B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 201

RIP, Rautavaara

Einojuhani Rautavaara died on July 27. Although not as much of a household name as Jean Sibelius, Rautavaara has been called the greatest Finnish composer since his more famous predecessor. Some more traditional classical fans might have been turned off by his earlier twelve-tone experimentation, but his later works were more of a neo-Romantic style with mystical overtones.

To give you a little taste of his works, I've included a piano piece titled Passionale (I'll have to ask Scott Drayco if he's played this one), followed by the short choral piece Credo, and finally the fourth movement from what many consider to be his best-known work, the Symphony No. 7, "Angel of Light."

 

Passionale Credo Symphony No. 7, fourth movement - Pesante Cantabile

            

Quote of the Week

            

FFB: Fool's Gold

Edward John "Ted" Wood was born in Sussex, England in 1931 and served in the RAF following the Second World War. In 1954 he emigrated to Canada and was a Toronto police officer for three years before switching to advertising and copyrighting. The dual law enforcement/writing experience prompted him to pen several published crime fiction (and non-genre) short stories and a teleplay.



His first novel was Dead in the Water in 1984, a police procedural that won the Scribner's Crime Novel Award and was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel. It was the first of what became a series featuring policeman Reid Bennett, an ex-marine and Vietnam vet, who relocated to the small fictional Canadian resort town of Murphy's Harbour after he took a bad rap for murdering two guys to prevent a rape. He's aided by his trusty German Shepherd, Sam, who serves as companion and protector.



In Fool's Gold, the fourth novel in the series (also nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award), gold found in the mountains of Canada prompts a sudden influx of prospectors, chopper pilots, construction workers and drifters, all hoping to get rich quick. It also brings the dead body of geologist Jim Prudhomme, who's found mauled beyond recognition presumably by a bear, even though bear attacks in that area are rare. But the mystery increases when a witness claims to have seen Prudhomme days after the murder, and then Prudhomme turns up dead for real. As Bennett digs deeper, he doesn't discover gold but rather a plot to defraud the gold mine. With the help of the local police chief out for one last big case and a beautiful motel keeper with secrets of her own, Bennett races to get to the bottom of the scheme, dodging blackmailers, vengeful miners, and a mounting body count.

 

A tendency to skirt the rules makes Bennett take chances that aren't always credible, but Woods' plots are known for their many twists and turns, and also witty dialogue and elements of suspense. Fans of the series are particularly fond of Sam, who Publisher's Weekly described as "…a multi-talented utility infielder who can 'keep,' 'track,' 'seek,' 'fight,' 'guard,' sniff out cocaine and corpses, save lives and generally pinch-hit for a dozen patrolmen."



Woods went on to write 10 Bennett novels in all (from 1984 to 1995) and three novels featuring private eye John Locke from 1986 to 1991 (written under the pen name Jack Barnao). Woods also also served as president of the Crime Writers of  Canada from 1987 to 1988.

            

Mystery Melange

The UK Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has announced its shortlists of nominees for nine 2016 Dagger Awards categories, including the list for The Gold Dagger, awarded to the best crime novel of the year:

Black Widow, by Christopher Brookmyre
Blood Salt Water, by Denise Mina
Dodgers, by Bill Beverly
Real Tigers, by Mick Herron

For lists of all of the nominees, click on over to the official CWA website.



Last week, the finalists for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel and Best First Novel were announced. The award has been handed out annually since 2010 to honor excellence in crime fiction by New Zealand authors. Competing for Best Crime Novel are:

Inside The Black Horse by Ray Berard
Made To Kill by Adam Christpher
Trust No One by Paul Cleave
The Legend Of Winstone Blackhat by Tanya Mir 
American Blood by Ben Sanders 

Craig Sisterson has a list of all the honorees on his Crime Watch blog.



