B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 103

Quote of the Week

            

FFB: Publicity for Murder

New Zealand native Elizabeth Messenger (1908–1965), née Betty Margery Esson, began her career as a copywriter and author of stories and articles for women’s and children's magazines. During the Second World War, she served as an ambulance driver and also met her husband, Robin Montrose Messenger, a New Zealand naval officer. After the war, Messenger worked her way into journalism, first in Kenya where her husband was stationed and later back in New Zealand, where her cooking columns eventually turned into published cookbooks. 



It wasn't until the 1950s that Messenger turned her hand to writing crime fiction, which she noted required the same skills as cooking: "You must have imagination in both…rigid obedience to detail, and all the ingredients must be at hand. Every cook and every writer expresses herself differently." She wrote one or two books a year until her untimely death from cancer in 1965.



Several of her novels are set in tourist spots in New Zealand, which may be one reason her London publisher promoted that aspect of the books. Somehow a scenic backdrop in a country known for its laid-back culture may not have been the best way to market what the author intended to be "thrillers," although they did well enough to be translated into other languages. It is her cookbooks for which she's most remembered today, and her crime fiction is harder to find.



Publicity for Murder follows in the same tradition of mysteries with an advertising/marketing theme that Dorothy Sayers popularized in her novel Murder Must Advertise. The story begins with the apparent suicide of the partner of an ad agency, who leaves his entire estate to his colleague, David Eversleigh, instead of his selfish, glamorous wife, Pam. The police don't buy the suicide angle and focus their attention on Eversleigh and his wife Judith as obvious suspects. The POV is Judith's, as she tries to make sense of the tragedy and does some sleuthing on her own to prove her innocence. After two attempts on her life and her husband's continued protectiveness toward Pam, Judith begins to wonder if the greatest danger to her life and liberty lies a little too close to home.



Although set in New Zealand, the book is rather scant on setting details, and at times the plot has a bit of a generic feel to it, as if it could have been set almost anywhere. The characterization and plotting are also a bit on the light side, but Messenger throws in just enough uncertainty and damsel-in-distress elements to keep you turning the page.

            

Mystery Melange

The Goodreads Readers Choice Awards were announced this week, including the Mystery/Thriller category where The Guest List by Lucy Foley came out on top. You can read more about that book and check out the other 19 mystery and thriller finalists via this link. In all, 5,674,480 votes were cast for the most popular books across 20 categories during the annual literary spectacle, in which Goodreads users are invited to vote for their favorites among finalists from books published between Nov. 16, 2019 and Nov. 17, 2020.

Sisters in Crime announced the creation of the new SinC Pride Award for Emerging LGBTQIA+ Crime Writers. The SinC Pride Award will be a $2,000 annual award to support an emerging writer of the LGBTQIA+ crime fiction writing community with both financial and practical career guidance and support. Similar to the Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, the recipient of the SinC Pride Award may use funds for activities including workshops, seminars, conferences, retreats, online courses, and research activities required for completion of the work. An unpublished writer is preferred, however, publication of not more than 10 pieces of short fiction and/or up-to two self-published or traditionally published books will not disqualify an applicant. John Copenhaver, Cheryl Head, and Kristen Lepionka will serve as judges for the inaugural award. Applications will open on January 15 and run through March 15, with the winner announced in early April. For more information, contact grants@sistersincrime.org.

A group of mystery authors calling themselves Mystery Loves Georgia have been inspired to help the Georgia Senate Runoff election. They're sponsoring an auction featuring a chance to bid on signed books, named characters, ARCs, critiques, services, arts/crafts, zoom consulting sessions, and more. All proceeds will support Fair Fight’s efforts to combat voter suppression. The auction runs through Friday, December 11 (6p PST/9p EST).

Inspector Rebus creator, Ian Rankin, has been tapped to complete Williams McIlvanney's final novel, The Dark Remains. McIlvanney, regarded as "the father of Tartan noir," died in 2015 at the age of 79, leaving behind a trilogy of novels that Val McDermid says "changed the face of Scottish fiction." The manuscript of The Dark Remains was found by his widow Siobhan Lynch among his papers. Set in October 1972, it was intended to be a prequel to the author’s hardboiled, Glasgow-set detective novels featuring Jack Laidlaw, about his first case.

The latest issue of All Due Respect is online with its featured December story, "Quaking in My Boots" by BV Lawson (disclosure: yours truly). ADR editors, Chris Rhatigan and David Nemeth have also collected up the twelve featured stories for 2020 (one is chosen for each month) in a print anthology, which is available online from Down & Out Books.

