Bullet Points: PWG, TV, and DVDs Edition

Wow, it seems like forever since I’ve found time to compose a crime-fiction news wrap-up post, but it’s actually only been a little more than two weeks. During that period, I’ve accumulated myriad items of interest, but I’ll offer just a few of them here.

• Today may or many not be the birthday of Sherlock Holmes’ investigative associate and chronicler, Dr. John H. Watson--depending on which sources you believe. I wrote about this in a post for The Rap Sheet years ago, which you can still enjoy here.

• UK critic-author Mike Ripley talks with Duncan Torrens, for Shots, about the work that went into releasing Mr. Campion’s Farewell (Severn House), a novel featuring Margery Allingham’s gentleman sleuth, Albert Campion. As Les Blatt notes in his blog, Classic Mysteries, Farewell is “a continuation of a book begun by Allingham’s husband, Pip Youngman Carter, after his wife’s death. Carter died after writing only a few chapters, and the manuscript was never finished or published. Now, Mike Ripley has completed it, and I believe it has just been published by Severn House in the UK. It’s scheduled to be released in the U.S. on July 1st.” You will find Shots’ conversation with the honorable Mr. Ripley here.

• I’m sorry to learn, from Janet Rudolph’s Mystery Fanfare, that Book ’Em Mysteries in Pasadena, California, will close on April 30 after 24 years in business. Co-owner Barry Martin is quoted as saying, “You reach a point in your life when you feel you’ve accomplished something. We are heartened by our customers who have supported us over the years. Many are more than customers. They’re friends.”

• Oh, no, not again! After going dormant for some months, it looks as if the Webzine Plots With Guns is closing down--but not until after the release of “one last, big issue.” It seems that creator Anthony Neil Smith had a heart attack and was in the hospital for a while, and as he explained on Facebook, “Sean O’Keefe, Erik Lundy, and Gonzalo Baeza, the current editorial staff and braintrust, have also decided it’s time to move on.” Before the band breaks up, though, they’re soliciting contributions to a blockbuster final issue. The deadline for submissions is Thursday, April 10. You may recall that PWG already tried to sign off once, at the end of 2004, with its editors complaining that “we’re tired.” But it was reborn at the start of 2008, and has been turning out fine editions ever since. Let’s hope this latest termination effort is as unsuccessful as the previous one, and that we haven’t heard the last of PWG. Meanwhile, I’ll let you know when the current editors’ close-out issue is posted.

• Lee Child answers some readers’ questions.

• R.I.P., Lorenzo Semple Jr. The screenwriter who developed the 1960s live-action TV series Batman died on March 28 at age 91. Coincidentally, that was only two days before the 75th anniversary of Batman’s debut as a crime-fighting comic-book hero.

• MysteryPeople chats with Steven Saylor about his recently released historical mystery, Raiders of the Nile.

• It’s official! The complete DVD collection of the 1975-1976 ABC-TV series Barbary Coast--about which I wrote here not long ago--is scheduled for release on June 3. Barbary Coast, you may recall, was a not great, but interesting Western-cum-crime drama starring William Shatner and Doug McClure. I’ve already placed an order for the set. I hope the show measures up to my memories of it.

• Meanwhile, I have no recollection of this 1970 legal drama.

• Mystery Scene’s Oline Cogdill bids farewell to two small-screen series, one of which--Psych--ended its eight-year run (really, that long?) last week, while the other--Justified--has a final, sixth season still to come. “The two shows,” writes Cogdill, “could not be more different--one a comic-drama mystery, the other a hard-charging, often violent series--yet each was/is completely satisfying in its own way with realistic characters who drew you in to their exploits, good plots and, especially in Justified’s case, crisp dialogue.”

• And I don’t think my local public-TV station has scheduled broadcasts of Father Brown, the BBC series starring Mark Williams. Which would be worse, if not for the fact that Criminal Element blogger Leslie Gilbert Elman thinks that program “has little in common with its source material” and shouldn’t be held “to any standard of historical accuracy.” Read her full overview of Father Brown here.

A “Rockford” Anniversary

Fan and blogger Jim Suva reminds us that today marks 40 years since the debut, on March 27, 1974, of the pilot film that launched The Rockford Files. Also known by the title “Backlash of the Hunter,” that 90-minute NBC teleflick found perennially broke ex-con private eye Jim Rockford (James Garner) being approached by a young bikini-shop proprietor (played so delightfully by Lindsey Wagner), who is convinced her wino father was murdered, rather than having committed suicide. She wants Rockford to prove it.

The Rockford pilot ranks as one of my all-time favorites of the breed, and it spawned what I believe is the best gumshoe series ever broadcast on the American small screen. If you haven’t seen the film before, or would enjoy watching it again, you’ll find it here.

Triple Treat

News reported here recently that the pilot film for the 1972-1973 ABC-TV crime/adventure drama The Delphi Bureau has been released by Warner Archive dredged up from my memory the “wheel series” of which Delphi was merely one element. So I went looking through YouTube, and discovered the 1972 Fall Preview video--posted above--which introduced Delphi and its two other alternating shows, all of which were broadcast under the umbrella title The Men.

For those who aren’t old enough to remember, The Delphi Bureau featured Laurence Luckinbill as Glenn Garth Gregory, a handsome guy with a photographic memory who’s employed by an indistinctly defined U.S. government agency that does obscure “research” work for the president. “Its actual role was counter-espionage,” recalls Wikipedia, “and its main operative was Gregory, whose liaison with the group’s unnamed superiors was Sybil Van Lowreen (Anne Jeffreys), a Washington, D.C., society hostess. (Celeste Holm had played Sybil Van Lowreen in the series’ pilot film.)” Unfortunately, only seven episodes of Delphi were shot before The Men was cancelled.