This year's Bloody Scotland conference is dedicated to the late, great William "Willie" McIlvanney, who started the Tartan Noir revolution long before Ian Rankin's Rebus or Glenn Chandler's Taggart. Writing for the Daily Record, Jane Hamilton explains how McIlvanney set the agenda for Scottish crime fiction and inspired a generation of writers.



In preparation for the Iceland Noir crime festival to be held in November, Crime Fiction Lover offered up an "Iceland Noir Reading List."



Trouble Is Our Business, a new anthology of short stories by leading Irish crime writers, will be published by New Island Books this September. Selected and edited by the crime writer, journalist and blogger Declan Burke, it has a foreword by Lee Child and includes short fiction from:  Alex Barclay, Colin Bateman, Ken Bruen, Jane Casey, Paul Charles, Eoin Colfer, John Connolly, Sinead Crowley, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Alan Glynn, Cora Harrison, Declan Hughes, Arlene Hunt, Gene Kerrigan, Brian McGilloway, Patrick McGinley, Adrian McKinty, Eoin McNamee, Stuart Neville, Liz Nugent, Niamh O'Connor, Julie Parsons, Louise Phillips and William Ryan. (HT to Crime Fiction Ireland)



Crime fiction scholar Rosemary Erickson Johnsen penned an essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books on how there's more to Swedish crime fiction than internationally best-selling author Stieg Larsson. As example, she offers up the often overlooked feminist voices of Liza Marklund, Camilla Läckberg, and Helene Tursten who have been "squeezed out of the limelight" by the Larsson juggernaut.



Writing for The Strand Magazine, Maxim Jakubowski compiled a listing of "10 Overlooked Modern Crime Novels."



The featured crime poem at the 5-2 this week is "On the Internet" by David Spicer.



In the Q&A roundup, the Mystery People welcomed Bill Loehfelm to talk about Let The Devil Out, his fourth book featuring New Orleans policewoman Maureen Coughlin; the MP's also chatted with Alison Gaylin about What Remains Of Me, a book they call "one the year’s best novels"; Susan Van Kirk interviewed Judy Penz Sheluk about her new book, Skeletons in the Attic; and Omnimystery News sat down with Jennifer David Hesse about her new legal crime series and its first installment, Midsummer Night's Mischief.

            

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES



Sony has lined up Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Auburn to pen the latest incarnation of the Charlie's Angels franchise, to be directed by Elizabeth Banks. It might seem an odd choice to tackle a franchise that began as a TV showcase for bikini-clad detectives in the 1970s, but the move is strategic on the part of Sony and Banks, who are seeking rich, fully developed characters and not just pretty faces plugged into action, or as Hollywood Reporter put it, "less ass, more class."



Chris Evans (Captain America) has signed on to play the lead role of Tom Jackman in Jekyll, the feature that Lionsgate is developing from the 2007 BBC One series by Steven Moffat. The film version is being penned by The Nice Guys writing duo Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry and is a modern update of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale about a man with split personalities who struggles to keep his murderous alter ego under control while eluding a covert organization wanting to use Mr. Hyde for their own nefarious purposes.



Pierce Brosnan has come aboard Final Score, written by the brothers Lynch and Jonathan Frank, which takes place at a major sporting event when a stadium is suddenly seized by a group of heavily armed criminals demanding ransom.  An ex-soldier must use all his military skills to save the 35,000 capacity crowd, including the daughter of his fallen comrade.



Academy Award-nominated actress Rosamund Pike and Golden Globe-nominated actor Daniel Bruhl are in talks to join the terror drama Entebbe. Based on a true story, the film centers on Operation Entebbe and the hijacking of a Paris-bound airplane by terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the German Revolutionary Cells. Pike and Bruhl are set to play the German hijackers. 



