The Americans invented the gangster film, but British film studios have been turning out their contributions to the genre since the 1940s. From the 1947 adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel Brighton Rock through the iconic 1971 Michael Caine vehicle Get Carter to the Guy Ritchie movies and Layer Cake, the Brits have produced gangster pictures with a feel uniquely their own.

In 1980, The Long Good Friday hit British theaters, and I vividly remember seeing it the day it opened in Manhattan two years later. Buzz in the film magazines I read had been good, but I was still surprised by how gripping I found it. To this day, after many viewings, I never get tired of watching it.

[It’s not especially long, but it is especially good...]

There’s a lot of justifiable worry over the government’s use of drones in civilian populations, with even some police forces investigating the idea of using them in their day-to-day work. But what if it wasn’t the skies that were compromised, but our own homes? What if our pets were secretly Big Brother’s little spies?

Pretty nefarious idea, no? That is probably exactly what the CIA thought in the 1960s when they had a vet perform an hour-long procedure that turned a feline into a multimillion-dollar spy as a part of Operation Acoustic Kitty. The cat was implanted with a good deal of equipment then sent on a test run to spy on two men in a park.

We all can probably guess the likelihood of a house cat obeying its master/owner. What the CIA probably didn’t count on was their new multimillion-dollar national security ace-in-the-hole being run over by a taxi on its way across the street. The program was scrapped soon after. However, it wasn’t the first nor will it be the last attempt to employ the animal kingdom in our government’s day-to-day spy work. The website iO9 has a round-up including this case and other rather interesting tales of animal spies.

My first experience with Games Workshop’s tabletop miniature war game Warhammer 40,000 left me rather unimpressed. Basically it involved moving around a bunch of little metal figures and rolling dice to see if I hit anything. The figures were these cool futuristic looking soldiers, but you had to paint them and my painting skills are terrible.

Still there was something about the visual aesthetic of the miniatures and the world they inhabit that stuck with me. Imagine a world that combines noirish intrigue, Lovecraftian horror, psychic powers, the futuristic war machines and technology of Star Wars and Dune, the fantasy races of Tolkein, and features a very cool heavy metal album style visual aesthetic. That’s the expertly blended cocktail that is the universe of Warhammer 40K. It might not have impressed me to see it played out on a tabletop, but it was epically cool in my head. So one day I decided to take another a look at the larger Warhammer 40K universe, especially the tie-in fiction.

[We’re thinking this will be epically cool on the page...]

Watching Stonemere go up in flames, I thought of Manderley. 

Yet it was a bright April afternoon when dozens of old ladies were carried by firemen and police from the hulking stone-and-shingle house. The women, on a greening lawn where they looked as helpless as newborn fawns, were wrapped in thin cotton blankets as the sky grew orange toward evening. I was twelve.

In the forty-four years since, what I’ve learned of Stonemere—in Somerset Hills, New Jersey, far from England—makes me think Manderley wasn’t entirely off the mark. The place housed secrets.

[Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home...]

A Brooklyn art student has taken art and science to a new level. Those photographs of your DNA are so last year, and Heather Dewey-Hagborg knows the next trend in DNA art. Dewey-Hagborg is a conceptual information artist and took to the street of New York City for her most recent project. 

Using items found on the sidewalks of New York—pieces of chewing gum, hair from the Penn Station bathroom—Dewey-Hagborg created sculptures of strangers using the DNA found in these personal items. The DNA could show eye color, face shape, but often left out factors like age. She then used a 3D printer to bring the faces to life. Do you think you’ll find any familial resemblances in the portrait gallery?

Hat tip to Yahoo! Broken News for sharing this artist.

I wasn’t sure why I kept watching Blue Bloods until this week because the show has many faults.

The police procedural aspect of the show is serviceable, not great.

It seems all New York City crime is solved by Danny Reagan, sometimes with an assist from his little brother, Jamie or Danny’s partner of the week.

It’s also frustrating that Danny Reagan’s jurisdiction seems to include all of Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs. The show also needs to be a bit less white bread in one of the most multicultural cities in the world.

Erin Reagan, the show’s main female character, has very little to do save act as foil for the menfolk.

Tom Selleck is glum a great deal of the time. (Where did Thomas Magnum’s charm go?)

And yet when I watched the season finale earlier this month, I finally knew why I watched.

[The viewer has her reasons...]

