We've just published our Review of Sherlock Holmes and the Dead Boer at Scotney Castle by Tim Symonds. A Sherlock Holmes Novel. MX Publishing Trade Paperback, March 2012.
Available to purchase from …
Friday, April 06, 2012
Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Dead Boer at Scotney Castle by Tim Symonds
First Poster for Futuristic Thriller Looper
The first poster for the futuristic thriller Looper has been released by the studio (right; click for larger version). The poster's tagline: "Hunted by your future. Haunted by your past." The film is directed by Rian Johnson, who also penned the original screenplay.
At some point in the future, time travel will be invented — but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a "looper" — a hired gun like Joe (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) — is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good … until the day the mob decides to "close the loop", sending back Joe's future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination.
Looper opens in theaters September 28th, 2012.
The Blackmail Club by David Bishop is Today's Second Featured Free MystereBook
MystereBooks is pleased to feature The Blackmail Club by David Bishop 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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The Blackmail Club by David Bishop
A Jack McCall Mystery
Publisher: Telemachus Press
This is the second thriller to feature the former CIA and Defense Department operative.
About The Blackmail Club (from the publisher): Washington, D.C., is a town full of powerful people hiding ugly secrets. The blackmailer, a renaissance man, keeps his promise: pay me, I’ll return the evidence of your indiscretions and illegalities and you’ll never hear from me again. His victims, having paid and not been further extorted are reticent to admit having been blackmailed.
Jack McCall, a former operative for the U.S. intelligence community and now a private investigator, is assisted by Nora Burke, his sexy assistant, and Max Logan, a retired detective of Irish-Scottish parentage.
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.
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For more free mystery ebooks, visit our Free MystereBooks page.
The Space Between by Alexandra Sokoloff is Today's Featured Free MystereBook
MystereBooks is pleased to feature The Space Between by Alexandra Sokoloff 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 Space Between by Alexandra Sokoloff
Publisher: Alexandra Sokoloff
This young adult novel of suspense is based on the author's 2009 ITW Thriller Award-winning short story "The Edge of Seventeen".
About The Space Between (from the publisher): Sixteen-year old Anna Sullivan is having terrible dreams of a massacre at her school. Anna’s father is a mentally unstable veteran, her mother vanished when Anna was five, and Anna might just chalk the dreams up to a reflection of her crazy waking life — except that Tyler Marsh, the most popular guy at the school and Anna’s secret crush, is having the exact same dream.
Despite the gulf between them in social status, Anna and Tyler connect, first in the dream and then in reality. As the dreams reveal more, with clues from the school social structure, quantum physics, probability, and Anna's own past, Anna becomes convinced that they are being shown the future so they can prevent the shooting …
If they can survive the shooter — and the dream.
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 Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan is Today's Barnes&Noble Nook Daily Find for Families
MystereBooks is pleased to feature The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan as today's Barnes&Noble Nook Daily Find for Families. The deal price of $3.99 is valid only for today, Friday, April 06, 2012.
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The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan
The 39 Clues
Publisher: Scholastic
Meet Amy and Dan, members of the powerful Cahill family, in this first entry of the popular series. Their dowager grandmother has hidden 39 clues around the world, and now Amy and Dan must compete to find the clues which will grant them access to their family's vast fortune.
About The Maze of Bones (from the publisher): Minutes before she died Grace Cahill changed her will, leaving her decendants an impossible decision: "You have a choice — one million dollars or a clue."
Grace is the last matriarch of the Cahills, the world's most powerful family. Everyone from Napoleon to Houdini is related to the Cahills, yet the source of the family power is lost. 39 clues hidden around the world will reveal the family's secret, but no one has been able to assemble them. Now the clues race is on, and young Amy and Dan must decide what's important: hunting clues or uncovering what REALLY happened to their parents.
Important Note: Barnes&Noble updates its Nook Daily Find every day at approximately midnight PT. The title referenced above is available at a discounted price for Friday, April 06, 2012 only.
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Mystery Bestsellers for the Week Ending April 06, 2012
A list of the top 15 mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending April 6th, 2012 has been posted by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books.
The stand-alone thriller Stay Close by Harlan Coben retains the top spot for a second week.
Four new titles debut this week.
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New at number 7 is The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark.
Biblical scholar Jonathan Lyons believes he has found the rarest of parchments — a letter that may have been written by Jesus Christ. Stolen from the Vatican Library in the 1500s, the letter was assumed to be lost forever.
