Criminal Roundup

The Literary Festival Scene

According to Alex Hippisley-Cox the literary festival scene in the UK is booming. It seems hardly a week goes by without some kind of literary programme being staged and the public’s thirst for these types of gatherings seems to grow with each new event. As publishers and publicists now start to plan their authors’ personal appearances during those all-important pre-Christmas months, the first question they will no doubt ask themselves is: what literary festivals are taking place around the publication date, and how can we get our authors involved? Read more.

Val McDermid at Middlesborough Libraries FestivalThursday, 16 June 2011 - 19:00

Bestselling crime writer Val McDermid talks about her books including latest novel Trick of the Dark at Acklam Library, Acklam Road, Middlesbrough, TS5 7AB.

When writers were real men:

Maybe guys aren't reading because manliness is absent from literature.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/06/06/2011-06-06_when_writers_were_real_men.html#ixzz1Ogg9S2QL

Open Road In Deal With Penzler's New Mysteriouspress.com

According to an article in Publishers Weekly, Open Road Integrated Media has formed a partnership with mystery maven Otto Penzler to publish and promote digital editions of titles developed by Penzler's just-launched MysteriousPress.com.

First Conan Doyle Novel To Be Published

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first novel, The Narrative of John Smith, is to be published for the first time.
The book, about a man's reflections on life after he finds himself confined to his room with gout, was written between 1883 and 1884. Conan Doyle sent it to a publisher but it was lost in the post and he then had to reconstruct it from memory. It was never finished. The first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, was printed three years later.
BBC

John le Carré's 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'

After months of frustration, Le Carré took the original manuscript of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," into his garden and burned it. Such is the diligence of the master craftsman. Then he went back to work with a new take. The version of the book that he completed and published in 1974 — now regarded as perhaps the greatest spy novel written — is so complex precisely because its form itself is a journey of exploration into the "inside-out logic of the double-agent operation," into the past and into the complex natures of loyalty and betrayal.