Two New Agatha Christie Stories Found

The Guardian reported today that two previously unpublished Hercule Poirot short stories have emerged from family papers at Agatha Christie's favorite home at Greenway in Devon.

Agatha Christie often wrote short stories and later worked out details to make them into full-length novels. The first story, The Mystery of the Dog's Ball, eventually became the 1937 novel Dumb Witness. The title of the other story is The Capture of Cerberus.

These stories will appear in Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making to be published by HarperCollins in September, by John Curran. Curran, 'one of her biggest fans, ' taught himself how to decipher her handwriting and notes. The book includes notes for the novels, a draft play and deleted scenes and alternative endings. It also reproduces many pages from the notebooks and sketches of room plans and villages, including Miss Marple's St. Mary Mead.

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

I was saddened to learn of the death of Sister Carol Anne O'Marie. She touched so many lives during her career, as a mystery writer, a religious, an educator, a humanitarian. She will be missed by so many people.

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie wrote 11 mystery novels featuring sleuth Sister Mary Helen, a gray-haired, crime-solving nun. O'Marie said her San Francisco-based character was based on the principal of a grammar school where she had taught, and she used people and situations she experienced during her life in her novels, even going to the Calistoga mud baths for 'research"-a bit out of the 'order.'

Sr Carol Anne was very supportive of everyone in the mystery community and spoke at many conventions and literary events. It was during one of these events in San Francisco that the inspiration to open a women's shelter came to her, and in 1990, her dream became a reality in downtown Oakland. "For her, nothing was impossible," said her sister, Kathleen O'Marie.

With Sister Maureen Lyons, Sr. Carol Anne opened A Friendly Place for women recovering from alcohol and drug abuse in an old storefront on West Grand Avenue. The need quickly outpaced the building, and in 1994 she and Sr. Maureen bought a dilapidated hotel in Oakland and turned it into a 26-room refuge.Both nuns were honored in 2008 with a Jefferson Award for their community service. "She was a dreamer," Lyons said of O'Marie. She had faith in God and in herself, Lyons also said.

O'Marie joined the St. Joseph of Carondelet order in 1951. Her decision to become a nun shocked her family, but she spent the next decades fulfilling the founding spirit of her order by serving the ordinary needs of people around her. In addition to teaching, O'Marie edited the Catholic Herald, the newspaper of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, and was the development director at Carondelet High School in Concord for many years.

To give you a sense of O'Marie's energy, spirit and sense of fun and whimsy, she won 2nd place in the 1979 Cable Car Bell Ringing Contest in San Francisco. She was the first woman, and surely the first nun to do so.

Lyons called O'Marie a warm, generous and strong-willed woman with a magnificent sense of humor. But, Lyons added, "She was serious about helping people, and she had a great devotion to God."

I had many conversations with Sister Carol Anne over the years, and her boundless energy and dedication to all people impressed and influenced me. I will miss her.

Read a NYT article from 1987 about Sister Carol Anne O'Marie.

True Crime Blog Watch

Beckey Bright of The Wall Street Journal listed three True Crime Blogs today on her Blog Watch column today. I've checked them out, and I think they will be of great interest to both mystery readers and writers.

Women in Crime Ink

True Crime Report

Clews: Your Home for Historic True Crime

Read Becky's analysis of these sites, here.

Alexander McCall Smith Takes Questions

If you don't know who Alexander McCall Smith is, you probably shouldn't be reading this blog. He's certainly been having a great year with the launch of his latest novel, Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, as well as the HBO mini-series based on the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. In addition, McCall is also the author of the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, and the 44 Scotland Street series.

And, as the Globe and Mail points out, he is also professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served on national and international bodies concerned with bioethics.

Read more from The Globe and Mail.

McCall Smith will be taking readers' questions until 5 p.m. Wednesday, June 10. Send your questions via email: webbooks@globeandmail.com. Responses with be in the newspaper and online Saturday, June 13. I'll post the questions and answers or a link at that time.

California Crime Writers Conference

California Crime Writers Conference
presented by Sisters in Crime/LA and Mystery Writers of America/SoCal

When: June 13-14, 2009
Where: The Hilton Pasadena

Keynote Speakers: Robert Crais and Laurie King

Two-day event includes agents reception, forensics track, craft workshops, query and synopsis seminars, manuscript consultations, and classes for established authors on book contracts, e-publishing, presentation tips, online marketing information, and film/television opportunities.

Confirmed agents include Jill Marsal of Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, Irene Webb of Irene Webb Literary, and Timothy Wager of Davis Wager Agency.

Faculty members include Gayle Lynds, Jerrilyn Farmer, Jan Burke and Christopher Rice, and other authors, plus LAPD detectives, intellectual property attorney Jonathan Kirsch, and publicist Kim-from-L.A. Goodie Bags, Giveaways and Raffles, Agents Cocktail Party, Bookseller and vendor Room.

For more information, see Sisters in Crime LA or e-mail sistersincrimela@yahoo.com Also: MWASoCal or e-mail bachi@naomihirahara.com.

Register online via PayPal. $300. Onsite registration $325. Manuscript critique: $50

Theakston Crime Novel Award Nominees

Theakston Crime Novel Award Nominees. The winner will be announced on July 23 at the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. The winner gets a check and a small oak beer cask, hand carved by one of the coopers working for the award sponsors. The first winner of the Crime Novel of the year in 2005 was Mark Billingham for Lazybones. The 2006 winner was Val McDermind and in 2007, Allan Guthrie. In 2008 the winner was debut crime novelist Stef Penney for The Tenderness of Wolves. The Public gets to vote on these awards.

What a great list!

The shortlist

Death Message by Mark Billingham

The Accident Man by Tom Cain

Bad Luck And Trouble by Lee Child

Gone To Ground by John Harvey

Ritual by Mo Hayder

The Garden of Evil by David Hewson

A Cure For All Diseases by Reginald Hill

The Colour Of Blood by Declan Hughes

Dead Man's Footsteps by Peter James

Broken Skin by Stuart MacBride

Beneath The Bleeding by Val McDermid

Exit Music by Ian Rankin

Friend Of The Devil by Peter Robinson

Savage Moon by Chris Simms