In the "for what it's worth" category, the producers of the upcoming film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo have created a(nother) promotional/viral website with the tagline "What is Hidden in Snow, Comes Forth in the Thaw".
Clicking on the tagline opens another window and after a few seconds some background music can be heard and then a looping image of the street view of the office of Millennium magazine with Daniel Craig appears (and disappears). After a long while — minutes — some voices can be heard, but the words are nearly indecipherable. As near as we can tell, there's nothing else to see or do here, though to be fair we gave up after 5 minutes or so.
Maybe this website is not ready for prime time or maybe we just don't get it — probably the latter.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo opens in US theaters on December 21st, 2011.
Monday, October 10, 2011
New Promotional/Viral Website for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Telemystery: Bones and Without Motive, New This Week on DVD
Telemystery, your source for one of the most comprehensive listings of crime drama, amateur sleuth, private investigator, mystery and suspense television series, mini-series and made-for-television movies, now available on or coming soon to DVD or Blu-ray disc, is profiling two series being released this week.
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After a much-needed break, forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) return to the Jeffersonian Institute, along with their team of investigative "squints" for another darkly humorous season of murder, mystery, controversy and chemistry in Bones.
In addition to a vast array of personal crises, ranging from Angela's secret pregnancy to Booth's new relationship with a beautiful reporter, the team tackles a complex caseload of gruesome crimes that includes facing a murderous Chupacabra, a trip to the Jersey Shore, the final return of the Gravedigger, and a vigilante sniper with a deadly link to Booth's past.
Bones: Season Six is available on DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant, and iTunes, and consists of 23 episodes that originally aired on Fox from September 2010 through May 2011. The seventh season of Bones premieres on November 3rd.
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There’s a serial killer on the loose, and it’s up to Detective Constable Jack Mowbray (Ross Kemp) and his team to stop the murders in Without Motive.
Mowbray has seen a lot of disturbing things on the job. But somehow the family man has never taken it home with him—until now. The brutal murder of a young woman in Bristol sets off a chain of events that may change Mowbray forever … and tear his family apart.
When the Bristol murder is linked to a series of recent killings, the investigating team grows to more than a dozen detectives and just as many petty jealousies and full-blown rivalries. Mowbray’s boss, DCS Henderson (Kenneth Cranham), keeps the pressure on as it becomes clear that the latest killing will not be the last. Mowbray and his colleagues race to find a predator who will strike again—without apparent motive.
Without Motive: The Complete Series is available on DVD and consists of 12 episodes that originally aired on ITV over two seasons during 2000 and 2001.
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Visit the Telemystery website to discover more television mystery series currently available on and coming soon to DVD, Blu-ray disc, or video on demand.
Mulholland Books Has an Excerpt from the Graphic Novel Ruse: The Victorian Guide to Murder
Mulholland Books is featuring an excerpt from the graphic novel Ruse: The Victorian Guide to Murder (Marvel, October 2011 trade paperback) on its blog this morning, which prompted us to read up on it a bit more. Though comics have long featured crime-fighting superheroes, we're seeing more and more of them featuring crime-solving characters that would be at home in today's popular mystery books, some even written by bestselling novelists (e.g. Charlaine Harris with her Harper Connelly comics and Janet Evanovich with a comic spin-off of her Metro Girl series).
Ruse: The Victorian Guide to Murder is written by Mark Waid and illustrated by Mirco Pierfederici. The first of four issues collected in the graphic novel was published on March 16, 2011, and introduces Simon Archard, the most intelligent of men, renowned as the Victorian world's greatest detective. But when he crosses paths with the mysterious and enchanting Emma Bishop, has the smartest man in the world met his equal?
Here are the descriptions for the other three issues:
Ruse #2 (April 27th, 2011): Simon Archard has had a long string of partners and assistants, none more talented than Emma Bishop. And she'll need her talent now, more than ever — because there's a murderer in Partington who's targeting all of Archard's allies past and present!
Ruse #3 (May 25th, 2011): The City of Partington teeters on the brink of collapse when a deadly string of gambits leaves Simon and Emma at their wit’s end. The games are afoot as Emma and Simon scramble for clues as to who is behind this conspiracy of chaos!
Ruse #4 (June 15th, 2011): The Great Partington Enigma comes to a close as master detective Simon Archard and his partner, Emma Bishop, find themselves at war with one another while trying to save the city they love! What price will Emma have to pay in order to save Simon from his greatest arch-enemy?
See more images from the comics on the Marvel website.
Mystery Godoku Puzzle for October 10, 2011
A new Mystery Godoku Puzzle has been created by the editors of the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books and is now 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!).
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This week's letters and mystery clue:
A D E H K N O S W
This Motor City "crime" is in the title of the second Will Anderson mystery by D. E. Johnson (9 letters).
