HBO Renews Noir-otic Comedy Bored to Death

Despite what seem to be decidedly tepid reviews, and after airing only 3 of its 8 episodes to date, in a press release today HBO announced it has renewed Bored to Death for a second season. (We watched the pilot episode online several weeks ago, but sometimes series start slow and get better. The pilot is no longer available online, but is available On Demand.)

Created by author Jonathan Ames, Bored to Death follows the misadventures of a fictional Jonathan Ames, a young Brooklyn writer who pursues his quixotic dream of emulating heroes from classic private detective novels. The show stars Jason Schwartzman as Ames; Ted Danson as George Christopher, a high-profile magazine editor and Jonathan’s needy boss; and Zach Galifianakis as comic book illustrator Ray Hueston, Jonathan’s confidant.

Bored to Death airs Sundays at 9:30 PM on HBO. More information about the series can be found on the HBO: Bored to Death website; and the trailer can be seen below:

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Amazon.com Lowers Price of Kindle to $259; Introduces International Version for $279

Amazon.com announced today a new price reduction for its Amazon Kindle, to $259 effective immediately. An Amazon Kindle with international access was also announced for $279. The international version can be pre-ordered, with shipments expected to begin within two weeks.

The Kindle is a wireless reading device that is just over 1/3" thick, and at 10.2 oz., lighter than a typical paperback. 3G wireless allows you to purchase and download books anywhere, anytime, with no monthly fees or service plans, and no need to search for Wi-Fi hotspots. Up to 1500 books can be stored on a Kindle.

Currently, over 350,000 books, newspapers, magazines, and more are available for the Kindle. For more information about the Amazon Kindle, including all technical details, use this link.

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Her Interactive Announces Twitter Soap Opera for Warnings at Waverly Academy

In a press release today, Her Interactive announced a Twitter soap opera to promote the next game in the Nancy Drew PC game series, Warnings at Waverly Academy, due in stores on October 13th but available for pre-order now.

Watching Waverly starts today and continues through October 16th. Five game characters fill in background and details of the game from their own perspective: Leela Yadav, Megan Vargas, Izzy Romero, Danielle Hayes, and Corine Myers, who tweet out their daily lives and update fans about the events as they unfold.

Gameplay description: You, as Nancy Drew, are undercover at a prestigious girls' boarding school to discover the culprit behind threatening notes and dangerous accidents aimed at its valedictorian candidates! Is there a secret someone wants to protect or are the malicious pranks intended to scare away the competition - permanently? Solve the mystery before the threats turn deadly and you're expelled from the case!

Watch a trailer for Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy below:

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Mystery Book Review: In Their Blood by Sharon Potts

Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of In Their Blood by Sharon Potts. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.

In Their Blood by Sharon Potts
Non-series

Oceanview Publishing (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-933515-62-7 (1933515627)
ISBN-13: 978-1-933515-62-5 (9781933515625)
Publication Date: September 2009
List Price: $25.95

Review: The 23-year-old son of a couple, who was brutally murdered in their home, returns to assume custody of his teenage sister and to identify his parent's killer in In Their Blood, a debut thriller by Sharon Potts.

Jeremy Stroeb is in Portugal, avoiding his family and responsibility, when his parents are inexplicably shot to death one night in their bedroom. His mother was a respected accountant, a partner in her firm; his father a politically active economics professor at a local university. Though the police believe the murders to be part of a burglary gone wrong, the only things missing are laptops belonging to the couple. Reasoning that his parents weren't killed by a random stranger, Jeremy takes a job at his mother's firm, and enrolls in classes at his father's university, with the intention of learning more about his parents, their associates, and what one of them might have known that someone was willing to kill for.

Fans of John Grisham's thrillers will likely be drawn to In Their Blood, which works both to the book's advantage and disadvantage. On the plus side is the familiarity of the plot and its pacing, which is really well done, moving the story forward at just the right speed, introducing elements that may be relevant to the outcome -- or not -- and enhancing the suspense without overwhelming it. But familiarity also works on the downside, resulting in a sense of predictability, or maybe inevitability, to the story. In what seems to be an effort on the part of the author to compensate, at least in part, for the latter, there are a lot of sources for suspects and motives ... maybe too many. From the university campus to the corporate boardroom to various relatives and neighbors, there is no shortage of leads for Jeremy to discover and follow up on.

