A Word-of-Mouth Sensation

Today marks 40 years since the release of Frederick Forsyth’s best-selling thriller, The Day of the Jackal. British author Charles Cumming offers background on that novel in The Guardian, while Ali Karim spotlights this anniversary in the blog Shotsmag Confidential.

Mr. Goldberg and the Monk Connection

Author Goldberg and Monk co-star Traylor Howard

My latest contribution to the Kirkus Reviews site is an interview with Southern California screenwriter-author Lee Goldberg, whose new novel, Mr. Monk on the Couch, is being released today from Obsidian/New American Library. It’s the 12th installment of his remarkably enjoyable tie-in book series featuring TV detective Adrian Monk. (I say “remarkably,” because while I don’t usually read tie-in novels, I find the Monk books delightful. And as mysteries, they’re rather more believable than some of the Monk TV episodes.) Goldberg is also the co-creator, with William Rabkin, of the recently launched Dead Man series of thrillers and the author of standalones such as The Man with the Iron-On Badge (2005), which was nominated for a Shamus Award.

You’ll find my post here.

* * *

Because of Kirkus’ article-length restrictions, it often happens that my interviews can’t be fully presented on that Web site. This was certainly the case with my Goldberg conversation. For Kirkus, we talked mostly about Mr. Monk on the Couch. However, we went on from there to discuss his decision to make the Monk books first-person tales, his hopes to write novels beyond the TV tie-ins, and some of the classic televised crime dramas he would have loved to write for, but didn’t.

To borrow a familiar line from old-time radio host Paul Harvey, below you will find “the rest of the story.”

J. Kingston Pierce: The Monk TV series and your work on these books overlapped by three years. During that time, how did you steer clear of conflicts between the stories you were writing and the small-screen episodes broadcast every Friday night?

Lee Goldberg: Some of that I was able to avoid by working very closely with Andy Breckman, the creator of the series. Although he never expected me to stick with the continuity of the TV series, we still tried pretty hard to, anyway. For the most part, we were able to avoid situations where the books conflicted with the TV show. I can only think of two examples where we ran into trouble.

I did a book called Mr. Monk Goes to Germany [2008] that involved [villain] Dale “the Whale” Biederbeck and the guy with six fingers on one hand [introduced in an episode titled “Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan”]. Shortly before the book came out, they broadcast an episode called “Mr. Monk Is on the Run” that also dealt with Dale the Whale and a guy with six fingers on one hand. Naturally, those elements conflicted with my story, but thankfully not in a big way.

The other instance was when I brought back Sharona [Fleming], Monk’s first assistant, in my fourth book, and first hardcover in the series, Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants [2007]. In the last season of the show, they decided to bring Sharona back and did it in a different way.

But now I don’t have to worry about any of those things. And [Breckman] called me shortly before the TV series ended and let me in on how things would wrap up in the final episode. He told me then that Monk was now in my hands and I should feel free to do whatever I wanted to with the character.

JKP: Breckman must, in fact, have been interested to see what innovations you could bring to the books that added to what he was already doing on television.

LG: He once told me that reading my Monk books was like a singer hearing his song covered by another artist. It’s his song, but it’s clearly been interpreted by somebody else. He recognizes his own work, but he’s also able to enjoy it on a different level. He paid me a great compliment by saying he really enjoys reading my books because he sees the character as his own and he likes where I’m taking him ... and is often pleasantly surprised by where he ends up.

JKP: You’ve said before that telling these stories from the first-person viewpoint of Monk’s assistant, Natalie Teeger (played on screen by Traylor Howard), rather than from a third-person perspective more similar to what we saw on television, “humanizes Monk.” Could you explain that further?

LG: [I]t’s allowed me to add an emotional resonance to the storylines that goes beyond just Monk’s eccentricities and the solving of puzzling mysteries. The underlying theme of the book (and yes, there always is one in each tale) is often reflected in whatever is happening in Natalie’s life. Her personal story frames the way in which she perceives the mystery and reacts to Monk, so it’s all of a piece. It’s allowed me to make her a deeper, more interesting, and more realistic character. By doing that, I ground the story in what I like to think of as “a necessary reality.”

Without that reality, Monk would just be a caricature and cartoon character. Natalie humanizes Monk and makes the world that the two of them live in believable to the reader. Through her, we are able to invest emotionally in the story. Without that crucial element, I believe the books would have failed.

JKP: Natalie really comes into her own as a detective in Mr. Monk on the Couch, taking on a case independent from Monk. Were you feeling the need to shake up their association a bit?

