Cruising the Blogosphere

• Sarah Weinman tells Stieg Larsson fans that they can stop holding their breaths for a fourth installment of Larsson’s “Millennium Trilogy,” following the publication in Britain later this year of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. She writes that “the 200 or so pages of the fourth book in the series, left unfinished by Larsson’s death in 2004, won’t ever see the light of day ...”

• Here are a couple of TV main title sequences I thought I’d never see again: Banyon and The Bold Ones.

• Is the 1985-1988 ABC-TV series Spenser: For Hire ready for resurrection? Via Lee Goldberg’s blog comes news, from Spenser creator Robert B. Parker, that “we are in negotiation for a remake of the Spenser: For Hire series to be produced by Sony/Dreamworks, and shown on TNT. There is often a slip twixt cup and lip in Los Angeles, but so far things are promising.” Don’t count me among those enthused by this news. While I enjoyed the first year of Spenser, starring Robert Urich and Avery Brooks, I have grown tired of the books and, as a result, less enthusiastic about the character overall. There’s been too much emphasis over the years on all that manly “personal code” bullshit and insufficient attention given to developing fresh stories and--imagine this--letting Spenser and his cohorts age gracefully. To work, a new Spenser TV drama would have to start from scratch and undo some of the conventions Parker has built into his series. With the author significantly involved in the project, I doubt those big changes would be possible.

• My recent mention on this page of John Wayne’s 1974 crime thriller, McQ, started film and pop culture critic Vince Keenan thinking about other feature films shot in Seattle. Especially Harry in Your Pocket (1973). Read more here.

• Western writer Jack Martin (né Gary Dobbs) provides the latest short story at Beat to a Pulp. It’s called “The Devil’s Right Hand.”

• Speaking of updates: The Summer 2009 edition of Mysterical-E has just been posted, with contributions from Albert Tucher, Jeff Markowitz, Jim Winter, and B.J. Bourg, among others. The July edition of The Big Thrill, produced by the International Thriller Writers, has also gone up, offering myriad short book reviews and an interview with Jonathan Kellerman (True Detectives). And finally, you’ll find the new June issue of I Love a Mystery here, featuring reviews of Michael Stanley’s The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu, Ian Pears’ Stone’s Fall, and other fresh crime fiction.

• Designer Michael Fusco talks about creating cover art for Pegasus Books’ latest editions of two Chester Himes novels--both of which are worth adding to your collection. Look here for the interview.

• For the person who just can’t get enough of Isaac Hayes’ Academy Award-winning Shaft theme.

• Robert Mitchum’s Night of the Hunter = noir gold.

• Per the I Am a Tie-In Writer blog: “Third annual presentation of the International Association of Media-Tie-in Writers (IAMTW) ‘Scribe’ Awards, honoring excellence in tie-in writing in such notable franchises as CSI, Criminal Minds, The X-Files, Star Trek, Stargate, Star Wars, and Dr. Who, will be held on Friday, July 24, 3-4:30 p.m. at Comic-Con in San Diego in Room 4.”

• On the subject of tie-in novels, this item comes from
Mystery Book News:

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that ABC television will promote the second season of Castle by publishing a mystery novel “written” by the series lead, Richard Castle (played by Nathan Fillion).

Titled Heat Wave, the first chapter will be available on ABC.com on August 10th. Additional chapters will be posted weekly for 10 weeks. The real author of the book has not been identified.

• Nick Stone interviews fellow author Stav Sherez about his latest novel, The Black Monastery, the return of Dutch Detective Van Hijn, his three favorite cults, and ... uh, cheesecake recipes.

• It seems British hard-boiled writer Peter Cheyney’s Swedish publisher raided the files of paperback artist Robert McGinnis in order to produce its own covers of several of Cheyney’s FBI agent Lemmy Caution novels during the 1940s and ’50s. Of the four jackets featured at this link, the top three all carry McGinnis illustrations that originally appeared on other books.

• Scotland on Sunday catches up with former Man from U.N.C.L.E. co-star David McCallum to talk about his onetime fame playing Illya Kuryakin (the “blond Beatle”), his dwindling connection with Scotland, and his present work on the less-than-flashy American TV series NCIS. Read it all here.

• A reminder from the Writer’s Almanac: “It was on this day in 1731 that Ben Franklin founded the first circulating library, a forerunner to the now ubiquitous free public library. He started it as a way to help settle intellectual arguments among his group of Philadelphia friends, the Junto, a group of civic-minded individuals gathered together to discuss the important issues of their day.”

• And meet the inspiration for Amelia Peabody Emerson, Elizabeth Peters’ historical archaeologist-detective.