(Editor’s note: This is the 93rd installment of our ongoing Friday blog series highlighting great but forgotten books. Today’s pick comes from Naomi Hirahara, whose fourth mystery featuring gardener-sleuth Mas Arai,Blood Hina, was released in March by St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne Books. The other works in that series are Summer of the Big Bachi,Gasa-Gasa Girl, and the Edgar Award-winningSnakeskin Shamisen. Hirahara is the president of the Southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America.)
Before Mma Precious Ramotswe came on the American scene, there was another “traditionally built” sleuth who had been introduced to mystery readers here--Barbara Neely’s Blanche White, an African-American housekeeper in the South who is on the run for writing some bad checks in the first book in the series, Blanche on the Lam.
While Botswana’s Ramotswe is wise and reflective, White of North Carolina is sassy and proud. It’s her street smarts and take-no-prisoners attitude that aid her in solving the crimes that come across her path within the homes she cleans and the communities she visits.
Blanche on the Lam was published in hardcover by St. Martin’s Press in 1992 and soon thereafter collected Best First Novel awards (the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity). Although author-critic Paula L. Woods refers to Pauline E. Hopkins, who wrote the 1900 locked-room short story, “Talma Gordon,” as the “foremother of African-American mysteries,” it seems that a black female series sleuth didn’t make it to mainstream U.S. publishing until the creation of Blanche White. Shortly thereafter we see the introduction of Eleanor Taylor Bland’s Marti MacAlister (March 1992), followed by such illustrious series protagonists as Nora DeLoach’s Candi and Simone Covington (1993), Charlotte C. Carter’s Nanette Hayes (1997), and Chassie West’s Leigh Ann Warren (1999).
It was a co-worker in the newsroom of a Japanese-American newspaper who first introduced me to Blanche. In fact, she was such a champion of the series that she had inadvertently given me two paperbacks of Blanche on the Lam as gifts in the 1990s. I was happy to receive multiple copies, because it enabled me to be a Blanche evangelist as well.
I was already a big fan of Chester Himes’ Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones and, of course, Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins. Those characters, however, take us back in time, while Blanche is a modern player dealing with race, class, and gender issues. Neely infuses Blanche with much humor, which may differentiate her style from contemporaries who are writing more elegant traditional mysteries and police procedurals featuring African-American women.
While the first in the Blanche series is my favorite, Neely was ambitious with her following three books, taking her sleuth into new places and work situations. The second installment, Blanche Among the Talented Tenth (1994), examines light skin/dark skin issues within the black community in an exclusive resort in Maine, while the third book, Blanche Cleans Up (1998), travels to Boston. The fourth, Blanche Passes Go (2000), returns to North Carolina in a final revenge tale.
I’ve posited this before, but African-American crime fiction has been an important influence on minority writers such as myself. The use of dialect and taking mainstream readers on a journey into a world that they may know little about are complex issues that sometimes generate much debate. As I stubbornly clung to writing mysteries featuring a Japanese-American gardener in Los Angeles for close to 15 years, I looked to characters like Blanche for inspiration. In fact, when I searched for a literary agency to represent my Mas Arai series, I referred to the acknowledgments page of a Blanche book and solicited Barbara Neely’s agent, who represents me to this day.
So, while there don’t seem to be any more Blanche White books on the horizon, the series, for me, is hardly forgotten. The yellowing pages of that same paperback copy of Blanche on the Lam will always remain on my bookshelf. I fully realize that Mas Arai may have not made it to a New York publishing house were it not for the help of a black housekeeper from the South.
Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts three more books worth rediscovering in her own blog. Look there, too, for a complete list of today’s participating writers.
Sorry for the lack of posts during these last couple of days, but I’ve been hunkered down over a piece for the Killer Covers blog about onetime best-selling crime novelist Carter Brown. That post, which includes eye-catching illustrations from artists Robert McGinnis and Ron Lesser, is finally available here.
OK, so those smartypants over at Akashic Books turned down what I thought was a brilliant idea for a short-story collection: Ventura County Noir. No matter. I can at least content myself with the new Orange County Noir. And I can’t think of two better people to focus on Los Angeles’ neighbor to the south than this volume’s editor, Rap Sheet contributor Gary Phillips, and author T. Jefferson Parker, whose latest novel, Iron River, should already be on everybody’s Best of 2010 thrillers list.
In his foreword to this anthology, Parker writes: “I first set foot in Orange County half a century ago. Our new Tustin tract home cost $21,000. The dads wore showcase flattops and skinny neckties ... Now look at it. How that Orange County became the one we see today is a tale of migration and war and race and economics ...”
Phillips approaches this arena as an outsider, somebody who was born in South Central L.A. on the same day that Disneyland opened in Anaheim. “When I was a kid ...,” explains Phillips, “what I knew about life behind the Orange County wall was nil. None of my relatives lived there, nor did my folks have friends in the area.”
In putting together Orange County Noir, Phillips (who also has another book due out soon: The Underbelly) seems to have pulled out all the stops on his organ, persuading some of the top names in the crime-writing trade (including Dick Lochte, Robert S. Levinson, Robert Ward, and Susan Straight) to contribute original stories that are all dark, and some of which are very funny.
