Mystery Bestsellers for the Week Ending July 8th, 2011

A list of the top 15 mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending July 8th, 2011 has been posted by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books.

A new number one this week, Janet Evanovich's 17th numbered Stephanie Plum mystery, Smokin' Seventeen. One new title debuts on this list.

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The fourth mystery to feature Dublin pathologist Quirke, A Death in Summer by Benjamin Black, comes in at number 14.

On a sweltering summer afternoon, newspaper tycoon Richard Jewell—known to his many enemies as Diamond Dick—is discovered with his head blown off by a shotgun blast. But is it suicide or murder? For help with the investigation, Detective Inspector Hackett calls in his old friend Quirke, who has unusual access to Dublin's elite.

Jewell's coolly elegant French wife, Françoise, seems less than shocked by her husband's death. But Dannie, Jewell's high-strung sister, is devastated, and Quirke is surprised to learn that in her grief she has turned to an unexpected friend: David Sinclair, Quirke's ambitious assistant in the pathology lab at the Hospital of the Holy Family. Further, Sinclair has been seeing Quirke's fractious daughter Phoebe, and an unlikely romance is blossoming between the two. As a record heat wave envelops the city and the secret deals underpinning Diamond Dick's empire begin to be revealed, Quirke and Hackett find themselves caught up in a dark web of intrigue and violence that threatens to end in disaster.

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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.

Film Adaptation of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Gets New Director/Screenwriter

Just about a month ago we reported that Sony's film adaptation of the thriller/adventure game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune had lost its director ... and probably its star as well.

Now we're learning that a new director is on board: Neil Burger, who most recently directed the sci-fi thriller Limitless. Burger will also write the film adaptation, which is expected to deviate considerably from the international family of thieves version that was previously on the table, and may follow the game's storyline more — which features the character of Nathan Drake, a descendent of Sir Francis Drake, seeking the lost treasure of El Dorado. The game and its sequel have been very successful for Sony, which is looking forward to seeing this film be the start of an Indiana Jones-style film franchise.

(Source: Variety)

Review: Missing Persons by Clare O'Donohue

Missing Persons by Clare O'Donohue. A Kate Conway Mystery. Plume Trade Paperback, May 2011.

The compelling star of this new series set in Chicago is amateur sleuth Kate Conway, the producer of a crime reality show on television, who becomes involved in a real life crime when the death of her ex-husband seems to be linked to the subject of her latest episode, a missing young woman.

Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: Missing Persons by Clare O'Donohue.

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Telemystery: Southland Season Two on DVD

Typically films and television series are newly released on DVD on Tuesdays. But the DVD for the second season of Southland is being released tomorrow, Friday July 8th. We're not exactly sure why this date, but what's different about this release is that is manufactured on demand by Amazon.com, a process we suspect will become more common in the future.

The series was originally scheduled by NBC as a mid-season replacement in 2009 but was canceled by the network prior to its premiere. TNT picked up the rights, and concluded airing the third season this past March, at which time it was renewed for a fourth season.

The ensemble cast of Southland includes LAPD veteran John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) is partnered with rookie officer Ben Sherman (Ben McKenzie) — an on-the-job training that only reinforces the reality that being out on the field is nothing like his preparation at the Academy. Detective Lydia Adams (Regina King) must balance her professional life with a more nurturing one at home. Detective "Sal" Salinger (Michael McGrady) oversees the activities of his fellow detectives.

Season One ended with Lydia's partner being shot. As he struggles to survive, Lydia must reluctantly find a new partner. And new challenges — personal and professional — await the law-men and law-women of Southland.

Recently Published Indie Mysteries (110707)

We're always on the lookout for new mystery, suspense and thriller books, and with this series of recurring posts, we're looking at Indie Mysteries, books published by small, independent publishers, or self-published, that recently caught our eye ... and may be of interest to you too. Most of these titles, selected primarily from the Smashwords website, are ebook only, though some may be available in a print format.

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In the Blood
by Steve Robinson
Non-Series
Self Published (Ebook)
July 2011

Family history was never supposed to be like this …

When American genealogist, Jefferson Tayte, accepted his latest assignment, he had no idea it might kill him. But while murder was never part of the curriculum, Tayte is kidding himself if he thinks he can walk away from this one.

