Murder Screening at Muncie

Christina Jennings is a power player in the Canadian television industry. She agreed to travel to Muncie Indiana for the annual Magna Cum Murder Conference and attend the screening of Except The Dying last night. There were about 150 people in attendance for this special occasion, and there was a huge applause at the end. The mow's have not screened in America yet, so it was the first time many were able to view our movies. The Q and A afterwords was quite positive and enthusiastic. Maureen and Christina answered lots of terrific questions and comments, there is more today. Check back





And more photos from the discussion this morning after the screening. Kathryn Kennison, the organizer of Magna is leading the discussion.

Magic at Arthur Conan Doyle banquet

The celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Toronto Reference Library Collection, hence ACD@35, which also includes ACD himself in his 35th year, and which is held every year, was held this year in Toronto and featured Maureen as the guest speaker at the banquet last night. Little did the audience know that part of Maureen's speech was a test of her knowledge of the Holmes canon. She recruited Leslie Klinger, the award winning author of the annotated editions of the entire Holmes canon, to test her memory, as well as Peter Blau, who you see in the blue suit. After she successfully passed the test by reciting word for word, the sections the two men asked her to recite, she managed to conjure a message from Doyle himself in the form of a scarf that suddenly appeared in Maureen's hand out of thin air. Quite the accomplishment for the speaker who is, and has been since she was young, a huge Sherlock Holmes fan.

Does Your Mother Know launch

We had a very successful launch of Maureen's new series featuring Christine Morris - forensic profiler. Although the book has been out for a few weeks, the reviews have been glowing and so we enjoyed the company of friends, fans, the publisher and bookseller Marion Misters, who you see pictured here giving a speech. Also Alex, a scriptwriter from the Murdoch tv series came and bought books for each scriptwriter on the show (there are four of them). Maureen gave Alex a big hug as you see in the photo. If you want a signed copy of the new book, contact Sleuth at 416-483-3111.

More from Halifax and Peggy's Cove

Here are a few more from our trip. Came home in a driving rainstorm. Off to the launch tonight of Does Your Mother Know at Sleuth of Baker Street. Will have photos from that event in the next few days. Busy time right now with lots of travel.

The most photographed place in Canada

Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia is known as the most photographed place in Canada. They were shooting a Tom Selleck movie while we were there. Feast your eyes on these shots and click on them to enlarge. I got lots more so come back in a couple of days.

Halifax revisited

Maureen came here 4 years ago to do a library reading, which is sponsored by the funding provided to the library system by the Federal government which allows libraries to bring in authors for live readings. Maureen's event is at the Aldershot library on Monday night. So we decided to turn it into a little holiday and today we toured the maritime museum which houses an exhibit from the Titanic. You see some of the leftover recovered items from the sinking of the Titanic including a little girs shoes, Charles May's gloves, a telegraph, a deck chair from the Titanic, and me in a facsimile deck chair. It is truly a sad exhibit eventhough I am smiling. Some of the other shots are from touring the harbour. Enjoy, we are off to Peggy's Cove tomorrow for more sad stories.

Golf anyone??

Huh? Oh right, golf was invented in Scotland, which is where MC Beaton hails from and sets her two series. The final Bouchercon panel I attended was on Sunday morning with Rhys, Maureen and MC Beaton, Eve Sandstrom, and Ellen Hart. The authors were talking about creating two series and why. Maureen just released her first book in the Christine Morris series which she launches this coming Wednesday, October 18th, at Sleuth of Baker Street. After the panel we were off to the signing room and there was Tasha Alexander and many others. The day ended for us with the Merry Band of Murderers doing a jam session. Enjoy! Oh yeah, that was a friendly Madison cow we ran into on the way over to the panel in the morning.

Is Andi smiling??

I have so many shots of last weekends Bouchercon, I will keep uploading them. Here is Andi Schecter at a table she was sitting at outside the dealers room to promote the upcoming Left Coast Crime in Seattle, 2007. A few of these shots are from the Anthony Awards reception, Lee Child, Jim Fusilli, Maureen and Wendy, Elaine Viets again. And one of the shots is with Laurie King on a panel with Val, Nevada, and Dana. But the standing joke was whether Laurie was going to throw her cup. The last time she was on a panel with Val Mcdermid, she managed to hit her, by accident of course, so you can see the expression in Val's face in this photo as she wondered whether she was going to get hit again. Oh that boat of sushi is what a few of us shared for dinner that night.

The lost photos of Bouchercon

Vistek photo store on Queen St in Toronto pulled most of my lost files from a corrupted chip onto a DVD for me. It was big bucks but I wanted the photos. So here is a set from The Anthony Awards. Janet Rudolph gets her lifetime Anthony for contributing to the mystery field, Reed Farrell Coleman displayed his hands for me, Chris Grabenstein won for best first novel, Marv Lachman gets his award, you see Barbara Seranella in the post above, and WIlliam Kent Krueger leans into the shot with his Anthony. Click on any to enlarge and enjoy.

Barbara Seranella and her Anthony Award

These two photos of Barbara were rescued by the lab today at great expense. But all photos are worth it. I am relieved that I did not lose my precious work after all. Thanks to my teacher, photographer Rob Davidson, he informed me that it is impossible to erase files unless you write over them. Learn by trial and error. The lab technicians at Vistek today spent an hour doing the Lazarus thing in my two chips. I also bought a new card reader. So all is okay. I also learned a new way of downloading files from the computer so as to never corrupt files.

These boots are made for walkin!

Elaine Viets won the award for boots of the conference. I love her boots. Say hi to John King, Laura Lippman, July Hrczy who is signing her name in the Konrath anthology, and also Zoe Sharp who went off with her husband to the shooting gallery on the first day at B'con. All for research of course!! And not to forget my wife with two of her cwc pals Barbara Fradkin and RJ Harlick