CRIME ON MY MIND

Looking ahead!

Can you believe it? 6 days until winter. 9 days to Christmas. 16 days and we're into a new year. But that also means longer days, shorter nights and spring is on the way. Okay, maybe that's rushing it a small bit.

But there's another reason to be looking forward to the new year. There's a pile of new books coming from Canadian mystery and crime writers! Part of that pile is stacked on my TBR shelf, along with those published this year that I'm struggling to get through (I DON'T mean they're badly written, just that life keeps heaping other stuff on my plate). Among them, and I forgot to mention this title last time I listed my PR's (pending reviews) and that's The Ophelia Trap by Kate Burns. It's now on the bookshelves, including mine, and I'm looking forward to the read.

Just arrived from the publishers' reps, more books published in 2011: The Girl in the Wall by Alison Preston. I've always enjoyed her writing -- she did a signing at Prime Crime one year -- and this one looks to be another page-turner. And, a first novel which was the winner of the First Book Competition from The Writer's Studio at Simon Fraser University, Nondescript Rambunctious by Jackie Bateman. Plus, Bloodline, a haunted crime story by Stan Rogal.

Coming up for publication this winter and spring: Red Means Run by Brad Smith (read his author interview here on Jan. 4th); The Beggar's Opera by Peggy Blair, her first and it was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Assoc. Debut Dagger Award in 2010; A Green Place for Dying, the fifth Meg Harris mystery by local author R.J. Harlick; and, Last Dance by West Coast writer David Russell. It's the second in his Winston Patrick series.

So, you see I have a lot of good reading ahead of me. And, I know there'll be new books from Gail Bowen, Pamela Ballow, C.B. Forrest, Janet Bolin, Vicki Delany and Erika Chase. Others will be added as we get into the new year selling seasons.

Let's all get out there and support our terrific Canadian crime and mystery writers. You'll be doing yourself a favour, too!

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime