Crime Fiction Dossier

Is this a fair blurb?

I received an email today promoting the release of Jed Rubenfeld's much-hyped new thriller, The Interpretation of Murder.

At the top of the email it says in big type: "'The pop-cultural sensation'* is on sale today."

We follow the asterisk down below and see the source of the quote. It turns out to be Janet Maslin's review in the New York Times.

Here is the excerpt from that review:

"Credit Mr. Rubenfeld with a smart, jocular approach to an elaborate undertaking. His will be no ordinary pop-cultural sensation... [There is more which I'm omitting.]"

Is it fair to extract three words from Maslin's review -- "pop-cultural sensation" -- and then brand the book as "The pop-cultural sensation," even though that's not what she's really saying?

I don't think it is. How 'bout you?

Ten Commandments of Getting a Book Reviewed

As part of the fun over at Buzz, Balls & Hype, I offer up my Ten Commandments of Getting a Book Reviewed. It's padded out a little, I suppose -- I had trouble coming up with ten. When M.J. Rose gave me the assignment, I replied (in my best Mel Brooks voice), "Ten? Does it have to be ten? Why can't there be eight commandments?" But apparently it was written in stone.

Let me know what you think!

Win This Book: Gregg Hurwitz' "Last Shot"

Next up on Win This Book: a personally-autographed copy of the white-knuckle new thriller Last Shot by Gregg Hurwitz. Gregg is one of my favorite thriller writers to emerge in the last decade, and his latest book shows why.

The winner of the contest will receive a hardcover copy of Last Shot, inscribed to them and signed by the author. To enter, just send an email with "Contest" in the subject line and your name in the body of the email.

Good luck! If you don't win, buy the book anyway. It's worth it.

Contest ends on 9/19. Only one entry per person, please. Only U.S. residents are eligible to win. All decisions are final. Crime Fiction Dossier is not responsible for anything.

Review of Clea Simon's "Cattery Row"

Who says cozy mysteries -- and cat mysteries no less -- don't get reviews? Well, they do around here. My latest piece for the Boston Globe is a review of Clea Simon's pleasing feline crime novel Cattery Row.

It's no great surprise that this isn't exactly the kind of book that I'm drawn to. I know that a lot of readers are, though, and I try to be an equal opportunity critic. Besides, I enjoy Simon's writing, even if the cat stuff does get a little old.

Email address

Until further notice, and probably permanently, my old email address ([email protected]) is no longer valid.

Please send all emails to: [email protected]

And, just for the record, GoDaddy.com is an inexpensive place to register domains, but, man, does their customer and technical service suck. You get what you pay for, right? Well, it's certainly true in this case.

2007 will be a Killer Year

Old news here, but I wanted to mention it anyway... A group of debut crime novelists, with books all coming out in 2007, has banded together to form a collective called Killer Year.

They're trying to cross-promote each other's work and hopefully gain some publicity for the group as a whole. Definitely a nice idea. It's incumbent upon authors these days to search for creative ways to gain attention, and this is an innovative one.

In an attempt to help out, I've decided that I will read and review all of the books put out in 2007 by Killer Year novelists. I can't guarantee everyone a newspaper review, unfortunately, but at the least, I can write about them here on the blog.

Once the last of them is published, I'll pick my favorite of the bunch and anoint it the Killer Book of the Year. (How's that for a remarkable act of hubris?)

For the record, I've already read two of the books and they're both quite good. So I'm expecting big things for this bunch.

Watch this space for more on the Killer Year books -- and definitely check out what the group is up to. There are some fine writers participating.

(By the way, I've opened up comments on this post, so you can tell me if I'm getting too big of an ego.)