The Criminal Element

Macmillan has relaunched its Criminal Element newsletter as a web site, CriminalElement.com, with original crime stories, pre-release excerpts from Macmillan author books and blogs by the likes of Charles Adai, Bill Crider, Joseph Finder, Terrie Farley Moran and more. Recent essays include an inside look (literally) at research by Finder, a look back at Robert Park and Spenser by Jake Hinkson (part of a Hall of Famer series), and today's topic by Amy Dalton reviews John Burdett's Bangkok mysteries featuring Thailand cop Sonchai Jitpleecheep.

Book Signing Roundup for May

Here are some of the upcoming signings (for those who still love print books) and events coming up in May where you can still see some of your favorite writers in person, including Jo Nesbø, all the way from Norway, and a couple of relatively rare Lawrence Block appearances:

Aunt Agatha's, Ann Arbor, MI:  Julia Spencer-Fleming, Brian Freeman, Craig McDonald, John Billheimer, Rosemary Harris, Casey Daniels

Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA:  Lisa Lutz and David Hayward, Jo Nesbø, David Corbett

Centuries and Sleuths, Forest Park, IL:  Tony Hays, Dr. Franklin Saksena, M.D., Richard Lindberg, Erik Larson

M is for Mystery, San Mateo, CA:  Nina Revoyr, Thomas Perry, Arthur Phillips, Gordon W. Dale, Geraldine Brooks, Lawrence Block, Avery Aames, Jo Nesbø

Murder by the Book, Houston, TX:  Mary Higgins Clark & Carol Higgins Clark, Dean James (aka Miranda James), Julia Spencer-Fleming, Jane Cleland, Sarah Cortez, Diana López, and Gwendolyn Zepeda, Janice Hamrick, Christopher Farnsworth, Charlaine Harris, J.A. Adams, George Arnold, Brenda Gaudet, Laura Griffin, Ken Squier, Nicole Peeler & Jaye Wells, Jeff Guinn, Michael Robertson, Justin Cronin, Robin Allen, Rachel Caine, Steve Berry, Bill Loehfelm, Doug McCall & Connie Knight, Lara Chapman, Jordan Dane, Tracy Deebs, and Sophie Jordan

Murder on the Beach, Delray Beach, FL: Elaine Viets, Jane Cleland

Mysterious Bookshop, New York City:  Cara Black, Jan Merete Weiss

Mystery Lovers Bookshop, Oakmond, PA:  Festival of Mystery (May 2), with other 50 authors; Stuart Woods, authors with stories in Pittsburgh Noir

Once Upon a Crime Books, Minneapolis, MN:  Jess Lourey, Victoria Houston, Jessie Chandler, Lance Zarimba

One More Page, Falls Church, VA:   Alan Orloff, Austin Camacho, Frederick Reuss

Poisoned Pen, Scottsdale, AZ:   Julia Spencer-Fleming, Avery Aames, Beth Kendrick and Kate Carlisle, C.M. Wendelboe,  Larry Correia, Jane Cleland, Rosemary Harris, Carolyn G Hart, Earlene Fowler, Aaron Elkins, Thomas Perry, Christopher Farnsworth, Jonathan  Hayes, Lynda  Hammond, Steve Berry, Jeff Guinn, authors of storie in San Diego Noir, Joseph Badal, John Scalzi

Politics and Prose, Washington, DC:   Lauren Myracle

Seattle Mystery Bookshop, Seattle, WA:  Aaron Elkins, Bethany Maines, Jonathan Hayes, Jo Nesbø

Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena, CA:  Lawrence Block, Earlene Fowler, Thomas Perry

Mystery Melange – Awards and Festivals Edition

Awards Season is upon us again. The Australian Crime Writers announced the Ned Kelly Award longlists for Best Novel, Best First Novel and Best True Crime book. Janet Rudolph has those lists posted on her Mystery Fanfare blog.

The Audio Publishers Association has also posted the nominations for the Audie Awards, given to various categories for excellence in audio books. The APA site has a PDF file of all nominees, but hop on over to Omnimystery News for a quick look at the Mystery and Thriller/Suspense categories.

