The Winter Issue #133 of Mystery Scene Magazine.
Laura Lippman is one of the biggest talents working in crime fiction today. If you haven't had the pleasure of delving into her books then treat yourself. As Kevin Burton Smith says in his review of her latest, After I'm Gone:
Lippman, a thoughtful, deliberate writer who never met a surface she didn't try to scratch, always knows exactly where she's going, even as her hapless characters are repeatedly blindsided by life. In a world of pretenders, this is real-world noir, and Lippman is a master.
Chris Pavone has returned to his old stomping grounds in his new novel, The Accident. It centers on the New York publishing industry that employed him for almost two decades before he launched a new career on the other side of the red pen. Oline Cogdill has a chat with him in this issue.
The fun-loving Clayton Rawson delighted in tricks and illusions of all types, both as a stage magician and in his detective stories featuring The Great Merlini. Michael Mallory takes a look at the life and work of the personable Rawson whose entire backlist is now being brought back into print.
Jo Hammett once described her father as "unknowable." While that may be true, Dashiell Hammett continues to fascinate us five decades after his death in 1961. In "A Lock Without a Key," Joseph Goodrich considers Sally Cline's new biography and fictional portraits of the writer in two recent novels.
Even though it's set in the Ozarks, Winter's Bone, starring Jennifer Lawrence as a tough-as-nails teenager, is about as noir as it gets. In "Night and the Country," Jake Hinkson looks at the development of "rural film noir" as a form similar to, but clearly distinct from, its big-city cousin.
For Mystery Scene's "Fave Raves of 2013," our critics were asked to choose works they loved and found themselves thinking about long afterwards. It's a fun list, enjoy!
As a book editor years ago, it was my firm rule to reject any manuscript that began with an extended torture scene. This reduced my workload to a surprising extent. Perhaps it goes without saying, but these interludes seldom involved men or children, and never, ever, pets. No, it was almost always a terrified young woman suffering the torments of the damned.
At the time, I thought this was a temporary reaction by derivative writers to The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. Fast forward several decades, and this grotesque violence now seems like a symptom of a chronic problem. Writer Hilary Davidson thinks so as well; don't miss her essay on misogyny in the crime genre in this issue. We'd like to hear what you think, too, so please write in.
Kate Stine
Editor-in-chief
NEW MAILING ADDRESS!
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 Jenny Milchman on Doris Miles Disney's Winifred
 I was often alone as a child. There were patches of time when I had a gang of kids to rove around with, solving mysteries about the strange feathers floating in the pond, or why Mr. Devlin's mailbox was open when it wasn't even time for the postman. But there were just as many days when my friends all avoided me, and that was the greatest mystery of all.
Books were my respite...
Jenny Milchman's latest novel is Ruin Falls
(Ballantine, April 2014)
"Writers on Reading" is a special ongoing Mystery Scene series available as a first-look exclusive to our newsletter subscribers.
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2014 Left Coast Crime Awards
And the nominees are...
Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini are the
recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award
Calamari Crime is delighted to announce the nominees for the 2014 Left Coast Crime Awards. The awards will presented on Saturday, March 22, at Left Coast Crime in Monterey, California. THE LEFTY: BEST HUMOROUS NOVEL The Hen of the Baskervilles, Donna Andrews (Minotaur Books) The Fame Thief, Timothy Hallinan, (Soho Crime) The Last Word, Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster) The Good Cop, Brad Parks (Minotaur Books) Dying for a Daiquiri, Cindy Sample (Cindy Sample Books) Congrats to all the nominees!
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A Chat With John Dixon
Season Premieres
 | | John Dixon's Phoenix Island was the inspiration behind Intelligence, the high-tech thriller starring Josh Holloway as Gabriel, an operative for a cyber-security organization with a microchip implant in his brain (CBS, Mondays 10/9c). |
Recently Mystery Scene's Hank Wagner chatted with the former boxer, teacher, and stone mason, John Dixon, the author of Phoenix Island, who now writes full time and serves as a consultant to ABC Studios.
Hank Wagner for Mystery Scene: I just finished reading your excellent debut novel, Phoenix Island, the story of a young man who finds himself on an island which houses a unique correctional facility for troubled youths. And now, I see, or think I see, that Intelligence, the new hit TV show that premiered on CBS in January, is more inspired by, than based on, your book. John Dixon: Intelligence is definitely inspired by, versus based on, Phoenix Island. It didn't start out that way - at the very beginning, it was considered for a close telling as a feature film - but it morphed over time as target networks shifted and more people got involved. There are ties, and I think people who've read the book will have fun when those pop out, but yeah, the two stories are different now.
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Overheard: Harriet on spying at age 50
"YOU CAN'T BE
TOO OLD TO SPY
EXCEPT IF YOU
WERE FIFTY YOU MIGHT
FALL OFF A FIRE ESCAPE,
BUT YOU COULD
SPY AROUND ON
THE GROUND
A LOT."
- Harriet M. Welsch in Harriet the Spy, the 1964 children's novel written and illustrated by Louise Fitzhughs.
Harriet celebrates her 50th anniversary this year. As an aspiring 11-year-old writer, Harriet's keen and often hilarious observations about her world have resonated with many generations of young readers.
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by Oline H. Cogdill
For several years now, mega-bestseller James Patterson has been an advocate of literacy, supplying schools and programs with books for young readers.
by Oline H. Cogdill
McMahon mixes mystery and gothic - she in her latest, Winter People.
by David Morrell
David Morrell's tales from the crypt.
Metta Fuller Victor (1831-1885) was a writer, editor, abolitionist, moral reformer-and the first American mystery novelist.
Did you know that MS features even more reviews online? Look for the tag "Online Exclusive."
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Established in 1985, Mystery Scene Magazine is the oldest, largest, and most authoritative guide to the crime fiction genre.
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LATEST ISSUE
#133, Winter 2014
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