B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 183
April 19, 2017
Mystery Melange
Tess Gerritsen is the recipient of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance inaugural CrimeMaster Award for Distinguished Achievement, to be presented this Friday, April 21, on the eve of the 2017 Maine Crime Wave in Portland. Gerritsen's books have been published in 40 countries, sold more than 30 million copies, and the hit TV series Rizzoli & Isles is based on her suspense novels.
The longlist for the 2017 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of The Year was released, with 18 authors/books in the running. The shortlist for the award, which celebrates the very best in crime fiction by UK and Irish crime authors, will be announced May 20 and the winner (selected by judges and online voting) anointed July 20 during the Theakston Festival in Harrogate, England.
Also announced recently were the five finalists for the 2017 Bloody Words Light Mystery Award (aka the Bony Blithe Award), an annual Canadian honor that celebrates traditional, feel-good mysteries. The winner will be crowned during the Bony Blithe Mini-Con and Award Gala to be held in Toronto on May 26.
The Del Sol Press 2017 First Novel competition is open for entries, which will be considered by guest judge Hallie Ephron. The contest is open to all authors writing in English regardless of nationality or residence and is available to published and unpublished authors alike. Genres can include literary and upmarket fiction, mainstream or general fiction, mystery/thriller or speculative fiction with a literary edge, serious women's fiction, and unique experimental work. The winner receives a $1,500 honorarium and book publication by Del Sol Press, and finalist manuscripts will also be considered for publication.
On June 30 in South Melbourne, Australia, Sisters in Crime will sponsor a panel on "Nordic Noir: the new cool," including Australia’s Queen of Noir, Leigh Redhead; Swedish translator Hanna Lofgren; author Janice Simpson; and Sue Turnbull, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Wollongong.
Sisters in Crime U.S. has begun accepting submissions for the 2017 Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award. Honoring the memory of pioneering African-American crime fiction author Eleanor Taylor Bland, the award offers a $1,500 grant to an emerging writer of color, male or female, who has not yet published a full-length work. This year’s application and more information can be found via the official SinC contest link.
The Library Journal's spotlight on recent mystery novels featured new books from authors beyond the grave, as well as some career switches, and an increasingly multicultural slate of crime protagonists and themes.
Speaking of all things library, if you haven't heard of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto or made a pilgrimage, you should definitely put it on your bucket list.
Raymond Chandler allegedly once gave J. Edgar Hoover a snub that may have led the iconic FBI head to investigate the author, but as Ron Capshaw notes for the Daily Beast, although most people would be intimated, the creator of Philip Marlow was made of "tougher stuff."
New York Times columnist Radhika Jones sings the praises of Agatha Christie's detectives - not Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple but rather Dame Agatha's "accidental sleuths."
The Guardian spoke with author Donna Leon on the 25th anniversary of her first Commissario Brunetti crime novel about how she is responding to dark times and why she became an eco-detective writer.
The Guardian also put the spotlight on the humble fly, often the first visitors to a murder scene, and how studying their grisly dining habits can reveal vital clues to help catch the killer. The article notes that the practice of forensic entomology dates all the way back to China in 1235.
This week, the 5-2 continues its "30 Days of the Five-Two" poetry blog tour with "Judgment Day" by Nancy Scott, by "No Title (On Purpose)," by Matt Kolbet, and "The Intruder," by David R. Slavitt.
In the Q&A roundup, Terri Bischoff, with the blog Hey, There's a Dead Guy in My Living Room, posed five questions to author Catriona McPherson; Slate pinned down Baltimore-based writer Laura Lippman to discuss her writing process and her relationship to the city; the Seattle Times spoke with Ann Cleeves on her literary career and the birth of the BBC mystery series Vera; the blog Chat About Books snagged Paul Harrison, a former police officer turned true crime author who has just released his first crime novel; Margaret Fenton was the guest at The Writers Life, discussing her latest book, Little Girl Gone; Alex Segura spoke with the Huffington Post about his latest Pete Fernandez novel, Dangerous Ends; and the Sleuthsayers welcomed Gerald So, author, editor, publisher, and a proponent of short crime writing forms, both stories and poetry.
