Kingdom Books, Mysteries -- Classic to Cutting Edge

Sunday Afternoon: Superbowl, or Mystery Reading??

2012-01-31T20:32:00.000-05:00

Gee, is it really a question? Dave's got his focus, along with at least one crime fiction author in conversation today. How about you?

Dave says:

Paul Hornung/David Kanell at the 1964 New York World's Fair

Well, we are all waiting for the Superbowl game this Sunday. My friend Dave Zeltserman is on the edge of his seat and waiting for the start of the game and for the Patriots to score first and often. My dad, who is a Giants fan, thinks that they will win the Superbowl.

In 1964 my parents took my sister and me to The World's Fair. At that particular time in my life I was a Giants fan and they had a number of great players: Y. A. Tittle, Andy Robustelli, and Rosey Greer.

One of the premier football players of the day was Paul Hornung, the Hall of Fame halfback of the Green Bay Packers and a member of the team that won the first ever Superbowl in January 1967.

My dad took this photo of Paul Hornung giving me an autograph at the Schaefer Beer Pavilion at the Fair.

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR HUSS, by Helene Tursten: Softcover from Soho Crime

2012-01-31T20:19:00.000-05:00

Last week, Soho Crime released a softcover edition of DETECTIVE INSPECTOR HUSS by Helene Tursten. The hardcover came out in the United States back in 2003; the softcover timing, I think, is geared to the mid February release of Tursten's Night Rounds in hardcover by Soho.

Whether my guess is right or not, the timing sure works for me. Last year I read two other good Irene Huss police detective novels -- The Torso and The Glass Devil -- but this new release is actually the first in the series, and I'm really glad that Soho sent a copy here.

Don't mix Tursten's books in with the painful hauntings of many Scandinavian "noir" novels that have crossed the Atlantic in translation recently. Although it's a crime/police/detection novel, it's neither "literary" nor grief-stricken. As one of the few female detective inspectors in Göteborg, Sweden, Irene Huss finds sexism rampant within the police department, and sees domestic violence and family losses differently than most of her male colleagues. But she herself is (heavens, this is rare now!) a well-adjusted woman with a hard-working, kitchen-capable husband and a pair of teenage daughters with normal issues -- a bit of rebellion, a few too many risks. When Huss takes risks, she doesn't do it out of self-destructiveness; she calls for a partner or for back-up; she knows that investigation will solve the case through the gradual revelation of detail, motive, and human failings. I've got to say, I love this protagonist. Unlike, say, Lisbeth Salander, I'd love to sit down for coffee and pastries with Detective Inspector Huss.

Remember the ballad of Richard Cory? From a poem by Edward Arlington Robinson, Paul Simon created a bitter song in 1965 that was recorded as part of the Simon & Garfunkel Sounds of Silence album. In the narrative, a wealthy man who owns half the town commits suicide, out of the emptiness of his life, and a poverty-stricken observer wishes he could have done the same. I couldn't help thinking of the song at the opening of DETECTIVE INSPECTOR HUSS, when tycoon Richard von Knecht lands on the pavement outside his high-rise apartment and Huss takes the call, gathering up her superintendent (Sven Andersson, a man whose blood-pressure issues are only crowded out by his genial old-time sexism), and heading across the soggy snow/rainy city toward the pavement death scene. She can't quite quash a hint of being titillated by the news, and by the chance to see how the very wealthy live.

But details quickly suggest that von Knecht's death -- plunging from a balcony when terrified of heights, clearly from a relaxed drinking session with someone -- must be murder. And Huss probes the not-so-happy lives of the moneyed family. An odd set of connections links some of the investigation with a second one into the Hell's Angels, drug crimes, and a situation that batters Huss and her partner in well-portrayed ways. Equally disturbing is the incipient racism that one of Huss's daughters is parading, thanks to a skinhead boyfriend.

Each page, each twist, each line of conversation (nice straightforward feel to the translation by Steven T. Murray) rings true to life. I never felt incredulous or skeptical; I never put the book down for more than a few minutes, either.

It's great to see the threads that Tursten established in this earliest volume of her series (watch for film versions, too). The quiet racism directed against "exotic" Finns intrigued me, along with the European ways of thinking and the Scandinavian relationships with winter darkness.

This one will stay on my shelf for reading again -- a sturdy, steady investigation that goes on for nearly 400 pages and stays fresh and enjoyable.

And, oh yes, I'm glad to say the same characteristics are represented in the newest translated Tursten, too. More about that, as we get close to mid February.
***
Note: Helene Tursten's earlier careers were in nursing and dentistry. She was born in Göteborg, Sweden, where DETECTIVE INSPECTOR HUSS is set.

Collector's Corner: A "Must Have" Vermont Postcard

2012-01-27T13:47:00.000-05:00

From Dave:

We need some chuckles on this nasty weather day in the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont. We have, snow, freezing drizzle, rain, ice, and bad roads & driveways. The back of this postcard states the following:

The legend of Lake Memphremagog's "fur bearing beaver trout." The first fur bearing trout was "caught" by Newport photographer Ralf Sessions during the winter of 1927–1928, shown below. Another Newport photographer, Harry Richardson, is shown above fishing near Owl's Head Mountain.

(postcard purchased at a Vermont Antiquarian Book Fair -- watch for your own!)

PS from Beth -- One of long-time book-collecting clients here at Kingdom Books was finally given an ultimatum by his wife: Switch from books to postcards. They take up less space. Gosh!

A January Collage: Carl Hiaasen on Florida, Snow in Vermont, Hints of Hollywood

2012-01-27T13:12:00.001-05:00

Modern noir actor Sanam Erfani

It's a weather day up on the ridge here in Vermont: We got three inches of fresh snow, then three hours of rain, which iced things up and then made them very, very wet. Had to wear rubber boots to splash through the slush to get the mail. Somehow that leads to a collage of tidbits that I've wanted to mention.

First, I must be a bit slow connecting the pieces, but I just realized that the Carl Hiaasen I've heard for a long time on NPR is the same one whose Florida mysteries grace the shelves here at Kingdom Books. Duh! Oh well, I know more than I did a few hours ago. If you'd like to watch a 4-minute video of Hiaasen reflecting on Florida politics and the economy, check this out.

Next, "Uncle, Uncle!" to all the people who've asked me whether I've read The Book Thief, a young-adult novel set in Germany during World War II; I'm halfway through, so please don't spoil the plot!

Coming up in reviews: Helene Tursten's first mystery, Detective Inspector Huss -- I laid hands on a copy just in time to fill in the gaps before I review the newly translated Tursten title Night Rounds, coming out from Soho Crime in February (which is almost here). I'll be writing (with delight) about both of these titles in the next few days.

Also, I'm excited about the new title from Graeme Kent, One Blood. Kent's "Sister Conchita and Sergeant Kella" mysteries are set in the Solomon Islands and I could devour one per month if only there were more. This too is being released in February. I'm glad that Soho sends some of their advance reading copies up here -- it's a treat to get to read these before publication. On the other hand, I usually try to wait until the week before release, or the week of, so readers won't get frustrated by reading about a book they'll want, then having to wait to purchase it. I'd value your comments on whether this seems the right timing. (Books that Kingdom Books is purchasing in hardcover tend to get reviewed the week after release. Or thereabouts.)

Last but not least, Dave and I are happy to be hosting our family's pro filmmakers/actors, Alexis Savino and Sanam Erfani, for a long weekend. Today Alexis released his third in the "homevideo" series (jazzy!) he's creating for W Hollywood, an amazing residential hotel in Los Angeles. The four-minute film reminds me so strongly of those early noir mysteries that I'm putting a link to it here. If you enjoy it, you may want to look at numbers 1 and 2 as well (you'll see links to them on the side after you watch this one). Today's release and number 1 feature Sanam Erfani as actor. Gotta love the way she shows on film and in the photo up above ...

James McClure, THE SUNDAY HANGMAN: South African Detection

2012-01-24T23:29:00.001-05:00

What a pleasure to read THE SUNDAY HANGMAN by James McClure (Soho Crime, Feb. 2012). Set in "apartheid" South Africa, around the 1970s, this is the sixth of McClure's eight books that feature Lieutenant Tromp Kramer of the Trekkersburg Murder and Robbery Squad and his sidekick, Bantu Detective Sergeant Mickey Zondi. The partnership of the two police officers -- one living in white comfort, with hot running water for baths, and a servant to make tea; the other scraping by with his wife in a dirt-floored home and a tin bath filled with a few gallons by hand (a perfect contrast provided early in this book) -- blesses the series with that special tenderness of grown men who care desperately about each other's welfare but are restricted to showing it through the equivalent of the American punch on the shoulder.

And, of course, through intense loyalty on the job, to each other and to their principles. And that explains why those who discover the McClure series are likely to become passionate followers, disappointed when they've consumed all eight books. (McClure died in 2006. He'd been a photographer, then a teacher, then a crime reporter.) The books won the Crime Writers Association (CWA) Silver Dagger and Gold Dagger awards. Soho Crime has been quietly bringing them to the US, and THE SUNDAY HANGMAN debuts in paperback in February.

The book opens with the unexpected death of a lifelong criminal named Tollie Erasmus. When Lieutenant Kramer hears that Erasmus committed suicide, he's frankly incredulous. Why would Tollie Erasmus hang himself, when he's got thousands to live on and has eluded South Africa's penal system? Because of the powerful class divisions in South Africa, and the multiple languages that go with them -- Afrikaans and English on one side, Bantu and other "native" languages on the other -- Kramer takes Mickey Zondi with him to investigate the rural death. And with Doc Strydom riding along, it's soon clear that the death is murder, not suicide.

But Doc Strydom pulls more out of police and court records, in a search to justify his outspoken decision on the death, and soon Kramer and Zondi are making multiple trips among Johannesburg, Durban, and the little rural hamlet of Witklip, trying to find points in common between this fresh death and other disturbing notes in the files.

This is a lively and compelling read, as well as a reminder of how desperate the apartheid situation was, so recently. The blatant and crushing racism of that time shows up in even the smallest casual conversations in THE SUNDAY HANGMAN, although McClure weaves it deftly into the narrative within a paternalism that feels a lot like a Kipling story. But the dangers of the racial prejudices show up in crimes and their investigation, and McClure spins a good tale.

Here's the entire series with its original release dates:

The Steam Pig (1971)
The Caterpillar Cop (1972)
The Gooseberry Fool (1974)
Snake (1975)
Rogue Eagle (1976)
The Sunday Hangman (1977)
The Blood of an Englishman (1980)
The Song Dog (1991)

For a good overview of the past fifty years of mysteries set in Africa (and published in English), try this article from Verna Suit at Mystery Readers International (2010).

From the review article, I was reminded that Henning Mankell's book The White Lioness (1993) is set in South Africa, as is Suzanne Arruda's Jade del Cameron series. I'm also a fan of a modern-day South Africa series by Jassy Mackenzie: Random Violence (2010), Stolen Lives (2011), and due out in April of this year, The Fallen (watch for more on that title later).

If you've been reading the Botswana series by Alexander McCall Smith, featuring the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, you'll find the McClure series more gritty and challenging. But underneath the two series is the same love of place, people, and the possibility of justice.

John Gilstrap, THREAT WARNING: And Some Unusual Book Release News

2012-01-23T20:22:00.003-05:00

Last week I realized it had been a while since I'd read one of John Gilstrap's well-paced, rewarding thrillers. When I checked, I discovered I'd missed out on a title that came out last July: THREAT WARNING. Since it features Jonathan Grave and "the Big Guy," it was irresistible and I quickly laid hands on a copy. Now that's what I call good weekend distraction -- terrorist threats, a kidnapping, and the rescue specialists of Security Solutions spinning into an intense set of problems and eventual solutions that's perfectly paced for tension and occasional moments of "Yes! Yes!!"

This Gilstrap offering is also interesting for the conflict it paints on the team: Jonathan Grave and the Big Guy are former combat specialists and have a pragmatic military approach to how to handle deadly threats. Relatively new partner Gail Bonneville, emotionally involved with Jonathan, comes from a policing and legal position that values rights, laws, and what's proper. Can Gail make it on the team? More to the point, can she -- and they -- survive, if her inner conflicts slow her reflexes?

I particularly like the kinds of Special Forces-type problem solving that show up in Gilstrap's books. And I have a soft spot for plots that hang on whether friendships and partnerships can be sustained (and how they sustain, in turn, the souls of people whose lives involve a lot of death). So a prowl around Gilstrap's author website also intrigued me this weekend, but also startled me with two announcements: One, he's offering, right on the site, the original ending to his noted first book, Nathan's Run. Might be interesting. Two, with publisher Kensington Books (Pinnacle imprint), Gilstrap is reissuing his less well known second book, At All Costs -- especially because it reveals the persona and background of character Irene Rivers, who makes only short appearances in the other thrillers but whose efforts are often pivotal in getting Jonathan and his team ultimately out, wounded or not, with their rescued hostages, in varied settings. And the book is coming out directly as an e-book first, now available on book-buying websites and at bookshops that peddle e-books (there are more of these each day!). Later this year, Kensington will follow up with a paperback of At All Costs. But why wait, if you're itching for another Gilstrap thriller?

Whether you read the new Nathan's Run ending or pick up the e-book of At All Costs or just spend a bit of time on Gilstrap's website (including an essay on why he writes thrillers), this unexpected shaping of book releases is darned interesting. Wonder what's ahead, and what the advantages will be to readers who can't wait for the next in this tightly constructed series?

New England Author Steve Ulfelder, PURGATORY CHASM

2012-01-20T15:00:00.000-05:00

Dave says: Congratulations to Massachusetts author Steve Ulfelder!

We met Steve Ulfelder last November on the final day of the Crime Bake Conference in Dedham, Massachusetts, and we want to congratulate him on the nomination as a finalist for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel for his book Purgatory Chasm, which was released by St. Martin's Press on May 10, 2011.

Here's a good interview with Steve from around the time the book first came out -- Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review and said, "Ulfelder couples precise, evocative prose with an original private investigator in his compelling hard-boiled debut."

Protagonist Conway Sax, a recovering alcoholic with NASCAR mechanic experience, attempts to retrieve an expensive classic car from a garage that hasn't bothered to work on it, and finds himself caught up in assault and discovering a murder. What a great start to a series, which we trust will soon be announced. Here's the author's blog, which already has a couple of interesting posts.

Edgar Award Nominees 2012: A List to Die For

2012-01-19T18:52:00.001-05:00

Here's the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) press release, which always sends me racing to the shelves, checking off the ones I've already read and enjoyed, and the ones that are "must reads" before the finalists are announced on April 26:

Best Novel: The Ranger by Ace Atkins (G.P. Putnam's Sons); Gone by Mo Hayder (Atlantic Monthly Press); The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (Minotaur Books); 1222 by Anne Holt (Scribner); Field Gray by Philip Kerr (Marion Wood Books).

Best First Novel by an American Author: Red on Red by Edward Conlon (Spiegel & Grau); Last to Fold by David Duffy (Thomas Dunne Books); All Cry Chaos by Leonard Rosen (The Permanent Press); Bent Road by Lori Roy (Dutton); Purgatory Chasm by Steve Ulfelder (Thomas Dunne Books).

Best Paperback Original: The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit Books); The Faces of Angels by Lucretia Grindle (Felony & Mayhem Press); The Dog Sox by Russell Hill (Caravel Mystery Books); Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley (Harper); Vienna Twilight by Frank Tallis (Random House Trade Paperbacks).

Best Fact Crime: The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins (Crown); The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge by T.J. English (William Morrow); Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (Doubleday); Girl, Wanted: The Chase for Sarah Pender by Steve Miller (Penguin Group); The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Imposter by Mark Seal (Viking).

Best Critical/Biographical: The Tattoed Girl: The Enigma of Steig Larsson and the Secrets Behind the Most Compelling Thrillers of our Time by Dan Burstein, Arne de Keijzer and John-Henri Holmberg (St. Martin's Griffin); Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making by John Curran (HarperCollins); On Conan Doyle: Or, the Whole Art of Storytelling by Michael Dirda (Princeton University Press); Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film by Philippa Gates (SUNY Press); Scripting Hitchcock: Psycho, The Birds and Marnie by Walter Raubicheck and Walter Srebnick (University of Illinois Press).

Best Short Story: "Marley’s Revolution" – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by John C. Boland (Dell Magazines); "Tomorrow’s Dead" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by David Dean (Dell Magazines); "The Adakian Eagle” – Down These Strange Streets by Bradley Denton (Penguin Group USA – Ace Books); "Lord John and the Plague of Zombies" – Down These Strange Streets by Diana Gabaldon (Penguin Group USA – Ace Books); "The Case of Death and Honey" – A Study in Sherlock by Neil Gaiman (Random House Publishing Group – Bantam Books); “The Man Who Took His Hat Off to the Driver of the Train” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Peter Turnbull (Dell Magazines).

Best Juvenile: Horton Halfpott by Tom Angleberger (Abrams/Amulet); It Happened on a Train by Mac Barnett (Simon & Schuster); Vanished by Sheela Chari (Disney-Hyperion); Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby (Scholastic Press); The Wizard of Dark Street by Shawn Thomas Odyssey (Egmont USA).

Best Young Adult: Shelter by Harlan Coben (Putnam); The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson (Putnam); The Silence of Murder by Dandi Daley Mackall (Knopf); The Girl Is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines (Roaring Brook); Kill You Last by Todd Strasser (Egmont USA).

The Simon & Schuster - Mary Higgins Clark Award: Now You See Me by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur Books); Come and Find Me by Hallie Ephron (William Morrow); Death on Tour by Janice Hamrick (Minotaur Books); Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry (Crown); Murder Most Persuasive by Tracy Kiely (Thomas Dunne Books).

Comparison: Garry Disher's WYATT Series, and the Parker Series by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake)

2012-01-19T18:45:00.000-05:00

A reflection from Dave:

A number of years ago I started reading Donald E. Westlake’s Richard Stark series where the dark protagonist was Parker. At that time I had an infected foot and was told by my very caring doctor that my foot had to be elevated. I started reading the Richard Stark series and after ten days in bed I started to run out of the titles that I had in my collection. So bibliomania took over and I started obtaining

more titles and within a couple of weeks the books were not arriving as quickly as I was devouring them.

At one point I ordered a Richard Stark title from a paperback dealer who said, "If you like the Richard Stark series so much, you should read an Australian author by the name of Garry Disher and his Wyatt

series." At that point I have never heard of Garry Disher so I ordered two of the titles from the paperback dealer. Garry Disher’s Wyatt series was published and available only in Australia and they were paperback originals.

I started reading the Wyatt series and again I was devouring the series faster than I could obtain the titles I was missing. After a few years I rounded up a complete collection of the Wyatt series titles and also some other Disher titles.

First edition, first printing copies of the Wyatt series are very uncommon in very good to fine condition and the prices of some of the copies have reached $85.00 and up . There are very few signed copies of the Wyatt series. So if you have been enjoying the Richard Stark series, now is the time to collect the

Australian Wyatt series, so you'll have the books around to enjoy.

The Wyatt novels are:

Kickback (1991)

Paydirt (1992)

Deathdeal (1993)

Crosskill (1994)

Port Vila Blues (1995)

The Fallout (1997)

Wyatt (2010) (the only title published in the U.S.)

Garry Disher

As a footnote, we were very pleased to meet Garry Disher in Boston a few years ago at an event hosted by Kate’s Mystery Bookstore, featuring several Soho Press authors. Garry Disher signed more than forty titles for us that evening, so we also have signed copies of his Challis & Destry series of police procedurals set in Australia.

Write Local (aka "What You Know"), Go National!!

2012-01-19T12:20:00.000-05:00

High excitement here at Kingdom Books today, as fellow Brigantine Books author Beth Hilgartner saw her book PKP for President go national. It's on the front cover of today's issue of Publisher's Weekly and there's a paragraph on the book inside, on page 22.

Beth H lives just across the Connecticut River in the gorgeous New Hampshire town of Orford (she works in Vermont though), and PKP is a very smart cat (aren't they all?) who lures the New Hampshire primary Presidential candidates into online "virtual debates." PKP is a fierce social liberal, and there's a lot of good debate in the novel, as well as a bit of mystery and lots of humor.

Obviously, Beth H wrote what she knows -- cats, and politics -- and set it locally -- in the Granite State. And now it's on a national magazine. So proud of you and your book, Beth H, and of micro-publishers Neil Raphel and Janis Raye at Brigantine, who dared to move into fiction in 2011/2012 and are proving that good stuff grows locally.

Garry Disher: WYATT and the Challis & Destry Series

2012-01-17T16:43:00.003-05:00

We've seen a flurry of orders recently for books by Garry Disher, particularly the signed ones on our shelves. It's good to see -- Soho Crime's US publication of Disher's crime novels has delighted us, and we've been stacking them up.

The most recent Disher novel to come from Australia to America is WYATT (US pub date was August 2011), a "thriller" that involves the return of solo criminal Wyatt Warren (known to most simply as Wyatt) to his former territory around Melbourne. In an unsual mode of operation, Wyatt is recruited by one of his routine information sources, into what ought to be a simple and elegant heist. But there are too many people involved (including two women), and things go awry. Wyatt had a sense of things slipping out of control early:

Wyatt went still. He'd come to value the quality of Eddie's information, but was wary of the people who supplied it. Wyatt preferred to work alone; he trusted only his own plans. But the big scores always involved others: those he could rely on, those he'd never met before, those who could finger him, those who might cross him.

And all of those are ahead, making this a dark and dangerous episode in Wyatt's career.

There's a great write-up of the book by Glenn Harper at the International Noir Fiction site, and I can't say much more than Harper has already -- except that I think Disher's Wyatt is several shades darker than Donald Westlake's Richard Stark and Tucker Coe books (and WAY darker than the standard Westlake caper novels), with emphasis on how a sociopath functions. Yet I found a bit more emotion tucked into WYATT than Harper did, because I suspected that Wyatt's tangling with a woman in the story who sees things the way he does is going to lead to more interactions in the books to come.

Maybe that's partly because I'm a huge fan of the softer Challis and Destry series that Soho has also brought around the globe for Disher -- with their Australian dates of publication, they are:

The Dragon Man (1999)
Kittyhawk Down (2003)
Snapshot (2005)
Chain of Evidence (2007)
Blood Moon (2009)
Whispering Death (2011)

In fact, Whispering Death hasn't made it to the US yet -- Soho, do you have it scheduled? I hope so! But I've read the others and enjoyed the crawling, challenging progress that Inspector Hal Challis and Sergeant Ellen Destry have made toward understanding and appreciating each other while tackling gruesome crimes. There's enough darkness and despair in both their personal and professional lives to keep this series away from anything actually sweet -- yet there's a tenderness between the two investigators that somehow speaks of hope, despite their careers.

And I think that same tenderness peeks through in a few tiny chinks in WYATT. I'm looking forward to discovering whether I'm on track in my forecast of upcoming books in this series. By the way, the Wyatt series isn't particularly available in the US, but here are the titles, again with Australian publication dates:

Kickback (1991)
Paydirt (1992)
Deathdeal (1993)
Crosskill (1994)
Port Vila Blues (1995)
The Fallout (1997)
Wyatt (2010)
The Wyatt Butterfly (2010: omnibus edition comprising Port Vila Blues and The Fallout)

Now if there were a way to preorder a book that hadn't yet been announced here for publication, believe me, I'd be signing up for Whispering Death already.

Stuart Woods and His Edgar Award-Winning Title

2012-01-16T16:16:00.008-05:00

From Dave, ON MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. BIRTHDAY:

Over the past few years a number of mystery readers have asked me if I have read Stuart Woods's Edgar Award-winning book Chiefs and I finally finished it today. It deserves a five-star rating. It is a sprawling novel of 578 pages and importantly shows the begining of change and of racial justice in a small southern town in Georgia.

Chiefs won the Edgar in the category of Best First Novel, and was published in 1981. It spans fifty years of racial tension, politics, and murder in the small Southern town of Delano, Georgia, where a depraved killer claims his innocent victims even as three very different generations of chiefs of police seek to stop him. The time period of the novel focuses from the 1920s to the early 1960s. The paperback re-issue pictured here was published in 2005 and was a 10th printing copy.

