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Archive for the ‘Mystery’ Category

Patricia Cornwell: Author and Philanthropist

December 14th, 2011 No comments

Fan favorite, author Patricia Cornwell, is busy at work promoting her latest novel in the Kay Scarpetta series Red Mist. The 19th installment has the formidable medical examiner traveling to a remote women’s prison in Georgia to meet with an inmate who might have knowledge of the brutal murder of Jack Fielding, Scarpetta’s former deputy chief. While investigating Fielding’s death, the Dr. uncovers links to other murders committed across the country, as well as a potential international terrorist threat.

Besides unravelling a murder mystery, Red Mist, addresses the larger issues of death penalty ethics and the prison system. In a phone interview with The Oregonian, Cornwell spoke about working to keep the 22 year-old series interesting to herself and her readers. “It’s not a job,” she says, “it’s like a relationship that I treat with sensitivity and selflessness and that needs to be nurtured.” Read more…

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The Trials and Tribulations of Choosing a Pen Name

December 7th, 2011 No comments

According to novelist Alison Potter, one of the most enjoyable things about writing is creating names for her characters. “You can let your imagination run free, stripped of caution and compromise.” Yet, when she was asked to choose a pen name for herself, the naming process was no longer carefree. Hodder, her publisher, approached her about a name change as they were working on her debut thriller Wink Murder. “Suddenly, it’s personal and heartfelt, challenging your identity and family history,” she writes in an article for The Guardian.

“We may spend our lives escaping our parents and their influence, carving out our own identities, but our name is given to us and most of us never change it. Even if women marry, they have no choice over the surname they take. Alison Potter had served me perfectly well for about 40 years, until now. Read more…

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New Release: 11/22/63

November 8th, 2011 No comments

By Stephen King
Scribner | 960pgs
Release Date: November 8, 2011

Stephen King’s new novel, the highly anticipated 11/22/63, arrives in stores today. The opus, which falls just short of the 1,000 page mark, follows English teacher Jake Epping through a time portal in his friend Al’s basement on a quest to prevent the assassination of JFK. Using the name George Amberson, Jake enters the past in the year 1958, and spends the next 5 years working towards changing the outcome of that fateful day, moving to a small town in Texas, falling in love with a sweet librarian and encountering a troubled young man named Lee Harvey Oswald along the way. Will Jake be able to change history? If so, will the future of the world better for this change? Read more…

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New Release: The Snowman

May 24th, 2011 No comments

By Jo Nesbø
Knopf | 400pgs
Release Date: May 10, 2011

Summary:
The troubled but brilliant Norwegian Inspector Harry Hole returns in Jo Nesbø’s latest thriller The Snowman. The fifth installment of the Scandinavian series tracks Hole’s investigation of several murders perpetrated during winter’s first snowfall. When two women turn up dead, each with an menacing snowman built to mark the occasion, Hole and his new partner Katrine Bratt uncover a string of murders spanning several years. During the hunt for the killer, Hole realizes a connection between the case and an ominous letter he received months earlier, referencing the recent murders and events in the Inspector’s past, signed by The Snowman. As Hole’s quest for justice becomes obsessive, the Snowman draws him into a deadly game, where the ultimate prize may be the policeman’s life. Read more…

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Who’s Your Favorite Female Detective Character?

April 29th, 2011 No comments

Acknowledging that many television networks offer a glut of programs featuring male detectives, writer Jess McCabe pays homage to standout fictional female sleuths in an article for The Guardian. The top ten list features characters from literature, film and TV and highlights the reasons why these lady detectives “broke boundaries and helped redefine the image of the investigator.” Of her number one pick Nancy Drew, McCabe writes, “The original, the iconic teenage detective, any list of female detectives inevitably starts with Nancy Drew, who has been solving mysteries for more than 80 years, with Hilary Clinton and Sonia Sotomayor among the high-profile women to cite her as an inspiration.” Read more…

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Connelly Pleased with “The Lincoln Lawyer” Film

March 18th, 2011 No comments

©2011 Lionsgate

Slick defense attorney Mickey Haller makes his screen debut today as the film adaptation of Michael Connelly’s bestselling thriller The Lincoln Lawyer arrives in theaters. Though the mystery writer has created numerous bestselling novels, this is only the second time his work has been translated into a movie. The first was the Clint Eastwood helmed Blood Work, a production in which Connelly had virtually no input, according to an article in The Seattle Times. The final product was disappointing to the author and his fans, as the altered story line lacked the spark that made the book so engrossing. But The Lincoln Lawyer production is a whole different beast, and this time the writer was allowed to participate in its creation. Connelly provided feedback on various drafts of the script, made several visits to the set, and discussed the Haller character with star, Matthew McConaughey, before filming began. Read more…

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Millennium Series Continued?

