Criminal Splatterings

According to Charlotte Williams at The Bookseller Vintage has acquired the licence to publish Ian Fleming's James Bond titles across all formats including digital, reversing the decision made by Ian Fleming Publications 15 months ago to publish the e-books direct. For the first time for an author's backlist, Vintage will publish in both its Classic and standard paperback ranges.  The full article can be found here.  The Reuters article about it can also be found here.

The debut novel of British screenwriter and creative writing lecturer Jenny Mayhew has been acquired by Hutchinson. The Wolf Man of Hindelheim is described as both a mystery and a love story.  The story is set in a German village between the wars.  When a baby girl goes missing from the home of the village doctor local police constable Theodore Hildebrandt arrives to investigate the mystery.  The Wolf Man of Hindelheim is due to be published in March 2013.

More news on the rights front! Harper Collins have scooped in a three book crime thriller deal the debut novel of former Metropolitan Police Officer Luke Delaney. The first novel, Senseless, which features DI Sean Corrigan on the case of an unusually vicious murderer, will be published by Harper Collins in early 2013.

Lloyd Shepherd whose debut novel The English Monster was published recently has had an interesting discussion lately with the discussion board Mobilism when he found a request for his novel to be pirated being circulated on the board.  He decided to respond in an effort to try and understand why.  It resulted in an article for the Guardian as he describes his parley with eBook pirates.

So is Jo Nesbø the new Stieg Larsson?  This was a question that he was asked recently at the New Zealand International Arts Festival. And his response? Characteristically it was one that those of us that have heard him talk before would have expected from him. So what exactly did he say?  Apparently with the wryness that we have come to expect from him his response was "It could have been worse - I could have been the new Dan Brown.".  Barry Forshaw’s article in the Independent on his new book The Phantom can be found here.  The film of his book the Snowman is due to filmed shortly by Martin Scorsese.  

The Telegraph have got a list of 100 novels everyone should read. As can be expected there are not a large number of crime novels. Only thirteen by my calculations.  I have to say that aside from that minor quibble, I was pleased to see a number of my favourite non-crime books on the list.  The first and foremost being Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Beloved by Toni Morrison and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen to name a few.
 
The nominees for the 2011 Strand Critics Awards have been announced by The Strand Magazine for books published during 2011. Recognizing excellence in the field of mystery fiction, the nominees have been judged by, and winners selected from, book reviewers from the nation's top daily newspapers as well as Andrew F. Gulli, Managing Editor of the magazine and announced on July 11th, 2012 in New York City.
 
The nominees are –

Best First Novel:
The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Sister by Rosamund Lupton (Crown)
Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson (Harper)
The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis (Soho)
The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly (Pamela Dorman Books)

Best Novel
The Affair by Lee Child (Delacorte Press)
The Drop by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown and Company)
Buried Secrets by Joseph Finder (St Martin’s Press)
Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James (Knopf)
The Cut by George Pelecanos (Reagan Arthur Books)
This is the fourth time that Michael Connelly has been nominated but the first time for the others in the Best Novel category.
 
Lifetime Achievement awards are being given to Joseph Wambaugh and John Sandford.
The awards will be presented at an invitation-only cocktail party, hosted by The Strand on July 11, 2012, in New York City.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros have optioned the film rights for William Landay’s novel Defending Jacob. It is a shame they have not realized that Defending Jacob is not his debut novel but in fact his third.  His first, Mission Flats, won in 2003 the prestigious CWA New Blood Dagger Award.
 
Bloody Scotland which is due to take place between 14^th and 16^th September 2012 have announced a crime fiction short story competition for budding writers. Glengoyne Highland Single Malt is sponsoring a short story writing competition as part of Bloody Scotland. With the aim of discovering the next big name in crime fiction, the competition gives you the opportunity to be published in an ebook anthology of short crime stories entitled Worth The Wait. Entries may be submitted now through June 29th, 2012. Stories must be original (not previously published), in English, and may not exceed 3000 words. Entrants must be 18 years of age or older and there are no restrictions on country of residence (though an entry fee of £10 or the local equivalent is required). See the competition page on the festival website for all the details.

ITV have commissioned a new series of Morse prequel Endeavour.  There will be 4x 120 minute episodes.  According to the press release from ITV it follows the well-received response to the recent one-off Inspector Morse prequel Endeavour.  Once again Morse author Colin Dexter will act as consultant.  Filming will take place in Oxford later on this year.
 
Fans of Karin Slaughter’s Grant County series will be pleased to hear that according to Deadline.com Entertainment One and Piller/Segan/Shepherd, partners on the Syfy series Haven, are re-teaming for another drama series project. The two companies have acquired the TV rights to best-selling author Karin Slaughter’s Grant County series of 6 books featuring the popular character Sara Linton. The project will go into development immediately, with Slaughter co-writing the pilot script with Piller/Segan/Shepherd principal Scott Shepherd.
 
According to Total Film the new Avengers character banners have been revealed.  What with the film Marvel Avenger Assemble due to be released in the UK on 27 April 2012 lots of us are waiting for it.  The trailer can be seen below-

Sometime ago Shotsmag Confidential blogged about the City University London establishing a dedicated MA course in Crime Writing.  Things have moved on since then and they have now listed some of the authors that will be guest lecturing.  The authors are, Mark Billingham, Natasha Cooper, Barry Forshaw, Sophie Hannah, John Harvey, Cathi Unsworth, Dan Waddell and Laura Wilson.

