This weekend, Saturday and Sunday, April 14th and 15th, 2012, the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books will be held at the University of Southern California.
This is, to say the least, a very large event with a seemingly endless list of things to see and do. Here is a program schedule, which we've glanced through to pick out those with a mystery theme.
Warner Bros. is presenting Scooby-Doo Storytime, where children can listen and be a part of the story as the mystery-solving dog's adventures are read. (Saturday and Sunday, the Hoy Stage at 1 PM and noon, respectively.)
Four crime fiction panels are being held on Saturday. The titles are "A Haze of Mystery" with Cara Hoffman, Alice LaPlante, and Scott O'Connor, moderated by Donna Rifkind (12:30 PM); "Tangled Webs" with Dan Barden, Miles Corwin, T. Jefferson Parker, and Denise Mina, moderated by Dick Lochte (2 PM); "Out of the Box" with Nelson George, Gary Phillips, P. G. Sturges, and Paul Tremblay, moderated by Celeste Fremon (3:30 PM); and "Catch Them If You Can" with Barry Eisler, Tom Epperson, and Stuart Woods, moderated by Tom Nolan (4:30 PM).
Four more crime fiction and fantasy panels are being held on Sunday. The titles are "Buried Secrets" with Denise Hamilton, Gregg Hurwitz, Thomas Perry, and Dan Pyne, moderated by Tod Goldberg (11 AM); "California Noir" with Joel Engel, Gar Anthony Haywood, Bart Schneider, and Kelli Stanley, moderated by Susan Kandel (12:30 PM); "Listening In" with Joseph Kanon, Philip Kerr, and Olen Steinhauer, moderated by Paula L. Woods (3:30 PM); and "Mystery and Magic in Mind and Matter" with K. C. Cole, Deborah Harkness, and Tim Page (3 PM).
Most festival activities are free, but tickets are required for all indoor panels. Panel passes have been sold out, but a limited number of individual panel tickets will be available on site, while supplies last.
Tonight, Friday April 20th, the 32nd Annual Presentation of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes honoring the best books of 2011 will be held. Gar Anthony Haywood will be presenting the award in the Mystery-Thriller category.
Friday, April 20, 2012
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, This Weekend April 21st and 22nd
Today's Bestselling Free Kindle MystereBooks (120420)
Several times a week we pick out two or three free mystery and suspense titles to feature here. Of the hundreds of books to choose from, we generally select those written by authors familiar to us. These books are free to download as of the date and time of the post, but as we always say, prices can and do change without notice.
We've been pondering a more general — and "evergreen" — way of promoting free titles and are trying something new in this post, embedding Amazon's RSS feed of bestselling free Kindle mysteries. Since it is an RSS feed it is updated automatically by Amazon whenever the list of bestselling Kindle titles changes. It's a general list, not a hand-picked one, so we'll probably continue to feature free books that capture our attention to complement these titles.
Ideally this is the kind of information that is best suited for a sidebar or other more permanent place on our site, but given its size we haven't quite figured out how to best achieve that. In the meantime, we'll try it here in a post and see how it works.
We're using a script to embed the feed, but if you cannot see the script — or have scripts blocked — you can use this link to see the page on Amazon.com.
A Despicable Mission by Judith Campbell is Today's Second Featured Free MystereBook
MystereBooks is pleased to feature A Despicable Mission by Judith Campbell as today's second free mystery ebook.
This title was listed as free as of the date and time of this post. Prices are subject to change without notice. The price displayed on the vendor website at the time of purchase will be the price paid for the book. Please confirm the price of the book before completing your transaction.
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A Despicable Mission by Judith Campbell
An Olympia Brown Mystery
Publisher: Mainly Murder Press
This is the second mystery in this series.
About A Despicable Mission (from the publisher): It's summer on the picture book island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Olympia Brown is the summer minister, and she suspects that an elderly parishioner is the target of a nasty confidence operation. Much to the consternation of her colleague, Father Jim, and Frederick, her English gentleman, Olympia puts her own life in danger when she intervenes. Sparks fly, tempers flare, and Olympia ends up on the wrong side of a loaded gun.
Important Note: This book was listed for free on the date and time of this post. Prices can and do change without prior notice. Please confirm the price of the book before completing your purchase.
Download Link(s):
For more free mystery ebooks, visit our Free MystereBooks page.
The Big Freeze by Michael J. Katz is Today's Featured Free MystereBook
MystereBooks is pleased to feature The Big Freeze by Michael J. Katz as today's free mystery ebook.
This title was listed as free as of the date and time of this post. Prices are subject to change without notice. The price displayed on the vendor website at the time of purchase will be the price paid for the book. Please confirm the price of the book before completing your transaction.
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The Big Freeze by Michael J. Katz
An Andy Sussman Mystery
Publisher: Putnam
Originally published in 1991, this is the third — and presumably final — mystery in this series.
About The Big Freeze (from the publisher): Sportscaster Andy Sussman is presented with a mysterious manuscript. It’s his buddy detective Murray Glick’s account of the disappearance of a young woman at the Sunburst ski resort in Colorado. Now Murray has vanished, and Andy must trace back Glick’s unreliable narrative, solve a murder and stop a kidnapping.
