The Swedish film version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson’s phenomenon of a debut thriller, is set to open in U.S. theaters on March 19. Yes, it’s a subtitled flick.

If you are a fan of Dorothy L. Sayers and/or good British mystery television productions, you've probably watched the Lord Peter Wimsey series based on Ms. Sayer's books featuring English actor Ian Carmichael. The programs were broadcast during the 1970s on the BBC and later on PBS Mystery and are now available on DVD! Mr. Carmichael died this last week at age 89. The Guardian and BBC News both feature obituaries, and Kim Malo shares her memories of Carmichael in the blog Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room.

Prominent Catholic author, professor, and cultural commentator Ralph McInerny died last Thursday, January 29 at the age of 80. McInerny was the creator of the popular Father Dowling mystery series, which became a television series starring Tom Bosley and Tracie Nelson in the 80s. A prolific writer, McInerny also wrote the University of Notre Dame Mysteries, the Andrew Broom mysteries, and several books under the name Monica Quill.

The Great Michigan Read program selection is Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen and this month the University of Michigan Library is hosting the Michigan Humanities Council’s traveling exhibit, Their Journey: Vietnamese in Michigan, which is on display February 1-24, 2010 (University of Michigan Hatcher Graduate Library, Ann Arbor) as well as a live webcast conversation on February 10 with Professor Peter Ho Davies and

Howard Zinn (1922 – 2010) an American historian and Professor of Political Science at Boston University from 1964 to 1988, died on Wednesday, January 27, 2010. He was the author of more than 20 books. Zinn was active in and wrote extensively about the African-American Civil Rights Movement 1955-1968, civil rights and civil liberties and peace movements. In his best-selling A People's History of the United States, "he concentrated on what he saw as the genocidal depredations of Christopher Columbus, the blood lust of Theodore Roosevelt and the racial failings of Abraham Lincoln.

Author Erich Segal died last week (January 17) at the age of 72. He was teaching Greek and Roman literature at Yale University, when his collaboration with the Beatles in 1968 on their movie Yellow Submarine and the production of a screenplay he wrote about the doomed romance of a Radcliffe scholarship girl and a Harvard old-money boy entitled Love Story brought Segal fame. Released in 1970, "Love Story" was a huge box-office hit. "Love Story", when released in paperback, had the largest print order in publishing history at the time, with 4,325,000 copies. Reaction to the book was strong and surprisingly controversial.

Mystery Writers of America announced the Nominees for the 2010 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction, and television published or produced in 2009. Best Novel Nominees are:

• The Missing by Tim Gautreaux (Random House - Alfred A.

Bestselling American crime novelist, Robert B. Parker, creator of the wisecracking Boston private eye Spenser, died on Monday, January 18 at the age of 77. Robert B Parker, the American crime novelist, who has died aged 77, helped revive and modernize the hard-boiled private eye genre through his Spenser series of novels. In 2002, he was named Grand Master at the Edgar awards by the Mystery Writers of America. More than four million copies of his books have been sold around the world.

Put these in your CD player and let the stories, ranging from sweeping epics to romantic suspense, carry you into the past.

• Autumn Lover by Elizabeth Lowell Set in the Western U.S. after the Civil War
• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Time travel from 1945 to 1743 Scotland
• A Rogue of My Own by Johanna Lindsey Set in Queen Victoria's Court
• Simply Unforgettable by Mary Balogh A Regency romance
• Don't Look Back by Amanda Quick Romantic suspense in Regency London
• The Moon Looked Down by Dorothy Garlock Set in a small Illinois town during WWII

Britain’s Crime Writers’ Association has announced that Scottish novelist Val McDermid is “the recipient of this year’s prestigious CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award, which honours outstanding achievement in the field of crime writing." Ms. McDermid began writing in 1987 when Report for Murder was released and over the years has won numerous writing awards for her mystery stories.

All the Living by C.E. Morgan. Aloma moves to her boyfriend Orren's Kentucky farm when his family dies in a car accident. And as a bereaved Orren withdraws, Aloma's chances of becoming a concert pianist diminish. Read by Julia Gibson

Closing Time: a Memoir by Joe Queenan. Queenan's deeply funny and affecting memoir about his great escape from a childhood of poverty in a Philadelphia housing project in the early 1960s. Read by Johnny Heller

All Fiction, Children's and Youth— Buy Two Get One Free
Learn more about Secondhand Prose and the Friends of the Library.

Bag Sale

January 27, 28 and 30

Steve Hamilton, author of the Alex McKnight mysteries and graduate of Lakeland High School (MI) will discuss his latest book, The Lock Artist on Thursday, January 14 at 6:30PM at White Lake Township Library. For more information contact Denise E. Harris, Adult Services Librarian at (248) 698-4942.

Here are a few mysteries set at the new year:

The queene's Christmas by Karen Harper

Full cry by Rita Mae Brown

New Year's Eve murder : a Lucy Stone mystery by Leslie Meier

Cat on a hyacinth hunt by Carole Nelson Douglas

• The Covenant by Naomi Ragen
• White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
• On Beauty by Zadie Smith
• Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure and the Man Who Dared To See by Robert Kurson
• Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Mind of an Extraordinary Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet

Janet Rudolph of Mystery Fanfare announced her picks for Best Mysteries of 2009. Her number one choice: Dog On It by Stephen Quinn.

On Thursday, December 10, the Mystery Writers of America announced that Dorothy Gilman, the 86-year-old American author of the long-running Emily Pollifax (aka Mrs. Pollifax) spy novel series, has been chosen as the group’s 2010 Grand Master. She follows in the footsteps of last year’s prize recipients, James Lee Burke and Sue Grafton.

If you like to listen to an audio book and quilt at the same time then Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek quilt novels is your answer. The series has 14 books and in all the books the story and the art of quilting are neatly stiched. You can learn more about the quilts discussed in those stories by going into Jennifer Chiaverini's web site at http://elmcreek.net. The Winding Ways quilt pattern is easily explained in Nancy Elliott MacDonald's book Winding Ways Quilts A practically Pinless Approach.

Fans of Denise Mina or Minette Walters should try:

• Mallory's Oracle by Carol O'Connell
• A Perfect Evil by Alex Kava
• Judgment Calls by Alafair Burke
• Detective Inspector Huss by Helen Tursten
• Echoes of Lies by Jo Bannister
• Dead Wrong by Mariah Stewart
• Death's Autograph by Marianne MacDonald
• Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman

Because I Love Her: 34 Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond edited by Andrea N. Richesin

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America by Tim Egan

Homer's Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, Or How Learned about Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat by Gwen Cooper

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Fierce