Garnering Praise

Today marks the 83rd birthday of one of my favorite television and film actors, James Garner. Ivan G. Shreve Jr. has posted a warm remembrance of the Maverick and Rockford Files star in his blog, Thrilling Days of Yesteryear. Well worth reading.

And So It Goes ...

(Editor’s note: This month brings the release of The Lineup: Poems on Crime 4, edited by Gerald So, Reed Farrel Coleman, Sarah Cortez. and R. Narvaez. I had been musing for some time on what I might say about this collection. But then I read Rap Sheet contributor Kevin Burton Smith’s poetic commentary on the book--which appeared in his own blog--and realized that I couldn’t outdo it. So I asked Kevin to repost his piece [with a couple of minor alterations] below.)

Me reviewing a book of poetry?

It sounds like a joke, appropriate for April Fool’s Day.

But once upon a time ...

* * *

High school. Mrs. Ticehurst’s English class.

Skeptical, enthusiastic, passionate, crazy Mrs. Ticehurst loved the written word.

With her wild, prematurely graying hair and her peace-sign pendant, she defied us to love it too. She turned us on to books. To drama. To poetry. To writing.

But the class held another, more important attraction to me.

A pretty classmate, slim, brunette. Always wore a man’s flannel shirt a few sizes too large.

Wasn’t always good about doing up her top buttons. Boys notice that kind of thing.

She leaned over my desk to read my poetry assignment.

“This is good,” she said. “Really good,” and looked at me with a look I’d never seen before.

From anyone.

And so I wrote poetry.

A lot of it. Angsty stuff. Sensitive. But mostly bad. Truly bad.

But she loved it. And sometimes so did Mrs. Ticehurst.

* * *

There’s no bad poetry in The Lineup: Poems on Crime 4.

Bad people, sure. Bad situations. Bad decisions. Bad luck.

But not bad poetry.

A lot of free verse, scattershot rhythms, off-kilter random thoughts and phrases with miles of space in between.

Spaces to fill with dread. Unease. An ominous foreboding.

The telling detail that nails the sucker to your brain.

There are no faerie queens or talking trees here. Just real human beings.

Victims. Victimizers. Humans.

The casual name-dropping of Bundy, of Manson, of others, doesn’t shock me.

The off-hand gore and vivisection clamors for attention, but I shrug it off. Adolescent.

But those are few and far between.

And even those have their moments of disturbing beauty.

* * *

And so, I may not know poetry after all.

But I know what I like.

And I like most of these poems. These sad, mournful poems.

Of revenge.

Like, “Prayer for the Man Who Mugged My Father, 72,” by Charles Harper Webb.

Or the grim beauty of unleashed violence.

Like “The Balance Lost,” by Steve Weddle.

Or the point where being hard-boiled becomes simply damned.

Like Reed Farrel Coleman’s “Slider, Part 7.”

And so it goes. This is power and truth and beauty and ugliness here.

Odes to disconnection.

Broken dreams.

Broken promises.

Broken lives.

By Ken Bruen. By David Corbett. By Keith Rawson.

Terrible, adult stuff, that holds a mirror up to us and offers an unflinching reflection.

Of how we live. And how we die.

It will make you squirm, at times.

It made me squirm.

It will make you look over your shoulder.

It made me look over my shoulder.

But I kept on reading.

These are vignettes from Hell.

But it’s our Hell.

I bet Mrs. Ticehurst would have loved it.

Of Desire, Deaths, and “Dollymops”

With a BBC-TV production of The Crimson Petal and the White, based on Michael Faber’s 2002 novel of the same name, set to debut tonight in the UK, historical novelist James McCreet (The Thieves’ Labyrinth) provides--in a post for It’s a Crime! (or a Mystery)--some background on the sorrowful and often short lives of Victorian prostitutes, who are so central to Faber’s tale. Read it here.

Why Didn’t I Think of This?

