Seattle Mystery Bookshop

Stay tuned

It's true, we've been exceptionally quiet in the past few days, but we have an excellent excuse!

We're working on our Top Ten (or so, we're taking some liberties here) Lists for the year.  Each of us will take a turn posting the top books we recommend for the year 2008, some old, some new, some hardback, some paperback. 

However, that has meant doing some research, and then going through the often-difficult selection process.  So many good books have been written, and it isn't easy to narrow that list down, but we're working on it.

The other project we're working on is a gift recommendation list.  We have some wonderful and unique things here that may have slipped past you, and something we have here may be the perfect gift for that hard-to-buy-for person on your list. 

So stay tuned, and we'll have these lists and recommendations up fairly soon!

Winter newsletter

For those of you who receive our quarterly newsletter, the Winter 2008-2009 one is winging its way to you! 

For those of you who read it online, it's posted here. 

The online one is substantially longer than the paper one, so if you're interested in the full picture, that's the one to check out.

One of the things that you'll notice is not on either version is our yearly "Best Of" lists from the staff.  We're still sorting it out what will be on those lists, and as soon as we've got them all compiled, we'll post them.  The joy of being able to do it this way is we can explain why we've chosen each title, although we may not do that; some of us may explain, others may just give the list.  We're not sure yet. 

But as soon as they're ready, we'll have those lists online too.  For now, though, enjoy the Winter Newsletter!

Dana Stabenow is a YouTube star!

We got word that Dana Stabenow has summarized all the Kate Shugak novels in under four minutes! Be aware that there are some spoilers here, but we can promise you that Dana summarizes the story lines in fine style! 

The Fire

Katherine Neville was in briefly to sign her new novel, The Fire, and while she didn't have time to blog, here's her book trailer, to entice you to read the sequel to her bestselling novel, The Eight.

Multiple Personalities on Parade

It took a while getting here by car from Los Angeles. One of the highlights - and I highly recommend it - is the espresso at Bella's Espresso Bar and Diner in Wells, Nevada. Bella is the only woman owner of a legal brothel in Nevada - and she also has this great diner where they pull one of the very finest espressos on the planet. I recommend it highly.

Now what, if anything, that has to do with being here at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop is beyond me. Other than that without those two double espressos at Bella's I probably would have been slaughtered on the highway between there and here.

And here is a very good place where they are most kind about putting up with the odd music I usually bring along to play with my books. In this case some quirky Indonesian music - what could possibly be better than an all-woman heavy metal gamelan band from Jakarta doing a song about teenage girls hanging out in shopping malls hoping to get laid? It's not the sort of thing you hear in most bookstores and I've got to really hand it to these guys for permitting me to subject their customers to it.

The new book is FLIGHT OF THE HORNBILL and is loosely based on the true story of what is in some ways Canada's Enron - Bre-X, responsible for the world's largest gold fraud. There's violence, sex, helicopters, birds, snakes, strange Indonesian locales, nearly everything you could possibly want in a book.

Until the next one comes out next June - SHANGHAIED - opening in Hong Kong during the handover ceremony back to China (a secret, a real one, is revealed) and finding its way to Shanghai where all hell breaks loose. As it will.

But, now Bill, my erstwhile traveling companion and fellow Bleak House author (we also share an agent - we each get half of her - that is if you don't count her other clients) and I are going to have to hit the road to Portland where we will next do our best to defile books with our juvenile scrawl. Really, you ought to show up and let us do that for you.

I forgot about the multiple personalities - that's us, all eight or nine of us - we have recently been informed that one of our personalities is apparently our publicist. We will have to abuse him/her on the drive south.

Eric Stone

Chasing Around the Northwest

I'm told this is my chance for shameless self-promotion, or shameless promotion of my personal cause celebre. If that's so, then I humbly submit Chasing Smoke. Which is incredibly great and will not only change your life for the better on a deeply spiritual level, but will also lower your cholesterol, add luster and shine to your hair, and shine your shoes. Or maybe it will just provide a good read about a Portland homicide cop investigating a series of deaths that may be linked to his own tenuous existence.

