Sunday, March 07, 2010
A Leg Up on the Competition
This turned out to be a much more challenging day than I’d expected. Lots of projects planned, but few completed. However, I did manage to finish an art-rich post for my Killer Covers blog, focusing on paperback jackets that make the most of what many men see first in a woman: her legs. Walk this way to find out more.
What’s Not to Like About Free Books?
Just a quick reminder of our Alafair Burke book giveaway contest: The author is challenging Rap Sheet readers to determine which of seven statements she’s made about herself is a bald-faced lie. If you can pick out the fraud from the facts, you will be entered in a contest to win one free copy of Burke’s forthcoming Ellie Hatcher novel, 212. And your chances of winning are pretty good: most people who’ve entered so far have guessed incorrectly.
You have until midnight on this coming Wednesday, March 10, to enter. Full contest details can be found here.
What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?
You have until midnight on this coming Wednesday, March 10, to enter. Full contest details can be found here.
What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Mr. Popularity
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine has announced the winners of its 2009 Readers Choice Awards for the best stories published in that periodical last year.
First Place (tie): “Dolphin Junction,” by Mike Herron,
and “An Early Christmas,” by Doug Allyn
Second Place: “White Wolves,” by Clark Howard
Third Place: “Julius Katz,” by Dave Zeltserman
Fourth Place: “Famous Last Words,” by Doug Allyn
Fifth Place: “The Valhall Verdict,” by Doug Allyn
Sixth Place: “For the Jingle,” by Jack Fredrickson
Seventh Place: “The Bleeding Chair,” by Janwillem van de Wetering
Eighth Place: “The Case of the Piss-Poor Gold,” by Lee Goldberg
Ninth Place: “Central Islin, USA,” by Lou Manfredo
Tenth Place: “Dummy,” by Brian Muir
(Hat tip to Lee Goldberg.)
First Place (tie): “Dolphin Junction,” by Mike Herron,
and “An Early Christmas,” by Doug Allyn
Second Place: “White Wolves,” by Clark Howard
Third Place: “Julius Katz,” by Dave Zeltserman
Fourth Place: “Famous Last Words,” by Doug Allyn
Fifth Place: “The Valhall Verdict,” by Doug Allyn
Sixth Place: “For the Jingle,” by Jack Fredrickson
Seventh Place: “The Bleeding Chair,” by Janwillem van de Wetering
Eighth Place: “The Case of the Piss-Poor Gold,” by Lee Goldberg
Ninth Place: “Central Islin, USA,” by Lou Manfredo
Tenth Place: “Dummy,” by Brian Muir
(Hat tip to Lee Goldberg.)
Mourning After
Having become a big fan of Thomas B. Dewey’s detective fiction--both his series about compassionate Chicago private eye Mac, and the other one featuring happily married Pete Schofield--I have to mention that today would have been Dewey’s 85th birthday. Unfortunately, the Indiana-born author died in Arizona in 1981.
Friday, March 05, 2010
The Book You Have to Read:
“Build My Gallows High,” by Geoffrey Homes
(Editor’s note: This is the 84th installment of our ongoing Friday blog series highlighting great but forgotten books. Today’s selection has been made by Maryland resident Thomas Kaufman, an award-winning 
motion-picture director and cameraman. His debut mystery novel, Drink the Tea, won the Private Eye Writers of America/St. Martin’s Press competition for Best First P.I. Novel. It was released this week by Minotaur.)
Build My Gallows High (1946) was the final published novel by onetime San Francisco newspaper reporter Daniel Mainwaring, writing under the name “Geoffrey Homes.”
Its hero, a private eye named Red Markham, gets a job from a gambler named Whit Sterling to find his girlfriend. That girlfriend, with the improbable name of Mumsie McGonigal, has shot Sterling and taken off with a small fortune in cash. Markham finds the girl, falls in love with her, and attempts to have a life with her, double-crossing Sterling. The two lovers try to hide out, but they’re eventually discovered by Red’s ex-partner, Jack Fisher, who is accidentally shot and killed when he attempts to blackmail Red. Mumsie leaves with the cash, and Red must bury the corpse.
