Dana Stabenow’s Kate Shugak series seems to be going strong after eighteen books. She’s about to release book #19 on Valentine’s Day, RESTLESS IN THE GRAVE (2012), set in 
Alaska. Unfortunately for me, I started off with her Liam Campbell series that hasn’t seen a new release since BETTER TO REST in 2002. A series I loved for the humor and romance. The author breaks down the difference between the series here. Poor Liam. He only had four books and I enjoyed every last one. The last one had a cliffhanger but it wasn’t a bad cliffhanger. But there is good news for Liam Campbell fans. Liam Campbell is coming back…in the newest Kate Shugak novel, RESTLESS IN THE GRAVE (2012). Yay! I can’t explain why I loved the Liam Campbell series so much – I just did. Mostly because it had comedy and romance. The mysteries weren’t the focus I will admit but if you’re a romance reader, the highs and lows of Liam and Wy’s relationship was the main draw. I’ve discussed Dana Stabenow here before and I don’t mind pimping her one more time because I think she’s awesome. Also, I love that she’s digitizing her backlist for the Kate Shugak books and the Liam Campbell books (both of which have their first books priced at free or $99 cents!). Often I recommend these books to people who say they’ve enjoyed Julia Spencer-Fleming’s work (IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER). The two series have nothing in common really only in that the relationship starts off in a similar fashion (which might not be a good thing for some readers). Liam is sweet but scared of flying and Wy is a bush pilot who makes him work hard for her affections. Cravat: I haven’t read the Liam Campbell books in quite awhile but I loved them at the time that I did and I hope to reread them and maybe review them here, hoping fervently that they aren’t too dated. [Read more...]
Alaska State Trooper, Liam Campbell Returns in Dana Stabenow’s “Restless in the Grave”
The Commercialization of Scandinavian Writers
Washington Post: “The Leopard” is a bloated, near-total disaster. ”
The Washington Post review of The Leopard written by Jo Nesbø, is the eighth book in the Harry Hole series, written by Patrick Anderson (a review I don’t agree with) highlights a problem I see coming with the commercialization of Scandinavian writers for U.S. audiences. Just to quickly pick on the review: I read the review and thought it quite harsh and incorrect. For starters, his dismissive tone or remarks about the “pointless memories of people’s childhoods” ignores a key aspect to the pathos that is Harry Hole. A man who is beset with demons and who uses alcohol to chase them away. His past is a significant part of his character development and that to me is not “pointless.”
Moving on. Admittedly, I have enjoyed other books in the Harry Hole series more but The Leopard was not a near total disaster but then that is my opinion of course. Was it the best in the series? Probably not. Patrick Anderson is welcome to his opinion and I don’t dispute many of his claims of how far afield Jo Nesbo’s plots have strayed from the rest of his other titles. Reading the criticism in the review does bring to mind a fear that I have in that Scandinavian writers will probably lose much of what made them different and respected in the first place if they are to succeed in a U.S. market. I say that with scant evidence to back it up and am only going by what I perceive and I am no industry insider. I am just a reader with an opinion. [Read more...]
News and Views
The News
Just a gentle reminder to US mystery readers that Jo Nesbo’s latest Harry Hole novel, The Leopard will be released next week, Dec 13th. I’ve already read it and it’s good. The Redeemer still holds the top spot for me though and I still don’t see a publication date for it on Amazon.
Also, Jo Nesbo’s website just released news that The Redeemer, is a hit in Croatia. I imagine so since it has one of the most memorable assassins I’ve read in crime fiction and he was, you guessed it, Croatian. It is a fascinating storyline with a semi-sympathetic villain. Wish the US would get a move on and publish it soon.
I don’t usually follow the Bad Sex in Fiction awards unless someone mentions it and this year, David Guterson gets handed the title for retelling the Oedipus story. It’s the other titles that were nominated that got my attention though: Haruki Murakami’s “1Q84, Lee Child’s “The Affair” and Stephen King’s “11/22/63.” The award is given by the Literary Review which in and of itself says it all. I’m more amused that they even have this type of award. [Read more...]
Movies/Documentaries
Since it’s going on day 11 or 12 since I last blogged about anything, I thought I’d write a quick note to say that I haven’t had time to read anything online or off. I’m behind. I hope to get back on track and catch up with everything and everybody as soon as I can. It’s my day job. I’m working longer hours of late because it’s busy and I have no life (partly joking). Oh, I did attempt to read one book, a novella, by James Sallis and that novel was Drive and that didn’t work out at all. The story is super short (like I said) about a stunt driver but I had to call it quits after 23 very rough going pages. I hear Sallis is a popular author though so I’m not completely discouraged from trying him again.