In NBC Mystery Movie fashion, Delphi had rotated in a 9-10 p.m. Thursday (later Saturday) slot with a couple of other programs that should have been more successful than they were. The first of those was Jigsaw, which found familiar character actor James Wainwright playing Lieutenant Frank Dain, a determined but kindhearted plainclothes detective with the California State Police Missing Persons Bureau, whose cases took him all over the Golden State. Although this Universal Studios production was created by Robert E. Thompson, a screenwriter with heavy-duty experience in the field of small-screen dramas (his credits included scripts for Have Gun, Will Travel, Mission: Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and The Name of the Game), Jigsaw--not to be confused with Jack Warden’s 1976 NBC crime drama, Jigsaw John--did not fare well with viewers. Ted Fitzgerald recalls on The Thrilling Detective Web Site that

After six episodes were produced, the studio or the network brought in Roy Huggins to punch things up. Huggins began by jettisoning the cop format. The vehicle for the change was Howard Browne’s oft-filmed [1954] novel Thin Air (which would later be the basis of episodes of The Rockford Files and Simon & Simon, among others) in which a man is suspected of murder after his lady friend walks into a restaurant and vanishes into … you guessed it. Stephen [J.] Cannell wrote the script [for that episode, “Kiss the Dream Goodbye”], which ended with Dain clearing his name and getting his private ticket. Huggins plotted the next episode, then the network ran the final unaired cop episode and the show vanished. My memory of the series in general and the P.I. episodes in particular was that it was well-done and played straight; no Rockford-style humor. Huggins and Cannell undoubtedly would have done a good job with a low-key lone-wolf character and the missing-persons hook, but ABC gave them Toma to do instead. And, of course, a year later NBC provided them the Rockford opportunity. In the larger scheme of things, as promising as the still-born Jigsaw might have been, The Rockford Files was, to say the least, the better path for Huggins and Cannell to follow.

The last and perhaps best-remembered segment of The Men was Assignment: Vienna, about which I’ve written on this page before. It starred ex-Wild Wild West lead Robert Conrad as Jake Webster, “an American expatriate in Vienna who was the operator of Jake’s Bar & Grill, an American-style establishment near the scenic heart of the [Austrian capital] city,” Wikipedia explains. “In fact, the business was a cover for Jake’s actual reason for being in Vienna. He was involved in tracking down various spies and international criminals at the behest of U.S. intelligence, which apparently held something against him which, if disclosed, would have resulted in his being deported from Austria and apparently then incarcerated in the United States. Jake’s liaison with U.S. intelligence was a Major Caldwell (Charles Cioffi).”

Assignment: Vienna--which followed a 1972 pilot film, Assignment: Munich, featuring Roy Scheider in the Webster role--seemed to offer considerable promise. As I remarked in my previous post about that show: “It had the talented pair of Eric Bercovici and Jerry Ludwig (who’d worked previously on episodes of Mission: Impossible) as its creators and executive producers. It had a terrific, intrigue-filled theme by jazz pianist and composer Dave Grusin (who had composed the theme music for Burt Reynolds’ Dan August and Robert Wagner’s It Takes a Thief, among others).” And in Conrad it boasted a bankable star, a pretty boy who nonetheless carried a tough demeanor suggesting he’d taken a few punches in his time and knew how to throw more of his own. (In fact, Conrad had been a pop and rock singer before he embarked on an acting career.) Furthermore, this final spoke of the Men wheel was shot in European “locations of intrigue and adventure,” giving it a freshness that other programs filmed around New York City or Los Angeles lacked. Yet, once more, Assignment: Vienna was yanked from the TV schedule after only eight episodes.

Warner Archive’s DVD release of The Dephi Bureau pilot gives me hope that it will follow up with a complete packaging of the series. And maybe that will incite the sale of both Assignment: Vienna and Jigsaw in the same format. I’d love to see them all once more--complete with the Isaac Hayes theme that originally introduced The Men.

* * *

The video clip embedded at the top of this post comes from a longer ABC Fall Preview--the first of two parts--found here. An episode-by-episode index of The Men is here.

Quercus Finds a Partner

Following on the news, reported on this page in January, that London-based book publisher Quercus was up for sale, comes word today that fellow UK publishing house Hodder & Stoughton (an imprint of Hachette) has offered to purchase Quercus for “around £12.6 million.” You’ll find more about that deal here.

(Hat tip to Ali Karim.)

“Grace” Note

When I wrote yesterday about books and authors picking up awards during this last weekend’s Left Coast Crime convention in Monterey, I neglected to add that Minnesota author William Kent Krueger won the 2014 Dilys Award for his novel Ordinary Grace (Atria). The Dilys, as you are undoubtedly aware, is given annually by the The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association (IMBA) “to the mystery titles of the year which the member booksellers have most enjoyed selling.”

The other half-dozen nominees for the 2014 Dilys Award were: Seven for a Secret, by Lyndsay Faye (Amy Einhorn/Putnam); The Black Country, by Alex Grecian (Putnam); Spider Woman’s Daughter, by Anne Hillerman (Harper); Pagan Spring, by G.M. Malliet (Minotaur); and The Land of Dreams, by Vidar Sundstol; translated by Tiina Nunnally (University of Minnesota Press).

Bravo to all of these books and their writers.

READ MORE: “Left Coast Crime 2014: Calamari Crime” and “Left Coast Crime: More Photos!,” by Janet Rudolph (Mystery Fanfare); “Left Coast Crime (A Little Tardy),” by Jen Forbus (Jen’s Book Thoughts).

Left Coast, Right Choices

Last night, during the 24th annual Left Coast Crime convention, held in beautiful Monterey, California, the winners in four categories of awards were announced. They are:

The Lefty (best humorous mystery novel):
The Good Cop, by Brad Parks (Minotaur)

Also nominated: The Hen of the Baskervilles, by Donna Andrews (Minotaur); The Fame Thief, by Timothy Hallinan (Soho Crime); The Last Word, by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster); and Dying for a Daiquiri, by Cindy Sample (Cindy Sample Books)

The Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award (for best historical mystery novel covering events before 1960):
Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses, by Catriona McPherson (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Heirs and Graces, by Rhys Bowen (Berkley Prime Crime); His Majesty’s Hope, by Susan Elia MacNeal (Bantam); Murder as a Fine Art, by David Morrell (Mulholland); Covenant with Hell, by Priscilla Royal (Poisoned Pen Press); and Leaving Everything Most Loved, by Jacqueline Winspear (HarperCollins)

The Squid (best mystery set within the United States):
Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger (Atria)

Also nominated: W Is for Wasted, by Sue Grafton (Putnam/Marian Wood); Purgatory Key, by Darrell James (Midnight Ink); The Wrong Girl, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge); and A Killing at Cotton Hill, by Terry Shames (Seventh Street)

The Calamari (best mystery set anywhere else in the world):
How the Light Gets In, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Murder Below Montparnasse, by Cara Black (Soho Crime); Hour of the Rat, by Lisa Brackmann (Soho Crime); As She Left It, by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink); and Mykonos After Midnight, by Jeffrey Siger (Poisoned Pen Press)

Congratulations to all of the nominees and winners.

