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.