Driven by the all-consuming irony of being a genealogist who doesn’t even know who his own parents are, Tayte soon finds that the assignment shares a stark similarity to his own struggle. Someone has gone to great lengths to erase an entire family bloodline from recorded history and he’s not going home until he’s found out why. After all, if he’s not good enough to find this family, how can he ever expect to be good enough to someday find his own?

Set in Cornwall, England, past and present, Tayte's research centres around the tragic life of a young Cornish girl, a writing box, and the discovery of a dark family secret that he believes will lead him to the family he is looking for. Trouble is, someone else is looking for the same answers and they will stop at nothing to find them.

Also available in a Kindle edition.

 

The Devil's Bait
by Jeff Mariotte
Non-Series
Self Published (Ebook)
July 2011

Jessie Dawn Cutler is a rising star in the high-stakes banking world, as a relationship banker—someone who manages the accounts of the wealthiest clients. When her favorite customer turns out to be crooked and Jessie witnesses a savage crime, it'll take every resource she has—and the unlikeliest allies of all—to keep her alive.

Also available in a Kindle edition.

 

Hot Ashes Cold Granite
by Larry LaVoie
A Chad Beckman Mystery
3rd in series
Self Published (Ebook)
July 2011

Bay View Mayor Chad Beckman is drawn into the secrets of Bay View’s past when Blake Roberts’ parents suddenly die leaving Blake the family mortuary and its secrets that have been dead and buried for many years. Chad helps his distraught friend sort through his parent’s possessions and the two find themselves in the basement of the funeral home where the crematorium is running on overtime burning the funeral home records. They discover the mortuary holds hidden secrets and too many bodies for the graves in the cemetery.

The mystery deepens when Chad and Blake are drawn back to a crypt in the shape of an obelisk that dominates the horizon of the graveyard and discover the killer has hidden secrets buried there.

Chad and Blake are drawn ever deeper into the graveyard’s secrets and Chad’s daughter shows up on his doorstep running away from her own secrets. Now those close to them are in danger of becoming hot ashes or being buried alive under the cold granite headstones of the cemetery.

Also available in a Kindle edition.

 

The Blood of Saints
by Keith Spence
Non-Series
The Fiction Works (Ebook)
July 2011

Two men dead, one a respected investigative journalist, the other a member of the White House legal staff. Both deaths are quickly pronounced suicides, but FBI special agent Mike Saville and US Park Police Sergeant Lowri Pritchard aren't so sure. Seems there are a few too many "coincidences" that link the dead men together.

As the two investigations merge in the Nation's Capital, and the bodies and conspiracy theories pile up like DC traffic, Saville and Pritchard will soon discover that the truth is more shocking than anything they could have ever imagined.

The Blood of Saints was originally published in trade paperback by Shadow Line Press in June, 2009.

Also available in a Kindle edition.

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For more recently published Indie Mysteries, visit the Smashwords Mystery and Detective category page or the Thriller and Suspense category page.

A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow is Today's Featured Free Kindle Mystery

MystereBooks is pleased to feature a mystery title that is currently available in Kindle eBook format for free from Amazon.com. We don't know how long it will be offered at this special price (typically only until a certain number of downloads have been completed), so download it today!

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A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow
A Kate Shugak Mystery (1st in series)
Gere Donovan Press (Kindle eBook)
Download Link

This book was (and in fact still is, as of today) available as a free iBook from iTunes but is now offered as a free Kindle edition.

About A Cold Day for Murder (from the publisher): Somewhere in the hinterlands of Alaska, among the millions of sprawling acres that comprise “The Park,” a young National Park Ranger has gone missing. When the detective sent after him also vanishes, the Anchorage DA’s department must turn to their reluctant former investigator, Kate Shugak. Shugak knows The Park because she’s of The Park, an Aleut who left her home village of Niniltna to pursue education, a career, and the righting of wrongs. Kate’s search for the missing men will take her from self-imposed exile back to a life she’d left behind, and face-to-face with people and problems she'd hoped never to confront again.

Read the first chapter(s) of A Cold Day for Murder below. Use the Aa button to adjust the display settings (font size, line spacing, word density).

A&E Renews Breakout Kings for Second Season

In a move that comes as a surprise to us, A&E has renewed Breakout Kings for a second season.

In the first season, U.S. Marshals Charlie Duchamp (played by Laz Alonso) and Ray Zancanelli (Domenick Lombardozzi) form a special task force composed of the three most elusive convicts Ray ever captured: Lloyd Lowery (Jimmi Simpson), a former child prodigy and behaviorist/psychiatric expert whoexcels in psychoanalysis; Shea Daniels (Malcolm Goodwin), an ex-gangbanger who knows how to work the system, both in prison and on the street; and Erica Reed (Serinda Swan), a sexy expert tracker who learned her trade from her bounty hunter father.

