A house tour is announced
Back in 1493 Greenway was established but it was until 1700 that the central part of the main house was built alongside Greenway Court. What's so interesting about Greenway? Well, back in 1938 a British writer named Agatha Christie bought the house, which became the family's summer house up until 1950.

Now Greenway will open to the public, complete with guide tours, country walks and special events. There's even a cottage on the property that you can let and an apartment in the main house that's also available (if you can get a reservation and have the money for the privilege).

Still, Greenway is a place of destination for all fans of the amazing Agatha. Not that it's the place where she wrote all of her books -- you'll have to travel to Turkey's Hotel Pera Palace, for example, to visit the room where she wrote "Murder on the Orient Express." Still, there's plenty of Christie around Greenway. She was born in Torquay and a plaque for the Agatha Christie Mile can be found at Torre Abbey in Torquay.

Greenway is in southwest England, north of Dartmoor and west of Brixham in Devon. It opens to the public Saturday.

For more information, go to the National Trust site at:

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-greenway

Or visit:

www.agathachristie.com

Off the page

Oprah Winfrey, the megastar who once espouse buying books as a terrific idea and who increased her brand (i.e., profit) by promoting them, has called Kindle her "favorite new gadget."


The "gadget" comes from Amazon, the behemoth that has helped squash independent bookstores by selling books, often times, below the price that independent bookstores can purchase them.

Kindle, selling at the price of about 80 paperback books, is a soul-less plastic gadget that further erodes the case for good books. Oprah's plastic playmate would eliminate books -- designing, printing, binding -- and bookstores. It also would eliminate the jobs connected to each.


Just so Oprah knows. I've found a favorite new gadget too: the "off" button for my TV.

The blessing way

Tony Hillerman, creator of Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee of the Navajo police, has died at the age of 83.

Hillerman first introduced Lt. Joe Leaphorn in 1970's The Blessing Way. Leaphorn was an experienced cop who didn't share in the Navajo traditional beliefs, although he had reverence for them. Jim Chee came along in 1978's People of Darkness; he was a Navajo shaman, or "hathaali." The two joined up in Skinwalkers in 1987, the first of many Hillerman bestsellers.

Hillerman will be sorely missed but leaves us with a legacy of more than 30 books.

Holmes is where the heart is

With May 22, 2009 designated as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 150th anniversary, Sherlockiana will be the rage for the foreseeable future. Here's a quick look at what's in store (or will be in stores) in coming months.

In stores now: Execution of Sherlock Holmes: And Other New Adventures of the Great Detective by Donald Thomas, is the latest collection of pastiches. The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls is a retelling of the rise of Moriarty, and Holmes' tumble from the famous falls, all told from three different perspectives.
Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong: Reopening the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles by Pierre Bayard reexamines Holmes' most famous case and finds the master's conclusions wanting. This will come as no surprise to those who have read his Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?: The Mystery Behind the Agatha Christie Mystery, in which the French psychoanalyst and literary scholar comes up with a new solution to that crime also.
Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes, an assemblage of 11 weird tales by the likes of Kim Newman and Barbara Hambly, sees Holmes on illogical ground in this collection of fantasy fiction. Moriarty by John Gardner brings the professor to American shores and on the rise as a vintage villain.

On the way:
Andrew Lycett's The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is reissued in paperback in November.
Sherlock Holmes' Guide to Life by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle hits stores in time for the holidays with a collection of quotes from the great detective and illustration from books, stage and screen.
Sherlock Holmes in America, an anthology of new stories edited by Martin H. Greenberg, arrives in March.
Mike Ashley's The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures comes back into print in May. The 1997 Carrol & Graf comes back courtesy of Skyhorse Publishing and the anthology features stories by Peter Tremayne, Edward D. Hoch, Michael Moorcock, Basil Copper and H.R.F. Keating, among others.

Of course, various versions of Doyle's own work will be on display, as well as movie tie-ins and new graphic novels.

New this week

This week has a lot to offer mystery readers. Whether it's Deep South gentry, historical fiction or modern-day espionage, there's plenty of great reading in store.

Today
The Draining Lake by Arnuldur Indridason (Minatour, $24.95) When the water level of an Icelandic lake suddenly falls following an earthquake to reveal a skeleton half-buried in its sandy bed, Inspector Erlendur, Elinborg, and Sigurdur Oli look into the long-unsolved disappearance of a young, left-wing student during the Cold War.

