Bullet Points: Memorial Day Edition

• Swiss crime fiction? I didn’t even know there was such a thing. Fortunately, Bob Cornwell is helping to fill that hole in my education with his third nation-focused special for Crime Time, this one focusing on Switzerland. There’s a fine overview of the field, a list of useful Web sites, a selection of Swiss contributors to the genre, and much more. Cornwell tells me that this information was “compiled by Paul Ott, Swiss novelist and short story writer (as Paul Lascaux), critic, bibliographer, and founder of Mordstage, Switzerland’s major crime-fiction festival.” To read Crime Scene: Switzerland, click here. And if you’d like to catch up with the two previous installments of this series--about France and The Netherlands--simply go here.

• Did you know that author William Landay (Mission Flats, The Strangler) has begun writing a blog of his own? “I have always avoided writing for the Web because I was afraid it would suck away some of the creative energy I need for my novels,” he explains in his debut post. “Novel-writing is grueling. It demands long periods of quiet and concentration. The Web, an endless stream of flashing, hyperlinked calls for your attention, is lethal to that sort of sustained focus. ... But, after The Crash in publishing, midlist (or downlist) writers like me simply cannot afford to ignore the Web. Toxic as it is to book-writing, the Web is essential to book-selling.”

• More Moore, please. That would be Donna Moore, the author of ... Go to Helena Handbasket, who has just thrown the doors open on another new blog, Big Beat from Badsville. She’s styling it as “the home of Scottish crime fiction--news, interviews, reviews, book-related stuff, non-book-related stuff, and any other random nonsense that takes my fancy (there, that should stop me getting done under the Trade Descriptions Act).” Drop in here and have a few pints. (Hat tip to Peter Rozovsky.)

• See what you can learn by reading?

• In her new column for the Baltimore Examiner Web site, Sandra Ruttan coaxes Craig McDonald into talking about “the intrigue of writing about other writers” in his new book, Rogue Males. You’ll find Ruttan’s column here.

• Meanwhile, New Jersey novelist Jeffrey Cohen yaps it up with Jen Forbus of Jen’s Books Thoughts on subjects ranging from his lifetime interest in writing (“I’ve always had an internal story going on, and at some point, it has to come out”) and his sense of humor to his attention to character development and his pun-titled mysteries (the latest of which is A Night at the Operation).

• After seeing his 100th book published, the novel Far Cry, This Is Nottingham apparently couldn’t wait to ask 70-year-old British author John Harvey when readers can expect the appearance of his next book. Laughing, Harvey says, “It does get harder, I’ll be honest. To think of a different story and a different angle. I think it’s one of the things about writing crime fiction. This year I’m taking a sabbatical. I have done a book a year since the first [Charlie] Resnick [novel, 1989’s Lonely Hearts]. And I’d like to slow down to the point where I’m doing a book every two years. ... There are other things I want to do.” You’ll have to read the full article to see what those are.

• And for Pulp Pusher, Ray Banks interviews Edinburgh journalist David Lewis about his new book, Beast of Burden.

• This week’s CrimeWAV podcast comes from UK writer Gary Dobbs. It’s called “Rhonda Noir,” and CrimeWAV honcho Seth Harwood says it “will make you think of Guy Ritchie, Tarantino, and all the goods!”

• In the lead-up to spy novelist Eric Ambler’s 100th birthday next month, Sarah Weinman reconsiders Ambler’s A Coffin for Dimitrios, “which 70 years after its 1939 publication holds up as a startling, elegant masterpiece of espionage fiction.” That same book was reviewed not long ago as part of The Rap Sheet’s “forgotten books” series. (Hat tip to Patrick Balester.)

• By the way, were you aware that Christopher Fowler, author of Bryant and May mysteries, has been writing a series for Britain’s Independent newspaper about “forgotten authors,” some of whom--like Robert Van Gulik and H.R.F. Keating--are crime writers? You can find that whole series reproduced in Fowler’s blog.

• I can’t believe I’ve never seen this movie.

• Not content with producing one award-nominated blog, Crime Always Pays, Irish author and Rap Sheet contributor Declan Burke writes today that he’s “been thinking strongly about starting a new blog ... called Green Streets, as in, ‘Down those green streets a man (or woman) must go ...’ and making that one the news/gossip/slander venue for Irish crime writing, while I toddle on with Crime Always Pays as a personal blog. It probably all sounds a bit messy, but in the long run I want to establish Green Streets as an online magazine, and a proper Web site, for Irish crime writing--novels, movies, journalism, non-fiction/true crime, and theatre.” He’s now looking for writers to lend him a hand. Any takers? Let him know here.

• Speaking of the able Mr. Burke, I really ought to follow up on a story from earlier this week about his conducting a poll to identify “the sexiest Irish crime writer.” The full results are here, but you might as well know up front that John Connolly and Alex Barclay came in their respective sex categories. (Is that a proper way to phrase it?)

• Ken Bruen’s 2008 novel, Once Were Cops, appears headed for big-screen Hollywood treatment.

• And Philadelphia is the place to be this coming Halloween.