Last year, it was announced that a Jonny Quest feature film adaptation was finally being made and now it seems some notable A-list actors , the titular protagonist's bodyguard, including Idris Elba, Bradley Cooper, and Will Smith. The cinematic version of Race is reportedly a government agent who is a mix of Indiana Jones and Jason Bourne, and the movie will show his first meeting with the Quest family. Along with the actors, Joe Cornish, Justin Lin and Scott Derrickson were also mentioned as directors who've been looked at or discussed the project.



TELEVISION



The Revolutionary War-set spy series Turn was renewed by AMC for a fourth season. That's the good news; the bad news is that it will be the show's final season. The drama is based on Alexander Rose's book Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring and stars Jamie Bell, Seth Numrich, and Daniel as members of the Culper Ring, a band of civilians who turned against their British king and helped turn the tide of the Revolutionary War.  



Elizabeth Marvel (House Of Cards) has been cast in the high profile role of President-Elect Elizabeth Keane on the upcoming sixth season of Showtime’s flagship drama series Homeland. Season 6 will chronicle the events following the U.S. presidential election, with the entire season taking place between election day and the inauguration. (Homeland is likely to debut just before the actual 2017 Presidential Inauguration).



Speaking of things presidential, or at least, vice-presidential, Joe Biden is scheduled to make an appearance on Law & Order:SVU playing himself. Biden, who famously was a driving force behind 1994's Violence Against Women Act, has made raising awareness about sexual assault one of his main causes the last few years.



ABC announced that Timothy Hutton will be returning for the third season of American Crime. He'll rejoin other returning cast members Felicity Huffman, Regina King and Richard Cabral, who all previously committed to the award-winning drama's next installment.



Fans of Zoe McLellan's Special Agent Meredith "Merri" Brody on NCIS: New Orleans aren't as lucky, however, as CBS announced that McLellan won't be returning for season 3 of the series. The reason for McLellan’s exit was a creative decision, seeing as her character had been compromised in the Season 2 finale due to her association with a Homeland Security agent who turned out to be a misguided zealot. Her exit clears for way for a new FBI special agent, (previously announced new series regular Vanessa Ferlito) to look into concerns about Agent Pride’s NCIS team.



Revenge alum Henry Czerny, who appeared in Quantico's season 1 finale as a guest star, is returning to the hit ABC drama series in a major recurring role. Czerny plays Matthew Keyes, the CIA operative who approached and tried to entice Alex Parrish (Priyanka Chopra) to leave the FBI and join the CIA. In addition to Chopra, Czerny joins series stars Jake McLaughlin, Aunjanue Ellis, Yasmine Al Massri, Johanna Braddy, Blair Underwood, and Russell Tovey.



Tristin Mays (The Vampire Diaries) has signed on as a series regular opposite Lucas Till and George Eads in CBS’ new fall series MacGyver, a reimagining of the 1985 show about a resourceful and ingenious agent who improvises his way out of sticky situations using everyday items like rubber bands, chewing gum and a Swiss Army knife.



The long-running Law & Order: SVU is bringing E.T. star Henry Thomas and The Practice alum Kelli Williams on board to guest-star in an episode inspired by Making a Murderer. Thomas will portray a convicted rapist recently exonerated due to newly tested DNA evidence after 16 years in prison. Williams will play Melanie, the rape victim who identified him as her attacker.



The first trailer for Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency premiered at the recent ComicCon. Samuel Barnett plays the unconventional detective and Elijah Wood his sidekick, as the duo tackle one big metaphysical mystery per season.



A trailer was released for Startup, the upcoming drama on the Crackle network starring Adam Brody, Edi Gathegi, Martin Freeman, and Otmara Marrero. The plot centers on a desperate banker needs to conceal stolen money, a Haitian-American gang lord who wants to go legit, and a Cuban-American hacker who has an idea that will revolutionize the very future of money itself as they create organized crime 2.0.



PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO



Walter Mosley chatted with NPR about his most popular crime fiction series starring Easy Rawlins and being chosen as the 2016 grand master of the Mystery Writers of America.

