IT'S A CRIME! (OR A MYSTERY...)

The Herring in the Library – L C Tyler

On this Bank Holiday weekend, do you fancy something with a mystery to solve?  Something witty and clever?  Something that will have you laughing out loud?  Yes?  Well, do rush off to your local bookshop or library to grab a copy of this novel right now.  Or order it online…

In The Herring in the Library, Ethelred Tressider (the multi-genre and multi-pseudonymous writer) and Elsie Thirkettle (his forthright, chocolate devotee literary agent) are back doing what they do best: writing, agenting and sparring from their differing points of view while investigating whatever mystery throws itself in their wake.  As the title might suggest, this story makes use of the ‘locked room’ plot theme with L C Tyler again bringing the Golden Age of crime fiction into the twenty first century. 

The Herring in the Library opens with Elsie enjoying a game of Cluedo with Ethelred, while he tries to invoke the rules of play (unsuccessfully).  They are passing the time before heading out to dinner at Muntham Court, the guests of Sir Robert and Lady Muntham.  Elsie looks forward to sneering at their hosts and indeed, has more opportunity than she could anticipate.  Ethelred and Robert were ‘buddies’ in their university days, when Robert was a drinking, rugby playing hedonist known as ‘Shagger’.  Sir Shagger went on to some success in the banking sector before bagging the title and then leaving his bank under a cloud.  He bought Muntham Court with the proceeds of his banking success as his wife fancied being known as ‘Lady Muntham of Muntham Court’.

The Newgate Jig – Ann Featherstone

Ann Featherstone had written non-fiction before turning her pen to the more creative elements, kicking off with Walking in Pimlico in 2009.  With an academic background that includes lecturing in Performance History and researching Drama, it comes as no surprise that the setting for her novels covers the music halls, circus rings and freak shows of Victorian London.  Very quickly on reading, the feeling of being in ‘safe hands’ arrives when it comes to the detail, and we have a wonderful evocation of time and place concentrating on the less fortunate in society.  The prose itself is evocative of the Victorian world, but without pushing the reader into reading as a Victorian would have done; here, we have a style that blends, and which suits the contemporary reader interested in history.  In The Newgate Jig, we also have a crime novel with a setting ripe for the imagination.

My Friday #FF on Twitter

I am frequently quite poor on #FFs, so this week I have started to get organised. I pay little attention to ongoing streams of #FF from others, therefore I have used the blog for my lists and this will result in one #FF tweet only.

My apologies to those I have missed off.  I don't have a good memory for names and will need to see a tweet to get it right.  I'll be updating regularly in the future.  Read on for more...

Bryant & May: Off the Rails – Christopher Fowler

This is an established series to which I arrived late for various reasons.  Was it the lovely hardback from Transworld, with its enticing London Underground-depicted cover and cardinal purple theme that drew me in?  Or was it the slight eccentricity on the part of the author that I had perceived?  Perhaps guilt over the backlist stocks I was holding and had not yet read?  That’s a mystery in itself, but one thing’s for sure here: once I’d started Off the Rails I was hooked.

Coming late to this series, I did suffer my early moments of being perplexed.  This seemed like a Golden Age novel time-catapulted into contemporary days with great resonance of our politically correct era.  Luckily, the previous novel, now out in paperback, arrived as I was reading Off the Rails and the information sheet from the publisher opened my eyes.  These are contemporary-set novels. Bryant and May are octogenarians.  The Peculiar Crimes Unit is well … just that … peculiar; and our octogenarians do take the golden age of detection with them into our modern world.  Thus, suspension of disbelief is key here, but if you are up for it then enormous fun awaits.

Ashes to Dust – Yrsa Sigurdardottir

In her third Thóra Gudmundsdóttir novel, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir is back doing what she does best: providing the reader with a quirky conundrum in the form of a mystery surrounding criminal activity. Ashes to Dust is also fortuitously contemporary in that the plot involves reflections back to the 1970s, when Iceland experienced another terrible volcano eruption.  In 2010, the majority of the global media focused on the volcanic ashes’ impact on international air travel, ignoring the impact on Iceland itself, to the point of negligence.  If you’d like to discover something of the impact locally, you can do no better than read this novel to feel the flavour.  But what of the plot and thriller nature of Yrsa’s Ashes to Dust?

Our busy protagonist lawyer Thóra has a new client, Markús Magnússon.  Markús was a teenager in the 70s, and his then home was buried under the layers of dust, in an area now known as the ‘Pompeii of the North’ and subject to current historic interest excavation.  It’s the excavation that causes Markús to become so protective and seek legal advice.  Eventually, he gets to the basement of his old home before anyone, but the discovery is immense: three full dead bodies are uncovered along with the head of one other in a box.

Apologies...

... to those commenting in a legitimate way for the delay in release of your comments and/or reply here.  I am plagued by spam comments at the moment; from those who wish to promote sales through exceedingly dubious sites.  (In fact, I suspect these sites are completely fraudulent in nature, of the sort that take the money and never deliver the goods ordered.)  I hope to tire them out soon.  Meanwhile, please bear with me and thanks for your generous spirit.

Harrogate: Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival Weekend 2010

And so it came to pass that my favourite crime fiction event of the year took place towards the end of July.  Sadly, this year proved to be only a fleeting visit for me, but what fun!  It was great to meet up with old friends and new, chat, gossip, give out some cake, and do the quiz!  I took my camera, as instructed by @MarDixon on twitter, carried it in my handbag at all times, and then forgot to use it (sorry).  But fear not, for I have trawled the international world webnet thingy to bring you anything I can muster to prove the fun.  Let’s start with the second night, the Friday, before I’d even left the house.

The first shock of the weekend came when I received a tweet telling me I was on a certain quiz team.  Oh dear, how would I manage this?  Someone had already emailed saying ‘Let’s organise a table for the quiz’ but neither of us had got around to anything remotely substantial on this objective.  I had approached an author, tentatively, as he was surely an expert on the golden age of crime fiction - mine and many’s black hole in knowledge.  Suddenly, I found myself purloined/recruited/applied to a quiz team that did quite well two years ago, beating my team by one point only.  What was this girl to do to avoid offending anyone?  (And get the best chance of being on the winning team?)

CWA 2010 Dagger Finalists for the Gold, Steel and John Creasey (New Blood)

We have the lists on the ITV3 Crime Thriller Site, but here they are:

Gold Dagger

Blacklands, Belinda Bauer (Corgi)
Blood Harvest, S J Bolton (Bantam Press)
Shadowplay, Karen Campbell (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Way Home, George Pelecanos (Orion)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger

A Loyal Spy, Simon Conway (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Dying Light, Henry Porter (Orion)
Innocent, Scott Turow (Macmillan)
The Gentlemen’s Hour, Don Winslow (Heinemann)

John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger

Acts of Violence, Ryan David Jahn (Pan)
Rupture, Simon Lelic (Picador)
The Holy Thief, William Ryan (Mantle )
The Pull of the Moon, Diane Janes (Robinson)

Congratulations to those who have made it to the finalists/nominations stage!

John Lawton News: A Lily of the Field, Agents of Treachery and Bouchercon

John Lawton’s next Troy novel, A Lily of the Field, is to be published in the US in October of this year, with the UK first edition hardback coming later, in March of 2011.  As soon as I know the imprint for the UK, I will provide a further update.  So, if you like collecting the UK first editions you’ll have to wait just a little longer…

But in the meantime, be aware that Amazon UK has the US edition listed on their site with no sign of the UK edition yet.  The picture here is of the US cover.