As Jeff Pierce reminds us at the Rap Sheet blog, time is running out to mark your ballot for the Anthony Awards, if you're going to Bouchercon this year (you should also have received a ballot if you attended last year's conference). But hurry—they need to be postmarked by this Saturday, April 30th.

The nomination period is now open for the Macavity Awards, given by Mystery Readers International, with nods for best novel, first novel, bio/critical, historical mystery and short story. You need to be a member to nominate, and Janet has more details about that on the subscription page (which includes the Mystery Readers Journal).

The Bloody Words mystery conference is sponsoring a brand new prize for Canadian writers, the Bloody Words Light Mystery Award, to be presented at the 2012 conference for a book that "makes us smile." The debut award is open for nominations for books published in 2011.

The Crime Writers of Canada present their Arthur Ellis Award nominations at the annual Coastal Crime Wave evening this Thursday, April 28th, in simulaneous cities including Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Picton, Ottawa and Pointe-Claire. You can also meet with Canadian crime fiction authors at each of the venues. For the schedule, check the CWC web site link.

Rosebud magazine's biennial Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award for Imaginative Fiction is accepting submisions. It's a contest for short original works in the fantasy, horror, mystery or sci-fi genres, with stories 4,000 words or under. You have until September 1st, 2011, to send in an entry.

We're also springing into peak mystery conference and festival season, with Malice Domestic 23 opening this weekend. Featured authors include Guest of Honor Carole Nelson Douglas, Toastmaster Donna Andrews and Lifetime Achievement Award winner Sue Grafton. Also honored are Janet Rudolph and Anne Murphy, and the Agatha Awards will be presented. 

The Festival of Mystery, presented by the Mystery Lovers Bookshop, swings into Oakmont, Pennsylvania, on Monday May 2nd, beginning at 4 p.m. The annual event follows on the heels of Malice Domestic and will feature over 50 authors available for fan interviews, signings, raffles and a bag o'books (while supplies last).

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Jason Statham (Italian Job, The Transporter), is in talks to play the hardboiled professional thief Parker created by author Richard Stark (a/k/a Donald Westlake). The script is being adapted by John J. McLaughlin, who was co-writer for Black Swan.

Director Oliver Stone has added John Travolta and Uma Thurman (both of Pulp Fiction fame) to the cast of Savages, the film based on Don Winslow's novel. Travola will play Dennis, a burned-out DEA agent, and Thurman will play the mother of the young woman known as "O."

TV

The Killing (the original European version), starring Sofie Grabol as Nordic-sweater-wearing Copenhagen police detective Sarah Lund, has been nominated for the audience award at this year's Bafta ceremony. The American version, currently airing on AMC on Sunday nights, has been well-reviewed and is holding steady in the ratings.

The debut of Vera, the police procedural based on the Vera Stanhope novels by Gold Dagger-winning author Ann Cleeves, is scheduled for May 1st in the UK on ITV1. No word yet on any U.S. or Canadian future broadcasts for the series.

CBS cancelled the low-rated spy comedy Chaos after only three episodes. Because of the newly-opened hole in the schedule, the network is moving up the U.S. premiere of the hit Canadian police procedural Flashpoint to May 6th at 8 p.m.

Will we see Peter Lovesey's series with detective Peter Diamond, set in Bath in the U.K., on the small screen some time soon? Talks are only in the very earliest stages, but the Bath Marketing group Future Bath Plus has taken out an option on the series, and is working with Bath-based director Giles Foster (Foyle's War and The Four Seasons). (Hat tip to Janet Rudolph.)

The CBS police procedural Blue Bloods starring Tom Selleck is going through a shake-up. Creators and executive producers Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green are leaving the show, allegedly because CBS wants to make the show more of a procedural and less character-driven.

This Thursday's episode of Bones, Geoff Stults guest stars as Walter Sherman, a character from The Locator novels by Richard Greener, which follow a Vietnam veteran with an uncanny knack to locate people or things anywhere. Stults/Sherman are being spun off into a pilot for a new series called Finder.

Fans of the police procedural The Glades (about a homicide detective transplanted from Chicago to Florida after being forced into exile due to a bum rap) take heart: A&E has set Sunday, June 5th, as the premiere date for Season 2.

