Tossing Daggers Around

During a “gala event” held this evening at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, Cactus TV and ITV3, in partnership with the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA), announced the recipients of this year’s Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards. They are:

CWA Gold Dagger: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter,
by Tom Franklin (Pan)

Also nominated: Snowdrops, by A.D. Miller (Atlantic Books); The End of the Wasp Season, by Denise Mina (Orion); and The Lock Artist,
by Steve Hamilton (Orion)

CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger: The Lock Artist,
by Steve Hamilton (Orion)

Also nominated: Before I Go to Sleep, by S.J. Watson (Doubleday); Cold Rain, by Craig Smith (Myrmidon); and The Good Son,
by Michael Gruber (Corvus)

CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger: Before I Go to Sleep,
by S.J. Watson (Doubleday)

Also nominated: Kiss Me Quick, by Danny Miller (Robinson); The Dead Woman of Juárez, by Sam Hawken (Serpent’s Tail); and The Dogs of Rome, by Conor Fitzgerald (Bloomsbury)

ITV3 People’s Bestseller Dagger: Dead Man’s Grip,
by Peter James (Macmillan)

Also nominated: The Sixth Man, by David Baldacci (Macmillan); Worth Dying For, by Lee Child (Bantam); Good As Dead, by Mark Billingham (Little, Brown); Dead Man’s Grip, by Peter James (Macmillan); and Before the Poison, by Peter Robinson (Hodder)

The Film Dagger: True Grit (Paramount Pictures)

Also nominated: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Momentum Pictures); Brighton Rock (Optimum Releasing); and Source Code (Optimum Releasing)

The TV Dagger: Case Histories (Ruby Films, BBC One)

Also nominated: Luther (BBC One); The Shadow Line (Company
Pictures, BBC Two); Zen (Left Bank Pictures, BBC One); and Vera (ITV Studios, ITV1)

The International TV Dagger: The Killing (Arrow Films, BBC4)

Also nominated: Boardwalk Empire (HBO, Sky Atlantic); Castle (ABC Studios, Alibi); Dexter (Showtime Networks, FX Channel); and Spiral (Son Et Lumiere, BBC 4)

Best Actor Dagger: Idris Elba for Luther (BBC One)

Also nominated: Lars Mikkelsen for The Killing (Arrow Films, BBC4); Steve Buscemi for Boardwalk Empire (HBO, Sky Atlantic); Jason Isaacs for Case Histories (Ruby Films, BBC One); and Rufus Sewell for Zen (Left Bank Pictures, BBC One)

Best Actress Dagger: Sofie Gråbøl for The Killing (Arrow Films, BBC4)

Also nominated: Brenda Blethyn for Vera (ITV Studios, ITV1); Maxine Peake for Silk (BBC One); Olivia Williams for Case Sensitive (Hat Trick Productions, ITV1); Sue Johnston for Waking the Dead (BBC One); and Kelly Reilly for Above Suspicion (La Plante Productions, ITV1)

Best Supporting Actor Dagger: Rafe Spall for The Shadow Line
(Company Pictures, BBC Two)

Also nominated: Bjarne Henriksen for The Killing (Arrow Films, BBC 4); Søren Malling for The Killing (Arrow Films, BBC 4); John Lithgow for Dexter (Showtime Networks, FX Channel); and Aidan Gillen for Thorne (Stagereel / Cité Amérique, Sky One)

Best Supporting Actress Dagger: Ann Eleonora Jørgensen for The Killing (Arrow Films, BBC 4)

Also nominated: Kelly Macdonald for Boardwalk Empire (HBO, Sky Atlantic); Ruth Wilson for Luther (BBC One); and Amanda Abbington for Case Histories (Ruby Films)

Congratulations to all of the winners (and nominees).

For the benefit of British readers who didn’t attend tonight’s event, this awards presentation is scheduled to be televised on ITV3 on October 11, beginning at 9 p.m.

A previous set of five Dagger Awards were given out during the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in July.

READ MORE: “CWA Crime Thriller Award Winners 2011,” by Robin Jarossi (Crime Time Preview).

It Sounds Like a Film About Chicken Little

Will the name of the next James Bond motion picture be Skyfall?

The Case of the Recast Counselor

Does Robert Downey Jr. have to become the face of every famous crime-fiction protagonist? First it was Sherlock Holmes. Now it’s apparently going to be Perry Mason, the fictional Los Angeles defense attorney whose renown was bred through more than 60 novels by Erle Stanley Gardner, plus a long-running TV series. As Variety reports,

Warner Bros. and Team Downey are teaming to relaunch the "Perry Mason" franchise as a feature film, with Robert Downey Jr. eyeing the title defense attorney role as a potential starring vehicle.

