In Reference to Murder

In Reference to Excellence

I'd planned on compiling a list of the award-winning nonfiction/reference crime books from last year's awards cycle, oh, somewhere back in January, but somehow that blog post got put on a back burner. At any rate, in keeping with the original theme of this blog, here are the "Crème de la Crème" of those books that were awarded in 2022. I hope to post lists of some of the other finalists titles, too (and be a little more timely with next year's similar posts). These reference and nonfiction books often don't get as much love as the fiction titles, but they make for fascinating reading, and I hope you'll seek them out. (And if I missed one, feel free to post it in the comments, and I'll add it to the list!)

How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America, edited by Lee Child and Laurie R. King (Winner of the Agatha Award for Best Non-Fiction; the Anthony Award for Best Critical or Nonfiction Work; and the Macavity Award for Best Nonfiction/Critical).  Mystery Writers of America collected essays from 70 of the most successful mystery writers in the business on various aspects of their craft, from character development and plot to procedurals and thrillers, as well as the piece of writing advice they wish they'd had at the beginning of their careers. Kirkus reviewed it as "Everything you wanted to know about how to plan, draft, write, revise, publish, and market a mystery."

Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green (Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and an NPR Best Book of the Year). This is a chilling true story, told here for the first time, of the Last Call Killer and the gay community of New York City whom he preyed upon in the '80s and '90s. The murders had all the hallmarks of the most notorious serial killers, but because of the sexuality of his victims, the sky-high murder rates, and the AIDS epidemic, his murders have been almost entirely forgotten.

Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks: 1941-1995 by Patricia Highsmith, edited by Anna von Planta (Winner of the CrimeFest H.R.F. Keating Award for Best Biographical or Critical Book). At once lovable, detestable, and mesmerizing, Highsmith put her turbulent life to paper for five decades, acutely aware there must be "a few usable things in literature." A memoir as significant in our own century as Sylvia Plath’s journals and Simone de Beauvoir’s writings were to another time, Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks is an historic work that chronicles a woman’s rise against the conventional tide to unparalleled literary prominence.

The Beatle Bandit by Nate Hendley (Winner of the Crime Writers Awards of Excellence for Best Nonfiction Crime Book). On July 24, 1964, twenty-four-year-old Matthew Kerry Smith disguised himself with a mask and a Beatle wig, hoisted a semi-automatic rifle, then held up a bank in North York, Ontario. Outside the bank, Smith was confronted by Jack Blanc, a former member of the Canadian and Israeli armies, who brandished a revolver. During a wild shootout, Blanc was killed, and Smith escaped―only to become the object of the largest manhunt in the history of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force. He was eventually captured, tried, and sentenced to hang, and his murderous rampage had tragic consequences for multiple families, fuelling a national debate about the death penalty, gun control, and the insanity defense.

The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey: A true story of sex, crime and the meaning of justice by Julia Laite (Winner of the Crime Writers Association Non-fiction Dagger). In 1910, Wellington, New Zealand, Lydia Harvey is sixteen, working long hours for low pay, when a glamorous couple invite her to Buenos Aires. She accepts - and disappears. Later that year in England, amid a global panic about sex trafficking, detectives are tracking a ring of international criminals when they find a young woman on the streets of Soho who might be the key to cracking the whole case. Historian Julia Laite traces Lydia Harvey through the fragments she left behind to build an extraordinary story of aspiration, exploitation and survival―and one woman trying to build a life among the forces of history.

The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock: An Anatomy of the Master of Suspense by Edward White (Winner of the Edgar for Best Critical/Autobiographical). Edward White explores the Hitchcock phenomenon—what defines it, how it was invented, what it reveals about the man at its core, and how its legacy continues to shape our cultural world. Along the way, White illuminates a vital truth: that Hitchcock was more than a Hollywood titan; he was the definitive modern artist, and his significance reaches far beyond the confines of cinema.

Banquet: The Untold Story of Adelaide’s Family Murders, by Debi Marshall (Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime). Only one suspect, Bevan Spencer Von Einem, has been charged and convicted for The Family Murders of Adelaide, "the City of Corpses." With her combination of investigative skills and sensitivity, award-winning investigative journalist, Debi Marshall, treads a harrowing path to find the truth, including confronting Von Einem in prison, pursuing sexual predators in Australia and overseas, taking a deep-dive into the murky world of pedophiles, challenging police and judiciary, and talking to victims and their families. The outcome is both shocking and tragic.