During a recent party at the Swedish Embassy in London, held to celebrate the life and literary endeavors of Scandinavian journalist-novelist Stieg Larsson, I dropped a not-so-subtle hint to prominent books critic Barry Forshaw (right) that I would appreciate receiving a review copy of his brand-new work, The Man Who Left Too Soon: The Biography of Stieg Larsson (John Blake Publishing). Last week, that volume landed on my desk. Being obsessed with the late Larsson’s fiction, I read Forshaw’s book straightaway, and soon thereafter thanked the author for his kind printed acknowledgments of The Rap Sheet, as he had excepted material we’ve featured on this page before, including interviews with Larsson’s father, Erland, and his British publisher, Christopher MacLehose.
Forshaw also agreed to be interview. Over the course of that exchange, we talked about conspiracy theories related to Larsson’s death at age 50, Forshaw’s thoughts on the film versions of Larsson’s three novels, and how he wound up writing the first English-language biography of Sweden’s now best-known author.
Ali Karim: So, tell us a little about how you got involved in writing your biography of Stieg Larsson, The Man Who Left Too Soon.
Barry Forshaw: This was more by accident than design. I became an expert on Stieg Larsson in precisely the way I became an expert on British crime fiction, American crime fiction, Italian, and so forth--just by being commissioned to write so much over the years for various papers (The Times, the Independent, the Express) and various magazines. Slowly but surely, you acquire a considerable breadth of knowledge. Of course, this breadth of knowledge is actually a byproduct of enthusiasm--it’s not a question of settling down to study and absorb information about all these aspects of the crime field; if you’re an enthusiast, and have the kind of blotting-paper personality that I do in such areas, you’ll find yourself unconsciously hoovering up everything there is to know.
AK: And then editor Maxim Jakubowski commissioned the book from you?
BF: Maxim Jakubowski is a man with whom I’ve shared a few careers--writer, bookseller, publisher (but I’m practically a beginner in terms of what he’s done over the years). Maxim had kept a weather eye on my writings about Larsson; he’d noticed (as who hasn't?) the phenomenal sales of the books, and commissioned me to write it for the publisher John Blake. I actually worked with the Blake editor, John Wordsworth, which was a real pleasure.
Back to Maxim: I was in Nottingham recently for the ScreenLit Festival, with the British Film Institute’s Adrian Wooton. Introducing the new film of Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me, Adrian reminded the audience how many of us first encountered the original book through Maxim's groundbreaking pulp imprint, Zomba Black Box Books. As did I! Over the years, Maxim has done a great service to the genre by nourishing the careers of new writers--as well as bringing classics of the genre back into print. I’ve been lucky enough to persuade him to let me have material for Crime Time--and it wasn’t easy! He’s quite pleased by the fact that the only complaint I had about the magazine concerned his “shocking” material--“How can you publish such things?” (from “Disgusted” of Tunbridge Wells). Recently, John Blake gave him the chance to do a new title list (as opposed to his previous Black Box and Blue Murder imprints). And MaxCrime is managing to be both commercial and present all the strands of modern crime fiction within the list. He had two striking female writers in the first tranche: Tara Moss, and the talented Italian Barbara Baraldi with The Girl with Crystal Eyes.
BF: I have to say that the team at Quercus, Nicci Praça, Lucy Ramsey, and (of course) Larsson’s inestimable publisher, Christopher MacLehose, alerted me very early on that this was a writer to whom attention must be paid. In fact, the literary editors I wrote for were onto Larsson’s importance very quickly--I had my first commission to write things soon after the publication of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. But who had the slightest idea the Larsson phenomenon was going to achieve the heights it has? Barely a week passes without some new sales record being broken.
AK: I hear there are now several biographers on the Stieg Larsson trail, but your book is the first English-language work. How long did it take to research and prepare the manuscript?
BF: Even the British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia I did for [publisher] Greenwood--which was a backbreaking endeavor--didn’t begin to compare with the intensive work I had to do on The Man Who Left Too Soon. The amount of writing I’d already done on Larsson wasn’t really much help--I was asked to deliver 70,000 words on the man, his remarkable life, the books and the subsequent dispute over the estate, which meant a great deal of burning of the midnight oil and many lengthy conversations (while a tape recorder consumed a small army of batteries). The hardest thing was to get all the names right--it may seem a small detail, but the Scandinavian names defeated several proofreaders.
BF: Not really. British Crime Writing was tremendously stimulating to put together, but possibly the most demanding thing about that assignment was getting my heavyweight (but sometimes recalcitrant) team of fellow contributors to come up with the goods--and then to correlate the largest amount of text I’ve ever worked with in my life. By contrast, The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction--all my own work--was a mere bagatelle. None of this was really any kind of launching pad for The Man Who Left Too Soon; most useful here were the many Scandinavian authors I’d interviewed or reviewed over the years--many of whom were a useful resource when it came to writing a book about Larsson.
AK: As with your encyclopedia, you obtained contributions from many contemporary crime writers, both Scandinavian and British. Were there any who really hated the Larsson books?
BF: You bet! When I asked several authors to talk about their views of Larsson, they pulled faces and said, “You really don’t want to hear what I think of Larsson!” And when I told them I wasn’t planning to write a hagiography, several people then agreed to speak to me. Ironically, I think some of the most insightful material in the book comes from people who are deeply ambivalent about Larsson’s work--although having said that, I think the single most useful interview I obtained was from [Scottish crime writer] Val McDermid. She is enthusiastic about Larsson (though with reservations)--and she is, of course, all over the “Millennium Trilogy”; she was a favorite writer of Larsson’s, and he even has [fictional editor] Mikael Blomkvist reading a McDermid book.
