Bullet Points: Hunkered Down Edition

It’s been more than a couple of months since I’ve taken on the task of  compiling crime-fiction news bits that don’t necessarily merit posts of their own ... which means I have a lot of information to impart. Fortunately, Seattle is heavily socked in with snow today, so I have little interest in spending much time outside in the cold. Better to snug in with a cup of coffee and my computer keyboard. Let us begin ...

• Lisbeth Salander fans, take note: BookRiot reports that “An unseen investigation by Stieg Larsson, the late journalist and author of the Millennium Trilogy, has come to light and will be revealed in a new true-crime book. Larsson was a leading expert on antidemocratic, right-wing, extremist organizations.” The site goes on to synopsize the plot of the new book, which is due out from AmazonCrossing in October:

On February 28, 1986, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot dead in Stockholm. The crime is still unsolved today. It’s now known that Larsson began his own investigation into the assassination—continuing the search until his own death. In 2014, journalist and documentary filmmaker, Jan Stocklassa gained access to the 20 boxes of Larsson’s research into the case.

To quote from an Amazon press release:

In The Man Who Played with Fire: Stieg Larsson’s Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin, Stocklassa reveals new facts about the case and reveals the hitherto unknown research of the best-selling author in a fascinating true crime story. For the first time in many years, the police in Sweden have taken active measures to investigate a new suspect in the murder case and are pursuing leads based on the research revealed in Stocklassa’s book.

• What matters most is making money, right? The New Yorker reported recently that Dan Mallory, the book editor turned author who—as “A.J. Finn”—penned last year’s best-selling The Woman in the Window, has made a variety of false assertions regarding his health, his education, and his career achievements. Mallory has since sought to excuse his actions, but his deceptions have left many folks in the publishing industry wary of the author. In The Washington Post, critic Ron Charles wrote: “If James Frey taught us anything with his infamous memoir, it’s that autobiographical claims can collapse into a million little pieces of exaggeration and deception. Mallory’s situation is different, though, if more bizarre. How do we reconsider a work of fiction—or any work of art—when confronted with troubling information about its creator?” Despite all of this controversy, Mallory’s publisher, HarperCollins, says it is holding firm on plans to bring out his sophomore novel in January 2020—a San Francisco-set yarn The New Yorker describes as “a story of revenge … involving a female thriller writer and an interviewer who learns of a dark past.”

• Julie Adams, an Iowa-born actress who co-starred opposite an amphibious “Gill man” in the 1954 movie The Creature from the Black Lagoon before going on to a long and prolific TV career, passed away in Los Angeles on February 3 at age 92. Among her many television roles were appearances on Hawaiian Eye, Perry Mason, Darren McGavin’s The Outsider, Ironside, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Ellery Queen, Mannix, Cagney & Lacey, Murder, She Wrote, and Diagnosis: Murder. An interesting tidbit: Adams’ fleeting first marriage was to Leonard B. Stern, a screenwriter and producer responsible for such memorable series as Get Smart, McMillan & Wife, and The Snoop Sisters.

• Via Shotsmag Confidential comes news that Karin Slaughter’s 2018 novel, Pieces of Her, will become an eight-episode Netflix series directed—at least initially—by Lesli Linka Glatter. “The story,” explains the blog (quoting from a press release), “follows as an adrift young woman’s conception of her mother is forever changed after a Saturday afternoon trip to the mall together suddenly explodes into violence. As figures from her mother’s past start to resurface, she is forced to go on the run and on that journey, begins to piece together the truth of her mother’s previous identity and uncovers secrets of her childhood.”

• With Series 6 of Endeavour scheduled to debut in Great Britain tomorrow, February 10, ITV Magazine—a consumer periodical just launched last month by the show’s principal broadcasting network—has published a rather satisfying article about what viewers can expect from Endeavour’s latest four episodes. Chris Sullivan has posted scans of that piece in his blog, Morse, Lewis and Endeavour. Meanwhile, he has embedded a new morning TV show interview with a bushy-bearded Roger Allam, who plays Detective Chief Inspector Fred Thursday on the program opposite Shaun Evans, starring as Detective Sergeant Endeavour Morse.

