Blood on the Bay

OK, just one more Bouchercon-related post. Because this follows up on something Ali Karim mentioned in his fine coverage of that event.

During the convention’s opening-night ceremonies, there was shown a six-minute video montage of clips from classic crime films set in San Francisco. That montage was assembled by Serena Bramble, and was just posted by blogger-editor Janet Rudolph. Since it’s such a splendid piece, we thought it deserved placement in The Rap Sheet as well.

Another Time, Another World

Rap Sheet reader Mike Beiriger e-mailed me recently, asking for suggestions of Los Angeles-based crime and pulp novels published between 1967 and 1969, and set amidst “the music scene, Sunset Strip, hippies, etc. The important thing,” he concluded, “is that it be written during the times.”

A few favorite books I think would fall within his parameters are:

• Traps Need Fresh Bait (1967), by Erle Stanley Gardner
• The Instant Enemy (1968), by Ross Macdonald
• The Love-Death Thing (1969), by Thomas B. Dewey
• The Cheim Manuscript (1969), by Richard S. Prather

In addition, Cinnamon Kiss, by Walter Mosley, is set in L.A. during the late ’60s, though it wasn’t published until 2005.

But let’s throw this matter open to The Rap Sheet’s full readership. Can anyone suggest to Mr. Beiriger  additional titles that would fit his needs? Leave your recommendations in the Comments section of this post.

’Round and ’Round They Go

Earlier today, Kassandra Kelly, who blogs at The Hive Encaustic, posted the ninth entry in Patti Abbott’s enjoyable round-robin short-fiction challenge. Her chapter, titled “Knocked-Out Loaded,” can be found here. Links to preceding installments are available here.

From Log Cabin to Legend

As The Writer’s Almanac so helpfully reminds us, it was 175 years ago today that Samuel Clemens--later an author, humorist, and social commentator immortalized behind the pseudonym Mark Twain--was born “in a log cabin in Florida, Missouri.”

The Almanac recalls that

He worked as a journalist and then published his first book, a short-story collection called The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1867). But it was a non-fiction book based on his travels through Europe and the Middle East that first made him famous. That book, The Innocents Abroad, published in 1869, sold 100,000 copies within two years. It remained his best-selling book while he was alive, outselling classics like Tom Sawyer, Pudd’nhead Wilson, and even Huck Finn, a book that [Ernest] Hemingway famously said that all modern American literature comes from. Hemingway stated, “There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

You can read much more about Twain in The Writer’s Almanac here. When you’re done there, check out a piece I wrote earlier this year about the author’s passing in 1910.

READ MORE: “Birthday Bash: Montgomery, Mamet, and Twain,” by Linda L. Richards (January Magazine).

On Our Own Terms

While I hesitate to promise that this is the final post we’ll put up on this page having to do with October’s Bouchercon in San Francisco, the chances are good that it’s one of the last.

Even before our post-convention coverage began, I was thinking about feeding that reporting into the Wordle “word cloud” generator--which I’ve had fun with previously--and seeing what it might make of the posts. Today I finally did that, with several results, the two below being my favorite designs. Our most commonly used terms make up the cloud, with those that appeared most often in our coverage being the biggest.

Click on either image to see an enlargement.

Bosco’s the Boss

New Zealand’s inaugural Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, named after the renowned author of the Roderick Alleyn mystery series, was supposed to have been presented on September 10, during a ceremony at The Press Christchurch Writers’ Festival. But due to an earthquake that cancelled the festival, it wasn’t until last night that the prize winner was finally given to Alix Bosco, author of the book Cut & Run (Penguin).

Also nominated for that award were Burial, by Neil Cross (Simon & Schuster), and Containment, by Vanda Symon (Penguin).

New Zealand features writer and book reviewer Craig Sisterson, who created this award, promises to supply more details presently about its presentation. Check back later with his blog, Crime Watch.

READ MORE: “Crime Wave: Ngaio Marsh Award and Local Crime Fiction Highlighted by Prestigious Current Affairs Magazine,” by Craig
Sisterson (Crime Watch).

Bullet Points: Post-Turkey Feast Edition

• In January Magazine today, Linda L. Richards reviews The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women, by James Ellroy. She writes that “The Hilliker Curse is not a story that is either happy or sappy. There are few rainbows here, and the author of L.A. Confidential and The Cold Six Thousand doesn’t ride into the sunset in the end. This is a man whose childhood relationship with his mother was dysfunctional at best. In one of their stormy intervals, then ten-year-old James wished her dead. Three months later, she was. Unsurprisingly, as he grew to adulthood, Ellroy brought his issues with him, among them, a bucketful of oedipal guilt and a front end loader full of issues about women. And this would surprise you because ...?” The full review is here.

• I was sorry to hear that Saskatchewan-born actor Leslie Nielsen died yesterday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was 84 years old and had been under treatment for pneumonia. After making a name for himself on the TV shows The Bold Ones and Bracken’s World, as well as in dramatic films such as Forbidden Planet (1956) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Nielsen became “the Olivier of spoofs,” as movie critic Roger Ebert once put it. His deadpan delivery was a hit in such pictures as Airplane! (1980), Spy Hard (1996), and the Naked Gun series, which was inspired by the outrageous 1982 TV show, Police Squad! There are many more tributes to Nielsen available on the Web today, including those here, here, here, here, and here. But really, the best way to honor this veteran performer is by watching his on-screen work. Brighten up your Monday by clicking here and here.

• One more reason to smile: This video may not beat a previous “flash mob” performance for sheer exuberance, but it’s certainly seasonally appropriate. (Hat tip to Patti Abbott.)

• Interviews worth reading: J. Sydney Jones talks with John Burdett, author of the Thailand-set, Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep series, including its most recent installment, The Godfather of Kathmandu. Meanwhile, novelist and Rap Sheet contributor Mark Coggins chats up Leslie S. Klinger, Sherlock Holmes expert and editor of the handsome, three-volume set, The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes.

• Oh, and by the way, if you missed reading Coggins’ enjoyable, original Holmes yarn, “Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Black Bishop”--which was syndicated over the last month in the San Francisco Chronicle--it’s still available on the Web. Use the following links: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V.

• Come January, Stark House Press will finally bring to market two previously unpublished novels--The Silent Wall and The Return of Marvin Palaver--by Peter Rabe (1921-1990). Those books, plus “a very rare Rabe short story, ‘Hard Case Redhead,’” will appear in a single volume. “On tap for the near future,” Stark House reports, “are a two-in-one volume of vintage sleaze crime novels from the famous (under his real name) Don Elliott and a nice trio from Day Keene, and many other exciting titles.”

• And you wonder why observers think failed former half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is clueless when it comes to foreign affairs ...

• Was this really “the worst cop show ever”?

• José Ignacio Escribano catches us up on this year’s Spanish crime-fiction awards.

