So how did crime writers fare in the list of 100 Best Selling authors of the decade? Not bad actually. There are three in the top ten. Unsurprisingly the top man is of course Dan Brown at number 3, followed by John Grisham at number 6 and James Patterson at number 9. It wasn’t solely American authors however because Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith and Martina Cole also make the list. The full list can be found here.
Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol appears to have broken the camels back of celebrity autobiographies to take the Christmas number one slot. It is not the first time that Dan Brown has done so. In 2004 The Da Vinci Code was also the Christmas number one. Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo came in at number 5.
According to The Bookseller Swedish Crime Writer Henning Mankell has been signed to write a TV series on the life of iconic director Ingmar Bergman. More information can be found here.
The Stieg Larsson train moves on with Sony Pictures preparing to make the Millennium trilogy into films starting with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. See here for further information. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has already been turned into a Swedish language film with English subtitles.
Laura Wilson reviews books by Catriona McPherson, C J Box, and Tonino Benacquista amongst others at the Guardian.
Sarah Weinman lists her best crime fiction books of the decade and I must admit that I am very impressed with the list and I can quite proudly say that out of her excellent list there are only two of them that I have not got and read. The list is an excellent selection covering a wide selection of the genre.
Whilst the awards are not due to be given until 29 April the Mystery Writers of America have announced the Grandmaster, Raven and Ellery Queen Award Winners. The Grandmaster is Dorothy Gilman the author of the Mrs Polifax novels. The Raven Award is being given to Zev Buffman, a Broadway producer and the man behind the International Mystery Writers Festival and Mary Alice Gorman & Richard Goldman, proprietors of the Mystery Lovers Bookshop. The Ellery Queen Award goes to (and is well deserved) Barbara Peters & Robert Rosenwald of the Poisoned Pen Bookstore and Press.
In an excellent article for the Guardian CJ Box has written about his top 10 US crime novelists that “own” the area that the write about. The article can be found here. For aficionados of the genre the names on the list will come as no surprise. If you want to live vicariously in any of these cities then reading these books are a good place to start.
Continuing with the above theme The Hungry Detective blog has also listed its best crime fiction of the decade. Part one can be found here and part two here.
Finally, Slashfilm.com has an early review of Shutter Island one of the most anticipated films due to come out next year. The review can be found here. The film is due out in the UK in February 2010.
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