You'll meet Skin Kadash, a cop who earned his nick the old-fashioned way, by leading with his gnarly, florid chickenskin neck in every confrontation. He drinks the best coffee in town, pisses most of the people he meets, but is a guy you want on your side if you happen to land in the shit.

While I have your attention, I'd like mention one more thing. If you're going to book tour, do it with a friend. Even if your friend happens to be talented, international riff-raff like Eric Stone. He's not only done all the driving, he's laughed at my jokes and put up with my snoring. And if you're going to book tour, hope that one of your stops is Seattle Mystery Bookshop. It feels like a home away from home, the best of reasons to come to Seattle. It's always a pleasure to make my way north to see the folks in this marvelous store. I remain ever grateful for the warmth and support of the SMB team.

Bill Cameron

Indepent Mystery Booksellers' Assoction October 2008 Bestsellers

IMBA October 2008 Bestsellers Hardcovers

1 – Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict, Little Brown

2 – Dennis Lehane, The Given Day, Morrow

3 – James Swain, The Night Stalker, Ballantine

4 – Ian Rankin, Exit Music, Little Brown

5 – David Liss, The Whiskey Rebels, Random House

6 – tie

    Ann Cleeves, White Nights, St. Martin’s

    Robert B. Parker, Rough Weather, Putnam

8 – Elizabeth Peters, The Laughter of Dead Kings, Morrow

9 – Marcus Sakey, Good People, Dutton

10 – Alex Kava, Exposed, Mira

Trade Paperbacks

1 – Clare Langley-Hawthorne, The Serpent and the Scorpion, Penguin

2 - Clare Langley-Hawthorne, Consequences of Sin, Penguin

3 – Clare O’Donohue, The Lover’s Knot, Plume

4 – tie

    Charlie Huston, Every Last Drop, Del Rey

    Tana French, In the Woods, Penguin

6 – tie

    Deborah Sharp, Mama Does Time, Midnight Ink

    Clyde B. Clason, Poison Jasmine, Rue Morgue

    Katherine Neville, The Eight, Ballantine

    Archer Mayor, Open Season, AMPress

    JB Stanley, Stiffs and Swine, Midnight Ink

    Dave Zeltserman, Small Crimes, Serpent’s Tail

    Christopher Fowler, Full Dark House, Bantam

    SJ Robinson, The Price of Death, Bridgeway Books

    Michael Schein, Just Deceits, Bennett & Hastings

Mass Market

1 – John Hart, Down River, St. Martin’s

2 – John J. Lamb, The Clockwork Teddy, Berkley

3 – Sean Chercover, Big City, Bad Blood, Harper

4 – Marcia Muller, The Ever-Running Man, Grand Central

5 – James Swain, Midnight Rambler, Ballantine

6 – Katherine Neville, The Eight, Ballantine

7 – Patricia Sprinkle, Daughter of Deceit, Avon

8 – tie

    Sheila Lowe, Written in Blood, Berkley

    Laura Childs, Frill Kill, Berkley

    PJ Parrish, South of Hell, Pocket

    Max Allan Collins, The First Quarry, Hard Case Crime

    Archer Mayor, The Second Mouse, Grand Central

    Jana Bommersach, Bones in the Desert, St. Martin’s

    Donna Leon, Friends in High Places, Penguin

    Ellen Crosby, The Chardonnay Charade, Pocket

Seattle Noir

  

We've been anxiously awaiting the moment when we could tell you about the upcoming noir novel in the series published by Akashic, Seattle Noir ($14.95).  And now we can!

We don't have an actual on-sale date, except to say that it will be coming out next spring, possibly in April.  Nonetheless, we wanted you to know that it's on its way, and we're hoping (fingers crossed!) to have the premier signing with all the authors here when that fine day arrives.