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April 17, 2017
Media Murder for Monday
Monday means it's time once again for the latest crime drama news roundup:
MOVIES
Benedict Cumberbatch is in early negotiations with Fox Searchlight to star in The Man in the Rockefeller Suit, with David Bar Katz adapting the book by Mark Seal. The project is based on the true story of Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, an imposter who conned his way into various jobs on Wall Street — as well as a marriage — posing as a member of the Rockefeller family. After achieving a life in rarefied social circles, his past finally catches up with him, and he fears losing custody of his only daughter.
Alex Pettyfer (Magic Mike, Elvis & Nixon) will make his directorial debut with Back Roads, a murder mystery in which he will also star opposite Jennifer Morrison, Juliette Lewis, and Nicola Peltz. Based on the 1999 debut novel of the same name by author Tawni O’Dell, the project tells the story of a man caring for his three younger sisters after the death of their abusive father and imprisonment of their mother for his murder, whose life takes a dangerous turn when he finds himself the leading suspect in another local murder.
Oscar winner Robert Duvall is the latest to join New Regency’s Steve McQueen-helmed heist thriller Widows. The acting legend’s addition bolsters an already-strong cast that includes Viola Davis, Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, Elizabeth Debicki, and Daniel Kaluuya.
Lionsgate released a trailer for The Hitman’s Bodyguard, starring Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson as an unlikely duo who must work together to testify at the International Court of Justice to bring down an evil man.
TELEVISION
The British Bafta Award finalists for excellence in television programming included nods for crime dramas The Secret and The Witness for the Prosecution in the Mini-Series category. The International Category included nominations for The Night Of (HBO/Sky Atlantic) and American Crime Story – The People Vs OJ Simpson (FX/BBC).
CBS Television Studios has pre-emptively bought the rights to Edgar-winning author Meg Gardiner’s forthcoming novel UNSUB to adapt for television. The thriller follows a female detective on the trail of an infamous serial killer – inspired by the still-unsolved Zodiac case – when he breaks his silence and begins killing again. The detective, who grew up watching her father destroy himself and his family chasing the killer, now finds herself facing the same monster.
ABC Is developing the crime series Harrow, described as "darkly funny" and "irreverent." The show centers on a forensic pathologist named Dr. James Harrow who is TV-level brilliant and unorthodox ... and also a murderer.
Donald Sutherland is set to play billionaire oil man J. Paul Getty in the first installment of the FX anthology series Trust, executive produced by the Slumdog Millionaire trio Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy, and Christian Colson. Season 1 takes place in 1973, when the young heir John Paul Getty III was kidnapped in Rome and his mafia captors attempted to extract a multimillion-dollar ransom from his wealthy family.
David Morrissey will headline The City and the City for BBC Two, joining an international cast that features German actress Maria Schrader, U.S. actor Christian Camargo, rising British actress Mandeep Dhillon, and veteran British actors Ron Cook and Danny Webb. Described by the BBC as a "genre-busting thriller" based on the 2009 novel by China Mieville, The City and the City follows the investigation of Inspector Tyador Borlu (Morrissey), a detective in the Extreme Crime Squad of the fictional rundown European city of Beszel, into the death of a foreign student. He soon discovers that the dead girl came from Beszel’s sister city, Ul Qoma, and was involved in the political and cultural strife that exists between the two. To do his job, Borlu must work alongside the Ul Qoman police.
Hulu acquired the Canadian crime drama Pure, which stars Ryan Robbins (Arrow, The Killing), Alex Paxton-Beesley (Copper), AJ Buckley (CSI: NY, Narcos), Peter Outerbridge (Orphan Black) and Oscar and Golden Globe nominee Rosie Perez. Inspired by true events, it follows a Mennonite pastor trying to protect his family and preserve his faith while battling drug trafficking within his community.