 

The Winter Road: A Story of Legacy, Land and a Killing at Croppa Creek by Kate Holden (Winner of Davitt Award for Best Non-Fiction Book). In July 2014, outside Croppa Creek, New South Wales, 80-year-old farmer Ian Turnbull took out a .22 and shot environmental officer Glen Turner in the back. On one side, a man hoping to secure his family’s wealth and future by farming the richest agricultural soil in the country. On the other side, the object of his obsession–the government employee trying his best to apply environmental laws. The brutal killing of Glen Turner splits open the story of our place on this land, and ultimately what happens when, in pursuit of an inheritance for his family, a man creates terrible consequences.

 

Nonpareil Nonfiction

In keeping with the original primary theme of this blog, namely a focus on research and reference in crime fiction, I thought I'd take note of the nonfiction titles that are the cream of the crop according to the various 2021 awards organizations. Just in case you missed these fascinating books, here they are, in alphabetical order, with information from the publishers:

Black Hands: Inside the Bain family murders by Martin Van Beynen, which won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Nonfiction. This is the story of a mass-murder that divided a nation, which began in a rickety old home on a cold June morning in 1994, where five members of a seemingly ordinary New Zealand family were gunned down. There were two suspects. One lay dead from a single bullet to the head. The other was the only survivor: David Bain. Since then the country has asked: Who killed the Bain family? David, or his father Robin? And why? Award-winning journalist Martin van Beynen has covered the Bain story closely for decades. His 2017 Stuff podcast, Black Hands - based on the manuscript for this book - was a runaway success in New Zealand and overseas, downloaded more than 4 million times and topping the charts in New Zealand and around the world. Now, van Beynen brings the story up to date for 2020, exploring the case from start to finish, picking through evidence old and new, plumbing the mysteries and motives, interviewing never-before-spoken-to witnesses and laying out the complex police investigation and judicial processes, seeking to finally answer the question: Who was the killer?

H R.F. Keating: A Life of Crime, by Sheila Mitchell, which won the Macavity Award for Best Critical/Biographical. Henry Reymond Fitzwalter "Harry" Keating, known to his many readers as H.R.F. Keating, was the author of more than 50 books, favorite among them his series featuring Indian Inspector Ganesh Ghote. In H.R.F. Keating: A Life of Crime, his wife Sheila Mitchell offers an intimate view into the life and writings of one of the most revered authors of British crime fiction in the second half of the twentieth century. With honest reflection, Mitchell brings readers behind the scenes, through the highs and lows of the enduring literary career of her husband, who along with his many writing accolades and achievements was a devoted family man. Rich in detail, H.R.F. Keating: A Life of Crime is the definitive portrait of the artist and man. With an Introduction from Len Deighton.

Missing from the Village: The Story of Serial Killer Bruce McArthur, the Search for Justice, and the System That Failed Toronto’s Queer Community, by Justin Ling, which won the Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best Nonfiction Book. In 2013, the Toronto Police Service announced that the disappearances of three men—Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, and Majeed Kayhan—from Toronto's gay village were, perhaps, linked. When the leads ran dry, the investigation was shut down, on paper classified as "open but suspended." By 2015, investigative journalist Justin Ling had begun to retrace investigators' steps, convinced there was evidence of a serial killer. Meanwhile, more men would go missing, and police would continue to deny that there was a threat to the community. On January 18, 2018, Bruce McArthur, a landscaper, would be arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder. In February 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of eight men. This extraordinary book tells the complete story of the McArthur murders. Based on more than five years of in-depth reporting, this is also a story of police failure, of how the queer community responded, and the story of the eight men who went missing and the lives they left behind. In telling that story, Justin Ling uncovers the latent homophobia and racism that kept this case unsolved and unseen. This gripping book reveals how police agencies across the country fail to treat missing persons cases seriously, and how policies and laws, written at every level of government, pushed McArthur's victims out of the light and into the shadows. 

Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock by Christina Lane, which won both the Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction and the Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical. In 1933, Joan Harrison was a twenty-six-year-old former salesgirl with a dream of escaping both her stodgy London suburb and the dreadful prospect of settling down with one of the local boys. A few short years later, she was Alfred Hitchcock’s confidante and one of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters of his first American film, Rebecca. Harrison had quickly grown from being the worst secretary Hitchcock ever had to one of his closest collaborators, critically shaping his brand as the “Master of Suspense.” Harrison went on to produce numerous Hollywood features before becoming a television pioneer as the producer of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. A respected powerhouse, she acquired a singular reputation for running amazingly smooth productions— and defying anyone who posed an obstacle. She built most of her films and series from the ground up. She waged rough-and-tumble battles against executives and censors, and even helped to break the Hollywood blacklist. She teamed up with many of the most respected, well-known directors, writers, and actors of the twentieth century. And she did it all on her own terms

Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession (Sarah Weinman, editor), which won the Anthony Award for Best Critical or Nonfiction Work (and was also an NPR Best Book of the Year). Acclaimed author ofThe Real Lolita and editor of Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s (Library of America) and Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives (Penguin), Sarah Weinman brings together an exemplary collection of recent true crime tales. She culls together some of the most refreshing and exciting contemporary journalists and chroniclers of crime working today.  Michelle Dean’s “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick” went viral when it first published and is the basis for the TV showThe Act and Pamela Colloff’s “The Reckoning,” is the gold standard for forensic journalism.  There are 13 pieces in all and as a collection, they showcase writing about true crime across the broadest possible spectrum, while also reflecting what makes crime stories so transfixing and irresistible to the modern reader.

Witness: An investigation into the brutal cost of seeking justice by Louise Milligan, which won the Davitt Award from Sisters in Crime Australia for Best Nonfiction Crime Book. A masterful and deeply troubling exposé, Witness is the culmination of almost five years' work for award-winning investigative journalist Louise Milligan. Charting the experiences of those who have the courage to come forward and face their abusers in high-profile child abuse and sexual assault cases, Milligan was profoundly shocked by what she found.  During this time, the #MeToo movement changed the zeitgeist, but time and again during her investigations Milligan watched how witnesses were treated in the courtroom and listened to them afterwards as they relived the associated trauma. Then she was a witness herself in the trial of the decade, R v George Pell. Through these experiences, interviews with high-profile members of the legal profession, including judges, prosecutors and the defence lawyers who have worked in these cases, along with never-before-published court transcripts, Milligan lays bare the flaws that are ignored and exposes a court system that is sexist, unfeeling and weighted towards the rich and powerful. In Witness, Milligan reveals the devastating reality that within the Australian legal system truth is never guaranteed and, for victims, justice is often elusive. And even when they get justice, the process is so bruising, they wish they had never tried.

Words Whispered in Water by Sandy Rosenthal, which won the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for Best Nonfiction. In the aftermath of one of the worst disasters in U.S. history, Words Whispered in Water tells the story of one woman’s fight—against all odds—to expose a mammoth federal agency—and win. It’s a horror story, a mystery, and David and Goliath story all in one. In 2005, the entire world watched as a major U.S. city was nearly wiped off the map. The levees ruptured and New Orleans drowned. But while newscasters attributed the New Orleans flood to “natural catastrophes” and other types of disasters, citizen investigator Sandy Rosenthal set out to expose the true culprit and compel the media and government to tell the truth. This is her story. When the protective steel flood-walls broke, the Army Corps of Engineers—with cooperation from big media—turned the blame on natural types of disasters. In the chaotic aftermath, Rosenthal uncovers the U.S. corruption, and big media at root. Follow this New Orleans hero as she exposes the federal agency’s egregious design errors and eventually changes the narrative surrounding the New Orleans flood. In this engaging and revealing tale of man versus nature and man versus man, Words Whispered in Water proves that the power of a single individual is alive and well.

Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind by Sue Black, which won the Crime Writers’ Association ALCS Gold Dagger for Nonfiction. internationally renowned forensic anthropologist and human anatomist Dame Sue Black taking us on a guided tour of the human skeleton and explaining how each person's life history is revealed in their bones, which she calls "the last sentinels of our mortal life to bear witness to the way we lived it." Her narrative follows the skeleton from the top of the skull to the small bones in the foot. Each step of the journey includes an explanation of the biology—how the bone is formed in a person's development, how it changes as we age, the secrets it may hold—and is illustrated with anecdotes from the author's career helping solve crimes and identifying human remains, whether recent or historical. Written in Bone is full of entertaining stories that read like sce

 

An Idea for What to Do While You're "Social Distancing"

Since many folks are staying home as part of efforts to prevent the spread of coronavirus, there's one fantastic and relatively inexpensive way to while away the time and escape from the news:  books! The virus is taking its toll not only on people but also on businesses, and many indie bookstores were already struggling before this latest roadblock came along. The potential long-term effects for book retailers are sobering and possibly even devastating.

