Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

John Cusak has been tapped to star as Edgar Allan Poe in director James McTeigue's upcoming movie The Raven. Don't expect the plot to be like the poem, however; it's a fictional account of the writer’s final five days, following Poe and a young detective as they try to track down a killer who has been using Poe’s work as inspiration.

Magnolia Pictures has acquired the American rights to the fact-based murder mystery/love story All Good Things by Andrew Jarecki, director of the award-winning documentary Capturing the Friedmans. It's scheduled for release in the U.S. in December in order to qualify it for Oscar consideration.

Jim Caviezel has been added to the cast of the upcoming Antonio Negret thriller Transit. He'll play the father of a family returning from a camping trip who crosses paths with bank robbers. Hopefully, he'll be a little safer filming this one: he was struck by lightning during production on Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. (He was most recently seen in the TV remake of The Prisoner.)

The "kidnapping thriller" The Cold Light of Day has signed its lead actor, Henry Cavill (The Tudors). The story surrounds a cocky young Wall Street trader and how he has to unravel his father's darkest secret when his own family is kidnapped in Spain.

TV

The BBC is producing a TV pilot based on the novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. If it's successful, a series should hopefully ensue.  (Hat tip to Crimespree Cinema.)

ITV announced three new crime dramas for 2011: Injustice stars James Purefoy as William Travers, a criminal barrister who is recovering from a traumatic series of events that have shaken his belief in the legal system; Scott and Bailey will star Suranne Jones and Lesley Sharp as two homicide detectives from Greater Manchester Police’s prestigious Major Incident Team; and The Jury focuses on the everyday people who find themselves at the center of one of the most controversial criminal
re-trials of their time.

Fox Studios is producing the pilot Outlaw Country, a crime thriller/family drama "set against the backdrop of southern organized crime and Nashville royalty." It recently signed former Deadwood co-star John Hawkes in a starring role.

PODCASTS/RADIO

Real-life forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, author of the Temperance Brennan novels and a producer of the Bones TV show based on the series, joined NPR's Talk of the Nation for an interview. She admits that shows like Bones "raise perhaps unrealistic expectations about what will be available in every single case."

The latest BBC News Meet The Author interview features  Mark Billingham talking about From The Dead, the most recent addition to his best-selling Tom Thorne series. By the way, if you want to check out Mark's stand-up comedy routine, keep your eye on his website.

If you can stay up late late, tune in tomorrow (August 30) night's Craig Ferguson show for a chat with Laura Lippman. Her latest standalone crime fiction novel, I'd Know You Anywhere was the first for publisher Harper Collins to sell more e-books than print in the first week.

Tips and Tricks for Writers

ON WRITING

Deborah Halverson, award-winning author (Honk if You Hate Me, Big Mouth, and the upcoming Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies), offers up 10 Tests a Novel Must Pass to Prove It's REALLY Ready for Submission. Need more? 

If you've written the world's best novel but have a crappy ending, it might "leave a bad taste in the reader’s mouth and will ensure they don’t want to read your next book," says author Joanna Penn. One tip: "Link the story to a larger theme to end on a high note."

Suspense/Thriller author Bob Mayer explains why and how conflict is the fuel of your novel. Tension is sort of the "twin" to conflict (sometimes they're the same,
sometimes they're not), and one of the other most important elements to a
story. Nancy Curteman offers up nine ways to create tension in a mystery novel.

Literary agent Nathan Bransford has a great succinct overview of How to Write a Novel, starting with the main plot arc and working down to style and voice and the climax, with links under each section for related info.

ON PUBLISHING

Many more folks are choosing self-publication these days, but whether you go that route or with an indie press or one of the big five and their subsidiaries, there are pros and cons for each publishing option.

Which media outlets sell books? Patrick Brown surveyed Goodreads to see how well it stacked up against Amazon, NPR, The Daily Show and others.

J.A. Konrath has been a vocal critic of the "old school" publishing industry and a cheerleader for the digital revolution. Here's his take on the changing face of publishing.

What do you do when an agent asks for an exclusive (the privilege of reading a manuscript before any other literary agent is allowed to see it)?  Writer's Relief has some advice.
 
