Crime Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers, and Suspense Blog

Sunday, 31 March 2013 10:08

TNT MAY FEATURE SARA GRAN

TNT network seems to know that the best stories can be found in mysteries. Something we readers have known for a long time.

The series of TV movies from authors such as Lisa Gardener, Richard North Patterson, April Smith, and Mary Higgins Clark that aired during 2011 showed that TNT can successfully capture the spirit of the novels.

The latest TNT project may be a drama based on Sara Gran’s new series about private detective Claire DeWitt.

Claire, a tough, sarcastic detective, made her debut in Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, which took place in post-Katrina New Orleans.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Gran will write the script and be the co-executive producer of the pilot, which is still in the development phase and hasn’t yet been approved.

Gran’s second novel about the private detective, Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway, comes out in June and moves the action to San Francisco.


In the series’ second installment, Claire becomes involved with the murder of an old boyfriend and a string of thefts of miniature horses.

Gran's other novels include the very noir Dope.

Sunday, 24 March 2013 05:41

BLAME CANADA FOR SLEEPLESS NIGHTS

What do the Canadians know?

When it comes to involving crime fiction with realistic characters, believable plots and non-stop action, several Canadian authors stand out. But there are at least three Canadian authors who bring all that and add in a United States setting.

Blame these Canadians for keeping readers around the world up late at night.

In these three authors’ novels, the U.S. setting enhances the plot. Each author uses the U.S. scenery as if they were residents of the various states in their novels. This shouldn’t surprise anyone who reads crime fiction. After all, several American novelists write persuasively about England and other countries; as do international authors bring an insightful look at myriad countries in their novels.

Owen Laukkanen: Latest novel is Criminal Enterprise. Laukkanen’s 2012 debut The Professionals was my favorite debut of the year and seems to have set a tone for his series—focusing on the impact of the economic downturn. While that might not seem to be the basis of an exciting thriller, Laukkanen has made it so. His are action-packed stories that also are contemporary cautionary tales. Laukkanen also gives a vivid look at amorality, entitlement and consequences.

In The Professionals, four out-of-work, newly graduated college friends become kidnappers. For two years, they crisscross America, kidnapping businessmen just high enough in their company to be worth millions, but not so high-profile as to draw attention. Until they kidnap the wrong person. Here's a review I wrote of The Professionals.

In Criminal Enterprise, Laukkanen again looks at an everyman-turned-criminal. This time accountant Carter Tomlin loses his high-paying job and is in danger of losing his fancy house, expensive cars and his family. So he finds a more lucrative job that he likes better—robbing banks. As I said in a recent review of Criminal Enterprise: “While Laukkanen makes us care about his finely drawn characters, he never makes the criminals in his story totally sympathetic. The reader’s allegiance always is firmly on the side of the real heroes of Criminal Enterprise – FBI agent Carla Windermere and Minnesota state cop Kirk Stevens whose insight serves them well.” And, I don't know how to pronounce his name either.

Linwood Barclay: Latest novel: Trust Your Eyes. Barclay delivers affecting family thrillers in which he shows how a regular family can become caught up in situations beyond their control. In Trust Your Eyes, two brothers who are totally unlike stumble on a deadly conspiracy. In The Accident, Barclay shows how lost jobs, foreclosed homes and insurmountable debt can force people to act in ways they never imagined, including breaking the law.

As I said in a review, “After all, a few victimless crimes with a tax-free profit can be quite appealing. But, consequences often lurk around corners, a kind of hidden tax that can rear its ugly head without notice.” Here, the simplest of things, faux purses, are just the tip of a far-reaching crime syndicate.


Barclay’s Never Look Away starts at what should be a place of laughter and happiness – an amusement park but a young reporter and devoted family man will question every truth he holds dear before the day is finished.

Rick Mofina: Latest novel: They Disappeared. Mofina’s novels are quite varied, showing his versatility, affinity for solid plots and believable characters. In They Disappeared, a Montano couple on the verge of divorce brings their son to New York City for a vacation. But then the mother and son disappear and the father tries to find them and, along the way, realizes how much his marriage means to him.

A former journalist, Mofina brings a searing look at journalism and its ethics in the solidly plotted No Way Back in which a news story becomes personal for San Francisco crime reporter Tom Reed. Mofina’s paperback originals are suspenseful novels.

Mofina’s next stand-alone Into the Dark, set in Los Angeles, comes out in June. Into the Dark revolves around psychologist Claire Bowen who has devoted her life to helping troubled women rebuild theirs, but her quest for her own dream family crumbles when her husband’s past is revealed.

Tuesday, 19 March 2013 23:19

HARLAN COBEN AND HUGH JACKMAN (NEED WE SAY MORE?)

Harlan Coben’s latest novel Six Years just came out this week and Coben made his annual appearance on NBC’s The TODAY show.

As usual, Coben’s discussion about his novel was sophisticated and witty.

And he revealed that Six Years already is making news. And we don’t mean just good reviews.

Oscar nominee and Tony winner (and personal favorite) Hugh Jackman, left, is “attached,” as they say in Hollywood, to star in Six Years.

No director or screenwriter have been named yet, but this is a good start.

Hugh—I just want to call him Hugh—would play Jake Fisher, a college professor whose great love of his life married another man.


In Six Years, Jake watched his beloved Natalie exchange vows and after the wedding she made him promise to leave her alone.

