The Book You Have to Read: “Siam,” by Lily Tuck

(Editor’s note: This is the 131st entry in our ongoing series about great but forgotten books. Today’s essay comes from Jame DiBiasio, the author of Gaijin Cowgirl, a thriller published by Crime Wave Press [Hong Kong, 2013], available in paperback, as well as for the Kindle and the Nook. He is also the author of a non-fiction work, The Story of Angkor [Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai, 2013]. When he’s not penning fiction, DiBlasio is a financial journalist based in Hong Kong. He blogs at Asia Hacks.)

I was lucky to find what was probably the last hardcover copy of Siam to be sold in an Asian bookstore. I don’t remember when I scored it--probably in the late 1990s, on one of my trips through Bangkok’s decrepit Don Muang, a clapped-out airport of sickly green floor tiles and odors that didn’t let you forget you were in Thailand. But it had, by airport standards, a generously eclectic bookstore.

You will not find Siam in the new Bangkok international airport, Suvarnabhumi, a series of senseless, dim, concrete caverns designed for mass tourism. There is no bookshop, just a few crammed shelves in one duty-free outlet.

The full name of the book is Siam: or The Woman Who Shot a Man, a title that reflects author Lily Tuck’s obsessions with women suffering from dislocation and loss. It is not an orthodox crime novel, but it fits as comfortably among noir works as it does in literary fiction.

The protagonist, Claire, is a young, naïve American, just married, who follows her husband to Bangkok in 1967. Although at first the expat life is fun and luxurious, Claire can’t quite get the hang of it. Nor can she understand her husband James’ work as some kind of advisor to the U.S. government, though his late nights and absences lengthen as the war in Vietnam escalates.

Tuck weaves in a historical figure, Jim Thompson, an American who founded the modern silk industry in Thailand and mysteriously disappeared in the Malaysian highlands, probably on some kind of errand for the CIA. Tuck’s fictional Claire is mesmerized by the cultured and dynamic Thompson, and his vanishing sparks her descent into paranoia. The expat idyll devolves into conspiracy and violence, and her story becomes a meditation on America’s involvement in Asia.

Tuck keeps the story on track. Her eye for detail is precise but subtle. The experience is immersive, the crescendo of tension consistent, the outcome dark, the ambiguity frustrating.

Given that Don Muang was the U.S. logistics hub for its war in Vietnam, it was as good as good a place as any to have discovered this 1999 novel. Bangkok has moved on, but I still remember Siam and its moody distillation of blundering and fear. It is the American answer to Graham Greene’s The Quiet American and it deserves a bigger audience.

Marlowe Once Removed

Like so many Rap Sheet readers, I suspect, I’m looking forward to reading the forthcoming Philip Marlowe novel, The Black-Eyed Blonde, written by John Banville under his Benjamin Black pseudonym and due out from publisher Henry Holt in March of next year. So far, I have not received an advance copy of the novel, but Salon’s Laura Miller obviously has. In a piece posted yesterday, she wrote:

Philip Marlowe … has a pretty good idea of just how messed up he is. He, too, may subscribe to the romantic notion of a hero whose efforts to defend the Good conveniently exempt him from the emotional demands that can be made on lesser men, but at least he has the sense to recognize that this stance has stunted him. Banville’s Marlowe, after inevitably falling into bed with the classy dame who shows up at his office in the first scene, lies around afterward thinking, “Clare Cavendish was out of my league, and I knew it.” Having treated her brusquely, he muses, “That’s Marlowe for you, the Indian who throws away a pearl richer than all his tribe.”

Like poor Clare, we want to like Marlowe more than he’ll ever let us, but the fault is only partly his. There’s a decided twist or kink of nastiness in everything Chandler ever wrote, a Campari-like bitterness that gives his fiction its piquancy but can at times induce nausea. His generalized contempt for much of humanity is not above using race, sex or sexual orientation as a justification and this makes him and his hero a bit of a bully. When you get Chandler’s hard-boiled Los Angeles filtered through Banville’s more equanimous sensibility, there’s also a lot less about “wetbacks” or “shines,” and fewer patronizing remarks about women who are neither as smart nor as alluring as they think.

On the downside, Banville--whose own ornate prose style has often been likened to that of Joyce--lacks the vulgarity to achieve Chandler’s signature toughness. You’re not going to find a line like “The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back” in “The Black-Eyed Blonde.” Banville does, however, have Chandler’s ironic understatement down cold: “They came through the door in a hurry. They were impatient fellows in general, as I was to find out.”

As someone who could never summon the interest to finish one of Banville’s Dublin-set detective novels (also written under the name Benjamin Black), I was impressed by the plotting of “The Black-Eye Blonde,” its perfect pacing and use of misdirection, exactly the sort of skills you’d expect to find lacking in a literary novelist. Finally, and for me most importantly, Banville nails the spoiled L.A. atmosphere that is Chandler’s forte: the vast, gluey hours spent in the car; the dusty, narcotized bungalows with dwarf palms out front and mementos of the residents’ Midwestern past inside; the dark, shabby, yeasty-smelling bars huddled back from the relentless sunshine.