We thought the series had been canceled, and were not terribly surprised or disappointed, having watched a couple of episodes and never finding it engaging. Maybe our expectations were too high, thinking that it would be a cross between Leverage and Prison Break, two series we do enjoy. It actually is, kind of, sort of, but not really.

Production is expected to begin soon for a second season premiere early next year.

(Source: Deadline|Hollywood)

Review: The Counterfeit Madam by Pat McIntosh

The Counterfeit Madam by Pat McIntosh. A Gil Cunningham Mystery. Soho Constable Hardcover, June 2011.

There's definitely something appealing about crafting a late medieval tale around vices and crimes that might by many to be considered of relatively modern origin (i.e. counterfeiting) and towards that end, the mystery works. Still, one has to balance what is arguably an entertaining story against the circuitous pathway taken to realize this.

Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: The Counterfeit Madam by Pat McIntosh.

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OMN Welcomes Kaspar Von Langfeld, Author of the YA Thriller Don't Speak to the Dead

Omnimystery News is pleased to welcome mystery author Kaspar Von Langfeld, whose new young adult thriller is Don't Speak to the Dead (Smashwords, May 2011 eBook).

Today, Kaspar visits us from the beyond and answers some of our questions about the book. And he's also providing five of our readers with an opportunity to win a copy of his ebook. Visit Mystery Book Contests, click on the "Kaspar Von Langfeld: Don't Speak to the Dead" contest link, enter your name, e-mail address, and this code (1810) for a chance to win! (One entry per person; contest ends 07/19/2011.)

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Photo provided courtesy of
Kaspar Von Langfeld

Kaspar, when did you start writing books?

Kaspar Von Langfeld: After my death I wandered around near the place in San Francisco where I mysteriously died in 1852. In 2009 I found these two brothers and followed them because I sensed they had an affinity towards the dead. My hunch was confirmed in 2010 when I found these same two brothers, Flynn and Cooper, assisting a fellow ghost. This was the first time in 150 years that I was excited enough to document an event that I witnessed.

Who did the brothers help in your story?

KVL: They helped a millionaire banker named Maxfield Goldman who was murdered in 1928. Max had the good fortune of crossing paths with the boys and they were willing to take on the adventure of solving the mystery of his death!

Why the title, Don’t Speak to the Dead?

KVL: If you ever speak to us or even think of us you are taking a risk! Flynn and Cooper quickly found this out when Maxfield Goldman kidnapped them. If you communicate with the dead we expect your help and we take it seriously.

You seem to have a vested interest in these boys and their stories. Why do you observe them so closely?

KVL: Down here in the netherworld these two are very important. There are only few of the living that we connect with. When a window opens between our worlds someone can be helped if the living are willing to offer assistance. Flynn and Cooper know that now. Of course, my hope is that these two could one day help me!

Are there more stories coming from the netherworld?

KVL: There are many more stories than can possibly be written down. As for me, I’ll stick with Flynn and Cooper and write about them. They live in San Francisco where I lost my life and the likelihood that we connect is much greater since time and place coincide. At the moment they’re helping Charlie Kong in 1906. I’m following them closely, recording everything that is happening in their adventure.

Thank you for talking to with today, Kaspar. Is there anything else you want to say to our readers?

KVL: Yes, thank you for taking time to listen to what an old ghost writer from 1852 has to say. To show you how grateful I am, I’m giving away five e-copies of this story to OmnimysteryNews.com readers. I hope you enjoy the account of Flynn and Cooper in their first adventure, Don’t Speak to the Dead. For more information, visit my website at KasparVonLangfeld.com.

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About Don't Speak to the Dead: This fast paced, exciting story with plenty of surprising twists and turns features two brothers, who are abducted by a ghost and taken back in time to solve his murder. Will they bring the culprit to justice and make it back alive? Cooper falls in love, Flynn gets shot and when they return they are not the same boys that left.

Don't Speak to the Dead is available as an ebook from Smashwords.

For a chance to win a copy of Don't Speak to the Dead, courtesy of the author, visit Mystery Book Contests, click on the "Kaspar Von Langfeld: Don't Speak to the Dead" contest link, enter your name, e-mail address, and this code (1810) for a chance to win! (One entry per person; contest ends 07/19/2011.)