Catching the Critics’ Eyes

Later this week we should hear which books and authors have won a variety of annual awards at the Left Coast Crime convention, being held in Monterey, California, beginning tomorrow. But meanwhile, The Strand Magazine has announced the nominees for its 2013 Critics Awards for Best Mystery Novel and Best First Mystery Novel.

Best Novel:
• The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes (Mulholland)
• Solo, by William Boyd (Harper)
• Sandrine’s Case, by Thomas H. Cook (Mysterious Press)
• A Serpent’s Tooth, by Craig Johnson (Viking)
• Ratlines, by Stuart Neville (Soho Press)
• The Double, by George Pelecanos (Little, Brown)

Best First Novel:
• Just What Kind of Mother Are You? by Paula Daly (Grove Press)
• Ghostman, by Roger Hobbs (Knopf)
• A Killing at Cotton Hill, by Terry Shames (Seventh Street)
• Walking Into the Ocean, by David Whellams (ECW Press)
• Norwegian by Night, by Derek Miller (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

In addition, authors Peter Lovesey and R.L. Stine have been named as the latest recipients of The Strand’s Lifetime Achievement Award “for excellence in crime and thriller writing.”

All of these commendations will be handed out during an invitation-only cocktail party to be held in New York City on July 9.

Dancing with the Czars

This month marks the beginning of my fourth year as the lead crime-fiction blogger for Kirkus Reviews. It’s been a pretty fun ride so far, and though there have been some frustrations along the way (including the recent redesign, which--illogically--shrinks the main book cover image at the top of each page, making it smaller than those that follow), this gig has given me opportunities to speak with authors I might not otherwise have contacted and explore corners of the genre about which I’d previously known little.

My Kirkus column today looks at “eight tales of historical intrigue and high-stakes espionage” set in Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade neighboring Ukraine and occupy the Crimean peninsula, followed by this weekend’s bogus vote by Crimean residents to join Russia, have thrown a spotlight on Russia, just when it seemed to be disappearing again from the news, following the end of the winter Olympic Games in Sochi. What better time to recall fine Russia-backdropped works by R.N. Morris, Stuart M. Kaminsky, Boris Akunin, Richard Hoyt, and others?

You’ll find my latest Kirkus contribution here.

READ MORE: “Vladimir Putin’s Many Faces, in Fiction,” by John Dugdale (The Guardian).

Sleuth and Consequences

You may have been too busy in other endeavors to notice, but over the last couple of days the Web has been filled with tributes to classic film and television gumshoes. Hosted by Movies, Silently, the 2014 “Sleuthaton” offers many pieces that should be of interest to Rap Sheet readers. Subjects range from Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes and the Miss Marple mysteries with Margaret Rutherford to Johnny Staccato and the Joel and Garda Sloane “Fast” mysteries. A complete lineup of links can be found here.

Get Your Irish On!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone! I hope there’s some green article of clothing you are wearing today, even if it’s only a couple of worn socks. And don’t be afraid to partake of traditional corned beef and cabbage for at least one meal before the sun sets again (I know I shall be doing that myself). Another way to celebrate this occasion might be to pick up a mystery novel related to St. Patrick’s Day. Janet Rudolph has assembled a list of them here. Meanwhile, Irish author Declan Burke catalogues interesting Irish crime novels, “aka ‘Emerald Noir’,” about which he has blogged since the start of 2014.

READ MORE: “Everything You Know About St. Patrick’s Day Is Wrong,” by Christine Dalton (The Huffington Post); “Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with Some Irish Crime Fiction,” by Patrick Balester (Picks by Pat); “Five Great Irish Crime Fiction Authors” (MysteryPeople).

Pulp by the Dozen

A couple of weeks back, we alerted you to the start of online voting for this year’s New Pulp Awards. The cutoff for ballots being received was March 12, and the actual commendations won’t be handed out until Sunday, March 23, during MidSouth Con in Memphis, Tennessee. However, the 12 winners have already been announced. They are:

2014 New Pulp Best Novel:
Slow Burn, by Terrence McCauley (Noir Nation)

2014 New Pulp Best Collection/Anthology Award:
Bumping Noses and Cherry Pie, by Charie D. La Marr
(Chupa Cabra House)

2014 New Pulp Best Short Story Award:
“A Bullet’s All It Takes,” by Terrence McCauley (from The Kennedy Curse, edited by Bill Olver; Exter Press)

2014 New Pulp Best Novella Award:
The Scarlet Jaguar, by Win Scott Eckert (Meteor House)

2014 New Pulp Best Cover Art Award:
The Scarlet Jaguar, by Win Scott Eckert; cover art by Mark Sparacio (Meteor House)

2014 New Pulp Best Interior Art Award:
The Adventures of Gravedigger, Volume One, by Will Meugniot
(Pro Se Productions)

2014 New Pulp Best Pulp-Related Comic:
Doc Savage (Dynamite Entertainment)

2014 New Pulp Best Pulp Magazine:
Pro Se Presents (Pro Se Productions)

2014 New Pulp Best Pulp Revival:
The Avenger (Moonstone Books)

2014 New Pulp Best New Character Award:
Gravedigger, from The Adventures of Gravedigger, Volume One,
by Barry Reese

2014 New Pulp Best Author Award:
Terrence McCauley

2014 New Pulp Best New Author Award:
Ralph L. Angelo Jr.

Congratulations to all of the winners! If you’d like to see a full list of the contenders for this year’s prizes, click here.

Bullet Points: Downbeat Thursday Edition

• Although it was broadcast for less than a full year, Darren McGavin’s 1974-1975 TV series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, is still broadly--and fondly--remembered. In 2012, Peter Enfantino and John Scoleri put together a terrific blog devoted to the show, It Couldn’t Happen Here. And now the Cult TV Lounge revisits that modern horror drama, calling it “a great deal of fun.

The good episodes outnumber the bad ones by a healthy margin and McGavin is delightful.”

• Amazon Studios has commissioned four original TV series to stream through its Amazon Prime service, one of which is Bosch, a police procedural based on Michael Connelly’s Hieronymous “Harry” Bosch novels and starring Titus Welliver. There’s more information about the four programs here, and specifically on Bosch here. A clip from the pilot is on the right. But I don’t see any word on when this series might debut.

• What do Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and World War I all have in common? This piece in The Atlantic reveals all.