ON MARKETING

Selling and marketing your book via Amazon may sound like a good idea, but where to start? Here are 10 ways…

One overlooked area in book promotion is "niche marketing," a way of tying in your book's themes, characters or setting to specialty groups and events.

Even in this day and age, many people think all published authors are wealthy. (Probably the same 20% of Americans who still think the Earth is the physical center of the universe). But J.B. Stanley, author of 13 published books, has a breakdown of her sales and marketing numbers that should disabuse anyone of the "rich author" notion. Unless you're one of these.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

The same writers behind the Daniel Craig James Bond movies, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, are writing an original action thriller that takes place among the nomadic Taureg tribes of West Africa, an area rich with uranium that's a target for both energy companies and terrorist states. A producer at Parkes Macdonald/Imagenation added that "At its heart, this is an action movie set within a world that is morally complex, alluring and completely real — which is why Robert and Neal, whose work spans James Bond to John Le Carre, are uniquely suited to bring a project like this to life."

Karl Urban (Star Trek and Lord of the Rings) has been signed to star in a remake of the Judge Dredd story, based on a comic character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra and set in a futuristic world filled with violence, where Dredd acts as
judge, jury and executioner.

Legendary Swedish actor Max Von Sydow (Shutter Island and Minority Report) may soon be joining the cast of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, playing Henrik Vanger, the man who hires Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) to investigate the decades-old disappearance of his favorite great-niece.

Idris Elba will star as Dr. Alex Cross in Cross, a new installment of James Patterson's murder mystery series that will be directed by David Twohy and written by Kerry Williamson. Elba takes over the role originated by Morgan Freeman in 1997's Kiss the Girls and 2001's Along Came A Spider.  (Hat tip to Crimespree Cinema.)

TV

Bobby Cannavale (star of Third Watch and regular guest star on the Law & Order franchise shows and Cold Case) has joined the cast of CBS' new cop drama Blue Bloods. Cannavale will play Charles Rosselini, the boss of Tom Selleck's character and an ex-cop himself.

The USA Network announced that Psych, now running the first half of its fifth season, will return Wednesday, November 10 for the second half, while Burn Notice will follow on Thursday, Nov. 11 with the debut of the second half of its fourth season.

TV Guide has a sneak preview of season 8 of NCIS. "We pick up the show right where we left off, and I advise every fan of the show to sit down and watch that first minute. It's explosive," executive producer Shane Brennan.

Teri Polo has joined the cast of the new Law & Order: Los Angeles debuting this fall in the recurring role of Casey Winters, wife of Det. Rex Winters, played by Skeet Ulrich. Casey is a former cop who has settled down to raise a family.

PODCASTS/RADIO

BBC 4's podcast Front Row talked with novelist M C Beaton about her popular fictional detectives Hamish Macbeth and Agatha Raisin, and the reason for her many pseudonyms. NPR waded into the "digital" vs. "print" book controversy and concluded that "books have many futures."

Read, Johnny, Read

Patti's Abbott's Forgotten Books Friday feature today asked for books folks particularly enjoyed during their college years, or roughly ages 18-23. Unfortunately, since my college years were crammed with the almost 24/7 life of a quasi-music conservatory, I didn't have a lot of time for anything other than textbooks and practicing. Fortunately, some other people did have time to read, and you can check out their remembrances on Patti's blog.

I thought it would be interesting to find out what today's college kids are reading. The Chronicle of Higher Education compiled a listing gleaned from information supplied by stores serving approximately 40 campuses around the U.S. Here's what they came up with:

1. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
2. Superfreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
3. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
4. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
5. Precious (Push Movie Tie-in Edition) by Sapphire
6. What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell
7. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
8. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything  
9. Push by Sapphire
10. The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Honoring the Past

Two articles about honoring/dishonoring classic literary "landmarks" popped up in my newsfeeds today. One was about the home of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Hindhead, England, which he designed himself, and was where he wrote some of his finest work, including The Hound of the Baskervilles. Unfortunately, it's been abandoned and fallen into disrepair, and now a developer has bought it with plans to turn it into apartments. A government-sponsored report declared that the house was not very noteworthy architecturally and that its associations with Conan Doyleweren't that big a deal because "He cannot be said to be an author of the standing of, for example, Charles Dickens or Jane Austen."