LG: If Natalie didn't grow as a character, and Monk didn’t, either, I think it would be really dull. More importantly I’d be bored writing the books. That said, I don’t want to veer too far away from their core characters. Just enough growth to make the books interesting, but not so much that they are radically different characters from who they were in my first book, Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse [2006], or in the last episode of the TV series.

JKP: Do you see cop-turned-police consultant Adrian Monk mostly as a caricature, or are there traits/quirks you share with this protagonist that help you to relate to him?

LG: The real danger with a character like Monk is treating him like a caricature. It would be so easy for him to become just another Maxwell Smart or Inspector Clouseau. But Andy did something brilliant in the pilot. He made Monk a sad, tragic character. The things we find so funny about him, the things that make him such a brilliant detective, all stem from enormous pain and loss, namely the murder of his wife.

He has a psychological disorder. It’s what makes him special, it’s what makes him funny, but it’s also what makes him real, if you do it right, if you balance all the eccentricities with enough tragedy and sentimentality. If that sounds self-conscious and premeditated, that’s because it is. I’m always careful when plotting these books, and creating the funny situations, to make sure that there’s always a real, emotional, and painful conflict at the center of it all that Monk and Natalie are grappling with. It’s that conflict that not only provokes the humor but that also keeps Monk grounded in reality. It’s what prevents him from becoming just a cartoon character.

I need you to care about him, to believe in him, because otherwise you won’t keep reading. Monk as a caricature would become hollow and boring very, very fast.

On a personal level, I need to care about Monk. I need to believe in him, or I couldn’t write these books. It’s not enough for me just to tell jokes and a clever mystery. I need to be invested in Monk and in the story that I’m telling. The books need to be about something. Nobody is ever going to mistake these books for great literature, but I want them to be able to stand on their own against the likes of Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, Kinsey Millhone, and Spenser. I’m not saying I’m in their league--far from it--but these books won’t work if they’re just narrative cartoons.

JKP: Prior to penning the Monk books, you wrote eight tie-in novels to Dick Van Dyke’s Diagnosis: Murder series, beginning two years after that show ended in 2001 and concluding in 2007. Can you envision at least as long a lifespan for the post-TV series Monk books?

LG: In terms of number of books, Monk has already surpassed Diagnosis: Murder. There were eight Diagnosis: Murder books and there will be 15 [Monk novels] by the time I’m done with this current contract in May 2012.

JKP: While most of your novels have been spin-offs from television shows, you’ve written a few others of your own invention. Do you find both types of work equally satisfying? Or are you hoping to someday leave the tie-ins behind and work solely on your own stuff?

LG: I find the Diagnosis: Murder and Monk books very satisfying, because they weren’t just work-for-hire jobs for me. I was the executive producer and principal writer of the Diagnosis: Murder TV series for many years, so I felt a very strong, personal connection to the show and, later, to the books. I was a writer on the Monk TV series before I started writing the Monk books, so I have that same kind of personal connection.

That said, these aren’t characters I created. And while I feel an enormous affection for them, and protective of them, and in many ways they feel like my own, I don’t own them and I’m not getting the full value of my work. By that I mean, my percentage of the royalties is crap. It might be fun creatively, but it’s no way to make a living.

I do intend to leave tie-ins behind and concentrate solely on my own work. It’s hard for me to justify, creatively or financially, continuing with Monk when I am making so much in e-book royalties from backlist titles of my own that I self-published on the Kindle. That income wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t own those books. I don’t own Monk or Diagnosis: Murder. So with tie-ins, I am investing huge amounts of my time and talent in something that I will never see full value from. I am making a lot of money for other people, just not for myself. I’m writing two Monk books a year now, which doesn’t leave me much time to write books of my own.

So whether that means a clean break with Monk after my contract is up in May 2012, or a re-negotiated contract that gives me a higher royalty and only requires me to write one book a year, is yet to be seen.

JKP: As a screenwriter, you’ve concocted episodes not only of Diagnosis: Murder and Monk, but also The Glades, Spenser: For Hire, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Martial Law, and Hunter. What crime drama(s), though, would you most like to have written for, but never did?

LG: Taking my own age out of the equation? Well, The Rockford Files and Harry O, of course. Also Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Remington Steele, The Saint, It Takes a Thief, The Sopranos, and Inspector Morse.

And I’d still love a shot at Justified.

Braun Is Gone

Sad news from Henderson, North Carolina’s Times-News:

Lilian Jackson Braun, whom The New York Times labeled “the new detective of the year” after the debut of her first “The Cat Who ...” novel in 1966, died Saturday at the Hospice House of the Carolina Foothills in Landrum, S.C. She was 97. ...