A strong secondary theme in the book is family, in particular, familial relationships and responsibilities. Here it's a little less successful, mostly in the heavy-handed way it's used to drive home some plot points and as motivation for the actions of certain characters.

Overall, though, In Their Blood is a thriller that offers the reader plenty of twists and turns, solid clues to follow and red herrings to distract, and a well-written and developed storyline that is sure to please.

Special thanks to Oceanview Publishing for providing an ARC of In Their Blood for this review.

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

If you are interested in purchasing In Their Blood from Amazon.com, please click the button to the right.

Synopsis (from the publisher): Born into a life of privilege, Jeremy Stroeb loves freedom, loathes responsibility and drops out of college to start backpacking across Europe. But this free-spirited drifter crashes back to brutal reality when his parents, Rachel and Daniel Stroeb, are murdered in their home on Miami Beach.

When he returns to Miami, Jeremy assumes guardianship of his teenage sister, Elise, who is traumatized and convinced the killer will be back for her.

With steely, urgent resolve, Jeremy vows to find out what really happened to Rachel Stroeb, the respected CPA and Daniel Stroeb, the controversial professor. Determined to get on the inside of his parents' lives, Jeremy takes a job at the accounting firm where his mother worked, and enrolls at the university where his father taught.

But too many details don't add up. With mounting certainty that his parents were anything but the people he thought they were, Jeremy must face the toughest questions of all. Who were Rachel and Daniel Stroeb? And when will the killer be back for the next of kin?

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Dennis Lehane Writing Sequel to Gone Baby Gone

An article in yesterday's Boston Herald profiled author Dennis Lehane and reported that his next novel is a sequel to the 1998 mystery Gone Baby Gone, which features Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. The pair was last seen in the 1999 thriller Prayers for Rain.

“I thought I would never write about them again,” said Lehane. “Then all of a sudden I thought, what would it be like if a girl walked back into your life that was part of the most guilt-inducing decision you had ever made.”

He added, “It’s 11 years later, and that same girl goes missing again. And now he’s gotta find her again,” he said. “Initially he doesn’t want to, but then he finds himself chasing this part of the past that almost destroyed him and every relationship he’s ever had. It’s something he never made peace with.”

A 2007 film adaptation of Gone Baby Gone starred Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan as the principal characters.

The title of the new book wasn't provided, nor a release date, only sometime "next summer or early fall".

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Mystery Book Review: Mad Hatter's Holiday by Peter Lovesey

Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of Mad Hatter's Holiday by Peter Lovesey. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.

Mad Hatter's Holiday by Peter Lovesey
A Sergeant Cribb Investigation

Soho Constable (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 1-56947-560-1 (1569475601)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-560-7 (9781569475607)
Publication Date: June 2009
List Price: $14.00

Review: Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray are summoned to Brighton when a human hand is found in a crocodile exhibit in Mad Hatter's Holiday, the fourth mystery in this series by Peter Lovesey. Originally published in 1973, Soho Constable is reissuing books in this series as trade paperbacks.

Set in the early fall of 1882, the story opens with Albert Moscrop, a craftsman of optical devices with a shop in London, arriving in Brighton on holiday, and taking "an observer's interest in his fellow-beings" … for what reason or purpose is unknown, but it seems vaguely sinister. The narrative puts the reader in the role of a voyeur as well, "observing" Albert watching everyone else, an oddly compelling, if at times uncomfortable, position. He soon focuses his attention on a family: a well-to-do physician, his third wife, teenaged son from a previous marriage, toddler son with his current wife, and their nanny. Moscrop inserts himself into their lives, first as a hero, saving the toddler, later as a confidant to the wife, who thinks her husband may be trying to poison her.

Midway through the book a woman's hand is found in an exhibit at the local aquarium. The local police realize they need assistance in determining the woman's identity, and call in the Criminal Investigation Department. Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray arrive to take over the case, and get immediate assistance from Moscrop, who leads the detectives to believe the hand may belong to the wife of a physician on holiday with his family, to which he has recently become acquainted. But Cribb is suspicious of the man's motives, and the evidence he gathers suggests the hand, and other body parts he later recovers, may be of someone else entirely.

