The Origin of The Code coming this October

We were delighted to receive news about Dan Brown’s hugely anticipated ORIGIN this October. An amusing aside is that Penguin-Random-house’s Transworld Publishing Imprint have been Dan Brown’s British Publishers introducing Robert Langdon to us well before Tom Hanks immortalised him on the silver screen.

Last year I heard that Penguin-Random-house’s Transworld Publishing Imprint have brought Thriller writer Harlan Coben to their stable. I have been a follower of Harlan Coben for many years, and I recall an interesting exchange back in 2004 we had that related to his own relationship with Dan Brown.

Ali Karim : Keeping on this topic, you were one of the first to champion a little book called ‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Dan Brown – which has been at the top of our book charts for ages. Can you tell us a little about how you got involved with Dan Brown? And what books should we be looking out for?

Harlan Coben : It’s a long story and coincidentally I just a call from my French publishers as Just One Look just came out there and is doing very well at No. 3 with ‘Da Vinci Code’ at No 1 and ‘Angels and Demons’ at No. 2. So I sent Dan an email saying….laughing…. ‘Alright enough now!’….laughing….I hear the same thing happened here in the UK when Just One Look came out in paperback….The hardcover hit No. 1 but the paperback didn’t because there were three Dan Brown books at No. 1, 2 and 3…laughing….I think there was a three-for-two deal going on in some bookshop…laughing….Dan and I actually went to college together…Amherst College….and he actually read my stuff before I read his, this is going back some time. So his editor sent me a copy of ‘Da Vinci Code’ in manuscript form, well before anyone had heard about ‘Da Vinci Code’ – His previous books are now doing really well, but when they were first published they didn’t do as well because perhaps they didn’t get the publishing support or whatever, and so I read the manuscript and thought it was a wonderful read, and I was happy to pass a review and blurb it. I don’t think the success of ‘Da Vinci Code’ is a negative thing, I think that it is a great thing in the publishing world when anything surprising happens and any work that has people buying books is no bad thing so I have no problem with the success of ‘Da Vinci Code’.

So with Origin due out on October 3^rd 2017, what has Dan Brown got in store for readers?

Robert Langdon, Harvard professor of symbology and religious iconology, arrives at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend the unveiling of a discovery that “will change the face of science forever”. The evening’s host is his friend and former student, Edmond Kirsch, a forty-year-old tech magnate whose dazzling inventions and audacious predictions have made him a controversial figure around the world. Tonight is to be no exception: he claims he will reveal an astonishing scientific breakthrough to challenge the fundamentals of human existence.

But Langdon and several hundred other guests are left reeling when the meticulously orchestrated evening is blown apart before Kirsch’s precious discovery can be revealed. With his life under threat, Langdon is forced into a desperate bid to escape, along with the museum’s director, Ambra Vidal. Together they flee to Barcelona on a perilous quest to locate a cryptic password that will unlock Kirsch’s secret.

In their path lie dark forces which will do anything to stop them. To evade a tormented enemy who is one step ahead of them at every turn, Langdon and Vidal must navigate labyrinthine passageways of hidden history and ancient religion. On a trail marked only by enigmatic symbols and elusive modern art, Langdon and Vidal uncover the clues that will bring them face-to-face with a world-shaking truth that has remained buried – until now.

As imagery and symbolism is a key factor in Dan Brown’s adventures of Robert Langdon, we were delighted to receive more information from Alison Barrow from Transworld Publishing, so hot off the presses -

Following much online speculation about the location, jacket and content of this eagerly awaited new thriller by global publishing phenomenon Dan Brown, Transworld Publishers release the UK jacket for ORIGIN this afternoon, 27th June 2017.

Since the September 2016 announcement of the publication, excitement has been growing for the release of the new novel featuring Brown’s unforgettable protagonist Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, and has had fans clamouring for more information. Now for the first time, readers worldwide will discover the setting for the action as well as key elements in the forthcoming thriller. Unfolding entirely in Spain — Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, and Bilbao, the home of the Guggenheim Museum, ORIGIN thrusts Langdon into the intersection of two of humankind’s most enduring questions:

Where do we come from? Where are we going?

In keeping with his trademark style, Brown interweaves codes, symbols, science, religion, history, art and architecture with a decidedly fresh twist; the art is modern and the science taps into the most advanced cutting edge technology available today. Transworld will publish this stunningly inventive new novel from the world’s most popular thriller writer as a Bantam Press hardback on October 3, 2017.

