997. Mistletoe opens with Jolie celebrating the publication of her first book as she and her husband travel to Austin for the Christmas holidays. She's also promised to attend an anniversary party for her former employer, Rose Sterling Advertising Agency, which she's dreading because her ex-lover also happens to be the owner's son-in-law. But when an employee turns up dead in the women's bathroom during the party, Jolie finds that instead of unwrapping presents, she becomes wrapped up in the case.

Barbara also wrote a standalone with radio disc-jockey Cassie Ferries and began another cozy mystery series in 2005 featuring beader Kitzi Camden. But the second book in that series had to be completed by Barbara's friend Karen MacInerney when tragedy struck Barbara down at the far-too-young age of 57 while on an act of mercy. She and her husband were driving to San Antonio to rescue an Airedale, and on the way home, they stopped at the Remember the Alibi mystery bookstore. When the dog jumped out of the car and ran into traffic on that dark and rainy night, Barbara was fatally injured when struck by a car.

Publishers Weekly said of Barbara's first novel that the characters were well rounded and "Purple Sage promising as a rich setting for future tales from this talented newcomer." The character of Jolie Wyatt has also been described as fiercely independent, highly sympathetic narrator who handles herself with characteristic wit and aplomb. Although I never the opportunity to meet the author in person, from the memorials I've come across, it seems that same character assessment makes an appropriate epitaph for Burnett-Smith, too.

Burnett-Smith served as President of the national Sisters in Crime organization from 1999-2000, and the Heart of Texas Chapter's Barbara Burnett Smith Mentoring Authors Foudation offers an opportunity for aspiring writers to be matched with a published mentor for one-on-one sessions and recognition each year.

Mystery Melange

Editor/Publisher Charles Ardai announced that after more than nine years of detective work and negotiation, Hard Case Crime has found a lost novel by James M. Cain (Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice) and secured the rights to publish the book. Titled The Cocktail Waitress, it's scheduled for a fall 2012 release and tells the story of beautiful young widow Joan Medford, whose husband died under suspicious circumstances. Desperate for cash, she takes a cocktail waitress gig then marries a rich, ailing older man. But when she falls for a handsome young schemer, things take a typical noirish Cain turn.

Publisher Crippen and Landru, a company that specializes in making out-of-print and neglected works available for new audiences as part of their "Lost Classics" series, announced that due to popular demand, they will reissue Vincent Cornier’s Barnabas Hildreth stories. Ellery Queen called them "one of the great series of modern detective stories," but after their original publication in a British magazine in the 1930s, they all but disappeared. They feature Hildreth solving such mysteries as a bullet fired three centuries earlier that wounded a man; an ancient Egyptian curse that strikes the members of an archeological expedition; a man transformed into stone; and an ancient Aztec laughing cloak.

In the review roundup this week, The Rap Sheet's Jeff Pierce has a Q&A with Kelli Stanley, the author of City of Dragons (recent winner of the Macavity Sue Feder Award for Historical Mystery), and her latest novel, City of Secrets, both featuring 940s San Francisco private eye Miranda Corbie. Stanley draws parallels between the early 20th century political climate and today.

Crime fiction authors Mark Billingham, John Harvey, Michael Ridpath and Pauline Rowson are teaming up with law enforcement experts for "CSI Portsmouth," part of the 2011 Portsmouth, England, BookFest on November 5th. The authors will join police from the Major Crime Unit and Crime Scene experts from Hampshire Constabulary; Dr Claire Nee, Director of the International Centre for Research in Forensic Psychology at Portsmouth University, and Paul Smith, an expert in Crime Scene Investigation. There will even be a panel on Victorian Crime.

If you are an unpublished Canadian novelist, dust off that manuscript and send it to the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Unpublished First Crime Novel, awarded by the Crime Writers of Canada. The competition is open to (1) Canadian citizens, no matter where they are living, and to writers, regardless of nationality, who have Permanent Resident status in Canada, and (2) who have never had a novel of any kind published commercially.

I don't often mention writing contests that include a fee (especially ones with such a large number of entries), but the Writers Digest contests have large prizes, so if you want to give it a shot, both the Thriller and Crime short story competitions have deadlines coming up soon (October 1 and 22, respectively). Stories must be 4,000 words or less.

Been wanting to try eBooks? The Criminal Element blog is running a contest to win an eReader of your choice. All you have to do is register (for free).

Spies and P.I.s

When the International Spy Museum opened in Washington, D.C. in 2002, it became the largest museum of its kind, with many objects on public display for the first time. It remains the only public museum in the U.S. dedicated solely to espionage. But there are other smaller, quirky museums that profile the spy and private eye trades that don't get as much attention.


The Spy And Private-Eye Museum in Austin, Texas, is the personal collection of Ralph Thomas, who logged thousands of hours as a P.I. while amassing various paraphernalia related to the trade. The exhibits include everything from rare documents from Pinkerton Detective Agency case files dating back to 1877, to 1930s polygraph equipment, to a CIA covert gun built into a tire gauge.


