B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 230

Author R&R with Mignon Ballard

The latest guest author to take some "Author R&R" (Reference and Research) here on In Reference to Murder is Mignon Ballard. A native of Calhoun, Ga., Mignon Ballard received her degree in journalism from the University of Georgia.

Mignon has published 19 novels, including three in a series set during WWII featuring Miss Dimple Kilpatrick, a small-town teacher who's an astute judge of character, quick-thinking and loyal to a fault. The Miss Dimple series captures a difficult but pivotal point in
American history—the time women set out to work while their men are overseas—and they navigate how to survive while they support one another and
their fighting men abroad. While that was a different era, there are elements
of what these stories capture that transcend time and resonate for
families today dealing with their loved ones deployed overseas.

Just released today, Miss Dimple Suspects is the third installment in the series and finds a worried Miss Dimple helping to look for Peggy, a
first-grade student who has gone missing. During the search, Miss Dimple meets
two kind women, Mae Martha and Suzy, who lend much-needed assistance. A
few days later, Miss Dimple receives a distraught phone call from Suzy
that is suddenly cut short, and she realizes that something is most definitely wrong. When Miss Dimple
arrives, she finds that Mae Martha has been murdered. Suzy is nowhere to
be found, and she becomes the prime suspect, but Miss Dimple knows Suzy
wouldn't kill her friend and makes it her mission to identify the real
killer. 

Mignon talks about how her own life experiences helped in researching the series and Miss Dimple Suspects:

Step back in time with me to a small town in Georgia
during the war years of the 1940’s where the courthouse clock whirs just before
striking; the town library sits between magnolia trees in a picturesque park, and
almost everybody has credit accounts at both Lewellyn’s Drug Store and Harris
Cooper’s Grocery. The library is built of logs with parquet floors and a stone
fireplace at one end.  The Woman’s Club,
presided over by bossy Emmaline Brumlow, is responsible for paying the
librarian’s salary, and there’s a piano in the corner where readers can sit and
pound out a tune if and when they are so inspired.

I’m familiar with these places because they were a
part of my growing up years in a town very much like Elderberry during the
1930’s, 40’s,and 50’s, but my hometown was on the northern side of Atlanta.
Because several of my characters volunteered at an actual ordnance plant in
Milledgeville, Georgia, where explosives were made, I found it necessary to
relocate Elderberry south of the capital. I did, however, retain the Cherokee
names of some of the waterways as I found them too lovely and meaningful to try
to replace.

The town is warm and welcoming in this place where
friendships feature prominently. But murder is no stranger. I like for my
readers to become acquainted with the characters and setting; to warm their
hands by the fireside; hear the town clock whir and strike, smell the popcorn
from the Jewel Theater and read the hometown news in the Elderberry Eagle. I want them to feel comfortable before they feel
the need to look over their shoulder. Who
in this kind place could possibly be responsible for the dark things happening
here?

Several years ago I wrote a coming of age novel, THE
WAR IN SALLIE’S STATION, set during that same period, and while writing it, did
a lot of pre-Google research on that time in our history. I was a child when
the war began and remember vividly the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. (I’d never
heard of Pearl Harbor.) The war consumed our childhood, and shortages,
rationing, and blackouts became an accepted part of our growing-up years. Of
course the grammar school played a major role during that time and that is why
I chose my title character, Miss Dimple Kilpatrick, as my lead investigator.
The old brick building with the clanging, summoning bell is gone now but I
still remember it keenly along with the smells of the schoolroom: the oily
compound they used to clean the floors; chalk dust, muddy galoshes,
and…ugh…forgotten banana sandwiches. The rooming house where many teachers
lived still stands a few blocks away.

Because most of my memories are from a child’s
perspective (no bubblegum or balloons,
no new skates or bikes, making tin foil balls, etc.) I do have to rely on
research, especially for dates and battles. The internet has been a great
source of information on that subject. I also interviewed veterans; did a lot
of library research; collected data from newspapers on microfilm; devoured old
letters, and even obituaries. I can recall much of the music, movies, and
entertainers from those days but it’s good to have the internet to refresh my
memory. I doubt if many readers can remember when cars had no heaters, air
conditioners, or turn indicators. Drivers signaled by sticking an arm out the
window. And did you know that up until that time we stretched out our right
arms to salute the flag until President Roosevelt deemed it too much like a salute
to Hitler?