A new book deal, courtesy of Publishers Lunch (subscription only):

Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California-Irvine and Harvard Ph.D. Aaron James’s Assholes, A Theory, a philosophical and behavioral inquiry, with copious examples, into what makes a person an asshole, their impact on the human social condition, their alarming contemporary proliferation, and how non-assholes can deal with them, to Gerry Howard at Doubleday, at auction, by Melissa Chinchillo and Donald Lamm at Fletcher & Company (NA).

This has best-seller written all over it.

Giving Away Books, Asking for Opinions

American novelist Ross Macdonald (1915-1983) is best known for penning 18 books about Los Angeles private eye Lew Archer, beginning with The Moving Target, which first saw print in April 1949--62 years ago this month.

However, Macdonald (whose real name was Kenneth Millar) also composed half a dozen standalone mysteries, four of which were recently reissued by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard: Blue City (originally published in 1947), The Three Roads (1948), Meet Me at the Morgue (1953), and The Ferguson Affair (1960). Although they lack Archer’s steady and oft-compassionate presence, those books still demonstrate the author’s adroitness at handling fictional homicides, much-troubled suspects, multiple clues and miscues, and the alternately rich, raucous, and ribald setting of Southern California.

Now, thanks to Craig Tenney, the late Mr. Macdonald’s literary representative at Harold Ober Associates in New York, The Rap Sheet has two sets of those four standalone works that we want to give away to readers free of charge. It’s one little way of keeping the memory of Macdonald alive for new generations of crime-fiction enthusiasts.

All you need do to have a chance at winning these sets of four novels is e-mail your name and snail-mail address to jpwrites@wordcuts.org. And please be sure to write “Ross Macdonald Contest” in the subject line. Entries will be accepted between now and midnight next Monday, April 11. Winners will be selected at random, and their names listed on this page the following day.

* * *

In association with this book-giveaway tourney, we’ve posted a new poll near the top of The Rap Sheet’s right-hand column. The question is simple: “Which was Ross Macdonald’s best Lew Archer novel?” All 18 titles are listed. Feel free to choose one book or more than one. This survey will also remain in place through next Monday. We’ll announce the winning novel, plus the next four runners-up, at the same time as we declare our two contest victors.

So why are you just sitting there, bucko? Get your contest entry in, and your vote(s) counted right away!

Look What Comes from Watching TV

Bill Crider has posted the official list of 2011 Scribe Award nominees. The Scribes “acknowledge and celebrate excellence in licensed tie-in writing--novels based on TV shows, movies, and games.” Among this year’s contenders are Tod Goldberg (Burn Notice: The Giveaway), William Rabkin (Psych: The Call of the Mild), and Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane (Mike Hammer: The Big Bang).

Winners will be announced and prizes given out during this year’s Comic Con International in San Diego, to be held in July.

My Cup of News Bits Runneth Over

• Barbara Fister has posted a fine and lengthy interview with Quentin Bates in her Scandinavian Crime Fiction blog. Bates, of course, is the author of Frozen Assets (or Frozen Out, as it’s titled beyond U.S. borders), a 2011 mystery that introduces Sergeant Gunnhildur Gisladottir of the Hvalvik, Iceland, police force. Not only does the post address Bates’ background, but it offers some interesting perspective on the state of Icelanders since their big economic crash of 2008.

• Something more to get you excited about this June’s 50th anniversary commemoration of that classic 1960s spy series, The Avengers.

• Another brand-new blog to sample: Life, Death and Fog, being written by Ronald Tierney, the author of 2011’s Bullet Beach and a San Francisco resident (which explains that weather reference in the site’s title). Tierney tells me he’ll be blogging about “crime-related fiction and film, about writing crime fiction with a few comments on San Francisco from time to time. Maybe eventually some interviews.”

• You can help name a new crime-fiction anthology. Contributors include Allan Guthrie, Reed Farrel Coleman, Gary Phillips, Hilary Davidson, Anthony Neil Smith, and Patti Abbott. As another contributor, Paul D. Brazill explains: “Using the soundtrack from Quentin Tarantino’s ’90s classic, Pulp Fiction, as a starting point, these writers are pumping the pages full of bullets, bodies, and brains (not intelligence, actual bits of gray matter).” Info about this naming contest can be found here.