The P.I. Museum in San Diego contains historic treasures and artifacts gathered by Private Investigator Ben Harroll for over 30 years. Harroll's collection includes both the real and the fictional, including a letter penned in 1852 by Eugene Francois Vidocq, spy cameras and tracking devices and Dick Tracy and Magnum P.I. collectibles.


The Spy Exchange and Security Center in Austin, Texas, is one of the largest showrooms for private eye gear, books and manuals in the U.S. (which is pretty neat on its own), but it also has two rooms set aside for a collection of historic paraphernalia. While you're there, pick up a smiley-face spy camera. The kids will never know.

 

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Writer-director Ryan Craig has been hired by Warner Brothers to adapt the Brad Thor novel Takedown, the fifth book in the series that centers on Scot Harvath, a former member of Navy SEAL Team 6 who becomes a black-ops counterterrorism agent.

Gold Circle Films is crafting an American remake of Taiwanese supernatural thriller Silk, about scientists who capture the ghost of a child in an apartment and the detective charged with discovering clues to the ghost's identity and demise. It's described as "Michael Crichton meets The Sixth Sense."

The Muppets have a little fun with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

TV

Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins books may be coming to NBC. John Wells' production company sold the project to be based on Mosley's black private eye Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, who finds himself solving crimes and dealing with the changing world around him in Los Angeles from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Producer/writer Greg Walker (Without a Trace, Defenders) has sold Red on Red to CBS, a crime drama based on the book by Edward Conlon. It centers on a young hungry detective who is asked to inform on his new partner who is a legend in the NYPD. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Author Marcus Sakey is writing and hosting a new Travel Channel series called Hidden City that Sakey describes as "Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations meets Castle." He'll travel to a different city in each of the 12 episodes to uncover its criminal past.

Ethan Hawke and Vince D'Onofrio are joining with writer-producer Chris Brancato for a cop drama pilot for NBC. Titled Blue Tilt, the show follows Hawke and D’Onofrio as two seasoned homicide detectives as they solve cases while dealing with their wives/ex-wives and kids. The title Blue Tilt refers to a cop term for homicide detectives put under psychiatric observation if they may become a danger to themselves.

Nothing succeeds like success. Fresh on the heels of the popular Sherlock Holmes movie version (with Robert Downey, Jr.) and BBC TV series (with Benedict Cumbersnatch), CBS is eyeing a Sherlock reboot. It's described as a "modern take" on the cases of the pipe-smoking private eye created by Arthur Conan Doyle. (In other words, an American version of the BBC show.)

CBS also acquired a project based on a character in the "Mommy Track" series of mysteries by Ayelet Waldman featuring Juliet Applebaum, who has given up her career as a public defender to stay home with her daughter Ruby.

ABC has purchased not one but two pilots based on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the classic tale by Robert Louis Stevenson. I already mentioned one, about an ER doctor whose "id manifests itself as a different person when he goes to sleep as a result of an experiential medical treatment." The latest is described as a "suspenseful, darkly romantic retelling of the classic tale with a unique sci-fi twist."  Set in modern San Francisco, it involves a female criminal psychologist drawn into the mysterious world of a brilliant inhibited scientist and his volatile alter ego.

ABC Family has ordered a pilot project titled Intercept, which follows a group of college students who get roped into solving crimes when one of them creates a high-tech gadget that intercepts conversations.

Hannibal Lecter may be coming to your living room—in a TV series. French film studio Gaumont, who is setting up Gaumont International Television, a production company based in Los Angeles, hopes to sell their series project that will "center on Lecter’s early days, namely his time going head-to-head with FBI agent Will Graham."

THEATER

Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia, is currently presenting The Boy Detective Fails, a world premiere musical based on the book by Joe Meno with music and lyrics by Adam Gwon. It's both a send-up of anachronistic boys detective fiction and a tale of adult survivors' grief when childhood mysteries turn into very-real grownup ones.

There are two staged musical versions of Bonnie & Clyde in the pipeline. The first begins previews on November 4, with the world premiere on December 1st at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre in NY. The second is a satiric take of the lives of America's infamous bank robbers, scheduled for March 15-April 8, 2012 at the urora Theatre in suburban Atlanta.

Greensboro, North Carolina's Triad Stage will feature Dial "M" for Murder this fall season. Frederick Knott's play was made famous by Alfred Hitchcock's filmed version. The play is set in 1950s London and revolves around Tony and Margot Wendice, when Tony learns of Margot's infidelity and devises the perfect plot to kill his wife and gain access to her wealth. But things don't go as planned, and Tony has to stay ahead of a detective and mystery writer determined to solve the crime.

Friday's Forgotten Books, Update

Spinetingler Magazine's Brian Lindenmuth gave me a heads-up that he'll be collecting any links for bloggers who have Friday's Forgotten Books posts today. After Patti Abbott hopefully has a fantastic time at Bouchercon this week, she (and I) will be back next week with more books for you to track down and stay up all night reading (I can't be the only one who does that...). You can find previous weeks on her blog link and also on an archived site for books through the end of last year.