Fat Men, Sunglasses, and Vampires, Oh My

Veteran political reporter Helen Thomas may be losing her seat in the White House briefing room after speaking too honestly and critically about lame duck George W. Bush, but we seem to have retained our front-row outlook on crime-fiction developments. The problem is, however, that today represents one of those occasions when the amount of work far exceeds the number of hours available, so a wrap-up post seems much in order.

• With the publication of Reginald Hill’s latest Andrew Dalziel and Peter Pascoe novel, The Death of Dalziel, due next month in both Great Britain and the United States (where it’s being retitled Death Comes for the Fat Man), critic and columnist Mike Ripley delivers a fine encomium to the English crime writer in Shots:

… I can’t remember the first Reginald Hill book I read, and that has been bugging me of late, ever since I realised that the forthcoming The Death of Dalziel was the 21st novel in the series.

Now twenty-one books featuring the same characters, over a period of 37 years is quite an achievement for a writer, not to mention a strenuous test of loyalty and stamina for the reader. Personally, I can think of only two other writers who have commanded my devotion, respect and failing eyesight for that mystical 21-book marathon: Michael Innes and John D. MacDonald, though both wrote many other books outside of the series-hero envelope.

As has Reginald Hill. In fact until I started this little homage, I hadn’t realised just how many books he had written since his first tentative steps into crime fiction around 1969. When I suggested to him that it might be 48 novels, he said:

That sounds very reasonable. I counted religiously till I got to ten, then in a more secular fashion till I got to 20, and after that I lost interest in keeping a tally. I mean, if twenty doesn’t mean you’re a real writer, then what number does?

Even my very basic skills in mathematics tell me, therefore, that the Dalziel and Pascoe series for which he is best-known, is in fact only about 44% of his output, not counting short stories (at which he’s been known to turn a deft hand).

How does he do it? I mean, physically, what is the secret behind his prolific output? It seems there isn’t one:

I really am very boring and it’s straight on to the old PC. No artificial stimulants, seven-per-cent solutions or communion with the spirits.

You can enjoy all of Ripley’s tribute here.

• Sarah Weinman offers the second installment today of a roundtable discussion she had recently with several other U.S. book reviewers about Patrick Anderson’s new non-fiction work, The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction. Today’s topic seems to be the work’s inclusiveness, and both Jerome Weeks and The Rap Sheet’s own Dick Adler offer their opinions.

• Lee Goldberg’s Main Title Heaven this week highlights a pair of pretty easily forgotten TV crime dramas: 1981’s McClain’s Law, which placed former Gunsmoker James Arness in the role of a retired, injured cop who returned to active duty in order to avenge the killing of a friend, and then remained on the force--much to his superior’s regret; and A Man Called Sloane, a single-season (1979-1980) Quinn Martin production that imagined The Wild Wild West’s Robert Conrad--absurdly--as a freelance U.S. secret agent who takes on occasional jobs for an intelligence operation called UNIT. Conrad would’ve been better off sticking with the Stephen Cannell series he left in order to make this turkey, The Duke.

• Just in case you’re wondering (though I doubt you are) what ex-James Bond actor Timothy Dalton thinks about his successor in the role, Daniel Craig, skip over the Cinematical for the answer.

• Abraham Lincoln, in reviewing a book that obviously didn’t rock his world, remarked that “People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.” The same could be said of the latest video compilation of ominous lines delivered by CSI: Miami police protagonist Horatio Caine (David Caruso). If you delighted in a previous selection of Caruso declarations, then this fast-paced “sunglasses edition” of one-liners is for you.



• After Hard Case Crime editor-publisher Charles Ardai sent an e-note around this morning, lamenting last week’s passing of 85-year-old novelist Richard S. Prather, I asked Ardai--who last year republished Prather’s The Peddler (1952)--whether he has any plans to bring back more of that writer’s work. “Not in the near future, since we’re already bought up through mid-’08,” he answered, “but it’s possible we might do another in a year or so ...”

• Following on Susan Mansfield’s piece in The Scotsman about “Tartan Noir” authors, Shots editor Mike Stotter wonders “what other UK Noir Packs we have out there”:

We tend to go for a generic area as opposed to north, south, east or west. Obviously Ken Bruen heads the Irish Noir Gang (although John Connolly might like to lay claim to the crown). Do we have Welsh Noir? I suppose candidates for this would be Malcolm Pryce and Bill James. I don’t think we have Norfolk Noir, West Country Noir or even Essex Noir (come on [Mike] Ripley, make me look a liar). There has been the emergence of London Noir, Dublin Noir and Nottingham Noir. But I can’t really see Oxford Noir or Cheltenham Noir or even Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Noir taking off, can you?

• And Crimespree Cinema’s Jeremy Lynch reports that a film version of Charlie Huston’s vampire detective novel Already Dead (2005) is one step closer to being made. “Scott Rosenberg has been picked to write the screenplay ...,” Lynch explains. “The film rights are held by Phoenix Films and will be produced by Michael De Luca of De Luca Productions. This actually is a good thing, as De Luca is known for his love of comics and graphic novels. I think his sensibilities will be in line with Houston’s work. No word yet as to who will direct or star in it.” Lynch adds that Already Dead is the first of five planned books featuring bloodsucking private eye Joe Pitt, and “[t]he hope is to turn them into a movie franchise.”