B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 229

Writers' Police Academy

The Writers' Police Academy was founded by Lee Lofland, an acclaimed author and expert on police procedure and crime-scene investigation, and has become an annual event where authors can get a hands-on education in all aspects of law enforcement. Lee recently announced that the 2013 keynote speaker is bestselling author Lisa Gardner and special guest speaker is Dr. Kathy Reichs (creator of the Temperance Brennan series on which the TV show Bones is based). Also featured this year is a session taught by Dr. Dan Krane, a well-known expert on all things DNA, who has testified as a leading DNA expert in over 100 high-profile criminal cases all over the world.

Some of the types of classes and workshops led by police, fire, and EMS staff at an actual police academy include:

- Ride-a-longs with police officers and deputy sheriffs
- Jail tours
- Interview and interrogation
- EMS mini "Crash Course"
- Cold case investigations
- Crime scene investigations
- FATS (Firearms Simulator Training)
- Police vehicle driving simulator
- And more: K-9 teams, SWAT teams, Bomb Squad, robots, Static displays, Mobile Command Posts, Pursuit vehicles, Motorcycles, Fire trucks, Ambulances, Dive Teams

The three-day conference is held September 5-8 at Guilford Technical Community College in Jamestown, N.C. WPA registration will open this later month, and like last year, space is limited and slots fill fast, so early registration is recommended. (Sisters in Crime pays well over half their members' registration fee.) Also note the conference will once again sponsor the Golden Donut short story contest, with submissions of exactly 200 words to be based on the photograph prompt provided. More details on the contest will be posted on the website soon.

Mystery Melange

News from the Year 1732 & 1733, by Hubertus Gojowczyk


All Due Respect: The Anthology, edited by Chris Rhatigan, is out now in ebook form, with a print version coming soon. Twenty-eight authors have contributed stories "filled with thugs, grifters, dope dealers, and killers who make no apologies about who they are or what they do. All Due Respect is about crime, not the solving of crime, not the bemoaning of crime, just the bad things that bad people do."

The Left Coast Crime Conference announced nominations for its annual awards, including The Lefty for most humorous novel; The Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award; The Rocky, for the best mystery novel set in the Left Coast Crime Geographical Region; and The Watson, for the mystery novel with the best sidekick.

NPR is once again sponsoring its Three-Minute Fiction contest. The premise: write a piece of original fiction (in any genre) in the form of a voice-mail message that can be read in about three minutes (no more than 600 words). Submissions will be accepted until 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday, February 10. The winning story will be read on the air and will be published in the summer issue of The Paris Review literary magazine.

Janet Rudolph, editor of Mystery Readers Journal, has a call for Environmental Mysteries. If you have a mystery that concerns the environment, consider writing an "Author! Author!" essay for this issue of between 500 and 1500. Janet is also looking for reviews and articles, with a deadline of March 1.

Gerald So has three crime poems up at Beat to a Pulp in honor of the fifth annivesary of the online 'zine helmed by publisher/editor David Cranmer.

Soho Press has partnered with San Francisco based Tea Garden Travel LLC to offer a sweepstakes in association with Cara Black's Paris-based Aimée Leduc mystery series. One lucky fan will join Cara Black and 15 fellow travelers for a trip to Paris October 15 to 22. Entry forms can be found inside the limited, signed first edition of the print copies of Black's next Aimée Leduc mystery, Murder Below Montparnasse (due in stores (March 5); in the ebook edition; and for free at participating libraries and bookstores. Fans can also enter to win at any of Cara Black's official tour events around the country. For more information, check out www.parisisformurder.com.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Brenda Bauer, talking with the Independent about her background, her writing, and her latest book featuring a protagonist with Aspberger's; The Dark Phantom Review welcomes former police detective Chris Karslen, talking about her romantic supense books; and Rebecca M. Hale chats with Scene of the Crime about her Mystery in the Islands and Cats and Curios series.

