IMDB Trailer for Little Caesar

Edward G. Robinson didn’t really enjoy playing a gangster and hated the sound of gunfire. That posed problems for director Mervyn LeRoy during the filming of Little Caesar (1931).

“Every time he squeezed the trigger,” LeRoy said, “he would screw up his eyes. This happened take after take.”

“In the end we had to tape up his eyelids to make sure it wouldn’t show.”
—The Warner Brothers, Michael Freeland, St. Martin’s Press, 1983

The Parisian Prodigal

by Alan Gordon

Minotaur Books, January 2010, $25.99

A husband and wife detective team isn’t that unusual—but put them in the early 13th century in Toulouse, France and make them court jesters, and you’ve got the makings of a strange murder mystery indeed.

Theo and Claudia are not only accomplished jesters, they also belong to the super-secret Fools’ Guild, an international group that strives to maintain order in a dangerous world. Count Raimon , the ruler of Toulouse, has named Theo his Chief Fool and relies on him not only for entertainment, but for wise counsel as well.

When a visitor arrives from Paris claiming to be the Count’s brother he is jailed as an imposter. Later, on Theo’s advice, the claimant, Baudoin, is freed pending further investigation into his claim. That night, he is taken to a brothel and spends the night in the arms of the most beautiful prostitute in the city. When the following morning her dead body is found next to him in the bed with his dagger in her chest, Baudoin is arrested for her murder.

Dissatisfied by the “rush to judgment” against Baudoin, Theo and Claudia decide to investigate. Both being competitive, however, they each go about it separately in their own way, Claudia being accompanied by Helga, a 12-year-old apprentice fool. Which one will solve the case first?

In alternating points of view, we follow the pair through a complex series of adventures leading to an unexpected conclusion. This latest in a series of Fools’ Guild Mysteries is enjoyable reading, not only for the mystery, but for the sharp and witty dialogue as well.

Reviewed by Joseph Scarpato, Jr.

Alan Gordon, photo by Paul Petronella

More from Mystery Scene and this author

• Purchase The Parisian Prodigal at Amazon.com

A Thousand Cuts
by Simon Lelic
Viking Adult, March 2010, $24.95

What can you ever know about the motives of a quiet and unassuming teacher who opens fire in a school assembly and kills three students and a fellow teacher before turning the gun on himself? Though everyone seems mystified by the violent event, DI Lucia May tries to walk, literally, in the shooter’s footsteps. She wants to understand what led up to it, even though her boss wants the case wrapped up and out of the headlines.

As she peels back the layers, Lucia learns that students tormented the teacher mercilessly, that he had a failed relationship with another colleague, that he was not the only person who suffered from unchecked bullying. As she investigates, the treatment she receives from her male colleagues is similarly abusive. The psychological tension escalates as she doggedly keeps digging.

The book has an unusual structure, opening with a witness statement in the voice of a schoolboy recounting his experience with an uncannily realistic voice. Chapters alternate a close third-person view from the detective’s perspective with the statements she takes from students, teachers, parents, and school officials. It’s artfully done—almost too artfully; at times it seems like the virtuoso performance of a well-trained actor who can do voices cleverly. Yet the growing sense of injustice and the muggy, stifling atmosphere of the book work well to increase the sense of being trapped, drawing the reader into the state of mind of someone bullied so relentlessly there’s only one way out.

Reviewed by Barbara Fister

More from Mystery Scene and this author

• A Thousand Cuts (March 2010), Simon Lelic, review by Betty Webb available in Mystery Scene Winter Issue #113
• Purchase A Thousand Cuts at Amazon.com
• Get the reading group guide at the publisher’s site
  

The Endless Night: A Valentine to Film Noir is an absolutely brilliant fan video using a dizzying array of clips from classic film noir all set to Massive Attack’s “Angel.”

According to her bio on YouTube, “RubyTuesday717″ is 20 years old (!) and her dream job is to be photographer or film critic. We think she has a bright future.

Maybe DVD companies should hire her—this makes us want to buy every single movie featured. There’s a list of the films at the YouTube site in case you have the same urge.

(And Brian and I already own “Angel” by Massive Attack but I bet this sells some songs for them, too.)

Randy Wayne White; photos by Bill Hirschman

I once visited a brothel.

Now that I’ve got your attention, let me explain.

My visit to this house of ill repute located on a quiet, residential street in Jackson, Miss., was because a colleague and I at the Clarion-Ledger were doing a series of articles on prostitution. The house was one of the most well-known secrets in town. I believe a police detective told us where to find it.

I remember us ringing the door-bell, stammering to the middle-aged woman who answered the door that we were doing a story on prostitution and she looking us and saying, “Well, that’s my thing, come on in.”