Mad Hatter's Holiday is so deftly plotted it isn't clear to the reader at any time what is true and what isn't, and who to believe and who not to trust. Though relatively short at just over 200 pages, the story is richly detailed and the characters well drawn, the setting with its grand pier a metaphor for the case, providing a contrast between the known above and the unknown below. This truly exceptional novel ends on an ambiguous note, though, which some readers may find unsettling: is the resolution to the crime that Cribb and his associates agree to be the only one plausible, indeed the correct one?

Special thanks to Soho Press for providing a copy of Mad Hatter's Holiday for this review.

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

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

Synopsis (from the publisher): Brighton in 1882 is the setting of this novel of crime and tangled emotions. Albert Moscrop, a visitor whose holiday is dedicated to peering through a telescope at the seaside scene, marches down Queen’s Road to the beach and draws us through a sequence of disarmingly trivial observations into a compelling drama, played in the fashionable haunts of the nineteenth-century resort: beach, piers, promenade, swimming bath, aquarium, and Devil’s Dyke.

A keen student of human nature, Moscrop concentrates his interest on one particular family of holidaymakers—the Protheros, and especially the beautiful Zena Prothero, whose husband appears to take her excessively for granted. Gradually Moscrop moves into the circle of the Prothero family, only to become involved in a sensational murder. All Brighton is horrified by the gruesome crime. The local police seek the help of Scotland Yard, which is provided in the persons of Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray. These indomitable detectives soon find themselves challenged by the strangest case of their careers, one that is as mystifying as it is macabre.

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Mystery Book Review: Her Deadly Mischief by Beverle Graves Myers

Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of Her Deadly Mischief by Beverle Graves Myers. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.

Her Deadly Mischief by Beverle Graves Myers
A Tito Amato Mystery

Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-233-0 (1590582330)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-233-6 (9781590582336)
Publication Date: September 2009
List Price: $24.95

Review: Castrato Tito Amato investigates a murder committed during one of his performances in Her Deadly Mischief, the fifth mystery in this Baroque series by Beverle Graves Myers.

The place is Venice. The year is 1742. Tito Amato is once again singing a leading role in Armida at the Teatro San Marco Opera House under the direction of Maestro Torani. It is the third week of the Carnevale so masking is in order. The disguises can be useful for a number of purposes: some illicit, some romantic, and some a bit risqué. Amato is in his element that night, at the top of his form. Every eye and spyglass is glued to him, and every ear attuned to his music. As he raised his eyes and voice, he notices that the owner of one of the boxes in the fourth tier has their curtains completely drawn. He thinks someone has shut him out, that someone is ignoring him. He aims his voice higher, and it seems to work. A woman’s arm slides through the drawn drape. But then to his horror he sees she is struggling with a tall man wearing a mask. The man pushes her over the box’s railing and she falls to her death on the floor of the pit. Amato is the only witness to the murder. But the man was masked, and he only saw his eyes staring down at him. Knowing that Amato is the only person that had seen the killer, and knowing that Amato likes to do a little sleuthing and solving a mystery that no one else cares, or dares, to investigate, the chief of Venice’s police force, Messer Grande, enlists his help in trying to solve the mystery.

The box belongs to Alessio Pina, the son of a wealthy glass maker. Against his father's wishes, Alessio had planned to marry Zulietta Giardino, a Jewish prostitute who had left the ghetto, and move to the colonies in America. They were going to publicly show their love for each other by appearing together, in public, at the opera. But Alessio is delayed, and Zulietta is alone in the box when her killer confronted her.

The case is quite personal to Tito as he, too, has a Jewish wife and an adopted son, Titolino. And his wife's family has disowned her for marrying Tito. But as the singer becomes more involved in searching out clues, talking to both friends and enemies of the dead woman, and getting closer to the truth, the masked killer transfers his vengeance to Amato’s loved ones.

