Tomorrow, Sunday September 5th, the second of five new episodes of Series III of Inspector Lewis airs on PBS (check your local listings for air times).
In "The Dead of Winter", an Oxford academic is dead on a tour bus and none of the other passengers even took notice. The curious case leads back to Crevecoeur Hall, a vast, history-rich Oxford estate, and as it happens, the setting for much of Detective Sergeant Hathaway's (Laurence Fox) youth. Hathaway reconnects with his past — and Scarlett Mortmaigne, the daughter of the estate's owner. But is he also consorting with a main suspect? It's a case that threatens to expose the shortcomings and secrets of a wealthy family, cloud Hathaway's judgment and ultimately put his relationship with Detective Inspector Lewis (Kevin Whately) in jeopardy.
Nathaniel Parker, who played Inspector Lynley in the long-running series adapted from the mysteries by Elizabeth George, guest stars.
Inspector Lewis is a spin-off of the long-running Inspector Morse mysteries, based on characters created by crime novelist Colin Dexter.
The first two series of Inspector Lewis are available on DVD from Telemystery: Inspector Lewis.
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Inspector Lewis in The Dead of Winter, Sunday, September 5th, on PBS
Winners of the 2010 Ned Kelly Awards Announced
The Ned Kelly Awards were given out yesterday by the Crime Writers Association of Australia, recognizing outstanding works in the field of crime fiction and non-fiction by Australian authors. The winners, announced during the Melbourne Writers' Festival, are:
◊ Best Novel: Wyatt by Garry Disher
◊ Best First Novel: King of the Cross by Mark Dapin
◊ Best Short Story: "Leaving the Fountainhead" by Zane Lovitt
◊ Best True Crime: Pitcairn: Paradise Lost by Kathy Marks
Peter Doyle was also recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Mystery Adventure Games Darkness Within and its Sequel, Now Available from AVG
Games of Mystery is pleased to announce this week's new mystery and suspense casual and adventure games available for immediate download from Amazon Video Games.
A complete list of downloadable mystery games is available on our Games of Mystery: Amazon Video Games Download page.
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Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder
As police detective Howard E. Loreid, you are tasked to solve the murder of Clark Field, a wealthy man involved in the occult. At the top of your list of suspects is Loath Nolder, a highly respected private investigator who mysteriously abandoned his last case for reasons unknown.
An immersive experience is created by a fascinating story, chilling real-time cut scenes, and haunting music. Utilizing the "thinking screen" allows players to collect and examine items, and thoughts. Clues can also be researched, combined or used.
ESRB Rating: Teen.
Windows Vista/XP (970 MB download).
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Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage
Memories that should be long forgotten are still remembered -- including a drowsy, depressing town called Arkhamend, a Victorian mansion that conceals some horrible secrets, a dilapidated building inside forbidding, snow-clad woods and dim underground buildings and tunnels.
Even more frightening and stronger than the previous installment, prepare yourself for the descending darkness, this time will be your last ...
ESRB Rating: Teen.
Windows Vista/XP (1400 MB download).
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Games of Mystery is your source for mystery-themed video, electronic and board games, parties for kids and adults, murder mystery weekends and mystery getaway vacations, and more mysterious fun!
Friday, September 03, 2010
Mystery Books News Transitions to Omnimystery News This Weekend
Just a quick reminder that starting tomorrow, Mystery Books News will begin the transition to Omnimystery News.
The first step will be to move the existing posts from the old template to the new one. You may see incremental changes to the overall look of the blog during this process, which we expect to begin late Saturday afternoon.
The second step will be to point everything to the new domain: OmnimysteryNews.com. It may take up to 24 hours for it to become active after the change takes place.
We are not changing the address of the RSS feed, so our subscribers should experience no down time or change to the appearance of their daily updates.
Thanks so much for being a part of the Omnimystery Family of Mystery Websites and we look forward to continuing to provide you with the most comprehensive information for and reviews of mystery books, games, television and film.
Power Slide by Susan Dunlap (Book Review)
Power Slide by Susan Dunlap. A Darcy Lott Mystery. Counterpoint Hardcover, August 2010.
