Tuesday, May 31, 2011
T is for TARGET FOR MALICE by Barbara Cooper
For my second go around at the Crime Fiction Alphabet (read my 2010 posts here), I've set myself the challenging task of focusing not only just on New Zealand-themed posts, but just on Kiwi crime fiction books (ie I won't do any author profiles etc this time around) - although sometimes it may be the author's name that is relevant to the letter of the week.This week I’m highlighting another lesser-known New Zealand mystery novel that was published almost fifty years ago: TARGET FOR MALICE by Barbara Cooper. Well out-of-print now and quite hard to find, TARGET FOR MALICE was published in the UK in 1964 by Robert Hale and in New Zealand by Whitcombe & Tombs.
In a scholarly publication of the time, The New Zealand Novel 1860-1965, it was noted that Cooper was one of a group of newcomers to the local crime fiction genre, which was “flourishing in recent years”, with the likes of Elizabeth Messenger, the team of Mary Scott and Joyce West, the “remarkable success” of Simon Jay’s DEATH OF A SKIN DIVER (1964), and the emergence of Ralph Stevenson, Noeline Tarrant, Valerie Grayland, Neva Clarke, and Barbara Cooper.
In TARGET FOR MALICE, Anna Carr has given a party to welcome home her niece, Hester Court, to New Zealand. It was also to introduce some new residents in the little isolated community, known as the Ridge, to older inhabitants. But, as Inspector Gibbon said later, the Ridge was like a giant fungus, weird and unnatural, splaying out from the trunk of the hill behind it and something of its own sinister oddness seemed to have affected the inhabitants.
Hester was dismayed by the uneasy atmosphere at the party; by the barely veiled hostility to Louisa and Fergus, two of the newcomers. Two days later, the violence erupted and the hidden malice came into the open and showed who was its target.
In The New Zealand Novel 1860-1965, it was noted that Cooper “makes an original first thriller out of tensions below the suburban surface of a group of isolated houses. The young married folk involved are well managed, as are the criminal details, the poisoned cat, the social evening, the sleeping pills, the conventional chit-chat, and—not to give the plot away—the milk bottle.”
I managed to source a copy of TARGET FOR MALICE from an online second-hand dealer - it’s hard to find, but there will still be copies floating around out there, and some libraries may still have it in stock too. I’m looking forward to reading it, and getting a snapshot of New Zealand life in the mid 1960s
Have you read TARGET FOR MALICE, perhaps ‘back in the day’? Do you like reading older crime novels that are out of print, to see how ‘things have changed’ or to enjoy a different style? And what is it about the smell of old hardcover books? Comments welcome.
In a scholarly publication of the time, The New Zealand Novel 1860-1965, it was noted that Cooper was one of a group of newcomers to the local crime fiction genre, which was “flourishing in recent years”, with the likes of Elizabeth Messenger, the team of Mary Scott and Joyce West, the “remarkable success” of Simon Jay’s DEATH OF A SKIN DIVER (1964), and the emergence of Ralph Stevenson, Noeline Tarrant, Valerie Grayland, Neva Clarke, and Barbara Cooper.
In TARGET FOR MALICE, Anna Carr has given a party to welcome home her niece, Hester Court, to New Zealand. It was also to introduce some new residents in the little isolated community, known as the Ridge, to older inhabitants. But, as Inspector Gibbon said later, the Ridge was like a giant fungus, weird and unnatural, splaying out from the trunk of the hill behind it and something of its own sinister oddness seemed to have affected the inhabitants.
Hester was dismayed by the uneasy atmosphere at the party; by the barely veiled hostility to Louisa and Fergus, two of the newcomers. Two days later, the violence erupted and the hidden malice came into the open and showed who was its target.
In The New Zealand Novel 1860-1965, it was noted that Cooper “makes an original first thriller out of tensions below the suburban surface of a group of isolated houses. The young married folk involved are well managed, as are the criminal details, the poisoned cat, the social evening, the sleeping pills, the conventional chit-chat, and—not to give the plot away—the milk bottle.”I managed to source a copy of TARGET FOR MALICE from an online second-hand dealer - it’s hard to find, but there will still be copies floating around out there, and some libraries may still have it in stock too. I’m looking forward to reading it, and getting a snapshot of New Zealand life in the mid 1960s
Have you read TARGET FOR MALICE, perhaps ‘back in the day’? Do you like reading older crime novels that are out of print, to see how ‘things have changed’ or to enjoy a different style? And what is it about the smell of old hardcover books? Comments welcome.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Ngaio Marsh Award 2011 - watch this space
Just a quick heads-up about the 2011 edition of the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime novel, which was launched in Christchurch last year. Yes, the Award will be presented again in 2011 (for books published during 2010). The judging panel has been confirmed in the past few days, and will be announced soon. The seven judges, from New Zealand and overseas, will soon consider a shortlist of New Zealand crime novels published last year, and a group of finalists will be announced in the lead-up to an event to be held in Christchurch in late August.At this stage it is likely that the event will have two high-profile visiting international crime writers in attendance also, which will be fantastic. I will release more details as they are confirmed.
