Vampires, Dodgy Tummies and Sneezing Fines

He's not Scottish, but here's an article on Mike Hodges whose WATCHING THE WHEELS COME OFF was published earlier this month by maXcrime - the lovely people who are publishing OLD DOGS in April. The Times describes WATCHING THE WHEELS COME OFF as 'Viz meets Raymond Chandler' which is brilliant. I read it a couple of weeks ago and it's a darkly comic, slightly surreal romp, full of grubby people doing grubby things. Really good stuff. A fuller reviewlet will follow in my monthly reads summary. Mike Hodges will also be at CrimeFest and there will be a special screening of Hodges' brilliant film Get Carter. And, if you're hesitating about CrimeFest, The Times have a special offer over at the link.

A slew of reviews as Denise Mina and Philip Kerr are reviewed in the New York Times, and also in the Dayton Daily News, while Eurocrime reviews Louise Welsh's NAMING THE BONES, and the lovely Crimeficreader reviews G J Moffat's DAISYCHAIN. Declan Burke, one of my favourite people, also reviews Louise Welsh's NAMING THE BONES, and here's yet another review for Philip Kerr's IF THE DEAD RISE NOT in the Washington Post Bookworld.

And, talking of Louise Welsh, here's more on The Gorbals Vampire, presented by Louise Welsh and on Radio 4 on Tuesday night at 11pm.

Allan Guthrie talks to Chris Ewan in the iomtoday.com. This event is looming far too close for my liking - my stomach's already doing flip-flops. Full interview here. And, talking of the delightful Chris Ewan (aka my son) he's been shortlisted for the Last Laugh Award at the aforementioned CrimeFest. Well done Chris.

Ian Rankin on the ten greatest crime novels of all time. I'm sure these must have been some tough choices. What, dear reader, would your own top 10 be?

Alexander McCall Smith is called to the bar (I'll have a Southern Comfort and lemonade please, Mr Smith).

The sweet and cosy guys at Radgepacket have just posted 6 new stories online. (No, Dad, these aren't suitable for your tender eyes either).

And, finally, a Scottish policeman known as PC Shiny Buttons hands out a sneezing fine, only a couple of months after fining a man £50 for dropping £10 out of his pocket.

"A novel like a few handcuffs"

Maxim Jakubowski tells Crime Time about what's coming up from MaXcrime. It made me jump up and down and giggle and hug myself. I've now been banned from Tesco. It feels lovely, but very weird, to read stuff like that about myself. Maxim is a star.

Don't crime fiction authors get around? Here's Alexander McCall Smith on video in Canberra. And Irvine Welsh will appear in Perth on February 27th. That's Perth, Australia, while Philip Kerr goes to Adelaide. Russel McLean, on the other hand, travels all the way to Kirkcaldy on March 15th.

And, here in Glasgow, lots of Aye Write events. Allan Guthrie and Denise Mina on Saturday 13th March, Louise Welsh on Wednesday 10th, Manda Scott on Saturday 6th, and Christopher Brookmyre on Sunday 7th.

Alexander McCall Smith interviewed in The Age and says he will never employ a ghost-writer. And here, an interview from SOS Children's Villages for World Orphan Week.

Iain Banks discusses TRANSITION.

Excellent, I get to use Babelfish again. Helen Fitzgerald's DEAD LOVELY in Germany. "A novel like a few handcuffs - hard, sexy and binding. Helen FitzGerald was social female worker in the execution of sentences. Then it began to write: uncompromisingly, amusingly, badly, fast." Don't worry Helen, that word doesn't really mean badly :o) And isn't this description of the plot most intriguing? "But their verb eatingness makes their marriage a purgatory from grind and generation inability. As the three friends on a tent route by the Scottish Highlands to times correctly switch off want, go everything inclined. Krissie and Kyle fall themselves neck over head into an affair and Sarah of rock. But that is only at the beginning of the Höllentrips, with which nothing remains in such a way, as it was." Sadly, I do believe that Verbissenheit means 'determinedly' rather than 'verb eatingness'. Shame. And the verb eatingness goes so well with Helen's previous profession which is, if you remember, " social female worker in the execution of sentences." Well, I've heard her after a couple of glasses of wine and can confirm that, after being too social, Helen's sentences can sometimes be most improperly executed.

maXcrime; or... How Lucky Am I?

I've received a catalogue for Maxim Jakubowski's new crime imprint maXcrime (of which I am very, very chuffed and excited to be a part). It looks wonderful, so I hope you will allow me a little bit of glee and self-indulgence as I post about it. You can click on each of the pages for a bigger version.

First of all, Maxim on the new imprint: "As well as being wonderfully good reads and page turners, the books we are publishing in 2010 also provide a fascinating glimpse into the sheer diversity of crime and mystery writing today. Here you will find gritty London family sagas, hardboiled serial killer tales, dark and violent comedy, erotic thrillers, gothic Hitchcockian mysteries from Italy, historical enigmas going back to Nazi Germany, sinister conspiracies, fast and slick female private eyes from Down Under and old ladies that give conmen a bad name." Woohoo! That's me, that last one :o) Maxim also says "Amongst our first class team we have Australia's leading crime writer and also in all likelihood the most glamorous author in the business (that one's not me by the way), the legendary film director of Get Carter with his debut novel, one of the UK's best horror writers with his first visit to the crime genre, and leading Italian, Canadian, American, Scottish and English authors."

In March 2010 is Tara Moss with HIT - "She's streetwise, stunning, and hoping to leave her troubled past behind her." Woman's Day magazine called it "A thriller packed with sex, suspense and suspicion. Hold on tight!"

Also in March 2010 WATCHING THE WHEELS COME OFF by Mike Hodges who directed Get Carter, Croupier and I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, amongst others. I'm really looking forward to this one - it's described as "a delicious dark slice of black crime comedy" and is a day in the life of a failed conman when everything goes from bad to worse.

In April 2010, another one I'm really looking forward to - Mark Timlin's GUNS OF BRIXTON. Apart from the fact that it's got the same title as one of my favourite songs by The Clash, how can I resist this: "Once upon a time is south London, three young men without a future decided to invent their own. The Sixties are starting to swing and Jimmy, John and Billy want it all: the clothes, the pills, the music and the women. Through drugs, protection and armed robbery, they start building their crime empire, everything they've always dreamed about is within their grasp. But then Billy changes sides and becomes a cop..."

And the other one for April is this OLD DOGS. Am I lucky or what?

For May, two excellent looking ones. THE GIRL WITH THE CRYSTAL EYES by Barbara Baraldi "an unforgettable gothic journey through the dark streets of Bologna." A serial killer novel with a femme fatale. And what a gorgeous cover that is.

The second one for May is HITLER'S ANGEL by Kris Rusch. It's about a young American doctoral student who visits Munich in 1972 to research her dissertation. But the police detective she is interviewing insists on discussing the supposed 1931 suicide of Geli Raubal, the teenage niece and alleged lover of Adolf Hitler. Through a series of flashbacks, the detective tells the tale of his investigation, which is hindered by forces outside the police right from the start.

And, for the future, a dark crime novel by horror writer Conrad Williams, called BLONDE ON A STICK - "a gritty, hardboiled and memorable book", I WAS WAITING FOR YOU - the "harrowing story of a writer in search of a missing daughter" by Maxim Jakubowski, and THE WOMEN'S CLUB - a sinister urban thriller by Canadians Michael Crawley and Laurie Clayton.

Wonderful stuff. I'm sort of excited to bursting...