January Bestsellers

The new year is starting off relatively well for many independent booksellers, with one report saying indie bookstore sales rose 8 percent in 2012. Here are the bestselling hardcover titles for January 2013 as reported by two indie stores, the Seattle Mystery Bookshop (Seattle, WA) and Murder by the Book (Houston, TX):

Seattle Mystery Bookshop

1. Dream Eyes by Jayne Anne Krentz, (Putnam)
2. Suspect by Robert Crais, (Putnam)
3. The Wrath of Angels by John Connolly, (Atria)
4. Ratlines by Stuart Neville, (Soho)
5. Dying on the Vine by Aaron Elkins, (Berkley)
6. Standing in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin, (Little Brown)
7. The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter, (Simon & Schuster)
8. The Bat by Jo Nesbø, (Vintage UK)
9. Watching The Dark by Peter Robinson, (Morrow)
10. Crashed by Timothy Hallinan, (Soho)

Murder by the Book 

1. Suspect by Robert Crais (Putnam)
2. Standing in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin (Reagan Arthur)
3. Ever After by Kim Harrison (Harper Voyager)
4. The Blood Gospel by James Rollins, Rebecca Cantrell (William Morrow)
5. Enemy of Mine (Pike Logan) by Brad Taylor (Dutton Adult) 
6. The Drowning House by Elizabeth Black (Nan A. Talese)
7. Ratlines by Stuart Neville (Soho Crime)
8. The Third Bullet: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel by Stephen Hunter (Simon & Schuster)
8. Speaking from Among the Bones (Flavia de Luce) by Alan Bradley (Delacorte Press)
10. The Wrath of Angels (Charlie Parker) by John Connolly (Atria/Emily Bestler Books)

The American Booksellers Association also listed the top 25 bestsellers (both hardcover and paper) for the 8-week period ending January 6, which covers the Christmas holiday shopping season:

1. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, (Crown)
2. The Racketeer by John Grisham, (Doubleday)
3. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan, (Nan A. Talese)
4. The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro, (Algonquin)
5. The Black Box by Michael Connelly, (Little Brown)
6. Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich, (Bantam)
7. V Is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton, (Berkley)
8. A Wanted Man by Lee Child, (Delacorte)
9. Phantom by Jo Nesbø, (Knopf)
10. The Snowman by Jo Nesbø, (Vintage)
11. The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen, (Plume)
12. Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear, (Harper Perennial)
13. The Best American Mystery Stories 2012 by Robert Crais, Otto Penzler (Eds.), (Mariner)
14. The Marseille Caper by Peter Mayle, (Knopf)
15. Broken Harbor by Tana French, (Viking)
16. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, (Bantam)
17. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley, (Bantam)
18. One Shot by Lee Child (Delacorte Press)
19. The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny, (Minotaur)
20. The Drop by Michael Connelly, (Grand Central)
21. Still Life by Louise Penny (St. Martin’s Griffin)
22. The Affair by Lee Child (Dell)
23. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson (Vintage)
24. The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon)
25. Princess Elizabeth’s Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal, (Bantam)

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

The Directors Guild of America handed out its annual awards this weekend. Ben Affleck was named recipient of the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for Argo, while Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series went to Rian Johnson for the episode "Fifty-One" of the AMC series Breaking Bad.

Bradley Cooper has signed to star in and produce the upcoming adaptation of James Renner's novel The Man From Primrose Lane. Southland writer Chad Feehan is adapting the story, about a true-crime writer who finds himself at the center of a chain of serial murders and "must look outside the parameters of what he believed to be true about time and space" in order to solve the mystery.

Johnny Depp will star in Barry Levinson's gangster thriller Black Mass, centering on the real-life story of South Boston criminal mastermind Whitey Bulger. The project is based on the book Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob, by Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerland O'Neil. Bulger was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list for more than a decade before his capture in June 2011.

Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg, the same screenwriters behind the Swedish adaptation of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, will also adapt Don Winslow's crime thriller The Power of the Dog. The plot hinges on a 30-year struggle between a hardened DEA agent and a family of cartel kingpins in Mexico.

Jeremy Renner has been cast in the lead role in Kill the Messenger, playing journalist Gary Webb. The project is based on the real-life story of a journalist who committed suicide after being smeared by the CIA.

Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace are in talks to star in the thriller Child 44, based on the Tom Rob Smith novel about a 1950s-era Soviet police officer who tries to solve a string of child murders.

Tom Welling, who starred as Superman in the TV series Smallville, has signed to play an unnamed role in Parkland, a movie from director Peter Landesmant that's based around President John F Kennedy's assassination.

