Here's a new promotion from Big Fish Games: the popular game Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst is now available for just $3.49 when you use the coupon code RTR349 at checkout. This offer expires on October 19th, 2010.
But there's more! You can save 35% off the retail price of any standard game by using the coupon code FUNGAMES, now through October 19th, 2010. Plus, new customers get a free BFG Game Club Membership for one month! BFG Club Members save 30-70% on all games, have early access to new games, and have the opportunity to earn free games every month!
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
BFG Game Promotions Ending October 19th, 2010
To Fetch a Thief by Spencer Quinn (Book Review)
To Fetch a Thief by Spencer Quinn. A Chet and Bernie Mystery. Atria Hardcover, September 2010.
Bernie Little of the Little Detective Agency and his canine partner and companion, Chet the Jet, are on the case of a missing elephant trainer -- and a missing elephant -- in To Fetch a Thief, the third mystery in this series by Spencer Quinn.
Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: To Fetch a Thief by Spencer Quinn.
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Mysterious Reviews is your source for the latest mystery, suspense, thriller, and crime novel reviews, edited by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books.
New Carina eBook Mysteries for October 2010
Each month, Omnimystery News is pleased to list new mystery and suspense titles from Carina Press, an ebook only publisher. Links on this page are for the Kindle edition of the book; click on the banner to the right to be taken to CarinaPress.com
New mysteries for October 2010 from Carina include:
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Storm Warning by Toni Anderson
Non-series
Sorcha Logan is looking for peace.
Recently returned to her hometown on Scotland's craggy coast, Sorcha wants to tame the spirits that made her flee. When she finds a corpse in the surf, however, she can't suppress the memory of discovering her father's body. Nor can she suppress the ghosts that haunt her—or the town's conviction that she's dangerous, and a witch.
Ben Foley is looking for a killer.
An American DEA agent, Ben is in town to investigate the suspicious death of his partner. He's sure that Sorcha knows more than she's letting on—but the more time he spends with the sexy suspect, the less he can fight their illicit attraction. And the less certain he is she's involved with a drug cartel.
But can Ben protect Sorcha from being set up? Or worse—killed?
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Trash Course by Penny Drake
Non-series
Terry Faye loves travelling the world while working as a private investigator. But this latest case is a doozy—and it's right here in Ann Arbor.
Two elderly recluses, Howard and Lawrence Peale, have stopped communicating with the outside world, and Terry and her boss have been put on the case. The catch: the Peales are hoarders. A clean sweep isn't going to be easy, even with cute photographer Zack Archer lending a hand.
The more digging Terry does in the Peale mansion, the more dirt she uncovers. And after she discovers two dead bodies, it's going to take a lot more than just elbow grease and a nice guy sidekick to find out what's happened ...
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Carina Press
Film Adaptation of Larklight by Philip Reeve Gets New Director
The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog is reporting that Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) will direct a film adaptation of the young adult space adventure Larklight by Philip Reeve.
In Larklight -- the first of three books in the series -- Art Mumsby and his irritating sister Myrtle live with their father in a huge and rambling house called Larklight … that just happens to be traveling through outer space. When a visitor arrives, it is far from an innocent social call. Before long Art and Myrtle are off on an adventure to the furthest reaches of space, where they will do battle with evil forces in order to save each other -- and the universe.
The other two books in the series are Starcross and Mothstorm.
Mr. E. Reviews Shutter Island
I had high expectations for Shutter Island. Although I hadn't read the Dennis Lehane thriller from which it was adapted (and still haven't -- it's on my ever-longer to-be-read list), I was drawn to the storyline and the film's trailers really captured my imagination. A cast of A-list actors and an A-list director couldn't hurt ... or so I thought.
Read the full text of our review at Mr. E. Reviews: Shutter Island.
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Mr. E. Reviews is your source for mystery, suspense, thriller, and crime drama reviews of television and film.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Vermilion Drift by William Kent Krueger (Book Review)
Vermilion Drift by William Kent Krueger. A Cork O'Connor Mystery. Atria Hardcover, September 2010.
PI Cork O'Connor is hired by a local mine operation to look into threats the company has received -- and hired separately by the mine's owner to look for his missing sister -- in Vermilion Drift, the tenth mystery in this series by William Kent Krueger.
Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: Vermilion Drift by William Kent Krueger.
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Mysterious Reviews is your source for the latest mystery, suspense, thriller, and crime novel reviews, edited by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books.
