Casing the Neighborhood

• Interest in crime fiction isn’t flagging yet. Boiling down an article from Beneath the Cover, B.V. Lawson of In Reference to Murder notes that “the Mystery & Detective category generated an estimated $422 million dollars in 2006, an increase of more than 4% over 2005, and 17% over 2002. Consumer dollars spent on mystery and detective books accounted for 6.7% of all consumer dollars spent on books last year. And according to Bowker’s Books In Print database, 5,580 new mystery and detective titles were published in the U.S. in 2006, a 9% increase over 2005 and a 33% increase over 2002. Of course, the top five revenue-generating publishers rang up $371 million in sales, or 88% of all dollars spent in the category. So there’s plenty of mystery-book fodder out there, just concentrated in a few book ‘farms.’” Read up, folks.

• Euro Crime’s Karen Meek notes that Murder Unprompted (1982), the eighth installment in British author Simon Brett’s mystery series starring failed, middle-aged actor Charles Paris, is currently being dramatized on BBC Radio 4, with Golden Globe winner Bill Nighy playing Paris. The premiere episode was broadcast last Friday morning, with another to be heard this coming Friday. Each episode will be available to listeners for seven days after its original broadcast. Part 1 can be heard here. By the way, it’s only right that Brett’s work should be appropriate for radio; after all, he worked for BBC Radio before becoming a full-time novelist in the 1970s.

• Also from Euro Crime comes news that another episode of Sir David Jason’s ITV series, A Touch of Frost, is being filmed. The blog quotes Digital Spy, saying that “The 90-minute episode is titled ‘In the Public Interest’ and is now in production in Leeds. It will air next year.” The Frost series is based on characters created by the late R.D. Wingfield, whose sixth and final entry in the Detective Inspector Jack Frost series, A Killing Frost, will be published posthumously in the UK next spring.

• Ah, shit! (Excuse my frickin’ French.) Just a day after I wrote optimistically on this page about James Ellroy’s 1992 novel, White Jazz, finally being brought to the silver screen with George Clooney in the lead (and, perhaps, Charlize Theron as his love interest), Cinematical says that Clooney is now out of the project. It’s just the latest hardship for a production that already seems rife with them.

• I’m sorry to say that I’ve never read the work of Australian playwright-novelist Steve J. Spears, who Crime Down Under’s Damien Gay says died earlier this month.

• If you’ve longed for biographies of some of your favorite characters from crime fiction, then British publisher Quercus has just the project lined up for you. As Petrona blogger Maxine Clarke writes: “Otto Penzler, who needs no introduction to followers of crime fiction, is to oversee publication of several profiles, which include Anne Perry on Thomas and Charlotte Pitt; Laura Lippman on Tess Monaghan; Robert B. Parker on Spenser; Michael Connelly on Hieronymus Bosch; Lee Child on Jack Reacher; and Jeffery Deaver on Lincoln Rhyme. Other authors who are committed to the project are said to include Jonathan Kellerman, Faye Kellerman, Ridley Pearson and Stephen Hunter.” Blogger-critic Sarah Weinman provides additional details about this project.

• And just a reminder that nominations for the first Spinetingler Awards are currently open, with these commendations to be given in eight categories. You can e-mail nominations here until November 15. For more information about the Spinetinglers and what qualifies for nomination, click here.