• Spinetingler Magazine’s Brian Lindenmuth has announced the winners of his first annual Fireball Award, “meant to honor great opening lines in crime fiction”--and it’s a three-way tie!
• After the moderate success of her “World’s Greatest Detective” poll last year (I say “moderate,” because the results held few surprises), blogger Jen Forbus is requesting nominations for a new crime-fiction tournament, this one focusing on part-time investigators. “Many cozy novels feature amateur sleuths,” she writes, “but this year’s theme week is not confined to cozies. Any newspaper reporters, TV journalists, sports agents, cowboys ... you get the idea. Anyone who isn’t licensed or elected for law enforcement, isn’t a legal practitioner (i.e., judge, attorney), and isn’t a medical practitioner (i.e. nurse, doctor, M.E., coroner) [is] eligible for participation.” Click here to pick your favorite characters.
• William Johnston, a veteran author of film and TV tie-in novels (including nine based on Get Smart), has died. Just a year ago the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers gave Johnston The Faust, its Grand Master Award for excellence, heralding him as “the writer of over a hundred tie-in novels and the most prolific practitioner of the craft.” Learn more about Johnston’s career here.
• Some interviews worth reading: “Dark fiction” writer Richard Godwin talks with the multi-talented Patti Abbott for his terrifically titled blog, Chin Wag at the Slaughterhouse; Kelli Stanley submits to questioning by J. Sydney Jones; Irish writer Gerard Brennan turns the hot lights on C.J. Box; Chris Fedak, co-creator of the TV series Chuck, defends himself, in TV Squad, against charges that “the charm is gone” from the once-distinctive spy comedy; and for Publishers Weekly, Karen Abbott, author of the burlesque-backdropped biography American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare--The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee (OK, not crime fiction, per se, but of interest to many readers of this genre, I think), examines the “conflicted, tortured relationship” the actress had with her greatest creation--herself.
• Rap Sheet contributor Dick Adler offers up a few thoughts on why he began composing his latest serial novel, Forget About It: The First Al Zymer Senile Detective Mystery.
• Things really seem to be coming together for the USA Network’s planned Burn Notice prequel, starring Bruce Campbell as spy Sam Axe. FOLLOW-UP: Burn Notice: “The Fall of Sam Axe.”
• And critic Vince Keenan is busy looking back at Burt Reynolds’ cop films, including Sharky’s Machine (1981) and Fuzz (1972).
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
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2 comments:
The Burn noice movie is a PREquel, not a SEquel, which makes more sense. Should be interesting.
RJR
Whoops! Thanks for pointing out that typo. This is what comes from writing things too quickly. I have now corrected the item as it is posted.
And I, too, look forward to this BURN NOTICE prequel film.
Cheers,
Jeff
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