He Never Gives Up

Ever since I noticed back in February that independent publisher Crippen & Landru was planning to issue The Columbo Stories--a collection of 14 new tales about Los Angeles Police Lieutenant Columbo, written by William Link, who with Richard Levinson, created NBC-TV’s beloved 1970s series Columbo--I’ve been eagerly anticipating that book’s release. When I visited the Virginia-based publisher’s Web site recently, I noticed that the status of The Columbo Stories had been raised to “now being typeset.” So I sent an e-mail note to C&L editor Doug Greene, asking him when the book might actually be available. His answer:

We had planned to publish late Autumn-early Winter (and may still do so), but Malice Domestic is honoring Bill Link with the Poirot Award in May [2010], so we may delay the book in order to tie in ...

In addition, EQ [Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine] wants to use one of the stories--which will be good publicity--and we’ll have to work with that as well.

So, the vague answer is that The Columbo Stories will be available “soon.” That’s good news, certainly for all those fans of the classic NBC Mystery Movie series who (like me) have been disheartened to read recent reports about star Peter Falk’s declining health.