HBO to Develop Carl Hiaasen's Caper Skinny Dip

HBO confirmed today that it is developing Carl Hiaasen's 2004 novel Skinny Dip for television. Into a series, mini-series, or something else isn't known (at least to us).

The story involves Chaz Perrone, who might be the only marine scientist in the world who doesn't know which way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be the only one who went into biology just to make a killing, and now he's found a way — doctoring water samples so that a ruthless agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife, Joey, has figured out his scam, he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner into the night-dark Atlantic. Unfortunately for Chaz, his wife doesn't die in the fall.

Clinging blindly to a bale of Jamaican pot, Joey Perrone is plucked from the ocean by former cop and current loner Mick Stranahan. Instead of rushing to the police and reporting her husband's crime, Joey decides to stay dead and (with Mick's help) screw with Chaz until he screws himself.

While Joey haunts and taunts her homicidal husband, and Chaz's cold-blooded cohorts in pollution grow uneasy about his ineptitude and increasingly erratic behavior, Mick Stranahan discovers that six failed marriages and years of island solitude haven't killed the reckless romantic in him.

(Source: The Hollywood Reporter)

USA Orders Buddy Cop Series Common Law to Series

It's been 7 months since we had an update on Common Law, a buddy cop crime comedy/drama that USA Network was considering for series. Now we're learning the cable network has indeed ordered an 11 episode season of the series.

Warren Kole and Michael Ealy star as mismatched partners, whose constant bickering has their caption (Jack McGee) sending them to couples counseling.

Though the original premise had the cops part of the LAPD, production is scheduled to begin next month in New Orleans ... so maybe the venue has been changed (and if so, for the better, in our opinion).

(Source: Deadline|Hollywood)

Review: A Study in Lavender by Joseph R. G. DeMarco, editor

A Study in Lavender by Joseph R. G. DeMarco, editor. A Sherlock Holmes Anthology. Lethe Press Trade Paperback, July 2011.

This decidedly eclectic anthology of gay-themed short stories does not feature the famous consulting detective or Dr. John Watson in every tale, but does take inspiration from them in crafting the plots. Most are an interesting extension to, or in some cases, a reinterpretation of, the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Read the full text of our review at Mysterious Reviews: A Study in Lavender by Joseph R. G. DeMarco, editor.

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Read the first chapter(s) of A Study in Lavender below. Use the Aa settings button to adjust text size, line spacing, and word density.

Mr. E. Reviews Rain Fall

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Somewhere in this tangled mess of a movie there may actually be a credible, interesting thriller. Though adapted from the first in the series of popular John Rain novels by crime novelist Barry Eisler, the film is edited in such a way that there is little continuity within the storyline, making it at best difficult to follow.

Read the full text of our review at Mr. E. Reviews Rain Fall.

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Mr. E. Reviews is your source for mystery, suspense, thriller, and crime drama reviews of television and film.

Mr. E. Reviews The Mechanic

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First and foremost, this is an often violent action film, though most of the action sequences are well structured, cleverly written, and exciting to watch. Jason Statham is perfectly cast in the lead here and Donald Sutherland, in a relatively brief appearance, is excellent as his mentor.

Read the full text of our review at Mr. E. Reviews The Mechanic.

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Mr. E. Reviews is your source for mystery, suspense, thriller, and crime drama reviews of television and film.

Set off on a Historical Adventure in Mystery Quest: Curse of the Ancient Spirits, New for Nintendo DS

Set off on a historical adventure in Mystery Quest: Curse of the Ancient Spirits, a gripping thriller and a mysterious ghost story!

When Virginia and Professor MacNara happen upon a 500 year beach wreck, they discover that the ship, laden with mysterious artefacts, once belonged to Christopher Columbus, discoverer of America. Columbus’s ship was thought to have vanished from the seas centuries ago, and so when they board the mighty galleon they are shocked when to find that the ravages of time have not affected the ship and everything is in its place, exactly how it was 500 years ago. The mystery further continues when Professor MacNara inexplicably dies. Now alone, Virginia must begin to piece together the mysteries in the search for her dad’s murderer in this historical tale of time portals, ghost stories and gripping adventures!

Mystery Quest: Curse of the Ancient Spirits is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, July 5th, 2011, for Nintendo DS. It is ESRB rated E10+, Everyone, 10 and older.

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