Josh Cook from Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, noted ways on Twitter to support one’s local bookstore when no one is leaving the house. Suggestions from him and others include:

• Sign up for a store’s newsletter
• Follow your local stores on social media
• Sign up with Libro.fm, and not only will you get two audiobooks for the price of one, 100% of your payment will go to your local bookstore(s)
• Order books from your local stores' online shops, where available, to be delivered straight to your home or, as my local One More Page bookstore has available, curbside pickup
• Buy ebooks (and other bookstore offerings like puzzles, games, food, and clothing) through the same online shops, with instant delivery to your phone, ereader, or tablet, or laptop; and don't forget your elderly neighbors - pick up a few books for them, too
• Pre-order books that are being published later this year
• Buy a bookstore gift card
• If your local bookstore is offering something like Ally Kirkpatrick is, of Old Town Books in Alexandria, VA and its virtual classes from writers, signup for a class (they also have a new-book subscription service)
• Donate to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, which helps booksellers impacted by natural disasters, health problems, higher education, etc.

If you want to locate the indie bookstores near you, Indiebound has a handy store locator for stores in the U.S. If you're in Europe or other parts of the world, you can still help out your bookstores via most of the measure above, and some of the stores are even offering free deliveries via bicycle or skateboard. Bookstores everywhere are trying to help customers and their communities during this difficult time; one store in the UK offers staff recommendations over the phone, but also "a simple chat if anyone is isolating and feeling lonely" and holding a fundraiser for the local food bank.

Also, If you live in the UK or Ireland, No Alibis Bookstore has teamed up with a group of local authors to give away a #CrimeCarePackage to ten people each day this week, fifty packages in total, containing a selection of great books hand chosen for each recipient. If you or someone you know is facing isolation in the coming days, they would like to send you a curated selection of books to the value of £25, free of charge. 

Buying books will also help support your favorite authors, including many who have had to cancel book launches, tours, and other events, in addition to all the conferences and festivals that have been canceled.

Author R&R with J.L. Abramo

J. L. ABRAMO is a long-time educator, arts journalist, film and stage actor and theater director. His evolution to writing crime fiction might have been ordained by the fact he was born on Raymond Chandler's fifty-ninth birthday. Abramo's short fiction appeared in various anthologies, but his success as a novelist began when his Catching Water in a Net (the first in his Jake Diamond series) won the St. Martin's Press/Private Eye Writers of America prize for Best First Private Eye Novel. A subsequent Jake Diamond novel, Circling the Runway, won the Shamus Award for Best Original Paperback Novel of 2015 presented by the Private Eye Writers of America.

Abramo also created a new series in 2012 with Gravesend, which introduced Homicide Detectives Samson and Murphy of Brooklyn's 61st Precinct. The detectives return in Coney Island Avenue during the dog days of August in Brooklyn where the men and women of the 61st Precinct are battling to keep all hell from breaking loose. Innocents are being sacrificed in the name of greed, retribution, passion and the lust for power—and the only worthy opponent of this senseless evil is the uncompromising resolve to rise above it, rather than descend to its depths.

Abramo stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about the book and researching settings and historical periods to make his writing more accurate:

I have always been partial to novels in which location plays an essential role in the narrative.  Dennis Lehane’s Boston, George Pelecanos’ Washington D.C., Loren Estleman’s Detroit—not to mention Dickens’ London and Hugo’s Paris.  I tend, therefore, to take the settings of my novels very seriously—both in terms of significance and accuracy.

In fiction, when a story is set in a real and specific city—be it San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New York—I believe the accuracy of the locale needs to be non-fictional.  Geography is sacred.  Readers are willing to suspend belief to a great extent—but if you have two characters meeting at the corner of Coney Island Avenue and Ocean Parkway, two streets which never intersect, you will lose a large number of Brooklyn readers very quickly.

When writing places I am not very familiar with—Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Oakland, Chicago—the research is both extensive and educational.  I study maps.  With locations I am more familiar with, having lived in those places or visited many times—San Francisco, Brooklyn, Denver—I rely on recollection but always double-check geography.  In writing Gravesend and Coney Island Avenue, it was a journey back to the places where I had grown from infancy to manhood—re-walking the streets of my past—making certain those streets were represented correctly.

