Hit and Run

• The January 2007 issue of ThugLit has just been posted, containing short but punchy fiction from Tim Wohlforth (“Rara Avis”), Jónas Knútsson (“Viddi and the Bucharest Brawler”), Steve Messner (“One Night”), and others.

• C. Max Magee at The Millions blog includes Michael Chabon’s forthcoming novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, on his rundown of “the most anticipated books of 2007.” “Chabon’s first full-length adult novel since The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,” he explains, “is a thriller set in an imaginary world inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s short-lived plan during WWII to create a Jewish homeland in Alaska, rather than the Middle East. Sounds interesting, no? We’ve been following this book for quite some time now, as it was originally set to be released nearly a year ago. But Chabon put the brakes on the project when he decided it was moving along too fast.” The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is due out from HarperCollins in early May.

• In a late entry, the Boston Phoenix names George Pelecanos’ The Night Gardener as one of his favorite books of 2006.

• Crime Squad this month interviews author Gillian Flynn, while Material Witness blogger Ben Hunt reviews Flynn’s new book, Sharp Objects, concluding: “It is scarcely believable that this is the work of a first novelist, so accomplished is it in every facet of the writing.”

• Over at her blog, Reading the Past, Midwestern reference/electronic resources librarian Sarah Johnson today interviews Deanna Raybourn, author Silent in the Grave, Raybourn’s first entry in a trilogy starring Lady Julia Grey, “an unwitting and unlikely amateur detective” who, in Silent, engages the services of an enigmatic private inquiry agent to investigate the untimely demise, in 1886, of “Her inattentive husband, Sir Edward Grey.” (Hat tip to Steve Lewis of Mystery*File.)

• Rap Sheet contributor Ali Karim takes a moment away from writing about crime fiction to comment, at January Magazine, on recent tributes to Belgian writer/illustrator Georges Remi (aka Hergé), creator of the Tintin comics. Read Karim’s comments here.

• And what’s the worst American TV idea ever? It just might be NBC’s plans to remake The Bionic Woman, a 1976-1978 series that starred the winsome Lindsay Wagner. We can rebuild her ...