The author brings to life the city of Venice, its canals, bright colors and dark streets, opulent opera houses and Jewish ghettos, and more. The murder plot is multi-faceted, holding the reader's attention throughout. The characters are delightful, notably Messer Grande, who, befitting his title, is a little larger than life. Her Deadly Mischief, with its first-rate mystery storyline that is coupled with some humor and romance, is highly recommended.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Her Deadly Mischief and to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of the book for this review.

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

If you are interested in purchasing Her Deadly Mischief from Amazon.com, please click the button to the right.

Synopsis (from the publisher): Venice, 1742. Tito Amato has regained his zest for performing and is once again singing lead roles at the Teatro San Marco. On opening night, the famous castrato has the entire audience entranced -- except for one box with its scarlet curtains stubbornly drawn. Annoyed at being ignored, Tito aims the full force of his golden throat at the fourth-tier box. He is astounded when the curtains part and a woman tumbles over the railing.

The victim is Zulietta Giardino, a mischievous courtesan involved with a young glass maker. Did a wager over a rival courtesan's jewels spell Zulietta's death? Or did the motive involve sinister events in the glass factories of Murano?

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Mysteries on TV: Blood Ties, Bones, Murphy's Law, and Van der Valk Mysteries, New This Week on DVD

Mysteries on TV, your source for the most complete selection of detective, amateur sleuth, private investigator, and suspense television mystery series now available or coming soon to DVD, is profiling two series that have complete set DVDs and three series that have season DVDs or movies being released this week.

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The second (and final) season of Blood Ties picks up where the first one ended with private investigator Vicky Nelson (Christina Cox) and 480-year-old vampire Henry Fitzroy (Kyle Schmid) being drawn into baffling cases involving a terrifying pantheon of occult adversaries.

Blood Ties was based on characters depicted in the five "Blood" novels by Tanya Huff, and aired 22 episodes on Lifetime.

The Blood Ties: Season Two DVD set of 3 discs contain the 9 episodes that aired from October through December, 2007.

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Uncovering the truth behind gruesome homicides by examining rotting flesh is just another day at the office for a prosaic forensic anthropologist and her cocky FBI partner in Bones. Starring Emily Deschanel as the brilliant yet socially awkward Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan, and David Boreanaz as FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth, the series is powered by dark humor and sizzling chemistry. Forming an improbable bond, Booth and Bones conduct gruesome investigations into the disturbing realities of true crime aided by a group of unlikely colleagues, including an insect expert and conspiracy theorist, coroner and psychologist, among others.

Bones is based on characters created by mystery author Kathy Reichs.

The Bones: Season Four DVD set of 6 discs contain the 22 episodes that aired on Fox from September 2008 through May 2009.

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James Nesbitt starred as Tommy Murphy in Murphy's Law, a series that aired on BBC for 5 series (seasons) from 2003 through 2007.

Guilt-ridden over the death of his young daughter, who was slain by the IRA, he flees to London to work undercover for the Metropolitan Police. Hardheaded, hard-drinking, brash, and brooding, Murphy is down on his luck. But he still has more than a bit of the old Irish charm, flashing quick wit and a roguish grin.

Murphy's Law was based on characters created by novelist Colin Bateman.

The Murphy's Law: Series One DVD set of 3 discs contain the 4 episodes that originally aired during the spring of 2003.

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The Van der Valk Mysteries was an ITV series that starred Barry Foster as Dutch detective Simon van der Valk and was based on the character created by crime novelist Nicolas Freeling. The series was set in, and filmed on location in, Amsterdam.

Suave but cynical, the cultured Simon "Piet" Van der Valk has a taste for the finer things in life--symphony music, good wine, and the cooking of his beautiful French-born wife. But even long-suffering Arlette (Susan Travers) can tell that Piet is most at home when he’s at work. There, alongside easygoing Inspecteur Johnny Kroon (Michael Latimer), every new case is a personal challenge to this unorthodox cop on the streets of old Amsterdam.

The Van der Valk Mysteries: Set One DVD set of 2 discs contain the 6 episodes that originally aired during September and October, 1972.

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Visit the Mysteries on TV website to discover more television mystery series currently available on DVD.

