Bullet Points: Olympics Finale Edition

• Norwegian author Jo Nesbø has won the Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, presented by the Danish Crime Writing Academy for the year’s Best Crime Novel. Of course, the victorious Nesbø work, Panserhjerte (aka The Leopard), hasn’t yet been translated for English-speaking readers. But maybe someday soon ...

• This week’s short fiction in Beat to a Pulp comes from Frederick Zackel, who’s offering an excerpt from his 1980 novel, Cinderella After Midnight (recently re-released via Kindle).

• Martin Edwards gives just praise to an unjustly forgotten work of crime-fiction scholarship, Detectionary (1977), edited by Otto Penzler, Chris Steinbrunner, and Marvin Lachman. I still have a paperback copy of that book in my library, and its has proved to be immensely useful, as well as fascinating, at times.

• Davy Crockett’s Almanack is celebrating the thoroughly engaging 1970s Raymond Chandler novel covers illustrated by Tom Adams. Thanks, Mr. Lewis.

• With Bouchercon 2010 preparing to draw myriad crime-fiction fans to San Francisco this fall, here’s something cool for people who know little about that wonderful city’s past, and even for those of us who do. A history Web site called SepiaTown is collecting old photographs and integrating them with a Google map “to create a virtually strollable San Francisco” of yore. You can click around downtown and see what the city was like before the 1906 earthquake and fire, the coming of the Beats, and the erection of the TransAmerica Pyramid. Click here for more information.

• British journalist-turned-author Jim Kelly talks with Shots’ Amy Myers about his love of Golden Age mystery fiction, his history in a family of cops, and of course his new novel, Death Watch, the second outing for Detective Inspector Peter Shaw and his colleague, Detective Sergeant George Valentine (Death Wore White). You’ll find their intriguing exchange here.

• An extremely important point regarding the present fight in Congress over health-care reform legislation: No one's talking about passing health care reform through reconciliation. There’s no need to pass health care reform through reconciliation--health care reform has already passed. ... The next step isn’t passing health care reform through reconciliation; the next step is passing a budget fix that improves the legislation that’s already passed. That, of course, is why reconciliation exists.” More here and here.

• Meanwhile, the consequences of reform’s failure, here and here.

• After reading blogger August West’s excellent recent write-up about the 1975 western novel, The Shootist, by Glendon Swarthout, I decided last night to rent the 1976 big-screen adaptation of Swarthout’s tale, which represented John Wayne’s final film appearance. I remembered the movie as being a giant cut above many cinematic westerns, which I can now confirm. But what I had forgotten was that this picture was a reunion of sorts for three members of the cast from Hec Ramsey (1972-1974), the underappreciated Richard Boone western-detective drama that became part of the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie “wheel series.” Not only did Boone appear in The Shootist as the revenge-seeking sibling of a man Wayne’s character had killed, but Harry Morgan (who’d played a small-town doctor in Hec Ramsey opposite Boone’s gunfighter turned lawman) featured in The Shootist as a less-than-courageous sheriff, and Richard Lenz (who had served as Boone’s inexperienced boss on the TV series) co-starred in this film as a newspaperman hoping to exploit Wayne’s character for his own profit. It was good to see them working together again. Now, if only we could get all 10 episodes of Hec Ramsey into a DVD release ...

• Ex-FBI agent Paul Lindsay, the real writer behind the “Noah Boyd” byline on Bricklayer, talks with the Boston Herald about the highs and lows of his previous career. (Hat tip to Sarah Weinman.)

• John McFetridge submits his new novel, Let It Ride, to Marshal Zeringue’s famous Page 69 Test. The results can be enjoyed here.

• Actor Dennis Farina, who starred in Law & Order, Crime Story, and Buddy Faro, has been cast in a new horse-racing drama pilot for HBO-TV called Luck. The director will be Michael Mann, with whom Farina worked on Crime Story, and the pilot’s writer is David Milch, who created the phenomenal Deadwood and worked previously on NYPD Blue. With all of that talent, Luck will be unlucky indeed if it can’t make it big.

• Keith Rawson talks with Dennis Tafoya, the author of Dope Thief, for the BSC (Bookspot Central) Review site.

• And the A&E TV network has ordered 13 episodes of a new crime drama, Sugarloaf, to debut sometime this summer. As the Crimespree Cinema blog explains, “Sugarloaf stars Australian Matt Passmore ... as Jim Longworth, a former Chicago homicide detective,” who, “after being accused of sleeping with the wife of his former captain, finds himself leaving Chicago, looking to start anew. He ends up in ... [a Florida] resort town that appears quiet and peaceful. But since this is a television drama, the town is not as sleepy as it appears.” Sounds promising.

A Life Out of Control

A BBC-TV adaptation of John Buchan’s 1915 spy novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps, will debut tonight in the States as part of PBS’ Masterpiece Classic series. Click here to read The New York Times’ assessment of this 90-minute teleflick. You can watch a clip of the film here. Check local listings for show times in your area.

The Reincarnation of Jimmy?

Ever since I first heard about the project, I’ve been against NBC remaking the 1974-1980 TV detective series, The Rockford Files. The original show was a certifiable classic, one of the best U.S. series ever made, with James Garner ideal for the role of Jim Rockford, an ever-impecunious ex-con private eye with con man tendencies, a truck driver dad who’s never satisfied with his son’s profession, and too many friends with trouble following them. He had subtlety and charm, but was also a big enough guy to deliver convincing fight scenes such as this one, clipped from the 1974 pilot film. Why would NBC bother trying to re-create such a memorable program, and who could the network possibly find to fill Garner’s shoes?

Well, I have no idea why NBC can’t come up with new ideas anymore (after so many years of being a winning network), but we may know now who is expected to be the next Jim Rockford. It’s 47-year-old Dermot Mulroney, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Mulroney, who may be best remembered for guest-starring on Friends and playing Debra Messing’s male escort in the 2005 romantic comedy The Wedding Date, is supposed to portray Rockford as a “slightly crumpled, wry humored, cynical, world-weary” P.I., who’s “compassionate when it’s called for and easily irritated by morons.” And sure, that job description makes him sound like Rockford. But Mulroney is too small, mumbles too much, and is entirely too retiring to stand in Rockford’s place and throw bullshit along with punches. Who is NBC kidding with this casting choice? Mulroney might be just the ticket for some roles, but not for one so established in viewers’ minds as that of Los Angeles gumshoe Rockford.