The other story is a little more upbeat, an NPR report on the new book Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang. It looks at the history and legacy of Earl Derr Biggers' Chinese detective and Charlie Chan's impact on American culture. Although some contemporary Asian-American critics have dismissed Chan as a "Yellow
Uncle Tom" and helped ban Chan movies from TV network schedules, this animosity hasn't always been the case. Swedish actor Warner Oland played Chan in some of those movies, but when he made a trip to Shanghai in 1933, he was celebrated by Chinese movie audiences for bringing to life the first positive Chinese character in American film.

Mini Mystery Melange

Canadian novelist Emma Donoghue's novel Room was based in part on the sensational case of Austrian Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter in a basement for 24 years. She talked with Quill and Quire about the accusations of exploitation and the ethics of fiction inspired by true crime cases.

Elizabeth Foxwell over at the Bunburyist has news that the Library of Congress is asking readers to vote for your favorite authors who have attended the National Book Festival through its 10-year history. Crime fiction authors include Nevada Barr, Louis Bayard, Laura Lippman, Walter Mosley, and Scott Turow.  

Patti Abbott posted a roster of the latest attendees at the upcoming NoirCon in November and it's a doozy, with appearances by  Reed Farrell Coleman, Christa Faust, Dennis Tafoya, George Pelecanos,  Laura Lippman and many more. Meanwhile, Crimespree has a list of featured authors at Chicago's ComicCon starting this Thursday, and Janet Rudolph highlighted the mystery series writers who'll be in attendance at the Edinburgh Book Festival.

Peter Rozovsky over at Detectives Beyond Borders lists the finalists for the first Ngaio Marsh Award given for best crime novel by a New Zealand citizen or resident published in New Zealand. The nominees are Cut & Run by Alix Bosco, Burial by Neil Cross and Containment by Vanda Symon. The winner will be announced Sept. 10 at The Press Christchurch Writers’ Festival, and Rozovsky himself is one of the judges.

James Lincoln Warren posted info from the presentation he's given to writers' groups and conferences about short-story form and structure, with some nice graphical aids.

Laura Lippman's appearances to promote her latest novel I'd Know You Anywhere are going to be limited, but in honor of the book's publication, she's set up a contest where you can win a visit from her for your library. Just write an essay about your hometown library and why she should visit and send it along via e-mail (posted on her web site) by September 30, 2010.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) has joined the action thriller Drive, although his role has yet to be announced. The film is adapted from the James Sallis novel and will star Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stunt driver, moonlighting as a getaway driver for thieves who's in a race against time when he learns someone has put a price on his head.

Frances McDormand, who is producing the big-screen adaptation of Laura Lippman's novel Every Secret Thing, has signed Diane Lane to star as a detective investigating the mysterious disappearance of several children.

TV

The FOX drama The Good Guys is bringing on a new yet-to-be-cast female character as a potentially recurring crime scene investigator. The producers plan to introduce romantic entanglements, which have taken a back seat to the procedural aspects of the buddy cops. RonReaco Lee, who appeared in three episodes as criminal informant Julius, will also be getting a larger role.

Serinda Swan (Smallville) has been cast in the upcoming A&E drama series Breakout Kings, playing Erica Reed, an expert at finding people who don't want to be found and then killing them. A&E ordered 13 episodes of the show after FOX passed on the procedural drama.

ABC is going to adapt the hit British series Spooks  (a/k/a MI-5), which follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters in highly secure offices known as The Grid. They haven't decided yet if the cast/characters will be American or British.

The character of  Soledad Nye will be played by Mercedes Masohn, as the cast in the pilot of HBO's All Signs of Death is pretty much complete. She joins co-star Ben Whishaw as Webster Filmore, a slacker who ends up working as a crime scene cleaner. Rounding out the cast are Ron Yuan, Jeremy Ray Valdez, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, Kelsey Ford and Clayne Crawford. The show is based on Charlie Huston's novel The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, with Huston himself writing the screenplay.

