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Keir Graff and editors from Booklist's adult and youth departments write candidly about books, book reviewing, and the publishing industry
Thursday, May 10, 2012 9:09 am Book Trailer Thursday: Revived Posted by: Annie Bostrom
A Mystery Month-full of BTTs continues with the trailer for Revived, by Cat Patrick. Booklist calls the YA mystery “a fast-paced page-turner that explores the familiar moral ground often found at the heart of speculative fiction.” Indeed, we know we’re not dealing with any regular old mystery when the trailer’s narrator, Daisey Appleby, opens with “I died when I was a little girl.”
Lucky you–five Thursdays in May means three more MM BTTs to anticipate!
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 3:00 pm Mystery Scene: If You Don’t Know Them, It’s a Crime Posted by: Keir Graff
Mystery Scene‘s glossy format definitely lends a bit of glamor to their newsstand presence, helping them stand out in a field that includes publications printed on everything from newsprint to pixels. But it’s not just the format that makes this magazine appealing—it’s also the content. Mystery Scene covers a wide-ranging beat and often gains access to some of the biggest stars in the field. As part of our ongoing Mystery Month efforts to spread the crime-fiction love, co-publisher Kate Stine recently took time to make the case as to why her publication deserves your hard-earned attention. (Here’s a sneak peek at one of their popular features, “The Hook: Intriguing First Lines.”)
Please describe your publication.
Mystery Scene is a glossy, full-color magazine established in 1985 for fans of crime fiction. Our goal is to offer expert guidance to the entire world of crime fiction from cozy to noir to thrillers. Each issue offers in-depth articles and profiles of both new and well-known writers. Our wide-ranging interests include book collecting, cover art and illustration, the history of the genre, travel, kids’ mystery series, and much more.
Mystery Scene reviews novels, TV shows, films, reference works, audio books, short stories, small press titles, paperback originals, and whatever else we deem of mysterious interest. Our critics include Jon L. Breen, Art Taylor, Betty Webb, Bill Crider, and Dick Lochte. Lawrence Block is contributing a series called “The Murders in Memory Lane” about people he’s met over his 50-year writing career. Oline H. Cogdill, the well-known journalist and reviewer, is a frequent contributor and also blogs three times a week or more at the Mystery Scene Blog.
Mystery Scene‘s print edition is distributed in the US and Canada by Ingram Periodicals and is carried in Barnes & Noble, Hastings, and Books-A-Million stores as well as independent bookstores and newsstands. Mystery Scene is also available in over 275 public libraries. Our website, MysterySceneMag.com, offers a selection of past articles, original content, 10-plus years of book reviews, and a regularly updated blog.
Mystery fans can also sign up for the monthly “At the Scene” newsletter which offers original reviews, the “Writers on Reading” series, short articles and information about upcoming books, TV shows, films, and events.
Tell us about yourself.
I’m the editor-in-chief of Mystery Scene and, along with my husband Brian Skupin, the publisher. Brian also oversees the website and writes the popular “What’s Happening With?” series, which are reader-requested interviews of mystery writers who haven’t published for a while. We actually met at the Magna cum Murder Mystery Convention where I was speaking on a panel and he was in the audience. We got married in 1999 and took over the magazine in 2002 from the former editor, Ed Gorman, who still contributes a regular column.
I started out in book publishing, working as an editor at various mystery imprints at Warner Books and Simon & Schuster in the early 1990s. About that time, I became first the book review editor, and then the editor in chief of The Armchair Detective, the first scholarly journal devoted to the mystery genre. Later I edited the MWA national newsletter and the newsletter for the Agatha Christie Society with stints at other mystery magazines as well. I discovered I really enjoy talking about books, researching the history of the genre, and putting together a magazine that shared these interests with other readers.
I’ve gotten to know many fiction writers over the years—and an entertaining bunch they are!—but I’ve also been fortunate to meet many talented critics, journalists and scholars of the mystery genre. It’s their hard work and passion that make Mystery Scene such informative, lively fun for our readers—and for me, too. Here’s a link to our Contributors Page online, it’s a pretty impressive group!