Who is in it, you may ask? 

G.M. Ford

R. Barri Flowers

Paul S. Piper

Kathleen Alcala

Simon Wood

Curt Colbert

Lou Kemp

Brian Thornton

Patricia Harrington

Thomas P. Hopp

Bharti Kirchner

Robert Lopresti

Stephan Magcosta

Skye Moody

Now you see why we're so excited about this! 

Stay in touch, we'll let you know as soon as things get firmed up. 

Our October 2008 Bestsellers

Seattle Mystery Bookshop October 2008 Bestsellers

        Hardcovers

1 – Dennis Lehane, The Given Day, Morrow

2 – Ian Rankin, Exit Music, Little Brown

3 – Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict, Little Brown

4 – Tess Gerritsen, The Keepsake, Ballantine

5 - Alexander McCall Smith, The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday, Pantheon

6 – Ken Bruen, Once Were Cops, St. Martin’s

7 – John LeCarre, A Most Wanted Man, Scribner

8 - tie

    Marcia Muller, Burn Out, Grand Central

    Kathy Reichs, Devil Bones, Scribner

10 – tie

    Carolyn D. Wall, Sweeping Up Glass, Poisoned Pen

    Robert B. Parker, Rough Weather, Putnam

        Trade Paperbacks

1 – tie

    Michael Schein, Just Deceits, Bennett & Hastings

    S.J. Robinson, The Price of Death, Bridgeway

3 – Clare Langley-Hawthorn, Consequences of Sin, Penguin

4 – Clare Langley – Hawthorn, The Serpent and the Scorpion, Penguin

5 – tie

    Susan Hill, The Various Haunts of Men, Overlook

    Earl Derr Biggers, The Chinese Parrot, Academy Chicago

7 – L.R. Wright, The Suspect, Felony & Mayhem

8 – Kat Richardson, Greywalker, Roc

9 – Richard Stark, The Hunter, University Chicago Press

10 – tie

    Tana French, In the Woods, Penguin

    Lynda LaPlante, Clean Cut, Touchstone

    Jewell Parker Rhodes, Voodoo Season, Washington Square

    John Harvey, Gone to Ground, Harcourt

    Matt Ruff, Bad Monkeys, Harper

        Mass Market Paperbacks

1 – John Hart, Down River, St. Martin’s

2 – Zoë Sharp, Second Shot, St. Martin’s

3 – Marcia Muller, The Ever-Running Man, Grand Central

4 – tie

    Charlaine Harris, An Ice Cold Grave, Berkley

    John Sandford, Dark of the Moon, Jove

6 – John J. Lamb, The Clockwork Teddy, Berkley

7 – tie

    Ridley Pearson, Killer Weekend, Jove

    Rick Riordan, Rebel Island, Bantam

    Ian Rankin, The Naming of the Dead, Little Brown

    John Lutz, Night Kills, Pinnacle

THE KING OF RAGTIME

     Yay!  First signing today for The King of Ragtime, the second book in my ragtime historical-mystery trilogy. 

     Once upon a time in a Big City on the east coast, there were two men who called themselves the King of Ragtime.  As in any campaign, there were bad feelings and accusations; in 1911, Scott Joplin accused Irving Berlin of stealing music from his opera Treemonisha (which Joplin had submitted to Berlin's company for consideration for publication) to write the career-making hit, Alexander's Ragtime Band.  Berlin denied it.

    In 1916, near the end of his life, Joplin was working on a musical drama, If; nothing is known about the work beyond the title.  But what if, I thought, Martin Niederhoffer, Joplin's young piano student, who worked at Berlin's publishing company, persuaded his teacher to try Berlin one more time - and then Berlin insisted he'd never received the manuscript?  And then Martin found Joplin standing over a bloody corpse in the office?

     Signed, dated copies are available in the shop, along with signed copies of the newly-released trade paperback of The Ragtime Kid.  I hope you'll enjoy them.

Larry Karp