            

FFB: The Cape Cod Mystery

At this time of year, my thoughts turn to summer vacations that bubble up from my memories of bygone days. My family always managed to travel somewhere, like the year we made it up to Cape Cod and rented a beach-side cabin. So naturally, a book I came across in the library titled The Cape Cod Mystery by Phoebe Atwood Taylor ended up in my book bag.



Phoebe Atwood Taylor (1909-1976) was born in Boston, the child of Cape Cod natives who were also descendents of Mayflower Pilgraims. After Taylor married a Boston surgeon, they had a summer home on the Cape, which explains why the author would choose that setting for her first novel, published in 1931 when she was all of 22. She puts that inside knowledge to good use in recreating the local culture there in the 1930s and 1940s.



Taylor has my undying respect for her work ethic of writing her novels between midnight and three a.m. after her "housekeeping day" had ended, although her habit of waiting to start a book until three weeks before the publisher's deadline would give me a heart attack.



The Cape Cod Mystery was fairly successful in its day, selling 5,000 copies, and introduced  the "Codfish Sherlock", Asey Mayo, who went on to star in 24 of Taylor's novels. Mayo retired in Cape Cod, following his world travels as a sailor,  to serve as a general assistant to the heir of Porter Motors. He uses his wits and wit to solve murders with the help of a very fast car.



In the novel, the muckraking author, philanderer and occasional blackmailer Dale Sanborn is murdered one hot August weekend, leaving behind a long list of enemies, including an old girl friend, his fiancee, an outraged husband, a long-lost brother and a few more. Asey Mayo gets involved when his friend and mentor Bill Porter is accused of the crime, even though Mayo only has one clue to go on:  a sardine can.



There are a few oddities, such as the narrator being not Mayo but rather Prudence Whitsby, who has a cottage on Cape Cod she shares with her niece and a cook (and also serves as the sight where the victim was murdered). Taylor wrote Mayo with a very heavy Coddish (Codlian?) accent that sometime a bit difficult to wade through, particularly when he's offering up his homespun sayings like "They ain't many whys without becauses."



The earlier Mayo titles are a little darker (it's been suggested this was due to the Depression at the time), but as the series went on, the tone apparently lightened enough that critic Dilys Winn called Taylor "the mystery equivalent to Buster Keaton," and one reviewer added that Asey Mayo does for Cape Cod what Travis McGee does for Southern Florida. Apparently Margaret Mitchell (Gone With the Wind) was even a fan of Taylor's Mayo character, encouraging Taylor to "pack the books with Cape Cod details."



Countryman Press re-issued several of Taylor's novels, including The Cape Cod Mystery, in 2005.

            

Mystery Melange

Former British police officer turned author Clare Mackintosh won the 2016 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award for her thriller I Let You Go. The announcement was made during the opening-night event at the 14th Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England. Also shortlisted for the award were Time of Death, by Mark Billingham; Career of Evil, by Robert Galbraith; Tell No Tales, by Eva Dolan; Disclaimer, by Renée Knight; and Rain Dogs, by Adrian McKinty. In addition, Scottish writer Val McDermid became the seventh winner of the Theakstons Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award, following in the footsteps of Sara Paretsky, Lynda La Plante, Ruth Rendell, P.D. James, Colin Dexter, and Reginald Hill.



The 2016 Dashiell Hammett Prize—awarded each year by the International Crime Fiction Festival, la Semana Negra de Gijón—has been bestowed on the novel Subsuelo, by the Argentine writer Marcelo Luján. (Hat tip to the Rap Sheet and Jose Ignacio Escribano.)



The UK crime fiction website Dead Good announced the winners of the 2016 Dead Good Reader Awards. Winners were announced on July 22 at Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England.  (HT to Mystery Fanfare)



The winners of the 2016 Scribe Awards, given out by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, included Best Original Novel (General) that was handed out to a TV thriller-oriented tie-in novel, 24: Rogue, by David Mack (Forge). In addition, the 2016 Best Short Story prize went to "Fallout," a Mike Hammer tale by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, originally printed in The Strand Magazine (November 2014-February 2015).



