Bullet Points: Super Bowl Sunday Edition

• In case you haven’t heard, English actor Ian Carmichael, who during the 1970s played gentleman sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey in a BBC-TV series based on Dorothy L. Sayers’ mystery stories, died this last week at age 89. The Guardian and BBC News both feature obituaries, and Kim Malo shares her memories of Carmichael in the blog Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room.

• Were “the acclaimed fathers of obstetrics,” William Hunter and William Smellie, also clandestine serial killers? Yes, according to British historian Don Shelton.

• This week’s new short story in Beat to a Pulp is titled “HBT.” It comes from crime and western fiction writer Nik Morton.

• Robert J. Randisi, author and founder of the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA), writes to say that he has a new short-story collection available from Perfect Crime Books. Called The Guilt Edge, it includes, as he notes, “Henry Po stories, Truxton Lewis stories, Val O’Farrell stories, and a few more, plus an intro from Ed Gorman.” Randisi adds that “Perfect Crime Books is a small press just starting out, and I’m happy to support them with a collection, a novel (soon), and pretty soon a two-volume PWA collection of Shamus-winning stories.”

• Does anyone else remember this 1976 teleflick? Here’s a clip:



• Fans of Edward Marston’s 11th-century mysteries featuring Domesday commissioners Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret should note that Ostara Publishing has already brought back into print the first four books in that excellent series, with--I hope--more to come.

• Sadly, Prime Crime, the mystery bookshop in Ottawa, Canada, will be shutting its doors for the last time in mid-March.

• Here are some programming highlights for this year’s Left Coast Crime convention, to be held in Los Angeles, March 11-14.

• HBO-TV may bring Walter Mosley’s latest detective, Leonid McGill (The Long Fall), to the small screen. More here.

• Rush Limburger is an idiot. But then, you knew that already.

• Rob Kitchin has posted the results of his Classic Crime Fiction Curriculum Challenge, which asked readers of his blog to select 10 must-read crime fiction novels published before 1970. His first nine picks are here, with the last spot yet to be filled. You’re invited to help make that final choice here.

• The Amazon/Macmillan spat looks to be over. For now, at least.

• Actor Stephen Tompkinson is set to play author Peter Robinson’s series protagonist, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, in an adaptation of the 2001 suspenser, Aftermath.

• Here’s another TV series I hope makes it someday to the DVD racks: East Side/West Side (1963-1964), a CBS show that followed a group of social workers as they sought to help residents of the New York City slums. The cast was headed by none other than George C. Scott, and as critic Ivan G. Shreve Jr. puts it, “despite its single season on the air, [East Side/West Side] opened so many doors and made so many great strides in examining subjects previously considered too ‘dark’ or ‘controversial’ that it has since become recognized as one of the landmark programs on television, and a true pioneer in altering the landscape to make many of the series we watch possible today.” Shreve looks back at that short-lived series in a pair of posts, found here and here.

• Finally, because today brings us Super Bowl XLIV, TV Squad looks back at the sexiest--and least sexy--Super Bowl ads of all time.