Who are some of your favorite authors?
One of my new favorites is Elizabeth Hand (Available Dark and Generation Loss), who is interviewed in our Spring Issue. I find Cass Neary, her damaged, aging punk rock relic absolutely mesmerizing. The subject matter is tough, sometimes very tough, but Hand writes beautifully and insightfully about a woman who careens through life without brakes.
Another writer I enjoy is Barbara Hambly whose historical mysteries (A Free Man of Color, the forthcoming Ran Away) are set in 1830s New Orleans and feature Benjamin January, a freed slave. History is so seldom told from this point of view. Hambly brings that long-ago New Orleans to vivid life in a way that also illuminates its present. We’re working on a overview of the Benjamin January series for our Summer Issue and it’s making me long for another trip to New Orleans…
I have wildly eclectic reading tastes so my to-be-read pile includes books by Anna Dean (author of a very well done new Regency series, most recently A Woman of Consequence), Lee Child, Reginald Hill, Matthew Reilly (ridiculously fun action scenes), Rex Stout, and Amnon Kabatchnik’s Blood on the Stage: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery and Detection 1900–1925.
Tell us about a recent review or article of which you’re particularly fond.
Our Spring Issue has an interesting profile of John Buchan, who wrote The 39 Steps among many other books and went on to be Governor General of Canada. Another interesting article about a vintage writer was “No Escape: Jacques Futrelle and the Titanic.”
In our Winter Issue, Jon L. Breen did a career retrospective of Simon Brett, who is winning a lifetime achievement award at the Malice Domestic Convention this spring.
We are expanding our reach with the Mystery Scene website and our monthly e-newsletter (6,000 subscribers and climbing). We’re also exploring a line of branded “Mystery Scene Mysteries” beginning with a locked-room mystery anthology making the rounds to publishers right now. At some point we’ll do a e-reader edition of Mystery Scene but I’m not happy with the technology for magazines right now.
Which other mystery magazines and blogs do you believe are must-reads?
I enjoy the blog Mysterious Matters: Mystery Publishing Demystified. It’s written by “Agatho,” an anonymous editor at a small indy press who has strong opinions about the industry, gives useful tips to writers, and has really quite interesting takes on a wide range of books. Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine are the breeding grounds for new fiction talent in the field although nowadays there are dozens of e-zines that also have lots to offer. I enjoy The Rap Sheet, which covers current events and books, and Elizabeth Foxwell’s The Bunburyist which covers mystery history. (Foxwell is also a contributing editor to Mystery Scene.) Kevin Burton Smith (another frequent contributor) runs the comprehensive and colorful Thrilling Detective Website. I’m sure I’m forgetting dozens more.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 9:08 am Society of Midland Authors Awards Posted by: Keir Graff
Last night, I attended the annual awards banquet of the venerable Society of Midland Authors. It was a modest crowd but a truly enjoyable evening—being in the company of people who value books and authors so highly has a way of raising my spirits. Master of ceremonies and prolific author Jay Bonansinga kept things light as he paid very funny tribute to the Midwest and mid-list authors. Patricia Ann McNair, finalist for The Temple of Air, dedicated her book and her honor to her parents, both writers. Richard Lindberg spoke movingly (and humorously) of the long road to publication for his memoir Whiskey Breakfast (the first book he’s published, he noted, that doesn’t have Chicago in the title). Gregory White Smith—a Pulitzer winner and a National Book Award finalist—shared fascinating insight on his writing partnership with Steven Naifeh on Van Gogh: The Life. Elizabeth Taylor, the Chicago Tribune‘s literary editor, gave thanks as she accepted the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism.
But it was Susanna Childress, poetry winner for Entering the House of Awe, who stole the show. Taking the mic, the very pregnant poet sang W. B. Yeats’ “When You Are Old” in a haunting, Appalachian-inflected melody. (Noting later that she is from Southern Indiana, or “Kentuckiana,” she jokingly wondered why it’s never called “Indiuky.”) A memorable evening with writers who deserve to be celebrated.
Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence, and the Last Lynching in America, by B. J. Hollars
Finalists
Cold-Blooded Kindness: Neuroquirks of a Codependent Killer, or Just Give Me a Shot at Loving You, Dear, and Other Reflections on Helping That Hurts, by Barbara Oakley
The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime: Horse Racing, Politics, and Organized Crime in New York, 1865–1913, by Steven A. Riess
BIOGRAPHY
Winner
Van Gogh: The Life, by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 3:00 pm Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine: If You Don’t Know Them, It’s a Crime Posted by: Keir Graff
Everything I wrote about Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine yesterday goes for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, too—we know you know them, but it would be a crime to leave them out of our Mystery Month coverage. Of course, even though you do know this venerable name, it might be a good time to refamiliarize yourself with the magazine’s contents. Editor Janet Hutchings was kind enough to answer our call and does a wonderful job of cluing us in on EQMM’s past, present, and future.
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine was launched by one of the world’s great collectors of mystery fiction, Frederic Dannay, who, with his cousin Manfred B. Lee, wrote under the pseudonym Ellery Queen. Dannay drew together a collection that probably remains today the world’s largest library of short crime fiction, currently housed at the University of Texas at Austin. He rediscovered many forgotten short-story gems and in addition to adding them to his growing library, he reprinted them in EQMM during the magazine’s first two decades. Of course, side by side with these rediscovered classics Dannay was also publishing new stories from the top mystery writers of his day, and that tradition of presenting the best the field has to offer has continued throughout our magazine’s nearly 71 years of publication.
We are a digest-sized magazine: In 1941, when EQMM first appeared, paperback books were new to the American scene, having been introduced to the market with the Pocket Books imprint in 1939. Dannay wanted his new magazine to resemble a paperback book, with book-quality paper and the convenient pocket size. In addition to providing the convenience of easy carrying, EQMM’s format was intended to make it readily shelvable and therefore collectible, and that meant the magazine’s fiction had to be of the highest quality—something a reader would want to keep, to refer back to and re-read. We continue to be a digest-sized magazine, collected by many of our readers. But in recent years we have also gained a strong presence in the market for electronic publications, with editions for Kindle, the Sony Reader, Nook, iPad, and more.
EQMM’s audience combines mystery fans and readers who simply love a good short story, whatever its classification. It has always been the viewpoint of our magazine that the headings Mystery, Crime, and Suspense can legitimately be used to cover a vast literary space. EQMM’s first editor is sometimes said to have hoped to prove, through his selections for EQMM, that every great writer in history wrote at least one story that could be considered a mystery—and that was long before there was general acceptance for an idea that has become popular today: that the boundaries between mystery and mainstream or literary fiction cannot be firmly drawn.
Although EQMM is often strongly associated with the classical whodunit (perhaps because Ellery Queen himself was one of America’s foremost writers in that area of the field) the magazine preserved the tradition of the great hardboiled magazine Black Mask by incorporating it as a department of EQMM for several years after it ceased independent publication in the 1950s. Four years ago, EQMM reinstituted the Black Mask department, in which we feature the harder-edged work of crime, noir, and private-eye writers. In between the classical and hardboiled ends of the mystery spectrum, many other types of stories find a home between our covers: historicals, psychological suspense, and police procedurals among them.
It isn’t only in subject matter that EQMM’s range is broad. Our focus has always been global, with about a third of our stories contributed by writers from Britain and other primarily English-speaking countries outside the U.S. For the past nine years, every issue of EQMM has also contained a story in translation, in the department Passport to Crime. Although Passport occasionally includes a classic, most of its stories are by contemporary authors, often in English-language publication for the first time.
That spirit of discovering and bringing new writers to American readers has informed the magazine from the beginning. Our Department of First Stories features the work of first-time writers, many of whom, like Harry Kemelman, Richard Levinson and William Link, and Nancy Pickard have gone on to become celebrated mystery writers.