• This is a frightening list: “10 Colleges That Allow Guns on Campus.” Don’t administrators understand that passions (as well as hormones) are already running high among college students, and the last thing they or anyone around them needs is a firearm to settle scores? Guns on campus can only lead to more violent school deaths. A frighteningly stupid idea!

• As part of today’s Moonlighting for Murder celebration, Jen Forbus profiles the delightful Rosemary Harris, author of the Dirty Business Mystery Series (Slugfest). Other entries in this weeklong tribute to amateur sleuths can be found here.

• And it’s never a bad thing to revisit Rex Stout’s Fer de Lance.

Gentleman and Crime-Fiction Scholar

My feature-ish obituary of British novelist H.R.F. “Harry” Keating appears this morning at the Kirkus Reviews Web site. It begins:

British novelist and books critic H.R.F. (Henry Reymond Fitzwalter) Keating--who died last week at age 84--provided an excellent contradiction to that all-too-familiar instruction, “Write what you know.” He knew next to nothing about India when, in the early 1960s, he began penning a mystery series set on the subcontinent.

I think the piece turned out pretty well, though if I’d actually known Keating, I probably could have brought something extra to it. Nonetheless, I think it’s worth checking out, when you have some free time. Click here to read the full posting, and leave a comment, if you have any thoughts on Keating or his books that you’d like to share.

I Have Seen the Future ... and It’s a Gigantic, Teetering To-Be-Read Pile

Spring tends to be a difficult period for me, reading-wise. I’m gladly making my way through the many books I received for my birthday (in March), but that were actually released somewhat earlier in the year. And I’ll need to focus next on the deluge of new crime fiction due out in June and July, just in time to pack along on lazy summer trips.

Novels brought out during this interlude between rainy, overcast days and when the air starts to take on the fragrance of suntan lotion again, and deck chairs finally reappear, may not win the same regard as those scheduled for release in anticipation of vacations. Which is quite unfair, because there will be plenty of intriguing crime, mystery, and thriller works making their way to store shelves over the next two months, on both sides of the Atlantic. I won’t have enough free hours to enjoy all of those listed below, but they certainly deserve recognition.

APRIL (U.S.):

• Michael Connelly, The Fifth Witness (Little, Brown)

• Douglas Corleone, Night on Fire (Minotaur)

• Janet Dawson, Bit Player (Perseverance Press)

• P.C. Doherty, Nightshade (Minotaur)

• David Downing, Potsdam Station (Soho Press)

• Terence Faherty, Dance in the Dark (Five Star)

• Heywood Gould, The Serial Killer’s Daughter (Nightbird Publishing)

• Rosemary Harris, Slugfest (Minotaur)

• Tony Hays, The Beloved Dead (Forge)

• Philip Kerr, Field Gray (Putnam)

• Camilla Lackberg, The Preacher (Pegasus)

• Jassy Mackenzie, Stolen Lives (Soho Press)

• Jean-Patrick Manchette, Fatale (NYRB Classics)

• Bill Moody, Fade to Blue (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Anne Perry, Treason at Lisson Grove (Ballantine)

• Lori Roy, Bent Road (Dutton)

• John Shannon, A Little Too Much (Severn House)

• Julia Spencer-Fleming, One Was a Soldier (Minotaur)

• Norb Vonnegut, The Gods of Greenwich (Minotaur)

• Daniel Woodrell, The Bayou Trilogy (Mulholland)

APRIL (UK):

• Stephen Booth, The Devil’s Edge (Sphere)

• Lee Jackson, The Diary of a Murder (Snowbooks)

• Mo Hayder, Hanging Hill (Bantam Press)

• Tobias Jones, White Death (Faber and Faber)

• Peter Lovesey, Stagestruck (Sphere)