Six years later, Jake reads the obit of Natalie’s husband and makes plans to attend the funeral. But the grieving widow isn’t Natalie.

When he tries to find Natalie, he is caught up in an explosive situation beyond his control.

Personally, I think Hugh would make a great lead in Six Years, but then I think he could just read the phone book and I would be mesmerized.

Having just finished Six Years, I see Jake in a whole new light.

 

Sunday, 17 March 2013 06:47

A SALUTE TO PAPERBACK WRITERS

As a critic of mystery fiction, I have been guilty in the past several years of not giving as much attention as I should have to one very important category of the genre—the paperback original.

This wasn’t always the case. Back when the newspaper’s books sections consisted of two whole pages—and I could review as many books a week as I could read—I tried to have a paperback roundup a few times a year.

Fortunately, Mystery Scene regularly focuses on paperback originals and this category has loyal readers. Nor do best-sellers lists ignore paperback originals.

After all, what’s more convenient than slipping a paperback into a bag to enjoy on a plane, the beach, waiting in line or wherever you are. Even handier than a tablet.

So here is an ode to the paperback original and a quick look at some authors whose works continue to elevate this category.

Alison Gaylin: Gaylin’s Into the Dark continues her series about missing persons investigator Brenna Spector, a missing persons investigator afflicted with Hyperthymestic Syndrome, a rare disorder that enables her to remember every moment of every day of her life. That can overwhelm a person, but makes for a good detective.  

Wendy Corsi Staub: The prolific Staub has written 80 novels under her own name and her pseudonym Wendy Markham. Shadowkiller weaves a nightmare of terror for a young woman that reaches from New York to the Caribbean islands. Her 2012 novel Sleepwalker is a finalist for the 2013 Mary Higgins Clark Award.

Dean James: Agatha Award-winning James—not James Dean the actor—has a dual persona. As Miranda James, he writes about Charlie Harris, a widower who moves from Texas to Mississippi following the death of his wife. Subtitled “Cat in the Stack Mysteries,” the four novels in this series follow librarian Charlie and his Maine Coon cat Diesel that he walks on a leash. The novels include Murder Past Due and Out of Circulation, currently is on the best sellers list. As Dean James, he wrote four novels about Simon Kirby-Jones, an American vampire who moved to a quaint English village. Dean James also has written the Wanda Nell Culpepper series under the name of  Jimmie Ruth Evans and the Emma Diamond series as Honor Hartman.

Denise Swanson: Swanson delivers lively, light and quite insightful looks at small town life in her two series. Swanson weaves her amateur sleuths into solid plots with likable characters who never slide into caricature. Swanson, who has been nominated for the Agatha Award and the Mary Higgins Clark Award, has two series. School psychologist Skye Denison who lives in a small Illinois town appears in 15 novels, the latest of which is Murder of the Cat's Meow. Devereaux Sinclair runs an old-fashioned dime store—remember them?—in her small Missouri hometown in the two novels in the Devereaux's Dime Store
Mysteries. The latest is Nickeled-and-Dimed to Death.

P.J. Parrish: Parrish, who has been nominated for an Edgar and won an Anthony, are two sisters, Kris Montee and Kelly Nichols, whose exciting, gripping stories are filled with realistic characters. Their novels’ seamless plots meld with a heart-felt look at a man who has often been an outsider and found his calling in being as a detective. Louis Kincaid, a biracial young man who grew up in foster homes, comes to grips with himself and his background in each novel. Parrish’s 10th novel  in this series, Heart of Ice soars as a tale about a man reclaiming his life and how so much of what we care about can be lost by carelessness, misplaced priorities and obsession, as I said in a recent review.


Elaine Viets: Although Viets’ “Dead End Jobs” series featuring heroine Helen Hawthorne are now in hardcover, the author also writes a second series about mystery shopper Josie Marcus that are available in paperback. Viets’ trademark humor and energetic storytelling highlight this series. But the Josie Marcus series isn’t just about great shopping, it also looks at a single mother trying to support her very bright daughter while dealing with a dating life and her own mother. Although Josie’s personal life is about to change, Viets continues to give Josie challenges, and the wit it takes to make it in this world. Josie’s latest adventures are Murder Is a Piece of Cake. 

Rebecca Chance: The British Chance’s novels are set in the glitzy world of fashion, trust funds and girls gone wild. Appealing characters and sly wit punctuate Chance’s novels that include Killer Heels, Bad Girls, Bad Sisters and Divas.


Trade Paperbacks
Susan Elia MacNeal: MacNeal’s debut Mr. Churchill's Secretary has been nominated for an Edgar this year. In this novel, young American Maggie Hope begins her job as a secretary to the newly appointed Prime Minister Winston Churchill in London. But Maggie’s secretarial skills aren’t her only abilities as readers find in the second in this series, Princess Elizabeth’s Spy, which also came out last year, and His Majesty’s Hope, which comes out in May 2013.

Jennifer McMahon: McMahon’s novels have landed on the New York Times best-sellers list for a good reason. She complements her expert plotting with a sincere look at the complicated nature of relationships. Her fifth novel, The One I Left Behind, is a mesmerizing psychological thriller that looks at childhood trauma and the power of the past. Throw in a hint of the gothic, and The One I Left Behind is even more fascinating.