• The latest entry in Dick Adler’s serial novel, Forget About It: The First Al Zymer Senile Detective Mystery, has now been posted here. An archive of his entire work so far can be enjoyed here.

• Television Obscurities recaps the history of ABC-TV’s half-hour-long Felony Squad (1966-1969), which starred Howard Duff and Dennis Cole.

• And Janet Rudolph spotlights a list, from Flavorwire, of the “10 Most Beautiful Public Libraries in the U.S.” Being an incurable bibliophile, I’ve visited most of these structures, so can see why they made the cut. But I think another one that ought to have been included is Portland, Oregon’s Central Library, designed by architect A.E. Doyle and opened in 1913. It was to that majestic cathedral of books that I went for most of my reading material as a child. The building has been handsomely renovated since, without losing any of its historic merit (at least to my eye).

Hover Cars and Helicops

This week’s new short-story offering in Beat to a Pulp is a science-fiction yarn called “Don’t Drink and Drive,” by writer-illustrator Nik Morton.

Speaking of Morton, he also has a fine review of Jim Thompson’s 1957 noir novel, The Kill-Off, in his blog, WriteaLot.

Bright Lights for “Dark Times”

The winner of the 2010 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Award for crime fiction is Dark Times in the City, by Gene Kerrigan (Vintage). Also nominated: City of Lost Girls, by Declan Hughes (John Murray); Time of Death, by Alex Barclay (HarperCollins); Faithful Place, by Tana French (Hachette Books Ireland); The Missing, by Jane Casey (Ebury); and The Twelve, by Stuart Neville (Vintage).

To find a list of this year’s nominees in all categories, click here.

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

The Book You Have to Read: “Doctor Frigo,” by Eric Ambler

(Editor’s note: This is the 108th installment of our ongoing Friday blog series highlighting great but forgotten books. Today’s pick comes from James Thompson, a Kentucky-born author now living in Finland. Thompson’s 2010 novel, Snow Angels, the first in the Inspector Vaara series, marked his entrance into the international crime-fiction scene and was critically well-received. [Booklist cited it as one of the 10 best debut crime novels of the year.] He has already contracted with publisher G.P. Putnam’s Sons for four Inspector Vaara novels. The second, Lucifer’s Tears, will appear in March 2011.)

One of my first profound reading experiences as a child was an early Eric Ambler novel, A Coffin for Dimitrios (1939). I was about 10 at the time, and I haven’t read the book since, but I remember that it revolved around tracing the history of a drug dealer and murderer whose body had been pulled out of the Bosporus. I can still picture hundreds of slaughtered corpses from Ambler’s graphic description of the early 20th-century pogrom against the Greeks. This led me to read the actual history of the pogrom. I also fell in love with the thriller, crime, and adventure genres, a road I’m still on.

In large part because of Coffin, my early teen years were populated by the works of Graham Greene, John le Carré, and more thriller authors of the period, and they carried me in other directions, toward writers such as W. Somerset Maugham and Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway. Given that I’ve read thousands of thrillers and crime novels by this point, and I now write them for a living, it can be rightly said that with Coffin, Ambler played a significant part in defining what would become my life. The last Ambler novel I read was Send No More Roses (1977), something like a decade ago. But then recently, in a used bookstore, I found a beat-up copy of Doctor Frigo, a 1974 Ambler work I wasn’t familiar with. So when editor J. Kingston Pierce asked me to review a novel for The Rap Sheet’s “forgotten book series,” I knew this one had to be my subject.

* * *

Ernesto Castillo lives in exile on the island of St. Paul-les-Alizés, in the French Antilles. Twelve years before, his father, the leader of a country in Central America, a former Spanish colony that is never referred to by name, was assassinated.

Castillo, our narrator, is a man who views himself as reserved and discreet, civilized and cynical, but above all, detached. Ever since the night two gunmen shot down his father on the steps of a hotel, then were themselves dispatched in what seemed like part of a coup d’état by the military junta, Castillo’s mother (recently deceased) and many of her government-in-exile cronies dreamed that Castillo would return to his homeland as an avenging angel, right the wrongs done to their family, and assume his due place as his father’s successor.

But Ernesto Castillo, also called Doctor Frigo, is a physician so nicknamed because he has the bedside manner of a refrigerator. Doctor Frigo wants no part in political machinations or revenge. He wants the past buried. Castillo would prefer to forget his homeland, or if he can’t, then at least hold it at a firm arm’s length, along with his family and his countrymen, especially those determined to regain their former political prestige.

Castillo is an employee of the State, subsidized by the French government, and has his medical practice at the local hospital. His mistress, Elizabeth--estranged from her husband--is an artist, a delightful and eccentric woman. She’s also a descendant several times removed from the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, and to Elizabeth’s mind, a metaphor for everything in life may be found in the history of the Hapsburg Empire. Castillo wants no more or less from life than his medical practice, a simple existence on the island, and Elizabeth. But of course, such is not to be.

A large oil reserve has been discovered in Castillo’s former Central American homeland, and a new coup is in the offing there, as various interests scramble to acquire the immense wealth that find will offer. Everyone from French Intelligence to the oil cartels to the quondam masters of the Central American nation of Castillo’s birth believe they need the support of Castillo, the son of the former president, to take the country and its oil. And if he refuses to lend his backing, then each in turn threatens to take or ruin his life.

I was on page 87 of Ambler’s novel when I stopped and thought to myself, “I’ve read this story before.” Indeed, Doctor Frigo is Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana (1958), only darker and more sophisticated, without the melancholy humor so characteristic of Greene. Even the Central American and Caribbean settings feel like the countries of Greeneland. If, in my elder years, I have a couple of weeks to spare during retirement, I’ll back-plot both stories, tear the houses down to the studs, so to speak, and examine how close in structure they truly are. Greene called Ambler “our greatest thriller writer.” After reading Doctor Frigo, I believe the admiration must have been mutual.

I’m far from the first person to note the influence Ambler had upon Greene, and later upon John le Carré. The impact Doctor Frigo exercised on Le Carré seems apparent even in a cursory examination of The Tailor of Panama (1996). Or perhaps Tailor is a retelling of Our Man in Havana. Or maybe both are true. All three books feature inept protagonists swimming beyond their depths in the seas of espionage and intrigue, only to find that by daring--and some dumb luck--they manage to defeat their opponents, professionals at political corruption.

With its themes of oil-driven geopolitics and men who callously subvert history for personal enrichment, Doctor Frigo remains as relevant for the reader today as when it was published nearly 40 years ago. And like the majority of Ambler’s works, this one is worthy of remembrance and reflection. Find out for yourself by giving it a read.

Bouchercon Postmortem II: San Francisco Was All About Friendships, Part 3

Ali Karim (center) shares the love with Jon and Ruth Jordan.