I recall those war years as a nobler time. But of
course there’s always room for murder.                                                                                                           
--Mignon F. Ballard

 

RT Book Reviews said of Miss Dimple Suspects that "A cozy should make you feel good, and this one does. Characters who are
good friends, a strong sense of community and a satisfying outcome make
this a winner." Miss Dimple Suspects and other books in the series are available via independent bookstores (check out these member stores of IndieBound and the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association) and in eBook form from Amazon.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Fresh off his nomination for Best Actor at the Golden Globes and Academy Awards, Bradley Cooper has just signed to star in the Warner Bros. adaptation of Howard Blum's book Dark Invasion. Cooper will play NYPD Captain Tom Tunney, a man who must put together a team during World War I to bring German spies to justice.

Will there be a Jack Reacher sequel? Paramount Studios is waiting to see how the film fares in Asia before making a decision, but the film hasn't performed well enough at the box office in the U.S. alone to make it a done deal.

Ewan McGregor has joined the cast of the espionage thriller Our Kind of Traitor, an adaptation of John Le Carre's 2010 novel about a British couple who become entangled with the Russian Mafia and the British Secret Service.

Dylan McDermott is set to star in the action-thriller Freezer, playing an everyman character kidnapped by Russian thugs and locked inside an industrial freezer for reasons unknown.

Martin Scorsese is moving ahead with his mob drama based on the Charles Brandt book I Heard You Paint Houses. He held a reading of Steve Zaillian's script for the project, which already has signed Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci to star.

The producers of RED 2, the action-thriller sequel to the original 2010 RED, released a trailer for the film. Stars Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren are reprising their roles as older government agents who are nostalgic for their espionage days of yore, while Anthony Hopkins takes a turn as the villain.

TV

The new period police thriller Ripper Street premiered on BBC America. The series stars Matthew MacFadyen as Inspector Edmund Reid, head of the notorious H Division, the toughest district in London's East End. He's joined by Sergeant Bennet Drake (Jerome Flynn) as Reid's right-hand man and Captain Homer Jackson (Adam Rothenberg) as an American ex-Pinkerton agent and an expert in the world of early forensics.

TNT has given a ten-episode order to King and Maxwell, based on the novels of David Baldacci, starring Jon Tenney (The Closer) and Rebecca Romijn (X-Men) as former Secret Service agents turned private eyes.

Steven Bochco, the creator of such shows as Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, is behind a new pilot for TNT titled Murder in the First that is set in San Francisco area and involves two seemingly unrelated murder investigations. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

TNT has also ordered a pilot for an untitled quirky bounty hunter drama starring Geena Davis, inspired by the real-life story of bounty hunter Mackenzie Green.

CBS has given the greenlight to the political thriller pilot Hostages from writer-director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Jerry Bruckheimer Television and Warner Bros. The plot revolves around a political conspiracy when a family is taken hostage - the family happens to be that of a successful surgeon (Toni Collette) who's just been tasked with operating on the President of the United States.

Syfy's series Alphas, about a crime-fighting team with unusual abilities, has been cancelled after two seasons.

ABC has delayed the premiere date for the third season of Body of Proof until February 19, to avoid scheduling conflicts. The new season has a revamped cast, including Mark Valley who joins the procedural as Tommy Sullivan, a man with a romantic connection to Dana Delany's Megan Hunt.

Tamron Hall has signed to host a new series for the mystery-and-suspense network, Investigation Discovery  The 13-part series, Deadline: Crime with Tamron Hall, features a core team of law enforcement correspondents who try to determine not only what happened with each profiled case, but why it happened and how it was investigated.

PODCASTS/VIDEO

Vermont Public Radio interviewed Quebec murder mystery author Louise Penny, discussing her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series.

Philip Quarles and WNYC discusses and posts audio from a speech given by Rex Stout (creator of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin), which he gave to a 1966 Books and Authors Luncheon. He discusses his career as a writer and his "beef" with the FBI.