Admittedly, NBC was in a losing position, trying to come up with somebody to substitute for Garner. People like me, who continue to be big fans of The Rockford Files, were destined to turn thumbs down on whoever the network tapped for the series remake. But I’m equally opposed to CBS remaking Hawaii Five-O, as it now seems intent on doing. Why mess with perfection? It’s one thing to reimagine Battlestar Galactica or The Bionic Woman, both of which were all kinds of cheesy to begin with; to try re-creating an archetypal series such as The Rockford Files, though, is simply a waste of talents all around.

READ MORE: “Dermot Mulroney Is Jim Rockford,” by Jeremy Lynch (Crimespree Cinema); “Dermot Mulroney Cast in New Rockford Files,” by Allison Waldman (TV Squad).

A Good Question, Indeed

Who is the “World’s Favorite Detective”? That sounds like an impossible determination to make, but blogger Jen Forbus is asking readers for their nominations, nonetheless. Suggestions will be taken through tomorrow, February 28, so if you want to play along, you’d better get cracking. Explains Forbus:

What qualifies as a “detective” in this tournament, you ask? A detective, for these purposes, is a character who is a police detective, a sheriff, an FBI agent or a licensed P.I. So, essentially, no spies or amateur sleuths for this tourney. The detectives can be male or female and reside anywhere in the world.

Again, go here to nominate your personal favorites.

The Book You Have to Read: “The Light of Day,” by Eric Ambler

(Editor’s note: This is the 83rd installment of our ongoing Friday blog series highlighting great but forgotten books. Today’s pick comes from the well-traveled and multilingual Leighton Gage, who has so far written three novels featuring Chief Inspector Mario Silva of Brazil’s federal police. The most recent of those is this year’s Dying Gasp.)

* * *

It came down to this: if I had not been arrested by the Turkish police, I would have been arrested by the Greek police. I had no choice but to do as this man Harper told me. He was entirely responsible for what happened to me.

Thus begins Eric Ambler’s 1962 novel, The Light of Day. The narrator, we immediately suspect, is a man loath to shoulder responsibility for his actions. The bad things that happen to Arthur Abdel Simpson are always
someone else’s fault.

Abdel? Yes, Abdel. Ambler’s protagonist, it turns out, was born in Cairo. He explains that his middle name, Abdel, is a concession to his Egyptian mother.

But my father was a British officer, a regular, and I myself am British to the core. Even my background is typically British.

My father rose from the ranks. He was a Regimental Sergeant Major in the Buffs when I was born; but in 1916 he was commissioned as a Lieutenant Quartermaster in the Army Service Corps. We were living in officers’ married quarters in Ismailia when he was killed a year later. I was too young at the time to be told the details. I thought, naturally, that he must have been killed by the Turks; but Mum told me later that he had been run over by an army lorry as he was walking home one night from the officers’ mess.

You notice how much I’m quoting from the book? I didn’t intend to when I began writing this piece. But then I reached the conclusion that the best way to convey Ambler’s genius is to let Arthur speak for himself. I deleted everything I’d written and started anew.

I was too young when my father was killed to have known him well; but one or two of his pet sayings have always remained in my memory; perhaps because I heard him repeat them so often to Mum or to his army friends. One, I remember, was “Never volunteer for anything,” and another was “Bullshit baffles brains.”

Arthur calls himself a journalist, but in reality he’s a thief, a pornographer, and a pimp, all of which he reveals in the course of self-serving explanations such as this:

Is it a crime to earn money? The way some people go on you would think it was. The law is the law and I am certainly not complaining, but what I can’t stand is all the humbug and hypocrisy. If a man goes to the red-light district on his own, nobody says anything. But if he wants to do another chap, a friend or an acquaintance, a good turn by showing him the way to the best house, everyone starts screaming blue murder.

With lines like these, we know from the get-go exactly what kind of a fellow we’re dealing with. And yet, such is Ambler’s skill that we find ourselves warming to Arthur Simpson--and, by the end of the book, we’re downright fond of him. Ambler helps us along in this regard by making the other baddies in his novel much worse than Arthur. In Light of Day’s early chapters, it isn’t so much a case of liking Arthur as a case of disliking the people plaguing him. It soon becomes evident that all of them are capable of violence. Simpson, on the other hand, is a criminal of another ilk, a coward viscerally incapable of harming his victims. Yes, he’s a crook, but one, he tells us, who’s “only been arrested 10 or 12 times” in his whole life.

As this story begins, our (anti-)hero, down on his luck, as usual, is scrambling for cash. The rent is due, and his demanding girlfriend, Nicki, has been dunning him for more new clothes. We find him at the Athens airport trolling for tourists. His scam of the moment is to offer foreigners his services (as the driver of his own car) and subsequently burgle their rooms. He makes the mistake of approaching a mysterious man named Harper:

He looked like an American ... Of course, I now know that he is not an American, but he certainly gave that impression. His luggage, for instance, was definitely American; plastic leather and imitation gold locks. I know American luggage when I see it ... He arrived ... on a plane from Vienna. He could have come from New York or London or Frankfurt or Moscow and arrived by that plane--or just from Vienna. It was impossible to tell. There were no hotel labels on the luggage. I just assumed that he came from New York. It was a mistake anyone might have made.

Arthur first takes Harper to his hotel, then on to an appointment at a house of assignation called Madame Irma’s. Thinking his pigeon occupied, Arthur then hastens back to Harper’s room to rifle the luggage.

But Harper turns the tables. He’s been hunting for a man like Simpson and has laid a snare to entrap him. Catching Arthur in the act, Harper forces him to sign a confession, then threatens to denounce him to the Greek police unless Arthur ferries a car from Athens to Istanbul.