Braun's death was announced by her husband of 33 years, Earl Bettinger, to whom the author always referred in her book dedications as “The Husband Who.”

Braun died of natural causes. No services are planned.

You’ll find more information about Braun’s life and literary efforts here. Our condolences go out to her family.

(Hat tip to Steve Lewis of Mystery*File.)

There Can Be Value in Criticism

While finishing work on a good-sized encyclopedia entry about Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner, I came across a story about his initial efforts as an author that I thought was fun and might encourage today’s young writers to keep plucking away at their work.

It seems that in the early 1920s, Gardner decided he wanted to do more than be a defense attorney all his adult life. So he set about trying to break into the pulp-fiction-writing market. He recognized right off the bat, however, that he was no natural-born author. “It was like I was trying to sign my name with my left hand,” Gardner later recalled. “I knew what I wanted to do, but for the life of me I couldn’t do it.” To protect his reputation, he submitted his stories to editors under a pseudonym, Charles M. Green.

As time went on, Gardner managed to peddle a couple of jokes to a newspaper, then sold a humorous skit involving a Frenchman and a hotel detective. But the first major work he saw published was a novelette called “The Shrieking Skeleton,” which he sent in 1923 to what was then a three-year-old pulp-fiction magazine called Black Mask. Its editors were distinctly unimpressed. In fact, they thought Gardner’s story was so bad, they forwarded it to the periodical’s too-serious circulation director as a gag, suggesting he plan a major promotional campaign around it. Predictably incensed, the circulation man responded with a note highlighting the narrative’s failings and begging for its rejection.

The editors subsequently returned Gardner’s manuscript with a refusal notice, but accidentally included the circulation director’s detailed criticism--which inspired the would-be wordsmith to rewrite his tale and resubmit it. Black Mask bought “The Shrieking Skeleton” the second time around, launching Gardner’s literary career.

Bloody Interesting ... Bloody Fun!

The first-ever West Coast installment of the Bloody Words mystery convention is presently underway in Victoria, British Columbia. The Arthur Ellis Awards were handed ’round by the Crime Writers of Canada on Thursday night, but the conference itself didn’t get started until Friday.

At the tail end of a wet, cold spring, the sun came out and the conference hotel, situated on the waterfront in Victoria’s gorgeous Inner Harbour, felt transformed into a resort hotel. That resort atmosphere seemed to permeate the convention’s initial day, which culminated with two late-night events, both led by Canadian guest of honor, author Michael Slade. The first was a well-attended performance of Slade’s Shock Theatre, doing performances of two 1940s radio plays: Two Skeleton Key and Chicken Heart. Pictured above is the cast of Two Skeleton Key, with Slade at the microphone. To his left are International Guest of Honor Tess Gerritsen, author and Bloody Words co-chair Lou Allin, K.C. Dyer, and Ron Chudley.

Later still, Slade led those interested on a tour of Victoria’s ghostly highlights. Surprisingly well-attended considering the hour (the tour got stated around 11 p.m. and wound up back at the conference hotel around 1:30 a.m.), Slade led his group up and down the historic city’s side streets and back alleys, introducing them not only to the local haunts, but to some talented and sporting Bloody Words volunteers in ghostly garb, as well.

Today’s schedule includes a full day of panels, a mass autograph session, and a banquet this evening. The convention concludes of Sunday.

A beautiful, well-located and well-run convention.

Literary Greatness Recognized

From one of my favorite writers, William Grimes of The New York Times, comes a poignant and important obituary of novelist and psychoanalyst Hans Keilson. It begins:

Hans Keilson, a German-born psychoanalyst who won literary fame at the very end of his long life when two of his long-forgotten works of fiction, set in Nazi-occupied Europe, were republished to great acclaim, died on Tuesday in Hilversum, the Netherlands. He was 101.

His death was announced by his longtime German publisher, S. Fischer Verlag.

Dr. Keilson, a physician by training, published his first novel at 23. That book, “Life Goes On,” offered a dark picture of German political life between the wars, reflected in the troubles encountered by Max, a Jewish store owner modeled on Dr. Keilson’s father, a textile merchant. It was banned by the Nazis in 1934.

Two years later Dr. Keilson emigrated to the Netherlands with his future wife, Gertrud Manz. He began a new novel, “The Death of the Adversary,” about a young Jewish man’s experiences in Germany as the Nazis gain a grip on power, but he put the manuscript aside after the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940 forced him to live in hiding in Delft.

His experiences provided the material for the novella “Comedy in a Minor Key,” about a Dutch couple who shelter an elderly Jew who dies of natural causes. After disposing of the body carelessly, they too must go into hiding.

