VERA, SEASON 12, RELEASE DATE!

VERA, Season 12, will premiere on BritBox January 29! YAY! We have a date at last!

Vera is, of course, is played by two-time Academy Award nominee Brenda Blethyn. Blethyn brings the Ann Cleeves's Vera Stanhope to life, with her "usual brand of searing insight, caustic wit and fearless detection." Vera's team members, Detective Sergeant Aiden Healy (played by Kenny Doughty) will be back in the new episodes, as well as DC Kenny Lockhart (Jon Morrison), DC Mark Edwards (Riley Jones) and DC Jacqueline Williams (Ibinabo Jack).

The books are based on characters from Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series. Want to catch up on the series? Read all the books. They're wonderful! Well written, great characters, terrific plots, great prose and fabulous setting.

Ann Cleeves's Vera Stanhope mystery novels:

The Crow Trap (1999) 

Telling Tales (2005) 

Hidden Depths (2007) 

Silent Voices (2011) 

The Glass Room (2012) 

Harbour Street (2014) 

The Moth Catcher (2015) 

The Seagull (2017) 

The Darkest Evening (2020) 

The Rising Tide (2022)

Short Stories:

    "The Starlings," by Ann Cleeves in The Starlings and Other Stories, Edited by Ann Cleeves

    "The Habit of Silence," by Ann Cleeves in Best Eaten Cold

    "The Woman on the Island," by Ann Cleeves, originally published as Hector's Other Woman in Guilty Consciences" (Crime Writers' Association). Available as a Kindle single.  Also in Offshore, A Short Story Collection by Ann Cleeves. 

DI RAY, Season 1 on PBS

DI RAY, Season 1 

February 20 on PBS Passport and Prime Video Channel; July for regular broadcast

Parminder Nagar (“The Blacklist,” “Bend it Like Beckham”) stars in the new crime thriller series “DI RAY” which premieres on the PBS app for viewers with PBS Passport, an added member benefit which provides extended access to a digital, on-demand library of PBS programs, and the PBS MASTERPIECE Prime Video Channel on February 20, 2023.

DI Ray debuted on ITV in the UK in May 2022. Created and written by Maya Sondhi (Line of Duty), the series stars Parminder Nagra in the title role working for a fictitious Birmingham-based police force. Nagra's co-stars include Gemma Whelan (Killing Eve) and Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica) as her superiors. All four episodes arrive as a PBS Passport binge on February 20, 2023, ahead of broadcast in July. 

Cartoon of the Day: Dogs

Mystery in Asia: Mystery Readers Journal

恭賀發財 Gung Hay Fat Choy! This is the Year of the Rabbit. To celebrate the Chinese New Year, read Mystery Readers Journal: Mystery in Asia (Volume 34: 3: 2018). Below is the Table of Contents, as well as some sample articles from Mystery Readers Journal: Mystery in Asia.  

Buy this back issue! Available in hardcopy or as a downloadable PDF.

MYSTERY IN ASIA: MYSTERY READERS JOURNAL (34:3)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Judge Dee: a Look at Van Gulik’s Chinese Master Detective by Michael Kurland
• Ethel Proudlock and the Murder of William Steward by Roberta Rood
• A Yen for Mystery: Four Japanese Women by John Apostolou
• Flatfoots in the Far East by Jim Doherty

AUTHOR! AUTHOR!

• White House Travel and Intrigue in Asia by Karna Small Bodman
• Panic and Desperation in Hong Kong by Susan Blumberg-Kason
• The Apothecary Shop by Laura Boss
• The East Is Different by John Burdett
• Digging into the Thai Underbelly by Colin Cotterill
• The Crimson Masquerade by Vickie Britton and Loretta Jackson
• The Map of Lost Memories by Kim Fay
• Writing the Past by Dale Furutani
• Armchair-Traveling in China by Chris Goff
• Darkness in the Land of Smiles by Timothy Hallinan
• Murder at the Grand Raj Palace: Why Crime Writers Love a Good Hotel by Vaseem Khan
• From the Mountain to the City by Elsa Hart
• Talking Story—Japan by Barry Lancet
• Mysteries of the Orient by Joan K. Lacy
• Prawns in the Game by Ed Lin
• Murder, Money and Music in Hong Kong by Charles Philipp Martin
• Adventures in South Korea by J. R. Lindermuth
• Noodle in a Haystack by Saul Maskell
• One Morning in Mumbai by Sujata Massey
• The World of Vincent Calvino, P.I., Bangkok by Christopher G. Moore
• Some Notes From a Long, Strange Journey by Jake Needham
• Up Like Thunder by Colin T. Nelson
• Murder and Mayhem in Imperial Japan by I.J. Parker
• It’s Good to Be Thought Stupid by 22 Million People by David Rotenberg
• Tokyo—Stories, Culture, Murder by Michael Pronko
• China, Korea, Macao, Hong Kong and the Rabbit in the Moon by Deborah Shlian
• Sumatra: Perfect Scene For A Crime by Nancy Raven Smith
• Art Leads to Mystery in Southeast Asia by Nancy Tingley
• Durian Days by Ovidia Yu

COLUMNS

• Murder in Retrospect: Reviews by L.J. Roberts, Craig Sisterson, Jonathan Woods, Lesa Holstine, and Tuhin Giri
• The Children’s Hour: Mystery in Asia by Gay Toltl Kinman
• Crime Seen: Sherlock in Japan by Kate Derie
• Real Crime in East Asia by Cathy Pickens
• A Personal Overview of Asian Mysteries by Thom Walls
• From the Editor’s Desk by Janet A. Rudolph

Want to read books set during Chinese New Year? Here's a link to a list of Lunar New Year Mysteries. 

CHINESE NEW YEAR MYSTERIES: Year of the Rabbit!

恭賀發財 Gung Hay Fat Choy! This is the Year of the Rabbit. To celebrate the Chinese New Year, I've put together a list of mysteries that take place during the Lunar New Year. As always, I welcome any additions. I'd like to include any other Asian New Year Crime Fiction, so please send author/titles.

CHINESE NEW YEAR MYSTERIES

The Corpses Hanging Over Paris by Cathy Ace

The Chinese Parrot by Erle Derr Biggers
Year of the Dog by Henry Chang 
Year of the Dragon by Robert Daley 
Serpent's Doom by Connie di Marco

Neon Dragon by John Dobbyn
Dim Sum Dead by Jerrilyn Farmer 
The Silent Girl by Tess Gerritsen
Murder on Bamboo Lane by Naomi Hirahara

Chop Suey by Ty Hutchison 
The Chinese New Year Mystery (Nancy Drew) by Carolyn Keene
The Skull Cage Key by Michael Marriott
The Shanghai Moon by S.J. Rozan
City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley

Breezy Friends and Bodies: A Raina Sun Mystery by Anne R. Tan
The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee by Robert Van Gulik (7th Century China) "New Year's Eve in Lan-Fang"

 Children and Young Adult:

The Nancy Drew Notebooks: The Chinese New Year Mystery by Carolyn Keene
The New Year Dragon Dilemma by Ron Roy  

Short stories:

 "The Lady Fish Mystery" by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, EQMM, September/October 1996.
"Murder Keeps No Calendar" by Cathy Ace.
 

Cartoon of the Day: The Difference Between Cats and Dogs

 Happy Caturday!