You’ll find her full piece here.

READ MORE: “The Brand Is My Business,” by Sarah Weinman (The Nation); “Black Beauties,” by J. Kingston Pierce (The Rap Sheet).

Falcon Fetches Fortune

In Dashiell Hammett’s classic 1930 novel, The Maltese Falcon, all of the action focuses around running down a priceless statuette that (spoiler alert!) in the end, turns out be a valueless fake.

A prop falcon was commissioned for the 1941 film version of The Maltese Falcon starring Humphrey Bogart. Actually two of them. But the one used in the filming--complete with dents left from where Bogart dropped it--sold at auction this week for more than double the original $1.5 million dollar estimate Bonhams had put on the bird.

The movie memorabilia auction, conducted by Bonhams and curated by Turner Classic Movies, was also offering other items of significance in Hollywood. The negligee Vivien Leigh wore while playing Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind brought $56,250, while Francis Ford Coppola’s notated screenplay for The Godfather fetched $22,500, and the 1940 Buick Phaeton used in Casablanca sold for $487,650.

There were some bargains, too. An Esther Williams sequined bathing suit sold for $3,125, while an Edith Head costume sketch for Mitzi Gaynor’s outfit in The Birds and the Bees went for just $750. But it was the falcon that was expected to draw the most excitement--and it did, selling for $4,085,000. From the auction catalogue:

One of two known cast lead statuettes created for use in John Huston's screen version of The Maltese Falcon, the "bent tail feather" bird, and THE ONLY STATUETTE CONFIRMED BY WARNER BROS. ARCHIVES AS HAVING APPEARED ON SCREEN.

Humphrey Bogart plays San Francisco detective Sam Spade in John Huston's directorial debut. Spade tangles with three nefarious characters played by Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre, all of whom are chasing a statuette they believe to be a gold and jewel-encrusted figure of a falcon, but which ultimately is revealed to be made of lead.

You can view the auction catalogue online here.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone

We’re always grateful for your support and encouragement, and hope you enjoy today’s holiday. You might want to use some of this downtime to catch up on your reading.

Get Your Irish Up

Author-blogger Declan Burke reports that The Doll’s House, by Louise Phillips (Hachette Ireland), has won the 2013 Ireland AM Irish Crime Novel Award. That announcement was made last night during the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards ceremony.

Phillips’ novel beat out five other well-regarded works to capture this commendation: The Twelfth Department, by William Ryan (Pan Macmillan/Mantle); The Convictions of John Delahunt, by Andrew Hughes (Doubleday Ireland); Inquest, by Paul Carson (Century); The Stranger You Know, by Jane Casey (Ebury Press); and Irregulars, by Kevin McCarthy (New Island Books).

During the same ceremony, Irish author John Banville (who writes crime fiction as “Benjamin Black”) was presented with the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Devil and Barry Forshaw

I’ve been a friend of journalist Barry Forshaw for many years now. In the UK he’s probably one of the most distinguished literary and film critics opining on works of crime, thriller, horror, and science fiction. In between all of that, he somehow finds energy and hours enough to edit Crime Time magazine as well as appear (in his trademark dark suits) on television programs and in DVDs examining the genres he loves.

Most of us in the British crime- and thriller-fiction community are familiar with his book reviews, film criticism, and articles, and also with his more recent involvement with Nordic crime fiction. (That latter interest stemmed largely from his being the first biographer of Stieg Larsson.) Mention must be made as well of the fact that Forshaw edited the invaluable resource British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia (2009), drawing together contributions from many of his fellow writers and reviewers. I was one of those people, and the published two-volume work sits proudly on my bookshelf.

A little while back, Barry contacted me because he knows of my longstanding devotion to the work of Thomas Harris, and that I first corresponded with the reclusive Harris a few decades ago. Barry had been commissioned by Auter Publications to pen a critical examination (for Auter’s Devil’s Advocate line) of The Silence of the Lambs--both Harris’ 1988 novel and director Jonathan Demme’s subsequent film adaptation (scripted by Ted Tally). Barry has since completed that examination, the publication of which was timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the debut of The Silence of the Lambs, a work that really changed the direction of the crime novel, moving it toward the Gothic horror side of the street. I would urge you to purchase a copy of Random House UK’s 25th anniversary edition of Silence, if only to enjoy Harris’ short but interesting new introduction. I also can’t speak highly enough of Barry Forshaw’s Auter study of that novel, an excellent companion to one of this genre’s milestone works. But don’t just take my word for it; read Paul Worts review, written in association with Film Four’s Frightfest Festival:

To coincide with the 25th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Harris’s novel ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, Auteur Publishing have released a new addition to their Devil’s Advocates series. Author Barry Forshaw begins with a look into the origins and inspirations for writer Thomas Harris’s first foray into the twisted mindset of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, (‘Red Dragon’ 1981) and the subsequent film adaptation by Michael Mann. He then dissects the world-famous follow-up novel and Oscar winning screen interpretation directed by Jonathan Demme and continues on his dissection of the Lector legacy with the resulting ‘Hannibal’ and ‘Hannibal Rising’ novel and films (not forgetting the almost entirely forgettable 2002 film ‘Red Dragon’), and ending up with the current television series: ‘Hannibal’.

