Crime Beat

On Monday Crime Beat posted a critics choice of local krimis thanks to an arrangement with WORDSetc. Editor Phakamba Mbonambi and guest editor Joanne Hichens have just produced a special edition of the magazine devoted to SA crime fiction. Buy it from any good bookshop. Here, once again in no particular order, is part two the critics’ must-reads. (more…)

Stray doppies

First up, there’ve been some changes at Crime Beat as the super sleuths will have noticed. For starters co-founder and opening blogger Barbara Erasmus has decided enough is enough. Almost three years ago, July 2007, she started putting up the first posts for Crime Beat (along with a blook version of her intriguing novel, Chameleon) as I was intent on keeping away from the technical end. But then the whole thing took off and I had to get Ben to give me lessons in posting. For two years Barbara and I (with help from first Dirk Jordaan and now Chanette Paul on the Afrikaans side) kept up a steady stream of info but that has cut back this year to three posts a week. No question about it without Barbara’s energy from the get-go, Crime Beat wouldn’t have got under way as early as it did nor would it have made the in-roads it has done internationally on the crime fiction blogging scene. So thanks, Barbara, for all the help and enthusiasm. You’ll still see her byline from time to time as she now has an emeritus position on the blog.

This evening at the Book Lounge witness the Dame (Margie Orford, who else!) chatting up international bestselling author Peter James. Be there at 5.30 pm to hear dark and dangerous stuff.

And finally Celine Jacobson at a blog called Court Reporter has posted one of those always fascinating 100 best crime reads which you can check out on her site.

Coming up in the weeks and days ahead: a bunch of krimiheads write on their best SA crime fiction; and an as yet unpublished short story from the man who begat the local version of the genre, James McClure.

If you love your krimis to take off knee deep in blood and you like gaining insight into several sides of the South African psyche, then Plaasmoord is your book. It’s a …um… bloody good read.

Karin Brynard het die Afrikaanse krimi-wêreld met die trefkrag van ’n asteroïede uit die Baptistina-gordel geslaan. Om Izak de Vries aan te haal: Plaasmoord is ’n bliksem van ’n boek wat spanningsvrate hulle toonnaels sal laat kou van die lekker. (more…)

Lots of stuff’s happening out there:

Margie Orford’s Daddy’s Girl has gone into a reprint and if you missed an interview with her on Litnet here’s the link.

Roger Smith’s Mixed Blood has been voted the number one crime novel of 2009 by the 19 German, Austrian and Swiss crime fiction revewers who make up KrimiWelt.

Jassy Mackenzie’s My Brother’s Keeper has been listed on the International Thriller Writers awards that will be presented at Thrillerfest V in New York in July in the Best Paperback category.

If you want to catch Deon Meyer in action this year he’ll be at the London Book Fair in April and at the Franschhoek Literary Festival in May.

For mad keen academics launching into the wild and weird terrain of crime fiction here’s a link to an academic journal called Clues which gives the highbrow lowdown on the genre.

Couple of weeks ago I called around the publishers to see what was upcoming for the 2010 crime fiction year. Well, it turns out that I’m kick-starting the programme with the publication of the second book in my Revenge Trilogy, Killer Country, and then next month comes the second thriller from Sue Rabie called Blood at Bay followed in April by Deon Meyer’s greatly anticipated Thirteen Hours. (more…)

After a few choice threats of violence, Crime Beat is now able to present the first of the four lectures happening this week at UCT’s Summer School. This one, entitled Gutted: an amateur exhumes the corpus is by Honorary Professor of Crime Fiction, Joe Muller. The title was recently conferred on him by a secret organisation. Tomorrow we’ll post Jane Taylor’s lecture: Do not cross: reading the evidence. (more…)

Cape Town as our krimi capital is much on my mind today – mostly because I have to put together some thoughts for my Thursday night session of the Schlock Horror talks. So I thought that some short takes on the city might be in order. (more…)

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Father Xmas gets gatvol, groans, ‘Adjectival it!’
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This is Crime Beat’s last post for 2009. We wish everyone who happens upon the site in the next four weeks everything of the best for the season and a wow of a new year. We’ll be back on Monday 11 January 2010.
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Special thanks for the wonderful illustration to Brandon Carstens (of the graphic novel, Project H, fame).
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From the tail-end of 2009 it looks as if the previous year, 2008, will go down in South African English crime fiction annals as our break-out year. During those momentous twelve months there were books by the stalwarts, Deon Meyer and Richard Kunzmann, but also a whole lot of new names, Jassy Mackenzie, Michael Stanley, Angela Makholwa, Andrew Gray, Peter Church, Diale Tlholwe, Sue Rabie, and Tracy Gilpin hit the bookshops. The krimi scene looked like it was shaping up. Question is, did 2009 deliver? Here are Crime Beat’s takes on the English and Afrikaans scenes in 2009. (more…)

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From left: Chanette Paul, Rob Marsh, Roger Smith, Margie Orford, Michael Sears, Jaco Fouche, Deon Meyer, Peter Church, Riana Mouton, Brandon Carstens, Joanne Hichens, Sarah Lotz, Sue Rabie, Richard Kunzmann
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Chill time. And how better to chill out, if not with a krimi. So I rounded up the usual suspects and asked for the crime novel/thriller that had fired them up the most this year in the hopes it’d provide a useful list. Which it does. Interestingly, only one mention of Stieg Larsson (but then perhaps the cognoscenti realise he’s not all he’s cracked up to be). And before I let the hotshots have their say, my vote for the year goes to Don Winslow’s The Winter of Frankie Machine (actually published in 2006 but I’m a slow reader), followed in rapid succession by Neville Stuart’s The Twelve and Richard Price’s Lush Life (2008). Also don’t forget to read local. All you have to do is click on the author’s title to order. (more…)

In her final column of the year, Joanne Hichens gets into some of the stuff that goes on in the backrooms where stories are edited and authors are interviewed. Her next column will appear in the heavily freighted year of the vuvuzela. (more…)