Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Mysteries on TV: Hawaii Five-O

Mysteries on TVMystery television series being released this week on DVD:

starred Jack Lord as Steve McGarrett, the head of an elite Hawaii state police unit. The series was filmed entirely in Hawaii. (Cast note: Jack Lord was the only actor to appear in all episodes of the series and the only original cast member to appear in the final episode.)

The series ran for 12 seasons on CBS from September 1968 through April 1980.

This DVD set includes all 25 episodes from the 2nd season on 6 disks.

Watch the opening sequence on YouTube here. Be there. Aloha!

Visit the Mysteries on TV website to discover more currently available on DVD.

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Compendium of Mystery News 070731

Today's compendium of recently published mystery news articles:

• Jane Henderson on STLToday.com interviews Daniel Silva, whose latest thriller was published this week.

Richard Schickel reviews on LATimes.com.

Halle Ephron reviews several new mysteries on Boston.com including of which she writes, "Ridley Pearson writes thrillers, the kind that try to yank you to the edge of your seat and keep you there."

• Martha Woodroof talks about mystery author James Lee Burke on NPR (audio).

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.

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Monday, July 30, 2007

Mystery Godoku: Weekly Puzzle for July 30, 2007

Mystery GodokuMystery Godoku Puzzle for July 30, 2007A new 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 letters and mystery clue: A E G I L N R S U. Lisa Miscione writes the Ridley Jones mysteries under this pen name. (9 letters).

New! We now have our puzzles 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!

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Mystery Book Review: The Gold of Thrace by Aileen G. Baron

Mysterious ReviewsMysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, has written a review of The Gold of Thrace by Aileen G. Baron. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.The Gold of Thrace by Aileen G. Baron

The Gold of Thrace by Aileen G. Baron
A Tamar Saticoy Mystery

Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-430-9 (1590584309)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-430-9 (9781590584309)
Publication Date: July 2007
List Price: $24.95

Synopsis (from the publisher): When the first member of the staff at a Turkish excavation is murdered and a mosaic floor disappears overnight from her site, archaeologist Tamar Saticoy plunges into a shady world of the antiquities trade in the quest to discover who is responsible for the theft of important artifacts.

Tamar traces the mosaic floor to Basel, Switzerland, where the captivating prince of antiquities dealers, Gilberto Dela Barcolo, and his enigmatic friend, Enzio Egidio, charm her. Soon she finds herself enmeshed in a tangle of deceit, theft, and forgery.

Battling smoke and mirrors, she discovers that no one is who they seem. Two more members of the excavation staff are killed: her venal colleague Chatham, who has discovered a hoard of Thracian gold in Bulgaria, and Orman who--like Tamar--is following the trail of the stolen mosaic.

Unless she can crack this case, Tamar herself may become the next target for murder.

Review: Tamar Saticoy and a team of archaeologists visit Turkey in The Gold of Thrace, a mystery by Aileen G. Baron, author of the Lily Sampson series.

On an archaeological dig in Tepe Hagarken, Tamar, Binali Gul, Orman Celibi, and Andrew Chatham unearth a spectacular mosaic floor, one which they feel would be perfect for the entrance of their museum in New York. Before they can ready it for shipment, however, it is stolen and completely removed from the site. Soon thereafter, Binali Gul is stabbed to death becoming an unsolved murder. Next, Andrew Chatham decides to leave inasmuch as the mosaic is gone. He boards a train and encounters a man and woman who need his help. They have the gold of Thrace in their possession, know who he is, and want him to get the best price for the gold. When he leaves to do their bidding, he is killed, and the gold is stolen. Orman Celici thought he had traced the mosaic to The Hague, Netherlands, but not only did he not find it, he was killed by one of the thieves who had originally stolen it. Tamar, quite logically, follows the money. She goes to Switzerland where she meets the king of antiquity dealers, Gilberto Dela Burcolo, and his mysterious friend Enzio Egidio. These men take Tamar into places of fraud, thievery and murder. The people she must deal with may not be who they say they are. Three of Tamar’s friends are already dead. Will the thieves go after and find Tamar next? Will her new friends help her find the mosaic and keep her safe? Are these friends really friends?