Chiefs had a first edition, first printing run in hardcover of 20,000 copies and is difficult to find in fine condition; if you find one, prices can run between $150.00 and $300.00.

[A note from Beth: I was stunned by this sentence in the Wikipedia entry on Stuart Woods: "Woods has published a memoir, a travel book and forty-four novels in a thirty-seven year career, and has now had twenty-nine consecutive New York Times best sellers in hardback." And the material on the author's official website is even more intriguing. I'm moving Chiefs to my own stack of winter reading right away.]

Archer Mayor #23 and Other Evidence of Mystery Series That Alternate

2012-01-16T14:08:00.000-05:00

Okay, I apologize already for the title -- but it really does describe what I'm up to.

This weekend, Vermont mystery author Archer Mayor has posted on Facebook some details of his exciting 23rd book in the Joe Gunther police procedural series. The book won't come out until the fall of this year, by Mayor's turned in his manuscript and today he announced the title: PARADISE CITY. Please, please, let the publishing process leave the title as is!

As a New England traveler, I knew right away what "Paradise City" refers to -- Northampton, Mass., has a wonderful long-standing autumn art fair called the Paradise City Arts Festival. The photo here gives you a bit of the flavor.

And as a mystery fan, I'm delighted with how Mayor handles keeping his Joe Gunther series fresh, by moving the action to a town away from Gunther's hometown of Brattleboro, VT, in every second book. It works.

Canadian author Louise Penny uses the same geographic alternation: one book mostly centered in her fictional village of Three Pines (in the rural part of Quebec Province, just north of the Vermont border), the next in another location such as Montreal or Quebec City. Penny has confessed that with at least one death in each of her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache books, she'd come close to depopulating Three Pines if she set every murder there! So alternating location works well for her.

Another series that I enjoy is the Lydia Chen/Bill Smith one created by S. J. Rozan, who ought to get a LOT more name recognition -- if you haven't read any of hers, try a couple of these well-built traditional mysteries with a provocative location, New York's Chinatown. Rather than alternate locations, Rozan alternates narration voice for this series: one book from Lydia's point of view, the next from Bill's. Because the two characters are so different, and there's such great tension between them, the alternating perspective is exciting.

So -- reader question of the day -- what other mystery authors make a practice of alternating some particular aspect within a mystery series? (Husband Dave, you're not allowed to add your own comments until a few hours from now, to give other readers a chance!)

Reginald Hill: Patrick Ruell & Vermont

2012-01-15T13:15:00.002-05:00

by Reginald Hill, under a pseudonym!

Dave rounded up this info for Reginald Hill readers and those with Vermont mystery collections, too!

Patrick Ruell is a pseudonym used by Reginald Hill (1936–2012), who passed away last week at the age of 75. Hill used the Ruell pseudonym to publish eight books:

The Castle of the Demon (1971)
     aka The Turning of the Tide
Red Christmas (1972)
Death Takes the Low Road (1974)
     aka The Low Road
Urn Burial (1975)
     aka Beyond the Bone
The Long Kill (1986)
Death of A Dormouse (1987)
Dream of Darkness (1989)
The Only Game (1991)

One of the titles, Urn Burial (aka Beyond The Bone), was published by the former Foul Play Press of Woodstock, Vermont, in 1987 and has a very unusual cover illustration by Wladislaw Finne. Copies of the Foul Play Press edition are uncommon. We have one copy at Kingdom Books (*Dave just added this to our ABE listing; should show up there in an hour or so), as well as some mysteries under Reginald Hill's own name.

Reginald Hill Dead at 75; Farewell, Dalziel and Pascoe

2012-01-14T20:57:00.000-05:00

British crime writer Reginald Hill, who in 1995 won the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement, died Thursday at the age of 75.

His first book, A Clubbable Woman (1970), also became a BBC program, as illustrated here. His most recent book, released in 2010, was The Woodcutter. For an extensive list of his books, see his Wikipedia site.

We'll have more to say about his books -- but tonight is a significant football game that Dave's watching, and I'm reading some mysteries that I want to write about in tomorrow's posts. So I'll keep it short this evening and just say that we are both very sorry to learn of this ending, and hope that readers will honor Hill in the best way possible: by re-reading all his books, or getting to know them at last.

Which Cover Would You Choose? And Why Does Lassie Belong in This Post?

2012-01-12T16:05:00.000-05:00

Today's challenge questions are from Dave:

Here are two covers of the same title written by Eric Mowbray Knight (1897–1943), who used the pseudonym Richard Hallas. The book on the left is a copy of a Dell #510 and was published in 1951. It has become an uncommon title, particularly when it's in very good to fine condition . The cover illustration is by Victor Kalin. The setting of the book is California. A hardcover version that is a first edition, first printing is scarce and also very costly. 224 pages. Hardboiled.

The book to the right was published in 1986 by the pubishing house Black Lizard/Creative Arts of Berkeley, California.The original Black Lizard series was edited by the author Barry Gifford. This issue has a six-page introduction by David Feinberg. The cover illustration is by Kirwan, who illustrated many of the Black Lizard books. 134 pages.

I have been a collector of the original Black Lizard/Creative Arts series, and Barry Gifford, its founder and long-time editor, should receive more credit for keeping "noir" in print at that particular time.

So, which cover do you like, and why? The Kalin cover from 1951, or the Kirwan cover of 1986?

Finally, Eric Knight was the author who created the fictional collie Lassie.

[Note from Beth: We have some nice Black Lizard books -- mostly from the "original" line. See the press history to clarify the difference between Black Lizard/Creative Arts, and the later version that began in 1990 and is still being produced by Random House.]

In the Kitchen with a Killer -- Er, Killer Recipes, Nero Wolfe to Joanne Fluke to Stephen King

2012-01-11T14:17:00.002-05:00

We've got a "winter storm warning" from the weather service for tomorrow, here in northern Vermont, so I'm planning to spend part of the windy, snowy day in the kitchen -- provided the power lines don't snap. When there's a chance of "freezing rain," you can't be sure the electricity will stay on. That, of course, is why my long-term plans for the kitchen include adding a gas stove.

I realize that there are more pressing reasons for a gas stove: I doubt that Rex Stout's magnificent protagonist Nero Wolfe and Wolfe's live-in cook Fritz would ever consider cooking on an electric burner. Gas ones are far more controllable. And yes, I do think about Nero Wolfe when I'm planning a company menu. Owning a softcover copy of The Nero Wolfe Cookbook helps, of course. I doubt that I could ever let it go ... there's that recipe for tomato tarts, for instance (as mentioned in the Rex Stout book Fer-de-Lance: "Wolfe had a relapse. It was a bad one, and it lasted three days. When I got back to Thirty-fifth Street, he was sitting in the kitchen, arguing with Fritz about whether chives should be used in tomato tarts.") And where else can you find papaya custard? Not to mention the elegant dishes that Wolfe enjoys at nearby Rusterman's Restaurant, when he can be persuaded to leave the house.

Today there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of "cozy" mysteries that feature recipes right in with the murders. In fact, I confess that one of the first things I do when I pick up a book by, say, Diane Mott Davidson is peek at the list of recipes to see what I'll be salivating over. How many of these books get onto the must-buy list for the recipes as much as for the plot twists? A shattering thought! (But if you're in that sort of mood, check out the index online to the recipes in Joanne Fluke's mysteries -- this author knows her baked goods as well as her amateur sleuthery.)

Dave just listed for sale today a wonderful classic of the "killer recipes" genre: a book issued by the Mystery Writers of America back in 1989, PLOTS & PANS: RECIPES AND ANTIDOTES FROM THE MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA. The cover goes on to promise "delicious recipes from the most imaginative writers in America -- spiced with their wit, leavened with their malice, and served with their own distinctive style." Illustrations by the wickedly funny Gahan Wilson and an introduction by Isaac Asimov (!) add to the book, which includes recipes and comments from such murder mavens as Lilian Jackson Braun, Philippa Carr (aka Victoria Holt), Mignon Eberhart, Elizabeth Peters (Barbara Michaels), and Mary Higgins Clark, as well as Max Allen Collins, Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, and John D. MacDonald.

Just goes to show ... poison may still be framed as a "woman's weapon," but good food is important to nearly every hard-working mystery author. And reader, I presume!

Charles Todd, THE CONFESSION: 14th Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

2012-01-05T21:15:00.000-05:00

The newest Charles Todd mystery has arrived, THE CONFESSION, and it's the 14th in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series (the other Todd series features Bess Crawford). This one gives a quick glimpse of action in 1915, then takes us, with Inspector Rutledge, to the London summer of 1920, when a man arrives at Rutledge's Scotland Yard office to make a near-deathbed confession: He is Wyatt Russell, he says, and he killed a man -- not in the recently ended Great War, but in 1915 nonetheless, and the victim was his foster brother Justin Fowler. Rutledge can obtain almost no further details from this frail confessing killer, except that he's now dying of an inoperable tumor himself, is being treated with morphine for pain, and will assert that his own confession is merely the morphine speaking, if Rutledge attempts to detain him.

What's to be done with this odd confession? Long-time readers of the series will feel no surprise that Rutledge, moved by both compassion for this frail person and determination to get to the bottom of a possible crime, accompanies the presumed murderer to lunch at a posh hotel not far away. Little in the way of explanations comes from the time spent dining together, but the case picks up urgency when the confessing man's body is found a few days later, in the Thames, not a suicide but clearly the victim himself of a gunshot to the back of the head.

As a result, Inspector Rutledge begins a sequence of journeys to a house in the Essex marshes, River's Edge, where Wyatt Russell had resided, and to the oddly frightened and angry villagers who live nearby in the village of Furnham. The case that unfurls involves an extended family, deaths in and around the war, and a much older history that carries threats and the presence of evil, creeping into Rutledge's investigation in multiple ways.

It's a neatly plotted mystery, tight, careful, intriguing, and redolent of "place" -- the isolated areas of England's seacoast where secrets may be carried through the generations. And in that way it resembles Rutledge #10, A Pale Horse. First-time readers of the Todd books will enjoy the careful turns of the narrative and the quiet strength that Rutledge brings to the investigation.

On the other hand, as a fan from book 1 all the way through, I was sorry that three elements of some of the earlier Rutledge books were absent from this one: (1) the eerie power of the voice of a dead man that haunts Rutledge due to mingled shell shock and guilt (Hamish's voice in THE CONFESSION is never really more than a set of subconscious awarenesses of the case and its possible issues; there is no threat conveyed from Hamish to Rutledge); (2) the grating and recognizable friction and persecution that Rutledge has endured as Scotland Yard, due in part to being well educated and in part to the shame of having had treatment for shell shock; and (3) the presence of serious fear and loss that Rutledge must overcome (yes, he gets hurt a bit, but almost as a side effect, without fuss). Moreover, the longings that Charles Todd (a son-and-mother writing team of Anglophiles living in the United States) has portrayed in Rutledge in earlier books -- longings for friendship, romance, trust -- again have little presence or force in this book, and the curious past figure of Meredith Channing, significant in Rutledge's post-war life, is here merely a shadow mentioned every so often without explanation.

So this is one of those odd books that will, I believe, be enjoyed more by the reader who's new to Charles Todd and the wonderful post-World War I investigations created by the author team -- and less by those who have appreciated the unease and quirkiness underlying the earlier volumes, a disturbing portrait of national regret and loss that feels at times close to the powerful "Regeneration" novels by Pat Barker, set in the same period.

That said, I don't regret a minute of the time spent reading this well-written and strong investigation. I only hope the next Rutledge title will have a bit more of the aspects that have best differentiated the series in the past.

Scandinavian Noir: Forecast for 2012

2012-01-05T14:58:00.002-05:00

View from Kingdom Books, snowscape. NOT Scandinavian!

Interested in the trend of "Scandinavian Noir" and what's ahead? Check out the end-of-2011 piece at PublishingTrends.com.

Diversion: Tupelo Press "Subscription" for 2012 (Poetry)

2012-01-02T12:24:00.001-05:00

"You know my methods, Watson," says my inner Sherlock Holmes in response to the sensible question, "Why are there poetry diversions on a blog about and for mysteries and their authors and readers?" Me, I enjoy the sharp difference of genres, and as a writer, I think poetry can sharpen descriptive skills, improve the "music" of the narrative flow, and prevent writer's block.

So for others who might want to sample some "new" poetry but don't necessarily know how to choose it, here's a great solution: Tupelo Press offers a subscription to its poetry books each year. For $99, you get nine books of poems, hot off the press, often signed by the authors. The editors at this Vermont publishing firm have good eyes and ears for what's fresh, vivid, and often provocative. I sign up for the year's worth, knowing I'll get surprised each time one of the books arrives. And this year's line-up of poets looks strong -- I actually would go way out of my way for anything by Ilya Kaminsky. Here's the Tupelo Press subscription link, making it easy.

Among last year's books were Atlas Hour by Carol Ann Davis (experiments with the line, reminding me of M. Nourbese Philip's Zong!; wrestles with European artists and the Holocaust), Sanderlings by Geri Doran (lush narrative poems with strong ties to the landscape and to the senses), Lucky Fish by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (surprising and delightful; ranges from the Philippines to India to the Ozarks), Manoleria by Daniel Khalastchi (poetry for liberal question askers!), Severance Songs by Joshua Corey (modern sonnets that explore hungers for faith, history, unrest), and Circle's Apprentice by Dan Beachy-Quick (award-winning and dense; builds outward -- or inward? -- from a Ralph Waldo Emerson essay). And the 2012 list is here:

2012 Poetry & Prose Series Subscription
Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler	A God in the House: Poets on Faith	(essays/interviews)
Rusty Morrison	After Urgency	(poetry)
Alan Michael Parker	Long Division	(poetry)
James Friel	The Posthumous Affair	(novel)
Lee Upton	Swallowing the Sea	(essays)
Karen An-hwei Lee	Phyla of Joy	(poems)
Patricia Rosoff	The Innocent Eye	(essays)
CM Burroughs	The Vital System	(poems)
Kathleen Jesme	Meridian	(poems)

Taylor Stevens, THE INNOCENT: Powerful Thriller, Female Investigator, Argentina

2012-01-02T10:48:00.000-05:00

When I "found" the first book by Taylor Stevens, The Informationist, I quit everything else for a day and a half and devoured the book. Vanessa Michael Munroe -- known as Michael to her friends, and generally Munroe in the narrative -- has an extraordinary skill in processing information, masses of it, and works with an organization that can assemble it for her, as well as help her field teams where needed for paid assignments that depend on that information. Munroe is also powerfully skilled in self-defense, even to the level of killing when necessary. But the reason she has this other packet of skills reaches back to a truly terrifying adolescence, when brutal abuse forced her to reclaim power over her life through violent response. It's a skill that's dangerous to both her body and her soul, and she's aware of it.

As the second book in the series opens, THE INNOCENT, Munroe is battling an equally violent inner enemy: a form of PTSD that has her reliving all the times she's killed people, and then forcing people she loves into the dreamscape. For good reason, she's become afraid of what she'll do while in the grip of these persuasive nightmares.

And that's just when her long-time friend and ally, Logan, turns up, begging for her help in rescuing an abducted child. Not only has the child been stolen from her parents, but the girl, on the cusp of adolescence, is being held in a cult where abuse of "innocent" children is destroying their lives. It's way too close to what Munroe experienced in her own childhood, and Logan's plea hits all the intimate, impossible-to-decline buttons in her. She's on her way to Argentina. But will Logan's emotional involvement with this kidnapped child capsize Munroe's careful plans and narrow window of opportunity? And how are her flashbacks affecting her ability to cope -- both from lack of sleep, and from the mingled rage and guilt consuming her?

This time, I needed to pace myself in reading what Taylor Stevens has dished up. Far more so than in, say, an Andrew Vachss child abuse crime novel or the massive volumes of the Lisbeth Salander trilogy, Stevens creates a path for readers to identify with Munroe and her choices. This is an avenging CatWoman with scruples, an adept warrior with grief and shadows. I felt that Stevens, whose own past included much of what she writes about -- plus a heroic escape into mainstream life, complete with self-education and a determination to do what Robert Ludlum did in his Jason Bourne trilogy -- could have over-informed the story. But instead, this author has skillfully edited and pared away excess, crafting a strong and unforgettable novel. THE INNOCENT portrays the invisible heroism that comes from determinedly battling, and perhaps vanquishing, the demons of the past.

Plus, through the dark and the fear, Stevens weaves strong friendships and well-nourished love. THE INNOCENT didn't leave me in the dark prisons of violence; it lifted a windowframe, opened a door, pointed the way toward a cleaner, better way. Thanks, Taylor Stevens.

[There are several provocative author interviews available; reach them easily from the author's crisp, clear website.]

Dave Zeltserman, A KILLER'S ESSENCE: Favorite Mystery of 2011

2012-01-01T20:15:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure I can pick my favorite -- it feels like loving one child more than the others, when the truth is, you love them all differently. But Dave picked one, to share as New Year's Day wraps up.

My favorite mystery of 2011 is Dave Zeltserman's book A Killer's Essence, published by Overlook Press. Earlier this year I said the following:

"Last night I finished the best crime novel I have read in the last year -- an advance reading copy of Dave Zeltserman's book A Killer's Essence, which will be published by Overlook Press in September. The story line was superb as well as the characters . . . [Zeltserman] nailed the atmosphere of New York City and Brooklyn. There is no question that our customers will love this book. And there is no question that I want a copy for my collection, when this comes out." — Dave Kanell, co-owner Kingdom Books in Vermont.

Dave Zeltserman Bibliography:

Fast Lane (2004)
Bad Thoughts (2007)
Small Crimes" (2008), selected by NPR as one of the 5 best crime and mystery novels of 2008
Bad Karma (2009)
Pariah (2009), selected by Washington Post as one of the best books of 2009
Killer (2010)
The Caretaker of Lorne Field (2010), short listed by ALA for best horror novel of 2010
Outsourced (2011)
Blood Crimes (2011)
Dying Memories (2011)

A Killer's Essence (2011)

If you are a collector of books in the mystery genre, my 2012 tip of the year is to find signed books

in fine condition by Dave Zeltserman. The most difficult of the Zeltserman books to obtain in fine

condition is Fast Lane. -- DK

[PS from Beth: A Killer's Essence has more than a hint of the paranormal -- an intriguing cross-genre book. There are also some interesting Zeltserman items available directly from the author; see his website.]

Reed Farrel Coleman: HURT MACHINE, Best Cover of 2011

2012-01-01T14:18:00.001-05:00

Dave's starting the new year enjoying a book that arrived here (signed) last month. Here's the scoop:

My favorite mystery book jacket of 2011 entered the book world in December of 2011 and was published by Tyrus Books. It's Reed Farrel Coleman's book Hurt Machine: A Moe Praeger Mystery. I have read Reed Farrel Coleman's books for a number of years and I am devoted to the Moe Praeger series. Also I have listed from Coleman's website the number of awards and nominations he has received. Last week Coleman received a rave review in the Sunday New York Times from crime fiction reviewer Marilyn Stasio.

If you are a collector, Coleman's first three books are difficult to find in fine condition: 1. Life

Goes Sleeping, 2. Little Easter, 3. They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee.

Reed Farrel Coleman's books:

Hurt Machine
Innocent Monster
Tower
Empty Ever After
Soul Patch
The James Deans
Redemption Street
Walking the Perfect Square
The Fourth Victim
Hose Monkey
They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee
Little Easter
Life Goes Sleeping

Awards and Nominations

Tower (with Ken Bruen)
winner of Macavity - best novel

Anthony - best original paperback

Spinetingler Magazine Best Novel - Legends

Book of the Year - Foreward Reviews
Crimespree Magazine - Best Novel of 2009

Empty Ever After
winner of Shamus - best hardcover

Soul Patch
winner of Shamus - best hardcover
also nominated for:
Edgar - best novel
Barry - best novel
Macavity - best novel

The James Deans
winner of Shamus - best paperback original
winner of Barry - best paperback
winner of Anthony - best paperback original
also nominated for:
Edgar - best paperback original
Gumshoe - best mystery
Macavity - best

In the New Year: For Peace, Find Justice; For Justice, Find Truth

2011-12-30T18:06:00.001-05:00

I want to mention one more set of three poetry books, before I head back to the landscape of mysteries that Dave and I share. The set, together, forms the outline of hope for 2012: the longing for peace, made possible by justice, which in turn depends on truth.

A powerful work of mystery or crime fiction may present deep truths within the movement of the plot. The book I mentioned earlier today, Cold Comfort by Quentin Bates, presents the strength that Sergeant Gunnhildur in Reykjavík generates through her consistent efforts to unearth truth, while being kind when she can, firm when she must, and as tough as the job demands. The same aspects apply to the parenting she's handling as the narrative unfurls. Her character makes the book worth reading.

In the same sense, Michael Dickman's 2011 collection FLIES (Copper Canyon Press), which won the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, begins with the poem "Dead Brother Superhero," and captures some of the agony of witnessing death, especially as a child. By arranging a form of "Stations of the Cross" to hold the forms of loss, he connects caregiving, the longing to be beautiful, symbols of decomposing flesh (yes, flies), even friendship: "The lives of my friends spend all of their time dying and coming back ... I fell in love with the sister of my friends ... They lick their fingers / to wipe my face / clean // of everything // And I am glad / I am glad / I am / so glad." This is reality, truth, formed in a mosaic of fragments of emotion and experience.

Marc Gaba in HAVE (Tupelo Press, 2011) spins the "line" in so many ways that the collection is almost a moving kaleidoscope of form -- and within the words are reflections on both beauty and forgiveness. The many-page poem "Within Justice" extends a single long line over each page, making me wish I could see it written across the walls of a room. "It's not that happiness isn't terminal but that / witness is radical, fantasy its proof." I'm not sure how much of this I understand, but flashes of faith and questions writhe past in the pages. I think Gaba is posing questions to live with. That's one way to seek justice.

Most accessible of these three is Carl Adamshick's CURSES AND WISHES (winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets; Louisiana State University Press, 2011). I smiled through much of the first poem, which summons blessings -- including "May happiness be a wheel, a lit throne, spinning / in the vast pinprick of darkness," and as its finale, "May the dice have no eyes / and may you keep throwing them on the table's / green velvet. // May you have night, / with its dark branches, every night." Most of the poems here are compact nuggets, one about realizing that a woman in the neighborhood is being beaten, one called "Hope" and another "Benevolence" and then there's "Night," which involves a movie theater and ends, "You feel if it came close, / and asked, you would give / the world whatever it needed." I realize I'm not forming a narrative, a story, out of all this -- but there are reassurances in some of these, and warnings of underlying darkness, mysteries. "I see her staring at her arms, / astonished at how loss / can have the same weight as an infant."

Somehow in the year ahead, these mysteries of how war begins, of who feeds the monsters among us, of how to make sure all are nourished in the ways that work for them, these are in our hands. Struggling with these fiercely demanding poems may teach us something of how to paint truth, give justice, and create a wide and lasting peace in 2012.

Diversion: Poetry that Says Both Hello and Goodbye -- (a) Shara McCallum, (b) Megan Snyder-Camp

2011-12-30T13:08:00.001-05:00

A 2011 collection of poems that continues to echo for me, both on the page and via its enclosed marvelous CD, is Shara McCallum's book THIS STRANGE LAND (Alice James Books). McCallum, originally from Jamaica, embeds her poems with multiple tongues -- fragments of Spanish, Creole, and more. Her two earlier books are Song of Thieves and The Water Between Us, and her poems have been widely translated. Their gentle forms, just loose enough for one's own thoughts to permeate, but snug enough for precisely expressed sentences and dialogue, embrace the emotions of love for life and for one's daughter, one's mother, one's lover. I like this stanza from the opening poem, "Psalm for Kingston":

City where Marley sang, Jah would never give the power to a baldhead
   while the baldheads reigned, where my parents chanted
      down Babylon -- Fire! Burn! Jah! Rastafari! Selassie I! --
   where they paid weekly dues, saving for our passages back to Africa,
while in their beds my grandparents slept fitfully, dreaming of America.

