News, Reader Comments and Responses

I do not mean to create a blog but I do receive some very interesting and useful comments and suggestions from readers from time to time. I thought it might be interesting to share these thoughts and perhaps even stimulate more readers to respond with their own thoughts and ideas. Thanks to those who have provided these gems. I hope my readers will enjoy them as much as I have.

November 9, 2008 - Professor Demko recently had a stroke.  He is slowly recuperating, and will still be adding new articles to his website periodically. You may continue to email George J. Demko.  He will reply when he's able. Thank you for your understanding.

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11/09/08 - The Arabic Mysteries

For a long time, I have wanted to do a column on the Arabic mysteries but there is so little information about this location that it has been difficult to add this area to my website.

However, recently, I came across a wonderful translation of an Arabic mystery by my good friend at Dartmouth, Jonathan Smolin. The title of the book is The Final Bet, and the original author is Abdelilah Hamdouchi.

The novel is published by the American University in Cairo, which is also headquartered in New York.  A complete review of the book may be found at The Final Bet Review.

Because of translation cost and the lack of a clear market, publishers are often reluctant to publish Arabic novels, so it is important that mystery lovers and others support this book. 

Please support this publisher and buy The Final Bet. It’s a rare opportunity to get a glimpse into Moroccan culture and the translation is excellent. I am sure you will enjoy it.

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A new and superb volume, entitled French Crime Fiction, will be published in April 2009 by the University of Wales Press.  I have reviewed and evaluated it and it is the best material I have ever seen on the topic.  It is accessible and extremely well written.  Look for it - it is worth the wait.

It has been a busy time for me but I do plan to add a number of columns and do some updates soon.  Forthcoming columns will be about Poland, The Netherlands, and an essay on Crime and Capers on Cruise Ships.

Also, a number of updates are planned for the Swedish column and a few others. 

Thanks for visiting my website, and happy reading!

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Recently, the editor of the Felony and Mayhem Press in New York, Maggie Topkis, informed me that she read my piece on Claire Taschdjian’s mystery novel, The Peking Man is Missing, found a copy of the book and was fascinated by it. My description of it appears in the column on my website at Off the Beaten Track. At any rate she decided to re-publish it. She contacted the family and has included in the volume is a biographical sketch of Ms. Taschdjian’s life, along with a short section on the issue of the Peking archeological find and the bones of Peking man. Instructions on how to purchase the book is at Felony & Mayhem Press. It is amazing what a small reference on a humble website can generate.

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One of my regular readers is also Debby Atkinson, a very talented author. She has her own website at Debby Turrell Atkinson, with reviews, book excerpts, and instructions on where to purchase her books. Her mysteries take place in the Hawaiian Islands and deserve your attention. Primitive Secrets was published in 2002 and The Green Room in 2005- both by Poisoned Pen Press, a press I highly respect. Give them a try. I am sure the exotic island venue will keep you enthralled. By the way, Debby’s newest book, Fire Prayer, was published in 2007, and I am looking forward to reading it. It is set on Molokai, the former Leper Colony. Cannot wait.

My reader and I have also started a conversation about Juanita Sheridan, an interesting person and author of a number of mysteries set in Hawaii in the late 1940s and early 50s. She introduced the first primary Asian crime solver to the genre - Lily Wu.  Her books are for sale at Amazon.

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One of my most interesting respondents is from Japan (and I stupidly lost his name and email address). He sent me a message informing me that there was a Japanese science fiction and mystery writer named Jyuza Unno (1897-1949) who created a character named “Syoroku Homura,” the Japanese transliteration of Sherlock Holmes!! I'm unable to find out much about Unno on the Internet, so I hope my informant is still a reader and will contact me.

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A rather classy version of my Maps and Mysteries column was published in Mystery Scene, Number 98, 2007. It is entitled “Mapping the Mystery” and is grandly illustrated thanks to my friend, the editor, Kate Stine. If you have Adobe Acrobat on your computer, you may be downloaded, in Adobe Acrobat .pdf format, here. By the way, Mystery Scene is without a doubt the best crime fiction magazine on the market and rivals the old Armchair Detective. Have a look and be pleasantly surprised.

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Dr. Bonnie Hallman of the University of Manitoba wrote to me about a series of novels, written by Gail Bowen, whose amateur detective in the series, Joanne Kilburn, is a university professor in Saskatchewan. She has her own website at Gail Bowen's Home Page, which lists her books and ordering instructions.  Six novels in the series have been made into movies for television.  The stories are very political and geographical and she uses them as teaching tools in her environmental class. I am looking forward to reading them. (By the way, I do not do much with Canada because I have counterpart there who dislikes my crossing the border!).

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Jane Arnold from Wisconsin has put me onto two excellent writers. Steve Hamilton sets his stories in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and they are superb. His website is at Steve Hamilton. 

Jane also recommends Victoria Huston who has her detective haunt the Eagle River area of central Wisconsin.  Her website is at Victoria Houston.

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Chuck Brownman, another regular reader strongly recommends the work of C.J. Box whose hero is a game warden –Joe Pickett. His website is at C. J. Box.  Box’s novels are set in Wyoming and very strongly reflect the local terrain and climate. His latest novel, Three Weeks to Say Goodbye, is scheduled to be released on January 6, 2009. Chuck also recommends Steve Hamilton’s Michigan novels.

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David Wyman of Goffstown, New Hampshire, one of the bloggers on the Assistant Village Idiot website, and I have been having a discussion about where the largest mystery reading audience is located.  We have been throwing hypotheses about but, in my opinion, there has been a great growth of mystery readers in Russia and Japan - large enough in terms of reading rates to rival the U.S.  Also, I argue that mysteries are most popular where there are educated populations.  That is based on my hypothesis that mystery readers are more intellectually oriented and not into passive pap reading.  We are looking for any real data and your opinions on this matter.  Obviously, the "largest number" of readers will be in large population centers so we are concerned about a more nuanced statistic.

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Barbara Delaney Bogosian has written to ask me why I have not done much with Cara Black’s novels set in Paris. Her website is at Cara Black Paris Mystery Author.  I confess that I only read one – Murder in the Marais. I will try to get to the others- Murder in the Belville, Murder in the Bastille, Murder in Clichy, and others. Her eighth Aimee Luduc mystery, Murder in the Rue de Paradis, was released on March 1, 2008.  Given the titles are all regions of Paris, I should read them (but as you all know, so many books, so little time!).

Barbara also asked why I do so little with British mysteries and the answer is - there are so many sites that deal with the Brits that I don’t see it as a priority here. But, I do think that P.D. James is the greatest living mystery writer and that Ellis Peters (real name Edith Pargeter) a close second!!

Let us hear from you!!  Keep your ideas and comments coming and I’ll keep sharing them. 

Send me an email at George Demko!

Cheers - GJD

Updated November 9, 2008

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