Little is known about the less than prolific (5 novels in 38 years) author Thomas Harris. Refusing to give interviews or even do book signings, the most significant detail we do know is that as an editor and reporter he covered crime-related events and he spent time at the F.B.I. researching serial killers for his second novel: ‘Red Dragon’(1981). Whilst there he (naturally) came across the case of our old friend, the famous farmer fiend from Wisconsin, Ed Gein. Forshaw wastes little time in wheeling out the well-known and well-worn influences Gein had on both Robert Bloch’s novel ‘Psycho’ and Hitchcock’s cinematic masterpiece. However, to his credit, Forshaw also includes lesser-known works such as Jack Smight’s ‘No Way to Treat a Lady’ (1968), and suitably tips his hat to the giallo works of Bava and Argento in particular in filmic influences.

In the wake of my excitement over Forshaw’s book and Harris’ novel, I recalled a presentation Barry gave during the Crime Writers’ Association’s 60th anniversary party in London, held on Guy Fawkes’ Night (November 5). It found Barry yet again playing devil’s advocate.

The celebration was opened by current CWA chair Alison Joseph, who announced the hotly anticipated results of a CWA poll meant to determine the foremost author and books in this genre. In case you’ve forgotten, here are the winners:

CWA Best Ever Novel:
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), by Agatha Christie

CWA Best Ever Crime Author: Agatha Christie

CWA Best Ever Crime Series:
Sherlock Holmes, from Arthur Conan Doyle

Barry’s job that evening was to moderate a panel debate, which featured fellow writers David Stuart Davies, Belinda Bauer, and Zoë Sharp. They discussed and dissected the “greats” in the crime, mystery, and thriller field. Barry proved to be rather mischievous, reiterating all-too-familiar knocks against the masters (Agatha Christie just wrote puzzle books, some of Raymond Chandler’s work had no discernible plot, Thomas Harris was solely responsible for the glut of serial-killer novels, etc.). Barry admitted to me later that he was concerned attendees who didn’t realize he had planned to play devil’s advocate might be offended by his approach. And in fact, there were some negative murmurs behind me, with listeners disturbed that Barry was being unkind to their “sacred cows,” and a tad flippant--though that was the whole point of the discussion, to provoke heated disagreements. Despite such undercurrents of displeasure, the session was highly amusing and informative, and there were some terrific insights delivered on crime-fiction classics.

I had the chance to film much of the discussion, and you can enjoy the results of that effort below, in three parts:

Coming Out on Top

2013 has produced scores of excellent crime, mystery, and thriller novels--everything from George Pelecanos’ The Double and Louise Penny’s How the Light Gets In to Charles McCarry’s The Shanghai Factor, Jassy MacKenzie’s Pale Horses, J. Robert Janes’ Tapestry, Lyndsay Faye’s Seven for a Secret, Richard Helms’ The Mojito Coast, and Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland, by Ace Atkins. So when I sat down to assemble a list of my 10 favorites for Kirkus Reviews, it was no easy exercise. My final selections--posted this morning on the Kirkus Web site--are sure to delight some readers and disappoint others. Feel free to express your opinions in the Comments section below, or on the Kirkus page featuring this week’s column.

Bullet Points: Pre-Turkey Day Edition

Having now concluded my altogether impromptu weeklong vacation, I’m back to (among other things) the business of collecting crime-fiction news bits that don’t necessarily merit their own posts.

• Craig Sisterson, the energetic editor and writer behind New Zealand’s annual Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, reports that “this year has seen the closest results in the history of the award. The winner, by a whisker, will be announced on 2 December.” In the meantime, check that link above for an assessment of all four contestants for the 2013 prize. And click here to learn how you can pick up a free, “personally signed copy of the winning book.”

• Crime Scraps’ Uriah Robinson (aka Norman Price) brings word that The Missing File, by D.A. (Dror) Mishani, has become the first Israeli work to win Sweden’s Martin Beck Award for best translated crime novel. That book, published in Sweden as Utsuddade spar (and translated by Nils Larsson), had been shortlisted for the prize along with translations of S.J. Bolton’s Immortal, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, Jo Nesbø’s Police, and Ferdinand von Schirach’s Case Collini. Meanwhile, Christoffer Carlsson captured the 2013 Best Swedish Crime Novel Award for his book Den osynlige mannen från Salem (The Invisible Man from Salem), beating out works by Arne Dahl, Håkan Nesser, Johan Theorin, and Katarina Wennstam. UPDATE: Shotsmag Confidential adds that Thomas Engström’s novel Väster om friheten (West of Liberty) has picked up the Swedish Crime Academy’s award for Best Debut Novel.