The Australian Crime Writers Association announced the shortlists for the 2016 Ned Kelly Awards for the best in Australian crime writing. The roster inludes five former winners and two multiple winners, Garry Disher and Candice Fox, who is aiming to win for her third award in a row. 



Meanwhile, Sisters in Crime Australia also announced the shortlists for this year’s Davitt Awards, celebrating the best in crime writing by Australian women. Australian crime writer Liane Moriarty will present the awards at a gala dinner at Melbourne’s Thornbury Theatre on August 27.



Many of you probably know of Texas author Bill Crider (the Sheriff Dan Rhodes mystery series), whose 75th birthday is coming up on July 28. He reported in his blog last week that he has an aggressive form of cancer, which Janet Rudolph updated on her Mystery Fanfare blog. Crider has entertained many of us via his books and online presence (Facebook and his blog), and I hope you will join me in sending him warm thoughts and hopes for better days ahead.



The Detection Club a new collection of short stories, Motives for Murder, to celebrate the 80th birthday of one of the Club's most distinguished members, Peter Lovesey. The book will be published in Britain as a paperback original by Little, Brown and in the US (with a limited hardback edition as well) by Crippen & Landru. Each of the nineteen stories and one sonnet was written specially for the book, with each prefaced by a few words from the author about Peter's contribution to the genre. Contributors include Ann Cleeves, Andrew Taylor, Len Tyler, Michael Ridpath, Liza Cody, and more, and a foreword by the legendary Len Deighton. (Hat tip to Martin Edwards.)



Elizabeth Foxwell announced that the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series she edits is bringing out a book on Sara Paretsky penned by Margaret Kinsman, former executive editor of Clues: A Journal of Detection. The publication date is slated for this fall.



The Killers of the Week blog wrapped up a two-week celebration of John D. MacDonald's centennial with a gallery of 76 vintage covers from his novels.



The new world of publishing allows for almost unlimited possibilities when it comes to concepts, genre mashups, and creative ways of looking at the business. Andrez Bergen is a case in point, taking a 12-issue comic book run of his Bullet Gal series and bundling it into a dystopian and "vaguely traditional kind of noir/crime/sci-fi novel."  Bullet Gal will be published in print and eBook by Roundfire Fiction in the UK in November.



Writing for Flavorwire, Alison Nastasi noted "10 Times Television’s Female Detectives Shamelessly Put Men in Their Place."



There are many things I will do as an author in writing and promoting my books, but getting a tattoo inspired by my books probably isn't one of them. That hasn't stopped these ten authors, though (and more power to 'em).



For your next animal-related mystery novel idea:  "When a crow dies, other crows investigate."



This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Miscalculated" by Michael A. Arnzen.



In the Q&A roundup, the Mystery People welcomed Andrew Hilbert to talk about his latest novella, Bangface And the Gloryhole, which starts out as a hard-boiled if absurdist private eye novel; the MPs also sat down for an interview with Amy Gentry about her debut thriller, Good as Gone; author Alex Clare stopped by Omnimystery News to discuss her debut novel of suspense, the first in a new series; and the Book Fan quizzed Megan Abbott about her new gymnastics-themed suspense novel, You Will Know Me.

           Related StoriesMystery MelangeThe 'Zine Scene 

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES



Universal Pictures has optioned rights to Matt Ruff’s psychological thriller Bad Monkeys. The 2007 novel centers on Jane Charlotte, who has been arrested for murder, but says she’s a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil and is working with the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons — aka "Bad Monkeys." Her confession lands her in the jail’s psychiatric wing and earns her countless hours of poking, probing, and questioning by a professional. Is Jane crazy or lying? Or is she playing a whole different game altogether?



