Reasons to Give Thanks, 2009

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, an occasion that’s supposed to bring families together and cause us all to assess what blessings we’ve enjoyed over the last twelve months. I have to say, 2009 has made me feel more optimistic than I have since the 2001 terrorist attacks, for some very good reasons: Now that Democrat Barack Obama has replaced George W. Bush in the White House, I can wake up mornings freer of concern that scandals, incompetent acts, or disasters are in store for my country. The international economic picture seems to be brightening as a result of stimulus efforts in the United States and elsewhere. Books continue to defy predictions of their disappearance. Oprah Winfrey’s departure from daytime television seems unlikely to bring on The Apocalypse. Although there’s still a long road ahead for plans to fix America’s inequitable, budget-busting health-care system, reform is finally moving through Congress--despite roadblocks thrown up by do-nothing Republicans. Both of the non-fiction books I penned last year were published in 2009, on schedule. And I’ve discovered a Travel Channel “reality series” that lets me indulge in culinary overindulgence without gaining a pound: Man v. Food.

Looking back, there have also been a number of crime-fiction-related things to be thankful for over the past year. Among those:

• Mystery and crime fiction in the news. Last week I discovered in my mail the October/November 2009 issue of Mystery News--that tabloid’s final edition. While it’s sad to see such a valuable periodical disappear, at least a few of its competitors remain in print, including Crimespree Magazine, Deadly Pleasures, and Mystery Scene. And such stalwarts as Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine will continue to keep us entertained, as well. But the rising costs of printing and distribution make it tough to keep paper periodicals afloat in the age of the Internet. The proliferation of online publications and blogs give us the illusion that niches left vacant by magazine failures can be filled at comparatively little cost; however, as Mystery Scene editor Kate Stine observed last month in The Rap Sheet, most blogs are “labors of love and it’s hard to cover the mystery world and do it justice as a hobby.” We’ve already seen several noteworthy crime-fiction-related sites disappear in 2009, and more will likely fade away in 2010. Many of those that remain don’t measure up to the journalistic standards associated with print pubs. All of this makes me appreciate much more the mystery mags that still occupy newsstands.

• TV on DVD. While a whole lot of shows from the past have been repackaged for anytime home viewing, it seemed that the lamest, most obvious choices (often sitcoms) made it to the DVD market first. Now, though, we’re seeing a greater and more interesting diversity of choices become available. In 2009, for instance, I had the chance to watch Studio One: The Defender, a surprisingly simple but captivating 1957 courtroom drama (starring Ralph Bellamy and a young William Shatner) that inspired the Emmy Award-winning 1961-1965 CBS series, The Defenders, in which E.G. Marshall and Robert Reed portrayed father and son defense attorneys. I also discovered DNA (originally shown as DoNovAn), a two-season British drama from earlier in this decade, which features Tom Conti as a renowned but psychologically compromised criminologist who conducts forensic investigations in Manchester, England, while contending with a wayward wife and headstrong son. And more recently I’ve been watching Mannix, the 1967-1975 private-eye drama starring Mike Connors. I didn’t see that CBS show very often as a boy, and remembered it as being so-so in quality. But from an adult’s perspective, it’s so much more interesting. I’m now deep into Season Three, and am looking forward to taking in all the seasons as they’re released on disc. The U.S. version of Life on Mars is keeping me glued to the TV set, too. I missed a few of that show’s early episodes and only now have the opportunity to see them. With hindsight, knowing the ending of this science-fiction crime drama, I can understand how all of the little flashbacks and peculiar timeline spillovers fit together. Once I’m done with the American version, I shall have to rent or buy the UK series, to see how the two compare and where they diverge in story lines. Other shows that are equally good, if not better the second time around: The Mod Squad, The Rockford Files (all six seasons of which I now own), Mission: Impossible, Crime Story, and Murder One. And I’m hoping that rumors about the coming DVD release of It Takes a Thief hold true. With more and more of today’s TV schedule being swallowed by inane game shows and reality programming, I’m in need of something else to watch. Older series on DVD fit the bill nicely.

• Used book stores. This is almost too obvious, given that in the last year I launched Killer Covers, my other blog, in which I write about classic crime-novel design and illustration. I’ve spent a great many hours since then, pawing among the carefully preserved paperbacks at Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, and elsewhere. Along the way, I have discovered some terrific out-of-print reading material and earned nascent expertise in the history of American paperback artists. I have probably also ingested a lifetime’s supply of dust and strained my eyes by looking over the fine print in which credit for book design is often hidden. Were it not for the conscientious caretakers of used book stores, none of this would have been possible. I tip my hat to every one of you.

• Traylor Howard. I haven’t always been a fan of the USA Network TV series Monk; on more than one occasion, I’ve ranted at the show’s unbelievable plots and its overdependence on quirkiness to carry it through. But I am a confirmed fan of detective Adrian Monk’s assistant, Natalie Teeger, played by actress Traylor Howard. I first remember her as the cute blond commitment-phobe on the late-’90s ABC sitcom Two Guys and a Girl (aka Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place). She later potrayed Anthony Clark’s love interest in Boston Common and Alfred Molina’s daughter in Bram & Alice. But it’s in the role of a toothpaste company heiress, reformed gambling addict, single mom, and sleuth’s helper that Howard really shines. Less bitchy and demanding than Monk’s original assistant, Sharona Fleming, her Natalie is sentimental and sweet, but fully able to take care of herself (didn’t she once kill a man in self-defense?). When Monk finally goes off the air on December 4, it will be Natalie Teeger I shall miss seeing most on a regular basis. And I’ll not be alone in feeling that way.

• Repackaged classics. I wrote recently about Academy Chicago Publishers’ reissued Charlie Chan detective novels, all handsomely packaged. But I’ve been equally impressed by Vintage Crime’s new editions (designed by Gregg Kulick) of the 10 Martin Beck police procedurals, written in the 1960s and ’70s by Swedish authors Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. All boast introductions by some of today’s best-known authors, including Michael Connelly, Val McDermid, and Jonathan Franzen. And let’s not forget Bantam Books’ progressive repackaging of the Nero Wolfe novels by Rex Stout. So far, there are five volumes in Bantam’s series, each containing two full-length novels about Wolfe and his legman, Archie Goodwin. The first volume, featuring Fer-de-Lance and The League of Frightened Men, appeared in bookstores during the summer of 2008. The latest “double,” containing Black Orchids and The Silent Speaker, was released in August of this year. All of these reissued classics have the potential to attract new fans, especially younger folks who don’t commonly go shopping in used book stores for their reading material.

• The mystery fiction community. Finally, a note of thanks to all of my Rap Sheet contributors and the many readers who visit this blog on a daily or weekly basis. Let me voice my appreciation, too, for the authors and critics who have made me feel welcome among them. I was especially privileged last year to spend several days at Bouchercon in Baltimore, where people actually seemed to know who I was--much to my wife’s astonishment. I’ve been looking during my entire earthly existence for what sociologists would call “my tribe,” the folks among whom I fit best. I thought that tribe was made up of journalists, the professionals I trained with and learned from for so many years. But the fact is, I might have been looking in the wrong place. Turns out, where I feel most at home is in a crowd of crime-genre fans, all of whom have traveled the same dark (fictional) thoroughfares over which I’ve trod in my mind for decades. I hope to see you all again next October in beautiful San Francisco.