Full Read Ahead!

January Magazine contributors just got through listing their dozens of favorite books from 2010. But already, the mag is up with its picks for the best fiction of next year. Editor Linda L. Richards explains:

It feels a bit like crystal ball-gazing, sure it does. And it’s also like searching for 10 needles in a haystack. Still, here we are taking a run at it: In the glorious literary year that will be 2011, what will be the 10 most important books?

It’s a dangerous business, this sticking out of necks. You have to be prepared to be wrong or corrected. Plus, fate can throw a monkey wrench into the works. But the way we see things right now, this is how it looks: an exciting year of books. Despite continuous rumors of falling skies, the world of literature continues to evolve and even to thrive, depending on how you look at things.

Now, clearly, there will be thousands of books published in the English language in 2011. Narrowing that exciting field down to just 10 titles in an impossible task. We’ve done it anyway. Here are the 10 works of fiction that will be published in the first half of the year that we’re currently anticipating the most.

Among those 10 are four works of crime and thriller fiction that deserve notice. Click here to see all of January’s choices.

McGarrett 9-0

Had he not taken his last breaths in early 1998, John Joseph Patrick Ryan--considerably better known by his acting moniker, Jack Lord--would have celebrated his 90th birthday today.

He boasted a history of work on Broadway stages, starred in such films as Williamsburg: the Story of a Patriot and in the short-lived western TV series Stoney Burke, was reportedly once considered for the role of Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek, and had the first opportunity to play American spy Felix Leiter in the James Bond movies. But good Lord, the man is undoubtedly best remembered for starring as bad-ass Detective Steve McGarrett in the original Hawaii Five-O series (1968-1980).

Lord died of congestive heart failure at his Honolulu home on January 21, 1998. His ashes were later scattered in the Pacific Ocean. He left behind an estate worth more than $40 million, which was given to a dozen Hawaiian charities after the death, in October 2005, of his wife, Marie.

READ MORE: “Jack Lord: 1920-1998”

Back on the Beat

After an incredibly busy couple of weeks spent helping out at my neighborhood bookshop, followed by a pleasant Christmas weekend spent with my brother, Matt, playing Wii Golf and consuming his gourmet meals, it’s back to the blogging salt mines for yours truly. Here are a few newsy bits that recently caught my attention.

• Lawrence Block was making noises just a while back about slowing down in his writing. But as John Kenyon observes in his blog, Things I’d Rather Be Doing, “2011 is shaping up to be the biggest year for Block fans.” Not only has he “more fully opened the door of the vault that long protected his ancient, pseudonymous work,” but “he has inked a deal with Open Road Media to sell e-Books of many of his titles.”

• The Winter 2010/2011 issue of Mysterical-E has been posted. Contents include new short fiction by John M. Floyd, Libby Cudmore, B.J. Bourg, and Karyne Corum; an interview with Peggy Ehrhart (Got No Friend Anyhow); and Gerald So’s list of his five favorite TV debuts of the year (one of which--Terriers--has already been cancelled).

• My wife might not consider this good news, but I do: The Mannix: Fourth Season DVD boxed set is due in stores come January 4.

• Thank you to Dan Fleming of My Year in Crime for naming The Rap Sheet as one of the “Best of the Year--Crime on the Web” sites.

• Author J.D. Rhoades takes a (wise)crack at predicting what ups and downers the next dozen months will bring.

• Seth Harwood has posted the fifth, final, and long-delayed episode of his latest Jack Palms tale, Triad Death March. Click here to listen.

• Stars Michael Cudlitz and Ben McKenzie talk about the third season of TNT-TV’s Southland, which will begin on Tuesday, January 4. Watch here.

• The Thrilling Detective’s Kevin Burton Smith offers a list of his “Favorite P.I. Things of 2010.” It includes his statement that Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), the “savvy, leather-wrapped” staff investigator on the popular CBS-TV legal drama The Good Wife, is “not just the most interesting character on the show--she’s the best private eye on the tube these days, a real throwback to the genre’s roots, Hammett-cold and Race Williams-tough.”

• On the National Public Radio Web site, novelist Anjanette Delgado writes in praise of “the clueless detective,” using three recent books to make her point. (Hat tip to Murder, Mystery & Mayhem.)

• There have been plenty of “trumped-up pseudo-scandals” circulating among hysterical right-wingers over the last year. But such folks have reached a new, idiotic low with allegations that President Obama’s support of the United Nations’ non-binding “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People” will open “a path for the return of ancient tribal lands to American Indians, including even parts of Manhattan.” Seriously, folks, how stupid do such rumormongers believe Americans are, that they think we’d fall for such patent hogwash?

• Is the long-esteemed Arts & Letters Daily doomed?

• Libby Fischer Hellmann casts the someday-maybe film adaptation of her latest novel, Set the Night on Fire. How about Natalie Portman as protagonist Lila Hilliard?

• Michael Connelly has finally ended his long-running battle with Paramount Pictures over the movie and TV rights to his main protagonist, Harry Bosch. And believe it or not, Connelly came out the winner.

Cover Story

With only one more week of voting to go in The Rap Sheet’s Best Crime Novel Cover of 2010 competition, three books have established clear leads: Shuichi Yoshida’s Villain, Adam Ross’ Mr. Peanut, and Kelli Stanley’s City of Dragons. Also coming on strong are Graham Moore’s The Sherlockian and Helen Grant’s The Vanishing of Katharina Linden.

If you have not already cast your ballot for one or more of the 10 entries in this competition, isn’t it about time you did so? After all, this contest will close at midnight on Wednesday, January 5, with results to be announced soon after that.

Procrastinate no longer, folks. Vote here.

One Final Read on 2010

Plenty of lists have been published recently, promising to identify the best crime novels of 2010. Heck, I was responsible for one myself: January Magazine’s two-part assessment of mystery and thriller works (Part I is here, Part II is here). None of these “bests” is the best, of course, and none of them is perfect. There will always be readers who scoff at the choices being made by others, but that’s because even among folks who believe they possess good taste in books (and are paid to express their opinions), individual preferences can differ dramatically. Some of us enjoy historical mysteries, others prefer tense thrillers with forensic or foreign backdrops, still others tend to pick up softer stories with connections to crafts, cats, or cooking. It’s up to each of us to determine who we’ll believe when it comes to accepting recommendations in this arena.

