Hiatus

We'll be taking a break from our four weekly blogs, The Overnight Bestseller, Behind the Walls of Nightmare, Open Investigations (Goodreads), and Writing in Retirement (Goodreads). We expect to be back in the fall with lots of news for our readers.

We'll continue to post reviews as part of our commitment to introduce new works to our readers.

Thanks to all of you who support us by following our blogs.

New Crime Fiction for 2014

  The Crime Fiction Lover has published a list of the first new crime novels of 2014. Included in the list is Sam Eastland's The Beast in the Red Forest, which is the fifth novel in the series featuring Inspector Pekkala, a Russian cop. The British author Ann Cleeves has a new novel entitled Harbour Street, which features Vera Stanhope. This character has also been re-created in a UK television series. For those who like the thrillers of Clive Cussler, his ninth novel in the Oregon File series (Oregon being a spy ship) entitled Mirage has been released. And last but not least, the Maigret novel entitled The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien by Georges Simenon has been re-published by Penguin. (For my post on the Penguin re-publication project, please click here.)

For the full text of the Crime Fiction Lover article, please click here.

And if you missed my Open Investigations blog on new reading for the holiday, please click here.

Judging Books Written under Pseudonyms

A rose by any other name...

There is an interesting article in the Sunday Book Review of The New York Times about why authors choose to write under pseudonyms and how we should judge such books.

One of the writers of the article makes the point that if she discovers an author she likes, she will read everything by that author, regardless of his/her name. This is a refreshing attitude at a time when big-name recognition frequently determines who gets publicized and promoted.

For the full text of the article, please click here.

One of the main examples in the article is J.K. Rowling's use of a pseudonym to publish her first crime fiction novel. If you'd like to read my "Open Investigations" blog on this subject, please click here.

Maigret Revisited

Crimetime reports that Penguin will re-issue the seventy-five Maigret novels of Belgian author Georges Simenon with new translations and cover art. This will be the first time that the Maigret novels are published in the UK under a single publisher. The prolific Simenon wrote a novel a month, and Penguin will be releasing a new Maigret novel each month, beginning with Pietr the Latvian. For the full text of the article, please  visit http://www.crimetime.co.uk/mag/index.php/showarticle/4955.

If you are interested in reading my Open Investigations blog on Georges Simenon and the Maigret novels, please click here.