Years go by, and finally Red makes his home in a small California town, falls in live with a nice, quiet girl, and hopes to settle down. But his past catches up with him, in the form of Joe Stefanos, a trigger man for Sterling. Red’s hopes of leading a peaceful existence are crushed by Sterling and Mumsie.
You can’t really talk about Gallows without also talking about its 1947 screen adaptation, Out of the Past, which starred Robert Mitchum and was directed by Jacques Tourneur.
Usually, after I read a book, then see the film version, I’m disappointed. How many times have you left such a movie, hearing murmurs of “the book was better” from your fellow filmgoers?
But, once in a while, a film actually supersedes the novel. Not often. Still, if someone writes a book, then Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler do the adaptation, the screenplay could be better than the source novel. Such is the case with Double Indemnity (1944). Another example is Out of the Past.
I don’t feel bad giving Gallows second place. For one thing, Mainwaring wrote the screenplay for Out of the Past. It seems as though he had been given a second chance to re-imagine his characters. For another, Mumsie McGonigal is now Kathy Moffet, played wonderfully by Jane Greer.
The novel has two principal antagonists: a retired crooked cop, Parker, and a gambler, Sterling. The screenplay combines those two into one badass, played by Kirk Douglas.
(By the way, it’s fun to watch Mitchum and Douglas together--Douglas, who typically chewed the scenery into postage-stamp-size pieces, has to tone himself down to play opposite Mitchum, whose naturalistic underplaying predates by 10 years the bunch from the Actors Studio, who included Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and James Dean.)
There are also two assassins in the novel working for Sterling/Douglas. The screenplay boils them down into a single person--Stefanos.
Another main difference between the book and movie is the story structure. They both begin the same way, in the “present,” then
flash back to when Markham was a private eye in New York City, and Sterling asked him to find the missing girl.
But the flashback in the book ends about one-eighth of the way through. Part of the genius of Out of the Past is its structure. Once Markham and Ann--the good girl he wants to settle down with--begin driving to see Sterling, the film goes into flashback. Markham’s voice narrates the events, and we’re on solid P.I. movie footing. Then, at the exact middle point of the film, the car ride ends and so does the flashback. Markham has Ann drop him off at Sterling’s front gate, and the remainder of the film plays out in the present.
What’s great about this is the way the audience is set up for what happens next--all the characters we’ve met in the flashback now come alive in the present, as Markham tries in vain to figure out the kind of jam Sterling is framing for him. After some cat-and-mouse dialogue, Markham turns down what Sterling has in store for him, but agrees to stay for breakfast. In the background, out of focus, we see a woman approach. Sterling says, “You remember Kathy, don’t you?”
The audience is shocked, but not Markham/Mitchum, who turns his sleepy eyes towards this beautiful woman and says, “Yeah, I remember Kathy.”
Then there’s the movie dialogue--it’s classic. Since James M. Cain and Frank Fenton were rumored to have worked on the screenplay without credit, it’s hard to know who came up with the dialogue. When Kathy, the gambler’s girlfriend, shows up for a romantic liaison with Markham, she asks, “Did you miss me?”
“No more than I would my eyes,” he tells her. And Jane Greer is particularly beautiful as she touches Mitchum’s arm, and begs him to believe her when she says she didn’t take the gambler’s money. Mitchum reaches for her, saying, “Baby, I don’t care.” That dialogue is not in Gallows.
It’s important to the story, and to Markham’s motivation, for the reader/viewer to understand how deep Kathy/Mumsie has her hooks in. The book doesn’t go into much detail. Instead, we’re given a kind of shorthand--how the detective tails her, how they meet, how they come together, how they break apart--but the movie devotes much more time to this important element of the tale.
One other interesting aspect is the direction of Past. Jacques Tourneur was a contract director for RKO, one of Hollywood’s smaller and more troubled studios. In this film, he creates an unusual shot, right at the start: he mounts the camera in the back seat of Joe Stefanos’ car. Car mounts today are the norm, but back in the 1940s they were out of the ordinary. The effect Tourneur creates is that the car, Stefanos, and the story we are about to see all appear somehow pre-destined, on an unstoppable course, that Markham’s fate is sealed before he even knows he’s been discovered.