I have also had to do a great deal of research with regard to period.  In the first Jake Diamond novel, Catching Water in a Net set in 2000, Jake turns 40 at the end of the book.  By the time the third in the series was released, set in 2003, Jake was 43.  The fourth book in the series, Circling the Runway, came nearly a dozen years later, 2015, however (since I didn’t wish to have my protagonist pushing 55 years old quite yet) I decided to set the narrative back to 2004.  This required re-familiarization with the sports, music, literature, movies, and other historical events and cultural elements of that year.  It required study.  Similarly, for Chasing Charlie Chan, set in 1994 and flashing back to Hollywood and Las Vegas in the late-forties, I needed to do a great deal of reading about those periods and about the characters in the book who were actual historical figures. In cases like these, research for a novel can be enjoyable—the knowledge gained about the highly successful and prolific Charlie Chan film franchise was fascinating.  Non-fiction books such as The Charlie Chan Film Encyclopedia, Las Vegas: An Unconventional History, We Only Kill Each Other—and many newspaper and magazine articles about Werner Oland, Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel, Mickey Cohen, Meyer Lansky—were invaluable and terrifically entertaining.  I was also aided and inspired by the works of James Ellroy—L.A. Confidential and others.

The investigative work of my protagonists—whether private eye Jake Diamond in California or Brooklyn NYPD detectives Samson, Ripley, Senderowitz and Murphy in Gravesend and my latest novel, Coney Island Avenue—tend to be more about intuition, legwork and often luck than about highly scientific forensics.  For that research I tend to go back to reading about true crime investigations from the pre-CSI era.  I also seek out older private and police detectives who recall the good old days of criminal investigation—when being a gumshoe meant hitting the pavement—and who enjoy sharing reminiscence over Scotch.

Although I write predominantly fiction—I am committed to truth and fact when it comes to specific locations, time periods, vernacular and personalities.  Homework is always required—but it is the kind of homework that is challenging, enlightening and, for this writer, a world of fun.  And more fun yet—my next novel will require brushing up on my Italian language skills.

 

Coney Island Justice is available via Down and Out Books and from all major booksellers. You can find more about J.L. Abramo via his website or follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

Giveaway Time! A copy of "I'm Traveling Alone"

SAMUEL BJØRK is the pen name of Norwegian novelist, playwright and singer/songwriter Frode Sander Øien. Øien wrote his first stageplay at the age of twenty-one and then went on to write two highly acclaimed literary novels, Pepsi Love (2001) and Speed for Breakfast (2009). The self-taught artist has also released six albums, written five plays, showed contemporary art pieces in various galleries and translated Shakespeare. His debut crime novel, I'm Traveling Alone (Det Henger En Engel Alene I Skogen) hit #1 on German newspaper Der Spiegel's bestseller list and was nominated for the Norwegian Booksellers’ Award, prompting some to compare him to the likes of both Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbø. It's the first installment in the Mia and Munch Series.

When a six-year-old girl is found in the countryside, hanging lifeless from a tree and dressed in strange doll’s clothes with a sign around her neck saying "I’m traveling alone," a special homicide unit re-opens with veteran police investigator Holger Munch at the helm. Holger’s first step is to persuade the brilliant but suicidal investigator Mia Kruger, who has been living on an isolated island and overcome by memories of her past, to assist. When Mia views a photograph of the crime scene and spots the number "1" carved into the dead girl’s fingernail, she knows this is only the beginning. Could this killer have something to do with a missing child, abducted six years ago and never found, or with the reclusive religious community hidden in the nearby woods?  Mia returns to duty to track down a revenge-driven and ruthlessly intelligent killer, but when Munch’s own six-year-old granddaughter goes missing, Mia realizes that the killer’s sinister game is personal.

Kirkus Reviews noted that "Bjørk has constructed a labyrinthine plot with plenty of red herrings and rabbit holes, but even with a cast of many, he manages to do justice to the story," and Library Journal gave the title a starred review, adding “A breath of fresh air in the crowded Scandinavian crime genre, this suspenseful novel…will hook readers early and keep them on the edge of their seat until the final pages. Fans of Jo Nesbø are sure to enjoy the flawed yet likable characters.”