What I have done is watch a lot of movies/documentaries. Here are a few of the highlights. I finally saw and don’t laugh, in its entirety, The Social Network and came away hating Facebook even more. Joking, joking. I don’t even have a Facebook account and don’t see the appeal of having one either. But I will admit to being the last person in the world to finally see this movie and thought it was somewhat entertaining. Saw PBS doc Prohibition by Ken Burns and thought it was meh. I usually enjoy his stuff and was expecting–I don’t know what– but it was okay I guess. Right now I am in the middle of watching a Steven Soderbergh film ala documentary style starring Benicio del Toro as Ernesto “Che” Guevara in the movie “Che“, about the socialist leader/physician/guerrilla leader who was a major political figure in the Cuban revolution. This movie is available for streaming via Netflix. Interesting movie. That is all.
Notes on New Mystery Releases and Movies
This is not by any means an exhaustive list and most of these titles are books that I’ve bought or have put on my wish list. Geo restrictions may apply if you live outside the U.S.
Choke Hold by Christa Faust (sequel to Money Shot) / bought
Stolen Souls by Stuart Neville (third book in the Jack Lennon series set post-Troubles) / wish listed
I am seriously tempted to buy Nightwoods by Charles Frazier. The story is described as a novel of “love and suspense.” The premise is interesting as it’s set in the Appalachian mountains. I’ve never read this author before. I usually ignore books that are hyped but I don’t know. This one sounds good. I’m still thinking about it.
There’s a slew of new Ross Thomas titles being digitized and released by Open Road Media. I’ve never read this author but after reading Lawrence Block’s blog that listed him as one of his favorite writers, I thought I’d give him a shot so I bought, The Fools In Town are on Our Side . Same for Derek Raymond, He Died with His Eyes Open (Factory Book #1) set in South London [Read more...]
Bad Language in Crime Fiction
There seems to be/or has been an increasing pressure, steadily building, on writers to avoid using bad language in their mystery novels. How do you feel about that? This is seen more in the U.S. than abroad. Readers are pushing against bad language and are penalizing writers with one star reviews on Amazon (who takes those reviews seriously anyway?). I’m not sure if the complaint is about the use of bad language period or the excessive use of bad language in crime fiction.
At any rate, readers have felt the need to complain about it to the writer, to the publisher, to whoever. Editors are responding to it, too, which is troublesome to me, because these folks aren’t representative of me and vice versa. I will direct you to read reviewer Sunita’s conference notes from her attendance at Bouchercon this year where authors voiced their frustrations about this very thing. [Read more...]
Book signing Event (notes on the evening)
Please note: all links in this post are unaffiliated links (no referral fees).
It’s been several years since I’ve attended an author signing/reading event. I love attending these when I have the opportunity. I’ve met some wonderful authors from over the years. Last Tuesday, Colin Cotterill (promoting Killed At the Whim of a Hat) and Stuart Neville (promoting Stolen Souls)1 and James Benn (promoting A Mortal Terror) were in my area so I took off to go pay them a visit. All three had recently attended Bouchercon. Cotterill said he’s been traveling without an iron so please excuse his disheveled look (he looked fine). I bought Colin Cotterill’s Killed at the Whim of a Hat, the first book in a new series. I’m a big fan of his Dr. Siri books, set in 1970′s Laos (first book is The Coroner’s Lunch). Surprisingly, I had the most paper books for him to sign.
Colin Cotterill is very funny. I deemed him the star of the evening. He told us what his next book title will be in the series after Killed at the Whim of a Hat, it’s tentatively titled, Grandad, There’s a Head on the Beach. *LOL* According to him, nothing is made up in his books. What’s interesting is that Cotterill says he always begins with the title for his books before writing them. He’s already completed book two in the series. Fans of his Laos series will understand this next one. His original title for Anarchy and Old Dogs was The Devil’s Vagina. He said the marketing team had a problem with that one (ya think?) so he changed it (he polled all the independent bookstores asking them to offer an alternative title). That was the first time he’d been asked to change one of his titles. The next Dr. Siri book, Slash and Burn, is due out at the end of the year. [Read more...]
