“And The Award For The Most Award Nominations Goes To … Declan Hughes!”

Another week, another awards nomination for Squire Declan Hughes (right). Yes indeedy, it’s the ‘Theakston’s Old Peculier Novel of the Year 2009’, the winner of which will be announced at the Harrogate Festival. Squire Hughes has been nominated for THE COLOUR OF BLOOD (the award is for books that were published in paperback in 2008), and he’s got some stiff competition – Ian Rankin, Lee Child, John Harvey, Peter James, Val McDermid … it’s cutthroat stuff, people.
  Anyway, the thing is, see, you – yes, YOU! – can vote on the award, and decide who you think should scoop ye olde ‘Theako’. I’m not saying who you should vote for or anything, but if Squire Hughes doesn’t get a minimum of 1,000 votes emanating from Crime Always Pays, he says he’ll come over and beat me like a red-headed step-child.
  You know what to do, folks – clickety-click here, and vote early and often for Declan Hughes …

All Hands On Decker

The rather foxy Stacia Decker (right) was the editor of CAP’s Grand Vizier, Declan Burke, for the five minutes or so between when she signed his humble offering THE BIG O for Harcourt and the merger between Harcourt and Houghton Mifflin. Sadly, Stacia became a casualty of said merger, as Sarah Weinman reports. To wit:

On Friday, Publishers Weekly reported that four editors at the now-combined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had been laid off, a move anticipated for quite some time after Riverdeep, Houghton Mifflin’s parent company, bought out Harcourt late last year and the two similar but distinct trade devisions were merged together. Later that day Publishers Marketplace cited who they were: Webb Younce, Jane Rosenman and Anton Mueller on the Houghton side, and Stacia Decker on the Harcourt side.
  The Houghton layoffs are bad news on the literary fiction and non-fiction front - authors who count any of the three editors as theirs include Mary Sharratt, Laleh Khadivi, Jonathan Miles, Elinor Lipman, Nicole Mones, Jenefer Shute, Timothy Egan, Mark Slouka, Anchee Min, Jonathan Chait, Taylor Antrim, Steven Sherrill and Colum McCann – but Decker’s dismissal is a huge blow for the mystery genre.
  Not only was Decker tasked with editing most of the books Otto Penzler acquired for his eponymous imprint, an author stable that includes John Harvey, Thomas Perry, Andrew Klavan, Joe Gores and Joyce Carol Oates, but she acquired many excellent and interesting writers treading on the side of noir, such as Allan Guthrie, Ray Banks, John McFetridge, James Sallis and Declan Burke, as well as Inger Wolfe. No wonder Spinetingler Magazine recently voted her as “Best Editor” in their inaugural awards given out a few weeks ago.
  What Decker’s leaving means for those authors, as well as Penzler’s imprint, remains to be seen, but I’m not feeling a lot of optimism at this point for an imprint that took care to publishing quality crime fiction exclusively in hardcover and trade paperback. I do feel optimism, however, for Decker, who not only has good editorial taste but some very shrewd instincts that will serve her well at her next editorial job. She’ll also, I hope, continue writing, as her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, Nerve, South Dakota Review, Small Spiral Notebook, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, and Faultline, among other publications. But once again, this news shows the dark side of publisher consolidation, a side that probably won’t lighten up anytime soon.

All of which is quite doomy and gloomy, but we believe cream always rises to the top and that Stacia will be beating off potential suitors before you can say ‘all hands on Decker’. You go, girl ...

Baby, You’re A Starrett

Camden Town’s twinkly-eyed finest, Paul Charles (right), plays his part in wrecking the rainforests with the release of The Dust of Death this week through Brandon, whose blurb elves may well be considering strike action given the amount of overtime they’ve been working recently. Anyhoo, the gist runneth thusly:

“The bloodied body of a crucified man is discovered in the Second Federation Church in the Donegal Heritage Town of Ramelton on the first Friday of summer. The investigation by Inspector Starrett of the Serious Crime Unit and his young team reveal a team that is not nearly as righteous as its many churches might suggest. The body is that of local carpenter James Moore, whom Starrett discovers was having a relationship with the wife of the pastor of the very same Second Federation Church, and she has mysteriously disappeared. Meanwhile, it transpires that Moore’s own wife had started to get close to her childhood sweetheart. While investigating Moore’s past, Starrett also discovers that the carpenter might have witnessed a local professional in action …”

Marvellous. So what’s yon Starrett like then, Mr Paul Charles, sir?

“Starrett is in his mid forties, has deep blue eyes, dresses well, likes a pint of Guinness and is a decade into his third career. The locals say he may have a sixth sense: he’s not so sure but has been eternally grateful when that special something or other has kept him out of trouble and come to his aid while on a few of his cases … ”

Oooh, spooky. And are there any advance reviews we could pop in here at the end, just so the post doesn’t end too abruptly?

“Well, Mark Billingham was kind enough to say: ‘From its killer first line to its last, The Dust of Death is compelling and elegant, like a well-woven garrotte.’ John Harvey added: ‘A mystery that’s as smooth as a good single malt and none the less satisfying.’ And who am I to argue?”

With Billingham? Too right, sir. Never argue with anyone who sounds like an English stately home, that’s our policy …