Bullet Points: Ashes and Slashers Edition

• Concluding her weeklong celebration of Washington novelist Earl Emerson (Cape Disappointment), Naomi Johnson talks with the author about the importance of setting in his books, why he brought fictional P.I. Thomas Black out of mothballs, and his day-job experiences as a firefighter. Read it here.

• Is The Man from U.N.C.L.E. really bound for a big-screen treatment? Find out more about the possibilities here, here, and here.

• New in Beat to a Pulp: “Doggy Day Care,” by Richard Prosch.

• Recent Rap Sheet contributor Ed Lin submits his new novel, Snakes Can’t Run (Minotaur Books), to Marshal Zeringue’s Page 69 Test. The results are here.

• To help inaugurate a new feature in his blog (“I plan to interview editors and agents as well as writers on the use of spirit of place in fiction, thus providing input from all sides of publishing”), J. Sydney Jones talks with Peter Joseph, an editor at St. Martin’s Press who, among other things, “acquires mysteries and thrillers under the Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Minotaur imprint.”

• Ooo-la-la!

• Online polls are notoriously unscientific, and blogger Jen Forbus’ “World’s Favorite Detective” competition is no exception. The idea was OK, and Forbus did a remarkable job of organizing the whole thing. But the idea that Michael Connelly’s LAPD detective, Harry Bosch, should have walked away the winner is pretty disappointing. Bosch is an interesting character, but there’s no way in hell he merits top honors over such other literary heavyweights as Philip Marlowe, Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, Lew Archer, and Spenser.

• The English Riviera Festival of Crime and Thriller Writing begins this coming Tuesday, April 20. A full schedule of events can be found here. (Hat tip to In Reference to Murder.)

• The crime-fiction e-zine Plots With Guns is putting out a call for submissions to its upcoming “New Slashers” edition. Explains editor Anthony Neil Smith:

For our October issue of Plots With Guns, we want horror. We want the sort of shit-your-pants horror that comes not like a sudden shock on the screen, but the kind that makes you increasingly nervous for hours and days after reading it. And we want the kind of nostalgia-bending fiction that reminds us of all those movies from the ’80s where the slutty people died first.

Yep, we want some new slashers.

Make up a slasher and put him or her in a story that will make my balls shrivel up. It can be an origin story, or a “sequel,” or anything in-between. As long as this is a completely new made-up slasher that will freak us the hell out.

And the story has to have a gun in it.

Our typical “contemporary setting” restriction is out the window for this one as well. It can be a slasher from any age, past, present, or future.

We’d like ’em under 5K, please. Deadline will be early September. Issue will be posted in mid October.

• In addition to the previously mentioned flash-fiction challenge posed by Patti Abbott and Gerald So (deadline May 1), there’s also a new short-story contest being organized by writer Jason Duke. Submissions should run 2,000-3,500 words in length and be submitted by mid-May. The winner and runner-up will be published in Crimefactory. Full contest details are available here.

• Chad Rohrbacher is hosting yet another flash-fiction challenge, this one built around 1,500-word crime or superhero yarns. But the deadline for entering is tomorrow, with finished copy due in a week.

• Morons with microphones: stupidest statement of the week.

• Could Southland be cancelled--again?

• If you haven’t already noticed, Scottish novelist Ian Parnham has been blogging about each new episode of the third and final season of Ashes to Ashes, the British sequel to Life on Mars. Series 3 of Ashes to Ashes debuted on April 2.

• The latest edition of Mystery Readers Journal, and the first one to be published in 2010, focuses on mystery fiction set on the African continent. More about that here.

• Must ... have ... this ... book!

• Actor, author, and blogger Gary M. Dobbs muses on the incorporation of the notorious Jack the Ripper into modern crime fiction, in advance of the publication of his e-book, A Policeman’s Lot.

• Paul D. Brazill is writing is serial tale, “Warsaw Moon,” for the Web-based literary journal Disenthralled. You can read Part I here; Part II is to be found here.

• I, for one, would love to see this movie again.

• Not long ago, I acquired a DVD copy of the TV pilot film Genesis II, a Gene Roddenberry production that I hadn’t seen since it’s original broadcast in 1973. (Not surprisingly, my memories of that film made it somewhat better than I thought it was the second time around.) So I was interested to see blogger Randy Johnson writing about both Genesis II and Roddenberry’s second, related science-fiction pilot, Planet Earth (1974). But now, I have this strong urge to buy both pictures. Dammit!

• And here’s a rare clip from the unsold 1997 pilot for a Hawaii Five-O remake, starring Gary Busey and Russell Wong.

Writes of Spring

Although I hadn’t intended such a convenient convergence of events, it seems I am posting this piece on World Book Day—at least as it’s celebrated in Great Britain. (Elsewhere, World Book Day will be observed this year on April 23.) What an ideal occasion to look ahead at crime, mystery, and thriller novels set to be released on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean between now and June 1. We can all use some suggestions of what to read next, right?