AK: How helpful were Larsson’s Swedish, English, and U.S. publishers in providing a context for the author’s life and work?
BF: No complaints. I think the section on publishing Larsson is an interesting one--principally because the actual act of publishing an author who has died before the real body of his success kicks in is an unusual one. And the process of publishing Larsson in different countries has been radically different--the one common denominator, of course, is the astonishing success.
AK: When putting together this book, you talked with many people who knew Larsson, asking them about the affects of his lifestyle on his health. However, Eva Gabrielsson, his longtime partner, seems to downplay that aspect. What’s your take on his early demise?
BF: It seems to me to be unarguable--even though there are those who do not agree with this--that it was Larsson’s punishing lifestyle (notably the heavy smoking) that ended his life at such a young age. I must admit I quite liked Yrsa Sigurðardóttir’s liking for the conspiracy theories (rather than his lifestyle) in his demise--mainly because she admits to being a chain smoker herself! Minette Walters was another writer who refused to take a disapproving view of his nicotine habit.
AK: What’s been the reaction to your book from Larsson’s father and brother, or from Gabrielsson?
BF: Frankly, I haven’t enquired too closely! I tried to be as evenhanded as I could about the bitter dispute over his estate, and allowed the views of both Larsson’s father and brother, and of Eva Gabrielsson to stand without too much authorial comment. Let’s face it, people make up their minds about such things very quickly (as they have in Sweden)--and I wouldn’t be surprised if my attempt at evenhandedness is interpreted as leaning to one side or the other. You really can’t win in this area.
AK: Larsson did a lot to expose right-wing extremists during his journalism career, and as a result, conspiracy theories have revolved around his demise, as you suggested earlier. In the course of your research, did you discover any actual evidence of a conspiracy?
BF: There were unquestionably threats to Stieg Larsson’s life--and he was well aware that journalists who took on extreme organizations, as he did, were obliged to take precautions. There was the occasion he saw a group of skinheads waiting in the street outside the offices of his magazine Expo, but escaped their attentions by leaving via another entrance. However, the conspiracy theories--à propos though they would appear to be for a writer who wrote the kind of menacing thrillers he did--appear to have no foundation in fact.
AK: In the middle section of The Man Who Left Too Soon, you focus on the narrative trail of his Millennium Trilogy. You had to reread all three of his novels in order to write this biography. Did you find them as captivating the second time around?
BF: I had a strange dual response to reading the books again for this middle section. Having to create so much analysis was stimulating, but hard work. Having said that, writing about books and films has been giving me pleasure since I was 12 years old, and it remains my dream job. And such is Larsson’s skill as a storyteller that I found myself enjoying once again this master of narrative--even though surprises have long gone for me. I was, I have to say, concerned that people would not read the analysis section before reading the books themselves--inevitably, there are spoilers, so I repeated on a few occasions that the sections were designed to be looked at after reading the entire Millennium Trilogy.
AK: Opinions vary as to whether the trilogy is as “feminist” as reported originally, due to the graphic sexual violence deployed as the stories unravel. What’s your take on Larsson’s feminist credentials?
BF: Of all the questions I asked various writers and fellow journalists, the issue of Stieg’s feminism--and attitude to sexual violence--was by far the most contentious. One area that deeply divided authors was Larsson’s treatment of violent sexual abuse--some felt that he was impeccably feminist, others were uneasy about what they considered to be gloating treatments of rape. I hope I allowed readers to make up their own minds.
My own view? It’s a really divided one. There is no question that he was genuinely a feminist who celebrated strong, capable women. But it has to be said that his strong, capable female protagonist [Lisbeth Salander] is also a disturbed sociopath who is psychologically damaged. What do we read into this? Is it simply a novelistic imperative to render his heroine more vulnerable? My own personal jury is still out on the graphic descriptions of sexual abuse in the novels. I can’t see an argument for Larsson describing such things in a discreet, mealy-mouthed fashion--and I would have thought it would be difficult (except for certain individuals) to find these passages erotically exciting. Basically, Larsson provides us with a remarkably high number of male scumbags to function as antagonists for his vengeful heroine. And I think--in the final analysis--he does it in a (largely) responsible fashion. But it’s a difficult call ... Sorry if that sounds like fence-sitting.
AK: Have you been asked to promote your new book?
BF: Of all the books I’ve done, The Man Who Left Too Soon is the one that seems to have generated the largest number of requests for events, interviews, signings, etc. (including from various Swedish and British newspapers, CNN, BBC TV and radio). Of course, I’m sure that this level of interest is all to do with my literary skills, rather than the popularity of Stieg Larsson, novelist.
AK: And what has the initial reaction been to your Larsson biography?
BF: Ironically, the first review was a showcase one in The Times, who made it their Book of the Week! But just to show that writing for a particular paper doesn’t buy you any special favors, it was a lackluster review! I gritted my teeth--the only thing that rankled was the suggestion I hadn’t spoken directly to people involved, which wasn’t the case. But, as [President Harry] Truman said: “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”
BF: The Swedish film was a creditable stab, about which I had reservations. And [filmmaker] David Fincher for the remake? Well, as long as it’s Fincher in Se7en mode and not The Curious Case of Benjamin Button mode ...
AK: By the way, I hear you’ve become even more involved with the British The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA). Tell us a little about your role.