• Kirkus Reviews has proclaimed its favorite mysteries and thrillers of 2013, including novels by Max Barry, James Lee Burke, Meg Gardiner, Stephen King, Maurizio de Giovanni, and Kevin Egan. I didn’t have any input into these selections. My own list of favorites from the last 12 months should be posted on the Kirkus site tomorrow.

• Speaking of Kirkus, another of its contributors, Clayton Moore, offers up a new interview with Charles Ardai, the editor-publisher of Hard Case Crime. The biggest part of their posted exchange covers the “no less than eight under-the-radar novels” Michael Crichton penned as “John Lange,” and which Hard Case is republishing. However, they also talk about some pending releases (including Lawrence Block’s Borderline) and such “lost” works as Charles Willeford’s Grimmhaven.

• Watch for the December 17 debut, on PBS-TV channels, of How Sherlock Changed the World. Described as “a new two-hour special about the world’s most legendary fictional detective,” it “reveals the astonishing impact Holmes has had on the development of real criminal investigation and forensic techniques. From blood to ballistics, from fingerprints to footprints, Sherlock Holmes was 120 years ahead of his time, protecting crime scenes from contamination, looking for minute traces of evidence, and searching for what the eye couldn't see.” Click here to watch a short segment from the special, in which forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee talks about how Holmes’ deductive reasoning has impacted modern crime-scene studies.

• John Harvey has won the inaugural Goldsmiths Prize, which celebrates fiction that “breaks the mould or opens up new possibilities for the novel form.” Congratulations, sir!

• I’m late in noting this, but publisher Open Road Integrated Media is “celebrating mysteries and history from the 1890s to today” with a giveaway contest offering eight titles from its e-book list. According to its posted rules, the contest will end this coming Friday night, November 29. Click here to find out more.

• Spinetingler Magazine picks “10 Underestimated Noir Authors Everyone Should Know.” I’m pleased to say that I have read fiction by most, though not all, of the authors named.

• It’s the crime drama that won’t die! After already being cancelled twice by AMC-TV, The Killing--a pale U.S. version of the popular Danish show Forbrydelsen--is coming back for a “fourth and final limited season,” this time on Netflix. “The six-episode series finale, produced by Fox Television Studios, will be made available only to Netflix streaming subscribers,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

• Crimepieces blogger Sarah Ward has posted a good two-part report about this last weekend’s Iceland Noir festival of crime fiction, held in Reykjavik. Part I can found enjoyed here, while Part II is here. Ward promises to put up a final installment in this series tomorrow.

• Quentin Bates, author of the Sergeant Gunnhildur Gísladóttir mysteries (Chilled to the Bone), delivers his own early thoughts on the Iceland Noir conference here.

• Author-screenwriter Lee Goldberg has spent much of the last week looking back appreciatively at vintage TV themes. Here he recalls “12 TV Shows That Changed Their Theme Song,” among them Kojak and Magnum, P.I. Here are 14 more programs that replaced their original themes, including The Bold Ones and Nash Bridges; and look here to find eight more examples, the most infamous of that bunch being Hardcastle and McCormick. Click here to revisit TV series that removed lyrics from their openings, and here to be reminded of shows that changed both their themes and their names.

• Max Allan Collins has reprinted an essay in his blog that originally appeared in Publishers Weekly. Titled “Why I Write,” it’s sure to ring a familiar chord with veteran scribblers. Check it out here.

• Ali Karim reports for Shotsmag Confidential on a recent visit by Canadian mystery novelist Louise Penny to Heffers Bookstore in Cambridge, England, where she talked about her writing. “This was the only UK event she is appearing at this year,” says Karim, “due to deadline pressures on her current work in progress.”

• And to keep you busy during any free time you might have in the foreseeable future, note that the first quarterly edition of All Due Respect is now available for Kindles. Also, the third collection of stories from Beat to a Pulp has recently been released.

Pierce’s Picks: “Tatiana”

A weekly alert for followers of crime, mystery, and thriller fiction.

Tatiana, by Martin Cruz Smith (Simon & Schuster):
American novelist Martin Cruz Smith has had a good run over the last 40 years, turning out such memorable standalone novels as Rose (1996) and December 6 (one of my favorite works of 2002). But it’s been his tales of Moscow investigator Arkady Renko--beginning with the Golden Dagger Award-winning Gorky Park (1981)--that have earned him the most widespread recognition. Tatiana, the eighth installment in the Renko series, finds our cynical sleuth probing the demise of journalist Tatiana Petrovna, who plummeted from a sixth-floor window. Curiously, that tragedy happened around the same time that a deep-pocketed mobster was exterminated. Are these incidents somehow connected? Renko’s struggle to find out sends him to a “secret” Cold War city, compels him to listen to tapes left behind by Tatiana--recordings that expose crimes notably absent from Russia’s official histories, and bring him closer to the deceased--and presents him with a code-filled notebook that might only be deciphered by his chess-hustling teenage associate, Zhenya. Smith’s nuanced portrayal of the New Russia--corrupt and violent, and no less in need of his services than its Soviet predecessor--is as tragic as it is seductive.

