Sweepings: The Woke-Up-Too-Early Edition

• As I mentioned before, contributors to The Outfit--in association with the Windy City’s “One Book, One Chicago” program, which chose Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye as its April citywide read--have been commenting on that 1953 Philip Marlowe novel. Marcus Sakey encapsulates the coverage this way: “We’ve talked about him at some length now. You’ve read stories of first exposure, weighed his misogyny, agreed that he was a master stylist and a pretty weak plotter. We’ve broken down Marlowe, talked about booze and stereotypes and the self as a symbol.” For those of you who haven’t been keeping up, here’s a list of the posts in this series:

“The Long Goodbye,” by Michael Dymmoch
“The Marlowe Paradigm,” by Jim Doherty
“A Long Hello to The Long Goodbye ...,” by Sean Chercover
“Chandler and the Fairer Sex,” by Libby Hellman
“The Great American Novel of Alcoholism,” by Sam Reaves
“What a Lovely Way to Burn,” by Kevin Guilfoile
“The Long Good-bye,” by Sara Paretsky
“The End of The Long Goodbye,” by Barbara D’Amato

In addition, Sakey--who wrote not long ago about introducing a class of teen writers to Chandler’s prose--has launched a contest to write the best so-called Chandlerism, “a one-liner description rich in attitude and flair and noir sensibilities” that borrows from The Master’s sardonic style. My favorite among the submissions comes from Jon Clinch, author of the fabulous, Mark Twain-inspired novel Finn (2007): “It was the kind of morning when your shirt sticks to your back and everything else sticks to your conscience.”

• I thought I’d written about this already, but apparently not. It seems that Canadian television system Citytv has ordered a second season of the historical drama series Murdoch Mysteries, based on Maureen Jennings’ popular lot of novels featuring Victorian-era Toronto police detective William Murdoch. Read more here.

• Has there been a better crossover novel published in recent years than Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union? I included it in January Magazine’s Best of 2007: Crime Fiction section, others have reviewed it as mainstream fiction, and now the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America has given it a coveted Nebula Award as Best Science Fiction Novel of 2007. (Via Bill Crider.)

• Two birthdays of note: Jack Klugman, who starred in the 1976-1983 TV medical examiner mystery drama Quincy, M.E. (and is currently suing NBC over profits from that show), turns 86 years old today. And Irish poet-novelist Cecil Day-Lewis--father of actor Daniel Day Lewis--who, under the pseudonym “Nicholas Blake,” wrote the Nigel Strangeways msyteries, would have been 104 years old today, had he not died in 1972.

• Sandra Ruttan (What Burns Within) is the subject of January Magazine’s latest “Author Snapshot” interview. Meanwhile, Adrian McKinty (The Bloomsbury Dead) talks with Declan Burke at Crime Always Pays about what he’s working on, now that his “Dead” trilogy is done. It seems his next novel was inspired by a trip to Cuba.

• What’s up with the proliferation of season-connected crime novels?, asks Petrona blogger Maxine Clarke.

• “[T]he first Arabic detective novel published in English”? Is it really? Karen Meek does a customs check on Abdelilah Hamdouchi’s The Final Bet, “the dark tale of a handsome young Moroccan accused of killing his much older wife,” which is due out in the States in May. Look for her notes on that and other soon-to-be released novels here. (More on The Final Beat here.)

• Teacher-writer Jon Bassoff addresses the matter of “Jim Thompson’s Psychopathic Narrators” in the e-zine Noir Originals.

• The 1940 film They Drive By Night is the latest work under consideration at the Noir of the Week site.

• Yikes! I didn’t even realize that Steve Mosby has a new novel due out in stores. (Wasn’t his book The 50/50 Killer just published? That was a whole year ago? Are you kidding me?) But already, Material Witness’ Ben Hunt has a review of Cry for Help--and a smile on his face from the experience of reading Mosby’s latest.

• I’ve added a couple of new sites to The Rap Sheet’s blogroll, both of which are worth checking out when you have time: Crime Scene NI from Northern Ireland, and Mysteries in Paradise from ... well, some spot sunnier than my own, I can tell you that.

• And I forgot to mention Patti Abbott’s intriguing new “Forgotten Book Fridays” project, which asks bloggers to write about a favorite work that has been pushed to the literary wayside over the years. Among this last Friday’s first crop of picks was The Lady in the Lake, Chandler’s 1944 novel (and the inspiration for Robert Montgomery’s 1947 film noir of the same name). I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see some of the choices from The Rap Sheet’s “One Book Project” show up in this series as it evolves over the coming months.