Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Score some Kiwi crime books

Keeping things in the British Commonwealth, Craig Sisterson of the Crime Watch blog is offering readers the chance to sample crime writing from New Zealand, and all you have to do is leave a comment.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

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17 Comments:

Blogger Kiwicraig said...

Kia Ora Peter - thanks for the plug, and the entry/comment you made yourself. Btw, which NZ book would you like if you're one of the winners?

September 01, 2009  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

Craig, I'll have to think about it. You'll know from my comment that I'm curious about what Paul Thomas got up to other than Guerilla Season, but I'm also curious about Vanda Symon. How about if I win, I send you a couple of dollars, and you send two books?

September 01, 2009  
Blogger Kiwicraig said...

works for me. in fact, happy to do a trade if you like (outside of the competition) - I'll send you a NZ fiction book or two that you want and can't get over there, and you can send me some Canadian fiction you can probably get reasonably easily over there, that I can't get on the booksellers shelves here (e.g. William Deverell, Mark Zuelke etc)?

How does that sound?

September 01, 2009  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

Sounds good, except that I might want to read the books before I send them. I don't know those names. My big Canadian crime-fiction discovery has been John McFetridge.

September 01, 2009  
Blogger Kiwicraig said...

http://kiwicrime.blogspot.com/2009/08/review-of-april-fool-by-william.html

A wee bit about Deverell there. I met a handful of Canadian crime writers, and they had similar issues to NZ ones - a lot more good crime writers than I realised, but many really weren't sold much outside Canada/US (if even in the US).

Of course Linwood Barclay, Peter Robinson etc are a bit of an exception to that... but there were plenty of others (e.g. Deverell, Zuehlke, and many many more)

September 01, 2009  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

Giles Blunt and Louise Penny might be two more exceptions. One thing some Canadian crime writers complain about is resistance on the part of publishers to books set in Canada. Perhaps that's what comes with existing next to the U.S.

September 01, 2009  
Blogger Linkmeister said...

Putnam didn't have that problem with Dick Francis's The Edge. It takes place almost entirely on a train from Toronto to Vancouver. Worked just fine for me, too; it's one of my favorites.

September 02, 2009  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

Perhaps the setting was more the train than Canada.

Does Dick Francis write non-horse-racing mysteries, too? If not, where on the train are the horses kept?

September 02, 2009  
Blogger Linkmeister said...

Horses were in a special car.

The setting was mostly the train, but there's a memorable scene in the Canadian Rockies involving a blizzard and flares.

In his more recent books he often wrote about characters who are on the periphery of the racing world themselves (wine merchant, small plane pilot, banker) but get roped into something happening in that world. His first three or four had jockeys as heros, but then he moved on.

September 02, 2009  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

Ha! My question was not entirely serious, but it should have been.

I'll tell you: a transcontinental train trip offers amply opportunity to keep the narrative moving. I can also well believe that horse racing, in addition to the thrill of the sport, would have ample attraction for crime writers: glamour, drugs, money and the chance to launder it.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but Dominique Manotti, Peter Temple and Declan Hughes are among contemporary crime writers from around the world who have been drawn to horse racing as a setting and a subject.

September 02, 2009  
Blogger Linkmeister said...

Every time I re-read Francis I regret that I've never lived anywhere near a track so I could watch a race. Watching the Triple Crown races on the tube just isn't the same.

September 02, 2009  
Blogger Linkmeister said...

Every time I re-read Francis I regret that I've never lived anywhere near a track so I could watch a race. Watching the Triple Crown races on the tube just isn't the same.

September 02, 2009  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

As it happens, the novel I just started reading, Unspoken by Mari Jungstedt, opens with a horse-racing scene, though the action happens mostly among the bettors rather than on the track.

September 03, 2009  
Blogger Kiwicraig said...

By the way, we've now hit the entry threshold on the competition to have two 'winners' - a few more entries and there will be three... more entries/more winners...

Kia Kaha from Aotearoa

September 03, 2009  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

May this contest drive your postage expenditures sky high.

September 03, 2009  
Blogger Kiwicraig said...

It's looking that way - everyone has been so enthusiastic that I wish I could send everyone a Kiwi crime book, but considering we've got like 15 entries, from places as diverse as US, Aust, UK, Ireland, and Russia - my bank balance wouldn't cope.

NB Did you get my email about the other "Ngaio Award" thing?

September 03, 2009  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

You appear to be doing a good job of drumming up interest. I saw the Russian reply -- very cool.

That e-mail arrived just as I was shutting down my computer at home either for the night or to head out. I don't have access to it from this computer, so I'll look at it when I get home tonight.

September 03, 2009  

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