And there will be a signal abundance of books released in this genre over the next three months. Below I’ve collected more than 420 titles from which to choose. Among those are new works by Greg Iles (Cemetery Road), Alice Feeney (I Know Who You Are), Craig Russell (The Devil Aspect), Alafair Burke (The Better Sister), David Downing (Diary of a Dead Man on Leave), Ray Celestin (The Mobster’s Lament), Agnete Friis (The Summer of Ellen), Edward Conlon (The Policeman’s Bureau), Dervla McTiernan (The Scholar), John Connolly (A Book of Bones), Barbara Nadel (A Knife to the Heart), Brad Parks (The Last Act), William Shaw (Deadland), Jeffery Deaver (The Never Game), and two fresh entries by Anne Perry (Triple Jeopardy and Death in Focus). Philip Kerr’s final Bernie Gunther novel, Metropolis, is due in bookstores this season, as are Andrew Taylor’s third James Marwood/Cat Lovett historical mystery, The King’s Evil; James Runcie’s prequel to his popular Sidney Chambers series, The Road to Grantchester; Murder, My Love, the latest Mike Hammer detective yarn by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins; E.S. Thomson’s Surgeon’s Hall, her third Victorian-era thriller featuring apothecary Jem Flockhart; a previously unpublished novel by Desmond Bagley, Domino Island; another Guido Brunetti mystery by Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given; James Grady’s Condor: The Short Takes, a collection of tales featuring the CIA operative known as Condor; Sujata Massey’s The Satapur Moonstone, her sophomore outing for Perveen Mistry, the only female lawyer in 1920s Bombay; Thomas Harris’s new novel of “evil, greed, and the consequences of dark obsession,” Cari Mora; and a work of espionage fiction by Tom Bradby, Secret Service.

On top of all those, I’ve listed—and identified with asterisks (*)—several works of non-fiction that should interest mystery and thriller enthusiasts, including Claire Harman’s Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens’s London and Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. Scattered among the titles below, too, are a handful penned by authors synonymous with this genre, but that are not strictly crime works (such as Louis Bayard’s Courting Mr. Lincoln).

Normally, when I put together one of these seasonal book forecasts, I recommend that readers wishing to learn about still more scheduled releases should refer to Euro Crime (for UK books) or The Bloodstained Bookshelf (for American ones). But, sadly, The Bloodstained Bookshelf seems to have gone quiet. The last time producer Ashley McConnell updated her lengthy tally was last June, and I haven’t yet been able to reach her via e-mail to determine the site’s status. I hope she will resume her regular revisions soon, as I’ve always found The Bloodstained Bookshelf to be a valuable resource.

Now on to your near-future reading opportunities …

MARCH (U.S.):

• After the Eclipse, by Fran Dorricott (Titan)

• All the Wrong Places, by Joy Fielding (Ballantine)

• Allmen and the Pink Diamond, by Martin Suter (New Vessel Press)

• Ambush, by Barbara Nickless (Thomas & Mercer)

• The American Agent, by Jacqueline Winspear (Harper)

• And Then You Were Gone, by R.J. Jacobs (Crooked Lane)

• Another Kingdom, by Andrew Klavan (Turner)

• Article 353, by Tanguy Viel (Other Press)

• Beautiful Bad, by Annie Ward (Park Row)

• A Beautiful Corpse, by Christi Daugherty (Minotaur)

• Before She Knew Him, by Peter Swanson (Morrow)

• Bertie: The Complete Prince of Wales Mysteries, by Peter
Lovesey (Soho Crime)

• Black and Blue, by David Rosenfelt (Minotaur)

• Black Souls, by Gioacchino Criaco (Soho Crime)

• Bloodline, by Nigel McCrery (Quercus)

• The Body in the Boat, by A.J. MacKenzie (Bonnier Zaffre)

• Bones of the Earth, by Eliot Pattison (Minotaur)

• Border Son, by Samuel Parker (Revell)

• The Case of the Careless Kitten, by Erle Stanley Gardner
(American Mystery Classics)

• Cemetery Road, by Greg Iles (Morrow)

• The Chernobyl Privileges, by Alex Lockwood (Roundfire)

• The Club, by Takis Würger (Grove Press)

• The Complete Dr. Thorndyke, Volume 1: The Red Thumb Mark, the Eye of Osiris and the Mystery of 31 New Inn, by R. Austin Freeman and edited by David Marcum (MX)

• The Complete Dr. Thorndyke, Volume 2: Short Stories (Part I):
John Thorndyke’s Cases—The Singing Bone, the Great Portrait Mystery and Apocryphal Material, by R. Austin Freeman and edited by David Marcum (MX)

• Crown Jewel, by Christopher Reich (Mulholland)

• A Dangerous Collaboration, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)

• Dark Tribute, by Iris Johansen (St. Martin’s Press)

• Dead in a Week, by Andrea Kane (Bonnie Meadow)

• Death Blow, by Isabella Maldonado (Midnight Ink)

• Death on the Aisle, by Frances and Richard Lockridge (American Mystery Classics)

• Desert Redemption, by Betty Webb (Poisoned Pen Press)

• The Devil Aspect, by Craig Russell (Doubleday)

• Double Exposure, by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Grand Central)

• The Dutch Shoe Mystery, by Ellery Queen (American Mystery Classics)

• The Elephant of Surprise, by Joe R. Lansdale (Mulholland)

• Family Man, by Jerome Charyn and Joe Staton (IDW)

• Fault Lines: Stories by Northern California Crime Writers, edited by Margaret Lucke (Sisters in Crime Northern California Chapter)