Simpson, whatever else he is, is no fool. No one goes to the trouble Harper has gone to unless there is something in the assignment that doesn’t meet the eye. Arthur suspects that it’s a scheme involving drug or arms smuggling, and as soon as he’s safely out of Athens, he pulls to the side of the road and gives the automobile a thorough going-over.

He’s surprised to find that the car contains no contraband, at least he thinks it doesn’t. Confidently, he continues on his journey. But, unfortunately for him, there are incriminating items in that vehicle, concealed in a place he has completely overlooked. And though Arthur couldn’t locate them, the Turkish border authorities do.

It’s a time of political instability in Turkey. The Turks suspect Arthur’s involvement in a coup d’état. But they want to round up the whole gang, and so they force Arthur to continue to play along. That way, they’ll be able to get the goods on his employers.

It turns out they’re wrong about the coup, but it isn’t until we’re much further along in the book that we finally discover what Harper and his cohorts are really up to. Meanwhile, we are not quite sure what kind of a book we’re reading. Is it a spy story? A political thriller? In the event, it turns out to be neither one.

Now, if you’ve never read this novel, but you’ve seen Topkapi (a 1964 film based upon the book, in which Peter Ustinov plays the role of Simpson), then you already know what’s afoot. But I rather hope you haven’t seen the film, or if you have, that you can’t remember it.

One thing I can assure you: if you read The Light of Day, you won’t ever forget Arthur Abdel Simpson. And, if you like him as well as I do, you can find him again in another book that Ambler wrote five years later, Dirty Story.

In that one, Simpson is still in Athens and still up to his old tricks. Very early on in the first chapter you’ll find a great line. Ambler put it in Italics: “H. Carter Gavin, Her Britannic Majesty’s Vice-Consul in Athens, is a shit.”

God, I wish I’d written that.

Back for More

I’m starting to have trouble remembering what Fridays were like, before Patti Abbott launched her “forgotten books” series. This series has become a standard treat at the end of every week; and while the same bloggers don’t always participate, those who do always offer plenty of interesting--and obscure--reading suggestions.

In addition to Leighton Gage’s write-up in The Rap Sheet about The Light of Day, by Eric Ambler, this week’s forgotten finds include: If the Coffin Fits, by Day Keene; Dead and Done For, by Robert Reeves; Tapping the Source, by Kem Nunn; Spells of Evil, by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac; Voice Out of Darkness, by Ursula Curtiss; The Chinese Parrot, by Earl Derr Biggers; Marked Man, by Mel Stein; The Case of the Chinese Boxes, by Marele Day; Mel Gilden’s Zoot Marlowe novels; and Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion short stories. Also, Randy Johnson looks back at the short-story collection Tales of Wells Fargo, which, while it’s western fiction based on an old TV series, was written by a guy familiar in crime-fiction circles, Frank Gruber.

Abbott features a full list of today’s participating bloggers here, plus a trio of other oft-neglected works worth rediscovering.

Of Kitty, Kay, and Kolchak

• Julia Buckley interviews UK author John Harvey, whose 100th novel, Far Cry, is due out in the States from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in June. They discuss not only that new book, but also music, Harvey’s interest in America, and how he’s “not really an animal person.”

• So, what was the name of “the only soap opera to have a private eye in the leading role”? It was Kitty Keene, Incorporated, a 15-minute-long serial that featuring a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl turned detective. The program ran for four years, beginning in September 1937, and at least three actresses voiced the title role. Kitty Keene’s creator was Day Keene (né Gunnar Hjerstedt), who shared script-writing responsibilities with Wally Norman. There are apparently only four episodes of the show still available, one of which can be sampled here.

• Paul Tremblay submits his new novel, No Sleep Till Wonderland (the sequel to last year’s The Little Sleep) to Marshal Zeringue’s Page 69 Test. The results are here.

• Sarah Weinman directs us to The Washington Post, in which the full text of David Parker’s February 7 eulogy to his father, Robert B. Parker, has been printed.

• Really? Angelina Jolie is going to play Kay Scarpetta, Patricia Cornwell’s medical examiner protagonist in a possible movie franchise? Oh, yawn ...

• Lights out for the inventor of the Easy-Bake Oven.

• In Episode 50 of the CrimeWAV podcast, author (and all-too-infrequent Rap Sheet contributor) Mark Coggins reads an excerpt from his latest novel, The Big Wake-Up.

• Republican’t whining about how majority Democrats are planning to complete their passage of landmark health-care reform legislation through the budget reconciliation process (a step taken by the GOP itself many times, including to approve a welfare reform bill in 1996) seems finally to be emboldening center-right Dems who’ve become disgusted with the right’s lies and do-nothing attitudes. About damn time ...

• Being a fan of the 1971-1973 ABC-TV western series, Alias Smith and Jones, I’m pleased to hear that Timeless Media will finally release that show’s second and third seasons to DVD on June 8.

• It was four years ago yesterday that film and TV actor Darren McGavin passed away at age 83. Pulp International uses the occasion to revisit his starring role in the mystery-and-monsters series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. My own McGavin obit from 2006--which also mentions the performer’s title role in the 1958-1960 series Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer--can be found here.

• Spare me a moment of nostalgia for the 1965-1967 animated TV series, The Beatles, showcased this week by the blog Classic Television Showbiz. Watch here.

• Oh, great. Another hateful beauty queen.

• Authors Michael G. Jacob and Daniela De Gregorio, who together write historical mysteries as “Michael Gregorio,” have posted an original short story on their Web site. It’s called “William Hodge’s War” and can be found here.

• R.I.P., Ed Thomas of Orange County’s renowned Book Carnival. UPDATE: There’s more on Thomas here.

• And Mark Sarvas denounces Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing fiction (see his comments here), while the ever-clever Declan Burke comes up with “William Shakespeare’s 10 Rules O’Writing” here.

Does My Nose Look Longer Now?

I’m apparently a better fibber, or at least a more subtle one, than I thought. Eight days ago, I accepted a challenge posed by blogger-author Patti Abbott to see if I really qualified for the Bald-Faced Liar (aka “Creative Writer”) Award. The task was to “Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth - or - switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie.”