My reading this year was all over the map, mixing new books with old, mysteries with history, long works and much shorter ones. Without intention, I seemed to read less mainstream fiction than usual; I’ll have to do a better job of evening things out in 2011.

Of the works I did consume this year, some really stood out. Several of my favorites I wrote about in January’s Best of 2010 package, but others I couldn’t comment on, primarily because I lacked the extra time of late to do so. But with January’s picks all posted now, and ignoring the possibility that I might stumble across some outstanding 2010 release between now and New Year’s Eve, I have listed below my expanded list of the 25 books--fiction and non-fiction--that brought me the most enjoyment over the last dozen months. These are listed alphabetically, not in order of my preferences. Where the book was not released originally in 2010, I have included its date of publication.

Crime Fiction

• The Anniversary Man, by R.J. Ellory

• The Big Bang, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

• Body Work, by Sara Paretsky

• Cat of Many Tails (1949), by Ellery Queen

• City of Dragons, by Kelli Stanley

• The Convertible Hearse (1957), by William Campbell Gault

• Deadly Communion, by Frank Tallis

• The Death Instinct, by Jed Rubenfeld

• The Detective Branch, by Andrew Pepper

• The Detroit Electric Scheme, by D.E. Johnson

• Field Grey, by Philip Kerr

• Gone ’til November, by Wallace Stroby

• Infamous, by Ace Atkins

• The Information Officer, by Mark Mills

• Moonlight Mile, by Dennis Lehane

• Owls Don’t Blink (1942), by Erle Stanley Gardner

• Peeler, by Kevin McCarthy

• A Razor Wrapped in Silk, by R.N. Morris

• The Underbelly, by Gary Phillips

• Unholy Awakening, by Michael Gregorio

Non-fiction/History

• Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln’s Corpse, by James Swanson

• Mark Twain: Man in White--The Grand Adventure of His Final Years,
by Michael Shelden

• Monk Eastman: The Gangster Who Became a War Hero, by Neil Hanson

• Paris Under Water: How the City of Light Survived the Great Flood of 1910, by Jeffrey H. Jackson

• The Promise: President Obama, Year One, by Jonathan Alter

Judging from the catalogues that have made their way to my mailbox thus far, there will be plenty of interesting reading choices available in 2011, both for folks who read primarily crime fiction and others, like me, who claim more omnivorous reading habits.

One final matter before 2010 breathes its last. I want to thank everyone who has contributed to The Rap Sheet over the last year, both this blog’s energetic regular contributors and the guest wordsmiths who’ve enriched our Books You Have to Read series about forgotten works worth discovering. I couldn’t possibly carry the load of keeping up The Rap Sheet by myself, nor would I wish to do so. It’s the diversity of voices that keeps this humble page lively and interesting. I look forward to continuing my association in 2011 with the contributors I’ve depended on since The Rap Sheet launched in May 2006, and hearing from others who might like to add to our mix.

In order to enjoy this festive season (and it’s about time we did), The Rap Sheet is signing off for a bit. Unless something monumental takes place in the interim, we will let our computers rest and instead concentrate on wrapping paper, family get-togethers, and vessels of celebratory ale, with the plan to return to business early next week.

Happy holidays, everyone.

A Book Lover’s Christmas Nightmare

Here we all are, laboring away on our books (see the latest episode of my serial novel, Forget About It, here) and this kid says “poo!”

Thanks to Drew Lebby, the other love of my life. (Don’t ask--I won’t tell.)

Bullet Points: Christmas Eve Eve Edition

• In Mystery Fanfare, author Kelli Stanley has posted a crime-fiction-oriented twist on Clement Moore’s famous holiday poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Jolly good fun!

• The husband and wife who write as Michael Gregorio have posted a previously unpublished Christmas crime story on their Web site, “Do You Believe in Father Christmas?” If you want to read it, don’t wait: The tale is scheduled to disappear from the site on Sunday, January 2.

• Meanwhile, the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio Web site offers a Christmas-themed episode of the classic Nero Wolfe program. Originally broadcast in 1950 and starring Sydney Greenstreet, it’s titled “The Case of the Slaughtered Santas.” Listen here.

• The “New Slashers” issue of Plots with Guns is now live.

• Already planning to attend Bouchercon 2011 in St. Louis? Well, maybe you’d like to save some money on getting in. The registration rate will remain at $150 per person through December 31. But after that, it will shoot up to $175. Register here.

• John Kenyon of Things I’d Rather Be Doing is holding a “fairy tale as crime fiction” contest. His explanation of the rules:

Write a crime fiction story of between 1,000 and 3,000 words (with some flexibility on either end) that is based on the premise of an actual children’s fairy tale. For example, a story about a predatory thief based on “Little Red Riding Hood.” Post it to your blog or Web site, or find someone who will do that for you. Put the link in the comments here. Do so by midnight on Jan. 14, Cinderella, or your coach to (the relative) fame and fortune (of modest web-based attention) will turn back into a pumpkin.

You don’t need to reveal which fairy tale you used as source material. While some will probably be obvious, others may not. Guessing can be part of the fun.

Prizes will be given. Full details here.

• Novelist-screenwriter Lee Goldberg’s reports that his independent film, Remaindered, “has been chosen as a finalist at the Beaufort International Film Festival in Beaufort, South Carolina this February ...”

• If you haven’t yet noticed, the group blog Do Some Damage has recently been posting a series of Christmas noir stories.

• And blogger Seb Duper presents us with his own holiday-themed short tale, “The Christmas Three,” in Chalk Outlines in Snow.

• Some are crying “heresy” over the decision by makers of the forthcoming film based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” and starring John Cusak, to shoot that picture in Belgrade and Budapest rather than Poe’s hometown of Baltimore.

• A little cheesecake cheer for the holidays from illustrator Rob Kelly.

