June 2010 Archives

And to celebrate, we have our first basket of vegetables, herbs, flowers, and eggs from from our local farm, Bird in a Beehive!  I'm a little rusty on the break-down, cleaning, and storage, but I'm betting it will come back very quickly.

Okay, no angels spying on and longing for us, but Berlin certainly put on a show for the few days I was there.  Instead of cool drizzly spring, we had wonderfully summery weather--one of my beers was green* and so were the gardens--and everyone (I do mean everyone!) was making the most of it. 






The streets and parks were full of families picnicking, bicycling, playing ball, listening to music.  The cafes and biergartens were full.  I snuck in at the very beginning of the tourist season, in time to catch a few museums, eat some great food, and walk for miles (several times past the Brandenburg Gate and this giant Lego giraffe). 




Part of the lure of the city (besides visiting Mr. G, away for work) was the museums.  The Pergamon Museum has a terrific collection of antiquities, some from sites we visited in Turkey last year.












The centerpiece is the Pergamon Altar, with its frieze of gods battling giants.  Pretty lively stuff.  Not content with big-boy architecture (like the Gate of Ishtar and Processional Way from Babylon), we hit the Altes Museum next.






Alas, the famous Egyptian collection (with the Nefertiti bust) was closed.  But how many masterpieces can you take in one weekend, anyway?





Well, maybe a few more.  Sunday morning at the Gemäldegalerie was pretty spectacular.  An incredibly manageable museum with some seriously wonderful European paintings, my favorites were the Jan van Eyck (Madonna in the Church), Vermeer's The Glass of Wine, and a couple of portraits by Pollaiuolo and Bronzino (which I saw just when the battery of my camera gave out).  We spent the afternoon drinking coffee with some of Mr. G's German colleagues in a quiet courtyard back near the Altes Musuem:  perfect.

Crazy to go for just a few days?  Perhaps.  Was it worth it?  Undoubtedly, yes.  I saw such a small percentage of this amiable city I will certainly go back.   

*Berliner Weisbier mit Schuss Waldmeister  (Berlin white beer flavored with woodruff syrup)  

Boy, am I having a great year!  I'm delighted to announce "Femme Sole" has been nominated for both an Anthony Award and a Macavity Award for "Best Short Story!"  Thank you to all those who read and voted for the story, and congratulations to all the nominees!

Anthony Award Nominations
Recipients will be announced at Bouchercon, San Francisco, at the Anthony Awards brunch on Sunday, October 17 in the Grand Ballroom at the Hyatt Regency.

BEST NOVEL
THE LAST CHILD - John Hart [Minotaur Books]
THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH - Charlie Huston [Ballantine Books]
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE - Stieg Larsson, translated by Reg Keeland [Quercus/Knopf]
THE BRUTAL TELLING - Louise Penny [Minotaur Books]
THE SHANGHAI MOON - S.J. Rozan [Minotaur Books]

BEST FIRST NOVEL
THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE - Alan Bradley [Delacorte Press]
STARVATION LAKE - Bryan Gruley [Touchstone]
A BAD DAY FOR SORRY - Sophie Littlefield [Minotaur Books]
THE TWELVE/THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST - Stuart Neville [Harvill Secker/Soho Press]
IN THE SHADOW OF GOTHAM - Stefanie Pintoff [Minotaur Books]

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
BURY ME DEEP - Megan Abbott [Simon & Schuster]
TOWER - Ken Bruen and Reed Farrel Coleman [Busted Flush Press]
QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE - Max Allan Collins [Hard Case Crime]
STARVATION LAKE - Bryan Gruley [Touchstone]
DEATH AND THE LIT CHICK - G.M. Malliet [Midnight Ink]
AIR TIME - Hank Phillippi Ryan [Mira]

BEST SHORT STORY
"Last Fair Deal Gone Down" - Ace Atkins, CROSSROAD BLUES [Busted Flush Press]
"Femme Sole" - Dana Cameron, BOSTON NOIR [Akashic Books]
"Animal Rescue" - Dennis Lehane, BOSTON NOIR [Akashic Books]
"On the House" - Hank Phillippi Ryan, QUARRY: Crime Stories by New England Writers [Level Best Books]
"Amapola" - Luis Alberto Urrea, PHOENIX NOIR [Akashic Books]