* * *

This week also brings us A Nasty Piece of Work (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press), by Robert Littell, an author best known for such classics of espionage fiction as The Defection of A.J. Lewinter (1973), The Once and Future Spy (1990), and The Company (2002). Nasty Piece finds him taking a holiday from that world in order to deliver the oft-amusing, energetic, and digression-suffused adventures of Lemuel Gunn, a cynical ex-CIA agent who’s currently living in a mobile home in the New Mexico desert and scratching out what living he can make as a private eye. (Think of him as the opposite of television’s suave and successful Peter Gunn.) He’s just been hired by Ornella Neppi, a 30-something bail bondswoman whose business has been shaken by a cokehead, Emilio Gava, who’s anxious to flee and leave her on the hook for $125,000. Gunn agrees to help this woman, but with few clues and seeming no photographs of Gava available, he’s starting to wonder whether his quarry even exists. Littell takes such obvious delight in working the tropes and traditions of P.I. fiction, it’s hard not to enjoy the ride he offers in these pages.

READ MORE: “Ticking Time Bombs,” by Clayton Moore
(Kirkus Reviews).

A Good Turn for “Bad Country”

Native Texan C.B. McKenzie has been named as the winner of this year’s Tony Hillerman Prize for best first mystery novel. That announcement was made in association with last weekend’s 2013 Tony Hillerman Writers Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

McKenzie, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona and currently teaches Rhetoric at the City University of New York, earned this commendation for his novel, Bad Country. As part of his reward, McKenzie will receive a contract for publication with Thomas Dunne Books/Minotaur Books and a $10,000 advance.

The Hillerman Prize is named, of course, in honor of the late New Mexico author and creator of the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mysteries. It’s presented annually to “the best debut mystery set in the [American] Southwest.” Previous recipients were Andrew Hunt’s City of Saints, Tricia Fields’ The Territory, Roy Chaney’s The Ragged End of Nowhere, and Christine Barber’s The Replacement Child.

If you’d like to submit a novel for the 2014 Hillerman Prize, do so by June 1 of next year. Rules and guidelines can be found here.

Also during the Hillerman conference, radio personality Mary-Charlotte Domandi was given the 2013 Leaphorn Award for her work in promoting authors and reading.

Bullet Points: Post-Veterans Day Edition

• Romantic Times Book Reviews has announced the contenders for its 2013 Reviewers’ Choice Awards. There are five categories of mystery and thriller works. Among the challengers are Louise Penny’s How the Light Gets In, Jeri Westerson’s Shadow of the Alchemist, Lauren Beukes’ The Shining Girls, and Emma Chapman’s How to Be a Good Wife. Click here to find the full run of RT’s nominees.

• Author Reed Farrel Coleman chooses his seven favorite noirish novels of the last decade, for the Mulholland Books blog. Included on that list: Red Cat, by Peter Spiegelman; The Shanghai Moon, by S.J. Rozan; and Closing Time, by Jim Fusilli.

• Meanwhile, The Book Haven presents its list of the “Top 10 Spy Novels of All Time.” I’m very pleased to see G.K. Chesterton and Alistair MacLean both represented.

• This was before my time, but back in the fall of 1954, a syndicated TV series debuted. It was titled Sherlock Holmes and starred Ronald Howard (son of the more famous Leslie Howard) as Arthur Conan Doyle’s brilliant sleuth, with Howard Marion Crawford appearing as Dr. John H. Watson. Thirty-nine episodes of that series (which Wikipedia observes was the only American-made Holmes TV drama made before 2012’s Elementary) were shot--at least most of which have suddenly become available on YouTube. Check out the pilot here. Links will lead you to later episodes. I haven’t had a chance to yet to watch all of those half-hour shows, but I look forward to doing so soon.

• The 12th of edition of Crimewave, subtitled “Hurt,” has just been released. Its contents include stories by Christopher Priest, Melanie Tem, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Stephen Volk. Order a copy here.

• Jim Napier has a fine review, in January Magazine, of Ian Rankin’s new John Rebus novel, Saints of the Shadow Bible. Read it here.

• UK author John Harvey has just signed a contract to produce his 11th and final novel about Detective Inspector Charlie Resnick, the Nottingham cop introduced in 1989’s Lonely Hearts. “The novel, Darkness, Darkness ...,” explains the Euro Crime blog, “sees Resnick revisiting a cold case focused around the 1984 miner’s strike.” The 10th Resnick outing, Cold in Hand, was published in 2008.

• Former Murder, She Wrote star Angela Lansbury is not happy with CBS-TV’s plans to reboot her 1984-1996 mystery series, this time with The Help’s Octavia Spencer starring as a self-published mystery novelist fascinated by true crimes. “I think it’s a mistake to call it Murder, She Wrote,” Lansbury tells The Guardian, “because Murder, She Wrote will always be about Cabot Cove and this wonderful little group of people who told those lovely stories and enjoyed a piece of that place, and also enjoyed Jessica Fletcher, who is a rare and very individual kind of person ... So I’m sorry that they have to use the title--even though they have access to it and it’s their right.”