Will Daniel Craig return for the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo sequel? Some sources say the actor is demanding a larger salary to return, which may force producers to cut his role out of the picture or find another actor. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the actor claims Craig hasn't started negotiations yet and is "keen to return" for both The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest.

Comic book publisher Valiant Entertainment has taken over the film adaptation of Harbinger, after a project at Paramount fell through. The Harbinger series, created by Jim Shooter and currently written by Joshua Dysart, follows a rogue group of psychics who set out to bring down a powerful organization. Valiant is in talks with producer/director Brett Ratner to head up the project.

TV

CBS has ordered a pilot titled Second Sight, a detective drama from Homeland director Michael Cuesta and CSI's Carol Mendelsohn. The project is based on a BBC psychological thriller (starring Clive Owen) about a detective afflicted with an autoimmune virus causing hallucinations that mirror his subconscious.

To almost no one's surprise, CBS has renewed NCIS for an 11th season after coming to an agreement on a contract for star Mark Harmon. The procedural is still the top-rated scripted drama on television.

The BBC commissioned a second season of the historical crime drama Ripper Street, set in London's East End in 1889 around the time Jack the Ripper, with eight episodes to air in 2014. 

Cinemax has given a second season order to its original drama Banshee, starring Antony Starr as an ex-con and master thief who assumes the identity of the sheriff of Banshee, Pennsylvania.

Jamie Dornan will reprise his role as Sheriff Graham on Once Upon a Time in an upcoming episode arc.

Gerald McRaney (Major Dad; Simon and Simon) has signed on to appear in a multi-episode arc of the TNT police drama Southland. He'll take on the role of retired Detective Hicks, who trained Officer John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) years before.

Melinda Clarke (The O.C. and Nikita) is joining freshman CBS drama Vegas playing Mia's mother, Lena, a charismatic, shrewd, strong woman who is attracted to even stronger men.

David "Dr. Who" Tenant has signed aboard a BBC three-part drama, playing Will Burton, a talented junior barrister who has earned the nickname "The Escape Artist" due to his ability to get his clients out of tight legal corners.

The 1970s teenage heart-throb from the Partridge Family, David Cassidy, has landed a guest-starring role on CSI as a veteran poker player named Mr. Coe.

PODCASTS

This week's Guardian Books Podcast features American crime writing, with Gillian Flynn, Joseph Wambaugh, Michael Koryta and Peter Messent.

THEATER

The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective is staging Arthur Bicknell's Moose Murders through February 10 at The Connelly Theatre in New York. The play is about owners and a group of guests at a hunting lodge in the Adirondacks who discover that a murderer is among them. Although the play was a notorious flop on Broadway in 1983, it has since been revived and staged successfully in other venues.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Death in the Old Country

Eric Wright was born in London, England in 1929 but immigrated to Canada and eventually became chair of the English department and Dean of Arts at Ryerson Institute of Technology in Toronto. Wright penned dozens of stories, many of them crime fiction, and served as editor of Criminal Shorts: Mysteries by Canadian Crime Writers, published in 1992.

Wright created four different detective series, but his most popular series features Charlie Salter, a Toronto inspector suffering from middle-aged depression when he's first introduced in The Night the Gods Smiled in 1983. The book won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel, the Crime Writer's Association's John Creasey Award, and the City of Toronto Book Award.


Inspector Salter is an engaging character, self-righteous, outspoken, wise, vulnerable, witty and loving, although there is also an undercurrent of class friction between his police officer status and his wife's wealthy family. The Salter installment Death in the Old Country (1986), which also won the Arthur Ellis Award, finds Charlie Salter and his wife Annie vacationing in merrie olde England while trying to repair their strained marriage. A car accident in the small town of Tokesbury Mallett forces them to find shelter for a few days at the local Boomewood Hotel. At first, they find the unexpected stop to be a blessing, as Annie tours local sights with new friends Maud and Henry Beresford, while Charlie discovers steeplechasing and the local pub.

But the respite is too good to last, as two strange incidents bring a jarring halt to their vacation: a peeping Tom is spying on Charlie and Annie, and an intruder goes through Charlie's coat pockets in their hotel room. Charlie shrugs the incidents off at first, trying to keep his police connections secret, but when middle-aged hotel owner Terry Dillon is stabbed to death, Charlie reluctantly springs into action. He tries to help his British colleague, Inspector Chucher, only to be reprimanded by Chucher's boss, but continues his own investigation on the sly.

