Bullet Points: The One More Milestone Edition

• The Gumshoe Site reports that Joseph Wambaugh has won the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association’s 2008 T. Jefferson Parker Mystery Award for his latest novel, Hollywood Crows (Little, Brown). Also competing for that commendation were: An Incomplete Revenge, by Jacqueline Winspear (Picador); Chasing Darkness, by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster); Judas Horse, by April Smith (Knopf); Oscar Season, by Mary McNamara (Simon & Schuster); and Snitch Jacket, by Christopher Goffard (Overlook/Rookery).

• Speaking of The Gumshoe Site, its creator and editor, Jiro Kimura, has posted his “rogues’ gallery” of photographs from the recent Bouchercon in Baltimore. For additional shots, see the selection of Ali Karim’s work that was posted in The Rap Sheet.

• Blogger Randy Johnson reverts to teenager-hood in the presence of the complete Man from U.N.C.L.E. series on DVD.

• Even though some in the London press are noticeably unimpressed by the forthcoming, 22nd James Bond, Quantum of Solace; and even though the captivating Eva Green will apparently not reprise her Vesper Lynd role in this new picture, I’m willing to sample Solace for myself. Having seen 21 Bond adventures already, I am obviously addicted.

• All Bond, all the time. Total Film magazine is rolling out a month’s worth of content to celebrate the debut of Quantum of Solace. My favorite features thus far: “A-List Actors Who Must Never Be Bond” (stick to your day job, Johnny Depp); “9 Sexy Starlets Who Should Be Bond Girls” (Kate Beckinsale in an Ursula Andress bikini--I’d pay triple for the tickets to see that one); and “Real-Life Celebrities Who Should Be Bond Villains” (Rupert Murdoch, yes, but how about the erratic John McCain, too?).

• Lee Goldberg considers the worst Bond film moments.

• Author Anthony Neil Smith is the latest podcaster at CrimeWAV, reading his story “Psycho Redneck Pick-up Truck Killing Spree.”

• Thirty years after publishing The Stand, Stephen King tells Salon “what haunts him about religion and today’s politics.”

• Uh-oh. It looks as if plans are delayed as far as turning the 1970s British TV series The Persuaders! into a big-screen hit. According to the blog Double O Section, one of the film’s stars, Steve Coogan, told Total Film magazine that “it’s in development hell …,” but not dead yet. “The actor seems confident that The Persuaders! will still find its time; that time just hasn’t come yet.” For more on the original series, starring Roger Moore and Tony Curtis, check out Permission to Kill’s developing commentary about its individual episodes.

• Screenwriter David Mills offers up some tidbits about the proposed HBO-TV dramatic series Tremé, from The Wire’s David Simon. Read his comments here.

• What sorts of books are readers turning to in these bad economic times? Cookbooks and crime fiction, according to Reuters.

• Zöe Sharp submits her novel Third Strike to Marshal Zeringue’s “Page 69 Test.” You’ll find the results here.

• Hard Case Crime’s Charles Ardai talks with National Public Radio.

• B.V. Lawson champions established authors who produce short-story collections.

• With the 125th anniversary of Sherlock Holmes’ debut in print coming this Christmas season, the magazine Mental Floss invites you to take a not-too-difficult quiz that tests your recollection of the revered Holmes canon.

• The Republican Party has fallen and it can’t get up. But at least this and this give me hope for the country’s future.

• I’m not usually persuaded by book trailers, but the one created for John le Carré’s new novel, A Most Wanted Man, has caused me to move that book up in my TBR pile.

• And just five months after The Rap Sheet counted its 300,000th visitor, that little tabulator at the bottom of our right-hand column clicked over to 400,000. I want to thank everyone who’s stuck with and contributed to this blog over the last two and a half years. Of all the things I’ve done, writing-wise, during the last few years, this blog probably brings me the most satisfaction. Which is funny, when you consider that I don’t make one thin dime from writing and editing the thing …