• Two more losses to the crime-fiction community: TV writer Herman Groves, who produced scripts for Have Gun--Will Travel, The F.B.I., Hawaii Five-O, and “Harry O (including the one with Maureen McCormick as a junkie),” died earlier this month at age 83; and Steve Landesberg, “a comic actor known for playing wry, bookish types and most widely recognized as Barney Miller’s Arthur P. Dietrich,” died of cancer on December 20 at age 65. Good-bye also to Fred Foy, “the announcer best known for his passionate lead-in to The Lone Ranger.” Foy died on December 22. He was 89 years old.

• Concluding his fine series of reviews covering all of John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels, Pornokitsch contributor Jared Shurin weighs in on The Lonely Silver Rain (1985), “a pretty awful book when taken on its own. ... But, as the capstone to a twenty-one book series, The Lonely Silver Rain is a damn good conclusion.” You’ll find Shurin’s complete series here.

• Also worth following: Cullen Gallagher is spending part of this holiday season reviewing books by the largely forgotten Peter Rabe.

• Interested in joining a reading challenge for 2011? In Reference to Murder’s B.V. Lawson offers a round-up of opportunities for folks who like their reading to cover places and times both foreign and familiar.

• J. Sydney Jones interviews Leighton Gage, author of the Brazil-set Chief Inspector Mario Silva series (Every Bitter Thing).

• Omnimystery News has updated its 2010 mystery events calendar.

• We’ve already seen one trailer for the March 2011 big-screen release, The Lincoln Lawyer, based on Michael Connelly’s 2005 novel of the same name and starring Matthew McConaughey (as well as the ever-lovely Marisa Tomei). But here’s a longer and better one.

• Are these really the 10 Best Legal Shows in TV History?

• Finally, congratulations to the newly concluded 111th U.S. Congress for an amazing series of accomplishments, not only during the recent lame duck session, but throughout the last two years--this despite unprecedented obstructionism from the GOP. The American Enterprise Institute’s Norman Ornstein characterizes the 111th as “one of, at least, the three most productive Congresses” since 1900. Unfortunately, with laissez-faire Republicans assuming majority control of the U.S. House in January, and already signaling their partisan disinterest in passing meaningful legislation, this may have been the last productive Congress we’ll see until after the 2012 presidential election.

Which Is the Top Front?

If you haven’t already cast your ballot in The Rap Sheet’s Best Crime Novel Cover of 2010 contest, you would be wise to start thinking about it. Our judges have chosen 10 jackets that they think represent the finest that this genre had to offer over the last year. Now it’s up to you, the readers, to pick which one you think is most outstanding.

Vote here. And remember, this contest will close at midnight on Wednesday, January 5, with results to be announced soon after that.

“The Biggest Bond of All!”

That was the hype line for Thunderball, the controversial fourth James Bond spy movie starring Sean Connery, which premiered in the United States on December 21, 1965--45 years ago today. As The HMSS Weblog observed last month, this is “a bittersweet anniversary for 007 fans. Bondmania hit its peak with Thunderball for the general public and it would never make it back to those levels. Obviously the series has remained popular, generating 18 installments over the next 43 years. But it wouldn’t be the entertainment phenomenon it was in 1964 and 1965.”

As Wikipedia recalls,

The film follows Bond’s mission to find two NATO atomic bombs stolen by SPECTRE, which holds the world ransom for £100 million in diamonds, in exchange for not destroying an unspecified major city in either England or the United States (later revealed to be Miami). The search leads Bond to the Bahamas, where he encounters Emilio Largo, the card-playing, eye-patch wearing SPECTRE Number Two. Backed by the CIA and Largo’s mistress, Bond’s search culminates in an underwater battle with Largo’s henchmen. The film had a complex production, with four different units and about a quarter of the film consisting of underwater scenes.

It’s been a while since I watched Thunderball. All I really remember from the film are Bond’s jet pack (a travel innovation for the near future, viewers were led to assume back then), that underwater fight scene, and the lovely French actress Claudine Auger, who played Bond girl Domino Derval. But I dug up the original trailer on YouTube today:

For more on Thunderball, check out The HMSS Weblog’s terrific six-part series of posts, available here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Mystery’s Perfect Mate

The second part of January Magazine’s Best Crime Novels of 2010 feature--which includes works by Henning Mankell, Eoin McNamee, Craig McDonald, and R.N. Morris--was posted this evening. You’ll find it here.

Part I can be enjoyed here.

In all, January critics chose 36 novels as the best of the year. That’s a small number, compared with how many titles were put out in this category over the last 12 months. But there are plenty of good choices in those alphabetical lists, for anyone who’s still deciding what to buy the crime-fiction fans on his or her holiday list.

January’s 2010 Hits in December

In case anyone has been puzzled by the unusual lack of activity on this page over the last day and a half, please rest assured that it was intentional--and extremely useful. Not only did it allow our post asking readers to vote for the Best Crime Novel Cover of the Year to remain at the top of The Rap Sheet (and thereby generate a greater response), but it provided me with the time I needed to finish putting together January Magazine’s Best Crime Novels of the Year feature.

As I did last year, I have split the numerous 2010 crime-fiction selections in two, with Part I going up just a bit ago. You can read the A-G selections here. Part II of this feature will be posted tomorrow afternoon.

To learn how the books were chosen, not only crime novels but other works as well, see January’s Best Books of 2010 anchor piece here.

Face Off

Ever since 2007, those of us at The Rap Sheet have closed out each year with a look back at some of what we considered to be the finest crime novel covers of the previous twelvemonth. It’s our small way of acknowledging the often-unheralded graphic designers who, though they don’t write the books we read, nonetheless play a vital role in encouraging us to pick up those works in the first place. Frankly, most of the crime-fiction jackets we see in stores nowadays are quite pedestrian and dull, either employing identical varieties of imagery (especially shadowy running figures and vague but ominous nightscapes) or, even worse, duplicating stock photography we have already spotted on other book fronts. It is the least we can do to applaud concepts that go beyond the typical, that draw our eyes through distinctive means.