• Edward Marston, Blood on the Line (Allison & Busby)

• Steve Mosby, Black Flowers (Orion)

• Andrew Pepper, Bloody Winter (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

• Anne Perry, Acceptable Loss (Headline)

• Imogen Robertson, Island of Bones (Headline Review)

• Zoë Sharp, Fifth Victim (Allison & Busby)

• Kerry Tombs, The Tewkesbury Tomb (Robert Hale)

• Fred Vargas, An Uncertain Place (Harvill Secker)

• S.J. Watson, Before I Go to Sleep (Doubleday)

MAY (U.S.):

• Lawrence Block, A Drop of the Hard Stuff (Mulholland)

• Gyles Brandreth, Oscar Wilde and the Vampire Murders (Touchstone)

• Vicki Delany, Among the Departed (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Aaron Elkins, The Worst Thing (Berkley)

• Chris Knopf, Black Swan (Permanent Press)

• Jo Nesbø, The Snowman (Knopf)

• Clare O’Donohue, Missing Persons (Plume)

• Robert B. Parker, Sixkill (Putnam)

• Thomas Perry, The Informant (Otto Penzler/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Stefanie Pintoff, Secret of the White Rose (Minotaur)

• Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, Kiss Her Goodbye (Otto Penzler/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

MAY (UK):

• Rory Clements, Prince (John Murray)

• Eoin Colfer, Plugged (Headline)

• James Craig, London Calling (Robinson)

• Jeffery Deaver, Carte Blanche (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Chris Morgan Jones, An Agent of Deceit (Mantle)

• Mari Jungstedt, The Dead of Summer (Doubleday)

• Lars Kepler, The Hypnotist (Blue Door)

• James McCreet, The Thieves’ Labyrinth (Macmillan)

• Brian McGilloway, Little Girl Lost (Macmillan)

• Denise Mina, The End of the Wasp Season (Orion)

• Aly Monroe, Blacklight (John Murray)
• R.N. Morris, The Cleansing Flames (Faber and Faber)

• Matt Benyon Rees, Mozart’s Last Aria (Corvus)

• Leigh Russell, Dead End (No Exit Press)

• Nick Stone, Voodoo Eyes (Sphere)

Would anyone else like to chime in with their own crime-fiction reading recommendations for these two months before summer hits? There’s a Comments tab below. You know how to use it.

More Than a Dollar’s Worth of Drama

Blog buddy Ivan G. Shreve Jr., over at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, is in the process of giving away two 10-CD sets of the once-popular radio mystery series, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. In addition to spelling out the simple rules for entering his contest, Shreve provides some interesting background on the show, which aired from 1949 to 1962, but went through both format and casting changes during that period.

Shreve’s post is here. The deadline for entering is Monday, April 11.

Just a Few More Things ...

• Blogger Jacques Filippi features a long and fascinating interview with Michael Connelly in The House of Mystery and Crime, together with his review of The Fifth Witness, Connelly’s latest Mickey Haller novel.

• From Mystery Fanfare: “The Death of Sweet Mister and its author, Daniel Woodrell, have won the 2011 Clifton Fadiman Medal, which is sponsored by Reba and Dave Williams and the Center for Fiction and goes to ‘a living American author in recognition of a work of fiction published more than ten years ago that deserves renewed notice and introduction to a new generation of readers.’”

• Behold, the 2011 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books schedule.

• Megan Abbott had an excellent article in this weekend’s Los Angeles Times Magazine about the changing landscape for female characters in “grittier crime fiction.” Read it here.

• How did this book slip past my radar?

• In the Mulholland Books blog, authors Zoë Ferraris and David Corbett “discuss how fiction can break down cultural stereotypes, making “strangers” recognizable and the role of the hero in crime fiction.” You can read their exchange here.

• Plots with Guns has a new editor. He’s Sean O’Kane.

• I missed mentioning this, but it was announced last week that the U.S. TV series The Good Wife and Justified, as well as “A Study in Pink,” the first episode of BBC One’s Sherlock, are among the winners of this year’s Peabody Awards. A complete list of recipients is available here.