• For anyone planning to attend this year’s CrimeFest in May, note that the program schedule has now been posted. Someday I hope to make it over to Bristol, England, to attend one of these conventions.

• Wow, I used to own all of the Major Matt Mason figures and their space gear, as well. I wonder what my mother did with that stuff …

• Have you been following the posts in Criminal Element, by author Jake Hinkson (Saint Homicide), that look back at the 1990-1991 TV drama Twin Peaks? Hinkson reintroduces the show, and then leaps quickly to the first episode. His reassessments of the second and third eps have followed. You can keep track of them all here.

• Really? A sequel to the 2005 neo-noir film Sin City? Crimespree Magazine offers a trailer for this new picture, which it says opens in theater on August 22.

• Another unnecessary remake. From New York magazine: “According to The Hollywood Reporter, our generation’s Chevy Chase, Jason Sudeikis, is in talks to take on the reporter role Chase made famous in the upcoming film Fletch Won, featuring the character I.M. Fletcher from the Gregory Mcdonald mystery series. Fletch Won will apparently be based on an original story, but Mcdonald did write twelve Fletch books in total, meaning Sudeikis could have his very own James Bond or Indiana Jones if he plays his cards right.” First off, Mcdonald penned 11 Fletch novels, one of which was in fact titled Fletch Won (1985). So is New York’s write-up wrong, or are this film’s supporters using the title, but telling a different story?

• I really must read Solomon’s Vineyard someday.

• For the first time, says author Robert J. Randisi, all three of his private eye Nick Delvecchio novels--No Exit From Brooklyn (1987), The Dead of Brooklyn (1992), and The End of Brooklyn (2011)--will be available in print at the same time.

• The Nick Carter & Carter Brown Blog is focusing on crime, mystery, and thriller fiction book covers this month, all of which contain the word “murder.” (Thankfully, that word is ubiquitous among crime novels, publishers being convinced that readers need such easy cue terms if they’re to recognize new entries in the field.) This “Murder in March Madness” celebration began with The Murders in the Rue Morgue, by Edgar Allan Poe, and has gone from there. You should be able to see all the book fronts at this link.

• Singer Debbie Harry--paperback cover model?

• Crime Fiction Lover’s rundown of “The 20 Best [TV] Crime Shows of All Time” doesn’t feature The Rockford Files, which it of course should, but at least it includes Columbo, Foyle’s War, and the British version of Life on Mars. In addition to The Wire.

• Congratulations to Tipping My Fedora for its first 400,000 visits.

• Finally, a new survey has found that “half the books stockpiled on shelves in British homes remain unread” and that “many people hoard books which they become emotionally attached to.” The Daily Telegraph adds that “the average home has 138 books.” First off, I must shake my head at the idea that there are a mere 138 books in most homes; mine probably contains 5,000. Far fewer than half of those remain unread, but I’ll confess to having a couple of hundred waiting for me to be in the right mood to pick them up and begin digesting their wonders. I don’t at all consider having myriad books in a home hoarding. Bookshelves, even of the jam-packed variety, bring elegance and life to any room. I’ve always been suspicious of people who don’t have books around. What the hell do they do with their spare time, watch Modern Family? I have almost all of the books I’ve read since I attended high school. Books were my friends long before I had many acquaintances of the human variety, and they remind me of the intellectual and imaginative variety I have enjoyed over these many years. Am I emotionally attached to them? Damn straight! And I am proud of the fact. As anyone should be.

How’s This for Forgotten TV?

I never thought I’d see this happen: RLJ Entertainment is planning to release a DVD set of Barbary Coast, the long-unavailable 1975-1976 ABC-TV series starring William Shatner as a disguise-obsessed government agent working to fight crime in 19th-century San Francisco. The series also starred Doug McClure as his reluctant, saloon-owning partner. TV Shows on DVD says this four-disc set will go on sale June 3, priced at $59.99, and offers this précis of the show:

Golden Globe winner William Shatner (Star Trek, Boston Legal) is Jeff Cable, an undercover agent patrolling the wild streets of 1880s San Francisco. Filled with casinos and saloons, this bustling slice of post-Gold Rush California runs on corruption, greed, and violence. And it’s Agent Cable’s job to crack down on the numerous criminals who have made a home there. Even top public officials can’t be trusted, so Cable weaves elaborate ruses to uncover the Barbary Coast’s many plots.

He also relies on the slick but beleaguered Cash Conover (Doug McClure, The Virginian), proprietor of the Golden Gate Casino. Conover reluctantly puts his business and well-being on the line for Cable time and again. The charismatic pair often find the cards stacked against them, but that doesn’t stop them from having a rollicking good time as they police a town mired in vigilante justice. Also starring Richard Kiel (The Spy Who Loved Me), this Emmy-nominated series is a playful take on traditional Westerns with a terrific cast.

TV Shows on DVD doesn’t specifically address the matter, but this forthcoming set may well contain the 1975 Barbary Coast pilot film, which was written by Douglas Heyes and starred Dennis Cole as a more laconic Cash. How else would this be a 14-episode offering? There were only 13 hour-long episodes shot, following the success of that pilot.

Meanwhile, Warner Archive has just released a DVD of the 1972 pilot for The Delphi Bureau, starring Laurence Luckinbill as Glenn Garth Gregory, a government agent possessed of a handy photographic memory. In the pilot, explains IMDb, Gregory “is assigned to solve the disappearance of an entire fleet of old Air Force planes.” Only eight episodes of the subsequent ABC series were produced, all shown as part of a Thursday night “wheel series” titled The Men. (The other two “spokes” of that wheel were Robert Conrad’s Assignment: Vienna and James Wainwright’s Jigsaw.)

A few years back, Mystery*File’s Michael Shonk reviewed the Delphi Bureau pilot, which was subtitled “The Merchant of Death Assignment” (even though almost all of the series’ later episodes ended in “Project,” not “Assignment”); you can read his remarks here. The new DVD is priced at $18.95 and can be purchased here.

The Story Behind the Story: “Providence Rag,” by Bruce DeSilva

(Editor’s note: Below you will find the 48th entry in our “Story Behind the Story” series. It was sent our way by Bruce DeSilva, who put in four decades as a journalist, working as an editor and national writer at The Hartford Courant and as an investigative reporter for The Providence Journal. More recently, he’s served as a writing coach for The Associated Press. His first novel, 2010’s Rogue Island introduced Liam Mulligan, a Rhode Island newspaper veteran, who reappeared in 2012’s Cliff Walk. DeSilva’s latest Mulligan outing, Providence Rag--about which he writes here--is being released this week by Forge.)