Every Saturday from noon to 2 pm PT, Margaret McLean hosts It's A Crime Radio on itsacrimeradio.com or NBC News Radio KCAA 1050 Los Angeles and the Inland Empire. Topics include crime, law, and courtroom drama including the upcoming trial of James "Whitey" Bulger.

THEATER

Vancouver's Vertigo Mystery Theatre is presenting PatRick Hamilton's Gaslight, directed by Christopher Newton, with previews beginning January 26. The play is best known for its 1944 film adaptation starring Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotton and Angela Lansbury in her on-screen debut.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Naked Villainy

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

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

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

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

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

The eFuture of Reading

It's difficult to process all the statistics and trends in the news these days concerning the present and future of publishing and books. Will there be books in any form, and more importantly, will there be readers? One very hopeful sign is Scholastic's recent Kids & Family Reading Report national survey, which included the following highlights:

The percent of children who have read an ebook has almost doubled since 2010 (25% vs. 46%).


Among children who have read an ebook, one in five says he/she
is reading more books for fun; boys are more likely to agree than girls
(26% vs. 16%).


Half of children age 9–17 say they would read more books for fun
if they had greater access to ebooks – a 50% increase since 2010.


Eighty percent of kids who read ebooks still read books for fun primarily in print.

This study (and others) seems to indicate that if anything, eBooks are getting children more interested in reading, no matter what form it takes. This is good for literacy, for education, and for authors who still hope to have readers for their books in the decades to come.

Mystery Melange

Book Sculpture by Brian Dettmer



Book adaptations fared pretty well at the Golden Globes the other night: Argo, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Life of Pi, Game Change and House of Lies were all big winners.

The British Library is hosting a series of crime fiction events including the exhibition "Murder in the Library: An A-Z of Crime Fiction," beginning January 18th. Other events, including include panel discussions on "Real Crime" "The Story of Crime Fiction," and "The Female Detective," are scheduled in February and March.

Also coming up later this month: The Murder Goes South Festival of Readers and Writers of the Southern Mystery. Join authors Karen Kennedy, VR Barkowski, Fran Stewart, Tony Burton, Miranda Parker, Joseph Scott Morgan, Brandon Massey, Leslie Tentler, Cheryl Ritzel, Lee Kelly and Jo Cook on Saturday January 26 for all-day event in Smyrna, Georgia.

2013 has just begun, but the crime fiction reviews have plenty of suggestions for you to add to your reading list for the year. Marilyn Stasio at the New York Times, Margaret Cannon of the Globe and Mail, and Myles Knapp of the Mercury News all take a look at some of the latest crime fiction releases.

RIP to British mystery writer Gwendoline Butler, who died at the age of 90 on January 5; Butler was the author of over two dozen novels featuring Inspector John Coffin. Farewell also to author and reporter Jim Benét, who died in December at the age of 98; Benét penned two mystery novels and was a friend of Dashiell Hammett. (Hat tip to the Rap Sheet.)

In the Q&A roundup this week, Glasgow-based crime writer Malcolm Mackay chats with The Scotsman about his alter-ego, a hard-boiled hitman; author Brad Meltzer talks up his latest thriller with Omnivoracious.

The first no-book library is planning to open in San Antonio. Make that no print books, because the new BiblioTech public library, which looks like a modern library, will be filled with aisles of computers and gadgets and offer eReaders and eBooks for checkout.

Want a less stressful job? Try becoming a librarian.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Warner Bros is planning to make a movie based on Joshua Davis's recent Wired magazine article "John McAfee's Last Stand." The project is based on the life of the software guru who was wanted for the murder of Gregory Faull in Belize and went on the lam before being arrested in a Guatemala hotel.

Actress Sean Young has signed to star opposite Chris Riggi in the indie sci-fi thriller Police State, about a potential nationwide terrorist plot involving a series of bombings that cripple Manhattan.

The film sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, from the team of Robert Rodreguiz and Frank Miller, has added Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin, and
Christopher Meloni to the cast. Also returning from the original Sin City project are Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson,
and Jaime King. (Hat tip to Crimespree.)

Omnimystery News has links to some trailers for upcoming crime thrillers, including The Iceman , based on the true story of notorious contract killer Richard Kuklinski; Dead Man Down , starring Colin Farrell and Noomi Repace as a revenge-seeking couple; and the art heist thriller Trance .

