"Because Murder is More Fun Away From Home"
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 11:14 PM
This blog is a proud winner of the 2009 Spinetingler Award for special services to the industry and its blogkeeper a proud former guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth. In civilian life I'm a copy editor in Philadelphia. When not reading crime fiction, I like to read history. When doing neither, I like to travel. When doing none of the above, I like listening to music or playing it, the latter rarely and badly. Click here to find an independent bookstore near you.
6 Comments:
Hi Peter, many thanks for mentioning this link. I've just updated the reviews bit of Euro Crime and there's a new competition. Unfortunately it's only open to the UK, but I did try for global... If any US publishers want me to run a competition for just US residents then I'd be more than willing!! Karen (karen at eurocrime dot co.uk)
It's a useful way to keep track of what the "press" is saying about crime fiction. And I'm happy to give the competition a bit of publicity here even if I am ineligible for it!
It seems translated crime is 'in' at the moment with the Vargas/Jungstedt/Leoni triumverate being reviewed by all and sundry. Thanks for the publicity !!
You're right; translated crime is in. In fact, it's so in that seeds for a backlash against it may already have been planted. I recently read some critic's passing remark to the effect that "Just as a few years ago, readers and reviewers thought the only worthwhile crime fiction was American, now they think that nothing is worthwhile unless it's from overseas."
Is translated crime as big in the US as it's become in the UK?
I'm not sure quite how big it is in the U.K. I suspect it may be bigger there. We in the U.S. like to think we are world-beaters when it comes to parochialism. But Bitter Lemon, for example, distributes its books here, as do Soho and Serpent's Tail.
And don't forget that the taste for foreign, if not translated, crime fiction covers Ian Rankin in this country. His books like the shelves of the cursed, damn-them-to-eternity chain bookshops. (They're cursed and damned because they're chains, not because they sell Ian Rankin.) And one would have to account for a novel such as Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games, which, while written in English, is decidedly a product of its Bombay setting.
And one has to define "big." "Foreign" crime fiction is going through a definite surge in popularity, but I don't think the best-selling titles sell nearly as many copies as Thomas Harris or Michael Connelly or Dennis Lehane or, say, Janet Evanovich.
Who are the best-selling overseas authors in the U.K.? How do their sales compare to those of domestic authors?
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