Seen and Heard

The January edition of author-critic Mike Ripley’s Shots column, “Getting Away with Murder,” has finally arrived a bit later than New Year’s Day, but we shouldn’t hold that against it. It still offers a feast of pithy comments and notable developments, including news about bestselling American writer Diana Gabaldon’s entry into the crime-fiction market, Bernard Knight’s second Richard Pryor mystery, a wrap-up of new novels with Russian backdrops, the centenary of the birth of Victor Canning (1911-1986), and remarks on the first of the BBC’s adaptations of Michael Dibdin’s Aurelio Zen novels. You’ll find it all here.