Online Mystery Book Reviews

Margaret Cannon, Crime Book reviewer for the Globe and Mail, recently published her reviews of 6 new mystery books.

Promise Me, by Harlan Coben, Dutton: "After six years, Harlan Coben brings him back in a story so solid, a plot so complex, that it's one of his best."

Nicotine Kiss, by Loren D. Estleman, Forge: "This is a superb novel, and Estleman's lovely, lyrical writing style makes it a pleasure. There's not a thing to improve."

The Death of Achilles, by Boris Akunin, Random House: "The joy of Akunin's novels isn't just in the plot, although these are superior. He has the same zest for the chase and the sheer fun of it all that makes Holmes so wonderful."

Prior Bad Acts, by Tami Hoag, Bantam: "The opening chapter of this novel is so chilling, some readers will wonder if they can read the whole thing. But I can promise that, by page six, they will be gripped, spellbound, held to the page. Hoag is a fine writer, but this is her best book by far."

Debts of Dishonor, by Jill Paton Walsh, St. Martin's Press: "This novel marks the return of her Cambridge sleuth, Imogene Quy, and it's as good an update of Dorothy L. as you are ever likely to see."

Oh Danny Boy, by Rhys Bowen, St. Martin's Press: "This is a slight novel with a bit of a romance in the plot, a lot of fun and some terrific historical writing. Fans of the British cozy will love it, and so will readers of historical fiction."

Read her complete reviews here.

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Mystery Trivia for May 2006

The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books has posted new mystery trivia questions for May 2006.

What well-known mystery author has been published under the pseudonyms Richard Stark, Tucker Coe, Samual Holt, and others?

What is the title of his first book published, under his real name, by Random House in 1960?

Visit the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books to see the answers to these questions as well as previous mystery book trivia questions from prior months.

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Press Release: Top Mystery Author to Head "Line-Up" for Murder in the Grove

(OPENPRESS) April 26, 2006 -- One of the world's best known and best-selling mystery authors, Anne Perry, will make a rare visit to Boise to take part in a bit of murder, mayhem, and fun at Murder in the Grove 2006, to be held June 2-3. Murder in the Grove, the northwest’s only annual mystery conference, caters to both fans and writers of mystery fiction.

Perry has sold more than twenty million books. She writes the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, and the Inspector William Monk series, both set in Victorian England, a third series which takes place in England during World War I, and has written a number of stand-alone books as well. Born in England, Anne Perry has lived in the United States and New Zealand. She presently makes her home in Scotland.

The public is invited to meet Perry and the other mystery authors at a book fair and dessert party at Barnes & Noble on Friday, June 2 at 7 p.m. On Saturday, June 3, Murder in the Grove convenes from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Centre on the Grove with programs for both mystery fans and writers. Agents and editors will meet with authors looking for representation.

Local mystery authors Joanne Pence, Deborah Donnelly, Catherine Mulvany, and Kelly Jones plus authors C.J. Box, Carolyn Wheat, Bob Wiebezahl, Kirk Russell, Aileen Baron, Mary Buckham, Sylvia Hubbard, Larry Karp, Con Lehane, Rae Monet, Twist Phelan, J.D. Rhoades, Michael W. Sherer, Denise Swanson, Pari Noskin Taichert, and Pat White will join Perry as presenters at Murder in the Grove. Author/editor Denise Dietz will represent Five Star Press. Literary agents Meredith Bernstein and Jo Grossman will speak with aspiring writers. Forensic artist Carrie Stuart-Parks, DNA expert Dr. Greg Hampikian, and private investigator, Valerie Agosta will present workshops on crime investigation. For her contribution to the field of mystery, Sara Paretsky will receive the 2006 Ridley Award in absentia due to a recent injury.

For more information about the two-day conference, local authors Joanne Pence (Joanne@joannepence.com or 208/938-5995, website: www.joannepence.com), and Tammy Cooper (tlcooper@tlcooper.com or 208/375-8230, website: www.tlcooper.com) may be contacted at any time, or visit www.murderinthegrove.com.

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The Mystery Bookshelf: New Titles for May 2006

The Mystery Bookshelf has updated its list of new paperback titles to include those to be released in May 2006.

