Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine

NEWS

October-December, 2006

DP #49 went to the printer on Tuesday. I hope to mail it by Monday-Tuesday. I was able to FTP it to the printer which saved me a two-hour round-trip drive, but did take a bit of work to set up. Also the person at the post office I've worked with for years retired and the new person is having me hop through a bunch of new hoops in order to mail it. I'll let you know when it is mailed. Now my project is to completely re-do this website, so stay tuned. 12/13/2006

Hailey Lind (sister team of writers -- Julie Goodson-Lawes and Carolyn Lawes) is the author of a relatively new series of paperback originals, billed as Art Lovers mysteries. FEINT OF ART and SHOOTING GALLERY are the first two entries. The author has initiated a Portrait Contest to publicize her books. There is still time to enter (contest ends December 8, 2006) and the winner will have a custom portrait painted by the author, who is an accomplished painter. Click on Contest link to see details and one of the author's stunning portraits. 11/28/2006

The next Joe Lansdale -- LOST ECHOES -- is coming out in February, 2007 from Vintage as a trade paperback original. Vintage has published similar trade ppbos for Andrew Vachss. This illustrates the trend I wrote about in the last cover article -- more books being published in trade paperback than in hardcover. 11/28/2006

Thriller writer William Diehl has passed away at age 81. He is best known for the two books that were made into movies: SHARKY'S MACHINE and PRIMAL FEAR. He started on his first novel, SHARKY'S MACHINE while serving as a juror in a Fulton County courtroom. Diehl, then 50, was bored by the trial and started writing fiction on a notepad.
Diehl was a World War II veteran, serving as a ball turret gunner aboard a B-24 bomber.

Diehl lived in Woodstock with his wife, Virginia Gunn. He is also survived by five children and eight grandchildren.

He was writing his 10th novel at the time of his death. The book was expected to published sometime next year, his friends said. 11/28/2006

Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and The Wolfe Pack, the official Nero Wolfe society, will sponsor a new annual writing prize, the Black Orchid Novella Award, the two organizations have announced. The contest will offer a prize of $1,000 and publication in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

The first Black Orchid Novella Award will be announced at The Wolfe Pack’s annual Winter Banquet in December 2007. The deadline for submissions is May 31, 2007.

The contest will honor an unpublished work of mystery fiction written in the tradition of the Nero Wolfe mystery stories: this tradition emphasizes the deductive skills of the story’s sleuth and eschews overt sex and violence. The contest will not consider stories that use characters from Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories, which are protected by copyright.

Entries must be 15,000 to 20,000 words in length. Submissions will be screened by members of The Wolfe Pack, and the winner will be selected by Linda Landrigan, editor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.Further information about the Black Orchid Novella Award can be found at The Wolfe Pack’s web site, <http://www.nerowolfe.org>. 11/01/2006

Sorry I have been absent for awhile. I had some business problems to solve and it has taken a lot of my time this last month. Will get back into the flow. Am hard at work on DP49. Hope to have it to you before Thanksgiving. 11/01/2006

The Barry Awards were presented on Thursday, September 28, 2006.

Best Novel: RED LEAVES by Thomas H. Cook

Best First Novel: COLD GRANITE by Stuart MacBride

Best British Novel: THE FIELD OF BLOOD by Denise Mina

Best Thriller: THE COMPANY MAN by Joseph Finder

Best Paperback Original: THE JAMES DEANS Reed Farrel Coleman

Best Short Story: "There is No Crime on Easter Island" by Nancy Pickard

Don Sandstrom Award for Lifetime Achievement in Mystery Fandom: Janet Rudolph

Talked to John Dunning's wife the other day and she said that he is improving but very slowly. 9/22/2006

To you Arnardur Indridason fans who are attending Bouchercon, I just heard from bookseller Mike Bursaw, a.k.a. Mystery Mike, that he will have copies of the British edition of Indridason's new book VOICES at his table at Bouchercon. There was some mystery with the first printing of the book by Harvill in England. Many booksellers received copies of the book without the number "1" on the number line, which made them appear to be second printings of VOICES, yet the publisher insisted that it had never re-printed it. But there are copies with a "1" out there, so there are clearly first and second printings -- so the publisher is mistaken at best. Mike has both 1st printings that will sell for a premium since he had to pay extra for them -- and 2nd printings that will sell for a normal price (for Brit editions) for those who just want to read the book and aren't interested in the whole collecting thing. If you can wait a year or so to read it, you can get the St. Martin's edition which I expect will be forthcoming in late 2007 (I think, but can't be sure this far ahead.). 9/19/2006

I thought I had announced this before, but I couldn't find any mention of it on this page, but I know I did mention it in the latest issue of DP. We are discontinuing the DP Bulletin Board because it never got the level of participation that I had hoped for -- blame the moderator -- me. I had been leaning in this direction for some time now but what pushed me over the top was the discovery of another discussion group known as 4MA (For Mystery Addicts) which is similar to DorothyL, but much more to my liking. It is everything and more that I wanted the DP Bulletin Board to be and more. Many DP subscribers participate on 4MA already (including its moderator Maddy Van Hertbruggen) participate. It does some wonderful things: monthly discussions of at two or more books; monthly recommended reading lists from participants; knowledgeable participants and best of all, enthusiasm and love for the mystery genre. I must have been living under a rock (not too difficult to do in Utah) not to have been aware of this group before, but now that I am , I encourage all of you to participate as well. Here's how: Go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/4_Mystery_Addicts/ and then hit button below to join. If you don't have a yahoo.com e-mail account you may want to sign up for that first (I already had a yahoo email address, but directed the email to come to my deadly pleasures email account) . It takes a couple of minutes, but is well worth it. You can elect to get the daily e-mails or just to read the digests of emails. Depends on how much email you already get. It just takes a couple of minutes each day to scroll through the email and delete it, so that is the option I went for. Good luck. 9/18/2006

Thanks to all who sent in their votes for the Barry Awards. 9/12/2006

Ruth Cavin of St. Martin's Press sent me the following e-mail:

I'd like to correct something in the new issue of DEADLY PLEASURES, which just hit my office today. In your review of Steve Hamilton's new book, A Stolen Season, you say "the author spent quite a bit of time writing a stand-alone thriller that never came together." You're quite mistaken. He was indeed working on a stand-alone, and it's very close to completion. It is the second book on our two-book contract with Steve. St. Martins Minotaur, Steve and his agent Jane Chelius, all agreed that it would be better to follow up the Alex McKnight story at this point, and save the stand-alone for the later publication. And believe me, it is "coming together" beautifully. 9/12/2006