Important Note: This book was listed for free on the date and time of this post. Prices can and do change without prior notice. Please confirm the price of the book before completing your purchase.
Download Link(s):
For more free mystery ebooks, visit our Free MystereBooks page.
Mystery Bestsellers for the Week Ending April 20, 2012
A list of the top 15 mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending April 20th, 2012 has been posted by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books.
The latest No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency mystery, The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection by Alexander McCall Smith retains its number one spot this week atop the bestsellers list.
Two new titles debut this week.
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New at number 9 is the stand-alone thriller The Innocent by David Baldacci.
It begins with a hit gone wrong. Will Robie is dispatched to eliminate a target unusually close to home in Washington, D.C. But something about this mission doesn't seem right to Robie, and he does the unthinkable. He refuses to kill. Now, Robie becomes a target himself and must escape from his own people.
Fleeing the scene, Robie crosses paths with a wayward teenage girl, a fourteen-year-old runaway from a foster home. But she isn't an ordinary runaway — her parents were murdered, and her own life is in danger. Against all of his professional habits, Robie rescues her and finds he can't walk away. He needs to help her.
Even worse, the more Robie learns about the girl, the more he's convinced she is at the center of a vast cover-up, one that may explain her parents' deaths and stretch to unimaginable levels of power.
Now, Robie may have to step out of the shadows in order to save this girl's life … and perhaps his own.
Purchase Options:
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The 23rd Stone Barrington thriller, Unnatural Acts by Stuart Woods, enters the list two places lower at number 11.
When a hedge fund billionaire hires Stone Barrington to talk some sense into his wayward son, it seems like an easy enough job; no one knows the hidden sins and temptations of the ultra-wealthy better than Stone. But as Stone and his erstwhile protégé, Herbie Fisher, probe deeper into the case — and an old one comes back to haunt him — he realizes that even he may have underestimated just how far some people will go to cover up their crimes … and plan new ones.
From Manhattan's mahogany-paneled law offices to its modern penthouse lofts and dimly lit nightclubs, the trail of entrapment and murder leads to a shocking act that no one could ever have anticipated.
Purchase Options:
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For more mystery books news, 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, April 19, 2012
Cinemax Orders Pilot for Crime Thriller Hurt People
Cinemax has given a pilot order for a crime drama to star William Petersen. Titled Hurt People, Petersen will play Hollis Brown, a hitman for a crime family, which ordered the murder of his wife. Brown is assigned to hunt down his estranged daughter, who has vowed revenge against those who killed her mother.
Peter Macmanus will write the pilot's screenplay.
If ordered to series, Hurt People would join the cable network's action thriller Strike Back and crime drama Banshee, which is being developed by True Blood's showrunner Alan Ball.
(Related article: The Hollywood Reporter.)
CBC Announces Fall Schedule with Two Crime Dramas
Canada's CBC announced its schedule for the upcoming television season and we're seeing just two crime dramas on it.
One we knew about, Murdoch Mysteries, which was acquired from Citytv after it canceled the series last year. Murdoch Mysteries is based on characters created by crime novelist Maureen Jennings; this will be its sixth season on the air.
The other is a new drama Cracked, which follows a team of cops and psychiatric professionals working together to solve crimes. A pilot was filmed last summer, written by Tracey Forbes, who was also part of the creative team beyond Flashpoint and The Bridge.
"Despite financial challenges, the strength of those returning favorites combined with exciting new titles is setting the stage for an outstanding 2012-13 season," said Christine Wilson, executive director of content planning for CBC.
(Related article: CBC.)
Blu-ray Trailer for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
It's a little early but Warner Bros. has released a trailer for the Blu-ray release of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows; we've embedded it below. Though we haven't yet seen the movie — but definitely plan to — we like this trailer a bit better than the theatrical trailers that were released for the film.
Starring Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law as Dr. John Watson, the Combo Pack shown to the right can be pre-ordered prior to its release date of June 12th, 2012.
James Patterson's Private Thrillers to be Adapted for Television
Sonar Entertainment announced today a development deal with James Patterson to adapt his "Private" series of thrillers for television.
"My ultimate goal is to tell stories in television that fans love and want to come back to again and again," said Patterson. "Television is the ideal medium to deliver that type of entertainment."
The first book in the series, simply titled Private and co-written with Maxine Paetro, was published in 2010 and introduces the elite international investigation company of the same name that influential people around the globe go to when they need maximum force and maximum discretion. Run by former CIA agent Jack Morgan, his staff of investigators uses the world's most advanced forensic tools to make and break their cases.
Despite Patterson's popularity with his books, that success hasn't translated all that well onto the small screen — anyone remember Women's Murder Club? — though film adaptations of his Alex Cross books have done well. (We are, however, taking a decidedly wait and see attitude with the latest one, Alex Cross, which opens in theaters later this year.)
Sonar Entertainment may be best known to television mystery fans as the producers of the Hallmark Channel series Mystery Woman, McBride, and Jane Doe.
Review: Beastly Things by Donna Leon
We've just published our Review of Beastly Things by Donna Leon. A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery. Atlantic Monthly Press Hardcover, April 2012.
Our rating:
Available to purchase from …
