Showing posts with label Val McDermid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Val McDermid. Show all posts

Saturday, January 21, 2023

Bullet Points: It’s International Sweatpants Day!

Of course, every day is Sweatpants Day at Rap Sheet headquarters, thanks to COVID-19 and the consequent decline that pandemic caused in dress codes hereabouts. However, the cheeky political blog Wonkette informs me that International Sweatpants Day is actually a thing, celebrated every January 21 to draw attention to the soft bottoms that have now been part of our wardrobe since the 1920s.

Knowing that just makes you want to snuggle in and read news tidbits from the world of crime fiction, right? We’ve got you covered.

• Shock! Among the longlisted nominees for this year’s PEN America Literary Awards is a crime thriller: Shutter, by Native American writer Ramona Emerson, released last August by Soho Crime. Shutter is vying for both the PEN Open Book Award and the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. PEN finalists will be announced in February, with the prizes to be give out on March 2.

• In Reference to Murder brings word that independent British publisher Joffe Books has “announced the shortlist for the Joffe Books Prize for Crime Writers of Colour 2022. This year’s pool of entries covered the gamut of gritty police procedurals to wrenching domestic suspense, evocative historical mysteries to page-turning cosies. Out of the longlist of twenty, five stood out, forming the official shortlist: The Labelled Bones by F.Q. Yeoh; Everyone Is Going to Know by Kingsley Pearson; The Smiling Mandarin by Mai Le Dinh; Red Obsession by Rose Lorimer; and Savage Territory by Sam Genever.” A winner is to be declared sometime this month.

From that same source come the recipients of this year’s Deutscher Krimi Preis, which Wikipedia says is “the oldest and most prestigious German literary prize for crime fiction.”

• Finally, the alternative history thriller Widowland, by C.J. Carey (aka Jane Thynne, the widow of Philip Kerr), is one of six finalists for the 2023 Philip K. Dick Award. That commendation is presented annually for “distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States during the previous calendar year.” New York Journal of Books describes Widowland as “The Handmaid’s Tale meets Fatherland,” a dystopian page-turner that “sound[s] alarm bells about how totalitarian regimes gradually come to power, oppressing and terrifying people forced to live in countries ruled by deranged dictators.” I enjoyed Carey/Thynne’s book immensely, and went on to order the UK hardcover edition of its follow-up, 2022’s Queen High (which is set for paperback publication in the States this coming July as Queen Wallis). Whether it can capture the Dick Award, though, is uncertain. It’s up against some stiff competition, including Rich Larson’s Ymir and Rachel Swirsky’s January Fifteenth. The winning title is to be revealed on April 7.

Mike Ripley’s “Getting Away with Murder” column for January includes his remarks on Jimmy Sangster’s vintage spy novels, James Kestrel’s Five Decembers (“a wonderfully epic thriller spanning the years of WWII in the Pacific”), the Penguin Modern Classics reissuing of three Eric Ambler thrillers, and new or forthcoming works by David Brierley, C.J. Tudor, Chris Hammer, Natalie Marlow, and others.

• Why had I never heard of this 1984 film version of A Flash of Green, John D. MacDonald’s 1962 standalone novel of the same name? The story follows a small-town Florida newspaper reporter (played by Ed Harris), who finds himself conflicted over an ecological group’s efforts to stop a local real-estate development and the corrupt county commissioner supporting it. Radiator Heaven says, “A Flash of Green might be the most low-key crusading journalist film ever made.”

• Like so many other people, I have spent way too many hours recently avoiding inclement conditions outside, instead hunkering down in front of my television. This has given me the opportunity to catch up with several small-screen projects about which I had heard favorable things. Three Pines, for instance, a flawed but engaging Amazon Prime mini-series based on Louise Perry’s Inspector Armand Gamache yarns. And The Pale Blue Eye, Netflix’s grim but captivating interpretation of Louise Bayard’s 2006 historical mystery, starring Christian Bale as a retired New York City police constable called out to solve murders at the West Point Military Academy, and Henry Melling as Edgar Allan Poe, the eccentric cadet recruited to help him. Also included in my viewing: Karen Pirie, an excellent three-part BritBox crime drama based on Val McDermid’s 2003 novel, The Distant Echo, and starring Lauren Lyle as a young police sergeant in St. Andrews, Scotland, charged with re-examining the cold case murder of a barmaid. (Enjoy a preview here.) With that watched, I have now moved on to Sherwood, a tense and much-acclaimed, six-part thriller about bow-and-arrow killings in a mining village in Nottinghamshire, England. Plenty of familiar faces appear in this show, notably those of David Morrisey (Thorne, The Walking Dead), Lesley Manville (Magpie Murders), Kevin Doyle and Joanne Froggatt (both from Downton Abbey), Andrea Lowe (formerly of DCI Banks), and Clare Holman (Inspector Lewis).

• Still to come: Poker Face, a mystery comedy-drama starring Natasha Lyonne, created by Knives Out director Rian Johnson and slated to debut this coming January 26 on the TV streaming service Peacock. I haven’t seen anything more of this program than its trailer, but others have compared Poker Face with Peter Falk’s Columbo, The Columbophile blog going so far as to say, “it could be the closest thing we’ll ever get to a reboot” of that NBC Mystery Movie series.

Marlowe, the film starring Liam Neeson as Raymond Chandler’s iconic Los Angeles private eye, Philip Marlowe, won’t premiere until February 15, but already it’s being criticized as overlit and shallow, with too much emphasis on action set pieces and too old a star (Neeson turned 70 last year). I’ll withhold judgment until I see it for myself. The film was written by William Monahan, based on Benjamin Black’s 2014 Chandler pastiche, The Black-Eyed Blonde. Here’s part of my long-ago CrimeReads synopsis of that story:
Irishman John Banville, under his mystery-writing Black pseudonym, delivers us back to sun-flogged L.A. in the early 1950s, where we witness Marlowe accepting a case from curvaceous young perfume heiress Clare Cavendish. She says her paramour, Nico Peterson, a Hollywood talent agent short on talent and long on caddish impulses, vanished two months ago. She wants him back. Marlowe is skeptical, and with good reason: He learns Nico didn’t simply drop out of sight—he was the victim of a hit-and-run accident outside Pacific Palisades’s ritzy Cahuilla Club. So why, Clare counters, did she recently spot him in San Francisco? And whose corpse had been misidentified as Nico’s? Marlowe spars with cops, crooks, and club managers alike, but seems to be getting nowhere. It looks as if he’ll finally catch a break when he tracks down Nico’s sister; but she’s promptly kidnapped, and subsequently brutalized. Banville captures the bleakness, sardonic dialogue, periodic pummelings, and bent toward clever observations over tight plotting that marked Chandler’s storytelling. Although his witticisms pale beside the master’s (“The house wasn’t all that big, if you consider Buckingham Palace a modest little abode”), Banville does give us Marlowe in all his weary, determinedly hopeful, gumshoe-Galahad glory.
The film’s time period has been moved back to 1939, perhaps to recapture the allure of Chandler’s original tales. In addition to Neeson, Marlowe (not to be confused with James Garner’s 1969 picture of that same title) stars Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Colm Meaney. A trailer is embedded below.



• To help celebrate this year’s “70th anniversary of ... internationally famous MI6 spy James Bond 007,” comic-book publisher Dynamite Entertainment will release a new series, 007: For King and Country, by writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson and artist Giorgio Spalletta.

• I’m looking forward to a couple of Library of America releases, Five Classic Thrillers 1961–1964 and Four Classic Thrillers 1964–1969, both due out in hardcover in September. Fredric Brown, Margaret Millar, Chester Himes, and Dan J. Marlowe are among the authors whose work will be showcased in these volumes.

• Have you ever wanted to own the Lotus Elan Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) drove in the 1960s TV spy series The Avengers? Well, now’s your chance! British auto specialist Silverstone Auctions will offer that Opalescent Blue sports car in a live auction on February 25. Just be sure you have £80,000 to £120,000 on hand to begin bidding.

• And conspiracy theories have become so ubiquitous and nutty in this modern era, it’s hard anymore to be amazed at their ridiculousness. But the contention, spread by flat-earthers, that the continent of Australia is nothing but a hoax, “a cover-up for one of the greatest mass murders in history”? Where does one even start debunking that notion? I’ve been to Australia; I spent most of a month there and drove halfway across its northern reaches. To say that the continent doesn’t exist is straight out of crazyville!

