Games of Mystery: Righteous Kill 2, Revenge of the Poet Killer, New at Big Fish Games

Games of Mystery, your source for mystery-themed electronic and board games, parties for kids and adults, and mystery getaway vacations, is pleased to announce the availability of a new mystery game from Big Fish Games released today. You can find out more about these games by visiting our Mystery Games: Big Fish Download Games page or by clicking on the links provided below.

In Righteous Kill 2: Revenge of the Poet Killer, the exciting sequel to Righteous Kill, your assignment as an investigator in the NYPD is to hunt down a copycat killer and try to stop a rash of murders across New York City! Work through multiple murder scenes, collecting evidence and clues, and examine the items in exciting forensic based mini-games. Put all the clues together to determine who the new Poet Killer is before another victim is found, and decide who to trust as the suspects begin to include those inside the police force.

Also available: Righteous Kill 2: Revenge of the Poet Killer Strategy Guide and a Righteous Kill 2: Revenge of the Poet Killer Game Walkthrough.

Righteous Kill 2: Revenge of the Poet Killer, a Big Fish Games exclusive, may be downloaded and purchased for as little as $6.99 with a Big Fish Game Club membership. A demonstration version (185.33 MB) may be downloaded and played for free for one hour.

Watch a preview video below:

Other popular games on our download Big Fish Mystery Games page include several Agatha Christie and Nancy Drew games, games in the Mystery Case Files series and in particular the latest, Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst, Adventure Chronicles: The Search for Lost Treasure, Syberia and Syberia II, The Serpent of Isis, James Patterson's Women's Murder Club: A Darker Shade of Grey, and Nick Chase: A Detective Story.

Read our new game reviews by Ms. Terri: Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses! (Review), and Nick Chase: A Detective Story (Review).

Big Fish Games: Bestsellers

Big Fish Games: New releases

And don't forget to visit Games of Mystery for all kinds of mysterious fun!

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Mystery Bestsellers for May 22, 2009

A list of the top 15 mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending May 22, 2009 has been posted on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.

No change in the top 3 bestselling mysteries this week, but two titles that just missed the cutoff last week move up, one jumping all the way into 4th position.

The 19th Lucas Davenport mystery by John Sandford, Wicked Prey, is number 4 this week. The Republicans are coming to St. Paul for their convention. Throwing a big party is supposed to be fun, but crashing the party are a few hard cases the police would rather stayed away. Chief among them is a crew of professional stickup men who’ve spotted several lucrative opportunities, ranging from political moneymen with briefcases full of cash to that armored-car warehouse with the weakness in its security system. All that’s headache enough for Lucas Davenport—but what’s about to hit him is even worse. A while back, a stray bullet put a pimp and petty thief named Randy Whitcomb in a wheelchair, and, ever since, the man has been nursing his grudge into a full head of psychotic steam. He blames Davenport for the bullet, but it’s no fun just shooting him. That wouldn’t be painful enough. Not when Davenport has a pretty fourteen-year-old adopted daughter that Whitcomb can target instead. And then there’s the young man with the .50 caliber sniper rifle and the right-wing-crazy background, roaming through a city filled with the most powerful politicians on earth.

Moving up 12 positions into the 7th spot is Road Dogs by Elmore Leonard. Jack Foley, the charming bank robber from Out of Sight, is serving a thirty-year sentence in a Miami penitentiary, but he's made an unlikely friend on the inside who just might be able to do something about that. Fellow inmate Cundo Rey, an extremely wealthy Cuban criminal, arranges for Foley's sentence to be reduced from thirty years to three months, and when Jack is released just two weeks ahead of Cundo, he agrees to wait for him in Venice Beach, California. Also waiting for Cundo is his common-law wife, Dawn Navarro, a professional psychic with a slightly ulterior motive for staying with Cundo: namely, she wants his money. And with the arrival of Jack, she sees the perfect partner in a plan to relieve Cundo of his fortune. Cundo may be Jack's friend, but does that mean he can trust him? And can either of them trust Dawn? The Washington Post says of Road Dogs, "[Y]et another gem in a career that has endured for more than half a century."

On our bestseller page, we've added an icon next to every title that is available for immediate download onto the Amazon Kindle. To learn about this wireless reading device, visit the Amazon Kindle page for more information.

The top four mystery bestsellers this week are shown below:

Please visit the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books where we are committed to providing readers and collectors of mystery books with the best and most current information about their favorite authors, titles, and series.

