‘Zine Scene

Mystery Readers Journal is out with its Fall 2010 issue, featuring Island Mysteries. Michael Gora takes us on an overview tour, and Gay Toltl Kinman offers up "The Island Mystery Primer." There are also various essays and updates from writers on their own island-based works or those of others, as well as review and true-crime columns. Articles accessible online include "The Bleak and Beautiful Islands" (Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear) by Ann Cleeves; "Islands in the Stream of Consciousness" (St. Michel Loubejou, France) by Peter May; and "My Mykonos" by Jeffrey Siger. With the weather already turning nasty and dumping several feet of snow in the midwest and the Rockies, we could all probably use a little literary vacation.

Mystery Scene's Holiday Issue #117 is now available, with author Dennis Lehane discdussing the much-anticipated return of Boston PIs Angie Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie in Moonlight Mile. Tasha Alexander also talks about her new novel Dangerous to Know and her Victorian heroine Lady Emily, a woman truly before her time. There's also a look at Stuart Neville's tough, morally complex Irish thrillers The Ghosts of Belfast and Collusion.  Author Carolyn Hart discusses the solace that good books can provide in hard times, and Lawrence Block remembers the colorful bank-robber-turned-crime-writer Albert Nussbaum. If you need gift ideas, you can check out the annual Mystery Scene Gift Guide.