The latest story up at Punk Noir Magazine "Where The Buck Stops by John Patrick Robbins."

Some lucky James Bond fan just made the winning bid at a movie memorabilia auction. A Walther PP pistol used by Sean Connery in the 1962 film Dr. No sold for $256,000 at auction, topping expectations of a sale between $150,000 to $200,000 prior to the event. (Its collector’s value was perhaps enhanced by Connery’s death on Oct. 31.) The winning bidder asked to remain anonymous, according to Julien’s Auctions. However, they were described as an American who had seen every James Bond movie with his or her children. Also sold in the lot: a helmet created for Tom Cruise in Top Gun, for $108,000, while a sword used by Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction went for $35,200.

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Strawberry Shortcake" by Sharon Waller Knutson.

In the Q&A roundup, Author Interviews welcomed S. J. Rozan, winner of multiple awards including the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award, to discuss her latest novel, The Art of Violence; and Janet Evanovich, creator of the Stephanie Plum series, chatted with CrimeReads about craft, art, and selfhood.

           Related StoriesMystery MelangeMystery Melange, Thanksgiving Edition 

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Gal Gadot will star in Heart of Stone, an original international spy thriller from Skydance Media, that endeavors to put a female spin on action franchises like Mission: Impossible and 007. Tom Harper, who helmed The Aeronauts and Wild Rose, is in talks to direct, while the script is by Greg Rucka (The Old Guard) and Allison Schroeder, who was Oscar nominated for Hidden Figures.

Alex Pettyfer is set to direct and star in the action-thriller, Phantom Of Belgrade, which will also star Oliver Masucci. The original screenplay by David Matillo is based on a true story from the period of former Yugoslav president, Tito, when he was on an official visit to Cuba in 1979. A Belgrade citizen stole a white Porsche and drove around the city for ten straight evenings, forcing the police on a wild goose chase. Thousands of people hit the streets every night to support the gesture, which became seen as a political statement against the government.

Oscar Isaac is set to play the lead role in Metal Gear Solid, which is currently in development at Sony Pictures with Jordan Vogt-Roberts attached to direct. The film is based on the Metal Gear Solid video game released on Sony Playstation in 1998, which follows Solid Snake, a soldier who infiltrates a weapons facility to stop a group of terrorists known as Foxhound from launching a nuclear strike.

Following her role in the romantic comedy, Happiest Season, Aubrey Plaza is switching genres as she is set to co-star with Jason Statham in the Guy Ritchie untitled thriller formally known as Five Eyes. The story follows an MI6 guns-and-steel agent (Statham) who is recruited by a global intelligence alliance to track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology that threatens to disrupt the world order. Reluctantly paired with a CIA high-tech expert, the agent sets off on a globe-trotting mission where he will have to use all of his charm, ingenuity and stealth to track down and infiltrate a billionaire arms broker.

How to Get Away with Murder star, Charlie Weber, and Shades of Blues's Victor Turpin, have been added to the cast of Panama, the action-thriller being directed by Mark Neveldine, as they join previously announced stars Cole Hauser, Mel Gibson, and Kate Katzman. The project follows James Becker (Hauser), an ex-Marine who is sent undercover by his former commander, Stark (Gibson), to execute a high-value arms deal with untrustworthy adversaries. Weber will play Hank Burns, a straight-edged ex-Marine also hired by Stark to join Becker’s mission. Turpin will play Brooklyn Rivera, a real-life member of the Contras, the revolutionary rebel group backed by the U.S. in opposition to the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

NBC is developing Vantage Point, a character-driven thriller drama series based on the 2008 Sony movie. The film, which starred Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt, and Sigourney Weaver, told the story of an assassination attempt on the President of the United States through the vantage points of different characters. Per the show's description: "In the age of fake news, the truth can seem inadequate at best and skewed at worst. By embracing a multitude of different perspectives – ranging from government operatives to civilian informants to innocent bystanders – viewers will find themselves in the unique position of deciding what actually happened."

Chilean author Luis Sepulveda's short novel, Diary of a Sentimental Killer, about a globetrotting hitman with a broken heart, is being developed into a TV series. The plan is for a limited series primarily in Spanish, which marks the first television adaptation of Sepulveda’s work and comes after his premature death from coronavirus at the age of 70. The story follows an unnamed assassin who has been left by his lover the day before he’s set to embark on a crucial hit assignment that will take him to many European and Latin American cities.