That Stieg Larsson just won’t go away. Maclehose Press have published (with an introduction by Tariq Ali)  The Expo Files: And Other Articles by the Crusading Journalist. The Expo Files is a collection of essays and articles on right-wing extremism and racism, violence against women and women’s rights, homophobia and honour killing. The Expo Files is due to be published in April 2012.

VINTAGE BOND

It seems to be a step back in time as Vintage publishing acquiring exclusive English-language rights to the 14 Bond novels in worldwide, excluding US and Canada, for a 10-year period. Vintage takes over the print rights from Penguin, which never held the digital rights, a scenario which saw Ian Fleming Publications release the e-books itself in late 2010.
I say a step back in time as Jonathan Cape, Vintage's sister imprint, was the first publisher of Bond, starting with Casino Royale in 1953. Vintage will publish in both its Classic and standard paperback ranges.

Penguin released the Bond series with very striking covers, and I wonder whether or not Vintage will go back to the old style covers or come out with something new.


Penguin Hardback covers

 The Pan covers were very striking as you can see even from the two versions of Casino Royale below.

Corinne Turner from IFP said the company looked at the decision to include the e-book rights this time around "very carefully". She said: "When we were launching e-books in the UK ourselves, we were never saying we would keep e-book rights locked away forever. To look after Fleming in the current market, you need to have the full rights to manage the brand." Curtis Brown agent Jonny Geller, who handled the deal, added: "We didn't have any problem rolling the e-book rights back in—it shows publishers have moved on, and have a lot to offer."

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first Bond film, "Dr No". 2012 will also see the release of "Skyfall" the 23rd in the series with Daniel Craig back as Bond. But looking at this photo, Craig doesn't look a happy bunny whilst filming on location. I don't know about shaken not stirred, more like gone through the ringer!

 



Noah Hawley writes on being The Good Father

Today’s guest blog is by American film and television producer, screenwriter, composer and author Noah Hawley. He wrote and produced the television series Bones (2005-present). He is also the author of three previous novels. His most recent novel The Good Father is published today. He kindly took time out whilst at the SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas to give us an insight into his new novel.

The Good Father is an intense, psychological novel about one doctor's suspense-filled quest to unlock the mind of a suspected political assassin: his twenty-year old son.

The day your television show premieres is an event - if only because that night when you turn on the TV your show is on TV. And in the morning there are ratings and you know how you did. Same with a movie. On its release date the film is in the theatre and by Monday you know if you will sink or swim.

That's not the case with a novel. First, because the publication date is more of a suggestion. The book can be in stores a few days before or a few days after. But also because, well, books are not movies or TV shows. They play a far smaller role in our culture than they once did, mainly because they require a bigger commitment of time and focus. It takes days to read a book, sometimes weeks. Often we wait till we're done with the book we're reading before we buy a new one. And so the success of a book cannot be judged by how it does in the first week or even the first month. You have to be patient.

With movies there are tracking numbers. In TV you have awareness numbers and intent to view numbers. So going into your release the studios have a pretty clear idea of whether the film or TV show will be a hit. With books all you know is how many copies the stores have ordered, but this number is illusory, because stores can return the books at any time with no cost to themselves. So in publishing there is always that feeling, the waiting for the other shoe to drop feeling. Which is my way of saying my new book, The Good Father, is coming out on March and I have no idea what to expect. Which is unsettling. At the same time, my last TV show, My Generation, was cancelled after two episodes, and that is something that doesn't happen in publishing - they don't un-release your book if it's not selling. It stays in the stores, waiting to be discovered. So that's better at least.

The book is my fourth, and was written in two long stretches. The first half I completed while I waited to see if my first TV show, The Unusuals, would be picked up by ABC. The second half written after that show ended and before the next began. All in all a four year span, exactly mirroring the life of my daughter. Which is where the book started, with my wife pregnant and me wondering who this little girl would grow up to be. What kind of person? Which is, I discovered, a unifying act of parents everywhere, this fear - let's call it a fear - that our children, despite our best efforts, will turn out spoiled or damaged.

And from this fear came the idea for the book - about a father whose son is accused of a terrible crime and his journey to a) prove his son innocent and b) try to figure out where he might have gone wrong as a parent. A thriller, in other words, but an emotional one, concerned more with real life than with nail biting Hollywood endings.

The type of crime I wanted to write about was clear early on, that of a political

assassination. Both because I felt I had seen the more traditional story - of a child
accused of murder. And because there seemed to be an archetype - that of the twenty something lone gunman, cast out by society and desperate to trying make themselves visible, meaningful, through one powerful act - that loomed over the history of this country. Who were these young men, and why did they succumb to the gravitational pull of historic violence?

So I started writing a novel, because that's what the story wanted to be. I am lucky
enough to have the luxury of choice when it comes to choosing the medium for a story. And with each idea I have the question becomes, what form should it take? Movies are inherently visual, and as mediums go they are verbs, in that they are action driven, not in the sense of action movies, but in the sense that in movies you need to get to the point quickly and stick to it. There is little room in modern movies to meditate on character or theme (unless you're Terrence Malick), except as it colours the underlying action of the story.