It will also be available as an ebook and an audiobook from Penguin Random House Audio. ORIGIN will be published simultaneously in the US and Canada by Doubleday with a U.S. Spanish language published by Vintage Espanol.

There are more than 200 million copies of Dan Brown’s books in print worldwide, and his novels have been translated into 56 languages.

Shots are delighted to offer a 50% discount on pre-orders of ORIGIN by Dan Brown which can be accessed from this link and we have discounted paperback copies of Harlan Coben’s HOME in PB from our bookstore HERE

More information about the work of Dan Brown available HERE and Harlan Coben available HERE

Criminal Splatterings!

According to Deadline.com, both Tom Hank s and Ron Howard will return as star and director in the Dan Brown novel Inferno.  Sony, which has film rights to the franchise, has just set a December 18, 2015 release date.  It also looks as if Hanks will reprise his role as symbologist Robert Langdon in The Lost Symbol but it looks as if it will not be Ron Howard who will direct it and The Lost Symbol is currently on the backburner.  More information can also be found here and here.

According to Book2Book Jade Chandler, Commissioning Editor for Sphere has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Lance Fitzgerald at Simon & Schuster US in Face Off, an unprecedented collaboration between twenty-three of the world's bestselling crime writers in which the authors' series characters meet in eleven co-written stories.  More information about the deal can be found here.  The collection will be published in June 2014.

According to The Guardian Ben Affleck is set to star as Nick in the lead role of the film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.

Congratulations go to the brilliant Jason Pinter who has according to Book2Book launched   a new digital publishing venture called Polis Books.  The company will be publishing e-book editions of new and backlist fiction in three genres: crime, under an imprint called Vice; science fiction/fantasy, under an imprint called Elysium; and romance/erotica/commercial women's fiction, under the Crave imprint.  The website www.polisbooks.com will go live in around a month.

Former MP Chris Mullin’s thriller The Year of the Fire Monkey has according to the Telegraph been optioned by Paul Greengrass, who directed two of the Jason Bourne movies.  The thriller, about a CIA sleeper in Tibet, is set against the backdrop of the meeting between Chairman Mao and President Nixon in 1972.  It was first published in 1991 and has long been out of print.

Sam Mendes is set to return to direct the next James Bond film.  The next (yet unnamed) instalment is due to be released on 23 October 2015.  More information can be found here.

Another addition to Christopher Fowler’s Invisible Ink: No 181 – Saved From Obscurity can be found here.

Interesting article in the Independent about the rise of French Noir.

Criminal Splatterings!

 According to The Bookseller, publishers Century have acquired two thrillers by US author Neely Tucker.  The first set in Washington DC in the 1990s is based on the Princeton Place murders in DC in 1998.  The book is entitled The Ways of the Dead.  More information can be found here.

Congratulations go to Cathi Unsworth whose novel Weirdo has had the film rights snapped up.  More information can be found here.  Weirdo was published in July 2012 by Serpent’s Tail

Interesting news!  Swedish husband and wife duo better known as crime writer Lars Keppler have launched a literary agency.  According to The Bookseller, the venture will be headed up by Head of Zeus rights director Elisabeth Brännström.

Debut crime novelist Luke Delaney’s novel Cold Killing has been optioned as the basis of a multi-part TV drama.  More information can be found here.

According to Booktrade.info Bitter Lemon Press have acquired the rights to a literary crime novel set in Bangalore.  Cut Like Wound by Anita Nair will be published in May 2014 and will be the first in a series featuring Inspector Gowda.

For those of you missing Dan Stevens, the late, lamented heartthrob of the wildly popular Downton Abbey, he is slumming it these days, portraying a drug trafficker in a new film currently being shot in Brooklyn.  Stevens stars in the film, A Walk Among the Tombstones, with Liam Neeson, who portrays a private investigator Stevens' character hires to uncover who murdered and kidnapped his wife.  The film, which will be released next year and is being written and directed by Scott Frank, is based on a Matt Scudder crime novel by Lawrence Block.  Scott Frank is well versed in the crime genre having writing credit for Get Shorty, Out Of Sight and an episode of Karen Sisco.

Interesting article on the BBC website where writer and philosopher John Gray talks about Tom Ripley and the meaning of evil.  This was discussed on BBC Radio 4’s A Point of view.  The podcast can be heard here for a limited amount of time.

