#john creasey

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

John Creasey (writing as Michael Halliday) - Murder in the Stars - Hodder - 1968

[themidcenturyscene]

Cândido Costa Pinto, John Creasey, A Knife for the Toff, 1940s

Cover by Portuguese artist Cândido Costa Pinto.

[sporcafaccenda]

Art: Karel Thole

pour une réédition de "A Doll for the Toff" par John Creasey. Une aventure du "Prince" restée inédite en français, à notre connaissance.

En ouvrant son courrier, "The Toff "/ Le Prince (l'honorable Richard Rollinson) découvre une poupée magnifiquement travaillée représentant une femme nue - avec un poignard plongé dans sa poitrine…Et Rollinson se trouve plongé dans le monde bizarre de l'Obeah et devra affronter un dangereux mystère occulte …

#KarelThole

[a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives]

Scrublands: Award-winning ‘ripping page-turner’ becomes the latest crime thriller shot in Victoria

The adaptation of the novel Scrublands into a crime series is the second Stan original after Bali 2002. Photo: Stan

Ever since award-winning Australian crime writer Chris Hammer published his 2018 thriller Scrublands, television networks and production studios worked furiously to get their hands on the rights to bring the story to life.

Canberra-based Hammer, a former political journalist with just two non-fiction books under his belt, couldn’t believe it when he landed a book deal with Allen & Unwin to publish his debut fiction novel.

Shortly after, he sold the international and TV rights.

“I was laughing and crying, it was just unbelievable,” he told The Guardian at the time.

Fast forward to 2023, and Scrublands – an Easy Tiger production co-commissioned by Australian streamer Stan and the Nine Network, in association with VicScreen – is now filming across Victoria.

Easy Tiger founder Ian Collie and its chief executive Rob Gibson issued a joint statement, saying: “From the moment we opened Chris Hammer’s ripping page-turner, we knew Scrublands was destined to be a must-watch crime series”.

“[It] will be an unmissable TV event for rusted-on Chris Hammer fans and everyone else alike.”

Hammer, too, can’t wait to see it, telling his 2000 Instagram followers he’s thrilled with the cast, the director and just about anyone involved in the series.

“Can’t wait,” he wrote on Tuesday.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Chris Hammer (@thehammernow)

What’s it about?

Scrublands was an instant bestseller in 2018, topping the Australian fiction charts and shortlisted for Best Debut Fiction at the Indie Book Awards.

It was also shortlisted for Best General Fiction at the Australian Book Industry Awards and won the UK Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey Debut Dagger Award.

The story is set against the backdrop of the New South Wales Riverina, in an isolated country town called Riversend, where a charismatic and dedicated young priest (Jay Ryan) calmly opens fire on his congregation, killing five parishioners.

One year later, Hammer’s main character, investigative journalist Martin Scarsden (Luke Arnold) arrives in town to write what should be a simple feature story on the anniversary of the tragedy.

“But when Martin’s instincts kick in and he digs beneath the surface, the previously accepted narrative begins to fall apart and he finds himself in a life-and-death race to uncover the truth,” according to the Stan synopsis.

Turns out there’s a love triangle, fraud, organised crime and cover-ups, all sub-plots worthy of a series.

Prepare to be ‘dazzled’

Although we’re yet to discover how the novel has been adapted to the television series by scriptwriters Felicity Packard (lead writer, and she’s penned Ep 1), Kelsey Munro and Jock Serong, one book reviewer said it was a first-rate crime mystery who was “dazzled” by Hammer throughout the book.

“There is a sense of imminence to Scrublands, particularly in its recognition of drought and the plight of small towns,” Amanda Barrett wrote.

“This one sure bowled me over right from the hooking premise and opening sequence.

“Scrublands will floor you.

Although it’s a work of fiction, she said “there is so much truth to Hammer’s writing and his depiction of the events that take place in Riversend”.

