Bullet Points: Mighty Midweek Edition

• Last May, during my rewarding interview with the late crime novelist Robert Terrall’s son, Ben, he brought up the subject of his father’s former literary agent, Knox Burger, who he feared had died at some point in the not-too-distant past. Well, as it turns out, Burger actually just passed away on January 4 in Manhattan. He was 87 years old. In its obituary, The New York Times lists some of the man’s accomplishments:

As a magazine editor in the 1950s, Knox Burger published Kurt Vonnegut’s first short story. As a book editor in the 1960s, he asked John D. MacDonald to create a mystery series around a character who eventually turned out to be the detective Travis McGee. And as a literary agent in the 1970s, he took on a novel about a Russian detective by a largely unknown writer--“Gorky Park,” by Martin Cruz Smith--which in 1980 he sold to Random House for $1 million. ...

From 1948 to 1951 Mr. Burger was the fiction editor of Collier’s, a weekly magazine that competed with The Saturday Evening Post. For two decades after that he edited books, mostly mystery and suspense novels, first for Dell and later for Fawcett Publications, which released MacDonald’s first three Travis McGee novels--“The Deep Blue Good-by,” “Nightmare in Pink” and “A Purple Place for Dying”--one after the other in 1964.

In 1970 he established a literary agency, Knox Burger & Associates, with his wife, Kitty, whose clients, in addition to Mr. Smith, included the mystery writers Donald E. Westlake and Lawrence Block, the novelist Donald McCaig, the police detective-turned-crime-writer William J. Caunitz and the fishing writer John Gierach. Mr. Burger himself was such a dedicated fly fisherman that his ashes are to be buried in a creel. [Emphasis mine]

Burger was also Max Allan Collins’ first agent. More here.

(Hat tip to The Gumshoe Site.)

• The sixth issue of Out of the Gutter--the so-called sexploitation issue (as if every edition of OOTG doesn’t feature sex)--is now out. “This one’s absolutely filthy, kids,” writes Bookgasm editor Rod Lott in his review, “meaning if you’re a regular reader of the indie-fic rag, you’re going to love it.” More from Jedidiah Ayres.

• Holy neglected anniversaries, Batman! Yesterday marked 44 years since the release of the 1966 theatrical release based on television’s oh-so-campy Batman series. Thank goodness Pulp International posted a colorful reminder.

• Is it any wonder that today’s teenagers have such limited vocabularies, given that they’re always texting in small chunks and using “emoticons” in place of explanations? Then again, this new sarcasm symbol does intrigue me. I’m only afraid that I would be provoked to use it too often these days ... (Hat tip to Bill Crider.)

• Great-looking Turkish language pulps.

• The existential Ali Karim reports that novelist Dennis Lehane is going to try his hand at writing for the computer game World of Warcraft. More on that here.

• Haiti just can’t catch a break, it seems. A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck that Caribbean island nation yesterday, damaging or destroying buildings and perhaps killing 100,000 people or more around the capital city of Port-au-Prince. National Public Radio and blogger-author David Terrenoire both suggest some charities to which the rest of us can contribute funds to help the Haitians in this desperate time. But it doesn’t look like there will be any aid coming from religious-right evangelist and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson. He said earlier today on the Christian Broadcasting Network that Haiti’s current devastation resulted from its “pact with the devil.” What a nutjob!

• The third season of Leverage, TNT’s series about thieves and con men who find justice for victims of corporate or individual malfeasance, will premiere tonight at 10 p.m. ET/PT. If you call me during that hour, don’t expect me to pick up.

• Since Leverage borrows heavily from the 1960s Robert Wagner series, It Takes a Thief, what better excuse is there to take in a couple of episodes from that classic show? The blog Crime TV offers two free eps from Thief’s first season for your viewing pleasure, both of which guest star the lovely Susan Saint James.

• Uh-oh, SpaghettiOs creator Donald Goerke has died at 83.

• Writer and Edgar Allan Poe expert Edward Pettit reports on this last weekend’s second annual David Goodis tribute in Philadelphia. Duane Swierczynski shares his photos from those festivities.

• Paul Bishop weighs in on NBC’s decision to resurrect the classic James Garner TV series, The Rockford Files, in a desperate move to boost the network’s ratings. Let’s just say he’s agin’ it.

• It seems President Obama has been racking up many more legislative achievements than his right-wing critics would have you believe. Imagine that.

• And this note from In Reference to Murder: “If you’re a Rex Stout/Nero Wolfe fan and happen to find yourself in the New York City area on Monday, January 25th, the Nero Wolfe Discussion Group is holding the first of its monthly meetings for 2010. They’ll be featuring three novellas, The Cop Killer, Home to Roost, and The Squirt and the Monkey, at Slattery’s Midtown Pub and just ask that you bring ‘your opinions, but with an open mind, and join us for interesting, and perhaps even heated, discussion.’”