We now have two weeks of our puzzles on one page in PDF format for easier printing. Print this week's puzzle here.
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!
Sunday, October 09, 2011
Review: India Black and the Widow of Windsor by Carol K. Carr
India Black and the Widow of Windsor by Carol K. Carr. An India Black Mystery. Berkley Prime Crime Trade Paperback, October 2011.
There is plenty of derring-do in this historical mystery, close calls and narrow escapes and the like, but it is really accompanying India Black and the enigmatic French on their adventure that makes this book — and this series — so enjoyable.
Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: India Black and the Widow of Windsor by Carol K. Carr.
Review: The Burning by Jane Casey
The Burning by Jane Casey. A Maeve Kerrigan Mystery. Minotaur Books Hardcover, August 2011.
The author does a fine job of balancing the introduction of a new character with a solidly developed murder investigation. Fortunately, this storyline is strong enough to compensate for some of the clichéd situations of a woman working in a man's world.
Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: The Burning by Jane Casey.
Brown's Requiem by James Ellroy is Today's Amazon Kindle Daily Deal
MystereBooks is pleased to feature Brown's Requiem by James Ellroy as today's Amazon Kindle Daily Deal. The deal price of $1.99 is valid only for today, Sunday, October 09, 2011.
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Brown's Requiem by James Ellroy
Non-Series
Mysterious Press
This stand-alone novel, originally published in 1981, was adapted into the 2000 feature film Brown's Requiem starring Michael Rooker as Fritz Brown.
About Brown's Requiem (from the publisher): Fritz Brown's L.A. — and his life — are masses of contradictions, like stirring chorals sung for the dead. A less-than-spotless former cop with a drinking problem — a private eye-cum repo man with a taste for great music — he has ben known to wallow in the grime beneath the Hollywood glitter. But Fritz Brown's life is about to change, thanks to the appearance of a racist psycho who flashes too much cash for a golf caddie and who walked away clean from a multiple murder rap. Reopening this case could be Fritz's redemption; his welcome back to a moral world and his path to a pure and perfect love. But to get there, he must make it through a grim, lightless place where evil has no national borders; where lies beget lies and death begets death; where there's little tolerance for Bach or Beethoven and deadly arson is a lesser mortal sin; and where a private eye's unhealthy interest in the past can turn beautiful music into a funeral dirge.
Important Note: Prices can and do change without prior notice, so please confirm the price of the book before completing your purchase.
Download Link(s):
Saturday, October 08, 2011
Review: The Killing Song by P. J. Parrish
The Killing Song by P. J. Parrish. Non-series. Pocket Books Mass Market Paperback, August 2011.
This stand-alone thriller features an engaging central character, a Miami crime reporter out of his element in Paris, searching for the man who killed his sister. A slightly disappointing aspect to the storyline is that it isn't all that suspenseful, as the killer's identity is known to the reader from the beginning, leaving very little new to discover.
Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: The Killing Song by P. J. Parrish.
Mystery, Suspense and Thriller Adventure and Casual Games, New This Week from BFG (111008)
Games of Mystery is pleased to announce the availability of new mystery, suspense and thriller adventure and casual games from Big Fish Games released during this past week. 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.
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You play the role of Robert Cath, a fugitive American with a mysterious background, who is on the final journey of the Orient Express from Paris to Constantinople before World War I. Cath, already wanted by the French Police as a suspect of the murder of an Irish police officer, is contacted by an old friend Tyler Whitney through an urgent message in a letter to join him on the Orient Express. The said letter states that there is a possible exit from all of his troubles. Cath boards the train via a motorcycle while it was traveling from one station to another. As soon as Cath boars the luxurious train, he finds Whitney dead, killed by someone else on board the train. To blend in, he disposes of Whitney's body and takes his place, becoming involved in a web of treachery, lies, political conspiracies, personal interests, romance and murder.
Originally released in 1997, The Last Express was considered by game reviewers at the time to be one of the best point-and-click adventure games ever produced, though it was ultimately something of a commercial disappointment.
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Step into this mysterious adventure when Julien hires the world famous Detective Dupin to investigate the sudden death of his beloved Victorine. After her passing, Victorine’s husband, who she has no love for, has her buried incredibly quickly, making Julien uneasy. Become Detective Dupin’s assistant and use your talents to unravel the mystery!
This special collector's edition includes an integrated strategy guide, bonus gameplay, wallpapers and screensavers, concept art, musical soundtrack, the original story from which the game is adapted, and early access.
See also the other games in this series, Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat and Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder in the Rue Morgue.
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Get any standard game for $6.99 with a Big Fish Game Club membership. Other benefits include the $2.99 Daily Deal, Tomorrow's Game Today, and special member rewards. And if you purchase any 6 games within a single month, you earn a free game with the Big Fish Game Club Monthly Punch Card! (Collector's Editions earn 3 punches each, half-way towards your free game!)
