Of Scores Written and Scores Settled

• The spy fiction-oriented HMSS Weblog applauds the work of American composer Jerry Goldsmith, who of course gave us the theme to television’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. as well as the scores for James Coburn’s two James Bond parody flicks, Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967). Goldsmith, who died five years ago, also created the music for such films as Chinatown and Planet of the Apes, and the themes for TV series on the order of Police Story, Hawkins, Barnaby Jones, and Archer, not to mention Star Trek: The Next Generation. UPDATE: More Flint fun here.

• Indianapolis author Alec Cizak supplies the latest short-story offering at Beat to a Pulp, “Diseases from Loving.”

• English actress Kate Winslet is evidently interested in making a miniseries based on James M. Cain’s 1941 novel, Mildred Pierce. “Sources said HBO is the lead contender to get the series, but pay Web sources said no deal has been struck,” reports Variety.

• Steve Hockensmith has submitted his lighthearted new Old West mystery, The Crack in the Lens, starring brothers Otto “Big Red” and Gustav “Old Red” Amlingmeyer, to Marshal Zeringue’s Page 69 Test. The results can be found here.

• Here’s a clip from the forthcoming FX series, Lawman, starring Timothy Olyphant of Deadwood fame and based on a character created by Elmore Leonard.

• A big hat tip goes to Elizabeth Foxwell for alerting me to the Australian Broadcasting Company’s “special series dedicated to five classic Australian novels.” The second installment of that radio presentation looks at Fergus Hume’s famous Mystery of a Hansom Cab. “This best seller, published in 1886, set the stage for much detective fiction that was to come, including [Arthur] Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series,” explains the Web site of ABC’s The Book Show. “Hume’s story captures Melbourne in its gold-rush glory days. The cast includes wealthy squatters with murky pasts, a noble love-struck couple, and a slum princess with a secret identity. It’s a classic formative text, the next chapter in a young country’s sense of itself, and it’s also a fabulous swipe at respectability.” You can listen to the whole show here.

• If you’re curious, the other four, non-crime books addressed in this ABC Radio National series are: Xavier Herbert’s Capricornia, Thea Astley’s The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow, Patrick White’s The Solid Mandala, and Marcus Clarke’s His Natural Life.

• I loved UK writer Mike Dash’s last criminal history, Satan’s Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York’s Trial of the Century (which I added to January Magazine’s Best Books of 2007 list). Now he has a new book out: The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia. Vincent Rossmeier of Salon interviews the author about “the lengthy, sordid career of Giuseppe Morello, aka ‘The Clutch Hand,’ a Sicilian immigrant who became America’s first true Mafia don.” Fascinating reading.

• David Cole continues his “Cool Canadian Crime” series for Mystery Fanfare by talking with Ontario’s Lou Allin, author of the Belle Palmer mysteries (Memories Are Murder). To read all of Cole’s Canadian interviews, click here.

• And if you missed it, Laura Lippman mused in Sunday’s edition of The Washington Post about “killing her ace P.I.,” Tess Monaghan.