You will find Grimes’ full piece here.

“I Was Like the Luckiest Guy in the World”

How sad it was to hear, earlier today, that longtime American TV performer James Arness has died at age 88. The elder brother of Mission: Impossible star Peter Graves (who himself perished more than a year ago), the 6-foot-7 Arness was best recognized for his role as Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke. However, he also featured in the small-screen western series How the West Was Won and appeared in the less-successful McClain’s Law as an older, retired cop in modern Southern California, who decides to return to active duty.

In memory of the big man, I’ve embedded below part of an interview conducted with Arness for the Archive of American Television, as well as the most familiar introduction to Gunsmoke, a series I saw often as a child while visiting my grandparents home.





READ MORE: “Voices: James Arness, 1923-2011” (Los Angeles Times); “Appreciation: James Arness, 1923-2011,” by Robert Lloyd (Los Angeles Times); “The Late Great James Arness,” by Mercurie (A Shroud of Thoughts); “James Arness,” by Tony Figueroa (TV Confidential); “Gunsmoke Actor James Arness Dies” (CNN); “The Other Gunsmoke,” by Jim Meals (Western Fictioneers); “Noir: R.I.P., James ‘Marshall Matt Dillon’ Aurness,” by Lou Boxer (NoirCon); “James Arness -- 1923-2011,” by Brent McKee (I Am a Child of Television).

Murder Was the Main Course

Last night in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia, during a banquet scheduled on the eve of this year’s Bloody Words convention, the Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) announced the recipients of its 28th annual Arthur Ellis Awards. Capturing those commendations were ...

Best Novel: Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny (Little, Brown UK)

Also nominated: Slow Recoil, by C.B. Forrest (RendezVous Crime); In Plain Sight, by Mike Knowles (ECW Press); The Extinction Club, by Jeffrey Moore (Penguin Group); and A Criminal to Remember, by Michael Van Rooy (Turnstone Press)

Best Short Story: “So Much in Common,” by Mary Jane Maffini (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

Also nominated: “In It Up to My Neck,” by Jas R. Petrin (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine); “The Big Touch,” by Jordan McPeek (ThugLit); “The Piper’s Door,” by James Powell (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine); and “The Bust,” by William Deverall (from Whodunnit: Sun Media’s Canadian Crime Fiction Showcase)

Best Non-Fiction: On the Farm, by Stevie Cameron (Knopf Canada)

Also nominated: Our Man in Tehran, by Robert Wright (HarperCollins); and Northern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him, by Roy MacGregor (Random House)

Best Juvenile/Young Adult: The Worst Thing She Ever Did, by Alice Kuipers (HarperCollins)

Also nominated: Borderline, by Allan Stratton (HarperCollins); Pluto’s Ghost, by Sharee Fitch (Doubleday Canada); Victim Rights, by Norah McClintock (Red Deer Press); and The Vinyl Princess, by Yvonne Prinz (HarperCollins)

Best Crime Writing in French: Dans le quartier des agités,
by Jacques Côté (Alire)

Also nominated: Cinq secondes, by Jacques Savoie (Libre Expression); Vanités, by Johanne Seymour (Libre Expression); La société des pères meurtriers, by Michel Châteauneuf (Vents D’ouest); and Quand la mort s’invite à la première, by Bernard Gilbert (Québec Amérique)

Best First Novel: The Debba, by Avner Mandleman (Other Press)

Also nominated: The Damage Done, by Hilary Davidson (Tom Doherty Associates); The Penalty Killing, by Michael McKinley (McClelland & Stewart); The Parabolist, by Nicholas Ruddock (Doubleday); and Still Missing, by Chevy Stevens (St. Martin’s Press)

Unhanged Arthur (Best Unpublished First Crime Novel): Better Off Dead, by John Jeneroux

Also nominated: Uncoiled, by Kevin Thornton, and When the Bow Breaks, by Jayne Barnard

As a news release from the CWC explains, “The winners will receive the Arthur, an articulated wooden jumping-jack figure on a scaffold with a noose around his neck. Arthur ‘dances’ when the string is pulled--a fitting tribute to Canada’s former official hangman, Arthur Ellis, after whom the award was named. Every Arthur is hand-carved from hard maple by artisan Barry Lambeck. The award is based on a design and prototype by artist Peter Blais.”

In addition, Derrick Murdock Awards (“for contributions to the crime genre”) were handed over to Louise Allin and N.A.T. Grant.

Congratulations to the winners and other nominees alike!

