Friday, November 04, 2005
Sarah Graves Nail Biter Repair Tips Sweepstakes
Mystery Hardcover Bestsellers (11/04/2005)
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Featured Mystery: Delete All Suspects by Donna Andrews
The fourth entry in Agatha Award winner Donna Andrews' Turing Hopper mystery series, Delete All Suspects, has been published by Berkley Prime Crime. Turing Hopper is a most unusual lead character in a mystery, being an almost-sentient computer.
After a hit-and-run leaves a young techie named Eddie in the hospital, Turing tries to help her PI friend Tim find out who did it. While Turing tries to break into Eddie's computers, her human friends do the legwork. It seems Eddie lets his seedy friends use his computers-and some are running highly unsavory websites. Others are using spam to con people out of their credit card numbers. Then the feds show up, looking for an online vigilante who's also using Eddie's computers. Now Turing and her friends are caught in the middle. They can't let the vigilante continue-but they also can't tell the FBI everything without revealing Turing's identity to the world.
Delete All Suspects is featured as one of the new mystery titles for November 2005 on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Self-Publishing FAQ: an article by Moira Allen
Moira Allen is the editor of Writing-World.com (http://www.writing-world.com) and the author of more than 300 published articles. Her books on writing include Starting Your Career as a a Freelance Writer and The Writer's Guide to Queries, Pitches and Proposals. She has graciously agreed to allow the republication of some of her articles on related websites.
The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books has added her comprehensive article on self-publishing (Self-Publishing FAQ) to its growing list of articles and books on writing and self-publishing, emphasizing those that feature writing or self-publishing mystery and/or detective fiction. Please visit the HSMB self-publishing home page for more information.
Monday, October 31, 2005
New Monthly Mystery Book Contest
Visit the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books to enter this contest as well as check out the other features on the website: mystery book reviews, mystery trivia, new hardcover mystery titles, mystery bestsellers, mystery author and publisher links, and more!
Saturday, October 29, 2005
St. Martin's Press Mystery Book Contest Winners
Friday, October 28, 2005
Mystery Hardcover Bestsellers (10/28/2005)
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Featured Mystery: Sacred Cows by Karen E. Olsen
After a late night on the town, New Haven police reporter Annie Seymour is yanked from her bed by an early morning phone call from her editor. Soon she's shivering on a wet, dark city street, staring down at the once beautiful, now broken, body of a Yale University coed.
Paid to observe and get just the facts before writing up her stories for the New Haven Herald, Annie finds herself drawn to the story of an Ivy League sophomore whose secret moonlighting led to her violent murder. But after Annie links the girl's death to a network of vice and fraud buried deep in the city's shadows, the cynical reporter is shocked to discover her own mother is involved.
With help from a sexy private investigator, Annie investigates but stumbles upon one obstacle after another. Her cop lover stonewalls her, her editor pulls her off the assignment to cover a surreal parade of fiberglass cows grazing throughout the city, and an overeager cub reporter nips at her heels to get the scoop for himself.
Caught in the center of a treacherous scheme, Annie must take the biggest gamble of her career-outwit a dangerous con man to uncover the truth that could win her that elusive Pulitzer…or a mention in the next day's obituary.
Sacred Cows is featured as one of the new mystery titles for September 2005 on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Mystery Book Contests
There are also websites that feature contests and sweepstakes related to writing in general and often mysteries in particular. BookLoons, Writers Digest, and Writerspace each sponsor a variety of contests.
The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books provides links to each of these mystery book contest sites. Links are updated monthly. If you would like a website added to this list, please e-mail the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books with the details.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Author Profile: Elizabeth Peters
Elizabeth Peters (whose real name is Barbara Mertz) was born and brought up in Illinois and earned her Ph. D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago's famed Oriental Institute. She was named Grand Master at the inaugural Anthony Awards in 1986 and Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America at the Edgar Awards in 1998. She lives in a historic farmhouse in western Maryland. She also writes non-series fiction under the pen name of Barbara Michaels.