“This is a fastidious novel that works to build a complete picture of what is happening across many country towns, across all states and territories in Australia.

“Riversend is simply a euphemism for so many rural locales in Australia that are grappling with the impact of drought, a decline in services and a rise in crime.”

As a result, she said, the book came across as an authentic tale, tapping into issues that strike at the heart of rural townships.

Hard work starts for the cast at the table readings. Photo: Stan

Table readings of the adaptation with the lead cast of Arnold (Black Sails, Never Tear Us Apart: The Untold Story of INXS), Bella Heathcote (C*A*U*G*H*T, Relic, Pieces of Her) and Jay Ryan (It: Chapter Two, Top of the Lake) have been completed as cast hit the road to various locations across the state.

Nine’s director of television Michael Healy says “joining forces with the teams at Stan and Easy Tiger on Scrublands has realised an ambition we have had since Chris Hammer’s novel was published in 2018″.

He says they’re confident it will turn into must-watch television, suitable for a global audience.

VicScreen boss Caroline Pitcher reveals more than 500 Victorians will be employed throughout the series, “adding to the state’s pipeline of local productions”.

Scrublands is the second co-commissioned production between Nine and Stan following Bali 2002.

Source: The New Daily

[justforbooks]

Peter Robinson was the creator of the immensely popular Inspector Alan Banks crime series, set in Yorkshire – the books sold almost 9m copies in 19 languages and spawned a successful television series (DCI Banks, 2010-16) starring Stephen Tompkinson as Banks.

Robinson, who has died aged 72 after a brief illness, first introduced Banks and the fictional Yorkshire town of Eastvale to the crime-reading world in 1987 with Gallows View. The gruff Yorkshire cop, complex as the best crime cops are expected to be, but with a belief in fairness and justice, was an immediate success, with Gallows View shortlisted for the best first novel award in Canada and for the UK Crimewriters’ Association’s John Creasey award.

Although he had not necessarily intended to write a series, Robinson went on to produce a Banks novel a year – as well as award-winning short stories. He was regularly nominated for and frequently won awards in Canada, the US, France, the UK and Sweden.

A native of Yorkshire, Robinson lived for most of his life in Toronto. He once said he started the Inspector Banks series because he was homesick in his early days in Canada.

He was born in Castleford, West Yorkshire, to Clifford Robinson, a rent collector, and Miriam (nee Jarvis), a cleaner, and grew up in Armley, a working-class suburb of Leeds (also home to fellow writers Alan Bennett and Barbara Taylor Bradford). It is not too much of a stretch to assume that aspects of Inspector Banks’s adolescence in the 1960s, as described in Close to Home (2003), the 14th novel in the series, mirrored Robinson’s own.

He described in one interview how he spent the lively summer of 1965 “with his ear glued to his transistor radio and his eyes on the passing girls”. He went to Leeds University to study English literature. While there he wrote poetry and gave public readings around Yorkshire.

In 1974 he moved to Canada, to take an MA in English and creative writing at the University of Windsor, Ontario. One of his tutors was the prolific and highly esteemed American author Joyce Carol Oates, who taught him, among other things, to take his writing seriously.

He then moved to Toronto, to York University, to take a PhD in English. There he organised various poetry events and helped set up a small press with friends, whose publications included a volume of his own poems. He settled in the city after meeting his future wife, Sheila Halladay, a lawyer, there.

Although he continued to write poetry occasionally throughout his life (some of which he placed in one or two of his novels, attributed to various characters) he once explained that things he would previously have put in his poems he now put in his prose.

In each Banks novel Robinson explored the character of the policeman a little more, but always keeping him grounded in his sense of decency and justice. Robinson was teaching at different colleges from time to time during this period – including a year as writer in residence at his old university, Windsor.

In 1990 he published a stand-alone novel, Caedmon’s Song, a psychological thriller in which two young women in different parts of England find their paths crossing in an alarming way.