• Here’s your chance to collaborate with British novelist Ann Cleeves on a short story. “The winning work,” explains Crime Fiction Lover, “will be published in an anthology Cleeves is putting together--a great opportunity for new crime writing talents out there. ... The finished piece can be up to 1,000 words, and the closing date for entries is 29 November 2013.” Check out the link above for more info.

• Novelists Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, who--under the pseudonym Michael Stanley--compose the African Detective Kubu mysteries (Deadly Harvest), provide an interesting overview here of today’s South African crime-fiction scene.

• Insane as this notion sounds, evidence suggests that George W. Bush was really trying to bring about the end of the world.

• As blogger Crime Fiction Girl notes, “Entries are now open for the 2014 [Crime Writers’ Association] Debut Dagger competition. The competition is open to unpublished writers with entries judged by a panel of top crime editors and agents, and the shortlist sent to publishers and agents. First prize is £700, sponsored by Orion, and all shortlisted entries receive a professional assessment of their work. The entry fee is £25 and you’ll need to send the first 3,000 words (or fewer) of your novel along with a 500-1,000-word synopsis of the rest of the novel.” This entry period ends on January 31, 2014.

• And this comes from In Reference to Murder: “Early bird registration for the Malice Domestic 26 conference is the end of the year, after which rates will go up on January 1st. Everyone who registers before the end of the year will receive an Agatha Nomination Ballot in the beginning of 2014. Malice Domestic is also participating in Maryland Public Television’s Holiday Gift Auction which helps support programming, outreach and education. Two comprehensive registration passes for Malice 26 (and other great items) are up for auction.”

An Antipodean Attraction

I’ve devoted my Kirkus Reviews column this week to a critique of Death on Demand, by Paul Thomas--one of four contenders for New Zealand’s 2013 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel. In that column, I include a quote from Craig Sisterson, a Kiwi journalist and the author of Crime Watch, saying this of author Thomas:

“Paul Thomas could well be considered the Godfather of contemporary Kiwi crime writing. It was he who, in the 1990s, dragged the genre here from its Marsh and Christie-esque cozy confines into a more hard-boiled, violent world filled with crisp and satiric prose. Overseas critics have described him as ‘Elmore Leonard on acid,’ and the comparison seems apt. Thomas has an offbeat vitality to his writing that is hard to resist.”

You’ll find my full Kirkus review of Death on Demand here.

Memories of Macdonald

I had very much hoped to participate in this week’s “forgotten books” tribute to 20th-century American detective novelist Ross Macdonald, organized by Patti Abbott, but I ultimately couldn’t find enough free time to do so. Fortunately, the project went on without my aid. Reviews were posted in a wide variety of blogs yesterday, looking back at many of Macdonald’s early Lew Archer tales (The Moving Target, The Drowning Pool, The Way Some People Die, etc.) as well as later entries in that series (The Zebra-Striped Hearse, The Goodbye Look, The Underground Man, etc.). A few writers even tackled Macdonald’s non-Archer novels (such as The Three Roads) and his shorter fiction.

Abbott provides links to all of the posts here.

READ MORE: “A Passion for Mercy,” by Tobias Jones (The Guardian).

And So It Begins ...

It’s only early November, but online retailer Amazon has already announced its Best Books of 2013 picks, including 20 choices in the Mystery, Thriller & Suspense category.

Like Goodreads’ preliminary list of 15 mysteries and thrillers published over the last 11 months that deserve celebrating, there’s nothing particularly wrong with Amazon’s tally; indeed, Stephen King’s Joyland, Marisha Pessl’s Night Film, George Pelecanos’ The Double, Alafair Burke’s If You Were Here, and other works named by Amazon are all worthy examples of what can be accomplished in this genre. But for the most part, this is nothing better than a rundown of the year’s crime-fiction best sellers. There’s scant evidence of serious critical judgments having been made in the selections, and there are no unexpected or daring nominees among the bunch. Gone are the days when Amazon made much effort at serious, professional reviewing of books; now the critiquing is left up to unpaid amateurs, most of whom have no style to their writing, lack a broad understanding of the genre’s history, and produce little better than promotional copy. But then, what do we expect from a sales-oriented site?

If you’re interested in presenting only best-selling crime fiction to your friends and family this year, then look for your holiday gift ideas to Amazon’s “best books” lists. Otherwise, wait for the publication of choices by more thoughtful book-review sources. They should be rolling out over the next few weeks.

UPDATE: As reader Ray Garraty points out in the Comments section of this post, Publishers Weekly recently posted its own selection of 2013’s best crime novels. There are a few books on the list that I haven’t read, but PW’s other choices suggest that its editors exercised both thoughtfulness and discretion in creating their list.

Happy Birthday, Barry Newman!

The star of Petrocelli (1974-1976) turns 75 years old today.