Visit The Mystery Bookshelf to browse mass market paperback mysteries published since December 2005. (Older mysteries are moved to the archives which are searchable and still available from The Mystery Bookshelf.)

For each mystery, you can see the book cover, an overview of the book (synopsis), and notes about the book. For example, if the mystery is part of a series, the entry in that series is given.

Please visit The Mystery Bookshelf often! We are commited to providing readers of popular mysteries with the best and most current information about their favorite mystery authors, books, and series.

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Weekly Mystery Godoku Puzzle for 05/01/2006

A new Mystery Godoku Puzzle has been created by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books and is available on our website.

Godoku is similar to Sudoku, but uses letters instead of numbers. To give you a headstart, we provide you a mystery clue to fill in a complete row or column (if you choose to use it!).

This week's mystery clue: Theresa Monsour's 3rd mystery featuring St. Paul homicide detective Sgt. Paris Murphy had this title. 9 letters: A D E H K O R S U.

Previous puzzles are stored in the Mystery Godoku Archives.

Enjoy the weekly Mystery Godoku Puzzle from the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, and Thanks for visiting our website!

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New Monthly Mystery Book Contest for May 2006

The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books has posted the May Mystery Book Contest on its website. Enter daily for your chance to win a signed hardcover copy of No Second Chance by Harlan Coben. Entries will be accepted through the end of May.

Check the mysterious winners page for winners of all contests sponsored by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books. Thanks to all for participating!

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News: MWA 2006 Edgar Award Winners

The Mystery Writers of America held its annual banquet last night at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York and announced the winners of the 2006 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television and film published or produced in 2005.

Best Novel: Citizen Vince by Jess Walter (Regan Books)

Best First Novel By An American Author: Officer Down by Theresa Schwegel (St. Martin's Minotaur)

Best Paperback Original: Girl in the Glass by Jeffrey Ford (Dark Alley)

Best Critical/Biographical: Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak (Harcourt)

Best Fact Crime: Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece by Edward Dolnick (HarperCollins)

Best Short Story: "The Catch" - Greatest Hits by James W. Hall (Carroll & Graf)

Best Young Adult: Last Shot by John Feinstein (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

Best Juvenile: The Boys of San Joaquin by D. James Smith (Simon & Schuster Children's Books)

Best Play: Matter of Intent by Gary Earl Ross (Theater Loft)

Best Television Episode Teleplay: Sea of Souls - "Amulet" Teleplay by Ed Whitmore

Best Motion Picture Screen Play: Syriana - Screenplay by Stephen Gaghan, based on the book by Robert Baer (Warner Brothers)

The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books offers its congratulations to all nominees and winners!

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Mystery Hardcover Bestsellers (04/28/2006)

A list of the top ten mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending April 28, 2006 has been posted on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.

Topping the charts at both Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com:

Promise Me by Harlan Coben, the 8th mystery to feature sports and entertainment agent Myron Bolitar after a 6 year absense. Publishers Weekly states, "Coben fans will find much to enjoy in this well-crafted suspense novel, which has a startling final twist."

Also, for the first time in many months, the top five books on the New York Time Bestseller List are all mysteries.

Visit the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books often where we provide readers and collectors of mysteries with the best and most current information about their favorite mystery authors, books, and series.

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News: Random House Announces New Imprint: Mortalis

Random House has announced it is launching a new imprint, Mortalis, that will reissue classic and out-of-print mystery titles together with paperback originals. Set to start in spring of 2007, Mortalis will be republishing such classic mystery writers as Martin Cruz Smith, P. D. James, Agatha Christie and Wilkie Collins. Three original paperback titles will also be published: Boris Akunin's Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog, David Corbett's Blood of Paradise, and Alex Carr's An Accidental American.

Jane von Mehren, Random House trade paperbacks vice-president and publisher, said the new imprint is intended to bring authors who have appeared largely in mass market into trade paperback. The idea, she said, is to find authors who might benefit in a different format.

