Saturday, December 31, 2005

Drop Dead Beautiful: A Serialized Online Mystery

Releasing a piece of fiction in serial installments goes back to the days of Charles Dickens, but the internet has recharged the idea and New West has partnered with author and Aspen editor Michael Conniff to publish Drop Dead Beautiful, a serialized online mystery set in Aspen.

There are currently 14 of 33 installments online, with one installment added each week. The link provided here is for the first installment.

Enjoy the story and maybe we'll see other authors produce serialized mysteries online in the future.

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Friday, December 30, 2005

New Mystery Hardcovers for December 2005 (updated)

Four additional mystery book titles have been added to the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books list of new mystery hardcovers for December 2005. These additions represent the last books to be added for December.

The January 2006 list was created earlier this week and is expected to be updated at the end of next week with more new mysteries.

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Mystery Hardcover Bestsellers (12/30/2005)

A list of the top ten mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending December 30, 2005 has been posted on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.

Very little change from last week, but there are several new mysteries yet to be published that are appearing on the pre-order bestseller lists of Amazon.com and Barnes & Nobel.com including Memory in Death by J. D. Robb (Nora Roberts) and The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell by Lilian Jackson Braun. Look for these mysteries to appear on the bestseller list in January.

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Theakston’s Old Peculier Harrogate Crime Writing Festival

The Yorkshire hotel to where author Agatha Christie dramatically ‘disappeared’ in 1926 will host the Theakston’s Old Peculier Harrogate Crime Writing Festival next summer.

Agatha Christie was discovered at the spa town’s Old Swan Hotel after a nationwide hunt by the media: her disappearance was never fully explained. The hotel, considered by some to be the spiritual heart of crime writing, is undergoing a £4 million refurbishment, to be completed by the spring in time for the event. It is expected to attract enthusiasts from around the world and weekend packages are already being booked. Harrogate is an attractive floral spa resort close to the Yorkshire Dales. Sherlock Holmes’ creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was another regular visitor.

For details of the crime writing festival, visit their website.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Mysteries Set in the Midwest

The St. Paul (MN) Pioneer Press / TwinCities.com website has listed 10 mysteries published in 2005 - nine by veterans and one by a newcomer - that offered heart-stopping plots set in the Midwest. Most of them brought back characters in series familiar to readers. And the coup de grace is a new anthology of stories by 13 of Minnesota's best mystery writers: The Silence of the Loons.

Veterans include Ellen Hart (her 13th Jane Lawless mystery) and John Sandford (his 16th Lucas Davenport thriller). The newcomer is Carl Brookins who introduces Minneapolis private investigator Sean NMI ("no middle initial") Sean in The Case of the Greedy Lawyers.

Read the complete list of books here.

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New Mystery Hardcover Titles for January 2006

The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books has prepared a list of new mystery hardcover titles scheduled for publication in January 2006. All of these books may be pre-ordered at discount prices through Amazon.com by clicking the ISBN in the book summary.

Upcoming mysteries include new series characters and returning favorites. This list is expected to be updated twice in January as new titles are released.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Mystery Hardcover Bestsellers (12/23/2005)

A list of the top ten mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending December 23, 2005 has been posted on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.

Although the top titles remain the same on all lists, there are several newcomers including Turning Angel by Greg Iles.

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Sunday, December 18, 2005

Scientists Solve Another Agatha Christie Mystery

An article on the CBC website notes that scientists in Britain say they've cracked the mystery surrounding the popularity of Agatha Christie's murder novels.

Neurolinguistic researchers at three universities studied more than 80 of her novels and have concluded her phrases activate a pleasure response. The scientific team loaded Christie's books into a computer and analyzed her words, sentences and phrases. Scientists say Christie used very limited vocabulary which "means readers aren't distracted and so they concentrate more on the clues and the plots," said Dr. Pernilla Danielsson of Birmingham University. The author also used dashes repeatedly to create a faster-paced narrative.

Read the entire article here.

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Friday, December 16, 2005

Mystery Hardcover Bestsellers (12/16/2005)

A list of the top ten mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending December 16, 2005 has been posted on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.

Not much change from last week; just a bit of shuffling of the order of some titles.

Due to the holidays, the mystery bestseller list may not be published next Friday or may be delayed until the following Monday. But it will definitely return for the last Friday of 2005!

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Mystery Book Review: The Delilah Complex by M. J. Rose

Title: The Delilah Complex
Author: M. J. Rose
Publisher: Mira (Paperback Original)
Publication Date: January 2006
ISBN: 0-7783-2215-7

Series Character(s): Dr. Morgan Snow
Entry in Series: Second

The Delilah Complex is the second mystery (after The Halo Effect) to feature sex therapist Dr. Morgan Snow, a specialist at The Butterfield Institute in New York City.