  So for a couple of hours, my colleague, Joe, and I sat in her spic-and-span living room decorated with pictures of her 12 children (“That one’s a teacher, that one’s a doctor, those 3 are still in college.”) as she told us about her work, showed us a photo album of the girls who worked for her and served us coffee and cookies.

  Later, for that same series, I was to meet a “working girl” at her apartment, an interview set up by her attorney. I waited outside for about an hour, but she never answered the door. Eventually – and I still don’t remember how this played out – I went in when the pest control man showed up, only to be confronted by her sleepy – and naked – pimp.

   That was also the day my parents were coming to visit and no one at the newspaper would tell them where I was. (I ended up interviewing the woman at her attorney’s office.)

  I had been working as a journalist for all of three months.

  I tell you this story because that was the only unusual thing that happened to me while I was conducting interviews for a story.

  That is until I interviewed Randy Wayne White, which is the lead story for this issue of Mystery Scene.

  And just what does my story more than 30 years ago have to do with Florida author Randy Wayne White?

   My interview with Randy will be one of those I will long remember, and with more fondness.

  Never before has a person I was to interview asked me to bring towels, a hat and some water to the interview.

   Randy, as my Mystery Scene story says, was going to swim across Tampa Bay with the Navy SEALS as a fund-raiser. I was to meet him at the end of the swim and, because he was unsure if his wife would be able to get this car over to the finish in time, I was to meet him with the towels to keep him warm after the swim.

   So, at 7:30 a.m. Jan. 2, 2010, on one of the coldest mornings Tampa has seen, my husband, Bill Hirschman, and I waited at the park where the SEALS were to land. We were the only ones there and began to wonder if we were in the wrong place. Around 9 a.m. a swoosh of cars drove up, many with SEAL decals, and we knew were in the right place. (The swim had gotten started late.)

  I was able to connect with his wife, the singer Wendy Webb who has a lovely voice, and we waited on the beach for the swimmers to stop all that foolishness and land. Because of the tide, they landed about a half-mile from where they were supposed to.

   It was an amazing sight and no could help but be moved by watching these hearty men and women come ashore, freezing, but happy and knowing they had just raised money for a SEAL who had been disabled fighting for our country.

   Bill took photographs of Randy when he came out of the water – one of those pictures accompanies my story. We lent him some towels and he sat in our car while his wife went to get their car. (We finally vacuumed the sand out a few days ago.)

   We also had brought some snacks in case he was hungry. (I also brought along a tape recorder and a notebook, but those were for me.)

  Randy’s swim plays a prominent part in my profile of him. I hope the story gives you Mystery Scene readers a different view of this author whose latest book is Deep Shadow, his 17^th novel about Doc Ford, a marine biologist and former government op who lives on Florida’s Sanibel Island.

   The swim certainly gave me a different view….and it beats my visit to the brothel by a mile.

Last Snow
by Eric Van Lustbader
Forge Books, February 2010, $25.99

Troubleshooter Jack McClure returns in this follow up to last year’s First Daughter. In Last Snow, McClure is with the US President in Moscow on the eve of a historic treaty with Russia. But when an American senator is killed in Italy (when he was supposedly in the Ukraine), the President sends McClure to Kiev to investigate. McClure’s job is complicated by the presence of Annika Dementieva, a renegade Federal Security Service (FSB) agent and Alli Carson, the President’s daughter, whom he must keep safe.

Time and again, McClure’s three-dimensional approach to problem solving, which is also linked to his dyslexia, gets them out of trouble. At the same time, McClure uncovers a conspiracy to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and involving some in the President’s own inner circle.

Last Snow is one of several recent novels featuring the grandiose theme of a renewed Cold War with Russia. However, the presence of Alli Carson, the titular First Daughter of the previous novel, humanizes the story. Alli is still reeling from the kidnapping and torture she endured in the first installment. Her rather bizarre presence on McClure’s mission gives her an opportunity to face her fears and claim her own identity. That alone raises Last Snow above the current le Carré knockoffs.

Reviewed by Jim Winter

More from Mystery Scene and this author

• The Bourne Deception (June 2009), Eric Van Lustbader, review by Hank Wagner
• Purchase Last Snow at Amazon.com
• Read an excerpt at the publisher’s site.
  

Death by the Book
by Lenny Bartulin
Minotaur Books, January 2010, $24.99

Some guys have all the luck. Like Jack Susko, the bookselling protagonist and amateur sleuth in Australian writer Lenny Bartulin’s 2008 entertaining and nicely paced debut (recently published Stateside with a new title). I sell books for a living too, but I can assure you that no rich sexpots like Annabelle Kaspowricz ever seem to throw their voluptuous bodies (“on the curvy side of womanhood”) or any of their other spectacular assets at me the way they do with Jack. Then again, the complications that ensue when Annabelle’s wealthy, but singularly unpleasant, businessman father hires Jack, the proud proprietor of Susko’s Books, a struggling basement shop in Sydney, to track down every copy he can of an obscure poet’s books, might not be worth it. Even at $50 a pop.