There were some very, very good crime novels released by New Zealand and New Zealand-based authors last year, so I look forward to seeing some of them discussed, highlighted and honoured over the course of the coming months.
Did you read any of the New Zealand crime novels published in 2010? If so, who do you think should win the second instalment of the Ngaio Marsh Award? Comments welcome.
Licensed to thrill: my feature interview with Jeffery Deaver for the Sunday Star-Times
Licensed to thrill
Bestselling US thriller writer Jeffery Deaver talks to Craig Sisterson about the fun he had penning a new adventure for 007, the world’s favourite British spy
JAMES BOND was created by Ian Fleming for the 1950s-1960s Cold War era during which Fleming, who worked in British Naval Intelligence himself during the Second World War, wrote his 14 spy novels. But ‘007’ is also very much a secret agent for modern times, says Jeffery Deaver, the man behind the highly-anticipated new Bond novel, Carte Blanche.
“One reason I was excited to take this project on is that I don’t see people reading the original books much anymore, and I thought Bond is a character who really speaks to this era of conflict,” says Deaver.
His own twisting psychological thrillers, such as his series featuring quadriplegic sleuth Lincoln Rhyme (played by Denzel Washington in the Hollywood adaptation of The Bone Collector) have scooped awards, made bestseller lists, and been translated into 25 languages in 150 countries.
“Bond is a real hero, there’s nothing ambiguous about Bond,” adds Deaver. “In much of spy fiction there’s an underlying theme of duplicity and moles and ‘who really is the good guy?’ Bond never had any doubt about that. The 00 classification meant he was an assassin, but he isn’t your coldblooded hitman. He was for Queen and country, he was going to make sure the innocent did not suffer at the hands of the villains, and I think that’s the kind of character we need nowadays.”
Deaver is the fifth author to write for the Bond series since Fleming’s death in 1964, and Carte Blanche will be the 23rd ‘continuation’ novel authorised by Fleming’s estate, but only the second since 2002 (after Sebastian Faulks’ period piece Devil May Care in 2008). A long-time Bond fan, Deaver got a text asking ‘Do you want to write the new James Bond book?’ 18 months ago when he was driving from Washington, DC to his North Carolina home.
He “screeched to the side of the road”, spent less than 10 minutes debating with his agent, then said “okay, that’s it, I’m on board”. The excitement of the moment is still clear in his voice now. “There were some practical things we had to talk about. I did not want to do a period piece. I had read Sebastian Faulks’ book and enjoyed it very much, but I felt that to reintroduce and reenergise Bond in the written form we needed the book set in the present day, and he needed to be a young, 30ish, secret service agent. And coincidentally the Ian Fleming estate felt exactly the same way.”
The first thing Deaver did for the research was go back and re-read the original tales. “They hold up extremely well because Fleming was a writer of great observational talent. His books were as much a character study as they were adventure novels. I found his perceptions and insights into geopolitics, and indeed into the psychology of good and evil, were really spot on.”
Deaver admits writing Carte Blanche has been challenging, if extremely fun (he’s particularly loved researching “all the tradecraft, spy stuff”), as he’s had to consider the expectations of not only his own readers, but millions of Bond fans. “I was very concerned that I create an updated Bond that fans of Ian Fleming’s creation would like. I really got into his mindset. I wanted to create a gritty, dark, and yet very intelligent spy ... I tried to write the character through the lens of Ian Fleming.” Deaver even had a picture of dark-featured American musician Hoagy Carmichael, who Fleming said was the man Bond most resembled, beside him when he wrote.
In Carte Blanche, Bond, a veteran of the Afghanistan conflict, is part of the secretive ODG which protects Britain “by any means necessary”. A snippet of electronic info about an upcoming attack that could kill thousands has Bond and his colleagues scrambling to discover who, what, and where in order to prevent calamity. Deaver packs Carte Blanche with intrigue and twists, and takes readers on a whirlwind journey from Serbia to Dubai to Cape Town.
In a way, writing Carte Blanche has brought Deaver full circle, back to his beginnings in terms of reading and writing. He loved Fleming’s books as a child growing up in the 1950s and 1960s (his parents restricted TV and movies but encouraged him to read whatever he liked), and the first narrative fiction he wrote as an 11-year-old was a Bond-influenced story about a spy who stole a top-secret aeroplane from the Russians. “I would study his books and kind of mimic them,” Deaver recalls now.
