From Ends to Beginnings

• Just days after his death at age 77, funeral services will be held in Rochester, New York, for prolific American short-story writer Edward D. Hoch. People wishing to say good-bye to the late wordsmith are invited to call at the Farrell-Ryan Funeral Home (777 Long Pond Road; 585-225-0248) on Sunday, from 1 to 4 p.m. And a church service is scheduled for Monday, January 21, beginning at 10 a.m. at Our Lady of Mercy Church (36 Armstrong Road). We offer our condolences to Hoch’s family.

• While their prominent year of premieres has ended, their influence has apparently not. The Killer Year company of first-time novelists has emerged from 2007 with a brand-new anthology of its members’ work. Edited by Lee Child (who has himself enjoyed considerably more than 12 months of acclaim), Killer Year: Stories to Die For ... From the Hottest New Crime Writers receives a rave in Bookgasm, even though the book’s contents extend the definition of Killer Year authors to include Duane Swierczynski and Ken Bruen, neither of whom made their debut in 2007.

• As Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac reminds us, today marks the 199th birthday of poet, author, and editor Edgar Allan Poe, father of the modern detective story. Not only has this occasion brought out the familiar anonymous visitor to Poe’s grave in Baltimore, but it has provoked a related celebration at the blog Poe’s Deadly Daughters (which observes the first anniversary of its creation today) and a note at The Bunburyist, editor-writer Elizabeth Foxwell’s blog, about how Poe isn’t the only crime fiction contributor with a birthday on this date. (See also “Poe’s Poisoned Pen.”)

• We’ve remarked before on copycat book covers. But now Petrona’s Maxine Clarke is drawing attention to another annoying trend: duplicate crime-fiction titles. Clearly, the human imagination ain’t what it used to be.

• Irish novelist Declan Burke explains in Pulp Pusher how he came up with the characters’ names in his much-heralded 2007 novel, The Big O. Read all about it here.

• Karen Meek has notes from this week’s London launch party for Crimini, “a collection of Italian noir short stories from Bitter Lemon Press.” (Unfortunately, that volume isn’t due out in the States till April.) Catch her observations here.

• Finally, there’s lots of publicity surrounding the debut this next week of Murdoch Mysteries, a Canadian television series based on Maureen Jennings’ popular lot of novels featuring Victorian-era Toronto police detective William Murdoch. An associated Citytv Web site has gone live, more information and a clip from the series are available here, and the program has captured the cover of the Toronto Star’s Star Week supplement. Murdoch Mysteries kicks off on Thursday night, January 24, with actor Yannick Bisson in the protagonist’s role.