• Voters were amply warned, but apparently didn’t take this threat seriously. They should have. Republicans are resuming their campaign to privatize and otherwise “essentially end Medicare,” one of the most popular U.S. government assistance programs. More here.

• Allan Guthrie talks with Bill Crider about the latter’s writing process and his first Truman Smith private eye novel, Dead on the Island, which was recently released in digital format.

• A classic film that’s definitely worth re-watching.

• Parnell Hall’s musical ode to local bookstores.

• And 50 years ago, on January 7, 1961, the first episode of The Avengers was shown on British television. Now, plans are in the works for a star-studded anniversary celebration of that spirited spy series.

Of Surveys, Squids, and Super Spies

• Jen Forbus’ “World’s Favorite Amateur Sleuth Tournament” has been narrowed to just two finalists: Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple and Brad Parks’ Carter Ross, neither of whom I expected would make it this far. Especially when their detecting competition included Lisbeth Salander, Flavia de Luce, the Amlingmeyer Brothers, and Lord Peter Wimsey. It is now up to you to pick between Marple and Ross. Vote here. Polling with continue through this coming Friday, April 8, with a winner to be named the next day.

• That competition, by the way, kicks off the coming “Moonlighting for Murder” theme week, during which a bevy of bloggers will celebrate part-time crime-solvers. A list of participants can be found over here.

• Congratulations to Kevin Burton Smith on the 13th anniversary (a lucky one, I hope) of his excellent crime-fiction database, The Thrilling Detective Web Site. As part of the festivities, he surveyed readers to discover their 13 favorite private eyes, and then posted the results here. No surprises, really, but still fun.

• In February, Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine announced its nominees for the 2011 Barry Awards, including half a dozen in the Best Short Story category. Only recently, though, did DP editor George Easter manage to post all six of those stories on his Web site. Click here for the links.

• The latest short-story entry in Beat to a Pulp is “Oedipus Shrugged,” by Minneapolis writer and audio producer Cooper Smith.

• Double O Section features a nice post about author Gary Phillips’ latest project. Together with artist Kevin Jones, he’s working on a comic-book series for Moonstone called That Man Flint, which introduces Derek Flint, the “super spy and Jack-of-all-trades originated by James Coburn in the movies Our Man Flint and In Like Flint,” to today’s generation of comic readers.

• Book translator Reg Keeland points me to an article in Solidarity that addresses author Stieg Larsson’s “political background, as told by his friend Håkan Blomqvist. Including some eye-opening views on Stieg’s relation to Grenada, the conservatives in power in Sweden, and the rise of racism there.” Read the article here.

• In an essay for the Mulholland Books blog, Eric Beetner (Borrowed Trouble) applauds authors--including Cornell Woolrich and Mickey Spillane--who mastered the art of creating memorable book titles.

• Never challenge James Bond to a drinking contest.

• Making Jane Marple sexy just seems wrong on so many levels.

• Sure, every science-fiction story could benefit from the presence of a giant, menacing squid. But Pornokitsch’s list of their appearances misses mention of the monstrous cephalopod from Irwin Allen’s 1961 film, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

• Expect the debut soon of a new flash-fiction site called Shotgun Honey. Edited by Kent Gowran, it’ll be a non-paying market for “stories maxing out at 700 words. Crime, hard-boiled, noir, whatever you want to call it is the name of the game.” More on what the site might offer can be found here. (Hat tip to My Little Corner.)

• In honor of the new baseball season, New Jersey photographer Mark V. Krajnak offers up his own interpretation of “baseball noir.”

• “Bookbitch” Stacy Alesi clues us in to what attendees can expect to see and do at this year’s ThrillerFest, taking place at the Grand Hyatt in New York City from July 6 through 9.

• Congratulations to Washington, D.C.’s Politics and Prose!

• Demolition Magazine is being resurrected.

• One of the all-time-great movie themes!