HBO’s Treme
I spent most of today watching HBO’s Treme, about a neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana, that takes place three months post-Katrina. I enjoyed it. When the show premiered, I couldn’t get into it. I kept asking my family and friends who were watching it at the time: is it good? is it like the Wire? They would roll their eyes at me and tell me to just watch it for myself, but yes, they liked it. I watched one episode and to me, it wasn’t The Wire. I wasn’t impressed with the first episode or the second so I quit. [Read more...]
Cover & Release Date for Lord John and the Scottish Prisoner
For those Outlander fans who are eagerly awaiting the next Lord John book, The Scottish Prisoner will be released in hardcover and in digital format, November 29, 2011. It is the third full length story in the Lord John series that started with Lord John and the Private Matter in 2003. Lord John Grey is a minor yet significant character from the Outlander series and it is a favorite series of mine because each story is complete versus the Outlander series that seems to be 700+ pages of endless storylines and characters in peril (still love it though).
Brief Overview of the series
For those unfamiliar with either series, Outlander (also known as Cross Stitch in the UK) is the first book out of seven in this ongoing series (and the author just announced the title of the eighth book). The series is rather difficult to categorize but the stories all contain elements of historical fiction, romance and time travel. The heroine, Claire Randall, is a nurse who is enjoying her second honeymoon on the Scottish Isles before she finds herself inadvertently going through some stepping stones that takes her from 1945 to 1743. The first three books were captivating reads for me. I almost gave up on the first book because it was slow going but after a couple of chapters, I was immersed into the story. Claire’s husband, Frank, is a history professor who often explores his family background. He tells her all about his most infamous relative, Black Jack Randall, who Claire meets when she finds herself propelled back in time. She finds that he is nothing like her husband at all. I remember that scene and it kept me riveted from there on, as she scrambles to survive in the 18th Century. [Read more...]
Karin Fossum: “I just don’t care about the plot”
Ran across this “article in the Ireland Herald.ie where Karin Fossum discusses what interests her most about crime fiction:
“People always talk about the plot: is it clever, is it smart and so on. I just don’t care about the plot,” laughs Fossum, “I care about the people, the psychology, the tragedy and sorrow . . . I’m far more interested in the human consequences of people’s actions.”
I am too. I’ve always been more character focused than plot focused. After reading the article, I went to my digital reader and pulled up The Indian Bride and am reading it now. Here is the description of the book that is apart of her Inspector Sejer series set in Norway.
When long-time bachelor Gunder Jomann goes to India for two weeks and comes home married, the town of Elvestad is stunned. Then, on the day the Indian bride is supposed to arrive, the battered body of a woman is found on the outskirts of town. The “good people of Elvestad” can’t believe that anyone among them could be capable of such a brutal murder. But in his quiet way, Inspector Konrad Sejer understands that no one is completely innocent—not the café owner who knows too much, the girl who wants the attention that comes with being a witness, or the bodybuilder with no outlet for his terrible strength.
The first translated book in the U.S. is Don’t Look Back if you have an interest in the reading the series. Karin Fossum is regarded as one of the most respected and successful crime writers in Europe. One of my reading goals was to read her this year so I am happy to be doing just that.
In other news, I started Headhunters by Jo Nesbo before going to work yesterday evening. The story is written in first person narrative and is very verbose and very boring. I have to be in the mood to read this book so I’ve set it aside for later. I won’t be zipping through it like I did the Harry Hole books I see. I pray that it gets better once the plot kicks in.
What Are You Reading?
Here’s what I’m reading right now:
“Misterioso” is the first book in a ten book series. Here is the book description:
After successfully—but bloodily—dismantling a complicated hostage situation at a bank in the suburbs of Stockholm, Detective Paul Hjelm is faced with the requisite investigation by Internal Affairs. It is a potentially career-ending inquiry, but he is plucked out of it by the National Criminal Police commissioner, who drops him into an elite task force of officers assembled from across the country to find an elusive killer with a sophisticated modus operandi and even more sophisticated tastes.
Targeting Sweden’s high-profile business leaders, the killer breaks into their homes at night, waits for his victims, places two bullets in their heads with deadly precision, and removes the bullets from the walls—a ritual enacted to a rare bootleg recording of Thelonious Monk’s jazz classic “Misterioso.”
