Encompass - finding new authors

Another interesting tool for finding new authors is the Encompass Wheel at the British Council website. Here is what you see at the start

You click on the category that you want, e.g. Books for Adults

And of course then I am going to choose Crime

This is where the experience becomes a bit disappointing. At this stage you choose one or more categories and then the system generates a list. I found the lists were not very extensive, but unlike what we saw yesterday in the literature map, the list is printable, and it has information about specific books.

However, it does link off to an allied British Council Contemporary Writers site where you can search a large database. However once again the lists here are a bit eclectic with huge omissions and some strange inclusions.

Talking Books

Once in a while my sister in law and I run a book stall at a "car boot sale" at her church. The church asks for a donation and we put up a couple of card tables and peddle books that we've recently read and are just taking up room on our shelves.

The books are sold for ridiculously low prices like $4 for the larger format or even hard backs, and $2 for the small paperback size. The books are all in excellent condition because invariably only she and I have handled them. We have probably about 150 books on our stall, all crime fiction, and today we sold about 40 in 4 hours. So we don't make our fortune, but we tell people that we are selling them to "finance our habit".

What I love about doing this in particular, is not just that it gives Claire and I a chance to catch up, but that I get to talk about books with the "customers". And a knowledgeable lot they are too. So the conversations today were about Kathy Reichs, Alexander McCall-Smith, Ruth Rendell, Peter Robinson, Reginald Hill, Donna Leon, Thomas H. Cook, and offerings on TV like Lewis, Unit One, and Dalziel & Pascoe. Time just flies. Spent doing something I love. Maybe I should work in a book shop, but I'd be hopeless at selling anything but crime fiction.

The other day when I was in a book shop buying my father a book for his birthday, I noticed the woman in the queue ahead of me was buying a crime fiction title. Can't think what it was now, perhaps the latest Denise Mina, but I startled her by asking her if she was going to Adelaide Writer's Week which of course starts tomorrow. I pointed her to the printed timetable on the counter, but I don't think she really understood the great opportunity it is, particularly since most of the events are free.

Anyway, I am really looking forward to spending the next 6 days at AWW, listening to people like Denise Mina, Thomas H. Cook, Gabrielle Lord, Marshall Browne, Peter Corris, Ian McEwan, Geraldine Brooks and Garry Disher. Here's a complete list of who is coming.

The week starts tomorrow with a dedication to Colin Thiele, the South Australian educator, author, poet who wrote BLUE FIN and STORM BOY, among other books, and immortalised Mr. Percival for a whole generation of Australian kids.

I am going to try to write every day about the sessions I go to, but we'll see.
If you are going, look for me.
The photo below gives you an inkling of what I look like. Come up to me - I'll be thrilled if you've read my blog.

Or ask me about oz_mystery_readers too.

THE DELICATE STORM, Giles Blunt

Unusually warm weather in northern Canada just after New Year brings with it a dense fog that shrouds Algonquin Bay. The discovery of a human arm out in the forest sparks a search for other body parts, and eventually bits that appear to have been mauled by bears are discovered. John Cardinal and Lise Delorme become involved in investigating this and another case where a local holds up a bank, threatening the teller with a gun. The identity of the hold up man is easily solved, but the identification of the body bits leads Cardinal and Delorme into learning about separationist activities from the early 1970s when a hostage was killed, two separationists confessed to his murder, and one of the hostage takers vanished. Another strand is introduced when a young female doctor disappears.

THE DELICATE STORM received the 2004 Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada, as well as being nominated for a swag of others including the Dashiell Hammett, the Macavity, and the Anthony.

So why didn't I enjoy it as much as I expected to?

For one thing, I think it moved from being murder mystery to crime thriller. A very large number of characters crowded its pages. There was a lot of background information, heavy use of acronyms where the meaning didn't readily stay with me, and some slow passages. These were mainly caused by descriptive bits that became pages of detail that the reader needed for some later event or piece of information to be significant. It meant that the book really was rather long, and there was always a danger you might miss something important. Sometimes you had to wonder whether crowding the reader's head with the detail was worth it for the one significant item.

However there were a number of issues raised which would have appealed particularly to Canadian readers: Canadian politics, separationist movements, male and female detectives working together, Canadian severe weather and its effect on daily life (including police investigations), dishonesty in police officers, tension between intelligence and investigation agencies both in Canada, and between Canada and the USA. But for me, the ending was unsatisfactory, but I won't tell you about that, because you will want to read it for yourself.

THE DELICATE STORM (and what is the significance of that title?) is the second in Blunt's Cardinal series. The first was FORTY WORDS FOR SORROW, and after THE DELICATE STORM comes BLACK FLY SEASON and THE FIELDS OF GRIEF (aka BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS)

My rating 4.3

Tim Hallinan

I'm reading Tim Hallinan's first Poke Rafferty novel A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART, so I thought I'd do some research about the author. He has such a quirky sense of humour, which just comes through in the phrases he uses and the way the central character Poke Rafferty talks about himself, that he almost comes across as an Australian writer. His style certainly reminds me a lot of Kel Robertson. But Tim was born in California.