• Oline Cogdill profiles Forest Park, Illinois’ Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore, which, along with Minneapolis’ Once Upon a Crime, will share this year’s Raven Award, given out by the Mystery Writers of America.

• Gil Brewer fans should take note of Virginia blogger David Rachels’ efforts to compile a complete tally of Brewer’s short fiction. Click here to see the rundown so far. (Hat tip to Pulpetti.)

• Two poll results that I don’t find surprising in the least: 84 percent of Americans find President Barack Obama “likeable,” while the count of people who hold unfavorable views of the angry, mostly white, and right-wing “tea party movement” is 47 percent, and climbing. (A measly 32 percent have favorable opinions of the tea party.)

• Ian Rankin picks his five favorite literary crime novels.

• Interviews worth reading: Cullen Gallagher goes one-on-one with Heath Lowrance, author of the new novel, The Bastard Hand; The Guardian’s Jon Henley quizzes Henning Mankell about what he says is his last Kurt Wallander book, The Troubled Man; Lesa Holstine talks with Heather Graham (Phantom Evil); James Reasoner speaks with The Writer magazine; and Scottish novelist and literary agent Allan Guthrie has plenty of great exchanges to offer in his new blog, Criminal-E, including chats with Declan Burke (Eightball Boogie), Anthony Neil Smith (Choke on Your Lies), and Tom Piccirilli (Nightjack).

• The still-untitled, 23rd James Bond film will begin shooting in November of this year, says one of its stars, for a planned release during the winter of 2012.

• And I hadn’t noticed this before, but Georgia student and blogger Nathanael Booth is in the midst of reviewing every episode from the one season of Ellery Queen, a 1975-1976 NBC-TV mystery series developed by Columbo creators William Link and Richard Levinson. You will find Booth’s posts in More Man than Philosopher.

Small-Screen Gems

Tonight will bring the debut of The Killing, an AMC-TV miniseries. It’s based on a Danish program, Forbrydelsen, which--with English subtitles--ran over several months on Britain’s BBC 4, to high acclaim.

As Omnimystery News explains, the story “revolves around the Seattle murder of teenager Rosie Larsen, and the gripping police investigation it sparks. The facts of the case unfold against a backdrop of local politics, high-school scandal, and a grieving family flattened by tragedy. As leads turn cold and suspects multiply, the detectives race against time to find the killer. They soon discover that everyone is a suspect, every suspect has a secret, and every hour counts.” Meanwhile, TV Squad critic Maureen Ryan calls The Killing an “enthralling murder mystery” that “trusts its audience to follow along. It trusts that it doesn’t need fake melodrama or overheated intrigue to keep its audience’s interest.” The Killing kicks off at 9 p.m. ET/PT with a two-hour episode, and will continue with 12 one-hour episodes after that. You can learn more about this show here and here.

* * *

Also being broadcast on the boob tube this evening, but only in the UK--beginning at 8 p.m.--is the fifth series premiere of Lewis (or Inspector Lewis, as it’s known here in the States), the outstanding, often moving detective series starring Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox.“This spin-off from the fondly remembered Inspector Morse is as comfy as an old glove, and the Oxford setting [is] as distantly aspirational as an idealised university town can be,” Robin Jarossi remarks on the program in his blog, Crime Time Preview.

Series five of Lewis comprises four episodes, none of which yet appear on the schedule for PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery!, their usual venue on this side of the Atlantic. However, given the show’s popularity, I expect Americans won’t have to wait too long to see series five for themselves.

A Very Odd Couple

Why would one of the best crime-fiction writers in the world decide to take on the composition of what the finished book’s cover describes as “a novel based on” the work of another author?

That’s what I wondered when I first heard that Don Winslow, the author of such classics as The Death and Life of Bobby Z, The Winter of Frankie Machine, The Power of the Dog, and The Dawn Patrol, had signed to write a prequel to Shibumi, a 1979 thriller by the novelist known as Trevanian, whose most famous book was The Eiger Sanction (1972). Money probably had something to do with it, but Winslow has sold many books. And, to my knowledge, he is the only writer to make the work of an insurance investigator--in California Fire and Life--not only interesting, but fascinating.

