Playing the Field

• Australian crime-fiction fans can look forward next month to a TV production called 3 Acts of Murder. As AustCrime explains, “In 1928 Arthur Upfield, Australia’s premier crime writer, plotted the perfect murder for his novel The Sands of Windee. Meanwhile, one of his friends, stockman Snowy Rowles, put the scheme into deadly effect, even before the book was published. This true story resulted in one of Australia’s most sensational murder trials of the 1930s and catapulted Upfield’s name onto the world stage.” More background about this story and a trailer for the film are available here.

• Last night saw the dispersal of the 2009 Lambda Awards, sponsored by the Lambda Literary Foundation. Whacked, by Josie Gordon (Bella Books), was chosen as Best Lesbian Mystery, while First You Fall, by Scott Sherman (Alyson Books) won for Best Gay Mystery. A list of all the nominees in these categories can be found here.

• A week before the expected announcement, by the British Crime Writers’ Association, of this year’s International Dagger Award nominees, EuroCrime’s Karen Meek has a list of works eligible for the commendation. And an impressive list it is indeed.

• Most of the crime-fiction-oriented blogs that usually contribute to Patti Abbott’s “forgotten books” series (including The Rap Sheet) are taking this as a vacation day. But Bill Crider soldiers on, suggesting that readers give Ford Clark’s The Open Square a shot, while Paul Bishop wants you to run down the sports mystery Two Wheels, by Greg Moody. The series should resume next week.

• Issue #2 of The Lineup: Poems on Crime has only just been published, but already editor Gerald So is soliciting contributions for the third edition. The submissions process, he reports, will begin next month: “From June 15 to July 31, both solicited and unsolicited submissions will be considered. From September 1 to October 31, only invited submissions will be considered.” The guidelines for submitting are here. So & Co. are shooting to have The Lineup #3 out in April 2010 “to coincide with National Poetry Month.”

• Ian Rankin chats on with Scottish TV about The Complaints, his forthcoming Edinburgh-set police thriller due out in the UK in September (and the start of a new series?), as well as his debut singing back-up vocals with the Scottish band St. Jude’s Infirmary. (Hat tip to Big Beat from Badsville.)

• Guest blogger Brian Ritt has posted a fine backgrounder about 20th-century American pulpmeister Orrie Hitt in Rough Edges.

• Sara Jane Moore, the nurse turned revolutionary who tried to shoot U.S. President Gerald Ford in San Francisco in 1975, gave an amazing interview to Today this week.

• John Lithgow is joining the cast of Dexter (he’ll play--what else?--a serial killer) for its fourth season on Showtime.

• National Public Radio’s Maureen Corrigan has put forward her five picks for reading in the crime and mystery fiction area this summer. No real surprises.

• And hard as it is to believe, actress Annette Bening--who first caught my eye in The Grifters (1990)--turns 51 today.