And here's the opening from "The Shore":

Then, you turned from me in failing light,
trees startling into sleep,
snow rearranging itself in slender branches.

It is snowing as I re-read those lines, and the rest of the poem grows the way that lines of frost do on a chilled window, revealing a delicate pattern of affection and vision.

McCallum also gives us an exquisite nine-page poem "From the Book of Mothers," a bright lacy network of short fragments that convey the fabric of enduring love, as well as its shadows: "Daughter, is it your aging / or my own I fear most?"

There are some fascinating interviews with McCallum on YouTube, one in her role as director of the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell College, and another as part of Dennis Miller's "Conversations" via Mansfield University.

* * *

Sometimes a book of poems can hit so hard that it takes time before I'm willing to talk about it. I've picked up THE FOREST OF SURE THINGS by Megan Snyder-Camp and let it carve its way into my thoughts, then let it go, then picked it up, again and again. It's the kind of book that both wounds and binds. The first section is called "Borrowed Memory" and the narratives in it can make a person weep, as they unveil loss in precise short tales. Phrases from the poems here embed themselves like glass slivers: "The marriage ran under their skin, a rash," or "In this land the children tear their hearts in half."

The second section, "Tether," pulls the losses in closely toward what we cherish most tenderly, and offers some blessings on the bleeding: "May this slipping away protect us, / may the loss of days ease the ones I love / from their anger, that sturdy chair / circled all day by its shadow, without which / a dim sea would come to level our yard, level / as in make right."

The collection won the Tupelo Press/Carzyhorse award for an outstanding first book. I shivered when I noticed that one of its back-cover blurbs was from Lia Purpura, author of King Baby, another collection that has amazed and moved me. Hello, life and love; goodbye, love and life. A new year begins.

Scandinavian Noir: COLD COMFORT, Quentin Bates

2011-12-30T12:31:00.001-05:00

When 2012 begins, will the global recession be over with? Probably not ... but some things are improving in the United States, it appears, as holiday shopping figures show gains, and a fragile breath of encouragement in the jobs area continues to feed the slow movement toward a better economy.

But if that's the case for one of the most resource-wealthy nations, how much slower will the recovery be in smaller, less well endowed countries? Quentin Bates built his first police procedural, Frozen Assets (Frozen Out is the UK title), on the grounds of the enduring bank crisis in Iceland, where Sergeant Gunnhildur (known to most as Gunna) showed us the reality of a woman's career in a tough field. Bates's second "Gunna" book releases in early January 2012. In COLD COMFORT, Gunna has been recently promoted from her post in rural Iceland to Reykjavík’s Serious Crime Unit. And wouldn't you know it, one of her first challenges in the new unit involves hunting down escaped convict Long Ommi, who has embarked on a spree of violent score-settling in and around the city. At the same time, an old acquaintance of hers from her hometown has fallen into the convict's circle. And the murder of sexy Svana Geirs, a TV-familiar "personal trainer," is turning out to be embedded in a complex network of sleazy old-boy networks, adultery, and "too hot to touch" political personalities. Gunna's investigator Helgi, on the scene of the murder, asks, "How do you want to organize this, Gunna?"

For a moment she wondered why he was asking her. Being in charge of a new investigation unit was a change that would take some getting used to after the years running the police station in rural Hvalvík, where weeks could pass with nothing more serious than a stolen bicycle. The offer of promotion and the shift to the Reykjavík city force had come as a surprise, and working as part of a larger set-up was already taking some getting used to. Although she had lived there in the past and knew the city intimately, Gunna felt vaguely uncomfortable in Reykjavík. Much had changed during the years she had taken it easy in her rural backwater. The city's pace of life had accelerated steadily for years until the crisis that saw the banks nationalized and the country plunged into a recession stopped progress dead in its tracks. ...

"Gunna?" Helgi asked again.

"Aei, sorry. Thinking hard for a moment. If you try and figure out what the lady's movements were over the last couple of days, I'll tackle the next of kin."

Gunna goes on to speculate that to end up killed by blunt trauma to the head in her own apartment, Svana Geirs "must have pissed someone off, or else she'd ripped someone off." The investigation turns up a much sadder situation in the long run, though. And the continued financial crisis globally is pushing part of it along.

Gunna's connections with both police and criminals serve her well, and scenes of her questioning of the often thick-skulled suspects show both skill and compassion, as well as an insistent pressure to get the job done. Much of Bates's storytelling is through dialogue, and it makes his substantial crime novels into very good reading indeed.

There are also moments of insight, like this one that emerges in discussion between Gunna and her teenage daughter:

"What makes people kill other people?"

Gunna looked up at Laufey, who still had her attention on the screen. "Why do you ask?"

"I'm just interested. Psychology. There must be a reason for it."

"The theory is that there are a very small minority of people who are capable of committing violent acts just like that," Gunna said, snapping her fingers. "Nobody really knows how many of these people there are, maybe only one percent of the population, maybe less. The rest of us are fairly law-abiding. But when these supposedly normal people commit a serious crime, there are all sorts of reasons for it."

"Are they sick?"

"Sometimes they are. Often they are desperate, and normally there are narcotics or addiction problems somewhere behind it all."

The pace of the pages in COLD ASSETS is brisk in terms of action, but the narration, as in these two segments, has something of the flattened tone of a Henning Mankell crime novel, or one by Arnaldur Indridason. In fact, there's an interesting Quentin Bates interview on the very wonderful Scandinavian Crime Fiction blog, in which Bates describes his own admiration for other Scandinavian novelists' work -- and his particular fondness for Simenon's classic detective Maigret.

But unlike many of the other "ice" crime authors, Bates doesn't require a translator to English -- he was born in the United Kingdom and, after a 10-year stay in Iceland, returned home to continue his reporting for a commercial fishing magazine. (Gunna's son, rarely on scene in these books, is a commercial fishing employee, so maybe we'll learn more about that in a future book from Bates, like his third one, already titled Chilled to the Bone.) I note the absence of translation to emphasize that the relatively flat, unemotional tone of the Bates books isn't going to be affected by some change of interpreter. Instead, it appears to be a quality of both this author and Gunna, whose quiet strengths come from her determination to do her job and meet the demands on her life fairly, with everything she's got.

PKP FOR PRESIDENT: New Hampshire Politics from Beth Hilgartner

2011-12-29T20:07:00.003-05:00

I am SO looking forward to 2012. Soho Crime is bringing out top-notch international mysteries from Quentin Bates, Graeme Kent, and Helene Tursten as the year opens; St. Martin's/Minotaur just sent an advance copy of a crime novel by Joseph Olshan, set in Vermont; and the Big Names of mysteries are all hard at work on sequels (part of my psyche is on hold, waiting for the new Armand Gamache detective novel from Canadian Louise Penny). And I have to say, 2011 is ending with a great flourish, too, from the books I've covered this week (Leslie Meier, Leighton Gage) to the one I plan to read this evening: The Innocent, the second book from Taylor Stevens (I really enjoyed her first, The Informationist).

And then, of course, there's that reality show of suspense, competition, and killer tactics, known as the Presidential Race. The Iowa caucuses are a few days off; 10 days from today, our neighboring state, New Hampshire, turns into a front-page political arena, and in 12 days its residents will vote for their candidates in the Republican primary. One of our friends living on the "Granite State" side of the river has already met Mr. Romney and Mr. Paul and Mr. Santorum and Mr. Huntsman ...

But he hasn't met PKP. For that matter, very few people in PKP FOR PRESIDENT get acquainted with the candidate that New Hampshire author Beth Hilgartner profiles. With a back cover that says the book is "the best political satire since Tina Fey met Sarah Palin!" (The Hollywood Hisser) and "the purrrfect literary companion for the political season" (says The Kitten Kaboodle), this lively techno-novel provides a candidate who can set her claws into every debate, take a bite out of the issues, and leap forward into intelligent mastery of even the retreat from two wars. If only the Democratic incumbent "Moab Brock" had listened to PKP a couple of years sooner!

Here's a sample from PKP's "virtual debate" with Senator Prodge:

SEN. PRODGE: If you're implying that I'm unduly influenced by corporate interests, you are doing me a disservice.

PKP: I never said anything about undue influence, Senator, but it does make me wonder what your constituents think they're paying for. ... Could it be that you don't really care if people near Yucca Mountain glow in the dark, as long as you keep nuclear waste out of your backyard?

And all this erupted because PKP got interrupted during some e-trades, by the arrival of a snooping Two-Feet intruder -- at a critical moment. By the time PKP made it back into cyberspace to continue aligning profits, the disaster had started: "Dog guts and hairballs! Fluffy, look at this: look at this! The bottom has completely fallen out of the ringgit and even the Tokyo banks look a bit shaky."

Trading, shmading, you say? What's the big deal? Well, PKP's sister Fluffy is well aware that if PKP has to stay out of the market while it stabilizes, somebody's going to have to soak up the consequences of stifling PKP's aggressive intelligence. So saving her own furr is paramount, and it's Fluffy who aims PKP toward becoming a write-in candidate in the New Hampshire primary. No, nobody thinks PKP should actually take over the White House. But a vote for the virtual (and nearly invisible) candidate is a vote demanding electoral reform -- a chance for American voters to directly choose their leader.

Beth Hilgartner's earlier books include Cats in Cyberspace, which will soon be reissued by the Vermont publisher bringing us PKP, Voyage (an imprint of Brigantine Media). That's the publisher of my own latest novel (The Secret Room), and I referred Hilgartner to Voyage, so I'm far from unbiased on this one. But it's fun, and it's pertinent, and gosh, those virtual debates make a lot of sense to me.

Wonder who'll be writing in votes for PKP, 12 days from now, across the Connecticut River? Watch for the candidate's bumper stickers, the ones that say: "Let's Put the GUTS Back in Politics!" Pick up the book now from the publisher, or on Amazon or B&N, in either softcover or e-book form -- and in a couple of weeks, there should be ample stacks at the great independent bookstores of northern New England, too. Watch for PKP's pithy political comments on Facebook. Just don't expect this reclusive candidate to step out to the store to place a pawprint on the title page.

Leslie Meier, CHOCOLATE COVERED MURDER - A Lucy Stone Mystery

2011-12-28T17:55:00.000-05:00

What's more dangerous than one prize-winning chocolate shop in a little town in Maine? Answer: Two. That is, two in competition, with the ragged edges of their owners' past and present lives. Reporter Lucy Stone needs to cook up a Valentine's romance feature for her job, at the weekly newspaper called the Tinker's Cove Pennysaver -- but when "Best Candy on the Coast" is awarded to the newer shop in town, Chanticleer Chocolate, with its sexy (possibly promiscuous) candy manager Tamzin Graves and good-looking owner Trey Meacham, Lucy's boss tells her to find a way to cover the award tactfully. After all, everyone knows the family that runs the established chocolate shop, Fern's Famous; it won't do to upset sharp-eyed Fern, her daughter Flora, and granddaughter Dora.

In fact, Dora is a good enough friend of Lucy's to give the journalist a lot of mixed feelings about Dora's recent divorce from the smiling, bearded man who's just helped Lucy and her car out of a snowbank: Max Fraser. Even knowing that a body is sure to turn up in a Lucy Stone mystery isn't enough to cushion the blow when the body at the end of the first chapter turns out to be Max -- all tangled up in fishing line, with a hook lodged in his face, and toppled through the ice of the nearby Blueberry Pond.

If you're already a fan of Leslie Meier's traditional amateur-sleuth mysteries set in fictional Tinker's Cove, Maine, you'll guess that Lucy's suspicious about Max's death. And the next death that takes place -- one where the body is coated in melted chocolate, like a practical version of "Goldfinger," forces Lucy to dedicate herself to digging through the town scandals and working out who's got motive, means, and opportunity. No need to read the previous Lucy Stone books before enjoying this one. (But you may want to read them in backward order!)

Kensington Books had this scheduled for a January release (a luscious warmup for February 14!), but the hardcover became available yesterday, well ahead of schedule. (Maybe Meier's web maven was also caught unaware, because as of today, her website, http://www.lesliemeierbooks.com, doesn't yet display the new book.) That's handy for a bit of end-of-year collecting! After all, this is the 20th in the series ... and a nicely plotted, tight, enjoyable detective tale that shows off the winter side of Maine in sweet chocolate style.

[PS - For those of you who assume any book title involving chocolate must have a recipe in it: The only dish described in detail is Lucy's own spur-of-the-moment maple-blueberry-topped cheesecake. A nice thought!]

Diversion: Poetry for Our Survival -- Anne Marie Macari, SHE HEADS INTO THE WILDERNESS

2011-12-28T16:03:00.000-05:00

As the year 2011 reaches its finale (which will be marked by fireworks and other celebrations, here on the ridge, no matter how much snow is falling), I'm enjoying a reflection on strong books that have added determination, warmth, beauty, satisfied curiosity, exhilaration, and other good aspects to my own year. And I place Anne Marie Macari's 2008 poetry collection, SHE HEADS INTO THE WILDERNESS, among these.

The book's dedication is to Joan Larkin and Jean Valentine, which situates the work well. "Earth Elegy," the first section, follows the shiver-filled deaths and lives of trees, insects, birds, all the creatures whose lives we savor as we try to make sense of our own. Resonant with sensory detail, these light-filled poems -- often stacked with unrhymed couplets -- tie death so firmly onto life that an elegy can become a salute to the day's possibilities. I like particularly "Mozart's Requiem" with its opening dream during a night in Prague: "a chorus bearing him / even as he wanted // to stay, dying and composing / as the untongue licked him // toward oblivion and the tenors sang promisisti." The poem moves at just the right speed, no hurry yet no unseemly lingering, toward its own finale: "the story of him // still composing when he died -- as if without / agony -- music all over // the bed, last contractions, timpani, cellos, / his ink-stained hands." If only we could be sure death would arrive this way in our own stories. Even our lives, before death, rarely rise to such music; in "Certain Sparrow," Macari offers a return to "the calcium / of loneliness, the fine shell spotted and cracked, / and the delicate thing ticking inside." Later, in "Praying Mantis," she paints the gawky insect as "Christ child. Your six legs / a cradle: inside / your long thorax, / your abdomen, rocking." And in each of these poems it is as much "our" selves rocking as "theirs."

So much tender and fresh language compiles a shivering prelude to the heart of the book, a 36-sonnet sequence, "She Heads Into the Wilderness." How can we resist its narrative opening, "We always ate from that tree" -- a calling forth of Eve, whose "outlaw breasts" are bound in half rape, half punitive "teaching," in the moment of expulsion from the Garden. Figures of worship, tastes of childbirth and the greater pain of raising the children we love, the holy invasion of our lovers who enter our bodies and hearts -- one after another, the incisive sonnets stack "life today" upon the dusty revelations of the mythic journey. I love especially number XXX, an elegy for a friend and for more: "Octave to octave she passes through the hole / in the world, gathering our weeping into // her voice, as if the cantata were cancer / made song, the beauty of loss swarming us." And in the finale of the sequence, XXXVI (She Heads into the Wilderness), the first lines twisting my heart: "She heads into the wilderness, weeping / and stunned by shame, her eyes open. Into // another country, bent and becoming / fibrous and heavy in her body, feeling // that she is the tree, or that she is the fruit / that ripens and falls, that falls and will keep // falling her whole life." I want to be there, to join this woman as Ruth joined Naomi, as friends answer each other's phone calls and text messages, as we comfort and accompany.

A wonderful "Epilogue" of half a dozen bright poems binds the last edge of the book, full of color and craft and neat yet free stitches. There is much hope here -- watered with salt tears, yes, but growing nonetheless, and promising us that the journey will be itself a blossoming.

***

From the Alice James Books website:
Anne Marie Macari is the author of three books of poetry, most recently She Heads Into the Wilderness (Autumn House, 2008), and Gloryland (Alice James Books, 2005). Her book Ivory Cradle, won the APR/Honickman first book prize in 2000, chosen by Robert Creeley. Macari is the recipient of the James Dickey prize for poetry from Five Point Magazine and she has been nominated for ten Pushcart Prizes.

Overlook Press, THE PARIS CORRESPONDENT by Alan S. Cowell: Not a Mystery, But ...

2011-12-27T21:15:00.000-05:00

Somehow the review copy that Overlook Press sent of THE PARIS CORRESPONDENT by Alan S. Cowell sank into the wrong stack of books a few months ago. I even almost recall how it happened -- the book arrived with something by "modern master of noir" Dave Zeltserman that I'd been waiting for months to get my hands on, and I didn't know anything about Cowell or his books.

But thanks to a spate of holiday "move those piles" activity, "my" Dave rediscovered the Cowell book (released in October), and I settled down to read it, assuming it was a work of espionage fiction -- for two reasons: (1) the dark cover with its suspicious night scene, and (2) an echo effect in my brain from that well-liked Alan Furst book from 2006, The Foreign Correspondent -- also set in Paris, by the way.

Well, THE PARIS CORRESPONDENT is not an espionage novel. I could perhaps make an argument for saying it's a murder mystery of sorts -- there are deaths and suspicious gaps in life stories and illegal escapades among journalists, ranging from simple adultery to fraudulent news to malice and mischief. But when I reached the halfway point in the book, I sighed, realizing it wasn't going to turn out to be what I'd expected.

And then I skipped the things I ought to have been doing, and read until 2 a.m. in order to enjoy all the rest of it.

Editor Ed Clancy has spent nearly a lifetime handling the news copy sent in by Pulitzer prize-winning war reporter Joe Shelby. But having an aging, even dying, Shelby arrive in the Paris office of the Star during Ed's efforts to get his newsroom up to speed as an Internet news source -- all stories immediate, bylines fugitive, editing under pressure -- is sure to embroil Clancy in exactly the kind of trouble he doesn't want to endure personally. His wife Marie-Claire is bound to suspect him of getting into trouble with Joe, too, considering all the tall tales Ed has already told his beloved about the hard-loving, unmanageable journalist. Complicating things further, Shelby's lifelong romantic interest, photojournalist Faria Duclos, is also in Paris, dying; and Shelby's rival for Faria's heart (and other body parts) is due to arrive also at the Star office, determined to cut its staff.

It's a classic setup for crime, murder, even arson. Not to mention drugs, fast cars, big money. Am I sure this isn't a mystery? Yep, I'm sure. It's more of a modern-day quest, a search for the fitting endgame to lives spent making the most of global adventuring and the power of the press.

And I'll stop there and just add: If you like Paris, love Paris, like journalism, feel compelled to buy newspapers and/or listen to public radio ... this is a good read for you. Really.

But it's not a mystery. It figures. About the only thing I'm sure of for the Overlook Press "list" is that every one of their books will be quirky, unusual, and hard to categorize. Oh yes, and worth opening.

PS -- Cowell is a journalist. His work has been nominated for a Pulitzer. This is his first novel. Why did he wait so long??

Leighton Gage, A VINE IN THE BLOOD: A Strange Synchrony

2011-12-27T20:32:00.002-05:00

The e-book cover, designed by Peter Ratcliffe

In 1979 the film The China Syndrome, a fictional drama featuring the melt-down of a nuclear plant, was released just 12 days before the catastrophic U.S. nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. Although the "actual" nuclear event was kept mostly controlled, and certainly didn't cause a spill of nuclear materials that could cut into the earth's surface, the coincidence of the event coming so close to the film's release caused unease, dismay, and even raised American doubts about whether nuclear power could ever be "safe enough."

Cut to 2011 -- when, by midsummer, the e-version of Leighton Gage's fifth Chief Inspector Mario Silva investigation set in Brazil, A VINE IN THE BLOOD, had entered worldwide distribution. The author kindly sent me a copy, with the rueful warning that the hardcover wouldn't reach American readers until December 27 (today!). I burrowed into the e-galley, ignored all phone calls and e-mails until I'd finished reading -- yes, the plot and characters are that compelling -- and set the galley aside, waiting for the post-Christmas release date.

BUT! On November 11, still six weeks before the book's release, police in Valencia, Venezuela, reported the kidnapping at gunpoint of Major League Baseball player Wilson Ramos, of the Washington Nationals. And as the news reporters scurried to fill in the details, and to predict what the crime's effects could be on the team and the baseball season, I sat clutching my head and wondering: How often does fiction precede reality so closely?

Because here's what happens at the opening of A VINE IN THE BLOOD: The mother of Brazil's premier soccer (futebol in Brazil) player, Tico "The Artist" Santos, has just been kidnapped. And Santos is cruceial to the upcoming FIFA World Cup tournament, due to start in just 13 days. "With Tico depressed and worried about the fate of his mother, Brazil ran a grave risk of suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the country's most bitter rival, Argentina."

Still, this is, after all, a Leighton Gage detective novel -- so while it's partly "about" the kidnapping and how the Federal police can best solve it and recapture The Artist's mother, preferably alive and well, and as soon as possible, it's also rich with character interplay among Chief Inspector Mario Silva, his notorious Director Nelson Sampaio (about as venal and covetous as a man in power can be), and Silva's nephew Hector, an inspector himself (Delegado is the Brazilian term). This time, they're wrestling with the clever and lovely romantic partner of The Artist, a self-centered woman named Cintia whose desires and passions rapidly show themselves entangled in the solving of the crime ... and with the oppression grown of tropical climate and vast gulf between the rich and poor that Gage demonstrates so skillfully. This time, Agent "Babyface" Gonçalves has a huge role in the investigation, which rapidly spreads to include the drug trade, organized crime, and threats of murder.

The violence that Gage always weaves into his police investigations -- unfortunately, reflecting all too well conditions in Brazil's cities -- dips back and forth with wildly funny moments that keep popping up in A VINE IN THE BLOOD. One of my favorite bits of dialogue in the book, not relevant to the eventual solution of the crime but in a sense foreshadowing the technique's Mario and Hector's team will have to use, takes place after screams from a warehouse convince the team that they've found where The Artist's mother is being held captive, and they capture the man who's been seen going in and out of the warehouse with supplies:

Silva kicked off the interrogation. "What's your name?"

"Tulio Santiago, Senhor."

Santiago was scared, short, and hunger thin. His brown eyes, big behind steel-rimmed glasses, kept oscillating from the MP5 in Gloria's hands to the Glock on Arnaldo's belt.

"Who else is in that warehouse, Tulio?"

The prisoner squirmed. "Just my companheiro, Elvis, Senhor."

"Elvis, is it? Elvis what?"

"Pinheiro, Senhor."

"You weren't armed. Is Elvis?"

"Armed, Senhor?"

"Is he carrying a gun? Or a knife?"

"Oh, no, Senhor. We never carry those kinds of things." ... Santiago hung his head and sighed. He was ready to cooperate.

"Did you torture her?"

Santiago's head snapped up. "Torture her? Of course not. What kind of people do you think we are?"

"If you didn't torture her, why did she scream?"

"They all scream, Senhor. That's just the way they are. We try to keep them quiet, but it doesn't always work."

"Keep them quiet? Really? And what do you do to keep them quiet?"

"We give them nuts, Senhor, and sometimes a piece of fruit."

Hunh?? Well, I leave it to you to guess who was being held hostage in that warehouse. And probably you can also guess how the Director feels about Silva having told him that The Artist's mother had been found -- when, after all, she hadn't been. Some of the Federal Police are at least as scary as the criminals, it appears!

By the time A VINE IN THE BLOOD wraps up, there have been diamond, animal smuggling, a numbers racket, and major family issues, all tangled together. Gage keeps the pace rapid, the plot unexpected, the characters intriguing and smart, in spite of the twists that baffle them from time to time. Incidentally, I happened to read the Ann Patchett novel State of Wonder around the same time last summer that I first read A VINE IN THE BLOOD. While the two books couldn't be more different, the Brazil they describe is a perfect match -- lush, fervid, richly endowed, and disturbing. Like the Venice of Donna Leon, and the Korean DMZ of Martin Limón, the Brazil of Leighton Gage demands more, more, more attention. May Chief Inspector Mario Silva keep his investigations going for a good long time, giving us armchair travelers a location to embrace even as we shudder at its criminal landscape, so clear at a distance, and yet so strangely similar to our own hidden darkness.