• From B.V. Lawson’s In Reference to Murder:

USA Network has picked up to series its drama pilot Dare Me, based on Megan Abbott’s 2012 novel of the same name. Set in the world of competitive high school cheerleading, it follows the fraught relationship between two best friends (Herizen Guardiola and Mario Kelly) after a new coach (Willa Fitzgerald) arrives to bring their team to prominence. While the girls’ friendship is put to the test, their young lives are changed forever when a shocking crime rocks their quiet suburban world.

• Lawson also reports that “ABC has ordered the drama pilot Stumptown, inspired by the graphic novels published by Oni Press. It follows Dex Parios, a strong, assertive, and unapologetically sharp-witted Army veteran working as a P.I. in Portland, Oregon. With a complicated personal history and only herself to rely on, she solves other people’s messes with a blind eye toward her own.”

• As an unflagging fan of Lou Grant, the 1977-1982 CBS-TV series starring Ed Asner as the sometimes crusty city editor of a fictional Southern California daily newspaper called the Los Angeles Tribune, I was pleased to discover at least the vast majority of that show’s episodes are available for free on YouTube. The picture quality is sometimes less than ideal, but until I drop the dough for Shout! Factory’s DVD releases of all five seasons, it’s probably the best I can expect. If you want to learn more about this drama series—which was a spin-off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show—check out The Canonical Lou Grant Episode Guide. And I’ve added the main title sequences from the first three seasons of Lou Grant to The Rap Sheet’s YouTube page.

• Speaking of vintage shows, The Spy Command alerts me to the fact that La-La Land Records will soon release “Jerry Goldsmith[‘s] music to a mostly forgotten 1975 TV show, Archer.” Wikipedia explains that this is “a limited-edition soundtrack containing the one episode … Goldsmith scored (paired with a re-issue of the score to the film Warning Shot, from newly discovered better elements).” If you, too, have difficulties remembering Archer, let me point out that it was a short-lived NBC mid-season replacement series starred Brian Keith (Family Affair) as L.A. private investigator Lew Archer, the character so masterfully developed over three decades by Ross Macdonald. Keith’ show wasn’t awful, without ever being really good; I much preferred Peter Graves’ portrayal of the same protagonist in an unsuccessful 1974 TV pilot based on one of Macdonald’s later yarns, The Underground Man. And though, as one TV critic observed, Keith was mustered up “weary cynicism” enough to play Archer, he did not seem to respect the source material. In fact, Keith even had visions of moving the series’ setting from the City of Angels to Honolulu! Regardless, I’d like to get my hands on the six episodes of Archer that were originally broadcast, if only for nostalgic reasons. I might even be willing to purchase La-La Land’s presumably high-quality cut of Goldsmith’s Archer theme, if only because the version I have—and which is featured in The Spy Command’s post—is terrible.


(Above) J. Kingston Pierce and Chelsea Cain enjoy a bit of fun at Bouchercon 2011, high above St. Louis’ Gateway Arch.

• I have many fond memories of attending Bouchercon 2011, which took place in St. Louis, Missouri. But one of the few captured on film was my meeting with Portland, Oregon, author Chelsea Cain, who turned out to be personable, downright funny, and nowhere near as dark-spirited a woman as her fiction might suggest. So I was pleased to read that her 2014 novel, One Kick, has been adapted as a 12-part TV series titled Gone, scheduled for broadcast on WGN America, beginning on 9 p.m. ET/PT on Wednesday, February 27. Deadline Hollywood sums up the plot this way: “Gone follows the story of Kit ‘Kick’ Lannigan ([played by] Leven Rambin), survivor of a highly publicized child-abduction case, and 20-year veteran Frank Novak ([Chris]Noth), the FBI agent who rescued her. Years later, he recruits her to join a special task force dedicated to solving abductions and missing-persons cases. Paired with former Army intelligence officer John Bishop (Danny Pino), Lannigan uses her intuitive wit and martial arts skills to solve cases and bring victims home.”

