New Hardcover Mysteries for August 2008

The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books has updated its list of new hardcover mysteries with books scheduled for publication in August 2008.

For this announcement we're trying something a bit different. Below we've listed those authors with returning series characters, new series characters, and non-series or stand-alone mysteries. All titles are available on our August mystery books page.

Authors with mysteries having returning series characters (in parentheses) this month:

Jo Bannister (Brodie Farrell), Linda Barnes (Carlotta Carlyle), Nancy Bell (Jackson Crain), Cordelia Frances Biddle (Martha Beale), Gail Bowen (Joanne Kilbourn), Simon Brett (Fethering), Matt Bronleewe (August Adams), Carl Brookins (Sean NMI Sean), Mary Jane Clark (Sunrise Suspense Society), Barbara Cleverly (Joe Sandilands), Harlan Coben (Myron Bolitar), Stephen Coonts (Tommy Carmellini), Susan Rogers Cooper (E. J. Pugh), Colin Cotterill (Dr. Siri Paiboun), Ellen Crosby (Lucie Montgomery, Wine Country), Mary Daheim (Judith McMonigle Flynn, Bed-and-Breakfast), Mike Doogan (Nik Kane, Alaska), Kaitlyn Dunnett (Liss MacCrimmon), Geraldine Evans (Rafferty and Llewellyn), Charles Finch (Charles Lennox), Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza (Inspector Espinosa), Louise Gaylord (Allie Armington), David Lynn Golemon (Jack Collins, Event Group), Ann Granger (Lizzie Martin), Michael Harvey (Michael Kelly), Jack Higgins (Sean Dillon), Suzette A. Hill (Francis Oughterard), Steven James (Patrick Bowers), J. A. Jance (Joanna Brady), Quintin Jardine (Skinner), Stuart M. Kaminsky (Inspector Rostnikov), Janice Kaplan (Lacy Fields), Faye Kellerman (Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus), Margaret Maron (Deborah Knott), Keith McCarthy (John Eisenmenger and Helena Flemming), Richard Montanari (Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano), Nick Oldham (Henry Christie), Elizabeth Peters (Vicky Bliss), Frederick Ramsay (Ike Schwartz), Kathy Reichs (Temperance Brennan), Priscilla Royal (Prioress Eleanor), David Skibbins (Warren Ritter, Tarot Card), Kate Wilhelm (Barbara Holloway), Richard Yancey (Teddy Rusak, Highly Effective Detective)

Authors with mysteries introducing new series characters (in parentheses) this month:

Sibylle Barrasso (Macy Adams), Edna Buchanan (Michael Venturi), Sally Goldenbaum (Seaside Knitters), Thomas White (Clemson Yao)

Authors with non-series or stand-alone mysteries this month:

Brunonia Barry, Greg Bear, Stella Cameron, Jacqueline Carey, Esteban Martin and Andreu Carranza, Robin Cook, Chet Cunningham, Dick Francis and Felix Francis, Stephen Frey, John Gardner, Michael Hogan, John R. King, Michael Koryta, Bill Loehfelm, Eric Van Lustbader, Amy Mackinnon, George Pelecanos, Donald Pfarrer, Jim Proebstle, John Ringo, Luis Miguel Rocha, Marcus Sakey, John Saul, Carolyn D. Wall, Edward Wright

For more information on any of these titles, please visit the New Mysteries page on our website. If you're interested in new paperbacks, visit The Mystery Bookshelf where you can discover a library of new mysteries.

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 Savings: DVD Sale at A&E and Doubleday Book Club Labor Day Special

Mystery Savings periodically provides our readers with current promotions that offer discounts or other incentives for purchasing mystery-themed products and services products through our partner websites. Below is a list of offers recently received that we're pleased to pass on at this time.

Back by popular demand: A&E's 3 for $30 sale! Select from hundreds of titles. Just add 3 qualifying DVDs from any of several available categories to your cart and get them for the low price of $30. Hurry, offer ends August 27, 2008. (Limit 15 total DVDs per order.)