Wounded Prey by Sean Lynch is the first Detectives Farrell and Kearns thriller (available May 28, 3013).

In 1967, the Vietnam War was in full swing, and Staff Sergeant Bob Farrell is on the hunt for a killer after a Saigon prostitute’s little boy is found hanging from his ankles from a light post, his throat cut. Luckily, there were witnesses, and it wasn’t too hard to figure out who the culprit was, especially since he was described as having a pronounced limp. Anti-American sentiment made it hard to conduct a thorough investigation, but when MPs search the convalescent barracks; they get more than they bargain for.

Luckily, they are finally able to take him down, but not without serious injury to the two MPs. Lance Corporal Vernon Emil Slocum is in custody, but unfortunately, Farrell’s investigation is over before it begins. Slocum is ferried away by unnamed men, and Farrell doesn’t see him again. Now it’s 1987, twenty years after the events, and Farrell is a retired cop, chain-smoking and drinking in his dingy apartment, wondering why he hasn’t done all the things he’s planned, when he sees a headline in the newspaper about a young girl killed in much the same way as the little boy in Saigon, and about the rookie police officer, Kevin Kearns, who happened to be nearby and attempted to take on Slocum with no success. Farrell is suddenly very certain about what he must do. Kearns will be used as a scapegoat for the crime, and Farrell knows it, and a monster is on the loose.

Kearns is also painfully aware of what’s about to happen to him.

[But how can he possibly stop it?]

Jane Campion is a badass. The New Zealand writer/director has always been fearless in her portrayal of characters pushed to their psychological extremes. More to the point, she’s always had an extraordinary ability to harness that fearlessness and bring it to the screen. It’s one thing to have the vision, it’s another thing to have the talent to turn that vision into art. In films like the brilliantly moving Angel At My Table (still, to my mind, her best film), The Piano, and Holy Smoke! she’s obsessed with taking her characters far beyond their own ideas of themselves. A Campion protagonist (usually, but not always, a woman) will be broken down and taken apart before reaching the end of the story.

Her latest film, the BBC miniseries Top of the Lake, aired just a few weeks ago in the U.S. A labyrinthine crime story set in a close-knit (read: deeply dysfunctional) New Zealand mountain town, Top of the Lake follows a police detective name Robin Griffin who has returned home to see her mother through the final stages of cancer, but shortly after arriving in town she is drawn into the disappearance of a pregnant 12-year old girl named Tui. To complicate matters, Tui is the daughter of a local drug lord named Matt Mitcham, who moves about the mountains and the town as if everything, and everyone, belongs to him.

[We are wading into murky waters...]

Most book clubs start off well, but soon devolve into wine, cheese, and gossip. Not that we have anything against wine, cheese, or gossip, you understand, but we do actually like to talk about books. And just so we're all on the same page (see what we did there?) to get ours started with a bang, we're giving away ONE HUNDRED EARLY COPIES of Sophie McKenzie's forthcoming thriller, Close My Eyes (available to everyone else July 9, 2013).

When Geniver Loxley lost her daughter at birth eight years ago, her world stopped… and never fully started again. Mothers with strollers still make her flinch; her love of writing has turned into a half-hearted teaching career; and she and her husband, Art, have slipped into the kind of rut that seems inescapable. For Art, the solution is simple: Have another child to replace Beth. For Gen, the thought of replacing her first child feels cruel, nearly unbearable. A part of her will never let go of Beth, no matter how much she needs to move on.

But then a stranger shows up on their doorstep, telling Gen the very thing she’s always desperately longed to hear: that her daughter was not stillborn, but was taken away as a healthy infant. That Beth is still out there, somewhere, waiting to be found. A fissure suddenly opens up in Gen’s carefully reconstructed life, letting in a flood of unanswerable questions. How could this possibly be true? Where is Beth? And why is Art so reluctant to get involved?

As Gen delves into the darkest parts of her past, she starts to realize that finding the answers might open the door to something even worse, a truth that could steal everything she holds close. Even her own life.

Our discussions will be held on our own forum at LibraryThing. If you're not familiar, LibraryThing is an online venue where book lovers can catalog their own “shelves” of books, along with their ratings and descriptions, and share information (should they choose) with other readers. You'll see CrimeHQ already has over a hundred books listed on our shelves, ones that we've posted here with Fresh Meat or excerpts, and we'll continue adding those until we're caught up—whew! Already it's been fun to explore the conversations and other readers involved with the books we've listed.

