• This is too bad. Anthony Rainone spread the news this morning that Omaha, Nebraska’s annual Mayhem in the Midlands conference has been canceled for 2011.• A year ago I noted the appearance of an attractive Spanish edition of Christa Faust’s Money Shot. Well, the same small publisher, Óscar Palmer’s Es Pop Ediciones, is now readying a translated edition of Megan Abbott’s 2007 novel, Queenpin (Reina del Crimen), for release at the end of this month. As much as I liked Richie Fahey’s cover art for the original, I am even more fond of Spanish artist Fernando Vicente’s illustration for Es Pop’s version--embedded on the left. Palmer tells me that Vincente is “a great admirer and collector of old American paperbacks,” which I think is pretty obvious from his artwork. In association with this Spanish release, Palmer offers a fine interview with Abbott in his blog, Cultura Impopular. (Still more here.)
• The perfect chair for readers of real books. I guess e-book fans will have to settle for something less stylish. And less expensive.
• I haven’t yet broken down and bought the 738-page Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1, since I already own a long shelf load of Twain biographies. But I’ll undoubtedly get around to purchasing it soon. In the meantime, speculation is rife as to what Volume II will contain, and when it might be released.
• Comic crime novelist Carl Hiaasen has won the 2011 Florida Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing.
• Jen Forbes picks her 10 favorite leading ladies in crime fiction. Why am I not surprised that Alafair Burke’s Ellie Hatcher is included?
• Well, this was embarrassing. Last week the usually excellent blog Mystery*File announced that American illustrator and novelist Lou Cameron, who was born in 1924 and wrote File on a Missing Redhead, as well as other adventure, mystery, and western novels, had died in October 2010. Additional bloggers picked up on that same information. The Gumshoe Site provided a handy list of Cameron works:
His mystery novels include Angel’s Flight (Gold Medal, 1960), The Darklings (Berkley, 1975; as by Julie Cameron), The Spy with the Blue Kazoo (Lancer, 1967; as by Dagmar), The Last Chronicles of Ballyfungus (Little Brown, 1978; as by Mary Manning), and The Outsider (Popular Library, 1969; novelization of the TV series featuring Darren McGavin as off-beat private eye David Ross).The only trouble with all of this, of course, was that octogenarian Cameron hadn’t actually passed away. Mystery*File’s Steve Lewis explained on Sunday: “I received an e-mail from his daughter this morning saying that while his health is not the best, he is definitely still with us.” Let’s hope that remains true for some while yet.
• San Francisco novelist Mark Coggins is apparently in the process of podcasting the entirety of his first book, The Immortal Game (1999), for CrimeWAV.com. The latest, fourth episode can be heard here. Where to click for previous episodes: one, two, and three.
• We can now add “TV star” to Ali Karim’s résumé.
• Stephen Bowie has begun what looks like a two-part tribute to the 1958-1963 TV police drama Naked City. You’ll find his opening post in The Classic TV History Blog.
• Interviews worth reading: Jedidiah Ayres speaks with Michael Koryta (The Cypress House) and Urban Waite (The Terror of Living), “the writers responsible for two of my favorite titles so far this year”; J. Sydney Jones puts questions to Candice Proctor, who “writes the Sebastian St. Cyr Regency mystery series under the name of C.S. Harris and thrillers as one half of C.S. Graham”; Barbara Fister goes one-on-one with James Thompson, whose second Inspector Vaara novel, the Finland-set Lucifer’s Tears, is set to reach bookshops next week; and Robin Agnew of Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room quizzes author Erin Hart about her third novel, False Mermaid, newly available in paperback.
• Finally, the 10-episode DVD set Rizzoli & Isles--The Complete 1st Season, has been scheduled for a June 28th release in the States, just in advance of that show’s second-season start on TNT-TV.
3 comments:
Dear Jeff: Thank you for telling me Lou Cameron is alive. I will be more careful about writing obits. Jiro
No worries, Jiro. It was an honest mistake all around. And I might have repeated the error, had I not been too busy of late to so much as mention Mystery*File's Lou Cameron obit.
Cheers,
Jeff
The "book chair" needs a higher back, a foot rest and somewhere for your food and drink! Can you imagine the price if these were added? Fun stuff!! Thanks...
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