New Trailer for The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
The trailer for the third and final installment of the Swedish-language films based on the Millennium trilogy of thrillers by Stieg Larsson, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, was released a few days ago, and can be seen below.
Adapted from book The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which remains, months after its publication in the US, a bestselling mystery to this day, the film has a limited release opening in theaters October 29th.
English-language adaptations of the books are currently in pre-production. The cast of the first film, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, to be directed by David Fincher, includes Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, and Christopher Plummer.
Solve Six Mysteries in Two Hidden Object Game Collections
Two mystery game collections are being released today at special prices.
Insider Chronicles: A New Perspective on Mystery includes three games in the "Insider Chronicles" series, where you travel to some of the world's most famous cities in search of clues.
First, it’s up to you to solve the biggest art robbery in decades! The Stolen Venus puts you on the case to track down the criminals responsible for the theft of Botticelli’s "The Birth of Venus". Discover centuries-old hidden facts and enigmas, and enjoy addicting mini-games on your pursuit of justice!
Next, stroll through the gothic and gloomy alleys of Prague, listen to chansons on the streets of Paris and enjoy the elegant and light architecture of Venice in the second game in the series. This time you are looking for clues to shed some light on Casanova’s life and reveal his greatest secret. Unfold the mystery that is Casanova, the world`s most famous lover and adventurer, in The Secret of Casanova!
Then, when the winners of Italy’s largest lottery mysteriously disappear, and it's up to you to track them down. The case takes on a whole new light when you discover drawings by Leonardo da Vinci that could unlock the mystery. Without a minute to lose, you must put together the clues, unravel the riddles, and solve the puzzles in the exciting seek and find adventure Missing in Rome!
Natalie Brooks: Triple Trouble includes three mysteries to unravel featuring teenage detective Natalie Brooks.
In Secrets of the Treasure House, help Natalie uncover the mystery of a lifetime as you search the secret rooms and hidden corridors of her family estate. Join our intrepid heroine as she solves puzzles, finds hidden items and interacts with colorful characters, including a chief of police whose ambitions might not align with the right side of the law!
In The Treasures of the Lost Kingdom, help Natalie save her grandfather, a renowned archaeologist, from kidnappers holding him ransom for an ancient treasure map. She has just 24 hours to find the map, solve the mystery of a terrible curse and unmask the truth behind a legendary ghost train!
In The Mystery of Hillcrest High, Natalie is on the case to solve another mysterious crime. This time, she’s on a quest to find her missing high school friend Chad Robertson, who has been kidnapped by a gang of criminals who are out to commit the crime of the century!
Macmillan Publishers Creates Film Division
Deadline|New York is reporting that Macmillan Publishers -- probably best known to mystery fans by its Minotaur Books imprint -- has launched Macmillan Films, with the intent to produce what it publishes.
First up is a co-production with Summit Entertainment for the film adaptation of Tempest, the first in a trilogy of young adult thrillers being written by Julie Cross about a 19-year-old time traveler who witnesses his girlfriend's murder and inadvertently jumps back in time two years; stuck there, he's recruited by a shadowy government agency run by the man he thought was his father and vows to save his girlfriend no matter the cost.
OMN Welcomes Tom Llewellyn, Author of The Tilting House, a Mystery for Kids
Omnimystery News is thrilled to welcome Tom Llewellyn as our guest blogger. Tom is the author of the children's mystery The Tilting House (Tricycle Press, Hardcover, June 2010, 978-1-58246-288-2).
Today, Tom writes about the book's setting -- the real "tilting house." And he's also providing our readers with an opportunity to win a copy of his book. Visit Mystery Book Contests, click on the "Tom Llewellyn: The Tilting House" contest link, enter your name, e-mail address, and this code (9013) for a chance to win! (One entry per person; contest ends October 19, 2010.)
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The setting for my novel, The Tilting House, is an old home in Tacoma, Washington, built for a mad, mysterious occupant named F. T. Tilton (hey, it’s a kid’s novel, so a little wordplay is allowed). The house was built with floors that tilt precisely three degrees toward the center. And over the years, Tilton covered the walls with bizarre scientific writings.
When a new family moves in, plenty of creepy things start to happen. Walls disappear. Rats talk. Pocketknives grow. Brothers Josh and Aaron enlist the help of their neighbor, Lola, to solve the mystery of the house—and its original, deranged owner—before it’s too late (cue creepy music—oooooooohhhh).
Nearly all of the action takes place in and around the home, so I figured the house itself had to become tangible. It had to feel like dimensional space that a young reader could navigate in his or her brain. Here’s what made that possible: The house is my house. I live in it.