• Finding Katarina M., by Elisabeth Elo (Polis)

• Forgotten Murder, by Dolores Gordon-Smith (Severn House)

• Frederic Dannay, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and the Art of the Detective Short Story, by Laird R. Blackwell (McFarland)

• A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, by William Boyle (Pegasus)

• The Gardener of Eden,
by David Downie (Pegasus)

• The Good Detective,
by John McMahon (Putnam)

• The Greene Murder Case, by S.S. Van Dine (Felony & Mayhem)

• Her Father’s Secret,
by Sara Blaedel (Grand Central)

• Hipster Death Rattle,
by Richie Narvaez (Down & Out)

• The Horseman’s Song,
by Ben Pastor (Bitter Lemon Press)

• House on Fire, by Bonnie Kistler (Atria)

• I Am Watching, by Emma Kavanagh (Kensington)

• The Last Act, by Brad Parks (Dutton)

• The Last Woman in the Forest. by Diane Les Becquets (Berkley)

• The Liar’s Child, by Carla Buckley (Ballantine)

• A Lily in the Light, by Kristin Fields (Lake Union)

• Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against Hitler, by Lynne Olson
(Random House)*

• Maigret and the Lazy Burglar, by Georges Simenon (Penguin)

• The Marrow of Tradition, by Charles W. Chesnutt (Belt)

• The Malta Exchange, by Steve Berry (Minotaur)

• Memo from Turner, by Tim Willocks (Blackstone)

• The Man With No Face, by Peter May (Quercus)

• Mercy River, by Glen Erik Hamilton (Morrow)

• The Mobster’s Lament, by Ray Celestin (Mantle)

• Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens’s London,
by Claire Harman (Knopf)*

• Murder in Belgravia, by Lynn Brittney (Crooked Lane)

• Murder in Park Lane, by Karen Charlton (Thomas & Mercer)

• Murder, My Love, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Titan)

• My Lovely Wife, by Samantha Downing (Berkley)

• The Never Game, by Jeffery Deaver (Putnam)

• The Night Visitors, by Carol Goodman (Morrow)

• Nothing to Lose, by Victoria Selman (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Other Americans, by Laila Lalami (Pantheon)

• Paid in Spades, by Richard Helms (Clay Stafford)

• The Perfect Alibi, by Phillip Margolin (Minotaur)

• The Persian Gamble, by Joel C. Rosenberg (Tyndale House)

• A Puzzle for Fools, by Patrick Quentin (American Mystery Classics)

• Redemption Point, by Candice Fox (Forge)

• Redheads Die Quickly and Other Stories, by Gil Brewer
(Stark House Press)

• RED Hotel, by Gary Grossman and Ed Fuller (Beaufort)

• The Rescue, by Steven Konkoly (Thomas & Mercer)

• The River, by Peter Heller (Knopf)

• Rose City, by Michael Pool (Down & Out)

• Run Away, by Harlan Coben (Grand Central)

• Safe Haven, by Patricia MacDonald (Severn House)

• Saigon Red, by Gregory C. Randall (Thomas & Mercer)

• St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking, by Dana Haynes (Blackstone)

• Save Me from Dangerous Men, by S.A. Lelchuk (Flatiron)

• Silent Remains, by Jerry Kennealy (Down & Out)

• Smoke and Ashes, by Abir Mukherjee (Pegasus)

• The Stranger Diaries, by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• A Stranger Here Below, by Charles Fergus (Skyhorse)

• Take-Out and Other Tales of Culinary Crime, by Rob Hart (Polis)

• A Taste for Honey, by H.F. Heard (American Mystery Classics)

• A Town Called Malice, by Adam Abramowitz (Thomas Dunne)

• The Trial of Lizzie Borden, by Cara Robertson (Simon & Schuster)

• Tyler Cross: Angola, by Fabian Nury (Titan Comics)

• Until the Day I Die, by Emily Carpenter (Lake Union)

• Unto Us a Son Is Given, by Donna Leon (Atlantic Monthly Press)

• The Unsuspected, by Charlotte Armstrong (American
Mystery Classics)

• The War Heist, by Ralph Dennis (Brash)

• We Can See You, by Simon Kernick (Penguin Random House)

• What Would Maisie Do?: Inspiration from the Pages of Maisie Dobbs, by Jacqueline Winspear (Harper Perennial)*

• While You Sleep, by Stephanie Merritt (Pegasus)

• The Wicked Shall Rot, by Allen T. Grimes (Xlibris)

• The Wolf and the Watchman, by Niklas Natt och Dag (Atria)

• Wolf Pack, by C.J. Box (Putnam)

• The Woman in the Dark, by Vanessa Savage (Grand Central)

• Woman 99, by Greer Macallister (Sourcebooks Landmark)

• You Fit the Pattern, by Jane Haseldine (Kensington)

MARCH (UK):

• Accidental Agent,
by Alan Judd (Simon & Schuster)

• After She’s Gone,
by Camilla Grebe (Zaffre)

• Black Death,
by M.J. Trow (Creme de la Crime)

• The Blame Game, by C.J. Cooke (HarperCollins)

• A Body in the Lakes, by Graham Smith (Bookouture)

• The Boy in the Headlights, by Samuel Bjork (Doubleday)

• Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour, by Christopher Fowler (Doubleday)

• The Burning House, by Neil Spring (Quercus)

• The Courier, by Kjell Ola Dahl (Orenda)

• A Deadly Lesson, by Paul Gitsham (HQ)

• Death Has Deep Roots, by Michael Gilbert (British Library)

• A Death in Chelsea, by Lynn Brittney (Mirror)

• The Friend, by Joakim Zander (Head of Zeus)

• The Friends of Harry Perkins, by Chris Mullin (Scribner)

• A Gift for Dying, by M.J. Arlidge (Michael Joseph)

• The Godfather: 50th Anniversary Edition, by Mario Puzo (Heinemann)

• The Grasmere Grudge, by Rebecca Tope (Allison & Busby)

• The Guilty Party, by Mel McGrath (HQ)

• Indian Summer, by Sara Sheridan (Constable)

• I Thought I Knew You, by Penny Hancock (Mantle)

• The Inquiry, by Will Caine (HQ)

• I Thought I Knew You, by Penny Hancock (Mantle)

• Keep Her Close, by M.J. Ford (Avon)

• Killing State, by Judith O’Reilly (Head of Zeus)

• The Last Thing She Told Me, by Linda Green (Quercus)

• The Leaden Heart, by Chris Nickson (Severn House)

• Maigret and the Nahour Case, by Georges Simenon (Penguin Classics)

• Marked Men, by Chris Simms (Severn House)

• A Mind Diseased, by Catherine Moloney (Robert Hale)

• Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing, by Maryla Szymiczkowa (Point Blank)

• Never Go There, by Rebecca Tinnelly (Hodder)

• Nothing Else Remains, by Robert Scragg (Allison & Busby)

• Past Life, by Dominic Nolan (Headline)

• Prefecture D, by Hideo Yokoyama (Riverrun)

• The Road to Grantchester, by James Runcie (Bloomsbury)

• The Scandal, by Mari Hannah (Orion)

• Season of Darkness, by Cora Harrison (Severn House)

• She Lies in Wait, by Gytha Lodge (Michael Joseph)

• The Silver Road, by Stina Jackson (Corvus)

• Something Buried, by Kerry Wilkinson (Bookouture)

• The Stalker, by Alex Gray (Sphere)

• Surgeons’ Hall, by E.S. Thomson (Constable)

• A Suspicion of Silver, by P.F. Chisholm (Head of Zeus)

• Three Bullets, by R.J. Ellory (Orion)

• The Unmourned, by Meg and Tom
Keneally (Point Blank)

• Too Close, by Natalie Daniels (Corgi)

• Watchers of the Dead, by Simon Beaufort (Severn House)

APRIL (U.S.):

• Alice’s Island, by Daniel Sánchez
Arévalo (Atria)

• All My Colors, by David Quantick (Titan)

• Angel in the Fog, by T.J. Turner (Oceanview)

• Antiques Ravin’, by Barbara Allan (Kensington)

• An Artless Demise, by Anna Lee Huber (Berkley)

• At Home in the Dark, edited by Lawrence Block (Subterranean)

• Begging to Die, by Graham Masterton (Head of Zeus)

• The Better Sister, by Alafair Burke (Harper)

• The Bishop Murder Case, by S.S. Van Dine (Felony & Mayhem)

• A Bloody Business, by Dylan Struzan (Hard Case Crime)

• A Bouquet of Rue, by Wendy Hornsby (Perseverance Press)

• Buried Deep, by T.R. Ragan (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Caretaker’s Wife, by Vincent Zandri (Polis)

• Cold Wrath, by Peter Turnbull (Severn House)

• Come and Get Me, by August Norman (Crooked Lane)

• Condor: The Short Takes, by James Grady (Mysterious Press/
Open Road)

• Confessions of an Innocent Man, by David R. Dow (Dutton)

• Courting Mr. Lincoln, by Louis Bayard (Algonquin)

• D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II, by Sarah Rose (Crown)*

• Dead Heat, by Glenis Wilson (Severn House)

• Dead Man’s Lane, by Kate Ellis (Piatkus)

• The Deadly Cotton Heart, by Ralph Dennis (Brash)

• The Deadly Kiss-Off, by Paul Di Filippo (Blackstone)

• A Death in Rembrandt Square, by Anja de Jager (Constable)

• Death of a New American, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)

• A Deceptive Devotion, by Iona Whishaw (Touchwood Editions)

• The Department of Sensitive Crimes, by Alexander McCall
Smith (Pantheon)

• Diary of a Dead Man on Leave, by David Downing (Soho Crime)

• Diary of a Murderer: And Other Stories, by Young-Ha Kim (Mariner)

• Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive, by Michael Allred and Lee Allred (IDW)

• The Double Mother, by Michel Bussi (World Noir)

• Doublespeak, by Alisa Smith (St. Martin’s Press)

• Down to the River, edited by Tim O’Mara (Down & Out)

• A Dream of Death, by Connie Berry (Crooked Lane)

• The Eighth Sister, by Robert Dugoni (Thomas & Mercer)

• Endurance, by J.A. Konrath (Pinnacle)

• Everything About You, by Heather Child (Orbit UK)

