11 March 2009

Left Coast Crime - Update #3

Voting closes today for 3 awards given by LCC and yesterday I managed to fit in 2 panels where the authors talked about their books and read extracts.

The award short lists are each an impressive line-up

THE BRUCE ALEXANDER MEMORIAL HISTORICAL MYSTERY

Tasha Alexander: A Fatal Waltz (HarperCollins)
Rhys Bowen: A Royal Pain (Berkley Prime Crime)
Rhys Bowen: Tell Me Pretty Maiden (St. Martin's)
Laurie R. King: Touchstone (Bantam)
Kelli Stanley: Nox Dormienda, A Long Night For Sleeping (Five Star)

HAWAII FIVE-0

Baron Birtcher: Angels Fall (Iota)
Kate Flora: The Angel of Knowlton Park (Five Star)
Asa Larsson: The Black Path (Delta)
G.M. Malliet: Death of a Cozy Writer (Midnight Ink)
Neil S. Plakcy: Mahu Fire (Alyson Books)
Karin Slaughter: Fractured (Delacorte)

THE LEFTY

Donna Andrews: Six Geese a-Slaying (St. Martin's)
Jeffrey Cohen: It Happened One Knife (Berkley Prime Crime)
Sue Ann Jaffarian: Thugs and Kisses (Midnight Ink)
N.M. Kelby: Murder at the Bad Girl's Bar and Grill (Shaye Areheart Books/Random House Group)
Rita Lakin: Getting Old is To Die For (Dell/Bantam)
Tim Maleeny: Greasing the Pinata (Poisoned Pen Press)

Last night we went to a screening of Charlie Chan in Honolulu and tonight there is one of Monk, which is a series that doesn't seem to have made it on to Australian TV.

Sessions I'm going to today include ones with Rhys Bowen, Dana Stabenow, Helene Tursten, Barry Eisler, Laurie King, and Janet Rudolph.

I am told by people who've been to both that LCC is more intimate than Bouchercon. Certainly there is plenty of opportunity to hear most authors speak more than once, and also times when you are able to chat informally. The sessions are well spaced too so you are not rushing from one to the other.

One thing that occurs to me though is that this is almost the perfect setting for a closed-room mystery Death at the Crime Fiction Convention. So many places where one could die: dramatically while talking on a panel, quietly in the pool or the spa, flamboyantly at the volcano etc.

2 comments:

Marg said...

Monk used to be on TV here years ago. It's probably showing on reruns somewhere.

sally906 said...

Monk was on free to air a few years ago - is still on cable TV - we love it :)

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