In 2000 he made a step-change with the 10th Banks novel, In a Dry Season, which had a more complex (and haunting) plot, set around secrets long hidden in a village flooded to create a reservoir and revealed when the reservoir dries up. Oddly, his fellow Yorkshireman Reginald Hill, creator of that bluff northern detective Andy Dalziel and his university-educated sidekick, Peter Pascoe, had the same idea of using a flooded village and dried-up reservoir in On Beulah Height, published around the same time.

Hill won the US Barry award for On Beulah Height in 1999 and Robinson the same award for In a Dry Season the year after. In addition it won the Anthony award in the US and the Martin Beck award in Sweden. In 2002 Robinson was awarded the Dagger in the Library by the UK Crime Writers’ Association for most popular author of that year, voted for by libraries.

He claimed it got harder as time went on to maintain the high standard he had established for himself in the series, but it was not noticeable in his output. Banks went on through divorce, further success in his career and no let-up in the complexity and sometimes brutality of the cases he investigated.

Robinson visited the UK regularly – he and Sheila had a cottage in Richmond, North Yorkshire – and he was a well-known and welcome presence at crime fiction festivals around the world.

In 2009 the University of Leeds awarded him an honorary doctorate. He and his wife later endowed the Peter Robinson scholarship at Leeds to help students from less advantaged backgrounds study English – preferably students with an interest in creative writing.

The first episodes of the Inspector Banks TV adaptation came along in 2010, with Tompkinson well received playing the title character. It ran for five series.

Robinson had completed another Banks novel before he died. Standing in the Shadows is due to be published next year.

Sheila survives him.

🔔 Peter Robinson, writer, born 17 March 1950; died 4 October 2022

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[ncisfranchise-source]

PARKER DISCOVERS HE’S A VICTIM OF IDENTITY THEFT WHILE INVESTIGATING THE UNUSUAL MURDER OF A NAVY ENSIGN, ON “NCIS,” MONDAY, JAN. 16

“Bridges” – Parker discovers he’s a victim of identity theft while investigating the unusual murder of a Navy ensign. Also, Knight and Jimmy face hurdles in their relationship as their connection heightens, on the CBS Original series NCIS, Monday, Jan. 16 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network and available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+*.

REGULAR CAST:

Sean Murray

(NCIS Special Agent Timothy McGee)

Wilmer Valderrama

(NCIS Special Agent Nicholas “Nick” Torres)

Brian Dietzen

(Medical Examiner Jimmy Palmer)

Diona Reasonover

Katrina Law

(Forensic Scientist Kasie Hines)

(NCIS Special Agent Jessica Knight)

Rocky Carroll

Gary Cole

(NCIS Director Leon Vance)

(FBI Special Agent Alden Parker)

GUEST CAST:

Austin Cauldwell

(Ryan Aaronson/ Travis Jacobs)

Rachel Ticotin

(Joy Sullivan Aaronson)

Jason MacDonald

(John Watts)

Sadie Stratton

(Renee Watts)

Jason Manuel Olazabal

(Todd Mercer)

Brenda Kate

(Sheila/Wife)

Shane Blades

(Husband)

Nicole Rainteau

(Kaytlynn)

Leah Grosjean

(Navy Ensign Ashley Watts)

Kathryn Melton

(Cleaning Lady)

Warren Sweeney

(Priest)

WRITTEN BY: Chad Gomez Creasey

DIRECTED BY: Lionel Coleman

[lizabethstucker]

Mystery by the Book edited by Martin Edwards

3 out of 5.

Subtitled "Mysteries for Bibliophiles", this is a collection of sixteen short stories published between the 1930s and early 1970s. The basic theme is mysteries from the world of books, victims or perpetrators who are authors or booksellers or others with a literary connection.

I was expecting to adore this book as older mysteries are usually my favorites. Plus there are some rather big names of mystery fiction from that period represented here. Don't get me wrong, these weren't bad, they were just meh. It was rather boring a read. None of the stories rated high enough to be a favorite or low enough to hate.

