Bullet Points: Post-Thanksgiving Edition

• The preliminary program for next year’s CrimeFest (May 24-27) has been announced. 2012 will mark the fifth year for that Bristol, England-based convention. “A special event this year,” reports Omnimystery News, “will launch the novelization of the popular Danish crime drama Forbrydelsen, which aired as The Killing in the UK and was adapted under the same title in the U.S. The event, in association with Pan Macmillan, will include an interview with David Hewson, responsible for the novelization, and surprise appearances from members of the show’s cast and production team.” More information about CrimeFest can be found here.

• This is a sorry discovery: The Web site 17 Paseo Verde, which long celebrated the 1967-1975 CBS-TV series Mannix, appears to have disappeared. All that remains is a sign reading, “Future home of something quite cool.” But isn’t that what 17 Paseo Verde (the name taken from Joe Mannix’s office address) already was, quite cool?

• I was sad to hear, during the Thanksgiving break, that American journalist Tom Wicker had died at age 85. Not only was he a prominent political reporter and columnist, but as The Gumshoe Site’s Jiro Kimura observes, “he also authored a number of novels, including The Kingpin (Sloan, 1953) and Easter Lily (Morrow, 1998), as well as three Gold Medal novels under the Paul Connolly pseudonym: Get Out of Town (1951); Tears Are for Angels (1952); and So Fair, So Evil (1955).” UPDATE: There’s more to read on Wicker here.

• I’m not even going to comment on blogger Jen Forbes’ selections of “crime fiction’s sexiest authors of 2011.” Instead, I shall simply supply the necessary links--male authors here, female novelists here--and let you make your own judgments.

• Last week was Robert Vaughn’s birthday. Yet it wasn’t until after that that The HMSS Weblog posted excerpts from the actor’s online interview for the Archive of American Television.

• I remember watching--and enjoying--the 1988 version of Mission: Impossible when it was originally broadcast, so will probably have to add the new DVD release of those episodes to my Christmas list.

• Happy 60th anniversary to Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.

• “The First Ever Transatlantic Twitter Crime Novel.” That’s how the “cross-cultural, garden-centered crime story” Uncanny Death is being billed by its writers--one of whom is a resident of Scotland, the other an inhabitant of Oregon. Like co-authors Eric Beetner and J.B. Kohl (Borrowed Trouble), they claim to have never met.

• Crime novelist Marcus Sakey previews his new series, Hidden City, which will debut on the Travel Channel come Tuesday, December 6.

• Cullen Gallagher interviews Leonard Fritz, author of the New Pulp Press novel, Nine Kinds of Pain, a work that Gallagher calls “as audacious as it is awesome.”

• Butch Fatale, Dyke Dick in Double-D Double Cross. That’s the mouthful of a title that Christa Faust (Money Shot, Choke Hold) has given to her coming February release. It stars the aforementioned Ms. Fatale, “a fast-talking, skirt-chasing, two-fisted lesbian private investigator with an insatiable appetite for two things--women and trouble.” You can find an excerpt from the book here.

• Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s history of flip-flopping has definitely come back to haunt him.

• Wednesday should bring the announcement of which book has won the 2011 Ellis Peters Historical Award, given out by the British Crime Writers’ Association. In anticipation, Crime Scraps Review offers links to critiques of all six of the nominated books, but bets in favor of R.N. Morris’ The Cleansing Flames walking away with the prize.

• Sherlock, BBC One’s updated version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective tales, won’t premiere in America (as part of PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! series) until May 6 of next year. However, you can already find a teaser for the series on YouTube.

• And Millennium, the six-part Swedish TV adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s three Lisbeth Salander thrillers, has been honored with an International Emmy Award for Best TV Movie/Mini-Series.