Oh yes, about Wilson Ramos? He was rescued after two days. His story is worth reading, too. Or watching -- here's a link. Truth and fiction, they're both pretty strange when they happen like this, aren't they?

Martin Limón Mysteries: Worth Reading All of Them ...

2011-12-26T21:23:00.001-05:00

The 20th anniversary edition

Dave is in the middle of reading Martin Limón's book MR. KILL, and it inspired him to add this to our discussion of mysteries that deserve to be better known -- something that applies to the seven books Limón has provided so far. Here's his take on the series:

Martin Limón: Under-Appreciated Author:

Martin Limón is one of our favorite authors at Kingdom Books and we have a number of his mysteries in our shop that are signed. Limón’s series takes place in the mid-1970s in Korea and the detectives are military policemen, sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom. Limón, who resides with his family in Seattle, Washington, is himself retired from the military after 22 years of service. We recommend this series to our Kingdom Books clients.

The most difficult Limón book to obtain in fine condition is the first book in the series, Jade Lady Burning, which was published almost 20 years ago. (Soho Crime has a special edition for the 20th anniversary!) Limón’s books are filled with the gritty texture of life in Korea in the 1970s and its population and also the complicated lives of military detectives. Limón has recently toured with his new book Mr. Kill but only on the West Coast. We wish he would make his way to the New York/New England area, as we would love to meet him.

Also, we credit Soho Press in New York for publishing this fascinating and rewarding series. Here is Beth’s recent review of Mr. Kill.

The George Sueño and Ernie Bascom books are:

1. Jade Lady Burning (1992)
2. Slicky Boys (1997)
3. Buddha's Money (1998)
4. The Door to Bitterness (2005)
5.The Wandering Ghost (2007)
6. G.I. Bones (2009)
7. Mr. Kill (2011)

Noir for Librarians? A Quirky Addition to the Shelves

2011-12-21T19:46:00.002-05:00

Dave gave me a gift a couple of days ago -- he'd ordered a copy for himself and one for me of this unusual book. Now that's the definition of booklovers in love! Here's his explanation:

I ordered a couple copies of this small book from Ken Sanders Rare Books because we all need a quirky read for the holidays. Over the years we all have heard of the many characters who hang around in libraries and can make the librarian's jobs a misery. As economic times become more difficult, libraries are often used as an outpost for the homeless and for people with mental health and other assorted problems.

When I was a college student many years ago, it appeared that in the college library many students created their own social community and the library workers had a very difficult time in maintaining an atmosphere of silence. This was in an era before the universal usage of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices that every college student owns that have created different sorts of electronic communities.

Joel J. Rane's little book Scream At The Librarian: Sketches of Our Patrons in Downtown Los Angeles (2007), is a 2nd printing from ABC [Another Booklyn Chapbook; The BOOKLYN Arts Alliance, Brooklyn, NY, Booklyn.org) and is limited to 525 copies. This book has been called an instant cult classic and contains narrative sketches and art with the following headings: The Screamer [Female], Miss Information, Lester, Mr. Question, The Actress, The Singer, Mr. Brain Damage, Cornelius, The Dictionary Woman, Mrs. Yount, Mrs. Phoebus, Dr. Baker, The Ghoul, The Racist, Grandma, Pat, The Screenwriter, Tourette Syndrome, David, Tammy, The Starer, The Sailor, Down Jacket, The Encyclopedia Man, The Wildcatter, Mr. Smelly, The Groupie, The Cougher, The Groaner, The Tweaker, Mr. Edgeman, Mr. Ware, The Change Man, The Conspiracy Artist, The Devil, The Screamer [Male].

If you are interested in libraries, quirky people, and stories, find a copy of this book. -- DK

Another Underappreciated Mystery Author: DAVID GOODIS

2011-12-19T13:55:00.001-05:00

Dave's choice of an underappreciated mystery author today takes us back to the glory days of Hollywood:

David Goodis (1917-1967) with friends Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Becall graced the cover of Paperback Forum from 1985 issue #2. There is an article in this issue by Geoffrey O'Brien titled "David Goodis: Tough Guy As Walter Mitty."

Many of devoted readers of noir have read books by David Goodis, whose titles include the following:

Somebody's Done For (1967)
Night Squad (1961)
Fire in the Flesh (1957)
Down There (1956) aka Shoot the Piano Player
The Wounded and the Slain (1955)
The Blonde on the Street Corner (1954)
Street of No Return (1954)
Black Friday (1954)
The Moon in the Gutter (1953)
The Burglar (1953)
Street of the Lost (1952)
Of Tender Sin (1952)
Cassidy's Girl (1951)
Of Missing Persons (1950)
Behold This Woman (1947)
Nightfall (1947) aka Convicted, The Dark Chase
Dark Passage (1946)
Retreat from Oblivion (1939)

I first read books by David Goodis in the paperbacks published by the original Black Lizard/Creative Arts imprint that was edited by Barry Gifford. Goodis wrote for many pulp magazines and wrote for radio serials and lived in Hollywood for six years writing screenplays. If you like noir, find a David Goodis title to read.

* * *

PS from Beth: Nice material on David Goodis in The Big Book of Noir edited by Ed Gorman et al., and a story by Goodis, "It's a Wise Cadaver," in Pulp Fictions, edited by Peter Haining.

RED MIST, a Kay Scarpetta Forensics Novel, by Patricia Cornwell

2011-12-18T19:22:00.001-05:00

This is the nineteenth in the forensics detection novels that feature Dr. Kay Scarpetta, and it brings her back to the South, where readers first met her -- this time, visiting the Georgia Prison for Women. It's a strange thing for Kay to do. She's been invited to meet a prisoner there, the psychologically bizarre mother of Dawn Kincaid, who attacked Kay during a criminal investigation near Boston. The attack took place in the home that Kay and her husband, FBI agent Benton Wesley, share. And in a powerful sweep of plot, author Patricia Cornwell takes Kay Scarpetta back into the horrors of the attack and the triggers that led to it: factors that include a complete breakdown of Jack Fielding, the forensic examiner's second-in-command for so many years that their relationship has embraced two entire careers, one after another.

But all that is mere detail in what Cornwell provides with the disturbing opening of RED MIST: an ominous, frightening, horror-haunted entry into a "heart of darkness" of Kay's own, throbbing with Southern heat, jungle-like plant growth, and layers of threat from people who think they know her -- and believe an entirely different version of the attack sequence, one that makes Scarpetta herself into a cruel, malicious stereotype of a power-drunk woman.

It's hard to say that one Scarpetta book evokes more horror than another; each one finds a different way to do so. But this one, in which the unhealed psyche that the forensic examiner carried inside her falls victim to hints and allegations, gets creepy very quickly. And as a reader, what horrified me the most was the steady patter of pieces of verbal evidence falling on and around Kay, without her paying attention to them. Narrated by Kay herself in the first-person present, the novel shakes with Kay's uncertainty, collapsing ego, and lack of attention to the dark forces and twisted people around her.

For example, in the visit to the Georgia Prison for Women, the warden herself begins almost immediately to threaten Scarpetta, using as grounds for her verbal attacks a version of Kay that's distorted like a carnival mirror's effect. Curious comments from the warden insist that Kay's visit come after previous kindnesses to the prisoner -- someone Kay's never responded to in any way. And somehow, word of the prisoner's sexual advances to Kay's colleague is open news at this prison, even though it's never been made public. The warden hints that there are already threats to Kay as well, saying, "Seems like you might not be inclined to seek out anything unsafe after what you've been through." The implication is clear: Even this warden, Tara Grimm, is unsafe for Kay.

And soon the imprisoned woman, Kathleen Lawler, is scaring Kay as well, although it's hard to know how she could follow through on her delusions. Again echoing the tropical disorientation of "Heart of Darkness," or of George Smiley in a prison in India, questioning the man who would become his arch-enemy Karla, Scarpetta observes the incongruities around her, yet fails to seize on them and question them. Perhaps the most frightening moment in this lengthy prelude to the book's eventual action comes when the prisoner unthinkingly uses the term "them" in reference to what was, as far as Kay Scarpetta knows, one baby born while Lawler was in prison. Kay repeats the phrase, questioning it, but the moment floods past in a rush of other narration from the prisoner, and it appears Kay has missed a critical clue -- for many pages, and many attacks and deaths, yet to follow in the book.

Readers of the series will shudder with Kay at threats to her marriage to Benton Wesley; at implications that Pete Marino may have betrayed her; at an intrusion into Kay's life from a forceful woman whose connection to Scarpetta is through her beloved niece Lucy.

Right before reading RED MIST, I re-read book four in the series, Cruel and Unusual, which uses a very different narrative structure and a much less intense set of metaphors and moods. But it reminded me of why I've bought and read every Scarpetta novel at some point, in recognition of the force and emotional connection with which Cornwell endows her characters. In some ways it made it hard for me to give way to the author's insistent path in this newest book. And in others, it convinced me that no matter how uncomfortable I became, I had to push on, to discover what Patricia Cornwell had created this time.

Worth every moment, I think, and as the book settles in me, I feel even more strongly about it. An extra plus of this publication is that Cornwell is front-and-center lately in a more public persona than she's shown in years. It's been good to see her and listen to her on TV and radio this month. And for an intriguing interview online, check this one with Janice Kaplan at The Daily Beast.

This book stays on my "re-read these" shelf. It's a keeper.

Food Writing Class with Randall Kenan!! Deadline Dec. 23

2011-12-13T15:14:00.001-05:00

OMG, Pine Manor College is offering a class in food writing -- with Randall Kenan! If you live within commuting distance of Boston, how can you pass this up? (And if you decide to enroll, I want to hear all about it!!)

First, in case you don't know who Randall Kenan is: Here are his photo and the cover of one of his books. His speaking agent has a good website description of his work and his radio appearances and more. You'll also find his work in The Nation and he has given a stunning number of prestigious lectures recently.

And here's your invitation from Pine Manor College, just outside Boston:

PINE MANOR COLLEGE INVITES LOCAL WRITERS
TO AUDIT GRADUATE-LEVEL CREATIVE WRITING CLASSES

[Chestnut Hill, MA] Pine Manor College is pleased to announce that a select number of graduate-level creative writing courses will be open to the public for auditing during the winter residency of its Solstice MFA Program, scheduled from December 30, 2011 to January 8, 2012. Classes are open to serious writers working at all levels; auditors are encouraged to complete the advance preparation requirements for any MFA class they wish to attend. The registration fee is $30 per course for Solstice graduates/$40 per course for the general public; the deadline for enrolling as an auditor for winter 2011 Residency is Friday, December 23, 2011.

For course descriptions, our audit policy, and a downloadable registration form, go to: http://www.pmc.edu/mfa-classes-for-audit.

Winter 2012 MFA classes that are open to the public include:

Prose (fiction and nonfiction):
·        Looking Back In Fiction
·        Seeing Anew: What Prose Writers Can Discover From Graphic Novelists About Crafting Stories
·        Everything Matters: The Sentence

Creative Nonfiction:
·        The Fundamentals Of Food Writing: An Introduction
·        Sentimentality In Memoir

Writing for Young People:
·        Inspiring Young Readers & Writers
·        Picture Book Techniques

Poetry:
·        Talking Back, Taking Back: Moments Of Re-appropriation In Native Poetry
·        Saying The Poem: Bringing The Fictionist’s Art Of Dialogue Into Poetry

Inspiration, Outreach, and Social Media:
·        Higher Ground: How To Enrich Your Community And Make A Difference Through Your Art
·        The Demons That Keep You From Writing
·       Best Practices For Writers Using Social Media

ABOUT SOLSTICE & PINE MANOR COLLEGE
As an undergraduate institution consistently ranked among the most diverse in the country, Pine Manor College emphasizes an inclusive, community-building approach to liberal arts education. The Solstice MFA in Creative Writing reflects the College’s overall mission by creating a supportive, welcoming environment in which writers of all backgrounds are encouraged to take creative risks. We strive to instill in our students an appreciation for the value of community-building and community service, and see engagement with the literary arts not only as a means to personal fulfillment but also as an instrument for real cultural change.

For more information, visit www.pmc.edu/mfa

Diversion: Poets for Winter Reading: Larissa Szporluk, Janine Oshiro

2011-12-13T10:37:00.000-05:00

The shortest day of the year is almost upon us -- and the long nights mean extra time for deep reading. I'm savoring Mark Twain's autobiography and some long-deferred and powerful books of poetry.

TRAFFIC WITH MACBETH (Tupelo, 2011) is the best book of poems I've read this year, hands down. The epigraph from the Shakespeare play is, "Come what come may, / Time and the hour runs through the roughest day." And Larissa Szporluk's poems seize that roughness, that painful sandpaper side, that edged blade of dislike, even hatred, and touch it all to the tongue and cheek. From a gargoyle to the Russian witch Baba Yaga to the flailing power of an octopus, Szporluk pulls the powers of the night into our living spaces and pushed the friction to light an inner fire.

Enough of this babble of metaphors -- let me show you some of her lines. Here's the opening of "Sunflower," the first poem in the collection:

Wind takes your hair
like a hooligan owl
and leaves a deep pocket
of dusk in your scalp.

What follows this includes "mutinous dust" and a comment on love.

"Traffic with Macbeth" (the poem) brings us "afraid of, afraid of / the heft / of nothing to love." And "Rogue's March" declares, "We are tied to love and hate— / same track, same train." Later, I shivered at the image of the nihilistic shepherd about to kill a lamb in "The Face That Promised Joy"; in "Rainmaker" I found "one raised brow, so chalked with loss // that it could be the bastard / of an answered prayer."

Szporluck's language springs so fresh that it has to be the product of much life, living, and wrestling. Most of the forms are simple: one-page columns of medium-length lines, sometimes in stanzas, sometimes not, but always driven by comment and conclusion, to the point of having their own miniaturized plots in place. The poem "Dunce" with its book-reading, corner-caught commentator entranced me. And knowing that this poet who is a mother of three, I inhaled with much delight "Baba Yaga," which opens with "I cooked my little children in the sun. / I threw grass on them and then they died. / I sit here and wonder what I've done." The poem is visited by the "wise man / who tries to teach the wicked to be kind," and shivers to its end with "I was witch but still your mother."

Forget the desert island backpack; this book goes into my "next to the armchair when snowed in" stack!

I promised myself I'd introduce two books of poems here today, so the only way I can add a second is to present one as different as grass is from ocean, in writing about Janine Oshiro's PIER (Alice James Books, 2011; winner of the 2010 Kundiman Poetry Prize). The forms are complex, often straddling multiple pages; their pathways refuse the alignment of direct narrative; and yet there's a hard, fully shaped reaction to life, standing behind the flicker of each. I'm hopelessly enamored of a ten-page poem here called "Next, Dust" -- if I've sorted the impacts in anything like what the poet intended, the death of one's mother or grandmother is standing within the lines, although I also thought I heard rape or perhaps just sex. The ending haunts me:

Everywhere is a potential
exit, except the door.

I drew a high wall at the skin;
at the bottom I drew a gutter.

I was eleven.
These are the words I have for it.

In the rambling shaped-prose stanzas of "Duck Hunting," I found "Come backache, come rapture, come reconfigure / sky. Come watch the show of her knees in the grass." And in "Mountain Vision," what wonder there is in the declaration, "I know what the mountain is called. His head rests in one place, his feet in another, his face a sudden cliff where birds might land and never wonder about the landscape's correspondence to a chin,"

Oshiro's poems take me far away from my own landscape, to a habitat of dance, an amputated leg, a relic ... I choose this collection for intentionally savoring the sharp discomfort of displacement and uncertainty. And I recommend it.

Noir Collections, Old and New

2011-12-12T14:15:00.002-05:00

From Dave, this morning:

This pulp/noir 1946 magazine has survived for about 66 years and we have just listed it on ABE Books. One of the authors in Short Stories Magazine is Frank Gruber, a pulp author who passed away in 1969. I was a collector of the books in his Simon Lash series. We love the pulp/noir cover of the magazine. You never know what treasure you will find at Kingdom Books. Great items for the holidays!

Thanks, Chief!

Here are some others that I see on the shelf at the moment:

James Ellroy, L. A. Noir

George Pelecanos, D. C. Noir

Ed Gorman, ed., The Big Book of Noir

Anthony Neil Smith, ed., Plots with Guns: A Noir Anthology

K. C. Constantine: Reclusive Mystery Author Revealed at Last!

2011-12-11T13:17:00.000-05:00

Dave offers today's take on under-appreciated mystery authors, and he picked K. C. Constantine. We credit our client J. C. for getting us enthused about the Pennsylvania author's long-running police procedural series. And by a coincidence, 2011 is the year this highly reclusive author chose to break the barriers he's kept around himself! Read on:

My vote for one of the most under appreciated authors is K.C. Constantine (a pseudonym for Carl Constantine Kozak: born in 1934 in Mckees Rocks, PA). He is the author of 16 books in the Mario Balzic mystery series and one stand-alone mystery novel.

There is little public definitive information about Constantine and for many years he proved to be a mysterious person in the mystery world. His last novel was published ten years ago, in 2002.

His best known creation, Mario Balzic, is the police chief in the fictional town of Rocksburg, Pennsylvania, and for me his books portray both the benefits of residing in a small town and at the same time the negatives of living in a small community where your life is an open book and pettiness and rivalries are an every day occurrence. The police chief is always walking a very fine line.

A list of Constantine’s books:

Mario Balzic series
The Rocksburg Railroad Murders (1972)
The Man Who Liked To Look at Himself (1973)
The Blank Page (1974)
A Fix Like This (1975)
The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes (1982)
Always a Body To Trade (1983)
Upon Some Midnights Clear (1985)
Joey's Case (1988)
Sunshine Enemies (1990)
Bottom Liner Blues (1993)
Cranks and Shadows (1995)
Good Sons (1996)
Family Values (1997)
Brushback (novel) (1998)
Blood Mud (1999)
Grievance (novel) (2000)

Stand-Alone Novel
Saving Room for Dessert (2002)

In May 2011 Kosak appeared in public as K. C. Constantine for the first time, at the 16th annual Festival Of Mystery in Oakmont, PA, which is facilitated by the Mystery Lovers Bookshop located in the same town.

The Kingdom Books inventory has ten K.C. Constantine books for sale and we even have a couple of books that are signed.

Congrats to Louise Penny -- Again!

2011-12-11T13:04:00.000-05:00

Lovely news for Louise Penny's 2011 book A Trick of the Light, in the continuing Inspector Armand Gamache series, as announced on her website:

We have had more great news for A TRICK OF THE LIGHT it has been named by the New York Times as one of the Best Crime Novels of 2011. Both Amazon.com and Amazon.ca have named it among the Best Books of 2011 – and in the top 10 Crime Fiction books of the year! It has also made Publisher’s Weekly list of Best Mysteries of 2011, Toronto Globe and Mail has named A Trick of the Light as one of the best crime novels of 2011! and BookPage voted A Trick of the Light the sixth best book published in the United States all year. Of any kind.

Once again, readers affect authors, as much as authors affect readers. Way to go!

Kingdom Books also is very excited to join the list of independent mystery bookstores on this author's website. We try to keep signed copies of Louise Penny's books on hand, and have some unusual printings on the shelf right now. See them here.

'Tis the season to celebrate independent bookstores, indeed, so when you get a chance, take a look also at the website for the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association (IMBA). Happy holiday shopping and reading.

Caper Mystery, Set in Vermont: David Carkeet, FROM AWAY

2011-12-10T13:26:00.001-05:00

David Carkeet at Kingdom Books, among the mysteries.

"My" Dave asked me to put some posts up this month on "under-appreciated authors" -- the ones that are writing great stuff but whose publishers can't necessarily afford to toss up full-page ads or buy them seats on late-night TV shows. High on my list is David Carkeet, who moved to Vermont in 2003, just in time to set his sixth novel here. FROM AWAY is a classic caper novel, full of laughter and "you won't believe this scene" exhilaration. If you've lived in a rural location, you'll recognize the title phrase as the casual description for someone who comes from "someplace other than here." And that's the situation when Denny Braintree, con artist extraordinaire, arrives in Vermont's pretty little capital city of Montpelier and tumbles into a look-alike situation. Rather than recap the book here, let me just provide the link to the review we offered when it first came out.

If you think you'd have fun collecting this author's books, click here to see what we've got in stock. I think they're all signed, and I know they are in gorgeous condition.

Helene Tursten, THE GLASS DEVIL, A Detective Inspector Irene Huss Investigation Set in Sweden and England

2011-12-09T20:43:00.001-05:00

This third translated crime novel from Swede Helene Tursten -- made available in the US in 2007 from Soho Crime -- is a nice place to start in getting acquainted with a new detective. It's easy to find copies in good condition (we have two lovely ones), and there's some agreement among readers that THE GLASS DEVIL, whether by translation quality or author experience, is a stronger read than its predecessors (Detective Inspector Huss and The Torso). I wanted to catch up a bit, before next February's release of the new Tursten.

And glory be, here's a Scandinavian detection novel that's not all shadows and violence! Yes, there are deaths -- in fact, they take place at the start of the book -- but police detective Irene Huss is entirely involved with the living: her not-very-healthy boss, her overscheduled co-workers, the many people in the Kullahult Church Association affected by the murders of their pastor and his wife and son, and, most compelling of all, the last living member of that family, the pastor's daughter, living in England and unwilling to talk about her family or the circumstances that could have led to the three deaths. But there are hints that a Satanist might have been involved.

Huss is alert and attentive, and her observations bring out possibilities in plot and characters. Consider this, from the interviews she holds with the Church Association leaders:

Irene nodded and was about to ask her next question when a new thought suddenly struck her. "Do you know if Rebecka had helped her father to trace the Satanists over the Internet?" she asked.

Bengt Måårdh looked at Irene in surprise. "I really don't know! Certainly Sten had a lot of ideas about how he was going to find those responsible, but I've never heard him talk about tracking them via the Internet."

But others have, thought Irene. If Rebecka was involved in her father's investigation in some way, maybe she would have some information to give them. Was she threatened as well? That couldn't be ruled out. Thankfully, the English police had promised to keep an eye on her.

As hinted by the book's long subtitle, the investigation takes Huss to England herself, to interview Rebecka in person, twice. Sane, friendly, only mildly wounded by controversies and confrontations from her own past, Irene Huss is a persistent and determined detective, a "Sherlock Holmes" with neither a drug habit nor a violin but a willingness to assemble enough evidence to eventually make clear the underlying causes and entangled people for the crimes.

I noticed that police technology is changing so rapidly that some of the actions Irene undertakes are already a bit dated, in terms of computers and the Internet. But the story holds up well, and I'm glad I dove into it. If you've been wondering whether all Scandinavian crime fiction was desperate and dark, here's the answer: Not all of it. This one's a charmer, leaving the dire aspects at the side of the corpses, and letting the investigator -- and her family -- show an active, mostly cheerful life.

Oh -- there's no website for Tursten at this point, although there's a fan site and I found a good review at Detectives Beyond Borders (love that blog!). Let's hope Soho Crime makes more info available on this native Swede, whose work has already been adapted to films and television in Europe.

Snow Returns to Kingdom Books ... and Helene Tursten's Swedish Mysteries

2011-12-08T19:27:00.001-05:00

Last night the weather changed, moving into December at last, a bit late. First sleet arrived, laying down a treacherous wet layer of ice fragments and water; then snow built up, and by morning we had about three inches. I hurried out to shovel and salt the path and steps, as a collector was due to arrive at mid morning.

The snow fit completely with what I'm reading. Helene Tursten has a new book, NIGHT ROUNDS coming out in February, after a five-year drought in translations of her work arriving here. It happens that we have a couple of copies of the preceding title, THE GLASS DEVIL, so I figured I'd start there, to get some perspective on Detective Inspector Irene Huss. (So far, I haven't found a lot of info on the author, but I'm printing off what there is, to study.) Then I'll be ready for the new book.