Baron's knowledge of archaeology and history add an authentic touch to this complicated story of people that are or are not who they claim to be, and antiquities and artifacts that may or may not be what them seem to be. There are many twists and turns that keep the reader interested, if only to see how it all is connected. But despite the intriguing plot, in the end, it's a bit disappointing. The conclusion is not very satisfactory and several plot threads remain unresolved. If The Gold of Thrace is the first in a new series, possibly their resolution will serve as an introduction to the next book.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of for contributing her review of The Gold of Thrace and to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of the book for this review.

Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.

For more visit Mysterious Reviews, a partner with the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books which is committed to providing readers and collectors of with the best and most current information about their favorite authors, titles, and series.

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Friday, July 27, 2007

Compendium of Mystery News 070727

Today's compendium of recently published mystery news articles:

• Otto Penzler writes about murder in a safe city in his column in the New York Sun.

• Laura McMillan interviews Karin Slaughter, author of the Sara Linton mystery series, for CreativeLoafing.com.

• Ubisoft, in collaboration with ABC Entertainment and ABC Studios, announced yesterday the Lost video game, based on the television series, will be shipping first quarter of 2008 for the Xbox 360, the Playstation 3, and PC CD-ROM. (MBN Note: The is available for purchase at .)

• James Patterson, not surprisingly, says he likes ABC's Women's Murder Club, a series based on his best-selling novels. "I think the show is going to be better than the books."

• Tom Nolan in The Wall Street Journal writes about CSI: The Experience, a cleverly designed, hands-on, multimedia forensic science exhibit running at the Museum of Science and Industry in through September 3rd.

Janet Maslin reviews The Tin Roof Blowdown by in The New York Times.

Mystery columnist Oline H. Cogdill reviews several new mysteries in her column on Sun-Sentinel.com.

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.

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Mystery Bestsellers for July 27, 2007

Mystery BestsellersA list of the top ten for the week ending July 27, 2007 has been posted on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.

The Secret Servant by Daniel SilvaFour new mystery titles appear on the list this week. Debuting near the top: , the 7th international thriller in the Gabriel Allon series by Daniel Silva. In Amsterdam, a terrorism analyst named Ephraim Rosner lies dead, brutally murdered by a Muslim immigrant. The Amsterdam police believe the killer is a deranged extremist, but others know better. Just twenty-four hours before, Rosner had requested an urgent meeting with Israeli intelligence. Now it is Gabriel Allon's job to find out what Rosner knew, and when he does, it confirms his worst fears: a major terrorist operation is in the works. But not even Allon could have predicted what it is. Publishers Weekly calls The Secret Servant "superlative" and adds, "[it] puts Silva squarely atop the spy thriller heap."

First Among Sequels by Jasper FfordeJustice Denied by J. A. JanceUp Close and Dangerous by Linda Howard


Other new mystery bestsellers this week: by Jasper Fforde, the 5th mystery featuring literary sleuth Thursday Next; , the 18th mystery for Seattle investigator J. P. Beaumont by J. A. Jance; and by Linda Howard.

Please visit the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books where we are committed to providing readers and collectors of with the best and most current information about their favorite authors, titles, and series.

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News: 2007 Shamus Award Nominations Announced

A few weeks ago the nominees for the Shamus Award were announced, and we somehow missed them at the time. Given annually by the Private Eye Writers of America, this award honors excellent work in the private eye genre. The winners will be announced at Bouchercon on September 28 in Anchorage.

Best P. I. Novel:

The Dramatist, a Jack Taylor mystery by Ken Bruen
The Darkest Place, A Reggie Clay mystery by Daniel Judson
The Do-Re-Mi, A Clifford and Tom Hickey mystery by Ken Kuhlken
Vanishing Point, A Sharon McCone mystery by Marcia Muller
Days of Rage, A Smokey Dalton by Kris Nelscott

Best First P. I. Novel:

Lost Angel, a Nik Kane mystery by Mike Doogan
A Safe Place for Dying, a Dek Elstrom mystery by Jack Fredrickson
Holmes on the Range, an "Old Red" Amlingmeyer mystery by Steve Hockensmith
The Wrong Kind of Blood, an Ed Loy mystery by Declan Hughes
18 Seconds, a Sherry Moore mystery by George D. Shuman

Best P. I. Paperback Original:

Hallowed Ground, a Julie Collins mystery by Lori G. Armstrong
The Prop, a Peeky Kane mystery by Pete Hautman
An Unquiet Grave, a Louis Kincaid mystery by P. J. Parrish
The Uncomfortable Dead, a Hector Belascoaran Shayne mystery by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Subcomandante Marcos
Crooked, a Nicholas Palihnic mystery by Brian M. Wiprud

Congratulations from Mystery Books News to all the nominees!

