Sifting Through the Evidence

• True-crime buff Steve Huff has decided on a change of direction. What used to be Huff’s Crime Blog has now become History’s Miseries, with the author offering “new blog entries about old crimes. My idea of ‘historic’ true crime,” Huff explains, “is any crime story, solved or not, from the last 200 years or so, up until the mid 1980s.” He sets his new pace with a fascinating three-part look back at homicide in the lives of two renowned American architects: Stanford White and Frank Lloyd Wright. Part 1 and Part 2 are already available, with the concluding segment still to come. Great stuff for those of us interested in both history and mystery. (Also worth checking out: 100 Years Ago Today. It isn’t completed devoted to crimes with a past, but frequently reminds us that a century has passed without making us any safer from passion killers, murderous doctors, and slayers who’d justify their crimes under some “unwritten law.”)

• Oline Cogdill, blogger? David J. Montgomery reports that the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s longtime crime-fiction critic has joined the paper’s books editor, Chauncey Mabe, as author of “Off the Page,” a blog about “cultural life, both inside and outside the covers.” Adds Montgomery: “Aside from the fact that it will be interesting to see what Oline has to say, the newspaper will be using the blog as a tool to help gauge how much reader interest there is in books coverage.” Cogdill’s introductory post can be found here.

• Sean Chercover, author of Big City, Bad Blood, is interviewed at some length by Russel McLean of Crime Scene Scotland on subjects ranging from how to create a believable private-eye protagonist and Chercover’s own experience as an investigator, to Chicago as a backdrop for fiction and the much-rumored death of the fictional gumshoe. Their exchange can be read here.

• Sandra Parshall dismisses the idea that people have considerably more leisure time in which to read during the summer, before offering up several reading suggestions that would certainly keep one consumed at poolside. I’m especially intrigued by her recommendation of The Last Nightingale, by Anthony Flacco, a historical novel (set against the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire) that’s caught my own eye recently. You’ll find Parshall’s reading suggestions here.

• In the meantime, Ben Hunt of Material Witness proclaims that Last Light, a novel about oil shortages and ensuing panic written by British author Alex Scarrow, “should be the thriller of the summer. It should be the novel that airport booksellers can’t get enough of. And you should read it.” His review is here.

• For those of us who missed last weekend’s Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, BBC Radio 4’s Front Row program has prepared an audio sampler of the highlights, to be broadcast this evening in Britain but available to the rest of us online for the next week. Catch that half-hour show here.

• Did you know that a movie (actually, a second movie) is being made from Elmore Leonard’s 1953 western short story, “3:10 to Yuma”? Neither did I, but apparently it’s going to star the ubiquitous Russell Crowe, as well as Christian Bale and Gretchen Mol (the latter of whom captivated audiences in The Notorious Betty Page). Cinematical has the “badass poster” for this new 3:10 to Yuma, which is due to be released in September.

• Finally, today is the 25th birthday of my daughter, Cassandra. Happy birthday, dear, and love always.