TV shows are serialized and designed to run over a period of years, week in, week out.  They are open ended, constantly delaying their conclusion. A closed ended story, like that of a father trying to prove his son's innocence or come to terms with his guilt is not a story from which you can get 100 hours of television. But most importantly, the story wanted to be a book, because in addition to the main action of the father's journey, there was so much to say about all the characters and the themes that this story engendered. Which is the beauty of a book. While it is, at heart, a form of entertainment, it offers writers a unique opportunity to expand the potentials of a story, to turn thought into story, to blend fiction and non-fiction, to contemplate complicated ideas in a dramatic fashion.

And so now, four years later my daughter is in preschool, and doing well. And this novel, that started with a worried father-to-be's sleepless night, is being published. Unlike a film or television show, the final verdict on its commercial or cultural success may take a while to realize. But at the end of the day, all any writer can do is write the book. It's up to you to do the rest.

More information about Noah can be found on his website.

BOND, ARCHER & GIVENS are Back

JAMES BOND at the BARBICAN CENTRE, LONDON

I have always been a sucker for the James Bond franchaise and was pleased to find out that between 6 July - 5 Sep 2012, London's Barbican marks the 50th anniversary of James Bond with a unique exhibition showcasing the inside story of how design and style combined to create the world’s most influential and iconic movie brand. Designing 007 will transform Barbican spaces including The Curve and The Pit in a multi-sensory experience where screen icons, costumes, production design, automobiles, gadgets, special effects, graphic design, exotic locations, weapons, stunts and props combine to immerse the audience in the creation and development of Bond style over its auspicious 50 year history.
"Do you expect me to talk?"
"No, Mr Stotter, I expect you to drool."
Tickets on sale now!

Over in the website, Walter Sattherthwait recently wrote an appeciation of Ross Macdonald. Could Hollywood have been reading our website?  Word reaches me that Warner Bros and Silver Pictures have set Peter Landesman to adapt The Galton Case, one of the titles in the Ross Macdonald mystery series about private detective Lew Archer. Landesman will look to reinvent the mystery series as Silver Pictures tries to launch a franchise. The series was previously turned into two movies; Paul Newman played Archer in the 1966 Warner Bros film Harper and 1975 film The Drowning Pool. The 1959 novel The Galton Case was the eighth book in the series. In The Galton Case, Archer is hired to track down the lost heir to the Galton fortune. His path leads him through a trail of murder, deception and a tangle of secrets. To date there has been no actor linked to play Archer, but keep 'em peeled.

Justified  has got to be one of the best series on TV at the moment. Elmore Leonard-created marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), is currently airing its third season Stateside. With the average rating now at 4.3 million has encouraged FX to give the green light to a fourth season.  “Justified is one of television’s best series and this season has reinforced that excellence,” said Nick Grad, FX Executive Vice President of Original Programming, in a statement. “Graham Yost and his writing team continue to deliver compelling material and richly drawn characters brought to life by the brilliance of Timothy Olyphant and our terrific ensemble cast. Their work is validated by universal acclaim, awards, and ratings that have grown every year. We look forward to many more seasons to come.”

Meanwhile, if you can't get enough of the US Marshal's antics, then get a copy of Leonard's new novel Raylan (Orion UK).

Mystery & Crime at the Oxford Literary Festival

Those of you that regularly attend St Hilda’s Crime and Mystery Conference that takes place every year at St Hilda’s College in Oxford will know Eileen Roberts. She has passed on the following information regarding the forthcoming Oxford Literary Festival.

Two of our Mystery & Crime Weekend stars, Simon Brett and Sophie Hannah, will be contributors at the Oxford Literary Festival this year. The details are below and I do hope to see you there - I will be chairing their session. This will be the second in the series, following PD James defending Agatha & Jill Paton Walsh, Dorothy L., which was a sell-out last year!

Saturday 31 March 12pm - Christ Church Hall

MURDER MYSTERY: BLOODBATH OR BRAINTEASER. WITH SIMON BRETT AND SOPHIE HANNAH

As a sampler of the celebrated Mystery and Crime Weekend held every August at St Hilda's College, crime-writing stars and Crime Weekend regulars Sophie Hannah and Simon Brett respectively defend the 'dark and twisted' new school and the cosy old school of murder mysteries.

Booking is now open for 300 events, 24 March-1 April 2012, on www.oxfordliteraryfestival.org Search 'Hilda' on www.oxfordliteraryfestival.org for full details of St Hilda's events (including Simon and Sophie's). Alternately booking on 0870 343 1001 and quoting 'St Hilda's' for will get you a 10% discount!

Criminal Splatterings

It seems as there is a glut of short story competitions on the go. Yesterday, Ayo reported on a collaboration between Faber and Faber publishers and Stylist Magazine. Today, I have had an email from Bloombsury Publishing who, in association with the Writers and Artists Yearbook, is launching their challenge to writers to create a crime story in a 1000 words or less.
This is the press release:
Every other month one of Bloomsbury's Crime authors will be laying down the creative gauntlet with an original short story thus setting the theme for that month. Then it's over to you, the British public, to do your worst. Criminally speaking of course!


