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

Publishing News: R N (Roger) Morris

The news is out.  Roger Morris has signed a two book deal with Kate Lyall Grant at Severn House for their Creme de la Crime imprint.  It will be the start of a new series featuring a character called Silas Quinn, set in Edwardian-era London.  Roger has already written a couple of short stories featuring the character and he's looking forward to 'putting him in the bigger canvas of a novel'.

As R N Morris, Roger has published a Porfiry Petrovich quartet with Faber & Faber and, as Roger Morris, he burst onto our shelves with a novel called Taking Comfort with Pan Macmillan's MNW imprint.

Congratulations to Roger!

The Voice of Stephanie Plum (Lorelei King) and Janet Evanovich's Smokin' Seventeen

 Also in hardcover in the UK since 21 June.

The Apprentice 2011 – Week 7, Episode 8

 
‘Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, it was time to take some leading edge British product innovation to some chic shops in Paris; time for some young and rare business roast beefs to get the grenouilles on board.  Now down to the last eight ‘crème de la crème’ of budding entrepreneurs, our faux amis needed to hide their innate and developed froideur and just get on with it.  Difficult though eh?  (As can be seen in the pic above.)  We may have suffered endless opening streams of their raison d'être for being on the show, where they have professed their savoir-faire with no attendant humility, but now it’s the practical and the talons are out.

Crime Scene at the Natural History Museum

So, how did you spend your evening on the last Friday in June 2011?  Down the pub?  At an indoor BBQ when the rain came? Some of us were at a crime scene.  Some of us inadvertently trampled all over a crime scene compromising forensic evidence and thus could have hindered the estimation of time of death of a victim.  (Yes, that one was me only.  I was trying to stay out of the rain.)

You may have noticed I posted about the National History Museum’s Crime Scene event just over a week ago.  Well, I just happened to be in London that day and decided to go.  This event offered not only an introduction to forensic sciences but also some hands on experience. And how did all pan out?

Herring on the Nile – L C Tyler



Continuing this award-winning author’s entertaining pastiche of the late, great Dame Agatha’s work, Herring on the Nile takes novelist Ethelred Tressider and his literary agent Elsie Thirkettle down the murderous waters of the Nile.  And here we have a spot-on update to contemporary times with a plot involving a terrorist angle.

Ethelred, in need of performing some research to write his latest novel, has booked a Nile cruise and his latest paramour Annabelle, Lady Muntham has dropped out at the last minute.  This provides Elsie with an opportunity to spend some time on a well-appointed paddle steamer.  Well she would, wouldn’t she?  How could she possibly resist?  But as Ethelred notes:

If I’d noticed any references in the tour brochure to a dead body floating in the Nile or to the cold barrel of a gun pointing at a spot precisely midway between my eyes, I might have decided south Wales in a blizzard was in fact much the better option.  But perhaps they’d hidden that sort of stuff in the small print, along with the fuel surcharges.  They often do, I find.

Yes, it’s not long before Ethelred’s life is threatened and what follows involves mistaken identity, perceived mistaken identity, misunderstanding, stretching truths, downright lying and a little bit of violence.  Also, being trademark Tyler there is humour and some of it focuses on a writer’s life.  In Herring on the Nile, Elsie has set up a number of interviews for Ethelred which he conscientiously completes by email even where the questions are inappropriate.

Reading the next Herring is like meeting up with old friends and enjoying a good banter, with a good many laughs along the way.  The Herring on the Nile was simply a novel that had to be written for this series: a classic updated in Tyler’s own unique style.

I hope we will read even more of Elsie and Ethelred in the future and I’d like to see two things happen: less dialogue in the prose where Nile occasionally felt like it was flowing into the waters of a script; more of Elsie actually doing her job as opposed to talking about it.  Wouldn’t it be fun if Elsie was in the middle of a frantic auction at the same as an investigation?

Herring on the Nile: best read for pure enjoyment, escapism and R&R. Panama hat optional, laughter not.

The book is published on 1 July.  Signed HBs are available at Goldsboro Books, usual stocks at Amazon.  The novel is also available on Kindle on the same date, at a price comparable to the HB.

The Apprentice – Week 6, Episode 7

Freemium Week

This week our teams were tasked with creating a new freemium magazine: the magazine that is offered free to the consumer, funded by advertising revenue.  Given a bit of market research, Natasha’s team went  down the lads’ mag route, not of all them entirely convinced it has to be said.  But Natasha was and she explained this very well.  To camera.  Did she also pitch this to her own team?  Helen looked the most unconvinced and as if such work would sully a recent premium manicure on her clean hands.  But lads’ mag it was.