I’ve certainly never thought of myself as delicate, but novels, movies, and TV shows about serial killers often make me squirm. It’s been that way ever since my real-life brush with one.

Not that I was ever in any danger. The killer in question was already behind bars before I spent several weeks of my life researching and writing a magazine story about him. It was the kind of article journalists call a hell of a good story, but my god, it was an ugly one.

The killer’s weapon of choice was butcher knives, and he used them to stab his victims over and over again, long after he knew they were gone. The dead included two sweet little girls. As a father, I couldn’t help but imagine their terror, and it sickened me. I know this sounds melodramatic, but sometimes, in my dreams, I can still hear them scream.

So two decades later, when I retired from a 40-year-long journalism career to write crime novels, I was sure I would never write one about a serial killer. I didn’t want to get that close to pure evil again.

Yet, those long-ago murders never stopped working on my subconscious, the place where novels are born.

For several years, I resisted the impulse to fictionalize the story. I told myself we’ve already got all the make-believe serial killers we need. Ever since Thomas Harris upped the ante with Hannibal Lecter, novelists and screenwriters have been tripping all over themselves trying to make each new psychotic butcher more twisted than the last. We’ve been treated to Jigsaw (who cuts his victims into puzzle pieces), The Grave Digger (who buries them alive in automobiles), Red John (who paints smiley faces on walls with human blood), Floyd Feylin Ferrell (who serves investigators chili made from his victims’ flesh) … I could go on, but I trust I’ve made my point.

When the compulsion to fictionalize the real-life case became too great to resist, I knew I would have to write a different kind of serial-killer book, one in which the focus would be on something other than brutal murder and criminal detection.

The result is Providence Rag, the third novel in my Edgar Award-winning series featuring Liam Mulligan, an investigative reporter for a dying newspaper in Providence, Rhode Island. The murders are committed and the killer is imprisoned in the first 75 pages. The rest of the book is dedicated to exploring an impossible moral dilemma: What are decent people supposed to do when a legal loophole requires that an unrepentant serial killer be released--and when the only way to keep him locked up is to fabricate new charges against him?


Convicted murderer Craig Price, aka “the Warwick Slasher”

The real criminal who inspired the novel is Craig Price, the most notorious murderer in Rhode Island history. He slaughtered two women and two children before he was old enough to drive. Just 13 years old when he began killing, and 15 when he was caught, he was the youngest serial killer in U.S. history. But that’s not the interesting part.

When Price was arrested in 1989, the state’s antiquated juvenile justice statutes had not been updated for decades, and when they were written, no one had ever imagined a child like him. So the law required that all juveniles, regardless of their crimes, be released and given a fresh start at age 21.

The state legislature promptly rewrote the law so this wouldn’t happen again, but in America, you can’t change the rules retroactively. So the authorities were faced with the chilling prospect of releasing Price after he’d served only six years for his crimes. Robert K. Ressler, one of the first FBI profilers, and the man credited with coining the term “serial killer,” was horrified. If Price gets out, he told me, “you’ll be piling up the bodies.”

But Price did not get out. Today, 25 years later, he remains behind bars, convicted of a series of assaults and offenses he supposedly committed while in prison. I have long suspected that some of these charges were fabricated, but at the very least it is obvious that Price has been absurdly over-sentenced. For example, the state gave him additional prison time for breaking a rule against swearing at correctional officers. Prisoners do that all the time, of course, but Price was the first to have his sentence extended for it. Later, he was given 30 years for contempt because he declined to submit to a court-ordered psychiatric examination.

Have the authorities abused their power to prevent Price’s release? Quite possibly. Should he ever be set free and given the chance to prey on the innocent again? I don’t think so. The ethical dilemma the case poses fascinates me. No matter which side you come down on, you are condoning something that is reprehensible. I wrote the novel to explore the implications of all this.

In real life, this conundrum hasn’t caused any soul-searching in Rhode Island--at least not publicly. Everyone seems content to let Price rot in prison. And who can blame them?

(Right) Author Bruce DeSilva

But a novel is fiction, after all, and Providence Rag is in no way intended to accurately depict real events. In the book, the ethical issue at the heart of the story haunts Mulligan and his colleagues at the Providence Dispatch.

Some people argue that authorities who are faking charges against the killer are perverting the criminal justice system. And if they are allowed to get away with it, what’s to stop them from framing someone else? Besides, it’s the journalist’s mission to report the truth.

Others argue that if the Dispatch breaks the story and the killer is released, he’s bound to kill again. And when that happens, the newspaper will have blood on its hands.

The dilemma eventually embroils Mulligan, his fellow reporters, his editors, and the entire state in a heated confrontation over where justice lies.

READ MORE: “Writer Interviews--Bruce DeSilva,” by Kristi Belcamino; “Bruce DeSilva,” by Gerald Bartell (Kirkus Reviews).

Succinct and Celebrated

In his blog, Small Crimes, author Dave Zeltserman has posted the winners of the 2013 Ellery Queen Readers Choice Awards. This list--which honors favorite works of short fiction published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine last year--apparently also appears in the May issue of that periodical:

First Place: “Archie Solves the Case,” by Dave Zeltserman
Second Place: “Borrowed Time,” by Doug Allyn
Third Place: “The Wickedest Town in the West,” by Marilyn Todd
Fourth Place: “Sob Sisters,” by Kris Nelscott
Fifth Place: “Jack and the Devil,” by David Dean
Sixth Place: “Cemetery Man,” by Bill Pronzini
Seventh Place: “The Care and Feeding of Houseplants,” by Art Taylor
Eighth Place: “In a Dark Manner,” by David Dean
Ninth Place: “Darkness in the City of Light,” by Hilary Davidson
Tenth Place: “Ghost Writer,” by Val McDermid

(Hat tip to Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine.)

A Short but Tragic Month

The closing days of February proved fatal for several writers of importance to the crime-fiction community.

Television screenwriter-producer Juanita Bartlett, who worked with James Garner on Nichols, The Rockford Files, and the 1978 TV pilot The New Maverick, passed away “in her sleep” on February 25. According to Facebook’s Official James Garner Fan Page, “Juanita’s age is unknown as she was a very private person.” Beyond the aforementioned credits, Bartlett worked on The Greatest American Hero, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Tenspeed and Brown Shoe, Alias Smith and Jones, and The Magician. She was brought in to “fix” Spenser: For Hire during its second season (sadly, its least appealing one), and later produced the series In the Heat of the Night. The International Movie Database (IMDb) has a lengthy rundown of her TV work.