Our annual judging panel comprises four people with at least some background in design: novelist Linda L. Richards, who’s also the editor of January Magazine; graphic artist, illustrator, and photographer David Middleton, who serves as the art and culture editor of January; Kevin Burton Smith, the editor and creator of The Thrilling Detective Web Site; and yours truly, J. Kingston Pierce, editor of The Rap Sheet. Over the last few months, we’ve all pitched in our nominations for “great covers.” Linda’s assessment of the panelists’ nominations strikes me as correct: “Kevin’s choices all seem starkly graphic, Jeff seems pulled by great images, I am moved by really terrific typography, and I know from David’s comments that he’s big on how all the pieces fit together. (Um ... not surprising, considering he’s a working designer!)”

From a longlist of more than two dozen outstanding examples, published on both sides of the Atlantic, the four of us voted for our favorites, narrowing the list down further to just 10 jackets, each of which offers intriguing atmosphere, interesting and appropriate typography, and creativity that exceeds the norm. Now we’re asking Rap Sheet readers to help us pick the best crime novel cover of 2010.

After you’ve looked closely over the nominees featured below (arranged in alphabetical order by title), scroll down to the end of this post, where you will find a box in which to vote for what you think are the best choices among this final bunch. Feel free to choose as many jackets as you think deserve praise. We will leave this cover contest open for the next week and a half, until midnight on Wednesday, January 5. After which we’ll announce the results.

By the way, if you think we’ve neglected to mention some particularly handsome specimen of crime-fiction front published during 2010, please let us know about it in the Comments section of this post. With your alternative suggestion, try to include a Web address where we can all go to study your nominee ourselves.

Click on any of these covers for an enlargement.

“It Is the Dead She Seeks”

This week’s new short story in Beat to a Pulp, and the last one to be posted there in 2010, is called “The Quick ... and the Dead.” It comes from novelist and blogger Bill Crider.

Why Does This Headline Not Surprise Me?

“Fox News Viewers Are the Most Misinformed: Study.” More here.

Giving Credit Wherever It’s Due

Earlier today, the final part of “The Chase,” the Top Suspense group’s big tag-team fiction project, was posted. You will find it here.

Now the focus shifts to you, the readers of that multi-part story. As Top Suspense member Dave Zeltserman explained when “The Chase” began running last week, “we’ll be offering free books to the first five people who can match each segment to the author who wrote it!” The six authors involved are listed here.

It’s not clear exactly where one is supposed to lodge his or her guesses about who wrote each segment of “The Chase.” But I suspect you can probably do so in the Comments section of Part 12 and feel confident of having entered this contest.

UPDATE: Dave Zeltserman has now posted the specifics for people hoping to enter Top Suspense’s contest: “We’re offering free books and bragging rights to the first five people who can match each story segment to the author who wrote it. You can enter the contest by sending an e-mail to dave.zeltserman@gmail.com with your picks. Entries must be received by Dec. 30th, and one entry per person. We’ll be announcing the winners on Jan. 3rd.” Zeltserman is also offering free autographed editions of his own novels to the “first three people who can pick out the two story segments I wrote.”

Click here to read “The Chase” in its entirety.

An Actress to Remember

Bill Crider brings the sad news that 90-year-old Iowa-born performer Neva Patterson has died at her home in Los Angeles.

As The New York Times points out, the rather stern-countenanced Patterson was probably known best for her roles in the film An Affair to Remember (1957) and the play The Seven Year Itch (1952). But her lengthy list of credits in the Internet Movie Database includes guest appearances in TV crime dramas such as Coronet Blue, The Snoop Sisters, Ironside, The Rockford Files, Barnaby Jones, Cagney & Lacey, and In the Heat of the Night. Patterson also had a regular part in James Garner’s 1971-1972 western series, Nichols, and played “a collaborator with alien invaders” in the original, 1980s science-fiction TV mini-series V.

The Book You Have to Read: “An Unsuitable Job for a Woman,” by P.D. James

(Editor’s note: This is the 111th installment of our ongoing Friday blog series highlighting great but forgotten books. Today’s pick comes from Oregon coast author Kristine Kathryn Rusch, better known to crime-fiction enthusiasts under her pseudonym Kris Nelscott. As Nelscott, she has written six critically acclaimed mystery novels about African-American private eye Smokey Dalton. She’s won the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery, and been short-listed for the Edgar and Shamus awards. Her latest Smokey Dalton short story, “Family Affair,” was reprinted in By Hook or By Crook and 27 More of the Best Crime and Mystery Stories of the Year, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg. In 2011, WMG Publishing will reissue all six Smokey novels in anticipation of her next installment in that series, The Day After, which will appear in 2012.)

I grew up in a very different time. At the age of 17, I was on the short list to become a page in the United States Senate. Several someones from a Wisconsin high school would be chosen, and my record of extracurricular activities--from debate to Model United Nations--as well as my high grades gave me the best credentials in the state. I was, as my social studies teacher told me, a shoo-in.

Until it came time for the interview. Four of my classmates and I had to travel to Madison, the state capital, to meet the senator and his staff. My four classmates went. I could not.

Not because of anything I had done, mind you. The senator’s staff simply took one look at our list and barred me from attending. Seems I was the only girl in the state to try to become a Senate page.

I didn’t protest. At 17, I already knew there was nothing I could do except hope things would get better. Later that year, I won a prestigious local scholarship that would pay my tuition for all four years of college. That scholarship, given every year to a boy and a girl from the local high school, was the best the school had to offer.

The boy did not have the restrictions built into his scholarship that I had. His scholarship had no restrictions at all. Mine had several, including this one: I would lose the scholarship if I got married while still in college. Silly me, I got married at 19 and forfeited the scholarship. Again, I did not protest the inequity. I knew there was no point--even though I planned to (and did) graduate within the usual four years. Marriage didn’t slow me down. Lack of financial resources hurt, however. I really could have used that money.

At one point, I held four jobs because I had lost that scholarship. Although if I mentioned to my father, a college professor, that I “lost” the scholarship, he would correct me. I had chosen to give it up. True enough. But had I had a penis, I would not have had to make that choice. The inequity was on me solely because of my gender.

One Saturday afternoon, as I manned the used bookstore that provided both one of my four jobs and the only major leak in my income, I stumbled upon a book by a mystery writer who was just becoming famous in the United States. Phyllis Dorothy James White knew all about the inequities that women suffered. Her books resonated with them.

