The Great Summer Day Round-up

It’s an awfully beautiful day here in Seattle, Washington--all blue sky and trilling songbirds and comfortable temperatures in the high 60s. Tourists who come here now (and I hear Seattle is attracting a record number of visitors this summer) are likely to think that conditions are always so nice in these parts, that all those stories of interminable drizzly days and leaden skies are bunkum. But I can tell you, those stories are absolutely 100-percent correct, and I have the moss between my toes to prove it. Those of us who live here bask in the all-too-brief summer beauty of Seattle, whether by sitting out on a porch with a book in hand (as is my habit), boating the nearby lakes, or maybe hiking through mountains reached with a quick car drive. Given our short summer, the last way we choose to spend it is reclined inside, in front of a computer. Yet The Rap Sheet is a demanding mistress, and I’m the one charged with keeping it fed. So, a few tidbits into the maw:

• Crimespree Cinema makes it sound as if the movie version of Dennis Lehane’s 1998 novel, Gone, Baby, Gone, is coming along, though not altogether smoothly. Blogger Jeremy Lynch notes, for instance, that Gone Baby Gone--the title having somehow lost its punctuation between the printed page and the production room--“has had its limited release date pushed back to October 19th (Damn them!!!!) and now there is no solid date for it’s national release ... but I am thinking maybe Nov. 1st, since that is the date it hits theaters in some other countries.” The movie stars Casey Affleck (Ben’s bro) and the lovely Michelle Monaghan as Boston private eyes Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro on the search for an abducted 4-year-old girl. Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman also star. If the trailer (watch that here) is anything to go by, this ought to be good. But, I’ve been fooled before.

• The June/July 2007 issue of Mystery News flew through my mail slot this last week, with its cover feature about Michael Koryta, author of the new novel A Welcome Grave. Inside are a profile of David Sundstrand (Shadow of the Raven), who I confess I hadn’t heard of until reading Stephen Miller’s piece; a short retrospective on once-popular novelist Anthony Gilbert (aka Lucy Beatrice Malleson), whose Murder by Experts (1936) introduced protagonist Arthur Cook, “the little cockney defense lawyer, who is not above bending the law when his cause is just”; and MN’s usual abundance of book reviews, too numerous to name.

• Meanwhile, the Summer 2007 edition of Mystery Readers Journal has now been mailed out. It’s the second of two “Ethnic Detective” issues and contains pieces by Julia Buckley, Ken Kuhlken, Sujata Massey, and Nick Stone.

• To help celebrate the 100th birthday (in mid-August) of Seattle’s landmark Pike Place Market, thriller writer Robert Ferrigno (Prayers for the Assassin), who lives in the area, today launches the first installment of a four-part novella in The Seattle Times. Judging solely by this initial entry, “Double Strike” follows two paths: one a current story line, following a young woman named Janine (“a pretty, lightly freckled redhead with no self-confidence and better taste in shampoo than men”), who accidentally discovers a double-headed Lady Liberty silver dollar from 1899 jammed between cobblestones in a Market alley; and a second story track, built around a poor and desperate, but still ambitious Seattle boy named Henry who, in 1931, steals what is apparently that same coin from a yellow-suited criminal type, only to have the swell offer him a job. But what sort of job, we’re left to wonder until tomorrow’s installment. You can either read Part I of “Double Strike” here, or listen to Ferrigno read it here. (Illustration by Gabi Campanario for The Seattle Times.)

• After having James Ellroy, Megan Abbott, and R.N. (Roger) Morris as guest-bloggers at The Rap Sheet, I’ve been scouting around for other writers who’d be able and willing to follow in their footsteps. One of the people I keep thinking about, but have not yet asked, is Baltimore author Laura Lippman (What the Dead Know). Although I’ve never actually met her, she’s long struck me as particularly playful and sharp, and an ideal candidate for guest-blogging on this page. Apparently, the folks at Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, think along the same lines, because they hosted the lovely Ms. Lippman on their own blog all last week. You can read the totality of her contributions here.

• California writer Gregg Hurwitz casts his new novel, The Crime Writer, for Hollywood at Marshal Zeringue’s My Book, the Movie. Click here to see who he might ask to star in the film adaptation. (And to find out more about crime novels featuring crime-writer protagonists, take a trip over to read Sarah Weinman’s latest Los Angeles Times column.)

• Speaking of Zeringue, he’s convinced Aussie author Peter Corris to submit his latest Cliff Hardy novel, Appeal Denied, to the Page 99 Test. Even Corris is surprised by the results. Read more here.

• Elizabeth Foxwell reminds us that today would’ve been the 96th birthday of John Ball, author of In the Heat of the Night (1965), which introduced African-American police detective Virgil Tibbs. Ball, unfortunately, died in 1988.

• For Newsweek, Elmore Leonard chooses his “five most important books,” all of them by men. He also ’fesses up to never having finished Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. “I’ve never gotten beyond page 50,” Leonard says. (Hat tip to Lit Lists.)

• The Chicago Tribune profiles the seven Windy City authors who keep The Outfit steaming along. Read more here.

• Another favorite crime-story anthology from Criminal Brief’s Steven Steinbock can be found here.

• Rumor alert: The James Bond fan site MI6 suggests that, after being turned down by Lee Child and possibly others writers (among them John le Carré and Frederick Forsyth), Ian Fleming Publications has settled on British novelist Sebastian Faulks to pen an original Bond novel in celebration of Fleming’s 100th birthday in May 2008. MI6 reports:

Faulks, 54, is best known for his novels “Charlotte Gray” and “Birdsong”, both of which achieved critical acclaim with the latter placing #13 in the BBC’s recent poll to find Britain’s best loved novel. His latest novel, “Engleby”, was released in May this year. Faulks is no stranger to 007, though. In 2003 he published “Pistache”, a collection of short literary parodies including a hilarious piece where Ian Fleming takes James Bond shopping. He has also critiqued Bond films for the British press, including a rather negative take on 1999’s “The World Is Not Enough”. If the rumour holds to be true, fans may jump to the conclusion that the centenary novel will be a direct continuation of the Fleming canon, as Faulks’ novels are praised for their period settings.

With less than a year now before this new Bond novel is to be published, I sure hope some agreement on an author is reached soon. Whether or not it’s Faulks.

• Too-tall Steve Brewer (Monkey Man) writes in The Albuquerque Tribune about the otherworldly task of writing a novel at home. His essay can be found here.

• Dave White, author of the forthcoming novel When One Man Dies, is Jochem van der Steen’s latest interviewee at Sons of Spade.

• No film version of Elmore Leonard’s Tishomingo Blues (2002)? That’s the word from the movie’s director and star, Don Cheadle, who’s interviewed at Comingsoon.net.

• And for readers who still can’t tell their MacIlvanneys from their Minas, the online bookshop BooksfromScotland.com has put together a handy overview of “Scotland’s current clutch of crime writers.” The compilers are Lefty Award-winning novelist Donna Moore (... Go to Helena Handbasket) and journalist-turned-author Tony Black. There are even a few names on their list that are new to me. Check it out.

Now, back to the porch ...