B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 205

Bluebeard: Warrior or Psychopath?

In the new release from French scholar Valerie Ogden, BLUEBEARD: Brave Warrior, Brutal Psychopath, Ogden delves deep into the life of Giles de Rais, the man behind the myth of Bluebeard. From his troubled childhood, to the abrupt termination of his seemingly promising military career, and his eventual foray into the dark arts, Ogden chronicles the rise and fall of de Rais in graphic detail.

Ogden accidentally found out about Bluebeard when her nephew married his descendant, and the family hu...

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES



Antje Traue (Man of Steel) is the latest to join the thriller Criminal, which also stars Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, and Tommy Lee Jones. The plot centers on a "dangerous prison inmate (Costner) implanted with the memories and skills of a dead CIA operative in hopes of stopping a diabolical plot. Traue will play a terrorist's henchwoman.



Terrence Howard is in talks to join Gary Oldman, Shia LaBeouf, and Kate Mara in the psychological thriller Man Down. The story centers on an Afghan...

FFB: She Shall Have Murder - (And All the Other Links)

I'm hosting Friday's Forgotten Books for Patti Abbott today. Be sure and scroll down at the bottom of this post for all the latest FFB links from around the blogosphere.



But first, She Shall Have Murder by Delano Ames.



Delano Ames (1906-1987) was born in Ohio to a newspaperman father. In 1929 Ames married Maysie Grieg, who later became a highly successful author of lighthearted romances, and the duo settled in Greenwich Village where Ames published his first novel, a philosophical look at t...

Rogue Elements

Publishing is evolving at such a rapid rate, it's hard to keep up with all the latest news and developments. One such new approach comes courtesy of Advance Editions, which just launched this week. The company uses a twist on crowdsourcing, making books available to early readers a few months ahead of final publication, who then give feedback to the authors.



One of their first projects is Rogue Elements by Hector Macdonald, bestselling author of such thrillers as The Mind Game, The Hummingbi...

Mystery Melange

Skull book sculpture by Souverein

Congratulations to Peter May, recently given the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year award for his novel Entry Island.



Meet the creative team behind Big Pulp this weekend at the Baltimore Book Festival, which also features hundreds of authorsand booksellers, readingsand workshops, panel discussions, walking tours, and more. Among the other crime fiction highlights are a panel on "Page-Turning Suspense" with Denny S. Bryce, Joya Fields, Shelley N. Gree...

This Joint is A-Hoppin'

Do women authors get overlooked for the major crime fiction awards? Are they less likely to be reviewed by the most prestigious media outlets? Those questions prompted Charlotte MacLeod, Kate Mattes, Betty Francis, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Sara Paretsky, Nancy Pickard and Susan Dunlap to form Sisters in Crime (SinC) at the annual Edgars Week in 1987. The original aim was to promote the professional development and advancement of women crime writers to achieve equality in the industry, but th...

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES



Universal Pictures has begun making deals with Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass to potentially reunite for a third installment of the original Bourne Identity series. The film may end up with the July 16, 2016, release slot Universal previously assigned to an untitled spinoff sequel reprising Jeremy Renner in the title role.



Tribeca Film acquired North American rights to the cop thriller Hyena, written and directed by Gerard Johnson. The film stars Michael Logan as a high-fun...

Ban Intolerance, Not Books

A coalition of book and literacy organizations, including the American Library Association and The Freedom to Read Foundation, are the forces behind Banned Books Week, which begins today.




From the BBW website:



"Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982 according to the American Library Association. There were 307 challenges reported...

Quote of the Day

FFB: American Detective

In the 1996 anthology The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories, Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert collected 33 stories that help trace the evolution of crime fiction in the U.S. from locked room mysteries, to hard-boiled tales of the '30s and '40s, to police procedurals from the latter part of the 20th century.



The book starts off with Poe and "Murders in the Rue Morge," which Hillerman notes is the basic model for the classic detective tale. He also points out how American authors t...