Please visit the website where lists of winners from 20 different organizations that recognize excellence in mysteries, including the , are presented.

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News: 2007 Anthony Award Nominations Announced

The nominations for the 2007 Anthony Award were announced today for outstanding mysteries published in 2006. The winners will be announced at the annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, September 27-30 in Anchorage.

Best Novel:

Kidnapped by Jan Burke
No Good Deeds by Laura Lippman
The Dead Hour by Denise Mina
The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard
All Mortal Flesh by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Best First Novel:

The King of Lies by John Hart
Holmes on the Range by Steve Hockensmith
Still Life by Louise Penny
A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read
The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff

Best Paperback Original:

Ashes and Bones by Dana Cameron
47 Rules of Highly Effective Bank Robbers by Troy Cook
The Cleanup by Sean Doolittle
Baby Shark by Robert Fate
Shotgun Opera by Victor Gischler
Snakeskin Shamisen by Naomi Hirahara
A Dangerous Man by Charlie Huston

Congratulations from Mystery Books News to all the nominees!

Please visit the website where lists of winners from 20 different organizations that recognize excellence in mysteries, including the , are presented.

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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Mystery Book Review: Wearing the Spider by Susan Schaab

Mysterious ReviewsMysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, has written a review of Wearing the Spider by Susan Schaab. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.Wearing the Spider by Susan Schaab

Wearing the Spider by Susan Schaab
Non-series

Galavant Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-934291-05-6 (1934291056)
ISBN-13: 978-1-934291-05-4 (9781934291054)
Publication Date: June 2007
List Price: $26.95

Synopsis (from the publisher): A female lawyer's identity is hijacked and misused by a ruthless partner of her Manhattan law firm who engages in email impersonation, political gamesmanship and electronic forgery to set her up in a scheme that ultimately leads to murder. She embarks on a clandestine investigation while dodging the FBI, risking her life as well as her career.

Review: Susan Schaab crafts an intriguing tale of corporate malfeasance in Wearing the Spider, a suspense thriller set largely in a mid-sized New York law firm.

Evie Sullivan is a hard-working corporate lawyer who's looking forward to becoming a partner in her law firm. When evidence begins accumulating that her work is sloppy, late, and in some cases, simply wrong, she suspects that a fellow lawyer is trying to make her look bad to the partnership committee by intentionally altering her work, delaying its release to clients, and fabricating information. But as she delves deeper into clearing her name, she discovers a potentially damaging, and possibly illegal, conflict of interest that not only jeopardizes her career but puts her life in danger as well.

For the most part, Schaab succeeds in generating and maintaining a high level of suspense. It's unnerving to think that someone can simply use another's identity, in this case Evie's, to conduct illicit activities, but every attempt she makes to correct it is met with irrefutable evidence that she is, in fact, at fault. The author nicely balances specific technical details, about how documents are managed on corporate networks, how calls and e-mail messages are logged, and the like, are incorporated into the story yet don't get in the way of the plot. Evie finds herself in a number of situations that she can't be sure are legitimate, none more mysterious than the relationship she has with Joe Barton. Is it just a chance meeting on an airplane that brings them together? Does he know more about what's happening to her than he lets on? Is his offer to help actually a trap to ensnare her further?

It might have been more interesting, more satisfying and suspenseful, and certainly more original had Schaab reversed the genders of the principal attorneys involved. It's little more than a cliché that Evie is portrayed as the female lawyer who has to work twice as hard as her male counterparts to get a partnership and is therefore a victim even before her identity is used by a male lawyer to cover his tracks. The fact that the story is dominated by male characters further reinforces the notion that Evie seems to be alone in her struggle to prove her innocence.

On a stylistic note, Schaab's frequent use of italics in her text is distracting to the point of being annoying. Written in the third person, italics are used whenever Evie is thinking in the first person: "A question emerged in her mind: should she call Joe? No, he'll think I'm crazy. It's too late to make a plan for tonight." All well and good. But italics are also used extensively for emphasis, sometimes inexplicably: "I can't believe after all the work I've done, I have to worry about being set up by a partner. You know, I actually made him look good in a conference call with a client yesterday. You know how nonchalant he can be with the details of a transaction. You'd think I could expect some professional courtesy for at least a few minutes afterward." Rarely a page goes by without multiple invocations of italicization to no obvious purpose.