The BBC is to have a new season of drama and documentaries exploring the Cold War.  Staring off the season will be the film Legacy, which is based on the novel by Alan Judd and is set during the height of the Cold War in 1970s London.  More information can be found here.

Bill Nighy is set to reprise his roll as MI5 spy John Worricker in the second and third parts of the Worricker trilogy.  Unfortunately, the BBC have not yet said when it will be shown on BBC2.  However, more information can be found here.  Turks & Caicos and Salting The Battlefield follow Page Eight, which was shown back in August 2011.

As a result of winning the Best Single Drama at the recent BAFTA awards for the drama, Murder the BBC have commissioned a series based on it.  More information can be read here.

In more drama news from the BBC, it has been announced that BBC3 have acquired Orphan Black a suspenseful thriller from BBC America.  In Orphan Black, Sarah Manning, an outsider and orphan finds her life changing dramatically after witnessing the suicide of a woman who looks exactly like her.  She assumes her identity, her boyfriend and her bank account.  A second series of Orphan Black has already been announced by BBC America.

ITV have also announced that there is to be a second series of the well received The Bletchley Circle.  Set a year later in 1954 the ladies are reunited for their second case in the first two-part story when former Bletchley Park colleague, Alice Merren is accused of murder.  More information can be read here.

Fans of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple will be pleased to learn that filming has started on Endless Night. Once again, featuring Julia McKenzie playing Miss Marple, Endless Night is the third Agatha Christie Marple adaptation following A Caribbean Mystery and Greenshaw’s Folly to be commissioned by ITV.

Still on a Miss Marple roll, if you have not seen it yet then it is well worth seeing Murder, Marple and Me which got rave reviews whilst having its run at Edinburgh Fringe last year and has now transferred to London and is being shown at Ambassador Theatre for a very limited run. CWA Short Dagger Winner Stella Duffy directs murder, Marple and Me.  My review of the preview can be found here.  Murder, Marple and Me will have a run at The Ambassador Theatre from 11 June 2013 until 19 June 2013.  Contact The Ambassador Theatre for tickets.

Brilliant Twitter fiction by Sabine Durrant in the Guardian!

Interesting interview with Mark Billingham can be found in the Independent.  His latest novel is The Dying Hours.  The Independent also have an interview with James Runcie whose second novel in the Grantchester mysteries Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night has just been published.  The series has already been optioned for television by ITV. A recent interview with James Runcie can also been found on the Shotsmag.co.uk website.

Russ Litten also talks about the day he saw his double in Prague.

According to the Daily Record, Ian Rankin has for the first time revealed the home address of his famous fictional detective John Rebus.  Rankin had previously revealed his most famous character lived in Arden Street in Marchmont, Edinburgh but this time he has gone further and actually named identified the flat number.

Over in The Daily Mail, Ian Rankin has named his top ten greatest literary crime novels.  The full list can be found here and includes such names as Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Brighton Rock by Graham Greene and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.  The Daily Mail also has a list of top ten criminal mastermind crime writers.  The list includes some well-known names such as Patricia Cornwell, Harlan Coben, Ian Rankin and Lee Child.  The rest of the list can be found here.

According to The Scotsman Ian Rankin is joining Mark Thomson, artistic director of Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum, in writing the stage play Dark Road, which will premiere at the theatre during its 2013-14 season.  The play explores the disturbing world of serial killers.  It will be Ian Rankin's first foray into the playwriting.

According to publishers Allen & Unwin, Norwegian bestselling author Anne Holt’s novels are being developing as a series.  BBC1 is due to start with her novel 1222, which sees Detective Hanna Wilhelmsen looking into the mysterious deaths of survivors from a train crash, which took place high in the Norwegian mountains.  In more Anne Holt news, Yellow Bird production company have bought the film rights to Anne Holt’s three crime novels What is mine, What never happens and Madam President. The books are centred on inspector Yngvar Stubø and Inger Johanne Vik – a psychologist and lawyer with a previous career in the FBI.  They cooperate to solve different kind of crimes, such as kidnappings, murders and terrorist conspiracies.  Yellow Bird is best known for such films as the original Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the original Wallander series and Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters.

Yellow Bird are also according to Deadline.com producing a 10 part original series based on an idea by bestselling Norwegian crime novelist Jo Nesbø.  The political thriller will be entitled Occupied and is described as a political thriller set in a not so distant future where Russia has staged a "silk-glove" invasion of Norway to officially secure the oil import for the rest of the world. 

