Ten years on, Connelly and other writers remember 9/11

While the calendar has ticked over, here in New Zealand, overseas it is still September 11 - a date that carries so much more meaning than simply a month and a number. A decade after the tragic events that made the day go down in history, and changed the world forever, commemorations have been held, all around the globe. Although centred on New York and Washington, DC, it was much more than an American tragedy, and it rocked the entire world. Much like my parent's generation can starkly remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard JFK had been assassinated, I think my generation will still be able to recall, well into our dotage, where we were when we heard, or saw, that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center.

In New Zealand, I'd just returned from a university party, and unable to sleep, in the wee small hours of the morning, I turned on my computer to look up some sports news etc. Bizarrely, the CNNSI sports website had a picture of smoke billowing from a skyscraper. Confused, I momentarily thought I'd put in the wrong website address. When I tried again, the same thing. Ditto the ESPN website. It dawned on me that something much bigger than sports had just happened. I raced to the lounge and turned on the TV - and then found myself tranfixed, stuck to the couch, unable to peel myself away over the next few hours. Needless to say, any effects of the earlier party wore off very quickly. I was shocked, and trying to process just what this all meant. I saw the towers come down, live, while many other Kiwis slept. I vaguely knew of a handful of people in New York, friends of friends, and worried for their safety. I was so far away, it wasn't even my country, and it just seemed so unreal, but I still felt so wound up about it, as the story unfolded as reports and more information flooded in over the hours and days ahead.

It really is something I will never forget, and nor should I. 2,977 innocent people lost their lives that day, and many hundreds of thousands more have been directly affected by the events of that day, and the consequences since.

Here in New Zealand we are of course currently hosting one of the biggest sporting events in the world, the Rugby World Cup (reportedly the third biggest sporting event, globally, after the Olympics and FIFA World Cup). It was September 11 yesterday, and the US rugby team was playing their first game. A commemorative church service was held before the game, which the US team attended, and there were also other services and memorials - such as from New Zealand fire fighters, remembering their US colleagues who fell a decade ago, trying to save the lives of others - around the country.

The New York Daily News has spoken to a number of authors, including leading crime writer Michael Connelly, about their feelings, and memories, of 9/11. Connelly had meant to be heading to Paris on 10 Sept, but was grounded in Cincinnati, so woke to the news on American soil. You can read his thoughts, and those of the other authors, in the article here.

Do you remember where you were, ten years ago?

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

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

Of course down this way the big crime fiction news of the week is that a new date has at last been set for the presentation of the first-ever Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, after the Canterbury earthquake (which happened a few days before the Christchurch Writers' Festival was due to start) put the kibosh on the original plans. The Award will now be presented on Tuesday 30 November, following an author panel discussion. I heartily recommend anyone in the Canterbury region or nearby to head along for what should be a great night. You can read more about the evening here. Contact Ruth Todd on 03 384 4721 or ruth.todd@xtra.co.nz for tickets ($10, includes a glass of wine and nibbles).

Onto the round-up.

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

• In The Independent, crime fiction afficianado Barry Forshaw takes a look at the latest Swedish thriller to be getting wider international attention, THREE SECONDS by Roslund and Hellström, an "ill-assorted" writing partnership that includes both sides of the real crime world.
• The Sydney Morning Herald examines a new work of scholarship that might be of interest to crime fiction fans - Women Writers and Detectives in 19th-Century Crime Fiction by Lucy Sussex, which reportedly upends some of the conventional thinking about the development of the genre over the past two hundred years.
• In a review of Elena Forbes's EVIL IN RETURN for the London Free Press, reviewer Joan Barfoot makes the interesting claim that the standard of crime fiction in Britain is "unusually high", and that British crime novels that are merely above average would be considered "stellar" in some other countries.
• While reviewing some recent mysteries and thrillers in the New York Times, Marilyn Stasio notes that the troubles caused by the economic recession are starting to come through in crime fiction - a comment that reiterates Crime Watch's long-held belief that crime fiction has, at times, become the modern social or sociological novel, dealing with contemporary realities, issues, and places (through the prism of a page-turning story) as well, if not better, than many other types of writing.
• Andrew Shaw of the Melbourne Community Voice interviews Australian crime writer Lindy Cameron (the Melbourne-set Kit O'Malley series), who has also recently started her own publishing company, Clan Destine Press, to better promote genre writing in Australia.
• The Examiner.com previews Sarah Paretsky's appearance on TV show Hardcover Mysteries on this coming Monday night (the series features some of America's most popular writers of thrillers and whodunits, exploring the crossover from fact to fiction), where Paretsky will talk about homicide of a faculty wife that made headlines near her childhood hometown of Lawrence, Kansas.
• Sue Freeman Culverhouse of Clarksville Online takes a look at the writing of Dame Ngaio Marsh for the "Writers You Should Know" series.

What do you think of this week's round-up? Have you heard of/read Roslund and Hellstrom? Is the standard of British crime writing notably superior to that from other countries? What are your thoughts on the historic roots of crime/detective fiction? Does (some) crime fiction do a good job at examining contemporary issues?