Contents:

"A Lesson in Crime" by G. D. H. & M. Cole (aka George Douglas Howard & Margaret Cole, husband & wife) "Trent and the Ministering Angel" by E. C. Bentley "A Slice of Bad Luck" by Nicholas Blake "The Strange Case of the Megotherium Thefts" by S. C. Roberts "Malice Domestic" by Philip MacDonald "A Savage Game" by A. A. Milne "The Clue in the Book" by Julian Symons "The Manuscript" by Gladys Mitchell "A Man and His Mother-in-Law" by Roy Vickers "Grey's Ghost" by Michael Innes "Dear Mr. Editor…" by Christianna Brand "Murder in Advance" by Marjorie Bremner "A Question of Character" by Victor Canning "The Book of Honour" by John Creasey "We Know You're Busy Writing…" by Edmund Crispin "Chapter and Verse" by Ngaio Marsh

[rainsmediaradio]

The Daily Hope Devotional by Rick Warren 16th November 2023 – What’s the Big Deal About Failure?

TOPIC: What’s the Big Deal About Failure? TODAY’S  SCRIPTURE: Proverbs 24:16 (GNT) No matter how often honest people fall, they always get up again.”

RICK WARREN DAILY DEVOTIONAL FOR TODAY 16TH NOVEMBER 2023

Never forget this truth: Failure probably won’t kill you. We vastly exaggerate the effects of failure. We blow the prospects of failing all out of proportion. Failing is not the end of the world. The fear of failure is far more damaging than failure itself. Proverbs 24:16 says, “No matter how often honest people fall, they always get up again” (GNT). Even “good” people stumble. They make mistakes, mess up, and fail. Successful people are not people who never fail. They’re people who get up and keep going. Successful people just don’t know how to quit! Have you ever heard of these famous failures? George Washington lost two-thirds of all the battles he fought. But he won the Revolutionary War and later became the first U.S. president. Napoleon graduated 42nd in a class of 43. Then he went out and conquered Europe. In 21 years, Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, but he struck out 1,330 times. He struck out nearly twice as often as he hit a home run. The famous novelist John Creasey received 753 rejection letters before he published 564 books. Rowland Hussey Macy failed seven times at retailing before starting Macy’s department store. Great people are simply ordinary people who have an extraordinary amount of determination. They just keep on going. They realize they’re never a failure until they quit. That’s how you reduce your fear of failure. You redefine it. You don’t fail by not reaching a specific goal. Instead, failure is not having a goal. Failure is refusing to get back up again once you fall. It’s refusing to try. On the first day of kindergarten, I got in the wrong line and then into the wrong classroom. Can you imagine me going home to my mom and dad and saying, “I’m a failure at education! This school thing just doesn’t work”? Of course not. Even as a young child, I learned from my mistake and did better the next day. When you fail, keep going. If at first you don’t succeed, it’s no big deal. You’re never a failure when you don’t give up. Read the full article

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

John Creasey - A Mask For The Toff - Walker and Co. - 1951 (jacket photo by John David/ jacket design by Roberta Kimmel)

[mariocki]

Gideon's Way: The 'V' Men (1.2, ITC, 1965)

"Any theories?"

"Oh, Vane has a lot of enemies."

"Social and political. Is he blaming the police for this?"

"He considers his protection... inadequate."

"It was, as things turned out."

[alrederedmixedmedia]

Alredered Remembers British mystery writer John Creasey, on his birthday.

"Never buy an editor or publisher a lunch or a drink until he has bought an article, story or book from you. This rule is absolute and may be broken only at your peril."