Deadline.com also reports that Stephen King's next thriller, Joyland, due to be published next month by Hard Case Crime, has been optioned for film, with Tate Taylor adapting the book and directing.  The project deals with a murder in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973.

And, if you are not already fed up with all things Dan Brown and his latest novel Inferno, here is a quick set of links to various things a lá Dan Brown or Inferno.  Jake Kerridge review of Inferno for the Telegraph can be found here.  One of course cannot ignore the article by Michael Deacon imploring us not to make fun of Dan Brown.  James Legge reports that with the publication of Inferno Dan Brown’s publishers aim to have the biggest sales since the Harry Potter series.  Boyd Tonkin’s review of Inferno in the Independent can be found here.  A nice round up of a number of reviews can also be found here.  John Crace in the Guardian has reduced Inferno to an easily digestible 600 words!  And if you still haven’t got anything else to do and would like to test your knowledge of Dan Brown, you might want to take the quiz on all things Dan Brown!

John Dugdale has an interesting article in the Guardian where he writes about the fact that bestselling writers know that image counts when it comes to wanting to have a memorable character.  Rachel Cooke in the Guardian reviews the Murder Mile by Paul Collicutt, an illustrated detective novel where a murder takes place as the race to break the four-minute mile is happening.

According to the Guardian, Channel 4 have announced an eight part series which is set in a "crumbling Victorian cop shop on the wrong side of Manchester.  Entitled No Offence it promises to be a police procedural with a difference.

Fans of 24 will no doubt welcome the return of the series.  Fox Entertainment have announced the return of the thriller featuring Keifer Sutherland as Jack Bauer.  However, it will be as a different format.  Renamed 24: Live Another Day it will return in a new 12 part series.  More information can be found here.

According to Cinemablend, the producers of James Bond have approached James Nolan to direct the next Bond film.  It is not however, a forgone conclusion that he will accept.

According to the Hollywood Reporter LA based British filmmaker Trevor Miller is set to direct Mark Boone Jnr of Sons of Anarchy in a contemporary film noir, which is set around the story of a surveillance contractor who drifts through Los Angeles at night photographing "cheating couples" and their illicit sexual acts.  He finds himself involved in intrigue, murder and deception when he sees the husband of the woman that he has fallen in love with burying the body of a woman in the desert.

USA network have also announced a number of drama projects as well.  These include The Arrangement, which is based on a short story by Elmore Leonard. 

In Bank after an unconventional act of heroism, a young FBI agent decides to the surprise of many to work in the bank crimes division in Los Angeles.  It takes a special kind of person to confront such an unrelenting tide of crime, leaving her peers suspicious of her intent.

Shadow Counsel is a legal thriller centered on Ethan, a former Army JAG attorney who is now working as a criminal lawyer in NY and is recruited by the FBI to crack an on-going investigation.  Ethan serves as a shadow counsel that is a secret lawyer who operates behind the scenes and completely off the record to circumvent existing roadblocks (hired attorneys, interrogators, etc.) in classified cases.  He finds himself in trouble and on the run with no one to trust.

According to Deadline.com.  Paris-based Backup Media has teamed up with Memento Films International to finance Cold in July an adaptation of the Joe Lansdale cult novel.  Cold in July tells the story of Richard Dane, who wakes up during a home invasion and kills his intruder in self-defence.  As if that was not bad enough, the intruder’s father is a badass ex-con with plans to avenge his son’s death in the Old Testament way, by killing Dane’s own son.

According to The Hollywood Reporter Simon Beaufoy is set to adapt Len Deighton’s spy novels for television.  He is developing an 18-part series based on Deighton’s classic Cold War novels featuring spy Bernard Samson.

And in more news about book adaptations, according to TV Guide.com, TNT have ordered 10 episodes of the drama Legends, which is based on the novel by Robert Littell of the same name, is about an undercover agent named Martin Odum who works for the FBI's Deep Cover Operations division.  Martin can transform himself into a completely different person for each job, but starts to question his own identity when a stranger suggests that he is not the man he believes himself to be.  It will feature Sean Bean who can currently be seen in Games of Thrones.  The series will be shown in 2014.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Blair Underwood is set to star as Raymond Burr in the remake of Ironside.  It has been picked up by NBC.  The remake of the 1960s series stars Blair Underwood as a tough, sexy but acerbic police detective relegated to a wheelchair after a shooting who, hardly limited by his disability, he pushes and prods his handpicked team to solve the most difficult cases in the city.

