Invitation to Murder

Graham Powell, the mastermind behind the CrimeSpot aggregator site, is making a most unusual plea to crime novelists. Spurred on by his discovery that two of his colleagues appear in Michael Connelly’s latest novel, Echo Park, he asks writers to

Please kill me in your next book, story, whatever. Make me the sidekick, the fall guy, the villain, whoever you want. Shoot me, stab me, tickle me to death, I don’t care. Just make sure you spell my name right. Speaking of which, my full name is Edward Graham Powell, Jr. Be sure to use at least two of those elements. And let me know about it so I can gloat in this space.

Ah, but beware Mr. Powell: Novelists can inflict more mischief upon people they know than merely killing them off in their fiction. For instance, Rap Sheet contributor Ali Karim noted recently his appearance in a forthcoming No Exit Press book called Gangster Wives, in which he takes a turn as an undercover cop, Detective Ali S. Karim (“with the S standing [apparently] for “Sex God”), who’s involved in some pretty erotic episodes.

READ MORE: “Sarah Weinman Is a Character,” by Marshal Zeringue (Campaign for the American Reader).