AT THE SCENE - May 2014
YOUR FREE MONTHLY ENEWSLETTER
  
A tote about town: Mystery Scene fashion spotted on the streets of New York City.
 
Everything old is new again. Veronica Mars, the smarter-than- average TV show about a teenager solving mysteries in high school and, later, college, was cancelled after three seasons. But the show's creator, Rob Thomas, found a way to revive the show, as a Kickstarter.com funded movie. Kevin Burton Smith revisits the show and reviews the new movie in this issue.

It seems we never want to give up on our old favorites. Laura Miller takes a look at the new novels featuring James Bond, Philip Marlowe, and Jeeves this year, and finds them enormously enjoyable.

Reaching back in time even further than those three icons, we find E. Phillips Oppenheim. Read Michael Mallory's "The Prince of Storytellers" to learn about this prolific thriller writer, who published over 100 novels between 1887 and 1943. He, too, is being revived thanks to ebook technology.

Spring Issue #134, arriving to newsstands and mailboxes near you.
If you're looking for a more modern take on the thriller, check out the work of Owen Laukkanen. How does a jet-setting poker journalist and part-time lobster boat fisherman become a thriller writer? Oline Cogdill explains all.

Sharp-eyed critic and crime fiction scholar Jon L. Breen points out that not all technology trends are good for readers. Those of you interested in reference works will want to read about a cost-saving shortcut publishers are using that, Breen argues, reduces the value of the books.

Enjoy!

Kate Stine
Editor-in-chief 

NEW MAILING ADDRESS
Mystery Scene's new mailing address for subscription queries, Letters to the Editor, and other correspondence is now:

Mystery Scene Magazine
PO Box 2200
Radio City Station
New York, NY 10101-2200 
CONTENTS

 


article1Lawrence Block on the Pleasures of Rereading
 
 
Lawrence Block

A couple of weeks ago I sat in my favorite chair, picked up a book, and relaxed into a blend of contentment and anticipation. I had a book in hand, The Queen's Gambit, a novel by Walter Tevis, and I knew I was going to enjoy it.

That's not always the case. I spend far less time reading these days than I did in the past. I don't pick up that many books, and finish a slim percentage of the ones I start. Some I abandon with extreme prejudice, as it were; something in the writing or story line aggravates me, and that's the end of that. But other books simply slip away; I put them down and find myself disinclined to pick them up again...

Lawrence Block's latest novel is Borderline 
(Hard Case Crime, May 2014)
"Writers on Reading" is a special ongoing Mystery Scene series available as a first-look exclusive to our newsletter subscribers.

 

article2The Great American Book Tour
Author Jenny Milchman reads her way across the US

Image credit: Custom bookshelf designed by artist Ron Arad.
 
Time to read your way across the nation with author Jenny Milchman (Ruin Falls, April 2014).

You can drive cross-country visiting amusement parks or baseball fields. You can eat your way across the country road food-style or get your kicks on route 66. But if you're a mystery fan, you can see America bookstore by bookstore-and possibly have the biggest adventure yet. My family of four set out with stops scheduled at 19 mystery bookstores...

Please write "TOTE" in the comments field of your order.

article3
Edgar and Agatha Award Winners Announced
Plus reviews of winners on
MysterySceneMag.com
L-R: Authors Daniel Stashower (Best Fact Crime Edgar and Best Nonfiction Agatha Award winner), Carolyn Hart (MWA Grand Master), and Hank Phillippi Ryan (Best Contemporary Novel Agatha Award winner) at the Agatha Awards.



















Mystery Scene congratulates all the award winners on their honors.

2014 Edgar Award winners 

Best Novel

Ordinary Grace, William Kent Krueger (Atria Books)

Best First Novel

Red Sparrow, Jason Matthews (Scribner)

Best Paperback Original

The Wicked Girls, Alex Marwood (Penguin)

Best Fact Crime

The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War, Daniel Stashower (Minotaur)

Best Critical/Bio

America is Elsewhere: The Noir Tradition in the Age of Consumer Culture, Erik Dussere (Oxford Univ.)

Best Short Story

"The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository," John Connolly, in Bibliomysteries (Mysterious Bookshop)

Best Juvenile

One Came Home
, Amy Timberlake (Alfred A Knopf BFYR) 

Best Young Adult

Ketchup Clouds
, Annabel Pitcher (Little, Brown Books for Young
    Readers)

Best TV Episode
"Episode 1" The Fall, teleplay Allan Cubbitt (Netflix)

Mary Higgins Clark Award

Cover of Snow, Jenny Milchman (Ballantine Books)


2014 Agatha Award Winners

Best Contemporary Novel
The Wrong Girl, Hank Phillippi Ryan  (Forge)

Best First Novel
Death Al Dente, Leslie Budewitz (Berkley Prime Crime)

Best Historical Novel
A Question of Honor, Charles Todd (William Morrow)

Best Children's/YA
Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library, Chris Grabenstein (Random House)

Best Nonfiction
The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War, Daniel Stashower (Minotaur)

Best Short Story
"The Care and Feeding of House Plants" in EQQM, Art Taylor  

Full list of Malice Domestic Agatha Awards
Full list of MWA Edgar Allan Poe Awards
article4Overheard: Georgette Heyer on mothers, sons, and daughters-in-law
Georgette Heyer (1902-1974), British romance and detective fiction novelist



"You will like her," he persisted. "Egad, she's after your own heart, maman! She shot me in the arm."
 
 
- Marquis Vidal convincing his mother she'll get along with his beloved in Georgette Heyer's 1932 novel Devil's Cub.


Happy Mother's Day! 
 
article6
by Oline H. Cogdill
This year Berkley Prime Crime is turning 20 years, and that is cause for celebration.

by Oline Cogdill

by Gary Phillips

Veronica Mars is back on the big screen with a Kickstarter-funded movie. But back in 2005, noir author Gary Phillips was taken with the teenage TV sleuth.

 
by Nevada Barr
Reading is a serious addiction. 

Reviews: More Reviews
Did you know that MS features even more reviews online?  Look for the tag "Online Exclusive." 
Mystery Scene Mast
Established in 1985, Mystery Scene Magazine is the oldest, largest, and most authoritative guide to the crime fiction genre. 

Email: [email protected]   
Subscriptions: [email protected]
 

LATEST PRINT ISSUE
#134, Spring 2014

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