OK, so my floors don’t tilt three degrees. But since it was built in 1898, marbles and pencils do tend to congregate in my home’s downhill corners. And the features of the two houses are nearly identical. In the book, Josh and Aaron discover talking rats in The All The Way Up Room. That room exists in my house, at the top of a stairway that begins in the bedroom I share with my wife. As I wrote about the entryway in the novel, I sat in a chair in my own entryway and described the walls and stairway I saw, physically, right in front of me. Before Josh climbed through the dim, cobwebby attic, I climbed through my own attic, on all fours, balancing precariously on the ceiling joists of the floor below.
Authors expound for hours on the idea of back-story: what motivates a character? What would the character do in situations that don’t even appear in a book? What formed the character’s childhood, even if that childhood is never mentioned?
The same is true for setting—at least in The Tilting House. A good setting has its own back-story. So I created a mythology of this place that the reader will never read, but I think they’ll sense in the pages. I know what Tilton would have kept in his closets and in his junk drawer. I know where each doorway leads—even the ones that are never opened. While Josh discovers plenty of creepy surprises in the rooms he explores, I know plenty of other mysteries that Josh may never find.
Living in the inspiration for the setting made for a straightforward writing process. When I described a complicated bit of action, I could literally walk through it to make sure I was describing it correctly. And even though plenty of fantastic things happen in the book, I think the stories still feel set in a real space.
I will say that there were some sections of the book that I’ll probably regret writing. In one key section of the book, Josh and Aaron have the hair-raising task of looking for a body in the crawlspace. Since then, I’ve had to grab a flashlight and go down into that creepy place to check a leaky pipe. I couldn’t help wondering if I might trip over a dead body or two.
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Tom Llewellyn grew up in a drafty, old house (without tilting floors) on the shores of the Puget Sound. One winter, the house got so cold that the water in the toilet actually froze. Tom survived (thanks to plenty of blankets) and went on to study creative writing at the University of Washington in Seattle. He has worked as a trade journalist and copywriter, and is the cofounder of the guerrilla art project, Beautiful Angle. Tom lives with his wife and four rambunctious children in a Victorian-era home (with tilting floors) in Tacoma, Washington, the city which provides the setting for The Tilting House. For more information about the author and the book, visit TheTiltingHouse.com.
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About The Tilting House: Brothers Josh and Aaron Peshik are about to discover that their new home with the tilting floors hides many mysteries.
When the boys and their neighbor Lola discover the hidden diary of F. T. Tilton, the brilliant but deranged inventor who built the house, they learn a dark secret that may mean disaster for the Peshik family. Can the kids solve the riddles of the tilting house before time runs out?
Praise for The Tilting House:
"Llewellyn's debut is inventive, gripping, and shot through with macabre details." -- Publishers Weekly
"... a genre-blending page-turner with plenty of room in its eaves for sequels. One to watch." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Llewellyn’s first novel takes the classic family-in-a-new-house motif and mixes in just the right creaky touches of the macabre ..." -- Booklist
For a chance to win a copy of The Tilting House, courtesy of the author, visit Mystery Book Contests, click on the "Tom Llewellyn: The Tilting House" contest link, and enter your name, e-mail address, and this code (9013) in the entry form. (One entry per person; contest ends October 19, 2010.)
Monday, October 04, 2010
First Cyber-Bridge for Dark Prophecy by Anthony E. Zuiker Released
A week ago, we posted a new trailer for the upcoming novel Dark Prophecy by Anthony E. Zuiker. Today, the first "cyber-bridge" was released; you can watch it below. Titled "The Reading: Hanged Man," the 9½ minute video provides a sneak peek into the plot of the book, the second in the Steve Dark Level 26 series of thrillers. A new cyber-bridge will be released every day for the next 10 days.
Dark Prophecy publishes October 14th, the same day the villain from the series, Sqweegel, makes an appearance on CSI. (Anthony E. Zuiker created and executive produces the television series.)
Learn more about the series -- a multi-platform experience that moves the reader from passages in the books to videos and interactive content -- at InsideLevel26 or on the series website, Level26.com.
Fourth Bourne Film Moving Forward with New Director
Deadline|New York is reporting that Universal Pictures is finalizing a deal with Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, Duplicity) to direct the fourth film in the Bourne film franchise. Gilroy wrote the screenplays for the first three Bourne films.