The primary suspect is the victim's young Italian wife, who accused her husband of adultery with Canadian hotel guest Miss Rundstedt, but other possibilities include Dillon's proud brother or possibly someone from Dillon mysterious past when he disappeared in Italy during WW II and resurfaced decades later as a wealthy man. Salter's investigations lead to switched identities and blackmail and take him and Annie to Pisa and Florence as they track the victim's shadowy international connections.

Wright is known for his "lucid and agreeably laconic style," as one reviewer put it, and Kirkus adds that "the appeal this time is almost entirely in the trimmings: the English-village charm, the droll peripheral characters, and the Salters themselves—who just may be the most endearingly tart cop-and-wife couple since Roderick Alleyn and Agatha Troy."

Author R&R with Stefan Kanfer

Stefan Kanfer joins In Reference to Murder today to take a little "Author R&R" (Reference and Research). Stefan is the author of fifteen books, including the bestselling
biographies of show business icons: Groucho; Ball of Fire (Lucille
Ball); Somebody (Marlon Brando); and Tough Without a Gun (Humphrey
Bogart). He's also written many social histories, among them The Last Empire, about the De Beers diamond company, and Stardust Lost, an
account of the rise and fall of the Yiddish Theater in New York.

Stefan penned two novels about World War II and served as the only
journalist on the President's Commission on the Holocaust. He was the
first by-lined cinema critic for Time magazine, where he worked
as writer and editor for more than two decades. He has received many
writing awards and was named a Literary Lion of the New York Public
Library. He lives in New York where he serves as a columnist for the City Journal of the Manhattan Institute.


Stefan's new thriller The Eskimo Hunts in New York follows Jordan Gulok, an Inuit (an Eskimo in common parlance), and a former Navy SEAL. In
his freelance capacity, he can do things that are beyond the authority of the uniformed
services—like tracking and "dispatching" malefactors. Jordan has an expense account and liberty to travel throughout
the U.S. In turn, the U.S. government has plausible deniability should
he ever get caught stretching or violating the law. The book finds Gulok in New York as he tries to stop a lethal international group manufacturing toxic pharmaceuticals and selling
them to victims in Africa, Asia, Europe and America.

Stefan sent along some thoughts on the research process:

Research
is—or should be—as integral to fiction as to nonfiction. There are many
exemplars to cite. Think of James Joyce holed up in Paris or Trieste,
sending for maps of Dublin so that he could get every street right as he
recalled the sounds of O’Connell Bridge and smells of the pubs around
the River Liffey for Ulysses. Or Marcel Proust, driven around
Paris at night because he was too allergic to go out during the day,
noting the colors and aromas of flowers in the parks, and the half-high
chatter of people leaving parties, meticulously set down in Remembrance of Things Past. Or
Mark Twain, or Graham Greene or Somerset Maugham in foreign locales,
noting everything down for later use...the list is truly endless.

Writing thrillers demands no less of a writer. The protagonist of The Eskimo Hunts in New York is
an Inuit, and I had to do many interviews with tribal people to get him
right. (I also steeped like a teabag in the libraries of Manhattan to
make certain I had the correct locales, even though I was born in the
City and have lived in and around it most of my life.)

Of
course, fiction without imagination is a dry affair—a matter of
reportage with a change of names. We all know political novels like
that, whose pages break in the hand when they’re read a year later. On
the other hand, imagination without research is like constructing a
castle without an architectural plan—the first strong wind will knock it
over. My hope is that I’ve achieved a balance between fancy and
authenticity in Eskimo; the readers, however, are the only proper judges of that.     

—Stefan Kanfer

Check out an excerpt from The Eskimo Hunts in New York, and follow Stefan via his website, on Facebook or Twitter.

Mystery Melange

Book sculpture "The Thinking Man" by Kinjio


The Love Is Murder conference, held February 1-3 in Chicago, has announced the nominees for the 2013 LOVEY Awards. (Hat tip to Crimespree.)

