Once Around the Blogs

First, let me thank author Laurie R. King (Touchstone) for all of her wonderful blog posts last week. I’ve been more than usually occupied with other writing responsibilities of late, so Laurie’s offer to contribute to The Rap Sheet could hardly have come at a better time. I hope you enjoyed hearing from her as much as I did. Perhaps she can be coaxed to contribute again here at some other time.

Second, it’s been rather slow in the crime-fiction blogosphere of late. Several sites (including Bookflings, Jim Huang’s Blog, and Shotsmag Confidential) seem to have gone into serious hibernation lately, and we hope they will wake up soon. But as the new year gets slowly into gear, there are at least a few things worth reading elsewhere:

• “Lifelong newspaperman”-turned-blogger Dave Knadler may be a bit tardy in announcing his selections of the best and worst books and films of 2007, but that’s no reason to argue with his picks. I won’t, anyway.

• A site called Net Notables has put together a rundown of “312 Classic TV Intros,” including the main title sequences for Adam-12, Barnaby Jones, Baretta, Cagney and Lacey, Cannon, Dragnet, Ellery Queen, Father Dowling Mysteries, The F.B.I., Hardcastle and McCormick, Hawaii Five-O, Hill Street Blues, Ironside, It Takes a Thief, Kojak, Mannix, Miami Vice, Moonlighting, Quincy, M.E., Remington Steele, The Rockford Files, Spenser: For Hire, and The Streets of San Francisco. Most of these might have been mined from Lee Goldberg’s Main Title Heaven, but it’s nice that someone thought to give them a bit of attention again. You can check out the whole lot here. Although I’m extremely fond of many of the crime drama openings, my favorite among the choices here may still be this one. When in the hell is this show ever going to make it to DVD?

• Speaking of Goldberg, his blog leads me to a play-turned-book that I’ve never heard of before, but that I must have immediately.

• Sara Paretsky talks about her new standalone novel, Bleeding Kansas, with Minnesota Public Radio. Listen to that interview here.

• This is just every crime historian’s dream come true. Elizabeth Foxwell writes at her blog, The Bunburyist:

Harvard Law Library has a new digital collection, Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders, of more than 500 broadsides that were sold to witnesses of public executions in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain. These include an 1808 account of mutiny, the execution of Fenians for killing a police officer in 1867, and the confession of Constance Kent for murdering her half-brother in 1860 (the case is the basis for Such Bitter Business by Elbur Ford, aka Victoria Holt).

• And did you remember that today is Sherlock Holmes’ birthday? The Baker Street Blog didn’t, and it’s got an excellent post up explaining why this should be the Great Detective’s 154th birthday. (Hat tip to Bill Peschel.)