Battle for the Marsh

New Zealand journalist and crime-fiction blogger Craig Sisterson has announced the shortlist of contenders for the 2013 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel. This prize, named in honor of Christchurch author Dame Ngaio Marsh and first presented in 2010, “recognizes excellence in New Zealand crime, mystery, and thriller writing.” All of the latest nominees were originally published in New Zealand in 2012:

• Death on Demand, by Paul Thomas (Hachette NZ)
• The Laughterhouse, by Paul Cleave (Penguin)
• Faceless, by Vanda Symon (Penguin)
• Little Sister, by Julian Novitz (Random House)

“We are thrilled with the quality and diversity of the shortlisted books this year,” says Sisterson, the organizer of this competition. “Modern crime fiction is now a broad church, where talented authors raise questions and cast light on a variety of societal and other issues through the prism of an exciting, page-turning story. The four shortlisted books all demonstrate this well, each in their own way. It will be a tough call for the judges.”

The winner of this year’s prize will be declared on December 2.

Acclaim for MacLean

This seems to be a day for reporting poll results. First, I brought you the findings from a new survey--conducted by the British Crime Writers’ Association--to choose the “best” authors and works available in this genre. Now I can provide the results of a survey we’ve been running over the last month in The Rap Sheet, intended to pick readers’ favorites from among Scottish writer Alistair MacLean’s 28 classic adventure-thriller novels.

With 487 votes having been cast, here are the 10 MacLean novels that received the most support from Rap Sheet readers:

• The Guns of Navarone (1957) -- 71 votes, or 14.58%
• Where Eagles Dare (1967) -- 65 votes, or 13.35%
• Ice Station Zebra (1963) -- 53 votes, or 10.88%
• Breakheart Pass (1974) -- 39 votes, or 8.01%
• Puppet on a Chain (1969) -- 36 votes, or 7.39%
• Fear Is the Key (1961) -- 29 votes, or 5.95%
• Night Without End (1959) -- 23 votes, or 4.72%
• Bear Island (1971) -- 22 votes, or 4.52%
• When Eight Bells Toll (1966) -- 20 votes, or 4.11%
• Circus (1975) -- 19 votes, or 3.9%

All of the big vote-getters were published during the first 20 years of MacLean’s fiction-writing career. None of the nine novels he penned during the final decade of his life received more than five votes in this survey. That supports a statement I made, in a recent column for Kirkus Reviews, that his later books “were of considerably less quality than their predecessors.”

The full results of this survey can be found here.

Let the Voting Begin!

I’m still probably a month away from posting a rundown of my favorite crime, mystery, and thriller novels of the year. But the books site Goodreads has already begun soliciting votes in its Choice Awards 2013 contest. The 15 nominees in the Best Mystery & Thriller category--including Stephen King’s Joyland, Marisha Pessl’s Night Film, and William Kent Krueger’s Ordinary Grace--can be found here. Links to the contenders in all 20 Choice Awards categories are here.

You have until this coming Saturday, November 9, to vote in round one of Goodreads’ “best books” survey. A smaller number of books will be included in the semifinal round, November 11-16. And then the last books remaining will be voted on from November 18 through 25.

At last count, 593,880 votes had been cast in this competition.

Christie Comes Out on Top

Agatha Christie may have been deceased for the last 37 years, but her work seems to have lost none of its appeal--at least among British crime and mystery novelists.

During a special event held earlier this evening at Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road in central London, the UK Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) announced the results of a poll that asked its members to pick the foremost author and books in the genre. Christie triumphed in two of the three categories. “With her elegant precision and her perfect sense of place, she is still our most popular crime author,” proclaimed CWA chair Alison Joseph.

This poll helps to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the CWA’s founding in 1953. Its full results are below.

CWA Best Ever Novel:
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), by Agatha Christie

Also nominated: The Big Sleep (1939), by Raymond Chandler; Gorky Park (1981), by Martin Cruz Smith; The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), by Arthur Conan Doyle; The Long Goodbye (1953), by Raymond Chandler; The Moonstone (1868), by Wilkie Collins; Murder on the Orient Express (1934), by Agatha Christie; The Nine Tailors (1934), by Dorothy L. Sayers; On Beulah Height (1998), by Reginald Hill; and The Silence of the Lambs (1988), by Thomas Harris

CWA Best Ever Crime Author: Agatha Christie

Also nominated: Raymond Chandler, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dashiell Hammett, Reginald Hill, P.D. James, Elmore Leonard, Ruth Rendell, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Georges Simenon

CWA Best Ever Crime Series:
Sherlock Holmes, from Arthur Conan Doyle

Also nominated: Albert Campion, from Margery Allingham; Adam Dalgliesh, from P.D. James; Dalziel and Pascoe, from Reginald Hill; Philip Marlowe, from Raymond Chandler; Inspector Morse, from Colin Dexter; Hercule Poirot, from Agatha Christie; John Rebus, from Ian Rankin; and Lord Peter Wimsey, from Dorothy L. Sayers

The blog Crime Fiction Lover notes that these results “are a turnaround on the last poll by the CWA 15 years ago, when Chandler won both the author and series category (for the Marlowe novels) and The Nine Tailors (1934), by Dorothy L. Sayers, was named best novel.” Findings from this new non-scientific survey differ as well from another previous assessment: the CWA’s 1990 selection of the Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time. In that list, Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time (1951) came out on top, followed by Chandler’s The Big Sleep, John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), and Sayers’ Gaudy Night (1935); Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd earned fifth place in that survey.