Likewise, the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association announced the nominees for the Dilys Award, given to the mystery titles that member booksellers have most enjoyed selling. This year's list includes Granddad, There’s a Head on the Beach by Colin Cotterill; Broken Harbor by Tana French; Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal; The Expats by Chris Pavone; and Before the Poison by Peter Robinson. (Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Poisoned Pen announced two conferences this year, including CozyCon 2, to be held Saturday May 4 at the Phoenix Public Library, and also the Annual Poisoned Pen Conference, scheduled for Saturday July 6 at the Arizona Biltmore. Both one-day events will feature many bestselling crime fiction authors, with exact lineups to be announced soon.

Lee Lofland announced that bestselling author Lisa Gardner is the Writers' Police Academy 2013 keynote speaker. Held in Jamestown, N.C.,  the three day conference scheduled for September 5-8 features  hands-on, interactive and educational experiences in all aspects of law enforcement.

There's a new story up at Beat to a Pulp titled "One Ashore in Singapore," by Andrew Nette

The Q&A roundup this week includes a Scene of the Crime interview with Paige Shelton (author of the Farmer's Market and Country Cooking School mystery series); and Crimespree continues its fun Lego interviews with teacher/reviewer/author, Carole Barrowman.

There's a new trend in South Korea: book cafes that "are evolving
into multi-purpose culture spots, replacing the fast-disappearing
bookstores and even attracting library-goers," according to the Korea Herald. (Hat tip to Shelf Awareness.)

Finally, movies for bibliophiles: Bookriot lists "16 Great Library Scenes in Film."

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

The Screen Actors Guild Awards were handed out last night, with winners including Daniel Day-Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones for Lincoln; Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables;  Kevin Costner for Hatfields & McCoys; Bryan Cranston, for Breaking Bad; and Claire Danes, for Homeland. The award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (essentially the SAG version of "Best Picture") went to Argo.

Meanwhile, at the Producers Guild Awards, Ben Affleck, George Clooney and Grant Heslov received the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for producing the film Argo, and Showtime's Homeland won its first PGA Award in the drama series category.

Director David Fincher (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Fight Club) has expressed an interest in adapting Gillian Flynn's bestselling novel Gone Girl for the big screen. Flynn has written a screenplay for her novel, which centers on a wife who disappears on her fifth anniversary, leaving her husband as the main suspect

James Franco announced he will direct and star in a film adaptation of crime novelist James Ellroy's American Tabloid, which follows three law enforcement officers who are drawn together as the events of President Kennedy's assassination unfold. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Joaquin Phoenix is replacing Robert Downey Jr. in director Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of the novel Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon. Phoenix will star as a detective solving a case brought to him by his ex-girlfriend in 1969 Los Angeles.

Twilight's Peter Facinelli has been cast to star alongside Dylan McDermott in the thriller Freezer from director Mikael Salomon. The two actors play unwitting of shadowy Russian thugs who falsely accuse McDermott's character of stealing millions from them.

TV

Lara Pulver, who starred as Irene Adler in the "Scandal in Belgravia" episode of the BBC's Sherlock, has joined the cast for the upcoming Ian Fleming biopic. She'll play play Ann O'Neill, an elegant Baroness whose wartime meeting with James Bond creator Fleming alters the course of their lives.

Sean Patrick Flanery is joining Dexter for a recurring role in what may be the series' last season. He'll play Jacob Elroy, and ex-cop who runs a private investigation service in Miami.

Actor James Brolin has signed on to play Rick Castle's father in an episode of Castle debuting Monday, Feb. 25.

The BBC released a promo photo of Merlin star Colin Morgan in his new role on the three-part series Quirke, starring Gabriel Byrne as a Dublin pathologist who solves crimes in the 1950s. The series is based on characters from the crime thrillers of Booker Prize winner John Banville (a/k/a Benjamin Black).

All sorts of news pilots have just been given orders from the networks, including from CBS, Backstrom, based on a character created by Swedish crime novelist Leif G. W. Persson. Stockholm police inspector Evert Backstrom, and a version of Beverly Hills Cop; from ABC, a Revenge-like drama called Betrayal; and from Fox, a pilot for The List about members of the Federal Witness Security Program who start getting killed. (Hat to Omnimystery News.)

Other pilots that have orders in hopes of snaring a coveted spot on ABC's 2013-14 lineup include Doubt, from House creator David Shore, about a former cop who's now a street-smart and low-rent lawyer; Killer Women, which follows the only woman in the Texas Rangers; and an adaptation of the British series Spy.