When I became the editor of EQMM in 1991, we were publishing thirteen issues per year, two of them double. The challenge then was to find enough good material to fill so many pages. The challenge today, when we have only ten issues per year, two of them double, is to find space for the superabundance of good material submitted to us.
The overall standard of writing in the mystery field seems to me to have risen over the past two decades. I was asked to name some of my favorite authors in this piece, but with so much excellent work before me, I find the choice uncomfortable. Whom would I have to leave out? Besides, my interest as the editor of EQMM is not so much in particular authors or areas of the genre as in the art of telling a story. We human beings need stories, something most of us know instinctively but which has recently been confirmed by scientific research. According to Anne Murphy Paul’s March 17th New York Times article “Your Brain on Fiction,” “stories . . . research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life.” Why? Well, for one thing, research is showing “that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them, and see the world from their perspective.”
I think virtually everyone who works in publishing in this time of seismic change would agree with me that the future of publishing in general, and therefore of any particular publication, is hard to predict. Will print editions of our magazine, which was conceived on the model of a paper book, still exist in ten years’ time? It’s hard to say. But although our print edition has great significance to me and to many of our subscribers, what’s most important, after all, is what we do with our pages, whether they come out in print or on a screen. And what we do is no secret. It’s earned us a reputation we’re proud of. We publish great stories, insightful book reviews (see The Jury Box), and a monthly roundup of the genre’s best blogs (see Blog Bytes). Check us out!
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 9:00 am Reading the Screen: Richard Stark’s Parker Posted by: David Pitt
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Parker, the forthcoming film starring Jason Statham, will be the first time Richard Stark’s professional criminal will appear on the big screen under his own name. (He’s been called Porter, Walker, Macklin, and Stone, but never, I think, Parker.)
Richard Stark was, of course, one of Donald E. Westlake’s many pseudonyms. He wrote a series of novels about Parker, and if you haven’t read them, stop what you’re doing and rectify that.
Parker is being directed by Taylor Hackford, who also did (among others) An Officer and a Gentleman, Ray, and Dolores Claiborne. At first glance he seems an odd choice for Westlake’s gritty crime story, but Hackford’s Proof of Life was a decent action movie, and The Devil’s Advocate has got some nice darkness going on.
Statham as Parker? Well, he looks the part, he can definitely handle a gun or his fists, and, since Parker is a man of few words, Statham’s rather thick British accent shouldn’t be too hard to conceal.
The movie is based on Flashfire, a 2001 Parker novel — the third Parker novel since his comeback in 1997′s, um, Comeback. (The previous Parker had been published in 1974). The story finds Parker working with a new partner, Melander, with whom he, shall we say, doesn’t see eye-to-eye on some things. Expect, if the filmmakers stay true to the book (and if they aren’t going to do that, why bother at all?), plenty of violence and action.
There have been some good Parker movies. Point Blank, with Lee Marvin, came out in 1967. The Outfit, from 1973 (with a brilliantly cast Robert Duvall), is pretty much forgotten now, unfortunately. Payback (1999), with Mel Gibson, was a sort of remake of Point Blank, or perhaps a new take on the source novel, 1962′s The Hunter. It’s a bit stylized — the color palette is muted in a show-offy kind of way — but it also does a nice job of translating Stark’s story.
I can’t speak for you, but I’m cautiously optimistic about the movie.
Monday, May 7, 2012 3:00 pm Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine: If You Don’t Know Them, It’s a Crime Posted by: Keir Graff
I confess that it seems a bit odd to include Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine in our series “If You Don’t Know Them, It’s a Crime”; at more than a half-century old, this venerable publication has been around longer than many of today’s top crime-fiction authors, some of whom got their first taste of publication within its pages. Can anyone call themselves a fan of the genre if they haven’t at least fanned the pages of this digest? But not including it would seem like a glaring omission—and, on the off chance that a crime-fiction newbie hasn’t yet discovered AHMM, it will be our pleasure to make the introduction. Linda Landrigan, editor since 2002, was kind enough to give the lowdown.