The Tale of Briar Bank by Susan Wittig Albert (Berkley, $23.95) Beatrix Potter looks into the death of Mr. Wickstead who had recently discovered a treasure.

A Spoonful of Poison: An Agatha Raisin Mystery by M.C. Beaton (Minatour, $24.95) When poisoned jam shows up at a church festival booth, Agatha Raisin finds herself looking into murder.

The Catch by Archer Mayor (Minatour, $24.95) When a state trooper is killed during a routine traffic stop, Joe Gunther follows the trail of clues to a drug smuggling ring out of Canada.

Hell Bent by William Tapply (Minatour, $24.95) Attorney Brady Coyne takes on the case of a war vet after a woman from his past asks for help.

Coyote's Wife by Aimee and David Thurlo (Tor, $24.95) Ella Clah investigates an attack on a powerful Navajo politician's son.

Too Close To Home by Linwood Barclay (Bantam Dell, $22.00) Derek Cutter suddenly becomes the prime suspect in a small-town murder case.

Hounded to Death by Rita Mae Brown (Ballantine, $25.00) Sister Jane Arnold, Master of Foxhounds, finds herself caught up in a mystery involving the theft of a valuable hound and the disappearance of a wealthy pet food manufacturer.

The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss (Random, $26.00) A former spy for Washington during the Revolution follows a murder trail that leads to Alexander Hamilton and to rebellious whiskey-makers opposed to a tax on their products.

Oct. 1
Given Day by Dennis Lehane (William Morrow, $27.95) A 1919 Boston Police strike sets the stage for an epic tale of a family whose lives mirror the political unrest of an America.

Hardly Knew Her by Laura Lippman (William Morrow, $23.95) Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan returns in this compendium of the short stories.

O, you beautiful doll

Declan Burke's The Big O (Harcourt, $24.00) is a noir hybrid of murder and merriment.

Burke handles a wide cast of characters including: a doctor's receptionist who picks up extra money through blackmail and the occasional convenience store robbery; a house painter whose main source of income is kidnapper for hire; a disgraced plastic surgeon with an ill-conceived scheme to make some quick money; and a bubbleheaded ex-con with violence on his mind. Oh, and did I mention the one-eyed dog?

The book hits the ground running as if Quentin Tarantino and Buster Keaton had a love child who could write. Burke (who's previous Eight-Ball Boogie is available only in an imported edition) has a fine ear for dialogue and a great sense for plotting. Peopled by second-rate criminals plotting third-rate schemes, it's inevitable that the worst-laid plans of these men fall apart with everyone converging for a bloodspattered finale ... and even that's amusing.

There have been few novelists who could plot tightly, create well-developed characters and write laugh-out-loud dialogue -- Burke is a welcome new addition.

Lightning strikes

This has been a good year for narrative histories. In April we got Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective (a case that inspired the birth of detective fiction) and in May came Paula Uruburu's American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "It" Girl, and the Crime of the Century (which undertook to look at Nesbit's life, loves and the murder of architect Sanford White).

For those with a penchant of reading crime and history (a la Devil in the White City) comes a new entrant: American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, Movie-making, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum (Crown Forum, $24.95). Yes, Crime of the Century appears in this title also; since the Sanford White case was in 1906, it was the first Crime of the Century, but the century was very, very young.

In American Lightning, Pulitzer Prize-winner Blum brings together numerous threads to weave a tapestry of America in the first decade of the 20th Century. In October of 1910, an explosion ripped through the offices of the Los Angeles Times, killing 23 workers. It was the culmination in a series of attacks that gripped the nation. This was a time of bomb-throwing anarchist, and war between labor and management. Detective William J. Burns, dubbed the "American Sherlock Holmes" by the Times of London, is brought in from Chicago to investigate. Was it union assassins or management goons who blew the building up? Before CSI, how did a detective work such a huge case? Burns' doggedness uncovers a nest of villains, but his success seems short lived as land swindlers, a mayoral election and the American labor movement muddy the waters.

Into this melting pot of players come filmmaker D.W. Griffith and attorney Clarence Darrow. Blum interlaces their lives through the investigation and trial, chronicling Griffith's rise, Darrow's fall and the birth of public relations.

American Lightning is a fascinating exploration of the birth of 20th century America, and it will be a welcome addition to any non-fiction lover's bookshelf.