Marina Fiorato on Susan Hill, Edgar and Agatha Winners, Spring #119, and more

Mystery Scene Magazine www.mysteryscenemag.com

At the Scene, May 2011 Solving the mystery of what to read next!

In this Issue

Greetings from Kate

Marina Fiorato on Reading

Overheard

Edgar & Agatha Awards

Readers Rec Winner

Quick Links

Current Issue
Book Reviews
Mystery Scene Blog

AUTHORS
PUBLISHERS
BOOKSELLERS
Don't Miss Our
Next Issue!

Reach thousands of enthusiastic
mystery fans

Promote your new book in our newsletter, online and in print. Send an email to
Teri Duerr
for advertising details.

READ PREVIOUS
"AT THE SCENE"
E-NEWS AT OUR
ARCHIVE HERE

Intent to Sell
3rd Edition
by Jeffrey Marks

NOW AVAILABLE
$17.95 pb
Hilliard & Harris
ISBN 978-1591331162

May Greetings

Spring Issue #119, Marina Fiorato on Susan Hill and The Man in the Picture, Edgar and Agatha Award Winners, and MS Recs Winner

Hi everyone,

If you haven't read Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next bibliomysteries, then you're in for a real treat. Tom Nolan gives an introduction to the whimsical world of Thursday Next, literary detective in this issue. (Here's some advice for newbies, though: start with the first book in the series, The Eyre Affair.)

Have you ever wondered about the loyal wife, silently standing by her disgraced husband, usually a politician, on the evening news? The Good Wife places that enigmatic figure at the center of one of the most enjoyable dramas on TV. It's full-bodied, nuanced storytelling - and possibly features the only time in history that a steamy sex scene has had National Public Radio's evening news as a soundtrack. Find out more in Matt Zoller Seitz's thoughtful article.

Novelist Kelli Stanley is making a splash and her conversation with Oline Cogdill reveals why. It's not every woman who is equally comfortable discussing ancient Roman curse tablets, the second Sino-Japanese War, segregated 1970s Florida, and comics!

Also, Art Taylor talks with Louis Bayard about his acclaimed literary-themed thrillers, the latest of which, The School of Night, focuses on a secret, possibly heretical, society of scientists and artists in Elizabethan England.

Theatrical crime is running rampant across the country and Wm. F. Hirschman has tracked down some of the top perpetrators on Broadway and in regional theater for us. Don't miss his list of classic crime plays - they make good reading!

There's lots more in the new issue. Hope you enjoy!

Sincerely,
Kate Stine
Editor-in-Chief

Read Anything Good Lately?
Email us your fave raves for the "Our Readers Recommend" feature and be entered to win a free book!

Need Help with Your Subscription?
Send us a note. Renew or subscribe at our MysterySceneMag.com.

Marina Fiorato on Susan Hill
Exquisite chills in the novella The Man in the Picture

Susan Hill went to the top of my chart of greatest contemporary mystery writers when I first read her novel The Woman in Black. The image of the shadowy, malign woman stayed with me long after I'd closed the book.

But her novella The Man in the Picture has far more resonance for me personally as its subject is Venice, the setting for several of my own books. As I've written a number of times in my novels, Venice can be a wonderful sunny place but it can also be a place of great darkness, and this story epitomizes more than any other, the true nature of the evil that can lurk behind a mask; the disparity between appearance and reality, the beautiful face of the city hiding her dark heart.

The eponymous picture is of a Venetian Carnevale scene, featuring a crowd of masked characters by the Grand Canal. It hangs in the rooms of an elderly Cambridge Don, Theo, who begins the story by revealing the secret of the picture to his young pupil Oliver. His revelations will go onto change Oliver's life in an exquisitely sinister sequence of events. No spoilers here; for the secret of the painting's evil power is the chilling central spine of the book.

One of the most striking things about the book is how clearly you see the evil painting, in exquisite detail, as if it is hanging before your eyes; even though none of the editions that I have read featured an imagining of the picture as cover art. The skill lies solely in the author's deeply evocative description. As happens in my favourite horror movie, Ringu, just being in the presence of a malign artwork infects the lives of those who view it with utter evil. And because it is a novella, it's possible to read this chilling little book in one winter's evening by the fire. Just don't read it when you're alone in the house.