Every other month, we will chose ONE winner and their story will be featured on the Short Sentence website. Once the competition has closed all the winning stories will be published as a Short Sentence eBook along with the Featured Authors' stories. This will be available for free from all online book retailers. Each winner will also receive a Day Rover ticket to the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate (2013) and a selection of Bloomsbury books. Four Runners up will receive a selection of Bloomsbury books.

We will announce OVERALL WINNER during National Short Story Week in November 2012. The overall winner will win a place at the Writers and Artists Yearbook conference for 2013 and a Weekend Rover Ticket for the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate (2103).

The competition launches with a short story from debut crime author Parker Bilal, author of The Golden Scales, on the theme of DECEPTION. Rules and details of how to enter are on the website - http://www.shortsentence.co.uk/ So all you budding writers out there, no more excuses, get writing!

Other authors taking part include Conor Fitzgerald, Anne Zouroudi, Tom Mogford and James Runcie

And talking of an ex-Bloomsbury writer, J.K. ROWLING has gone over to the dark side, well Little Brown really, for her next book. "Although I've enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series, which has been published so brilliantly by Bloomsbury and my other publishers around the world," she said. There were rumours going around last year that she would be writing a crime book. Perhaps her next door neighbour, Ian Rankin might have something to do with it (if it's true, of course)?

HENRY SUTTON's new book has been bought by Harvill Secker. The Daily Mirror books editor Henry Sutton, has sold a crime novel which features a fictional crime writer, David Slavitt, at its centre. My Criminal World will be publish in 2013. The story focuses on struggling crime wrtier Slavitt, whose agent insists his new book needs more blood and guts. Interspersed with Slavitt's story are extracts from the crime story he is writing, which get more and more violent as the story progresses; the extracts will be published as a separate e-book.

After reading Trackers by DEON MEYER,  I wondered how he was going to follow this up.  Word has it that Laura Seegers has just finished translating Sere Dae which will be published as Seven Days by Hodder & Stoughton

And in case you thought I had forgotten World Book Day, those jolly nice people at Goldsboro are giving away books - well, not exactly but with a 20% discount off all orders from stock items for one day, 1st March 2012. Place your order on their website on the 1st March 2012 and all books that are published and in stock (not pre-orders -unpublished titles) are availble to buy using coupon code WBD2012 and you will get 20% off. This doesn't include postage and can not be used with any other discount.

Falcón will arrive in 2012
And to finish off, I bumped into Robert Wilson at the Orion XXth Party and he tells me that Sky Atlantic are filming the Javier Falcón books. According to their website,
To be shown in 2012, Sky Atlantic is proud to announce the production of a four-part crime drama, set in Seville and based on Robert Wilson's bestselling novels .Javier Falcón is a Chief Inspector in the Seville police, a brilliant detective whose personal and professional life is compromised by dark secrets from the past in this ambitious and complex new series.

The first story to be adapted is The Blind Man of Seville, which follows Falcón‘s investigation into a brutal killing which stirs long forgotten memories. As Falcón investigates the crime, and finds himself drawn to the widow of the victim, he discovers the secret truth about his artist father’s violent history in Tangier and the Spanish Civil War. The second story to be adapted is The Silent and the Damned, in which a double suicide takes Falcón to an exclusive area of Seville where wealthy neighbours keep their secrets well hidden and there’s more in the freezer than just food.

The role of Javier Falcón, a Chief Inspector in the Seville police, will be played by Marton Csokas, best known as Elven Lord Celeborn in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy Joining Csokas in FALCÓN: The Blind Man Of Seville are Charlie Creed-Miles (The Fifth Element, Harry Brown) as Ramirez, Falcón’s deputy in the Seville Police and Hayley Atwell (Captain America, Any Human Heart) as Consuelo Jimenez, the widow of a murder victim who may also be the number one suspect. Emilia Fox (Silent Witness, The Pianist) will play Ines, the estranged wife of Falcón, whilst Kerry Fox (Cloudstreet, Shallow Grave) is his sister, Manuela. Veteran actor Bernard Hill (Titanic, The Lord of The Rings) takes the role of Ramon Salgado, wealthy art dealer and friend of Falcón’s father, the renowned, but now deceased artist Francisco Falcón. Santiago Cabrerra (Merlin, Heroes) will play Judge Esteban Calderon.

Marton Csokas stars as Javier Falcón  Photo copright SKY Atlantic

Stylish Faber and Faber!

This week’s Stylist Magazine is very much book orientated and crime fiction authors have not done too badly out of it indeed.   
Most importantly, Stylist have linked up with Faber and Faber to find and publish a new crime writer.

 The judges are –

·         Ruth Rendell, award-winning author of over 60 crime fiction novels with book sales in excess of 20 million.
·         Lisa Smosarski, Stylist’s editor
·         Hannah Griffiths, publishing director, and Angus Cargill, senior editor, at Faber and Faber
·         Sue Swift, head of literary acquisitions at Kudos Television and Shine Pictures – a company responsible for adapting crime novels for TV and makers of Spooks

 To enter the competition you will need to complete the first 6,000 words of your original crime or thriller novel. The novel must feature a female protagonist. Alongside this you will need to submit an outline, no longer than 300 words, to show how the story will develop but which doesn’t reveal the ending, plus a 250-word biography of the central character.

