Of Bosomy Blondes and Rich Reads

• Am I the only one who noticed the astonishing similarity between the cover of the seventh issue of The New Black Mask magazine, which Mark Coggins wrote about yesterday, and the jacket from the 1984 Quill Mysterious Classic paperback edition of Harold Q. Masur’s novel Bury Me Deep (1947)? Of the two, though, I definitely lean toward the Masur cover, the design of which is credited to Irving Freeman and Steve Macanga. It’s based on the novel’s opening:

It was a cold Thursday evening when I first saw the blonde. I had just come home from Penn Station and I opened the door to my apartment and I found her there. She was curled upon on my sofa, listening to my radio, and sipping her own brandy. At least I assumed it was her own because I dislike brandy and never buy it.

I stood there, rooted. Her costume had me floored. She was wearing black panties and a black bra and that was all. She sat with one leg folded comfortably under her and she smiled at me. ... She was a leggy, bosomy number, flamboyantly constructed, with bright jonquil-yellow hair and pearly skin that contrasted startlingly against the black underthings. She looked up at me, and the alcoholic glassiness in her eyes didn’t keep her from making them warm and cordial. Women have looked at me like that before, but never in church.

Bury Me Deep was the first novel in Masur’s series featuring “fast-living” lawyer-detective Scott Jordan. I remember buying the Quill edition decades ago, mostly because of that eye-catching cover (who wouldn’t have done the same?), which was apparently an artistic tribute to the first, 1948 Pocket Books edition of that novel.

• More than three months after the first edition went live, the second Web edition of Astonishing Adventures! (with extra pulp, we’re promised) is available. The PDF version can be read immediately; a print version should soon be obtainable.

• After soliciting “Best Books of 2007” nominations from many other writers, Chicago Sun-Times crime-fiction critic David J. Montgomery--along with other contributors to that newspaper’s book pages--reveals his own favorite read of this last year: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling. “I know it doesn’t make me look high-brow like most critics try to do,” Montgomery remarks somewhat acidly in his blog, “but I was being honest. I flat out loved that book to pieces.” You can read all of the Sun-Times’ “good reads” selections for the year here.

• If you haven’t noticed, Euro Crime’s Karen Meek has been running a series of short write-ups about Christmas-related crime fiction. In case you need a literary distraction from the droning-on of relatives who choose this time of year to share all of their physical and economic complaints ... Meanwhile, blogger CrimeFicReader, from It’s a Crime (or a Mystery ...), has concluded her series in which she asked British crime writers to select books that they would themselves give out for Christmas. Her most recent respondents were Matt Beynon Rees, Debi Alper, Anne Brooke, and Joanna Hines. CrimeFicReader has also posted the list of her own favorite books from 2007, which include John Lawton’s Second Violin and L.C. Tyler’s The Herring Seller’s Apprentice.

• Novelist Martin Edwards has posted on his Web site an essay, “The Detective in British Crime Fiction,” that he wrote originally for the not-yet-published Harcourt Encyclopedia of Crime Fiction. It’s a useful survey, especially for readers who want to branch out beyond American mysteries, but aren’t sure where to start in the crowded, diverse UK set. The piece can be found here.

• Oh drat! I missed celebrating yesterday’s Second Annual Graham Powell Appreciation Day. So let me send out my belated thanks to Mr. Powell, who operates the ever-useful aggregator site CrimeSpot.

• Another thing I missed doing, what with all of the holiday planning and end-of-year deadlines on my plate lately, was mentioning the latest stop for the Carnival of the Criminal Minds. Ben Hunt of Material Witness played host this time around, with a mix of seasonal crime-fiction notes from all over the blogosphere. Read his entire submission here. The next stop on this Carnival, around January 1, will be the BookBitchBlog.

• Editor, critic, and anthologist Otto Penzler--riding high on the acclaim for his Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps--talks with John J. Miller about the history of pulp fiction, in an interview on the National Review magazine site. I don’t usually read the conservative National Review, so I have to thank David J. Montgomery for passing this link along.

• Two recent “Page 69 Test” participants that caught my eye: Michael Dobbs applies the test to his latest work, The Lords’ Day, and Gabriel Cohen follows with an examination of his own page 69 from The Graving Dock, one of the last books I am likely to get through in 2007.

• I received, but have not yet had time to dig much into Wolf Woman Bay, the new collection of “notable novellas” from editors Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg. However, Bookgasm’s Rod Lott has mostly high praise for this anthology.

• Finally, since we’re so close to Christmas, I couldn’t help but notice this mention in today’s edition of The Writer’s Almanac:

On this day in 1823, an anonymous poem entitled “A Visit from St. Nicholas” was printed in the Troy (New York) Sentinel. It is known better by its first line: “’Twas the night before Christmas ... “ Though attributed to Clement C. Moore, it is likely that the original poem was written by Major Henry Livingston. Many of the modern qualities associated with Santa Claus grew out of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which described Santa as “chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.”

Happy Holidays, everyone. Due to the usual array of family obligations, The Rap Sheet will be running on a reduced-posting schedule over the next few days, but those of us here want to wish all of you good cheer and good fortune as 2007 comes to a close.