Marina Fiorato's latest book is The Daughter of Siena (St. Martin's Griffin, May 2011). www.marinafiorato.com

"Writers on Reading" is a special ongoing Mystery Scene series available as a first look exclusive to our newsletter subscribers.

Overheard

Chief Deputy Marshall Art Mullen: You know, Raylan, you're going to have a weeks paid leave coming up 'cause of the investigation. That's going to be a very restful time.

Marshall Raylan Givens: Seriously, I'm fine.

Art Mullen: I meant restful for me.

- Chief Deputy US Marshall Art Mullen (Nick Searcy) and his problem employee US Marshall Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant, pictured),
in "Fixer," Justified, 2010. (FX)

The Edgar, Agatha, and L.A. Times

Congratulations to all of this year's award winners and nominees

Read MS Review

2011 EDGAR ALLAN POE

AWARD WINNERS

Mystery Writers of America announced the winners of the 2011 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction, and television published or produced in 2010, during the 65th Gala Banquet, April 28, 2011 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City. Full list of ALL nominees here. Read related MS reviews and articles by clicking on linked titles.

BEST NOVEL
The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Minotaur Books)

Read MS Article

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva (Forge Books)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard (Random House - Bantam)

BEST FACT CRIME
Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry (University of Nebraska Press - Bison Original)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and his Rendezvouz with American History by Yunte Huang (W.W. Norton)

BEST SHORT STORY
"The Scent of Lilacs" by Doug Allyn (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

BEST JUVENILE
The Buddy Files: The Case of the Lost Boy by Dori Hillestad Butler (Albert Whitman & Co.)

BEST YOUNG ADULT
Interrogation of Gabriel James by Charlie Price (Farrar, Straus, Giroux Books for Young Readers)

Read MS Interview

BEST PLAY
The Psychic by Sam Bobrick (Falcon Theatre - Burbank, California)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

"Episode 1" - Luther, Teleplay by Neil Cross (BBC America)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

"Skyler Hobbs and the Rabbit Man" - Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Evan Lewis (Dell Magazines)

GRAND MASTER

Sara Paretsky

Read MS Article

RAVEN AWARDS

Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore,

Forest Park, Illinois

Once Upon A Crime Bookstore,

Minneapolis, Minnesota

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER -

MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD

(Presented at MWA's Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 27, 2011)

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths

(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Read MS Review

2011 AGATHA AWARDS

And the Agatha Awards were announced Saturday,
April 30, during the Malice Domestic conference. Full list of ALL nominess here. Read related MS reviews and articles by clicking
on linked titles.

BEST NOVEL
Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny. This was Penny's fourth Agatha in a row.

BEST NONFICTION
Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks by John Curran

BEST CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT
The Other Side of Dark by Sarah Smith

THE BEST FIRST MYSTERY NOVEL
The Long Quiche Goodbye by Avery Aames

BEST SHORT STORY
"So Much in Common" by Mary Jane Maffini, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - Sept./Oct. 2010

Read MS Review

2011 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE

The winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the mystery/thriller category is Tom Franklin's Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. Announced Friday, April 29, 2011.

For the latest news follow the MS blog at www.mysteryscenemag.com. We also have the nominees list for the Ellery Queen Mystery Awards and Anthony Awards at the MS blog.

The Latest "Our Readers Recommend" Winner!

CONGRATULATIONS to Zakariah J. of Portland, Ore., for being the spring #119 "Readers Recommend" FREE BOOK WINNER for his recommendation of Donald Westlake's The Spy in the Ointment.

Have a favorite read? Submit your "Readers Recommend" and be entered to win a free book.

Mystery Scene Magazine
331 W. 57th Street, Suite 148
New York, NY 10019
www.mysteryscenemag.com
Email: info@mysteryscenemag.com

� 2010 Mystery Scene Magazine