In Reference to Murder

The Spliterati

Last week, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released results from a study that tested about 166,000 people ages 16 to 65 in more than 20 countries and subnational regions. What they found was discouraging for the U.S. population: in math, reading and problem-solving using technology, American adults scored below the international average in all three areas.

As one analysis noted, the findings reinforce the enormous gap between the nation's high- and low-skilled workers and how difficult it can be to move ahead when your parents haven't. Not only does this affect the quality of life for each individual, but it also affects the future health of any nation and its global competitiveness and economic strength.

The average scores in literacy range from 250 in Italy to 296 in Japan. The U.S. average score was 270. (500 was the highest score in all three areas.) Average scores in 12 countries were higher than the average U.S. score. Dolores Perin, professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, said the report provides a "good basis for an argument there should be more resources to support adults with low literacy."

Perin also pointed out that adults can learn new skills at any age, and there are adult-geared programs around the country. The challenge is to make sure programs have quality teaching and adults can and will regularly attend classes. I believe strongly that literacy is crucial for all of the other yardsticks measured in the study, and we need to help promote literacy among all sectors of the population.

Here are some organizations to consider lending your support, both financial and as a volunteer:

For Adults

• The Read Center (Virginia)
• ProLiteracy

For Kids

• Reading is Fundamental
• Reach Out and Read

For Families

• National Council for Family Literacy

There are also countless literacy-oriented organizations at city, county, state and local levels.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Anthony Hopkins has joined the cast of the thriller Kidnapping Freddy Heineken. Directed by Daniel Alfredson, (best known for helming the Swedish adaptations of both The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest), the project is based on the true story of a team of criminals who attempted to kidnap the grandson of the founder of the Heineken Brewery.

Pierce Brosnan may be heading back to spyland, co-starring in the thriller Survivor, about a State Department employee (Milla Jovovich) in London charged with stopping terrorists from getting into the U.S. until she's framed and targeted for death. Dylan McDermott is also a new addition to the cast.

Universal Pictures may be adding to the spy genre after it closed a deal for Section 6, a spec script by Aaron Berg about the formation about the British intelligence agency MI6.

Bella Thorne and Kyra Sedgwick are set to star in Big Sky, the English-language feature film debut of Mexican filmmaker Jorge Michel Grau. The project is described as a "neo-Hitchcockian thriller." The cast also includes Frank Grillo (Zero Dark Thirty) and Aaron Tveit (Les Miserables).

Nicole Kidman will produce and star in an adaptation of The Silent Wife based on the novel by A.S.A. Harrison. Often compared to Gone Girl, the psychological thriller became a sensation only months after the death of the author.

Screen Australia has committed hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding to support the development of 18 feature films and to cultivate the careers of the next generation of filmmakers. The projects include The End of Everything, a thriller based on the LA Times bestseller by Megan Abbott, produced by Kristian Moliere and written by Andy Cox; also the edgy thriller Berlin Syndrome, about a holiday romance that turns into an obsessive relationship.

Double Tony-Award winner Jennifer Ehle is joining the all-star cast that includes Christopher Plummer, John Travolta, and Tye Sheridan in the upcoming Code Entertainment film The Forger. It centers on a former art prodigy and petty thief who buys his way out of prison to spend time with his ailing son and teams with his father for one last job.

Garth Davis is in early talks to direct Shantaram, an adaptation of the book by Gregory David Roberts. The Johnny Depp-produced project centers on an Australian heroin addict convicted of robbery who flees to India and reinvents himself as a doctor but becomes involved in counterfeiting, smuggling and gunrunning.

Director Doug Liman (The Edge of Tomorrow) has taken over helming the drug smuggling action thriller Narco Sub. The title refers to semi-submersible crafts South American drug cartels have been using to ship cocaine into the U.S.

A new trailer was released for David O. Russell's American Hustle, described as a cross between Goodfellas and Boogie Nights. The film stars Bradley Cooper as an FBI agent getting con-men Christian Bale and Amy Adams to catch some crooked money-men.

TELEVISION

A crime drama produced by Eva Longoria and Conde Nast Entertainment landed at CBS after a bidding war with other networks. Titled Real Deal, the project is written by Burn Notice veteran Craig O’Neill and is based on a 2005 Glamour article. It's described as centering on "two polar opposite women — an ambitious FBI agent and an uncontrollable criminal Confidential Informant — who must find common ground if they’re going to survive both the streets of Los Angeles and each other."