I decided to feature half a dozen of what I thought were fairly remarkable truths about myself, and add a single incredible falsehood to that mix. Then I turned the whole thing into a contest, asking Rap Sheet readers to see if they could finger the phony “fact.” Finally, I promised to send two lucky people who answered correctly free hardcover copies of Kelli Stanley’s terrific new historical crime novel, City of Dragons, supplied by her publisher, Minotaur Books.

Just to recap, here are the seven “facts” I presented:

1. I once dined with Buckminster Fuller.

2. My father’s boyhood pal grew up to be George Bush’s spy chief.

3. One night, many years ago, when my apartment building caught on fire, I escaped through the flames clutching the manuscript I was working on at the time--but forgot to put on shoes.

4. I once helped to send a friend to prison.

5. I once sat beside Amy Adams on a cross-country flight.

6. I once fell asleep right in the middle of interviewing a famous English economist.

7. A cabbie in Tijuana offered to sell me his sister. Cheap.

Interestingly, the statement that the majority of folks entering this contest thought was false turned out to be No. 7. “Cabbies’ sisters are never that cheap,” one guesser maintained. I must differ. Actually, that statement is true. A cab driver did in fact offer to sell me his sister--or somebody he claimed to be his sister--during the only trip I’ve ever taken to the Mexican border town of Tijuana, back in the late 1970s. My recollection is that he was asking $40, but maybe he really just wanted to “rent” the woman for a little lascivious folly. I don’t know; I didn’t take him up on the offer.

So let’s go through those other six assertions I made about myself and my often entertaining past.

Nobody was willing to declare me a liar when I said I’d once shared a meal with architect, author, and futurist Buckminster Fuller--which is good, because that’s true. I took part in a speaker selection committee in college, and Fuller was somebody we invited to address the student body as part of an annual lecture series. I joined him and several other students and faculty members for dinner following his speech. All I remember is that I talked with him about the architecture of geodesic domes.

The statement I made about my father’s boyhood buddy eventually going to work for George Herbert Walker Bush was also true. My dad grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, just a stone’s thrown away from the home of William H. Webster. They were both born in March 1924 (16 days apart), and my late father was proud to describe “Billy” Webster as “my lifetime friend.” Webster was a U.S. Court of Appeals judge when, in 1978, President Jimmy Carter tapped him to become the sixth FBI director. From 1987 to 1991 Webster served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under both Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush. My dad used to love telling the story of how he was invited to attend some formal dinner for Webster in Portland, Oregon, to which mostly high-ranking politicians had been invited. He chuckled about the fact that, while the city’s mayor and other officeholders he’d tussled with on governance issues in the past were relegated to tables far distant from the podium, he--an architect with no obvious political connections--was seated right beside his old pal from the St. Louis suburbs.

Not one person picked No. 3 as a lie. It’s true: I did flee from a fire in my apartment building without remembering to put on any sort of footwear, but was careful to pack along the story I had most recently been composing. Hey, what do you expect from a writer?

However, several entrants were absolutely convinced that statement No. 4 has to be a prevarication--that I couldn’t possibly have “once helped to send a friend to prison.” As one wrote: “Come on, you’re on a crime fiction blog, surely you’re not a stool pigeon?!!” Well, I have to confess that No. 4 is true, and I wasn’t actually a stool pigeon. Somebody I considered a good friend, a fellow newspaper employee back in the early ’80s, stole my checkbook--along with the checkbooks of other people he knew--and used them to buy a number of things before he was caught. I had no idea what was going on, until my bank called me one day and asked whether I’d written a check for some commodity or other; I had no idea what the guy was talking about, and was thus alerted to the fraud. Later, I was subpoenaed to testify against my friend in court, and he was convicted and imprisoned--I do not recall for how long.

Curiously, the only person who called me out on No. 6 was the aforementioned Patti Abbott. “As dull as economists are,” she wrote in the Comments section of my original post, “I don't think you would have nodded off.” Thank you for the character endorsement, Patti, but you’re wrong; No. 6 is true. The economist in question was Kenneth E. Boulding, who was also a British educator, peace activist, and “interdisciplinary philosopher.” My memory is that he, too, spoke at my college years ago, though subsequent to my graduation, and I was invited to interview him during his visit. After digesting (if not fully comprehending) a couple of Boulding’s books, I sat down to question him. But that day was particularly warm, I was tired from a few long workdays, Boulding’s answers to my queries were extensive ... and at some point during our conversation, I suddenly realized that I had no idea what he was talking about. Furthermore, I could tell that my eyes had just snapped open after what might have been a few seconds, or even a couple of minutes. Embarrassed, I looked at Boulding to determine whether he was insulted by my slumbering, only to realize that he hadn’t stopped talking the whole time! Whether he even noticed my lack of attention, I couldn’t say, but he didn’t mention it, and I finally managed to complete the interview.

That leaves us with statement No. 5, which is of course false.

Only four people out of the more than two dozen who entered this book-giveaway contest figured that out. As one of them wrote, “These would all make great lies, but I’m guessing the one about plane tripping with Amy Adams is more fantasy than truth. But if it’s true, I can only say, ‘You lucky dog, you.’” I would have been a lucky dog, indeed, to have spent a few quiet hours sitting in the company of the comely and effervescent young star of Junebug, Julie & Julia, and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. I have never found myself perched beside Amy Adams (shown at left). Or at least I haven’t yet. (Why give up hope?) To show you what a sneaky deceiver I am, I’d originally intended my false statement to read, “I once sat beside Halle Berry on a cross-country flight” (speaking of wish fulfillment!), but ultimately decided that nobody would believe me. So I went for a lesser-known actress, instead.

Now, what about those free books I had promised? A completely random drawing among the names of the four people who guessed correctly brings up two winners: Louis Burklow of Los Angeles, California, and Alison Scarrow of Parry Sound, Ontario. My congratulations to both of you. I’ve passed your names and street addresses along to the fine folks at Minotaur Books, and they should send you each a copy of Stanley’s City of Dragons without delay.