It’s a great pleasure to visit the “Likely Stories” blog on behalf of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, or AHMM as we more familiarly call it. We’re great fans of libraries in my family; in fact, my husband is a trustee of our local library in rural New England.
AHMM is a monthly, digest-sized magazine publishing original mystery and crime fiction. Founded in 1956, it is the second-oldest mystery magazine in America, behind only our sister magazine, Ellery Queen.
I think librarians and library patrons are interested in AHMM for several reasons. One is that they can frequently find new stories by favorite authors whose books are already on the library’s shelves: our June 2012 issue, for example, features stories by Jane K. Cleland, author of the Josie Prescott Antiques series, and Kenneth Wishnia, whose story “Cups and Varlets” continues the adventures of Rabbi Ben-Akiva from his novel The Fifth Servant. Other regular contributors include Rhys Bowen, Elaine Viets, Loren D. Estleman, and Brendan DuBois.
There’s also the chance of meeting new writers early in their careers. AHMM was the first to publish I. J. Parker, who writes the Akitada P.I. series set in ancient Japan; Steve Hockensmith, author of the Holmes on the Range series; Martin Limón, who created the Army CID agents Ernie Bascom and George Sueño, based in occupied South Korea); and Russel D. McLean, who writes a series of dark P.I. novels set in Dundee, Scotland. We also published early stories by Joan Druett and Brad Parks.
However, there are also many talented mystery writers who specialize in the short story and who readers won’t have the chance to meet through novels. Our readers’ favorites include John H. Dirckx and his procedurals featuring Detective Sergeant Cyrus Auburn; D. A. McGuire’s Cape Cod series featuring the troubled teen Herbie Sawyer; stories featuring the crabby mystery writer Leopold Longshanks by Robert Lopresti (himself a librarian); and anything by the wide-ranging R. T. Lawton.
Anthologies of original mystery stories have become very popular in recent years, but these volumes are most often limited to a particular theme and often only include stories within a narrow range of styles. Each issue of AHMM, on the other hand, strives for variety and balance, so that you are likely to find a hardboiled detective story next to a ghost story next to a cozy. We also offer some special features. Each issue carries a book review column and a flash fiction “Mysterious Photograph” contest (we average 200 entries per month). Every three months, we publish a Mystery Classic that has been selected and introduced by one of our regular contributors: recently, we’ve feature stories by Agatha Christie, Cornell Woolrich, and Georgette Heyer. And once a year, we publish the winning entry in the Black Orchid Novella Contest, which is jointly sponsored by AHMM and the Wolfe Pack, the Rex Stout/Nero Wolfe fan club.
For someone who grew up with AHMM, editing the magazine is a dream job. I was fortunate enough to join the magazine under Cathleen Jordan, who was a great editor. I learned a lot from her. She was easy to work for—she had a healthy sense of humor—but she also demanded the best from everyone and the best for the magazine. I learned so much from her that in many ways, her stamp on the magazine can still be felt.
I know that there are many mystery fans among librarians and library patrons, and I am proud to think that AHMM has a place in many library collections across the country.
Monday, May 7, 2012 9:12 am Hostile Questions: Chelsea Cain Posted by: Daniel Kraus
Booklist wrote of Chelsea Cain, author of Heartsick, Sweetheart, and more: “Popular entertainment just doesn’t get much better than this.” Aw, wuddn’t that nice of us? We’re not always in such a giving mood. Take, hmm, let’s see, today for example: I’m dying to lock horns with Cain–her oeuvre of bestselling, critically acclaimed serial killer thrillers be damned! Will I end her reign of terror? Or will I be her latest victim?
Just who do you think you are?
I am a fish-, cheese-, and chocolate-eating vegan and I refuse to take any shit for it. I won’t eat sheep, but I have the head of one (taxidermied) in my office. I worry about BPAs and mercury and the incoming debris from the Japanese tsunami. I have double-jointed ankles. I drive a Prius, but sometimes I don’t recycle and instead just throw the plastic hummus tub right into the garbage. Then I nudge it down a little so my husband won’t see it. Once, in college, in front of a lecture hall of undergraduates, I noticed the professor couldn’t find his pen, so I offered him one from my bag. It was only after he’d started class and was waving it around to make a point, that I realized I’d handed him a tampon.