Last season, CBS had viewers pick the ending of a Hawaii Five-O episode. This year, they're going one better by having fans create an entire episode via the "Fan Built Five-O initiative." The public will be able to vote online until Halloween for an episode's half-dozen key story points: scene of the crime, victim, murder weapon, evidence, suspect and takedown. 

Twentieth Century Fox and Audible are teaming up to offer a free, downloadable original half-hour audio Homeland episode with star Damian Lewis as his congressman-turned-fugitive character following the show's episode this Sunday.

FX signed a 10-part mini-series from director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) and writer Simon Beaufoy. Titled Telemark, it's based on the story of the British-trained resistance fighters who sabotaged Hitler's nuclear development program during World War II.

Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad) and Glenn Howerton have signed on to FX's 10-episode limited series Fargo, an adaptation inspired by the 1996 Oscar-winning film. In the same article, Deadline reported that BBC America added Michiel Huisman (World War Z) Peter Outerbridge (Nikita) and Ari Millen (Rookie Blue) to Season 2 of its mystery-scifi series Orphan Black.

TNT renewed Cold Justice for a second season. The docudrama centers on former prosecutor Kelly Siegler and former crime-scene investigator Yolanda McClary as they solve small-town murder cases

Omnimystery News reported that the Ovation network has picked up all seven seasons of the Canadian procedure Murdoch Mysteries. The series is based on the novels of Maureen Jennings and stars Yannick Bisson as police detective William Murdoch, who uses new forensic techniques to solve crimes in turn of the 20th century Toronto.

Former 24 producers Howard Gordon and Evan Katz have been given a script commitment from Fox TV for Trial of The Century, a serialized legal thriller told from the POV of a young Latina attorney working on a unique high-profile case.

Fox-TV has cancelled plans to air the midseason animated comedy series Murder Police. That may not be the end of the show, as producer 20th Century Fox TV is planning to continue fulfilling the 13-episode order and shop the series elsewhere.

TNT put in development the political thriller President X, about a former U.S. President who wakes up from a year-long coma and, now out of power, must hunt down the individual who tried to assassinate him.

Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling have been cast as a crime-solving duo in ABC Family's Mystery Girls pilot. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

CBS and Criminal Minds executive producer Janine Sherman Barrois are teaming up for a new crime drama that follows the intersecting lives of homicide detectives, attorneys, reporters, and the Mayor's office as they work to solve the most scandalous crimes San Francisco has seen in decades.

The USA Network ordered three pilots from the writers/producers behind Burn Notice, including a project titled Novice, which takes the audience on the journey of a young man trying to break into corporate America who finds his true calling may be a life of crime. 

Fans of the 1970s private detective series Remington Steele, which helped launch Pierce Brosnan's career, may be cringing at plans to reboot the show as a half-hour comedy on NBC.

TNT released a trailer for its new series coming December 4, Mob City (a/k/a L.A. Noir and Lost Angels), which follows members of an LAPD anti-mob task force.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Cozy writer Kathleen Delaney joined Suspense Radio for their latest podcast, talking about her new novel, Murder by Syllabub.

THEATER

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, New York Chapter, is producing a developmental reading of the play Killing Time: A Tale of Love and Murder, by author Jane K. Cleland and featuring her series protagonist, antiques appraiser Josie Prescott. For more information about the event on Monday, October 21, check out the Academy's website.

The Mystery of Irma Vep, which satirizes Gothic romance novels, pulp fiction, and horror movies, is being staged at the Newnan Theatre Company in Atlanta Octobe 24 - November 3. The comic take on crime has two actors playing eight different roles and changing costumes thirty-five times. In 1991, "Irma Vep" was the most produced play in the United States,  it later became the longest-running play ever produced in Brazil.

The Lockport Palace Theatre in Lockport, New York, is putting on a production of Ripper, an original play by Jon May telling the story of Jack the Ripper’s victims.

Quote of the Day

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing you can do is keep your mind young." -- Mark Twain

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - The Woman of Mystery

Maurice Leblanc (1864–1941) started out in life studying law and then worked as a police reporter for a time. But when he was asked to write a short story filler piece for a magazine, he ended up creating what was to become his most famous character, the gentleman thief turned detective Arsène Lupin, described as a "more elegant and dashing" Sherlock Holmes. Leblanc went on to publish over 60 novels and short stories.

Leblanc Leblanc's early writing was influenced by fellow Frenchmen Gustave Flaubert, who was the brother of the family doctor, and Guy de Maupassant. Like the latter author, Leblanc featured war in one of his standalone novels, The Woman of Mystery from 1916 (published in French as The L'Eclat d'obus, and in England as The Bomb-Shell). The book is set around WWI in France, and begins on the last Thursday in July, the Thursday before the mobilization of the French army. The plot centers on the murder of the father of the main character, Paul Delroze.

Paul Delroze is traveling on the train with his new wife Elizabeth on their way to the estate of Ornequin, owned by Elisabeth's father, the Comte d'Andeville, who was also a friend of Paul's father. Paul recounts the events when he was a small boy traveling with his father and they allegedly bumped into the Kaiser Wilhelm and his entourage in a lonely stretch of countryside. One of their group, a mysterious woman, argued with Paul's father, and Paul saw her stab him with a knife right before a man with the woman attempted to kill young Paul, as well.

The boy was found and taken to his father's cousin, who nursed him back to health. The police conducted their investigations, but were unsuccessful and closed the case. When Paul reached adulthood, he spent several years retracing the steps he and his father took on that fateful trip, from Switzerland to Luxemburg, from Belfort to Longwy and back to the chapel in the woods where the murder took place. The case takes on an even uglier turn when Paul sees a photo of Elizabeth's late mother and recognizes her as his father's killer—on the eve when Paul receives his mobilization order for the War.

Amidst Paul's exploits on the battlefield, he receives a letter from Elizabeth that she is going to stay at the estate, even though it is in a region targeted by the Germans, in an effort to clear her mother's name. Paul is torn by his love and fear for his wife and his horror that she may be the daughter of his father's killer. His conflicted emotions are further shattered when he receives word that Elizabeth was likely killed, allegedly by another mysterious character, an alleged spy for the Germans, with the initials H.E.R.M. That same spy targets Paul, who begins to realize that there is more than just a political battle at stake, and that the "mysterious woman" is at the center of a grand conspiracy. There are plot twists aplenty after that, but Paul ultimately hatches an ingenious plot with the help of his brother-in-law that involves kidnapping a prince and setting everything to right.

Charity Begins at Tome

The book community has a history of being involved with charitable endeavors, and I recently came across two more that are bright spots in an otherwise unhappy news cycle. Melville House launched the Arjouni Fund to Fight Pancreatic Cancer in honor of author author Jakob Arjouni, who died of the disease this past January. Arjouni is known for his series of mystery novels featuring Turkish-German P.I. Kemal Kayankaya, as well as literary novels and plays. Melville is partnering with the Lustgarten Foundation, the world’s largest private foundation dedicated to pancreatic cancer research, which will administer the fund and see that 100% of the money raised in Jakob’s name will go directly to research.

The other good bit of news is a joint effort coordinated by the indie bookstore DriveThruFiction. Several pubishers including Untreed Reads are contributing a work to be added to a special ebook bundle, whose proceeds will go to Feeding America, a charity which ensures food pantries across America have much-needed supplies to help the hungry around the country. The special bundle features over $175 worth of titles, and is available for only $20 with all proceeds going to Feeding America.

Mystery Melange

 

Book sculpture by Cara Smith

As the tributes to the late Tom Clancy pour in following his death last week, The Guardian lists their choice for the top five Clancy novels, and Salon reposted Tom Clancy's "5 big rules for writing and life."

One other sad note:  Mystery author Patricia Harrington has passed away. She penned a traditional mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Bridget O'Hern, a consultant to nonprofit and governmental agencies.

Howard Owen's Oregon Hill is this year's winner of the Hammett Prize, given by the International Association of Crime Writers. The other finalists were William Landay, Defending Jacob; Jim Lynch, Truth Like the Sun; Kurt Palka, Patient Number 7; and G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen.

Mike Ripley released his most recent "Getting Away With Murder" column for Shots eZine last Wednesday, just a little too late to include in that day's Mystery Melange. But the info is still just as fresh.