The new BBC modern-day version of Sherlock Holmes is enough of a hit in the UK that it's coming back for a second season. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson, and pulled in over seven million viewers
for the season finale. 

AMC has picked up The Killing with a 13-episode order to debut sometime in 2011. It's set in Seattle and based on the popular Danish television series Forbrydelsen, telling the story of the murder of a young girl and the subsequent police investigation. Mireille Enos (Big Love) portrays the lead homicide detective who investigates the death of Rosie Larsen.

WEB/PODCASTING/RADIO

If you haven't been following NPR's Crime in the City series, you can check out the archived features on their web site. They've featured quite an outstanding array of some of the finest writers working in crime fiction, focusing on the cities where they set their books.

WHYY's Fresh Air program took a look at Scandinavian crime fiction, pointing out that Stieg Larsson is just the tip of the Nordic literary iceberg.

NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday spoke with Michael Capuzzo, author of The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases.

Tips and Tricks for Writers

ON WRITING

Most writing and publishing experts will say the same things over and over, such as "you need to treat your writing like a business." But how to do that? Agent Chip MacGregor offers some ideas.

As a follow-up, MacGregor also explains how he got started in the writing business and gives three writing tricks that he learned while making his living writing books.

Meanwhile, literary agent Rachelle Gardner says that writers need to compare themselves to Olympic athletes.

ON PUBLISHING

Jane Friedman of Writers Digest summarized a conference speech by Dennis Hensley about the 12 things that matter to agents and editors when being pitched by writers.

New York literary agent Noah Lukeman is giving away a free e-book compiled from all the "Ask a Literary Agent" questions and answers exchanged during the first year of his blog. You can also read the first 20 pages of his latest book, How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent.

Rachelle Gardner also has a compilation of the questions she's received lately about what to ask a literary agent when she comes calling offering representation.

ON MARKETING

Debut novelist Matt Stewart talks about "first novel karma," or, the lessons he learned about all the things he was doing wrong.

The anonymous publishing intern blogger has a new book of her own and has five thoughts on book promotion.

Pimp My Novel has a re-run post that's worth repeating about the 12 "easy" steps you can take to sell your book.

Another tidbit from Rachelle Gardner, always a fount of information for new writers, gives some reasons why it's good for pubbed authors to go to conferences.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Thriller writer Jeffery Deaver doled out some hints on his upcoming James Bond novel. "What I'm doing is taking the Bond character that Ian Fleming created – the complex, dark, somewhat cynical yet curiously optimistic and patriotic man who lived a very fast life yet was devoted to his mission – and updating him. Set in 2011, he will be around 30 years old…My books are cinematic and fast-paced. If you've seen the Daniel Craig
film version of Casino Royale – it moved very quickly with lots of twists, turns and surprises. In the same sense, I think it'll please everybody."

Film producer Elliott Kastner has died at the age of 80. He was known for getting authors and others to adapt novels into screenplays including Raymond Chandler classics (The Long Goodbye in 1973, Farewell My Lovely in 1975 and The Big Sleep in 1978) and Ross Macdonald (The Moving Target, 1966).

Director Brian Miller ("a huge fan of crime thrillers when I was a kid growing up") participated in a Q&A about his recent gritty cop film, Caught in the Crossfire, in which two detectives investigating a gang-related find themselves targeted by both gang members and crooked cops.

Jack Bender (Lost) is on the "short list of directors" to helm the Tom Clancy-created Jack Ryan franchise, with Chris Pine playing the character in a prequel story with Ryan before he joined the CIA. The film is scheduled to start shooting in February.

TV

The Investigation Discovery network has a new eight-part series for the fall titled "Hardcover Mysteries" featuring best-selling authors David Baldacci, Sandra Brown, Harlan Coben, Linda Fairstein, Sara Paretsky, Kathy Reichs, Lisa Scottoline and Joseph Wambaugh discussing the real-life cases that compelled their fascination and inspired their page-turners.