(Editor’s note: This is the third and final entry in British correspondent Ali Karim’s recap of last month’s Bouchercon in San Francisco. The first part of his report can be found here, while the second part is here.) Another summary of Bouchercon is located here.)

Saturday, October 16: After waking at a rather more civilized hour than we had the day before, my roommate, author Roger “R.J.” Ellory (The Anniversary Man), and I found a diner opposite the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where we enjoyed a generous breakfast. All through that meal, though, I was looking over the day’s Bouchercon schedule with dismay. There were simply too many interesting panel discussions for one person to attend, many of them clashing with each other. I couldn’t figure out what to do.

I sought at least temporary escape from my quandary by paying another visit to the hotel’s book-sales room. And while buying works to have signed by authors later in the day, I also spent some time with hometown girl Kelli Stanley, chatted with Michelle Gagnon about her latest thriller, and talked to the very amusing Tim Maleeny about how his 2007 novel, Stealing the Dragon, had beaten Stieg Larsson to the bookshelves with a cover that featured a dragon-tattooed woman. Especially pleasing was the time I spent with author Sophie Littlefield, who I had discovered last year at Bouchercon in Indianapolis, following the publication of her first novel, A Bad Day for Sorry. In San Francisco, I managed to pick up a copy of her second book, A Bad Day for Pretty, and I learned that she’s penning a young-adult series. We also talked about her brother, Mike Wiecek, who was on a panel I moderated at the inaugural ThrillerFest in Phoenix in 2006, and whose first novel, Exit Strategy, was shortlisted for a Thriller Award.

(Right) Author Scott Phillips clowns around with Sophie Littlefield.

Toting my bag of books, I headed outside for a quick cigarette, only to bump into Crimespree editors Jon and Ruth Jordan, crime-fiction fan Judy Bobalik, author Cara Black, and Matt Hilton, who had come over from England with his wife. They would all be my smoking buddies during Bouchercon’s duration, along with Libby Fischer Hellmann, into whose shoe I managed to drop a lit cigarette, causing her to yelp and me to rush in to prevent a burn on her ankle.

From there it was off to my first panel presentation of the day, a poignant one recalling the long shadow Robert B. Parker (who died in January of this year) cast over the field of private-eye fiction. I was joined in the crowd of listeners by Rap Sheet editor Jeff Pierce, who once interviewed Parker and had kept up with his various works since. This panel’s moderator was Scotsman Russel D. McLean, the author of one of 2010’s Shamus Award nominees, The Good Son. He had a tough job keeping the peace between novelists Joseph Finder and Lee Goldberg, who appeared on the panel with Rap Sheet contributor and author Mark Coggins, Irish wordsmith Declan Hughes, and Dick Lochte, who currently serves as president of the Private Eye Writers of America.

Bostonian Finder, a longstanding friend of the Parker family, opened the session by reading for the audience a very moving letter from Parker’s wife, Joan. In it, she detailed how Parker, through his fiction, had taken stands against casual and not-so-casual racism over the years, and how his rough-housing but romantic gumshoe, Spenser, had always stood up for underdogs, be they Jews, blacks, Asians, women, gays, or others. As Finder read on, my wind swirled back to my teenage years, when I was buying American paperback editions of Parker’s books from a market stall that specialized in used copies. Back then, in the 1970s, I hadn’t been aware of Parker’s liberal stands, but now I realized why his stories, like those by Arthur Conan Doyle, had always so attracted me. So much of what I read as a boy, whether it was penned by Ian Fleming, Agatha Christie, or Roald Dahl, had been filled with dismissive turns of phrase, reflecting an upper-class perspective. However, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, like Spenser and his African-American sidekick, Hawk, demonstrated no such prejudices against minorities. I found that refreshing, and it made me feel better not only about myself--a young man born into what seemed like an alien world--but about some of my non-white, non-heterosexual, and non-Christian friends.

The highly contentious Robert B. Parker panel, featuring (left to right) Joseph Finder, Dick Lochte, Declan Hughes, Mark Coggins, Lee Goldberg, and Russel D. McLean.

After Finder finished reading, the discussion broke down into two camps: those who defended the consistent excellence of Parker’s work, and those who--like Goldberg--applauded the author’s early books as groundbreaking, but saw declining quality in his later efforts. Actually, the division was pretty much Goldberg versus the rest; whenever they got a word in at all, Lochte, Hughes, and Coggins expressed mostly favorable judgments of Parker’s extensive oeuvre. There was much more agreement among the panelists when they were asked to name their favorite Spenser novel. They all seemed fond of the first Spenser outing, The Godwulf Manuscript (1973), but I agreed with Lochte, that top marks belong to The Judas Goat (1978), which brought Spenser and Hawk to my home turf of London.

Once the discussion was over, I approached Joe Finder. I told him how much I’d enjoyed Joan Parker’s letter and also how much I regretted never having had the chance to personally thank Robert Parker for what his work had meant to me as a teenager. Finder urged me to write a message to Joan, saying she would be delighted to hear of my enthusiasm, and he’d happily pass my letter on to her. (Naturally, one of the first things I did upon returning home to Britain was compose such a missive and send it to Finder, for forwarding. Never underestimate the power of words. Had it not been for Robert Parker’s books, I might have matured into a lesser person than I am today.)

It being after noon by this point, Jeff and I went upstairs to the Hyatt’s Atrium-level restaurant, where I’d organized lunch with critic-blogger Sarah Weinman and her partner, Edward Champion. I’ve known Sarah for many years now, back to when she lived in London, and we both attended the inaugural Theakstons Harrogate Crime Writing Festival in 2003. Over the years I have learned that, unless you plan specific meetings during Bouchercon, and pre-arrange meals together, it’s very difficult to spend the time you’d like with friends and colleagues. So this lunch was firmly on my docket. As we were ordering food (mostly burgers of various done-ness), I got to talking with Champion, who I’d met before in New York City, in Sarah’s company, and only then did I realize that he’s the guy behind the Internet phenomenon Bat Segundo, aka Dr. Mabuse. I have often downloaded and enjoyed the Bat Segundo podcasts, so congratulated Champion on interviewing some truly iconic writers, which brought a blush to his face. Between bites, Sarah told me that she’s enjoying success as a freelance writer, but that it doesn’t leave much time for her short-story writing. That’s too bad, as she has contributed her fiction over the years to several collections.

(Left) Author Kate Atkinson, seated on the left, being interviewed by critic Sarah Weinman.