Stuntwoman Darcy Lott quickly discovers that the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with -- now murdered -- was a man with secrets, and sets off to learn what she can about someone she really didn't know at all, in Power Slide, the fourth mystery in this series by Susan Dunlap.
Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: Power Slide by Susan Dunlap.
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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.
Mystery Bestsellers for September 03, 2010
A list of the top 15 mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending September 3rd, 2010 has been posted on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.
Just a little shuffling among the top five with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson once again the top. One title that has been lurking just off the list moves into the top 15 accompanied by one new title this week.
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Entering the list in the 13th position is the stand-alone suspense thriller I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman.
Eliza Benedict cherishes her peaceful, ordinary suburban life with her successful husband and children, thirteen-year-old Iso and eight-year-old Albie. But her tranquillity is shattered when she receives a letter from the last person she ever expects—or wants—to hear from: Walter Bowman. There was your photo, in a magazine. Of course, you are older now. Still, I'd know you anywhere.
In the summer of 1985, when she was fifteen, Eliza was kidnapped by Walter and held hostage for almost six weeks. He had killed at least one girl and Eliza always suspected he had other victims as well. Now on death row in Virginia for the rape and murder of his final victim, Walter seems to be making a heartfelt act of contrition as his execution nears. Though Eliza wants nothing to do with him, she's never forgotten that Walter was most unpredictable when ignored. Desperate to shelter her children from this undisclosed trauma in her past, she cautiously makes contact with Walter. She's always wondered why Walter let her live, and perhaps now he'll tell her—and share the truth about his other victims.
Yet as Walter presses her for more and deeper contact, it becomes clear that he is after something greater than forgiveness. He wants Eliza to remember what really happened that long-ago summer. He wants her to save his life. And Eliza, who has worked hard for her comfortable, cocooned life, will do anything to protect it—even if it means finally facing the events of that horrifying summer and the terrible truth she's kept buried inside.
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Sara Paretsky's 14th V. I. Warshawski mystery, Body Work, debuts in the 14th spot.
The enigmatic performer known as the Body Artist takes the stage at Chicago's Club Gouge and allows her audience to use her naked body as a canvas for their impromptu illustrations. V. I. Warshawski watches as people step forward, some meek, some bold, to make their mark.
The evening takes a strange turn when one woman's sketch triggers a violent outburst from a man at a nearby table. Quickly subdued, the man -- an Iraqi war vet -- leaves the club. Days later, the woman is shot outside the club. She dies in V. I.'s arms, and the police move quickly to arrest the angry vet.
A shooting in Chicago is nothing new, certainly not to V. I., who is hired by the vet's family to clear his name. As V. I. seeks answers, her investigation will take her from the North Side of Chicago to the far reaches of the Gulf War.
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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.
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Fox Orders Series Adapted from the Locke & Key Graphic Novels by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Fox Television has given a series commitment to an adaptation of the Locke & Key series of supernatural graphic novels by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez. The third book in the series, Crown of Shadows, published this past July.
Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (the new Hawaii Five-O on CBS, Fox's Fringe) are on board to executive produce.
The Locke & Key comics tell the story of the Locke children, who move into a New England mansion -- Keyhouse -- after the murder of their father by a deranged high school student. But Keyhouse isn't just any house -- it is filled with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them ...
MBN Welcomes Cindy Lynn Speer, Author of The Chocolatier's Wife
Mystery Books News is thrilled to welcome Cindy Lynn Speer as our guest blogger. Cindy Lynn is the author of The Chocolatier's Wife (Drollerie Press Trade Paperback, June 2010), a magical mystery ... or maybe a mystery of magic!
Today, Cindy Lynn writes about mixing genres, with a little extra attention on mystery itself.
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Photo credit, provided courtesy of Cindy Lynn Speer
In all of my novels, especially my most recent two, I take elements from romance, fantasy and mystery to create the story. I like mixing genres partly because it’s so hard to come up with anything original. You think, “Oh, if I do this and this and add a little bit of that it will make an incredible story unlike any other!” and you go into the bookstore and you find someone’s already beaten you to it. The readers always deserve the best you have to offer, and trying to combine these elements, I hope, will give great reads.