Netflix has greenlit a five-part Swedish-language series on Stig Engström, the man who was named as the probable murderer of former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. The Unlikely Murderer, based on a 2018 book by Thomas Pettersson, is from the Swedish producer FLX — also behind the Netflix series Quicksand and Love & Anarchy — and stars Robert Gustafsson as Engström. Following the assassination of Palme in 1986, Engström managed to elude justice right up to his death through a combination of audacity, luck, and a perplexed police force.

Matt Rife and Clare Grant are set to star in the psychological thriller, The Private Eye, joining fellow cast-mates Eric Roberts, Erik Griffin, Denzel Whitaker, Eugenia Kuzmina, Elijah Boothe, Jihad Reeves, King Chip, and Lexy Panterra. Jack Cook will direct from a screenplay he co-wrote with Hope Ayiyi, Santino Ramos, and Patrick Roe, which is set throughout LA. The mystery drama follows a private investigator named Mort Madison (Rife), whose life is spiraling downward when a beguiling, slightly familiar woman (Grant) hires him for his most unusual case.

Anne Heche has joined the Season 2 cast of the CBS legal drama, All Rise, in a recurring role. Heche will play Corrine Cuthbert, an infamous trial attorney who often is called upon by police unions to defend officers accused of violent crime. She is wicked smart, using humor as a distraction while she verbally destroys anyone who gets in her way. All Rise follows the chaotic, hopeful and sometimes absurd lives of its judges, prosecutors and public defenders, as they work with bailiffs, clerks and cops to get justice for the people of Los Angeles amidst a flawed legal process.

Coming off his starring role on the first five seasons of the CW’s DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Brandon Routh has joined ABC’s The Rookie for a potential season-long arc. First appearing in Episode 2 of the show’s upcoming third season, Routh will play Doug Stanton, an eleven-year veteran of the LAPD, whose views prove to be polarizing at the Mid-Wilshire station. He has currently been booked for four episodes, with a possibility for more. The police procedural dramedy stars Nathan Fillion as John Nolan, the oldest rookie at the Los Angeles Police Department.

Camille Sullivan, Chad Willett, and Patrick Gallagher are joining ABC's crime drama, Big Sky, in recurring roles. Starring Katheryn Winnick, Kylie Bunbury, and Ryan Phillippe, Big Sky centers on private detectives Cassie Dewell and Cody Hoyt, who team with ex-cop Jenny Hoyt, to search for two sisters mysteriously kidnapped by a truck driver in Montana. Upon learning that the kidnapping isn’t an isolated incident, the law officials must race against the clock to prevent any more abductions. Sullivan and Chad Willet will play Joanie Sullivan and Robert Sullivan, the parents of two kidnapped sisters played by Jade Pettyjohn and Natalie Alyn Lind.

The new CBS drama, The Equalizer, has landed a plum slot for its series premiere airing after CBS Sports’s broadcast of Super Bowl LV on Sunday, Feb. 7, 2021. This marks only the third time (out of the nine times that CBS has carried the Super Bowl since it got back in rotation in 1990) that a scripted series has landed the post-Super Bowl berth. The Equalizer is a reimagining of the classic series and stars Queen Latifah as Robyn McCall, an enigmatic woman with a mysterious background who uses her extensive skills to help those with nowhere else to turn. Meanwhile, the network also announced that FBI will make its midseason return following the NFL’s AFC Championship Game on Jan. 24, 2021.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Robert Justice, the host of the Crime Writers of Color podcast, interviewed S. A. Cosby, author of Blacktop Wasteland, described as "Like Ocean’s Eleven meets Drive, with a Southern noir twist."

It was a Dark and Stormy Book Club spoke with Dr. Ian Smith, best known as the author of a series of bestselling diet books, about the first installment of his Ashe Cayne mystery series, The Unspoken.

Read or Dead regular host, Katie McLain, and guest host Nusrah Javed, talked about genre-bending mysteries, the upcoming adaptation of Forty Acres, and some exciting new releases to add to your TBR pile.





This week's guest on Meet the Thriller Author was Eileen Ormsby, a lawyer, author, and freelance journalist based in Melbourne, whose debut book, Silk Road, was one of the world’s first in-depth exposés of the black markets that operate on the dark web.

Bestselling author, Robert Dugoni, stopped by Suspense Radio to talk about his latest thriller, The Last Agent.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, chatted with Susan C. Shea about her Dani O'Rourke mysteries and her French Village cozies.

