Archive for the ‘crime’ Category

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Peter James on cracking the US thriller market

Monday, November 14th, 2011

The WSJ asks why American thriller writers are huge in the UK and yet British thriller writers struggle to sell books in the U.S.?

For bestselling British crime writer Peter James, it’s not an academic question. Mr. James’s novels are published in 34 languages and have sold more than 10 million copies. His books regularly hit the best-seller lists throughout much of Europe, and in England he often claims the No. 1 spot. “I’m a rock star in Russia,” he says. “I do really well in China.” In the U.S., however, Mr. James’s books haven’t made much of a dent.

Mr. James, 63, is determined to change that. His new novel, Dead Man’s Grip, centers on a New York criminal family. The book follows Mr. James’s famous character, British detective Roy Grace, as he investigates a fatal road accident. A dead biker turns out to be the grandson of a New York mafioso, and a twisted revenge plot unfolds.

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A vote to the death: crime writers in morgue naming contest

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Ten crime writers are competing for the honor of having a new morgue at Dundee University named after them, reports BBC Scotland. Now that’s what I call a lasting tribute. The university needs another £1 million to build the morgue, so some bright spark came up with a public vote.

Authors taking part in the “Million for a Morgue” campaign are: Tess Gerritsen, Kathy Reichs, Lee Child, Harlan Coben, Mark Billingham, Jeffrey Deaver, Jeff Lindsay, Stuart MacBride, Peter James and Val McDermid.

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Pride and Prejudice the Sequel….by P.D. James?

Friday, October 14th, 2011

I’m agog, and possibly aghast, and therefore must share. Jane Austen’s well-beloved classic Pride and Prejudice was first published almost 200 years ago, in 1813. For those unfamiliar (is that a real thing?), the story is a witty, well-written romance novel. Oh yes, it is too. I know it’s an excellent book, but it is indeed a romance novel, even if it’s less pining and swooning than its lesser and modern-day equivalents.

Today I learned from CBC News that there is a sequel to Pride and Prejudice in the works – by none other than mystery-crime writer P.D. James. The one responsible for the chilling, strange and dystopian novel Children of Men. THAT P.D. James.

The novel, titled Death Comes to Pemberley, is due out on November 3rd, and picks up about six years after Pride and Prejudice left off, with the murder of Elizabeth’s brother-in-law, and its ensuing investigation.

Isn’t that strange? Part of me wants to harrumph and be curmudgeonly and scoff about how there shouldn’t be a sequel to such a classic novel nearly two centuries after the fact, and they should leave well enough alone, and also, get off my lawn.

But P.D. James is a hell of a writer. I confess, I’m curious. And a little bit excited.

Posted in AbeBooks, books, crime, odd, reading, thrillers | 3 Comments »

Book thief meets his match

Friday, September 30th, 2011

A New York City book thief met in his match in Donald Davis of East Village Books in St Mark’s Place, who was a wrestler in high school. The NY Post reports. Three cheers for Donald.

(Let’s the hope the thief gets thrown in the Big House where the tough guys will ask what his crime was and he’ll reply: “I robbed libraries and sold the books to bookstores.” And the hard men will ask how he got caught and our thief will reply: “this bookstore guy kicked my ass.”)

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Rowling to appear at phone hacking enquiry

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

JK Rowling is expected to give evidence to Lord Justice Leveson’s judicial inquiry into phone hacking, according to this news report. The Harry Potter author is very keen on her privacy so if her phoneline at Potter Towers was hacked by the News of the World then she will be fuming.

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10 books about riots

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

This week I was following as closely as possible the riots and unrest in the UK. I read and watched with a mixture of shame (being English) and fascination (like seeing a car crash).

Watching Twitter (#londonriots) was particularly interesting – a mixture of deeply personal opinions and experiences, lots of rumors and untruths, traditional media updates, Youtube links and pictures from mobile phones. Riots of this nature are always shocking. Look at the riots in Vancouver in June after the Vancouver Canucks lost a hockey game. Rioting over a hockey match – that’s madness.

I’m now a long way from Tottenham, Hackney and Toxteth, but this week’s events reminded me of the 1981 riots in Brixton and Handsworth. I vividly recall the TV pictures showing the police being so unprepared and so poorly trained that they had to use dustbin lids as shields during their epic fail at mob control.

Riots have been commonplace for centuries – race riots, tax riots, draft riots, prison riots, political injustice riots, lack of food riots etc. It’s a long list, and authors and academics have produced many books analyzing the causes and effects of these disturbances. Below is a selection of 10 particularly interesting looking books about riots.

Ten books about riots

Riot, Rebellion, and Revolution: Rural Social Conflict in Mexico edited by Friedrich Katz

Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906 by Mark Bauerlein

Riots Past and Present by Philip Steele

Burn, Baby, Burn! The Los Angeles Race Riot, August, 1965 by Jerry Cohen and William S. Murphy

Boston and the Tea Riots by Norma R Fryatt

King Mob: The Story of Lord George Gordon and the Riots of 1780 by Christopher Hibbert

Violent London: 200 Years of Riots, Rebels and Revolts by Clive Bloom

The Great Riots of New York: 1712-1873 by Joel Tyler Headley

The Clerkenwell Riot by Gavin Thurston

The Rebecca Riots by Vera Eirwen Davies

The excellent Prospero blog at the Economist also has an interesting posting on books, bookshops and the riots.

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More on bookshops and rioters

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

Further to my post yesterday that looters don’t loot bookshops, here is the proof.

In Clapham Junction, the only shop left untouched was Waterstone’s, and the looters of Boots had, unaccountably, stolen a load of Imodium.

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Bookshops and rioters

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

Over at the excellent Jacket Copy blog, Carolyn Kellogg writes about how London’s bookshops are shutting early because of fears over the rioting.