Share this:

Give Peeps a Chance

The fifth annual Washington Post Peeps Show was filled with the usual creative and hilarious dioramas featuring everyone's favorite mysterious (mostly) yellow candy. Although the winning entry of the "Chilean CoPeepapo Mine Rescue" is quite good, I have to admit a fondness for the finalist titled "TSA Agents Get a Peep Show":

And if you can't get enough of Peeps-omania, take a look behind the science of Peeps and learn why the hubster said they should make spacecraft out of Peeps' eyes.

More Melange

Editor David Cranmer has announced that submissions will be opening up again at Beat to a Pulp beginning May 1st and will remain open for one month, with accepted stories filling the August and September slots. What is he looking for?  "Tales that will grab my attention in a jiffy will be a female protagonist searching for buried treasure, a General Tom Thumb style character who is an amateur sleuth, western noir or 21st century cowboy, giants, a condemned wizard and sexy witches, science fiction, a Biblical related detective story, a boat trapped in the Bermuda Triangle, massive human-eating ticks, literary, a necromancer, a caveman cozy mystery. And, of course, just well-written stories." (In other words, throw your story clichés out the window.)

In a post last week, I featured the new release of crime poetry, The Lineup 4. Editor Gerald So announced an evening of readings from that anthology on May 1st at the Cornelia Street Cafe in New York City. Contributors Jeanne Dickey and Caitlin Elizabeth Thomson will join So's co-editors Reed Farrel Coleman and Richie Narvaez in reading selections.

Torbay is expanding its Agatha Christie festival to include two separate events by 2012 or 2013. Although details are still being worked out, one of the two will be the annual birthday festival in September. The other will be an additional celebration in May in partnership with Harper Collins, ITV and The Mousetrap.

If you're headed for Bouchercon, 2011 organizer Jon Jordan has some handy tips in his "Bouchercon Survival Guide" over at the Sisters in Crime blog.

Mystery Melange

 

Due to a busy week, I thought I'd point you to a trio of crime fiction-related roundups:

Shots Magazine starts with news from the London season book fair and also includes awards, publishing contracts, movie news and more.

The Rap Sheet's tax-day edition of Bullet Points includes film scores, TV news and even a note that Brian Lindenmuth is bringing back his series, "Conversations with the Bookless" for Spinetingler.

Big Beat From Badsville, the blog for Scottish crime fiction, presented its weekly Sunday Roundup with video and reviews.

And one additional piece of publishing news: Hard Case Crime is bringing out a never-before-published novel, titled The Comedy is Finished, by the late, great Donald E. Westlake.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Willem Dafoe is in negotiations to star in the film adaptation of the  paranormal crime thriller Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. Dafoe would play Sheriff Wyatt Porter, a man who helps a clairvoyant short order cook (Anton Yelchin) prevent crimes. The film is being directed by Stephen Sommers, who also wrote the script.

Roman Polanski is preparing to take on a film version of the true-crime Eastern European murder mystery A Murder Foretold, from an article in the The New Yorker by David Grann about a series of high-level murders in Guatemala.The film rights caused a bidding war among four studios, but Paramount and Indian Paintbrush were the winners.

TV

Actress A.J. Cook left the hit CBS drama Criminal Minds last season after her contract wasn't renewed, a move controversial among fans of the show. Now it looks like she's making a return to the series as a regular next year. Paget Brewster, who left the show after having her role dimished this season, could also return as a regular.

The USA Network announced the return date for Burn Notice, with season five set to begin June 23. It will be followed on that date by the debut of the new series Suits, about a brilliant  but unmotivated college dropout (Patrick J. Adams) who's recruited by one of Manhattan's top corporate lawyers (Gabriel Macht). As previously announced, White Collar and Covert Affairs will both return on June 7.

Syfy also announced their summer schedule, with Eureka and Warehouse 13 returning with new episodes on July 11. Haven returns for its second season on July 15, and the new series Alphas debuts on July 11. Alphas follows a team of ordinary citizens with extraordinary abilities who investigate cases the CIA, FBI and Pentagon haven't been able or willing to solve.

Julia Ormond will guest star in the final season of USA's Law & Order: Criminal Intent, playing Dr. Paula Severin, "a brilliant psychologist charged with conducting mandatory sessions with Detective Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) to unravel his tortured past and chart a course for mental stability for our star detective." The series returns for its 10th season May 1st.