Some people will know of Tim as the author of Simon Grist series
http://www.ncteamericancollection.org/litmap/hallinan_tim_ca.htm
including
EVERYTHING BUT THE SQUEAL (1990)
INCINERATOR (1992)
THE MAN WITH NO TIME (1993)
THE BONE POLISHER (1995)

So I'm not going to tell you much aboutA NAIL THROUGH THE HEART here, except to say it is set in Bangkok where Poke appears to have been living for some time, and there is an Australian connection in the book.

In his writer's section Tim has this to say

A long time ago, something funny happened to me.

I thought I was a writer. I thought I was a writer because I had begun three novels over the course of a few years, noodling on each of them every time inspiration struck, which wasn’t often. (More about inspiration later.) But still, I thought of myself as a writer – all I had to do was finish one of those books.

And then my house burned down. Naturally, I had backups of all my unfinished novels, and naturally, they were all in the house. I had a life-changing revelation: If I had finished those books, they'd probably exist somewhere – in print, or at a publisher, or in a box in the garage. And then I had a second revelation: whatever I was, I wasn't a novelist, because I hadn't finished a novel.

So I made some notes on the book I remembered best, flew to Thailand, and wrote the whole thing in seven weeks. And it got me an agent, and then a three-book contract, which led to another three-book contract, etc. In other words, finishing the book turned me into a writer.

The end result of that journey was A NAIL IN THE HEART and now the second book in the series THE FOURTH WATCHER is about to be published. More later when hopefully I've finished ANTTH.

See for yourself: http://www.timothyhallinan.com/

Gabrielle Lord

In mid February, oz_mystery_readers is having a quarterly activity called Quiz an Author. Our guest next month will be Australian author Gabrielle Lord. I am to be the host of that event, and we spend the week with the author replying to a bunch of pre-prepared questions, and spontaneous questions from members. So far in this activity we've quizzed Brian Kavanagh, P.D. Martin, and Adrian Hyland. Quiz and Author begins on 17 February.

By early next month I hope to have read 3 of her novels, DEATH DELIGHTS (2002), DIRTY WEEKEND (2005), and SHATTERED (2007) and sent off some qeneral questions to Gabrielle. I've made a head start because I actually read SHATTERED last year, but I'll have to do a light skim-read to get the grey cells working again on it. I began DIRTY WEEKEND yesterday, and am enjoying it. DEATH DELIGHTS awaits on my bookshelf.

Gabrielle Lord's first novel WHIPPING BOY was published in 1998, which really isn't so long ago when you think about. There is a complete list of her books in date order at Australasian Crime Fiction.

13 titles in 10 years is no mean feat, and in that time she has collected 2 awards: The Ned Kelly Award for best novel in 2002 for DEATH DELIGHTS, and a Davitt Award in 2003 for the best Australian crime novel by an Australian woman in the previous year for BABY DID A BAD, BAD THING. Another interesting thing about Gabrielle is that she has written not only stand-alones, but also with a male protagonist, Jack McCain, and a female one, Gemma Lincoln. Another Australian author who has done something similar is Michael Robotham, but more of that another time.

If you'd like to find out more about Gabrielle Lord, check her website out at http://www.gabriellelord.com
Currently she is writing CONSPIRACY 365 - a 12 volume YA crime/thriller/mystery/series for Scholastic Publishing.

Gabrielle Lord will also be coming to Adelaide Writer's Week and I'm looking forward to hearing her speak there.

Writers Week - Adelaide

Adelaide Writers week occurs biennally as part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts. It basically an outside event held in city, in the Pioneer Women's Memorial Gardens, in 2 large outside tents and a book tent.

It is a wonderful event, mainly free. The only things that you need to pay for are 2 evenings, this year held in Adelaide Town Hall, usually with a panel of writers.

It is a wonderful week, and this year I am having the whole week off, 2-7 March, so will have plenty of chance to wallow in the discussions, readings and panels.

Among other writers there will be
Peter Carey/Aust
Thomas H Cook/USA
Ian McEwan/UK
Denise Mina/Scotland
Kirsty Gunn/Scotland
Gabrielle Lord
Geraldine Brooks
Marshall Browne
Peter Corris
Garry Disher
Dorothy Porter

See all the details at here

Adrian Hyland

Debut author Adrian Hyland topped the oz_mystery_readers 2007 best reads list with DIAMOND DOVE with 5 people recommending it. The group discussed it in September when Adrian was the group's guest on Quiz an Author, an event when an author is invited to be an online guest for a week, and questions and answers fly thick and fast. Fresh from being named the Ned Kelly best first fiction novel of the year winner at Melbourne Writers Festival, Adrian was frank and eloquent in his replies and has remained an active member of the list.
DIAMOND DOVE was given a rating of 5 by the members, a rare achievement in itself. The only other book to be given a rating of 5 was RAVEN BLACK by Ann Cleeves.