Jude Law teased that a script is in development for a third installment of the Sherlock Holmes film franchise starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Law as Dr. Watson.

Fans of the recently-cancelled small-screen series Leverage may not be totally out of luck; executive producer Dean Devlin is keeping various options open, including a feature-film version of the show, although he admits it may be "a long shot."

TV

NBC has given the greenlight for a pilot based on Norwegian novelist Jo Nesbo's book I Am Victor. Nesbo is teaming up with former House executive producer Katie Jacobs and screenwriter Mark Goffman (Studio 60, The West Wing) for the project, described as "House as a divorce attorney."

The CBS crime drama Sherlock has signed Vinnie Jones to play Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes' greatest enemy, in the show's 12th episode.

NBC has reduced its episode orders for freshman dramas Revolution and the mystery thriller Deception, about a detective (Meagan Good) who returns undercover to the family she grew up in to investigate her old friend's murder..

Heroes star Ali Larter has joined Sean Bean in the cast of the new TNT spy drama pilot from Homeland executive producer Howard Gordon.

TNT has given the go-ahead to the unscripted procedural drama Cold Justice, which follows two top-notch female investigators, a Texas prosecutor and a crime scene investigator, as they delve into cold murder cases.

John Logan and Sam Mendes, the team behind the Bond film Skyfall, are developing a horror-thriller project for Showtime. Titled Penny Dreadful, the premise involves literary characters like Dr. Frankenstein, Dracula's Van Helsing and Dorian Gray who come together in Victorian London as a sort of noirish Downton Abbey-style ensemble drama.

Showtime also announced changes to their schedule, including moving the potential final season of the serial killer-series Dexter to summer with a June 30th premiere. It will serve as a lead-in to Showtime's new detective drama series Ray Donovan, starring Liev Schreiber as a "fixer."

Fans of the Fox crime drama Bones can relax; the network announced it's renewed the series starring Emily Deschanel as Dr. Temperance Brennan for a ninth season.

Netflix signed a licensing agreement with Warner Bros. TV to allow them to stream NBC's series Revolution and Chuck, the Fox dramas The Following and Fringe, A&E's Longmore, ABC's 666 Park Avenue and USA's Political Animals. 

The Outdoor Channel is airing a show called "Elite Tactical Unit: S.W.A.T." The reality show is "a character-driven, adrenaline-fueled reality show featuring the fierce competition between active-duty S.W.A.T. officers who are put into realistic missions that are both mentally rigorous and physically dangerous."  The S.W.A.T. operators are divided into two teams to win money for themselves and the departments they serve back home.

PODCASTS/VIDEO

Suspense Radio kicked off its 2013 schedule with guests Judge James Bell, Brad Taylor and Robert Pobi.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Publicity for Murder

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

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

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


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

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

Happy Birthday, Wilkie

I have a soft spot for the writings of Wilkie Collins, who was born on this date, January 8, in 1824. His novel Moonstone, was one of the first "adult" (not Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, etc.) mysteries I read as a child. Moonstone is still considered by many to be the first detective novel in the English language. Many have heaped high praise on the book, including T. S. Eliot, who called it "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels in a genre invented by Collins and not by Poe," and Dorothy L. Sayers, who added that it was "probably the very finest detective story ever written."

I'm not sure most contemporary scholars would all agree with such sweeping hyperbole, but the Moonstone and Collins's other novels, including The Woman in White, were definitely pathbreaking during the Victorian era, titillating readers with examples of what was dubbed the "Sensation Novel" genre. Collins was a lifelong friend of Charles Dickens and a colorful character who shocked Victorian sensibilities when he died in 1889 and it was learned he had divided his estate equally between two mistresses, Caroline Graves and Martha Rudd (and acknowledged Martha's three children as his own). 

Collins's work does contain many elements that are so commonplace in today's crime fiction but were still new at the time, including tackling social issues in genre fiction, adding thriller elements, the trope of the femme fatale (anti-heroine Lydia Gwilt in No Name), and the police procedural in the form of Sergeant Cuff in Moonstone. So, happy birthday to Wilkie, and thanks for helping to create and inspire the crime fiction novels we read and enjoy today.