He shared this life-long admiration for Fleming during his acceptance speech when he won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association for his 2004 novel Garden of Beasts, a thriller featuring an American hitman on a secret mission in 1936 Berlin. Corinne Turner, Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications, was in the audience, and began to consider “that James Bond could have an interesting adventure in Jeffery Deaver’s hands”.
Turns out Turner was dead right.
Carte Blanche (H&S Fiction, $39.99]) will be released on 26 May 2011.
Jeffery Deaver will be touring New Zealand in late July. Check www.hachette.co.nz for more details.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This feature article was first published in the 22 May 2011 issue of the Sunday Star-Times, and is reprinted here online with kind permission.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you read CARTE BLANCHE? Will you? Does your 007 knowledge stretch back to Fleming's original Bond novels, or are you familiar with the spy largely thanks to the Bond films? What do you think of my feature article? Comments welcome.
Bestselling US thriller writer Jeffery Deaver talks to Craig Sisterson about the fun he had penning a new adventure for 007, the world’s favourite British spy
JAMES BOND was created by Ian Fleming for the 1950s-1960s Cold War era during which Fleming, who worked in British Naval Intelligence himself during the Second World War, wrote his 14 spy novels. But ‘007’ is also very much a secret agent for modern times, says Jeffery Deaver, the man behind the highly-anticipated new Bond novel, Carte Blanche.“One reason I was excited to take this project on is that I don’t see people reading the original books much anymore, and I thought Bond is a character who really speaks to this era of conflict,” says Deaver.
His own twisting psychological thrillers, such as his series featuring quadriplegic sleuth Lincoln Rhyme (played by Denzel Washington in the Hollywood adaptation of The Bone Collector) have scooped awards, made bestseller lists, and been translated into 25 languages in 150 countries.
“Bond is a real hero, there’s nothing ambiguous about Bond,” adds Deaver. “In much of spy fiction there’s an underlying theme of duplicity and moles and ‘who really is the good guy?’ Bond never had any doubt about that. The 00 classification meant he was an assassin, but he isn’t your coldblooded hitman. He was for Queen and country, he was going to make sure the innocent did not suffer at the hands of the villains, and I think that’s the kind of character we need nowadays.”
Deaver is the fifth author to write for the Bond series since Fleming’s death in 1964, and Carte Blanche will be the 23rd ‘continuation’ novel authorised by Fleming’s estate, but only the second since 2002 (after Sebastian Faulks’ period piece Devil May Care in 2008). A long-time Bond fan, Deaver got a text asking ‘Do you want to write the new James Bond book?’ 18 months ago when he was driving from Washington, DC to his North Carolina home.
He “screeched to the side of the road”, spent less than 10 minutes debating with his agent, then said “okay, that’s it, I’m on board”. The excitement of the moment is still clear in his voice now. “There were some practical things we had to talk about. I did not want to do a period piece. I had read Sebastian Faulks’ book and enjoyed it very much, but I felt that to reintroduce and reenergise Bond in the written form we needed the book set in the present day, and he needed to be a young, 30ish, secret service agent. And coincidentally the Ian Fleming estate felt exactly the same way.”
The first thing Deaver did for the research was go back and re-read the original tales. “They hold up extremely well because Fleming was a writer of great observational talent. His books were as much a character study as they were adventure novels. I found his perceptions and insights into geopolitics, and indeed into the psychology of good and evil, were really spot on.”
Deaver admits writing Carte Blanche has been challenging, if extremely fun (he’s particularly loved researching “all the tradecraft, spy stuff”), as he’s had to consider the expectations of not only his own readers, but millions of Bond fans. “I was very concerned that I create an updated Bond that fans of Ian Fleming’s creation would like. I really got into his mindset. I wanted to create a gritty, dark, and yet very intelligent spy ... I tried to write the character through the lens of Ian Fleming.” Deaver even had a picture of dark-featured American musician Hoagy Carmichael, who Fleming said was the man Bond most resembled, beside him when he wrote.
In Carte Blanche, Bond, a veteran of the Afghanistan conflict, is part of the secretive ODG which protects Britain “by any means necessary”. A snippet of electronic info about an upcoming attack that could kill thousands has Bond and his colleagues scrambling to discover who, what, and where in order to prevent calamity. Deaver packs Carte Blanche with intrigue and twists, and takes readers on a whirlwind journey from Serbia to Dubai to Cape Town.