• Yet another Agatha Christie yarn appears due for big-screen treatment, with a possible 2020 release date. The Killing Times reports that UK screenwriter Sarah Phelps (The A.B.C. Murders, Murder by Innocence, And Then There Were None) “has signed up to adapt Christie’s [1961] stand-alone novel, The Pale Horse.”

• Also to be filmed: Stephen King’s Mile 81.

• Ann Cleeves closed out her nine-volume Shetland Islands/Jimmy Perez series with last year’s Wild Fire. Fear not, though, for EuroCrime says she’s “turning her hand to a new series set in Devon.” The first of those new books, introducing Detective Matthew Venn, will be The Long Call, due out from Minotaur in September.

• Two other far-off releases to watch for: Kate Atkinson’s Big Sky (Little, Brown), her fifth novel starring Cambridge private eye Jackson Brodie, is scheduled for publication on both sides of the Atlanticin June; and Anne Perry will inaugurate a brand-new, pre-World War II series, starring “intrepid photographer” Elena Standish, with the September release Death in Focus (Ballantine).

• Before we leave Ann Cleeves too far behind, a reminder should be issued that Series 5 of Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall as Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez, will debut in the UK on BBC One next Tuesday, February 12. There’s no word yet n when those six new episodes will become available to Netflix users in the States.

• Among the digital audio series CrimeReads contributing editor Emily Stein showcases on her list of the “8 True-Crime Podcasts to Listen to in 2019” is The Murder Book, which premiered on January 28, and which Stein says “is the first podcast produced by bestselling crime novelist Michael Connelly.” She continues:

In Season 1, “The Tell Tale Bullet,” Connelly returns to his roots as a crime beat reporter to investigate a real, 30-year-old cold case of a fatal carjacking in Hollywood, and of a murderer who walked free. Connelly promises that every season of Murder Book will end with a crime solved; to get there, he employs a wide array of sources, including court recordings, wiretaps, and interviews with witnesses and detectives.

Complete with hardboiled narration and a jazzy soundtrack, Murder Book is the perfect podcast both for fans of true crime, and fans of classic noir. It also takes a serious look at the limitations and flaws of our criminal justice system, which leaves the listener with the unavoidable impression that in the past three decades, far too little has changed.

Listen to Connelly’s episodes on the Murder Book Web site or via Apple Podcasts. Full transcripts of each installment are also available on the Web site. New episodes drop every Monday for 10 or 12 weeks.

• One podcast that isn’t mentioned in Stein’s wrap-up is We Never Solved Anything. No, I’d never heard of it either, until its hosts e-mailed me an invitation to listen. As they explain, “It is a funny podcast where we explore a new unsolved mystery theme each week such as serial killers, spontaneous human combustion, and medical mystery stories.” Find the 11 existing episode here.

• Literary Hub’s Emily Temple chooses “10 Contemporary ‘Dickensian’ Novels,” including Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch (2013), Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith (2002), and Peter Carey’s The True History of the Kelly Gang (2001).

• “A great teacher is a gift. A great line editor is a miracle,” declares Nick Ripatrazone, a staff writer for The Millions.

• The Winter 2018/2019 edition of Mystery Readers Journal—built around the theme “Mystery in the American South—“is available now as a PDF and will shortly be available in hardcopy …,” writes editor Janet Rudolph. “We had so many articles, author essays, and reviews, that we had to split this themed issue into two.” A list of contents for this new issue, plus info on buying a copy, can be found here.