The Unlikeable Female Characters podcast welcomed feminist noir author and friend of the show, Halley Sutton, to celebrate the release of her debut novel The Lady Upstairs, and to chat about sex scenes.

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Quote of the Week

            

FFB: Naked Villainy

Lana Hutton Bowen-Judd (1922–1985) was born in Yorkshire, England and worked in a bank and as a solicitor's clerk in London during World War II, where she got first-hand experience she put to good use in her mystery novels. Although she wrote under the pseudonyms Ann Burton (three books featuring banker Richard Trenton), Mary Challis (four books featuring solicitor Jeremy Locke) and Margaret Leek (four books featuring attorney Anne Marryat), it was her series with Barrister Anthony Maitland under the name of Sara Woods, 48 titles in all, that was her main focus.



The Maitland series debuted with Bloody Instructions in 1961 and continued through the last installment, Naked Villainy, published in 1987 after Woods's death. The publisher included a brief "biography" Woods had created for Barrister Maitland, which was found among the author's papers, as a postscript to the book and the series. In it, Woods says she first met Anthony Maitland when she was 15 years old, when he walked into chapter three of the book she was writing, took over the story and stuck around for more.



The bio refers to Maitland's background—the death of his mother in giving birth to him, his journalist father who died during the War, going to live with his uncle, Maitland's own war experiences, marrying his wife Jenny, and going into law practice. It also describes his physical appearance as tall, a dark man with untidy hair and a thin intelligent face. He was injured in the war and took shrapnel in his shoulder, giving him a permanent disability and some pain. He has a "wickedly accurate gift of mimicry," a facility for foreign languages, and a stammer that only appears when he is angry. But Maitland also has a sense of humor and stubbornness and regards his profession with a touch of cynicism.



In Naked Villainy, Antony Maitland's final outing finds him defending the young Frenchman, Emile Letendre, who is accused of murdering his father, Georges. It appears to many to be an open-and-shut case, with motive, fingerprint evidence, and a half-dozen witnesses consisting of friends dining at the home of Georges' sister and brother-in-law, Francoise and Alan Johnson the night of the murder. But Maitland takes on the case, believing his client's claim that a witches' coven and a Black Mass were behind Georges' death. Unfortunately, the witnesses are all influential people who try to undermine Maitland's case by spreading rumors that the attorney has been coaching witnesses, a charge that could ruin his reputation and career.



Although Maitland's wife Jenny and other secondary characters who often appeared in the series (like Uncle Nicholas, Aunt Vera, and Maitland's friends Meg and Roger), are all present, their roles are secondary to the actual courtroom theatrics. This led Publishers Weekly to say of the book, Woods "is at her best here in the cut and thrust of courtroom drama," and Kirkus Reviews to call it "one of her best...(Maitland) ends his career with a case focused on the courtroom—where he always shone brightest."

            

Mystery Melange

The winner of the 2020 Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year is After The Silence by Louise O'Neill. The other finalists included: The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard; The Cutting Place by Jane Casey; Our Little Cruelties by Liz Nugent; The Guest List by Lucy Foley; and Fifty Fifty by Steve Cavanagh.

The winner of this year's Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel was also announced. Little Siberia by Antti Tuomainen, translated from the Finnish by David Hackston and published by Orenda Books, won out over the other shortlisted titles, becoming the first Finnish book to win the honor.

Emma Styles has won the Little, Brown UEA Crime Fiction Award 2020 for her novel, No Country for Girls. Little, Brown works with the University of East Anglia Creative Writing Crime Fiction MA to provide the award to the best novel by a graduating student. Styles nets £3,000, joining previous winners Bridget Walsh, Femi Kayode and Merle Nygate. The judging was led by Sphere Fiction publishing director Ed Wood, who said: "In a particularly strong year, the four judges were hugely impressed with No Country for Girls, a novel that hits the reader with tension and action right from page one and shows us a side of Australia we rarely see in fiction. It’s a taut, well-thought out novel we are proud to pick as a winner."

The shortlist for the 2020 Staunch Prize was announced last week. Now in its third year, the prize is awarded to a novel in the thriller genre in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered. The honorees include The Coldest Warrior by Paul Vidich; The Burning Island by Jock Serong; Glorious Boy by Aimee Liu; Heaven My Home by Attica Locke; Death in Her Hands by Otessa Moshfegh; and The Chemical Reaction by Fiona Erskine.