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Mystery Book Review: The Assailant by James Patrick Hunt

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

The Assailant by James Patrick Hunt
A George Hastings Mystery

St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-312-54578-9 (0312545789)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-54578-9 (9780312545789)
Publication Date: June 2009
List Price: $24.95

Review: The third challenge in the series James Patrick Hunt has created for mid-forty-year-old St. Louis PD detective, Lieutenant George Hastings, is to find a psychopath who Hunt reveals early on is driven to believe that it’s only strong men who “can return from a succession of murder and rape with contentment and joy in their hearts.” Hastings, a transplanted Nebraskan, eventually meets the test, but only after three women are brutally murdered, he gets help or hindrance from his colleagues and superiors, and readers get wide-ranging insights into the procedures of a modern-day police department, the malfunctioning mind of a madman and the lives of pleasure business employees, their often secretive clients, and stressed-out cops. With its minimalist style and its crackling, run-along dialogue, Hunt’s novel sweeps its readers from a horrific opening to a cathartic conclusion, and with a riveting story in between.

At thirty-three years of age, St. Mary’s Hospital ER physician, Dr. Raymond Sheffield, single, well-respected, and earning $400,000 annually, should be at the top of his game. Problem is his game has become murder, he’s morphed into Springheel Jim, and his pawns are three young women, two of whom are twenty-year-old high-dollar prostitutes street-named Ashley and Estelle, with Marla, the third victim, a forty-two-year old real estate agent and wife of a wealthy St. Louis businessman. Leading the investigation into the brutal killings, at least until the politics and media pressures boil over, is hard-charging Detective Hastings. As he toils he balances his duty against his emotions over his thirteen-year-old daughter, Amy, his estranged ex-wife, Eileen, with “her own selfish motives,” and his recently formed romantic alliance with criminal defence attorney, Carol McGuire, who knows Hastings “was the sort who could relax only on his own terms.” With chapters that read like short stories and fascinating cutaways that fill in the gaps, Hunt cranks up the tension as he dissects Sheffield’s warped brain and pits him against the rest of the world, looking down on his ER colleagues, maliciously plotting his murders, coldly executing his victims, and aggressively locking horns with his law enforcement bloodhounds. It is a masterfully chilling depiction of “evil is as evil does.” Just as well done, though, are the expert grillings that Hastings subjects various suspects to as he works clues, trails, motives and them to find the crazed killer. And when he finally overtakes Springheel Jim and bests him in a heart-racing psychological game of killer versus cop, it’s a relief to see good can still triumph over evil no matter how decadent nor where situated nor perpetrated by nor against whom.

Special thanks to M. Wayne Cunningham (mw_cunningham@telus.net) for contributing his review of The Assailant and to St. Martin's Minotaur for providing a copy of the book for this review.

Review Copyright © 2009 — M. Wayne Cunningham — All Rights Reserved — Reprinted with Permission

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

Synopsis (from the publisher): Co-Ed Slain.

That’s the call that brings St. Louis Police Lieutenant George Hastings to the downtown banks of the Mississippi River, where Reesa Woods has been strangled and dumped. The hard-charging Hastings is no stranger to murder, but he’s stuck without any leads until a second body—also strangled—turns up across town and he knows he’s chasing a monster.

A talented doctor with an otherwise ordinary and enviable life, Raymond Sheffield has some very dark needs. His first victims are targets of opportunity, but his ambitions go far beyond that. He’s formed a taste for killing, and his only interest is in getting better at it.

As the violence mounts, the line between upstanding citizens and their secret desires gets thinner and thinner in a thrilling game of catch-me-if-you-can.

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George Pelecanos Wins 2008 Hammett Prize

Sarah Weinman posted on Twitter that George Pelecanos has won the 2008 Hammett Prize for his novel The Turnaround. The Hammett Prize, which was announced last night at an awards banquet during the NAIBA Fall Conference, is given annually by the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers for literary excellence in the field of crime writing. (Awards are given out for books published during the previous year.)

Our congratulations to Mr. Pelecanos! Visit Mystery Book Awards for more information on over 30 other awards recognizing outstanding mystery fiction.

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