Criminal Splattering’s!

Well, if you haven’t heard the news by now, the title of the new Dan Brown novel is Inferno and is due to be published by Transworld in May.  The title of the new book was revealed in an online puzzle.  Once again, the novel will feature Robert Langdon whom readers first met in The Da Vinci Code and subsequently in The Lost Symbol.  According to his publishers, the novel has been inspired by Dante's classic and will be set in Florence.  The Guardian article can be read here and The Independent here.  Inferno is Dan Brown’s sixth novel.

The Independent’s Invisible Ink: No 154 is on Ellery Queen the pseudonym of Manfred Lee and Frederic Dannay and is by Christopher Fowler.  The full article can be read here.  They are also the co-founders of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1941 one of the few mystery based short story magazines still being published today.

Award winning author Robert Wilson who has set his novels in West Africa, Lisbon and Seville and is best known for his Javier Falcón series explains in the Daily Telegraph why he decided to set his new series in London.  The article can be read here.

According to the Daily Telegraph Dominic Cooper is to play Ian Fleming in a drama about the creator of James Bond.  Dominic Cooper is best known for the films My Week with Marilyn and Mamma Mia.

The long-list for the Branford Boase Award has been announced.  The Branford Boase Award is given annually to the author of an outstanding debut novel for children and honours the editor of the winning title.  Congratulations go to long-listed author Tanya Byrne whose novel the Heart-Shaped Bruise, was short-listed for the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger.

Not something anybody would want to happen to them but Patricia Cornwell who is a notoriously private author is finding herself in the spotlight as she is currently suing her former accounting firm.  The Daily Telegraph article can be found here and the Huffington Post article can be read here.  The Guardian article can be found here.

According to the Bookseller, Titan Books have acquired a military science-fiction thriller entitled Seal Team 666.  The novels have been written by American intelligence officer turned author, Weston Ochse.  Titan Books will publish book one in the UK and US in March 2014, its sequel, Yesterday’s Hero in September 2014 and a third novel, Anti-Hero in early 2015.

The German writer, crime novelist and playwright Jakob Arjouni, has died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 48 years.  He was at home in Berlin with his family.  More information can be found here.  His books were published by No Exit Press in the UK and a new Brother Kemal Kayankaya novel is due to be published this year.  Mark Lawson’s tribute in the Guardian can be found here.  His obituary in German can be found here.  Hat tip to Maxim Jakubowski and Janet Rudolph.

Very interesting article on literary agent Andrew Lownie’s website about what UK Fiction Editors want.  The whole article can be read here.  Good to see a vast number of familiar names from those who commission crime and thriller books.  Certainly worth reading by all.

Cathi Unsworth reviews Tom Benn latest novel Chamber Music in the Guardian.  A recent blog post for Shotsblog by Tom Benn can be found here.  One minute with Tom Benn can be read here.

Alison Flood’s review of Malcolm Mackay’s debut novel The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter can be found here. 

Interesting article by Cortina Butler on author Michael Marshall whose new novel We Are Here, is to be published by Orion in March 2013.

Film News -

Parker the film based on the author Donald Westlake’s character and featuring Jason Statham as the eponymous Parker, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte and Michael Chiklis is due to be released on 8 March in the UK.

The premise of the story line is that of a thief with a unique code of professional ethics who is double-crossed by his crew and left for dead.  Assuming a new disguise and forming an unlikely alliance with a woman on the inside, he looks to hijack the score of the crew's latest heist.

  

According to Indiewire.com actors Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven and Juno Temple have signed up to join Robert Rodriguez's 'Sin City: A Dame To Kill For’.  "Sin City: A Dame To Kill For" will be shown in cinemas in the States from October 4th.

A new trailer has been released for the true crime thriller The Iceman.  Starring Michael Shannon and Ray Liotta The Iceman is about hit man, Richard Kuklinski who was responsible for over 100 murders between 1964 and 1986.  The film also features Winona Ryder and James Franco.  The trailer can be seen below-

The Iceman will open in the UK on 7 June 2013.

  

Extremely sad news to hear that and according to NME.com that The Wire actor Robert F Chew who played “Prop Joe” has died at the age of 52.  He passed away on Thursday of apparent heart failure.  Chew not only stared in The Wire but also Homicide Life on The Street and The Corner both series based on books written by David Simon.  The Baltimore Sun obituary can be found here. The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline.com.