 
The Prize - The winning author of our fiction competition will have their debut novel published by Faber and Faber publishing house and will receive a book advance of £5,000. The runner-up will receive a place on a three-month writing course of their choice – worth up to £1,750 – at Faber Academy, Faber and Faber’s esteemed creative writing programme.
Further information about the competition (including submission details) can be found here.

The Style List has suggested Lynn Shepherd’s gothic tale Tom-All-Alone’s.  Amanda Ross the creator of the Richard and Judy Book Club has picked Into The Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes as one of her favourite reads of 2012.
 
With e-books having both their friends and their foes, Lucy Mangan’s column “I Love Books, But I Loathe E-Readers” makes for interesting reading.  I can actually agree with some of her comments one of them being “E-readers have the memory to store 3,500 books, but where are the memories real books bring?” The whole column is worth reading.

Alexandra Heminslet’s article Who Killed Chic Lit looks at the demise of Chick Lit and the rise of crime fiction written by women.  With insights from Claire McGowan, Director of the CWA who believes that this new genre has emerged as women naturally write crime differently to men.  She went on to say that “there’s a definite gender divide in the type of crime fiction people write” Kerry Hood, Publicity Director at Hodder & Stoughton explains “it’s much more in keeping with the times: “In the late Nineties, women wanted the fairy-tale ending, but now they are buying novels that start with a fairy-tale which then unravels…..””.  Whilst this is an interesting article, I am not sure that I agree with all the comments especially the one about simple economics being behind the move to a more unisex genre and authors as Jojo Moyes states.  She goes on to say that “Crimes and thrillers can be shared between couples, which makes them feel like more of an economical buy during a recession”.  I personally don’t think that is strictly true as dedicated readers of crime fiction whether they be male of female have been reading the genre (whether the author be male or female) for a very long time and have not just jumped on the bandwagon as a result of the Stieg Larsson effect.

In the online edition of Stylist they also reveal that Lucy Liu has been signed up to play Watson in the CBS version of Sherlock which is to be called Elementary.  In the US version, Jonny Lee Miller is said to be a British former addict, living in Brooklyn with his surgeon friend Joan Watson (who lost her medical licence after the death of a patient). Sherlock will work for NYPD instead of Scotland Yard.  Needless to say and as Shotsblog have commented on this before, the BBC will be watching this one closely.

The Stylist’s pick of the essential whodunnits have also been picked. The novels that they consider to be the top ten crime novels are:-

The Big Sleep (1939) by Raymond Chandler

The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1963) by John Le Carré
The Daughter of Time (1951) by Josephine Tey
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) by Agatha Christie
The Maltese Falcon (1930) by Dashiell Hammett
The Water’s Lovely (2006) by Ruth Rendell
Gaudy Night (1935) By Dorothy L Sayers
Rebecca (1938) by Daphne Du Maurier
The Name of the Rose (1980) by Umberto Eco
 
I can agree with most of the books that they have listed but have to admit to being a bit disappointed with the Ruth Rendell.  I would have chosen one of her earlier books.
 
Stylist are also looking for people to vote on their website for their favourite crime novel.   There is a list of 50 of their favourite crime novels to vote on.  The link is here. Please do vote and leave a comment as well.  If you feel more inclined you can also tweet @stylistmagazine.  Included amongst the 50 crime novels to be voted on are the ten novels included above as well as Mystery Man (2009) by Colin Bateman, Tell No One (2010) by Harlan Coben,  Black Lands (2010) by Belinda Bauer, Lucky You (1997) by Carl Hiaasen, The Black Dahlia (1987) by James Ellroy, Brighton Rock (1938) by Graham Greene, The Hard Way (2006) by Lee Child, Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock (1969) by HRF Keating, The Talented Mr Ripley (1955) by Patricia Highsmith, Over My Dead Body (1940) by Rex Stout,  The Day of the Jackal (1971) by Frederick Forsyth, From Russia with Love (1959) by Ian Fleming, Spook Country (2007), by William Gibson and The Murder Room (2004) by PD James to name a few. Certainly a mixture of classic and contemporary crime novels.
 
Cathi Unsworth is also holding a lunchtime Masterclass where she will be answering questions. 

Anthony Horowitz on Why We Need Publishers

Interestingly what Anthony Horowitz says in the piece from the Guardian seems to be a continuation of Ian Rankin's speech at the Orion 20th Birthday party. He said that authors "really need publishers", especially "as more content floods the market, of varying quality".
Horowitz' piece opens with - "The title of this talk is, "Do We Need Publishers Any More?". I was going to call it "Thank Christ We Don't Need Bloody Publishers Any More" – but I felt that sounded too partisan. Relationships between writers and publishers are of course very strange and change all the time, rather like a see-saw."
Read the full article here
Roger Jon Ellory who shares Rankin's publisher, commented on the piece....