Suspense Magazine's new September/October 2013 issue includes interviews with L.L. Soares, John Rector, Steven Gore, and Linda Fairstein. There are also sneak peeks inside three books by Tasha Alexander, Paul Parsons, and Wendy Corsi Staub; Lisa Gardner continues her writer's toolbox; and debut author Barry Lancet talks about his book Japantown.

The new issue of Noir Nation is out, with an India theme. In addition to 30 bew short stories, essays on noir-related poetry, music, and the visual arts by Atar Hadari, Vicki Gundrum, and Robert Brunet and two works of classic noir: "The Turkish Brothel" by the late Cortright McMeel and "The Perfect Courtesan" by Kshemendra.

The Noir at the Bar series that has been popping up around the U.S., is adding a stop in Indianapolis on November 16th. CJ Edwards will host readings by Jed Ayres, Les Edgerton, David James Keaton, James Ward Kirk, Daniel O'Shea, and Scott Phillips.

The next MWA University will be held in Dallas on  Saturday, December 14. Expert authors Jess Lourey, Hallie Ephron, Reed Farrel Coleman, Charlaine Harris, Daniel Stashower, and Hank Phillippi Ryan will discuss their strategies for all facets of writing and publishing.

This week's Q&A roundup includes mystery author Sheila Webster Boneham, who visits Beth Groundwater's blog to talk about her latest novel featuring photographer Janet MacPhail; Randall Reneau, a professional geologist and author of the mining-themed mystery Deadly Lode, joins BC Blogcritics; Marilyn Meredith chats with Terry Ambrose about Meredith's 13th installment, Spirit Shapes, of her Native American series; and Ben Winters visited Alternative Magazine Online to discuss his Last Policement trilogy.

Author R&R with Leonard Goldberg

Leonard Goldberg stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some "Author R&R" (Reference and Research). Leonard is the creator of the medical thrillers featuring forensic patholoist Joanna Blalock, which have been translated into a dozen languages and sold more than a million copies worldwide. 


Goldberg's latest release is Plague Ship, so named because a highly contagious, deadly virus strikes a luxury liner, which causes the ship to be placed under quarantine and not allowed to dock—anywhere. Their only hope may be David Ballineau, a doctor and Special Forces veteran, who is traveling on board with his nurse girlfriend and his 11-year-old daughter.

Here's Leonard to tell you more about the background for the novel and why he started writing medical thrillers.

I can pinpoint the exact moment I decided to write a medical thriller. It all began with one of my patients at UCLA where I was in training to become a hematologist. The patient had a terribly aggressive form of anemia that was caused by her own immune system making antibodies that destroyed her own red blood cells. The antibodies were directed against various Rh factors on the surface of her red cells. And since virtually everybody’s red cells have some form of Rh factors on them, blood transfusions were of no use in this patient because her antibodies immediately destroyed the red cells transfused into her. Various drugs had no effect and her worsening anemia was causing her heart to fail. Death seemed imminent.

Then we heard of a family whose red blood cells were type O – Rh null, indicating the cells were totally deficient in A, B, and Rh factors and could be administered to virtually anyone without fear of transfusion reaction. We took blood from this family and transfused it into our patient with antibody-induced anemia, and the result was spectacular. There was not even a hint of transfusion reaction. So the donor’s blood, which was type O – Rh null, was the proverbial universal donor and would be accepted by anyone without rejection. And this gave me the idea for an individual who was born without a tissue type, making that person’s organs transplantable into anyone without fear of rejection. My first novel, Transplant, revolved around a young woman who was discovered to be a universal organ donor and was hounded by a wealthy, powerful man in desperate need of a new kidney. The book went through multiple printings and was auctioned by a major Hollywood studio. And so I was off to the races as a medical thriller writer.

Then, other ideas for novels came to mind. Being a big fan of author Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, I began to envision a modern-day medical Sherlock Holmes, who happened to be a woman. Not just any woman, but one who was young and strikingly attractive and who on first glance would always be underrated. So I made her a forensic pathologist with a razor-sharp mind, who was every bit Sherlock Holmes’ equal when it came to observation and deduction. And so Joanna Blalock was born and was the lead character in my next nine novels, many of which went through multiple printings. While Joanna is still in my mind, I have created yet another leading character named David Ballineau, an ER specialist who was once in Special Forces. A curious and unusual combination, you say. True, but he is loosely based on a real-life story as told to me by a former patient who was once in Special Forces.