BF: The clock is ticking--these are, in fact, my last days as vice chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, working with a particularly capable chair, Margaret Murphy; the new chair and vice chair, who begin in May, are Tom Harper and Michael Ridpath. Frankly, I really enjoyed my time doing this--the CWA seem to feel that I have a host of publishing contacts. Well, I suppose I have been invited to a lot of author meals, as my waistline is beginning to show ...
AK: So what’s life like being a freelance writer in these days of technological changes throughout the print media?
BF: It’s challenging! The key phrase you use there is “technological changes”: I struggle to keep up with such things, but I’m fully aware that it would be suicidal--as a freelance journalist--to take a Luddite approach. But in a way it’s no different from trying to keep up with all the developments in the crime-fiction genre--you can’t really afford to say, “I know all there is to know.” That way lies hardening of the arteries.
AK: And what other projects do you have in the pipeline?
BF: Again for the ubiquitous Maxim Jakubowski, I worked on a LitCrit travel book called Following the Detectives for the publishers New Holland--my sections will include Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh, Donna Leon’s Venice, Peter James’ Brighton, [and] Georges Simenon’s Paris. It was immense fun doing this, though I really think Maxim should have paid for me to spend at least a week--at his expense--in all these locations ... Other projects include a Directory of World Cinema: Italy, which is another specialist area of mine.
AK: Finally, can you tell us what books you’ve enjoyed reviewing lately?
BF: You know, whenever I’m asked this question, my mind goes blank. I write a review of at least a book a week--and there really is some impressive writing about these days. The last crime novel I really enjoyed? Well, I’ve just read The Galton Case, by Ross Macdonald. I’m cheating, I know!
* * *
In the video below, Barry Forshaw talks about Stieg Larsson’s journalism career, the phenomenon of his Millennium Trilogy, and his own process of putting together The Man Who Left Too Soon:
Editor Janet Rudolph invites all members of Mystery Readers International to nominate their favorite crime novels of 2009 for one of the annual Macavity Awards.
Recommendations should be made in the following categories: Best Mystery Novel, Best Mystery First Novel, Best Mystery Biographical/Critical, Best Mystery Short Story, and Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery. Send your choices to Rudolph via e-mail. The deadline for nominations is June 1. All winners will be announced in October during Bouchercon in San Francisco.
• If you haven’t already heard, those entrepreneurial folks behind Out of the Gutter magazine have gone into the book-publishing biz. They already have four volumes forthcoming, including a reprint of John D. MacDonald’s On the Make (originally published in 1955 as A Bullet for Cinderella). Meanwhile, OOTG has begun accepting contributions to its seventh edition, themed “UK vs. U.S.” Submission guidelines are here.
• In its survey of the historical crime-fiction subgenre, Publishers Weekly reports: “The past decade has seen an explosion in both quantity and quality. Never before have so many historical mysteries been published, by so many gifted writers, and covering such a wide range of times and places.” The field’s past and promise are examined here.
• The list of celebrity panelists for NoirCon 2010, scheduled to take place in Philadelphia from November 4 to 7, is coming together nicely.
• As my own small tribute to British actress Lynn Redgrave, who died on Sunday at age 67, I am embedding at right a video of the Australian band, The Seekers, performing “Georgy Girl.” That was the title song for the 1966 film of the same name, which starred Redgrave and made her something of a worldwide sensation.
• New today in bookstores:Innocent, Scott Turow’s long-awaited sequel to his 1987 bestseller, Presumed Innocent.
• From TV Squad: “According to recent tracking by the Nielsen rating service, the amount of television watching per [American] viewer has increased from 4.86 hours per day in 2007 to 5.13 hours. Per household, the total amount of time viewers stare at the flat-screen is a whopping eight hours.” This means some other pour sap in the United States really has his or her nose planted to the small screen, in order to make up for the fact that--at the most--I watch an hour or two of television every day. And I often consider that excessive!
• Leslie Buck, inventor of the much-imitated Anthora cardboard coffee cup, died earlier this week at his home on New York’s Long Island.
• And last week, when I was putting togethermy list of crime fiction worth reading this summer, I missed mentioning two titles: Peeler, a cop novel set in 1920s Ireland, written by Kevin McCarthy and supposedly due out later this month; and On the Nickel, John Shannon’s 12th book featuring aerospace worker-turned-detective Jack Liffey, scheduled for release on July 1.
Peter had a 75-year-long career as a writer, his first story appearing in the pages of Scout in 1936. He then joined the staff of the Amalgamated Press, working on Butterfly, Comic Cuts, and Illustrated Chips. He served with the Royal Signal Corps during the war. After being demobbed in 1946 he worked for a small publishing firm before taking up writing full time.
In 1952 he was asked to take over the ‘Belinda’ strip in the Daily Mirror while the regular author was ill; soon after he was invited to take over the writing of ‘Garth,’ which he went on to write for the next thirteen years. Other strips written by O’Donnell include ‘For Better or Worse,’ ‘Tug Transom,’ and ‘Romeo Brown,’ the latter teaming him up with Jim Holdaway for the first time.
