Bullet Points: The Hostage to Work Edition

Greetings from the deep, dark recesses of my writing bunker (located nowhere near Dick Cheney’s bunker, thank goodness). I’m pretty much trapped down here, working on a photographic history of Seattle, and am being supplied only occasionally with sustenance and nourishment by Rap Sheet elves. Were it not for “the Internets,” I’d have no idea that New Orleans survived Hurricane Gustav with minimum destruction, that actress Helen Mirren used to love cocaine, that Republican’t presidential nominee John McCain has chosen the first running mate since the Civil War to endorse U.S. states seceding from the Union, and that singer-actor Jerry Reed has died at age 71. Then, of course, there’s all that crime-fiction news ...

• Crime Time magazine contributor Bob Cornwell sends word of what looks like an exciting new project. Under the auspices of the AIEP/IACW (Asociación Internacional de Escritores Policiácos/International Association of Crime Writers), he says he’s “co-ordinating what I call a Practical Guide to the crime fiction of what I hope will be many European countries--and beyond.” He’s begun this “Crime Scene Europe” project with a study of France’s mystery and crime-fiction offerings. (You can read that first installment in PDF format here). But he has a lot more ground to cover. As Cornwell explains:

Each profile consists of a brief historical introduction to give some context to the modern scene; the rest is entirely concerned with what is happening now. It tries to cover the current best-sellers (whether local or in translation); the key trends in local crime writing and publishing; the bookshop scene, both chains and specialists; where to find news and reviews (usually in the local language of course); the major fiction prizes and the most recent winners, along with the key festivals. All sprinkled with relevant websites to enable follow-up from those wanting to take their interest further.

Best of all, the information comes from inside the relevant country. In the case of France, the first in the series, the information is provided by BILIPO, that unique institution at the heart of French crime fiction.

It is part of a FREE downloadable PDF available from http://www.crimetime.co.uk/mag/index.php/magazine

The Netherlands and Switzerland are next in line, with Spain, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Italy to follow. Other European countries are being recruited. At some stage I hope we can extend the idea to areas beyond Europe, to the vital crime scenes of Japan and Latin America for example.

Currently space is a limitation but, at a later stage, it should be possible to incorporate any useful suggestions that readers might have. I would be grateful therefore if you could encourage comments, perhaps via your own site or alternatively at http://www.crimetime.co.uk/mag/index.php/showarticle/885

Wow! What a mammoth endeavor. I look forward to seeing how Cornwell develops this resource. Maybe at some point he can make it all available on an independent site, for everyone’s convenience.

• NBC-TV is preparing to launch five of its fall 2008 series--including the crime drama Life and the action-comedy spy series Chuck--on the Hulu site, even before they appear on the small screen. “Of course, putting episodes online is nothing new,” writes TV Squad’s Bob Sassone. “All of the networks do it (sometimes they even ‘leak’ the shows themselves to create buzz), but this seems to be a true attempt by NBC (which needs the help) to change the way they schedule, promote, and debut shows, a change in the way they program.” More news about this here.

• Wanna read more from Dave Zeltserman, the author of Bad Thoughts? It seems he’s decided to post on the Web a variety of his short-stories in a collection he calls Seven. Zeltserman explains: “In anticipation of the U.S. release of my first Serpent’s Tail novel, Small Crimes, I’m making available free a new anthology of my crime fiction. Seven contains stories that originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock, Ellery Queen, Hot Blood, Bullet and Futures, as well as the never-before-published sequel to Money Run.” To download the whole lot in PDF format, click here.

• Louis Bayard, author of the new historical mystery The Black Tower, is guest-blogging all this week at the Powell’s Books site.

• The August/September issue of ThugLit is now available online.

• Have you seen The Deighton Dossier, London writer Rob Mallows’ tribute to Len Deighton, the 79-year-old author of The IPCRESS File, Funeral in Berlin, Yesterday’s Spy, and more? Introducing the site, Mallow explains that “I’ve been a fan of Deighton’s stories--and latterly, a collector of his books--since I was about sixteen and I received for Christmas, completely randomly, a Game, Set & Match box set of paperbacks. Up to that point, I’d never heard of Deighton or any of his works. After that point, I was ‘hooked’ and bought all his books and devoured them. This project is simply a labour of love with two purposes--to create the definitive online presence for all things Deighton, and to practice my web design skills. This is an early developmental site to get all the content out there; over time, I hope to refine it and include a whole lot more information.” Good luck, Rob. You’ve made an excellent start. (Hat tip to Bish’s Beat.)

• This is exciting news for everyone who loved Rennie Airth’s two detective John Madden novels, River of Darkness (1999) and The Blood-Dimmed Tide (2003). According to Karen Meek’s Euro Crime blog, the South African-born Airth has a final installment of his Madden trilogy, The Dead of Winter, due out in May 2009. She has a synopsis of that book here. I’m all ready to buy it now.

• Editor-blogger Elizabeth Foxwell reports that “The Library of Congress inaugurates its new art-deco theater at the library’s audiovisual conservation center in Culpeper, Virginia, with showings of The Maltese Falcon on September 4 and 5th.”

• I forgot to mention last Friday that January Magazine and Rap Sheet contributor Anthony Rainone chose Cop Hater (1956), the first of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct police procedurals, as his entry in Patti Abbott’s “forgotten books” series. You can read Rainone’s comments about Cop Hater here.

• Eighty-seven-year-old thriller writer Dick Francis and his author son, Felix, talk with the London Times about their latest collaboration, Silks.

• First, Hard Case Crime republished his 1953 novel, Say It With Bullets. Now, Stark House Press is up with a new double-edition of Richard Powell’s A Shot in the Dark (1952) and Shell Game (1950). Bruce Grossman writes at Bookgasm that “Powell does an extraordinary job of keeping all the secrets hidden until the big reveal--something I wish more authors could be better at.”

• And where were all these Scottish novelists when, as a slip of a boy, I tried to make this very same case to my parents, that comic books can be good for you?