Mystery Melange

Now that the new year had dawned, the crime fiction festivals are back in full swing. Love is Murder and Murder in the Magic City just finished, but looking down the pike, The Northern Echo took a look at why Harrogate has become an international success. Val McDermid believes "It’s unbeatable for the concentration, quality and atmosphere. Harrogate itself is a bonus because you have access to some of the loveliest countryside in Britain. People can make a holiday of it."

As long as you're in the UK, check out seminars in the highlands for crime fiction writers. Farther afield, South Africa's International Writers Festival will highlight the new surge of South African crime fiction.

In bookstore news: following the demise of the brick-and-mortar Murder One bookstore in London, at least it's good to know that it will maintain an online and mail order presence. Other bookstores trying to stay afloat have novelty ideas like the Annapolis Bookstore which will host a 24-hour Read-in-Bedathon. As the store described it: "Spend time in bed with a good book--and come see some of our customers and town personalities indulging in this favorite pastime in bed in our window." 

Barbara Peters of Poisoned Pen Bookstore and Press, added her own thought to the book publishing world these days:

"I was taken aback to read in the NY Times regarding the restructuring in December of Random House, the largest of the US publishing conglomerates, that Doubleday was folded into Knopf because 'Dan Brown did not deliver a new book.' Wow, a proud imprint founded ages ago by Abner Doubleday taken down in large part because one author didn't deliver. How scary is that? It's true that one author, one title, is the most efficient publishing model. Until that author doesn't deliver.

My hope is that recent developments have exposed the weakness in that approach to publishing. And that lots of small and specialist publishers are returning us to that wider range of books to select. In short, we're cycling back towards 1989."

Even author Sara Paretsky has to make friends with the digital age, at least as far as electronic galleys are concerned.  Dana Stabenow (who may or may not have issues with electronic galleys) was featured as the latest Shelf Awareness Book Brahmin.

From the world of crime, the New York Times printed an article which was very critical of shoddy scientific practices in forensic evidence at the nation's crime labs. (Which is why we need the Crime Lab Project--see the link in the sidebar). And one crime writer in the UK tells his story of being a victim of youth crime that seems to be increasing there.

The Year of Poe continues:  Dances Patrelle will be featuring a brand new ballet to celebrate Edgar Allan Poe's 200th Anniversary, premiering April 16-19, at the Danny Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. Titled Murder at the Masque: The Casebook of Edgar Allan Poe, it will feature Poe's detective, Auguste Dupin, as well as characters and settings from classic Poe stories and poems.