The latest from Crime Time

The UK-based magazine offers up some new content on its website, including reviews of the latest by Reginald Hill and Lisa Gardner, and a couple of really juicy interviews as well. John Shannon talks to Brian Ritterspak about his Jack Liffey novels, covering LA in his own distinct way, and how his liberal politics play an active role in his writing. Meanwhile, South African thriller writer Deon Meyer (whom Bouchercon attendees may recognize because the hardcover of his current book, HEART OF THE HUNTER, was unjustly consigned to the remainder piles by the dozen) chats to Michael Carlson about his work, balancing politics and fiction, and the things that get lost in translation:

**YOU HAVE A NEW TRANSLATOR FOR THIS BOOK, AND IT SEEMED THE

TRANSITIONS FROM THE VARIOUS LANGUAGES, AFRIKAANS, ENGLISH, XHOSA, ARE

HANDLED MORE SMOOTHLY…THE READER GETS A BETTER SENSE OF THE DIFFERENCES

BETWEEN THEM.**

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**** Obviously, something always gets lost in the translation, but story

and characters do not get lost…story is the universal language, and I

need to always remember that, since almost by definition I know my

books will have to be translated if they are to succeed. What gets lost

is nuance, which is so rich in a multi-cultural country. One character

in the book speaks in Griqua dialect, the Afrikaans of the Cape flats

is a more colonial Afrikaans, it has a beautiful musical, rhythmic sense.

Meyer is fluent in English, but makes a point of writing in Afrikaans because it’s his own way of preserving a declining dialect. But most of all he wrote a damn good thriller that, hopefully, will have a greater shelf life in the US in paperback when it’s reissued this summer.