Keanu Reeves Is heading to TV for the first time to star in the Pop Network series Swedish Dicks, Private Investigators. The project centers on former stuntman Ingmar Andersson (Peter Stormare) trying to carve out an existence as a private detective in Los Angeles. He runs into a struggling DJ (Johan Glans) who decides to leave that life behind to join Ingmar in solving cases and trying to top L.A.'s most successful P.I. company. Keanu Reeves will have a recurring role as Tex Johnson, an old stunt-performing friend of Ingmar's with "an interesting history."
USA Network announced its spring/summer schedule, including the new thriller The Sinner, based on Petra Hammesfahr’s book and starring Jessica Biel as a young mother who commits a startling act of violence and to her horror, has no idea why. Detective Harry Ambrose (Bill Pullman) finds himself obsessed with uncovering the woman’s buried motive. Returning USA shows include the narcotics thriller Queen of the South, inspired by the global best-selling novel La Reina Del Sur by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, and The Shooter, based on the best-selling novels by Stephen Hunter and the 2007 Paramount film starring Mark Wahlberg,
While fans of The X-Files wait impatiently to see if there will be another limited series of the show, they can take solace in a new audiobook, X-Files: Cold Cases, with David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Mitch Pileggi (Walter Skinner), William B. Davis (the Cigarette Smoking Man) and the Lone Gunmen (Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund, and Bruce Harwood) all reprising their roles from the original TV show.
The venerable true crime series Dateline has been sold in 80% of the country for a September premiere in national syndication on Fox and other television affiliates. Double runs of Dateline will also be offered to stations to air as a two-hour true crime block.
HBO released a trailer for its upcoming miniseries The Wizard of Lies, starring Robert DeNiro as the disgraced and imprisoned financier Bernie Madoff. Michelle Pfeiffer co-stars as Bernie’s wife, while Alessandro Nivola, Nathan Darrow, and Kristen Connolly play his children.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Author Paul Levine visited Libby Hellmann on the 2nd Sunday Crime podcast to talk about his new book, Bum Luck.
Author Harry Hunsicker made an appearance on WFAA-TV to talk about his new crime thriller, The Devil's Country.
Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste, the hosts of the Two Crime Writers and a Microphone podcast, chatted with their special guest Steve Mosby, who talked about his brand new book You Can Run, his career so far, and the dark side of crime fiction.
Suspense Radio this week welcomed guests Daniel Pyne (screenwriter and author of Catalina Eddy), former Navy Seal Thom Shea, and bestselling author Kate White (The Secrets you Keep).
THEATER
Tony nominee Max von Essen stars as Captain Alfred Dreyfus in a limited engagement of The Dreyfus Affair at the BAM Fisher theater Off-Broadway. Written by Eve Wolf and directed by Donald T. Sanders, the multi-media production shines a light on the controversial conviction and false arrest of a highly decorated French Jewish officer in 1894 - the consequences of which were felt for decades in the political landscape in France and the rest of the world. The Ensemble for the Romantic Century production starts April 27 and continues through May 7.
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April 16, 2017
Your Sunday Music Treat
If you ever thought classical music was staid and boring, you probably haven't encountered Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613). A New Yorker article referred to him as the "Prince of Darkness" and others have dubbed him the "Madman of the Renaissance" and not without good reason. He was responsible for at least two murders, but the prolific composer of madrigals and sacred works was also known for his complex and imaginative harmonies that were almost two hundred and fifty years ahead of their time. Here's his "Tenebrae factae sunt" from Feria Sexta - Tenebrae Responsories for Good Friday, sung by the Hilliard Ensemble:
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April 15, 2017
April 14, 2017
FFB: Under the Snow
Today's Friday's "Forgotten" Book feature hosted by Patti Abott is focused on small-town cops or sheriffs. In that vein, I offer up a Nordic take on the subject.