Catch the  four-minute clip of Showtime's upcoming new psychological thriller series, Homeland. Claire Danes stars as a CIA officer who discovers a rescue of a U.S. soldier (Damian Lewis) years before may not have been all that it seemed.

PODCASTS

You can catch Ian Rankin on The bat segundo show talking about his writing and how "readers are much more sussed than they used to be. I mean, they're watching cop shows on TV — whether it's reality shows or dramas."

Crime fiction author Lisa Lutz and poet David Hayward, formerly in a romantic partnership, discuss why they decided to reunite to collaborate on a new crime novel called Heads You Lose. NPR Weekend Edition host Scott Simon talks with the authors, who also created a kind of parallel book within their novel by sharing the e-mail exchanges between the two of them as they wrote.

On May 4 Val McDermid will be featured on the BBC World Book Club, so mark your calendars now.

THEATER

May 6 – June 19 at the Kreeger Theater in New York, is the world premiere and first stage adaptation of A Time to Kill, based on a novel by John Grisham. It was adapted for the stage by Tony Award winner Rupert Holmes (The Mystery of Edwin Drood) and depicts a Mississippi town's upheaval when a man takes the law into his own hands following an unspeakable crime committed against his daughter.

GAMES

Gamers eagerly awaiting the release of LA Noire for XBox can view a TV preview spot. The game promises "an unprecedented playing experience," as players are tasked with solving a string of brutal murders in a "perfectly emulated 1947 Los Angeles."

The Lineup - So Dark For April

When most people think of poetry, they probably call up images of love sonnets, lonely clouds or maybe the shores of Gitchie Gumee. Crime, blood, gore, death, revenge? Not so much. Then what in the world is going on with the new poetry anthology The Lineup 4: Poems on Crime?

Editor Gerald So explains that "We hope this encourages poets and writers who discover—as I have—there are some moments, some images, poetry captures much better than prose." Even when those moments and images are down these mean streets where a man must go (Raymond Chandler) because the blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it (Sylvia Plath).

After reading The Lineup, I can't possibly pick a favorite from the lot, because I've always been fond of both apples and oranges. But, being surrounded by daily news reports of war and unrest and a seemingly never-ending casualty-count coming out of Afghanistan, I was naturally struck by a contribution from Reed Farrel Coleman (who also served as a co-editor and wrote the introduction to the anthology). Titled "Slider, Part 7," it was inspired by the Babi Yar massacre outside Kiev during World War II. An excerpt goes thusly:

None prayed that he could hear.
Mostly they were silent.
Then the
pop pop pop pop pop
of the Lugers and Walthers
and with each bullet
the metal metamorphosis of human beings
into falling lumps of meat.
Then the quicklime
the dirt
more bullets
more bodies
more quicklime.
Layers and layers
like a trifle.

There are many more compact gems included in the anthology: "a mother / shakes on scabbed knees for her son / thrown in a river" (Kieran Shea); "as if the world were on the wagon / and we were practicing / a sober walk test for cops / who were bored" (Thomas Michael McDade); "Blood spreads, pools, shimmers, / Like taillights in the rain" (Steve Weddle). Plenty of powerful images, powerful words, words painting landscapes from nightmares we live, dream and remember. Check them out for yourself, and also read the entries in the other lineup, the month-long blog tour Gerald So arranged to celebrate the book's publication.

Here's an idea: today is Poem in Your Pocket Day, part of National Poetry Month. You can purchase a download of the eBook version of Lineup4 and print out your favorite poem to carry around in your pocket. Share it with a co-worker, a friend, a family member or that guy in rumpled clothes who's always sitting on the park bench giving the squirrels the evil eye. But don't be surprised if he starts quoting poetry back at you, poems he's memorized or maybe poems from his experiences. Because human nature hasn't changed all that much since 400 BCE when Plato wrote "Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history," knowing that every life becomes a poem in its own way.
 
And if the book inspires you, as it surely must, consider contributing your own offering to the next volume, accepting submissions through July 31st.