BEST CRITICAL NONFICTION WORK
TALKING ABOUT DETECTIVE FICTION - P.D. James [Bodleian Library/Knopf]
THE LINE UP: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives - Otto Penzler, ed. [Little, Brown and Co]
HAUNTED HEART: The Life and Times of Stephen King - Lisa Rogak [Thomas Dunne Books]
DAME AGATHA'S SHORTS: An Agatha Christie Short Story Companion - Elena Santangelo [Bella Rosa Books]
THE TALENTED MISS HIGHSMITH: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith - Joan Schenkar [St. Martin's Press]


Macavity Award Nominations:
The Macavity Award is named for the "mystery cat" of T.S. Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats). Each year the members of Mystery Readers International nominate and vote for their favorite mysteries in four categories. 

Best Mystery Novel:

    * Megan Abbott: Bury Me Deep (Simon & Schuster)
    * Ken Bruen & Reed Farrel Coleman: Tower (Busted Flush Press)
    * Deborah Crombie: Necessary as Blood (Wm. Morrow)
    * Jo Nesbø: Nemesis (translated by Don Bartlett) (HarperCollins)
    * Louise Penny: The Brutal Telling (Minotaur)
    * S.J. Rozan: The Shanghai Moon (Minotaur)

Best First Mystery Novel:

    * Alan Bradley: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Delacorte)
    * Jamie Freveletti: Running from the Devil (Wm. Morrow)
    * Sophie Littlefield: A Bad Day for Sorry (Minotaur)
    * Stuart Neville: The Ghosts of Belfast (Soho Crime)
    * Malla Nunn: A Beautiful Place to Die (Picador)

Best Mystery Nonfiction:

    * John Buntin: L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City (Random House: Harmony Books)
    * P.D. James: Talking about Detective Fiction (Alfred A. Knopf)
    * Craig McDonald: Rogue Males: Conversations & Confrontations About the Writing Life (Bleak House Books)
    * Otto Penzler, editor: The Line Up: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives (Little, Brown & Co)
    * Laney Salisbury & Aly Sujo: Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art (Penguin Press)
    * Elena Santangelo: Dame Agatha's Shorts: An Agatha Christie Short Story Companion (Bella Rosa Books)

Best Mystery Short Story:

    * Ace Atkins: "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" (Crossroad Blues, Busted Flush Press)
    * Dana Cameron: "Femme Sole" (Boston Noir, Akashic Books)
    * Jim Fusilli: "Digby, Attorney at Law" (AHMM, May 2009)
    * Carolyn Hart: "Your Turn" (Two of the Deadliest, Harper)
    * Hank Phillippi Ryan: "On the House" (Quarry: Crime Stories by New England Writers, Level Best Books)
    * Marcus Sakey: "The Desert Here and the Desert Far Away" (Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down, Mira)
    * Luis Alberto Urrea: "Amapola" (Phoenix Noir, Akashic Books)

Sue Feder Historical Mystery:

    * Rebecca Cantrell: A Trace of Smoke (Forge)
    * Stefanie Pintoff: In the Shadow of Gotham (Minotaur)
    * Charles Todd: A Duty to the Dead (Wm. Morrow)
    * Jeri Westerson: Serpent in the Thorns (Minotaur)
    * Jacqueline Winspear: Among the Mad (Henry Holt)

Congratulations to all the nominees!  See you in San Francisco!

Spinetingler Magazine (check it out!) ran a review of Boston Noir by Matthew Funk, with some lovely words about "Femme Sole:"

Dana Cameron seizes a noir plot and transplants it artfully into pre-Revolutionary Boston with Femme Sole. Dana Cameron knows her subject well and gets the reader familiar with the setting fast, with descriptions steeped in the antique atmosphere and reflection that clearly relates its attitudes.  She wins that brass ring authors aim for -- leaving the readers wanting more -- thanks to her command of perilous circumstances and outstanding personalities that struggle in them.

  What a terrific way to start the working day!