The 2015 Edgar Award nominees have been announced. These are for books published in 2014. The winners will be announced in May. The list for all categories is here. For our limited space, here are the nominees for Best Novel, Best First, and Best Paperback Original:
Best Novel
Wiley Cash - This Dark Road to Mercy
Mo Hayder - Wolf
Stephen King - Mr. Mercedes
Stuart Neville - The Final Silence
Ian Rankin - Saints of the Shadow Bible
Karin Slaughter - Coptown
Best First by an American
Tom Bouman -Dry Bones in the Valley
Julia Dahl - Invisible City
Allen Eskens - The Life We Bury
C.B. McKenzie - Bad Country
Adam Sternbergh - Shovel Ready
Ashley Weaver - Murder at the Brightwell
Best Paperback Original
Chris Abani - The Secret History of Las Vegas
Alison Gaylin - Stay With Me
William Lashner - The Barkeep
Catriona McPherson - The Day She Died
Lisa Turne - The Gone Dead Train
Ben H. Winters - World of Trouble
Congratulations to the nominees and the other award winners!
If you want to read any/all of these great books, let us know and we’ll be sure to get them for you!
Links of Interest:
“Wallender” Author Henning Mankell on The Catasrophe of Cancer
X-ray technique 'reads' burnt Vesuvius scroll
Game Of Throne Sculpter’s Sea God Statue Stolen!
Is The Traditional Bobby’s Helmet On The Way Out?
What Are The 21st Century’s 12 Greatest Books? (According To Book Critics)
Why Museums Hide Some Collections
Hard Case Crime is to publish the lost novels of Ed McBain
If you’ve been watching any NFL football these days, you’ve probably seen promos for the new series “Backstrom”. It premiered this week, staring Seattle-native Rainn Wilson as the title character. This new crime series is based on the books by Swedish criminologist and author Leif G.W. Persson. Three of the books have been released here in the US and you can get them from us!
While we specialize in mystery and crime books, we can order virtually any new book that you might want, no matter what its topic.
New Signings(with authors who will be visiting the shop):
Wednesday March 18th at Noon - Timothy Williams will be dropping by to sign stock. He is the author of one of Adele’s favorite Italian serieses with Commissario Piero Trotti. He doesn’t have a new book, but we’ve wanted to meet him, and if you’d like to get your books signed, be sure to drop them off before. Or reserve one now!
Date Change: Tuesday March 10th at Noon Leslie Budewitz signs Assault and Pepper
Now you can get your books signed a whole week earlier! Yeah! This is the start of new series set in the Pike Place Market. After a divorce and being downsized, Pepper Reece makes a leap by opening a tea and spice shop. Her concoctions are a hit with customers and fellow merchants – then a homeless man is found dead on her doorstep one morning with a cup from her shop in his hand. To save her shop and her dreams she probes the death. Agatha Award Winning Author.
See the calendar of all currently-scheduled events on our website. The website calendar contains plot synopses. At the bottom of it is the updated, complete list of signed copies that we’ll be getting from other sources. Click Here.
Tessa Arlen, Jan 24
Yasmine Galenorn, Jan 31, drop-by, time uncertain
Gigi Pandian, Jan 31, drop-by, time uncertain
Burt Weissbourd, Jan 31 at 3:00pm
Cara Black, Mar 2
Glen Erik Hamilton, Mar 3
C.S. Harris, Mar 7
Leslie Budewitz, Mar 10
Jacqueline Winspear, Mar 24
J.A. Jance, Mar 27
And there are always more on the way!
Remember, too, that while it is always fun to come in and meet the author in person, that isn’t always possible. So reserve a signed copy to be mailed to you or for you to pick up later. Those who reserve in advance get the copies in the best condition!
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Gift Certificates:
They’re available in Whatever Denomination You Want; They Don’t Expire; You can Order Them by Phone, e-mail or through the Website, and we can Mail them directly to the Recipient if you’d like. Perfect for all sorts of occasions.