As Hjelm, his young, doggedly energetic partner, Jorge Chavez, and the rest of the team follow one lead after another in their pursuit—navigating the murky underworlds of the Russian Mafia and the secretive members-only society of Sweden’s wealthiest denizens—they must also delve into one of the country’s most persistent ills: a deep-rooted xenophobia that affects both the police and the perpetrator in a small nation that is becoming rapidly internationalized.
So far I am enjoying this one…
In Their Own Words
Let’s roll,
1. Dennis Lehane, my favorite crime fiction writer right up there with that sexy Norwegian guy Jo Nesbo, had this to stay about writing PI novels when asked about Laura Lippman’s Tess Monoghan series (guess it’s in a slump?):
Lehane said, “You accept when you read a private-eye novel, like one of the Tess books, that a reporter or detective will get into these adventures in the first place — when we know they don’t. Putting that premise out there is as fantastical as I want to get – I want everything else about them to be banal – be Babbitt! I want them to be interesting in regular ways. I think Laura is running into the same problem – after a certain point, it becomes ludicrous when people have these continual brushes with death that are also really going to damage their relationships. You wonder why they wouldn’t say, ‘f— this, I’m going to go off and work construction.’”
Source: The Baltimore Sun
New Jo Nesbø Novel – “Headhunters” a standalone
I haven’t been online much so forgive me if this news is repetitive but Jo Nesbo has another book due out in the U.S. this September 6th, a standalone, Headhunters, which is just around the corner. Here is the book’s description:
Roger Brown is a corporate headhunter, and he’s a master of his profession. But one career simply can’t support his luxurious lifestyle and his wife’s fledgling art gallery. At an art opening one night he meets Clas Greve, who is not only the perfect candidate for a major CEO job, but also, perhaps, the answer to his financial woes: Greve just so happens to mention that he owns a priceless Peter Paul Rubens painting that’s been lost since World War II—and Roger Brown just so happens to dabble in art theft. But when he breaks into Greve’s apartment, he finds more than just the painting. And Clas Greve may turn out to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to Roger Brown.
Oh, wow, that sounds really, really good don’t you think? It goes without saying that… I can’t wait to read this one.
Underrated Writer: C.J. Sansom
I didn’t expect my phone line/cable line going down for three days hence no updates. My apologies for not scheduling this post when I had the opportunity to do so. Without further ado, this next guest post is by Sarah Tanner, who blogs at Monkey Bear Reviews where she reviews romance and mystery among other topics. Sarah’s mentioned C.J. Sansom to me many times and with so many books, I keep overlooking him. I plan to rectify that soon. Her post is after the break. Again, if there are other readers out there interested in submitting a guest post on a mystery writer they enjoy who may not be all that popular but are very good, drop me a line. [Read more...]
Another Amazon Kindle Sale & Author News
Colin Cotterill has been making the rounds I see. He’s promoting his new book, Killed At The Whim of a Hat, the first in a new series. Go buy it. I’m a huge fan of his Dr. Siri books which are set during the 1970′s after communism has taken over in Laos. The novels are a favorite of mine because of the quirky characters and the political satire with the added touch of mysticism and folklore.
There are two Cotterill guest posts if you care to read them. The post gives you a glimpse of his sense of humor. The first is from The Book Page, titled, “The Strange Life of Colin Cotterill and the second one is at Central Crime Zone blog, title, I Am A Cult.” Lastly, the New York Times reviews his latest book and gives a positive review.
Tana French. There’s another Tana French interview I found via Crime Always Pays blog. Just to share, I recently got a email from Tana French. I was shocked when I saw her email in my inbox because I forgot I emailed her. How do you like that? I think I sent her the email after I finished In The Woods and that was a year ago. Anyway, I asked her about the next book in the series and she replied back (!) saying that the next book, Broken Harbour, won’t be out until next summer (bummer!) so no new book out this fall like I had originally quoted from someone else (cough) from the same link above (cough). Guess I’ll crack open The Likeness after all.
Last bit of news is that Amazon is having another major Kindle sale called The Big Deal and this one will last until July 27th. What makes this sale remarkable is that the Big 6 publishers are participating (!) like Random House, Harper Collins, etc. According to the article, there are 900 Kindle books for sale. Browsing the mystery list I saw titles by Ruth Rendell, Stuart Neville, Louise Penny among others. Go forth and buy!
P.S. The title of Cotterill’s book comes from a Bushism: “Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat.” (2004) as mentioned/quoted in the NYT article
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