Some Timely E-Vents

Before jumping on the author eWagon, keep in mind that piracy, fraud and just plain greed are obstacles you may have to navigate around. For instance, one self-published author posted recently how her book ended up on both Amazon U.S. and Amazon U.K., all well and good—except for the fact that someone else had uploaded the book pretending to be her, hoping to reap the profits. When the real author tried to get the situation remedied and upload her sequel, she was told she wasn't the real author.

Lee Goldberg (author of the Monk tie-in books), also noted that Kobo had automatically decreased the price on his eBooks via Smashwords without his knowledge or approval, leading to a potential loss of thousands of dollars in sales. All because he hadn't opted out of distribution to that vendor.

While we're on the eSubject (yes, I know that construct is getting old), Publishers Weekly has a report from the 2011 London Book Fair about the opening seminar, "Publishers in the digital age will be irrelevant."  Panelists offered both a spirited defense of the publishing world's achievements and a warning that "publishers today lack imagination and have been too quick to cede the next generation to other companies."

Meanwhile, literary agent Rachelle Gardner tried to answer the question of "What will the role of agents be in the future of publishing?", and concluded that agents and traditional publishing are still going to be around for a while, although their roles will be changing. Some agencies will function as consultants for authors pursuing self-publishing by arranging editing, design, digital formatting, printing, etc. Others are looking at functioning more like publishers themselves.

It is indeed a Brave New World (ironically, one of the Top 10 Banned Books in the U.S. in 2010).

IMBA Bestsellers

This month's listing of bestsellers from member bookstores belonging to the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association is from "M" is for Mystery:   
 
Hardcover

1. ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING by Jasper Fforde – Viking 
2. LESSON IN SECRETS by Jacqueline Winspear – William Morrow 
3. WHEN THE THRILL IS GONE by Walter Mosley – Riverhead Books 
4. WHEN THE KILLING'S DONE by T. C. Boyle – Viking  
5. MURDER IN PASSY by Cara Black – Soho Crime
6. The INFORMATIONIST by Taylor Stevens – Crown  
7. NIGHT VISION by Randy Wayne White – Putnam 
8. STARTED EARLY TOOK MY DOG by Kate Atkinson – Reagan Arthur Books  
9. WISE MAN'S FEAR by Patrick Rothfuss – Daw Books  
10. PARIS WIFE by Paula McLain – Ballantine Books

Trade Paperback

1. SHADES OF GREY by Jasper Fforde – Penguin  
2. MURDER IN THE MARAIS by Cara Black – Soho Crime
3. DONALD by Eric Martin – McSweeney's
4. VIENNA WALTZ by Teresa Grant – Kensington
5. MAPPING OF LOVE & DEATH by Jacqueline Winspear – Harper Perennial  
6. AFTERTIME by Sophie Littlefield – Luna Books  
7. MURDER IN THE PALAIS ROYAL by Cara Black – Soho Crime
8. DREADFULLY EVER AFTER by Steve Hockensmith – Quirk
9. MAISIE DOBBS by Jacqueline Winspear – Penguin Books
10. CHARLES JESSOLD CONSIDERED AS A MURDERER by Wesley Stace  

Mass Market

1. UNDER WRAPS by Jayne Hannah – Kensington  
2. HOW TO SURVIVE A KILLER SEANCE by Penny Warner – Obsidian  
3. FORMULA FOR MURDER by Diana Orgain – Berkley  
4. ONCE A SPY by Keith Thomson – Anchor Books  
5. LAST ILLUSION by Rhys Bowen – Minotaur  
6. KISS ME KILL ME by Allison Brennan – Ballantine 
7. The EXECUTOR by Jesse Kellerman – Jove Books  
8. HOW TO CRASH A KILLER BASH by Penny Warner – Obsidian  
9. CHANGES by Jim Butcher – Roc  
10. GREAT DELIVERANCE by Elizabeth George 

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Tim Roth, the star of the Fox series Lie to Me, has joined the cast of Arbitrage playing Michael Gower, a detective investigating a murder. Roth joins already-signed cast members Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon and director Nicholas Jarecki in the story of a troubled hedge fund magnate, desperate to sell his trading empire, who winds up heading down a dangerous trail.

The TV series Justified, based on characters by author Elmore Leonard, is doing quite well on the FX Network, which prompted Leonard to talk about his hopes for movie adaptations of some of his other works. He's apparently in talks with Morgan Freeman to star in Djibouti and says Freeman wants Sandra Bullock on board. He's also trying to persuade George Clooney to reprise his role as bank-robber Jack Foley in a sequel to the 1998 hit film Out Of Sight.