• I periodically like to revisit episodes from the classic NBC Mystery Movie series Columbo. Knowing whodunit, and sometimes remembering exactly how the rumpled Los Angeles police lieutenant pins the blame, doesn’t spoil the re-watching one iota. Not long ago I came across this piece The Columbophile, revealing which four among the almost 70 episodes of that show were star Peter Falk’s favorites. “It might come as a surprise to fans,” writes the blog’s anonymous editor, “that pivotal episodes ‘Etude in Black’ and ‘Murder by the Book’ don’t feature here—particularly ‘Etude,’ which starred Falk’s BFF John Cassavetes. Instead, all of Falk’s personal favourites come from Seasons 3 or 5, when the show was more firmly established. Notably, three of the four are from Season 5 alone. What does this tell us? Well for one thing it suggests that Falk was at his happiest in the crumpled raincoat once he had a couple of full seasons under his belt.”

• As we prepare for the June release of James Ellroy’s This Storm (Knopf)—book two in his “Second L.A. Quartet” (following 2014’s Perfidia)—Steve Powell, a British student of that author’s work, feels compelled to ask, “is James Ellroy losing his touch?” Writing in his blog, The Venetian Vase, Powell continues: “I’ve decided to broach the subject as the critical response to Ellroy’s last novel Perfidia was mixed, as were the reviews for his novel before that Blood’s a Rover. … I’ve sensed a certain weariness about Ellroy’s recent efforts when I talk with fans of the author. … So Ellroy cannot expect his new novel, This Storm, to be met with universal acclaim as critical opinion has started to shift. In fact, the opposite may be the case. Ellroy may have to win back some critics who are getting cynical about the author’s once unassailable reputation.”

• What a terrific couple of short-story titles, from classic crime-fiction magazines found here and here. On top of that, both of these publications feature cover art by the great Norman Saunders.

• Mystery Tribune chooses the “45 Best Cozy Mystery Novels.”

• New York bookshop proprietor and anthologist Otto Penzler continues to count down what he contends are the “Greatest Crime Films of All-Time.” Most recently he has considered The Ipcress File (1965), The Kennel Murder Case (1933), and The Glass Key (1942). Keep track of this developing series here.

• While we’re on the subject of Penzler, it should be mentioned that he will be partnering with Pegasus Books to launch Scarlet, an imprint “specializing in psychological suspense aimed at female readers.” Publishers Weekly explains: “The new venture has [tapped] Luisa Smith, longtime buying director at Book Passage, a Corte Madera, Ca., bookstore, to be Scarlet editor-in-chief. Nat Sobel, founder of the Nat Sobel Associates literary agency, will act as a consultant to the imprint. Scarlet will launch in winter 2020 with six to eight titles. The Scarlet list will be distributed by W.W. Norton, which also distributes the titles of its parent companies, Penzler Publishing and Pegasus Books.” Although there’s been some grumbling about the name Scarlet being applied to a literary line intended to promote women’s fiction and female authors (shades of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter!), and Penzler’s heated objections to the Mystery Writers of America’s decision to deny Linda Fairstein a Grand Master Award due to her involvement in a 1990 New York City rape-case prosecution left some authors questioning his compassion toward women, I look forward to seeing what Scarlet can contribute to the already rich field of psychological suspense novels.

• A similarly promising venture comes from Polis Books, which has announced the creation of Agora, an imprint designed to “focus on diverse voices, putting out between six and ten books per year.” Chantelle Aimée Osman will serve as the editor of this line, which plans to begin releasing books in the fall of 2019. Read more here.

• I’m not a big social-media user, but over the years I have established a Rap Sheet presence on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Google+. Now it appears that last page is set to vanish forever. I was recently given this warning:

In December 2018, we announced our decision to shut down Google+ for consumers in April 2019 due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations. We want to thank you for being part of Google+ and provide next steps, including how to download your photos and other content.

On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in your Album Archive and your Google+ pages will also be deleted. You can download and save your content, just make sure to do so before April. Note that photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.

The process of deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts, Google+ Pages, and Album Archive will take a few months, and content may remain through this time. For example, users may still see parts of their Google+ account via activity log and some consumer Google+ content may remain visible to G Suite users until consumer Google+ is deleted.

I don’t remember when I signed up for Google+, but I know I only did so because fellow blogger Bill Crider already had. Thankfully, my contributions to The Rap Sheet’s page there have been minimal. I’ll keep updating it for as long as possible, but if you notice that the Google+ link available from the right-hand column of this blog disappears in the next couple of months, you’ll know why.

