Games of Mystery: Mystery Case Files Return to Ravenhearst, Now Only $2.99 for a Limited Time at Big Fish Games

Games of Mystery, your source for mystery-themed electronic and board games, parties for kids and adults, and murder mystery weekends and mystery getaway vacations, is pleased to announce a special sale on a mystery game from Big Fish Games available for a limited time only. You can find out more about this casual game, and others like it, by visiting our Mystery Games: Big Fish Download Games page or by clicking on the links provided below.

For a limited time only (the end date is not given), Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst may be purchased for only $2.99! Simply use coupon code RTR299 during checkout.

Emma's soul is free. But her ghost has delivered a dire warning: evil still lurks in Ravenhearst Manor. Go deep inside the cursed estate in Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst, the thrilling sequel to Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst. Experience Ravenhearst's spectral halls as never before with new immersive adventure-style gameplay and an epic original soundtrack. Feel the floorboards creak as you move from room to room solving puzzles and seeking out clues in over 150 detailed scenes.

Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst may be downloaded and purchased for $6.99 with a Big Fish Game Club membership. A sample version (92.86 MB) may be downloaded and play for free for one hour; the full unlimited version is 290.93 MB.

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), The Hardy Boys: The Perfect Crime (Review), Enlightenus (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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Press Release: Reviving Great British Thrillers

November 2009: Using the latest print-on-demand technology, Top Notch Thrillers, a new imprint of Ostara Publishing based in Essex, England, aims to revive the best of British thriller writing from the 1960s and 70s by republishing titles which “do not deserve to be forgotten.”

Ostara has already established a reputation for high quality trade paperbacks of out-of-print detective stories and crime novels under various thematic imprints such as College Crime, Clerical Crime and Medieval Mysteries. For Top Notch Thrillers, they have brought in critic and award-winning crime-writer Mike Ripley as series editor.

“There is a staggering variety of style and breadth of imagination in British thriller writing which is in danger of slipping from popular memory,” says Ripley. “I think of the Sixties and Seventies as a Golden Age for British thrillers, much as the 1930s were for the detective story. The big names are still remembered, if only just – writers such as Alistair Maclean, Len Deighton and Gavin Lyall – but many are unjustly forgotten. It is a labour of love for me to bring back some of the favourite titles of my youth and put them before a new generation of readers before it’s too late.”

The first four Top Notch Thrillers, published this week, are Snake Water by Alan Williams, The Terrible Door by George Sims, Night of Glass by Philip Purser and A Clear Road to Archangel by Geoffrey Rose. Eight more titles are expected in 2010.

Tracking down authors and agents turned into something of a quest for Ripley. He found Geoffrey Rose, who only wrote three novels, living in retirement in southern England despite the fact that his original publisher had lost track of him in 1980.

“Finding Geoffrey Rose alive and well and happy to see his novel back in print makes it all worthwhile,” he said. “He was an amazing stylist and his books, which have a dreamlike almost surreal quality, were once compared to the early work of Graham Greene, but as a thriller writer he was a genuine one-off.”

For further details, visit www.ostarapublishing.co.uk.

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Games of Mystery: I Spy Spooky Mansion, New from Big Fish Games

Games of Mystery, your source for mystery-themed electronic and board games, parties for kids and adults, and murder mystery weekends 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.

Through creaking gates, you'd best beware -- Enter the mansion … if you dare! Discover a collection of intriguing picture riddles and games while locked inside a dark, mysterious house. Reveal hundreds of hidden objects and thrilling secrets as you uncover three different and surprising ways out. Decode a puzzling message, make your own ghosts, unveil a secret room, and more!

I Spy Spooky Mansion may be downloaded and purchased for $6.99 with a Big Fish Game Club membership. A demonstration version (144.76 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, Enlightenus, Cate West: The Vanishing Files, Return to Mysterious Island 2: Mina's Fate, and Nick Chase: A Detective Story.

Read our new game reviews by Ms. Terri: Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses! (Review), The Hardy Boys: The Perfect Crime (Review), Enlightenus (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 November 20, 2009

A list of the top 15 mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending November 20, 2009 has been posted on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.

Another reasonably quiet week, no change among the top five, and only one new book entering our list this week in 9th position.

Just 3 months after the publication of the 20th thriller in the Alex Cross series, the 21st, I, Alex Cross by James Patterson, is released.

You can't run

Detective Alex Cross is pulled out of a family celebration and given the awful news that a beloved relative has been found brutally murdered. Alex vows to hunt down the killer, and soon learns that she was mixed up in one of Washington's wildest scenes. And she was not this killer's only victim.

You can't hide

The hunt for her murderer leads Alex and his girlfriend, Detective Brianna Stone, to a place where every fantasy is possible, if you have the credentials to get in. Alex and Bree are soon facing down some very important, very protected, very dangerous people in levels of society where only one thing is certain -- they will do anything to keep their secrets safe.