For me as a reader, romance is a hard sell … I love the concept of that ideal love and I enjoy seeing people who seem right for each other getting together, but it can’t be the whole point. I need something else, and I think it’s because my suspension of disbelief is harder to maintain when it’s just a story about love ... I find it harder to believe in. For me, it’s much, much easier to believe in vampires and fairies and the end of the world than true love.
Fantasy is, in a lot of ways, the main element I borrow a lot from ... I love the rich possibilities, the seemingly limitless choices we can make. Fantasy serves as my framework. The type of fantasy I decide to write for the story tells a lot about the kind of atmosphere the story will have. In The Chocolatier’s Wife the fantasy is much more fable-like, so the story feels like a fairy tale. In Unbalanced the fantasy is darker, grimmer, which suits the multiple murder-noir feel of the story line better. Fantasy also allows me to throw in elements that we do not see in traditional mysteries ... magic, fantastical creatures, new ways of solving cases. It also lets me take out world and show it to you in different ways. All of these things give me more tools to use to create something good.
Even though fantasy is my home, I seem to be really drawn to mysteries. I read mysteries more than anything else. In reading them, it’s almost more important to me that the back story takes me somewhere new ... if the main character has an unusual profession, or if I get to go to a different time in history. I think this is because, since I write, it’s sometimes much easier for me to see where someone is going. I understand about hiding clues in context and so I know the tricks we use ... and see through them. Really good writing prevents this, or, as I mentioned, a world that particularly interests me. (I’ve also said it’s because you can only kill someone so many times before it becomes, oh, good, someone’s dead. Let’s see who did it. Oh. Yay. But that’s just me trying poorly to be amusing.)
In writing them, I love the challenge of carefully laying in the clues. If I’ve done my job right, then maybe you know who it might be, but you’re not certain. When you get to the end, if you go ... ”Huh! I had no idea!” or, “Aha! Yay!” you shouldn’t feel cheated ... you should be able to re-read the book and understand how we got to where we are now. Even if I use some spell to find a clue to solve the case, everything has to click together and make sense in the end. I also enjoy trying to put in little twists and red herrings ... because I know there are people who will, before the last chapter, get it. But I want to make it as hard as possible so that they really feel they earned the conclusion ... not that my writing was sloppy.
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Cindy Lynn Speer loves books and the written word, and has spent much of her life involved in them in some way, from working as a librarian to freelancing as an editor. She’s also written several book reviews and articles. This is the part that she usually attempts to be clever, saying something like “When not chained to the computer or reading she can be found doing something else, usually something exciting and mysterious.” Sadly, this would be fantasy, and she likes saving that for her readers.
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About The Chocolatier's Wife: Tasmin, William’s wife to be, was chosen by a spell, as all wives and husbands are chosen. It’s a nice, tidy way to find a reasonable mate for almost everyone. Unfortunately, Tasmin is from the North, a place of magic and strange ritual, and William is from the South, where people pride themselves on being above the kind of insanity practiced by the Northerners, which has nothing to do with the fact that most people in the South have lost their ability to practice magic.
William doesn’t seem in a hurry to send for Tasmin, for which none of his family blame him. After all, she’s a barbarian. She, on the other hand, would like to know what’s keeping him. When he’s framed for murdering his patron, Tasmin takes matters into her own hands, harnessing the wind to bring her to William’s side. She’s gotten to know Wiliam from his letters. He’s not a murderer and she’s going to help him prove it.
William, incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit is shunned by his family for the embarrassment, and for giving up the family shipping business for foolishness, and for saddling them with a Hag for a wife, which means he can’t protect Tasmin from his family’s cold dislike of his barbiaran wife-to-be–but that’s not the worst of it.
Someone out there doesn’t like him and is beginning to dislike Tasmin almost as much, and that someone isn’t at all averse to making sure William and Tasmin aren’t around long enough to celebrate their wedding.
Tasmin, of course, has other plans.
New Full Length Trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One
Friendships shatter. Evil unites. The end begins.