• In its latest look back at Edgar Award winners of the past, Criminal Element revisits one of my favorite private-eye novels of the past: 1958’s The Eighth Circle, by Stanley Ellin. Sadly, critic Joe Brosnan is too rigid in applying our modern social and sexual sensibilities to a work that was penned more than six decades ago.

• TV fandom is no crazier today than it’s always been. According to this 1959 newspaper report, overenthusiastic followers of the 1958-1964 ABC private-eye series 77 Sunset Strip flocked to the Los Angeles site that stood in for the agency’s offices.

• Finally, here are a few author interviews worth checking out: Jane Harper talks with The New York Times about her new Australia-set crime novel, The Lost Man; Christobel Kent chats with CrimeReads about What We Did; Speaking of Mysteries host Nancie Clare goes one-on-one with H.B. Lyle (The Red Ribbon), Val McDermid (Broken Ground), and James Rollins (Crucible); Ronald H. Balson answers questions from Crimespree Magazine’s Elise Cooper about The Girl from Berlin; and Laura K. Benedict discusses The Stranger Inside with Criminal Element’s John Valeri.

It’s Double Owls This Year

Authors Chelsea Cain and Johnny Shaw are the joint winners of this year’s Spotted Owl Award. This commendation is presented by the Portland, Oregon-based Friends of Mystery group to celebrate mystery novels by authors living in the Pacific Northwest (Alaska, British Columbia, Canada, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington).

Cain receives her prize specifically for One Kick (Simon & Schuster), published last year, while it’s Shaw’s Plaster City (Thomas & Mercere) that earned him the same honor.

There were nine runners-up for the 2015 Spotted Owl were: Crooked River, by Valerie Geary (Morrow); Cold Storage, Alaska, by John Straley (Soho Crime); Identity, by Ingrid Thoft (Putnam); The Ascendant, by Drew Chapman (Simon & Schuster); Chump Change, by G.M. Ford (Thomas & Mercer); My Sister’s Grave, by Robert Dugoni (Thomas & Mercer); Dead Float, by Warren Easley (Poisoned Pen Press); House Reckoning, by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Monthly Press); and Street Justice, by Kris Nelscott (WMG).

Congratulations to all of the contenders.

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

The Able Cain

I seem to be bumping into American crime writer Chelsea Cain rather a lot recently. First, at the “Bodies in the Bookstore” event in Cambridge, and then again at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival earlier this month. She was over here in the UK to promote her third novel, Sweetheart, which features fictional serial killer Gretchen Lowell and her nemesis, the cop Archie Sheridan.

There was tremendous excitement generated when, after composing the Nancy Drew parody novel Confessions of a Teen Sleuth (2005), Portland, Oregon, newspaper columnist Cain turned her hand to writing thrillers. The first was Heartsick (2007), which Dark Scribe Magazine called “a masterpiece of suspense, a visceral and chilling look into the mind of a female serial killer,” which introduced Lowell, “the best serial killer to emerge since the likes of Hannibal Lechter” [sic]. Heartsick was picked up around the world, setting off fierce bidding wars between international publishers. The hype was justified, as Cain’s novels are articulate, insightful, and offer an unflinching combination of sex and death that illuminates the workings of criminally diseased minds.

Regarding the plot of her new novel, Sweetheart, which picks up the unfinished story of Gretchen Lowell and Archie Sheridan (and will be released in the States early next month), publisher St. Martin’s Minotaur explains:

When the body of a young woman is discovered in Portland’s Forest Park, Archie is reminded of the last time they found a body there, more than a decade ago: it turned out to be the Beauty Killer’s first victim, and Archie'’ first case. This body can’t be one of Gretchen’s--she’s in prison--but after help from reporter Susan Ward uncovers the dead woman’s identity, it turns into another big case. Trouble is, Archie can’t focus on the new investigation because the Beauty Killer case has exploded: Gretchen Lowell has escaped from prison.