Before the recent Scandinavian crime fiction invasion, before even Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, there was Kerstin Lillemor Ekman (born August 1933), whose debut crime novel, Thirty-Meter Murder (30 meter mord), was published in 1959. Her first few mystery novels grew out of her background as a documentary filmmaker, and she wrote seven crime fiction books in all before turning her hand to more general psychological and social themes (and one book that's a history of Sweden told from the POV of a troll). She did later return to the genre, with the detective novel Blackwater (Händelser vid vatten) in 1993, which won the Swedish Crime Academy's award for best crime novel.
Eckman's novel Under the Snow (De tre små mästarna) from 1961 is set in the harsh, distant landscape of the Arctic Circle's Lapland in the town of Rakisjokk during the extended darkness of winter. Or as one character notes, "You might say this is where the world comes to an end." A drunken evening ends in the death of a local artist and teacher named Matti Olsson, but when Constable Torsson sets out to investigate (a 25-mile trek on skis across a frozen lake), he is met with a conspiracy of silence, mismatched stories and only a single clue: a bloodstained mahjong tile. His efforts aren't helped by the fact that the locals are part of the ethnic Sami group who speak Finnish and don't think very highly of Swedes. Torsson has no choice but to close the case. That is, until David Malm, an eccentric redheaded painter and friend of Matti's, arrives in town to investigate the truth on his own and runs into beautiful teacher Anna Ryd who is caught with a bag containing a bloody noose with a human hair clinging to it.
Eckman maintains the dark atmosphere of the unrelenting subzero cold and sunless days (followed by nights where the sun never sets) where nearly everyone has secrets, but still manages to inject bits of humor and her trademark irony: the super-fit younger colleague decked out in the 1960 version of chic Gore-Tex gear who turns an ankle in the first few yards during his first attempt on skis; a language professor who happily scribbles down the ferryman's epithets; a elkhound that barks nonstop. One unusual technique: Ekman wrote Under the Snow almost completely in the third person except for Chapter 12, where Matti's killer explains how the murder was committed. Of her writing influences, Eckman has said "I live in a small village and I have been living in two other small villages far up north in Sweden. Very close to the forest, the mountains, the waters. They have had a great impact on me, melting into my language."
Under the Snow remained unavailable in English from the time of its publication until the translation by Joan Tate in 1996, 35 years later. Entertainment Weekly called Eckman "Striking...a sort of Graham Greene meets Dean Koontz," and the Library Journal added that "Ekman's brilliant evocation of a place and culture above the Arctic Circle is as compelling and mysterious as the crime itself." Ekman was elected member of the Swedish Academy in 1978, but left in 1989 when the academy didn't take a strong stand after the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. She also turned her hand back to the screen with a Swedish TV movie based on one of her books and appearances as herself in documentaries.
April 13, 2017
Mystery Melange
The International Thriller Writers announced the 2017 Thriller Award Nominations in the categories of Best Hardcover Novel, Best First Novel, Best Paperback Novel, Best Short Story, Best Young Adult, and Best E-Book Original. For all the lists and nominees, head on over to the official Thriller Awards website - and congratulations to all.
The Gold Medal winners from the 29th Annual Independent Book Publishers Association Ben Franklin Awards were also announced, including The Devil's Flood: Emory Crawford Mysteries, Book Three, which won in the Mystery & Suspense Category. The Silver winners were James Waltzer's Of Sound Mind and Jeffrey Alan Lockwood's Poisoned Justice: A Riley the Exterminator Mystery.
The winners of this year's Minnesota Book Awards sponsored by the Friends of the St. Paul Library included Allen Eskens' detective novel The Heavens May Fall in the Genre Fiction category. For all the winners and finalists lists, click on over to the awards site.