The Dead Have Never Been More Active

(Editor’s note: Today we welcome back Roberta Alexander, an editor and mystery reviewer in the San Francisco Bay Area, who writes below about the burgeoning field of “celebrity mysteries.”)

One of the most noticeable trends in modern mystery fiction is to employ real (make that dead) people as detectives.

Elliott Roosevelt, son of the World War II-era president, wrote a series in the 1980s and ’90s featuring his beloved mother, Eleanor, as a crime solver. (There is some question about whether those books were ghost-written, but that’s another story.) Then, beginning in the ’90s but continuing into the next decade, Californian Bruce Alexander concocted nearly a dozen books starring 18th-century English magistrate Sir John Fielding.

More recently, Nicola Upson created a series headlined by Josephine Tey, herself the pseudonym of the Scottish author Elizabeth Mackintosh. It took me a while to get my head around a crime series starring the pseudonym of a real person.

In addition, some authors revive a popular fictional personage and provide new adventures. For example, Laurie R. King writes a popular series featuring Sherlock Holmes and his young wife. In a further bit of mind-bending, Steve Hockensmith’s series is built around two 19th-century brothers, Gustav “Old Red” Amlingmeyer and Otto “Big Red” Amlingmeyer, who consider Holmes to be a real person.

By and large, I am not fond of these stories. I find them forced, as the authors seem to struggle to use the known data about a person’s life to fit the demands of his or her plot.

On the other hand, I liked Gary Corby’s The Pericles Commission (2010), which featured the Greek philosopher Socrates, but that may be due to the fact that I have a limited knowledge of Socrates’ real life.

Two other recent books that evoke the past do an adequate, though not excellent, job.

A Gentleman of Fortune, by Anna Dean (Minotaur) does not use a historical figure directly. It is, instead, written in the style of Jane Austen. (There was a series, created by Stephanie Barron, that did employ Austen as its protagonist. I found those books unreadable.)

In Dean’s version, Miss Dido Kent, who was introduced in last year’s Bellfield Hall, provides the Austen-like voice. Gentleman finds Dido visiting a cousin, when a neighbor dies in what looks like suspicious circumstances. In a society that limited the roles of women, the unmarried Dido does a little genteel investigating. Not surprisingly, she unearths a number of secrets people would rather not share. The setting, in Surrey in 1806, is portrayed well, and Dean doesn’t offer a bad imitation of Austen. I have read all of Austen’s work, and am an admirer. The problem here is that Gentleman is clearly faux-crab, not Dungeness. Nobody can do Austen like Austen.

Anna Maclean takes a different tack in Louisa and the Missing Heiress (New American Library).

Louisa is, of course, Louisa May Alcott. Set in the years before her writing career took off, this story deals with the death of Louisa’s friend, the newly married Dorothy Wortham. Since Dorothy’s husband is a well-known fortune hunter and no-goodnik, no good was expected to come of the marriage.

Once again, the background, which is Boston in the 1850s, is well rendered. Since the story is written in the style of the time--that is, sentences are longer and more convoluted--it takes a lot of work to stick with it. Too bad the characters are not sufficiently engaging to hold the reader’s interest for that long a time.

Greetings, American Lisbeth

From the Los Angeles Times comes this nice gift--the trailer for David Fincher’s upcoming (in December) film version of Steig Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

“The film stars Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig,” the Times explains. “The music? That’s Karen O covering Led Zeppelin with the help of Trent Reznor.

“Although the trailer is little more than quick cuts and dark, stylish shots, you don’t need to learn the plot--you already know what the movie’s about. Stieg Larsson’s ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ is a longstanding L.A. Times bestseller. So are its sequels, ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire’ and ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.’”

Links to this trailer from other Web sites now seem to have been removed by Sony Pictures, so the Times connection looks like one of the few available anymore

Spy Guys

With the British edition of Jeffery Deaver’s James Bond novel, Carte Blanche, just released, and the American version on its way to bookstores in mid-June, The Guardian’s James Harker looks back the other authors who’ve taken on Agent 007 since Ian Fleming’s passing in 1964.

Click here to read that full piece.

READ MORE: “Jeffery Deaver Attains Double-0 Status as New Bond Writer,” by David Martindale (Fort Worth Star-Telegram).

A First Reader Gets the Last Word

Ace Atkins, who has been hired to continue Robert B. Parker’s beloved series featuring Boston private eye Spenser, points us toward this entertaining radio interview with the author’s widow, Joan. Robin Young, host of Boston public station WBUR’s Here & Now, visits Joan Parker--the inspiration for character Susan Silverman--at her Cambridge home.