Those complications include sleazy business rivals, a disgraced gynecologist, possibly corrupt or at least inept cops, a vengeful crime lord, hired muscle, plenty of dubious poetry and enough dirty family secrets, obsessions and greed to fill a soap opera. In fact, Annabelle’s family is so chronically dysfunctional that they make The Big Sleep’s Sternwoods look like television’s Waltons. And unfortunately, by the time Jack realizes what he’s involved in, it’s far too late to crawl out gracefully. Still, he draws upon just enough unexpected resources of strength and courage (not to mention a bit of wild luck) and a definite way with wisecracks (for example a thug is dismissed as having the “muscle-to-brain ratio of a brontosaurus”) to keep the reader flipping pages. A sly parody of ’30s-era hardboiled fiction or the contemporary real deal? Either way, this stuff is just way too good (and too fun) to be a one-off. Down these mean streets a used book dealer must go, anyone?

Reviewed by Kevin Burton Smith

More from Mystery Scene and this author

• Read an excerpt at the publisher’s site.
• Author’s blog site lennybartulin.blogspot.com
• Purchase Death by the Book at Amazon.com

Back in the mid-1980s, I was just returning to mysteries after a few years of not reading the genre. I had always been a mystery fan, having discovered the pleasures of the genre thanks to my mother.

But there was about 8 years when the genre just wasn’t speaking to me.

  Then, of course, I found Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, Marcia Muller and my whole world reopened.

  During the mid-’80s, I sat near a guy named Dave. Nice guy but we had nothing in common except mysteries.

So one day Dave brought in this beat-up, slim book with the cover half torn. Wasn’t much to look at but it was what was inside that counted.

  The book was Lawrence Block’s The Sins of the Fathers, which was published in 1976. Yes, I still remember the title all these many, many years later. 

   Dave then brought me Time to Murder and Create (1977), Eight Million Ways to Die (1982) and, best of all, When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (1986). He then brought me a couple of novels in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series — Burglars Can’t Be Choosers (1977), The Burglar in the Closet (1978) and The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling (1979).

  And I was hooked.

  Block’s novels opened a new window for me with mysteries. He produced the perfect storm of characters, dialogue and gritty setting.

   Here was Matthew Scudder, an alcoholic ex-cop working as an unlicensed private investigator.

  Here was Bernie Rhodenbarr, a burglar with a heart. The two series couldn’t have been more different.

  The Scudders were hard-boiled, a bit rough around the edges and gave me a new view of the private investigator genre. The Bernie’s were much lighter, with lots of humor and a bit of cynicism. Both had dialogue that was crisp and believable.

   I shouldn’t say was since Block is still writing these novels.

   I have followed Block’s novels through the years. Scudder and Bernie are still favorites as are the novels about the stamp-collecting hit man Keller.

   So I was thrilled when Block joined the Mystery Scene team with a new column that began in the Holiday Issue 2009, No. 112.

  Block is a devoted New Yorker who has spend the past 50 years in the middle of the New York publishing world with myriad editors, agents and mystery fiction’s top writers.

   In his Mystery Scene columns, he not only gives witty reminisces, but he also has some unique insight into the work and characters of many wonderful writers’ characters and their work.

  Block’s Mystery Scene columns are the first thing I turn to – after, of course, my own stories and reviews.

   Here it is nearly 25 years after Dave introduced me to Lawrence Block. His work is still the great connector.

2010 Winter Issue #113

Hi everyone!

Putting together this issue has been something of a trip down memory lane. One of the first detectives I came across in my early reading was Father Brown. Steven Steinbock makes an interesting case that the debut of G.K. Chesterton’s little Catholic priest in 1910 brought a moral and spiritual depth to the mystery genre that it had previously lacked and often still does. Chesterton’s other great strength was the quality of his prose. Even as a child, I was struck by the beauty of the scene in the garden between Father Brown and the fleeing thief in “The Falling Stars.” Read it yourself and see if you agree.

Seeing that the topic of Larry Block’s latest column was Ross Thomas, I immediately dropped everything to read it—with much delight. Then I had to re-read bits of Briarpatch, one of my all-time favorite novels, and remember a visit with Ross and his wife Rosalie in the early 1990s. Several of us from Mysterious Press travelled to their jewel box of a house in Malibu overlooking the Pacific. Over lunch, Ross recalled a meeting he had with some Beltway types who were repeatedly dropping then-president George H.W. Bush’s name into the conversation. Ross, who never confirmed or denied his rumored Company past, one-upped them with a laconic, “Oh, do you mean Prescott’s boy?”