"E-books, wonderful though they are, will take the place of paperbacks the same way that photography took the place of painting, the same way that recorded music utterly supplanted live performances.  Basically, they won't.  There are certain aspects to e-books that are great, and some that are not.  When you travel a great deal, you are very much aware of the frustration occasioned by passengers who have to 'turn off all electronic devices' a good three-quarters of an hour before landing.  You can't share an e-book the way you can a paperback.  You don't have the wonderfully familiar tactile quality that comes from a paperback.  You can't give your e-books to hospitals, charity stores, libraries.  You can't get an e-book signed.  Giving an e-book as a gift to someone just isn't the same.  It's like sending someone an e-card at Christmas.  You tell them you're being ecologically responsible.  In truth the recipient knows that you forgot to buy one and post it.  Books feel good.  They smell good.  You can use them to interior design a room.  A bookcase says a great deal about a person.  When I met my wife and went to her flat for the first time, what did I do?  I looked at her bookcase (not a euphemism!).  She had Hesse, Kafka, Orwell, Tolkien, Stephen Donaldson, and the complete works of Charles Schulz.  That's the girl for me, no doubt about it.  Everyone is concerned about e-books taking over.  Taking over from what?  E-books are still books.  Someone who reads is going to read, regardless of format.  Someone who doesn't read isn't going to start reading just because you've given them a gadget.  Apparently over a million e-readers were given as gifts this past Xmas.  It has also been reported that in excess of thirty percent of those e-readers have not yet been switched on.  Seems to me that if we spent as much time as we do talking about e-books actually addressing the fact that the education system in this country (and worldwide) has gone to Hell in a handbasket, we might solve the problem of whether or not the publishing industry is going down the pan by fixing the fact that we have just graduated the third or fourth generation of teenagers who 'don't read'.  That seems to be the issue for me - how do we get people reading again, not what format they are going to read in."

Crime fiction news!

The British Library is to publish what is said to be the first ever detective novel after it being out of print for 150 years. The Notting Hill Mystery by Charles Felix dates back to 1862.  Alison’s Flood article in the Guardian discusses in a bit more detail.

The Godfather films are of course considered to be classics and at least one of them will always find its way on to a top 50 list at least.  With The Family Corleone (a prequel) due out in July, it seems that Paramount Studios who own the copyright are not happy about it and have taken the Puzo Estate to court in an attempt to have it stopped.  The official complaint can be read here.  The Family Corleone is due to be published by Random House in the summer.  Paramount Studios claim that they bought the copyright in The Godfather in 1969.  The article in the Guardian can be found here. There is also a comment about it in the Telegraph as well.

Interesting review of Lloyd Shepherd’s debut novel The English Monster by Judith Flanders in the Guardian. Lloyd Shepherd has used the Ratcliffe Highway murders as the background to his novel.

 
Whilst not strictly crime fiction related, Shortlist have listed the 50 coolest TV programmes. The list can be found here. Pleased to see some of my favourites (including some of them from my childhood) in the list including, Joe 90, Dragnet, The Prisoner, The Singing Detective, The Simpsons, The Wire and Deadwood to name a few.
 
With it being Oscar night tonight (26 February) and the fact that rather sadly the brilliant Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy has been so overlooked.  Reading Anthony Lane’s excellent essay in the New Yorker might make up for it!

According to Book2Book Serpent’s Tail are to publish Attica Locke’s new novel The Cutting Season in September 2012.  Attica Locke burst onto the horizon in November 2009 with her debut novel Black Water Rising which was nominated and shortlisted for a number of awards including an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.  It was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize. The Cutting Season is set in Belle Vie, a plantation house used as a museum and party venue; where black actors play slaves and modern tourists see a glossy interpretation of the past. Until a dead body appears...

 
Wow! A treasure-trove of comics bought by an American enthusiast when he was a boy has fetched $3.5m (£2.2m) at auction in New York.  According to the Independent the collection of 345 comics were not only in mint condition but were bought by Billy Wright who first started collecting them as a boy.  The owner died in 1994. The collection included a pristine copy of Detective Comics No 27, in which Batman made his debut and Action Comics No 1 from 1938, the first comic to feature Superman.
 
According to Deadline.com, The Killing Joel Kinnaman has been offered the lead role in the reboot of Robocop. The role was originally played by Peter Weller in the 1987 Paul Verhoeven version of the film.

As reported earlier by Shotsblog in January, there is to be a remake of Sherlock in the US entitled Elementary. According to the BBC the former Trainspotting star Jonny Lee Miller has been cast as Sherlock.

Forthcoming books to look forward to from Atlantic and Corvus books

Rome, 1605: a city of grand palazzos and frescoed cathedrals. But for the poverty-stricken artist Caravaggio, the city shows her other face, that of rough bars and grubby whores. Suddenly the Pope himself notices his talent, and Caravaggio is the most celebrated artist in Italy. But when he falls for Lena, a fruit seller, society is outraged. Discredited, but desperate to defend the honour of the woman he loves, Caravaggio is forced into a duel and kills a member of nobility. Even his powerful patrons cannot protect the lowborn Caravaggio from the death sentence and the artist is forced to flee. Exiled in Malta, his paintings continue to tell of his love for Lena. But before he can return to her, Caravaggio, Italy’s most famous artist, simply disappears …. A Name in Blood is by Matt Rees and is due to be published in July.

He play’s the oldest children’s game in the world, hide and seek. He plays it with your sons and daughters, but in his own way, with his own rules. The Eye Collector begins by killing mothers, then abducting children; he gives fathers 45 hours to find them. When time runs out, he kills the victim and removes the left eye as a grisly trophy. His method never varies and the Eye Collector never loses , until now. Just before the latest deadline expires, a mysterious witness comes forward. Alina Gregoriev is a physiotherapist. She is also blind and yesterday , she may have met the Eye Collector …. The Eye Collector is by Sebastian Fitzek and is due to be published in August.