Action Alert!

This coming Sunday, June 5, will bring two deadlines.

It’s the last day on which to cast a ballot for your favorite contender in the 2011 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year contest. A list of the 18 nominees is here. And click here to vote.

Sunday (at noon!) is also the cut-off date for submissions to the third annual Watery Grave Invitational Short Story Contest. A field of 19 writers, among them David Cranmer, Jane Hammons, Paul D. Brazill, and Rosemarie Keenan, are vying for prizes in a competition to write top-drawer, 3,500-word stories incorporating a horse. The top three winners will be announced on June 19.

Summery Judgment 2011

We’re still three weeks away from the beginning of summer, on June 21. Yet book critics are already anticipating the many hours to be spent in the sun with new novels or non-fiction works in hand. For instance, National Public Radio consulted independent booksellers (genuine authorities on this subject, in other words) to compile its selection of the coming season’s best reads. The Los Angeles Times offers its own giant list of 203 new books (including 38 page turners) that promise to keep you entertained while you’re surreptitiously watching lithe young sun-worshippers from behind dark glasses. And New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin provides an idiosyncratic rundown of soon-forthcoming titles that she says prove “the beach book has undergone a makeover for 2011.”

While I won’t even attempt to outdo the L.A. Times in my quantity of reading recommendations, I think that my list--below--of almost 100 choices from the crime, mystery, and thriller categories shows remarkable quality in what’s to be made available between now and Labor Day. The picks are divided not only by months of issuance, but also between those scheduled for release in the United States and others set to roll out in Britain. My final criterion for inclusion on this list was that the books be available in English. (Because the last time I tackled a mystery in Urdu ... well, let’s just say that much broken crockery was left as evidence of my frustration.)

If you’re wondering about the Esquire cover that introduces this post, it was chosen because it brings back fond memories of my youth and introduction to quality literature. In its heyday, when Esquire published fiction each and every month, it familiarized me with authors such as Steve Millhauser, Tom Robbins, Louise Erdrich, T. Coraghessan Boyle, and Denis Johnson. Not only did I read the magazine’s summer fiction specials--including the attractive August 1985 edition shown above--from cover to cover, but they became a permanent part of my library.

In honor, then, of Esquire’s longtime commitment to fiction, and in hopes that you’ll discover not just new books, but also some excellent new writers this summer, I present the following suggestions of fresh crime fiction to be enjoyed on the sand, beside a pool, or simply in a bathtub with a margarita close at hand.

JUNE (U.S.):

• A Bad Day for Scandal, by Sophie Littlefield (Minotaur)

• A Bad Night’s Sleep, by Michael Wiley (Minotaur)

• Between the Thames and the Tiber: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Ted Riccardi (Pegasus)

• Blood of the Reich, by William Dietrich (Harper)

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

• The Bones of Avalon, by Phil Rickman (Minotaur)

• Breaking Silence, by Linda Castillo (Minotaur)

• Buried Secrets, by Joseph Finder (St. Martin’s Press)

• Camouflage, by Bill Pronzini (Forge)

• Carte Blanche, by Jeffery Deaver (Simon & Schuster)

• Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, by Sara Gran (Houghton Mifflin)

• County Line, by Bill Cameron (Tyrus)

• Death Toll, by Jim Kelly (Minotaur)

• Disturbance, by Jan Burke (Simon & Schuster)

• Fallen Angels, by Alice Duncan (Five Star)

• Fly Me to the Morgue, by Robert J. Randisi (Severn House)

• Follow Me Down, by Kio Stark (Red Lemonade)

• Hotel Bosphorus, by Esmahan Aykol (Bitter Lemon Press)

• Fun and Games, by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland)

• The Inspector and Silence, by Håkan Nesser (Pantheon)

• Iron House, by John Hart (Thomas Dunne/Minotaur)

• Killer Move, by Michael Marshall (Morrow)

• Lake Charles, by Ed Lynskey (Wildside Press)

• Long Gone, by Alafair Burke (Harper)

• Misery Bay, by Steve Hamilton (Minotaur)

• Mr. Monk on the Couch, by Lee Goldberg (New American Library)

• The Pack, by Jason Starr (Ace)

• The Quest for Anna Klein, by Thomas H. Cook (Houghton Mifflin)

• The Ranger, by Ace Atkins (Putnam)

• The Reservoir, by John Milliken Thompson (Other Press)

• Revenger, by Rory Clements (Bantam)

• The Shirt on His Back, by Barbara Hambly (Severn House)

• A Simple Act of Violence, by R.J. Ellory (Overlook Press)