Fans of Homeland will be pleased to know that despite the recent cliffhanger of an ending featuring Damien Lewis as Nicholas Brody, executive producer Howard Brooks has now confirmed that Brody will definitely be involved in the third season according to TVLine.

Newsy Stuff

A bit late but nevertheless important!

The 2010 ITW Thriller Awards have been announced. The winners were announced on July 10 during the 5th annual Thrillerfest Festival which took place in New York at Manhattan’s Grand Hyatt Hotel

Best Hard Cover Novel: The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner (Random House)
Best Paperback Original: The Coldest Mile by Tom Piccirilli (Random House)
Best First Novel:Running from the Devil by Jamie Freveletti (Harper Collins)
Best Short Story: A Stab in the Heart by Twist Phelan (Ellery Queen Magazine)

A full list of the nominees can be found here.

Ken Follett was awarded ThrillerMaster in recognition of his legendary career and outstanding contributions to the thriller genre. Ken Follett was presented with the award by last year’s winner, David Morrell.

Mark Bowden (Blackhawk Down) was awarded the True Thriller Award
Linda Fairstein was awarded the Silver Bullet Award
US Airways was given the Silver Bullet Award (Corporate)
Congratulations to all the winners!

According to The Bookseller Julia Wisdom at Harper Collins has seen off 4 other publishers in a heated auction to nab a conspiracy trilogy called Sanctus by Simon Toyne.

With all this spy swapping going on there is an excellent article in the Guardian from John Le Carré where he talks about the recent swaps done between the USA and Russia.

Stephen King has added another award to his collection. He was recently awarded a 2009 Shirley Jackson Award for his novelette Morality which was published in Esquire. The winners were announced on Sunday, July 11th 2010, at Readercon 21, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington, Massachusetts. A full list of the winners and nominees can be found here.

The Steig Larsson saga continues to run and run. According to an article in the Guardian the fourth book was due to be set in the remote part of Canada. The article by Alison Flood can be found here. John-Henri Holmberg revealed to The Associated Press that he had received an email by the late author shortly before his death in November 2004.

For those of you not yet fed up with Dan Brown, it appears that when the paperback version of The Lost Symbol is released on 22 July that it will (hopefully) according to Transworld Publishers (via The Bookseller) dominate Summer reading. Capitalising on its success there will also be an enhanced ebook and illustrated version in time for the Christmas rush.

At the recent Ways with Word Festival in Devon, (which is currently running from 9 to 19 July) crime writer P D James explains to the Daily Telegraph the enduring appeal of detective fiction.

Egmont Press have acquired American author Jessica Warman. Her novel Pretty Deadly, is (according to the press release via book trade) a truly thrilling murder mystery story. It has been described as a cross between The Lovely Bones and Lynda La Plante and has been written for the Young Adult market.

According to The Bookseller Catnip have acquired the world rights to a debut teen thriller novel for teenagers by Colin Mulhern. The novel Clash pits the lives of two different characters one an underground cage-fighting champion and the other a talented artist together.

According to The BigMoney.com blog Janet Evanovich is not leaving St Martin's Press her long time publishers as alleged by Deadline.com. The originally article by Deadline.com can be found here. Evanovich has said that the article in Deadline.com is inaccurate! Further information can be found in an article in Forbes

According to Bookbrunch Simon & Schuster have acquired Taboo the debut novel by Casey Hill. It is said to be "a terrifying transatlantic forensic thriller".

The Strand Awards were given out on 7 July at an invitation only ceremony in New York.
The winners were -
Best Novel - Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly
Best First Novel – Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell and Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley.
Lifetime Achievement Award –Elmore Leonard. Elmore Leonard was presented with his award by Otto Penzler. A full list of the nominees can be found here.

NPR.org are inviting readers to vote for their favourite top 100 thrillers in their Killer Thriller contest, which can be found here. The list was whittled down from a massive 600 nominations to a manageable 182. Everyone gets 10 votes!

US readers will be pleased to hear that the paperback deal for Camilla Lackberg's series (translated by Steven Murray)has been agreed according to Publishers Weekly. The full article can be found here. Here in the UK the paperback edition of The Stonecutter will be released in March 2011 along with the hardback release of The Gallows Bird.