NPR Online looks at new network shows worth checking out, including The Defenders, "a light, peppery legal drama set in Las Vegas, starring Jim Belushi and Jerry O'Connell as criminal defense attorneys;" Lone Star featuring father-and-son con artists; Hawaii Five-O; The Undercovers; and a particularly enthusiastic thumbs up to the mid-season replacement Ride-Along (from The Shield's Shawn Ryan) about Chicago cops. Kate Atkinson's private detective Jackson Brodie character (to be played by Jason Isaacs) is coming to the BBC next year via a six-part series. (Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

On August 13, ABC's news magazine 20/20 will air a one-hour special about The Murder Room
and the Vidocq Society (based on the book The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases by Michael Capuzzo). ABC hopes to make the stories into a series. The pilot for a TV series based on Ken Bruen's fictional creation Jack Taylor is in the can and recently premiered in Ireland. Crime Watch has a trailer.

ScreenRant pinned down Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci at Comic-Con to talk about the remake of Hawaii Five-O debuting on CBS this fall. Kurtzman said "Hopefully what you’ll find with this show is that the spirit of the original is very much alive and well."

Jeff Goldblum is leaving Law & Order: Criminal Intent, although allegedly the split is amicable. USA Network hasn't yet decided whether or not to even renew the drama, although the decision may be made soon.

Sherry Stringfield (ER) will star in the new as-yet untitled Josh Berman/Lifetime drama pilot, playing San Diego police detective Molly Collins. Her character is a married mother of two on the verge of divorce who investigates the city's most high-profile crimes along with her partner Brooke Kross.

Oscar nominee Terrence Howard has joined the cast of the new NBC drama Law & Order: Los Angeles, portraying a district attorney, although he'll share the position with Alfred Molina (who plays Deputy District Attorney Morales), as they alternate episodes.

RADIO/PODCASTING

Carl Hiaasen appeared on the Today show to talk with Al Roker about Hiaasen's latest novel Star Island.

Best-selling authors Andrew Gross and Brett King appear on the next installment of Suspense Radio on August 10th.

The latest Thrilled to Death installment from NPR features attorney/novelist Richard North Patterson talking with NPR's Michele Norris about why a writer's career is less about talent and more about persistence, about how his writing has changed over the years, and he explains why it's great to surprise your readers, but a sin to surprise yourself.

On her 90th birthday, crime fiction author PD James spoke with Sarah Crown about the James' best-loved character, detective Adam Dalgliesh, her science fiction book, The Children of Men, and why she's worried about starting a new book.

Cities of Literature

UNESCO's City of Literature program was launched in 2004, to "promote the social, economic and cultural development of cities in both the developed and the developing world." To be approved as a City of Literature, candidates need to meet a number of criteria such as having literature, drama and poetry play an important role in the city. In late July, the fourth city to be so honored was announced as Dublin, Ireland, and I thought it would appropriate to list a few crime fiction authors who have contributed to helping make that city and the others so literary (with the year the city was named by UNESCO in parentheses):

Edinburgh, Scotland (2004)

• Lin Anderson
• David Ashton
• Simon R. Biggam
• Tony Black
• Tormod Caimbeul
• Penelope Evans
• Gillian Galbraith
• Gerald Hammond
• Jack Harvey
• Quintin Jardine
• Paul Johnston
• Alanna Knight 
• Frederic Lindsay
• Helen and Morna Mulgray
• Ian Rankin
• Candace M. Robb
• Sue Walker

Melbourne, Australia (2008)

• Lindy Cameron
• J.R. Carroll
• Melissa Chan
• Gary Disher
• Kerry Greenwood
• Carolyn Morwood
• Boyd Oxlade
• Shane Maloney
• Caroline Shaw
• Peter Temple
• June Wright

Iowa City, Iowa (2008)

• Carmelita Calderwood
• Max Allan Collins
• Elizabeth Hardwick
• John Sandford

Dublin, Ireland (2010)

• John Brady
• Ken Bruen
• Declan Burke
• Jane Casey
• Paul Carson
• John Connolly
• Conor Cregan
• Tana French
• Declan Hughes
• Stuart Neville

…and plenty more Dubliners, too many to reference here. Check out the Mystery Readers Journal site for more, as well as this site from writer Cormac Millar.