Minor plot and production idiosyncrasies aside, there many reasons to recommend Wearing the Spider, the most notable being it is a very good suspense thriller that keeps the reader's attention and the pages turning. (Note: the title comes from an expression that a person who leads "wears the spider" as he, or in this case she, clears a trail and walks through spider webs. With the web of deceit that is the core of this book, it's a rather clever title.)

Special thanks to Susan Schaab for providing an ARC of Wearing the Spider for this review.

Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.

For more visit Mysterious Reviews, a partner with the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books which is committed to providing readers and collectors of with the best and most current information about their favorite authors, titles, and series.

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Mystery Book Review: Brush With Death by Hailey Lind

Mysterious ReviewsMysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, has written a review of Brush with Death by Hailey Lind. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.Brush with Death by Hailey Lind

Brush with Death by
An Art Lover's Mystery with Annie Kincaid

Signet (Mass Market Paperback)
ISBN-10: 0-451-22179-6 (0451221796)
ISBN-13: 978-0-451-22179-7 (9780451221797)
Publication Date: July 2007
List Price: $6.99

Synopsis (from the publisher): Former-forger turned faux-finisher Annie Kincaid hopes that if she can help return an alleged masterpiece to Italy, her sketchy reputation will finally be redeemed. But when a sexy art thief-and murder-enter the picture, Annie realizes that it won't be so easy to put things to rest.

Review: Annie Kinkaid, reformed art forger and now the proprietor of True/Faux Studio, a faux finishing workshop and school in , returns in Brush With Death, the third mystery in the Art Lover's series by Hailey Lind.

Annie and her assistant, Mary, are asked to repair and restore murals in the celebrated Bayview Cemetery Columbarium, a mausoleum that holds urns of cremated remains. While taking a break, Annie meets Cindy Tanaka, a college graduate student who is taking detailed pictures in the next crypt as part of her graduate dissertation. Cindy questions the authenticity of a painting hanging in the Chapel, and much to Annie’s consternation, the painting is not what she had been assured it was. When Cindy is later murdered, Annie wonders if her death is connected to the fraudulent painting.

Lind deftly combines her considerable knowledge of art into an intriguing story set in the world of art masters and art forgers, and has created a credible mystery about a painting that had been in Italy for years but somehow is now in the Chapel of the Chimes. As Annie and Mary conduct their investigation, someone locks them in an old crypt. They want to know the location of the original painting and assume Annie knows the answer. An artist/forger from her past shows up unexpectedly and comes to her aid, but not without raising more questions. Is this the work of her beloved grandfather, a master forger himself?

As in the previous books in this entertaining series, Grandpère Georges introduces the chapters with witty and provocative quotes. And the climax of Brush With Death is so remarkable and unexpected, it may need to be read twice to be fully appreciated.

Hailey Lind concludes the book with Annie's Guide to Marbling, and provides a short history of the Chapel of the Chimes that includes information on the painting La Fornarina by Raphael Sanzio.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of for contributing her review of Brush With Death and to Hailey Lind for providing an ARC of the book for this review.

Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.

For more visit Mysterious Reviews, a partner with the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books which is committed to providing readers and collectors of with the best and most current information about their favorite authors, titles, and series.

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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Mysteries on TV: Philip Marlowe, Private Eye

Mysteries on TVMystery television series being released this week on DVD:

starred Powers Booth as the classic Los Angeles private investigator. Each episode of the series was adapted from a Raymond Chandler short story.

The series ran for 2 seasons on HBO, with the first 5 episodes airing during the spring of 1983 and the last 6 episodes airing during the spring of 1986.

This DVD set includes all 5 episodes from the 1st season on 2 disks.

Visit the Mysteries on TV website to discover more currently available on DVD.

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Compendium of Mystery News 070723

Today's compendium of recently published mystery news articles:

Glenn Close talks in the Boston Herald about her new series on FX, Damages, that opens with a murder mystery that won't be resolved until the end of the season's 13 episodes.