TV

NBCUniversal is changing the name of its crime and mystery cable channel from Sleuth to Cloo later this spring. Sleuth/Cloo broadcasts movies and repeats of series like NCIS, JAG, House, Monk, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Walker: Texas Ranger.

DCI Banks, the ITV1 drama starring Stephen Tompkinson and Andrea Lowe and based on the best-selling novels by international crime writer Peter Robinson, will return for its second season this fall in the UK. The cast is currently filming six new hour-long episodes, three different stories played out over two episodes.

The psychological thriller Homeland, starring Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, has been given a 12-episode order by Showtime. It follows a CIA officer (Danes) battling her own demons while convinced the intelligence that led to the rescue of a U.S. soldier (Lewis) was a setup.

Mary McDonnell, of Battlestar Galactica fame, is returning for the seventh season of The Closer, but this time she'll be a regular in her role as Captain Sharon Raydor. The season premieres in July and is lead actress Kyra Sedgwick's last with the show, leading to speculation McDonnell will take over in either a continuance of that series or in the upcoming spin-off titled Major Crimes.

The fall 2010 debut police procedural Chase, about a group of U.S. Marshals based in Texas, was bounced off NBC primetime in February due to low ratings, but the Peacock is going to broadcast the remaining episodes over a five-week period beginning Saturday, April 23.

PODCASTS/RADIO

Mother/daughter writer duo Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark, appeared on NBC's Today Show last week talking about their new books I'll Walk Alone and Mobbed.

Michael Connelly joined Tavis Smiley on his PBS show to discuss The Lincoln Lawyer and The Fifth Witness and why he fictionalizes real world events in his writing.

Lots of Library Love

Today marks the beginning of National Library Week in the U.S., a time to reflect on and celebrate the importance of libraries in local communities. The ALA is sponsoring some fun contests to mark the event, including a twaiku competition via Twitter. Twaiku use the same basic structure of three lines with 5-7-5 syllables, but within the Twitter-limited 140 characters (or 130 with the #nlwtwaiku hashtag). Teens ages 13-18 can also enter the Why I Need My Library video contest for a chance to win $3,000 for their library.

Check out John Grisham's homage to libraries and then head on out to your nearest branch and check out a book or two.

 

Mystery Melange

Mysterical-E's spring issue is out, with stories by Patti Abbott, Bill Bernico, Larry and Rosemary Mild, Elizbeth Zelvin and more. Also, Gerald So talks about the series NCIS in his regular TV/Film column, Jan Christenson looks into book marginalia and Chris Verstraete profiles some of the new books flowering in the market this spring.

Ruth Jordan, a longtime supporter of crime fiction and one of the editors of Crimespree Magazine (along with Jon Jordan), is featured on J.A. Konrath's blog, seeking to turn the tragedy of over 200 Borders stores closing into an opportunity.

If all the recent talk of wars (of one kind or another) and budget shutdowns is leaving you feeling stressed, check out Mystery Scene Magazine's list of "Books to make you smile, giggle, chuckle, laugh, smirk, and howl."

Goldsboro Books is hosting the first of what they hope will become an annual event in the UK, Crime in the Court, on June 21st to coincide with Independent Booksellers Week. Among the many authors scheduled to attend are S. J. Bolton, Christopher Fowler, David Hewson, Erin Kelly, Philip Kerr and more.

The Rap Sheet is sponsoring a contest to win one of two sets of four standalone novels by Ross Mcdonald, the creator of legendary fictional P.I., Lew Archer. You have until midnight on Monday, April 11th to enter. While you're at it, vote in the Rap Sheet's poll, "Which was Ross Macdonald's best Lew Archer novel?"

While we're on the subject of polls, the voting period for the annual Spinetingler Magazine Awards is underway, with categories for best novels, anthology, short stories graphic novel, covers and a community award. The Los Angeles Times is asking readers to vote for your favorite LA fiction (here and here) and nonfiction books, with offerings including Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy, Walter Mosley and Sue Grafton. And the final round of Jen Forbus' World's Favorite Amateur Sleuth match-up has come down to the last two choices; voting continues through Friday, April 8th.