Thursday, August 04, 2022

Bullet Points: Dog Days Edition

It feels like forever ago that I last compiled a “Bullet Points” post of crime-fiction news items. In fact, the last time was in early June. My preference is to write these every couple of weeks, but editorial responsibilities unrelated to The Rap Sheet stood in my way for almost two months. With any luck, I can now return to my usual timetable.

• Count me among those delighted by news of a Death in Paradise spin-off series starring Kris Marshall, who played Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman for roughly three and a half seasons (after replacing Ben Miller as DI Richard Poole). As The Killing Times reports, this new BBC-TV show—to be titled Beyond Paradise—“will tell the story of what happened to Goodman … after he returned to the UK. Seeking a quieter life away from the stress of the city, Humphrey has taken a job as Detective Inspector in fiancée Martha’s hometown. However, they soon find that country life is anything but peaceful and Humphrey can’t help but be distracted by the town’s surprisingly high crime rate with a new, and very different, case challenging him each week.” Mystery Fanfare adds that Beyond Paradise will begin airing on BBC and, in the States, on BritBox in 2023, and that “many of the characters from Death in Paradise will make cameo appearances.” I hope producers can convince the lovely Joséphine Jobert to reprise her role as Detective Sergeant Florence Cassell. She and Marshall made a splendid team on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie.

• While we’re on the subject of Death in Paradise, the TV site WhatToWatch says the 12th season of that popular series is “very likely to start in January 2023,” again with Ralf Little playing DI Neville Parker. In advance of that, a second Christmas special is due!

• When last we checked on ITV-TV’s McDonald & Dodds, in mid-June, word was that its third season would debut in Britain on June 19. However, there was no clue then as to a U.S. showing. Now, finally, Mystery Fanfare brings news that this lighthearted whodunit, starring Tala Gouveia and Jason Watkins as mismatched police partners in modern Bath, England, will have its BritBox premiere here in the States on Tuesday, August 16. Three 90-minute episodes are due, with the streaming service dropping one per week.

• Still reeling from the sad news that star Douglas Henshall has quit Shetland, we learn that his last, six-episode season with the BBC-TV series will begin airing in the UK on Wednesday, August 10.

• A confession: I haven’t yet watched the opening season of Slow Horses, the AppleTV+ spy series based on Mick Herron’s Slough House novels and starring Gary Olman, Jack Lowden, and Kristin Scott Thomas. But I am hoping to get around to it soon. I’d like to least take in those half-dozen episodes before the program’s sophomore season—based on Herron’s Dead Lions (2013)—premieres, probably in November. (You can already enjoy the trailer by clicking here.) But it’s becoming difficult to keep up: The Killing Times reports that production of Seasons 3 and 4—being shot back-to-back—is already underway, though there are no particulars regarding which other Slough House novels are being adapted for the small screen.

• Despite the numerous accolades Herron has received for his novels about a band of misfit former MI5 agents (including his recently capturing the 2022 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award for Slough House), the author is apparently stepping away from those characters in order to next pen another standalone yarn. Soho Press, though, intends to keep fans happy by releasing, in November, a paperback collection of Slough House novellas. The List, The Drop, The Last Dead Letter, and The Catch—all of which have previously been published—are to be featured, together with a new, Christmas-themed tale that gives the book its title, Standing by the Wall.

• The folks behind PBS-TV’s Masterpiece have posted a trailer (see below) for Magpie Murders, the six-part mini-series scripted by Anthony Horowitz and based on his 2017 whodunit of the same name. This show stars Lesley Manville and Tim McMullan, and is scheduled to commence its Masterpiece run on Sunday, October 16.



• Speaking of Masterpiece, it has now not only confirmed that the historical mystery drama Miss Scarlet and the Duke will kick off its six-episode Season 2 run on Sunday, October 16 (see the video trailer here), but that Season 3 of that show will follow closely on its heels, beginning on Sunday, January 8, 2023. This British-Irish production is set in 1880s London, and stars Kate Phillips as Eliza Scarlet, a spirited young female private investigator who often finds herself in professional (and personal) rivalry with Detective Inspector William Wellington, aka “The Duke,” played by Stuart Martin.

