In today’s NYT, Chip McGrath profiles debut thriller writer, Attica Locke, whose Black Water Rising has received strong review coverage.
Large libraries own it in modest quantities.
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Also in audio:
And downloadable eBook from OverDrive.
In today’s Book Buzz column, USA Today point out that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, just published in trade paper, re-enters their list at #11. In hardcover, its highest spot was #32. The second book in the series, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo pubs at the end of the month.
Many libraries still have significant levels of reserves on Dragon Tattoo. In fact, in several libraries, reserves on Tattoo are running ahead of Fire.
The release of Fire will bring even more attention to the first book; it’s a good time to consider picking up additional copies in trade paper.
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The lead review in the July 6 issue of People magazine, is of thriller Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo, making the switch from romance novels. People gives it 3.5 of a possible four stars. It features a “tough complicated cop,” a former Amish woman who becomes the police chief in the town she grew up in. People says that Castillo, who grew up near Amish country, balances “chilling suspense and a nuanced portrait of the English-Amish divide.”
Libraries show reserve ratios of 5 to 1 in some cases, against generally low orders.
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Also available in audio:
Publisher: Macmillan Audio; Unabridged (June 23, 2009). $39.95
ISBN-10: 1427206686
ISBN-13: 978-1427206688
And in large type:
Hardcover: $31.95; 620 pages
Publisher: Thorndike Press (June 23, 2009)
ISBN-10: 1410416615
ISBN-13: 978-1410416612
And, downloadable eBook and audiobook from OverDrive.
The Daily Beast extolls Gregg Hurwitz as the “best thriller writer you never heard of,” calling his new book Trust No One “not only his best [book] yet, but one of the best thrillers of the year.” Libraries we checked had four or fewer copies of Trust No One, with up to 20 reserves.
Here’s what The Daily Beast liked most about the book:
Trust No One has action and suspense and all the good stuff readers look for in a thriller, but it also has smarts. Hurwitz clearly put a lot of thought into crafting his plot, and it pays off with a story that is satisfying on both a cerebral and visceral level. It combines the sharp political twists of a book like Robert Ludlum’s The Chancellor Manuscript or James Grady’s Six Days of the Condor with the white-knuckle pacing of a Joseph Finder thriller.
Hurewitz is the author of 2007’s The Crime Writer, which the reviewer also loved.
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Large Print available from Center Point, 7/01/2009
Audio available from Brilliance Corporation
Mystery maven Sarah Weinman reports on her binge reading of Richard Stark’s (aka Donald Westlake’s) Parker novels, newly-reissued by the University of Chicago Press, on her blog Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind today. She says it wasn’t until she read the forthcoming graphic novel based on the first book in the series that she felt she understood the main characte.
Wonder if people will make similar comments about R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis?
Parker: The Hunter is one of the titles on the Graphic Novel Reporter’s “Hottest Graphic Novels” for Summer 2009.
Libraries we checked are not showing it on order.
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Atria (S&S) came up with a brilliant solution for those who weren’t able to get their galleys at BEA; a “Galley Grab” Web site, where librarians, booksellers and reviewers can request ARC’s of upcoming books.
Good news for those of you hoping for a followup to Dog On It, Spencer Quinn’s charming book about detetective Bernie Little and his partner, Chet (who happens to be a dog); one of the ARC’s being offered is the next title in the series, Thereby Hangs a Tail, coming in January.
And, yes, the author is at work on a third Chet and Bernie title.
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The L.A. Times compares Attica Locke’s debut thriller, Black Water Rising, to Dennis Lehane and Scott Turow; “a near-perfect balance of trenchant social commentary, rich characterizations and an action-oriented plot that, after it kicks in, moves rapidly toward some explosive revelations.”
Locke honed her skills as a screenwriter; she is currently adapting Taylor Branch’s books on the civil-rights movement for HBO and has written scripts for several studios.
Sarah Weinman, who writes insightfully about mysteries for many publications, (including her own blog, “Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind,” a must-read for readers advisors) says in the Canadian National Post, “This debut thriller charges out of the gate, boldly establishing Locke as a name to look out for in years to come,” although she warns, “This is an ambitious, at times messy novel that swings for an outfield one worries it may not reach. But Locke is a young slugger, capable of smacking the hanging curve ball right out of the park.”
Attica Locke is profiled by Celia McGee in the Daily Beast today.
In preoub reviews, Booklist starred it; LJ and Kirkus were both positive, but PW ’s review was mixed, finding it a “compelling if unwieldy debut…Locke…steers a gritty drama to a satisfying end, though a sluggish subplot involving labor union issues undermines the novel’s grander ambitions. A leaner, meaner version was an opportunity missed, yet Locke remains an author to watch.”
Large libraries own it in modest quantities.
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Also in audio:
And downloadable eBook from OverDrive.
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie gets admiring reviews in both the current USA Today mystery column and in Marilyn Stasio’s “Crime” column in the NYT BR, adding to the chorus already building for what USA Today calls a “scrumptious first novel.”
Libraries are showing heavy reserves on moderate ordering (112 reserves on 16 copies in one large system).
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Also from Random House Audio
It’s great to see Rosemary Harris’s Pushing Up Daisies as one of the nominees for the Anthony Award for Best First Novel (the full list of nominees is available on the Anthony site; winners will be announced at the World Mystery Convnetion in Indianapolis, Oct. 15 to 18).
Rosemary’s been a real friend to libraries, making dozens of library appearances in the past year (just last week, she spoke at the Cuyahoga [OH] PL). She’s such a fan of libraries that she’s talked several of her mystery writing friends into coming to ALA in Chicago; you can find tham at the Sisters in Crime booth.
The second book in her Dirty Business Mystery series came out in February.