Read Ms. Terri's reviews of the adventure and casual mystery games featured on our site, including Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy, Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses!, Enlightenus, and many more!
Big Fish Games: Bestsellers
Big Fish Games: New releases
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Games of Mystery is your source for mystery-themed video, electronic, and board games, parties for kids and adults, and murder mystery weekends and mystery getaway vacations!
Penumbra by Carolyn Haines is Today's Featured Free MystereBook
MystereBooks is pleased to feature Penumbra by Carolyn Haines as today's free mystery ebook. We don't know how long it will be offered at this special price (typically only until a certain number of downloads have been completed), so we urge you to download it while it is still available for free.
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Penumbra by Carolyn Haines
Non-Series
Tyrus Books
This noir stand-alone, originally published in hardcover in 2006 by Minotaur Books, is written by the author of the cozy Southern Belle mystery series featuring Sarah Booth Delaney.
About Penumbra (from the publisher): Jade Dupree is a beautician and an undertaker’s assistant with a gift for smoothing the ravages of death from the faces of her clientele. But her strange talent isn’t the only thing that sets her apart from the townspeople of tiny Drexel, Mississippi. Jade is half-black and the unacknowledged bastard daughter of Drexel’s “first lady,” the imperious Lucille Longier. Jade’s half sister, the pale, fragile, and legitimate Marlena, is married to Lucas Bramlett, the wealthiest man in the region. While the entire town knows of the blood bond between the two women, no one dares speak the truth out loud. Though her talents as a hairdresser are highly sought after by Drexel’s elite, Jade accepts that she’ll never truly be part of the town and lives her life the best she can.
But on one hot summer day in 1952, Jade’s world is turned inside out when Marlena, on a tryst with her lover, is savagely beaten and her young daughter kidnapped. Determined to find her niece before it’s too late, Jade accepts help from a white sheriff’s deputy, Frank Kimble. The forbidden attraction that ignites between them threatens to add to the violence already brewing in town.
Important Note: Prices can and do change without prior notice, so please confirm the price of the book before completing your purchase.
Download Link(s):
For more free mystery ebooks, visit our Free MystereBooks page.
Friday, October 07, 2011
Winners of the 2011 CWA Dagger Awards Announced
The winners of the 2011 CWA Dagger Awards have been announced by the Crime Writers' Association at an awards ceremony this evening at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel. And they are …
• Gold: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (Macmillan)
• Ian Fleming Steel: The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Orion)
• John Creasey New Blood: Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson (Doubleday)
Recently Published Indie Mysteries (111007)
We're always on the lookout for new mystery, suspense and thriller books, and with this series of recurring posts, we're looking at Indie Mysteries, books published by small, independent publishers, or self-published, that recently caught our eye ... and may be of interest to you too. Most of these titles, selected primarily from the Smashwords website, are ebook only, though some may also be available in a print format.
Important Note: The prices indicated for these books are current as of the date of this post, may differ between vendors, and can and do change without notice. Please confirm the price of the book before completing your purchase.
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Dead in the Rose City
by R. Barri Flowers
A Dean Drake Mystery
Self Published (Ebook)
October 2011
Price as of the date of this post: $3.49
Dean Jeremy Drake, nicknamed D.J., is a private investigator and ex-homicide detective for the Portland Police Bureau. He is six-five, hip, tough, armed with a .40 caliber Glock, and courts danger and romance with equal abandon. These qualities are put to the test when Drake is framed for murder in the midst of two seemingly unrelated cases. The more he investigates, the more he realizes they are intricately and dangerously connected. It literally becomes a life and death issue as Drake has to use all his detective skills, and then some, to fit all the pieces together in a deadly, high stakes whodunit and why.
Also available: Kindle edition.
Stalking Sydney
by Andie Alexander
Non-Series
Self Published (Ebook)
October 2011
Price as of the date of this post: $0.99
When Sydney Burke is almost strangled by a serial killer with a penchant for poetry, she becomes the focus of a certain FBI agent named Joe Ross, who’s hunting for the serial killer. Sydney is a stringer—a freelance journalist who races to newsworthy scenes to get video to put on the air for a fee. She unwillingly becomes a target for the serial killer who wants something from her. Between dealing with a crazy ex-boyfriend, paying off gambling debts to a pimp, and staying away from a congressman with Alzheimer’s in a quest for her identity, Sydney has to find the killer and escape the city before she becomes the next victim of his bad poetry and a gun to the head.
Also available: Kindle edition.
Deadly Friendship
by Sam Phillips
A Rick Cunningham Mystery (2nd in series)
Crossroads Publishing (Ebook)
September 2011
Price as of the date of this post: $2.99
A sixteen-year-old crime is revived when a caller to a radio talk show names a killer and concludes with the veiled threat that providence is about to take revenge on all of the participants in the crime. Rick Cunningham is asked to search out the identity and whereabouts of the caller and flush out the truth in a murky world of secrets, conspiracies and murder.