• A Fall of Shadows, by Nancy Herriman (Crooked Lane)

• Fatally Haunted, edited by Rachel Howzell Hall, Sheila Lowe, and Laurie Stevens (Down & Out)

• The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, by Hallie Rubenhold (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)*

• Flowers Over the Inferno, by Ilaria Tuti (Soho Crime)

• The Fourth Courier, by Timothy Jay Smith (Arcade)

• Freedom’s Detective: The Secret Service, the Ku Klux Klan and the Man Who Masterminded America’s First War on Terror, by Charles Lane (Hanover Square Press)*

• Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, by Casey Cep (Knopf)*

• Ghost Stories: Classic Tales of Horror and Suspense, edited by Lisa Morton and
Leslie S. Klinger (Pegasus)

• Girl Most Likely, by Max Allan Collins (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Girl with 39 Graves, by Michael
Beres (BookBaby)

• The Godless, by Paul Doherty
(Crème de la Crime)

• A Good Enough Mother, by Bev Thomas (Pamela Dorman)

• Hide and Seek, by Mary Burton (Montlake Romance)

• I Know Who You Are, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron)

• In the Dark, by Andreas Pflüger (Dover)

• The Invited, by Jennifer McMahon (Doubleday)

• The Korean Woman, by John Altman (Blackstone)

• The Last, by Hanna Jameson (Atria)

• The Last Stone: A Masterpiece of Criminal Interrogation, by Mark Bowden (Atlantic Monthly Press)*

• Lights All Night Long, by Lydia Fitzpatrick (Penguin Press)

• Lights! Camera! Puzzles!, by Parnell Hall (Pegasus)

• Like Lions, by Brian Panowich (Minotaur)

• Little Darlings, by Melanie Golding (Crooked Lane)

• Little Lovely Things, by Maureen Joyce Connolly
(Sourcebooks Landmark)

• Loch of the Dead, by Oscar de Muriel (Pegasus)

• The Loch Ness Papers, by Paige Shelton (Minotaur)

• The Lost History of Dreams, by Kris Waldherr (Atria)

• The Magnetic Girl, by Jessica Handler (Hub City Press)

• Malice in Malmö, by Torquil MacLeod (McNidder & Grace)

• Metropolis, by Philip Kerr (Putnam)

• Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim (Sarah Crichton)

• The Missing Corpse, by Jean-Luc Bannalec (Minotaur)

• The Missing Years, by Lexie Elliott (Berkley)

• The Mother-in-Law, by Sally Hepworth (St. Martin’s Press)

• Murder Knocks Twice, by Susanna Calkins (Minotaur)

• Murder on Trinity Place, by Victoria Thompson (Berkley)

• My Detective, by Jeffrey Fleishman (Blackstone)

• The Mykonos Mob, by Jeffrey Siger (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Odd Partners: An Anthology, edited by Anne Perry (Ballantine)

• Oscar Wilde and the Return of Jack the Ripper, by Gyles
Brandreth (Pegasus)

• The Pandora Room, by Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s Press)

• The Poison Bed, by Elizabeth Fremantle (Pegasus)

• Pray for the Girl, by Joseph Souza (Kensington)

• The Providence Rider, by Robert McCammon (Subterranean)

• The Question Authority, by Rachel Cline (Red Hen Press)

• Redemption, by David Baldacci
(Grand Central)

• A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary, by Terry Shames (Seventh Street)

• Saving Meghan,
by D.J. Palmer (St. Martin’s Press)

• Scot & Soda, by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink)

• A Snapshot of Murder,
by Frances Brody (Crooked Lane)

• Soho Angel,
by Greg Keen (Thomas & Mercer)

• Someone Knows, by Lisa Scottoline (Putnam)

• The Spectators, by Jennifer duBois (Random House)

• State University of Murder, by Lev Raphael (Perseverance Press)

• Stick Together, by Sophie Hénaff (MacLehose Press)

• The Stillwater Girls, by Minka Kent (Thomas & Mercer)

• Stone Mothers, by Erin Kelly (Minotaur)

• Strong As Steel, by Jon Land (Forge)

• Sweeney on the Rocks, by Allen Morris Jones (Ig)

• The Tale Teller, by Anne Hillerman (Harper)

• They All Fall Down, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Forge)

• Throw Me to the Wolves, by Patrick McGuinness (Bloomsbury)

• Triple Jeopardy, by Anne Perry (Ballantine)

• A Veil Removed, by Michelle Cox (She Writes Press)

• When Trouble Sleeps, by Leye Adenle (Cassava Republic Press)

• Who Slays the Wicked, by C.S. Harris (Berkley)

• With Our Blessing, by Jo Spain (Crooked Lane)

• Wolfhunter River, by Rachel Caine (Thomas & Mercer)

• A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II, by Sonia Purnell (Viking)*

• Women Talking, by Miriam Toews (Bloomsbury)

APRIL (UK):

• The Absolution, by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Blood on the Rocks, by Priscilla Masters (Severn House)

• A Book of Bones, by John Connolly (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Call Me Star Girl, by Louise Beech (Orenda)

• A Capitol Death, by Lindsey Davis (Hodder & Stoughton)

• The Chemical Detective, by Fiona Erskine (Point Blank)