In 1962 Kennedy Aitken asked him to create a new character for the Daily Express. O’Donnell, already writing stories featuring a macho male hero, decided on a female character who would have the confidence and combat skills of male comic strip stars without losing her femininity. The strip was snatched up by the Evening Standard and Modesty Blaise began appearing on 13 May 1963. The strip survived the death of artist Jim Holdaway in 1970 and continued to appear until O’Donnell’s retirement in 2001, with Enrique Romero (1970-79, 1986-2001), John M. Burns (1978-79), Pat Wright (1979-80) and Neville Colvin (1980-86) providing the artwork.
In addition to scripting the Modesty Blaise comic strip, O’Donnell penned 11 novels featuring the character. The first of those, simply titled Modesty Blaise, was published in 1965 as a tie-in with a comedic spy-fi film of the same name, released in 1966 and starring Italian actress Monica Vitti. (Watch the trailer here.) At least two books of Modesty Blaise short stories were also released over the years.
Nick Landau, the managing editor of Titan Books, which has recently been issuing collections of the Modesty Blaise comic strip in book form, had this to say in response to news of the author’s demise: “Peter O’Donnell was respected as one of the greatest writers in the comics medium today and had a devout following amongst comics professionals and fans alike.”
• The Drowning Machine blog has launched its second annual Watery Grave Invitational Short Story Contest. In order to enter, you must have published a crime-fiction short story of no more than 3,000 words long “in any format that is available for the public to read.” And that story “must have been published on or prior to April 15, 2010.” E-mail a direct link to your story to beauvallet@aol.com by noon EST, on Friday, May 7, 2010. Ten new contestants will be invited to participate in this contest, along with last year’s top five contenders. All will be asked to write original stories of no more than 3,500 words and submit them by May 24. A panel of judges will select a winner and two runner-ups; there’s even prize money involved. Full contest details can be found by clicking here.
It’s 1954 and Bernie has tired of his increasingly dangerous work spying on Meyer Lansky for Cuban Intelligence. He secretly buys a boat and sails to Florida, where he’s arrested, sent back to Cuba and imprisoned in the Isle of Pines. There he meets Castro and a French intelligence officer, Thibaud, who liaises between the CIA and French intelligence. Exhaustively questioned by Thibaud, Bernie finds himself flown back to Berlin and another prison cell with a proposition: work for the French or hang for murder. Bernie’s job is simple: to meet and greet POWs returning from Germany. One of these is Edgard de Boudel, a French war criminal and member of the French SS, who has been posing as a German Wehrmacht officer. The French are anxious to catch up with this man and deal with him in their own ruthless way. But Bernie’s past as a German POW in Russia is about to catch up with him--in a way he could never have foreseen.
Field Grey is due out in Britain in late October, published by Quercus. I don’t see anything about a U.S. pub date yet, but if patterns of the recent past hold true, it should be released in the States by Putnam sometime in early 2011.
• The latest short-fiction offering in Beat to a Pulp comes from Nebraska writer Wayne Dundee. His story is called “Apache Fog.”
• Actor Joseph Campanella, who co-starred in Mannix during its first year, and also appeared on such familiar TV dramas as The Bold Ones, The Name of the Game, and The Rockford Files, will join hosts Ed Robertson and Frankie Montiforte on tonight’s edition of the Web radio program TV Confidential. That show starts at 9 p.m. ET, 6 p.m. PT on Shokus Internet Radio, and will be rebroadcast this coming Friday, May 7, at 7 p.m. ET/PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org. Campanella is slated to join the hosts during their second broadcast hour.
• The submission process is now open to anyone wishing to contribute to the fourth edition of The Lineup: Poems on Crime. Co-editor Gerald So explains that poems of 50 lines or fewer will be considered between now and July 31. Full guidelines are available here.
• Over this last weekend, the Independent Book Publishers Association announced its finalists for the 2010 Benjamin Franklin Awards. Competing in the Mystery/Suspense category are: The Bone Chamber, by Robin Burcell (Poisoned Pen Press); Jump, by Tim Maleeny (Poisoned Pen Press); and In Their Blood, by Sharon Potts (Oceanview Publishing). Winners in this and other categories will be named during a presentation to be held at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City on May 24.
Check this out: On Friday, July 16, author Tony Black (Loss), together with Allan Guthrie (Slammer), will present a one-day workshop in Scotland’s capital called “Writing Your Novel: Seven Steps to Success.” Details and the course overview are here.
Most aspiring novelists who book a place in theis workshop before June 1 are eligible for the “early bird rate” of £195. (It’s £295 after that.) But Black tells me that he’s “wangled a bit of a discount” for readers of this blog: “You can take another 15 percent off the early bird rate if you mention the Rap Sheet!”
Sheesh, I would love to be in Edinburgh to take advantage of this opportunity ... but no such luck.
At the beginning of last month, blogger-author Patti Abbott issued a new flash-fiction challenge, based around “a redhead in a blue dress, an eatery of some type,” and the old Eurythmics song, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” Stories were to be limited to 1,000 words in length, and the competition ended May 1.
Today, Abbott posted links to the more than two dozen stories generated by that challenge. You’ll find them here.
Yesterday morning, I picked up my Kindle--a weak-eyed man’s best friend--and read The New York Times.
The Book Review contained two fascinating pieces: a most favorable critique by Christopher Buckley of a first novel called The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman, about an English-language daily newspaper published in Rome--rather like an Italian version of the Paris-based International Herald Tribune.
I went to my Kindle’s menu, clicked on “Shop Kindle Store,” and in seconds a copy of The Imperfectionists was delivered to my home page. At first glance, it seems to be everything that Buckley enthused about--full of beautiful writing, jaded but memorable characters, and a rich feeling of the great city of Rome.
Also in the Book Review was a long piece about several recent works that look at who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Briefly mentioned was a 2007 book called A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, by James Shapiro--a book I’ve meant to pick up ever since its publication. Once again, the Kindle Store had it whizzing to me.
Other recent downloads were the Edgar Award-winning, 2008 thriller by John Hart (who just won another Edgar last week for The Last Child--a great choice), and The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, by Graham Robb, which includes these delicious quotes: “This was the puzzle of micro provinces that General de Gaulle had in mind when he asked, ‘How can one be expected to govern a country that has 246 different kinds of cheese?’” And: “On the Cote d’Azur in the hills behind Cannes and Saint-Tropez, wild people were said to descend into market towns wearing goatskins and speaking their own incomprehensible language ...”
Every time I read one of Mike Ripley’s “Getting Away with Murder” columns in Shots, my to-be-read list gets just a wee bit longer (read: that much further out of control). The consequences of perusing his new, May installment may finally be catastrophic for my bookcases.
In this piece he touts the latest novel by South African crime writer Deon Meyer, Thirteen Hours (due out in the States in September), as well as David Downing’s fourth historical thriller, Potsdam Station; endorses a new Pan Macmillan imprint, editor Maria Rejt’s Mantle; enthuses over Requiems for the Departed, a collection of short stories inspired by Irish mythology, edited by Gerard Brennan and Mike Stone; and speaks highly of Appleby Talks About Crime, a collection of Michael Innes’ tales featuring donnish sleuth John Appleby. Ripley also mentions, in passing, oft-overlooked scribbler Peter Fleming (brother of the more famous Ian); the pernicious, wholly monotonous trend in “running man” book covers; and AbeBooks’ rundown of the “top ten train thrillers.”
You’ll find the full text of “Getting Away with Murder” here.
Those Malice Domestic folks, they sure do love Canadian novelist Louise Penny. For the second year in a row, Penny has won the Agatha Award for Best Novel. That announcement came yesterday during the three-day Malice Domestic conference in Arlington, Virginia. Other Agatha Award recipients were as follows:
Best Novel:A Brutal Telling, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
Also nominated: Swan for the Money, by Donna Andrews (Minotaur); Bookplate Special, by Lorna Barrett (Berkley Prime Crime); Royal Flush, by Rhys Bowen (Berkley Prime Crime); and Air Time, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Mira)
Best First Novel:The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley (Delacorte Press)
Also nominated: For Better, for Murder, by Lisa Bork (Midnight Ink); Posed for Murder, by Meredith Cole (Minotaur); The Cold Light of Mourning, by Elizabeth Duncan (St. Martin’s Press); and In the Shadow of Gotham, by Stefanie Pintoff (Minotaur)
Best Non-fiction:Dame Agatha’s Shorts, by Elena Santangelo (Bella Rosa Books)
Also nominated: Duchess of Death, by Richard Hack (Phoenix Books); Talking About Detective Fiction, by P.D. James (Knopf); Blood on the Stage, 1925-1950, by Amnon Kabatchnik (Scarecrow Press); and The Talented Miss Highsmith, by Joan Schenkar (St. Martin’s Press)
Best Short Story: “On the House,” by Hank Phillippi Ryan (from Quarry, edited by Kate Flora, Ruth McCarty, and Susan Oleksiw; Level Best Books)
Also nominated: “Femme Sole,” by Dana Cameron (from Boston Noir, edited by Dennis Lehane; Akashic Books); “Handbaskets, Drawers, and Killer Cold,” by Kaye George(from Crooked); “The Worst Noel,” by Barb Goffman (from The Gift of Murder, edited by John M. Floyd; Wolfmont Press); and “Death Will Trim Your Tree,” by Elizabeth Zelvin (from The Gift of Murder)
Best Children’s/Young Adult Novel:The Hanging Hill, by Chris Grabenstein (Random House)
Also nominated: The Morgue and Me, by John C. Ford (Viking Juvenile); The Case of the Poisoned Pig, by Lewis B. Montgomery (Kane Press); The Other Side of Blue, by Valerie O. Patterson (Clarion Books); and The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline, by Nancy Springer (Philomel)
Like many other fans of TV mystery series, I was saddened to hear in the summer of 2008 that Foyle’s War--the World War II-era drama starring Michael Kitchen as a steadfast and charismatic police detective in southeastern England--would no longer be shown after five seasons on the air. Produced by the UK’s ITV and carried in the States by PBS, the show’s 90-minute episodes were particularly well-scripted (primarily by author-screenwriter Anthony Horowitz), integrating plots rife with devilry, deceit, and persistent greed into the broader backdrop of a bombarded, beleaguered Britain. However, Foyle’s War also benefited from having three continuing characters who boasted emotional gravity as well as intriguing back stories: not only Kitchen’s Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Foyle, a fairly solitary widower with a dashing young son in the Royal Air Force; but also Honeysuckle Weeks who played his driver, the resourceful and mischievous vicar’s daughter, Samantha “Sam” Stewart, and Anthony Howell as the more restrained Detective Sergeant Paul Milner, a policeman who has returned to his former occupation after losing a leg in the Allied defense of Norway.
Unfortunately, ITV complained that staging this period police procedural was too significant a drain on its bottom line. So it was decided that Foyle’s War would finish with an episode (“All Clear”) set during the concluding week of the fighting on the British Home Front in 1945. And then the series would itself disappear into history.