The world’s biggest celebration of the crime genre, Harrogate, unveiled its full program, including a new exhibition celebration Agatha Christie and the connections between her writing, life, and publishing career using rare photographs and documents from both the Agatha Christie and Collins archives in a visually led outdoor display. The exhibition, part of HarperCollins’ 200th anniversary, will be displayed at the Festival venue, the Old Swan Hotel, where Christie was found after her famous disappearance in 1926. (HT to Shots Magazine). The conference also announced that the 91-year-old artist behind Agatha Christie’s iconic book jackets in the 1960s and 70s, Tom Adams, will make an appearance.
The St Hilda’s College Mystery and Crime Conference, to be held August 18-20, also announced its lineup this year, which includes Yrsa Sigurðardóttir as Conference Guest of Honour and Natasha Cooper as Conference Chair.
Now through May 7, the Free Library in Philadelphia is presenting an immersive theater experience, in partnership with New Paradise Laboratories, titled Gumshoe. Visitors can participate in the "investigation" that blends disguise, subterfuge, infiltration, half-truths, and bald-faced lies, to get to the bottom of a crime that hasn’t yet happened. While you're at the library, you'll also want to check out the companion exhibition, "Clever Criminals and Daring Detectives." Meanwhile, over at the Rare Book Department at Parkway Central Library, the exhibition "Becoming the Detective: The Making of a Genre" continues through September 1.
The National Post took a look at how the infamous Black Dahlia murder sparked a pop culture fascination, including novels and films, and affected public perception.
More sad publishing news: Simon & Schuster shut down its Tyrus Books imprint last week, according to its publisher Ben LeRoy, who originally founded Tyrus Books in 2009, after selling his previous company, Bleak House, to Big Earth Publishing. At that time, Tyrus focused on hardboiled crime fiction, but when F&W acquired Tyrus in 2013 and its focus expanded, it began publishing literary fiction, including novels with ecological themes.
This week, the 5-2 continues its "30 Days of the Five-Two" poetry blog tour with "Harley Caress" by Joe Balaz, from Cindy Rosmus's quarterly fiction and poetry site Yellow Mama, named for the Alabama electric chair. As 5-2 editor Gerald So notes, "The poem's voyeuristic quality piqued my interest, as did the way it's written, in Hawaiian Islands pidgin. Usually, I don't know I've seen celebrities outside TV and movies until well after the fact."
In the Q&A roundup, Lesa's Book Critiques welcomed Rebecca Cantrell to talk about her Hannah Vogel mysteries, Joe Tesla thrillers, and more; the Mystery People spoke with Robin Yocum about his new novel, Welcome Murder; Gerald So interviewed several of the many and talented Derringer Award finalists on his website; and Karin Slaughter and Sara Paretsky shared a Q&A session ahead of Paretsky's new V.I. Warshawski novel Fallout and the mass market edition of Karin Slaughter's The Kept Woman.
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April 10, 2017
Media for Monday
Here's the latest roundup of crime drama news:
MOVIES
Spider-Man's Tobey Maguire is moving behind the camera to direct an adaptation of Jo Nesbo's best-selling thriller Blood on Snow. Maguire’s Material and Lawrence Grey’s Grey Matter Productions acquired the screen rights to the 2015 Norwegian novel and hired on Nesbo to pen the script. Blood on Snow centers on Olav, a contract killer in Oslo who, when instructed to kill his adulterous wife, falls into a meditation on death and love, and opts instead to pursue his boss' rival.
Jo Nesbo is apparently a hot property right now, as it was also announced that another project based on one of the hot Norwegian author’s works is in the pipeline. Bond screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade are adapting Nesbo’s upcoming novel I Am Victor for Baltasar Kormakur to direct and produce. The story is a thriller about a skilled but morally corrupt and narcissistic divorce attorney who's framed for a series of brutal murders and embarks on his own investigation to find the real killer.
Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper and Clouds of Sils Maria) has come on board to direct the Cuban spy thriller Wasp Network from his own script. Wasp Network is based on Fernando Morais’ book The Last Soldiers of the Cold War, and enters on Cuban spies in American territory during the 1990s when anti-Castro groups based in Florida carried out military attacks on Cuba, and the Cuban government struck back with the Wasp Network to infiltrate those organizations.
Colin Farrell is in negotiations to star in Steve McQueen and New Regency’s heist thriller Widows, joining Viola Davis, Liam Neeson, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Rodriguez, Daniel Kaluuya, and Andre Holland in the cast. Gone Girl screenwriter and novelist Gillian Flynn will write the script with McQueen, which is based on the 1983 British miniseries about a caper gone wrong.
Supergirl actor Frederick Schmidt has joined the cast of Paramount’s Mission:Impossible 6, the sequel to the Tom Cruise-starring franchise. Christopher McQuarrie returns as director in the film, with the plot still held under wraps.
Filming has begun in Edinburgh, Scotland for the new crowdfunded psychic thriller First and Only. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by author Peter Flannery, and directed by award-winning director Magnus Wake, James Robinson stars as the ominous figure of serial killer Mal whose religious killing spree can only be stopped by Simon, a mysteriously gifted young man who has been haunted by Mal since witnessing his first murder as a boy.
The Egyptian film The Nile Hilton Incident (a/k/a Cairo Confidential) won the Grand Prix at the 9th Beaune International Thriller Film Festival in France. The film, which also won the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Dramatic section of Sundance in January, is Inspired by the true story of Lebanese Singer Suzanne Tamim’s murder in 2008.
TELEVISION
The Peabody Awards, which honor the most powerful, enlightening and invigorating stories in TV, radio and digital media, have named the 2017 finalists, including Oscar-winning O.J.: Made in America, American Crime, and a long list of documentaries and podcasts. The winners will be honored May 20, and Rashida Jones will host the ceremony to air on June 2 on PBS and Fusion — marking the first time it will be telecast on both national broadcast and cable television.
Brendan Fraser (The Affair, The Mummy franchise) has been cast opposite Max Irons and Mira Sorvino in Condor, AT&T Audience Network’s 10-episode straight-to-series drama inspired by Sydney Pollack’s 1975 political thriller Three Days of the Condor. The story follows Joe Turner (Irons), a young CIA analyst whose idealism is tested when he stumbles onto a terrible but brilliant plan that threatens the lives of millions.
Anya Taylor-Joy, Romola Garai and Alex Hassell have been set to star in BBC One and Masterpiece’s period thriller The Miniaturist, based on the best-selling novel by Jessie Burton. The story is set in 1686, when 18-year-old Nella Oortman (Taylor-Joy) moves from the country to begin a new life as the wife of wealthy merchant Johannes Brandt (Hassell). But she soon realizes nothing is at it seems when her new husband gives her a miniature replica of their home to be furnished by an elusive Miniaturist, whose tiny creations mirror what is happening within the house in unexpected ways amid escalating dangers.
Grammy-winning singer Ricky Martin has signed on to co-star opposite Édgar Rarmirez, Penélope Cruz, and Darren Criss in Versace: American Crime Story. The 10-episode Versace examines the July 1997 assassination of Gianni Versace (Ramirez) on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion by sociopath and serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Criss). Martin will play Versace’s longtime partner Antonio D’Amico, while Cruz plays Versace’s sister Donatella.
Osric Chau, who recurred during the first season of BBC America’s Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (based on the cult novels by Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams), has been promoted to series regular for Season 2. Chau plays the manic Vogel, a member of the Rowdy 3.
Netflix has come on board BBC Two’s contemporary thriller Collateral as co-producer and will release the show globally outside the UK. Carey Mulligan stars as Detective Inspector Kip Glaspie in the drama set over the course of four days that explores the spiraling repercussions surrounding the fatal shooting of a pizza delivery man.
