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Missing Clue THE Missing Clue 165 LILAC STREET, WINNIPEG, MANITOBA R3M 2S1 PH: (204) 284-9100, FAX (204) 453-5351 STORE HOURS: EMAIL: [email protected] Monday to Saturday: 10 am to 6 pm OLD WEBSITE: http://www.whodunitcanada.com Sunday: 12 pm to 5 pm NEW WEBSITE: CLOSED: http://whodunitmysterybookstore.squarespace.com/ rd Monday, May 23 for Victoria Day WEBSTORE: www.bookmanager.com/11745 this year, but will not be alone. We are thrilled UPCOMING EVENTS: to announce that Doug Whiteway, who writes RESHELVING SALE crime fiction as CC Benison, will also be joining As those of you who have visited us recently will us on the 30th! have noticed, we are constantly challenged by the size of the store, and the amount of shelving More details to come through Facebook, our that it has. Over the next few months, we are website, and authorsforindies.com. going to be embarking on a few projects that we hope will help us increase the useable space. GOWNS FOR GRADS Our first project is to change the size of the Whodunit is now a drop off point for Gowns for shelves on the walls in the front of our store to Grads. If you have a dress that you do not have be able to put larger paperbacks on them, and any further use for that would be appropriate keep more of an author’s books in the same for grad, please consider donating it to this place. worthy cause. Accessories are also greatly appreciated. More details of this venture, which To celebrate this and to make the transition is an initiative of the Laura Milner White easier, we are going to have a sale of the books Committee, can be found on Facebook or you currently on those shelves. From April 1st to can ask us next time you are in the store. 17th, all the paperbacks on those wall shelves will be 15% off (you will not receive stamps for AUTHOR EVENT: ANGELA MISRI these purchases). Please note this sale will Angela Misri, author of the Portia Adams exclude the new release shelves that face the mysteries, (a Sherlockian pastiche), will be in entrance. We hope that you will find something Winnipeg as part of TD Book week. We are that you will like, or had your eye on, and make excited to announce that she will be doing an th it easier for us to change the size of the shelves event at Whodunit on Wednesday, May 11 at by having fewer books to move. 7pm! Those of you interested in pastiche, in writing for young adults, or just in meeting and AUTHORS FOR INDIES hearing from new authors will want to mark this We are excited to once again host an event in on your calendars. conjunction with “Authors for Indies”, this year on Saturday, April 30th! Last year, many of you SOME THOUGHTS ON PASTICHE by Jack came and enjoyed Catherine MacDonald’s When I was a boy, one of my mother’s favourite lecture on mystery writing and the historical bromides was: “imitation is the sincerest form research behind her series beginning with Put of flattery,” a phrase that has stuck with me on the Armour of Light. She will be returning over the years. Literary imitation is usually April 2016 1 WHODUNIT? called “pastiche,” and for better or worse, I have between original and copy. Why do authors spent a lot of time this year thinking about and write pastiche? The most obvious answer is lack playing with the concept, especially since we of originality, although I suspect that this answer decided to do a series of Book Club evenings explains very few of what is produced. More featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson important is commercial viability. Pastiche pastiches. When I actually focused on the enables an author to tie his or her work to a technique, I was more than a bit surprised to known product with a known record in the realize how limited it was in practice. In the first bookshops. In a few cases, the success of the place, one can really only imitate an author who imitation generates its own popularity. This was is super well-known. Who beyond Sherlock? The clearly the case with the Mary Russell series. first author I thought of was Agatha Christie. Some authors are attracted by the challenge of Partly because of the second consideration: the successful imitation. need to find sufficiently well-known literary characteristics to imitate. When I considered Curiously enough, the easiest strategy of this factor, it suddenly became clear to me why pastiche to adopt is also the hardest to bring off Holmes was such a popular target for pastiche well. It involves an authentic replication of the and why relatively few others could qualify. original style and of the author. If Conan Doyle is Hercule Poirot could certainly be imitated, the target, this usually means writing in the because of his appearance and because of his voice of Dr. Watson, harder to do well than you distinctive phrases, such as “the little grey cells.” might think – just try it! Many of those who go But who else? Miss Marple? Probably. Father this route actually create a complex story about Brown? The Saint? Perry Mason? James Bond? a lost manuscript recently unearthed, and they Nero Wolfe? Peter Wimsey? Make your own list. set their work within the timeframe and space It will not be very long, and would probably not (London) of Holmes’s glory years. The problem include many recent authors. At this point I is that there are only so many plots, and Conan suddenly began to appreciate durable Doyle has already cherry picked most of the best popularity. The pioneers of crime fiction who ones. The result is a product which often seems have survived the years are mainly those who stale, at least to the reader of the Doyle created larger-than-life characters. Such originals. But we must always remember that creations are no longer fashionable. Lisbeth not every consumer of pastiche is necessarily Salander is one of the few contemporaries who familiar with the original. comes immediately to mind. Who else? One wonders. A point worth emphasizing is that As my comments about film suggest, there literary pastiche is not confined to books; film are many ways of doing pastiche, some sticking and television rely heavily on literature for their closer to the original than others. One popular material, and are currently the sources of some strategy is to hijack one of the Holmes of the best pastiche – Holmes has two television characters and turn him/her/them into the series currently going, neither one of which major protagonist(s). As I have noted elsewhere started in print. Both series move Holmes into in this newsletter, every continuing character in the 21st century. Recent films have reversed the the Conan Doyle canon – even the urchins of the Holmes/Watson relationship and looked into Baker Street Irregulars now has his or her or the early life of Holmes. their own series. Indeed, one of the most appealing recent series takes nothing from the What exactly is literary pastiche? Simply put, Holmes canon but the address – 221B Baker it is imitation. In practice, however, imitation Street – at which Holmes and Watson are covers a multitude of sins and a variety of supposed to have resided. Two attorney strategies not all of which involve a straight line brothers rent the premises in modern times; WHODUNIT? 2 April 2016 their lease includes a stipulation that they our store turned up Gavin Scott’s The Age of answer any mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes. Treason, billed by its publisher as the first in a Since any such mail is bound to involve some “brand new post-war mystery series”. The kind of crime puzzle, the author has a wonderful author is a Brit who has honed his skills in lead-in into a fresh story. (Author of this series is Hollywood writing for commercial television; Michael Robertson; we have most of the titles in this is his first novel, and I found it impossible to stock) put down. It is a combination of mystery and spy novel, with a bit of romance thrown in for good Complicating the whole business of pastiche measure. The author has done his research, and is the recent emergence of authorized pastiche, I found the section set in Berlin immediately as literary estates seek to squeeze the last bit of after the war easily the best part of the book. In revenue out of their literary property. The heirs any event, I think our customers will really enjoy of Steig Larsson—his family, not the common this book, and will clamour for the promised law companion, who according to Swedish law sequel. (The Age of Treachery, on sale April 19th, had no rights of inheritance – authorized a Tp$19.50) Salander sequel, which appeared in 2015. Fortunately, the new author, David Lagercrantz, One more spy book while we are at it. This one had the good sense to do the new volume as a is Real Tigers, by Mick Herron, number three in pastiche, essentially filling in details in the his series set in Slough House, the dilapidated original three books. It got reasonably good building in London where MI5 buries its screw- reviews. (The Girl in the Spider’s Web will be ups. This time one of their number is kidnapped; available in tradepaper at the end of April, the kidnapper wants information as ransom.
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