A Break from the Break

So here I am, once more tearing myself away from my much-needed end-of-summer mini-vacation (not to mention the televised coverage of Senator Edward Kennedy’s funeral) in order to check up on what’s new in the world of crime fiction and such:

• For some strange reason, news about the recipients of this year’s Ned Kelly Awards has been difficult to glean. However, Karen Chisholm of AustCrimeFiction finally learned the results, as did Kellie Smith of Mysteries in Paradise. Meanwhile, the Melbourne Age carries a profile of Shane Maloney, who received this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award from the Crime Writers Association of Australia.

• Graphic novelist Darwyn Cooke is interviewed on the subject of his latest, quite wonderful project, Parker: The Hunter. Elsewhere, Megan Abbott (Bury Me Deep) chats it up with 3:AM Magazine, and Lesa Holstine talks with both Hank Phillippi Ryan and her series protagonist, Charlotte “Charlie” McNally.

• It was four years ago today that Hurricane Katrina clobbered the beautiful, historic city of New Orleans, a disaster that was compounded by the utter incompetence of the Bush administration to prepare for its striking or to deal with its aftermath. (My various posts on the subject can be found here.) George W. Bush’s failure in the face of that event, with its levee breakages and flooding and persistent homelessness, was in no small part responsible for the American public’s fast-escalating dissatisfaction with his presidency as well as the defeat of his intended Republican’t successor, John McCain--who at the time Katrina whipped onto the Gulf Coast, was off cutting birthday cake with Bush in Arizona. President Obama has promised to do more to help New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast come back from those dark days in the summer of 2005. I’m hoping that his promises are kept, not abandoned like Bush’s.

• Rhian Davies (aka CrimeFicReader) picks up on news that “Ann Cleeves’s [2007] novel, Hidden Depths, featuring Northumberland-based detective Vera Stanhope, is to be televised. ITV Studios is producing the two-hour drama and production commences in October.” Excellent!

• In other TV news ... According to TV Squad, the Miami-based spy series Burn Notice is “now USA’s most-watched original series ever with 9.1 million viewers during August episodes--the first time a USA original series has broken the nine million viewers benchmark.” ... NBC-TV has delayed the Season 2 debut of Southland for one month. Look for that grittier-than-usual cop drama again at the end of October. ... Speaking of season premieres, here’s a preview of what’s to come when CSI: Miami returns on September 21. ... The crime/con game drama Leverage has already been renewed for a third season by TNT. ... Actor Jack Klugman is once more suing over lost profits from his 1976-1983 NBC crime drama, Quincy, M.E. ... And while I didn’t pay much attention during its late 1970s run to The Hardy Boys/Nancy Mysteries, it was still sort of nostalgic to see the opening title sequence of that show once more.

• Another crime-fiction blog worth following: Old Bones.

• A terrific Mickey Spillane book cover.

• Who knew there was a “body in the bathtub” subgenre?

• Sarah Weinman’s latest Dark Passages column for the Los Angeles Times focuses on the “manly adventures” of Gabriel Hunt, a series star cooked up by one of our favorite editors, Charles Ardai of Hard Case Crime. Read all of Weinman’s piece here.

• H.R.F. Keating submits his latest novel, the prequel Inspector Ghote’s First Case, to Marshal Zeringue’s Page 69 Test. The results are here. At the same time, author John Buntin runs his remarkable new non-fiction work, L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City, through the Page 99 wringer. You can read more about that here.

• How funny. I hadn’t noticed before today just how outstanding W.W. Norton’s boxed set of Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley novels really is. Thanks to the blog Book Covers Anonymous for making me think about this for my Christmas list.

• And while most blogs (including this one) are on a two-week hiatus from the “forgotten books” series, two regular contributors are keeping up the celebration: Bill Crider wrote on Friday about Manhunt Is My Mission, by Stephen Marlowe, while George Kelly championed Wettermark, by Elliott Chaze.