Monday Smatterings in Time for Edgar Week

Edgar Week is soon upon us! There’s the Mysterious Bookshop/MWA party on Tuesday, the symposium on Wednesday, EQMM/AHMM’s early Thursday afternoon party and then the Big Show Thursday night. I am but a civilian* this time around (unless something changes in the next 72 hours…stranger things have happened), though requisite cellphone and internet addictions mean I’ll probably chime in on the #edgars10 stream. Is that the official hashtag? Well, it is now.

George V. Higgins’ debut novel THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE has been getting some ink all weekend, thanks in part to its recent reissue by Picador. Slate’s Troy Patterson says both book and movie are must-consumables; The LAT’s Richard Rayner explains how Higgins essentially recreated a genre. I admit that the first time I read EDDIE COYLE I had serious trouble, but a more recent reread clarified things, and I appreciate what Higgins was both trying to do and did. It’s hard not to compare and contrast Higgins to fellow Bostonian Robert B. Parker, who was also getting his career off the ground around the same time. Both men had varying degrees of success early and then diverged; both are vital links in the modern trajectory of crime fiction. And both, I suspect, will be judged for their influence more than their actual work. 

Oline Cogdill, who will be interviewing Lee Child and Laura Lippman together at the MWA Symposium on Wednesday afternoon, reviews Andrew Gross’s new thriller RECKLESS for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Marilyn Stasio runs the compliment spectrum on mysteries and thrillers by Jesse Kellerman, Declan Hughes, Peter May and Ariana Franklin in the NYTBR.

The Boston Globe’s Hallie Ephron has her say on recent crime fiction by Nancy Pickard, Raffi Yessayan and Decland Hughes.

The Guardian’s Laura WIlson analyzes recent crime fiction by Declan Hughes, Joanna Harris, Heather Gudenkauf and Donna Leon.

Gerald Bartell extols the virtues of Michael Harvey’s new PI novel THE THIRD RAIL in the Washington Post.

In the Denver Post, Tom & Enid Schantz review new mysteries by David Downing, Barbara Cleverly and Jacqueline Winspear. 

Joan Smith explains in the Sunday Times why she adores Deon Meyer’s new thriller THIRTEEN HOURS. 

Frank Wilson appreciates the quainter time evoked in the mystery novels of Jacqueline Winspear, most recently THE MAPPING OF LOVE AND DEATH.

Another weekend, another feature on Stieg Larsson and his much-dissected backstory. Oh and look, another one! And while I can sort of buy Carey Mulligan as Salander, moving the setting to Canada is just so Hollywood WTF.

Jason Pinter laments trade publishing’s general inability to look beyond easy stereotypes and see that men, in fact, do read. 

The Guardian’s Alison Flood raves about SJ Bolton’s new thriller BLOOD HARVEST.

The Chicago Tribune’s Dave Heinzmann talks with Martin Prieb, the Chicago-area cop who mined his work and life for a collection of outstanding essays, THE WAGON AND OTHER TALES FROM THE CITY.

I would appreciate this NYT piece on Irene Nemirovsky and her uncomfortable place in Jewish circles, then and now, if I could, you know, actually read the biography that Knopf is about to publish. Also, THE DOGS AND THE WOLVES, which is inexplicably not available in the US yet, is pretty outstanding stuff, and I’m chomping at the bit to read JEZEBEL, too.

Finally, there are a lot of reasons to be annoyed about Liberal leader Michael

Ignatieff, but [misleading

book blurbs is not one of them]20. Roy MacGregor [sets

the record straight]21, thank god.