Nancy Cartwright’s Spotted Cow Entertainment has acquired worldwide motion picture and television rights to Rachel Grant’s thriller novel Body of Evidence. The story centers on an archaeologist and a U.S. attorney who find themselves on a globe-spanning chase full of political intrigue and legal drama.



The second trailer for The Girl on the Train, the movie based on Paula Hawkins' best-selling 2015 thriller, barreled into the station last week, giving viewers a closer look at Emily Blunt’s depressed alcoholic Rachel Watson.



TELEVISION



Following the success of John Le Carré's spy novel adaptation The Night Manager, Paramount TV is tackling another of the author's works for the BBC, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, (Le Carré’s 1963 breakthrough novel). The book tells the story of Alec Leamas, a veteran British spy tasked with bringing down one of the most senior figures in the East German Intelligence Service, and is regarded a classic of its genre that was made into a film in 1965 with Richard Burton in the lead role.



Last week, it was announced that the premiere of the new USA crime drama series Shooter was belng delayed for a week due to the recent shooting events in Dallas, but after the Baton Rouge attacks, the network decided to push the premiere all the way back to the fall. Shooter follows Bob Lee Swagger (Phillippe), a former Marine sniper who is tasked with saving the president from an assassination, and ends up becoming wrongly accused of a crime. It's based on the 2007 movie starring Mark Wahlberg, which was in turn based on the Stephen Hunter novel Point of Impact.



Netflix has renewed its acclaimed original series Bloodline for a third season to consist of 10 episodes that will air sometime in 2017. The thriller drama follows a family of adult siblings who find that their past secrets and scars are revealed when their black sheep of a brother returns home.



Stefanie Martini has been chosen to play the young Jane Tennison in ITV’s new drama Tennison, a prequel to the series Prime Suspect that starred Helen Mirren as the iconic police officer.



The cast was announced for BBC One’s The Moonstone, an adaptation of the classic early crime novel by Wilkie Collins. Leading the cast are John Thomson, playing the legendary Sergeant Cuff, and Sarah Hadland as the pious and unwittingly hilarious Miss Clack.



Paget Brewster is returning to CBS' Criminal Minds for multiple recurring episodes in Season 12. The actress, who originated the role of Emily Prentiss in Season 1 and was promoted to series regular in Season 2, then left the show full time after Season 7. Brewster’s Prentiss is back with the BAU this time when they need her most, with the escape of 13 serial killers.



Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) has a new partner in True Blood alumna Janina Gavankar who is set for a recurring role in Fox’s drama series Sleepy Hollow. She'll play Diana, a new character who will help fill the void left by the controversial departure of female lead Nicole Beharie (who played Detective Abbie Mills), killed off at the end of Season 3. Gavankar’s Diana is described as a single mom and former military officer who’s currently a Special Agent for Homeland Security.  



Quantico alum Li Jun Li is joining the NBC drama Chicago PD for Season 4 as a guest star for three episodes, but may become a series regular. Li, who played Iris Chang on Quantico, has been cast as Burgess' new partner Julie Tay.  



Telenovela star Aaron Diaz (Los Miserables) is joining the cast of the FBI drama Quantico as "thrill-seeking journalist" Leon Velez.



Netflix has greenlighted a new installment of the Emmy-nominated documentary series Making A Murderer. The new chapter will go back inside the story of convicted murderer Steven Avery and his co-defendant, Brendan Dassey, as their respective investigative and legal teams challenge their convictions and the State fights to have the convictions and life sentences upheld. The new installment will provide an in-depth look at the high-stakes post-conviction process, as well as, the emotional toll the process takes on all involved.



A trailer was released for season 4 of the BBC's Sherlock, and star Benedict Cumberbatch, co-star Amanda Abbington, and co-creator Mark Gatis teased the season will be the darkest thing the showrunners have ever written for the show – "a real emotional roller coaster," according to Cumberbatch.