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Also available in large print from Thorndike (9781410415349; $30.95)
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Also available in large print from Thorndike (978-1410407191; $29.95)
[Ed Note: Many thanks to the people who wrote in to alert us to our typo on Lee Child's name -- now fixed. We HATE it when that happens, but appreciate the corrections!]
New York Times book critic Janet Maslin wrote a love letter to mystery author Lee Child yesterday, in advance of the May 18 arrival of his new book, Gone Tomorrow. On Amazon, preorders for the novel have shot up to #38. Libraries we checked show large reserves on widely varied numbers of copies.
Child, whose real name is Jim Grant, is currently president of the Mystery Writers of America and sold about 6 million copies of his books around the world last year. He is also older brother to another British thriller writer, Andrew Grant, who will appear with Child on some tour stops to promote his new novel, Even. Libraries we checked are carrying Even in varying numbers, from zero or 1 copy to 165 copies.
In comparing the two books, Maslin says:
While Gone Tomorrow and Even leave no doubt about which of these writers is the rock star and which the tyro, the books overlap in ways sure to raise interest in the family’s DNA. The plot and style similarities are that much more remarkable considering that Jim and Andrew grew up barely knowing each other because of their age disparity
Gone Tomorrow winds up taking the Reacher franchise to a wild extreme. That this Reacher is so effortlessly larger than life is evidence of how intense the overall series has become. Even is in the same vein, if not the same league. It would bring Mr. Child’s style to mind whether or not the authors were brothers.
Maslin also noted that Lee Child’s next Jack Reacher novel, 61 Hours, is finished and slated for publication in 2010.
| Gone Tomorrow (Jack Reacher, No. 13) |
| Lee Child |
| Price: | $27.00 |
| Hardcover: | 432 pages |
| Publisher: | Delacorte Press – (2009-05-19) |
| ISBN-10: | 0385340575 |
| ISBN-13: | 9780385340571 |
The audiobook is available from Books on Tape (May 18, 2009)
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The Edgar Awards were announced last night. Below are the winners in full-length novel categories.
For the other categories and a full list of nominees, got to the Edgar Awards site.
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Blue Heaven is available in unabridged audio (and audio download from OverDrive):
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China Lake is available in unabridged audio from Brilliance, and as eBook and audio download from OverDrive.
And on PlayAway: ISBN #: 9781606404089; $74.99
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American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum (Crown Publishers)
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American Lightning is available as an unabridged audio from Books on Tape and as downloadable eBook and audio from OverDrive.
Paper Towns by John Green (Penguin Young Readers Group – Dutton Children’s Books)
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Paper Towns is available in unabridged audio from Brilliance and downloable from OverDrive.
And on PlayAway:
The Postcard by Tony Abbott (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
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The Postcard is available in audio from Listening Library and as downloadable eBook and audio from OverDrive.
The Killer’s Wife by Bill Floyd (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
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The Killer’s Wife is available in audio from BBC Audiobooks (also downloadable from OverDrive).
Grand Central Publishing announced that a sequel to Scoll Turow’s Presumed Innocent will be released in May, 2010.
The new book will be called, simply, Innocent.
via The Associated Press story, appearing in USA Today, among others
Separate story, Scott Turow Switches Publishers for Sequel, in The New York Times
When The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was first published in the U.S., after being a huge success in Europe, many wondered if Americans would appreciate this raw thriller with its themes of sexual abuse. After five weeks on the NYT Fiction bestseller list and 21 more on the extended list, it is still on at #33. Many libraries are still working through long reserve lists for it.
Coming in July is the second volume in the trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire.
It was released in the UK in January, where it followed its predecessor onto the bestseller lists and received stellar reviews:
Sunday Times of London, Review by Joan Smith; “even more gripping and astonishing than the first.”
Times of London, Review by Marcel Berlins; “the urgency of Larsson’s prose prevents boredom in reading a book that would otherwise be regarded as over-long and over-crammed. Somehow, Larsson has managed to write a riveting read.”
The Guardian, Review by Louise France; it is “that rare thing – a sequel that is even better than the book that went before.”
According to the Knopf catalog, it will also be available in large print and audio.
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Speculation had just begun on who’s behind the pseudonym of the “debut” mystery, Dog On It, by Spencer Quinn, when the case was cracked. Appropriately, Sarah Weinman, who writes insightfully about the mystery genre in the L.A. Times, Balimore Sun, and the New York Post as well as on her own blog, has unmasked the true author — Peter Abrahams.
She doesn’t explain how she made the discovery in her story in the Book Beast, but she clearly has the goods; Abrahams spoke to her about why he chose to use a pseudonym.
Among Abrahams’s works under his own name are, The Fury of Rachel Monette (1980), Oblivion (2004), End of Story (2005), the Echo Falls mystery series for middle-graders, and a new novel for teens coming next month, Reality Check (HarperTeen).
Dog On It is currently on the NYT hardcover fiction bestseller list. Abrahams/Quinn is under contract for three more books in the series; the next one will be out this fall.
Dog On It
Spencer Quinn
Mystery writer Barbara Parker died on Saturday. She was 62.
An obituary/tribute in the Miami Sun Sentinel attests to her importance to her various communities. Her agent, Richard Curtis, wrote a personal tribute on his blog.
She was best known for the eight books in her “Suspicion” series, featuring Miami lawyers Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana. The Booklist review of Suspicion of Rage (2006) said,
This series has been around for a while, but it hasn’t yet reached the point where the characters feel too familiar or its plots have drifted into formula. The interpersonal dynamics between Connor and Quintana remain sharp, and the Florida setting continues to add to the appeal. If Parker keeps writing them as smartly as she has written this one, her series may never turn stale.
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