In a way, writing Carte Blanche has brought Deaver full circle, back to his beginnings in terms of reading and writing. He loved Fleming’s books as a child growing up in the 1950s and 1960s (his parents restricted TV and movies but encouraged him to read whatever he liked), and the first narrative fiction he wrote as an 11-year-old was a Bond-influenced story about a spy who stole a top-secret aeroplane from the Russians. “I would study his books and kind of mimic them,” Deaver recalls now.
He shared this life-long admiration for Fleming during his acceptance speech when he won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association for his 2004 novel Garden of Beasts, a thriller featuring an American hitman on a secret mission in 1936 Berlin. Corinne Turner, Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications, was in the audience, and began to consider “that James Bond could have an interesting adventure in Jeffery Deaver’s hands”.
Turns out Turner was dead right.
Carte Blanche (H&S Fiction, $39.99]) will be released on 26 May 2011.
Jeffery Deaver will be touring New Zealand in late July. Check www.hachette.co.nz for more details.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This feature article was first published in the 22 May 2011 issue of the Sunday Star-Times, and is reprinted here online with kind permission.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you read CARTE BLANCHE? Will you? Does your 007 knowledge stretch back to Fleming's original Bond novels, or are you familiar with the spy largely thanks to the Bond films? What do you think of my feature article? Comments welcome.
Barbra for Memorial Day: 'America the Beautiful'*
have a good memorial day and for god's sake remember what it is for and what it means.
*this is for you adam. you changed my mind about the military because of your service.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
'Criminal Minds' Mends It's Criminal Behavior
this past season 'criminal minds dropped aj cook and paget brewster from the long running series. a big mistake. with aj gone at the beginning of last season the series lost it's center and heart. dropping ms. paget halfway through the series the series lost it's feminine guts. ms. cook showed up in the series finale pathing her way to return next season. ms. brewster was just resigned this weekend. i hope both of them demanded a lot of cash. although the series remained a hit this past season the loss of these two actresses diminished both content and drama. for once a network listened to viewer protest.
i can now look forward to this series as 'must see tv'
the boring aj want to be has been let go. thank god.
the boring aj want to be has been let go. thank god.
Deathly Hallows Character Posters
Deathly Hallows Character Poster Harry
Deathly Hallows Character Poster Hermione
Deathly Hallows Character Poster Ron
Deathly Hallows Character Posters
Deathly Hallows Character Poster Harry
Deathly Hallows Character Poster Hermione
Deathly Hallows Character Poster Ron
New Movie: Deathly Hallows Part 2
Harry in Deathly Hallows
Harry in Deathly Hallows
Ginny in Deathly Hallows
Harry in Deathly Hallows
Ron in Deathly Hallows
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a 2010/2011 two-part fantasy film directed by David Yates, written by Steve Kloves and based on the novel by J. K. Rowling. The film is produced by Rowling along with David Heyman and David Barron. The two parts form the seventh and final instalment in the Harry Potter film series.
Here are pictures of the second part! Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 comes out in summer 2011. Part 2 continues Harry, Ron, and Hermione's quest to find and destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes.
Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Bonnie Wright, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Alan Rickman.
New Movie: Deathly Hallows Part 2
Harry in Deathly Hallows
Harry in Deathly Hallows
Ginny in Deathly Hallows
Harry in Deathly Hallows
Ron in Deathly Hallows
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a 2010/2011 two-part fantasy film directed by David Yates, written by Steve Kloves and based on the novel by J. K. Rowling. The film is produced by Rowling along with David Heyman and David Barron. The two parts form the seventh and final instalment in the Harry Potter film series.
Here are pictures of the second part! Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 comes out in summer 2011. Part 2 continues Harry, Ron, and Hermione's quest to find and destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes.
Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Bonnie Wright, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Alan Rickman.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
'Revenge' with Emily Van Camp
the show i am most looking forward to this fall. emily van camp is the lead. enough said.
connor paolo under utilized on 'gossip girl' costars along with madeliene stowe and henry czerny
Alice in Wonderland Character Posters
Anne Hathaway as the White Gueen
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
Mia Wasikowska as Alice
Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen
Johnny Depp as Mad Hatter
Alice in Wonderland Character Posters
Anne Hathaway as the White Gueen
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
Mia Wasikowska as Alice
Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen
Johnny Depp as Mad Hatter
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Poster
Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated romantic fantasy musical film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 30th animated film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series.
Here is the Beauty and the Beast Original Release Trailer in 1991. Here are also some stills from the DVD version of the movie.
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Poster
Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated romantic fantasy musical film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 30th animated film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series.
Here is the Beauty and the Beast Original Release Trailer in 1991. Here are also some stills from the DVD version of the movie.
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
Beauty and the Beast Movie
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