We’re just gonna assume she’s holding a battleaxe down there.
I have also lied (repeatedly) about being able to play guitar. The truth is, I cannot play guitar. When I was 10 years old I touched Liza Minnelli. I once shared a frozen yogurt with Oliver Stone and I kept the plastic spoon as a memento until one day I accidentally threw it away. My mom died when I was 24 and it was fucking awful. My favorite numbers are 42 and 36. My daughter’s middle name is “Fantastic.” I have never read a single book by Kurt Vonnegut and I keep meaning to correct that. I love movies and television shows. I spent my early childhood on a hippie commune and I still know how to macramé. I was a weird kid. I used to chew food the same number of times on each side of my mouth so one side wouldn’t feel bad. My middle name is “Snow.” I have daydreams–entire universes full of characters I’ve constructed–that I’ve been mentally visiting every day since I was 14 years old, and I’m beginning to think that’s not normal.
Where do you get off?
I get off in Portland, Oregon, where I’ve been getting off for about 15 years. I set my books here, too, because it’s a great fucking location, and also because I live here and I’m lazy and it seemed like the clever thing to do. Portland is having a pop culture moment right now, and I’m happy to wave like a beauty queen from the back of that bandwagon. I really try to give a sense of Portland in my books, though if I’m honest there aren’t really as many serial killers here as I may have led people to believe. I love Portland’s dark beauty. The constant rain. How everything exists in a continual state of entropy. Even the cars have mold on them. I love how nature kills people here suddenly, for sport. People will be walking along the beach and a sneaker wave will snap them off their feet and carry them off to sea. Hikers disappear and are found the next spring, naked, half-decayed, clutching a bag of Oreos, dead from exposure. Avalanches bury skiers and mountain climbers. The river sweeps away toddlers from picnics. It’s just constant carnage over here. Bones everywhere.
What’s the big idea?
I write about the relationship between a dogged, damaged detective and the beautiful serial killer he’s been pursuing for over a decade. If you like hot cop-on-serial-killer action, these books might be for you. I’m interested in the intimacy of violence and the dark places people can let themselves go if they’re not careful. The books are twisted. The New York Times called them “steamy and perverse,” which is my favorite quote ever. But the characters say funny things to each other and I hope that the whole enterprise has a dark wit to it. But then again, I think that pulling out someone’s small intestine with a crochet hook is funny, and not everyone does.
What is your problem, man?
I have a vagina that seems to bother people. “How can your write what you write, as a woman?” they ask. They are always very nice, smart-seeming people, very friendly, a little tentative, a little concerned. The question floors me every single time. You’d think I’d be prepared by now, right? I’m too busy playing guitar, I guess. Maybe I’m thick, but I don’t get the question. Women can’t write about sex and violence? Women can’t be graphic? Women deal in bodily fluids all day long. Blood. Shit. Piss. You want to know graphic–talk to a mother. What should I be writing, exactly? This is where my head goes. This is the story I have to tell. I like sex and violence. Sex and violence are exciting to read about. God, those people infuriate me.
Haven’t you done enough?
Not even close. I have a lot of murder left in me. It’s really cathartic. Whenever I’m behind that asshole in the parking garage who decides to just sit there and idle, holding the rest of us hostage behind him, rather than continuing to the top of the garage where there are tons of open spaces, I take solace in the fact that I get to go home and kill someone. How many people get to say that?
Friday, May 4, 2012 3:00 pm Spinetingler Magazine: If You Don’t Know Them, It’s a Crime Posted by: Keir Graff
Stop me if you’ve read this before, but May is Mystery Month at Booklist. This year we’re spreading the love by inviting reputable mystery magazines, websites, and blogs to make a case as to why you should read them. Today’s profile is provided by Brian Lindenmuth of Spinetingler Magazine.
