Crime Carnival

The Carnival heads north this time, to your humble archivist’s obsession Scandinavian Crime Fiction blog. This “enabler edition” urges readers to buy books, lots of books, and points out some thoughtful commentary on crime fiction around the world.

And if the “go ahead, you know you want to buy those books” argument hasn’t persuaded you on economic grounds, Ali Karim stands by with a stirring defense of the genre as the best place to encounter “life’s rich tapestry.”

Up next: the Carnival has a return engagement scheduled at The Rap Sheet. Look for it in a couple of weeks or so.

photo of fireworks in Iceland courtesy of iRon leSs.

Nothing like a pleasant summer day for a carnival. And since there isn’t one on offer in the northern hemisphere, let’s head south to Karen’s place, pull up a hammock and see if she has some of her fine cider on hand. In a way, we’re coming full circle, since Karen hosted the very first carnival at her marvelous site, AustCrime.

This time, she points out lots of sites worth exploring. Some offer short fiction, and others a running commentary on crime fiction in Australia, New Zealand, or Africa.

And she has her fingers crossed for Peter Temple, whose brilliant book, The Broken Shore, is up for the Martin Beck award this year. (Uriah has the entire rundown at Crime Scraps.)

Which is a nice segue to where the carnival is going next. Pull on your boots and parkas, we’re headed to the archivist’s own Scandinavian Crime Fiction blog.

Photo of yet another slightly odd Australian carnival ride courtesy of robstephaustralia.

The carnival returns to BV Lawson’s awesome blog, In Reference to Murder. Previously, she celebrated Valentine’s Day with a sweet selection of sites. This time around, it’s the Day of the Dead. Which somehow seems appropriate for a carnival that celebrates the best in crime fiction blogging. I mean, every day is the Day of the Dead - if you read crime fiction!

BV has selected some intriguing blog posts - ones that can aid the reader looking for a Halloween-themed read to those that celebrate E.A. Poe or the worst costumes ever.  (Note to librarians and avid readers: In Reference to Murder is a great tool for finding what to read next, aka “reader’s advisory” in librarian jargon.)

And the illustrations are great, from the jack-o-lantern regretting overindulgence to the various ghosties, ghoulies, and terrifying Pop Tarts.

Next Up: The carnival will next head down under for a repeat visit to Karen’s AustCrime blog.

photo courtesy of Saddarab.

The carnival has been called to a crime scene in Northern Ireland - Crime Scene NI, to be precise, but instead of yellow tape, it’s velvet rope as Gerard Brenan, in the midst of writing a script, takes a look at crime films for a change of pace. All of them have an Irish connection, and all of them are some combination of funny, suspenseful, violent, hilarious and bleak (sometimes in the same film). So leave the candyfloss at the fairground, pick up some popcorn and take a wee trip to the movies.

photo courtesy of lludo.

Next up: BV Lawson will host the carnival again at In Reference to Murder.

The Carnival has traveled to Mongolia, via Manchester, where at Michael Walters’ Shadow Walker blog, it has been transformed into a Wicked Wakes Fortnight. (And, while you’re there taking in the roundabouts and contests, take a look at what those dark Satanic mills look like these days - blimey!) Taking a leaf from Declan’s Big Book of Blogging, Waters considers the state of blogging and the strengths of the genre. In his view, “the best bloggers are doing an excellent job in giving credit to crime fiction. In turn, it seems to me, much crime fiction is doing a better job than its literary equivalent at writing about the world we live in.”

He cites a tempting list of books, all of which have now been added to the tottering TBR pile. Then mentions several quality blogs, both by readers of discernment (Peter Rozovsky and others) as well as some by authors (you can’t beat Colin Cotterill’s zany illustrations). But there’s certainly another fascinating blog to explore: before you head off to the next Carnival, be sure to explore our current host’s blog - you’ll learn a lot about a fascinating and little known part of the world.

Next up: We’re off to Norther Ireland, where the Carnival will be hosted by Gerard Brennan at Crime Scene NI.