I also have been admiring the cover for Leighton Gage's latest Brazilian detective novel featuring Chief Inspector Mario Silva, so I'm tucking it into here. It's beautifully moody; I read an early galley of this one and will re-read it before providing a review later this month. (The release date is Dec. 27.)

Also I rashly (and eagerly) said I'd fit in reading a new political spoof, PKP FOR PRESIDENT. How could I resist, once I had a copy in my hand? (Cat lovers in particular, check this one out!) So I've got to leave the desk and curl up with a cup of tea and a good book -- or three. Nice work if you can get it.

What's in a Name? Change "Cozy" to "Amateur Sleuth" and Then ...

2011-12-07T20:59:00.000-05:00

A lot of emotional attachment to mystery genres seems to begin with the books that first turn us into "readers." Those who teethed on Nancy Drew have an itch for adventurous detection; dare I guess that readers of the Hardy Boys were primed for espionage? And if you start with Sherlock Holmes, or with Father Brown ... Well, to be honest, I'm attached to all of those. And Agatha Christie and John D. McDonald and and John Creasey and "The Saint" and more. Some I read on my own; some were books my mother took out of the library and I gobbled up after she'd finished them, before they were due back.

But the childhood mystery series and teenage discoveries can't fully be what forms our adult tastes. I don't think there's a children's or young adult sequence that clearly pushes a person into devouring James Patterson's books, or Lee Child's (although I have a theory that people who respect steady, affectionate marriages make up a large part of Donna Leon's readers, along with those who adore Venice). Sometimes it's recognition of protagonists who resemble us; sometimes it's wishing we could be doing the same investigation, even though we know we never will (how many crushed archaeology dropouts delved into Elizabeth Peterson's books with relief and exhilaration?).

Mysteries that feature amateur sleuths may be the most direct in appealing to us to put ourselves into the shoes of the would-be detective. The amateur sleuth relies on cooking skills, or a good memory for flowers, or kindly curiosity (and friends in the police force). She or he could be -- us.

Kaitlyn Dunnett's November 2011 release, SCOTCHED, is a great example. Liss MacCrimmon owns the Scottish Emporium in the small Maine tourist town of Moosetookalook. Her friend Angie owns the bookshop down the road. Nola Ventress, giving back to the town with great energy, has just organized a mystery authors' convention at its sole hotel. And as authors local and regional (many with the names of real Maine authors!) check in, friction among them rises -- particularly in every person spoken to by journalist Jane Nedlinger. When the needling, meddlesome, cruel reporter turns up dead at the foot of a cliff, routine police work reveals the death to be homicide. And soon Liss and her fiancé Dan and her friends in local law enforcement are digging through a compost heap of rotten reasons that Nedlinger deserved to ... well, maybe not die, but at least get out of town. Too bad, too sad, and only the accused people with motives (lots of them!) are unhappy with Liss's efforts.

There's plenty to identify with: the excitement of meeting the Big Authors, the fun of seeing a small town pull itself together, the gentle romance between Liss and Dan. You don't need to know the difference between various firearms, as you might in a Patricia Cornwell suspense novel -- you just need to follow along with Liss and you may even guess the murderer a few pages before she's clear about it herself. That's it: You've identified, been a careful reader alert for clues, and enjoyed realizing you're just as smart as the person solving the crime! It's charming, entertaining, and -- that's the point of an "amateur sleuth" mystery, right?

(PS to those checking on authors -- Kaitlyn Dunnett is a pen name for Kathy Lynn Emerson, a Maine writer herself, who has four different series in action, two of them historical. Her website is unfortunately not helpful, but here's a nice Wikipedia entry on her.)

Jeffrey Allen (a pen name for Jeff Shelby) is bringing out his first mystery in a new series, available in January 2012. STAY AT HOME DEAD features Deuce Winters, dad to precocious three-year-old Carly, living in the town where he grew up and where his old high school buddies turn up connected to a dead body left in Deuce's car ("Daddy, who's the man in my car?" his daughter demands to know. She's already smart enough to disagree with the suggestion that the man is sleeping in there.) Equally an amateur in tracking down a criminal, Deuce wouldn't get into any of this if it weren't for those high school chums trying to blame him. "So I'm gonna need a lawyer," he concludes, and his wife Julianne responds, "Good thing you married one." But Deuce needs more than just his wife's backing -- it's one thing when people try to hurt him, but when they do things that can hurt his three-year-old ... wait a moment, did I just notice you "identifying"? I know I did at that point. My kids are long grown, but I'd still do a LOT to protect them if I saw the hurt coming at them. And tag, there we go: Amateur sleuths make it easy for us to see ourselves in the investigative shoes. No need for an extra passport or a stash of Dutch currency. We have, we are, what we need to solve the mystery. And it's a fun read!

Note that I'm not the same gender as the protagonist, but I enjoyed the story and connected with Deuce's problems. NOTE to all "amateur sleuth" readers and writers: Gender doesn't frame us into particular books. Let's stop talking about "cozies" as chick lit. In fact, let's talk about them as "amateur sleuth" mysteries. That's always been their central characteristic!

Here's one more example, a book I'm delighted to have purchased a month or so ago -- NIGHT OF THE LIVING DANDELIONS. This is from the prolific author Kate Collins (a pen name for Linda Tsoutsouris) and is the 11th in the series featuring Abby Knight, now a flower-shop owner in a Midwestern college town and engaged to Marco, who's being called back to active duty in the Army Rangers. Marco's former foxhole buddy Vlad is in town, and Abby may be one of the last to realize that Vlad's Romanian heritage, pale face and dark hair, and black attire have caused a flock of townsfolk to assume he's a vampire. Women are swooning, their boyfriends are furious, and when a nurse turns up dead with a pair of neat puncture wounds at her throat, the case against Vlad as a bloodsucking killer turns furious and violent. Abby and her support crew -- a handful of sensible women and a few sweet nuts -- dig like crazy for the strands connecting people in town, until they unearth the real motive for the killing.

You won't be checking the door locks while reading this -- again, it's light reading, and poses a set of puzzles that the reader is challenged to solve, perhaps a little ahead of Abby herself, or else right next to her as she struggles to stick up for Marco's buddy and for justice. By the end of the book, you'll know a bit extra about vampires (how clever to toss in this "hot fad" term!) and more about some flowers and unusual plants (wolfsbane? strangleweed??). And you may have had a few hours of relaxing, imagining how you'd solve the situation yourself, and enjoying watching Abby tackle it.

By the way, Collins is more than prolific, actually -- NIGHT OF THE LIVING DANDELIONS came out this spring, and the sequel, To Catch a Leaf, followed in autumn. Wow!

Three amateur sleuths -- three casually enjoyable mysteries. I hope you'll be inspired to read one or more of them!

PS to COLLECTORS: Are you feeling like all these pen names must mean something?? Consider this: Donald Westlake, one of the greatest American mystery writers of the 20th century, used 22 of them ... at least! (He told us he might have forgotten one or two.) And John Banville, a compelling literary force of the 21st century, uses at least one.

Discussion? Comments? Revelations of pen names to come??

Would You Say a Louise Penny Book Is a "Cozy" Mystery? I Say It's NOT!

2011-12-06T20:32:00.002-05:00

Louise Penny's 2011 title, A Trick of the Light, showed up on crime fiction reviewer Marilyn Stasio's list of best crime novels of the year last Sunday. That's great -- no question that Penny is a powerful writer and the titles keep amassing awards for her. What shocked me, though, was Stasio pronouncing the book to be her Favorite Cozy for the year.

It's not that I want to argue for another title -- rather, I disagree vehemently about classifying A Trick of the Light, or any other Louise Penny book, as a cozy.

Yes, Penny's series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache was initially nicknamed the "Three Pines" series, after the apocryphal Eastern Townships (rural Quebec) village that anchors many of the continued characters in the books. Maybe that conditioned some readers to think of the novels as "cozy." It's a subgenre label, and I checked in with www.cozy-mystery.com to get one authoritative version of how the subgenre is described:

Cozy mysteries have become a booming business. Many cozy mystery readers are intelligent women looking for a “fun read” that engages the mind, as well as provides entertainment… something to “look forward to getting back to.” This is not to say that intelligent men don’t read cozies…they do!
The crime-solver in a cozy mystery is usually a woman who is an amateur sleuth. Almost always, she has a college degree, whether she is using it or not. Her education and life’s experiences have provided her with certain skills that she will utilize in order to solve all the crimes that are “thrown her way.” The cozy mystery heroine is usually a very intuitive, bright woman. The occupations of the amateur sleuths are very diverse: caterer, bed and breakfast owner, quilter, cat fancier/owner, nun, gardener, librarian, book store owner, herbalist, florist, dog trainer, homemaker, teacher, needlepoint store owner, etc. These are just a few examples of what the amateur sleuth does…. When she’s not solving crimes, that is!
The cozy mystery usually takes place in a small town or village . The small size of the setting makes it believable that all the suspects know each other. The amateur sleuth is usually a very likeable person who is able to get the community members to talk freely (i.e. gossip) about each other. There is usually at least one very knowledgeable and nosy (and of course, very reliable!) character in the book who is able to fill in all of the blanks, thus enabling the amateur sleuth to solve the case.

Okay, there's that village hook I mentioned -- and the website author has even written an extra piece about the role of the village in the "cozy." Particularly in terms of the scope of plot and characters, the village setting creates a boundary: The villain/murderer must be part of the village, to satsify the "cozy" conventions. The village also allows the amateur sleuth to apply her (or his) understanding of the frailties and resentments within a small group of people. (I'm probably least concerned with the "niceness" of the subgenre -- many of its devoted readers say that they like it because there won't be material that makes them uncomfortable.)

But Penny and her publisher made a decision quite a few "titles" ago to change the name of the series, and thus the books' subtitles, away from "Three Pines," to "A Chief Inspector Armand Gamache Novel." And it's my contention that it was done for two reasons: (1) so Penny could alternate settings, which she now does regularly, putting one book in the village, the next well outside it (Montreal, say, or Quebec City), and (2) to escape the subgenre implications of the village name.

In fact, the later name of the series says quite clearly that it's a police detective series. And I maintain that A Trick of the Light is not just a police detective novel, but a segment of the ongoing dark underplot that links all of these books: Something is seriously rotten in the Sureté, the Quebec police force -- Armand Gamache has discovered the rot, attempted to expose it, been wounded both physically and emotionally by the forces of evil that thrive on that rot. Even when he's in Three Pines, urging his detectives to pursue the trail of a criminal, Gamache is dogged by the knowledge that he hasn't actually rooted it out of the very organization he works for.

In fact, if my nose for plot is accurate, I'd make a guess that the arc of the series will position Three Pines as the (somewhat poisoned) pole of strength that pulls against the darkness ahead. Of course, because Penny creates complex plots and characters, it will run deeper than that; there have already been frightening hints that significant local resident Clara and her husband (their viewpoints are often narrated) are headed for disaster and that their quandary will drag others along. In fact, the reason Gamache and his team keep returning to the otherwise idyllic Three Pines (a sort of Brigadoon village that people discover when they "need" it) is revealed, over and over, to be related to a mirror-version rot in the pretty little town. Why else would it have such a terrible murder rate and such dreadful twists in the people living there?

I could go on with more reasons that this isn't a cozy -- the sleuth is not an amateur but a professional, the violence may not be gory but it's still horrible, the betrayals are not confined to one or two characters, Gamache is likeable on the outside but clearly a dangerous man when you know him better, and there have already been quite a variety of "uncomfortable" scenes in the book. Plus, if you look further on www.cozy-mystery.com, you'll find the site author admitting that in cozies, "The victim is usually a character who had terrible vices or who treated others very badly. Dare I say…. the victim 'deserved to die'?”

And that's my final discussion point: Penny's crime fiction portrays what we readers already know from our daily news -- that many of the people who die violent deaths, especially when they live in places where we may actually know them, are not people who "deserve to die." They are innocent victims (like one whose death literally haunts Gamache) or potentially retrievable idiots whose stupidity has led them to bad choices.

So: I maintain that the Louise Penny series is absolutely not a cozy series. I understand the urge people have to apply the "village" rule and classify some of her titles that way. But I feel it's a serious mistake in reading the books and their very savvy, sophisticated, and determined author.

Discussion, anyone??

Vermont Gifts That Haunt: Joseph Citro's Novels and Collections

2011-12-05T23:45:00.000-05:00

Some of the spookiest page-turners around are by Joseph Citro, a mild-mannered author who lives in Burlington, Vermont, and collects ghost stories -- then creates more.

Citro has often produced volumes of "factual" hauntings, with reportorial precision, representing different locations around Vermont and their historically resonant tales of the weird or other-worldly. He's also written some downright creepy novels of his own.

We'd like to see our Joe Citro collection -- all signed except one -- get into some holiday packages. Some are sure to be holiday gifts (they're in lovely condition); others may be the flashlight-under-the-blanket spooky treat that you give to yourself for a winter's reading.

To make it especially easier to purchase these, we've cut all their prices by half, as of this evening. Please do browse our ABE listings under Joseph Citro, and find the ones that are right for you.

Joseph Citro

Diversion: Poetry from Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, Thanks to Claire Van Vliet

2011-12-03T20:47:00.001-05:00

Thursday evening I slipped away from the desk for a bit, to see the new exhibit of pulp paintings by Vermont and Canadian book artist Claire Van Vliet at St. Johnsbury's medical center, Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital. The images on the corridor walls capture moonrise, plowed fields, wild mountains -- some in Van Vliet's trademark earth tones, some in provocative azure and rose shades that call forth exotic visions of the hidden wonder of the northern lands that Van Vliet portrays. Those appreciating the show were mostly authors, artists, a craftsman, a poet or two.

Van Vliet drew out some samples of a new creation to show us: a "trade" edition of GONE by Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, poet and president of Marlboro (VT) College. McCulloch-Lovell's poems have been slow to come forward, as her positions in arts leadership caused her to hold them close and not flaunt them in any way. Earlier this year, Claire Van Vliet and her team of artisans, including Andrew Miller-Brown and Aubrey Holden, created an elegant limited edition of GONE, printed on Richard de Bas Apta paper that had been handmade at the late, lamented Hayle Mill in Maidstone, Kent, England. Complete with slipcase, the collection emerged in an edition of only 100 copies, all signed by the author and artist (and including a haunting lithograph by Claire Van Vliet),

The trade edition is a modest, machine-printed softcover, wrapped in paper that bears the tinted cloud forms of one of Van Vliet's pulp paintings. It's likely to sell for about $12 when it reaches the market, perhaps early next year. This will make McCulloch-Lovell's poems much more available to readers, and is a lovely gift from the press and poet.

But here's a special opportunity: Vamp & Tramp, Vicky and Bill Stewart's fine press bookshop in Birmingham, Alabama, has the final limited-edition copy of GONE available for purchase. Check it out here -- I hope one of you seizes the moment and captures this copy.

Meanwhile, watch for the new trade form of the book. It provides an enchanting vista of rural life, of Vermont beauty, and of the elegance of a fine poet.

Clouds, by Claire Van Vliet, a pulp painting shown at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center.

MR. KILL by Martin Limón: 7th in Korean DMZ Series (1970s)

2011-12-03T19:46:00.001-05:00

Investigators George Sueño and Ernie Bascom, assigned to the Criminal Investigation Division of the U.S. 8th Army in Korea in the "early seventies," represent America to the Koreans around them. Round eyed, big nosed, very tall, hairy of skin (like monkeys) -- that's how they appear to the people around them, much like any other Yank on hand in this time before tourism has much of a role in the divided nation.

Unfortunately, that's the same set of descriptors that Sueño and Bascom pick up from observers of crimes. And as MR. KILL opens, they're tackling one of the nastiest situations possible, one that's quickly antagonizing the Koreans around them: It appears that an American G.I. has just brutally raped a young woman on a train -- a woman traveling with two small children, who are terrified by what's just happened to their mother. The investigative team has solved a lot of crimes, in spite of getting themselves in plenty of trouble along the way (booze, women, a marked inability to kiss up to supervisors). Now they need to use their skills, and fast. Every hour of "unsolved" on this one means another hour of public anger, mounting and seething.

Behind us, on the overhead ramparts, a crowd gathered, people waiting for other trains. Some of the civilians murmured loudly about Miguk-nom, base American louts. Somehow they'd gotten wind of what had happened.

It's George Seuño who tells the tale, which is a good thing -- way too often, his partner is angrily drunk, or shacked up with a sweetie. Poor Miss Kim in the office is still heartbroken from breaking up with Ernie. This time, though, Ernie's not seeking a Korean "yobo" to keep him company. Instead, he's found a liaison with Marnie, leader of an all-female country-western band touring the U.S. bases. Coincidentally, the "girls" have complained about thefts and peeping Toms on the tour, so George and Ernie get assigned to chase that problem, too.

All too soon, their Korean law enforcement counterparts learn about the demands on George and Ernie's time. Faced with a horrifying criminal act, and a G.I criminal whose actions seem to be escalating further, the national forces can't grasp how protection for a girl band could compete. Maybe Ernie's the only one happy about the extra tasks involved!

If you've been reading Limón's engrossing and perceptive series, none of this will surprise you -- Ernie's got a track record of heedless trouble, and George has been rescuing him for six previous books. (There's some balance, though; Ernie's fists and determination have pulled George out of a lot of dangerous moments, too.)

But you're in for surprises as MR. KILL continues to unfold. For one thing, "Mr. Kill" is the nickname of a seriously amazing Korean investigator, head of the national investigative forces. For another, George's relationship with Mr. Kill shifts rapidly from enormous respect to desperation and then involves even more uncomfortable ties. There are plot twists that punch holes in the customary detection routines, and insights into religion, women, men, and national pride, tucked into the fast-paced scenes.

By the end of MR. KILL, the American team knows a lot more about both American and Korean mistakes and dangers. And it's clear there's a sequel already in the works.

That can only be good news -- because this is a truly top-notch series, and Soho Crime gets a tip of the hat again for finding it and keeping it coming.

A quick note for newcomers to the series: You don't need to have read the others before this one (although I'm hoping you'll want to, even if you read book 7 first). And you won't be circling the house checking the locks the way you might have with the recent Scandinavian noir, or grimacing over details of abuse or body fluids -- Limón's action is more geared to human affection and loyalty, despite the detection and risks involved. Pick this one up, in order to enjoy both the good read, and the good feeling afterward. Let me know if you agree.

(P.S. -- for a wildly different sense of this author's viewpoint, check out his recent rant on the future of the U.S. Postal Service, in his guest post on the crime fiction author blog "Murder is Everywhere." Worth a look!)

December SALE on All Mysteries: 30% Unsigned, 10% Signed

2011-12-02T11:33:00.000-05:00

Don't let the green grass in the background fool you -- last week we had a quick eight inches of snow here, and although it melted, we're expecting more this afternoon. (I'll send snow images later!) And it feels like the Holiday Season, inside and out.

We know that for many of you, it would be a long trip to visit Kingdom Books in this wintry month. But we have to celebrate somehow! So ... for the rest of December, if you place an order directly with us -- via e-mail (KingdomBks@gmail.com) or phone (802-751-8374) -- we'll give you a holiday discount of 30% on any unsigned mysteries and 10% on any signed ones.

And to make things even merrier, if you purchase three or more books, we'll give you FREE "media mail" shipping as well.

Search our listings on ABE here: http://www.abebooks.com/kingdom-books-waterford-vt-u.s.a/1498832/sf

Happy Holidays!

Poet Ruth Stone, 96, Closes the Pages

2011-12-02T10:55:00.000-05:00

We mourn the loss of poet Ruth Stone, who died on November 19 at the age of 96. Although we'd like to claim her as a "Vermont poet" (she lives outside Middlebury), she was far more than that. I've borrowed a phenomenal photo from Steve Brown's blog because it gives such a great sense of the energy and intensity Stone brought with her, despite her crippling blindness in her later years.

And for insight into her work and its effects, check out this TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love).

Although Kingdom Books closed its poetry room two years ago in order to focus entirely on mysteries (sob -- letting go of some four thousand books of poetry), I still can't resist stocking a few shelves with the best work that I run across. And that includes some hardcover firsts from this powerful poet. Have at 'em.

News from Maine Author Paul Doiron: The Next Mike Bowditch Book Is ...

2011-12-02T10:39:00.002-05:00

Doiron and Michael Connelly, picking up Strand awards

We've become huge fans of the Maine Game Warden crime novels of Paul Doiron, a long-time editor at Down East (yes, both the magazine and the books). Paul's November visit here at Kingdom Books drew an impressive gathering of authors -- my count was that all but one of the people attending were writers themselves, which shows how good Doiron's books are. It's the ultimate compliment when fellow authors salute your work. And Paul Doiron has surely earned that salute with Poacher's Son and Trespasser. (We sold a lot of his books, signed of course, in November; we have three signed copies left of the first book and four of the second. Collectors, please note: Dave has scouted around the Doiron's first book, in first edition, is already quite scarce. Get 'em while you can.)

And now, as an extra treat, the latest e-blast from this fiercely wonderful Registered Maine Guide announces the publication date of August 7, 2012, for book three in the Mike Bowditch series. It's called BAD LITTLE FALLS and takes place near the Canada border, with Mike isolated and exiled and coping with terrible risks. When Doiron was here, he showed us a not-yet-for-publication view of the book's proposed cover. Dave and I both suggested that he remind the publisher to make his author name on the front larger in size ... because by next summer, there's no question, readers will be specifically looking for "the next Paul Doiron book." Most noted detail for me in terms of this series: There are huge areas of Maine's forested landscape where the game warden is the only law enforcement officer around -- hence the wide range of crime he (or she) needs to tackle. Most noted aspect of Doiron's writing: These are character-driven novels, pounding with the tense emotional context of a flawed person tackling a job that takes all of your soul and mind to do it right.

In his discussion here at Kingdom Books, Doiron admitted that creating a fractured soul in a young game warden could have drawbacks for those Maine folks who prefer their law enforcement to come from balanced, mature, even-handed folks with lots of wisdom and sanity. On the other hand, who starts out that way, really? And the author promises forward motion for Mike Bowditch, as the demands of both the job and the people around him put him through a refining fire of a career.

Even though it's smartest in New England winter to stay "in the moment" and work with the season on hand, I confess I've got a big reason here to look forward to next August.

Meanwhile, I'm planning to give myself the holiday treat of re-reading books one and two. And, of course, giving copies to my best reading friends, to get them started with this memorable investigator over the holidays.

Colin Cotterill, SLASH AND BURN -- the Eighth Dr. Siri Mystery

2011-12-01T21:28:00.000-05:00

It's the first of December, and it's going to be a great month for new mysteries. Top on my list for sheer enjoyment is the eighth "Dr. Siri" mystery from Colin Cotterill, SLASH AND BURN, releasing December 6 (yes, pre-order it now, or add it to your list). All through the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, I carried my copy around with me, sinking into any handy armchair (between kitchen tasks) to dip into this latest Laos crime novel. I'm afraid the title had my visiting relatives worried about me ... it's a bit deceptive, since this is far from a slasher novel, honest! The slashing and burning refers to the agricultural technique that surrounds 74-year-old Dr. Siri Paiboun and his wife, and their friends, at a site in northern Laos where they're assisting the search for a downed U.S. helicopter pilot. Alive, or not? And what destroyed the helicopter and the surrounding jungle?

Poor Dr. Siri. At his age, he should be retiring. Actually, he already did once, but his country pulled him back into service, running the nation's only working morgue. But finally his latest retirement request has been accepted, so it's quite unexpected that his arch-enemy, Judge Haeng, asks him to supervise the coroner's portion of the ongoing search. A moment of acute perception -- realizing how badly the Party-oriented judge needs him for this one -- leads Dr. Siri to negotiate what ought to be a wildly cheerful final outing, with his friends in tow. Here, for example, is the coroner's introduction of his wife, as the MIA task force of Lao and American investigators and translators gets going:

"Next," said Siri, "a legend in the underground resistance forces against the French, a spy of many faces, never discovered, a woman with an intellect so high that she married me" -- riding the groans -- "and the maker of the best noodles on this and probably every other planet, I present you, Madame Daeng."