Archie hadn’t seen her in two months; he’d moved back in with his family and sworn off visiting her. Though it should feel like progress, he actually feels worse. The news of her escape spreads like wildfire, but secretly, he’s relieved. He knows he’s the only one who can catch her, and in fact, he has a plan to get out from under her thumb once and for all.

After having her sign my copy of Sweetheart at the Harrogate festival, I arranged with Cain to ask her a bit about her new novel, her quite eclectic childhood, her experiences in journalism, her shopping habits while in Britain, and the sources of her fictional characters. In addition, she’s hoping that Rap Sheet readers can help her to find an engaging name for next novel.

Ali Karim: I noticed that you had published a few non-fiction books before entering the crime-fiction realm. Can you tell us a little about your early writing and journalism?

Chelsea Cain: I started in journalism, writing for my college paper. It was great fun. Crazy, smart people and crazy, late hours. Naturally, I thought, this is what I wanted to do for a living. (Having worked for newspapers since, I realize it is not at all like that.) So I went to graduate school in journalism. And I had to write a master’s project. I wrote a book about my early childhood on a hippie commune, and--total fluke--it got published. After that I published a few other books--mostly illustrated humor books, if you can imagine--and wrote for an alternative weekly. I finally ended up in marketing (A writing job that paid! I couldn’t believe it!) and worked as a creative director for a few years. I left that job to continue writing books, and to write a weekly column for The Oregonian, which I still do.

AK: So what books influenced you to take up the pen yourself?

CC: I always loved writing and I was always writing books. Mostly my books were construction paper that was stapled together and drawn on with crayon, but my family seemed to think they were brilliant. The books I loved most as a kid were the Nancy Drew books, by Carolyn Keene--and the Hardy Boys, if I was really desperate.

AK: Were your parents big readers?

CC: My mother was a huge reader and I grew up in a house full of books. We didn’t have cable TV until I was in high school--my mom was determined to resist it--so there was a lot of time for reading. I love TV. But I’m incredibly grateful that we didn’t watch much of it when I was a kid. I was forced to make up my own stories, or find them on the page.

AK: Tell us a little about your unorthodox outh.

CC: I spent my early childhood on a hippie commune. My dad was resisting the Vietnam draft and my parents actually lived underground for a few years. My parents split up and I grew up spending the school year with my mom in Bellingham, Washington, and the summers in Key West, Florida, with my dad. My mom was always very bohemian and creative, and she and my dad encouraged me to listen to my heart. People always ask me how a hippie kid came about to write gory thrillers. But to me, it makes perfect sense. It’s all about fostering imagination and the wild, reckless belief that you can write a book rather doing something safe or practical.

AK: So, can you tell us where the idea for Gretchen Lowell and Archie Sheridan originated?

CC: When I was growing up in Bellingham, there was this serial killer at large dubbed the Green River Killer. He killed dozens of women and was at large for 20 years. There was a task force assigned to hunt him, and I remember following stories about the task force in the local paper. The story really captured my attention, as you can imagine. Not everyone grows up with a serial killer in her backyard. The task force dwindled down to one cop, and he was the one who finally identified the killer, Gary Ridgway. I was really interested in the obsession of this kind of long-term case. Ridgway cut the same deal that Gretchen Lowell cuts in my books--in order to avoid the death penalty, he agreed to give the cops locations of more bodies. So these cops, a few of whom had worked pretty much their whole careers to catch this guy, were still having to work this case. I wanted to explore the kind of power struggle and layers of manipulation in that relationship. And also the intimacy of people who had known each other for so long--Ridgway had been a suspect from almost the beginning. In some sense, the task-force cops and Ridgway had this shared experience--serial murders--that seemed to, at least on the surface, bond them. I immediately thought it would be fascinating to explore that in fiction and make the killer a woman. Everything gets a lot more interesting once you introduce sex.

AK: Heartsick is a very visceral piece of writing. So tell us about how you got this disturbing little book into print.