Bill Adler, who, according to The New York Times, “pursued his goal of being the P. T. Barnum of books by conceptualizing, writing, editing, compiling, and hustling hundreds of them--prompting one magazine to anoint him ‘the most fevered mind’ in publishing”--died on February 28 at age 84. Among his credits, recalls Jiro Kimura of The Gumshoe Site, Adler “‘conceptualized’ contest mystery novels including Who Killed the Robins Family? (Morrow, 1983) and its sequel, The Revenge of the Robins Family (Morrow, 1984; both written by Thomas Chastain); The Agent (Doubleday, 1986; written by David R. Slavitt); and Murder on the Internet (Morrow, 1999; written by Bruce Cassiday). He also conceptualized two mystery anthologies: Murder in Manhattan (Morrow, 1986) with stories by NY writer[s], and Murder in Los Angeles (Morrow, 1987) with stories by L.A. writers.”

Finally, we mourn the demise of Aimée Thurlo, who penned novels in the mystery, romance, and young adult categories, often with her husband, David. The FantasticFiction Web site explains that the Thurlos had “three ongoing mystery series: the Sister Agatha series, starring a cloistered nun, the Lee Nez series, featuring a Navajo vampire who teams up with a female FBI agent to fight crimes that have elements of the supernatural, and their flagship series, the critically acclaimed Ella Clah novels. Several Ella Clah novels, including Tracking Bear, Red Mesa, and Shooting Chant, have received starred reviews from Booklist.” The couple welcomed the release of their first Charlie Henry novel, The Pawnbroker, in January of this year, and they have another new work, Undercover Warrior, due out in June. Oline Cogdill reports that “Their last novel will be Eagle’s Last Stand, due to come out later in 2014.” Aimee Thurlo died as a result of cancer.

READ MORE: “Rockford Files: Writer, Producer Juanita Bartlett
Passes Away” and “Rockford Files: The Juanita Bartlett Story” (Jim Suva’s Blog).

These Are Their Stories

With the HBO-TV crime drama True Detective set to conclude its wildly popular first season this coming Sunday, March 9, some lighthearted tech head decided the best way to honor that series’ value was to re-create its fabulous, moody main title sequence in the style of the classic Law & Order opening. You’ll find the results below.



(I found this video here.)

READ MORE: “True Detective’s Nic Pizzolatto,” by Oline H. Cogdill (Mystery Scene); “Time Killer: HBO’s True Detective,” by Phil Dyess-Nugent (Critics at Large); “The Addictiveness of HBO’s True Detective,” by Stephen Marche (Esquire).

And Now for the Pinckleys

Author and former journalist Laura Lippman (After I’m Gone) has been declared one of the two winners of this year’s inaugural Pinckley Prizes for Crime Fiction, “named to honor the memory of Diana Pinckley, longtime crime fiction columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.” After a quarter-century as a novelist, she walks away with the Pinckley Prize for a Distinguished Body of Work.

A statement from members of the prize committee calls Lippman “one of those writers whose dedication to her home town of Baltimore has captivated American readers. She has created an enduring sleuth in Tess Monaghan, a complex character dealing with the issues that every contemporary woman confronts. And more than that, in her stand-alone works, Lippman has transcended the limits and challenges of genre to become a distinguished writer of social realism.  All that, and she has a wicked sense of humor!”

Sharing today’s spotlight is Montana resident Gwen Florio, who has won the Pinckley Prize for a Debut Novel for her 2013 book, Montana.

These commendations are to be handed out on March 22 during the 28th annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival. They’ll be presented by the Women’s National Book Association of New Orleans, which counted Diana Pinckley among its founding members.

Recognizing Diversity

The Lambda Literary Foundation today announced its finalists for the 26th annual Lambda Literary Awards (“Lammys”), honoring lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) books published in 2013. There are 24 categories of contenders for these prizes, including a brand-new one this year, Graphic Novel. However, the two that I suspect might be of greatest interest to Rap Sheet readers are these:

Gay Mystery:

• Baton Rouge Bingo, by Greg Herren (Bold Strokes Books)

• Boystown 5: Murder Book, by Marshall Thornton (MLR Press)

• Fierce, by David Lennon (Blue Spike)

• Foxed, by Garry Ryan (NeWest Press)

• The General and the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari, by Sarah Black (Dreamspinner Press)

• How to Greet Strangers, by Joyce Thompson (Lethe Press)

• In Real Life, by Jonathan Gregory (Amazon Digital)

• Pawn of Satan, by Mark Zubro (MLR Press)

• Pretty Boy Dead, by Jon Michaelsen (Wilde City Press)

• The Prisoner of the Riviera, by Janice Law (Mysterious Press/
Open Road)

Lesbian Mystery:

• Cross and Burn, by Val McDermid (Atlantic Monthly Press)

• Death of the Demon, by Anne Holt (Scribner)

• High Desert, by Katherine V. Forrest (Spinsters Ink)

• The Killer Wore Leather, by Laura Antoniou (Cleis Press)

• Point of Betrayal, by Ann Roberts (Bella)

• The Rainey Season, by R.E. Bradshaw (R.E. Bradshaw)

• She Overheard Murder, by Jean Sheldon (Wellworth)

• Taken by the Wind, by Ellen Hart (Minotaur)

• Turning on the Tide, by Jenna Rae (Bella)

• Web of Obsessions, by Diane Wood (Bella)

• The Wild Beasts of Wuhan, by Ian Hamilton (Picador)

According to a press release, “Winners will be announced during a ceremony on Monday evening, June 2, 2014, at The Great Hall at Cooper Union (7 East 7th Street, New York City 10003).” For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Congratulations to all of the finalists.

You Read that Right: Free Books

Just a quick reminder that you have only one more day to enter Criminal Element’s latest book-giveaway drawing. The prizes are three free hardcover copies of Complex 90, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, which--as I explain in a piece preceding the contest details--was one of the top vote-getters in The Rap Sheet’s 2013 Best Crime Fiction Covers survey.

No purchases are necessary to enter or win one of these books. All you need do is post a comment here by tomorrow morning, March 7.