Still, there are signs that all isn't as simple or sweet as it might be. For one thing, the local transvestite fortuneteller, Auntie Bpoo, has very seriously predicted that Siri will die before retirement. Die very soon, for that matter. So Auntie Bpoo has tagged along for the investigation. For another, people on the joint investigative task force are dying -- in ways that are clearly intentional, not accidental.

As the smoke surrounding the task force gets thicker, the landscape more treacherous, and the mix of Lao and American forces more unexpected, Siri tangles with the forces that have haunted him through his morgue-related career: spirits of the dead. What are they trying to tell him? Does the answer have any bearing on the missing American, or the death foretold for Dr. Siri?

This is a delightful classic mystery, imbued with enough exotic flavors of custom and language to make it deliciously distracting. It will last a lot longer than the Thanksgiving desserts ... and be even more fun.

Oh, one more bit of good news: If you haven't read the earlier Dr. Siri books, you'll still enjoy this one almost as much. But if you had a chance to savor Love Songs from a Shallow Grave, the seventh in the series, you'll feel like your feast is even better.

Will there be another Dr. Siri book? Cotterill has left room for one, twisting Dr. Siri's life madly. But he's also started another series, featuring Jimm Juree (stories of the feisty Thai lady journalist began last summer), so ... who knows? See what you can figure from the author's enjoyable website. And hats off to Soho Crime, for bringing us this one.

First of Three British Police Novels: James Craig, LONDON CALLING

2011-11-20T22:04:00.001-05:00

After 30+ years as a journalist, James Craig talked Soho Crime into a three-book contract, starting with the just-released LONDON CALLING. Inspector John Carlyle is a mildly out of shape but loyal husband and father with a sensible sidekick (Joe Szyskowksi) and a rather distant female boss. He's human enough to be likable, and most if not all of his problems are due to not calling people back or not answering his cell phone. I like him.

LONDON CALLING does show its "debut" status, though, with some confused metaphors, contradictory adjectives, and, for my taste, a bit too much emphasis on the British class structure and the graphic consequences of anal sex. That said, though, the plot is quick and polished, the characters are highly believable, and I'll read the next one, in anticipation of a quick learning curve.

A sample of this police procedural:

Carlyle saw several hours of time wasting ahead of him and felt his body sag. He gritted his teeth to keep hold of his anger.

'This,' he said, pointing a finger at Brolin, 'had better not be one of your f***ed-up guests pissing about.' Aching with tiredness, Carlyle could feel himself starting to go off on one, but he was saved by Prentice putting a hand on his arm, gently telling him to give it a rest. It was a timely intervention, and Carlyle acknowledge it with a nod. He understood the sergeant's point: don't shoot the messenger -- even if he does appear to be a moron.

At the moment, the author's website isn't complete. Keep an eye on it; good things are likely.

Lawrence Block, Megan Abbott, Dwayne Swierczynski, Nancy Pickard, Barry Eisler

2011-11-20T21:50:00.002-05:00

Barry Eisler

Nancy Pickard

All at once? Well, almost -- Dave and I spent an unreal number of days on the road this month, with absurd numbers of hours in the car. But it was worth it.

We headed first to New York City, to visit The Mysterious Bookshop, Otto Penzler's reliably wonderful shop "way downtown" -- for a presentation by three authors, MC'd by Lawrence Block. What can I say: It was worth every mile, and every swerve of the final taxi, to meet this author of so many lively and entertaining mysteries. Block stuck with the role of master of ceremonies, declining to talk about his current work or what's up ahead ("It's a secret") but giving some lively patter to introduce the three relatively younger authors lined up at the table. Megan Abbott brought out The End of Everything earlier in 2011, and I enjoyed it -- at first I thought it was a YA (young adult), but quickly realized its dark reflections were much better suited to an adult, especially one a bit nostalgic for the 1980s, when the story takes place. Abbott described it as "like a Grimm's fairy tale in the suburbs ... the results are fairly perilous and the wolf does indeed appear." Her next book "is about the dark heart of cheerleaders." Gulp.

Also on hand was Dwayne Swierczynski, whose name needs to become trained into the typing fingers for all the good books ahead from this author. He pitched his crime fiction Hell and Gone as a stand-alone, and the publisher requested a trilogy instead. Yes! He commented, "I like to give myself a pair of creative handcuffs," like putting all the action within a prison, or insisting that a book contain no swearing, and see what the pressure brings about, creatively. [Lawrence Block reckoned the same thing applies to his own Drop of the Hard Stuff.]

The third young author, whose initials that evening were Q.M., has since landed in such a swimming pool of fecal matter that we won't even go there. But darn it, he seemed such a nice person ...

Lawrence Block, at right, at The Mysterious Bookshop, NYC

Our next stop was outside Boston for the 10th eruption of the New England Crime Bake, with guests of honor Nancy Pickard and Barrry Eisler. Based on observation for three days, I can completely confirm that Pickard brings out the best in the people around her in every panel or conversation. How? By being both insightful and generous. She never tried (or needed) to push her own books forward -- instead, she pointed out the skilled work in the books of others, and drew out ideas about how to write well. I especially liked seeing her encourage Jennifer MacMahon and Brunonia Barry to "dish" about secrets and how they propel the plot forward, leading to depth and intensity. An example of her grace: "I'm a thirty-year overnight success. I just live long enough." Truth is, she pushes each of her novels beyond the predecessors, and The Scent of Rain and Lightning is already a classic of fine writing and immaculately paced suspense.

Seconding Pickard's recommendations about perseverance as a writer, flying star Barry Eisler (in the news a lot lately for his decision to have Amazon publish his next book, a sure-fire winner in his John Rain ex-CIA rebel sequence) confessed, "My attitude at the beginning was, 'If somebody has to be published, it might as well be me,' and I recommend that attitude." Simply, he added, "Write the best book you can possibly write." That's why we'll keep purchasing his.

Final result of all that running around: Dave added another 45 signed mysteries to our shelves. Some are quite scarce indeed ... and all of them, worth reading.

On the other hand, please, partner, can we spend next November just staying home and stuffing the turkey? And reading good books?

Catching Up With Maine Crime Writers Gerry Boyle, Lea Wait, Barb Ross ...

2011-11-11T23:50:00.001-05:00

Gerry Boyle

Lea Wait

At the New England Crime Bake, it's great to catch up with authors you haven't seen in a while. Today I especially caught up with some Maine mystery authors, so here's a bit of news:

Gerry Boyle is working on his next Jack McMorrow book, savoring the differences between this investigator and the more wounded personality featured Boyle's other series, that of Brandon Blake, whose appearance in Port City Black and White gave us such a good read this season.

And Lea Wait reminded us that the Maine Crime Writers blog is featuring ... ta-da! ... the New England Crime Bake this week! Check it out here.

Had a great discussion with Barb Ross about reader involvement in the New England chapter of Sisters in Crime, and saw Kate Flora in passing. And meeting Donald Bain and Renée Paley-Bain, creators of the "Murder, She Wrote" series (set in Maine; the authors don't live there) was also a treat.

Tomorrow will be more geographically diverse, as the day starts with a talk from the Bains, Michael Palmer, Barry Eisler, and Nancy Pickard, moderated by Roberta Isleib. So ... how come you're not here? Three cheers for Sisters In Crime, which collaborates with Mystery Writers of America to pull this off each year. My kinda scene.

Deer Hunting Season, Vermont and Maine, and an Author to Watch: Paul Doiron, TRESPASSER and THE POACHER'S SON

2011-11-10T20:31:00.001-05:00

Paul Doiron

Kingdom Books welcomes award-winning author Paul Doiron on Saturday Nov. 19 at 11 a.m., with a focus on Doiron's second book of crime fiction, TRESPASSER.

As we're getting ready (stacking up books, unfolding chairs, baking autumn treats), we're also firmly embedded in November's biggest calendar call for northern Vermont: deer season, or, more specifically, rifle hunting season for deer. It opens this Saturday, lasts for two weeks, and was preceded last weekend by a great state tradition, Youth Hunting Weekend.

Paul Doiron is a Registered Maine Guide (as well as editor-in-chief of Down East -- the magazine, the book publisher, the website), and for him, "deer season" began a week and a half ago, as Maine's calendar works differently from Vermont's. But the issues are much the same: How much room is there for traditional live-off-the-land activities as the region becomes more heavily populated with people whose goals revolve more closely around high-speed Internet access or rescue of vulnerable species than around tracking wildlife? (Me, I like best the way some people are able to combine all of these into a range of personal passions. Reminder, no matter what your interest: Wear orange in the woods during deer season. It's only fair, and wise.)

Doiron's blog this week includes commentary on the hunting-related injuries and death in Maine this season, and the effect of news coverage and images related to those. It's worth reading.

And Dave and I hope you'll mark your own calendar to come meet this author on the 19th. Not only do the books -- TRESPASSER and THE POACHER'S SON -- draw on Doiron's life in and around the Maine woods, but they tap deep emotional conflicts between father and son ... and spin a taut, tense narrative of crime and consequences.

CROOKED LETTTER, CROOKED LETTER, by Tom Franklin

2011-11-10T12:04:00.001-05:00

My mother used the memory device of "M, I, crooked letter crooked letter I, crooked letter crooked letter I, humpback humpback I" to spell Mississippi, so as soon as I saw the title of Tom Franklin's 2010 mystery, I knew something about it. And I waited until I wouldn't be rushed in reading it, remembering the slow relentless power of the Mississippi landscape, weather, and people. Most recently, the book won the CWA (Crime Writers Association) Gold Dagger Award in October.

CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER captures all of that. Although it's tucked into the mystery shelves for the crimes that open the book -- abductions, presumed murders, of two local girls, and a local constable hoping to find clues toward solving them -- count this as a deep and resonant novel, well outside the usual heart of the genre. And yet it's comparable to John Hart's Down River, which Dave and I have shelved among our mysteries. But it's also close in some ways to that great classic, Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy.

Take a look at the author's page provided by HarperCollins; and here's a good review by the Washington Post. Enough said. Well worth reading.

THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE: Available Nov. 8, Scandinavian Noir

2011-11-06T10:02:00.001-05:00

Thank goodness for the pressure to translate the top Scandinavian crime fiction -- which brings us, this week, the first dark and intense translated book in the series featuring Nina Borg, a Danish Red Cross nurse.

Written by Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis, and deftly translated to English by Kaaberbøl herself, THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE stakes out new ground in modern noir. Borg herself is a determined, dedicated professional, working at a known sanctuary for battered women. She's no savior figure or superhero -- just one of those people who witnesses and tries to assist the painful one-step-forward, two-steps-back process of women attempting to take back their lives. Brutality, compulsion, power. She knows them. But she doesn't live at home with them, where she has a husband and two children of her own.

But her friends, even her long estranged friend Karin, know Nina's abilities and dedication. So when Karin entraps Nina in a situation where Nina collects a suitcase from a Copenhagen train station, and the suitcase contains a three-year-old child, naked, drugged, but thank goodness, very much alive and grieving, Nina takes on the responsibility of saving the child and searching for his home.

Danger and risk -- in today's most frightening forms of child trafficking, moneyed criminals, and mob connections -- follow the child and Nina. Yet there are no dramatic kick-boxing or firearms scenes, no made-for-TV car chases, no wise mentors or rescuers drifting into the scenes. Instead, Kaaberbøl and Friis powerfully present the horror of everyday challenges in escaping evil: the moment you've lost your cell phone in the woods while hearing danger behind you, and you've got to take care of a small child:

Her heart gave a wild leap and raced even faster under her sweat-soaked T-shirt. She stumbled to her feet, still with the boy locked in her arms.

And then she ran.

The boy's body was tense with resistance and difficult to manage, and she felt the extra weight now in her knees and ankles. She was getting older, she thought, too old to be fleeing with a child in her arms.

Seconds later, she reached the Fiat and yanked open the door to the driver's seat.

The very ordinariness of the characters and scenes in THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE push its powerful dramatic pace and make it at times quite terrifying. I found myself taking breaks from the emotions that every parent or grandparent knows: anguish at the dangers that life sends flying toward our children, terror at what could happen to them, clenched fists and heart as we become their defenders, at any cost.

Here's the ultimate opposite of the era's already noted Scandinavian thriller, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, for the committed women in Kaaberbøl and Friis's narrative aren't twisted by abuse, aren't crippled by their pasts -- they take hold of what they must, and they race for safety, carrying a toddler if necessary, screaming internally but running as fast as they can.

It's a great new addition to the shelf, whether on the Scandinavian side, the thriller side, the darkly driven crime fiction side, or as an investigation of how the ordinary can rise to compelling significance. Pre-order a copy online or reserve it at your local shop; the first printings (brought to us by the talent spotters at Soho Crime) are likely to fly into buyers' hands, and collectors in particular should grab them while they're available.

A KILLER'S ESSENCE: Crime and Horror from Dave Zeltserman

2011-10-23T21:17:00.001-04:00

There's a lot going on around me that makes Dave Zelterserman's September release, A KILLER'S ESSENCE, seem especially on target. Zeltserman's books have already staked out a lot of turf in two areas: Boston crime with the cold-blooded violence of Whitey Bulger and his associates (Pariah, Small Crimes, and Killer), and savvy horror (see The Caretaker of Lorne Field). With Bulger's recent arrest -- and his casual nastiness in accepting this, along with the possibility that he may be able to trade his silence for some kind of deal -- Zeltserman's crime fiction stands out as investigations of the minds of urban sociopathic killers. Mind you, there's plenty of plot with each book, too, but it's the insight into this kind of thinking that marks this author's work particularly.

Now, in the spooky season when horror fiction rises up and claims the front row, here comes THE KILLER'S ESSENCE. It starts out as a routine police detection novel -- except for the hint that the investigating officer, Stan Green, had a childhood experience of seeing "something" when a butcher-type murderer tried to invite him into the back room, so to speak. Other aspects feel familiar to the noir genre, too: Stan's got a rather sleazy girlfriend named Bambi, an ex-wife and two kids who are starting to despise him (well, the ex-wife is long past the start, actually), and a boss who pressures him into accepting cases when he's supposed to be doing things with the kids he's already let down so often.

But Zeltserman pulls this frame inside out in two ways. The first is a perfect fit with this season's TV shows that include the paranormal: He's got a crime witness who avoids faces because often when he looks at them, he sees, well, either hallucinations, or depictions of the horrors of some people's souls. (Think Stuart Neville's Irish crime fiction, haunted and horrific.) But there's a totally unexpected twist that this author pulls off, summed up this way: Who says the best path for a cop caught in a desperate situation is always to take a stiff shot of whiskey and watch his life fall apart?? Check out how vastly different the plot line might be, after all.

That's it -- read the book to discover a truly novel form of noir, smoothly written with immense craft, and raising some enduring questions and lingering images. Way to go, DZ!

Dashiell Hammett, THE MALTESE FALCON -- Artwork

2011-10-23T16:22:00.001-04:00

Illustrator OWEN SMITH created these (signed) prints for the San Francisco Arts Commission Market Street Project. They depict Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falcon. We one each of the five shown here ($25 + $5 shipping each, 18"x12"). Drop us an e-mail at KingdomBks@gmail.com if interested.

Hurrah! Vermont Author Howard Frank Mosher Receives NEIBA Award

2011-10-22T15:01:00.000-04:00

In all the news of occupying Wall Street and hoping for self-determination in so many struggling nations, let's not forget the good news at home that keeps us hopeful. The NEIBA President's Award Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts was actually announced months ago, but the award ceremony happened last week. Our heartfelt congratulations to Howard Frank Mosher, and to NEIBA (the New England Independent Booksellers Association) for its good New England sense in making such a great and appropriate choice.

Hi, Folks,

I'd like to thank the New England Independent Booksellers Association and, in particular, outgoing NEIBA President Dick Hermans, for the President's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts that I received on October 12 at the NEIBA Conference in Providence.

Over the years, the independent booksellers of New England and beyond have helped establish and sustain the careers of hundreds of writers, kept "the book," as we know it, alive and well, and fought tirelessly and courageously to safeguard our First Amendment rights to read, write, and say what we wish to.

I can think of no greater honor for a writer to receive than the President's Award from this distinguished organization. To all indie booksellers, and to all of my friends and readers, thank you.

All best,
Howard

The books: Walking to Gatlinburg (2010), On Kingdom Mountain (2007), Waiting for Teddy Williams (2004), The True Account (2003), The Fall of the Year (1999), North Country (1997), Northern Borders (1994), A Stranger in the Kingdom (1989), Marie Blythe (1983), Where the Rivers Flow North (1978), Disappearances (1977). (We try to keep these in stock ... signed firsts. Use the search link in the right-hand column if you want to check on what's available this week.)


The latest ...

Calendar Alert: Poetry in 2012

2011-10-22T14:44:00.000-04:00

This series, offered just south of the Vermont border in Shelburne Falls, MA, brings such good poets that I figure it's worth inking into the calendar. I'm hoping to post some poetry reviews tomorrow, along with a mystery or two. Weekends are both ...

The Collected Poets Series
announces the schedule for 2012.

January 5, 2012

No CPS — The Post-Holiday Hiatus

February 2, 2012

Ellen LaFleche & Jennifer Militello

March 1, 2012

Abbot Cutler & Diane Wald

April 5, 2012

Deborah Brown & Jeff Friedman

May 3, 2012

Ewa Chrusciel & Mary Ruefle

June 7, 2012

Alexandria Peary & Wally Swist

July 5, 2012

Peggy O’Brien & Dawn Potter

No CPS Readings in August or September

October 4, 2012

Patrick Donnelly & Jean Valentine

November 1, 2012

Andrea Cohen & special guests

December 6, 2012

Lori Desrosiers & Cindy Snow

The Collected Poets Series highlights the work of established and emerging poets. Each event showcases the remarkable local poets of Western Massachusetts and the finest regional, national, and international talent.

The series is held the first Thursday of the month at 7:00 p.m. at Mocha Maya's, 47 Bridge Street, Shelburne Falls, MA, Phone: 413-625-6292.

Three Autumn Releases: SAINT'S GATE by Carla Neggers, GHOST HERO by S. J. Rozan, ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVY by Delia Rosen

2011-10-19T20:09:00.003-04:00

Whew, what a busy season! Launching my own second novel (The Secret Room) and welcoming Archer Mayor back to Kingdom Books (Tag Man, number 22 with Joe Gunther) pushed up against finishing the garden, canning applesause, freezing apple pie slices, making lemon-tomato conserve, pruning the apple trees (still need to prune the roses and raspberries). So of course, I've read some new mysteries for pleasure, in the little scraps of time I could find. Here are three:

SAINT'S GATE is the start of a new series by Carla Neggers, who lives in Vermont but it best known as a national author, with at least four other suspense series already rolling. This one is set in Maine and features FBI art crimes expert Emma Sharpe and one of the FBI's deep-cover agents, Colin Donovan. The two of them collide, each investigating the death of a nun at a seacoast convent and possible ties to international thefts and violence. Friction between their approaches heats up some of the action, and soon it's clear the two investigators need to make time for each other -- but work comes first, and Neggers includes a taste of her beloved Ireland in the process of plotting the downfall of the criminals involved. Smooth, polished, clearly the work of an experienced pro in braiding together detection and romance, SAINT'S GATE is a delightful read. I'm looking forward to more in this series -- as well as some of the others that are still unfolding. Check the author's website for more titles.

It's hard to resist plunging into each new book from S. J. Rozan, and her Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series continues to be a hit, set in New York's Chinatown and working deftly around the cultural conflicts of a Chinese investigator (whose mother wishes she'd marry a nice Chinese man!) and her partner in business, and slowly personally, Bill Smith. This one's not a romance, although strands of the past entanglements and future possibilities between Chin and Smith drift by from time to time; it's a brisk and very action-oriented investigation novel, featuring artwork by Chau Chun -- "Ghost Hero Chau," presumably killed during the shooting in Tiananmen Square in China. But art experts have reasons to disagree -- some of them clearly financial -- and organized crime has its fingers all over the art world. Chin and Smith and a third investigator, Jack Lee (a Chinese-American with a lot less Chinese than Lydia) race to resolve the conflict and head off further violence. Rozan spins an enjoyable tale, and this one is especially notable for the nearly constant one-liners that the three investigators swap; I ache to see the film version (think Pink Panther, but better!). Lydia steals the scene repeatedly, and is one of the most likable detectives in today's mysteries.

Delia Rosen's second "Nashville Katz" mystery, ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVY, follows the cute and clever "cozy" A Brisket, a Casket. It should be clear from the titles that the author is an avid punster, and Gwen Katz brings a dollop of New York Jewish culture to the Nashville, Tennessee, Jewish-style deli that she's inherited from her Uncle Murray. This second book plunges Katz and her crew into trouble at their first catering gig, when a wealthy guest, murdered, falls through the ceiling, splashing gravy and spoiling the event. Pit this amateur sleuth (and kitchen pro) against the local police investigation (they're not supposed to let the amateurs in on the hot trail, you know) and you've got issues as challenging as making Kosher dill pickles (see the recipes in the back of the book). The Jewish humor is a bit heavy-handed, but the plot is sweet, and the resolution satisfying. Hint to book sleuths: "Delia Rosen" is a pseudonym. When you've figured out the author's original name, check the relevant Wikipedia entry; it appears that those Internet sleuths don't yet connect this series to the author's amazing earlier work. It's worth keeping an eye on the series, since with such extensive experience behind this author, there are sure to be a lot of twists and turns already lined up for the future volumes. Hint: From what I can see, the author of the second book is NOT the same as for the first one!

(Local and Good!) A Treasure in Paper Covers: GOOD LIVING REVIEW

2011-10-19T08:51:00.002-04:00

"To see a world in a grain of sand ... And eternity in an hour," wrote the poet William Blake. My copy of Good Living Review, being published next week in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, is a great example of how the world of American life in the first half of the 1900s can be seen inside a paper cover.

This collection of thirty-three recollections -- some entirely factual, some fictionalized, all graced with detail and delight -- comes to us from an ongoing "memoir writing group" at the Good Living Senior Center, a project at one of the town's most spectacular and historic locations, St. Johnsbury House. Inspired by what filmmaker Ken Burns crafted in his public television series on World War II, the group of Vermont residents have put their personal stories on paper, full of humor, joy, and insight.

I giggled with the tiny girl that Barbara Bessette once was, as she recalled riding in a surrey, a beautiful wagon, behind a farting mare, to deliver dairy products in the French Canadian part of town. Born in 1929, this author experienced rides in a "one-horse open sleigh" too, and the rumble of home life next to an active railroad track near the river. "Skating at night in the moonlight was a blast, and in the field some of the grownups would come down and build a bonfire."

In that single sentence is captured a way of life that's almost incredible today: parents having fun with their children outdoors, without a wad of cash or any electronics or synthetic protections against the weather. "That's what's great in a small town," Bessette concludes: "There's always something to do, and never a dull moment."

And that's exactly what this wonderful collection brings, ranging from a drawing of a handmade periscope that Arthur Lord could use to see out of his foxhole during the war, to Rosalie Vear's reflections on the bombing of Pearl Harbor and later of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (as well as her thoughts on her gardens), to Betty Simpson Blake's tale of a ten-cents-a-week insurance policy in the Depression, and its results in a hardscrabble family where tragedy struck. I plan to read all of these many times -- already, I'm eager to take another look at Pat Horvatich's piece that begins, "My mother's psychic ability came into force just about mid-life."

These recollections and reflections of rural life -- whether on the farm, in town, or on the road -- create a treasured window into a world we've almost forgotten was so close to us. Thank goodness, the many writers in Good Living Review, with the skillful encouragement of memoirist Reeve Lindbergh, choose to remember and spill forth the details for us all. I love discovering the gems on each new page of this book. What a treat!

Obtain a copy through the local independent general bookstore, Boxcar & Caboose, and keep up with the authors and their book events at their own Facebook page. The stories may be from the past, but the storytellers are up-to-date and savvy, and ready to give a grin or a wink as they recall the fun they've had.