My thanks to everyone who participated in this little guessing game. Sorry if you didn’t win, but rest assured that there will be more giveaway opportunities in the near future.

Can You See Us Blushing?

The Rap Sheet has been selected by a Web site called Court Reporter as one of the “50 Best Blogs for Crime & Mystery Book Lovers.” Also mentioned in that rundown: The Thrilling Detective Blog, Detectives Beyond Borders, Mystery*File, Confessions of a Mystery Novelist, Crime Always Pays, Do You Write Under Your Own Name?, The Outfit, Pattinase, Rough Edges, and ... well, 40 other purveyors of news, views, and reviews. We thank Court Reporter for this honor.

Your Last Chance, Folks

Here’s one final reminder about The Rap Sheet’s latest book giveaway contest. At stake are two free copies of Kelli Stanley’s new historical detective novel, City of Dragons. To enter, all you need to do is identify which of seven statements I have made about my own past--in relation to a “bald-faced liar” meme--isn’t true.

The deadline for entering is midnight tonight. If you want to get in on the action, the rules for entering are here. The winners will be announced tomorrow. Good luck.

Making It Big on the Big Screen

Dennis Lehane fans who were apprehensive about the film adaptation of that writer’s 2003 book can once again draw breath: the movie opened Friday to critical applause and box-office records. By all accounts, Shutter Island will be an even bigger hit than the wonderful film based on Lehane’s Mystic River. From the Los Angeles Times:

Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and a set of gothic thrills proved to be a huge draw at the box office this weekend, as Shutter Island, Paramount’s psychological thriller based on Dennis Lehane’s bestselling novel, earned $40.2 million domestically, according to the studio.

The number is the best-ever opening for director Scorsese and star DiCaprio, the latter of whom had reached the $30-million mark only once (with Catch Me If You Can, more than seven years ago). Many box-office experts had predicted an opening in the low-mid $30s, with any gross over $35 million considered a notable success.

January Magazine’s 2003 review of the novel Shutter Island can be enjoyed here. The magazine has also run a pair of exclusive interviews with Lehane: in 1999 and 2001.

READ MORE: “Film Review: Shutter Island,” by Pete Dragovich (Crimespree Cinema).

What Say in L.A.?

It’s definitely award nominations season. We’ve already heard about this year’s shortlists for the Edgar Awards, the Hammett Prize, the Agatha Awards, and the Strand Magazine Critics Awards. Now comes the rundown of contenders for the 30th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In addition to categories for Biographies, Current Interest, Fiction, and more, there’s of course a grouping for Mystery/Thriller. Those nominees are:

• Bury Me Deep, by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster)
• The Hidden Man, by David Ellis (Putnam)
• Black Water Rising, by Attica Locke (HarperCollins)
• A Darker Domain, by Val McDermid (HarperCollins)
• The Ghosts of Belfast, by Stuart Neville (Soho Press)

The winner in this and other categories will be announced during a ceremony at the Times’ Chandler Auditorium on April 23. That event serves as the opening act for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which bills itself as the “nation’s premier public literary festival,” in its 15th year in 2010.

Congratulations to all of the nominees!

Ho Ho Hoodlums

Take note, fans of the late, great Robert B. Parker: Although no mention of this work has yet appeared at Amazon, American distributor Ingram has a listing on its ipage book catalogue site for an “Untitled Spenser Holiday Novel,” due out from Putnam on November 2 of this year. If true, that means there will be two novels published this year starring Parker’s original protagonist, Spenser. The Boston gumshoe is already slated to appear in Painted Ladies, due for release in the fall.

All well and good, but I’m still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of some “Christmas special” Spenser story. Can you see Hawk draping tinsel on a tree?

An Unfortunate Case of Association

Given all the ridiculous hoopla of the last few months pertaining to celebrity golfer Tiger Woods’ marital infidelities, his subsequent disappearance from the spotlight, and then last week’s public apology to his Swedish model wife, Elin Nordegren, I couldn’t help stopping when I came across the cover of this 1951 Gold Medal novel by Wade Miller (aka Robert Allison Bob Wade and H. Bill Miller).

The fabulous jacket illustration of a man chasing a swimming woman was apparently the early work of Clark Hulings, done more than five decades before the U.S. media decided that Woods’ own pursuit of lovely female flesh was fair game for coverage. And author Miller’s 179-page novel really has nothing to do with Woods’ sexual antics. Its plot synopsis reads:

A novel of a soul-devouring woman. Ernest Hemingway, in his famous story, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” has one of his characters say: “American women are the hardest in the world, the hardest, the cruelest, the most predatory and the most attractive, and their men have softened or gone to pieces nervously as they have hardened.” The Tiger’s Wife is the story of such a man and such a woman, played out to the tempestuous end. It is Wade Miller at his superlative best.

Still, one can hardly look at this paperback front (which was changed, unfortunately, by the third printing) and not be immediately reminded of the golf pro’s woes.

Free Books, and That’s a Fact

If you haven’t already entered The Rap Sheet’s latest book giveaway contest, it’s time to get on the stick. This particular competition was inspired by the blogosphere’s latest meme, which asks writers to reel off “bald-faced lies” about themselves as well as truths, and leave readers to determine which are which--if they can.

I’ve put together seven statements relating to my past, and anybody who can guess which one of them isn’t true will be entered into the running for a free copy of Kelli Stanley’s captivating new historical detective novel, City of Dragons. The deadline for entering is midnight this coming Wednesday, February 24. If you want to get in on the action, the rules for entering are here.

Meanwhile, the often humorous results of this meme’s propagation can be spotted around the Web. Among the latest participants: Art Taylor, Mike Dennis, Dan Fleming, Paul Bishop, John McFetridge, Dana King, Chris La Tray, Keith Rawson, and those good folks over at Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room.

Bullet Points: Mid-Olympics Edition

• It’s been just shy of a year since The Rap Sheet racked up its 500,000th page view. But sometime early Friday morning, that little red counter at the bottom of the right-hand column did one better, registering this blog’s 750,000th page view.