I can’t say I agree completely with the majority in this latest CWA poll. My vote for Best Ever Novel would’ve gone to The Hound of the Baskervilles, and my preference for Best Ever Crime Author would be Raymond Chandler. But readers don’t all hold the same opinions, which helps to keep things lively in the reviewing and book-buying games. Should the CWA conduct another such survey 15 years hence, we can probably expect the outcomes to change even further.

I hope I’ll still be around to find out.

Minor Mentions for Monday

• Tomorrow should bring word, courtesy of the British Crime Writers’ Association, of its findings from a rather ambitious survey to determine the Best Ever Crime Writer, the Best Crime Novel, and the Best Series as voted on by CWA members. “The announcement,” explains Crime Fiction Lover, “will be made at a special evening event held at Foyles on Charing Cross Road in London starting at 6 p.m. ... A panel of experts will be discussing the results of the poll live, including crime-fiction commentator Barry Forshaw, and authors Zoë Sharp, Belinda Bauer, and David Stuart Davies.”

• Having now mentioned Crime Fiction Lover, let me also point out the fact that that blog has begun rolling out its “third annual celebration of new blood in crime fiction--New Talent November.” Already spotlighted as part of this series: Becky Masterman’s Rage Against the Dying; A.P. McCoy’s Taking the Fall; and C.J. Howell, author of New Pulp Press’ The Last of the Smoking Bartenders. Stay tuned here for further developments.

• UK critic and author Mike Ripley is back with the latest installment of his “Getting Away with Murder” column for Shots. Among his subjects this time: Jorn Lier Horst’s Closed for Winter; new translations of Georges Simenon’s early novels; the Margery Allingham Short Story Competition; publisher Five Leaves’ latest anthology, Crime; fresh releases from Nick Stone, Maurizio De Giovanni, and Jill Paton Walsh; and Iceland’s first festival of crime fiction, which is scheduled to take place in Reykjavik from November 21to 24. (To learn more about Iceland Noir, click here.)

• Blogger Joe Barone likes the short new Spenser holiday novel, Silent Night (Putnam), penned in part by Robert B. Parker. He adds, though, that “I, like everyone else, read this book knowing it is the manuscript Parker was working on at his writing desk when he died. His longtime agent and friend Helen Brann finished the book.”

• I’ve referred several times over the years (including here) to an unsuccessful 1971 NBC-TV pilot titled Ellery Queen: Don’t Look Behind You, which starred Peter Lawford and Harry Morgan (and was originally written by Columbo creators Richard Levinson and William Link, though they eventually disowned it). Now I see the Web site Modcinema has finally made that flick available on DVD. It’s not a faithful adaptation of the superior 1949 Queen novel Cat of Many Tails, but it’s still interesting in many respects. Thank goodness, however, that Rat Packer Lawford (who’d previously portrayed Nick Charles on the small screen) didn’t have a chance to keep playing Ellery--and thereby re-create him as a hipster icon for the ’70s.

• Whaddya know, a “new” Hercule Poirot novella.

• This comes in addition to two previously unpublished short stories featuring Poirot, both of which were included in John Curran’s Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks.

• Finally, speaking of that distinguished Belgian sleuth, Mystery Fanfare has posted British TV network ITV’s official trailer promoting the last four movie-length episodes of Agatha Christie’s Poirot (although that trailer seems to focus primarily on previous installments of the popular series). These new episodes began showing in the UK on October 23, and will conclude with a dramatization of Christie’s Curtain, the final Poirot case, on Wednesday, November 13. As Wikipedia observes, “At the programme’s conclusion, every major literary work by Christie that featured the title character will have been adapted.” So far there doesn’t seem to be any news about when these new Poirots will be shown in the States.

Pierce’s Picks: “The Good Boy”

A weekly alert for followers of crime, mystery, and thriller fiction.

The Good Boy, by Theresa Schwegel (Minotaur):
Chicago author Schwegel earned her crime-fiction cred with hard-boiled police thrillers such as Officer Down (which won her the Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 2006) and Last Known Address (2009). The Good Boy, however, broadens her storytelling focus and potential reader appeal. It gives us Chicago K9 cop Pete Murphy, whose career is jeopardized by a wrongful-arrest lawsuit. It also introduces his 11-year-old son, Joel, who’s feeling abandoned by both his parents and his teenage sister, McKenna. Fortunately, he finds comfort and friendship with his father’s canine partner, Butchie. But one night, Joel and Butchie follow McKenna to a party in a dodgy neighborhood. Drugs materialize, a gun is pulled, and suddenly Butchie goes into action. Fearful that the dog’s trained response will lead to his being taken away--or worse--Joel and Butchie flee, navigating Chicago’s depths in quest of aid from a judge friend of Pete Murphy’s, and trying simultaneously to steer clear of men bent on making Joel a target of their revenge against his dad.