Of Poetry and Pros

I’m pushing to finish some parts of my San Francisco history book today, so I don’t really have a lot of time for blogging. But there are a few newsworthy things that really ought to be mentioned:

• Such as a possible spin-off from the popular American TV series House, this one focusing on private investigators, instead of doctors. TV Squad reports that “Next season, a male private investigator will be introduced on House and stick around for a few episodes. If fans respond well to the character, he may get his own series.” Rather than House, they could call it Holmes ... I mean, Homes.

• Gerald So reports that a book cover has been finalized for The Lineup: Poems on Crime, the forthcoming chapbook of malefaction-inspired verse that he’s compiled along with Patrick Shawn Bagley, R. Narvaez, and The Rap Sheet’s own Anthony Rainone. Meanwhile, just to help get the word out about this volume--which So hopes will be ready for bookstores by next month--we’ve installed a small banner ad at the bottom of this page. It’s not very capitalistic of us to have put this up free of charge, but we consider it a small contribution to the advancement of the genre.

• Critic Clayton Moore goes retro in his latest “Mystery Strumpet” column for Bookslut, focusing on historical crime fiction by Linda L. Richards, Denise Hamilton, Tom Rob Smith, and Robert J. Randisi.

• Like it or not, this is going to be a big month for James Bond fans. And I mean, BIG, since it includes the centenary of author Ian Fleming’s birth (on May 28) and the publication of Sebastian Faulks’ new Bond novel, Devil May Care. The Wall Street Journal contains a piece today about how publishers Doubleday and Penguin are intending to recharge the Bond series with Faulks at the wheel. Yesterday’s London Times featured a piece about a special limited edition of Devil May Care that plays up Agent 007’s original preference for driving Bentleys, rather than Aston Martins. (More on that special edition volume can be found in the Bish’s Beat blog.) And recently in the Times, British author Faulks listed for readers “the 40 books he can’t live without,” a rundown that features only one of Fleming’s Bond novels, Moonraker (1955)--and no other crime or thriller works, sad to say. Finally, if all this undisciplined Bondage has you in the mood to visit some of the idylls that inspired Fleming’s spy yarns, you ought to look up this look back at some of the places (especially Jamaica) to which he, or those responsible for translating his stories for the silver screen, have sent Bond over the years.

• Mehmet Murat Somer, author of the new novel The Prophet Murders, which stars a transvestite detective in Istanbul known as Hop-Çiki-Yaya, is interviewed in Euro Crime.

• Since we recently gave away free advance copies of Brent Ghelfi’s soon-to-be-published new thriller, Volk’s Shadow, it seems only right to mention that the author has taken a crack at casting his previous novel, Volk’s Game, for Marshall Zeringue’s My Book, the Movie blog. You will find his selections here.

• Finally, if you so happen to be in Ireland this week, you might want to attend one of two bookstore appearances being made by Declan Hughes (The Dying Breed, aka The Price of Blood) and John Connolly (The Reapers). According to Crime Always Pays, this pair will put in a showing tonight, May 8, at Dubray Books on Grafton Street in Dublin. Then on Friday, writes Gerard Brennan of Crime Scene NI, they’ll appear at the No Alibis Bookstore in Belfast, Northern Ireland. (FOLLOW-UP: Brennan reports on Friday’s event here.)