NPR takes a look at the future of libraries, which has become a topic of particular interest in this day of eBooks and the recent announcement by HarperCollins Publishing Co. of its new policy limiting the number of times its e-books can be borrowed.

The Top Suspense Group, a formidable gang of several best-selling authors, has banded together to create the first-ever Top Suspense Anthology, with one story written by each member and an original round-robin story, to boot.

Do you fancy yourself a cryptologist? If so, the FBI needs your help.

Researching The Beloved Dead

Tony Hays is the author of an historical series based on the Arthurian legends and featuring Malgwyn ap Cuneglas, a hardened soldier who lost his sword arm fighting alongside Arthur in battle against the Saxons in the mid-5th century AD.

Tony's background doesn't seem likely fodder for such a series: raised on a Tennessee farm; spending time first as a university administrator and then serving on the State Department-sponsored Overseas Security Advisory Council; even sailing on board the USS Tortuga to the Horn of Africa during its 2002-2003 deployment in preparation for the War with Iraq as an unofficial Arab linguist.

But one of Tony's passions has always been writing, which encouraged him to get an MA degree in English/Creative Writing at Texas A&M University at Commerce in 1991 and turn his hand to another passion, historical mysteries. The first two volumes in his Dark Ages series received starred reviews from Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly, and Deadly Pleasures magazine named The Divine Sacrifice one of the best new mysteries of 2010.

In the just-released third installment of the series, The Beloved Dead, Tony merges a suspenseful serial killer story line with a detailed recreation of fifth-century Britain, as Arthur sends his chief advisor Malgwyn to fetch the bride-to-be for Arthur's politically-expedient marriage. Along the way, Malgwyn gets caught up in the search for a savage murderer, who sexually abuses young girls before slitting their throats. The investigator has to wonder whether the killings, which reawaken painful memories from his own past, are aimed at destabilizing Arthur's authority. Arthur's love for Malgwyn's cousin, Guinevere, only exacerbates tension between Malgwyn and the legendary king.

As a new feature of In Reference to Murder, I'll be asking authors about their approach to research while writing their novels, be it through job shadowing, burrowing into library stacks, going online, interviews, news reports, or whatever other techniques and methods they use in getting the details just right. Or whether too much research and overplanning can be deadly to a manuscript.  Since he is a writer of historical fiction, it seemed particularly fitting to ask Tony about his thoughts on research, especially while he's on a blog tour to promote The Beloved Dead.

Tony Hays:

When is too much too much?

I've in been in the historical mystery genre, for a long times it seems. But the kind of research I do isn't really the kind most scholars do. I am a novelist, an historical novelist, and that puts some pretty tough restrictions on us.

Too much, and you're pedantic. Too little and you're not taken seriously. Over the course of my writing career I have often studied that fine line between two much and two little research writing. The easy answer is to have some sort research meter that sets off an alarm. Or I have an inner gauge.

The real answer?

I have no answer. There is no cut-and-dried method for striking the right balance.  It's completely a gut call. Sometimes we're right. Sometimes we're wrong.

In my book,The Killing Way, I think I edge toward too much historical detail. But the Dark Ages is a time that we know little about. So, every detail I could drag from the historical record, and every archaeological discovery, I used, with as soft a touch as I could, brought the time to me. But by the time of The Beloved Dead, my newest entry in the century, I believe that I'm developing a seventh sense, a little twitch in my eye that says , "hold on. Do I really need that there?"

I vote for straightforward description, not a page on how a toga looked or a page on how a dress hung over a Celtic princess. If you spend more time describing how the Celtic princess looked, the nobility in the slope of her neck, you'll be in better shape, than if you had spent a week in the library studying Celtic fabrics and dying methods. Because you will have drawn the reader's attention to the character, not the trappings.

Undoubtedly, trappings and the proper geography and weapons are important. But it will be our characters that act upon that historical setting. So, as much as you research about the landscape and those "trappings," you need to know how common people lived, and breathed, and thought. Fiction, historical or otherwise, is predominantly about the people on that landscape. You can see it is about a city as in Rutherfurd's London or Sarum, but in the end you have to have people to make them special.

