Criminal Splatterings!!!!

Editor Jemima Forrester has pre-empted World rights for two books in a new American thriller series by debut author Mason Cross from Thomas Stofer at LBA literary agency.  THE KILLING SEASON is the first book in a brand-new series featuring Carter Blake, a bounty hunter with a shady past.  Smart, strong and intuitive, Blake is hired by the FBI to help them track down Caleb Wardell, a terrifying serial killer who has escaped from death row.  But Wardell is no stranger to Blake.  He's met him once before and, what's more, Blake had the chance to take him down then and he didn't.  Now, aided only by Special Agent Elaine Banner, Blake must use all of his expertise if he is to track down the calculating killer before it's too late.  With a faultless blend of compelling action, intelligent plotting, and well-drawn characters, THE KILLING SEASON is a polished debut thriller with a fantastic new series character.  THE KILLING SEASON will be published in April 2014 in hardback, trade paperback, and eBook

Bitter Lemon Press is delighted to announce that it has bought two interesting new novels, both set for publication in Spring 2014.  The first, BAGHDAD CENTRAL by Elliott Colla, will be published in February, and is a suspenseful mystery novel set in Baghdad in 2003, just after the "mission accomplished" pronouncements of the Bush regime.  The story follows Baghdad police inspector Khafaji who, shortly after Iraq has fallen to the US army, is pressed into service to help rebuild an Iraqi police service decimated by de-Ba'athification.  Khafaji investigates the disappearance of young women translators working for the US forces and the trail leads him through battles, bars and brothels, then back to the Green Zone where everything began.  BAGHDAD CENTRAL is a debut novel by American writer Elliott Colla, who is totally immersed in Middle Eastern affairs.  Colla teaches Arabic literature at Georgetown, and has translated many novels, stories, and poems from Arabic.  Modern Iraqi poetry plays an important role in the story of the protagonist who soon realizes that holding on to more than poetry and his daughter in pre- and post-Saddam Iraq is asking for trouble.  Bitter Lemon Press has acquired world rights from the author.

In March 2014, in the year when football's World Cup comes to Rio and 2 years before the Olympics come to town, Bitter Lemon Press will publish HOTEL BRASIL by Frei Betto – a colourful, witty mystery novel about a series of murders that take place in a run-down family hotel.  According to the police, the first victim was stabbed in the heart before the head was separated from the body.  As the investigation continues other hotel clients are decapitated, usually with the head found delicately balanced on the knees of the sitting victim.  A classical whodunit crime novel, HOTEL BRASIL, is also an opportunity for the author Frei Betto – a former Dominican friar, a political prisoner in the 1970s under the dictatorship, a union activist, and then an adviser to President Lula da Silva - to describe Brazilian society, especially those at the edge, like the many street children in the novel, who are found on the beaches, in the favelas, and in prisons.

With very little signs of the “Scandinavian Crime wave” losing it’s touch and with theatre goers still waiting for the second instalment of the American adaptation of book 2 in the Millennium trilogy, there is a very interesting article in Word and Film about the Americanisation of the Scandinavian Crime Wave.  The whole article can be read here.

With ITV announcing a sixth series of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple the Independent have produced a blaggers guide to Agatha Christie.  You can read the whole guide here.

Huge congratulations go to crime writer Lynda La Plante who has been awarded Honorary Fellowship by the Forensic Science Society.  Lynda La Plante is the first layperson to ever be given a Fellowship.  The full article can be read in the Independent.  The Forensic Science Society was founded in 1959 and is the international body for forensic scientists, scene of crime officers, police and those working in related disciplines.

So who are the best 30 literary detectives of all time?  According to Shortlist they don’t include the likes of Harry Bosch, Nero Wolfe or even Kinsey Milhone!  The list does on the other hand include Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes, Chief Inspector Dalgliesh, Inspector Morse, Chief Inspector Wexford, Phillip Marlowe, and Sam Spade!  Whom do you think should be on the list?

Classic thriller writer Dennis Wheately’s books are being revived.  According to the Bookseller Bloomsbury Reader are reviving the works.  The first 20 will be released in October in both the UK and the US with the books The Devil Rides Out, The Forbidden Territory and To the Devil a Daughter being published in paperback as well.

Can one actually believe this?  According to the Guardian a cinemagoer in New Zealand was given a refund because an explosion that was shown in the trailer of the Jack Reacher film did not make the cut.  I am not sure what to make of this?  Is this to be first of many?

Laura Wilson’s recent round up of crime fiction novels can be found in the Guardian.

With BBC4 getting ready to show the first of a five two part adaptations of Scandinavian author Arne Dahl on television on Saturday 6 April 2013, there is an interesting article in the Telegraph about the forthcoming series and the fact that they are not as dark as one would expect.  If you want to read a bit more about him then I would suggest that you also read Barry Forshaw’s excellent new book Nordic Noir as well.

Very interesting article in the Telegraph about Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.  Only sad thing in my opinion is that it appears that only now have others aside from genre readers just realised how good this book is.  Most of us read it last year when it first came out.  And another thing, why do they have to compare it to Fifty Shades?  They are two different books.

Don’t know how I managed to miss this!  Author Derek B Miller talks about his job as an International Affairs Specialist and a novelist, which of the two is the most important and the role of a storyteller in both. 

I am sure that I am not the only one who is waiting with baited breath to see the film of S J Bolton’s Sacrifice.  It is therefore extremely pleasing to hear from the author and read on her blog that the film is in pre-production and that lead cast members have been announced.  Connie Nielsen, Charles Dance and Rupert Graves are to star in the Hollywood film adaptation.

If you haven’t seen, it then see below for the trailer for Lauren Beukes’s novel The Shining Girls.

1931: He's the perfect killer.  Unstoppable.  Untraceable.  He thinks.
1992: They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  Tell that to Kirby Mazrachi, whose life was shattered after a brutal attempt to murder her.  As Kirby investigates, she finds the other girls - the ones who didn't make it. 
The evidence is ... impossible.  But for a girl who should be dead, impossible doesn't mean it didn't happen...