Alex Cross is your only hope to stay alive

As Alex closes in on the killer, he discovers evidence that points to the unimaginable -- a revelation that could rock the entire world.

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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Sam Worthington Cast in Film Adaptation of The Last Days of American Crime

Mania.com is reporting that Sam Worthington (Avatar) has been cast to appear in the film adaptation of the soon-to-be-published graphic novel series The Last Days of American Crime, written by Rick Remender and illustrated by Greg Tocchini.

About the book: In the not-too-distant future as a final response to terrorism and crime, the U.S. government plans in secret to broadcast a signal making it impossible for anyone to knowingly commit unlawful acts. To keep this from the public, the government creates a distraction, installing a new currency system using digital charge cards. Enter: Graham Bricke. A career criminal never quite able to hit the big score, Graham intends to steal one of the charging stations, skip the country and live off unlimited funds for the rest of his life. But the media has leaked news of the anti-crime signal one week before it was to go live ... and now Graham and his team have just a few days to turn the crime of the century into the last crime in American history.

"It's really motivated by [David] Mamet's Heist film and James Ellroy's [novel] American Tabloid," Remender explained. "Ellroy being an example of the kind of hard-boiled crime that has a socio-political backdrop and Mamet's Heist a very well-thought out film that focuses on the heist itself."

The Last Days of American Crime (Book 1) publishes January 19, 2010, with the second book in the series two months later.

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Film Adaptation of Graphic Novel Miss: Better Living through Crime Planned

Variety is reporting that the 2002 graphic novel Miss: Better Living Through Crime, written by Philippe Thirault and illustrated by Marc Riou and Mark Vigouroux, is being adapted for the big screen. Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Tears of the Sun, Brooklyn's Finest) will direct the John Ridley adaptation with Spike Lee producing.

About the book: We called them "the crazy years‚" New York City was spreading like a pool of urine across a subway platform. Even rats caught diseases there. Welcome to the world of Miss, a bold new journey into crime graphic novels. Set during the early 1900s in New York, Miss tells the tale of two unlikely partners in crime, Enola and Slim. Enola is a poor white girl who has learned to survive by hook or by crook since being expelled from the orphanage. Slim is a black pimp with an uncertain past, trying to keep one foot out of the grave. When their paths cross, and their options run out, Enola and Slim forge a partnership as murderers for hire. This is their story ... what it takes to survive when all you have is a gun.

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Filming Begins on Murder on the Orient Express, Starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot

In a press release yesterday, ITV announced that principal photography has begun for the television adaption of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.

The star-studded international cast includes Dame Eileen Atkins, Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Chastain, Sam Crane, Marie-Josée Croze, Serge Hazanavicius, Barbara Hershey, Toby Jones, Susanne Lothar, Joseph Mawle, Denis Ménochet, David Morrissey, Elaina Satine, Brian J. Smith, Stanley Weber and Samuel West.

David Suchet said, “It's an honor to have such a wonderful international cast on board for this world famous murder mystery. Writer Stewart Harcourt has created an exquisite script. His attention to detail is impeccable.”

Murder on the Orient Express will be filmed on location in Malta and London. No air date was announced.

(In related news, ITV noted that four new Poirot films, Appointment with Death, The Clocks, Three Act Tragedy and Hallowe’en Party, have completed filming and are awaiting scheduling.)

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Whodunit140, a New Murder Mystery Twitter Novel

A press release on YourStory.org announced Whodunit140, the world's first Twitter murder mystery novel. Simply follow @whodunit140 on Twitter to read it.

The story will develop every day, and is being written directly on Twitter. "Some people have claimed to write a Twitter novel," said the author, "but all they have done is rewrite and abbreviate a manuscript they have already written. Whodunit140 is being written especially for Twitter."

Whodunit140 is written entirely in 140 character chapters.

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CWA Planning a National Crime Fiction Week for June 2010

The Crime Writers' Association (CWA) is planning a National Crime Fiction Week next year, according to an article in The Bookseller. Members of the CWA will take part in readings, discussions, and readers' group events during the week, scheduled to begin June 14, 2010.

The winner of the Young Crime Writers Competition will also be announced. This event, which takes place from January 18th to February 19th, is organized by the CWA.

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Otto Penzler To Create New Imprint for Atlantic Books

The Bookseller is reporting that Otto Penzler, owner of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, has joined Atlantic Books to create his own imprint under the Corvus division in January. It is expected that he will publish six to ten new crime fiction, spy and thriller titles a year.

First up: Lou Manfredo's debut novel Rizzo's War. Set in a Brooklyn police precinct, the novel explores, through the lives of veteran detective Joe Rizzo and his ambitious young partner, the byzantine procedures and grubby politics, the trading of favors, and the gray areas between practice and malpractice, which form the real basis of modern police work.

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