Empire Online features previews of the seventh film in the Harry Potter series, adapted from the final book in the series by J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The film will be shown in two parts, the first of which is out on November 19, 2010, followed by the second on July 15, 2011.
There's also a new trailer for the film, which you can see below.
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Harlequin Worldwide Mystery Titles for September 2010
eHarlequin.com has announced the September 2010 titles for their Worldwide imprint, your partner in crime. Amateur sleuths, traditional cozies, police procedurals and private-eye fiction, written by award-winning authors. For more information or to purchase any of the books below, click on the book title or book cover. (Previous months titles can be found on the backlist page.)
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Sylvia Thorn and Willie Grisseljon (2nd in series)
Accompanying her mother's travel club of free-spirited octogenarians on their trip to tour ghost towns out West isn't exactly Sylvia Thorn's idea of fun. The ex-FBI agent and former Miami judge's lack of enthusiasm deepens with the discovery of a body in the bathtub of a Nevada hotel room. Sylvia suspects at least one of the feisty "Florida Flippers" has a secret. Especially when a member of the group disappears—and turns up dead in an abandoned gold mine.
Adding to the chaos, Sylvia's brother, Vietnam veteran Willie Grisseljon, has a sixth sense for trouble. He races to the rescue with his worried father in tow. Toss in the familiar face of an FBI agent from back home and Sylvia is chin deep in crazy antics and a deadly mystery. It's one that a killer isn't about to let her solve.
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Murder at the Bellamy Mansion
Ashley Wilkes (8th in series)
While enjoying her honeymoon, historic preservationist Ashley Wilkes is summoned back home when sniper fire hits a handyman working at her newest project. Ashley and her husband Jon have been hired to restore the belvedere atop Wilmington's magnificent old Bellamy Mansion. The only trouble she anticipated was rotting wood and mold. Instead, she's coping with accidents, sabotage and murder.
It seems the historic mansion is caught in a legal battle over property rights. Documents dating back more than a hundred years have surfaced and now a wealthy foreigner is determined to buy the mansion outright. A guest dies mysteriously at a fund-raiser. A body is found floating in the old cistern. Ashley can't stand by and wait for more bodies to pile up. Even if it means taking on a killer with some deadly unfinished business.
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The Awful Abbey
A Deedra Masefield Mystery
There's something strange going on at the old Anthea Abbey, and Rufus County reporter Deedra Masefield is determined to get to the truth.
A stone fortress with a history of dark deeds, the abbey now belongs to an eccentric inventor who bought the place for his reclusive movie star wife. But the beautiful starlet has disappeared. And when a newspaper delivery boy finds a note pleading for help, Deedra suspects the worst.
Especially when the poor boy then goes missing.
Nosing about the secluded property, Deedra spies hidden cameras as well as the desperate, wraithlike image of seductive screen goddess Sharlee Devon clutching a baby boy. But Deedra's up against an iron-willed housekeeper and the hulking figure of a strange man-child wandering the grounds. It's a situation straight out of Hitchcock. But for Deedra, it's about to become a real-life nightmare that can only end in murder.
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Murder in the Movies
Non-series
Former film industry insider Katlin Wallace returns to her Hollywood stomping grounds and finds it's as crazy as ever. She's surrounded by drama, heartbreak, backstabbing and murder. Only this time, the action is not on the set, but in the real life of her close friend, whose movie-star daughter has been accused of murder.
Witnesses claim they saw Lane Allison push her producer husband down a flight of stairs during a party. Katlin's arrived to offer moral support—and a little help proving Lane didn't do it. It's not easy to ditch the swarm of tabloid reporters hounding anyone close to the story, but Katlin has a few tricks up her sleeve. She just never expected a killer to turn the focus on her—promising a Hollywood ending that will take her breath away. Permanently.
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If you enjoy the books in this series, you can join Worldwide Mystery and get 2 free books plus 2 free gifts just for giving the automatic program a try. Accepting your two free Worldwide Mystery books and mystery gifts places you under no obligation to buy anything. You may keep the books and gifts and return the shipping statement marked cancel. If you do not cancel, about two months later, and then every other month, eHarlequin will send you three additional Worldwide Mystery books.
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