Crime Fiction in the news and on the 'Net: Weekly Round-up

Kia ora everyone. I hope you've all had a great week. It's been another busy one here, as we gear up to finally present the inaugural Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel (only ten days to go now!).

For those in or around the Canterbury region, I do urge you to come along to Whodunnit and Whowunnit? on 30 November. It will be a fun night - more low key than the festival event would have been, but very enjoyable nonetheless. If you do come along, feel free to come up and say hi. As you'll be aware, I'm more than happy to chat to anyone about crime fiction, especially the terrific and overlooked stuff we have here in New Zealand.

Once again there have been some more great crime fiction stories on the Internet this past week - from newspapers, magazines, and several of my fellow bloggers. As usual, I've listed a few that have caught my eye below. Hopefully you will all find an interesting article or post or two linked here, that you enjoy reading.

Onto the round-up.

• Margaret Cannon of Canada's Globe and Mail gives another great round-up of some interesting new mystery titles, including SHE FELT NO PAIN, the latest Holly Martin novel from Ngaio Marsh Award judge Lou Allin (way to go Lou!).
• The always-entertaining Ali Karim shares his second extensive post-mortem on the recent Bouchercon festivities - 'It's all about friendships' - on The Rap Sheet (part one, part two).
• Renowned writer, editor and crime fiction aficianado Maxim Jakubowski talked about the importance of setting in crime fiction, and listed his ten favourite settings and novels that evoked them most distinctively, in an intriguing article for The Guardian. You can also join the discussion about the article and other great crime fiction settings here.
• The New Jersey Star-Ledger has a Q&A with acclaimed crime writer Dennis Lehane, while Lehane's latest novel MOONLIGHT MILE is reviewed in The Philadelphia Enquirer, the Seattle Times, and the Dubluque Telegraph Herald, amongst others.
• Movie Geeks takes a look at INTERIORS, a documentary about murderess turned historical mystery writer Anne Perry, who is fairly well-known in New Zealand because of her pre-writing life, that showed at the St Louis International Film Festival this past week.
• The Mystery Writers of America names the legendary Sarah Paretsky as the deserved recipient of its next Grand Master Award.
• While it's getting sunny here in New Zealand (and for our neighbours in Australia), the winter weather is rapidly approaching for our northern hemisphere friends. Vit Wagner of The Toronto Star takes a look at ten books to curl up with by the fire, including a "short but informative biography" of Stieg Larsson by one of his closest friends.
• Gail Pennington of the St Louis Post-Dispatch takes a look at new books 'written' by fictional TV characters from a variety of popular TV shows, including the very successful Nikki Heat novels by titular crime writer 'Richard Castle' - harkening back to the days of the 'Jessica Fletcher' mysteries inspired by Murder She Wrote.

What do you think of this week's round-up? Which articles caught your eye? Have you read any of Ngaio Marsh Award judge Lou Allin's acclaimed mysteries? What do you think of the latest Lehane? Of the 'Richard Castle' books? What fictional TV characters/writers would you like to see books from (my personal fave would have to be 'Robin' from Magnum PI - how cool would it have been to have some books out by a character that was always present but never seen in such a popular and long-repeated show?) Thoughts welcome.

Crime Fiction in the news and on the 'Net: Weekly Round-up

There's been some more great crime fiction stories on the Web this past week - from newspapers, magazines, and fellow bloggers. Hopefully you will all like finding an interesting article or two linked here, that you enjoy reading.

Before I dive into all the fantastic stories out there however, I thought I'd quickly mention my own feature that was in last weekend's Weekend Herald, for those that missed it. You can read my article on bestselling British crime writers Peter James and Peter Robinson, here.

I was fortunate enough to also meet Peter James in person earlier this week, at a great, packed event at Takapuna Library on Tuesday evening. He had the audience in stitches, and is a very funny, interesting, and humble guy. I am currently about two thirds of the way through DEAD LIKE YOU, and enjoying it a lot.

Onto the round-up.

Crime Watch Weekly Round-Up: In the News and on the 'Net

• In his regular slot for the Huffington Post, thriller writer Jason Pinter shares a cool little post from Don Winslow (SAVAGES, THE GENTLEMAN'S HOUR) - whose books Pinter describes jabbing "a fountain pen in the eye of anyone who can read one of his tomes and state with conviction that crime fiction isn't literature" - about using a little poetic license in his latest novel.
• Katie Allan of The Bookseller reveals that Wellington-based crime writer and TV screenwriter - and Ngaio Marsh Award finalist - Neil Cross is to write three spin-off novels for Simon & Schuster, based on his character Luther, made famous by Idris Alba in the recent TV series of the same name.
• In further Neil Cross-related news, it has been announced that Luther will premiere in the United States on 17 October, and that the BBC has also commissioned "a spine-chilling new single drama" from Cross for Christmas - Whistle And I'll Come To You, a "thoroughly modern re-working of the evocative Edwardian ghost story "Oh, Whistle and I'll come to You, My Lad" by M.R. James". Busy man, Mr Cross.
• Echoing a view that I've shared on this blog several times, Justin Peacock of The Daily Beast takes a much more eloquent and lengthy look at how crime fiction really has become the modern social novel. "Tom Wolfe and other writers used to tell us about the state of America, but now if you’re looking for great social novels you’d better turn to crime writers like Richard Price and Dennis Lehane", says Peacock.
• Paul Robinson of the Yorkshire Post talks to actor Stephen Tompkinson about playing Peter Robinson's famous sleuth Inspector Alan Banks in the upcoming "gritty" ITV crime drama, DCI Banks: Aftermath.
• Mike Nicol of Crime Beat SA interviews longstanding South African crime writer Wessel Ebersohn about his latest novel, and much more, as his new political thriller Those Who Love Night, which sees the return of Abigail Bukula, the brilliant young lawyer, is released.
• In a nice little article, "Murder, we read", that seems to have only recently popped up online, Malcolm Jones of Newsweek takes a closer look at our centuries-long preference for crime fiction, a literary trend that dwarfs temporarily 'hot' phenomena like vampires or boy wizards.

What do you think of the round-up? Which articles do you find interesting? Is crime the modern social novel? Is crime fiction the biggest, most longstanding modern literary trend of all? Are you looking forward to DCI Banks: Aftermath? Will you read books centred on the intriguing 'Luther'? Please share your thoughts. I'd love to read what you think.