Wish List:
Our website has a Wish List capability. If folks want to know what you’d like for a given holiday or birthday, it is easy to point people to our website. Amber has put together a dandy blog post explaining it and how it works.
Word of the Week:
FLOOZY/FLOOZIE/FLOOSIE/FLOOSEY/FLOOGY/FALOOSIE/FLUGIE: A gaudily dressed, cheap and tawdry, not overly bright, disrespectable, frequently high-spirited, flirtatious women of easy morals, often a prostitute. According to one source (Random House) ‘floozy’ is believed to be an derisive alteration of the word ‘flossy’ (or ‘flossie’) which was circa 1900 slang for a young women which deteriorated into a term for the tawdry, immoral women or prostitute. According to another (Flexner), it probably (the OED says ‘perhaps’) derives from the late 19th century Victorian colloquialism ‘flossy,’ meaning shiny, ostentatious, fancy, saucy, showy, excessively grand, which comes form the word ‘floss,’ a soft silky material – “The word then deteriorated in meaning.” A less interesting explanation is that that the word just derived from ‘Flossie,’ a nickname for Florence, but there is not much support for that.The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins claims that the word first appeared as ‘flugie’ at the turn of the century (i.e. circa 1900).
The first appearance in print with its current meaning appeared in 1909 in ‘White Slavery’ by Chrysler, page 30: “Tell that floosie to cut out that yelping.” ‘Ibid’ page 176: “He don’t care for the ‘cheap floosies’; he’s out after a ‘doll.’” Interestingly the word ‘floozie,’ along with ‘red-hot momma’ were two words, among others, banned from use in movies for many years by the so-called ‘Hays Code’ (1934) which was long the moral code of the American film industry. But the popular 1945 song ‘The Flat-Foot Floogy with the Floy Floy’ breathed new life into the word (‘floogy’ and ‘floozy’ interchangeable). Here ‘flat-foot’ probably refers to the fact that the floozy had ‘professional standing’ (<:) and the ‘floy floy’ refers to some kind of venereal disease. (thanks to wordwizard.com)
You can browse our collectable and hard-to-find books, as well as signed copies from earlier author events, on Biblio.com. You do not have to place an order through them, especially if you’re a long-time customer and we have your ordering info. Just email us to order.
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What We’ve Been Reading:
Amber Recommends:
Brandon Sanderson – Firefight (hc, Delacorte, $18.99)
Newcago is now free, but it is far from peril. The vacuum of power left after Steelheart’s death means other epics are testing the Reckoners and trying to fill the void. Interetingly they are all being sent by another High Epic from Babylon Restored (New York) - so David, Tia, and the Proffessor head out there to figure out why and a way to stop her.
This sequel is a fast and furious read, filled with some astonishingly bad metaphors, but the substance of the story is much more twisty and dark than you might expect, which makes it fantastic. David, a/k/a Steelslayer, is not only helping to find and contain Epics, but he has a theory about what makes them work. And if he’s right, it could change the fate of all Epics!
This is a great follow up to Steelheart (Ember, $9.99)! And this is a series that you MUST read in order!
Fran heartily concurs, and encourages you to read both. Now.
We have three Tumblr blogs, in addition to our regular shop blog:
Hardboiled, maintained by JB – pulp covers, film noir and other images of crime and mystery, and
Reviews and Events – just what it sounds like!
