Umbrella-d Women in Gate (cover theme)

I spotted the cover on the right in Waterstone's yesterday and knew it was familiar:

New Reviews: Braddon, Brownley, Cooper, Peace, Robinson, Staalesen

Two competitions are currently running:

i)Win Beautiful Dead: Arizona by Eden Maguire (UK only)
ii)Win Sheer Folly by Carola Dunn (UK/Europe only)

Details on how to enter can be found on the Competition page

Here are the new reviews that have been added to the website today:

Terry Halligan reviews another in Atlantic Books Classic Crime series: Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon;

Michelle Peckham reviews A Picture of Guilt by James Brownley which is the first in the Alison Glasby, journalist, series;

Maxine Clarke reviews the first of N J (Natasha) Cooper's Karen Taylor series, No Escape which is set on the Isle of Wight;

Amanda Gillies reviews David Peace's 1974, the first part of the Red Riding Quartet, which is now available in hardback from Quercus;

Geoff Jones reviews Peter Robinson's latest short story collection, The Price of Love

and Maxine also reviews the new Varg Veum from Arcadia: The Consorts of Death by Gunnar Staalesen, tr. Don Bartlett.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.

Sleepy Sunday (for some)

Foxy showing off his flexibility again:





Reviews to follow later today.

Bits and Pieces

A few things I've learnt recently:

Bernard Knight is writing a second series along with his 12th Century Crowner John series. The first book is called Where Death Delights and is set in 1955. It'll be published by Severn House next February.

Nigel McCrery's Still Waters has just been published in paperback under the title Core of Evil.

Michael Morley is now also writing as Jon Trace and his first book under this name is The Venice Conspiracy out in February.

There's a special Taggart v Rebus confrontation on Children in Need next Friday.

The current podcast for Simon Mayo's Book Review show features Black Water Rising by Attica Locke and Judgement and Wrath by Matt Hilton.

On Radio 4's Open Book programme on Sunday 15 November at 4pm, Mariella Frostrup talks to Frances Fyfield.

My E-Reader and Me

A few weeks ago I indulged my not-so inner Trekker and splashed out on a silver Sony Touch E-Reader. Two of the main reasons for buying it were:

a) the fact that my eyes aren't as good as they were and there are 5 print size settings on the Touch.

b) the hope, perhaps naive, that some of the review copies for euro crime and my teenage fiction blog could be received as e-books rather than print books. Like most bibliophiles my house is overrun with books. It's more like a library with the odd bit of furniture.

The E-Reader is gorgeous and I'm enjoying reading on it. The text looks lovely and clear and the ability to increase or decrease the print size depending on eye-tiredness is as useful as I'd hoped it would be. The epub book I bought I read on the second setting, medium and the pdf review copy I'm currently reading is on the third setting, large.

I've only made a tentative enquiries about e-book review copies to a couple of publishers and one was positive and the other less-so. (I wonder if e-review copies could be sent to promote the paperback editions, if not the hardback editions?) It's early days yet I think. Only a few days ago Simon and Schuster (US) announced an e-galley grab programme. (I just need to get a contact there...)

One useful site I discovered via Twitter is NetGalley which is an intermediate between publishers and readers. You put in a request for e-review books and wait to see if you get them. So far, I've requested and received one for my teenage blog. There are some euro crime type titles available including a couple from Poisoned Pen Press.

As to buying e-books, so far I've found that W H Smiths are cheaper than Borders and Waterstone's but the same titles aren't always available on all the sites. A website I haven't yet tried but which has some US authors I'm interested in is Smash Words and ultimately they should have the Inger Frimansson titles we've reviewed recently.

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise reports back on her recent (International) Kindle purchase.

Le Crime Est Notre Affaire

The French Film Festival is currently running in some venues in the UK. (See here for which cinemas are taking part.) It finishes on 20 December.

One of the films on offer is 2008's Le Crime Est Notre Affaire (Crime is Our Business) in which Agatha Christie's married sleuths, the Beresfords, return:

The latest adventures of Belisaire and Prudence Beresford, adapted stylishly from Agatha Christie, find the pair enjoying peaceful days in their château but Prudence is bored and longs for a crime.

Bringing back most of the cast and crew from his two previous Christie yarns, By the Pricking of My Thumbs and Towards Zero, writer-director Pascal Thomas adds another instalment to a consistently entertaining series.

Based primarily on the short story The House of Lurking Death, which appeared in the author's 1929 collection Partners in Crime, but also including shades of 4:50 From Paddington, Thomas brings back that uncanny duo Prudence (Frot) and Belisaire Beresford (Dussollier), last seen Sherlocking together in Thumbs.

With Belisaire now retired from the secret service and the couple living tranquilly in the stunningly photographed Rhône-Alpes region, bored Prudence is just dying for a new crime to solve. Her wish is soon granted when visiting Auntie Babette (Annie Cordy in an engaging cameo) arrives on a train, on which she claims to have witnessed a murder.

The trailer below shows the first few minutes of the film:

Publishing Deal - Hallie Rubenhold

From today's BookTrade, details of a series which sounds rather fun:

Transworld has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in THE CONFESSIONS OF MRS LIGHTFOOT, WITH SOME ADVICE FOR WOMEN IN GENERAL, the first in a trilogy of novels, in 3-book deal for an undisclosed sum. The author, Hallie Rubenhold, is an authority on the 18th Century.

'An utterly riveting, edge-of-your-seat, series featuring an 18th century heroine, Henrietta Lightfoot: courtesan, adventuress, spy and erstwhile murderess. It had all of us here hooked. With potential to become a really popular series, this is a female Flashman who can show the chaps a thing or two, while deliciously rollicking through one of the most interesting and dashing periods in history. Rubenhold will be a major author for us for the future' [says Transworld]

Transworld will publish the first book in Spring 2011.

New Margaret Rutherford biography

I'm afraid this one had passed me by until copies started appearing on the reservation shelf at work. Margaret Rutherford: Dreadnought with Good Manners by Andy Merriman was published in September by Aurum Press:

She was one of our most idiosyncratic actresses, appearing in such thoroughly English classics as Blithe Spirit, The Importance of Being Earnest, Passport to Pimilico, I’m Alright Jack and four Miss Marple films. For this new biography - the first in over 25 years - Andy Merriman has interviewed scores of people who knew Margaret Rutherford. The result is an immensely compassionate and sometimes shocking portrait of an eccentric, vulnerable, naïve, lovable woman, generous to fault, who delighted audiences with some of the finest comic performances of any British actress.

Publishing Deal - Giorgio Faletti

I mentioned I Kill a few days ago but the news is that Constable & Robinson have signed a second book from Giorgio Faletti:

Constable & Robinson has signed a two book deal with Italian thriller writer Giorgio Faletti.

The first title, I Kill, will be published in June 2010, with the second book I am God scheduled for UK publication in 2011.

“Faletti is a phenomenon on the continent, where he sells in the millions. [...] thrilled to be publishing what is a major talent for the English-speaking market for the first time.”

Read the whole article here.

Upcoming titles from Simon & Schuster

The new catalogue (January-June 2010) from Simon and Schuster (UK) has arrived and the titles appropriate to "Euro Crime" are:

January

Neil Cross - Captured

February

Michael Dobbs - The Reluctant Hero
Sarah Rayne - House of the Lost

March

Bruno Hare - The Lost Kings

April

Jeremy Duns - Free Country
Bernard Knight - A Plague of Heretics
Craig Robertson - Random

May

Rebecca Frayn - The Art of Self-Deception