With all this in mind, let’s turn to the question of why I started writing medical thrillers. Perhaps, deep down, there’s always been a bit of the writer in me. As a matter of fact, in my high school annual, I was projected to become a famous sports writer. Then, along came a five-star medical education, a deep love for mysteries and Sherlock Holmes stories, and a few fascinating ideas for a novel – and you end up with a writer of medical thrillers. You might say it was a gathering of the right elements at the exact right time. And why do I continue to write and dream up new ideas? Well, there’s a simple answer to that. Because writing becomes an addiction. I think Oliver Wendell Holmes described it best when he called it “the intoxicating pleasure of authorship.”

 

You can visit Leonard Goldberg's website, which also has more information about his books and ordering information for Plague Ship and also his Joanna Blalock thrillers.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Filmmaker Danny Boyle is planning to adapt the documentary Smash And Grab: The Story Of The Pink Panthers for a feature film. The story is based on the true-life team of the most successful jewel thieves in the world, known as the Pink Panthers, as they carry out heists across Europe and Asia while global police officers hunt them down.

New Line has picked up the remake rights to Secret, a Korean crime thriller about a detective who finds incriminating evidence that may implicate his wife at a murder scene.

Director Peter Landesman has come aboard Down By the River, an espionage revenge thriller based on the nonfiction book by Charles Bowden. The plot centers around the murder of the younger brother of a high-ranking DEA agent, ordered by a Mexican druglord, and how the agent crosses the border to catch his brother's killer.

The late Tom Clancy's literary creation Jack Ryan lives on in a trailer for the new Shadow Recruit film. It stars Chris Pine as a young Ryan from 9/11 through Afghanistan and into the CIA, where he uncovers a Russian plot to undermine the U.S. economy.

A trailer was also released for the upcoming film Out of the Furnace, from Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper. The film stars Woody Harrelson as a dirty and dangerous backwoods criminal and Christian Bale as the factory worker who goes after him when his brother disappears. Forest Whitaker, Willem Dafoe, Zoe Saldana and Sam Shepard all co-star.

TELEVISION

Shondaland has been very busy indeed. The hot production company has sold another pilot, this one a crime procedural to ABC. Titled Just Rewards, it follows a bankrupt, forty-something divorcée and her underemployed Millenial neighbors who make ends meet by chasing reward money for unsolved crimes.

CBS has committed to producing a pilot based on the 2012 thriller Zoo by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. The story centers around a wave of violent animal attacks across the planet and the young renegade scientist who has to unlock the mystery behind the pandemic. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Kim Raver and William Devane have joined the cast of the Fox series 24: Live Another Day. They join star Kiefer Sutherland, who is back as CTU agent Jack Bauer, and Mary Lynn Rajskub as his quirky sidekick Chloe O’Brien.

Fox has scored the first success of the new fall season, quickly renewing its supernatural procedural Sleepy Hollow for a second season.

Equally pleased is NBC over its freshman drama Blacklist, starring James Spader as a wanted fugitive who turns himself in so that he can take down some other big name criminals. The network gave the go-ahead for a full season for the series.

NBC also handed out a pilot order for the futuristic drama Tin Man, a psychological crime thriller that focuses on "a fugitive robot accused of first-degree murder, who may hold the key to the future of human evolution, and the young female public defender forced to fight for his cause."

Omnimystery News reported that USA Network renewed Covert Affiairs for a fifth season.

ABC bought the pilot Beverly Kills, a drama about a wife and mom who retires from her job as a highly skilled hit-woman for the mob and tries to settle into domesticity, but is lured back into her former trade to clean up Beverly Hills and keep her family safe in the only way she knows how.

Alicia Witt and Edi Gathegi are joining the cast of FX/Sony TV's drama series Justified for its fifth season. Witt will play Wendy Crowe, the smart, sexy sister of crime lord Dale Crowe (Michael Rapaport), while Gathegi will play Jean Baptiste, a Haitian criminal in the employ of the Crowe family.

TV Guide spoke with NCIS executive producer Gary Glasberg about Ziva's exit from the show and what is next for Tony and the team.