Daniel Mainwaring’s first book, published under his own name, was a sort of proletarian novel called One Against the Earth (1932). After that, he turned out a series of hard-boiled mystery novels (including Forty Whacks, 1941) as Homes, and became a screenwriter for such films as The Big Steal (1949) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). He even wrote for the TV series The Wild Wild West and Mannix. Mainwaring died in 1977 at age 74.
If you can find a copy of Build My Gallows High, read it. Then go see Out of the Past--you won’t be sorry.
motion-picture director and cameraman. His debut mystery novel, Drink the Tea, won the Private Eye Writers of America/St. Martin’s Press competition for Best First P.I. Novel. It was released this week by Minotaur.)Build My Gallows High (1946) was the final published novel by onetime San Francisco newspaper reporter Daniel Mainwaring, writing under the name “Geoffrey Homes.”
Its hero, a private eye named Red Markham, gets a job from a gambler named Whit Sterling to find his girlfriend. That girlfriend, with the improbable name of Mumsie McGonigal, has shot Sterling and taken off with a small fortune in cash. Markham finds the girl, falls in love with her, and attempts to have a life with her, double-crossing Sterling. The two lovers try to hide out, but they’re eventually discovered by Red’s ex-partner, Jack Fisher, who is accidentally shot and killed when he attempts to blackmail Red. Mumsie leaves with the cash, and Red must bury the corpse.
Years go by, and finally Red makes his home in a small California town, falls in live with a nice, quiet girl, and hopes to settle down. But his past catches up with him, in the form of Joe Stefanos, a trigger man for Sterling. Red’s hopes of leading a peaceful existence are crushed by Sterling and Mumsie.
You can’t really talk about Gallows without also talking about its 1947 screen adaptation, Out of the Past, which starred Robert Mitchum and was directed by Jacques Tourneur.
Usually, after I read a book, then see the film version, I’m disappointed. How many times have you left such a movie, hearing murmurs of “the book was better” from your fellow filmgoers?
But, once in a while, a film actually supersedes the novel. Not often. Still, if someone writes a book, then Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler do the adaptation, the screenplay could be better than the source novel. Such is the case with Double Indemnity (1944). Another example is Out of the Past.
I don’t feel bad giving Gallows second place. For one thing, Mainwaring wrote the screenplay for Out of the Past. It seems as though he had been given a second chance to re-imagine his characters. For another, Mumsie McGonigal is now Kathy Moffet, played wonderfully by Jane Greer.
The novel has two principal antagonists: a retired crooked cop, Parker, and a gambler, Sterling. The screenplay combines those two into one badass, played by Kirk Douglas.
(By the way, it’s fun to watch Mitchum and Douglas together--Douglas, who typically chewed the scenery into postage-stamp-size pieces, has to tone himself down to play opposite Mitchum, whose naturalistic underplaying predates by 10 years the bunch from the Actors Studio, who included Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and James Dean.)
There are also two assassins in the novel working for Sterling/Douglas. The screenplay boils them down into a single person--Stefanos.
Another main difference between the book and movie is the story structure. They both begin the same way, in the “present,” then
flash back to when Markham was a private eye in New York City, and Sterling asked him to find the missing girl.But the flashback in the book ends about one-eighth of the way through. Part of the genius of Out of the Past is its structure. Once Markham and Ann--the good girl he wants to settle down with--begin driving to see Sterling, the film goes into flashback. Markham’s voice narrates the events, and we’re on solid P.I. movie footing. Then, at the exact middle point of the film, the car ride ends and so does the flashback. Markham has Ann drop him off at Sterling’s front gate, and the remainder of the film plays out in the present.
What’s great about this is the way the audience is set up for what happens next--all the characters we’ve met in the flashback now come alive in the present, as Markham tries in vain to figure out the kind of jam Sterling is framing for him. After some cat-and-mouse dialogue, Markham turns down what Sterling has in store for him, but agrees to stay for breakfast. In the background, out of focus, we see a woman approach. Sterling says, “You remember Kathy, don’t you?”
The audience is shocked, but not Markham/Mitchum, who turns his sleepy eyes towards this beautiful woman and says, “Yeah, I remember Kathy.”