Thank You, Archer Mayor and Kingdom Book Folks!

2011-10-16T17:12:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's visit from Archer Mayor was truly a celebration, as Dave announced that this multitasking author of the Joe Gunther police detection series is hitting the New York Times bestseller list for this week, with his 22nd book in the series, TAG MAN. And we had more than 22 fans on hand to celebrate; that was the chair count, and I know some generous and merry people ended up sitting on the (padded) stairs and standing at the back. So we'll take that as an omen that there are many more good Archer Mayor books ahead! Special thanks to his support team, too, including Margo Zalkind, who brought bookmarks, VBI "Euro-style" bumper stickers, and an active camera.

Pardon my own shaky shot here, taken while juggling books and a plate of cookies and enjoying the "after-reading" conversation as people waited to get books signed. From my hasty notes on the side: The very creepy aspect to the Tag Man's activities in this latest book comes from a "dream" that Archer and his daughter have shared: wishing they could have the gift of invisibility. Way to go! Thanks again, all of you, for a perfect afternoon of books, discussion, and happiness.

Coming tomorrow: Reviews of other titles I've been waiting to tell you about!

Archer Mayor and Joe Gunther: Books 19-21

2011-10-14T21:44:00.000-04:00

First edition

Two things have struck me as I've worked with this set of "recaps" of the 21 Joe Gunther mysteries that precede TAG MAN -- which Archer Mayor will introduce in person here at Kingdom Books tomorrow, October 15, at 2 p.m.: (1) These books can all stay on my "re-read these" shelf -- the passage of time only makes them better, as they unfold with skilled narrative and intelligent plots, as well as friendships that last -- and change -- for years. (2) Seeing them in groups of three or four reveals the swings of change in how Mayor has presented Joe and the engaging characters that share his investigations: journalist Stan Katz, medical examiner Beverly Hillstrom, detectives Sammie Martens and Willy Kunkle, and more.

Large-print edition

The preceding four books presented separate investigations, separate adventures. What linked them, though, and raised the ante over time, was the changes in Joe Gunther's life as both investigator and intimate partner of the very intelligent, very determined Gail Zigman, whom Joe met in his hometown of Brattleboro, Vermont. By the end of Chat, readers knew that Gail was unlikely to defeat the violent spectres that Joe's career kept bringing to her, with their induced flashbacks of a crime that victimized her years before. You could taste Joe's loneliness, inevitable and powerful as a freight train pulling through a crossing.

In THE CATCH (St Martins/Minotaur, 2008), while Joe's personal life may have shriveled, his professional life is in high gear. Head of the prestigious (and fictional) Vermont Bureau of Investigation, or VBI, Gunther tackles the investigation of a cop killing, way on the other side of the state. Uncovering the details sends the investigation explosively into more New England states, especially along the coast. From Boston, to Portsmouth, NH, to Maine, Joe Gunther and his team discover the long reach of crime, organized and powerful. And unexpectedly, he partners with a new lover, someone both tough and sweet, someone who's not afraid to say "I love you" to Joe, even as she's wrestling with her own complicated family life and starting a business in Brattleboro herself.

First edition

Large-print edition

But what Joe discovers in the course of his investigations has a dark impact on Lyn Silva, and THE PRICE OF MALICE (Minotaur, 2009) tests his self-image and his dreams for a comfortable future. For Lyn too, there's no guarantee that it's going to be worth tackling all the darkness that Joe is bringing into her life. Suddenly she leaves town, determined to solve the mysteries and perhaps serious crimes of her family's past. Encouraged by his team of detectives, who cover for him, Joe goes "AWOL" himself, tackling the risks that Lyn has both engaged with and fueled. The risk level for both of them is extreme, and the violence plays out not in Vermont, where Joe has ready backup, but along the ragged shoreline of the state of Maine.

RED HERRING (Minotaur, 2010) may be the most shocking of the Joe Gunther books, as the ultimate sacrifice of crimefighting -- the potential loss of life in a police officer's family -- becomes a reality for this overextended, overworking investigator. In fact, the plot twists are so intense that I won't hint at them, only adding here that when Joe's team finds several "unrelated" murders on their hands, Joe ends up out of state, finding advanced technical help beyond anything shown on CSI -- yet this is an Archer Mayor book, so the solution isn't fantasy, but hard science, exotic and intense though it sometimes appears. If you haven't read any of the Joe Gunther series, and you're about to pick up a copy of TAG MAN, please try really, really hard to grab and read RED HERRING first. It's the back story to the costs that book 22 will highlight.

Large-print edition

And that's it for now. Dave and I hope to see you tomorrow at the shop, or online afterward, or maybe to talk with you by phone (Dave epitomizes the term "book consultant," ready at the ring of a phone to plunge into which good mysteries might be next for your list). Most of all, try to be here to meet Archer Mayor. I've mentioned before that he's shown up here in a bulletproof vest once ("no time to change before driving here") and another time announced, "I can only stay an hour, there's a dead body waiting for me" (he's a state death examiner). I'm very, very curious about what we'll learn tomorrow -- about Archer Mayor, Joe Gunther, and an award-winning series that's maturing and thriving with its readers. Congrats, Archer and readers, for putting TAG MAN onto next week's New York Times bestseller list (yes, already announced!). Here's to book 22 ... a heck of good one, with 21 others behind it.

PS -- The three large-print covers shown here are from the Thorndike Mystery Series. Nice!

Archer Mayor and Joe Gunther: Books 15-18

2011-10-13T23:08:00.001-04:00

First edition

Where Gatekeeper and The Sniper's Wife took Archer Mayor's Joe Gunther series onto unusual ground, narrating mostly from points of view that were not Joe's but those of his colleagues, these next four books see the series return to classic police procedurals. And in a way, they are the plateau before the major leaps that Mayor and his detective protagonist take in books 19 to 21 -- which we'll look at tomorrow.

First edition

For today, note that all four first-edition covers of these books, THE SURROGATE THIEF (2004), ST. ALBANS FIRE (2005), THE SECOND MOUSE (2006), and CHAT (2007), are credited to Robert Santora, whose work also formed the preceding three covers. The CHAT cover shares design credit between Santora and Don Puckey, with Santora creating the illustration, a collage of house, weapon, computer, and out-of-date gasoline pump. They form a nice sequence on the shelf, markedly similar at the spine, although the first three are published by Mysterious Press (sometimes Time Warner Book Group, sometimes Hachette) and the fourth is Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group). A reader new to the series could step in at this group and not suffer from skipping the others -- although long-time fans would never forget the first 14 books!

In the first of the foursome, what appears to be a simple -- if violent -- domestic dispute handled by the Brattleboro police force ends up involving Joe Gunther in his role as head of the still new Vermont Bureau of Investigation (a fictional police team). Investigation of the people involved and, especially, a firearm with a history leads to Joe's personal past, a season 30 years earlier, when his wife was dying of cancer. Mayor skillfully ups the ante, putting Joe and his most recent love, Gail Zigman, at risk due to a long-unsolved crime. Tension ramps up and stays there, pushing the pace of THE SURROGATE THIEF. A lingering question at the end of the book is: Will Joe and Gail close their long-running intimacy, as Gail moves forward in a direction far different from the detective's?

Archer Mayor's reprint

Not, of course, that these books are romances -- they're moderately dark crime fiction. But the seasoning that makes them worth reading, volume after volume, is the stress that the police life sends into Joe Gunther's friendships and family. ST. ALBANS FIRE takes him to the corner of Vermont most distant from his focal town of Brattleboro -- the hard-living area where St. Albans and surrounding farms struggle for economic survival. Backed by Sammie Martens and Willy Kunkle, Joe survives his own firestorm of violence and threat -- and it gets way too close to what's left of his relationship with Gail Zigman, while the team chases down the criminals.

Softcover

First edition

In THE SECOND MOUSE (named for the expression "the early bird may get the worm, but it's the second mouse that gets the cheese" -- think about it), the tension building behind the scenes of Joe Gunther's life gets a time-out, as Gunther buckles down to breaking open an intense and violent trio based in Bennington, about 30 miles away across a mountain chain. Sammie Martens, Willy Kinkle, and Lester Spinney stick close, as the risks mount and Joe works to penetrate the emotional tangle of domestic and wider abuse erupting into violence.

First edition

And with CHAT, the investigative team makes a technological leap forward, into Internet crime. But it's the threats to Gunther's mother and brother -- present only very lightly in earlier books -- that force sacrifices beyond the usual range that the job requires.

Small threads from these four will lead into the next chapter of this investigator's life, in books 19 to 21, Gunther's reach extends toward the New England coast. Check back in tomorrow for a recap.

And if you still haven't reserved your signed copy of book 22, TAG MAN, you have less than 2 days left. Archer Mayor visits Kingdom Books on Saturday Oct. 15 at 2 p.m. -- and by Dave's count, half of the copies we've stocked for the event are already spoke for. Yes, we ship; and yes, we have most of the other Archer Mayor/Joe Gunther titles. Catch Dave at 802-751-8374 or KingdomBks@gmail.com to ask about specifics.

Chris Bohjalian, THE NIGHT STRANGERS

2011-10-12T22:38:00.000-04:00

An American house generally includes a door, maybe two; windows; a kitchen facility; a place to sleep; a place to entertain; and facilities for getting clean on a daily basis.

In the same way, the mystery genre has conventions about characters, plot, resolution -- and although they can be bent, even sometimes broken, if a book moves too far from the genre's guidelines, it's no longer a mystery (or thriller or suspense novel or work of detective fiction ... lots of subcategories available, including the characteristics of dark-and-urban or familiar-and-cozy).

Sometimes I'm lost when I read a book that I think is going to be a mystery, but find it's not one. That's what happened when I read Chris Bohjalian's new and very creepy suspense novel, THE NIGHT STRANGERS. For a while, I wasn't sure what to make of it ...

Then, lucky me, I found Margot Harrison's review in Seven Days and discovered that this book is actually classic horror fiction. I was fascinated by Harrison's review of the horror genre conventions, and her pleasure with how Bohjalian carried out his new creation.

Check out her review -- because it comes from being well informed on horror novels, it's knowledgeable, interesting, and, to me, revelatory. Thanks, Margot.

Archer Mayor and Joe Gunther: Books 12-14

2011-10-12T22:30:00.000-04:00

First edition

Archer Mayor's reprint

TUCKER PEAK (2001) takes Joe Gunther and Sammie Martens undercover in the shabby side of condo development of a ski resort. At this point in the series, that means Willy Kunkle is on hand, too -- and not happy about Sammie taking such risks. I don't have a copy handy, so I'll stay brief here and just add the cover art. Check out the excerpt on Archer Mayor's website.

First edition

THE SNIPER'S WIFE (2002) and GATEKEEPER (2003) both have covers designed by Robert Santora, who also did the art involved. Breaking drastically with the series, The Sniper's Wife takes Willy Kunkle, the irascible and irritating Vietnam vet on Joe's team, into New York City to confront his past. The narrative is from Willy's point of view, with Joe Gunther as almost a minor character. From chases to gunfire to flashbacks, it's pretty much Willy's book -- a treat for those who've especially enjoyed this difficult and angry but effective detective in previous volumes.

Gatekeeper veers in the opposite direction, taking on the female viewpoints from the team: that of Sammie Martens, again undercover but this time slipping across Vermont's southern border (beyond the "gate"), and that of Joe's former intimate partner Gail Zigman. Lester Spinney, an investigator familiar from smaller appearances in earlier books, gives Joe a hand.

Softcover

First edition

A lot of bad news about the new world of drug-running and 21st-century crime piles up in these volumes, as the down side of urban life pushes firmly north into the Green Mountain State. The next four books in the series tackle Joe Gunther's role in the Vermont Bureau of Investigation. And then, for books 19-21, we see a new aspect to the Vermont detective's work and directions.

Archer Mayor's reprint

If you've been following this series of posts, you know why we're running them: Archer Mayor presents his 22nd Joe Gunther mystery, TAG MAN, this fall, and introduces the book here at Kingdom Books this coming Saturday (10/15) at 2 p.m., with signing and discussion. Hope you can join us.

Archer Mayor and Joe Gunther: Books 9-11

2011-10-12T21:05:00.001-04:00

First edition

Archer Mayor's reprint cover

THE DISPOSABLE MAN (1998) is one of the more complex of Archer Mayor's Joe Gunther series. It opens with a corpse that Joe identifies as a probably Mob hit, takes Joe through a frame-up, wrestles with the complex and fragile relationship that he and his lover Gail Zigman are rebuilding (she is recovering from being raped; Joe is often helpless in the river of grief and pain that engulfs the two of them), and tangles Joe and his team with both the CIA and the FBI. As I look back now, I'm stunned at the amount of research that must have gone into this one -- way beyond the author's usual police and emergency responder jobs in southeastern Vermont. I'm going to steal some time over the end-of-year holidays to re-read it from cover to cover.

First edition

Archer Mayor's reprint

The tenth Gunther investigation is OCCAM'S RAZOR (1999), and that's what I spent my last two evenings re-reading. I always felt the title spoke especially to me, since I knew what "Occam's Razor" represented in logic and philosophy (and science): that the simplest explanation is often the strongest, as long as it covers all the data. The death at the start of the book is a nasty one: a man placed on a railroad track at night, just before the train arrives -- taking off his head and hands as it chugs past. Mayor brings the plot back home in this one, as Lieutenant Joe Gunther and his three other detectives -- Ron, Sammie, and Willy -- work their way through the "bottom feeders" of Brattleboro, figuring out the connections among poker players, a journal-keeping prostitute, and illegal hauling of toxic waste. By the end of the well-written and intricately plotted book, two startling changes have arrived on the otherwise familiar home turf: Sammie has lost her heart and then started over, and Joe has applied to the state's new (and totally imaginary) police team, the Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI). Those set the stage for the next ten books ahead.

First edition

Archer Mayor's reprint

In THE MARBLE MASK, Joe tackles his first assignment as head of the new and mostly unwelcome VBI. And it's a head-spinner that begins with a frozen body at a ski slope -- a body that's been frozen since the end of the Second World War. Mayor was a town constable in a Vermont village while writing this one, but in his hands, Gunther's investigation extended not just 50 years back in time, but across an international border, into Quebec. With Joe's most difficult fellow investigator, Willy Kunkle, caught up in the VBI work, problems multiply. Joe's own take on Willy is: "A complicated, difficult man, fighting more internal battles than any of us could know." Is there even a chance that the VBI will make room for Willy over the long haul?

Hold that thought, because it has a lot to do with the next three books. By the way, art for the original covers of these three books is by Mark Elliott.

* * *
Planning to come to Archer Mayor's Oct. 15 visit at Kingdom Books? He'll be here at 2 p.m. to introduce TAG MAN. Please do reserve your book in advance if you can -- we've got a nice stack but it won't last. Catch Dave at 802-751-8374 or KingdomBks@gmail.com; yes, we ship.

Archer Mayor and Joe Gunther: Books 6-8

2011-10-10T20:14:00.004-04:00

First edition

Archer Mayor's reprint

The hardcover versions of THE DARK ROOT (1995), THE RAGMAN'S MEMORY (1996), and BELLOWS FALLS (1997) all feature artwork by Chris Gall, following up on the Art Deco note of the preceding volumes. In terms of plot, there's tremendous diversity among these three -- yet they came out one after another, as author Archer Mayor reached his full strength, deploying Joe Gunther's police skills and steady character within Vermont's crime landscape.

But with The Dark Root, Mayor demonstrates that while it may be Vermont crime on hand, the forces fighting it extend well beyond the state's borders. An Asian family in Brattleboro suffers a brutal home invasion from Asian gang members -- and the FBI, the Border Patrol, and the Canadian Mounties all get involved, and Joe Gunther's investigation takes him to Montreal. Joe's personal life with Gail Zigman plays an interesting counterpoint to the crime plot. I'm glad Archer Mayor brought this out again, in trade-size paperback, as the hardcover has become downright scarce.

First edition

Archer Mayor's repring

The Ragman's Memory is one of my faves -- I've read it half a dozen times at least. I'm drawn by the way this one digs into the most impoverished areas and groups in southern Vermont, including the "ragman": a shell-shocked World War II veteran who may have the key to unraveling the criminal landscape that's blossoming in death and destruction. Good appearances from Sammie Martens, Willy Kunkle, Ron Klesczewski, and journalist Stanley Katz. Now that I think about it, it's time to re-read this one again.

First edition

Driving through Bellows Falls today, the marvels of downtown refurbishing triggered by artist and organizer Robert McBride distract the eye from the gritty former milltown that Mayor portrays in Bellows Falls. But those old factories are still mostly empty, the railroad sidings speak of rough times, and there are Paleo-Indian petroglyphs on the rocks along the river. A lot of hard living, as well as a lot of joy, continues in this town. And in the book, Joe Gunther faces some of the toughest crime scenes and chase sequences imaginable. Gail Zigman and Sammie Martens make brief appearances.

Archer Mayor's softcover reprint

Coming tomorrow: books 9-11, which include the two titles I've read most often and with most pleasure in the masterful storytelling.

Reminder: Archer Mayor joins us at Kingdom Books in Waterford, Vermont, on Sat. Oct. 15 at 2 pm for an intense introduction to book 22 in the series, TAG MAN. Be sure to reserve your signed copy of this one, and any of the earlier books, by getting in touch with Dave, either via e-mail (KingdomBks@gmail.com) or phone (802-751-8374). And yes, we do ship, if you can't be here in person.

First softcover design

Archer Mayor and Joe Gunther: Books 3-5

2011-10-05T21:05:00.001-04:00

Archer Mayor's later issue

First softcover

Archer Mayor reached a yearly rhythm with book 3 in the Joe Gunther investigations: SCENT OF EVIL (1992). I wish I had a copy here to show you the hardcover first edition art; it's hard to find now, and there is one due to arrive here later in the week. I'll post the two softcover versions, though: the first mass-market paperback (if you've visited the Latchis Hotel in Brattleboro, VT, you know where the idea for the artwork came from), and the lovely moody one Archer chose when he brought out the book again as his own publisher. In SCENT OF EVIL we met Detective Ron Klecszewski, who'll back Joe up in many more volumes to come; the book opens with a hand sticking out of a heap of dirt at a construction site.

The author's design choice

Book 4 is SKELETON'S KNEE (1993). The hardcover "firsts" of this one are even more scarce, so we're pleased to have one on the shelf, waiting for Archer Mayor's Oct. 15 visit here, to add an author signature. I remember the excitement of reading this when it first was published: The Vermont police investigator takes off for Chicago to learn about gangland killings, thanks to a set of leads developed by medical examiner Dr. Beverly Hillstrom and her team. (I also remember the day I learned that Hillstrom was based on Mayor's friendship and research with an actual Vermont ME, also a woman. More on that later.) Joe's investigating partner J. P. Tyler has a strong role in the story.

Hardcover first edition

First softcover

Hardcover, and first softcover

Archer Mayor's design choice

With book 5, FRUITS OF THE POISONOUS TREE (1994), the design route from the paperback covers migrates to the hardcovers. And this is the gripping volume in which Joe's girlfriend Gail Zigman is raped, putting their relationship into grave danger as well. Willy Kunkle and Sammie Martens assist in investigating, and Joe's brother Leo is at hand when Joe himself is attacked. Especially worth re-reading, as it forms the base for much that will take place in Joe's personal life in the later books.

NOTE: Kingdom Books is excited to welcome Archer Mayor again for an introduction to his newest Joe Gunther book, TAG MAN, on Saturday Oct. 15 at 2 p.m. (questions, discussion, signing -- yes!). We're admittedly eccentric in our business model: If you want a signed copy of TAG MAN, it's a good idea to reserve it ahead of time. And if you're looking for any of the earlier titles, please get in touch with us -- we may only have a single copy of some titles. Thanks!

Earliest Archer Mayor Mysteries: OPEN SEASON and BORDERLINES

2011-10-03T20:43:00.002-04:00

Archer Mayor's own design

First edition hardcover

When I first read OPEN SEASON (1988), I was struck by the amount of time Archer Mayor spent describing his locale: the city of Brattleboro, in southeastern Vermont, where police lieutenant Joe Gunther steps into the middle of an unsettled, and unsettling, murder/vendetta involving an old court case. Gail Zigman, whose intimate partnership with Joe changes drastically as the books go on, is here; so is the medical examiner in Burlington, Dr. Hillstrom. And Gunther's boss is pipe-smoking Tony Brandt. Others here who'll keep appearing include "Stan, Stan, the newspaper man," and detective J. P. Tyler.

British hardcover, rather poor copy

First paperback cover

The tight plotting of this police procedural somehow still allowed room for architectural details, weather complexity, and character growth. Looking back today, I see the advantages an author has in a first book: as much time as needed to polish, fine-tune, adjust. Wasn't it Archer Mayor who said later that the toughest book to write in a series is the second one, the one when there's suddenly a contractual deadline? I think so.

First edition hardcover

First paperback cover

And the second Archer Mayor/Joe Gunther book was BORDERLINES (1990). Set in the most inaccessible part of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, Essex County, it took Joe Gunther to a temporary post as investigator for a State's Attorney about as far as he can be from Brattleboro. Things haven't been going well with Gail Zigman; Joe is looking for a "geographic cure" for the weight he's carrying. When he collides with a situation of erupting violence in a cult "out there" (and yes, I recall exactly the "real" events behind this one), Joe gets exactly the pressure cooker of investigation and risk that he thought he wanted. Lester Spinney joins him for part of the investigation and will reappear in later books.

Archer Mayor's own design

Covers for these two are an interesting challenge for a collector. Simple designs came with the hardcover first editions; the British cover for OPEN SEASON took a more haunting route, with a figure in black leather jacket and gloves clutching a shotgun. Then there are the "Art Deco" paperback covers that followed, and finally the elegant ones that Mayor chose when he took back his rights to the titles, late in their publishing lives, in order to bring out a set of trade-sized (larger than the standard paperback) volumes.

Expect hardcover firsts to show some edge wear on the dust jackets, and unfortunately, some foxing on page edges. The paper wasn't the best. But wow, what great stories.

Photo Post: Upcoming, November ... THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE, by Laene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis

2011-10-02T23:05:00.000-04:00

Snow's coming. You can feel it, especially at night, up on the ridge. But there are still bright colorful leaves waving on the trees (and riding the winds), and this patch of garden close to the house holds a bit of summer -- along with a startling dark Scandinavian thriller coming from Soho Press in November. Good books and good coffee (from Café Grumpy, of course) will help us warm up to the coming season.

A "Must Read": THE BLOOD ROYAL by Barbara Cleverly

2011-10-02T22:49:00.000-04:00

Soho Press brought out the new newest Barbara Cleverly detective novel featuring Joe Sandilands last month, THE BLOOD ROYAL. It's a keeper -- a smoothly written and delicious classic detective story, as the Metropolitan Police Commander returns in 1922 to England after a lengthy posting to India. Between assignments to control Irish terrorism and high-profile assassination attempts, a White Russian spy network, and reestablishing himself at New Scotland Yard, Joe is beset by enormous challenges. Tightly plotted and full of insight into England's postwar politics, this is a sweeping and lively book with likable characters and entertaining twists.

But -- that's not why I'm saying it's a "Must Read."

Cleverly's two series have been frequently underrated, and she's often waited much longer than deserved for and recognition. As an example, although shortlisted in 1999, Cleverly finally received the Crime Writers Association Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award in 2004. And even her fans (including her publishers) seem unable to count her books: I count nine in the Joe Sandilands series, three with Laetitia Talbot (archaeologist turned detective), and one stand-alone, for a total of 13 novels so far, following a previous career as a teacher.

So it's simple math (and a dash of intuition or insight) that leads me to suspect Cleverly will scoop up awards in the near future, and with Soho Press now behind her, she has a clear field for publishing more of these well-written investigations.

Wouldn't it be great to know all of her books before the next award is announced? But if there isn't time for that, it makes sense to at least move THE BLOOD ROYAL onto the Must Read shelf. Yes?