January 25th, 2011 1 comment

51cUjngim7L._SL160_Eva Gabrielsson, author Stieg Larsson’s long time partner, is confident that she can complete the fourth installment of the Millennium series. “I am able to finish it … Steig and I often wrote together,” she tells AFP. Though she qualified this statement by explaining the Larsson family must first grant her the intellectual rights to the series before she will begin work. Larsson had written more than 200 pages of the fourth book before his heart attack in 2004, and Gabrielsson is in possession of this manuscript, though all rights to the series are currently owned by his father and brother. She refused to reveal any plot details of the book, except to admit that “Lisbeth little by little frees herself from her ghosts and her enemies.”

Millions of fans are thrilled at the prospect of a new Millennium book, and are anxious to set their eyes on Larsson’s last words about Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. Though if this new installment is written and fails to meet audience expectations, it could become a disappointing chapter in an already checkered legacy. Would it be better to leave well enough alone and let the first three books stand on their own? Read more…

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New Release: What the Night Knows

December 29th, 2010 1 comment

513MJx60m6L._SL160_By Dean Koontz
Bantam | 464pgs
Release Date: December 28, 2010

Summary:

Bestselling thriller writer Dean Koontz conjures up a modern day ghost story with his new novel What the Night Knows. Alton Turner Blackwood, the villain from Koontz’s short story Darkness Under the Sun, wreaks havoc on a small town, killing several families. His murderous rampage is finally brought to an end on the night he attacks a fourth family, when he is killed by a 14-year-old boy, the only one to survive Blackwood’s savagery. Many years later and miles away from his childhood trauma, the boy, John Calvino, is now a man with his own family, when evil strikes again. Working as homicide detective, Calvino begins investigating a series of murders that bear a sickening similarity to the tragedy of his childhood. The unsettling and inexplicable events surrounding these new crimes cause Calvino to intensely fear for his own family’s safety and believe that he must fight a killer whose power extends beyond the grave. Read more…

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New Release: The Sherlockian

December 13th, 2010 No comments

41nPLeR3y2L._SL160_By Graham Moore
Twelve | 368pgs
Release Date: December 1, 2010

Summary:
Graham Moore draws on the history and adventures of the world’s most beloved sleuth, and his creator, in the debut novel The Sherlockian. Interweaving one investigation conducted by Arthur Conan Doyle in the late 19th century and another worked by a modern day literary researcher, the author builds a mystery that would engross Sherlock Holmes himself. In 1893, at the height of Holmes’ popularity, Conan Doyle tires of the character and unceremoniously tosses him over Reichenbach Falls to his death in the story The Final Problem. An irate fan sends him a letter bomb to voice his displeasure, thus sending the writer on the trail of a real-lifer murderer, accompanied by a young Bram Stoker. Conan Doyle documents his investigation in a journal that later goes missing, gaining a sort of legendary status among Doylean scholars. In early 2010, as “freelance literary researcher” Harold White is inducted into the prestigious Baker Street Irregulars, he encounters a new mystery. A renown Sherlockian expert announces to the group that he has discovered the legendary lost diary, but the man is soon found strangled in his hotel room, and the diary is nowhere to be seen. Harold then sets out to track down the murderer and find the illusive diary, using Holmes’ investigative methods. Read more…

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Sherlock Holmes’ 21st Century Incarnation

October 22nd, 2010 No comments
sherlock

Benedict Cumberbatch (left) and Martin Freeman (right) play Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in modern day interpretation "Sherlock".

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s archetypal detective Sherlock Holmes has been portrayed countless time on the small and big screen, most notably by Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett. But the new television series with a minimalist title, Sherlock, trades in the lace curtains of Victorian drawing rooms for the gritty streets of modern day London and puts a 21st Century spin on the beloved character. “It seemed to somehow make it a bit less reverent and a bit more fun,” show co-creator Steven Moffat tells NPR. “Much as we love Sherlock Holmes, we love Victoriana. Many of the adaptations become about the period as opposed to about the story.” The BBC show, which has been building quite a buzz in Britain, will begin airing in the U.S. on PBS’s Masterpiece on Sunday, October 24. Read more…

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