CC: You know, strangely enough, I really didn’t know how disturbing it was until I started letting people read it and they all started looking at me funny. But there was tremendous excitement about it in the publishing industry, and a bidding war ensued. Thrillers are, obviously, a highly marketable genre, and female thriller writers are especially valuable to the industry, because so many women read thrillers. Plus, everyone seemed to like it that my books featured a female serial killer, something I really didn’t do as an intentional twist. A woman serial killer was just more fun to me. There was more room to play.

AK: Can you tell us how it felt seeing your “debut” crime novel hit the best-seller charts hard both in the UK and the U.S.?

CC: Pretty fucking awesome!

AK: Did you know your British publisher, Macmillan, practically scared the life out of me with its marketing campaign for Heartsick? It sent reviewers Valentine’s Day cards with a scary message.

CC: I loved that Valentine’s card! I still have it up in my living room. Plus, I think it’s always good to put a little fear into the hearts of critics. Publishers are very dangerous people. And they will kill you if you don’t say something nice about me.

They’re watching you right now!

AK: I assume you’ve sold plenty of international rights by now ...

CC: I’ve lost count. Something like over 20 languages, including Icelandic, which I was very excited about. The funny thing about translation rights is that they just translate the book and send it to you. But since I can’t read the languages, I have no idea what the translations are like. They could say anything.

AK: Your books feature some very dark humor. So, how critical is humor in your work?

CC: I think my books are very funny. Few people agree. Maybe the humor gets lost in all the disemboweling. But the people are witty, and I think that’s critical in terms of character. They’re smart, clever people with difficult, stressful jobs, and in my experience people like that tend to have very, very wicked senses of humor.

AK: Do you read much in the crime genre? If so, who do you read?

CC: Val McDermid. I love her Tony Hill books. My two recent favorite thrillers are Sworn to Silence, by Linda Castillo, and The Calling, by Inger Ash Wolfe.

AK: Many people have compared Gretchen with Dr. Lecter. Are you reader of Thomas Harris’ work, and what do you think of his writing?

CC: I read Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs in college and saw the movie version of Silence of the Lambs about that same time. I loved both those books and the movie. He’s a great writer and storyteller, but most of all, he’s great at developing characters and relationships. I’m flattered that my work is compared to his so often, though (to be totally honest) I’m surprised at how often it comes up.

AK: I’ve seen you in Britain a lot recently promoting Sweetheart. Care to tell us a little about what else you’ve been up to here?

CC: I drank too much, and spent too much money at Top Shop. Incredibly, I also found time to do some book promoting. ... I’m completely in love with England.

AK: Sweetheart is less visceral than Heartsick, but is equally hypnotic and scary. What’s your opinion of violence in crime fiction?

CC: I’m all for it--if it serves the story. Sweetheart is less violent than Heartsick, but it’s just as graphic. It’s just more sex, and less violence. That’s not because I was second-guessing the amount of gore in the first book. It was just the next element to explore [in] the relationship between Archie and Gretchen.

AK: And when did you realize that Gretchen and Archie would become the stars of a series of novels?

CC: I was about halfway through Heartsick when I realized that I had way too many stories in my head about these characters for one book. But I didn’t know that it would be a series until we sold Heartsick and managed to get a three-book deal. I expected a publisher to just buy the first book and see how it did, and then if it did well, buy another one. The danger with that is that the first book tanks, and there you are, with a lot of stories stuck in your head. I was really lucky.

AK: What books have impressed you recently?

CC: My favorite book so far this year is Mary Roach’s Stiff, which actually came out a couple of years ago, but which I only just go around to reading. It’s the funniest book about corpses I’ve ever come across.

AK: And what are you working on currently?

CC: The third book in the series. It’s called Heartbreaker, but I’m not so hot about the title, so if you guys at The Rap Sheet can think of something better, let me know. Heartburn? Heart Attack? The mind boggles.

READ MORE: “An Interview with Chelsea Cain,” by Michael Carlson (Shots); “Drop Dead Gorgeous” (The Independent).