The Divine Sacrifice is the second in the Dark Age Mysteries series featuring Malgwyn ap Cuneglas by Anthony Hays. Welcome to fifth-century Britain: the Romans have left, the Saxons have invaded, the towns are decaying and the countryside is dangerous. Malgwyn ap Cuneglas, an embittered ex-soldier who lost a limb in the Saxon wars, has become the trusted counsellor to Arthur, High King of all Britannia. So when a monk dies in horrific circumstances in Glastonbury Abbey, the Abbott calls for Malgwyn to investigate. His search for the truth will draw him into an intricate web of religious, economic and political deceit – and a conspiracy that could endanger everything Arthur has fought for. The Divine Sacrifice is due to be published in November.

The Blind Goddess is the first book in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series by Anne Holt. Somewhere in the grimy outskirts of Oslo, a drug dealer has been battered to death. Meanwhile, a young Dutchman, wandering the city is covered in blood, is taken into custody. He refuses to talk, except to the woman who found the body: lawyer Karen Borg. Days later, a notoriously shady lawyer is found dead. Is there a link between the two killings? It’s Homicide Detective Hanne Wilhelmsen’s job to find out. Hanne is a lone wolf, disdainful of her bosses and prone to dangerous shortcuts. But in a world where the Goddess of Justice is blindfolded, she always gets to the truth. The Blind Goddess is due to be published in December.

Lisa is a plastic surgery addict with severe self-esteem issues. The only hospital that will let her go under the knife is New Hope: a grimy, grey-walled facility dubbed 'No Hope' by its patients.  Farrell is a celebrity photographer. His last memory is a fight with his fashion-model girlfriend and now he's woken up in No Hope, alone. Needle marks criss-cross his arms. A sinister nurse keeps tampering with his drip. And he's woken up blind... Panicked and disorientated, Farrell persuades Lisa to help him escape, but the hospital's dimly lit corridors only take them deeper underground - into a twisted mirror world staffed by dead-eyed nurses and doped-up orderlies. Down here, in the Modification Ward, Lisa can finally have the face she wants... but at a price that will haunt them both forever.  The Ward is by SL Grey and is due to be published in December.

Bloody Scotland: Scotland's First International Crime Writing Festival

Leading accountancy and business advisory firm, Mazars, today (23rd February 2012) announces its headline sponsorship of Bloody Scotland, Scotland's first International Crime Writing Festival.

The inaugural Bloody Scotland festival will take place in Stirling between September 14 and 16 2012, and is already attracting great interest from leading crime writers throughout the country, including Scotland's very own, Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, who will appear as two of the Festival's leading lights.

With UK crime sales totalling a substantial £143 million last year, this is the first time the specialist literary genre will be celebrated north of the border with its own Festival. Mazars is delighted to announce its headline sponsorship of this innovative event, which has already attracted substantial media interest both at home and abroad. The Bloody Scotland website goes live today at www.BloodyScotland.com, where people can register their interest in attending events and secure early-bird tickets.

Speaking today, Peter Jibson, managing partner for Mazars Scotland, said: "Crime fiction is the single most popular genre amongst Scottish readers, and we believe Bloody Scotland is a truly fitting way to celebrate the nation's burgeoning literary talent. Few other countries have produced such a number of crime fiction writers of such a high calibre so the sponsorship of such an ambitious event in the literature calendar is a very exciting prospect for us. We look forward to working with such acclaimed authors in the coming months and supporting such a vital part of Scotland's cultural identity and heritage."

Crime literature is widely recognised as a distinct literary genre, with a devoted readership. Successful Scottish crime writing dates as far back as the 19th century, when Edinburgh author Arthur Conan Doyle created what has now become a British institution – the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

Alex Gray, crime author, is the brainchild for the event along with her good friend and partner in crime Lin Anderson. They are also the main organisers along with Jenny Brown (their literary agent), Gordon Brown and Clio Gray and are supported by fellow authors who have given their invaluable assistance to help organise the event. Alex Gray says:

"With over 40 literature festivals taking place in Scotland each year, not one has ever exclusively recognised the remarkable talent amongst Scottish crime writers. Bloody Scotland will showcase all that is great in Scottish crime literature and indeed the fabulous authors who continue to excite, thrill and entertain us.

"Mazars' support will allow us to make the festival the most exciting event in the literature calendar, and we are thrilled to be able to work alongside an organisation that truly recognises the value of Scotland's exceptional creative landscape."

Leading Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin said: "Scottish crime writing continues to fire on all cylinders, and talented new voices keep appearing. Bloody Scotland is a long overdue celebration of Scotland's favourite genre, one of its most successful cultural exports – and a chance to hear some of the most interesting international writers too."

Author Val McDermid added: "If Scotland does go for independence, there's one thing we won't be short of — we've already got more than our fair share of top class crime writers, and plenty of them will be on show at Bloody Scotland.'

Paul Bush OBE, Chief Operating Officer for EventScotland said: "Scotland is the perfect stage for cultural events, and it is hugely exciting to see Scotland's first international crime festival taking place this year. 2012 is the Year of Creative Scotland, and the Bloody Scotland programme will showcase some of the country's top literary talent alongside some of the best international authors on the crime-writing scene."