• The Telegraph is reporting that mystery author and former jockey Dick Francis is making a remarkable recovery following the amputation of his lower right leg after suffering circulatory problems following heart-bypass surgery. (MBN Note: The South African horse racing site saftote.com quotes from the Racing Post that it was Francis' left leg that was amputated. We have been unable to confirm which is correct.)

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.

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Monday, July 23, 2007

Mystery Book Review: The Gardens of the Dead by William Brodrick

Mysterious ReviewsMysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, has written a review of The Gardens of the Dead by William Brodrick. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.The Gardens of the Dead by William Brodrick

The Gardens of the Dead by William Brodrick
A Father Anselm Mystery

Viking Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-670-03498-3 (0670034983)
ISBN-13: 978-0-670-03498-7 (9780670034987)
Publication Date: September 2006
List Price: $24.95

Synopsis (from the publisher): When Elizabeth Glendinning, Q.C., dies of heart failure while making a desperate phone call to the police, her colleagues and family are devastated and mystified. What was she doing in east London at the time of her death, and what was she trying to tell the police in her last phone call? After her funeral, her son, Nicholas, Inspector Cartwright, the officer she was trying to call, and Father Anselm, Elizabeth’s former colleague, all receive packages about a case from years earlier: Regina v. Riley. The package also includes mysterious newspaper clippings about the accidental drowning of John Bradshaw, who just happens to be the son of the principal witness in the case. Why is Elizabeth still following the case? And what does she want the three people to do with the information she has sent them?

The germ of the story lies in events that occurred many years earlier when Anselm Duffy, Q.C., had won a rather difficult case by asking a question of the key witness: the question, right in every aspect for winning the case, turns out to have been fatally, critically, the wrong one. The acquitted man wreaks havoc in a number of lives and his net finally enmeshes those who had so cleverly defended him in court. Anselm Duffy's own life is changed radically as he becomes aware of the full repercussions of his performance in court. His inner voice won't let him rest, finally nudging him to abandon the silk for the robe. It is Father Anselm, whose story is patterned on circumstances in the author's own life, who asks the riveting questions in the novel: What is justice? What is innocence? And what, ultimately, is evil? As Father Anselm’s begins to make sense of Elizabeth’s directives from her grave, as it were, he discovers the complexity of truth and its lethal power.

Review: Barrister-turned-monk Father Anselm finds himself investigating a mystery that begins with the death of a former colleague in The Gardens of the Dead, the second book in this series by William Brodrick.

Following the sudden death by natural causes of Elizabeth Glendinning, a barrister he had once worked with years ago, Anselm receives a package from her. The package contains a cryptic letter, a key and some old newspaper clippings. She sent similar packages to her son, Nick, and to Inspector Cartwright, a friend from her court days. Elizabeth knew she was dying so she had prepared these packages to be sent after she was dead. Although the contents mean little or nothing to the recipients, they all agree that Elizabeth was trying to tell them something very important. Actually, Elizabeth was trying to right a terrible wrong that was committed in the murder trial of Graham Riley when she and Anselm were on the same sides of the legal table. They were Riley’s defense attorneys even though they both knew he was guilty. Through the cross-examination of a witness, George Bradshaw, Anselm suddenly won the case, and Riley was able to walk out of the courtroom a free man. Anselm couldn’t believe it. He didn’t understand what had happened. Only Elizabeth and Riley knew the answer.

Brodrick weaves the past and present lives of many other characters that are linked to Elizabeth and Anselm into the story. The Prior of the Monastery where Anselm lives offers strongly worded opinions. Elizabeth’s son, who knew nothing of her life, but is obligated to follow her instructions after her death. Her husband who did know her but kept quiet to protect their son. Graham Riley and his wife, Nancy, are an integral part of the mystery, as is witness George Bradshaw whose only son drowned years before. There's the mysterious Mrs. Dixon who seems to know everything, but won’t say anything. And then there's barrister Wyecliff, Riley's current counsel, who acts as though he knows nothing, but is he as ignorant as he seems? Each one has a crucial part in the mystery of why Elizabeth was so determined to right a wrong that was perpetrated years before.

The Gardens of the Dead is a such a compelling story, one that slowly but methodically reveals information about its characters as to who did what to whom and why, that it becomes a real page-turner until its surprising conclusion.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of for contributing her review of The Gardens of the Dead and to Viking for providing a copy of the book for this review.

Special thanks to Spotlight Publicity for providing an ARC of The Black Tea Experiments for this review.

Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.

For more visit Mysterious Reviews, a partner with the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books which is committed to providing readers and collectors of with the best and most current information about their favorite authors, titles, and series.

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Mystery Godoku: Weekly Puzzle for July 23, 2007

Mystery GodokuMystery Godoku Puzzle for July 23, 2007A new 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 letters and mystery clue: A E H N O P S T Y. This was the murder weapon in the 6th Jaine Austen mystery by (9 letters).

New! We now have our puzzles 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!

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Mystery Book Review: The Black Tea Experiments by Ray Atkinson

Mysterious ReviewsMysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, has written a review of The Black Tea Experiments by Ray Atkinson. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.The Black Tea Experiments by Ray Atkinson

The Black Tea Experiments by Ray Atkinson
Non-Series

American Book Publishing (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 1-58982-370-2 (1589823702)
ISBN-13: 978-1-58982-370-9 (9781589823709)
Publication Date: March, 2007
List Price: $18.00

Synopsis (from the publisher): Logan Bauer, a brilliant college student, has a promising future. However, when his girlfriend is accused of murdering fellow student Brent Johnson, Logan must go on a quest to discover the truth that will set her free. Logan's journey soon takes him to the former Soviet Union and into the hands of the infamous Dr. Vladimir Rostov, a former scientist who worked on several top-secret medical projects during the Cold War, including the Black Tea Experiments, a drug that would enhance the learning ability of children and ultimately increase the intelligence level of future Soviet generations.

But everything isn't as it seems. The two worlds of the former Soviet Union and the quaint college town of Crandon, Illinois, soon collide, forcing Logan to uncover the pieces of Rostov's twenty-five-year-old secret.

Review: Ray Atkinson coins the term "airplane novel" for his first mystery, The Black Tea Experiments, a book long enough to provide suspense, action, crime and romance in a story that can be completed during the length of a typical flight. Terrific concept, but, at least in this first attempt, rather poorly executed.

There's a fairly intriguing plot at the core of this book: a student at a university in Illinois is found murdered but with an unusual physical feature: one of his kidneys had been recently removed, the incision neatly and expertly sewn together. A fellow student, Logan Bauer, finds himself drawn into the case when an astronomical experiment he is conducting using a telescope on the roof of his dorm accidentally captures the scene of the murder when a spring breaks and the lens points downward instead of skyward. Pursued by the killers for the images taken by the telescope, Logan discovers he is merely a pawn in an international incident that had its origins back in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The problems in The Black Tea Experiments begin with the very first chapter. Every character, even a minor one, is introduced with a backstory. For a book of less than 150 pages and a dozen or more characters, it's overwhelming. Furthermore, these backstories seem intended to take the place of character development, as if by knowing how the characters came to be where they are today the reader can somehow infer something meaningful about them. Finally, it's impossible to generate any real, sustained suspense when the flow of the plot is constantly interrupted with yet another backstory for yet another usually unnecessary character. This is all the more unfortunate because the main story has a lot of potential to be a terrific thriller.

The book is riddled with errors and inconsistencies that could have been eliminated with a more critical eye towards editing. The director of the Black Tea project ridicules the ignorance of the parents whose children are the subject of the experiments, yet he includes his own children in them. Logan travels west (instead of east) to go from Illinois to Indiana. He goes through customs leaving (instead of entering) the US. In any transplant, the time between extraction of the organ from the donor and its placement in the recipient is critical, yet here, days or maybe even weeks, it's not clear, go by between the respective surgeries. This also contradicts a statement made in the book that the surgery takes place in the US rather than Russia because there wasn't time to get the kidney out of the country. And probably worse of all, especially for a mystery, no explanation is ever given why the kidney donor, the murder victim, was killed in the first place. It's disturbing that Atkinson took the time to develop an interesting plot, yet didn't seem to care enough about the details that are so crucial to the success of a crime novel.

There is almost certainly a market for mysteries and thrillers that are longer than a short story but shorter than a standard-length novel ("airplane novels" as it were). Unfortunately, The Black Tea Experiments isn't a very good example of one.

Special thanks to Spotlight Publicity for providing an ARC of The Black Tea Experiments for this review.

Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.

For more visit Mysterious Reviews, a partner with the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books which is committed to providing readers and collectors of with the best and most current information about their favorite authors, titles, and series.

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