On the other team, project managed by Jim, the lucrative market of the over sixties was identified and targeted.  Struggling to come up with a name for the magazine, Zoë suggested ‘Be Hip. Hip Replacement.’  Jim, suddenly looking like someone had switched on the light bulb in his head said into his mobile ‘Zoë’s come up with a good one: Hip Replacements.’  Really? Didn’t the addition of the ‘replacement’ actually ruin the play on words?  And when it came the cover proved to be the coffin for the mag.  Has anything else ever looked quite so destined for the coffee table in a Harley Street hip replacement specialist orthopod’s waiting room?

CWA National Crime Writing Week 13-19 June 2011

The CWA's National Crime Writing Week starts tomorrow.  There are lots of events up and down the country.  Go here to find out more and find out what's on near you.

Some London-based crime fiction & crime-related events coming up in June…

Fancy a break from the tennis?  Or the rain?  (The two so often arrive together here.)

London Review Bookshop World Literature Weekend, taking place 17-19 June, is the only UK festival to specialise in literature in translation.  On the crime front there are two events that may be of interest:

Crime Fiction: Reading Scars - Behind crime fiction's gripping narratives, there often lies a more incisive portrayal of a society than can be found in more obvious commentaries; and it offers a way to confront ideas of good and evil in a shades-of-grey world, where simple moral certainties aren't so easy to find. Karin Alvtegen's psychological crime thrillers include Missing, which in 2001 won the Glass Key, the premier Nordic crime writing award, and Shadow and Betrayal. Håkan Nesser is also a Glass Key winner; his latest book to be translated into English is The Inspector and Silence, starring his detective Van Veeteren. The event will be chaired by Jakob Stourgaard-Nielson, Lecturer in Scandinavian Literature at UCL.

For Catalonia: Place of a Language, three very different writers come together to talk about how a besieged language can offer refuge, and how place, history and identity are knitted into that language. One of the authors taking part in this event is Teresa Solana, the award-winning author of two comic noirs, Not So Perfect Crime and A Short Cut to Paradise. Solana writes in Catalan and translates them into Spanish, and her novels are a blend of humour, merciless satire and detective thriller. Joining Solana on the panel is Ramon Llull Prize-winning novelist Najat El Hatchmi and Carles Casajuana, author and Ambassador of Spain to the UK. Barcelona-based literary translator Peter Bush is chair. This event takes place Friday 17 June at 2pm in the Stevenson Room at the British Museum.

Here’s a link and here’s the programme to download. Download WLW 2011 Final Programme [email]

 
Moving on, after hours on Friday 24 June, you could join in with an investigation at the National History Museum at 1900 where a body has been found in the museum’s garden.  The NHM says:

Its identity is unknown and the killer remains at large.  We need your help.  Join us to put your detective skills to the test as a crime scene officer.  At this unique, immersive evening event, you'll meet 3 of the Museum's forensic experts.  Learn how they use their knowledge to assist the police and solve crimes.  Find out tricks of their trade so that you can comb the crime scene, collect the evidence and process the clues.  Then take your evidence to trial where real barristers, police officers and a judge will demonstrate just how important forensic evidence is to a verdict.

Highlights include:

• collecting insect evidence in the garden crime scene with scientists Martin Hall and Cameron Richards, and 100s of live maggots
• fingerprint collection and identification workshop
• victim identification masterclass in the Attenborough Studio with Heather Bonney - learn how to identify sex, age and height by studying skeletal remains
• a mock court case in the Museum's Flett theatre.

That is surely a most unusual way to unwind on a Friday evening.  What a cracker!  Follow the link for more details and booking.

Case Histories BBC1 – Episodes 1 & 2

 
At the opposite end of the spectrum on TV at the moment, Case Histories is proving a delight.  Humour comes in unexpected places, sometimes unintended I suspect.  In episode 1 I burst into fits of giggles when the sisters buried their dog.  This was a funeral so unlike the one they held for their late father (but given the story, it can be understood). So much emotion.

ITV: Injustice

[Reader Beware: contains spoilers.]

 
Having enjoyed Collision very much, I was pleased that the twitterati reminded me that Injustice was coming up so I didn’t miss it.  But I did miss some of it.  Staying away last week meant that Case Histories took precedence on Monday evening, so I joined on episode two.  It felt like I had missed nothing.  What on earth could have gone on in episode one?  A whole load of backstory?  Could an episode packed with backstory prove interesting?