• This show sneaked right up on me. The U.S. streaming service Acorn TV will introduce a new Australian series on Monday, August 8. Titled Darby and Joan, it’s a road-trip dramedy starring Breaker Morant’s Bryan Brown as retired Australian homicide detective Jack Darby, and Greta Saachi (Presumed Innocent) playing widowed English nurse Joan Kirkhope. As Mystery Tribune says, “They couldn’t be more different: the low key, ruggedly charming Aussie and the tightly-wound, yet warm, witty and determined Englishwoman, but when they collide in the Australian outback, and become drawn into a series of unexpected mysteries, this unlikely investigative duo soon realize the most intriguing puzzle they face is each other.” Darby and Joan is slated to continue through August 29.

• Last but hardly least important on the boob-tube beat, Crime Fiction Lover lets it be known that “Val McDermid’s cold case police detective Karen Pirie is coming to the small screen in September 2022 in a new three-part ITV crime drama. Adapted from the first novel in the six-book series, The Distant Echo, the programme will star Lauren Lyle of Outlander fame as the lead detective.” McDermid herself is one of this show’s co-producers. You’ll find a short trailer at the link.

• Five authors are shortlisted for the 2022 Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction, a competition “open to all writers who are from, or whose work celebrates the North East of England, and who have not previously had their submission published in any form.” They are:

— Clare Sewell, Can't Hide
— Duncan Robb, Sharp Focus
— Katherine Graham, Salted Earth
— Jacqueline Auld, The Children of Gaia
— Ramona Slusarczyk, The Taste of Iron

Founded in 2019 by British author L.J. Ross, this commendation is sponsored by her publishing imprint, Dark Skies Publishing, along with the Newcastle Noir Crime Writing Festival and Newcastle Libraries. According to the prize’s Web site, “The winning entry”—to be announced on August 31—“will be awarded a prize of £2,500 to support the completion of their work and funding towards a year’s membership of both the Society of Authors (SoA) and the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi),” with other shortlisted candidates receiving lesser sums of prize money. To find previous winners, click here.

• As summer winds down, it’s time to re-check The Rap Sheet’s compilation of crime, mystery, and thriller works set to go on sale—on both sides of the Atlantic—between now and Labor Day. The number of picks has grown greatly since I initially posted that list on June 1.

• Also peruse Crime by the Book’s list of 16 novels that it says are must-reads for these closing days of the sunny season.

• Although the actual date was more than a week ago, I want to wish In Reference to Murder a happy 15th blogiversary! Writer B.V. Lawson does an outstanding job with her site … and somehow manages to keep up a consistent schedule, unlike some bloggers we know.

• Can it really have been 50 years ago? The blaxploitation crime film Super Fly, starring Ron O’Neil and directed by Gordon Parks Jr., was released on August 4, 1972. While many African Americans were displeased with that picture’s glorification of “black males as pimps, dope pushers, gangsters, and super males,” few could complain about Curtis Mayfield’s eminently danceable theme music. As George Kelley opined last week, “Mayfield’s soundtrack … became a landmark in exposing the threat of drugs to the Black Community.”

• My e-mail brings this note from frequent Rap Sheet contributor Fraser Massey, based in London: “While reading The Observer today (my favourite of Britain’s Sunday papers), I came across a fascinating piece where they asked a range of top crime novelists to list both their favourite crime novels of all time, but also their favourite recent thrillers. It makes for an impressive reading list.” That piece is walled off to non-subscribers, but fortunately The Observer’s sister newspaper, The Guardian, carries it here for free.

• Another missive comes from Ohioan Lou Armagno, author of the blog The Postman’s Holiday, who reminds me that this coming August 26 will mark the 138th birthday of Earl Derr Biggers, the creator of Chinese-American detective Charlie Chan. Don’t bother buying Biggers a present; he died way back in 1933. But fan Armagno would appreciate the gift of some assistance in tracking down three “rare treasures” associated with Biggers and the vintage Chan films, among them a waxwork representation of the fictional Honolulu police officer that was used in 1940’s Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum, one of 22 Chan movies starring Sidney Toler. Click here to read more about Armagno’s search for those long-gone artifacts.

• I’m not sure many people noticed, but in July Bouchercon rolled out a new look for the Anthony Award—“a design which will be used each year from now on,” says author Art Taylor, “as opposed to having each new Bouchercon design a specific award for their host year.” The official introduction of the prize came in this video.