The e-Volution of Books

It seems that no one is writing about any aspect of publishing these days other then e-books. It's an important topic for sure, but one that's hard to keep up with, since it changes faster than the chameleon (named Fred) who lived in my apartment changed his colors. To help, here are a few of the latest developments:

There's been a lot of discussion about how e-books aren't environmentally-friendly, due to the toxic materials included in some models, the same argument given for computer and TV monitors. But Brian Palmer of the Washington Post argues that "As long as you consume a healthy number of titles, you read at a normal
pace and you don't trade in your gadget every year, perusing
electronically will lighten your environmental impact." 

Another controversy is the price of e-books, which has led to a pricing war of sorts in the industry—witness the latest salvo, an e-book price war in the UK spurred by Amazon's discounting. How are publishers to make money, then?  Ads in books as has been bandied about lately. Or perhaps, product placement in books is on the horizon. (I'm not sure which of the two is less appealing…)

There's been a lot of talk about the death of bookstores, too, and even big-box chain Barnes & Noble is up for sale. But are these stores doomed or merely evolving? Barnes & Noble recently reported a net loss but that included a 21 percent increase compared to the same period last year. The chain also announced new leaders for their digital business side, so you can sense where things are heading.

Several high profile authors are leaving traditional publishers behind in a cloud of whale dust. One such author is J.A. Konrath, who's been quite vocal in his disdain for the old model, experiencing booming sales via e-books (his most recent post says his Kindle sales outpace his iBook sales 2 to 1). The latest author announcement came from Seth Godin, who criticized the "antique and expensive distribution system" used by publishers to help "authors reach unknown readers."  He added that the the business race is on "to have the relationship with the reader"

Which e-reader to get? The Nook, Kindle, Sony, Kobo, iPad? (In case that's not confusing enough, here's a listing of the various offerings.) There are some who say that smart phones may end up being the real winners when it comes to the most-downloaded number of books. In case you want to try that out for yourself, this site lists some of the most popular apps for the iPhone, Android phones and others. Even libraries are getting into the act by lending e-book readers and offering smart phone titles, too. 

Does it have to be print or e? Agent Nathan Bransford and consultant Mike Shatzkin (here and here) both believe the two types of stores can co-exist peacefully, although the brick-and-mortar stores might look a lot different in the types of items they offer. 

Fortified Serials

Since detective fiction owes a great deal to the serialized format, it's nice to see the tradition continuing. Starting tomorrow, "Whodunit: A Canadian Crime Fiction Showcase" will feature stories from William Deverell, Maureen Jennings and Rick Mofina in an online blog over a five-day period or as a 3,000-word weekend read in Saturday editions of Sun Media newspapers in Canada. Online readers will also have the opportunity to "comment on the stories, authors, and provide their own take on Canadian crime writing." Look for it starting tomorrow, Monday, August 9th, with William Deverell's "The Bust" featuring his series character, trial lawyer Arthur Beauchamp.

Mystery Melange

Declan Burke reviews an anthology of essays edited by Maxim Jakubowski that discuss 20 of crime fiction's greatest investigators and the places where they live and work. Titled Following the Detectives, contributors include Barry Forshaw (Brighton, Edinburgh, Sweden and Venice), Sarah Weinman
(New York and Washington DC), Peter Rozovsky (Iceland), John Harvey (Nottingham), Oline Cogdill (Florida), J. Kingston Pierce (San Francisco), Martin Edwards (Shropshire), David Stuart Davies (London).

While I'm on the subject of global crime, International Noir Fiction looks at Case Closed, a "delightful and puzzling short novel" by Patrik Ourednik, in the English translation by Alex Zucker.  Also, Petrona has been arranging  book reviews by country for a summer series, most recently featuring Scotland.

Mike Ripley's latest Getting Away With Murder column for Shots Ezine is out with all his latest reviews and news, including Nazis on the moon.