• Stagestruck, by Peter Lovesey (Soho Crime)

• Tracers, by Adrian Magson (Severn House)

• Trespasser, by Paul Doiron (Minotaur)

• The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes, by Marcus Sakey (Dutton)

• White Shotgun, by April Smith (Knopf)

• A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion, by Ron Hansen (Scribner)

JUNE (UK):

• Blue Monday, by Nicci French (Michael Joseph)

• Dead Man’s Grip, by Peter James (Macmillan)

• Death in August, by Marco Vichi (Hodder & Stoughton)

• The Emperor’s Gold, by Robert Wilton (Corvus)

• A Fear of Dark Water, by Craig Russell (Hutchinson)

• Grievous Angel, by Quintin Jardine (Headline)

• The Opposite of Mercy, by Tom Winship (Orion)

• Outrage, by Arnaldur Indridason (Harvill Secker)

• Proof of Life, by Karen Campbell (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Rack, Ruin and Murder, by Ann Granger (Headline)

• The Rage, by Gene Kerrigan (Harvill Secker)

• The Quarry, by Johan Theorin (Doubleday)

• Rising Blood, by James Fleming (Jonathan Cape)

• The Wreckage, by Michael Robotham (Sphere)

JULY (U.S.):

• A Bedlam of Bones, by Suzette A. Hill (Soho Constable)

• Blind Fury, by Lynda La Plante (Touchstone)

• A Death in Summer, by Benjamin Black (Henry Holt)

• Dick Francis’ Gamble, by Felix Francis (Putnam)

• The End of Everything, by Megan Abbott (Reagan Arthur)

• English Lessons, by J.M. Hayes (Poisoned Pen Press)

• A Game of Lies, by Rebecca Cantrell (Forge)

• Good to the Last Kiss, by Ronald Tierney (Severn House)

• Misterioso, by Arne Dahl (Pantheon)

• The Nightmare Thief, by Meg Gardiner (Dutton)

• Requiem for a Gypsy, by Michael Genelin (Soho Crime)

• Steal the Show, by Thomas Kaufman (Minotaur)

• Take My Breath Away, by Martin Edwards (Five Star)

• Thick as Thieves, by Peter Spiegelman (Knopf)

• Thunder Moon, by Richard Helms (Five Star)

• Very Bad Men, by Harry Dolan (Amy Einhorn/Putnam)

• The Warsaw Anagrams, by Richard Zimler (Overlook Press)

• Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal, by Michael Van Rooy (Minotaur)

JULY (UK):

• Agent 6, by Tom Rob Smith
(Simon & Schuster)

• The Caller, by Karin Fossum (Harvill Secker)

• The Calling, by Alison Bruce (Constable)

• Cross My Palm, by Sara Stockbridge
(Chatto & Windus)

• Cold Justice, by Katherine Howell (Pan)

• The Day Is Dark, by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (Hodder & Stoughton)

• The Deep Dark Sleep, by Craig Russell (Quercus)

• Dublin Dead, by Gerard O’Donovan (Sphere)

• Fear Not, by Anne Holt (Corvus)

• House of the Hanged, by Mark Mills (Harper)

• Rip Tide, by Stella Rimington (Bloomsbury Publishing)

• Snakepit, by Nick Brownlee (Piatkus)

• The Whispering Gallery, by Mark Sanderson (HarperCollins)

AUGUST (U.S.):

• The Accident, by Linwood Barclay (Doubleday)

• Back of Beyond, by C.J. Box (Minotaur)

• Bad Intentions, by Karin Fossum (Houghton Mifflin)

• Beast of Burden, by Ray Banks (Houghton Mifflin)

• A Bitter Truth, by Charles Todd (Morrow)

• The Brink of Fame, by Irene Fleming (Minotaur)

• Bye Bye, Baby, by Max Allan Collins (Forge)

• Calling Mr. King, by Ronald De Feo (Other Press)

• The Charlestown Connection, by Tom MacDonald (Oceanview)

• The Cut, by George Pelecanos (Reagan Arthur)

• Darkness, My Old Friend, by Lisa Unger (Crown)

• Death and the Maiden, by Gerald Elias (Minotaur)

• Don’t Cry Tai Lake, by Qiu Xiaolong (Minotaur)

• The Good Thief’s Guide to Venice, by Chris Ewan (Minotaur)

• The Hand That Trembles, by Kjell Eriksson (Minotaur)

• The Keeper of Lost Causes, by Jussi Adler-Olsen (Dutton)

• Liquid Smoke, by Jeff Shelby (Tyrus)

• The Most Dangerous Thing, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)