• In a blog post devoted chiefly to the movies he takes in while writing fiction, author Max Allan Collins drops news that the book he’s currently working on—his 18th, and possibly last, Nate Heller novel—will be titled Too Many Bullets. It involves Chicago-based private dick Heller in the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, he explains, but will also “cover both Jimmy Hoffa and Sirhan Sirhan.” Expect Bullets to come from Hard Case Crime, which is already readying Collins’ 17th Heller yarn, The Big Bundle, for release in early December. [FOLLOW-UP: In a subsequent blog post, Collins updated this account, explaining that “I have already decided to turn Too Many Bullets into two Heller novels. Too Many Bullets will be the RFK assassination novel. The as-yet-untitled Heller after that will go back and deal with the Jimmy Hoffa story. This came about because—as is always the case—the research has led me places I did not expect to go.”]

Now joining Amazon in selecting the “best books of the years (so far)” is CrimeReads, which last month posted a list of 10 crime, mystery, and thrillers yarns (heavy on the noir) that it declares stood out from all others reaching print in the first six months of 2022. It’s not a bad list, though I was considerably less fond of Brendan Slocumb’s The Violin Conspiracy than others seem to have been. Interestingly, I’ve read more of CrimeReads’ second string of “Notable Selections” than I have its top 10.

• A few other CrimeReads pieces I have enjoyed lately: Lisa Levy’s interview with “the people behind some of today’s best small publishers specializing in crime fiction,” among them Hard Case Crime’s Charles Ardai, Paul Oliver of Syndicate Books, and Dreamland Books’ Sara Gran; Keith Roysdon’s look back at producer Quinn Martin’s remarkable string of popular TV crime dramas; this piece about New York City’s notorious heat wave of 1896, which provides the setting for Hot Time (Arcade Crimewise), W.H. Flint’s terrific debut historical mystery; Curtis Evans’ outstanding but sad story about Milton M. Propper, a once-applauded American writer of police procedurals (The Strange Disappearance of Mary Young, The Ticker-Tape Murder, etc.), who ended up destitute and suicidal in Philadelphia; a listicle of choice locked-room mysteries by Tom Mead, UK-based author of the new locked-room whodunit Death and the Conjuror (Mysterious Press); and an extract from the new non-fiction book Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz and the Underworld (Morrow), recalling how, “in the early days of jazz, the music and the mob were inextricable” down in New Orleans.

• One final CrimeReads-related subject: Dwyer Murphy, my editor at that excellent Web site, has seen his new sort-of-detective-novel, An Honest Living (Viking), greeted warmly by critics. Christopher Bollen offers this plot précis in The New York Times:
Murphy’s lonely, misanthropic [and unnamed] narrator, fitted with the soul of a poet and the ethics of a dice thrower, is hired by a wealthy young woman to investigate the illicit behavior of her estranged husband. The narrator quickly catches the husband in the act; however, it turns out that the woman who hired him was only masquerading as the man’s wife. Following the rules of the noir genre, the would-be detective is ruled by the stars of pride and lust, determined to discover who duped him even as he finds himself inexplicably drawn to an enigmatic femme fatale, the real wife.
Murphy has also been the subject of several interviews, one of the best being his exchange with Speaking of Mysteries host Nancie Clare, which you can listen to here.

• Worth tuning in for, too, is this conversation between National Public Radio’s Elissa Nadworny and Megan Miranda about the latter’s brand-new woodlands thriller, The Last to Vanish (Scribner). Among the things focused on is that North Carolina author’s multiple fears. “‘I have an overactive imagination, so I am afraid of many things,’ [Miranda] says. She’s especially afraid of being alone in the woods at night. Feeling vulnerable and on edge, not knowing what else is out there. ‘The idea that you hear footsteps behind you and you can’t see it and they stop when you stop,’ she says, ‘that to me is this terrifying idea.’ That feeling when the hair on the back of your neck stands up, you feel the tension in your shoulders, and you have a sharp focus on just getting to safety—that’s the feeling Miranda is trying to capture in her books.” The Last to Vanish is Miranda’s sixth adult novel.