Spinetingler Magazine was founded in 2005 and has established itself as one of the longest-running, most reputable e-zines featuring works from the crime fiction community. Our coverage includes book reviews, articles, interviews, guest posts from authors, movie reviews, TV reviews, and general coverage of crime fiction in various media. Because we have a staff of writers with different interests and tastes we try to cover as broad a range of crime fiction as possible. Our audience includes everyone from readers to authors to editors and the one thing that brings them all together is their love of the genre.
Crime fiction fans were early adopters of online technology, with the earliest zines appearing as early as 1998. Some of these zines would last for an issue or two and others would last longer. Ultimately, two words can be used to describe most of the crime fiction zines over the years: vibrant and transient. By changing formats and having different regular contributors over the years we hope to continue to be a stable voice in the community. As a result of our work, Spinetingler is now a paying fiction market and an MWA approved publisher of short fiction whose stories are eligible for the Edgar Award.
Speaking of awards, recently we announced the nominees for our annual Spinetingler Award. The Spinetingler Award was started as a way to showcase the parts of the genre that may not get as much coverage from other awards. In addition to best novel categories we also give out awards for short story collections, anthologies, crime comics, online short fiction, novellas, and many others. The nominees are selected by a private committee and the final vote is open to the public. This is our fifth year doing the awards and they have turned into a major event that a lot of readers look forward to.
Some of our recent posts included an interview with Joe R. Lansdale; reviews of Bloodman by Robert Pobi and The Next One to Fall by Hilary Davidson; and a guest post by Victoria Houston in support of her new novel Dead Tease.
Over the years we have modified our format to best suit the needs of the crime fiction community. We started out publishing PDF issues that were available for free online. A couple of years ago we switched over to more of a continuous publication web-zine format with daily posts. Recently we split our fiction content off of the main site and now publish fiction directly to the Kindle.
Last year we also started an e-book imprint called Snubnose Press. To date we have published two novels, an anthology, four short story collections, and three novellas. We have a full release schedule for 2012 planned.
Cost to subscribe: All content is free at the Spinetingler site. Issues of original fiction are $2.99 for the Kindle. E-books published through Snubnose Press vary in price.
Friday, May 4, 2012 11:30 am Reading the Screen: Donnie Brasco Posted by: David Pitt
Donnie Brasco, the 1997 gangster flick starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp,was based on the 1987 memoir of former FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone, who spent more than half a decade inside one of the most notorious of New York’s famous Five Families, the Bonanno family. As “Donnie Brasco” he rose through the ranks, ultimately holding a position of considerable power and trust.
It’s an excellent movie — if you haven’t seen it, go rent it right now –but it makes several major alterations to the book, cutting entire characters and locations and storylines, streamlining the real-life events so that a six-year story can fit into a two-hour movie.
If you were making a miniseries out of the book, I’d say you should keep everything, because Pistone’s memoir is one of the best nonfiction accounts of the Mafia you’re likely to find. But if you’re making the book into a movie, a lot of stuff has to go, and what the filmmakers (including Oscar-nominated screenwriter Paul Attanasio) chose to keep was the best and most moving part of the book, the relationship between Pistone/Brasco and Mafia assassin Benjamin “Lefty Two Guns” Ruggiero.
As played by Pacino, Ruggiero is a veteran Mafia soldier, a hitman with a frightening number of bodies to his credit, a guy so paranoid that everything he does and says is colored by his fear that somebody, somewhere, is out to get him (and, to be fair, he’s not wrong). It’s a brilliant performance, and — to me, anyway — an accurate representation of the Ruggiero of the book.
Depp, as Pistone, has a tricky job. He’s playing a man who has to come across as a guy who wouldn’t think twice about killing someone, while not losing his grip on the man he really is: a devoted law enforcement officer, husband, and father. Pistone, in his book, spends a lot of time on this element of the story; the movie has rather less time available, but Depp’s performance in a few key scenes nicely captures the essence of it.