Found in Translation

It was finally announced today which books and authors have been shortlisted to win the 2014 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. They are as follows:

• Closed for Winter, by Jørn Lier Horst,
translated by Anne Bruce (Sandstone Press)
• Strange Shores, by Arnaldur Indriðason,
translated by Victoria Cribb (Harvill Secker)
• The Weeping Girl, by Håkan Nesser,
translated by Laurie Thompson (Mantle)
• Linda, As in the Linda Murder, by Leif G.W. Persson,
translated by Neil Smith (Doubleday)
• Someone to Watch Over Me, by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir,
translated by Philip Roughton (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Light in a Dark House, by Jan Costin Wagner,
translated by Anthea Bell (Harvill Secker)

This commendation memorializes Maxine Clarke, the British editor, crime-fiction blogger, and “champion of Scandinavian crime fiction” who died in December 2012; Petrona was the name of her long-running blog. It touts crime novels in translation, either penned by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia and published in the UK.

The winner of this year’s Petrona Award will be named during CrimeFest, the annual international crime-fiction gathering in Bristol, England. The 2014 convention will take place from May 15 to 18. “The winning author’s prize,” explains a press release, “will include a full pass to and a guaranteed panel at the 2015 CrimeFest event.”

Three judges were responsible for selecting this year’s six nominees: Barry Forshaw, a specialist in crime fiction and film, and author of--among other books--Death in a Cold Climate: A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction and the first biography of Stieg Larsson; Dr. Katharina Hall, an associate professor of German at Swansea University, who’s currently busy editing Crime Fiction in German for University of Wales Press; and Sarah Ward, an English language teacher in Manchester and the blogger at Crimepieces.

Click here for more information about the Petrona Award.

Suddenly It’s Spring Books

It seems I just got through recommending hundreds of forthcoming books to you, gentle readers. And that’s not far from the truth, as it was only two months ago that I assembled a lengthy selection of crime, mystery, and thriller works that were due out in U.S. bookstores between this last New Year’s Day and the close of March. You can find that list here, and my comments about eight of those titles were featured in my first Kirkus Reviews column of 2014.

Today my column for Kirkus looks at another eight forthcoming crime novels, these to be published through the end of May. Included are promising works by Benjamin Black, Hilary Davidson, John McFetridge, and Ben Pastor. But of course, whenever I put together one of these future-releases lists, I wind up investigating far more books than I have space to mention in Kirkus. Not being one to waste perfectly good research, I am posting below my complete rundown of the crime and thriller yarns--due out in English on both sides of the Atlantic over these next three months--that I think deserve particular attention. You’ll find here G.M. Ford’s latest Leo Waterman mystery, a long-forgotten San Francisco crime resurrected in fiction by Emma Donoghue, a new dark thriller from Dennis Tafoya and another spy novel by Charles Cumming, John Connolly’s 12th Charlie Parker outing, Max Allan Collins’ sixth posthumous collaboration with Mickey Spillane, a standalone suspenser by Jo Nesbø, John Harvey’s final case for Charlie Resnick, Ray Celestin’s early 20th-century New Orleans serial-killer yarn, and so many more reading opportunities.

With any luck, the Northern Hemisphere will soon experience signs of spring’s approach. Start thinking now about which of these books might be best to take with you into your backyard, onto your porch, or off to the nearest public park.

APRIL (U.S.):

• Antiques Con, by Barbara Allan (Kensington)

• Baudelaire’s Revenge, by Bob Van Laerhoven (Pegasus)

• Black Lies, Red Blood, by Kjell Eriksson (Minotaur)

• Blood Always Tells, by Hilary Davidson (Forge)

• The Blood of Alexander, by Tom Wilde (Forge)

• By Its Cover, by Donna Leon (Atlantic Monthly Press)

• Chump Change, by G.M. Ford (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Cold Nowhere, by Brian Freeman (Quercus)

• The Collector of Dying Breaths, by M.J. Rose (Atria)

• The Color of Light, by Wendy Hornsby (Perseverance Press)

• Critical Damage, by Robert K. Lewis (Midnight Ink)

• A Dark Song of Blood, by Ben Pastor (Bitter Lemon Press)

• Dead People, by Ewart Hutton (Minotaur)

• Death Money, by Henry Chang (Soho Crime)

• Don’t Ever Look Back, by Daniel Friedman (Minotaur)

• Evil in the 1st House, by Mitchell Scott Lewis (Poisoned Pen Press)

• A Few Drops of Blood, by Jan Merete Weiss (Soho Crime)

• A Flame in the Wind of Death, by Jen J. Danna (Five Star)

• From the Charred Remains, by Susanna Calkins (Minotaur)

• Frog Music, by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown)

• Game for Five, by Marco Malvaldi (Europa Editions)

• The Glacier Gallows, by Stephen Legault (TouchWood Editions)

• Gone and Done It, by Maggie Toussaint (Five Star)

• High Crime Area: Tales of Darkness and Dread, by Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious Press)

• The Intern’s Handbook, by Shane Kuhn (Simon & Schuster)

• I’ve Got You Under My Skin, by Mary Higgins Clark
(Simon & Schuster)

• Keep Quiet, by Lisa Scottoline (St. Martin’s Press)

• Live to See Tomorrow, by Iris Johansen (St. Martin’s Press)

• The Long Shadow, by Liza Marklund (Atria/Emily Bestler)

• The Marathon Conspiracy, by Gary Corby (Soho Crime)

• Matt Helm: The Devastators, by Donald Hamilton (Titan)

• Montecito Heights, by Colin Campbell (Midnight Ink)

• Mystery Writers of America Presents Ice Cold: Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War, edited by Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson
(Grand Central)

• Northanger Abbey, by Val McDermid (Grove Press)

• Overwatch, by Marc Guggenheim (Mulholland)

• The Poor Boy’s Game, by Dennis Tafoya (Minotaur)

• A Quiet Kill, by Janet Brons (TouchWood Editions)

• Ready to Kill, by Andrew Peterson (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Serpent of Venice, by Christopher Moore (Morrow)

• Stay Dead, by Anne Frasier (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Target, by David Baldacci (Grand Central)

• Under Cold Stone, by Vicki Delany (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Until You’re Mine, by Samantha Hayes (Crown)

APRIL (UK):

• After the Silence, by Jake Woodhouse (Penguin)

• The Book of You, by Claire Kendal (HarperCollins)

• Buried Angels, by Camilla Lackberg (HarperCollins)