This evening (Thursday, December 3) at 7pm EST, you can attend a virtual "Noir to the Rescue," a benefit reading for NYC’s Strand Bookstore. Like so many independent bookstores, Strand is facing huge challenges in the midst of the ongoing pandemic. To help out, 3 Rooms Press is presenting a reading by four noir authors including Peter Carlaftes (editor, The Faking of the President), Alex Segura (author, Miami Midnight), Gary Phillips (author, Matthew Henson and The Ice Temple of Harlem), and Christopher Chambers (author, Scavenger). The event will be livestreamed to Facebook and YouTube, and viewers will be encouraged to make online purchases of the authors' books from The Strand during the reading.

2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Peter Lovesey's debut mystery, Wobble to Death. Murder by the Book and Soho Press will celebrate the Golden Anniversary of the Diamond Dagger Winner and MWA Grand Master with a virtual gala, Friday, December 4 beginning at 6pm EST. Toastmakers include Louise Penny, Peter Robinson, Jeffery Deaver, Lawrence Block, and Cara Black. Lovesey will also announce the winner of the Peter Lovesey First Crime Novel Contest.

After a quarter of a century, ReedPop is "retiring" BookExpo, BookCon and Unbound. Usually held in late spring, BookExpo was once a prime venue for upcoming books to "break out," and for publishers to place orders with booksellers and bring in top authors to meet with store officials, agents, librarians and journalists. The ReedPop team said it was "actively engaging in conversations with publishers, booksellers, and other partners, and with their feedback and ideas they will together agree how to best rebuild the events in the future."

Mystery Readers Journal editor, Janet Rudolph, has a call for an upcoming themed issue on Historical Mysteries. She's seeking reviews (50-250 words), articles (250-1000 words), and Author! Author! essays (500-1000 word). Although reviews and articles are self-explanatory, Author Author! Essays are first person pieces about yourself, your books, and your unique take on History Mysteries. For more details, check out the Mystery Fanfare blog.

Mystery Fanfare also reported the passing of mystery author, Sue Henry, who died at the age on 80, in Anchorage, Alaska, on November 20. Sue served two years in the Peace Corps in Thailand and worked in libraries and education as she dreamed of writing novels. After moving to Anchorage in 1984, she wrote her first of 17 novels, Murder on the Iditarod Trail, which won the Macavity and Anthony Awards in 1992 and was adapted for TV as The Cold Heart of a Killer. She has two series: one featuring Jessie Arnold, a dog sled racer, and Sergeant Alex Jensen, a state trooper, in Anchorage; and another featuring Maxine "Maxie" McNabb, a 60-something Alaskan widow, who explores the USA in her Winnebago with her faithful companion, a miniature dachshund named Stretch.

Is this taking the true-crime boom too far? TikTok users are satisfying their true crime cravings with footage of real life murder scenes. Creators argue the videos are for educational purposes – but is this really what’s attracting people to their content?

The latest crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Oh God Not Again" by Angelina Mitescu.

           Related StoriesMystery Melange, Thanksgiving EditionMystery Melange 

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

The Avengers' Anthony Mackie will star in and produce an action film for Netflix from Madison Turner, a former stuntman-turned-screenwriter. Mackie will play a character named Xavier Rhodes in The Ogun, a man who brings his teenage daughter to Nigeria to find a cure for the rare genetic condition that he passed on to her. But when his daughter is kidnapped, Rhodes goes on a rampage through the criminal underworld to find her before it’s too late, testing his powers to the limit.

HanWay Films has closed a string of international pre-sales on Phillip Noyce’s true-crime love story, Peggy Jo, which is set to star Lily James. James will play the title character, a bank robber who committed her heists while dressed as a man. Loosely based on the true story of the real-life Peggy Jo, the project is being pitched as "Bonnie without the Clyde" and has been adapted for screen by Appaloosa writer Robert Knott. The project is due to shoot in the U.S., but dates have not been revealed.

Although the James Bond action-thriller, No Time to Die, won't be out until April 2, 2021, Billie Eilish’s theme song for the much-delayed film received a Grammy Award nomination last week. Eilish’s single dropped October 1 in anticipation of the originally scheduled November release, which made it eligible for this year’s Grammys.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Fox is developing a crime drama based on the true-life experiences of professional medium, Tina Powers. Written by Michael Alaimo, the untitled project is described as a breezy procedural, in which a quirky TV news crime reporter starts listening to the voices she hears from beyond the grave in order to help Miami’s finest solve crimes.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Blindspot) has been tapped for a new series regular role opposite John Krasinski in the upcoming third season of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, a co-production of Amazon Studios, Paramount Television Studios, and Skydance Television. Jean-Baptiste will play Elizabeth Wright, the Chief of Station. Filming on the new season is expected to begin in 2021.