• Plugged, by Eoin Colfer (Overlook Press)

• A Rhumba in Waltz Time, by Robert S. Levinson (Five Star)

• Thirteen Million Dollar Pop, by David Levien (Doubleday)

• A Trick of the Light, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

• White Heat, by Melanie McGrath (Viking)

• The Woodcutter, by Reginald Hill (Harper)

• Wyatt, by Garry Disher (Soho Crime)

• Zillionaire, by Gary Alexander (Five Star)

AUGUST (UK):

• Before the Poison, by Peter Robinson (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Dead Men’s Harvest, by Matt Hilton (Hodder & Stoughton)

• A Deniable Death, by Gerald Seymour (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Good as Dead, by Mark Billingham (Sphere)

• The Hidden Child, by Camilla Lackberg (Harper)

• The Lost Daughter, by Lucretia Grindle (Mantle)

• Mystery in the Minster, by Susanna Gregory (Sphere)

• The Night Stalker, by Chris Carter (Simon & Schuster)

• No Mark Upon Her, by Deborah Crombie (Macmillan)

• Strangled in Paris, by Claude Izner (Gallic Books)

• Until Thy Wrath Be Past, by Åsa Larsson (MacLehose Press)

• The Vault, by Ruth Rendell (Hutchinson)

A question for readers: Have I failed to mention any crime or thriller novels, scheduled for summer publication, that you think are worth investigating? If so, please let us all know their names by dropping a note into the Comments section of this post.

Happy Birthday, Norma Jean

From the always crunchy Carolyn Kellogg, writer of the Los Angeles Times’ Jacket Copy blog, comes this gorgeous item:

Norma Jean Mortenson was born on this day in 1926 right here in Los Angeles; she would endure a difficult childhood and become screen star Marilyn Monroe.

Although she often played blond bimbos, Monroe was quite a reader. There’s a photograph of Monroe reading “Ulysses” by James Joyce in what looks like down time during a playground photo shoot. Of course, since it’s Marilyn, she’s wearing a bathing suit. Such is the price of pinup-dom.

When she died in 1962, Marilyn Monroe’s library included “The Fall” by Albert Camus; a book of lectures by J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atom bomb; stories by Chekhov; Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”; Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio”; two books by Theodore Dreiser; three books by Bertrand Russell; lots of plays; “Moses and Monotheism” by Sigmund Freud; and “Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert. Those are all part of Marilyn Monroe’s library as catalogued by volunteers on the Web site LibraryThing.

In 2010, Farrar, Straus and Giroux released a book of Monroe’s own writings, “Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters by Marilyn Monroe.” In our review, Richard Schickel noted that the book showed how much Monroe “became a devoted reader of serious literature.”

Happy 85th birthday, Marilyn Monroe.

And speaking of good reading, installment 35 of my serial novel, Forget About It, is now up and ready to be enjoyed.

Making the (Crime) Scene

Here’s some interesting news from author Marcus Sakey:

For the last two years, I’ve been working with an acclaimed production company called Crazy Legs to develop a television show. We shot the pilot in March, but we’ve had to keep quiet about it until things were official. Last week we got happy news.

The show’s been greenlit. We’re going into production in two weeks.

Tentatively titled Hidden City, the show will air on Travel Channel later this year. In it I visit different places and explore the crimes that helped define them. Basically, my feeling is that if you only see the tourist districts, Seattle is the same as Shanghai. The real stories are in the shadows--and shadowy stories are my business.

It’s sort of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations meets Castle. I’m not only writing the episodes, I’m hosting them. And not your typical one-day-on-a-poorly-lit-set kinda hosting--I’m out investigating these stories, meeting the people who made them and undergoing all sorts of adventures, from hanging out with legendary homicide detectives to getting pepper-sprayed on camera.

(Hat tip to Jen Forbes via Facebook.)

Oxford Dawns Again

The 2011 summer schedule for PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! series was announced several weeks ago. But now comes word about the autumn return of Inspector Lewis, the exceptional Oxford-set procedural series starring Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox. Look for the first of four new 90-minute episodes on Sunday, September 4, with succeeding installments to appear on Masterpiece Mystery! through October 9.

(Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

“R” Is for Retiring

Ed Kaufman, owner of the well-known “M” Is for Mystery ... and More bookstore in San Mateo, California, sent a note out yesterday to customers and friends. His message was that after 15 years as a bookseller (he’d previously been a lawyer, he’s finally ready to turn the shop over to somebody else “with an active interest” in the business.

Any takers? Contact him at ed@mformystery.com.

(Hat tip to Randal Brandt.)