Bullet Points: Fall Feast Edition

• Shots magazine columnist and author Mike Ripley has undertaken an intriguing new venture with Britain’s Ostara Publishing, a print-on-demand house. He says that he’ll act as the editor of a line of reprinted “British thrillers from my youth.” The initial four titles are being made available this month: Snake Water, by Alan Williams; A Clear Road to Archangel, by Geoffrey Rose; The Terrible Door, by George Sims; and Night of Glass, by Philip Purser. “The combined age of our three still-living authors is, I think, 234,” Ripley remarks in an e-note, “but they are very happy to see their books back in print, as is the widow of the late George Sims.”

• Howard Duff does another fine turn as radio’s Sam Spade in “The Battles of the Belvedere Caper,” now available for your listening pleasure at Davy Crockett’s Almanack. I also owe a tip of the hat to Almanack honcho Evan Lewis, who this weekend touts The Rap Sheet with particular cleverness: “And when you’re done listening, please pay a visit to The Rap Sheet, the blog that helps you get ahead socially and on the job (and also cures dandruff). Sam swears it’s the next best thing to Wildroot Cream-Oil.”

• By the way, I only realized today that these Sam Spade radio adventures aren’t available at Davy Crockett’s Almanack permanently. So either listen to them right away, or refer to the Internet Archive for shows you’ve missed.

• Steve Bissette celebrates the James Bond promotional illustrations created during the 1960s by artist Frank McCarthy. Click here. (Hat tip to Spy Vibe.)

• And may the best femme fatale win: Twenty-nine-year-old Eva Green, who made herself more than memorable in the 2006 James Bond film, Casino Royale, has taken it all off for the latest edition of the British “style bible” Tatler. The image of her perched naked on a table in front of a mirror is the more-or-less re-creation of a famous 1973 shot of Charlotte Rampling (Farewell, My Lovely, Sherlock Holmes in New York) taken by Helmut Newton. Compare the photographs, er, back to back here and here.

• Actor Philip Glenister, who played crude, chauvinistic, and altogether colorful Detective Chief Inspector Gene Hunt on BBC-TV’s Life on Mars, and reprises that role on the show’s sequel, Ashes to Ashes, shares memories of his portrayal with NPR’s Scott Simon. Delightfully listenable.

• It looks as if NUM3RS’ number is up.

• “The death of a crime fiction writer with as many books as James Pattinson produced should not go unnoted,” writes Mystery*File’s Steve Lewis in his brief notice about Pattinson’s passing on October 18. Jiro Kimura of The Gumshoe Site provides a synopsis of the novelist’s career: “He was a prolific British writer of more than 100 books of thrillers and sea novels, starting with The Mystery of the Gregory Kotovsky (Harrap, 1958; U.S. title: The Silent Voyage) and ending with The Unknown (Hale, 2008). Only [a] few of his novels have been published in the U.S., and he had a couple of series characters: Sam Grant (in Search Warrant; Hale, 1973) and Harvey Landon (in Contact Mur. Delgado; Harrap, 1959). He was 94.”

• Northern California writer Sophie Littlefield (A Bad Day for Sorry) provides this week’s short story in Beat to a Pulp. Her fine contribution is called “Mortification.”

• This year’s recipient of the Black Orchid Novella Award won’t even be announced until early next month, during the annual Black Orchid Banquet in New York City. Already, though, the Rex Stout fan organization, The Wolfe Pack, has let it be known that May 31, 2010, will be the deadline for submissions to its fourth annual contest. Entries can range from 15,000 to 20,000 words in length. The winner receives $1,000 and publication of his or her story in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. For more entry details, click here.

• A hearty congratulations to Ivan G. Shreve Jr. of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear on his blog’s third anniversary. Please keep up the excellent work, Ivan.

• The latest interviewee at Jeff Rutherford’s Reading and Writing Podcast site is Meg Gardiner, author of The Memory Collector.

• Canada’s capital city will be the center of crime next Saturday, November 14, as the Ottawa Public Library (120 Metcalfe Street) hosts the Capital Crime Writers’ 20th anniversary author and fan festival. The panels, workshops, readings, and signings will run from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. More information here.

• Good for Representative Joseph Cao (R-Louisiana). Despite last night’s historic success in the U.S. House, health-care reform legislation still has a long way to go before it’s approved by Congress and signed into law by President Obama. But Cao’s demonstration of courage and rare cooperation from the “Party of No” is a sign that it’s not just Democrats who see the importance of providing all Americans with quality, affordable health care.

• A preview of Maxim Jakubowski’s new maXcrime line.

• During this last May’s CrimeFest in Bristol, England, some of the critics from Euro Crime had the chance to interview Don Bartlett, “perhaps best known to crime fiction readers as the translator of Jo Nesbø’s and K.O. Dahl’s books, from the Norwegian to English.” The three-part results of their conversation can now be found in the Euro Crime blog, here, here, and here.

• Much to his own amazement, it seems, Bookgasm crime-fiction columnist Bruce Grossman dives into three “Vintage Collection” titles from publisher Harlequin--and comes away disappointed. At least those books boast terrific covers.

• More classic Patricia Highsmith book jackets. But no nude author art to go with them this time.

• Scottish novelist Tony Black talks about his standout Gus Dury series (Gutted) with The Inverness Courier.

• Huffington Post columnist and author Jason Pinter consults blogger-critic Sarah Weinman, Mystery Scene editor Kate Stine, South Florida Sun-Sentinel mystery fiction columnist Oline H. Cogdill, and others on the state of the crime novel. My favorite part of the discussion is probably Cogdill’s response to the question, “Do you feel like publishers are taking the same care to grow authors as they did 10, 15, 20 years ago, or is there more of a ‘swing for the fences’ mentality?” Cogdill replies:

Absolutely not. Publishers and even agents do not have the time anymore for the care and feeding of an author. Would F. Scott Fitzgerald have become Fitzgerald without the nurturing of Maxwell Perkins? Bennett Cerf had a talent in building and maintaining relations with authors such as William Faulkner, John O’Hara, James Michener. Because of him, Random House supported them and they supported Random House. Does that relationship exist anymore? Today, writers have to bring their “A” game the minute they turn in their manuscript.

• F.G. Cottam (The Magdalena Curse) has been selected as Crime Squad’s author of the month.

• Congratulations to one of my favorite National Public Radio hosts, Liane Hansen, on the 20th anniversary of Weekend Edition Sunday.

• And watch tonight for the second and concluding installment of A Place of Execution, the excellent ITV adaptation of Val McDermid’s 2000 standalone novel, which will be broadcast on PBS-TV. It begins at 9 p.m. on Masterpiece Classic.