Now, under the promise of secrecy, Jonathan is able to confirm his findings with several other experts. But he also confides in a family friend his suspicion that someone he once trusted wants to sell the parchment and cash in.
Within days Jonathan is found shot to death in his study. At the same time, his wife, Kathleen, who is suffering from Alzheimer's, is found hiding in the study closet, incoherent and clutching the murder weapon. Even in her dementia, Kathleen has known that her husband was carrying on a long-term affair. Did Kathleen kill her husband in a jealous rage, as the police contend? Or is his death tied to the larger question: Who has possession of the priceless parchment that has now gone missing?
It is up to their daughter, twenty-eight-year-old Mariah, to clear her mother of murder charges and unravel the real mystery behind her father's death.
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One spot lower is the 13th entry in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection by Alexander McCall Smith.
Precious Ramotswe is haunted by a repeated dream: a vision of a tall, strange man who waits for her beneath an acacia tree. Odd as this is, she's far too busy to worry about it. The best apprentice at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors is in trouble with the law and stuck with the worst lawyer in Gaborone. Grace Makutsi and Phuti Radiphuti are building the house of their dreams, but their builder is not completely on the up and up. And, most shockingly, Mma Potokwane, defender of Botswana's weak and downtrodden, has been dismissed from her post as matron at the orphan farm. Can the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency help restore the beloved matron to her rightful position?
As wealthy and powerful influences at the orphan farm become allied against their friend, help arrives from an unexpected visitor: the tall stranger from Mma Ramotswe's dreams, who turns out to be none other than the estimable Clovis Andersen, author of the No. 1 Ladies' prized manual, The Principles of Private Detection. Together, Mma Ramotswe, Mma Makutsi, and their teacher-turned-colleague help right this injustice and in the process discover something new about being a good detective.
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At number 10 is the haunting new novel The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler.
Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, self-dependent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air. Unhesitatingly he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable marriage. But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever. Only Dorothy's unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and to find some peace.
Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family's vanity-publishing business, turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trials of life, that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye.
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Finally, new at number 12 is the latest Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery, Beastly Things by Donna Leon.
When the body of man is found in a canal, damaged by the tides, carrying no wallet, and wearing only one shoe, Brunetti has little to work with. No local has filed a missing-person report, and no hotel guests have disappeared. Where was the crime scene? And how can Brunetti identify the man when he can't show pictures of his face? The autopsy shows a way forward: it turns out the man was suffering from a rare, disfiguring disease. With Inspector Vianello, Brunetti canvasses shoe stores, and winds up on the mainland in Mestre, outside of his usual sphere. From a shopkeeper, they learn that the man had a kindly way with animals.
At the same time, animal rights and meat consumption are quickly becoming preoccupying issues at the Venice Questura, and in Brunetti's home, where conversation at family meals offer a window into the joys and conflicts of Italian life. Perhaps with the help of Signorina Elettra, Brunetti and Vianello can identify the man and understand why someone wanted him dead.
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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 05, 2012
Review: Forever 11:59 by Amanda Ball
We've just published our Review of Forever 11:59 by Amanda Ball. A Carter Thompson Mystery. CreateSpace Trade Paperback, February 2012.
Available to purchase from …
First Trailer for Savages, adapted from the Crime Thriller by Don Winslow
The first trailer for the crime thriller film adaptation of Don Winslow's Savages has been released; we've embedded it below.
Directed by Oliver Stone from a screenplay co-written by Stone, Winslow, and Shane Salerno, the film features an all-star ensemble cast of Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Johnson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch and Demian Bichir.
Laguna Beach entrepreneurs Ben (Johnson), a peaceful and charitable Buddhist, and his closest friend Chon (Kitsch), a former Navy SEAL and ex-mercenary, run a lucrative, homegrown industry — raising some of the best marijuana ever developed. They also share a one-of-a-kind love with the extraordinary beauty Ophelia (Lively). Life is idyllic in their Southern California town … until the Mexican Baja Cartel decides to move in and demands that the trio partners with them.
When the merciless head of the cartel, Elena (Hayek), and her brutal enforcer, Lado (Del Toro), underestimate the unbreakable bond among these three friends, Ben and Chon — with the reluctant, slippery assistance of a dirty DEA agent (Travolta) — wage a seemingly unwinnable war against the cartel.