Noho
by James Davis
Non-Series
Wild Wolf Publishing (Ebook)
September 2011
Price as of the date of this post: $0.99
When a dead dancing girl with all the wrong connections is found with Nick Valentine's name scrawled on a scrap of paper in her pocket, life gets a lot more complicated for the disgraced Great War hero. Unwillingly drawn into a web of espionage and crime in the underbelly of 1930's London, Nick soon discovers that who killed her may be less important than why.
Also available: Kindle edition.
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For more recently published Indie Mysteries, visit the Smashwords Mystery and Detective category page or the Thriller and Suspense category page.
New Trailer for The Raven
A new — the first, we think — trailer for The Raven has been posted online; we've embedded it below.
When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) makes a startling discovery: the crime resembles a fictional murder described in gory detail in the local newspaper — part of a collection of stories penned by struggling writer and social pariah Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack). But even as Poe is questioned by police, another grisly murder occurs, also inspired by a popular Poe story.
Realizing a serial killer is on the loose using Poe’s writings as the backdrop for his bloody rampage, Fields enlists the author’s help in stopping the attacks. But when it appears someone close to Poe may become the murderer’s next victim, the stakes become even higher and the inventor of the detective story calls on his own powers of deduction to try to solve the case before it’s too late.
The Raven opens in US theaters on March 9th, 2012.
Blood Safari by Deon Meyer is Today's Second Featured Free MystereBook
MystereBooks is pleased to feature Blood Safari by Deon Meyer as today's free mystery ebook. We don't know how long it will be offered at this special price (typically only until a certain number of downloads have been completed), so we urge you to download it while it is still available for free.
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Blood Safari by Deon Meyer
Non-Series
Grove/Atlantic
About Blood Safari (from the publisher): Emma Le Roux, a beautiful young woman, sees her brother named on the Cape Town news as the prime suspect in the killing of four poachers and a witch doctor. But it can’t be possible: he disappeared twenty years ago in Kruger National Park and is believed to be dead. Emma tries to find out more but is attacked and barely escapes. So she hires Lemmer, a personal security expert, and sets out into the Lowveld in search of the truth. A complicated man with a dishonorable past, Lemmer just wants to do his job and avoid getting personally involved. But as they search for answers from the rural police, they encounter racial and political tensions, greed, corruption, and violence unlike anything they have ever known.
Important Note: Prices can and do change without prior notice, so please confirm the price of the book before completing your purchase.
Download Link(s):
For more free mystery ebooks, visit our Free MystereBooks page.
Scepter of the Ancients by Derek Landy is Today's Featured Free MystereBook
MystereBooks is pleased to feature Scepter of the Ancients by Derek Landy as today's free mystery ebook. We don't know how long it will be offered at this special price (typically only until a certain number of downloads have been completed), so we urge you to download it while it is still available for free.
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Scepter of the Ancients by Derek Landy
A Skulduggery Pleasant Novel (1st in series)
HarperCollins
This first in a series of thrillers for tweens introduces Skulduggery Pleasant, a well-dressed, wise-cracking, living-dead, skeleton magician-detective, who takes on 12-year-old Stephanie Edgely as an apprentice, replacing her with a clone so she can devote her full-time energies to fighting crime.
About Scepter of the Ancients (from the publisher): Meet Skulduggery Pleasant. Sure, he may lose his head now and again (in fact, he won his current skull in a poker match), but he is much more than he appears to be—which is good, considering that he is, basically, a skeleton. Skulduggery may be long dead, but he is also a mage who dodged the grave so that he could save the world from an ancient evil. But to defeat it, he'll need the help of a new partner: a not so innocent twelve-year-old girl named Stephanie. That's right, they're the heroes.
Stephanie and Skulduggery are quickly caught up in a battle to stop evil forces from acquiring her recently deceased uncle's most prized possession—the Sceptre of the Ancients. The Ancients were the good guys, an extinct race of uber-magicians from the early days of the earth, and the scepter is their most dangerous weapon, one capable of killing anyone and destroying anything. Back in the day, they used it to banish the bad guys, the evil Faceless Ones. Unfortunately, in the way of bad guys everywhere, the Faceless Ones are staging a comeback and no one besides our two heroes believes in the Faceless Ones, or even that the Sceptre is real.
So Stephanie and Skulduggery set off to find the Sceptre, fend off the minions of the bad guys, beat down vampires and the undead, prove the existence of the Ancients and the Faceless Ones, all while trading snappy, snippy banter worthy of the best screwball comedies.
Important Note: Prices can and do change without prior notice, so please confirm the price of the book before completing your purchase.
Download Link(s):
For more free mystery ebooks, visit our Free MystereBooks page.