The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books carries many hardcover first editions of Elizabeth Peters' books. Visit Amazon.com to find all of our featured author's works.
Monday, October 24, 2005
Mystery Trivia Questions
Here are this month's mystery trivia questions from the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books:
Annie Darling is proprietor of a mystery bookshop in a series by Carolyn Hart. What is the name of this bookshop?
This bookshop is located on fictional Broward’s Rock, a barrier island off the coast of South Carolina. Broward’s Rock is believed to be patterned after what real island?
See the answers to these questions as well as previous month's mystery trivia questions and answers at the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Featured Mystery: Jamaica Me Dead by Bob Morris
It's the first game of the football season at Florida Field and Monk DeVane, one of Zack Chasteen's former Dolphins teammates, invites Zack and his girlfriend to a halftime party in one of the stadium's exclusive skyboxes. But they arrive to chaos--there's a bomb under the chair of Darcy Whitehall, Monk DeVane's boss and the rakish Jamaican owner of Libido, a chain of anything-goes Caribbean resorts.
The device under Whitehall's chair turns out to be a dud, but someone is putting the squeeze on Darcy Whitehall, and Monk DeVane enlists Zack to come to Jamaica to help protect his employer. But when Zack arrives at the airport in Montego Bay, Monk goes to retrieve his van and is blown to pieces--this time the bomb was no dud. For Zack, this trip has become more than a job. Now it's personal.
Visit the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books for other new mystery titles published in October 2005.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Mystery Book Awards - Lists of Winners
These awards include:
The Edgar Award, presented by the Mystery Writers of America;
The Agatha Award, presented by Malice Domestic Ltd.;
The Anthony Award, presented at the annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention;
The Macavity Award, presented by Mystery Readers International;
The Shamus Award, presented by the Private Eye Writers of America; and
The Hammett Prize, presented by the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Mystery Hardcover Bestsellers (10/21/2005)
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Mystery Book Review: The Next Ex by Linda L. Richards
Title: The Next Ex
Author: Linda L. Richards
Publisher: Mira Books (Paperback Original)
Publication Date: December 2005
ISBN: 0-7783-2240-0
Series Character(s): Madeline Carter
Entry in Series: Second
On a chilly winter afternoon, start a fire in the fireplace, open a bottle of wine, curl up in an easy chair, and be prepared to thoroughly enjoy Linda L. Richards’ second Madeline Carter mystery, The Next Ex.
Former stockbroker and current day-trader Madeline Carter is offered the opportunity to teach the latest wife of powerful Hollywood producer Maxi Livingston the ins and outs of the stock market as quid pro quo for some upgrades to her living quarters. Madeline unexpectedly finds Keesia, the current Mrs. Livingston, to be as smart as she is beautiful, and the two soon become fast friends. When Madeline finds Keesia murdered at her own A-list party, one in which several of the previous Mrs. Livingston’s were also in attendance, she begins to wonder if there was some thing more to Keesia’s interest in the stock market. As Madeline sets out to investigate Keesia’s murder, it isn’t long before several of Maxi Livingston’s ex-wives are found dead, though how the murders are related is a mystery. And for reasons she doesn’t understand, Madeline finds herself the target of a ruthless killer.
The plot here is generally along the lines of a typical Nancy Drew mystery, right down to the Nancy (read Madeline)-in-peril chapter towards the end. Since the characterizations and dialog are so well written, this doesn’t detract from the overall satisfaction of the book, especially for readers who enjoyed Nancy Drew as children (or even now as adults!). But it does make the storyline somewhat predictable. If there’s a weak aspect to the book, it is Madeline’s relationship with Gus which seems a bit superfluous and distracting to the story; maybe the author was trying to add depth or conflict to Madeline’s persona by unnecessarily adding a love interest.
Madeline Carter is a very appealing and interesting character and The Next Ex a delightful mystery. It will be interesting to see where Linda L. Richards takes Madeline on her next adventure.
Special thanks to Book Trends for providing the ARC of The Next Ex for this review.
Copyright © 2005 Hidden Staircase Mystery Books