On This Date:
Jan 25, 1934 – Dillinger and three others arrested without a shot being fired in Tucson
Jan 25, 1941 – future co-star of “Barney Miller”, Gregory Sierra, was born in NYC
Jan 25, 1947 – Capone died in Miami, his brain destroyed by syphilis
Jan 25, 1957 – Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos was born in Genova, Columbia. A serial killer known as “The Beast”, he would be convicted of 139 confirmed murders but suspected of up to 400, making him history’s biggest, solo killer (not counting monsters like Hitler, Stalin and their ilk)
Jan 25, 2011 - Bruce Gordon, ever-present character actor in early TV, died
Jan 26, 1891 – Francesco Castiglio was born in Calabria, Italy. History knows him as Frank Costello, eventual boss of the Luciano Family
Jan 26, 1915 – future “Perry Mason” regular William Hopper was born
Jan 26, 1925 – Paul Newman was born –Cool Hand Luke, The Sting and he brought Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer to the screen inHarper
Jan 26, 1936 – 3rd of the dozen victims of The Butcher of Cleveland was found. She was identified by her body. Her head was never found
Jan 26, 1939 - Brian Garfield was born in NYC
Jan 26, 1949 – actor David Strathairn was born in San Francisco
Jan 26, 1950 –Gun Crazy premiered
Jan 26, 1955 – international con man Serge Rubinstein was found strangled to death in his NYC hotel room; no one is ever charged
Jan 26, 1962 – Lucky Luciano died in Naples
Jan 26, 1971 – Manson convicted
Jan 27, 1881 – the man who would succeed Capone, Frank Nitti, was born in Campania, Italy
Jan 27, 1940 – James Cromwell was born and deserves to be on this list for his acting inL.A. Confidential if for no other reason: “Call me Dudley…"
Jan 27, 1958 – thriller-writer James Grippando was born in Waukegan, IL
Jan 28, 1890 – Robert Stroud – future murderer and Birdman of Alcatraz – was born in Seattle!
Jan 28, 1904 – Australian mystery writer S.H. Courtier as born in Kangaroo Flat
Jan 28, 1941 – creator of perhaps the first of the ‘soft-boiled’ private eyes (Seattle PI John Denson), Richard Hoyt was born in Hermiston, OR
Jan 28, 1944 - Tim Heald was born in Dorset
Jan 28, 1945 – Swiss actress Marthe Keller was born in Basil
Jan 28 – the delightful Harley Jane Kozak, actress and Shamus-award winning writer, was born in PA (1957, Someone, please, get that woman some frosted animal cookies!), Barbara Parker was born in Columbia, SC (1947), and Icelandic mystery writer Arnaldur Indridison was born (1961)
Jan 29, 1845 – Edgar Allan Poe’sThe Raven was first published
Jan 29, 1909 - Harold Q. Masur was born in NYC
Jan 29 – John Forsythe was born in Penns Grove, NJ (1918), Tom Selleck was born in Detroit (1945, Magnum and Jess Stone, to start), Heather Graham was born in Milwaukee (1970)
Jan 29 - birthday of long-time customer Nancy GraceHappy Birthday Nancy!
Jan 29, 1979 – Brenda Ann Spencer shot up an elementary school in San Diego and gave the reason “I don’t like Mondays” – which was turned into a song
Jan 30, 1866 – Gelett Burgess was born in Boston. In 1912, he anonymously published the Master of Mysteries
Jan 30, 1929 – composer Morton Stevens was born – he wrote the “Hawaii 5-0” theme (drum roll please!)
Jan 30, 1835 – 1st assassination attempt made on a US president – Richard Lawrence tried to shoot Andrew Jackson
Jan 30 – a few from Hollywood: John Ireland (Vancouver, BC, 1914 – you’d recognize his face), David Wayne (Traverse City, MI, 1914 – Ellery Queen’s TV father, Insp. Queen and the Mad Hatter in “Batman”) and Gene Hackman (San Bernadino, CA, 1930)
Jan 30, 1924 – British mystery writer Margaret Yorke was born in Compton, Surrey
Jan 30, 1948 – Mohandas Gandhi assassinated
Jan 30, 1958 – official premiere, in London, of Billy Wilder’sWitness for the Prosecution
Jan 30, 1972 – troops open fire on unarmed marchers: Bloody Sunday in Ireland
Jan 30, 1977 – 4th Son of Sam shootings
Jan 30, 1991 –The Silence of the Lambs premiered in NYC
And Have a Relaxing and Book-Filled Weekend
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