Now comes the result of this unlikely collaboration: Satori (Grand Central Publishing). The title itself is a tribute to its source. “The tea room was exquisite, elegant in its simplicity. a perfect expression of shibumi ...,” explains the lead character, Nicholai Hel. “In his role as guest, Nicholai admired the skillful brushwork. which depicted the Japanese symbol for satori. An interesting choice, Nicholai thought. Satori was the Zen Buddhist concept of a sudden awakening, a realization of life as it really is. ... Nicholai had never known satori.”

The more pages I turned, the more I understood why Winslow had taken on this project. He is very kind to Trevanian family members, and makes me believe that he really admires the author. Although I would argue that Winslow has known satori in virtually all of his books, the challenge here must have been irresistible. And he pulls it off with so much energy and imagination that Satori turns out to be a total triumph.

After the young half-Japanese, half-Russian Hel is suddenly released from an American-run prison in 1951 Japan, he quickly learns from his former captors what they have in mind for him. That gang of “spooks”--mostly new renderings of, and much more frightening than, the ones in Shibumi--make Hel an offer he knows he should refuse: they want him to go through painful plastic surgery on his face and carry out a probably suicidal mission to assassinate a Soviet commissioner in China. But he also knows that Solange, the older French woman who is looking after him and teaching him to talk, eat, drink, smoke, and smell like a real Frenchman, will be in grave danger if he refuses. He has come to love this stunning woman with a tragic back-story of her own.

So, having adopted the identity, visage, and aroma of a 26-year-old French arms dealer, Hel enters a very dangerous and beautifully drawn world, which eventually takes him to war-ravaged Vietnam, where his expertise in playing the ancient game of Go (I bought a set after reading about it here) becomes as important as his physical skills.

On the way, Winslow paints a bleak but touching picture of China two years after Mao Zedong seized power--including a 1952 visit to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Satori is proof that a fine writer can take on any challenge, and make it work for him.

Let the Polling Commence!

Spinetingler Magazine rolled out the majority of its 2011 Spinetingler Award nominees yesterday--they’re also featured below. Now you have the chance to vote for your favorite contenders. Simply click here.

Best Novel--New Voice:

• A Thousand Cuts, by Simon Lelic (Viking)

• Citrus County, by John Brandon (McSweeney’s)

• The Cold Kiss, by John Rector (Forge)

• Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, by Tom Franklin (Morrow)

• The Four Stages of Cruelty, by Keith Hollihan (Thomas Dunne)

• Katja from the Punk Band, by Simon Logan (ChiZine Publications)

• Late Rain, by Lynn Kostoff (Tyrus Books)

• Pike, by Benjamin Whitmer (PM Press)

• The Singer’s Gun, by Emily St. John Mandel (Unbridled Books)

• Wake Up Dead, by Roger Smith (Henry Holt)

Best Novel--Rising Star:

• Dodging Bullets, by Joe McKinney (Gutter Books)

• Do They Know I’m Running?, by David Corbett (Mortalis)

• Give + Take, by Stona Fitch (Thomas Dunne)

• Internecine, by David J. Schow (Thomas Dunne)

• Johnny Porno, by Charlie Stella (Stark House Press)

• Killer, by Dave Zeltserman (Serpent’s Tail)

Best Novel--Legend:

• Cemetery Road, by Gar Anthony Haywood (Severn House)

• Expiration Date, by Duane Swierczynski (Minotaur)

• I’d Know You Anywhere, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)

• Moonlight Mile, by Dennis Lehane (Little, Brown)

• Savages, by Don Winslow (Simon & Schuster)

• Sleepless, by Charlie Huston (Ballantine)

Best Short-Story Collection:

• 8 Pounds, by Chris Holm (Poisonville Press)