Now for the giveaway! One lucky winner will receive a print copy of the book, courtesy of the publisher (U.S. addresses this time). To enter, simply follow this link, and login with your email address. FYI, you'll be prompted to enter your email address a second time, so be sure and don't miss this step. But hurry - the contest ends March 13.

More Golden-Age Punshon

UK-based publisher Dean Street Press is reissuing five more E.R. Punshon golden age mysteries in December, some of the rarest of the author's Bobby Owen series. Published between 1938 and 1941, the titles have been unavailable for seventy years, with some print copies going for some pretty hefty change. The titles include Comes a Stranger, Suspects - Nine, Murder Abroad, Four Strange Women, and Ten Star Clues.

Dean Street founder Rupert Heath sent along a copy of Comes a Stranger, a bibliomystery set in a legendary private library in the world of rare books. As the novel begins, Bobby Owen and his fiancée are drawn into a dispute over Kayne Library, including charges of maladministration and familial desires to sell off the collection for profit. But things take a more sinister turn when a body is found in the library and the local police force press Bobby into service to help solve the crime. Along the way, as Curtis Evans notes in his Foreword, "a slashed portrait, a tale of an old lover’s long-hidden poems, an American with the remarkable, Elmer Gantry-ish name of Bertram A. Virtue, and a box of forget-me-nots all play parts in one of E.R. Punshon’s most beguiling tales of mystery."

Flash and Bang and a Day of Wrath

Sometimes, crime occurs with the sound of a drip of poison, or the whispering whistle of a knife moving through the air. And, sometimes, it happens with a “flash and bang.”  Flash and Bang is the title of a new anthology of short crime fiction from The Short Mystery Fiction Society, founded in 1996 by Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine editor Margo Power. Members went on to found Mysterical-e online magazine as well as to win many awards in the genre. Starting off the rhyming flash piece,"The Perfect Crime," by Herschel Corzine and wending its way through 18 other stories, Flash and Bang has a little something for everyone. I'm proud to say that my own Scott Drayco short, "Silent Measures," is among the stories chosen for this anthology.  (Publisher Untreed Reads has also previously published another Scott Drayco story, "Ill-Gotten Games.")

And speaking of Scott Drayco, the crime consultant is back in novel-length form with the release today of Dies Irae, the third installment in the series. The debut book, Played to Death, was a Shamus Award finalist and named Best Mystery in the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. The short blurb:  A mysterious and deadly music puzzle forces Drayco to work with his estranged FBI partner to catch a madman ... before the partner's daughter becomes the next victim. It's a fitting Halloween mystery read, and I hope you'll consider picking up the ebook or trade paperback (hardcover coming soon!).

Good Things Come in Small Packages

There are so many comings and goings in the publishing world, it's hard to keep track of them all. Still, I'm always interested to hear of new indie publishers in the crime fiction realm, and three of those young whipper-snappers have crossed my desk recently. They're worth keeping your eye on, and I hope they can bring forth many interesting new (or reissued) titles in the genre, whether it's novellas, classics, or pulp.


If you like your crime on the short side, Number 13 Press has your number. They are an e-publishing company whose stated aim is to "build a list of 13 quality crime titles, to be published consecutively on the 13th of each month, starting in November 2014." They've kept that pace so far, with seven titles available, starting with Of Blondes and Bullets by Michael Young (with "a touch of David Goodis’s everyman-noir, a dash of Brit Grit, and a whole lot of hardboiled") up through Redbone by Matt Phillips, a "captivating murder ballad-noir."


Chalk Line Books specializes in republishing vintage crime fiction classics with ten evocative illustrations in each book. Their goal is to become the best publisher of vintage crime fiction by bringing you a high-quality selection of "Books to die for!" (a la Black Lizard Books). The first novels out of the starting gate were Jim Thompson's Sharecropper Hell and David Goodis' The Secret Squad, with newer titles and more to come from James M. Cain, Charles Williams, Ed McBain, Peter Rabe, and more.


Bitter Lemon Press has been around since 2003, making it the "oldest" of these three publishers. The London-based press was established to bring readers high quality thrillers and other contemporary crime fiction books from abroad and explore the "dark, sexy and often humorous novels that expose the seamier side of society." Bitter Lemon Press recently signed a series of deals for female crime writers from around the world, including Brazil's Patrica Melo, Turkey's Esmahan Aykol and Argentina's Claudia Piñeiro.