• Following the news that Aftermath, Peter Robinson’s 2001 suspense novel starring Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, is going to be adapted for British television, Gary Dobbs talks with the author about the Banks books, his lack of involvement in the two-part TV drama, and his next novel, Bad Boy (due out in August).

• Meanwhile, it appears that the late Michael Dibdin’s protagonist, Italian cop Aurelio Zen, is also headed for the small screen.

• The guest of honor at the 2010 Killer Nashville conference, August 20-22, will be Jeffery Deaver, author of the forthcoming Lincoln Rhyme novel, The Burning Wire.

• Journalist-novelist Matt Beynon Rees (who recently wrote on this page about Georges Simenon’s The Saint-Fiacre Affair) has some casting suggestions for anybody who might like to adapt his new book, The Fourth Assassin, for the big-screen. Musing at My Book, the Movie, he says that the role of his Palestinian detective, Omar Yussef, should go to none other than Tony Shalhoub of Monk fame.

• New in Beat to a Pulp: “Coercion,” by Mark Boss.

• Another excellent tribute to the late Robert B. Parker, this one coming from fellow author Tim Byrd. (Hat tip to Bill Crider.)

• Oh, yeah, this couldn’t possibly lead to trouble, right?

• Seattle’s fourth annual Noir City film festival began last night and runs through this coming Thursday. Here’s the schedule of events. And Vince Keenan promises thoughtful coverage.

• Hard Case Crime editor Charles Ardai tells Stephen D. Rogers that he’s currently “working on the new TV series Haven for SyFy in a writing and producing capacity.” Haven is apparently based on the novella The Colorado Kid, by Stephen King, which Hard Case published back in 2005.

• Craig McDonald’s first Hector Lassiter novel, Head Games (2007), is to be reinterpretated as a graphic novel, due out in 2011.

• With this 1960 paperback book cover being such a stunner, I’m sorry to hear that the story inside isn’t better at grabbing the reader’s attention.

• Most of the news we’ve heard lately about President Barack Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus campaign has had to do with Republican’t hyocrisy on the issue. But it seems the bigger story is how successful those Democratic-led efforts have been. More on that here, here, here, and here.

• Short-story writer Paul D. Brazill has recently embarked on a succession of interviews with people involved in the crime-fiction community. Here he talks with Maxim Jakubowski, British publisher and former bookstore proprietor; and here he chats up Aldo Calcagno, veteran Web fiction editor.

• Thrillers, Killers ’n’ Chillers, the year-old Webzine co-edited by Col Bury and Matt Hilton, recently won the Preditors & Editors Readers Poll for Fiction Magazines.

• Today brings much-anticipated release of Barnaby Jones: Season One on DVD. I was never a Barnaby Jones fan, but it’s been so long since that Buddy Ebsen detective drama went off the air--30 years ago this coming April 3--that I might just have to sample the show again, to see what it was I liked (and didn’t like) about it.

• The challenges of interviewing James Ellroy.

• Jim Winter is absolutely right about Tiger Woods’ personal life being none of our damn business. “Tiger Woods does not owe you an apology,” he writes. “He owes Mrs. Woods an apology. Apparently, she’s already accepted it. I could be wrong, and if I am, so what? It’s nobody’s business but Mr. and Mrs. Woods’ and their children’s. Not yours. Not mine.”

• Keith Raffel will appear on tomorrow’s edition of Press: Here--which he describes as “Silicon Valley’s version of Meet the Press”--to talk about “the suitability of the Valley as a setting for crime fiction” and, of course, his latest novel set there, Smasher. Press: Here begins on Sunday at 9 a.m. on KNTV, the San Francisco Bay Area’s NBC affiliate (cable channel 3). If you can’t wait to watch it then, just click here.

• Spinetingler Magazine is going through some pretty significant changes, beginning with a redesign that makes it look far more newsy than it did before. In a short post, non-fiction editor Brian Lindenmuth explains that “We are in beta at the moment, but as changes are happening we are posting reviews.”

• American right-wingers have become such nutty extremists about terrorism and torture over the last 10 years, that Ronald Reagan would now be considered a liberal on the matter.

• And a couple of interviews worth reading: J. Sydney Jones talks with Cara Black, author of the new Murder in the Palais Royal; and John Kenyon chats with Steve Hamilton about the latter’s recently published The Lock Artist. Meanwhile, Keith Rawson talks on video with T. Jefferson Parker about his new Iron River. And Jeff Rutherford’s latest Reading and Writing podcast interview is with suspense novelist Stephen White (The Siege).

Getting the Nod

Michigan-based The Strand Magazine has announced its nominees for the 2009 Strand Magazine Critics Awards in two categories:

Best Novel
• Nine Dragons, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
• The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, by Charlie Huston (Ballantine Books)
• Life Sentences, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)
• The Renegades, by T. Jefferson Parker (Dutton)
• The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters (Riverhead Books)

Best First Novel
• Beat the Reaper, by Josh Bazell (Little, Brown)
• The Manual of Detection, by Jedediah Berry (Penguin Press)
• A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick (Algonquin Books)
• Starvation Lake, by Bryan Gruley (Touchstone)
• Black Water Rising, by Attica Locke (Harper)

These commendations will be presented at an invitation-only cocktail party, to be held on July 7 in New York City.

In addition, The Strand “bestowed its Lifetime Achievement Award to Elmore Leonard for his huge body of mystery and crime novels, which have been translated into dozens of languages and are regulars on the New York Times bestseller lists.”

The Book You Have to Read: “Alley Kat Blues,” by Karen Kijewski

(Editor’s note: This is the 82nd installment of our ongoing Friday blog series highlighting great but forgotten books. Today’s pick comes from Connecticut writer Karen E. Olson. She’s the Shamus Award-nominated author of two different series, one featuring Annie Seymour, a trouble-attracting New Haven police reporter [Shot Girl], the other starring Las Vegas tattoo artist-cum-sleuth Brett Kavanaugh [Pretty in Ink]. In addition, Olson is among the five writers of the blog First Offenders.)

Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, Marcia Muller. When you think of these three writers, you immediately think of how they helped push the female private eye into the limelight in American detective fiction. Their characters (Kinsey Millhone, V.I. Warshawski, and Sharon McCone, respectively) brought women’s crime fiction into the 20th century.

But there were other women writing about female private eyes, too: Lillian O’Donnell (Gwenn Ramadge), Linda Barnes (Carlotta Carlyle), Laura Lippman (Tess Monaghan), and Karen Kijewski.

I started reading crime fiction when I turned 30. Before that, I was a book snob. I was an English major and I read a lot of classics and “literary” fiction. I read some Oprah books. But when I first read Marcia Muller and Sara Paretsky, I was hooked. I had no idea that women were writing such amazing, kick-ass female characters. I started trolling the library shelves for more.

That’s when I found Karen Kijewski. She introduced P.I. and former bartender Kat Colorado in Katwalk in 1988. But I didn’t discover her until Kat’s Cradle in 1991. In all, Kijewski wrote nine Kat Colorado books. After Stray Kat Waltz in 1998, sadly, there were no more novels in the series.

Kat Colorado is like the other female private-eye characters, in that she has an extended family that’s not necessarily related to her by blood: an adopted grandmother, Alma; an adopted “cousin” of sorts in Lindy, a teenager she helped get off the streets; and Charity, her best friend who’s an advice columnist but never takes her own advice. Kat’s also got a steady boyfriend in Hank Parker, a Las Vegas homicide detective.

While many of these fictional female gumshoes sort of mesh together after a while, Kat stands out because of her voice. She is witty and wise and makes mistakes, and Kijewski does not shy from exploring issues, despite the predominately light tone of her stories.

In this week’s “forgotten” book, Alley Kat Blues, published in 1995 and sixth in the series, Kat and Hank are having trouble because Hank is too involved in a serial-killer case and is wrapped up with a sexy stripper who claims that her sister, a woman who fits the profile of the so-called Strip Stalker’s victims, is missing. At the same time, Kat is investigating the death of a young former Mormon girl, whose mother is convinced that she was murdered.

Kat Colorado lives in Sacramento, California, but half of this book takes place in Vegas. The reader is treated along the way to Kat’s perceptions of Sin City:

The McCarran Airport in Las Vegas is like no other airport in the world. The sound of slot machines assaulted my senses. Cigarette smoke packed my nostrils, filtered into my brain, and began the process of wantonly killing off brain cells. Las Vegas, home of the Seven-Deadly-Sins-Advertised-And- Advocated-In-Neon-Twenty-Four-Hours-A-Day, greeted me.

In re-reading Alley Kat Blues, I was struck by how overt Kijewski is when discussing Mormon religious views of women. Maybe it’s because I’m hooked on the HBO-TV show Big Love, which also explores the Mormon faith and polygamy, but Kijewski’s observations seem to me very direct. For instance, during a conversation with the Mormon girl’s mother, in which the mother says that her daughter died because “she wasn’t good,” Kat Colorado reflects:

I thought, then, of all the people who really weren’t good: Charles Keating, the Lincoln Savings and Loan three-piece-suited thug who bilked and defrauded thousands, many of them elderly and on a pension and last chance; Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, who had raped and terrorized numerous women and their families; Saddam Hussein; brain-dead skinheads who thought Hitler was a swell guy and whose sole ambition was to be just like him. All those people were lousy human beings and they
were still alive.

And in a conversation with the girl’s best friend, the friend says: “A good Mormon woman doesn’t automatically go to heaven, or not to the best part of heaven--only if her husband says so.”

This book is peppered with religious fanatics, including the dead girl’s brother, who is living on his own compound with two wives and a passel of children; the girl’s former fiancé, who tried to rape her because if she was raped then she’d be only too grateful to marry him; and the girl’s father, who believes that his daughter deserved to die because she rejected the church.

Alley Kat Blues’ secondary plot, concerning Hank and his inappropriate involvement with the stripper, also looks at the role of women in men’s lives. The stripper tells Kat at one point that Hank likes the fact that he feels she needs him, that he doesn’t feel Kat needs him, which is emasculating. This causes Kat to ruminate on who she is as a woman and what role she wants to play--if any--in Hank’s life, and how “need” should really be defined.

Karen Kijewski won the Shamus and Anthony awards for her Kat Colorado books. Kat is funny, wise, and tough, everything a female private-eye protagonist should be. She definitely influenced how I approached writing my own tough, female protagonist, Annie Seymour, and even my less tough but fiercely independent Brett Kavanaugh. Anyone looking for a solid mystery featuring a female private eye should most definitely turn to Kat Colorado.

Pages from the Past

Is it just me, or does today’s collection of “forgotten books” posts seem particularly diverse and intriguing? In addition to Karen E. Olson’s recommendation on this page of Alley Kat Blues, by Karen Kijewski, the Web offers up the following crime-fiction-related works: Not Too Narrow ... Not Too Deep, by Richard Sale; The Real Cool Killers, by Chester Himes; To Kiss, or Kill, by Day Keene; The Gambler, by William Krasner; The Case of the Vanishing Beauty, by Richard S. Prather; Primary Target, by Max Allan Collins; Forfeit, by Dick Francis; Double Blackmail, by G.D.H. and Margaret Cole; Pay the Devil, by Jack Higgins; The Grifters, by Jim Thompson; Rumpole for the Defense, by John Mortimer; Dashiell Hammett’s not-so-forgotten The Maltese Falcon; and a non-fiction entry, The Black Mask Boys, edited by William F. Nolan.

Series organizer Patti Abbott features, in her own blog, a full rundown of all today’s participating writers, plus Ed Gorman’s fine recommendation of The Beats, by Seymour Krim.

Old Gold

Busted Flush Press has released the bang-up cover of Damn Near Dead 2, its latest anthology of “geezer noir,” edited by Bill Crider and due out in the fall. Among that book’s lineup of contributors are Ace Atkins, Christa Faust, Don Winslow, C.J. Box, Bill Pronzini, S.J. Rozan, and The Rap Sheet’s own Cameron Hughes.