LibraryThing is free to join, and you can participate in our book club discussions without ever adding any virtual books to your shelves. But since it's a great, already-established forum for setting up online book catalogs and discussions, we thought it would be a great place to hold ours, since it has extra fun, bibliophilic features.

And if that has captured your interest, here's a TRULY awesome incentive — if you join our book club discussion, LibraryThing will upgrade your free account (which allows you to list up to 200 of your own books) to a paid account (meaning unlimited books) at no charge for a year! (Usually the unlimited account is $10 per year or $25 for a lifetime membership.)

Here's how we'll get the early reading copies to you. The first 100 people to send an email with their mailing address (U.S. only, please!) requesting an ARC of Close My Eyes to CrimeThing@gmail.com will receive one. Don't expect a reply, we'll be too busy mailing like maniacs! But once the 100 copies are gone, we will set up an auto-reply that tells you so.

Once you've sent us the email, head on over to LibraryThing and set yourself up a free account. Then join our Criminal Element Book Club discussion group. Once discussion of the book begins (general discussion will begin June 24), anyone who joins in will get their account upgraded!

Transparent by Natalie Whipple is a debut young adult novel with paranormal elements, including an invisible protagonist (available May 21, 2013).

Fiona was born into one of the largest crime syndicates in the country. Her father runs drugs, steals his millions, and murders whoever gets in his way. When Fiona is born, he sees his chance to become the most powerful man in the world. Because Fiona was born with a special gift.

She’s invisible.

Fiona does anything her father asks, partly because he’s her father and partly because he has his own special gift: he’s a Charmer who can make any woman fall in love with him. At first this means picking pockets—which she learned to do when she was just seven years old. Then she graduates to robbery. Then spying on rival crime syndicates. However, her daddy has an endgame in mind for Fiona.

Assassin.

[Daddy’s Little Girl has big troubles...]

It’s nighttime in Pittsburgh. Tom-Cruise-as-Jack-Reacher has just beaten the tar out of a half-dozen creeps. Now it’s time to scram.

Reacher hops into his vehicle, grabs a gear, and hauls ass. The moaning bad guys can only stare at the yellow BABY ON BOARD sign in the rear window of his Grand Caravan.

Wait. What? Cut cut cut! Get me Props, dammit!

The vehicle in question is not, of course, a homely Dodge Grand Caravan, the minivanniest of all minivans. Rather, it’s a fire-breathing 1970 Chevelle SS, complete with Rally Stripes, a 396-cubic-inch engine, and a 4-speed transmission.

But you know what? Any sane tough guy would rather drive a Grand Caravan. Or maybe a Camry in a nice beige.

[Talk about yer hot wheels...]

Artist Mike Doyle is a genius in Lego, and this piece from his Abandoned Houses Series is all and only Lego, no foreign materials, paint, glue, screws, or altered blocks. It was created over 600 hours of effort out of somewhere between 110,000 and 130,000 blocks in black, white, dark and light bluish gray, transparent clear, and translucent black. Here's what he says about it:

The third installment of this abandoned house series continues its textural exploration of decay with a Victorian home engulfed in mud... For me, this piece speaks to the inherent unpredictability of those things which we call our foundation. Like a little dollhouse, a seemingly secure home is plucked up and set on a new path. This charming home, lovingly embellished with ornamental fancy was no match for nature. The fancy embellishments serve as a reminder of our earlier focus on the material world, while the aftermath removes us from that focus. The piece offers no answers or necessarily any hope, but rather points to life’s fragility.

It’s spooky and amazing, and here’s a close-up of Victorian with Tree, just because!

Hat tip: This is Colossal

At age nine, I became hooked on the legal/mystery series Perry Mason, then in its fourth year on CBS. The first episode of season 4 aired on September 17, 1960. Despite what the calendar said, it was culturally still the 1950s. Dwight Eisenhower was president (John F. Kennedy would be elected six weeks later). Most television, including Perry Mason, was shown in black and white. Mason’s top assistant, the beautiful, intelligent Della Street, would remain a secretary forever, and presumably a virgin though she was pushing forty. Private investigator Paul Drake chain-smoked through each episode. The police didn’t Mirandize arrestees because the Miranda decision wouldn’t come down until 1966. And network television portrayed attorneys as heroic defenders of justice working in a system that was essentially fair. The fictional Mason never represented a guilty client and won every case.

