Two More Reasons to Go On Living

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently published a positively pedestrian interview with crime writer Scott Phillips (The Ice Harvest) that’s nearly painful to take in. (I mean, has this woman ever read any of his books?) What redeems that exchange, however, is the hint of what’s to come: Phillips gives us a sneak preview of his next novel, “an environmental, political book set in the future where nothing works. While Cottonwood [his western crime novel published in 2004] was about the birth of a small town, this is about the death of a small town.” Read the whole interview, such as it is, here.

Closer to home, we received word about starlet Jessica Biel’s purchase of the film rights to Die a Little, the Edgar-nominated first novel by Rap Sheet contributor Megan Abbott. Although there might be some eyebrows raised at the prospect of the 25-year-old Ms. Biel (Esquire magazine’s “Sexiest Woman Alive” in 2005) modernizing this 1950s L.A. noir tale, we’re thrilled for our friend, so it’s all good. Meanwhile, fans of feminine noir can look forward to the upcoming anthology edited by Abbott, A Hell of a Woman, which will contain stories by Vicki Hendricks, Rebecca Pawel, Cornelia Read, Zoë Sharp, Eddie Muller, and Allan Guthrie, among others. A Hell of a Woman is due out in December.

(Hat tip to Sarah Weinman, who is also a contributor to A Hell of a Woman--and deserves that description in her own right.)