The Golden Age of Murder

Regular readers of this blog may know Martin Edwards as a fellow contributor to the weekly Friday's Forgotten Books feature, but he's best known as an award-winning crime novelist whose Lake District Mysteries have been optioned by ITV.  Elected to the Detection Club in 2008, he became the first Archivist of the Club, and serves as Archivist of the Crime Writers’ Association. He's also the consulting editor for the vintage mystery reprints being published by the British Library.


Renowned as the leading expert on the history of Golden Age detective fiction, he won the Crimefest Mastermind Quiz three times, and possesses one of Britain’s finest collections of Golden Age novels, including unique inscribed books and manuscripts. So it's not surprising his new book is The Golden Age of Murder, which investigates how Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and fellow colleagues in a mysterious literary group called the Detection Club transformed crime fiction, writing books that cast new light on unsolved murders while hiding clues to their authors’ darkest secrets.

As part of his blog tour celebrating the publication of the book, he's stopping by the blog today to talk about how he got interested in books that delve into the backstory of crime fiction:

 

I first became fascinated by books that fall, more or less, within the term “crime reference” when I was still a teenager. This was when I came across the recently published first edition of Bloody Murder by Julian Symons. His history of the crime fiction genre fascinated me, and it’s still one of my favourite, and most-read, books.

Symons was a crime novelist of distinction – if you don’t know his work, it really is worth checking out, especially The Man Who Killed Himself, The Man Whose Dreams Came True, and Sweet Adelaide – and this gave him a real understanding into the nature of writing detective fiction. His arguments were cogent, and he highlighted many interesting books that I enjoyed immensely once I’d tracked them down.

That isn’t to say that I agreed with everything he wrote. I was even cheeky enough to write him a fan letter which told him how much I liked his book, but questioned something he’d said. Oh, the impudence of youth! He responded with a very interesting and generous letter, something for which I’ll always be grateful.

Symons admired, as I do, Agatha Christie and Anthony Berkeley, but I feel he was rather harsh about Dorothy L. Sayers, and too dismissive of Henry Wade. He also under-estimated the range of Golden Age detective fiction, in my opinion, perhaps because he was more interested in novels of psychological suspense. His book has – rightly – been highly influential, but perhaps it has contributed to a feeling that Golden Age mysteries were, for the most part, lacking in quality.

Well, I’m also a contemporary crime novelist, but I think it’s a mistake to under-estimate the writers of the past, and I’ve tried to make that case in The Golden Age of Murder. The book is the product of decades of reading, and years of planning and research (not to mention endless re-writing...) In fact, the more I’ve investigated the people who wrote Golden Age fiction, the more I’ve become intrigued. They really were a remarkable bunch of people.

My book is very different from Bloody Murder. For a start, it covers a much shorter time span – the emphasis is on the authors and books of the Thirties, although I’ve managed to sneak in plenty of material from before and after that remarkable decade in the world’s history. But one thing’s for sure. If readers enjoy my book half as much as I’ve loved reading and re-reading Bloody Murder, I’ll be very well satisfied.

 

The Golden Age of Murder is available via in both print and digital formats via all the major brick-and-mortar and online retailers. To get you started, here are the Indiebound and Amazon Kindle global links, so you can grab your copy today!

"Lost" Golden Age Nuggets

I received a heads-up from Dean Street Press that they are reissuing two lost golden age crime classics by Ianthe Jerrold from 1929-30, both out of print for over eighty years. Jerrold only wrote these two novels in the crime field before moving on to other genres, but her writing nonetheless influenced Dorothy L Sayers, John Dickson Carr and Ngaio Marsh.

The Studio Crime is a London mystery and begins as a fog-bound soiree is about to begin at artist Laurence Newtree's studio. But when his upstairs neighbor is murdered in a seemingly impossible crime, Scotland Yard and the unofficial but resourceful private sleuth John Christmas are called in to solve a baffling and eerie case.

Dead Man's Quarry moves the action to the beautiful border countryside between Herefordshire and Wales where a cycling holiday turns deadly when one of the party is found—shot—at the bottom of a local quarry. John Christmas is once again put into action (along with his forensic assistant, Sydenham Rampson), using his unique sleuthing insights in an ingenious, well-plotted mystery.

FYI, if you enjoy both books and want to get "closer" to the writer and her world, her Elizabethan house Cwmmau in Herefordshire is owned by the National Trust today and available for vacation rentals.