Credit for the cover illustration, by the way, goes to Jeff Wong, who also contributed the jacket art to Tom Nolan’s collection of Ross Macdonald fiction, The Archer Files: The Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer, Private Investigator.

Low on Gore and Violence, But Lots of Death

The traditional mysteries fan organization, Malice Domestic, has announced the nominees for its 2009 Agatha Awards as follows:

Best Novel
• Swan for the Money, by Donna Andrews (Minotaur)
• Bookplate Special, by Lorna Barrett (Berkley Prime Crime)
• Royal Flush, by Rhys Bowen (Berkley Prime Crime)
• A Brutal Telling, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• Air Time, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Mira)

Best First Novel
• For Better, for Murder, by Lisa Bork (Midnight Ink)
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley
(Delacorte Press)
• Posed for Murder, by Meredith Cole (Minotaur)
• The Cold Light of Mourning, by Elizabeth Duncan
(St. Martin’s Press)
• In the Shadow of Gotham, by Stefanie Pintoff (Minotaur)

Best Non-fiction
• Duchess of Death, by Richard Hack (Phoenix Books)
• Talking About Detective Fiction, by P.D. James (Knopf)
• Blood on the Stage, 1925-1950, by Amnon Kabatchnik
(Scarecrow Press)
• Dame Agatha’s Shorts, by Elena Santangelo (Bella Rosa Books)
• The Talented Miss Highsmith, by Joan Schenkar
(St. Martin’s Press)

Best Short Story
• “Femme Sole,” by Dana Cameron (from Boston Noir, edited by Dennis Lehane; Akashic Books)
• “Handbaskets, Drawers, and Killer Cold,” by Kaye George
(from Crooked)
• “The Worst Noel,” by Barb Goffman (from The Gift of Murder, edited by John M. Floyd; Wolfmont Press)
• “On the House,” by Hank Phillippi Ryan (from Quarry, edited by Kate Flora, Ruth McCarty, and Susan Oleksiw; Level Best Books)
• “Death Will Trim Your Tree,” by Elizabeth Zelvin
(from The Gift of Murder)

Best Children’s/Young Adult Novel
• The Morgue and Me, by John C. Ford (Viking Juvenile)
• The Hanging Hill, by Chris Grabenstein (Random House)
• The Case of the Poisoned Pig, by Lewis B. Montgomery (Kane Press)
• The Other Side of Blue, by Valerie O. Patterson (Clarion Books)
• The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline, by Nancy Springer (Philomel)

I’m not foolish enough to make any wagers here. But I will say that I was impressed by Stefanie Pintoff’s In the Shadow of Gotham, though it may have a hard time getting past Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie to win the Best First Novel award. And I will be surprised if Joan Schenkar’s biography, The Talented Miss Highsmith, doesn’t pick up Best Non-fiction honors.

Winners will be announced during Malice Domestic 22, to be held in Arlington, Virginia, from April 30 through May 2.

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Lies, Damn Lies, and a Contest

Patti Abbott, the Derringer Award-winning short-story writer and creator of the Friday “forgotten books” series, has challenged me to participate in the latest meme wending its way around the crime-fiction blogosphere. This Bald-Faced Liar (aka “Creative Writer”) Award meme was kicked off last month by Arizona library manager and book critic Lesa Holstine. Since then, an assortment of clever and crafty bloggers have participated, including Evan Lewis, Keith Raffel, Laurie Powers, Bill Crider, the pseudonymous le0part13, Randy Johnson, Paul D. Brazill, and Loren Eaton.

The rules are pretty simple:

• Thank the person who gave this to you. (Merci, Patti.)
• Copy the logo and place it on your blog. (OK, done.)
• Link to the person who nominated you. (Check.)
• Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth - or - switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie. (See below.)
• Nominate seven “Creative Writers” who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies of their own. (Check the end of this post.)
• Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.
• Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know that you have nominated them.

Most folks who’ve tackled this meme so far have chosen to conceal one true statement about themselves within six falsehoods. Being the maverick that I am, I’ve decided to go in the opposite direction--to deliver six truths about myself, plus one fabrication. Think you can tell the difference? Keep in mind that what sounds like an obvious misrepresentation of fact might in fact be true: I have led an often interesting life.

Which one of these statements is not true?

1. I once dined with Buckminster Fuller.

2. My father’s boyhood pal grew up to be George Bush’s spy chief.

3. One night, many years ago, when my apartment building caught on fire, I escaped through the flames clutching the manuscript I was working on at the time--but forgot to put on shoes.

4. I once helped to send a friend to prison.

5. I once sat beside Amy Adams on a cross-country flight.

6. I once fell asleep right in the middle of interviewing a famous English economist.

7. A cabbie in Tijuana offered to sell me his sister. Cheap.

To make guessing at the correct answer just a wee bit more fun, I’m going to turn it into a contest.

Author Kelli Stanley’s publisher, Minotaur Books, has offered to send two free hardcover copies of her wonderful new historical crime novel, City of Dragons, to Rap Sheet readers. If you would like to win one of those, you must first decide which of the aforementioned seven “facts” is a phony, and then send your response (along with your mailing address) to jpwrites@wordcuts.org. And please write “You’re a Liar” in the subject line. You can make only one guess, but you have until next Wednesday, February 24, to make it. At that time, I’ll collect all of the right answers (presuming anyone gets it right), and randomly choose two people to receive free copies of City of Dragons.

If you’d like to take a stab at identifying my one true statement without entering the giveaway contest, you can do that, too. Simply leave your response in the Comments section of this post.

One final thing: I’m supposed to tag seven other bloggers to take up this challenge themselves. So here goes (no hard feelings if you would prefer not to play):

Dan Fleming of My Year in Crime
Art Taylor of Art & Literature
Linda L. Richards
Declan Burke of Crime Always Pays
Ali Karim of Existentialist Man
Paul Bishop of Bish’s Beat
Mike Dennis

Don’t forget to check back here next week to see how good I am at lying, and who wins those free copies of Kelli Stanley’s new book.