Sated, and with our bill settled, the four of us split up. Jeff was scheduled to host a two-hour, interactive discussion about “the business of books,” while Sarah was off to interview Kate Atkinson, author of the Jackson Brodie crime novels. Since Atkinson is a favorite author of mine, I joined that session. Weinman, who is quite obviously also a fan of Atkinson’s work, probed her subject specifically on why a “literary writer” would switch to penning criminal yarns. Atkinson defended herself by saying that she essentially writes the stories she wants to, and then leaves it up to others to decide where they might be properly pigeonholed. In the signing room after the interview, I had a delightful tête-à-tête with Atkinson, as she sought to puzzle out why I was wearing one white glove, Michael Jackson-style. I could see the writer’s mind whirling, trying to rationalize this peculiar trapping. When I finally explained the sorry saga of my chemical burn, she roared with laughter--even more so when I noted that the glove had made me quite popular with airport security personnel.

Then it was on to a panel featuring “literary heavyweights” Martin Cruz Smith, Andrew Klavan, Joseph Finder, and Wallace Stroby (Gone ’til November), who performed admirably as moderator. The discussion contained numerous valuable nuggets having to do with Hollywood’s treatment of their respective novels. Smith recounted the battles he had with his publisher after Gorky Park won acclaim in the early 1980s, trying to thwart commercial efforts to convert his protagonist, Russian cop Arkady Renko, into an American. Meanwhile, Finder told the audience about his cameo role in the 2002 Ashley Judd thriller, High Crimes; and Klavan expressed his disappointment with Clint Eastwood’s 1999 film, True Crime (based on Klavan’s 1997 novel of the same name). The real treat for me, though, came after the panel presentation, when I queued up to meet Smith and Klavan, writers whose work I have read much of over the decades. While I was standing in line, I was surprised to have a couple of readers approach me, requesting that I autograph their copies of Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads, edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner--a book for which I wrote about English espionage novelist Eric Ambler. Normally it’s me who’s asking writers for signatures!

As hard as it had been for me to choose between panels for most of that day, it was equally trying to determine which party invitation to accept for the evening. (Publishers love to wine and dine authors as well as critics at Bouchercon.) I ultimately decided to attend the Orion Publishing fête, hosted by publishing directors Bill Massey and Juliet Ewers. I still have fond memories of breaking bread with Lawrence Block, Steve Hamilton, Harlan Coben, Linwood Barclay, and other writers during the Orion party at Bouchercon Baltimore two years ago, so I was confident this year’s bash wouldn’t disappoint. Dinner was held at a Greek restaurant. Among those seated around the table were Carla Buckley, Denise Mina, Steve Hamilton again, roommate Roger, and my dear colleague, the distinguished French translator Robert Pepin. Orion had chosen Walter Mosley to be guest of honor this year, and I had the pleasure of sitting right beside him. The restaurant’s cuisine was excellent, as was its wine, and many of us followed Mosley’s lead in picking goat stew as our main course--a dish I’d never tried before, and which is probably an acquired taste, though an interesting dish, to be sure.

(Right) Authors Steve Hamilton and Heather Graham.

The dinner conversation was wide-ranging. I told Hamilton how much I’d enjoyed his latest book, The Lock Artist, which was the first novel I read on my iPad. He then informed us that Tommy Lee Jones has acquired the movie rights to his book, so we all drank a toast to the promise of said project getting beyond the pre-production stage. Mosley and Roger Ellory discussed with Carla Buckley the dangers of artificial sweeteners, and actually convinced her to sign a contract saying that she would restrict her future diet soda intake. Later, Mosley and I discussed his science fiction, and he told me how surprised he’s been that few readers of his mystery fiction realize that he’s written tales as well in that other genre. At one point, we all got to talking about lesser-known films and novels, and I was delighted to discover that Scottish wordsmith Mina is a fellow admirer of the 1988 French-Dutch film The Vanishing (aka Spoorloos), directed by George Sluizer--a picture that still lives in my head, a decade after I first saw it. Apparently Mina is also enthusiastic about her entry into the world of graphic novels, and plans to compose more of them in the future. That affair’s most amusing moment, though--at least from my perspective--came during our discussion of obscure but significant crime novels. I noted that, as part of The Rap Sheet’s “One Book Project” a few years ago, I had recommended Bradley Denton’s 1993 book, Blackburn. This provoked a coughing fit in Robert Pepin, who was unfortunately trying to drink wine at the time. “You’ve read Blackburn?” he enquired excitedly. “Yes,” I said, passing him a napkin. “I consider it a masterpiece. So have you read it?” “Read it, Karim?” he responded. “Not only have I read it, but I also translated it into French. A wonderful book, you have great taste!” With what he remained in his glass, he raised a toast.

Dessert followed, as did more conversation, much of it centered around the importance of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a favorite topic of mine. (Somebody asked, “How can a book that most people struggle with the first 100 pages become such a monster?” My answer was simple: The book takes off the moment protagonist Lisabeth Salander appears on the page.) Then it was time to say goodnight to most of the company, and to stroll on back to the Hyatt with Bill Massey and Juliet Ewers, who I thanked for their generous hospitality.

Unwilling yet to retire, Bill Massey treated a group of us to nightcaps in the hotel bar. By this stage, I was starting to feel weary, but was kept on my toes by various writers stopping at our table to chat. I was especially pleased to see Silicon Valley novelist Keith Raffel (Smasher), who I met initially last year at Bouchercon in Indianapolis. A regular Rap Sheet reader, Raffel thanked me for my early heads-up about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and mentioned that as a result of it he’d purchased a British first edition of the novel, only to see its value increase greatly.

After Massey headed off for bed, I went outside for a smoke break with author Lee Child, and talked about the recent brouhaha over his comments having to do with literary fiction versus genre fiction. As is his style, Child seemed relaxed about the issue, which the press had turned into a bogus rivalry between him and Ian McEwan (Solar).

Back inside, I found room beside the hugely talented Alexandra Sokoloff (Book of Shadows), who was already seated at a table with novelist Heather Graham and her husband, Dennis Pozzessere (a dear friend of mine), and F. Paul Wilson. I recall reading Alex’s horror fiction, and nodding as critics compared it favorably to the work of genre legend Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House, 1959). And I look forward to digging into the paranormal fiction series that she, Heather, and Deborah LeBlanc are composing together. Yet, as much as I appreciated the women’s company, I enjoy Dennis’ even more. He’s very funny, and we share reading tastes. After awhile, seeing me wave and talk to assorted crime novelists who were tipping back their last libations of the night, Dennis said, “You know, Ali, you know everyone!” To which I replied: “Dennis, look around you. I am the only non-white guy in the room, hence I stand out, and this white glove of mine makes me look even weirder!” Wilson thought about that for a few moments and then said, in utter deadpan fashion, “He’s got a point. Ali looks like a super-villain.” We all had a good laugh at that.

Late-night revelers Heather Graham, F. Paul Wilson, Dennis Pozzessere, and Alexandra Sokoloff.

Dennis mentioned in passing that he and Heather had booked a couple of tickets for a Sunday afternoon tour of the old prison facilities on Alcatraz Island. I said that Roger and I were also hoping to take the same tour, but Dennis shook his head. He informed me that it was a very popular attraction, and tickets had to be reserved well in advance. The chances of our getting in before we had to return to England were slim. But I’m a firm believer in the adage, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” and was not prepared to give up hope.

Weariness catching up to me at last, I tracked down Roger Ellory and Deadly Pleasures editor George Easter. We poked our heads into the ballroom where the Bouchercon Disco was in full swing, but decided that with the white glove and loud music I’d look too weird taking part in the festivities. So off to bed we all went.

Sunday, October 17: Although a few panel discussions were held on this final morning of the convention, Roger and I decided to sleep in, then shower and head off to the Anthony Awards brunch at 10 a.m.

We organized a large round table for brunch and reserved seats for British author Dreda Say Mitchell and her husband, Jeff and Jodi Pierce, and author Holly West and her husband. While we were filling our stomachs, I bugged Holly a bit about getting me a draft copy of her debut novel, Diary of Bedlam, and I congratulated Dreda on her role as the program chair for next year’s Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England. The rest of time I spent telling Jeff and Jodi about my obsession with the classic Planet of the Apes movies and their source material, Pierre Boulle’s 1963 science-fiction novel. I told them that both my parents and wife long ago grew tired of my interest in simian takeovers of Earth, and that in 1995 I had taken my wife--as a special treat on her birthday--to a showing of Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys. Actually, it was more of a special treat to me, as my wife hates science fiction. I didn’t tell her the title of the film we were going to see, just that it was a romantic comedy starting Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, and Madeline Stowe. After we were seated in the cinema, an overweight guy with terrible body odor decided to position himself next to my wife, forcing her to sit with a handkerchief over her mouth and nose. And when the curtain came up and the title 12 Monkeys flashed on the screen, she tuned to me and said, in a sinister whisper, “It’s my birthday, and you bring me to one of your Planet of the Apes movies--and I have to sit next to a guy who smells of rotting cabbage and shit ...” Needless to say, a romantic evening was not in the offing, but at least it was a good film.

After most people were done with brunch, the Anthony Award ceremonies got underway. I was particularly pleased to see Louise Penny (The Brutal Telling) and Sophie Littlefield rewarded for their literary efforts, and happy with the rousing applause given to Maddy Van Hertbruggen, head of the online book-discussion group 4MA (For Mystery Addicts), who was this year’s Bouchercon fan guest of honor. Alafair Burke and Reed Farrel Coleman delivered a moving, joint speech in tribute to publisher and bookstore manager David Thompson, who passed away in September. They announced that Thompson would being given, posthumously, an Anthony for Special Services to the Industry, and that in years to come, that commendation would be renamed the David Thompson Award for Special Services to the crime-fiction genre. Since many people in the audience knew Thompson personally, the standing ovation that followed this announcement was predictable. Another similar cheer greeted Bouchercon 2010 conference chair Rae Helmsworth as she took to the stage and thanked us all for coming to San Francisco for this event. As she bid us adieu, a song rolled out from the giant conference room’s speakers--and it couldn’t have been a more apt choice.

Saying good-bye to everyone at the table, and all of those friends and colleagues who stopped us on our way out the door, was an extremely emotional experience. I told Dreda Say Mitchell that I was looking forward to hearing her next book review on BBC Radio 4 (as she seems to have become a regular there), and nagged Holly West one last time about finishing her book, so I can actually read it sometime. Then I asked Jeff and Jodi if they would like to join Roger and me on our proposed post-convention trip out to Alcatraz, but unfortunately they had to catch a plane home to Seattle that afternoon. It was a rather quiet walk Roger and I had back to our hotel, as we were reliving experiences from our busy last few days among book lovers. But as we entered the lobby, one of the receptionists gestured us over, and handed each of us a wrapped package. As we opened them, we broke into smiles, for Jeff had left us inscribed copies of his latest non-fiction book about San Francisco as a souvenir of our recent days together.

Ignoring all the naysayers, who insisted we’d never get last-minute tickets out to Alcatraz, Roger and I decided to take a chance. We walked up the bay-side Embarcadero to Pier 33, from which the Alcatraz tours begin. Along the way, it began to rain--the first bad weather we’d had all weekend, and a deterrent, we hoped, to less-sturdy visitors wishing to board one of the island tour boats. However, when we reached the ticket booth we were told in no uncertain terms that every seat for that afternoon’s trips to Alcatraz had already been allocated. This proved a test of our ingenuity. Affecting a highly accentuated English upper-class accent (referred to by the BBC as “received pronunciation”), I told the lady in the booth that Roger and I were British crime writers, researching San Francisco’s notorious island penitentiary for a forthcoming book. I said that we had traveled all the way from London expressly for this tour, and hadn’t been advised that a reservation was necessary. Carrying a concerned look, she told us to wait a moment while she consulted with her supervisor. He, in turn, informed us that a few tickets were always held in reserve, and we could have two of them.

Ali Karim is finally sent off to “The Rock.”

The sailing wasn’t for another hour, so clutching our prized passes, we walked further on down the street, looking for someplace to tip back a celebratory beer. In addition to being a tremendous novelist, Roger is also a talented musician, so we were pleased to find a Hard Rock Café nearby, on Pier 39. While I was chugging my brew at the bar, an elderly lady sat down on the stool next to mine, and in broken English inquired about my bandaged right hand. I told her about the chemical burn, and how Roger and I were in town, along with many other crime novelists and readers, for Bouchercon. I soon realized that she was Swedish, and was visiting the city with her daughter, who asked us, “Have you read Stieg Larsson?” Roger and I couldn’t help but laugh; what were the odds of our falling into conversation about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in a bar halfway around the world from our homes? When the daughter asked whether we were writers, I told her about Roger’s breakthrough novel, A Quiet Belief in Angels, a copy of which she promised to obtain. Then I asked our waitress for a Hard Rock Café notepad, the top sheet of which Roger signed and suggested she slip into his book after she’d bought it.

By the time we got back to Pier 33, a long queue of people were waiting for the Alcatraz sailing. The journey took 15 to 20 minutes, and as we approached “The Rock,” I was shocked to realize just how much it looked like Shutter Island from the film of that same name. (I was feeling more than a little like U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels as we approached the dock.) I was also reminded of the trip Shots editor Mike Stotter and I made out to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty during ThrillerFest 2007, which was held in New York City. That afternoon on Alcatraz Island was unforgettable, and I am so glad we managed to talk our way over and then spend so much time wandering around what is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, administered by the National Park Service. The strongest image I took away with me was gleaned when I sat up by the lighthouse and surveyed the San Francisco shoreline, seeing the crowd of tall buildings and the edge of the sweeping Golden Gate Bridge, partially hidden by mist. I tried to imagine what the long-ago prisoners felt, incarcerated in this high-security installation, seeing freedom so close at hand, yet so far away. With so much to see on and from the island, Roger and I took a huge number of photographs. Although we had not really seen much of San Francisco during our trip, the one place we had both wanted to visit was Alcatraz. What more likely place for crime-fiction fans to turn up?