And so begins a series of increasingly vicious ploys and maneuvers in a high stakes, savage battle of wills.
Savages opens in theaters July 6th, 2012.
International Telemystery: News from MIPTV
MIPTV — the annual international television marketplace that takes place every Spring in Cannes — just concluded and we thought we'd take a look through all the press releases to see what's new and interesting in the world of Telemystery: Prime Time Crime.
Most of what we're listing below is not directly related to anything those of us in the US are likely to see anytime soon. But it isn't unusual for something new abroad to find its way to our shores at some point!
• Iceland's Channel 2 has commissioned a third season of Pressa — "The Press" — a crime drama centered around the workers of a tabloid newspaper in Reykjavik. The first season aired in 2007 with a second in 2011.
• A Swedish production company has acquired the television adaptation rights to The Last of the Sami, a crime thriller by French author Olivier Truc. Set in Lapland, the storyline follows the tensions between the Arctic-based Sami and those who oppose their religion and claim on the land.
• The first season of Australian 1920s period crime drama The Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries — based on a character created by crime novelist Kerry Greenwood — has made its first international sales (to Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Brazil). A second season is planned.
• Five episodes of The Spiral will air in at least 10 countries and will follow along with a team of thieves, who plot and then steal artwork throughout Europe. The paintings will actually disappear, and viewers will be invited to help solve the crimes by finding the stolen goods.
• Midsomer Murders, which airs in over 230 territories worldwide, often under the title Inspector Barnaby, has been sold — finally! — into French Canada. It will air as Inspecteur Barnaby. The series, based on a character created by crime novelist Caroline Graham, is by far the UK's bestselling crime drama.
• ITV made a number of new international sales for several of its crime dramas, including Endeavour, the prequel to the Inspector Morse series based on a character created by crime novelist Colin Dexter; Above Suspicion, based on the Anna Travis mysteries by Lynda La Plante; Murdoch Mysteries, based on characters created by mystery author Maureen Jennings; and both Agatha Christie's Miss Marple and Poirot.
• BBC has made its first sale (to Australia) for its new crime drama Ripper Street, set in the East End of London in the aftermath of the "Jack the Ripper" murders of the late 19th century.
• Two Danish crime dramas made new international sales: Forbrydelsen — "The Killing" — and Livvageterne — "The Protectors". (The former has been adapted by AMC here in the US into an English-language version, also titled The Killing.
• BBC and Arte France will co-produce Spies of Warsaw, an adaptation of Alan Furst's 2008 historical espionage thriller of the same title.
• German producer Tandem is teaming up with Criminal Minds showrunner Ed Bernero to develop the new series Crossing Lines, which is centered on a team of international law enforcement professionals who solve crimes across Europe.
• The original Netflix crime drama Lilyhammer has been sold into France. BBC had already picked up the UK rights to the series.
The Mystery Bookshelf: Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg
The Mystery Bookshelf, where you can discover a world of mystery and suspense, is pleased to feature a new crime novel we recently received from the publisher.
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Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg
Picador (Trade Paperback)
Publication Date: April 2012
ISBN-13: 978-1-250-00255-6
About Smilla's Sense of Snow (from the publisher): She thinks more highly of snow and ice than she does of love. She lives in a world of numbers, science and memories — a dark, exotic stranger in a strange land. And now Smilla Jaspersen is convinced she has uncovered a shattering crime …
It happened in the Copenhagen snow. A six-year-old boy, a Greenlander like Smilla, fell to his death from the top of his apartment building. While the boy's body is still warm, the police pronounce his death an accident. But Smilla knows her young neighbor didn't fall from the roof on his own. Soon she is following a path of clues as clear to her as footsteps in the snow. For her dead neighbor, and for herself, she must embark on a harrowing journey of lies, revelation and violence that will take her back to the world of ice and snow from which she comes, where an explosive secret waits beneath the ice …
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About the author: Born in 1957 in Denmark, Peter Høeg followed various callings — dancer, actor, sailor, fencer, and mountaineer — before turning seriously to writing. His work has been published in thirty-three countries. Smilla's Sense of Snow — originally published in 1992 under the Danish title Smillas fornemmelse for sne — was adapted into the 1997 thriller starring Julia Ormond, Gabriel Byrne, Robert Loggia and Richard Harris.
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