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Press Release: Bay Area Author Creates Art Forger Alter-Ego in Feint of Art, Her Debut Mystery

Visit the world of art fakes, forgers, and felons with the new Annie Kincaid Art Mystery series. San Francisco Bay Area faux finisher has released her debut novel, Feint of Art, in which an ex-forger tries to go straight in the City by the Bay.


Oakland (HELIOGRAPHICA NEWS) 4/18/06 -- (HELIOGRAPHICA NEWS) -- Oakland artist Julie Goodson-Lawes began painting forgeries as a young girl. "In the old days, painters trained themselves by copying famous artists. I skipped art school in favor of learning by mimicry as well." Her abilities as a copyist led naturally to a career as a decorative painter and muralist. "If you want a Monet covering the bathroom walls or your daughter's portrait in the style of John Singer Sargent, I'm the artist to call."

After more than a decade as a professional painter-for-hire Goodson-Lawes used her insider knowledge of painting techniques and her interest in art forgery to write a novel on the subject. She paired up with her sister Carolyn, a historian, to pen the Annie Kincaid Mystery Series under the pseudonym Hailey Lind. The first in the series, Feint of Art, is now available in stores everywhere.

Feint of Art is a humorous take on the very real world of art forgery and theft. "The stories are based on actual events and characters " this is a fascinating realm of underground talent, runaway greed, and worldwide smuggling." Interpol estimates that art crime is the third most lucrative international crime, right after drugs and arms smuggling.

Goodson-Lawes brings her insider knowledge of art forgery techniques to the books. Feint of Art's main character, Annie Kincaid, learned art forgery at the knee of her grandfather Georges, a famous and unrepentant forger. Because Annie knows how to copy art, she also understands how to recognize forgeries and uses this ability to track down stolen paintings and drawings. "Forgers need a great deal of talent to copy the "signature" of a particular artist. They also need to understand the history of art so that they don't make easily identifiable gaffes like using pigments that weren't produced until after their painting was supposedly created. Then there are other basic forgery skills that are easy for an artist to master, such as how to make paper look old and how to force cracks into varnish. There are actual "how-to" handbooks on the subject."

Throughout the book Annie's grandfather offers insights into the world of art forgery, while artistic techniques and the histories of several famous paintings are discussed. The book also includes Annie's basic recipe for faux finishing walls and furniture.

For further information visit www.haileylind.com. Feint of Art, first in the new Annie Kincaid Art Mystery Series Available in paperback, $6.99; 328pp. Signet Mystery (January 3, 2006) ISBN 0-451-21699-7.

Technorati tags: mystery books blogs, mystery, mystery books.

Profile: Fame & Fortune - Author Carol Higgins Clark

Jay MacDonald of Bankrate.com (not your typical website for mystery author profiles!) recently interviewed Carol Higgins Clark, author of the Los Angeles private eye Regan Reilly mystery series and daughter of bestselling suspense writer Mary Higgins Clark.

MacDonald writes that growing up in New Jersey, Carol had her sights set on an acting career. When her mother was having trouble finding time to launch a literary career and work full time to support her five children, Carol volunteered to retype her manuscripts which quickly became runaway bestsellers. When an editor suggested that Carol try her hand at her mother's trade, she did so, giving it her own humorous spin.

Mother and daughter have teamed up on three best-selling holiday suspense novels, Deck the Halls, He Sees You When You're Sleeping and The Christmas Thief. In Carol's latest Regan Reilly adventure, Hitched (the title of all her mysteries are a single word ending in "-ed"), she marries her heroine to steady boyfriend Jack "No Relation" Reilly, ushering in a new chapter to her popular series.

Read his entire in-depth interview here.

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Weekly Mystery Godoku Puzzle for 04/24/2006

A new Mystery Godoku Puzzle has been created by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books and is available on our website.

Godoku is similar to Sudoku, but uses letters instead of numbers. To give you a headstart, we provide you a mystery clue to fill in a complete row or column (if you choose to use it!).

This week's mystery clue: This Dashiell Hammett episodic mystery, released in 1929, was made into a miniseries in 1978 (with “The”). 9 letters: A C D E I N R S U.

Previous puzzles are stored in the Mystery Godoku Archives.

Enjoy the weekly Mystery Godoku Puzzle from the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, and Thanks for visiting our website!