(Left) Roger Ellory samples the bars on Alcatraz Island.

Returned to the mainland, and back at our hotel, Roger mentioned to me that the chambermaids seemed to be giving us funny looks. I said he was paranoid, and that even though we were a couple of guys (both family men, I should add) sharing a room to keep our traveling costs down, this was San Francisco, one of the most gay-friendly metropolises on the planet. There was no reason for the maids to think much of two men staying in the same room. But then I broke out laughing, because as I was packing my bags--getting ready before our last dinner out--I realized what might have drawn us the quizzical gazes. I pointed to the medical kit I had brought along, given the condition of my hand, and highlighted for Roger the blue latex gloves and lubricating creams assembled on my bedside table. I’d had to use the protective gloves when I showered and shaved, and the creams I required to keep the burned flesh of my hand moist. But together they might have suggested we were into some more exotic behaviors than the hotel’s average guests. “They must think we’re a pair of cock-knobblers!” I cried. “What the heck is a cock-knobbler?” Roger retorted, and we laughed like hyenas over the situation, all the while contemplating the big tip we’d be leaving our maids.

We had hoped to share a parting dinner that night with several editors: Carol Fitzgerald of Bookreporter, Ruth and Jon Jordan of Crimespree, and Andrew Gulli of The Strand Magazine. When we got to the Hyatt, it was strange to see it so quiet, stripped of all evidence that Bouchercon had taken place there that weekend. With our prospective dining companions nowhere to be found, Roger and I decided to order gin at the bar and discuss our other eating options. Just as our drinks arrived, an excited Peter Rozovsky of Detectives Beyond Borders seemed to emerge from thin air. I greeted him with a chuckle and the statement, “Peter, you’re like a gin genie. Every time I have gin, you suddenly appear.” After which he asked: “Hey, are you guys coming for dinner?” Since we’d just learned that the Jordans were dining, instead, with Rae Helmsworth and her Bouchercon organizing team, and neither Fitzgerald nor Gulli was around, Roger and I took Peter up on his invitation to cab over to an Italian restaurant and share a repast with Kelli Stanley and Heather Graham.

That meal was a terrific end to the day, providing a great opportunity for us all to discuss what we’d all been up to, both during Bouchercon and otherwise. Of course, I had already consumed quite a bit of gin by this point--enough that when our waitress stopped ’round to ask whether we required a doggie-bag for all our leftovers, I once more affected my upper-class English accent and said, “Yes, please.” Then, knowing that Peter was planning to stay over in San Francisco for a couple of extra days, I added, gesturing in his direction, “Bring a doggie bag for Peter, as he wants to rub all that pasta over his cock-knobbler tonight.” You should have seen the strange look that waitress gave Rozovsky! Gales of laughter soon erupted from our table, as Roger recounted the talk we’d had earlier about our maid service, and Kelli Stanley and her partner went red in the face, guffawing between gulps of oxygen. It was a very humorous conclusion to the evening, and Peter was good-natured enough not to take offense at being the butt of my jest.

Afterward, Kelli and her partner drove Heather and her husband, Dennis, back to the Hyatt, while Roger, Peter, and I elected to walk back to the waterfront, taking in the late-night sights of this beautiful city. A charming end to this memorable weekend.

Monday, October 18: We had to be up early to reach the airport. Roger was scheduled to fly to Vancouver, Canada, for a literary festival, while I was bound for London. After wishing my now ex-roommate fair travels, and thanking him again for his excellent company and his encouragement to attend this year’s Bouchercon, I set off to find my boarding area. I was standing in line at the security gates, when I felt a tap on my shoulder, and there behind me was a smiling Alafair Burke. We chatted for a bit, and she joked about how I must now be accustomed to the airport security aspect of travel, having come so far to San Francisco. Oh yes, I reassured her, and it’s soooo much more fun with my white glove! After we made our way through the line, and split up in pursuit of different boarding gates, I went looking for coffee, only to bump into Robert Pepin, whose plane was slated to leave from the gate just opposite mine. We spent a pleasant hour together, as he shared his tales of translating and meeting some of the world’s best-known authors. I was bowled over when he told me about the times he used to spend with Kurt Vonnegut.

Summoned to our respective flights, we shook hands in farewell. I was now truly on my own, so after finding my seat for the initial leg of my transatlantic journey (with an anticipated change of planes in the Midwest), I pulled out the first of several books I had at hand to read: Dennis Lehane’s new novel, Moonlight Mile. As I began turning that book’s pages, and again entered the dramatic lives of Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, the Boston private eyes Lehane last wrote about a decade ago, it felt like I was reconnecting with old companions. It’s the same sort of feeling I have every time I participate in Bouchercon. I may not see the crime-fiction writers and readers I know from those conventions very often, but they are forever welcome in my life.

As I stated when I began writing this recap series, Bouchercon is always about friendships. Always.

Gobble, Gobble

That’s what I shall be doing later today, as I join my small family for a Thanksgiving Day celebration. For all of my fellow Americans in the Rap Sheet audience, I wish you a very happy holiday. And try not to eat too much. As if that caution ever stopped me ...

READ MORE: “Thanksgiving 1910,” by Larry Harnish (Los Angeles Times).

The Good Lieutenant

January Magazine today carries my gift-guide recommendation of The Columbo Collection, a paperback featuring 12 short mystery stories that star legendary TV detective Lieutenant Columbo. The book is the handiwork of William Link, one of the two writers who created the 1970s NBC series. Here’s part of my review:

All [of the stories] contain the flavor of the original TV series. They find Columbo in intellectual jousting matches with one well-off and supposedly infallible killer after the next, whether it be a criminal defense attorney who’s murdered the client whose case he just won, a woman who has done away with the hit man she’d employed to kill her judge of a husband, or a controlling real-estate developer who’s knifed his son’s fiancée. In each case, it is some critical and overlooked mistake that finally trips up the murderer. Link easily weaves into his fiction the traits we immediately associate with the TV show--Columbo’s beat-up old Peugeot, his cigars and shabby raincoat, his deceptive tendency to become distracted in his questioning, and his habit of asking “just one more thing” before leaving his trapped-before-they-know-it suspects alone, at least for a while.

You can read the full January piece here.

Coming to Terms

Being someone who works closely with words all day long, I’m part of the natural audience for those e-mailings that try to surprise you with extraordinary terms from the English language and unusual backgrounds to common expressions. Rarely do such communications offer gist for The Rap Sheet. But Wordsmith.org’s history of “shamus”--a word I thought I knew well, from usage--held a couple of interesting tidbits.

First off, I discovered that my pronunciation of this term (as SHAY-muhs) is apparently not the primary choice of linguists. Click here for the preferred articulation.