I'm not certain that I have enlightened you at all. The post was supposed to deal with when is too much too much. The bottom line is that writers have to make those choices for themselves, but it is an evolving process. You won't get it right, necessarily the first, second or third time out, but you will grow as an author and ultimately make better decisions.

Now that was the historical part.  Research for a mystery is a different kettle of fish.  I'm not sure you can know too much. You certainly might not use all of it in your writing, but you need to know it, because it might form a hole in the logic of your solution. The solution may rest on a particular cut to a rare gem. Perhaps such a gem can only sustain two types of cut, you think. But in your research you find that on very special occasions, it can sustain a third type of cut. And that may make all the difference.

A mystery is about hiding things.  The more you know, the more you can manipulate those things to make the mystery edgy, tense, satisfying.

Research is an odd creature, sometimes with a life of its own.  But it is a creature, nonetheless, one that mystery writers of all walks must learn how to utilize.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Daniel Silva's books about Gabriel Allon, a former Israeli intelligence operative turned art restorer, are coming to the big screen, courtsey of Universal Pictures and producer Jeff Zucker. Although the studio isn't sure which book the first film will be based upon, Universal has picked up rights to all past and future books in the series.

Author Bret Easton Ellis, whose books including American Psycho have been adapted into films in the past, is writing an original screenplay for a thriller titled Bait, about a disturbed woman who holds a group of American students hostage in shark-infested waters.

Universal Pictures is producing a supernatural crime thriller trilogy, The Death Walks the Streets, to be released in 2013. The three films follow a group of three friends working "for an organized crime figure torn between morality and monstrosity, in a world where horror is commonplace." Although the screenplays have been written and all three will be shot simultaneously, no director has been chosen.

Writer-director Sheldon Turner's By Virtue Fall has lined up actors Eric Bana, James Spader, Carla Gugino, Ryan Phillippe, Treat Williams and Kim Coates. The plot revolves around a pair of ATF agents who end up enemies after one frames the other for a crime.

Actor John Travolta will portray mobster John Gotti Sr. in the film Gotti: Three Generations. The film centers on the relationship between John Gotti Sr., the head of the Gambino crime family who died in prison in 2002, and his son John Gotti Jr. who took over the family business.

If you just can't get enough of Arnold Schwarzenegger, then you're in luck: the ex-California governor will star in the Governator cartoon by comicbook legend Stan Lee and Andy and Amy Heyward of A Squared Entertainment. Following that, Schwarzenegger says there will be  a cartoon TV series, then games and finally a movie. He did say that he'd be back…

TV

Author Louise Penny announced in her April newsletter she's signed a contract to bring the first two books in her series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec as made-for-TV films. Not much in the way of details yet, other than she will be an executive producer for the films, and they will be filmed in Quebec. (Hat tip to Murder by the Book.)

The movie Transporter is going to be made into a 12-episode TV action drama on Cinemax, following the same character of professional transporter Frank Martin, who navigates a seedy underworld of criminals.

FX Networks renewed both Justified and Archer for a third season. Justified is the series based on the US Marshal Raylan Givens character from Elmore Leonard's novels, and stars Timothy Olyphant; Archer is an animated comic spy series set at the International Secret Service agency.

The Beeb (BBC4) has added The Killing, the Danish show remade by Fox that debuted on American TV last night, and Spiral, a French police procedural, to the spring/summer lineup.

FX also announced they've greenlighted Powers, based on the comics of the same title by Brian Michael Bendis, and are pursuing Kyle Chandler for a lead role.  Powers is a police procedural set in a world where superpowers are common, and focuses on detectives Deena Pilgrim and Christian Walker, who work for a special police unit investigating crimes committed by superhumans.

PODCASTS

Elizabeth Foxwell notes that BBC Radio 7 has become BBC Radio 4 Extra:  Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher on the 1860 Road Murder will be featured this week, along with Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe in Bones and Silence. 

In what is likely to be more common, filmmaker Michael Stromenger has created an online murder mystery video series, Curtain Call, a serialized thriller that has a new episode every Wednesday.

GAMES

Coming to a Nintendo near you, Easy Interactive is releasing Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy. The game has players taking on the role of a famous crime writer intenton uncovering the mystery behind Poe's unfortunate death.