Only I didn’t know that yet, because I had never read a P.D. James novel. The title of this one, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972), caught my eye. It spoke to me for obvious reasons and for reasons not so obvious: the fact that I couldn’t try out for the baseball team even though I was a good hitter, because I was a girl; the fact that I was told to stay out of politics, radio, and medicine, all because I was a girl; and the fact that no one thought anything about those limitations, because it was normal back then to restrict the expectations of girls. Sure, women all over the country, all over the world, were fighting for women’s rights at that point, but the fight was just beginning, and if you mentioned them, you must be one of those bra burners, those wimmen’s libbers, those feministas, all of which sounded really, really bad.

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman. Every job I wanted was unsuitable. Everything I wanted to do was “for boys, honey,” as my mother would gently tell me. Stubborn, resistant girl that I was, I ignored it all. So I picked up James’ book and read it cover to cover.

A confession now: I haven’t re-read that novel in preparation for this essay. I had planned to. Well, actually, I had planned to look through my shelf and find something really obscure, something so forgotten that people would slap their foreheads and go, Oh, yeah! I read that! So I can’t tell you how old-fashioned this P.D. James book is or if it still holds up by modern standards. (It’s P.D. James, so I’m secure in the knowledge that the characters are stellar, the plot good, and the writing fine. I’m just not sure if the politics are, um, politically correct.)

As I thought about The Rap Sheet’s request that I write about a really obscure book, I kept coming back to the James. No one discusses this novel of hers. Cordelia Grey, the heroine, is a one-off. James never revisited her, to my great disappointment.

I loved the book. The unsuitable job, of course, was that of a private detective. Cordelia Grey wasn’t one of those faintly Gothic heroines who fell in love with the man who abused her. She took charge, even when it was hard, and she did things women weren’t supposed to do.

I adored that. So, years later, when I started reading the history of the modern detective novel, and I saw mentions of the largely unsung women who had started the modern female detective subgenre, I was happy. I read about Margaret Maron, who--let’s be honest now--hasn’t ever completely gotten her due outside of the field. I read about Sue Grafton, of course. And about Sara Paretsky, whose writing is exceedingly political and the stronger for it. But all of those writers, at least to me, hark back to Cordelia Grey and her unsuitable job.

Yet no one mentions her anymore. Maybe because she was a one-off. Or maybe because she didn’t influence anyone but me.

My first female detective novel is nearly done. It has taken me 30 years to work up the courage to write about my own gender--at least at novel length. (I have written a number of women-centric short stories for Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine under my real name, Kristine Kathryn Rusch.) It took me a long time to figure out why I waited to write about a female detective.

It’s because back in the day, I swallowed a lot of anger. I was furious that I--the most qualified candidate--couldn’t meet the United States senator and be considered for that job. I was furious that I had to relinquish a scholarship because of a personal choice that had nothing to do with academics and everything to do with my femaleness. I was furious at being barred from sports, at the sexual harassment that was common at my various jobs, at the casual sexism of my professors and mentors.

And I felt (I still feel) that fury does not make good fiction. Fury makes great speeches. Good fiction has great characters in a great story. Everything else is gravy--especially political points. Political points from a place of fury.

Maybe that’s what I admired most about An Unsuitable Job for a Woman. The title hinted at that fury, but the fury was an undercurrent, barely there. Again, I haven’t re-read the book. I’m not sure if I would see the fury for what it is now, or if I just imagined it.

But it was there for me. Understated, important, and hidden beneath a good story.

For most of my life, I have aspired to write an emotional, political point beneath good storytelling. And I’ve aspired to it because of one book I might never have seen if I had kept that long-ago scholarship. If I hadn’t been in that bookstore, trying to earn my way through college.

I guess that’s a lesson. I’m here despite the limitations I faced. Or maybe because of them. I certainly wouldn’t have discovered Cordelia Grey without them.

Final Forgottens of the Year

With Christmas approaching (all too rapidly!) next week, it looks as if today will be the last official “forgotten books” tribute occasion until the first Friday of next year, January 7. Fortunately, there are some fine gems among this morning’s book suggestions, which you can read more about during the coming, quieter holiday times.

In addition to Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s write-up, on this page, about An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, by P.D. James, crime fiction is well represented in Red Christmas, by Patrick Ruell; Red Diamond, Private Eye, by Mark Schorr; The Jones Men, by Verne E. Smith; Decoy, by Cleve F. Adams; Glitterburn, by Heywood Gould; A Touch of Death, by Charles Williams; The Crime at Diana’s Pool, by Victor Alonzo Whitechurch; Jake Strait, Bogeyman, by Frank Rich; Sleight of Body, by Ralph McInerney; Baby Moll, by John Farris; and several titles from John Dickson Carr.

A full accounting of today’s recommended reads is available in series organizer Patti Abbott’s personal blog.

He Laughed Last

I bow my head today in appreciation of American screenwriter, director, and producer Blake Edwards, who died yesterday at age 88. In addition to his many big-screen pictures--Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), The Pink Panther (1963), The Great Race (1965), 10 (1979), and Victor, Victoria (1982)--Edwards was responsible for two memorable mid-20th-century TV detective dramas: Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1957-1960), starring David Janssen; and Peter Gunn (1958-1961), with Craig Stevens.

There are plenty of worthy tributes to Edwards appearing on the Web, including obituaries in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the blog Edward Copeland on Film. Rather than duplicate their information, I’d like to celebrate the man by showcasing some of the work he brought to the silver screen. Below, I have embedded the trailers from three of my favorite Edwards films: the original Pink Panther; Victor, Victoria (in which he directed his wife, singer-actress Julie Andrews); and a less-well-known picture, 1988’s Sunset, which teamed Bruce Willis (playing early western film star Tom Mix) with James Garner (as onetime lawman Wyatt Earp) in an adventure/crime drama about prostitution, movie-making, and murder in 1920s Hollywood.

Edwards died in Santa Monica, California, apparently from “complications of pneumonia.” But thanks to his abundant film and TV work, and despite some negative reviews of his later work, he’s unlikely to be forgotten.

