NYT Praises UNC-W Grad’s Second Thriller

Marilyn Stasio’s latest crime column gives high marks to The Long Division, the second novel from UNC-Wilmington graduate Derek Nikitas. ”Nikitas bumps up the style requirements for writing crime fiction another notch,” says Stasio, who also notes the novel’s “dazzling plot maneuvers.” Nice praise, to say the least. The full review is at the end of the article here. Nikitas already stopped by Pomegranate Books in Wilmington right after the book’s publication in October, so no N.C. events on the schedule right now. I’ll keep my N.C. readers updated if more events develop.

N.C. Events: Mysteries Through Monday

Mysteries take the mainstage at Triangle-area bookstores this weekend, with two appearances by The Deadly Divas, “nice woman who write about murder.” Marcia Talley, newly elected president of Sisters in Crime, leads the group’s outing with her new book, Without a Grave, and she’s joined by Elizabeth Lynn Casey, author of Sew Deadly; Denise Swanson, author of Murder of a Royal Pain; Heather Webber, author of Weeding Out Murder (and of the Lucy Valentine romance series); and Sara Rosett, author of Magnolias, Moonlight and Murder. The group has just begun their swing through North Carolina, and here’s where you can catch them over the next few days:

Friday, October 23

• 10:30 a.m., Coffee with the Divas, The Cary Library, Cary
• 2 p.m., Tea at the Eva Perry Library, Apex
• 7 p.m., The Regulator Bookshop, Durham

Saturday, October 24

• 11 a.m., McIntyre’s at Fearrington Village, Pittsboro
• 2 p.m., West Regional Library, Cary

Sunday, October 25

• 3 p.m., Friendly Center Barnes & Noble, Greensboro

Additionally, don’t miss another bright new name on the mystery scene, Derek Nikitas, with his second novel The Long Division. A graduate of UNC-Wilmington’s MFA program, he’ll be appearing at Wilmington’s Pomegranate Books on Monday, October 26, at 7 p.m.

New Mystery Scene: More Ellroy, Plus Nevada Barr, Nero Wolfe & More

Over the weekend, I received the new issue of Mystery Scene — always a welcome arrival. No real surprise to see James Ellroy’s mug on the cover (“Unleashed”!), since he’s been a publicity juggernaut with the publication of his grand new novel, Blood’s A Rover. (See, again, my own interview here.) But even if most folks, myself included, may have already succumbed to Ellroy overload, there’s plenty more to enjoy here, including a interesting look back at a movie I’d never heard of, The Last of Sheila (just added it to my Netflix queue), a celebration of Nero Wolfe (I always love those surveys of classic detectives), and a couple of nice interviews beyond that cover story, including chats with Nancy Pickard and Nevada Barr, the latter my own contribution to this issue.

Talking with Nevada Barr about her new book, the standalone thriller 13 1/2, set in New Orleans, was a real pleasure. Here’s a quick excerpt from our talk, and be sure to pick up the issue for the full story.

Mystery Scene: Was New Orleans an inspiration here or did it prove difficult to depict on the page?

Barr: I’ve lived here for years. In fact, I’m setting the next Anna Pigeon here. But I didn’t set anything here for years and years. New Orleanians are very proud of their city and idiosyncratic about it, and it’s a very complicated city, and then Katrina came and really complicated us. But I moved here because I fell in love with the city, and that love of the city, I think, came through in the sense of Katrina having crushed it. I started this book during our evacuation from the hurricane, and then Katrina blew it out of the water for several years, so I think it was more of a challenge than an inspiration in the beginning. But I got to know my city by writing about it.

James Ellroy On Washington Post Podcast & In Person

Tonight (Saturday, September 26), James Ellroy appears at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland as the closing event of the 2009 Fall for the Book festival. I’ll be introducing Ellroy at tonight’s event, and my recent interview with Ellroy has been posted on the Washington Post Book World’s website here. (Listen directly by clicking here.)

UPDATE: The Ellroy event went great — half-sermonizing, half-showmanship, and all of it celebrating the “printed word,” specifically Ellroy’s own, of course. See a pic and a recap here.

“Room to Swing” at The Rap Sheet

I’m honored that the The Rap Sheet has chosen to run my short essay on Ed Lacy’s Room To Swing as part of their ongoing Friday blog series “The Book You Have To Read.” I first wrote about Room to Swing in an article on Civil Rights Era mystery novels for Mystery Scene and I’ve been wanting to recommend the book again ever since. Today marks 52 years since nine black students were escorted by the armed soldiers into Little Rock High School — a milestone in the history of U.S. integration — and since Room to Swing, which appeared the same year, deals explicitly with integration, civil rights, and the roots of racism, today seems a fitting time to remember this time. Check out the article here!