The Wednesday Helping

• Robin Jarossi reports in Crime Time Preview that British TV broadcaster ITV is preparing a small-screen adaptation of Kate Summerscale’s best-selling non-fiction book, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective (2008). “The two-hour drama,” writes Jarossi, “will star Paddy Considine (Red Riding Trilogy, Dead Man’s Shoes, The Bourne Ultimatum) in the lead role of Inspector Jonathan Whicher and will be adapted by Neil McKay (Mo, See No Evil: The Moors Murders). Set in 1860, this true story of murder, psychological suspense and courtroom drama begins when three-year-old Saville Kent is found brutally murdered and hidden down a servants’ privy in the grounds of the elegant Rode Hill House on the edge of a village on the Wiltshire/Somerset border.”

• A note for those fortunate folk who won copies of Sara Paretsky’s new novel, Body Work, in a recent book giveaway contest, as well as for everyone else: National Public Radio has posted an interview with the author that includes an excerpt from her latest V.I. Warshawski yarn. You’ll find it all here.

• John Cusak as Edgar Allan Poe?

• Author Dick Lochte names his favorite private-eye-fiction works as part of a project undertaken by the Private Eye Writers of America to assemble a list of “essential” novels, movies, and TV series working the gumshoe field. It’s a damn good list, but I look forward to seeing what other PWA members can suggest.

• Good news from Max Allan Collins.

• Pulp fiction aficionado Steve Holland has posted a tribute to artist Raymond Hawkey, who designed book covers for Ian Fleming, Len Deighton, Frederick Forsythe, Gavin Lyall, and others. Hawkey died last week at age 80. There’s more on his life and work here.

• I just can’t make up my mind which of these news events is the most idiotic--example A, example B, example C, or example D (the last of which has helped lead to these consequences).

• Interviews worth your reading: J. Sydney Jones talks with Louis Penny about her Quebec-set Chief Inspector Gamache series; Bookdagger quizzes Michael Jacob and Daniela De Gregorio, who together write historical novels (Unholy Awakening) under the pseudonym Michael Gregorio; and Lourdes at Lost in Books chats with Joanna Challis about her mystery series starring author Daphne du Maurier.

• Speaking of the Michael Gregorio duo, they offer their summer 2010 reading list and opinions about each of the books they chose here.

• Keith Breese applauds bad novels in a post in the new Mulholland Books blog. It comes complete with trashy but eye-catching book covers.

• Another vintage crime novel I have to find.

• Congratulations to Friend of The Rap Sheet Col Bury.

• I guess I had better purchase one of those 20-volume editions of The Oxford English Dictionary before they cease to be printed.

• And it’s not crime fiction, but I found this pretty exciting: On October 19, Timeless Media Group will release a 10-DVD, complete three-season set of the 1971-1973 TV Western series Alias Smith and Jones. The $79.98 price is a bit steep, but perhaps some deep-pocketed relative will consider giving it to me as a Christmas present.