And here’s the rest of today’s A.Word.A.Day write-up on “shamus”:

MEANING:
noun:
1. A private detective.
2. A police officer.

ETYMOLOGY:
Perhaps from Yiddish shames/shammes (sexton, a caretaker at a synagogue), from Hebrew shamash (servant). The spelling of the word has altered from the influence of the Celtic name Seamus (equivalent to James) as many police officers in the U.S. at the time, especially in New York, were Irish. First recorded use: 1925.

USAGE:
“A private eye is expected to be whip-smart and tough as nails, but if the guy isn’t likable, he’s D.O.A. as a genre hero. So it’s nice to note that Vlodek Elstrom (known as Dek), a shamus from a tumbledown town in northern Illinois who was introduced by Jack Fredrickson in ‘A Safe Place for Dying,’ has lost none of his initial appeal in its sequel ...” Marilyn Stasio, “A Need for Noir,” The New York Times, Jan. 23, 2009.*

I guess you really can learn something new every day.

* This quotation has been changed to be in accordance with its original appearance. Wordsmith.org shortened the excerpt in a rather confusing way.

“Somebody Wants to Scare You”

If you simply can’t wait for Bird Day fast approaching, I’m forging ahead with my own turkey: Installment 12 of my serial novel, Forget About It: The First Al Zymer Senile Detective Mystery, is now available for reading here. An archive of the entire work so far can be found here.

As always, comments are welcome and replied to with some efficiency. Send them to me at dickadler@mail.com.

Giving Kalin His Due

Just over a year ago, I wrote in my Killer Covers blog about artist Victor Kalin (1919-1991), who was responsible for the outstanding cover illustration on Thomas B. Dewey’s 1962 paperback novel Go, Honeylou. Then, just last month, Kalin’s daughter, Rebecca, e-mailed me with news that she has created a “Web archive of his paperback book covers.”

Located here, that resource-in-progress features Kalin’s work on series by such well-known authors as Mary Roberts Rinehart, John Creasey, and Frank Kane, as well as his illustrations for Gothic, western, and war novels. As a fun addition, there’s a link to YouTube, where you can watch a 1981 General Electric TV commercial in which Victor Kalin himself is seen painting a portrait.

I’m very pleased to see Victor Kalin being honored in this way. Check out the site when you have a chance. You’ll be glad you did.

Down and Dirty

This week’s new short story in Beat to a Pulp, “Taking a Line for a Walk,” comes from Nigel P. Bird, whose blog is Sea Minor.

First Snow of 2010

I know that not everyone is thrilled to see snow falling in Seattle for the first time this year, but I am. The city has suddenly become a quieter and more peaceful place, and people have been forced outside to walk, rather than driving hither and yon. Chances are that all of this white stuff will be gone by Thanksgiving, perhaps even by later today. In the meantime, though, it’s a nice reminder that nature, not man, is really in charge of what goes on in the world.

The Swede Smell of Success

Uriah Robinson (aka Norman Price) of Crime Scraps brings the results of two Swedish crime-fiction competitions.

Winning the 2010 Best Swedish Crime Novel Award, sponsored by the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy (Svenska Deckarakademin), is Den döende detektiven, by Leif G.W. Persson (Albert Bonniers förlag). Also nominated were Bittrare än döden, by Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff (W & W); Paganinikontraktet, by Lars Kepler (Albert Bonniers förlag); Mike Larssons rymliga hjärta, by Olle Lönnaeus (Damm); and Tusenskönor, by Kristina Ohlsson (Piratförlaget).

Meanwhile, the 2010 Martin Beck Award (named after the fictional detective created by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö) has gone to Devils Peak (Devil’s Peak), by Deon Meyer (Weyler). Contending for that prize, as well, were Sista Beställningen på Balt, by Faïsa Guène (Norstedts); Dödsmässa (Midnight Fugue), by Reginald Hill (Minotaur); Mörka strömmar (Myrká), by Arnaldur Indridason (Norstedts); and John Stones fall (Stone’s Fall), by Iain Pears (Brombergs).

Fowl Play

With Thanksgiving fast approaching on the American calendar (yes, it’s this coming Thursday! How in the heck did time pass so fast?), you might be in the mood to tackle a Thanksgiving-related mystery or two. Well, here’s good news, then: Janet Rudolph has posted a list containing more than 50 books from which to choose, everything from Kate Borden’s Death of a Turkey and Ralph McInerny’s Celt and Pepper to Livia J. Washburn’s The Pumpkin Muffin Murder.

Stieg, We Hardly Knew You

Is there anyone left in the known world (with the possible exception of my elderly aunt Hannah) who hasn’t read at least one of the books in Stieg Larsson’s monumental Millennium Trilogy, starring superhacker Lisbeth Salander and her friend and occasional squeeze, editor Michael Blomkvist? If you haven’t, what are you doing here? Start reading!

My own holiday gift season began last week, when a splendid boxed set of three beautiful Larsson hardcover editions, designed by Peter Mendelsund, arrived from publisher Alfred A. Knopf. I had reviewed and discussed the three Salander-Blomkvist novels for everything from the Chicago Tribune to my daughter Katie Shinden’s book group. But tucked inside the slipcase of this boxed set was a fourth, much smaller book, as good as gold: On Stieg Larsson, a previously unpublished collection of essays about, and correspondence with the late author from five Swedish colleagues who knew him best.

The incredible world success--literary and financial--of Larsson’s trilogy has generated some intelligent, in-depth coverage, especially from The Rap Sheet’s Ali Karim and CBS Sunday Morning, which last month aired a fine piece in which Larsson’s heirs bared their teeth over royalties. But On Stieg Larsson offers many new and touching moments, such as these quotes from Jonas Sundberg, who was a friend of Larsson’s and a co-founder of Expo magazine, which became the model for Blomkvist’s Millennium in the novels:

Stieg received me at his office at the TT News Agency ... He had a hint of an accent from Northern Sweden and seemed a little bit reserved ...

I found him very humble, yet aware of the quality of his own knowledge and brilliant thinking, peering at me through his round glasses ...

He had made serious arrangements to conceal his home
address ...

I became more aware of the risks involved when Stieg showed us a 9-mm bullet he had received in the post ...

Expo was founded in 1995, Sundberg tell us, “and its accuracy seemed to scare the extreme right. Newsstands selling Expo had their windows smashed, printers were terrorized, [and the magazine] was about to go under, when Sweden’s major dailies stepped in to support it.”

In 2003, Larsson walked into Sundberg’s office and said, “I’m working on my pension insurance, you know!” He explained to his friend that he was finishing work on a crime novel. A few weeks later, Larsson announced that he’d sold the book “for real money! Not jubilant, but with that sort of quiet pleasure he had when a plan of his worked out well.”