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New Trailer for Bruce Willis Futuristic Thriller Surrogates

FirstShowing.net has the first official trailer for the new Bruce Willis futuristic thriller Surrogates. Produced by Disney's Touchstone Pictures and directed by Jonathan Mostow (U-571, Terminator 3), the film is based on the graphic novel of the same name by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele. A special edition hardcover edition of The Surrogates is scheduled for a July 2009 release and is intended as a companion volume to the film.

Synopsis: The year is 2054, and life is reduced to a data feed. The fusing of virtual reality and cybernetics has ushered in the era of the personal surrogate, android substitutes that let users interact with the world without ever leaving their homes. It's a perfect world, and it's up to Detectives Harvey Greer (Willis in the movie) and Pete Ford of the Metro Police Department to keep it that way. But to do so they'll need to stop a techno-terrorist bent on returning society to a time when people lived their lives instead of merely experiencing them.

The movie has an oddly creepy website, ChooseYourSurrogate.com, that provides precious little information about the film per se (yet) but sure sets a tone for the film.

View the trailer below:

Surrogates is expected in theaters September 25, 2009.

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eHarlequin's Free Book Friday: The Son Between Them by Molly O'Keefe

eHarlequin.com gives you another reason to love Fridays! Buy two or more books this Friday and they'll give you their weekly featured book absolutely free! That's right, every Friday, enjoy a featured free book with the purchase of two or more other titles! (Your free book will automatically be added to your cart.)

This Friday's free book (05/22/2009) is a Harlequin Super Romance novel.

The Son Between Them by Molly O'Keefe
The "A Little Secret" Series

For ten years Samantha Riggins and J. D. Kronos have convinced themselves they have the perfect relationship. No strings, no commitment, no future. All that changes when the son Sam gave up for adoption walks into her shelter. The son J.D. knows nothing about.

The presence of their child breaks through all the rules they've lived by. And suddenly what Sam thought she knew about J.D. turns out to be wrong. Are the feelings they share enough to keep them together? Especially now when the biggest secret is the one Sam never saw coming.

Keep up to date by subscribing to eHarlequin.com's free newsletter that contains the latest information about their series of books as well as informing you about subscriber-only special offers and new products. Click on the banner below to subscribe for free:

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Focus Pictures to Adapt Dean Koontz Thriller The Husband

Variety is reporting that Focus Features is moving forward with an adaptation of the Dean Koontz 2006 bestselling thriller The Husband. Ole Bornedal will draft a new script and will direct.

The Husband presents a simple premise: What would you do for love? Would you die? Would you kill? When landscaper Mitchell Rafferty gets a phone call saying his wife has been kidnapped and he can get her back for $2 million cash, he thinks it must be some kind of joke. But whoever is on the other end of the line is dead serious. He has Mitch’s wife and he’s named the price for her safe return. The caller doesn’t care that Mitch runs a small two-man landscaping operation and has no way of raising such a vast sum. He’s confident that Mitch will find a way. If he loves his wife enough.

We reviewed The Husband when it was originally published, asking the rhetorical question, Could this possibly happen to me?, adding "that its images will haunt the reader long after the last page has been read." (Full text: Review of The Husband by Dean Koontz.) It's a first-rate thriller and has the potential to be a terrific suspense film.

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First Clues Review: Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz

First Clues: Mysteries for Kids is delighted to introduce a new feature for our website, book reviews written by students. These students offer their unique perspective on the book in their review and provide a valuable resource to parents looking for new mystery adventures for their kids to read.

Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz
The Alex Rider Series

Puffin (Paperback)
ISBN-10: 0-14-240614-7 (0142406147)
ISBN-13: 978-0-14-240614-4 (9780142406144)
Publication Date: February 2006
List Price: $7.99

Review written by Alana, Age 12, Grade 7. Date of review: May 2009.

Review: Alex Rider the CIA’s one and only teenage agent, is back on another eye opening case in a story called Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz. It begins with the main character Alex receiving a seemingly innocent invite by the CIA to the national Wimbledon tournament. He reluctantly agrees for the simple reason that he is told that he is only there to keep an eye on things after a strange break-in, where nothing was taken and no damage occurred there, but it was the night before the opening match. Although the CIA claims there is no danger, a strange security guard that catches Alex’s eye sparks a chain reaction that ends up sending Alex to a far away island called Cayo Esqueleto or Skeleton Key. Two other agents called Troy and Byrne are sent with him to spy on a shady Soviet general called General Sarov. Once again he is told that he is sent there only to act as cover for the two more skilled agents. But, as is his way he uncovers an astonishing secret on the island that if not dealt with will lead to the end of the world.

