Bullet Points: Start of Summer’s End Edition

• Issue No. 4 of Crimefactory has gone live here. Contents include an interview with Hard Case Crime editor Charles Ardai, a look at Bangkok-based crime films, an excerpt from Allan Guthrie’s forthcoming novel, and serial fiction from Kieran Shea.

• In commemoration of P.D. James’ 90th birthday today, Kiwi crime-fiction blogger Craig Sisterson has posted an interview with the baroness and best-selling novelist.

• Speaking of birthdays, tomorrow will bring the 70th birthday of Martin Sheen, certainly best known for his dramatic role as President Josiah “Jed” Bartlett in NBC-TV’s much-lauded series, The West Wing. In celebration of Sheen’s 70th, TV Squad looks back at some of his most memorable roles in TV series, films, and mini-series.

• The latest short-story offering in Beat to a Pulp comes from Maine coast writer Matthew P. Mayo. His tale, titled “Someone to Watch Over Me,” can be found right here.

• More markets for short-fiction writers.

• Here’s a book I would certainly like to own.

• The TNT-TV series Leverage, which stars Timothy Hutton as the leader of a group of justice-minded thieves and con men, has already been renewed for a fourth season.

• Meanwhile, In Plain Sight, the series starring Mary McCormick and Frederick Weller as U.S. marshals attached to the Witness Protection Program, has been granted two more seasons on the USA Network.

• Steven Benen laments the decline of intellectual seriousness among conservatives. Prime examples of the trend here, here, and here.

• Spinetingler Magazine has video interviews with both Sophie Littlefield (A Bad Day for Pretty) and Gary Phillips (Orange County Noir).

• The American Bar Association’s ABA Journal has chosen the 25 greatest fictional lawyers (who are not Atticus Finch), a list that includes Frank Galvin (Paul Newman) of The Verdict, Paul Biegler (Jimmy Stewart) from Anatomy of a Murder, Lawrence Preston (E.G. Marshall) from The Defenders, Alan Shore (James Spader) of Boston Legal, and Forrest Bedford (Sam Waterston) from I’ll Fly Away. Click here to find notable characters who didn’t fit make the cut.

• An excellent illustration of Daniel Craig as James Bond.

• Here’s a Donald E. Westlake novel you’ve probably never read.

• No wonder Fox “News” isn’t worried about offending minorities.

• Lawyer-turned novelist Richard North Patterson (In the Name of Honor) chooses Advise and Consent, Allen Drury’s 1959 novel, as one of his favorite political thrillers.

• Love those Charlie Chan movie posters!

• Law & Order honcho Dick Wolf will try his hand at thriller-writing.

• A century after the horrendous murder that sent homeopathic physician Hawley Harvey Crippen to the gallows in Britain, the Los Angeles Times has resurrected newspaper reports about that long-ago crime. It’s fascinating to read such contemporaneous accounts.

• I love this spy novel cover.

• A grave worth visiting during Bouchercon in San Francisco.

• Wow! The TV pilot film made from Ken Bruen’s Shamus Award-winning 2001 novel, The Guards, looks pretty terrific. Scottish actor Iain Glen seems splendid in the role of detective Jack Taylor (though Declan Burke disagrees). Learn more about the project by clickety-clicking here.