And because any day that offers helpings of both Audrey Hepburn and composer Henry Mancini has to be considered worth living, here’s a bonus clip from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, featuring the song with which that romantic flick is most closely associated (even though--amazingly--it wasn’t included in the trailer.)



READ MORE: “The Late Great Blake Edwards,” by Mercurie (A Shroud of Thoughts); “Blake Edwards and Crime,” by Michael Carlson
(Irresistible Targets).

Tracking Travis

Now, you might expect a blog called Pornokitsch to be deep into other subjects than crime fiction. However, for the last several months Pornokitsch contributor Jared Shurin has been reviewing all of John D. MacDonald’s 21 Travis McGee novels in order of their publication. Today he offers his comments (not terribly enthusiastic) on Free Fall in Crimson (1981). He has only two more McGee books to go: Cinnamon Skin (1982) and The Lonely Silver Rain (1985).

You’ll find all of the reviews here. Shurin’s posts would be valuable especially to readers who haven’t dipped much into McDonald’s series about Florida salvage expert-cum-detective McGee.

Due Consideration

As the previous winner of a Spinetingler Award, I have a special place in my heart for these commendations, which are given out annually by Spinetingler Magazine. So when I read this morning that “the reading period for the novel, short fiction, and comic/graphic novel categories of the 2011 Spinetingler Awards are now open,” I wanted to pass the word along. You’ll find the entry details here.

Drawn to Danger

From The Outfit, Darwyn Cooke and IDW Publishing

(Editor’s note: A couple of months ago, we asked Gary Phillips, the Shamus Award-nominated creator of Los Angeles private eye Ivan Monk and the author of the recently published novella, The Underbelly, to write on this page about his latest effort in the field of graphic-novel writing, giving Depression-era super-spy Operator 5 new life as the back-up feature in Moonstone’s Spider #1, which is due out in January. He has since written stories for Moonstone about a black pulp character he created called Decimator Smith, and worked on bringing back swinging ’60s freelance spy Derek Flint. With 2010 soon coming to a close, we asked Phillips to choose his favorite crime and mystery graphic novels of the year. His picks are below.)

The following is by no means an exhaustive overview, but I’ve tried to offer what I presume is The Rap Sheet’s mostly mystery prose-reading audience a flavor of what’s out there in the world of crime and mystery graphic novels. Take a gander and see what you think.

Fogtown, by Anderson Gabrych and Brad Rader (Vertigo Crime)

Fogtown, by writer Anderson Gabrych and artist Brad Rader, is one in a series of digest-size, hardcover, black-and-white graphic novels being produced by Vertigo Crime, a subdivision of DC Comics’ Vertigo line of edgy comics (such as Hellblazer, filmed as Constantine, and Sweet Tooth, about a kid with antlers and no navel in a post-plague America).

Full disclosure: A few years ago I wrote a private-eye mini-series for DC/Vertigo called Angeltown (now collected as one book, with new added material, and due out in March from Moonstone as Angeltown: The Nate Hollis Investigations). I also have an original graphic novel, Cowboys (with art by the talented Brian Hurtt), coming from Vertigo’s crime line in July 2011.

That said, rest assured that I don’t get a cut off of Fogtown’s sales, so trust me here. I really dug the story and art in this book. It’s set in 1953 San Francisco and the set-up is familiar: à la Jack the Ripper, a madman is gutting prostitutes in the city’s Tenderloin district as the fog rolls in heavy and menacing off the bay. Tougher than a West Texas boot, middle-aged private eye Frank Grissel gets immersed in finding out who this murderer is, while Gabrych and Rader give us a look and feel of ’50s Bay Area Americana. Grissel intentionally comes off as a riff on Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer with an extra dose of testosterone. But the joy of this graphic novel is how Gabrych offers distractions and diversions as the secrets of the case and Grissel’s life are revealed.

If you remember from the first Hammer novel, I, the Jury (1947), there was this head-shrinking, ball-busting psychiatrist-villain, Dr. Charlotte Manning. Gabrych sends her and several other tough-guy ’50s paperback-original troupes out for a new spin in this story. Rader’s somewhat cartoony style is not an approach I usually respond to, but it works here, given the bluntness of the tale and its characters. Think Robert Aldrich’s treatment of Spillane’s material in Kiss Me Deadly (1955). Fogtown is a graphic novel well worth the price of admission.

Box 13, by David Gallaher and Steve Ellis (Red 5 Comics)

Movie star Alan Ladd led the cast of the syndicated half-hour series Box 13, which ran for 52 episodes over a year on the radio (1948 to 1949). He played Dan Holiday, a reporter turned novelist, who was constantly in search of ideas for his future books (a concept not dissimilar from that of the current ABC-TV series Castle). Holiday ran an advertisement in the classified section of the newspaper he used to work for, which read: “Adventure wanted! Will go anywhere, do anything. Write Box 13, c/o Star-Times.” Holiday would invariably be contacted by all sorts of people and fall into various oddball and dangerous adventures.

In this year’s Box 13 graphic novel, by writer David Gallaher and artist Steve Ellis, Dan Holiday has become a spy novelist, who also has done a non-fiction book about mind-control programs such as MK-ULTRA, conducted by the CIA in the mid-20th century. Somebody named Suzie (which was the name of Holiday’s secretary in the radio show) has been leaving this Holiday small wooden boxes with numbers on their lids, beginning with 1. Every time Holiday opens one of these boxes, lights and funny symbols float up out of it (shades of the atomic light in the trunk in Kiss Me Deadly that Quentin Tarantino paid homage to in Pulp Fiction) and something haywire is trigged inside of him. Holiday’s eyes go red, a gray streak appears in his hair, and suddenly the mild-mannered writer can leap from a car roof onto a building’s fire escape and shoot a pistol better than the Punisher. Then there’s the alluring and mysterious Olivia Mayfair (her last name being the same as that of Ladd’s production company, which was behind his radio show) ... But I shall say no more about her. Holiday also has these peculiar blackout spells, from which he wakes up in locations such as the East River and a hospital ward straight out of a Terry Gilliam flick.