Declan Burke is hosting the Carnival yet again at his blog, Crime Always Pays. This one is the Metaphysical Edition, and instead of a multitude of links, he’s focusing all of his carnivalistic skills on exploring one question: where is crime fiction going and what can blogs and websites do to help it get there?

With a few notable exceptions, crime / mystery writing tends to get short shrift in the mainstream press, and as often as not finds itself shoehorned into a review ghetto, wherein five or six titles will be briefly assessed in the same kind of space that would be given over to single, more ‘literary’ title. That very fact, of course, is one of the main reasons for the proliferation of crime / mystery fiction blogs and sites available on-line, and in a perverse way, it should be celebrated for inadvertently creating such a dynamic and vibrate on-line crime / mystery community. . . . [T]he critical work on crime fiction needs to develop of and through its own metier, that the Johnsons of the crime / mystery community require their Boswells, and that I believe heart and soul that crime / mystery fiction needs and deserves the kind of widespread, top-to-bottom critical work that would in turn inspire the writers to strive towards ever-higher standards of work.

And if you aren’t persuaded yet, he lays it out quite bluntly:

But here’s the thing – crime / mystery fiction is the most popular genre on the planet, it is inarguably the most relevant and important fiction out there, and that’s why I believe it deserves more.

He gives a post from Glenn Harper’s International Noir as Exhibit A. I would also submit into evidence a post that Declan has just posted at The Rap Sheet on the rise of Irish crime fiction since Veronica Guerin’s murder in 1996. Fascinating analysis there.

Given that this carnival was started to highlight the Best in Blogging, I’m delighted with the latest edition and the challenge it sets forth.

Nobody can accuse Brian Lindenmuth of letting his cognitive surplus go to waste. He’s too busy finding and commenting on peculiar corners of the universe from his blogging balcony. He has rounded up a number of those unusual features of the world as we know it - and parts of it we never imagined - for the latest Carnival. And what a show it is! From interesting and bizarre images to celebrate the Carnival’s freakshow heritage, to real life stories that you wish you could make up, to stories you wish were fiction but aren’t, to art that imitates crime and watermelons that give nightmares. With a detour for a spot of techno-futures from Cory Doctorow and Clay Shirkey. (Who else but Brian in his balcony can seem at one and the same time to possess the glee of an eight-year-old boy and the intellectualism of a PhD in cultural criticism who’s had a drink or two?)

BUT WAIT . . .  THERE’S MORE!!!!

Write a piece of flash fiction starting with the inspiration of one of eight unusual images he has unearthed from the dark side. Brian will post them and a winner will be declared. He wants to ensure your cognitive surplus is fully employed. (I think Martin Cruz Smith may have already seen that floating woman - I swear she’s Arkady Renko’s mother.)

Be sure to visit his balcony for daily roundups of all that is odd and interesting (collected under clever referential titles worth the price of admission) interspersed with thougthful short essays that could launch the odd dissertaion or two.

Up Next: the Carnival will be returning to Ireland, where Declan Burke has found Crime Always Pays.

photos courtesy of Steve Rhodes and pink fish13

The Carnival has traveled from Damien’s carnival down under to the big sky and corn country of southwestern Minnesota, where Crime Dog One’s Virtual Dive Bar is hosting a special freak show edition.

Proprietor Anthony Neil Smith serves up “a feast of Biker pulp, grind-house, Pentecostals, war comics, Minnesota, ‘transgressive’ fiction, and High School Satanists.” Wait, that’s just the primordial ooze of his next book. But he does offer a rare mix of transgressive zines, biker pulp, pentacostalism, and some of the unusual things you can find his newly-adopted state, home of the film Fargo, if not of the city of Fargo.  So warm up your woodchippers and come on down to the sideshow.

Up next: Come on up to the mezzanine, where Brian Lindenmuth offers his Observations from the Balcony, and if you’re lucky he may even share his popcorn.

Photos courtesy of bitzcelt and leeighia. (We love the Flickr creative commons pool!)