Technorati tags: mystery books blogs, mystery, mystery books, mystery godoku, sudoku, godoku.

Online Reviews for The Virgin of Small Plains

Two reviews for Nancy Pickard's stand-alone suspense book The Virgin of Small Plains have recently appeared online.


Synopsis (from the publisher): Small Plains, Kansas, January 23, 1987: In the midst of a deadly blizzard, eighteen-year-old Rex Shellenberger scours his father’s pasture, looking for helpless newborn calves. Then he makes a shocking discovery: the naked, frozen body of a teenage girl, her skin as white as the snow around her. Even dead, she is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. It is a moment that will forever change his life and the lives of everyone around him. The mysterious dead girl–the “Virgin of Small Plains”–inspires local reverence. In the two decades following her death, strange miracles visit those who faithfully tend to her grave; some even believe that her spirit can cure deadly illnesses. Slowly, word of the legend spreads.

But what really happened in that snow-covered field? Why did young Mitch Newquist disappear the day after the Virgin’s body was found, leaving behind his distraught girlfriend, Abby Reynolds? Why do the town’s three most powerful men–Dr. Quentin Reynolds, former sheriff Nathan Shellenberger, and Judge, Tom Newquist–all seem to be hiding the details of that night?

Seventeen years later, when Mitch suddenly returns to Small Plains, simmering tensions come to a head, ghosts that had long slumbered whisper anew, and the secrets that some wish would stay buried rise again from the grave of the Virgin. Abby–never having resolved her feelings for Mitch–is now determined to uncover exactly what happened so many years ago to tear their lives apart.

Three families and three friends, their worlds inexorably altered in the course of one night, must confront the ever-unfolding consequences in award-winning author Nancy Pickard’s remarkable novel of suspense. Wonderfully written and utterly absorbing, The Virgin of Small Plains is about the loss of faith, trust, and innocence . . . and the possibility of redemption.

From Ron Bernas of the Detroit Free Press: "Pickard keeps the surprises coming and the tension high all the way to the end. Several explanations of the night seem plausible, so anything seems possible, to Pickard's credit." He concludes, The Virgin of Small Plains "stands out from the pack." Read the entire review here.

From Dorman T. Shindler, special to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "With its perfectly sketched scenes (the ice storm that opens the novel, a moving scene of teenage love, another of a character defying Thomas Wolfe's missive about going home), sharply drawn characters and finely painted plot, The Virgin of Small Plains is a truly suspenseful novel." Read the entire review here.

Read a recent profile of Nancy Pickard here.

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Profile: Mystery Writer Finds a Beloved Character: Kansas

Dorman T. Shindler, special to Kansas City Star (and reprinted online at Philly.com), recently profiled mystery writer Nancy Pickard.

Shindler writes that four years ago Nancy Pickard was still hesitantly talking about writing her long-planned “Kansas novel.” Now she’s fielding offers from Hollywood and selling foreign reprint rights to publishers in dozens of countries. All because of her new, mainstream suspense novel, The Virgin of Small Plains.

Why didn’t she write about her home state before? Pickard replies, “It took me a long time to admit that I really love Kansas. I think I had sort of that feeling that (her character) Mitch had: It sort of galls to admit it. Plus we get so much bad P.R.!” Pickard adds with a laugh. And yet, along with the well-drawn characters Pickard manages to make the Sunflower State a supporting character.

Nancy Pickard is the author of the award-winning Jenny Cain mystery series as well as the Marie Lightfoot trilogy.

Read the rest of the profile of Nancy Pickard here. Also, read a summary of recent online reviews of The Virgin of Small Plains here.

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Games of Mystery Website Adds Links to Online Games

Games of Mystery, a website designed to provide visitors with information about all types of mystery-themed games including games for the PC, board games, and mystery parties for adults, teens, and children, has added links to online and downloadable games.

The popular Inspector Parker and Mystery Case Files: Huntsville games are currently available. The new Mystery Case Files: Prime Suspects game will be added soon (see press release on this game). Other online games will be added over the next few weeks.

Visit Games of Mystery often to see what's new in mystery games!

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