DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

Recommendations

Info

16 Deadly Pleasures BARRY BARRY AWARD AWARD 2008 2008 Nominees Nominees We invite you to send in your vote so it is in our hands by September 12, 2008. You should have a loose ballot inserted into this magazine. See below on various methods of voting. BEST NOVEL (Published in the U.S. in 2007) SOUL PATCH, Reed Farrel Coleman (Bleak House) THE UNQUIET, John Connolly (Atria) DOWN RIVER, John Hart (St Martin’s Minotaur) DIRTY MARTINI, J.A. Konrath (Hyperion) WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, Laura Lippman (Morrow) RED CAT, Peter Spiegelman (Knopf) BEST FIRST NOVEL (Published in the U.S. in 2007) MISSING WITNESS, Gordon Campbell (Morrow) BIG CITY, BAD BLOOD, Sean Chercover (Morrow) IN THE WOODS, Tana French (Viking) THE SPELLMAN FILES, Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster) THE COLLABORATOR OF BETHLEHEM, Matt Beynon Rees (Soho Press) THE BLADE ITSELF, Marcus Sakey (St. Martin’s Minotaur) BEST BRITISH CRIME NOVEL (Published in the U.K. in 2007, not necessarily written by a British writer, nor set in the U.K. ) A QUIET BELIEF IN ANGELS, R.J. Ellory (Orion) PIG ISLAND, Mo Hayder (Bantam Press) ONE UNDER, Graham Hurley (Orion) THE DEATH LIST, Paul Johnston (Mira) THE 50/50 KILLER, Steve Mosby (Orion) DAMNATION FALLS, Edward Wright (Orion) BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL QUEENPIN, Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster) BLACK WIDOW AGENCY, Felicia Donovan (Midnight Ink) CHOKE POINT, Jay MacLarty (Pocket) THE MARK, Jason Pinter (Mira) WASH THIS BLOOD CLEAN FROM MY HAND, Fred Vargas (Penguin) WHO IS CONRAD HIRST?, Kevin Wignall (Simon & Schuster) BEST THRILLER NO TIME FOR GOODBYE, Linwood Barclay (Bantam) THE CLEANER, Brett Battles (Delacorte) THE WATCHMAN, Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster) VOLK’S GAME, Brent Ghelfi (Henry Holt) SILENCE, Thomas Perry (Harcourt) MIDNIGHT RAMBLER, Jim Swain (Ballantine) BEST SHORT STORY Doug Allyn, “Dead As a Dog” (EQMM July 2007) Dale C. Andrews and Kurt Sercu, “The Book Case” (EQMM May 2007) Jon L. Breen, “The Missing Elevator Puzzle” (EQMM February 2007) Jeffrey Deaver, “Bump” (DEAD MAN’S HAND) Edward D. Hoch, “The Problem of the Summer Snowman” (EQMM November 2007) Gillian Roberts, “The Old Wife’s Tale” (EQMM March- April 2007) Neil Schofield, “Murder: A User’s Guibe” (AHMM July- August 2007). The word “Guibe” is not a typo. Many thanks to the nominating panels who came up with these excellent short lists. The panels consisted of the following well-read experts in the field: Maggie Mason, Larry Gandle, Barbara Peters, Sarah Weinman, Mike Bursaw, Marv Lachman, Steele Curry, Beth Fedyn, Ali Karim, Pat Frovarp, Gary Schulze, George Easter and the crew from Mystery News. This is a heck of a good list of books read and to-be-read. Enjoy! I would like to congratulate all of the fine authors nominated this year. Thank you for the many enjoyable hours of reading you have given us and best of luck to all of you in the voting. Who may vote: any subscriber or reader of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine and/or Mystery News. If you subscribe to both publications, please only vote once. The nominated authors may also vote. Do not be intimidated if you haven't read all of the nominated novels and shorts stories -- none of us have. How to send in votes (please include name and zip code will all votes) : ♦ Mail in the enclosed ballot to DP Mystery Magazine, P.O. Box 969, Bountiful, UT 84011 ♦ Fax the enclosed ballot to (801) 296-1993 ♦ E-mail choices to george@deadlypleasures.com with subject line: Barry Award Vote
IT’S IT’S ABOUT ABOUT CRIME CRIME by y Mar Marv Mar v Lac Lachman Lac hman The Short Stop HARDCORE HARDBOILED, edited by Todd Robinson (Kensington Books paperback, $14.00), is not really as bad as its title makes it sound. It’s just that who wants to spend as much time as it takes to finish 24 stories with characters as obnoxious as almost all of them are. A couple of stories are good, notably David Bareford’s “Eden’s Bodyguard,” about a man who guards a pop singer, and Frank Zafiro’s “Rescuing Isaac.” Most stories are not worthwhile, having minimal plots and boring dialogue. Since these are stories from the online magazine Thuglit, they do not cause me to change my mind about the difference between fiction in a print and that on the web. Incidentally, many of the characters smoke cigarettes in these stories. Is that supposed to be a hardcore habit or one that is hardboiled? For twenty years Edward D. Hoch edited the annual volume of the “best” mystery short stories. Since then, the closest thing to those volumes has been the yearly anthologies edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg. The latest in that series, A PRISONER OF MEMORY (Pegasus Books trade paperback, $15.95), contains 25 stories published in 2007, Jon L. Breen’s superb annual review of that year, and Hoch’s listing of mystery writers who died in 2007. Ironically, Hoch died in January 2008, shortly after submitting his necrology. There is a heartfelt tribute to him by Francis M. “Mike” Nevins. The average quality of the stories is quite good, with two stories that deserve to be on any list of the year’s best. They are Doug Allyn’s “Dead As a Dog” and Nancy Pickard’s “I Killed.” Allyn’s, in particular, deserves to be shortlisted for the year’s various prizes. There are also strong stories by some of today’s best mystery authors, including Michael Connelly, Lawrence Block, Jeremiah Healy, and Clark Howard. The book’s