About the book: The Scarlet Society is a secret club of twelve powerful and sexually adventurous women. But when a photograph of the body of one of the men they’ve recruited to dominate – strapped to a gurney, the number 1 inked on the sole of his foot – is sent to the New York Times, they are shocked and frightened. Unable to deal with the tragedy, the women turn to Dr. Morgan Snow. But what starts out as grief counseling quickly becomes a serial murder investigation when a second and then a third photograph of men in identical situations and sequential numbers on their feet are delivered, with any one of the twelve women a potential suspect.

This is an unusually effective mystery. Though there is very little action in the book, the pace of the story is brisk. The characters are all believable and their interrelationships true to both the story and each other. Though the author is generous with clues throughout the book, the somewhat lurid ending will no doubt come as a surprise to some readers.

Dr. Morgan Snow is a very interesting character. Her education and experience has taught her to help others come to terms with their problems, yet she, herself, is full of conflicts: she has the normal issues of being the divorced parent of an adolescent who may be on better terms with her father than her mother; she is unsure of the personal relationship she has with the detective handling the case; she is torn between treating her mentor at the institute as both a mother-figure and a colleague; and her professional ethics dictate a course of action that may be at odds with solving the mystery. This is a character that has the potential of continuing to grow and be of interest to readers for many mysteries to come.

Special thanks to Book Trends for providing the ARC of The Delilah Complex for this review.

Read other recent mystery book reviews by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books.

Copyright © 2005 Hidden Staircase Mystery Books

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Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Best Mysteries of 2005 (South Florida Sun/Sentinel)

It's that time of the year when various organizations put out their "best" and "worst" lists. The South Florida Sun/Sentinel (via the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service) has come up with their list of the best mystery books for 2005.

(1-tie) The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
(1-tie) Bloodlines by Jan Burke
(3) Fleshmarket Alley by Ian Rankin
(4) Strange Affair by Peter Robinson
(5) The Forgotten Man by Robert Crais
(6) Forests of the Night by James W. Hall
(7) Drama City by George Pelecanos
(8) The Closers by Michael Connelly
(9) To the Power of Three by Laura Lippman
(10) Half Broken Things by Morag Joss
(11) Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear
(12) The Death Collectors by Jack Kerley
(13) Blood of Angels by Reed Arvin
(14) The Innocent by Harlan Coben
(15) Company Man by Joseph Finder
(16) Drive by James Sallis

Best debut mysteries:

Immoral by Brian Freeman
Tilt A Whirl by Chris Grabenstein
Eight of Swords by David Skibbins
Most Wanted by Michele Martinez

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New Website: The Mystery Bookshelf

The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books introduces The Mystery Bookshelf, a new website with interesting and informative links to products and services related to mysteries and detective fiction. These links have been selected to provide a resource for readers and collectors of mystery books in addition to the information regularly updated on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.

More information about The Mystery Bookshelf will be provided in this blog as new products and services are added.

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Sunday, December 11, 2005

Ruth Rendell Tackles Celebrity in Latest Mystery

Ruth Rendell, doyen of British mystery writers, says modestly that she began her literary career with some "very bad" unpublished novels. Then, "for fun," she wrote a mystery centered on Detective Chief Inspector Reg Wexford, a liberal, literary small-town detective. She never looked back.

At 75, Rendell is fearsomely prolific, the author of more than 60 books over a 40-year career. They appear at the rate of at least one a year — 20 mysteries featuring Chief Inspector Wexford; chilling, elegantly plotted psychological mysteries; and the thick multigenerational thrillers published under the pen name Barbara Vine.

Rendell's mysteries are less whodunits than whydunits, and her latest, 13 Steps Down, is no exception. The mystery follows an unremarkable exercise-machine repairman named Mix Cellini as he becomes — partly through temperament and partly by accident — a murderer. Mix is a bundle of very recognizable modern obsessions — fascinated by a real-life serial killer who lived in his London neighborhood half a century ago, infatuated with a supermodel who lives nearby and hooked on the idea of becoming a celebrity.

Read the rest of this article by AP reporter Jill Lawless here.

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Friday, December 09, 2005

Mystery Hardcover Bestsellers (12/09/2005)

A list of the top ten mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending December 09, 2005 has been posted on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.

New this week is a summary of that appear on the New York Times Bestseller List.

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Thursday, December 08, 2005

New Mystery Hardcover Titles for December 2005

The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books has updated its list of new mystery hardcover titles for December 2005 with 6 additional mysteries. This is the second of three planned updates for the month. New hardcover titles scheduled for publication in January 2006 will be available later this month.

Mystery books make great holiday gifts! Buy several and make this a mysterious holiday season for your friends and family!

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