Elsewhere in On Stieg Larsson, Eva Gedin, the author’s editor at Swedish publisher Norstedts, moves us to tears with this statement: “To think that his wildest dreams would come true. For despite his reserved air, there was also a measure of natural self-assurance about him that suggested he had a premonition that his crime novels might possibly become something truly significant.”

Larsson died in 2004, at the age of 50, after a massive heart attack. The first three of his novels (and possibly others) were finished and edited, but had not yet seen print. They’ve since become publishing phenomena, even though they haven’t won over everyone. When my colleagues, Sarah Weinman and Oline Cogdill, and I tried to choose The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as the Best Mystery of 2008, officials of the Los Angeles Times Book Awards told us that no dead authors need apply.

No matter. Larsson has had his revenge on critics who doubted what he could accomplish. For anyone who hasn’t yet discovered his work, or wants to enshrine it on their bookshelves, Knopf’s wonderful new boxed set is the answer. It carries a hefty $99 retail price tag, but Amazon will release it on November 26 for a slightly more reasonable $49.95.

READ MORE: “The Man Who Created The Girl Who ...,” by Peter Rozovsky (Detectives Beyond Borders); “A Larsson Gift for the Reader in Your Life,” by Ali Karim (Existentialist Man); “Man of Mystery: Why Do People Love Stieg Larsson’s Novels?” by Joan Acocella (The New Yorker).

Seeing the Sites

• Among the crime novels included in today’s Web-wide selection of “forgotten books” are: Let Them Eat Bullets, by Howard Schoenfeld; The Jade Figurine, by Bill Pronzini; Laidlaw, by William McIlvanney; Scandal on the Sand, by John Trinian; The Mandeville Talent, by George V. Higgins; Mr. Fortune Objects, by H.C. Bailey; I, the Jury, by Mickey Spillane; Murder at the Savoy, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö; The Hanging Doll Murder, by Roger Ormerod; The Wandering Ghost, by Martin Limón; Affirmative Reaction, by Aileen Schumacher; Dealing, or The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues, by Michael Douglas; and Supernatural Sleuths, edited by Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg. Click over to Patti Abbott’s blog for a full list of this week’s participating bloggers.

• Daniel Woodrell (Winter’s Bone), who I was fortunate enough to meet last month at Bouchercon in San Francisco, is one of the “innovators” featured in Esquire’s December issue. “Woodrell’s characters are unmarred, elemental, not of our world,” remarks contributor Taylor Cabot. “In them we can see our essential selves. Woodrell does not write about lowlifes and meth heads in the Ozarks. He writes about us.” Click on the image shown at right to read the whole piece.

• As if James Ellroy doesn’t get enough exposure, now he’s going to host a Discovery Channel series that “will look at notorious L.A. crimes.”

• This sounds like a worthwhile e-book venture.

• As a follow-up to our post from earlier this week having to do the 15th anniversary of the movie GoldenEye’s release, the following news from Deadline Hollywood is intriguing. “Pierce Brosnan is returning to television with an investigative thriller from veteran ER writer-producer Jack Orman and Sony Pictures Television that will likely go straight to series,” the site reports. “Orman has written a pilot script for the ex-007’s project, which Sony is shopping to international broadcasters with the goal to land pre-sales elsewhere before taking it to U.S. networks. The untitled drama centers on a ‘fixer,’ [a] private investigator specializing in international crisis intervention who is called in to help solve homicides, abductions, financial schemes, and other crimes anywhere in the world. It is largely based on the real-life experiences of international P.I. Logan Clarke, head of the Los Angeles-based Clarke International Investigations.”

• Mike Shayne and Robert McGinnis--what a pair!

• Another short-story-writing challenge.

• David Dodge’s 1952 novel, To Catch a Thief--which Alfred Hitchcock turned into a much more famous movie of the same name--is finally back in print after half a century, reissued by Bruin Books. And the man who wrote that new edition’s introduction, librarian Randal S. Brandt, has contributed a fine essay about To Catch a Thief’s history and its author to the blog Mystery Fanfare.

• This has definitely not been the best season for new crime and legal dramas. I’m continuing to enjoy Detroit 1-8-7, The Defenders, and Martin Scorsese’s Boardwalk Empire, but I finally had to turn off Hawaii Five-O, after it failed to deliver much beyond trite plots, bikinis, and buddy humor. And although the midseason promises the return of Vincent D’Onofrio to Law & Order: Criminal Intent, I wasn’t hoping for much more. Lately, though, I’ve been seeing promotional spots for something called Fairly Legal, with eye-catching ex-Life co-star Sarah Shahi playing a San Francisco attorney turned mediator with (of course) an unconventional style. I make no promises that this USA Network series, to be introduced in January, will become a regular fixture on my TV-watching schedule, but it looks like it’s at least worth a shot.

• Meanwhile, and to nobody’s surprise, TNT has cancelled Dark Blue.

• If you’ve ever wanted to hear suspense and thriller novelist Ridley Pearson speak about his work, now’s your chance. Blogger Jen Forbus apparently interviewed Pearson during the Murder and Mayhem in Muskego convention earlier this month, and has now posted video of that exchange here, in six parts.

• In an interview with J. Sydney Jones, British author Leigh Russell talks about the importance of place in her Detective Inspector Geraldine Steel novels (Road Closed).

• “60 Years of Television’s Most Memorable Catch Phrases in 146 Seconds.” Several come from crime series. (Hat tip to Bill Crider.)

• Publisher Mulholland Books has joined forces with PopcornFiction.com, “the brilliant genre fiction short-story showcase created by screenwriter Derek Haas.” More here.

• Double O Section reports that director Steven Soderbergh is “in early talks to take over directing duties on the long-in-development film The Man from U.N.C.L.E. at Warner Bros.” At the same time, The HMSS Weblog tries to clear up credit misconceptions about Ian Fleming’s influence on that 1964-1968 NBC-TV series.

• Does George Clooney really want a part in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

• Editor, author, and critic Maxim Jakubowski offers his top-10 list of crime-fiction locations and examples of novels in which he things those places are best represented. (Hat tip to Crime Watch.)

• One more list of note: “20 Great Vintage Sleaze Reads,” which includes old works by both Lawrence Block and Donald E. Westlake.

• Michael Dibdin’s Italian detective, Aurelio Zen, is due to appear in three feature-length dramas on BBC-TV early next year. More here.

• Finally, from In Reference to Murder: “The Washington Academy of Sciences and the bookstore Mystery Loves Company are sponsoring the 2nd Annual Science Is Murder Event featuring authors Louis Bayard, Dana Cameron, Ellen Crosby, [and] Lawrence Goldstone in a reception, panel and book-signing at the Washington Academy of Sciences, 1200 New York Avenue, Washington, D.C., December 21st from 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.” If you’re in D.C., don’t miss it.