Summer is flying by and Labor Day is coming up on Monday, September 1st. Celebrate Labor Day with relaxing reads from the Doubleday Book Club. Get 5 books for 99 cents plus a free book with membership. Choose from the latest mysteries and thrillers or from a number of other categories including children's, cooking, romance, and more!

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Mystery Book Review: Buried Too Deep by Jane Finnis

Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of Buried Too Deep by Jane Finnis. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.

Buried Too Deep by Jane Finnis
An Aurelia Marcella Mystery

Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-399-X (159058399X)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-399-9 (9781590583999)
Publication Date: June 2008
List Price: $24.95

Synopsis (from the publisher): The spring of 98 AD is a time of optimism in the turbulent frontier province of Britannia. Business is brisk at the mansio (inn) that Aurelia Marcella runs with her twin brother Lucius on the road to York.

Then a wagon arrives bearing a local farmer with a grievous sword wound who is seeking treatment with the local Greek doctor. And Lucius appears at the mansio on a mission. When the farmer dies, the twins head for the coast to return the man to his family and to check out a shipwreck bearing valuable official cargo. A band of outlawed sea-raiders led by a Gaul are suspected of stealing it along with killing the farmer.

It all adds to the feuding that has erupted between the colonists and the natives. The natives claim the newcomers are stealing the best farmland, while the settlers accuse the locals of plotting rebellion against Rome. Both sides are using terrorist tactics: burning, kidnapping, and even murder. The trouble escalates and long-buried grudges are revived as counsellors, citizens, chiefs, and slaves mix in. But a subtle, personal agenda is at work as well—one or more of the combatants may have hired the Gauls to orchestrate the violence.

Review: Set at the end of the 1st century, Buried Too Deep, Jane Finnis' third novel to feature innkeeper Aurelia Marcella and her twin brother, Roman government agent Lucius, is a story of mystery, greed, kidnapping, and murder.

The Marcella's mansio (inn), The Oak Tree, is situated on the road to York in northern England (Britannia). The inn is frequented mostly by travelers on Roman imperial business, soldiers, government officers, and the occasional wayfarer. The location of the inn amidst vast arable lands also attracts people wishing to settle there and start their own farms. But the area already has two very wealthy landowners, living in residences built more like fortresses than homes, who want more land and with it more power. And then there are the Gauls who have been invading the region causing all sorts of havoc from destroying crops, herding sheep off their lands, burning buildings, kidnapping, and even murder. There's enough mayhem to keep even the most busy government agent busy, but Lucius must also content with a shipwreck off the coast rumored to contain a vast treasure, attracting the attention of everyone in the vicinity. And is a potential threat to Roman rule really a possibility?

It is easier to classify Buried Too Deep as more action adventure than mystery. It is always interesting to read novels set in a time period so different from today, and Finnis does a terrific job in bringing England under the influence of the Roman Empire to life. The characters are well drawn with full lives. The narrative is entertaining and in many ways, and especially in the way it develops and ends, this is a moving story. In short, readers should expect a wonderfully written historical novel but not much in the way of suspense.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Buried Too Deep and to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of the book for this review.

Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.

For more mystery book reviews visit Mysterious Reviews, a partner with the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books which is 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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Compendium of Mystery News 080801

A compendium of recently published mystery news articles. Note that we're still way behind in getting news items posted but plan on preparing four updates before getting current. This update includes news items from late June 2008.

• Masterpiece Mystery kicked off its summer season in June with three episodes of the Inspector Lewis series. A spin-off from the popular Inspector Morse mysteries, Inspector Lewis stars Kevin Whately as the Oxford detective. Variety calls it "old-fashioned fun for those pining for Murder, She Wrote". Other mystery series featured this summer include the final season of Foyle's War and additional episodes in the Inspector Lynley Mysteries. (MBN Note: Mysteries on TV has each of the above mentioned series DVDs available on its website including many other mystery series that have aired on television.)

• The Independent interviewed mystery writer Karin Slaughter, author of the Grant County and Will Trent series. Her most recent book is Fractured, the second featuring Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent Will Trent.