• A Conspiracy of Wolves, by Candace Robb (Creme de la Crime)

• Critical Incidents, by Lucie Whitehouse (Fourth Estate)

• Cruel Acts, by Jane Casey (HarperCollins)

• Dark Sky Island, by Lara Dearman (Trapeze)

• Dead Man’s Daughter, by Roz Watkins (HQ)

• Death in Focus, by Anne Perry (Headline)

• The Detective, the Woman and the Pirate’s Bounty,
by Amy Thomas (MX)

• The Dower House Mystery, by Alanna Knight (Allison & Busby)

• Envy, by Amanda Robson (Avon)

• The Evidence Against You, by Gillian McAllister (Penguin)

• Fallen Angel, by Chris Brookmyre (Little, Brown)

• A Fatal Flaw, by Faith Martin (HQ)

• 55, by James Delargy (Simon & Schuster)

• From the Shadows, by G.R. Halliday (Harvill Secker)

• The Girl in the Letter, by Emily Gunnis (Headline Review)

• Inheritance Tracks, by Catherine Aird (Allison & Busby)

• Intrigo, by Håkan Nesser (Mantle)

• The Killer in Me, by Olivia Kiernan (Riverrun)

• The King’s Evil,
by Andrew Taylor (HarperCollins)

• Kossuth Square,
by Adam Lebor (Head of Zeus)

• Liberation Square,
by Gareth Rubin (Michael Joseph)

• Maigret’s Pickpocket,
by Georges Simenon (Penguin Classics)

• The Neighbour,
by Fiona Cummins (Macmillan)

• One More Lie, by Amy Lloyd (Century)

• Perfect Crime, by Helen Fields (Avon)

• The Playground Murders, by Lesley Thomson (Head of Zeus)

• The Ringmaster, by Vanda Symon (Orenda)

• Rocco and the Price of Lies, by Adrian Magson (Dome Press)

• The Scent of Death, by Simon Beckett (Bantam Press)

• Sleep, by C.L. Taylor (Avon)

• The Sound of Her Voice, by Nathan Blackwell (Orion)

• Stasi 77, by David Young (Zaffre)

• Stone Mothers, by Erin Kelly (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Swimming with the Dead, by Peter Guttridge (Severn House)

• #Taken, by Tony Parsons (Century)

• Things in Jars, by Jess Kidd (Canongate)

• Throw Me to the Wolves, by Patrick McGuinness (Jonathan Cape)

• The Unnatural Death of a Jacobite, by Douglas Watt (Luath Press)

• The Venetian Masquerade, by Philip Gwynne Jones (Constable)

• What She Saw Last Night, by M.J. (Mason) Cross (Orion)

• You Die Next, by Stephanie Marland (Trapeze)

MAY (U.S.):

• The Almanack, by Martine Bailey (Severn House)

• The Assassin of Verona, by Benet Brandreth (Pegasus)

• The Big Kahuna, by Janet Evanovich and Peter Evanovich (Putnam)

• Berlin Noir, edited by Thomas Wörtche (Akashic)

• Beyond the Point, by Damien Boyd (Thomas & Mercer)

• Black Mountain, by Laird Barron (Putnam)

• The Body in the Wake, by Katherine Hall Page (Morrow)

• Breaking the Dance, by Clare O’Donohue (Midnight Ink)

• Cari Mora, by Thomas Harris (Grand Central)

• Cold for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone, by Maurizio de Giovanni
(World Noir)

• Confessions to Mr. Roosevelt, by M.J. Holt (Five Star)

• Dark Site, by Patrick Lee (Minotaur)

• Death of an Art Collector, by Robert Goldsborough (Mysterious Press/Open Road)

• Deception Cove, by Owen Laukkanen (Mulholland)

• Deep Past, by Eugene Linden (RosettaBooks)

• Devil’s Fjord, by David Hewson (Crème de la Crime)

• The East End, by Jason Allen (Park Row)

• False Move, by Matt Hilton (Severn House)

• The Furious Way, by Aaron Philip Clark (Shotgun Honey)

• The 45th, by D.W. Buffa (Polis)

• Have Your Ticket Punched by Frank James, by Fedora
Amis (Five Star)

• Hitmen I Have Known, by Bill James (Severn House)

• Houston Noir, edited by Gwendolyn Zepeda (Akashic)

• If She Wakes, by Michael Koryta (Little, Brown)

• The Island, by Ragnar Jónasson (Minotaur)

• The Jean Harlow Bombshell, by Mollie Cox Bryan (Midnight Ink)

• A King Alone, by Jean Giono (NYRB Classics)

• Last Stage to Hell Junction, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Kensington)

• The Last Thing She Remembers,
by J.S. Monroe (Park Row)

• The Last Time I Saw You,
by Liv Constantine (Harper)

• The Mad Hatter Mystery, by John Dickson Carr (American Mystery Classics)

• Milwaukee Noir,
edited by Tim Hennessy (Akashic)

• A Murderous Malady,
by Christine Trent (Crooked Lane)

• My Sister’s Lies, by S.D. Robertson (Avon)

• Necessary People, by Anna Pitoniak (Little, Brown)

• The Never Game, by Jeffery Deaver (Putnam)