• Cinderella Girl, by Carin Gerhardsen (Penguin)

• A Colder War, by Charles Cumming (HarperCollins)

• The Dead Ground, by Claire McGowan (Headline)

• Death in Pont-aven, by Jean-Luc Bannalec (Hesperus Press)

• Dog Will Have His Day, by Fred Vargas (Harvill Secker)

• Enemies at Home, by Lindsey Davis (Hodder & Stoughton)

• The First Rule of Survival, by Paul Mendelson (C&R Crime)

• Gallowglass, by Gordon Ferris (Corvus)

• Ghost Girl, by Lesley Thomson
(Head of Zeus)

• Girl Seven, by Hanna Jameson
(Head of Zeus)

• The House of Dolls, by David Hewson (Macmillan)

• The Killing Season, by Mason Cross (Orion)

• Letters to My Daughter’s Killer, by Cath Staincliffe (C&R Crime)

• Missing You, by Harlan Coben (Orion)

• The Quick, by Lauren Owen (Jonathan Cape)

• Sleeping Dogs, by Mark O’Sullivan (Transworld Ireland)

• Sorrow Bound, by David Mark (Quercus)

• The Stone Wife, by Peter Lovesey (Sphere)

• The Telling Error, by Sophie Hannah (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Thursday’s Children, by Nicci French (Michael Joseph)

• A Ticket to Oblivion, by Edward Marston (Allison & Busby)

• Wolf, by Mo Hayder (Bantam Press)

• The Wolf in Winter, by John Connolly (Hodder & Stoughton)

MAY (U.S.):

• The Abomination, by Jonathan Holt (Harper)

• American Woman, by Robert Pobi (Thomas & Mercer)

• Bellweather Rhapsody, by Kate Racculia (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Black Rock, by John McFetridge (ECW Press)

• Bone Dust White, by Karin Salvalaggio (Minotaur)

• The Bookman’s Tale, by Charlie Lovett (Penguin)

• Borderline, by Lawrence Block (Hard Case Crime)

• Carnival, by J. Robert Janes (Mysterious Press/Open Road)

• Cold Shot, by Mark Henshaw (Touchstone)

• The Corsican Caper, by Peter Mayle (Knopf)

• Dante’s Poison, by Lynne Raimondo (Seventh Street)

• The Dark Palace, by R N. Morris (Creme de la Crime)

• The Day She Died, by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink)

• Death at the Door, by Carolyn Hart (Berkley)

• The Detective & the Pipe Girl, by Michael Craven (Bourbon Street)

• The Devil’s Workshop, by Alex Grecian (Putnam)

• The Directive, by Matthew Quirk (Little, Brown)

• The Disposables, by David Putnam (Oceanview)

• Fatal Enquiry, by Will Thomas (Minotaur)

• For the Love of Parvati, by Susan Oleksiw (Five Star)

• The Hollow Girl, by Reed Farrel Coleman (Tyrus)

• I Am Pilgrim, by Terry Hayes (Atria/Emily Bestler)

• Invisible City, by Julia Dahl (Minotaur)

• Jack of Spies, by David Downing (Soho Crime)

• The Keeper, by John Lescroart (Atria)

• The Kill Switch, by James Rollins and Grant Blackwood (Morrow)

• King of the Weeds, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Titan)

• The Kraken Project,
by Douglas Preston (Forge)

• Moving Day, by Jonathan Stone
(Thomas & Mercer)

• Murder in Murray Hill, by Victoria Thompson (Berkley)

• Next Life Might Be Kinder, by Howard Norman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• The Painter, by Peter Heller (Knopf)

• Prayer, by Philip Kerr (Putnam)

• Ragtime Cowboys, by Loren D. Estleman (Forge)

• Relentless, by Simon Kernick (Atria)

• Resistant, by Michael Palmer (St. Martin’s Press)

• The River of Souls, by Robert McCammon (Subterranean)

• Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot, by Ace Atkins (Putnam)

• The Skin Collector, by Jeffery Deaver (Grand Central)

• Sniper’s Honor, by Stephen Hunter (Simon & Schuster)

• The Son, by Jo Nesbø (Knopf)

• The Stranger on the Train, by Abbie Taylor (Atria)

• The Stranger You Know, by Jane Casey (Minotaur)

• Suspicion, by Joseph Finder (Dutton)

• The Three, by Sarah Lotz (Little, Brown)

• This Private Plot, by Alan Beechey (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Wolverine Bros. Freight & Storage, by Steve Ulfelder (Minotaur)

• The Zodiac Deception, by Gary Kriss (Forge)

MAY (UK):

• Angel of Death, by Ben Cheetham (Head of Zeus)

• The Axeman’s Jazz, by Ray Celestin (Mantle)

• Betrayed, by Anna Smith (Quercus)

• The Bones Beneath, by Mark Billingham (Little, Brown)

• The Cinderella Killer, by Simon Brett (Creme de la Crime)

• A Dark and Twisted Tide, by Sharon Bolton (Bantam Press)

• Darkness, Darkness, by John Harvey (Heinemann)

• Decompression, by Juli Zeh (Harvill Secker)

• Eeny Meeny, by M.J. Arlidge (Penguin)

• Fatal Act, by Leigh Russell (No Exit Press)

• Hour of Darkness, by Quintin Jardine (Headline)

• Judges, by Andrea Camilleri, Carlo Lucarelli, and Giancarlo De Cataldo (MacLehose Press)

• The Killing Club, by Paul Finch (Avon)

• Kingdom Lock, by I.D. Roberts (Allison & Busby)

• Lonely Graves, by Britta Bolt (Mulholland)

• The Murder Bag, by Tony Parsons (Century)

• Murder in a Different Place, by Lesley Cookman (Accent Press)

• Night Heron, by Adam Brookes (Sphere)

• Sea of Stone, by Michael Ridpath (Corvus)

• Sidney Chambers and the Problem of Evil, by James Runcie (Bloomsbury)

• Theft of Life, by Imogen Robertson (Headline Review)

• The Ties That Bind, by Erin Kelly (Hodder & Stoughton)

• When Sorrows Come, by Matt McGuire (C&R Crime)

• The Whitehall Mandarin, by Edward Wilson (Arcadia)

As I have so frequently asked at the end of these lists, what did I miss? Are there forthcoming crime, thriller, and mystery novels that I ought to have included, but did not? Please feel free to suggest other interesting genre works in the Comments section below.