• 21 Tales, by Dave Zeltserman (New Pulp Press)

• Amos Walker: The Complete Story Collection, by Loren D. Estleman (Tyrus Books)

• Bad Juju, by Jonathan Woods (New Pulp Press)

• Noir 13, by Ed Gorman (Perfect Crime)

• Scar Tissue: Seven Tales of Love and Wounds, by Marcus Sakey (Smashwords)

• Shot to Death, by Stephen D. Rogers (Mainly Murder Press)

• The Junkie Tales, by J.A. Kazimer (Obscure Publishing)

Best Anthology:

• Beat to a Pulp: Round One, edited by David Cranmer and Elaine Ash (Beat to a Pulp)

• Best American Noir of the Century, edited by Otto Penzler and James Ellroy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Blood, Guts & Whiskey, edited by Todd Robinson (Kensington)

• Damn Near Dead 2: Live Noir or Die Trying, edited by Bill Crider
(Busted Flush Press)

• First Thrills, edited by Lee Child (Forge)

• Requiems for the Departed, edited by Gerard Brennan and Mike
Stone (Morrigan)

• Terminal Damage, edited by Steve Weddle (Needle Publishing)

• You’re Dead and I Killed You, edited by Pablo D’Stair
(Brown Paper Publishing)

Best Crime Comic/Graphic Novel:

• Dark Rain, by Mat Johnson and Simon Gane (Vertigo Comics)

• The Executor, by Jon Evans and Andrea Mutti (Vertigo Crime)

• Greek Street, by Peter Milligan and David Gianfelice (Vertigo Comics)

• Last Days of American Crime, by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini (Radical Publishing)

• Parker: The Outfit, by Darwyn Cooke (IDW)

• Pug, by Derek McCulloch and Greg Espinoza (Image Comics)

• Sam & Twitch: The Writer, by Luca Blengino and Luca Erbetta
(Image Comics)

• Scalped, by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guéra (Vertigo Comics)

• Sweets, by Kody Chamberlain (Image Comics)

• Tumor, by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Noel Tuazon (Archaia Studios Press)

Best Mystery/Crime Fiction Press, Publisher or Imprint:

• Tyrus Books
• Switchblade
• Tor/Forge
• Serpent’s Tail
• Soho Press

Best Cover: Click here to see all 10 nominees.

This year’s contenders in the short-story category were previously announced, as were the half-dozen nominees for the first David Thompson Community Leader Award.

Again, the online polls open today, with voting to continue through April 30. Winners will be announced on Sunday, May 1.

Crimes for Your April Fool’s Day

A list of books, courtesy of Mystery Fanfare’s Janet Rudolph.

Here and There

Another month, another installment of Mike Ripley’s “Getting Away with Murder” column in Shots. His topics this time include: the annual Dorothy L. Sayers Lecture, given last month by Peter Lovesey; the second installment of Peter Guttridge’s “Brighton Mystery” trilogy; new novels by Turkish and Spanish writers; the coming UK TV series, Vera, based on Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope novels; and a coming London film festival to “celebrate Europe’s Cold War as portrayed on film.”

You can read it all here.

Both to Read and Admire

Today’s collection of “forgotten books” posts is split between novels and works that are appropriate for placement on one’s coffee table.

In the former category, the following crime novels are up for consideration: The Three Worlds of Johnny Handsome, by John Godey; The Burning Court, by John Dickson Carr; Angel Hunt, by Mike Ripley; The April Robin Murders, by Craig Rice and Ed McBain; and Strip for Murder, by Richard S. Prather.

And as far as coffee-table books go, the following volumes should be of interest to Rap Sheet readers: Pulp Art, by Robert Lesser; The FBI: A Centennial History; The Doubleday Crime Club Compendium, by Ellen Nehr; The Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy, 1931-1951, by Chester Gould; The Lost Files of Nancy Drew; and Great Detectives, by Julian Symons.

Patti Abbott has a complete list of today’s participants in her own blog, plus a few more coffee-table-type treats.