Carolyn – look at the pictures of the people doing the looting and burning. Do they look like the sort of people who would smash the windows of a Waterstone’s and run off with armfuls of Dostoevsky and Shakespeare?

“Oi geezers, there’s a massive pile of Joyce and Fitzgerald in this one. Oh, and some Flann O’Brien too. Wicked! That’s my bedtime reading for a couple of months sorted! There’s a specialist poetry bookshop over in Lewisham – let’s do ‘em next.”

Posted in booksellers, crime | 1 Comment »

Codex Calixtinus stolen…easily

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

Whoops! The folks at the stunningly beautiful Spanish cathedral in Santiago de Compostela have lost a priceless 12th century manuscript called Codex Calixtinus. Last week, the rare document was stolen from the cathedral’s safe. The thief didn’t have to work to hard for his or her crime as they had the keys to the safe and left them hanging in the lock. Time magazine has the full story.

The manuscript is so rare that it will be impossible to resell on the black market, so it was a rather pointless theft.

Written in the mid-1100s under the auspices of Pope Calixtus II, the Codex is about the apostle St. James, whose remains are believed to have miraculously washed up on the coast of northwestern Spain. The town that houses his tomb, which became known as Santiago de Compostela (Santiago means “St. James” in Spanish), was transformed in the Middle Ages into a major pilgrimage site — the third most important, after Jerusalem and Rome — for Christians from all over Europe. Indeed, book five of the Codex is a sort of a Michelin guide to Santiago, helpfully instructing pilgrims on the best routes to take and the poisonous rivers to avoid. “It is one of the most important texts of the Middle Ages and of incalculable value,” says Jesus Tanco, a St. James expert at the University of Navarra.

Years ago, I visited this corner of Spain and went to Santiago de Compostela. The cathedral is truly memorable.

Posted in antiquarian, crime, news | No Comments »

No rest for these twenty-six crime writers

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

A total of 26 of the bestselling crime writers have teamed up to write a single novel titled No Rest for the Dead. The list includes Raymond Khoury, Alexander McCall Smith, Kathy Reichs, Jeffery Deaver and (obviously) more.

According to The Guardian

The novel, which is published by Simon & Schuster, is the brainchild of Andrew Gulli, editor of US crime fiction specialist Strand Magazine, who said it was the first time so many major bestselling authors have been involved in a single project. Gulli edited the book with his sister Lamia, and has also contributed several chapters to the novel. The siblings will donate all their proceeds to the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Society.

You can find copies of No Rest for the Dead here

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Crime writers give back… to the morgue

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

A group of crime writers including Val McDermid, Kathy Reichs, Stuart MacBride, Jeff Lindsay, Nicci French and Patricia Cornwell have teamed up to help raise funds for a new morgue in Dundee.

The group of authors felt passionate about the cause in part because the morgue staff have always offered up their expertise when it came to the writers getting the grisly technical detail just right. So if you happen to particularly like the gory technical bits in your crime writing you can donate money to the fundraising effort.

Full story in The Guardian

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Average crime novel has body count of 8.38

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

So says a survey from the Crime Writers Association. Some of the more inventive ways to bump someone off included slicing them to death in an olive machine, being stabbed through the heart with a spangly stiletto or putting bees in a wicket-keeper’s inner glove leading to anaphylactic shock.

Posted in crime, UK | No Comments »

The Dark, Dark World of Cornell Woolrich

Friday, May 6th, 2011

Cornell Woolrich was an incredibly successful crime writer, who also wrote under the pseudonyms of William Irish and George Hopley. Even though his novels and short stories sold in huge numbers and were adapted into numerous Hollywood thrillers, Woolrich led a sad life and most of his books are now out-of-print.

Rediscover one of the true masters of murder and mystery writing, and some of the fantastic, dark and pulpy covers of his books.

Posted in AbeBooks, author, blog, books, crime | No Comments »

Bloody Words 2011 Mystery Conference

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

One of the most aptly named events on the Canadian literary calendar is the annual Bloody Words mystery conference.

This year, it is being held in Victoria, British Columbia (AbeBooks’ home town) on June 3-5. The guests of honour are writers Tess Gerritsen, Michael Slade and William Deverell.

The Bloody Words conference began in 1999. The event usually attracts around 250 readers and writers from across Canada and the United States, who come together to discuss all aspects of the genre. There are panels covering everything from writing that debut novel to the latest in crime forensics, writing workshops, author signings, manuscript evaluations and readings by leading mystery writers. More than 100 mystery authors have already registered to attend.

Slade, a pen name for Vancouver criminal lawyer Jay Clarke, has written 14 mystery novels. Gerritsen, an American, is the international guest of honour. Her thrillers have been worldwide bestsellers since the mid-1990s and she has sold more than 20 million books. Deverell is the local guest of honour as he lives on nearby Pender Island – a former journalist, he has been writing novels since the late 1970s.

Find more details about the event at the Bloody Words website.

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It’s a crime: Jennifer Garner is Miss Marple

Friday, April 1st, 2011

jennifer-garner1I see Jennifer Garner is going to play Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple is a new Disney movie. How can I put this? Garner is 38 and as fit as a butcher’s dog. Miss Marple is…well… an old crone. Remember Margaret Rutherford playing Miss Marple!

Miss Marple is supposed to be a spinster who lives in the English village of St. Mary Mead. Jennifer Garner is going to toss that old maid thing out the window.

No doubt we’ll be seeing Miss Marple in a bikini or using some kick boxing techniques on the bad guys. I hope there isn’t a Miss Marple sex scene because it’s just wrong and makes me feel rather queasy.

miss-marples-final-caseAgatha Christie is turning in her grave and I can think of few folks at Disney who should join her.

Posted in author, books, crime, movies, news | 3 Comments »

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