Rhys Ifans is returning to Elementary on CBS for its second season, reprising his role as Sherlock Holmes’s brother Mycroft Holmes. Producers also confirmed that guest Natalie Dormer, playing Irene Adler, will return around midseason and that the show hopes to have Sean Pertwee also return as Inspector Lestrade.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

"Drugs, Poisons, Toxins, and Death" is the topic for this week's Crime & Science Radio podcast with Dr. D.P. Lyle.

Author William Boyd, who penned the latest installment in the James Bond franchise, talked with NPR about his writing and tackling the iconic fictional spy.

THEATER

Matt Smith (Dr. Who) is taking on the lead role role for the musical adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis's 1991 novel American Psycho, originally made into a 2000 movie starring Christian Bale. The musical opens at London's Almeida Theatre on December 3, and depending on its performance, there are plans to then transfer the production to the West End and Broadway.

September Bestsellers

Although the Independent Mystery Booksellers doesn't release bestseller details any more for its member bookstores, the Seattle Mystery Bookstore is a good representative of what's popular in a given month. Here's their hardcover top sellers for September:

1. Lee Child - Never Go Back (Delacorte)
2. J.A. Jance - Second Watch (William Morrow) 
3. Sue Grafton - W Is For Wasted (Putnam)
4. Tied: Michael Gruber - The Return (Holt) 
Spencer Quinn - The Sound And The Furry 
6. Tied: Laurie R. King - The Bones Of Paris (Bantam) 
Pierre Lemaitre - Alex (Random House)
8. Hank Phillippa Ryan - The Wrong Girl (Forge)
9. Marisha Pessl - Night Film (Random House) 
10. Louise Penny - How The Light Gets In (Minotaur) 

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - The Notting Hill Mystery

The Notting Hill Mystery is an English-language detective novel published in 1863, which crime writer Julian Symons and others called "the first detective novel," preceding Wilkie Collilns's The Moonstone by several years. However, as fellow blogger John Norris of Pretty Sinister Books noted, historian Brian Stableford has taken exception to that claim, stating that Jean Diable by Paul Féval, published as a serial in 1862, was actually the first detective novel (featuring the Scotland Yard detective Gregory Temple). Another novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, The Trail of the Serpent, published in 1861, could also make a good case for being the "first," but so could other works of fiction that had detectives in them (e.g. Charles Dickens' Bleak House from 1852). 

As to the author? Notting Hill also started out as an eight-part serial, with illustrations by George du Maurier, that ran in Once a Week magazine, but the author was listed as "anonymous." Paul Collins, writing in the New York Times Book Review, believes the author was actually Charles Warren Adams (1833-1903), a lawyer, author and publisher who wrote novels under a pseudonym, including a crime novel titled Velvet Lawns from 1964. Collins also pointed out that Adams was also notably religious, which is why the novel has strong moral undertones.

The story is set in London, where the wife of a myterious and sinister Baron R dies after allegedly sleepwalking into her husband's laboratory and drinking from a bottle of acid. Insurance investigator Ralph Henderson, working on behalf of several companies, is called into investigate. At first, it seems the Baron had no part in his wife's death, and is referred to by many as a good-hearted man and a loving husband. But Henderson soon learns the husband had taken out at least five life insurance policies on his wife. Henderson eventually comes to the conclusion that Baron R has committed not one but three crimes, but he can’t prove it.

The narration is written in seven sections—memoranda to his corporate bosses—as a series of maps, medical and chemical analysis reports, illustrations, eyewitness interviews, family letters and diary entries, all features that were groundbreaking in style. Henderson details them all, because the evidence is "not only circumstantial but so delicate and complicated that the failure of a single link would render the remainder worthless." Ultimately, the disposition of that evidence is left up to the reader as to whether they are enough to convict Baron R beyond reasonable doubt.
  
The reception of Notting Hill, and its tale of poisoning, hypnotists, gypsies, and kidnappers, was positive when it was first published: the Guardian called it "very ingeniously put together", the Evening Herald said "the book in its own line stands alone", and the London Review described it as "a carefully prepared chaos, in which the reader, as in the game called solitaire, is compelled to pick out his own way to the elucidation of the proposed puzzle."

After long being out of print, the British Library issued a new edition for the book's 150th anniversary that includes the original illustrations by du Maurier (the grandfather of author Daphne du Maurier), as well as an introduction by Mike Ashley.