Quick Hits

• I haven’t seen an official announcement yet, but the Hard Case Crime page has added a title for September 2009 publication: Losers Live Longer, by Russell Atwood. Legendary illustrator Robert McGinnis has done the cover, which is one of those old-fashioned but fun wrong-way-about jobs.

• Editor-blogger Elizabeth Foxwell has a new book out: a companion to the mystery fiction of John Buchan (The Thirty-Nine Steps). Meanwhile, Northern Ireland author Gerard Brennan has signed up to co-edit a new collection of crime-fiction short stories, tentatively titled Myths and Monsters.

• Gerald So has produced his idiosyncratic “best of 2008” list.

• Mark Twain accused of plagiarism? Heavens, no!

• Bad news for society, but good news for crime fiction: “Despite the rise of DNA fingerprinting and other ‘CSI’-style crime-fighting wizardry, more and more people in this country are getting away with murder,” according to the Associated Press.

• There’s a good roundtable discussion over at Bookslut, featuring three “ladies of noir”: Christa Faust, Megan Abbott, and Cathi Unsworth. Read it here.

• And BBC Radio 7 has lined up a series of readings from classic pulp fiction, including stories by Gil Brewer, William F. Nolan, Jim Thompson, and Paul Cain. Listen here--but do it quickly, as these offerings have a very limited shelf life.