* * *

A sample from the book:

"I saw her," [Joe Sandilands] said. "Briefly before they drove her home. Stunner! She'd certainly have diverted the admiral's and the driver's attention. Yes, two dark-clad men, profiting from a distraction, could have got across the road without being spotted. And they were wearing rubber-soled shoes. In any case, any sound would have been masked by the noise of the taxi engine, which had been left running." He heaved a sigh. "The admiral dismissed the cabby, and strolled down to his front door. The moment he stood on the doorstep, off guard and backlit by the hall lights, they struck."

"I'm wondering why the cabby didn't set off at once, sir?"

"Waiting -- as he'd said he would -- to make sure all was well?" Sandilands suggested. "Some sort of argy-bargy with the girl? Checking directions?"

He broke off and then said, with decision: "But look here -- that's enough desk work. Before we go to the hospital, or the jail, why don't I take you out to look at the scene?"

* * *
COLLECTOR'S NOTE: The Soho/Constable cover shown here differs from the ARC and from the US and UK online market versions. I'm still trying to sort this out.

Archer Mayor's 22nd Joe Gunther Book ... and Upcoming Visit to Kingdom Books

2011-10-02T22:00:00.002-04:00

Archer Mayor

TAG MAN is the 22nd Joe Gunther (and team) investigation from Archer Mayor, and it's time to pause and review the list. Here it is:

Open Season
Borderlines
Scent of Evil
The Skeleton's Knee
Fruits of the Poisonous Tree
The Dark Root
The Ragman's Memory
Bellows Falls
The Disposable Man
Occam's Razor
Marble Mask
Tucker Peak
The Sniper's Wife
Gatekeeper
The Surrogate Thief
St. Albans Fire
The Second Mouse
Chat
The Catch
The Price of Malice
Red Herring
and, at last, TAG MAN

We've all come a long way with Joe since 1988, when he made his first appearance. There's a great "bio" of this Vermont police detective on Archer Mayor's website, http://www.archermayor.com/joe_gunther.htm -- it's a good place to start, with its reminders of characters long gone from the latest books: Joe's brother Leo, for instance.

Author Archer Mayor will visit Kingdom Books on Saturday Oct. 15 at 2 p.m., when he'll introduce us to Tag Man and take questions. To get ready, I'm going to recap the preceding books over the next few days. Keep an eye on the blog here, and see how your memory matches up with what the detective's records show.

Mysteries in Different Garb: Ayelet Waldman, RED HOOK ROAD (2010); Ann Patchett, STATE OF WONDER

2011-10-02T21:34:00.000-04:00

Ayelet Waldman's "Mommy Track" mysteries took me right back to that sticky sensation of toddlers on the run, odd food samples in strange places, and anxiety dreams (that still come back) about leaving one of the kids someplace -- which, thank goodness, never happened in real life. Based on that early experience with Waldman's books (enjoyable but light), I was completely unprepared for the depth and agony of RED HOOK ROAD. And I'm so glad I caught up with this book, even though I'm a year late in discovering it.

Is it a mystery? There's no crime to solve, although there are burning questions. Often, all the answers seem to have been laid out, as Waldman offers scenes from various viewpoints, all centered on a stretch of Maine's coast where oldtimers and newcomers -- no matter where their grandparents once lived -- see the world and its days flavored by entirely different needs. And when Becca Copaken and John Tetherly ignore their families' frictions and marry each other, the deadly disaster that seizes them might even be Fate's reply to what happens when Juliet insists on publicly swearing loyalty to Romeo, and vice versa.

Waldman fastens on the way resentments, blame, and seething rage grow in the mind and heart at any age, in any condition. I found the book every bit as "gripping" as Khaled Hosseini (Kite Runner author) said it would be. In terms of genre, it's almost beach reading; almost literary; almost a romance; but entirely compelling, and I'll read it again.

Ann Patchett's STATE OF WONDER is less conventional -- I picked up the book because I've sometimes deeply enjoyed the magic in her novels. I didn't expect this one to deal with a missing person, a death in the wilds of Brazil's Amazon region, or a medical conundrum with shades of Michael Crichton in its insistence on new possibilities. Some parts moved slowly, langorously, and there are segments that require (like a Crichton book) a suspension of disbelief, in order to roll with the unusual twists.

What I liked best about it, oddly, was reading it at the same time when I was reading an advance copy of Leighton Gage's new Brazil crime fiction, A VINE IN THE BLOOD, due out in December of this year. The two novels meshed in what they paint of this distant and complicated landscape. I suppose it sounds odd to suggest reading Patchett in order to get ready for Gage -- but it's still a good notion.

And yes, I'm willing to include both books within the wide swath of mystery/suspense/detection that makes up Kingdom Books.

Collector's Corner: New and Urgent for Noir Collectors

2011-09-30T12:33:00.001-04:00

Flash from Dave's desk today: Dave Zeltserman's crime novel A Killer's Essence was released this week and this is the best crime novel I have read in the last year. Here is one quote that I provided to the author and publisher after reading A Killer's Essence. And a note to our friends who are collectors: I would rush to purchase a copy, because the first editions, first printings will sell out fast. On another note, A Killer's Essence has already been optioned for a film.

Praise for A Killer's Essence:
"Last night I finished the best crime novel I have read in the last year -- an advance reading copy of Dave Zeltserman's book A Killer's Essence, which will be published by Overlook Press in September. The story line was superb as well as the characters . . . [Zeltserman] nailed the atmosphere of New York City and Brooklyn. There is no question that our customers will love this book. And there is no question that I want a copy for my collection, when this comes out." --Dave Kanell, co-owner Kingdom Books in Vermont

One Cover to Another: James R. Benn, RAG AND BONE (2010), Moves to Paperback

2011-09-25T12:40:00.002-04:00

The softcover, just released (2011).

The 2010 hardcover.

A couple of days ago we enjoyed describing the new Billy Boyle World War II mystery from James R. Benn, A Mortal Terror. As Soho Crime released this 2011 title, the press also brought its predecessor, RAG AND BONE, into a softcover edition. Check our writeup on that title here -- and meanwhile, consider the drastic shift in cover design for the two versions, hard and soft. I'd love to hear some thoughts on the effects of the covers.

Long Overdue Tribute: GERRY MULLIGAN, an online magazine

2011-09-23T17:31:00.002-04:00

I've had copies of the first and second issues of GERRY MULLIGAN, a terrific poetry magazine, for ages. Dave scanned the cover and table of contents of Number One for me and I'm putting images here. My only excuse for not getting around to saluting this publication sooner is, I've run out of time for some of the best and most complex things coming my way, in the effort to keep up with earning a living and getting some books of my own into print. So, Ben Tripp, my apologies -- and, way to go!

Best yet, for readers hungry for a connection to this NYC-area author and editor's stream of work: GERRY MULLIGAN is now online! Yes, there's an online archive, including the third issue. Hurrah!! What an opportunity -- here's the link: http://benjamintripp.wordpress.com

Oh, for those baffled by the insertion of poetry connections on a mostly mysteries blog: It's all about impact. Images, rich language, incisive narrative and effective metaphor -- good writing takes a balance of these. For me, as both a reader and writer, poetry adds to the tool kit. To life!

Vermont's New Poet Laureate, Sydney Lea

2011-09-23T16:07:00.001-04:00

I'm overdue in sending up an online "Hurrah!" for Vermont's newest Poet Laureate, Sydney Lea. His appointment to the honor was announced by Governor Shumlin on Sept. 9, and there's a great ceremony planned for Nov. 4 at the Vermont State House.

Syd is a person of depth and integrity, and his polished yet intense poems, firmly grounded in northern New England's landscape of fierce weather, intriguing wildlife, and tradition-tending residents, have been among my favorites for years. I'm hoping his planned 2013 release from Four Way Books may come a bit sooner, as a welcome side effect of this announcement. (Martha, is it possible??)

Congratulations, Syd; may this be the year (or two, or more) that brings your work to many more readers, and may it blossom in more taut and tender poems for all of us to enjoy.

STOLEN SOULS, by Stuart Neville: Irish "Very Noir"

2011-09-23T15:53:00.000-04:00

Readers looking for emotionally sweet material, skip this one. Those interested in how true evil erupts and how it's effectively battled via determined police work (of the honest sort), this one's for you. Make sure the door is locked and the motion-detector lights are working, though. Stuart Neville holds back nothing in crafting high suspense and terror. If you can survive the intrigue and risk, there's a highly satisfying result.

This is the third in Neville's Belfast series. Like Leighton Gage's Brazilian police procedurals, its portrait of the local underworld, international crime connections, and sacrifices called for from investigators are the last thing the local tourist bureau would want you to read. But for courage and dogged determination to "serve and protect," STOLEN SOULS is right on track. There's also a steady dose of the paranormal here, as in the two books that preceded this one (The Ghosts of Belfast and Collusion, prize winners both). From what I've read so far among today's Irish mysteries, whether sweet or dark, that seems to come with the territory.

In STOLEN SOULS, it comes with the child Ellen, to whom Detective Inspector Jack Lennon is a late-arriving but legitimate father. Ellen's night terrors erupt when her dreams include the violence that persistently connects to Lennon and to Ellen's mother's family. She doesn't seem to see the future, but experiences instead the horrors of the present for a selected set of victims.

Lennon knelt beside the bed, placed a hand on her small cheek. He had learned not to take the child in his arms when she awoke pursued by night terrors, the shock of it to much for her.

"It's me," he said. "Daddy's here. You're all right."

Ellen blinked at him, her face softening. He'd almost forgotten how old she looked when she emerged from her nightmares, a girl of seven carrying centuries of pain behind her eyes.

Neville never over-explains, but through all three books, it's clear his characters aren't the only ones carrying centuries of pain. It's the Irish condition. Come to think of it, any kind of peace in Ireland is a miracle, considering what's happened over those centuries.

This time there's a serial killer who, for a wonder, is not directly after one of Lennon's own. But the detective inspector commits to dealing with the twisted mind of the criminal and capturing him. It's not always a wise route he's on, as he reflects late in STOLEN SOULS:

Jack Lennon was an idiot when he joined the police. He was an idiot when he refused to accept a commendation for saving the live of a fellow officer under fire. He was an idiot when he left his unborn daughter when she was still in the womb. He was an idiot when he drove a killer called Gerry Fegan across the border to settle a score.

Lennon knew he had been an idiot all his life, but it never stopped him. He drew his pistol and made his way deeper into the house.

A Lithuanian criminal syndicate, human bondage, brutality -- how much can Jack Lennon tackle? Who'll support him when he risks his life again and again?

Already available in the UK, STOLEN SOULS hits the US market on October 4. Worth ordering in advance, really. I'll be one of the readers looking for a chance to meet this author of consistently powerful crime fiction, who paints a soul freighted with some of history's worst nightmares. Check out Neville's website for details on upcoming appearances over the next few months; his first US tour for the book is ending this week, as he heads back to the Emerald Isle for its Irish premiere.

A MORTAL TERROR, by James R. Benn

2011-09-23T14:55:00.001-04:00

The newest Billy Boyle World War II mystery from Connecticut historian, librarian, and author James R. Benn reveals a deft touch in turning "we know what happened" into suspense, with a fine investigative thriller embedded in 1944's European theatre of war. Well done, and worth the reading!

Series readers already know Boyle as the Boston Irish rookie cop, recruited to assist "Uncle Ike" -- General Eisenhower, a family connection by marriage -- with delicate police matters best kept behind the scenes, so that dignified warfare can continue. This is the sixth volume; the others, Billy Boyle, The First Wave, Blood Alone, Evil for Evil, and Rag & Bone, have taken aspects of the Second World War's varied locations and themes, and woven them into lively murder investigations by this appealing young man whose sense of honor and determination to solve crimes have by now netted him some appealing friends and an attractive -- and undercover -- long-term lover, Diana Seaton.

In A MORTAL TERROR, Diana makes only a brief appearance at the start, although Kaz, Billy's very European pal in police work -- Lieutenant Baron Piotr Augustus Kazimierz, late of Poland and now on the general staff -- comes through as a working partner as Billy labors to discover who in Italy is killing an escalating set of powerful officers. And, more to the point, why.

Not only does Benn handle the twists of plot smoothly and effectively, but he's mastered the very challenging skill of making "known history" into a packet that includes questions, uncertainties, and dubious outcomes. Here's a passage as an example of how he also weaves in just enough detail on military terms and procedures to keep me informed enough, but not distracted:

I decided to radio Colonel Harding and ask for Kaz to be sent down from London.

The column finally passed and the traffic moved along, toward Caserta. I ran through the leads that I had to follow. Pay a visit to Bar Landry in Acerra and see what the scuffle was all about, and why Landry and Flint went down there to pay damages. Find out whom Louie owed his next paycheck to. Go back and find Major Arnold, Schleck's second-in-command, and see if he'd be more talkative. Ask Sergeant Jim Cole why he didn't tell me about knowing Landry and Galante. An infantry division is a big place, about fourteen thousand guys and full strength. He should have mentioned it, even if it was only a coincidence. He didn't, and I wanted to know why. I also needed to find out how Galante had gotten a squad killed, and why Cole was supposed to know about that. Maybe it was just a rumor that Schleck glommed onto, but if true, it would be a motive for revenge. Then ask the same question around the 32nd Station Hospital, and see what Galante's colleagues had to say.

It was a lot of legwork, and none of it might end up being important. But it gave me the illusion of being on the right track, and I might get lucky and stumble onto something I'd recognize as a clue.

I love this series, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a rattling good tale. From the ending of this one, it's clear the next volume will contain a strong dose of what I especially like in Benn's books: challenges to Billy's growth and depth as a person and an investigator (in his family's Boston cop tradition!), and to his ties among his friends and his beloved. So -- grab a copy, and get up to speed.

Yes, you can read this one on its own, but it's a much better read if you've consumed the earlier five in the series. You'll understand better how important Kaz is, and why the book's final twists hold such significance. Go for it!

Shelve this one with your Charles Todd and Jacqueline Winspear books. And that in itself should tell you what an unusual "war" series this is -- equally accessible to war junkies, readers who savor emotional development, and those who just love a good plot. Thanks, James R. Benn. Here's a tip of the hat to you, and to Soho Crime, a publisher with great taste in fiction.

PLUGGED, by Eoin Colfer -- Wicked Funny Crime

2011-09-23T10:05:00.005-04:00

Even the author's website begins with how to say the name of this Irish author -- "It's pronounced Owen!" What a relief ... a little knowledge is not only a dangerous thing, but a bit of ease to the inner ear.

Speaking of inner ear: PLUGGED is a darkly funny crime novel set in New Jersey. And between the Irish twist taking place in the thoughts of Daniel McEvoy, and the apparent haunting he's suffering, there's a lot to tickle the ear. And that's putting it cleanly. Smooth, quick, bounced between wry smiles and quick snickers and "omigosh" grins, the suspense in this classic caper takes off from a low-end casino in New Jersey, where Daniel is the doorman/bouncer, in classic love or lust with at least one of the working girls on the scene. And helpful in sweet little ways ...

I shepherd them into the time-out room, which is barely more than a broom closet; in fact there are a couple of mops growing like dreadlocked palms out of a cardboard box island in the corner.

"You okay?" I ask Connie, glad to see she's not smoking. Six months and counting.

She nods, sitting on a ratty sofa. "Dude licked my ass. Licked it. You got any wipes, Daniel?"

I handed her a slim pack. You always carry a pack of antiseptic wipes working a bottom-rung New Jersey casino like Slotz. There's all sorts of stuff you can catch just hanging around.

Okay, if you're not grossed out, go get a copy of this book and pretend you don't know that Colfer made the first massive wave of his writerly reputation doing kids' fantasy (Artemis Fowl). He's got a sometimes icky but always lighthearted new direction here that could make him the next in the group that includes Donald Westlake and Dave Zeltserman.

And if you're appalled at the language and imagery, skip over to a different one of our reviews. I've got a lot of territory to cover today. The truth is, mysteries and crime fiction come in a lot of genres -- and if they're well written or significant, I hope we're taking a look at almost all of them.

Beth's New Book Releases on Friday -- Come to a Party!

2011-09-06T14:03:00.001-04:00

Yes, that's why Kingdom Books is waiting for mystery author events until October (thank you, Archer Mayor -- Oct. 15 -- and Paul Doiron -- Nov. 19). Beth -- your usual correspondent here on the blog -- has a new novel coming out at the end of this week. It's THE SECRET ROOM, a Vermont adventure set in a fictionalized version of North Danville. Here's the scoop:

Shawna and Thea are working together on a math project for their eighth-grade class. But the numbers don't add up, and they make a startling discovery: a secret room in the basement of Thea's house, an old Vermont inn. The code on the walls makes the girls and everyone in town wonder why there was a secret room. Was it part of the Underground Railroad, or perhaps something less, well, heroic? Discovering the truth is harder than they would have thought, especially when the truth is not what some people want to hear.

The first review for the book came from New England novelist Howard Frank Mosher, whose books Disappearances, Where the Rivers Flow North, and A Stranger in the Kingdom are much-appreciated classics on our shelves. Mr. Mosher wrote:

American history, friendship, family ties, nature, community. These are some of the themes that Beth Kanell explores in this beautifully written and ever-so-timely novel. The Secret Room is at once a superb, young-adult suspense story, and one of the best, and most realistic, literary mystery novels I've ever read. At its heart are two wonderful young friends and not-so-amateur detectives, Thea and Shawna. What they learn about themselves, their community, and their state and country, past and present, will astonish and delight you. The Secret Room is a masterwork in which every sentence is lovingly crafted and written straight from the heart.

And as you can tell, this is an author who quickly recognizes work "straight from the heart" because that's what he does in his own novels. Thank you again, Howard!

If you're a Goodreads fan, you can find teacher Tim Averill's appraisal of the book online there; if you like Amazon, you'll see what MamaBear wrote.

Best of all, find an independent and order the book there. Or, in New England, come to one of the celebrations that begin this week:

New North Danville Adventure Story!

THE SECRET ROOM

by Beth Kanell

Meet the author:

Fri. 9/9, Open Party, St. J. Athenaeum, 4 p.m.

Sat. 9/10, Cobleigh Library, Lyndonville, 11 a.m. (sponsored by Green Mountain Books)

Sat. 9/10, Boxcar & Caboose, St. J., 2 p.m.

Mon. 9/12, Danville Inn, Danville, 9:30 a.m., with coffee and donuts provided by Steve Cobb, who appears in the book!

Sat. 9/17, Davies Memorial Library, Waterford, 10 a.m.

Sat. 9/17, Littleton (N.H.) Library, 2 p.m.

Tues. 9/20, Galaxy Books, Hardwick, 7 p.m.

Books can also be ordered at www.thesecretroombook.com

from the publisher, Voyage/Brigantine, St. Johnsbury, VT

Kingdom Books, Mysteries -- Classic to Cutting Edge

Sunday Afternoon: Superbowl, or Mystery Reading??

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR HUSS, by Helene Tursten: Softcover from Soho Crime

Collector's Corner: A "Must Have" Vermont Postcard

A January Collage: Carl Hiaasen on Florida, Snow in Vermont, Hints of Hollywood

James McClure, THE SUNDAY HANGMAN: South African Detection

John Gilstrap, THREAT WARNING: And Some Unusual Book Release News

New England Author Steve Ulfelder, PURGATORY CHASM

Edgar Award Nominees 2012: A List to Die For

Comparison: Garry Disher's WYATT Series, and the Parker Series by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake)

Write Local (aka "What You Know"), Go National!!

Garry Disher: WYATT and the Challis & Destry Series

Stuart Woods and His Edgar Award-Winning Title

Archer Mayor #23 and Other Evidence of Mystery Series That Alternate

Reginald Hill: Patrick Ruell & Vermont

Reginald Hill Dead at 75; Farewell, Dalziel and Pascoe

Which Cover Would You Choose? And Why Does Lassie Belong in This Post?

In the Kitchen with a Killer -- Er, Killer Recipes, Nero Wolfe to Joanne Fluke to Stephen King

Charles Todd, THE CONFESSION: 14th Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

Scandinavian Noir: Forecast for 2012

Diversion: Tupelo Press "Subscription" for 2012 (Poetry)

Taylor Stevens, THE INNOCENT: Powerful Thriller, Female Investigator, Argentina

Dave Zeltserman, A KILLER'S ESSENCE: Favorite Mystery of 2011

Reed Farrel Coleman: HURT MACHINE, Best Cover of 2011

In the New Year: For Peace, Find Justice; For Justice, Find Truth

Diversion: Poetry that Says Both Hello and Goodbye -- (a) Shara McCallum, (b) Megan Snyder-Camp

Scandinavian Noir: COLD COMFORT, Quentin Bates

PKP FOR PRESIDENT: New Hampshire Politics from Beth Hilgartner

Leslie Meier, CHOCOLATE COVERED MURDER - A Lucy Stone Mystery

Diversion: Poetry for Our Survival -- Anne Marie Macari, SHE HEADS INTO THE WILDERNESS

Overlook Press, THE PARIS CORRESPONDENT by Alan S. Cowell: Not a Mystery, But ...

Leighton Gage, A VINE IN THE BLOOD: A Strange Synchrony

Martin Limón Mysteries: Worth Reading All of Them ...

Noir for Librarians? A Quirky Addition to the Shelves

Another Underappreciated Mystery Author: DAVID GOODIS

RED MIST, a Kay Scarpetta Forensics Novel, by Patricia Cornwell

Food Writing Class with Randall Kenan!! Deadline Dec. 23

Diversion: Poets for Winter Reading: Larissa Szporluk, Janine Oshiro

Noir Collections, Old and New

K. C. Constantine: Reclusive Mystery Author Revealed at Last!

Congrats to Louise Penny -- Again!

Caper Mystery, Set in Vermont: David Carkeet, FROM AWAY

Helene Tursten, THE GLASS DEVIL, A Detective Inspector Irene Huss Investigation Set in Sweden and England

Snow Returns to Kingdom Books ... and Helene Tursten's Swedish Mysteries

What's in a Name? Change "Cozy" to "Amateur Sleuth" and Then ...

Would You Say a Louise Penny Book Is a "Cozy" Mystery? I Say It's NOT!

Vermont Gifts That Haunt: Joseph Citro's Novels and Collections

Diversion: Poetry from Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, Thanks to Claire Van Vliet

MR. KILL by Martin Limón: 7th in Korean DMZ Series (1970s)

December SALE on All Mysteries: 30% Unsigned, 10% Signed

Poet Ruth Stone, 96, Closes the Pages

News from Maine Author Paul Doiron: The Next Mike Bowditch Book Is ...

Colin Cotterill, SLASH AND BURN -- the Eighth Dr. Siri Mystery

First of Three British Police Novels: James Craig, LONDON CALLING

Lawrence Block, Megan Abbott, Dwayne Swierczynski, Nancy Pickard, Barry Eisler

Catching Up With Maine Crime Writers Gerry Boyle, Lea Wait, Barb Ross ...

Deer Hunting Season, Vermont and Maine, and an Author to Watch: Paul Doiron, TRESPASSER and THE POACHER'S SON

CROOKED LETTTER, CROOKED LETTER, by Tom Franklin

THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE: Available Nov. 8, Scandinavian Noir

A KILLER'S ESSENCE: Crime and Horror from Dave Zeltserman

Dashiell Hammett, THE MALTESE FALCON -- Artwork

Hurrah! Vermont Author Howard Frank Mosher Receives NEIBA Award

Calendar Alert: Poetry in 2012

The Collected Poets Series announces the schedule for 2012.

January 5, 2012

February 2, 2012

Ellen LaFleche & Jennifer Militello

March 1, 2012

Abbot Cutler & Diane Wald

April 5, 2012

Deborah Brown & Jeff Friedman

May 3, 2012

Ewa Chrusciel & Mary Ruefle

June 7, 2012

Alexandria Peary & Wally Swist

July 5, 2012

Peggy O’Brien & Dawn Potter

October 4, 2012

Patrick Donnelly & Jean Valentine

November 1, 2012

The Collected Poets Series
announces the schedule for 2012.