Mystery Melange

               Baron in the Trees book sculpture by Su Blackwell


The new Kindle edition of Thuglit is out, with stories by J.D. Hibbetts, Terrence McCauley, Paul Heatley, Hector Acosta, Ed Kurtz, John Hodgkins, Rob Brunet and Nathan Pettigrew. Plus, you'll find Part III of Thuglit's exclusive first look at the upcoming novel by Todd Robinson, The Hard Bounce from Tyrus Books.

The January issue of Suspense Magazine features Brad Meltzer talking his latest book The Fifth Assassin; Kay Hooper discussing her new series and the debut installment, The First Prophet; Brad Taylor, sharing insights into his political thriller Enemy of Mine; also, features from Kane Gilmour and Jeremy Robinson and Lisa Gardner.

Mike Ripley's first monthly "Getting Away with Murder" column of 2013 takes note of some James Bond tie-in books; offerings from new publishers Hammer and Salt Publishing; new novels from Andrew Taylor, Roger Morris, Fred Vargas, Parker Bilal; a reissue of the entire "Saint" canon by Leslie Charteris in splendid new covers by Mulholland Books; and the anniversary of the the Black Dahlia case.

The deadline for the Helen McCloy/MWA Scholarship for Mystery Writing is fast approaching. The $500 scholarship given to two winning applicants helps pay for tuition and fees for writing workshops, writing seminars, or university/college-level writing programs taking place in the U.S. in summer, fall or winter of 2013 or early spring 2014. For details on how to apply before the February 28th cut-off date, check out the MWA website.

More sad book news:  Portland, Oregon's 30-year-old Murder By the Book mystery bookstore will close in April unless a buyer is found. The owners and staff posted a note on the website, saying that "These past few years have been difficult financially for many reasons, including the general depressed economic climate, growth of e-books, and elevation in the price of printed books. In addition, Barbara and Carolyn are ready to really retire. So far we have not found others who want to take on the labor of love that an independent bookstore represents. We will be making a concerted effort to find some kind of successor in the next few weeks and months."

Bestselling crime fiction author Dennis Lehane is asking for help in solving a case: his rescue beagle Tessa jumped the fence in Brookline, Massachusetts and hasn't come home. Lehane has set up a Facebook page for possible sightings of Tessa, and promises to name a character in his book after whoever finds the cute pup.

The Q&A roundup includes Stuart Neville, who joins the Crime Fiction Lover blog to discuss his fourth book, Ratlines, released last week.

Finally, though I'm not a fan of graffiti, I have to admit these literary graffiti examples from around the world are pretty cool.

Noir is in Store

Technically, it's Noir Magazine that is now in the iStore. Former Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine editor-in-chief Nancie Clare and former creative director Rip Georges used a successful Kickstarter project to fund the new digital magazine app, and after months of hard work, it's now live.

The "first-of-its-kind iPad magazine for the mystery, thriller and true crime genres in all mediums," features multi-media coverage including Q&As with writers, directors and actors; in-depth articles on new books, TV series and films; original graphic novellas; up-to-the-minute round-ups of new releases and events from around the world; compelling photographic essays inspired by the world of noir; rediscovered short stories curated by Otto Penzler; and travel articles exploring the genre's lore and locations.

The rest of the editorial/contributor team is no slouch, either:  Megan Abbott is the magazine's Editor at Large, and the Board of Advisors includes Ace Atkins, Cara Black, Ed Brubaker, John Buntin, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Joel Engel, Lyndsay Faye, Sara Gran, Denise Hamilton, John Harvey, Stephen Hunter, Leslie Klinger, Laura Lippman, Denise Mina, T. Jefferson Parker, Otto Penzler, Ian Rankin, April Smith and Joseph Wambaugh. Plus, the project plans on using work from some of the world's best photographers and illustrators.

Georges told MediaBistro that "We have 25 pounds of content for a 10-pound pack...One of the things that continues to delight me is the willingness of writers to participate with us in the endeavor. The writing community is behind this project and that kind of access is going to make the mag very strong."

To read more about the Noir Magazine app, check out their Kickstarter page, their Facebook and Twitter links, and here's the link to the iStore page.