Then there’s the movie dialogue--it’s classic. Since James M. Cain and Frank Fenton were rumored to have worked on the screenplay without credit, it’s hard to know who came up with the dialogue. When Kathy, the gambler’s girlfriend, shows up for a romantic liaison with Markham, she asks, “Did you miss me?”
“No more than I would my eyes,” he tells her. And Jane Greer is particularly beautiful as she touches Mitchum’s arm, and begs him to believe her when she says she didn’t take the gambler’s money. Mitchum reaches for her, saying, “Baby, I don’t care.” That dialogue is not in Gallows.
It’s important to the story, and to Markham’s motivation, for the reader/viewer to understand how deep Kathy/Mumsie has her hooks in. The book doesn’t go into much detail. Instead, we’re given a kind of shorthand--how the detective tails her, how they meet, how they come together, how they break apart--but the movie devotes much more time to this important element of the tale.
One other interesting aspect is the direction of Past. Jacques Tourneur was a contract director for RKO, one of Hollywood’s smaller and more troubled studios. In this film, he creates an unusual shot, right at the start: he mounts the camera in the back seat of Joe Stefanos’ car. Car mounts today are the norm, but back in the 1940s they were out of the ordinary. The effect Tourneur creates is that the car, Stefanos, and the story we are about to see all appear somehow pre-destined, on an unstoppable course, that Markham’s fate is sealed before he even knows he’s been discovered.
Daniel Mainwaring’s first book, published under his own name, was a sort of proletarian novel called One Against the Earth (1932). After that, he turned out a series of hard-boiled mystery novels (including Forty Whacks, 1941) as Homes, and became a screenwriter for such films as The Big Steal (1949) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). He even wrote for the TV series The Wild Wild West and Mannix. Mainwaring died in 1977 at age 74.
If you can find a copy of Build My Gallows High, read it. Then go see Out of the Past--you won’t be sorry.
Encore! Encore!
Today’s pickings in the “forgotten books” category seem a bit thinner than usual, but there are some interesting authors represented in the mix. In addition to Thomas Kaufman’s hardy endorsement on this page of Build My Gallows High, by Geoffrey Homes, the latest crime-fiction selections include: No Love Lost, by Robert Reeves; Jade for a Lady and The Splintered Man, both by M.E. Chaber; Eighty Million Eyes, by Ed McBain; No Good from a Corpse, by Leigh Brackett; The Bookman’s Wake, by John Dunning; and Fortress, by Gabrielle Lord. A couple of the western novels mentioned might be worth checking out, as well: Guns Up, by Ernest Haycox, and The Range Robbers, by Oliver Strange.
Series organizer Patti Abbott features a full list of today’s contributors in her own blog, plus two additional “forgotten” works.
Series organizer Patti Abbott features a full list of today’s contributors in her own blog, plus two additional “forgotten” works.
“I Live in ... an Extremely Violent Country”
From a Spinetingler Magazine interview with Roger Smith, the author of Wake Up Dead (Henry Holt), conducted by Keith Rawson:
I’ve always loved crime fiction, especially the edgy American stuff. As a teenager I lapped up the Parker series by Richard Stark/ Donald Westlake, Jim Thompson’s dark opuses, as well as the early, gritty, work of Elmore Leonard.You’ll find the full piece here.
I always wanted to write crime, but I grew up in apartheid South Africa, and the quickest route to irrelevancy in the ’80s and ’90s would have been writing crime fiction. So I founded a non-racial movie co-operative that produced anti-apartheid films, and did what little I could to oppose the sick bastards who ran my country back then.
Thankfully, apartheid ended by the mid-’90s, and South Africa went from being pariah of the world to everybody’s darling under Nelson Mandela. Unfortunately, the bubble burst when Mandela moved on: crime and corruption replaced apartheid as our number one social ill. We now have the highest homicide statistics in the world. One in four South African women will be raped in her lifetime, and children are raped and murdered at a rate that defies belief. South Africa’s top cop--still commissioner of police and head of Interpol at the time of his arrest--is on trial for racketeering and taking bribes from organized crime.