title is from a story by Robert S. Levinson, one of his typically enjoyable tales about show business and Hollywood. Four of the stories are from online magazines, introduced by Sarah Weinman, a big proponent of mysteries published in that format. Of Deadly Pleasures 17 these, Patricia Abbott’s “A Saving Grace,” from Thrilling Detective, is certainly worth reading. Novels Recently Read Harrison Gradwell Slater’s NIGHT MUSIC (2002) begins promisingly, especially for lovers of classical music. Matthew Pierce, a music scholar and pianist, finds what may be a lost Mozart diary at a Milan auction. Before he can have it authenticated, he is invited to a French estate to what will prove to be an almost endless round of parties given by a wealthy viscount. Among the guests are some of the leading lights of the music world, including the world’s two leading Mozart scholars. Naturally, the Mozart diary creates a great deal of interest and eventually results in murder and attempted murder. Unfortunately, Slater’s book is so padded (it comes in at 493 pages in paperback) that my interest waned. Pierce visits virtually every major city in Europe, and they are described in excessive detail. There is a large cast of characters, and they are difficult to tell apart. Having characters named Andrei and Andreas doesn’t help. Sexual scenes are often inserted, and while they are quite erotic, they don’t move the plot forward. Slater’s use of language is sometimes awkward. For example, we read on page 425: “Some event of unthinkable violence was about to take place.” There are too many quotations inserted, a frequent fault of writers of first novels (as is Slater), as if they had been saving them up for years. Taken individually, there are good elements in this book. The descriptions of Europe might be intriguing for would-be travelers, and Slater is adept at conveying the beauty of classical music. However, the book as a whole did not work for me, and it wasn’t helped by a very long and not too convincing resolution at the end. Those of you who read current mysteries exclusively may never have read a locked room detective story. I envy you the treat you have in store if you choose either or both of two terrific, impossible crime mysteries by John Dickson Carr, recently published by Rue Morgue Press at $14.95 each. Both date from 1938, a golden year in the Golden Age, and they show how fertile was Carr’s imagination to be able to devise two plots this good in the same year. His enthusiasm (he called detective fiction the “Grandest Game”) clearly comes across. In THE CROOKED HINGE, a seemingly impossible murder, in a locked room, follows a dispute over who is the legitimate claimant to the baronetcy of Mallingford and Sloane. (There are echoes here of the famous true crime involving the Tichborne claimant.) In 1912, allegedly, identities were switched aboard the Titanic as it went down. In 1937, when the book takes place, two possible claimants show up at Farnleigh Close. The murder involves the least likely person – to be murdered. Literary gravy is supplied to the puzzle by references to witchcraft and an automaton similar to one written about by Poe and Ambrose Bierce. What could be science fiction or even fantasy is explained fairly and logically by Carr who, in the best detective tradition, issues a challenge to the reader.
Page 1 and 2: Summer, 2008⊳�Issue 54 Deadly P
Page 3 and 4: the classic signs of abuse and the
Page 5 and 6: ead before you die (everyone seems
Page 7 and 8: Latest The Stand-alone crimes are N
Page 9 and 10: �managing NEVER finances, END thi
Page 11 and 12: talist, Mildred has made lots of fr
Page 13 and 14: Usually I don’t care for police p
Page 15: Peter Hoeg � THE QUIET GIRL (Harv
Page 19 and 20: speed reading and the short hand no
Page 21 and 22: REVIEWED REVIEWED TO TO DEATH DEATH
Page 23 and 24: Further, all conversation was done
Page 25 and 26: e dependant on not only the book it
Page 27 and 28: Cassie Maddox is still trying to re
Page 29 and 30: not desire--in her most suspenseful
Page 31 and 32: pleased. He knows it is the kind of
Page 33 and 34: An An Unsuitable Unsuitable Job Job
Page 35 and 36: input near the end of next year, so
Page 37 and 38: Reviews is a friendly sort, general
Page 39 and 40: crets. To complicate matters furthe
Page 41 and 42: never have dreamed of, while a kill
Page 43 and 44: MAGGIE’S MAGGIE’S MYSTERY MYSTE
Page 45 and 46: Neanderthal, the fields of archeolo
Page 47 and 48: a bit more exposition in this book,
Page 49 and 50: and Rosie must take over more than
Page 51 and 52: where he lives in the Hamptons -- t
Page 53 and 54: during the Inquisition, and all the
Page 55 and 56: Cassandra Cassandra Gandle Gandle o
Page 57 and 58: HISTORY HISTORY MYSTERY MYSTERY POT
Page 59 and 60: Reviews what happened. He joins wit
Page 61 and 62: DEADL DEADLY DEADL AUDIO AUDIO PLEA
Page 63 and 64: a massive constrictor. The book get
Page 65 and 66: WHA WHAT’S WHA T’S NEW NEW IN I
Page 67 and 68:
a terrifying web of murder and abdu
Page 69 and 70:
personal lives of the officers invo
Page 71 and 72:
face frilled by white hair”. If
Page 73 and 74:
THE THE AFRICAN AFRICAN CONTINENT C
Page 75 and 76:
cover of her book THE TROPHY TAKER,
Page 77 and 78:
Not paying attention At some point
Page 79 and 80:
One cannot, of course, suggest that
Page 81 and 82:
RECENT RECENT P PPAPERB P APERB APE
Page 83 and 84:
Augie Boyer uncovers a plot to kill
show all

DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

Transform your PDFs into Flipbooks and boost your revenue!

Delete template?

Save as template ?