Here’s the difference between book and movie: the book is a sprawling, epic-sized story of the New York Mafia, while the movie is a character piece, about the relationship between a career criminal and his best friend, an undercover FBI agent.
Friday, May 4, 2012 9:00 am Ask a Book: The Big Sleep at a Family Reunion Posted by: Keir Graff
Have a burning question about etiquette or literature? Ask a book!
Dear The Big Sleep,
I’m planning a family reunion. I anticipate nearly 100 guests spanning 4 generations and have booked a large block of rooms at a small, mountain resort. Given everyone’s unique and special needs, however, this task has become a logistical nightmare. Some people want to pay in advance and some want to pay later. Others demand a vegan option at the breakfast buffet. It has fallen to me to arrange airport transportation and, frankly, it’s impossible to keep track of everyone’s comings and goings. I want to turn it over to a professional event planner but my husband says that, since I volunteered, I’m stuck. I want help! Who is right?
—I Don’t Know in Idaho
Dear I Don’t Know,
The sunlight in the mountains has a way of being bright without showing you anything at all, and navigating the needs of a crowd that large is like playing lion tamer at a Shriner’s Convention. The question is, can some hired hand do a better job than a tailor’s dummy, or are you better off sticking it through to the end even though you may end this little vacation with little more than your coat, your hat, and a clipboard? Any question that can be answered with a question, though, is hardly worth asking. Keeping track of these characters you call family is your biggest challenge—but remember, a flatfoot won’t file a report until your beloved Aunt Mimi has been missing for at least 24 hours. And don’t even ring the station unless you want to know who Aunt Mimi really is and what she’s been doing—which, even if you made her up, can be hard to remember.
A Mystery Month-full of BTTs continues with the trailer for Revived, by Cat Patrick. Booklist calls the YA mystery “a fast-paced page-turner that explores the familiar moral ground often found at the heart of speculative fiction.” Indeed, we know we’re not dealing with any regular old mystery when the trailer’s narrator, Daisey Appleby, opens with “I died when I was a little girl.”
Mystery Scene‘s glossy format definitely lends a bit of glamor to their newsstand presence, helping them stand out in a field that includes publications printed on everything from newsprint to pixels. But it’s not just the format that makes this magazine appealing—it’s also the content. Mystery Scene covers a wide-ranging beat and often gains access to some of the biggest stars in the field. As part of our ongoing Mystery Month efforts to spread the crime-fiction love, co-publisher Kate Stine recently took time to make the case as to why her publication deserves your hard-earned attention. (Here’s a sneak peek at one of their popular features, “
Last night, I attended the annual awards banquet of the venerable 
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We are a digest-sized magazine: In 1941, when EQMM first appeared, paperback books were new to the American scene, having been introduced to the market with the Pocket Books imprint in 1939. Dannay wanted his new magazine to resemble a paperback book, with book-quality paper and the convenient pocket size. In addition to providing the convenience of easy carrying, EQMM’s format was intended to make it readily shelvable and therefore collectible, and that meant the magazine’s fiction had to be of the highest quality—something a reader would want to keep, to refer back to and re-read. We continue to be a digest-sized magazine, collected by many of our readers. But in recent years we have also gained a strong presence in the market for electronic publications, with editions for Kindle, the Sony Reader, Nook, iPad, and more.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Parker, the forthcoming film starring Jason Statham, will be the first time Richard Stark’s professional criminal will appear on the big screen under his own name. (He’s been called Porter, Walker, Macklin, and Stone, but never, I think, Parker.)
Crime fiction fans were early adopters of online technology, with the earliest zines appearing as early as 1998. Some of these zines would last for an issue or two and others would last longer. Ultimately, two words can be used to describe most of the crime fiction zines over the years: vibrant and transient. By changing formats and having different regular contributors over the years we hope to continue to be a stable voice in the community. As a result of our work, Spinetingler is now a paying fiction market and an MWA approved publisher of short fiction whose stories are eligible for the Edgar Award.
Some of our recent posts included an interview with 
Have a burning question about etiquette or literature? 
Dear I Don’t Know,
