A Little of This, a Little of That

• What should you read this summer? Others, including several Rap Sheet contributors, have already weighed in on this year’s best books for summer reading. But finally, Britain’s Guardian has delivered its suggestions. In the way of crime fiction, Marcel Berlins suggests picking up Mayra Montero’s Dancing to Almendra, Peter Temple’s new An Iron Rose (not one of his P.I. Jack Irish novels), and John Harvey’s Darkness and Light, among others. Meanwhile, Peter Millar has a separate list of thrillers he’d like to recommend, including Philip Kerr’s The One from the Other (just out in the UK), Deon Meyer’s Devil’s Peak, and Andrew Wilson’s The Lying Tongue.

• Speaking of summer reads, David Terrenoire has a suggestion of his own to make: James O. Born’s Field of Fire. Read his comments on that book here.

• The July issue of ThugLit is now up, offering new short stories by Nathan Cain (“Amphetamine Logic”), Hugh Lessig (“We All Came from Splattertown”), and Hilary Davidson (“Anniversary”).

• Crimespree Cinema’s Jeremy Lynch has the casting choices for a cable-TV series based on Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Read more here.

• Slate’s Meghan O’Rourke assesses the latest film incarnation of teen sleuth Nancy Drew here.

• Although the late Michael Dibdin’s 11th and final Aurelio Zen novel, End Games, won’t be out in the States until August, it’s already hit British bookstores. Mark Lawson uses his review in The Guardian to applaud the two-decade-long career its author and his Italian detective creation.

• Since I was out of town all weekend, I missed noting what would have been James M. Cain’s 115th birthday yesterday (he died in 1977). Today’s most prominent anniversary is a far less cheery one.

• Nancy Pickard submits her celebrated novel The Virgin of Small Plains to Marshall Zeringue’s Page 69 Test, while Richard K. Morgan does the same thing with his futuristic new thriller, Thirteen.

• For readers who don’t know their way around either Sweden or its homegrown crime fiction, freelance writer Charlotte West delivers a useful introduction to both. You’ll find her guide here.

• And there’s another update on the progress of “Smokin’ Joe” Carnahan’s development of a movie based on James Ellroy’s 1992 novel, White Jazz--and this time, it’s illustrated.