In the first trailer for the second season of the Netflix drama Narcos, a war breaks out between Colombian law enforcement and the hired army of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. The series stars Wagner Moura alongside Boyd Holbrook and Pedro Pascal as real-life DEA agents Steve Murphy and Javier Peña.



PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO



The podcast 'zine I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, hosted by Scott Monty (who is also Editor-in-Chief) and Burt Wolder, just marked its 100th episode. The event gave them "a chance to reflect on exactly what turning 100 means, and to dive back into our murky and fuzzy origins. We try to answer some of your queries and we celebrate those who joined us previously before launching into our top memories of the show, as represented in audio clips. Our Gas-Lamp features two readings, including a new one created just for this episode." 



Criminal Justice professor and mystery author Frankie Bailey spoke with WAMC about the history of crime and how it's covered in the media, especially in the light of the recent shootings by and against police officers in the U.S.



This week's Suspense Radio podcast featured two hours of interviews with author Christine Carbo, Joe Clifford, Lily Gardner, and Susan Shea.



It's a Mystery to Me welcomed Shaun Harris to chat with host Stacy Verdick Case about his new book from Seventh Street Books, The Hemingway Thief.

           Related StoriesMedia Murder for Monday 

FFB: Victorian Tales of Mystery & Detection

Historical crime fiction has been popular since the likes of The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and the Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters. And of course Victorian fiction is right in the thick of it all, thanks to the popularity of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. This particular 1992 volume of Victorian Tales, edited by Michael Cox, is an Oxford anthology that includes writers who actually lived and created stories during the reign of Queen Victoria, as opposed to present-day writers looking back on the era. The roster starts off with an Edgar Allan Poe tale from 1845 and works its way up chronologically through writers Sax Rohmer and Robert Barr (1904).



Editor Cox, who selected all the included stories, opens his Introduction with a G.K. Chesterton quotation about crime writers being divided into two types, "poisoners," who prolong the agony of anticipation or bewilderment in novel form, leaving the reader writhing on a sick-bed of baffled curiosity, or "cut-throats," writers who realize that the murder story cuts lives short and therefore chooses to startle readers via the quick stabs of the short story.



Cox goes on to add that, although the short-story form has inherent limitations, in capable hands these are turned into triumphant effect with pleasures for the reader that the detective novel can't provide. And the tools of those capable hands? An engaging narrative voice; a flamboyance of invention and an economy of style, compression and well-paced plot; and characters sketched swifly, but decisively, and tied back to the simple and surprising main idea. That's really not so much to ask, it is?



The 31 stories included more than meet the task, penned by masters, all. In addition to Poe, Rohmer and Barr, there are also offerings by J.S. Le Fanu, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Mrs. Henry Wood, Wilkie Collins, Barones Orczy and Arthur Conan Doyle. The protagonists include police detectives, gentleman amateurs, lady detectives, one psychic detective and even an "anti-detective," in the form of Guy Boothby's Klimo, who devises a crime for himself to solve.



Stories range from M. McDonnell Bodkin's "Murder By Proxy," in which a gentleman is shot in the head at close range—by a murderer who wasn't in the same room, to J. S. Le Fanu's double-locked-room mystery "The Murdered Cousin," where gambling habits prove to be fatal. Conan Doyle's contribution is "The Lost Special," in which cunning Herbert de Lernac commits the "inexplicable crime of the century" by making a train and its passengers vanish into thin air.



If you're a fan of the Victorian era and the more genteel crime writing of the day, this anthology is certainly one you'll enjoy and want to add to your collection.

            

Mystery Melange

The University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal awarded Attica Locke with the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Pleasantville as the best legal fiction "that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change." She will receive the prize on September 22 at the Library of Congress' Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D. C. during the National Book Festival.



The finalists for the 2016 T. Jefferson Parker Mystery and Thriller Award presented by the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association have been announced and include: Before the Fall by Noah Hawley; Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz; The Promise by Robert Crais.