DIAMOND DOVE has been published in the US as MOONLIGHT DOWNS and will be discussed on another list I belong to, 4_Mystery_Addicts, at the beginning of March.

My review of DIAMOND DOVE:
Emily Tempest returns to Moonlight Downs, a scatter of corrugated iron hovels nine hours from Alice Springs out in the spinifex desert, 14 years after leaving to go to secondary school in Adelaide. The daughter of a local miner, Motor Jack, she is welcomed home by Lincoln Flinders, the head of the community. The Moonlight mob have only recently returned to their land themselves. The Moonlight mob are Emily's community by adoption - her mother was a Wantiya woman from the Gulf Country. Unmistakably aboriginal in appearance, Emily has not yet decided which world she belongs to - aboriginal or white. She meets up with Lincoln's daughter Hazel, her best friend in the past. The morning after Emily arrives, Lincoln is found dead, unmistakably murdered, and Emily finds it impossible to rest until she knows who killed him. Adrian Hyland's debut novel. Very polished writing and a feel of authenticity about the setting and customs. I came away feeling I had learnt quite a lot.

Peter Temple comes out tops

If you add the oz_mystery readers best reads for 2006 and 2007 together an interesting picture emerges
The top 5 are
BROKEN SHORE (THE), Peter Temple, 4+6
DIAMOND DOVE, Adrian Hyland, 5
DEVIL'S STAR (THE), Jo Nesbo, 3+2
RAVEN BLACK, Ann Cleeves, 1+3
ABOVE SUSPICION, Lynda La Plante, 4

Top by a long way is THE BROKEN SHORE with which Peter Temple has won the Ned Kelly award for Best Novel in 2006, and then the 2007 CWA Duncan Lawrie Award

oz_mystery_readers best for 2007

oz_mystery_readers follow the same practice as many online groups of asking members to submit their 10 or so best reads for the year. The results are than collated to give members books to look out for.

Here is the short list for 2007 of those that were mentioned more than once.
In all 112 titles were submitted by a dozen or so list members
The numbers after the authors names indicate the number of times the title occurred
*** indicate Australian authors

*** DIAMOND DOVE, Adrian Hyland, 5

ABOVE SUSPICION, Lynda La Plante, 4

*** BROKEN SHORE (THE), Peter Temple, 4

*** CROOK AS ROOKWOOD, Chris Nyst, 3

DEATH OF DALZIEL (THE), Reginald Hill, 3

DEVIL'S STAR (THE), Jo Nesbo, 3

*** BODY COUNT, P. D. Martin, 2

EXIT MUSIC, Ian Rankin, 2

HOUSE SITTER (THE), Peter Lovesey, 2

*** NIGHT FERRY (THE), Michael Robotham, 2

PRIEST, Ken Bruen, 2

REDBREAST (THE), Jo Nesbo, 2

SILENCE OF THE GRAVE, Arnaldur Indridason, 2

TIN ROOF BLOW DOWN (THE), James Lee Burke, 2

VOICES, Arnaldur Indridason, 2

WOODS (THE), Harlan Coben, 2

Some authors were mentioned more than once too
- more than one title that is

==============================

Alexander McCall Smith

Arnaldur Indridason

*** Brian Kavanagh

Colin Watson

Giles Blunt

Hakan Nesser

Harlan Coben

Karin Fossum

Ken Bruen

Louise Penny

Lynda La Plante

Peter Lovesey

*** Shane Maloney

Tess Gerritsen

Thomas H. Cook

Oz_Mystery History

oz_mystery_readers, an Australian group on Yahoo, turns 5 in about a month's time.
I created it in Feb 9, 2003
We have gained and lost members over that time, but the head count is now 114

We first began discussing books in December 2004
The first book we discussed was Ian Rankin's FLESHMARKET CLOSE.
7 people participated in the discussion, and we gave it a ranking of 4.7

At first we discussed books only every 2 months, but from June 2005 we began a monthly schedule

In the last 4 years we have discussed 44 books, with an average of 6.6 people joining in each discussion.
Once we got up to 13
15 of the books have been by Australian authors, and 9 of those have been in the last year.
The average rating is 4.25

We have given 2 ratings of 5
RAVEN BLACK by Ann Cleeves
DIAMOND DOVE by Adrian Hyland

Here are our top 10, with Australian authors marked ***
RAVEN BLACK, Ann Cleeves
***DIAMOND DOVE, Adrian Hyland
ABOVE SUSPICION, Lynda La Plante
FLESHMARKET CLOSE, Ian Rankin
SLEEPYHEAD, Mark Billingham
***THE BROKEN SHORE, Peter Temple
FLESH AND BLOOD, John Harvey
RED LEAVES, Thomas H Harris
***NO TRACE, Barry Maitland
THE DEVIL'S STAR, Jo Nesbo