• This year’s winners of the Scribe Awards, given out by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, were announced late last month during San Diego Comic-Con. As far as I can discern, there was only one category that included works definable as crime or mystery fiction: Original Novel, General. The vast majority of nominees were either fantasy or science fiction. Taking home the Original Novel, General prize was Pandemic: Patient Zero, by Amanda Bridgeman (Aconyte), which as you might guess is about a fast-spreading killer virus. Also nominated in that category were Murder She Wrote: Debonair in Death, by Terrie Farley Moran (Berkley), and Shootout at Sugar Creek, by Max Allan Collins (Kensington). A complete rundown of the 2022 nominees is located here.

• Darn lucky Londoners! Capital Crime, trumpeted as the city’s “only crime and thriller festival,” is set to return on Thursday, September 29, and continue through Saturday, October 1, bringing more than 164 panelists, plus readers, others authors, and book-publishing execs to Battersea Park on the River Thames’ south bank. Shotsmag Confidential offers a handy round-up of main festival events, which will kick off with a Thursday evening discussion of James Bond and London’s role in that fictional spy’s life, featuring Anthony Horowitz, Charlie Higson and Kim Sherwood, author of Double or Nothing (HarperCollins), the first in a triology of novels focusing on Double O Section agents other than Bond, due out in September. The full program and ticket info can be accessed here.

The Gumshoe Site notes the death, on July 22, of Stuart Woods, author of the Stone Barrington series. “The former advertising man’s first book, Blue Water, Green Skipper (Norton, 1977), was not a novel, but a non-fiction book about the 1976 adventure in the Observer Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race,” recalls blogger Jiro Kimura. “His third book was a novel, entitled Chiefs (Norton, 1981), about three generations of lawmen and the murder of a teenager in a small town in Georgia, which won the 1982 Edgar Award in the first novel category, and was made into the TV miniseries starring Charlton Heston and Danny Glover, among others. He wrote about five books a year singularly or collaboratively with several series characters. New York Dead (Harper & Row, 1991) is the first novel featuring Stone Barrington, an ex-cop and attorney in New York City. His 62nd Barrington book, Black Dog, will be released in August, the 63rd book in the Barrington series, Distant Thunder (both from Putnam) in October, [and] the 64th Barrington book (untitled yet) next year.” Kimura adds that Woods “died in his sleep on July 22 at his home in Litchfield County, Connecticut.” He was 84.

• Woods is not the only loss the crime-fiction community has had to endure during the last month. Gone now, as well, are actor James Caan (The Godfather, Misery, Poodle Springs), actress Rhonda Fleming (Spellbound, Out of the Past, McMillan & Wife), author Susie Steiner (Missing, Presumed), James Bond theme composer Monty Norman, and Douglas Dannay, author and the eldest son of Frederic Dannay, who co-created the Ellery Queen mystery series. Farewell, too, to Leave It to Beaver’s Tony Dow, Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols, and F Troop’s Larry Storch, all three of whom made an impact on me as a boy.

• Having grown up in the glow of 1970s films, I’m very much a fan of Peter Hanson’s blog, Every ’70s Movie, which recently clocked in its six-millionth pageview. Congratulations! (Just for perspective, The Rap Sheet has almost reached its eight-millionth pageview.)

• And still more bodies are turning up in Lake Mead, a mammoth reservoir created in the 1930s by construction of the Hoover Dam, located on the border between Nevada and Arizona. As I wrote back in May, global warming is causing the lake’s water level to recede to historic lows, exposing sunken boats, a World War II landing craft, and other articles previously hidden from sight. Bones among them! CNN reported late last month that a third set of human remains was found in the reservoir. The earlier discovery of a long-ago murder victim raised serious questions as to whether these skeletons might be related to nearby Las Vegas’ mobster past.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Mackintosh Prevails

British freelance journalist and author Clare Mackintosh has won the 2016 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award for her thriller I Let You Go (Sphere). That announcement was made this evening during a special opening-night event at the 14th Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England.

Also shortlisted for that prize were Time of Death, by Mark Billingham (Sphere); Career of Evil, by Robert Galbraith (Sphere); Tell No Tales, by Eva Dolan (Harvill Secker); Disclaimer, by Renée Knight (Black Swan); and Rain Dogs, by Adrian McKinty (Serpent’s Tail).

The original, longlist of 18 contenders is here.