This book is a page turner that will keep you excited the entire story. It’s a story that’s packed with action and so many twists and turns that you won’t ever know what’s coming next. I loved how the plot never ran cold, the story remained interesting and never failed to entertain me. It is told in a second person point of view that gives the reader a new way to experience this spine tingling mystery. The story takes place mostly in the underbelly of the Russian Government on Skeleton Key. It’s a race against time to uncover the secret of what the shady general is hiding and also what Alex himself must do to save the world from harm yet again.

As you the reader make your way through the story you will find it switches from person to person while telling the story to give you a wide view of what’s going on throughout the plot. For some people this may erase a sense of suspense that most people look for in a mystery. It explains occurrences that may still be unknown to the main character, leaving you unsurprised or affected at all when these secrets finally reveal themselves to Alex himself. Despite that flaw, this story is an amazing read and is a great story to add to the list of books you have read and enjoyed greatly. I give it four out of five stars and I hope you enjoy this wonderful book.

If you are interested in purchasing Skeleton Key from Amazon.com, please click the button to the right.

First Clue Mysteries is pleased to provide information on over 100 mystery series for children and young adults. Each series is conveniently listed under three different age categories (New Sleuth, ages 4 to 7; Future Sleuth, aged 7 to 10; and Sleuth in Training, ages 10 and older). If you have a favorite mystery series you'd like to see added to our site, please contact us.

All student book reviews are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced in any manner, print or electronic, without the express written consent of the copyright owner. Reviews are published here with permission of the copyright owner.

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Mystery Writer Lawrence Block Discusses His New Memoir with USA Today

USA Today reporter Bob Minzesheimer has a conversation with mystery author Lawrence Block, whose recently published memoir Step by Step: A Pedestrian Memoir, relates his passions for traveling, writing and walking, make that, marathon race walking.

Minzesheimer notes that fifteen years ago Block abandoned another memoir, fearing it would be presumptuous or premature, before what he calls "the Age of Relentless Reminiscence, wherein graduate students earn MFA degrees by writing down their life stories, some of them even factual."

But if he's old "to be getting into the memoir game," he figured, "I'd better do it while my memory was still intact."

As a writer, he's "semi-retired" but is working on a movie deal for one of his Matthew Scudder novels. His 1982 book, Eight Million Ways to Die, the fifth in the Scudder series, won a Shamus Award and was made into a film with Jeff Bridges as the alcoholic ex-cop and unlicensed private investigator. He's also the author of several other series, most notably one featuring antiquarian bookseller and burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr (on which the 1987 Whoopi Goldberg film Burglar was loosely, very loosely, based) and another with insomniac Evan Tanner.

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Mystery Book Review: The End Game by Tod Goldberg

Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of The End Game by Tod Goldberg. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.

The End Game by Tod Goldberg
A Burn Notice Mystery with Michael Westen

Signet (Mass Market Paperback)
ISBN-10: 0-451-22676-3 (0451226763)
ISBN-13: 978-0-451-22676-1 (9780451226761)
Publication Date: May 2009
List Price: $6.99

Review: The second tie-in novel to the Burn Notice television series, The End Game by Tod Goldberg, has ex-covert agent Michael Westen taking on a new client, whose family has been kidnapped and held hostage to ensure the outcome of a yacht race.

Weston is the recipient of a "burn notice", the deletion of his identity from all official records. He's made it his personal mission to find out who burned him and to get himself reinstated, before he's erased ... permanently. In the meantime, stuck in Miami with no place to go, he accepts cases that take advantage of his unique talents.

Gennaro Stephano is a master yachtsman who has entered his boat in a high-stakes race. But before the race begins, his family is kidnapped, the ransom demand being Stephano get to the finals, but lose the race. Westen and his friends, Sam and Fiona, have to enter an elite world where the competition is deadly and money is not the only thing worth dying for.

The End Game is a breezy, entertaining episode (as it were) in this series. Readers unfamiliar with the overall premise are soon brought up to speed and quickly immersed in Westen's latest undercover case. The characters are as colorful and dynamic as the city they inhabit, and Westen in particular has a wry sense of humor. It's all good fun as it should be, and The End Game is an engaging addition to both the television and print series.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of The End Game and to Penguin Group for providing a copy of the book for this review.

Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved

If you are interested in purchasing The End Game from Amazon.com, please click the button to the right. The End Game (Kindle edition) is also available. Learn more about the Kindle, Amazon's Wireless Reading Device.