So writing crime set in South Africa isn’t only relevant now, for me it’s about the only way to stay sane.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
We’ve Got Your Number: “212”
ConIt’s astounding to see what authors--even well-known and best-selling authors--must do these days to promote themselves. I received a note yesterday from Alafair Burke, 
a former Oregon deputy district attorney and now a professor of law in New York City, whose new Detective Ellie Hatcher novel, 212, will be released by Harper on March 23. In that note, she directed me to a Web page that tells all about a “surprise gift” promotion, available to purchasers of her latest book. As Burke explains:
While Burke doesn’t reveal what her “mystery gift” is (for then it wouldn’t be a mystery, right?), she does say that it’s “small but special, I designed it myself, and I’m pretty sure you’ll like it.”
All that sounds good--but wait (as the pitchmen declare on television), there’s more! Publisher Harper has agreed to send a free hardcover copy of 212 to one lucky Rap Sheet reader. To win it, you need only demonstrate your reasoning--or guessing--skills.
Since I had so much fun recently with a meme that asked bloggers to post a series of outrageous truths and lies about themselves, I invited the brilliant Ms. Burke to try her hand at the same challenge. Herewith, she presents six facts about herself, plus one wholly untrue statement. Can you tell which is which?
Good luck!
(Author photograph by Douglas Mott)
a former Oregon deputy district attorney and now a professor of law in New York City, whose new Detective Ellie Hatcher novel, 212, will be released by Harper on March 23. In that note, she directed me to a Web page that tells all about a “surprise gift” promotion, available to purchasers of her latest book. As Burke explains:To thank you for your early support, I will send you a mystery gift for every hardback copy of 212 that you purchase prior to midnight on March 22. You can find your favorite booksellers here to order. Just e-mail a copy of your receipt to offer@alafairburke.com(Unfortunately, it seems that this offer is limited to copies of 212 purchased in the United States.)
While Burke doesn’t reveal what her “mystery gift” is (for then it wouldn’t be a mystery, right?), she does say that it’s “small but special, I designed it myself, and I’m pretty sure you’ll like it.”
All that sounds good--but wait (as the pitchmen declare on television), there’s more! Publisher Harper has agreed to send a free hardcover copy of 212 to one lucky Rap Sheet reader. To win it, you need only demonstrate your reasoning--or guessing--skills.Since I had so much fun recently with a meme that asked bloggers to post a series of outrageous truths and lies about themselves, I invited the brilliant Ms. Burke to try her hand at the same challenge. Herewith, she presents six facts about herself, plus one wholly untrue statement. Can you tell which is which?
1. I once spotted Adam Ant in front of me at a hot dog cart in Central Park. I muttered, “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, but apparently you do eat hot dogs.”If you think you know which one of these statements is a bald-faced lie, type your answer in an e-mail note and send it (along with your mailing address) to jpwrites@wordcuts.org. Please write “Alafair Burke Contest” in the subject line. You can make only one guess, and you have to make it by next Wednesday, March 10. At that time, I’ll collect all of the right answers (presuming anyone gets it right), and randomly choose one person to receive a free copy of 212.
2. I once wandered au naturel from a gym locker room into
the free weight area.
3. I initially named my dog Stacy Keach, but my husband vetoed the decision.
4. I once went to the gym during a trial recess, had my blouse stolen from the locker room, and returned in front of the same jury, minus the shirt I’d been wearing under my suit
that morning.
5. I once reached for a magic marker in my jacket pocket during closing argument and instead pulled out a similarly shaped object I had purchased from a machine in the
ladies’ restroom.
6. Bill Clinton once called me to say he liked my books.
7. I once played the lion in The Wizard of Oz.
Good luck!
(Author photograph by Douglas Mott)
Small But Bountiful
• Jen Forbus’ “World’s Favorite Detective Tournament” has entered its second stage. She initially asked for nominations of fictional sleuths. From those, she has tallied up the 64 most popular, a list that includes Lew Archer, Philip Marlowe, Harry Bosch, V.I. Warshawski, Sherlock Holmes, Kinsey Milhone, Spenser, Bernie Gunther, and Guido Brunetti. As Forbus explains it, this tournament will consist of weekly contests, with readers asked to choose their favorites, until the list is boiled down to a winner. Voting is set to begin tomorrow. If you’d like to participate, click here.
• Connecticut author Chris Knopf has a few casting suggestions for any producer daring enough to turn his latest novel, Short Squeeze, into a film. Read more.