John Creasey

[mega-delicatelysuperbcollector]

The Inquiring Mind: The Toff and the Runaway Bride by John Creasey (1975)---starring Terence Alexander

The Toff and the Runaway Bride by John Creasey (1975) – starring Terence Alexander

[julianworker]

The Figure in the Dusk

John Creasey wrote more than six hundred novels using twenty-eight different pseudonyms during his career as a novelist. This is one of the Chief Inspector Roger West books known alternatively as ‘A Case for Inspector West’ in the UK. Members of an extended family are gradually being shot dead in their cars and houses in The Home Counties, Yorkshire, and the West Midlands. CI West has a suspect…

[fictionfromafar]

Expectant by Vanda Symon

Expectant by Vanda Symon

Orenda Books

Publication Date 16 February 2023

The shocking murder of a heavily pregnant woman throws the New Zealand city of Dunedin into a tailspin, and the devastating crime feels uncomfortably close to home for Detective Sam Shephard as she counts down the days to her own maternity leave.

Confined to a desk job in the department, Sam must find the missing link between this brutal crime and a string of cases involving mothers and children in the past. As the pieces start to come together and the realisation dawns that the killer’s actions are escalating, drastic measures must be taken to prevent more tragedy.

For Sam, the case become personal...

My Review:

With the blogging name of Fiction From Afar, I could hardly pass up the chance to read the new novel by Vanda Symon. Set in Dunedin on New Zealand’s South Island’s Pacific coast the city provides a welcome departure from more familiar locations. To my knowledge this is the fifth book in her Detective Sam Shephard series and the sixth overall published by the author. Irrespective of whether you have read the previous novels I can confirm that Expectant doesn’t require any background knowledge on the characters. In fact, once you begin reading the story, you’ll find yourself far more interested in what will happen next rather than what happened before. The book grabs you like that. The prologue sets the scene where a gruesome crime is uncovered and from the first chapter onwards, we are taken into the thoughts and actions of Sam Shephard. Shortly due to start maternity leave Shephard feels side-lined when her boss commences the investigation into a murder of a heavily pregnant woman and kidnap of her baby who was removed from the body. To say it’s certainly a crime hard on the stomach is certainly apt in this case.

Sam’s feeling of resentment towards her boss is only tempered slightly when he explains that he feels the victim’s family could find the presence of a pregnant police officer as an upsetting reminder. Yet headstrong and neglecting the work she was due to complete before maternity, confirmed to a desk she starts to examine historical cases of murdered mothers and stolen babies. One of the other investigating officers Paul is Sam’s partner and father of her baby but the story thankfully steers away from their domestic arrangements and while pregnancy is clearly an ongoing theme in the novel, the story does focus largely on the case in hand.

As Sam Shephard is the sole narrator many of the discoveries and theories that emerge originate from her or are given her sole perspective. When remarkably the baby turns up safe and well, it brings her more fully into the investigation and over time and with several other surprises, the focus changes as a consequence. Unbeknown to her, the answers are not so far away.

Expectant is a real page turner which keeps the reader guessing with a very real tension. I felt it is also a well-researched novel, yet the author’s most impressive trait revealed in the story is that a clear and credible motive has been devised which leads both to sympathy and leaves a lasting resonance. Whether you’re familiar with Vanda Symon’s previous work or not, Expectant is a book that you can pick up and fully engross yourself in.

Many thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inclusion on the blog tour and Orenda Books for providing me with an advance copy of Expectant.

Please look out for the other reviews of this book on the blog tour as shown on the below poster.

Vanda Symon lives in Dunedin, New Zealand. As well as being a crime writer, she has a PhD in science communication and is a researcher at the Centre for Pacific Health at the University of Otago. Overkill was shortlisted for the 2019 CWA John Creasey Debut Dagger Award and she is a four-time finalist for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel for her critically acclaimed Sam Shephard series. The fourth in the series, Bound, was shortlisted for a Barry Award. Vanda produces and hosts Write On, a monthly radio show focusing on the world of books at Otago Access Radio.

[rithebard]

Tomorrow at 7pm pt; #ChattingWithSherri welcomes #awardwinning #crimenovelist and #DetectionClub President; #MartinEdwards ; http://tobtr.com/12153473 #interview