Crime Beat

News just in about Roger Smith is that the German translation of his Mixed Blood has taken second place (in the company of David Peace and Ken Bruen) in the international category of the Deutscher Krimi Preis, which is decided by a jury of critics, literary scholars and booksellers.
More news is that his novel was named one of the best books of 2009 by Titel magazine in Germany; on Antje Deistler’s WDR2 (German public radio) book programme; by Switzerland’s SonntagsZuitung; by Alan Cranis at the Bookgasm blog in the US; by Dave Zeltserman at Flashlight Worthy (where it was his number one crime pick of the year); and on Deadly Pleasures magazine (for a best first novel).
Word comes from Stanley Trollip that he and Michael Sears got together after last year’s Bouchercon krimi fest with Leighton Gage (Brazil), Yrse Siguroardottir (Iceland), Tim Hallinan (Thailand), Dan Waddell (UK), and Cara Black (France) to write a blog called Murder is Everywhere. Check it out, there’s already a heap of stuff on it.
Then don’t forget next week’s Schlock Horror crime fiction talks at UCT’s Summer School. Joe Muller will be giving a wrap of the current international scene; Jane Taylor’s gonna rummage about in the forensic stuff; Margie Orford’s prying into why we like reading about people being killed; I’m gonna be pounding the mean streets where all the hell and skittles goes down. Then there’s a panel discussion on Friday night where we’ll be joined by Angela Makholwa and rumour has it Deon Meyer may be in the audience. You haven’t book yet? Wake up. Phone 0216502888. Or email ems@uct.ac.za. Or check the Extra Mural Studies website

The Crime Beat diary 18 – 21 January
Depends on what happens at the Schlock Horror scenes each evening. If there’s rumour, skinder and skandaal you’ll read it here first.

Blou skoenlappers en Oxytorch vlamme, politiese voetwassers en gewetenlose wetenskaplikes – hier kom ’n ding.

Know thy Divine Comedy, this murderer does and it is no smiling matter.

Chris Karsten praat met Crime Beat oor sy nuutste roman Seisoen van sonde (Human & Rousseau). (more…)

The streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh are getting meaner by the day if you take the word of Tony Black in Gutted ( Preface) and Craig Russell in Lennox( Quercus). William Saunderson-Meyer, writing in The Weekender, was impressed by both of these gritty thrillers and also by All the Colours of the Town( Faber&Faber), Liam McIlvanney’s assured political thriller debut. The damp squib in this week’s selection of fireworks is Glasgow Kiss (Sphere) by Alex Grey. (more…)

Editing a collection of crime short stories has its tough sides. One of those is the television interview. In her column this month Joanne Hichens gets into the hot glare of publicity. (more…)

Stray doppies
News from the home front is that Chanette Paul will be sorting out the Afrikaans posts on Crime Beat in future. Our thanks to Dirk Jordaan for getting it up and running in the first place. For a biog on Chanette check out the Crime Beat ‘About’ page.
A bit of musical detective work from one of my favourite magazines, Word. The gumshoe editors took a look at the lyrics of Queen’s song Killer Queen and found this stanza: ‘She’s a Killer Queen, gunpowder, gelatine/Dynamite with a laser beam, guaranteed to blow your mind’. Word’s comment: ‘That well-known powerful explosive gelatine. Try, gelignite.’

Crime Beat Diary July 27 – July 30:
Monday: An extract from Narayan Radhakrishnan’s monumental but as yet unpublished reference book, A Fiction of Law.
Tuesday: William Saunderson-Meyer on Mrs D’Silva’s Detective Instincts – a whodunnit set in a changing India.
Wednesday: Joanne Hichens’ monthly column From the Hip.
Thursday: Crime Cameos. Number four in our season of krimi short stories, ‘The Dark Side’ by Melissa Siebert.

By special arrangement with FMR here’s a note on a few krimi novels that kept me reading into the small hours during recent weeks.

It is seldom – actually it has never happened before – that I’ve reviewed a book without having it sitting on my desk as I write the notice, but I have to admit that I don’t have a copy of Sarah Lotz’s Exhibit A to hand. (more…)

Bilingual author Carel van der Merwe’s new novel Shark ( Umuzi) is a gripping account of backhanders and back-stabbing, writes LAUREN DE BEER

This review first appeared in The Weekender

IN AN emphatic endorsement of Oscar Wilde’s aphorism that “life imitates art far more than art imitates life”, on the day Carel van der Merwe was in conversation at the Cape Town Book Fair with MP Dene Smuts about his book Shark — which documents corruption in the government and business — Sunday newspapers splashed the story of findings by SA’s auditor-general that public servants had swindled more than half-a-billion rand in “irregularly awarded” government tenders. (more…)

Like many South African families, I can’t just pop down the road to visit the new grandchildren. I have to get on a plane and fly to a different continent – and it’s a long way from Cape Town to Vancouver. But I got lucky in Exclusive Books at Cape Town airport. I picked up Sophie Hannah’s Little Face (Penguin) I was a fan by the time we landed in Amsterdam where I found Point of Rescue , her second novel. Airport books at Seattle had the third one – Hurting Distance. I hardly had time to look at the grandchildren… (more…)

In her May column Joanne Hichens explored what some SA krimi writers think about guns. If you need a reminder there’s a link to that column at the end of this one. This month Joanne takes a look at what the writers think about sex scenes. We all know they’re difficult to write, we all know you need to get at least one in (as it were) per book? Don’t we? Read on, oh gentle reader. (more…)

In a new venture with Richard Kunzmann – now living in London – Crime Beat will post some of the interviews he conducts with international crime fiction writers. In this, the first, he talks to the US writer Chelsea Cain – she of, among others, Sweetheart – and tomorrow he profiles the Brit author, Martina Cole. (more…)