Tentatively titled The Bourne Legacy, the film will reportedly not be adapted from any of the existing Bourne thrillers, even though The Bourne Legacy is also the title of the fourth book in the series (and the first written by Eric Van Lustbader, following the death of Robert Ludlum, who created the character). Fans of the series are likely to be confused -- and rightfully so.
Left unsaid is whether Matt Damon will reprise his role as Jason Bourne, the international assassin of deadly repute he played in the first three films.
Today's Featured Free Kindle Mystery: Velocity by Alan Jacobson
Kindle Mysteries is pleased to feature a mystery title that is currently scheduled for release tomorrow, October 5th, in Kindle eBook format for free from Amazon.com. We don't know how long it will be offered at this special price (typically only until a certain number of downloads have been completed), so download it today!
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Velocity by Alan Jacobson
A Karen Vail Mystery (3rd in series)
Vanguard Press (Kindle eBook)
Download Link
About Velocity (from the publisher): Detective Robby Hernandez, FBI profiler Karen Vail’s boyfriend, has vanished into the dense air of a Napa Valley evening. There are no clues to his whereabouts, other than a blood stain and tenuous connections to a vicious serial killer operating in the wine country. As the task force struggles with Robby’s disappearance, the killer challenges Vail by boldly leaving his high profile victims in public places. Is this offender somehow responsible for Robby’s disappearance? Evidence suggests that he is—but just when Vail and the task force begin to make progress, the FBI orders Vail to return to Quantico to handle a case of vital importance.
Back in Washington, Vail engages covert government operative Hector DeSantos to determine what happened to Robby. It’s a move that backfires when DeSantos’s confidential informants lead them into unforeseen dangers, forcing Vail to face off against powerful foes unlike any she’s ever encountered, threatening her life, her career ... all that she holds dear.
In a frantic race against time that takes them from the monuments of Washington, D.C., to the wealthy beach enclaves of San Diego and the bright excesses of Las Vegas, shocking truths emerge—truths that will forever change Karen Vail.
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The first book in the series, The 7th Victim, is also currently available as a free download for the Amazon Kindle.
Bones and Monk, New This Week on DVD and Blu-ray
Telemystery, your source for one of the most comprehensive selections of detective, amateur sleuth, private investigator, and suspense television mystery series, mini-series and made-for-television movies, now available or coming soon to DVD or Blu-ray disc, is profiling two series being released this week.
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Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) are back for more mystery, murder, and mayhem in the fifth season of Bones.
Relying on Brennan’s unparalleled scientific abilities and Booth’s street-wise instincts, the sexy, crime-solving duo and their team face everything from modern-day witches to murdered rock-n-rollers as they scramble for evidence to stop a gruesome serial killer.
This season also brings a wedding, the show’s landmark 100th episode, and decisions Bones and Booth must make that could change their lives forever.
Bones is based on characters created by forensic anthropologist and mystery author Kathy Reichs.
The Bones: Season Five DVD set of 6 discs contain the 22 episodes that aired on Fox from September 2009 through May 2010. Also available: Bones: Season Five (Blu-ray disc).
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For eight wonderful seasons, Tony Shalhoub starred as Adrian Monk, a San Francisco police detective on leave from the department following the unsolved murder of his wife in the crime comedy/drama Monk.
Consumed by peculiar obsessions and wracked with hundreds of phobias (including but certainly not limited to germs, heights, and even milk), Monk struggles with even the simplest everyday tasks. Still, the department needs him to do what he does best -- solve crimes -- and hires him as a private consultant to investigate cases in his most unconventional manner.
During its run, the series won 8 Emmy Awards, including three for Tony Shalhoub as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.
The Monk: The Complete Series (Limited Edition Box Set) DVD set of 32 discs contain every episode of the series that aired on USA Network from July 2002 through December 2009.
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Visit the Telemystery website to discover more television mystery series currently available on DVD and Blu-ray disc.
Mystery Godoku Puzzle for October 04, 2010
A new Mystery Godoku Puzzle has been created by the editors of the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books and is now available on our website.
Godoku is similar to Sudoku, but uses letters instead of numbers. To give you a headstart, we provide you a mystery clue to fill in a complete row or column (if you choose to use it!).
This week's letters and mystery clue:
A D E H I K N R T
The Cat was this in the title of the 4th Joe Grey mystery by Shirley Rousseau Murphy (9 letters).
We now have two weeks of our puzzles on one page in PDF format for easier printing. Print this week's puzzle here.
Previous puzzles are stored in the Mystery Godoku Archives.
Enjoy the weekly Mystery Godoku Puzzle from the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, and Thanks for visiting our website!
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