Law & Order: SVU is lining up its own take on the topic of newsroom sexual harassment, with Christopher McDonald (Thelma and Louise), Bonnie Somerville (Friends) and Mark Moses (Mad Men) set to headline an April episode of the NBC procedural seemingly inspired by the Roger Ailes scandal at Fox that led to the longtime chief's departure.
Fans of CBS' Criminal Minds, which was on the bubble for renewal, can breathe a sigh of relief now that the network has officially given the go-ahead to another season of the series, which will be its thirteenth.
Studiocanal has sold German rights to drama The Five, the 10-part show created for television by bestselling author Harlan Coben. The series, which debuted on the U.K. broadcaster Sky 1 in April 2016, follows a group of friends whose lives are thrown into turmoil when the DNA of one of the friends’ brothers, who disappeared 20 years ago, is detected at a fresh crime scene.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Authors on the Air host Pam Stack presented dark crime fiction writer Jen Conley, to chat about her writing and new book Cannibals.
Jan Burke and D.P. Lyle, hosts of the Crime and Science Radio podcast, announced the sad news that they are ending the project after three and half years. However, they will keep all the sixty-seven shows produced thus far in an online archives.
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April 9, 2017
Your Sunday Music Treat
If you haven't seen this unique musical instrument from the group Wintergatan (Martin Molin and Marcus Sjöberg), you must - it's really amazing:
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April 8, 2017
April 7, 2017
FFB: Murder in Japan and Danger in D.C.
Martin H. "Harry" Greenberg (1941-2011) started out as a political science professor and later founded book packager Tekno Books, which published over 2,300 books translated into 33 languages. But he may be best known to many as the "king of anthologists," editing singly or with others over 1,298 anthologies and commissioning over 8,200 original short stories—but I'm not sure anyone really knows how many he hand a hand in. Greenberg received four genre Lifetime Achievement Awards: the Milford Award in science fiction, the Solstice Award in science fiction, the Bram Stoker Award in horror, and the Ellery Queen Award in mystery.
His collaborators included the bright lights in their respective genres, such as science fiction author Isaac Asimov, with whom Greenberg edited more than 120 anthologies, and crime fiction authors Ed Gorman and Bill Pronzini, among many others. As an example of his wide-ranging thematic material, I offer up two very different anthologies, Murder in Japan: Japanese Stories of Crime and Detection, and Danger in D.C.: Cat Crimes in the Nation's Capital.
Danger in D.C. is one of at least seven in a series of "cat crimes" story anthologies Greenberg edited with Ed Gorman from 1991 to 1998. As you might guess from the title, the volume features 18 stories with felines connected to the nation's capitol in some way, with offerings by Jon L. Breen, Max Allan Collins, Bill Crider, Barbara D'Amato, Carole Nelson Douglas, John Lutz, Barbara Paul, Carolyn Wheat, and more. Since the book dates from the Clinton presidential years, many of the stories feature the "first cat" Sox or a stand-in, including "Code Red: Terror on the Mall" by Bill Crider, involving a terrorist plot to blow up the President's cat and the Washington Monument.
Murder in Japan is co-edited with John L. Apostolou and includes 14 stories arranged chronologically from pre-1920s up to the 1980s. Although crime fiction has been quite popular in Japan for some time, few short stories have been translated into English, and I can almost guarantee that neither you (nor I) have heard of most of the authors included here, beginning with two stories by Edogawa Rampo, credited as being the father of the Japanese mystery story and influenced heavily by Edgar Allan Poe. There are also two stories by Shizuko Natsuki, sometimes referred to as the "Agatha Christie of Japan," (whose 1983 novel Murder at Mt. Fuji sold over a million copies) with her tales frequently based on actual cases.
If you want to delve into the many treasures Greenberg left behind as part of his legacy, check out the partial bibliography listed on the Fantastic Fiction web site. To put his impact into perspective, if you read one story from one of his anthologies per day (using a 1,000 anthology total with an average 14 stories each), it would take you 38 years to read them all—without taking a day off. Happy reading!