Kerry O’Malley and Cynthia Quiles are the latest actors to join the second season of CBS All Access’s Why Women Kill. This new season of the dark comedy features a new ensemble cast with storylines set in 1949 that will explore what it means to be beautiful; the hidden truth behind the façades people present to the world; the effects of being ignored and overlooked by society; and finally, the lengths one woman will go to in order to finally belong.

On December 4 at 9pm, More4, the British free-to-air television channel owned by Channel Four, will begin airing The Nordic Murders. The German crime drama, set on the island of Usedom on the Baltic Sea, focuses on a daugher and her estranged mother (recently released from prison for murdering her husband) who form an investigative team despite their wariness toward each other. (HT to Crime Fiction Lover)

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up, featuring the mystery short story "No More Excuses" by Guy Belleranti, read by actor Sean Hopper

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club welcomed Leslie Rule to discuss her true crime debut, A Tangled Web, which covers a frightening Omaha love-triangle murder.

The Writer's Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, answered questions about "Internal Affairs, Hold-Backs, and PSD Work."

Gray Basnight joined Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, to discuss his latest Sam Teagarden novel, The Madness of the Q.

The featured guest on Meet the Thriller Author was Otto Penzler, proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, founder of The Mysterious Press, and a man regarded as the world’s foremost authority on crime, mystery and suspense fiction.

Suspense Radio chatted with author Drew Murray about Broken Genius, his latest book featuring FBI Cyber Division Special Agent Will Parker.

This week's Speaking of Mysteries focused on They’re Gone, the new thriller by E. A. Aymar, writing as E. A. Barres, which takes its two main characters—who on the surface have nothing in common except the recent murders of their husbands—down some very twisty roads, literally and metaphorically.

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Shop Small

Today is Small Business Saturday! These businesses are vital to our communities, and they've been especially hard hit by the pandemic. If you'd like to check out an indie bookstore near you, you can search this bookstore finder from IndieBound. (If you're outside the U.S. you can check out this international list.) Many of these have Covid-related restrictions like limited in-store shopping or delivery/curbside service only, so be sure and check with the store before you go ... or check out their website or visit Bookshop (for print books) and Libro.fm (for audiobooks), with proceeds supporting local stores.

            

FFB: Scared to Death

There aren't many biographical books/articles available about British author Anne Morice (1916 - 1989), the pen name of Felicity Shaw, other than she studied in London, Paris and Munich and married documentary film director Alexander Shaw (although Curt Evans's The Passing Tramp blog has a nice roundup of her quirky family history). But between 1970 and 1982, Morice published 17 mystery novels featuring Tessa Crichton, an actress who is the wife of Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Robin Price.



In the reference book And Then There Were Nine: More Women of Mystery by Jane S. Bakerman, Morice explained her choice of protagonist: "Since numerous members of my family (including my father, sister, two daughters and three nephews) are or were closely connected with the theatre and cinema, in one capacity or another, and I married a film director, this was the background I was most familiar with so created Tessa Crichton for the foreground."



Tessa is clever, confident, intuitive and often sarcastic, with a large circle of family, friends and colleagues that figure in most of her plots as either victim or suspect. Her first-person POV is filled with humorous takes on life and her singular psychological view of the people around her as she pokes her nose into cases, mostly based in London or the fictional small town of Roakes Common in Oxfordshire. Tessa's husband helps from afar while he's working on his own cases, and only steps in on occasion.



Scared to Death (1977) is in the middle of the series and finds Tessa in a different location as she participates in the Storhampton drama festival, starring in a play written by her cousin, Toby Crichton. Tessa has time to take in the local sights and culture, including the very rich and very loathsome Edna Mortimer, often seen around town wearing green velvet turbans and ankle-length mink coats, who says she is seeing her doppelganger everywhere she goes. Everyone attributes the sightings to a practical joke until Edna turns up seemingly scared to death. Tessa begins to wonder if one of the dead woman's greedy heirs was behind the deadly prank and looks for clues in a manuscript Edna was writing—a romanticized autobiography.



Morice's plots focus more on character than plot and legal details, and she once cheerfully admitted she didn't know much about real-life police procedure and didn't "think a crime novel should concentrate on the true stuff." But she always plays fair with her clues as she creates well-rounded characters and quirky settings.