• Next Girl to Die, by Dea Poirier (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Night Before, by Wendy Walker (St. Martin’s Press)

• One More Lie, by Amy Lloyd (Hanover Square Press)

• One Small Sacrifice, by Hilary Davidson (Thomas & Mercer)

• Only Ever Her, by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen (Lake Union)

• The Pages of Her Life, by James L. Rubart (Thomas Nelson)

• The Paris Diversion, by Chris Pavone (Crown)

• Peccadillo at the Palace, by Kari Bovée (SparkPress)

• The Policewomen’s Bureau, by Edward Conlon (Arcade)

• The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth, by Josh Levin (Little, Brown)*

• The Road to Grantchester, by James Runcie (Bloomsbury)

• Robert B. Parker’s Buckskin, by Robert Knott (Putnam)

• The Royal Secret, by Lucinda Riley (Atria)

• The Satapur Moonstone, by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)

• The Scandal, by Mari Hannah (Orion)

• The Scent of Murder, by Kylie Logan (Minotaur)

• The Scholar, by Dervla McTiernan (Penguin)

• The Sentence Is Death, by Anthony Horowitz (Harper)

• Shibumi (40th Anniversary Edition), by Trevanian (Rare Bird)

• Silent Footsteps, by Jo Bannister (Severn House)

• Spring Cleaning, by Antonio Manzini (Harper)

• The Stone Circle, by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Such a Perfect Wife, by Kate White (Harper)

• The Summer of Ellen, by Agnete Friis (Soho Crime)

• Swann’s Down, by Charles Salzberg (Down & Out)

• Tightrope, by Amanda Quick (Berkley)

• The Unquiet Heart, by Kaite Welsh (Pegasus)

• The Vavasour Macbeth, by Bart Casey (Post Hill Press)

• Westside, by W.M. Akers (Harper Voyager)

• The Woman in the Blue Cloak, by Deon Meyer (Atlantic Monthly Press)

MAY (UK):

• All That’s Dead, by Stuart MacBride (HarperCollins)

• The Anarchists’ Club, by Alex Reeve (Raven)

• As Long As We Both Shall Live, by JoAnn Chaney (Mantle)

• Black Wolf, by G.B. Abson (Mirror)

• Boy in the Well, by Douglas Lindsay (Mulholland)

• Breakers, by Doug Johnstone (Orenda)

• The Carrier, by Mattias Berg (MacLehose Press)

• Closer Than You Think, by Darren O’Sullivan (HQ)

• Conviction, by Denise Mina (Harvill Secker)

• The Copycat, by Jake Woodhouse (Penguin)

• Date with Death, by Mark Roberts (Head of Zeus)

• Dead at First Sight, by Peter James (Macmillan)

• Deadland, by William Shaw (Riverrun)

• Domino Island,
by Desmond Bagley (HarperCollins)

• The Family Secret,
by Terry Lynn Thomas (HQ)

• The Fatherland Files,
by Volker Kutscher (Sandstone Press)

• For Better and Worse,
by Margot Hunt (Orion)

• Forget Me Not, by Claire Allan (Avon)

• The House on the Edge of the Cliff, by Carol Drinkwater (Penguin)

• Hunting Evil, by Chris Carter (Simon & Schuster)

• The Killer in the Choir, by Simon Brett (Creme de la Crime)

• A Knife to the Heart, by Barbara Nadel (Headline)

• The Lost Shrine, by Nicola Ford (Allison & Busby)

• Maigret Hesitates, by Georges Simenon (Penguin Classics)

• Motive X, by Stefan Ahnhem (Head of Zeus)

• Murder Fest, by Julie Wassmer (Constable)

• Murder in Bel-Air, by Cara Black (Soho Press)

• Murder in the Mill-Race, by E.C.R. Lorac (British Library)

• Never Be Broken, by Sarah Hilary (Headline)

• Night by Night, by Jack Jordan (Corvus)

• No One Home, by Tim Weaver (Michael Joseph)

• November, by Jorge Galan (Constable)

• The Ottoman Secret, by Raymond Khoury (Michael Joseph)

• Out of the Ashes, by Vicky Newham (HQ)

• A Prisoner of Privilege, by Rosemary Rowe (Severn House)

• Rogue Killer, by Leigh Russell (No Exit Press)

• Secret Service, by Tom Bradby (Bantam Press)

• Shadow, by James Swallow (Zaffre)

• A Shadow Intelligence, by Oliver Harris (Little, Brown)

• A Single Source, by Peter Hanington (Two Roads)

• Stolen, by Paul Finch (Avon)

• Strange Tombs, by Syd Moore (Point Blank)

• The Sussex Murder, by Ian Sansom (Fourth Estate)

• Their Little Secret, by Mark Billingham (Little, Brown)

• Tick Tock, by Mel Sherratt (Avon)

• The Vinyl Detective: Flip Back, by Andrew Cartmel (Titan)

• Worst Case Scenario, by Helen Fitzgerald (Orenda)

• Your Deepest Fear, by David Jackson (Zaffre)

So what did I miss? Please drop a note into the Comments section at the bottom of this post, if you’d like to suggest other books crime-fiction fans should watch for during the next three months.