While this printed version of Box 13 was published in early 2010, the original story ran as a serial Webcomic for the iPhone from ComiXology.com back in 2009. Each chapter break is designed to end on a cliffhanger, so the reader will come back for more. Gallaher does an excellent job of pacing and characterization, but he could have taken the time to do some re-engineering of the ending for the print version. Although it’s meant to be ambiguous, it is a bit too fuzzy and not as coherent as it could be. Ellis’ artwork has a kind of loose-limbed style that grew on me, and the way he draws facial expressions is well-suited to the creeping, sweating paranoia of Box 13.

Nola, by Pierluigi Cothran and Damian Couceiro, from an unproduced screenplay by Chris Gorak (Boom! Studios)

Set just before and after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in the summer of 2005, this story focuses on Nola Thomas, a bi-racial Southern beauty out for blood. It’s not giving too much away to tell you that the set-up is she’s been having an affair with a white married man, and she has no qualms about that situation. What she does find disconcerting is, one warm evening as they’re leaving a roadside joint after making love in the storeroom, he tosses off this cold-hearted admonishment: “Sugar, we’re screwin,’ not dating.”

That’s messed up.

Matters go further downhill from there, and soon our girl winds up underneath a wrecked Mercedes-Benz as her erstwhile lover sets its leaking pool of gas on fire and leaves her to die--’cause she’s just too much goddamn trouble. Only she doesn’t actually cash in her chips, and in the days after the hurricane lays waste to that blue city in the red state of Louisiana, Nola cuts a vicious swath, exacting vengeance upon the man who wronged her, while along the way she resurrects a past involving her long-gone daddy and secrets best left undisturbed.

There is a bit too much coincidence of plot in Nola. But I liked that its elliptical structure--parts of the story come from the immediate past, then the action loops to the present, then back again--echoed the 1967 motion picture Point Blank (adapted from Donald E. Westlake/Richard Stark’s novel The Hunter) as well as 1999’s The Limey (which consciously borrowed from that previous film). Nola bears a rough-hewn character that comes across both in its dialogue and in Couceiro’s unadorned art, which ain’t pretty, but is certainly suitable in establishing this story’s verisimilitude. Colorist Juan Manual Tumburus earns an honorable mention for his earthy, muddy palate, which aptly conveys Nola’s post-deluge New Orleans.

Parker: The Outfit, by Darwyn Cooke (IDW Publishing)

Let me say straight away that I am extremely jealous of writer, artist, and cartoonist Darwyn Cooke. The reason I became an author, trying to paint pictures with words, was due to my inability to draw. When I was a kid, there was nothing more I wanted to do than to write and illustrate my own comics. Anyway, this adaptation of Westlake/Stark’s The Outfit (1963), the third novel featuring the non-hero and thief known only as Parker, is the second such venture the talented Mr. Cooke has undertaken. Last year he gave us his take on the first Parker novel, The Hunter, set in 1962 New York, just as the original book was.

The Outfit opens in Miami Beach, Florida, in 1963, with a nice allusion to a scene from The Hunter, in which Parker is shot in bed by his girlfriend after they’ve made love. Cooke’s Outfit likewise begins in the boudoir. A down-angled full-page panel shows a woman, Bett, in bed looking aghast after the pillow next to her is hit by a silenced bullet. The words read: “When the woman screamed, Parker awoke and rolled off the bed.” Parker, however, is not visible on this page.

Picking up here on the lean prose of the Parker books, Cooke uses short-hand dialogue and blocks of expositional text, which are not often employed in comics. His color palette is limited to black lines, solid blacks, and grayish-purple tones. (In 2009’s Parker: The Hunter, his tone was, instead, a grayish-green.) Cooke’s style of anatomy (which clearly evidences his background in cartoon storyboarding) is not everybody’s cup of bourbon, but I think he does a bang-up job of evoking the look and feel of his yarn’s time period and conveying Parker’s cold anger. For my money, he does the memory and work of Mr. Westlake proud.

* * *

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK? Those of us at The Rap Sheet are curious to know whether readers of crime, mystery, and thriller novels are also attracted to graphic books that tell similar stories. If you haven’t tried out graphic novels in the crime and mystery field before, has the above sampling encouraged you to do so? Are retailers such as the Mystery Bookstore and Book Soup in Los Angeles smart to include graphic novels among their stock, or are the audiences for these two media non-overlapping? We encourage you to share your responses to these questions in the Comments section of this post.

READ MORE: “The Fall (and Rise) of the Crime Comic,” by Brian Lindemuth (Mulholland Books).

Bullet Points: Christmas Rushed Edition

• A fitting tribute to Ian Fleming: Jamaica’s present Boscobel Airstrip, located in the northeastern parish of Saint Mary and used principally by private jets, will soon be upgraded, expanded, and renamed after the creator of super-spy James Bond. Fleming lived in Saint Mary Parish during his retirement in the late 1950s and early ’60s.

• Patti Abbott has pulled something of a surprise on the followers of her recent round-robin short-fiction challenge. As she explains, “I was originally going to end this challenge myself next week,” but after receiving the 11th installment, from blogger Dan Fleming, “it seemed like the perfect ending. My piece would be redundant at best.” You can catch up on the full run of that progressive story here.

• A very special Christmas episode ... of The Avengers?

• Dragnet pays its own tribute to the holiday.

• I missed this post when it was put up last month, but I think author Ed Gorman’s distinction between detective novelists Ross Macdonald and John D. MacDonald is right on. And judging by the comments attached to his remarks, I’m not alone.

• Have you ever wanted to listen to an interview with acclaimed California writer Don Winslow (The Dawn Patrol, Savages)? Well, this is your chance, as he answers questions from Jeff Rutherford. Listen here.

• Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) chooses “five great crime novels,” all but one of which I’ve read. (Hat tip to Campaign for the American Reader.)

• Anyone up for a David Goodis memorial? It is scheduled to be held on January 11, 2001--the 40th anniversary of that author’s death--at his graveside in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania?

• From today’s edition of Salon: “Stieg Larsson and Dan Brown novels are riddled with clichés, but for many readers, that’s a feature not a bug.” Really? More here.

• New England author William G. Tapply died of leukemia in July 2009, but Skyhorse Publishing still has one more posthumous novel of his to release. It’s called The Nomination and will reach bookstores in late January of next year.

