• Independent Crime’s Nathan Cain points out that New Yorker Reed Farrel Coleman (Soul Patch) is the latest author to be interviewed by Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards of Behind the Black Mask. Listen to that podcast here.
• The latest, spring 2007 issue of Mystery Readers Journal is just off the presses, and selected contents have been made available on the Web. This is apparently the first of two “Ethnic Detectives” editions, including pieces by Naomi Hirahara, Ed Goldberg, Gar Anthony Haywood, and S.J. Rozan. Online you’ll find James O. Born trying to define “ethnic,” the suddenly ubiquitous Reed Farrel Coleman writing about “outsiders” in detective fiction, and Randall Hicks (The Baby Game) remarking on the cultural ingenuity of Tony Hillerman’s Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee novels. (A big hat tip to Detectives Beyond Borders.)
• Is Ken Bruen really ready to kill off his Irish series sleuth, Jack Taylor? He says “yes,” that his next installment of the series, Benediction, will bring Jack’s exit.
• It was 18 years ago today that Daphne du Maurier, best known as the British author of that classic 1938 gothic novel Rebecca, died at her home in Cornwall, England, at age 81. However, this anniversary will fetch very little attention, compared with the festivities planned for the centenary of her birth on May 13. As The Guardian reported earlier this week, “du Maurier is about to be comprehensively celebrated.” What all’s on tap?
The BBC plans a double helping: a new drama, Daphne, by Amy Jenkins and a documentary by Rick Stein, The Road to Manderley. In Fowey, Cornwall, where she spent most of her writing life, there will be a Daphne du Maurier festival between 10 and 19 May that will include talks, concerts and guided walks. There will also be a literary conference in which her son, Kits Browning, will take part. Justine Picardie has chosen this moment to reconstitute du Maurier in fiction, as a detective in her thriller Daphne, and Virago is about to publish The Daphne du Maurier Companion.• Deadly Pleasures editor George Easter reports that British-born Canadian novelist Maureen Jennings has struck a deal with the UK television company Granada International, whereby Granada will distribute a new 13-episode series of The Murdoch Mysteries--based on Jennings’ award-winning novels about Victorian Toronto detective William Murdoch--well beyond the borders of Canada. The Murdoch books already spawned one trilogy of TV episodes a few years back. This new series will be produced by Shaftesbury Films of Canada. No air date has been reported yet. By the way, Jennings’ seventh Murdoch novel, A Journeyman to Grief, is scheduled for publication by Canada’s McClelland & Stewart on May 1.
• Finally, S.J. Rozan is looking for more submissions to her Six-Word Stories competition. Otherwise, she’ll have to close up shop, and we don’t want her to do that. E-mail your contributions to: sixwordstory@aol.com.
1 comment:
If anybody reading The Rap Sheet today is also in Miami Beach for Sleuthfest, I thought I'd mention not to miss the outside pool bar and the fabulous barkeep Elke. Almost as informative as the author's panels--Elke knows everybody--she also makes the best margarita I've ever had in Florida.
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