Also receiving recognition tonight was Scottish writer Val McDermid, who—as Crime Fiction Lover reports—“becomes the seventh winner of the Theakstons Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award, following Sara Paretsky, Lynda La Plante, Ruth Rendell, P.D. James, Colin Dexter, and Reginald Hill. Well known for her Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series, as well as her fine standalone novels, her books have sold over 10 million copies in more than 30 languages. Her 30th novel, Out of Bounds, is due out in September.”

READ MORE:Feeling Old and Peculier in Harrogate,” by Craig Sisterson (Crime Watch).

Monday, May 30, 2016

Peculier Choices, Indeed

Less than two months after an 18-book longlist was broadcast, organizers of the annual Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival (to be held this year in Harrogate, England, July 21-24) have announced the shortlist of nominees for the 2016 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award. They are:

Time of Death, by Mark Billingham (Sphere)
Career of Evil, by Robert Galbraith (Sphere)
Tell No Tales, by Eva Dolan (Harvill Secker)
Disclaimer, by Renée Knight (Black Swan)
I Let You Go, by Clare Mackintosh (Sphere)
Rain Dogs, by Adrian McKinty (Serpent’s Tail)

The winner will be declared during a special ceremony at the festival on its opening night, July 21. That same event will feature the presentation, to Scottish author Val McDermid, of the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award. She will join past winners of that commendation: Sara Paretsky, Lynda La Plante, Ruth Rendell, P.D. James, Colin Dexter, and Reginald Hill.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

McDermid’s Diamond Jubilation

Britain’s Crime Writers’ Association has announced that Scottish novelist Val McDermid is “the recipient of this year’s prestigious CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award, which honours outstanding achievement in the field of crime writing.”

As the CWA explains on its Web site, Diamond Dagger nominees “have to meet two essential criteria: first, their careers must be marked by sustained excellence, and second, they must have made a significant contribution to crime fiction published in the English language, whether originally or in translation. The award is made purely on merit without reference to age, gender, or nationality.”

The 54-year-old McDermid has been publishing novels ever since 1987, when Report for Murder, the first of her books featuring freelance journalist Lindsay Gordon, was released. She has since composed works in two others series, one featuring Manchester private eye Kate Brannigan (Dead Beat, Star Struck), the other starring criminal psychologist Tony Hill and Detective Inspector Carol Jordan (The Wire in the Blood, The Fever in the Bone). McDermid has also penned five standalone thrillers, among them A Place of Execution (1999) and last year’s A Darker Domain. The CWA release announcing her Diamond Dagger win notes that McDermid wrote “the popular ITV series Wire in the Blood, starring Robson Green, …[which] ran for six series,” and that a three-part ITV drama was made of A Place of Execution and broadcast in the UK in 2008; that mini-series aired in two parts last November in the States.

In addition to the Diamond Dagger, McDermid has picked up a number of noteworthy commendations, including the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel, the Anthony Award for Best Novel, the Sherlock Award for Best Crime Novel, the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel, the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, and the Stonewall Writer of the Year Award.

Responding to today’s news, McDermid said: “I’m delighted to be admitted to this very select group of crime writers. To be awarded the CWA Carter Diamond Dagger is a distinction every writer dreams of. It’s been an amazing 12 months--inducted into the Hall of Fame [at the ITV3 Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards ceremony], elected to an Honorary Fellowship at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, and now the Diamond Dagger. But my readers can be reassured about one thing--I’m not going to rest on my laurels. There are still plenty of mountains for me to climb.”

McDermid follows last year’s winner, Andrew Taylor (Bleeding Heart Square), in the succession of Diamond Dagger recipients. Prior winners include Sue Grafton, John Harvey, Elmore Leonard, Ian Rankin, and Lawrence Block. The date and circumstances under which McDermid will receive her Dagger are “yet to be confirmed.”

READ MORE:Val McDermid ‘Gobsmacked’ by Diamond Dagger Award,” by Michelle Pauli (The Guardian); “Val McDermid,” by Martin Edwards (Do You Write Under Your Own Name?); “The CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award 2010 Goes to ... Val McDermid: A Report and Photos,” by Ayo Onatade and Mike Stotter (Shots).

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Landing McDermid

Whoever said that things stay the same in the crime-fiction genre, it certainly wasn’t me. As I was packing this morning for a short trip to London, where I’m to join some reviewer colleagues at the HarperCollins Crime Dinner, I received a press release from Little, Brown UK. No doubt this news will be brought up over wine tonight:
International bestseller Val McDermid [A Darker Domain] is moving from HarperCollins to Little, Brown for her UK publishing. Agent Jane Gregory has brokered a two-book deal with Sphere Publisher, David Shelley, for UK and Commonwealth rights, the first of which will be a new Tony Hill novel for publication in 2009.

