Robert Barr notes, “We are still transfixed by London’s most notorious mass murderer. More than a century after his crimes shocked London, fascination with the Ripper grows, with new books, walking tours and the exhibit all bringing fresh attention to the unsolved crimes.” Being a veteran of these Ripper tours, I can attest to the staying power of the Ripper legend and its hold over modern audiences. Click here to learn more about this London exhibit, which will run through November 2. And Elizabeth Foxwell points us as well to a BBC Radio 4 program about the historical display.• Today marks the 60th birthday of New Jersey-born crime novelist Jeremiah Healy. He’s the “father” of both Boston private eye John Francis Cuddy and, under the pseudonym “Terry Devane,” of lawyer Mairead O’Clare novels. To learn more about Healy, click here.
• Beloved Canadian gumshoe Benny Cooperman, the creation of septuagenarian novelist Howard Engel, has been missing in action ever since 2005 and the publication of Memory Book, in which Cooperman came down with the same rare brain disorder as his creator. But now, according to The National Post, publisher “Penguin has re-launched the first 11 Cooperman books in paperback with a lively new design and a number emblazoned on the spine of each volume, so that obsessive Cooperman fans can shelve them in order of their creation ...” In addition, Penguin Canada has released a 12th Cooperman yarn, East of Suez. (Hat tip to Sarah Weinman.)
• Yikes! Is it really that time again? Carnival of the Criminal Minds time, that is. Author Sandra Ruttan (What Burns Within) serves as the mistress of this latest fortnightly extravaganza, picking up on a question that Bernd Kochanowski of Internationale Krimis asked when he hosted the Carnival earlier this month: “Which older post would you like to see in a blog museum?” Ruttan’s candidates run the broad spectrum from Mystery Bookspot’s genre primer and Eileen Cook’s gruesome premise for a novel, to Jeff Shelby’s “classic” blog post, “You, My Friend, Are a Huge Jackass.” (Damn! I was hoping to use that headline myself someday--it could have a great multiplicity of applications.) Great stuff, though I think could’ve gone my whole life without seeing those Victorian post-mortem photographs. Ruttan’s Carnival post can be found right here. British author-blogger Martin Edwards plays host next time.
• A big-screen version of the 1980s Johnny Depp TV series 21 Jump Street? Oh, please tell me I’m only experiencing a nightmare here.
• It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with crime fiction, but I find “Medieval noir” author Jeri Westerson’s list of the “Top Ten Myths About the Middle Ages” fascinating. Of special interest is her explanation regarding the use of chastity belts:
[T]he idea that a knight would encase his wife in a contraption to ensure fidelity as he went off to the Crusades might be a cultural curiosity, but it was never fact. What woman would put up with that? I mean, really. It is a Victorian myth to perpetuate the romantic (romantic?) notions of an age of Chivalry. Remember, this was the age of the pre-Raphaelites, whose depiction of noble, Dutch-boy coifed Crusaders would meet their lady loves in sunlit groves, a veritable Rivendell of velvet gowns and pointy sleeves. Those last vestiges of chicanery were removed from the British Museum, many of which have been on display since 1846--which was probably when they were made! A spokesman of the museum explained: “It is probable that the majority of existing examples were made in the 19th century as curiosities for the prurient or jokes for the tasteless.”Also engaging is Westerson’s debunking of the provenance of that old saying, “It’s raining cats and dogs.” Go here to learn more.
• The Gumshoe Site brings word that American novelist Oakley Hall has died at age 87. Although he may be known best for his broad fictionalization of Wyatt Earp’s Tombstone saga in Warlock (1958), the Gumshoe Site’s Jiro Kimura reminds us that Hall also wrote several mysteries, “such as Murder City (Farrar, 1949), So Many
Doors (Random, 1959), A Game for Eagles (Morrow, 1970), and the Ambrose Bierce series (University of California Press).” In its too-abbreviated notice of Hall’s demise, the San Francisco Chronicle quotes one of its own reviewers as saying, “Oakley Hall gives a master class every time he practices his craft.”• Glenn Harper laments the end of “Leonardo Padura’s tetralogy-plus-one of novels about Havana detective Mario Conde, the Count.” The last book in that series is Havana Gold. Read more about it here.
• After her recent fallow period, podcast interviewer Angie Johnson-Schmit is definitely back with a vengeance. She has two new exchanges for us to listen to, one with British author Steve Mosby (The 50-50 Killer, Cry for Help), the other with American thriller novelist and Rambo creator David Morrell. Those and all of her previous interviews can be found at In for Questioning.
• Speaking of interviews, Edgar Award-winning author and Rap Sheet contributor Megan Abbott (Queenpin) sits for two of them. The first is a now-complete two-parter to be found in Peter Rozovsky’s Detectives Beyond Borders blog (part I is here, while part II can be found here). Meanwhile, she’s grilled--and toasted--in Elaine Flinn’s Evil E blog (results here; scroll down about halfway on the page).
• The trailer for the film The X-Files: I Want to Believe (due to be released in July) can be found here.
• Off-topic, but altogether entertaining: In the realm of rants, some are merely pathetic, while others just make your mouth hang open in awed amazement.
• This is curious. From a list of the “Top 10 Ground-Breaking Mysteries,” the anonymous editor who writes the Mysterious Matters blog chooses only one written by a man: The Caveman’s Valentine, by George Dawes Green. You’ll find the full rundown--plus lists of the “Top 10 Reasons to Read a Mystery” and the “Top 10 Plot Devices That Make Me Want to Scream in Horror”--here.
• And Leonardo di Caprio as Ian Fleming in an upcoming film? Bish’s Beat is stirred by the story.
No comments:
Post a Comment