The Murder Room by Michael Capuzzo is getting a lot of buzz. It profiles the real-life armchair crime fighting group, the Vidocq Society, and discusses some of the cases they've taken on and solved pro bono. Both USA Today and Shelf Awareness have interviews with Capuzzo.

The blog Philosophy of Science Portal provides the interesting background story behind the Charlie Chan series by Earl Derr Biggers and some of its lasting influence on pop culture.

Bad news:  the e-zine Thuglit is taking an "indefinite hiatus," after its five-year run. The good news:  there are new e-zines and anthology markets coming along all the time. Although not all are related to crime fiction, hopefully fans and writers of short fiction can take solace in looking for new outlets to feed their addiction.

Sexy Dublin Shorts

Maxim Jakubowsk, former publisher and owner of the Murder One bookshop in London's Charing Cross Road, is releasing a series of four erotic fiction anthologies published at two-month intervals, featuring London, Paris, New York and Dublin as settings. The Dublin edition has a strong crime fiction undercurrent and is set for release in mid-September. It includes stories by Gerard Brennan, Ken Bruen, Colin Bateman, Sean Black, Stella Duffy and more. Brennan is on a roll, editing the recent Requiems for the Departed anthology, and he also just posted on his Crime Scene NI blog that he has a story in the upcoming Best British Crime anthology, volume 8 (for which Jakubowki is also serving as editor). Past volumes in that series have featured such notables as Colin Bateman, Christopher Brookmyre, Ken Bruen, David Hewson, Peter Lovesey, Ian Rankin, Stuart McBride, Anne Perry, Alexander McCall Smith and Andrew Taylor. Look for it around April in 2011.

Last Chance for Summer Festivals

 

Summers always speed along way too quickly, but here we are in August already, the days getting gradually shorter and even the sounds of crickets fading one by one. At least there's still the occasional firefly, although I fear those poor desperately-hovering fellows may have missed their chance. Fortunately, fans of crime fiction still have a chance to catch some nifty conferences and festivals coming up this month. Take a look:

August 13-14, 2010
St. Hilda's Crime & Mystery Weekend
Oxford, England
Guest of Honour is Simon Brett; Conference Chair is Andrew Taylor; Colin Dexter featured speaker; other authors include Ann Cleeves, Natasha Cooper, Kate Ellis, Penelope Evans, Anthea Fraser, Sophie Hannah, David Hewson, Joanna Hines, Gillian Linscott (aka Caro Peacock), Peter Lovesey and Anne Perry. There will also be a Tribute to PD James to honour her 90th birthday on Saturday.

August 14, 2010
Scene of the Crime Mystery Writing Festival
Wolfe Island, Ontario, Canada
Special Guests: Michael Blair, Vicki Delany, Susanna Kearsley, James W. Nichol, and Grant Allen Award honoree Gail Bowen.

August 14-30, 2010
Edinburgh International Book Festival
Edinburgh, Scotland
Crime-related literary events include talks, panels and workshops led by Tess Gerritsen, Lin Anderson, Aline Templeton, Caroline Dunford, Reggie Nadelson, Ian Rankin, Reginald Hill, Denise Hill, Declan Hughes, Jasper Fforde, Alexander McCall Smith and many more.

August 20-22, 2010
Killer Nashville
Nashville, TN
Guest of Honor: Jeffery Deaver, with many other authors, publishers, editors, agents and forensics experts, as well as 40 panels and discussions.

New Releases in August

New titles aplenty coming up in March from the likes of  Gail Bowen and her 12th Joanne Kilbourn novel; Bill Crider's 17th Dan Rhodes; Lindsey Davis and the 20th Didius Falco installment; Carole Nelson Douglas and the 26th Midnight Louie; Faye Fellerman's 19th Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus novel; Sara Paretsky's 15h Warshawski; and Steven White's 18th Alan Gregory, as well as plenty more standalones, series and debuts. The links below have lists and details.

Here are some lists of books to look for:

Bloodstained Bookshelf

Books N Bytes

Cozy Mysteries

Fantastic Fiction

Murder, Mystery and Mayhem

Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore

Powells Books

San Diego's Mystery Books

Stop, You're Killing Me