Romance Writers of America (RWA) announced the winners of the 2016 RITA and Golden Heart Awards, including the categories of RITA Romantic Suspense (Flash Fire by Dana Marton) and Golden Heart Romantic Suspense ("In the Wrong Sights" by Tracy Brody).



Authors and readers of the cozy mystery genre have been hit recently with the loss of several series being dropped by Penguin Random House/Berkeley/NAL and Five Star. Several of these authors and their colleagues are teaming up for some giveaways to help promote and celebrate this more lighthearted side of crime fiction. One of the largest is a chance to win more than 40 cozy mystery novels from award-winning authors plus a Kindle Fire. (Hat tip to Nancy Cohen)



Starting this October, Hard Case Crime's Titan Comics imprint will bring Hard Case Crime's gritty, sexy, violent world to life with a brand new line of comic books. The first shots to be fired include Prohibition epic Triggerman by the legendary director of The Warriors, Walter Hill, and punky neo-noir Peepland from celebrated crime authors Christa Faust and Gary Phillips.



The next issue of Mystery Readers Journal (Volume 32:3) will focus on mysteries featuring Small Town Cops. Editor Janet Rudolph is seeking reviews, articles, and Author! Author! essays. Reviews: 50-250 words; Articles: 250-1000 words; Author! Author! essays: 500-1500 words.



Last week, I mentioned that Bouchercon was making nominees for the Anthony Best Short Story Award available online, and it appears that the Harrogate Crime Festival in the UK also featuring short stories ahead of the conference, with BBC Radio 4 sharing a series of audio stories written for the festival. First up is "The Queen of Mystery," by Ann Cleeves, with more to come from  Sarah Hilary, Val McDermid, and David Mark. But these are only up for a month, so better hurry and listen while you have the chance.



Aaron Sorkin, creator such shows as The West Wing, The American President, A Few Good Men, and The Social Network, is offering a five-hour screenwriting course on MasterClass. He'll cover “rules of storytelling, dialogue, character development, and what makes a script actually sell.”



Author John Verdon set out to compile a listing of the "10 Best Whodunits" for Publishers Weekly, but his choices may surprise you.



Fans of the TV show Get Smart from the 1960s will remember the bumbling Agent 86 (Maxwell Smart) and his "Cone of Silence." Now scientists say they have essentially created the real thing.



After 45 years, the FBI has finally closed the books on the still-unsolved case of D.B. Cooper, who hijacked a passenger plane and parachuted out to freedom with the ransom money, never to be seen again, allegedly. It remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in the United States and has captured the American imagination through the years, inspiring songs, movies, TV shows, and books.



The BBC announced it had solved a mystery by getting to the bottom of a Lucian Freud painting puzzle. For years, experts believed it to be an original Freud despite the artist's claims that it wasn't his.



Meet the only library in the world that operates in two countries at once.



This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Is It So Hard" by Craig Faustus Buck, and the new story-of-the month at Beat to a Pulp is George R. Johnson's "A Well-Ordered Life." BTAP editor David Cranmer has a touching anecdote about the late George R. Johnson and how this story came to be published.



In the Q&A roundup, the Mystery People welcomed Douglas Graham Purdy, who co-writes a series (with Thomas O’Malley) featuring Boston immigrants Cal and Dante, to chat about gun running, the IRA, loyalty, and the weight of one’s past; the MPs also grilled Peter Spiegelman about his new series featuring Skid Row's Dr. Knox; Ellie Alexander stopped by Criminal Element to chat about her new cozy mystery, Caught Bread Handed; the Mysteristas blog sat down with D.P. Lyle to talk about his Jake Longly series and numerous other works; Jason Michael took Paul D. Brazill's "Short, Sharp, Interview" challenge; and Indianapolis Monthly spoke with Ben Winters about his new alternate history novel, Underground Airlines.

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