Things didn’t quite work out that way, though. Viewership for those concluding episodes was especially high, persuading ITV execs that it would be a smart idea to revive the series. Within just a couple of months of the supposed finale of Foyle’s War, Ms. Weeks told Britain’s Daily Mail that negotiations were underway to bring Foyle, Stewart, and Milner back for more.
The first of three new, postwar installments of Foyle’s War will air tomorrow night, Sunday, May 2, as part of PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery! series. The show begins at 9 p.m. ET/PST on PBS. Two additional episodes will be broadcast on May 9 and 16.
As we rejoin the story, VE Day has come and gone, and so has much of the confidence in Britain that conditions will soon return to normal. Food shortages and other privations persist, families are still struggling to recoup after being torn asunder, and postwar poverty has brought an escalation in crime rates. More than ready to start afresh, the UK electorate has turned out the man who led them through the fighting--Prime Minister Winston Churchill--and replaced him in the 1945 general election with Labour Party leader Clement Attlee.
Meanwhile, after having maintained law-enforcement in the coastal town of Hastings, even as greater crimes were perpetrated on a worldwide scale, DCI Foyle is ready to do some moving on of his own. He’s determined to retire, to give up tracking killers and other malefactors in favor of wetting a fishing line, imbibing his share of good malt whiskey, and visiting America. At the same time, Sam Stewart has taken on duties as the housekeeper and secretary to Sir Leonard Spencer-Jones, an eminent local artist, and Milner has accepted promotion to the rank of detective inspector in nearby Brighton.
Tomorrow night’s episode, “The Russian House,” focuses on Russian soldiers who, at the height of the recent hostilities, switched to the side of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis rather than continue serving with the forces of the Soviet Union, a country allied with the UK. Following the war, such collaborators captured by the British Army were shipped back to England for processing and return transit to their home country. But rumors are circulating that this repatriation will result in execution for the soldiers, rather than family reunions. If they want to live, it’s said, the only hope for the Nazi collaborators is to escape to sanctuary at London’s mysterious, anti-Soviet Russian House. One such ex-soldier has been working on Sir Leonard’s estate. When he escapes in the wake of the artist’s slaying, he naturally becomes suspect number one in the crime--and it’s up to Foyle, with Sam’s assistance but some unexpected hindrance from DI Milner--to identify the real murderer.
The second episode is even more fascinating than the first. Titled “Killing Time,” it puts Hastings at the center of racial tensions facing U.S. soldiers returning from the battlefields. Prior to World War II, you’ll remember, the American military was segregated, just like most of the United States itself. African Americans could serve in the armed forces, but they were assigned duty mostly as truck drivers and stevedores, and there were pitifully few black officers. Not until 1948 did President Harry Truman, a child of the segregated South, order that the military be integrated. In “Killing Time,” it’s still 1945 and black GIs streaming through Great Britain on their way stateside chafe at being restricted from local clubs, especially when British law allows for no such discrimination. However, a black soldier named Gabe Kelly has fathered a child with Mandy Dean, a white Hastings girl who’s been banished by her family as a result of that birth and has moved into the rooming house where Sam Stewart now works. With animosities peaking, a murder is committed, and DCI Foyle must wrestle with military authorities to untwist the web of evidence suggesting Kelly’s guilt.
Finally, episode three of this new series, “The Hide,” finds Foyle retiring at last, only to become consumed by the case of a young man, James Deveraux--the scion of a distinguished local family--who’s on trial for having joined a German SS unit composed of British volunteers. Strangely, Deveraux refuses to defend himself, leading Foyle to suspect that there’s more to this case than anyone understands. Although it’s not clear at first why Foyle takes such an interest in Deveraux’s predicament, we eventually come to understand that he has a sad personal stake in the matter. There’s a personal stake, as well, in this episode’s parallel story, which has Sam and Adam Wainwright, the proprietor of the rooming house where she works, defending that property against developers who wish to raze it and many other Hastings abodes in order to construct new housing units for returning soldiers. If Sam and Wainwright needed anything else to convince them that they belong together, this fight against “progress” may be it.
There’s a strong suggestion in “The Hide” that this is not the ultimate appearance of Foyle’s War; there are simply too many questions deliberately left unanswered, especially regarding the former DCI’s purpose in traveling by sea to America. (Might it have something to do with a previous investigation?) Given the strong comeback of this award-nominated show, and the fresh story lines opened by the new life trajectories of its main characters, I won’t be at all surprised to hear sometime soon that Season VII is in the offing.
The names of this year’s Spinetingler Award winners have been trickling in all day over at the Spinetingler Magazine Web site. But the roster of victors has only just finished posting. Here’s the final rundown.