Synopsis (from the publisher): Ex-covert op Michael Westen has a new client. Paolo Fornelli is Helmsman for a yacht in the Hurricane Cup—a winner-take-all race financed by the super-rich and preceded by a week of highstakes gambling, high-risk business, and high-class attitude. Paolo’s family has been taken hostage. If Paolo ever wants to see them again, he must make it to the final race—and lose.

To find the kidnappers, Michael will have to infiltrate high society and enter a deadly game against deadlier opponents in a world where money isn’t the only thing worth killing for …

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Paramount to Adapt Techno-Thriller Daemon by Daniel Suarez

Variety is reporting that Paramount Pictures is developing an adaptation of Daniel Suarez's 2009 debut techno-thriller Daemon, to be written by Walter Parkes (Sneakers, WarGames) and David Digilio (ABC series Traveler).

Synopsis: Technology controls almost everything in our modern-day world, from remote entry on our cars to access to our homes, from the flight controls of our airplanes to the movements of the entire world economy. Thousands of autonomous computer programs, or daemons, make our networked world possible, running constantly in the background of our lives, trafficking e-mail, transferring money, and monitoring power grids. For the most part, daemons are benign, but the same can’t always be said for the people who design them.

Matthew Sobol was a legendary computer game designer—the architect behind half-a-dozen popular online games. His premature death depressed both gamers and his company’s stock price. But Sobol’s fans aren’t the only ones to note his passing. When his obituary is posted online, a previously dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events intended to unravel the fabric of our hyper-efficient, interconnected world. With Sobol’s secrets buried along with him, and as new layers of his daemon are unleashed at every turn, it’s up to an unlikely alliance to decipher his intricate plans and wrest the world from the grasp of a nameless, faceless enemy—or learn to live in a society in which we are no longer in control..

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CBS Renews Most of its Crime Dramas, Cancels Without a Trace, Adds NCIS Los Angeles and The Bridge

CBS announced its 2009 / 2010 television schedule this morning. As the network currently with the most crime dramas, they had the most to say for mystery and suspense fans.

First the returning series.

All three of the CSI franchise series were renewed. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation retains its Thursday night slot at 9 PM (ET/PT). CSI: Miami will air on Mondays at 10 PM (ET/PT), and CSI: NY will air on Wednesdays at 10 PM (ET/PT). Previous seasons of all of these series are available on DVD: CSI, CSI: Miami, and CSI: NY.

NCIS was renewed for its 7th season, and airs on Tuesdays at 8 PM (ET/PT). The season finale this month served as an introduction for a spin-off that was picked up by the network (see below). The first 5 seasons of NCIS are currently available on DVD.

Criminal Minds returns for its 5th season, and is scheduled to air on Wednesdays at 9 PM (ET/PT). The first 3 seasons of Criminal Minds are currently available on DVD.

Numb3rs returns for a 6th season and is scheduled to air Fridays at 10 PM (ET/PT). The first 4 seasons of Numb3rs are currently available on DVD.

Cold Case moves to a new time for its 7th season, now airing on Sundays at 10 PM (ET/PT). Previous seasons of Cold Case are not yet available on DVD.

Finally, The Mentalist was renewed for a second season and airs in a new time slot, Thursdays at 10 PM (ET/PT). We're still not sure this qualifies a mystery/suspense/crime drama but we're leaning in that direction and may add it to Mysteries on TV when the first season is released on DVD.

The new series is a spin-off from NCIS, titled NCIS: Los Angeles, a drama about the high stakes world of undercover surveillance at the Office of Special Projects (OSP), a division of NCIS that is charged with apprehending dangerous and elusive criminals that pose a threat to the nation's security. By assuming false identities and utilizing the most advanced technology, this team of highly trained agents goes deep undercover, putting their lives on the line in the field to bring down their targets. NCIS: Los Angeles is scheduled to follow NCIS on Wednesdays at 9 PM (ET/PT).

CBS also acquired the Canadian series The Bridge as a mid-season replacement. The Bridge is a crime drama about a tough and dedicated police officer who is voted to become the police union's dynamic leader. The show provides an unflinching look at the struggle street cops face as they not only battle criminals - but also their own bosses - in order to protect society and, ultimately, themselves. It is based on the insights of veteran insider and outspoken former Toronto police union head Craig Bromell.

CBS cancelled, somewhat surprisingly, the crime drama Without a Trace which had run for 7 seasons. The first 2 seasons of Without a Trace are available on DVD.

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