[Everything was simpler in black and white...]

Graveland by Alan Glynn is a thriller set in the world of Wall Street high finance (available May 28, 2013).

Set in the here and now, Graveland is very much a book of its time. It centers on the current financial crisis—and much of the action takes place in and around Wall Street.

The story begins as the CEO of a top Wall Street investment bank is gunned down while jogging in Central Park, and this death is soon followed by another, when a highly successful hedge fund manager is shot and killed outside a glitzy Upper West Side restaurant. Were the pair chosen as orchestrated terrorist targets or is plain old coincidence to blame? Investigative journalist Ellen Dorsey has an entirely different theory—and her search for the truth will take her into some decidedly murky waters.

[Greed is not good. In fact, it can get you killed...]

Anyone who knows me will tell you that food is right at the top of my priorities in life. Follow my Twitter feed, and you’ll notice that probably a full 25 percent of my tweets are related to eating. Still, there are things that seem extreme even to me, like beating a chef to death over a $30 meal.

And yet, that’s precisely what happened to celebrity chef Miki Nozawa, whose food didn’t satisfy two customers at his restaurant on the German island of Sylt. The two left without paying, and later that night Nozawa found them at a nightclub and confronted them. A fight ensued, after which the two men escaped and Nozawa was taken to the hospital where he later died from his injuries.

Relax, everyone. It’s just dinner.

The Caretaker by A.X. Ahmad is a debut thriller involving scandal, political corruption, and men with pasts they would prefer not to revisit (available May 21, 2013).

In A.X. Ahmad’s masterful, page-turner of a debut thriller, The Caretaker, Ranjit Singh is a disgraced captain of the Indian army who finds himself living with his wife and daughter on Martha’s Vineyard, eking out a living as a summer gardener, and wondering how they will survive the winter.

He stares across the road at the cold, angry ocean. When he first came to the island with his wife and daughter six months ago, the water was warm and shimmering, the beaches were lined with parked cars, and long-tailed kites fluttered in the hot sky. All summer and into the fall he’d worked as a landscaper, feeling his unused muscles stretch and harden, feeling the hot sun beat down on him, and felt a kind of peace.

[A peace you know won’t last...]

Criminal enterprises are dangerous, no, really, I heard that somewhere. The risks of the job, though, are part of the deal. Hardly a criminal would balk at the prospect of being arrested or facing a prison sentence. It’s a risk; always has been, always will be. The job itself isn’t the only risk, though. Criminals have a need to go about their work in secret, and the only thing worse than getting arrested on the job getting arrested before the job.

For that reason criminals have to hide what they’re about, but they still have to talk about it. Talking about a big heist or, worse, a plan to kill someone is a quick way to tip off the police. If the cops don’t outright arrest someone for planning a crime, you can bet they’ll take steps to make sure that the crime goes down in their favor, ending with thieves and other criminals behind bars, or even in body bags.

[Keep your lip buttoned up...]

R.I.P.D. City of the Damned by Jeremy Barlow, Peter M.Lenkov, and Tony Parker is an anthology billed as a prequel to the R.I.P.D. comic book series and the upcoming feature film starring Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds (available May 28, 2013).

This second collection of R.I.P.D. comic books, based on characters created by Peter M. Lenkov, continues the narrative established in the successful first volume which is soon to be immortalized in film with Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds in starring roles. In City Of The Damned, Roy Pulsipher and Nick Walker are chasing down errant souls for the R.I.P.D. when they come across a place from Roy’s past, a place he has no interest in dragging his new partner into. So Roy plunges into danger alone, warning Nick to turn back, and takes the reader a century into the past, when he himself was first recruited to the R.I.P.D.

Roy’s first memory of his afterlife is of trudging helplessly through the desert while being menaced by a literal dark cloud.

[Look for the silver lining...]

CLICK HERE TO log in or register to enter for a chance to win a book bundle from the Criminal Element Prize Vault complete with signed copies, new releases, award winners, and best sellers!

This is NOT a COMMENTS Sweepstakes—You Must Use the Link Above to Enter.

It’s finally spring and we’re clearing out all the skeletons and, more importantly, books from the Criminal Element Prize Vault! Bring on the thrills, bring on the mystery! 

You can enter for a chance to win a whole box full of books by David Mark, Julia Keller, Charles Cumming, Daniel Stashower and Bill Loehfelm. 

[Find out about the books...]