Bloody Scotland will take place over three days in the Barcelo Stirling Highland Hotel with headline events in the Albert Halls and master classes on the University of Stirling Campus. This ambitious festival will include the first Scottish Crime Awards and sessions on forensic technology, morality, e-books and a 'Dragon's Pen'.

For more information on Bloody Scotland, and to register interest please visit www.bloodyscotland.com

More information on Mazars can be found at www.mazars.co.uk or telephone 0141 226 4924.

For media information, please contact Lisa Mennie, Skylark Public Relations on 07825 225414 / lisa@skylarkpublicrelations.com or Pauline Gregory on 07833 490964 / pauline@skylarkpublicrelations.com

Sam Bourne talks about his new novel Pantheon

Today’s guest blog is by author Sam Bourne who is the literary pseudonym of Jonathan Freedland an award winning journalist and broadcaster.  He is also a weekly columnist for the Guardian.   Pantheon his fifth book is published today.

 
Before I’d written a word of it, one thing about Pantheon, the new novel written under my pseudonym Sam Bourne, scared me. Where the four previous Bourne books had been contemporary stories, rooted in the here and now, Pantheon would be set in 1940. It had to be: the real-life events which underpin the novel happened in that first year of the Second World War. Whether I liked it or not, this book would have to be both a thriller and a historical novel.

That had an immediate consequence. Every action by any character, no matter how minor, would have to be extensively researched. Let’s say the protagonist is hungry. In a contemporary story that would pose no problem: I would know instinctively what and where he would eat. But in the Oxford of 1940? What did people like to eat then? More important, what was available in the age of rationing? (Not much it turned out: the speciality at one restaurant, The Racket, was baked beans on toast.)

I knew I had to get such things right. One lesson I have learned in my relatively short career as a thriller-writer is that readers will accept the most outlandish plot twists, just so long as the apparently mundane nuts and bolts are in the right place. Hitler won the war? (See Robert Harris’s Fatherland) No problem. But a character who takes the 106 bus to Piccadilly? That’s not on. Factual errors break the spell of a novel – and the scope for factual errors when writing fiction set not in the period one knows best, the present, but in a past outside one’s own experience, is immense.

The result was that the research stage of Pantheon took longer than for any novel I had written before. My aim was to evoke a 1940 world that would convince the reader, one that included both Oxford and Yale, where the bulk of the book’s action takes place.

 
That entailed multiple trips around Oxford, guided by an able local historian. I had to forget the city I had known as a student in the 1980s and imagine instead wartime Oxford, where the college windows were painted over and the traffic lights wore monk-like hoods to observe the blackout. This 1940 Oxford was a remarkable place: a kind of Whitehall-in-exile, where several government departments relocated in order to avoid the bombs targeted at London. Merton housed parts of the Department of Transport, Queen’s had the Ministry of Home Security and Balliol welcomed a section of the Foreign Office. (Word was that the section in question was the intelligence operation.) A further rumour insisted that an unnamed college was being kept empty, ready to house the royal family should the King flee London.

Rumours were forever attaching themselves to the city. One, which persists to this day, suggested that the Luftwaffe avoided pounding Oxford with bombs because Hitler planned to make the city the capital of Nazi-occupied Britain. But, at the time, few could be confident that Oxford would be spared – an anxiety on which a key aspect of Pantheon’s plot turns.

Evoking the Yale of 1940 was a challenge of a different order, if only because I couldn’t hop on the train whenever I needed to check an elusive fact. I spent several packed days in New Haven, Connecticut, walking the streets of the Yale campus, a university official pointing out what I would have seen had I visited seventy-odd years earlier. I tried to imagine how this place would have looked to the hero of my novel, Dr James Zennor, an Oxford man who had never crossed the Atlantic before. He had left behind a shabby, grey ration-book Britain fighting for its life; he would have marvelled at the plenty of an America at peace, a land of Coca-Cola and stationwagons where everything was big and in generous supply. I made sure to eat at Frank Pepe’s pizzeria on Wooster St, established in 1925 and one of the very first in America, whose roaring, open oven would have struck James Zennor as an extraordinary novelty.

 
Still, the highlight of my trip was an interview with Professor Gaddis Smith, longtime chair of Yale’s department of history and author of an upcoming history of the university. Rather than dismiss the hunch that had set me on the road to Pantheon, he confirmed it.

I don’t dare say any more, lest I give away the story. Suffice it to say, at the heart of Pantheon is an idea, one that strikes 21^st century eyes as sinister if not horrific. Yet this idea was mainstream in the pre-war era on both sides of the Atlantic. And, Smith told me, it was not merely mainstream at Yale – it was “red hot.” The documentary evidence he was gracious enough to show me made my jaw drop.

 
And that was how it was for much of the year or more I spent researching Pantheon before writing it. The previous Bourne novels had all required me to use my reporter’s notebook, but this was different – as indeed Pantheon itself is different. I hope those who have enjoyed the previous books will devour this one too. But I also hope it appeals to others, those who look for a novel to be a cracking yarn but to do something else too – to shed light on an intense, dramatic and perhaps forgotten part of our own history.

A Shots Ezine review of Pantheon by L J Hurst can be read here.