• Naomi Johnson of The Drowning Machine gives well-deserved props today to my local independent bookstore specializing in crime fiction, the Seattle Mystery Bookshop.
• A great DVD packaging idea.
• Speaking of DVDs, next week will bring the first season release of Matt Houston, the 1982-1985 ABC-TV series that starred Lee Horsley as a Texas oil man, living in Los Angeles, who conducts private investigations on the side. A totally unbelievable concept, but Horsley managed to make the most of it. And Buddy Ebsen joined the cast in Houston’s final season, playing a former CIA operative.
• Married writing partners Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, who write the John the Eunuch mystery series (the latest entry in which is Eight for Eternity), deliver a poetic explanation of their fiction-composition process in the Mystery Fanfare blog.
• Thanks to British critic Mike Ripley and Ostara Publishing, more great old thrillers are being brought back into print.
• And actor Michael Imperioli, last seen in the unjustly abbreviated U.S. version of Life on Mars, has reportedly signed up to star in a TV series called 187 Detroit, which TV Squad calls “kind of The Office meets NYPD Blue in Michigan.” Imperioli is slated to play Fitch, “the hot-tempered, veteran detective who boasts an impeccable record for closing cases and catching killers.” Hmm. Is it just me, or does that character not sound so very different from Imperioli’s role as the arrogant, politically incorrect New York police detective, Ray Carling, in Life on Mars?
• Connecticut author Chris Knopf has a few casting suggestions for any producer daring enough to turn his latest novel, Short Squeeze, into a film. Read more.
• Naomi Johnson of The Drowning Machine gives well-deserved props today to my local independent bookstore specializing in crime fiction, the Seattle Mystery Bookshop.
• A great DVD packaging idea.
• Speaking of DVDs, next week will bring the first season release of Matt Houston, the 1982-1985 ABC-TV series that starred Lee Horsley as a Texas oil man, living in Los Angeles, who conducts private investigations on the side. A totally unbelievable concept, but Horsley managed to make the most of it. And Buddy Ebsen joined the cast in Houston’s final season, playing a former CIA operative.
• Married writing partners Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, who write the John the Eunuch mystery series (the latest entry in which is Eight for Eternity), deliver a poetic explanation of their fiction-composition process in the Mystery Fanfare blog.
• Thanks to British critic Mike Ripley and Ostara Publishing, more great old thrillers are being brought back into print.
• And actor Michael Imperioli, last seen in the unjustly abbreviated U.S. version of Life on Mars, has reportedly signed up to star in a TV series called 187 Detroit, which TV Squad calls “kind of The Office meets NYPD Blue in Michigan.” Imperioli is slated to play Fitch, “the hot-tempered, veteran detective who boasts an impeccable record for closing cases and catching killers.” Hmm. Is it just me, or does that character not sound so very different from Imperioli’s role as the arrogant, politically incorrect New York police detective, Ray Carling, in Life on Mars?
Come In to the Cold
Jim Winter’s review of The Cold Room, J.T. Ellison’s fourth crime novel featuring Nashville police detective Taylor Jackson, has just been posted in January Magazine. In the story, he writes, Jackson is “chasing an unusual serial killer. He starves his victims to death, violates their bodies and then poses them in elaborate re-creations of famous paintings. What bothers Jackson and her FBI profiler boyfriend, John Baldwin, is the scope of these slayings. It appears he has struck also in London and in Florence, Italy.”
The full review can be found here.
The full review can be found here.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Playing Favorites
After recently selecting The Rap Sheet as one of the “50 Best Blogs for Crime & Mystery Lovers,” the courtroom-careers blog, 
Court Reporter, has now posted its rundown of the “100 Best Crime Books Ever Written.” That list features fiction as well as true crime.
Naturally, presenting any such authoritative-sounding inventory is going to incite criticism. My own knocks would be that the compilers of this list leaned far too heavily toward familiar and best-selling titles; that their tendency to select first novels by older authors suggests a lack of knowledge about those authors’ fuller scope of fiction; and that a few of the more recent wordsmiths included on the roster either haven’t really demonstrated their expertise in the genre yet, or are simply never going to measure up to some of their predecessors. (Where, for instance, are Stanley Ellin, Ross Thomas, William Campbell Gault, or George V. Higgins?)
But then, that’s just my opinion ...
On the other hand, I’m very pleased to see Court Reporter mentioning such works as Eric Ambler’s A Coffin for Dimitrios, James McClure’s The Steam Pig, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s The Laughing Policeman, Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Velvet Claws, Chester Himes’ A Rage in Harlem, Stephen Hunter’s Hot Springs, and Michael Crichton’s The Great Train Robbery.
Click here to read all of Court Reporter’s list.
Court Reporter, has now posted its rundown of the “100 Best Crime Books Ever Written.” That list features fiction as well as true crime.Naturally, presenting any such authoritative-sounding inventory is going to incite criticism. My own knocks would be that the compilers of this list leaned far too heavily toward familiar and best-selling titles; that their tendency to select first novels by older authors suggests a lack of knowledge about those authors’ fuller scope of fiction; and that a few of the more recent wordsmiths included on the roster either haven’t really demonstrated their expertise in the genre yet, or are simply never going to measure up to some of their predecessors. (Where, for instance, are Stanley Ellin, Ross Thomas, William Campbell Gault, or George V. Higgins?)
But then, that’s just my opinion ...
On the other hand, I’m very pleased to see Court Reporter mentioning such works as Eric Ambler’s A Coffin for Dimitrios, James McClure’s The Steam Pig, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s The Laughing Policeman, Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Velvet Claws, Chester Himes’ A Rage in Harlem, Stephen Hunter’s Hot Springs, and Michael Crichton’s The Great Train Robbery.
Click here to read all of Court Reporter’s list.
Roll the Tape
If you’ve never seen attorney-turned-novelist Alafair Burke speak before, now is your chance. During an event late last month at the public library in Muskego, Wisconsin (part of greater Milwaukee), blogger Jen Forbus interviewed Burke on subjects ranging from the author’s interest in entertainment law to her start as a writer, her experience with Internet dating, her research with the New York police, her different fictional protagonists, and of course her new book, 212, which is due out later this month from Harper. Their exchange was filmed, and is now available in Forbus’ blog.
Burke (who is of course the daughter of the famous James Lee Burke) looks like a delightful interviewee, full of stories and humor. If Forbus appears a bit less comfortable ... well, anyone who has ever been seated in front of a video camera and told to act grown-up and insightful can certainly sympathize.
Burke (who is of course the daughter of the famous James Lee Burke) looks like a delightful interviewee, full of stories and humor. If Forbus appears a bit less comfortable ... well, anyone who has ever been seated in front of a video camera and told to act grown-up and insightful can certainly sympathize.
Monday, March 01, 2010
A Country Primed for Crime
To demonstrate their tremendous enthusiasm for crime, mystery, and thriller fiction, the British are planning their first National Crime Fiction Week, to run from June 14 to 20, 2010. On a new Web site, put together by the UK’s Crime Writers’ Association, CWA chair Margaret Murphy explains that
An early schedule of associated events can be found here. If you’re planning some sort of Crime Fiction Week event of your own, add it to the Web site listings by filling out this form.
We’ll keep you apprised as this project shapes up.
CWA members will take part in readings, discussions, readers’ group events and workshops all over the country. Your favourite authors are already planning Murders in Libraries, Bodies in Bookshops and Strawberries and Crime at Village Fetes. So if you have an idea for an event, drop us a line and we’ll do our utmost to put you in touch with a writer who fits the bill.The Crime Fiction Week Web site is here.
A key part of National Crime Fiction Week will be the announcement of the winner of the Young Crime Writers’ Competition, organised by the CWA in partnership with library authorities nationwide. Entries will be judged by members of the CWA.
The crime genre is very broad: spine-tingling suspense, historical novels, cosy crime and edge-of-the-seat thrillers all share shelf space in bookshops and libraries. Add into the mix non-fiction--increasingly popular with readers fascinated by forensic aspects of crime--and events organisers can create a programme of events that will tempt the most fastidious palate.
An early schedule of associated events can be found here. If you’re planning some sort of Crime Fiction Week event of your own, add it to the Web site listings by filling out this form.
We’ll keep you apprised as this project shapes up.
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