Newsy Stuff

According to the Bookseller, the former head of MI5 Dame Stella Rimington is to chair the Man Booker Prize for 2011. Rimington has written 5 fiction novels so far since her retirement as Head of MI5 and her latest novel Deep Secret is due to be published in July 2011.

Susan Hill has also become a judge for the Man Booker Prize according to the Bookseller. Hill known for her novels The Woman in Black and Mrs de Winter (the sequel to Du Maurier’s Rebecca) is also currently the author of five crime novels featuring Detective Simon Serailler. The most recent being The Shadows in the Street (2010)

According to the Bookseller, Serpent’s Tail have acquired the rights to the drug dealing memoir of Nigel Fielding. Fielding was heavily involved in one of the largest LSD drug busts that took place in 1976 which was known as Operation Julie.

This year the Courmayeur Noir Festival is due to take place from 7 to 13 December 2010. It will be celebrating its 20^th edition. The full press release can be found here. Michael Connelly will be honoured with the Raymond Chandler Award.

As part of the Festival the shortlist has been announced for the Premio Scerbanenco award. The finalists are:-

Il giorno dei Morti by (The Day of the Dead) by Maurizio de Giovanni

Tu la Paragas (Thou Paragas) By Marilu Olivia

Ti voglio credere (I want you to believe) by Elisabetta Bucciarelli

Il libro di legno (Wood’s Book) by Gian Mauro Costa

Cicatrici (Scars) by Gianluca Morozzi

For those of you that watch Alibi TV on the satellite and cable channels, you may wish to look out for the following coming in the New Year. On Sunday 2 January 2011 Andie McDowell will be playing DA Monique Lamont in Patricia Cornwell’s At Risk. MacDowell's character is trying to re-open an unsolved 20-year-old murder case when a shocking moment of violence throws her and her colleagues into chaos. The character will return again on Saturday 8 January 2011, this time in Front where she takes on Boston’s most famous criminal. Both programmes will be shown at 9:00pm.

Peter May has written an interesting and insightful article on his blog about how he came to write the novel The Blackhouse which is due out in February 2011.

Quercus have joined forces with Jo Fletcher to launch a new imprint. Jo Fletcher will join Quercus at the start of next year. The imprint will be known as Jo Fletcher Books and will publish Sci-fi, Horror and Fantasy.