Creator and showrunner of The Mentalist, Bruno Heller, has also sold a pilot to CBS titled The Advocates, about a female lawyer and a male ex-con team up as victim advocates.

The same team behind Fringe on Fox (J.J. Abrams and J.H. Wyman) are creating a new futuristic pilot for the network that's billed as an action-packed buddy cop show with all LAPD officers partnered with highly evolved human-like androids.

For an updated scorecard on all the various pilots currently in the network pipeline, Hollywood Reporter has a handy list.

Larry Manetti, 65, who played Magnum, P.I.'s sidekick Rick from 1980 to '88, has landed a recurring role in Hawaii Five-0 as a nightclub owner.

Omnimystery News provides a look at the teaser poster for the new ABC crime drama Red Widow, about the widow of a man murdered by Russia gangasters who is forced to work with them to repay his debt, while also serving as an inside mole for the FBI.

If you happen to be in New Zealand next month, check out the new crime drama, The Blue Rose when it debuts. It centers around a group of temp workers who band together to try to work out who killed a friend after her death in the Auckland harbour is officially called an accident.

PODCASTS/VIDEO

The latest Suspense Radio podcast features authors Kerry Copleand Smith and Dr. Barry Johnson.

Although this is originally from May of 2012, the Passive Voice blog posted a link the day from mystery author Hallie Ephron's AtGoogleTalks appearance (note that it's a relatively long clip, at about 50 minutes or so).

Bestselling novelist David Baldacci will guide a virtual field trip at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History via a free webcast will on March 5th at 1:00 p.m. ET / 10:00 a.m. PT.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Scared to Death

There aren't many biographical details available about British author Anne Morice (1918 - 1989), the pen name of Felicity Shaw, other than she studied in London, Paris and Munich and married documentary film director Alexander Shaw. 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.

Mystery Melange

Igloo book sculpture by Miler Lagos



Mystery Writers of America announced the 2013 Edgar Award nominations last week, including Best Novel nods for The Lost Ones by Ace Atkins, The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Potboiler by Jesse Kellerman, Sunset by Al Lamanda, Live by Night by Dennis Lehane, and All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley.

The Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore in San Diego is sponsoring a Noir at the Bar event on January 31 with readings, authors, and adult beverages at the Players Sports Bar. Featured authors will include Eric Beetner, Aaron Philip Clark, Ed LaValle, Steve Willard, and Justin Robinson.

Mysterious Press and Open Road Media are releasing twelve of James M. Cain's later works as eBooks. Cain is considered a founding father of hardboiled and noir fiction, including works such as The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. Among the new eBook reissues are The Moth, a sweeping tale of love, loss, and the pursuit of beauty during the Great Depression; The Magician's Wife, about a love triangle that turns fatal when a life insurance policy holds the promise of financial freedom; and Past All Dishonor, which tells the story of a Confederate spy who risks his life to win the heart of a fallen woman.

February 15 is the deadline for the Jeffrey Archer Short Story Challenge sponsored by Kobo and Curtis Brown Creative. Send in your 100-word short in any genre of fiction, and you may win the grand prize of free enrolment in an upcoming Curtis Brown online novel writing course.

The Al Blanchard short story contest is also coming up relatively soon, with a deadline of April 30. The annual competition is sponsored by the Crime Bake Conference, although you don't have to be attending the conference to submit a story. In fact, the winner will receive free admission to the conference, among other prizes. Stories should be unpublished, no more than 5,000 words, and either by a New England author or have a New England setting.

The Q&A roundup this week includes Ian Rankin, chatting with the Wall Street Journal about bringing his popular literary creation, detective John Rebus, back to print. Also, Crimespree has been hosting a series of entertaining interviews with various authors—in Lego! The latest victim guest is Sean Chercover.

The Guardian's monthly calendar series, Poster Poems, is taking on crime and criminality. After a look at "hard-boiled" poets (François Villon and poetry from Carl Sandburg, Robert Browning, Amiri Baraka, Kenneth Patchen, Etheridge Knight, Denise Levertov, as well as prisoner-poet Richard Lovelace), readers are challenged to post their own poetic takes on all things crime in the comments.

And finally, if you love all things medical and forensic, British medical illustrator Emily Evans has created dinner plates using slides of microscopic views of real human tissues.