When Oline Cogdill proposed an interview with Randy Wayne White, whose Doc Ford novels are set on the beautiful Sanibel Island off Florida’s Gulf Coast, Brian and I were delighted to relive a wonderful vacation and learn more about one of contemporary crime fiction’s most intriguing writers at the same time.

Even closer to our hearts is the topic of Twist Phelan’s article “Romancing the Con.” Twist talks to four couples who found true love at mystery fan conventions—including Mystery Scene’s current publishers at the 1996 Magna cum Murder Convention held in Muncie, Indiana.

G.M. Malliet has her own reasons to be grateful for mystery conventions. She studied the cozy novel at Malice Domestic for several years, started writing and ultimately won an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Get the whole story in our interview.

Also in this issue, Rupert Holmes returns to center stage with his upcoming adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution; Nate Pedersen continues his invaluable series on book collecting by explaining the terms used to describe book condition; and P.D. James becomes the latest in a distinguished group of crime writers to turn critic with her Talking About Detective Fiction.

If you’re going to Malice Domestic this spring be sure to come to Mystery Scene’s “Meet the New Authors” Breakfast. It’s a great chance to learn about terrific new writers and their work. We’ll save a chair and some Danish for you!

Kate Stine
Editor-in-chief

The season for award nominations continues with the announcements for the Agatha and the L.A. Times Book Prize nominees.

Let me say right up front that each nominee is indeed a winner.

It takes an excellent book to receive a nomination, to rise above the literally thousands of mysteries published each year. 

 I know, because I am one of the judges of the L.A. Times Book Prize’s mystery/thriller category along with my colleagues Sarah Weinman and Dick Adler.

So here’s the Agatha nominees, followed by the L.A. Times nominees.

The 2010 Agatha Awards are for works published in 2009. The winners will be announced during Malice Domestic, April 30 to May 2 in Arlington, VA.

 Mystery Scene’s annual “Meet the New Authors” Breakfast will be held on Saturday, May 1st. All attendees of Malice Domestic are invited to attend and meet this year’s talented crop of new novelists. Mystery Scene Contributing Editor Cheryl Solimini will host.

AGATHA NOMINEESSwan for the Money, Donna Andrews, St. Martin’s Minotaur
Bookplate Special, Lorna Barrett, Berkley Prime Crime
Royal Flush, Rhys Bowen, Berkley Prime Crime
A Brutal Telling, Louise Penny, Minotaur Books
Air Time, Hank Phillippi Ryan, MIRA

Best Novel

Best First Novel
For Better For Murder, Lisa Bork, Midnight Ink
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley, Delacorte Press
Posed for Murder, Meredith Cole, St. Martin’s Minotaur
The Cold Light of Mourning, Elizabeth Duncan, St. Martin’s Press
In the Shadow of Gotham, Stefanie Pintoff, Minotaur Books

Best Nonfiction
Duchess of Death, Richard Hack, Phoenix Books
Talking About Detective Fiction, P.D. James, Knopf
Blood on the Stage, 1925 – 1950, Amnon Kabatchnik, Scarecrow Press
Dame Agatha’s Shorts, Elena Santangelo, Bella Rosa Books
The Talented Miss Highsmith, Joan Schenkar, St. Martin’s Press

Best Short Story
“Femme Sole,” Dana Cameron, Boston Noir, Akashic Books
“Handbaskets, Drawers and Killer Cold,” Kaye George, Crooked
“The Worst Noel,” Barb Goffman, The Gift of Murder, Wolfmont Press
“On the House,” Hank Phillippi Ryan, Quarry, Level Best Books
“Death Will Trim Your Tree,” Elizabeth Zelvin, The Gift of Murder, Wolfmont Press

Best Children’s/Young Adult Novel
The Morgue and Me, John C. Ford, Viking Juvenile
The Hanging Hill, Chris Grabenstein, Random House
The Case of the Poisoned Pig, Lewis B. Montgomery, Kane Press
The Other Side of Blue, Valerie O. Patterson, Clarion Books
The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline, Nancy Springer, Philomel

And here are the nominees in the mystery/thriller category for the L.A. Times Book Prize. The site contains the nominees for the other categories, but, frankly, the mystery/thriller category is the most important, right?

The prizes will be awarded in an invitation-only ceremony in connection with the 15th annual LA Times Festival of Books, which takes place April 24-25. Last year, more than 130,000 people attended the festival, which is held at UCLA; many of the book prize finalists will participate in panels, discussions and book signings.

It was an honor to serve as a judge with Sarah and Dick.

L.A. Times Book Prize
Mystery/thriller category

Mystery/Thriller
“Bury Me Deep” by Megan Abbott
“The Hidden Man” by David Ellis
“Black Water Rising” by Attica Locke
“A Darker Domain” by Val McDermid
“The Ghosts of Belfast” by Stuart Neville