Also nominated: A Bad Day for Sorry, by Sophie Littlefield; Balzac of the Badlands, by Steve Finbow; Dope Thief, by Dennis Tafoya; I-5, by Summer Brenner; In Their Blood, by Sharon Potts; The Lost Sister, by Russel D. McLean; Mixed Blood, by Roger Smith; Ravens, by George Dawes Green; and The Weight of Silence, by Heather Gudenkauf
Best Novel--Rising Star: Fifty Grand, by Adrian McKinty
Also nominated: Await Your Reply, by Dan Chaon; The Devil’s Staircase, by Helen Fitzgerald; Finch, by Jeff VanderMeer; Last Days, by Brian Evenson; and Safer, by Sean Doolittle
Best Novel--Legend:The Scarecrow, by Michael Connelly
Also nominated: The Complaints, by Ian Rankin; The Midnight Room, by Ed Gorman; The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, by Charlie Huston; Shadow Season, by Tom Piccirilli; and Tower, by Reed Farrel Coleman and Ken Bruen
Best Short Story on the Web: “Insatiable,” by Hilary Davidson
(from Beat to a Pulp)
Best Mystery or Crime Comic/Graphic Novel: Parker: The Hunter, by Darwyn Cooke
Also nominated: Back to Brooklyn, by Garth Ennis, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Mihailo Vukelic; Britten and Brülightly, by Hannah Berry; Chew, by John Layman and Rob Guillory; Leo Pulp, by Claudo Nizzi and Massimo Bonfatti; Low Moon, by Jason; Noir, by various authors; Scalped, by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guéra; West Coast Blues, by Jacques Tardi and Jean-Patrick Manchette; and You Have Killed Me, by Jamie Rich and Joelle Jones
Best Cover:Finch, by Jeff VanderMeer; cover by John Coulthart
Also nominated: Jen Forbus; The Nerd of Nor; Peter Rozovsky; Cory Wilde
As somebody who voted in this contest, I admit that I’m not entirely thrilled with the results. (I think, in particular, that Glenn O’Neill’s cover for The Manual of Detection was deserving of Best Cover honors, with the cover of Leigh Redhead’s Peepshow running a close second.) But other of my selections were victorious--and that’s usually the best one can hope for in such a democratic endeavor.
In January Magazine today, critic Jim Winter reviews the standalone novel Thunder Beach (Tyrus Books), the latest of Michael Lister’s “dark explorations of northern Florida’s underbelly.”
This new tale follows a widowed newspaper reporter traveling a fast path downward in the world, who goes looking for his missing stepdaughter among the bikers and bikini’d sun-worshippers of Panama City. Winter calls Thunder Beach a “poignant and lyrical noir story that’s as much about redemption as it is about shattered lives.”
Winners of the 2010 Derringer Awards, presented by the Short Mystery Fiction Society, were announced this morning. The recipients are ...
Best Flash Story (up to 1,000 words): “And Here’s to You, Mrs. Edwardson,” by Hamilton Waymire (Big Pulp, November 23, 2009)
Also nominated: “Awake,” by David Dean (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], July 2009); “Gutterball,” by Stephen D. Rogers (Woman’s World Magazine, September 7, 2009); “The Right Track,” by R.T. Lawton (Woman’s World Magazine, October 26, 2009); and “Unplanned,” by Libby Cudmore (Thrillers, Killers ’n’ Chillers, August 2009)
Best Short Story (1,001-4,000 words): “’Twas the Night,” by Anita Page (in The Gift of Murder, edited by John M. Floyd; Wolfmont Press)
Also nominated: “Identity Theft,” by Robert Weibezahl (Beat to a Pulp, March 2009); “The Biography of Stoop the Thief,” by Steven Torres (in Uncage Me!, edited by Jen Jordan; Bleak House Books); “The Hard Sell,” by Jay Stringer (Beat to a Pulp, May 2009); and “The Right to Remain Silent,” by Debbi Mack (The Back Alley, August 2009)
Best Long Story (4,001-8,000 words): “Famous Last Words,” by Doug Allyn (EQMM, November 2009)
Also nominated: “A Stab in the Heart,” by Twist Phelan (EQMM, February 2009); “Regarding Certain Occurrences in a Cottage at the Garden of Allah,” by Robert S. Levinson (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, November 2009); “Snow of Bloedkoppie,” by Berhard Jaumann (translated from the German by Mary Tannert; EQMM, August 2009); and “The Shipbreaker,” by Mike Wiecek (EQMM, March/April 2009)
Best Novelette (8,001-17,500 words): “Julius Katz,” by Dave Zeltserman (EQMM, September/October 2009)
Also nominated: “Adjuncts Anonymous,” by B.K. Stevens (EQMM, June 2009); “The Last Drop,” by R.W. Kerrigan (EQMM, February 2009); “The Pirate’s Debt,” by Toni L.P. Kelner (EQMM, August 2009); and “Uncle Brick and Jimmy Kills,” by Allan Leverone (Mysterical-E, Summer 2009)
In addition, author Lawrence Block is the 2010 recipient of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement.
Back in the fall of 1971, NBC-TV introduced its most successful “wheel series,” The NBC Mystery Movie. Look for our anniversary posts here.
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Winter Reading Picks
Check out our selection of 145 crime, mystery, and thriller novels due in bookstores between now and April Fools Day. Click here.
In honor of The Rap Sheet’s first birthday, we invited more than 100 crime writers, book critics, and bloggers from all over the English-speaking world to choose the one crime/mystery/thriller novel that they thought had been “most unjustly overlooked, criminally forgotten, or underappreciated over the years.” Their choices can be found here.
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Today’s pick comes from Naomi Hirahara, whose fourth mystery featuring gardener-sleuth Mas Arai, Blood Hina, was released in March by St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne Books. The other works in that series are Summer of the Big Bachi, Gasa-Gasa Girl, and the Edgar Award-winning Snakeskin Shamisen. Hirahara is the president of the Southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America.)