• Laura Lippman talks about Nancy Drew on NPR. "I'm pretty sure I started at the beginning, The Secret of the Old Clock," she says, referring to the first of dozens of Nancy Drew mysteries. Lippman's love of the girl sleuth put her on the path to creating her own best-selling series, featuring gal detective Tess Monaghan. Also available is the audio program Nancy Drew: Curious, Independent, and Usually Right.

• In other Nancy Drew news, Her Interactive in a press release announced that one of the bestselling game titles in the Nancy Drew series for the PC is being brought to the Nintendo Wii. Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek is expected to make its Wii debut this October.

• The Sydney Morning Herald profiled Kerry Greenwood, author of the long-running Phryne Fisher mysteries and more recently, the Corinna Chapman mystery series. Something many of our readers might not know: Kerry Greenwood may be one of Australia's leading crime writers but one day each week she's the duty solicitor for Victorian Legal Aid, at the Sunshine Magistrates Court in western Melbourne.

• Reuters reported that DreamWorks had acquired the movie rights to The 39 Clues with Steven Spielberg looking to direct. The 39 Clues is a multimedia product set to be launched this September that includes 10 books, more than 350 collectible cards and an online game in which kids compete for prices by unravelling a mystery that delves into the global power behind a family named the Cahills. The first book in the series, The Maze of Bones, was written by Rick Riordan.

• Todd Borg has won the Benjamin Franklin Award for the 5th mystery in the Owen McKenna series, Tahoe Silence. This award is given out by the Independent Book Publishers Association each year recognizing excellence in independent publishing in many categories including mystery and suspense. Read our review of Tahoe Silence by Todd Borg on Mysterious Reviews. 

• The Daily Mail has an interesting article on the return of Midsomer Murders for its 11 season, or series as it's called in the UK where it is television's most popular crime series. Midsomer Murders is based on the character created by Caroline Graham, DCI Tom Barnaby, who first appeared in the 1988 mystery The Killings at Badger's Drift. The article wryly notes that DCI Barnaby has investigated 193 gruesome murders over the last 10 series. (MBN note: The Killings at Badger's Drift was selected as one of 100 booksellers' favorite mysteries in the 20th century. Also, and it can be confusing, the Midsomer Murders Set 11 DVDs are scheduled for release in October. This collection of 4 episodes originally aired in the UK during late 2005 and early 2006.)

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Mystery Bestsellers for August 01, 2008

A list of the top 15 mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending August 01, 2008 has been posted on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.

For the 6th straight week Janet Evanovich's 14th mystery featuring New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, Fearless Fourteen retains the top spot though just barely edging out Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva in second position.

New this week and debuting at number 9 is Damage Control, the 13th mystery featuring Chocise County Sheriff Joanna Brady by J. A. Jance.  On a beautiful sunny day in the Coronado National Monument, an elderly couple's car goes off the side of a mountain and into oblivion. The terrain is so rocky that a helicopter must be flown in to retrieve the bodies, and to make matters worse, a thunder-storm is looming on the horizon. Hours later and miles away, the subsiding rain reveals gruesome evidence: two trash bags containing human remains. It's just another day in the life of Joanna Brady. Back at home, Joanna has a newborn baby, a teenage daughter, a writer husband, and a difficult mother to deal with. But in the field, it turns out that she has much more on her hands. The remains are those of a handicapped woman who had wandered away from a care facility with a suspicious track record. Another resident, with whom the woman may have been involved, has also been reported missing. Meanwhile, a note is found in the glove compartment of the car lying twisted down the mountainside, stating that its occupants intended to take their own lives. Yet a contradictory autopsy report surfaces, and when the deceased's two daughters show up to feud over their inheritance, Joanna knows there is more to this case than just a suicide pact. And she will go all out to find the truth—no matter where it leads. Publishers Weekly states, "Jance beautifully evokes the desert and towns of her beloved southwest as well as the strong individuals who live there."

On our bestseller page, we've added an icon next to every title that is available for immediate download onto the Amazon Kindle. To learn about this wireless reading device, visit the Amazon Kindle page for more information. And don't forget to check our Pre-Order Mysteries page where you can save an additional 5% when you purchase your mystery books prior to their publication date.

The top four mystery bestsellers this week are shown below:

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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