• It’s not crime fiction, but since the mastermind behind it is crime-fiction blogger Cullen Gallagher (Pulp Serenade), his marathon tribute to the Gold Medal western novels deserves a mention on this page. Authors whose work has so far been considered include Harry Whittington, Donald Hamilton, and Jonas Ward (aka William Ard).

• Another book cover to admire.

• South African writer Roger Smith has been draped in bouquets by international crime fiction authority Peter Rozovsky for his novel Wake Up Dead. I still haven’t gotten around to reading that book (the U.S. paperback version isn’t due out till next month), but we can all get a sense of Smith’s literary style by reading his short story, “Ishmael Toffee,” which has just been posted here.

• No wonder Americans think Republicans are obstructionists and out of touch with current economic realities ...

• A remarkable recap: Do the Math presents an annotated rundown of “all of Donald E. Westlake’s major fiction, his lone book of reportage, and three important essays.”

• Remaindered, the short independent film directed by author-screenwriter Lee Goldberg, which I wrote about in October, “has been chosen as an official selection of the 2011 Derby City Film Festival in Louisville, Kentucky,” according to Goldberg’s blog.

• Roger “R.J. Ellory, author of The Anniversary Man and Saints of New York, answers Declan Burke’s questions about which crime novel he would most like to have written, his most satisfying writing moment, his present reading, and more here.

• The prolific Max Allan Collins is pushing to finish work on another unpublished Mickey Spillane novel, The Consummata, at the same time as he polishes off the preliminary research on Ask Not, his latest Nate Heller detective novel, this one based around the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Find out more here.

• Steve Holland offers a two-part gallery of Ngaio Marsh book covers.

• R.I.P., Richard Holbrooke. The skilled and veteran diplomat, who oversaw negotiations to end the war in Bosnia, was often mentioned as the leading candidate to become Secretary of State under a President Al Gore, and who President Obama appointed as his special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, died Monday night after surgery to repair a tear to his aorta. He was 69 and will be much missed.

Blow Out Your Candles, Mr. Link

I want to take a moment this morning to wish screenwriter and TV producer William Theodore Link the happiest of 77th birthdays. The co-creator (with his longtime writing partner, Richard Levinson) of such winning series as Columbo, Mannix, and Ellery Queen, and the author of this year’s delightful short-story work, The Columbo Collection, Link was born on this date in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, back in 1933.

I had the opportunity to speak with Link earlier this year, and posted the results of our length exchange in The Rap Sheet.

If you would like to wish Link a happy birthday today, just drop a message into the Comments section of this post. I’ll let him know to look there.

Fresh Starts

For the last couple of years, I’ve taken up a task originally proposed by Brian Lindenmuth, now of Spinetingler Magazine. He suggested that, in December, book bloggers should compile lists of authors whose work they’d read for the first time during the preceding 12 months. This might encourage others to try something new as well.

It has certainly been interesting to track my “discoveries.” This year I read roughly half and half old and new books, and multiple works from authors such as Erle Stanley Gardner, William Campbell Gault, Ellery Queen, and Ernest Tidyman (whose John Shaft private-eye stories are, in my opinion, far better than the movies made from them). Of the 2010 releases I’ve enjoyed since New Year’s Day, more than a third came from first-time scribblers or wordsmiths whose efforts I had not previously sampled.

To begin, here’s my 2010 reading list of novels by authors new to me. Debut works are boldfaced. Asterisks denote crime or thriller fiction.

• Rachel Brady (Dead Lift)*
• Massimo Carlotto (Bandit Love)*
• Dan Chaon (Await Your Reply)
• Sam Eastland (The Eye of the Red Tsar)*
• Lyndsay Faye (Dust and Shadows)*
• Carl Férey (Zulu)*
• Matthew Flaming (The Kingdom of Ohio)
• Leighton Gage (Dying Gasp)*
• Ernesto Gallo (Needle in a Haystack)*
• William Campbell Gault (The Dead Seed)*
• Anna Katharine Green (The Leavenworth Case)*
• Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants)
• Ellen Horan (31 Bond Street)*
• D.E. Johnson (The Detroit Electric Scheme)*
• Thomas Kaufman (Drink the Tea)*
• Michael Lawrence (I Like It Cool)*
• William Link (The Columbo Collection)*
• Jassy Mackenzie (Random Violence)*
• Ernesto Mallo (Needle in a Haystack)*
• Kevin McCarthy (Peeler)*
• Deon Meyer (Thirteen Hours)*
• Mark Mills (The Information Officer)*
• Zygmunt Miłoszewski (Entanglement)*
• Graham Moore (The Sherlockian)*
• Peter Quinn (The Man Who Never Returned)*
• Adam Ross (Mr. Peanut)*
• Mark Sanderson (Snow Hill)*
• Kelli Stanley (City of Dragons)*
• James Thompson (Snow Angels)*
• Keith Thomson (Once a Spy)*
• Ernest Tidyman (Shaft)*

And below you will find my roster of non-fiction works by writers I had never taken the opportunity to read before.

• Joseph J. Ellis (His Excellency:
George Washington)
• Neil Hanson (Monk Eastman: The Gangster Who Became a War Hero
• Michael F. Holt (Franklin Pierce)
• Jeffrey H. Jackson (Paris Under Water:
How the City of Light Survived the
Great Flood of 1910)
• Edward P. Kohn (Hot Time in the Old Town: The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt)
• James T. Kloppenberg (Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition)
• James Mauro (Twilight at the World of Tomorrow: Genius, Madness, Murder, and the 1939 World’s Fair on the Brink of War)

Usually, my annual breakdown is fairly well balanced between fiction and non-fiction, with a heavy emphasis on historical studies. This year, though, the scales tipped decidedly in favor of fiction, for reasons I can’t explain. I shall have to do better in 2011.

WHAT WERE YOUR DISCOVERIES? Anyone else who would like to try the “first reads” exercise is welcome to drop their list into the Comments section of this post. Or, if you make a list on your own blog, please provide a URL here, so that we can all visit it.

READ MORE: “Fresh Starts,” by Gary M. Dobbs (The Tainted Archive).