What to buy … what to buy?
If you still cannot find just the right thing for that mystery lover on your gift list, come on over to the Library and check out the holiday issue of Mystery Scene magazine – the one with author Donna Andrews on the cover. It features a delightful gift guide that includes gift ideas ranging from items of apparel such as The Three Stooges detective tie ($14.95) to pretend private detective badges ($4.99) and birdhouses hand-crafted from vintage copies of To Kill a Mockingbird ($114.95) as well as a selection of interactive detective games, DVDs and special edition books sure to please every taste.
NPR has issued its list of the best books of 2008 and its list of holiday book recommendations.
The top five crime and mystery picks are: Small Crimes (Dave Zeltserman), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson), The Chinaman (Friedrich Glauser), Death Vows (Richard Stevenson), and The Long Embrace (Judith Freeman).
Published by Serpents Tail, a small press, Small Crimes is the story of Joe Denton, a crooked ex-cop recently released --suspiciously early -- from a prison sentence for stabbing the local district attorney in the face. Nobody wants Joe around -- not his ex-wife, his parents or his former colleagues. If he had any decency he'd get out of town and start over, but Joe has no decency and some unfinished business to attend to.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first American release for Steig Larsson, a deceased Swedish author (1954–2004) takes place 40 years after the disappearance of Harriet Vanger from the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family. Her octogenarian uncle, convinced that she was murdered by a member of their deeply dysfunctional clan, hires a journalist and an unconventional young hacker to investigate.
A best seller in Europe – having outsold the Bible in Denmark! – it is the first title in the late author’s "Millennium" trilogy.
Bitter Lemon Press has reprinted the work of Friedrich Glauser, who was born in Vienna in 1896 and died at the age of 42, having spent much of his adult life in psychiatric wards and prisons. In recognition of his literary achievements, Germany has named its most prestigious crime fiction award the Glauser Prize.
The Chinaman is the fourth in a series of crime novels featuring a Swiss policeman named Sergeant Studer. When the body of James Farny is found lying atop the grave of the recently deceased wife of the poorhouse warden, the death is declared a suicide. But the man's clothes are intact despite a shot through the heart, and Studer remembers that he when he met the victim some months before, Farny had predicted his own murder.
In Death Vows, gay detective Donald Strachey is hired by the concerned friends of one Bill Moore to check up on his suspicious groom-to-be. When one of the busybody friends turns up dead, Strachey feels compelled to clear the man he first was hired to investigate. NPR reports that Strachey’s novels are being filmed by the gay cable network Here!
The last book on the list, The Long Embrace, is not a mystery novel. It is a critical study of the life of Raymond Chandler which focuses on his marriage to Cissy Pascal, the older, twice-divorced woman he wed in 1924, and her key role in the transformation of Chandler from a shy oil company accountant into America's greatest writer of detective fiction.
As always, some unusual choices from the folks at NPR.
Amazon.com has their best of 2008 lists up on their website although the books they have chosen are generally from more familiar mainstream authors and publishers, but it is interesting to note that The Girl with the Golden Tattoo showed up as #5 on their list of editors’ best mystery and thriller picks.