Val McDermid commented: ‘I’m very excited at the prospect of working with David Shelley and the Little, Brown team. Writers thrive on change and challenge, and I’m looking forward to being invigorated by my new publishing environment.’

Shelley said: ‘I have long been a passionate fan of Val’s. I think she is an incredibly brave and fascinating writer who is writing at the peak of her powers. She has many supporters at Little, Brown, and we are all very much looking forward to working with her and lifting her sales to the next level.’

Gregory said: ‘Val’s writing is going from strength to strength and we feel that Little Brown will make her the huge bestseller she deserves to be.’

Little, Brown CEO and Publisher Ursula Mackenzie said: ‘I could not be more thrilled. Val McDermid is a superb writer and as a company we have huge plans for her.’

McDermid’s most recent novel is the critically acclaimed standalone, A Darker Domain, and her latest book to be adapted for TV is A Place of Execution, which was broadcast last month on ITV1.
Soon after that release arrived, I received McDermid’s e-mail letter to her readers, in which she highlights the reasons for this change in publishers and recounts her recent travels in the United States:
I travelled to Baltimore in October for Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention. I’ve been to 11 of these now, but this was one of the best. A lot of that was due to the venue, which was perfectly suited to both the formal and informal aspects of the convention. By which I mean that the bar was big enough and well-enough staffed. I took part in four panels, all of which were enormous fun. I particularly enjoyed the Pub Quiz on the Saturday evening, when, ably supported by Miles Alfrey and Martyn Waites, our team came a very close second. Obviously, we were robbed.

After Bouchercon, I travelled to St. Paul in Minnesota to take part in the annual gala fundraiser for the Friends of the St. Paul Library. This was an extraordinary event. 750 people, a sit-down three-course dinner, four writers talking for 15 minutes each, and phenomenal book sales. I signed for two hours. I don’t think I’ve ever taken part in so well-organised an event. As if that wasn’t enough there was a fantastic view of the Mississippi from my bedroom window. And they plied me with gorgeous organic apples. I was lucky enough to have some time to spend with my good friends and fellow writers Ellen Hart and R.D. Zimmerman, who reminded me why the Midwest has such a reputation for hospitality.

From St. Paul, I flew to New York to take part in a round-table discussion to celebrate the U.S. publication of Stieg Larsson’s remarkable debut novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Larsson was a campaigning journalist who tragically died after completing his third crime novel. His first novel had been published in Sweden before his death, but he didn’t live to see the phenomenal success it has become throughout Europe and now in the U.S. I love the book, and I was very touched to be invited to help launch it in America.

Finally, I travelled to Provincetown [Massachusetts] to take part in the annual Women’s Week activities. I joined several of my fellow authors from my wife Kelly’s publishing house, Bywater Books, in a series of events comprising Bywater Books Celebration of Reading. Jill Malone, Mari SanGiovani, Marianne K. Martin, Cynn Chadwick and I hosted an afternoon of panel discussions culminating in a caucus-style vote for the Best Lesbian Read of the 20th Century. Online votes over the summer had decided the shortlist, and the final choice was Katherine V. Forrest’s Curious Wine, with Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit as the close runner-up.
Read more about McDermid’s switch of publishers here. And incidentally, she was the late Elaine Flinn’s last guest at her Evil-E blog. Click here to read the piece.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Evidently Worth the Torment

Scottish crime writer Val McDermid has won the 2006 Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award for The Torment of Others (2004), her fourth novel to feature criminal psychologist Dr. Tony Hill and his police colleague, Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan. The announcement was made last night during the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival.

In association with her victory, McDermid received £3,000 and a handmade oak beer cask (fortunately, not a full-size specimen).

The Torment of Others was one of five books shortlisted for this year’s commendation. The other nominees were: Strange Blood, by Lindsay Ashford; One Last Breath, by Stephen Booth; The Coffin Trail, by Martin Edwards; The Various Haunts of Men, by Susan Hill; and Fleshmarket Close, by Ian Rankin. Votes for the winner were cast online by interested readers.