Like the original series of books by Erle Stanley Gardner, "Perry Mason" will be set in the rough and tumble world of early 1930s Los Angeles, and feature fan favorites such as Mason’s secretary, Della Street, private investigator Paul Drake, and Mason’s longtime courtroom nemesis, Hamilton Burger.

Team Downey principals Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey will produce with Robert Cort, while David Gambino, Eric Hetzel and Joe Horacek will exec produce with Susan Feiles and Chris Darling.

The producers are currently looking for a writer, whose script will be based on an original story by Robert Downey Jr. and Gambino.

I can actually imagine Downey as Mason. The slightly hard-boiled attorney of the novels was never the granite block of a man represented by Raymond Burr, even though Gardner was happy with Burr’s casting in the role. I just hope Downey doesn’t try to turn this character into an action figure, the way he has Holmes.

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

The Story Behind the Story: “Motor City Shakedown,” by D.E. Johnson

(Editor’s note: For this 26th installment of our “Story Behind the Story” series, we welcome to The Rap Sheet D.E. “Dan” Johnson, a southern Michigan resident who manages real-estate offices when he’s not penning fiction. A longtime history enthusiast, with a particular interest in Detroit’s early 20th-century past, Johnson is the grandson of a former vice president of Checker Motors Corporation. His first novel, The Detroit Electric Scheme [2010], introduced readers to Will Anderson, the trouble-attracting heir to the Detroit Electric Company, an early maker of electric automobiles. Motor City Shakedown, its recently released sequel, picks up Anderson’s story seven months later.)

Motor City Shakedown is the second mystery in the Will Anderson series, set in 1911-1912 Detroit. The city was amazing back then. It was growing at an exponential rate, as were local businesses, particularly in the manufacturing sector. Immigrants were flooding in to fill these factory jobs, and Detroit became a city of ethnic enclaves along the lines of New York (though, of course, much smaller). At the same time, poverty and crime were rampant. Gangs of young toughs roamed the streets, and it could be worth your life to wander too far from the lights of downtown at night. Detroit was a great combination of success and crime--and the worst people weren’t always the ones on the criminal side of the ledger.

It was a fascinating time. The car industry was exploding for both gasoline and electric automobiles, until the downfall of the electric began in 1911. (But that’s a different story, covered in The Detroit Electric Scheme, Book 1 of the Will Anderson series.) However, one of the major reasons I set the series in this period was because it provided the surroundings for Detroit’s first mob war.

Vito Adamo and his gang controlled the rackets, and the Gianolla brothers wanted what he had. They actually operated grocery stores across the street from each other in Ford City, downriver of Detroit (now part of Wyandotte). Adamo controlled downriver crime as well as a big chunk of the criminal activity in Detroit. He was known as the “White Hand.” Most Sicilian gangs at that time were Black Hand gangs, and they thrived using the protection racket. They would visit businesses, usually those run by fellow Sicilians, and offer to protect them from the criminal elements of the neighborhood--for a fee. If the businessman didn’t pay up, he would generally find his store burned down or his employees beaten or killed.

After the Black Hand went in, Vito Adamo’s White Hand people would go to the business and offer to protect them from the Black Hand--again, for a fee. The kicker is that both the Black Hand gang and the White Hand gang were Adamo’s men. Quite the entrepreneur, huh? He was also involved in illegal importation of virtually anything that paid--immigrants, booze, narcotics, etc. One of his biggest moneymakers was beer. And that was what ignited the mob war.

(Left) Early 20th-century Detroit gang leader Vito Adamo

The Gianolla gang, run by Antonio (Tony) Gianolla, was in the importation business as well. In fact, the first time that gang came into the public eye was when the police confiscated $2,000 worth (a fortune in 1912 money) of illegal olive oil. Shortly after that, the body of a Gianolla associate named Sam Buendo was found in a vacant field, most of his bones broken and his corpse burned. It was assumed the Gianolla brothers thought Buendo was a rat, though proof was never found.

In 1912, the Gianollas cut their prices on beer and started taking the Adamos’ business. The Adamos countered by matching their prices and throwing in ice (a necessary commodity in the days before refrigeration). The Gianollas responded with beatings. In no time this escalated into a shotgun war in the streets of Detroit’s Little Italy. Nine men were killed and dozens were wounded, almost all of them in shootouts on the street. The newspapers followed the story with front-page articles virtually every day until the war was over and a single gang ran Detroit. (I’m not going to tell you who won, because it would give away part of the end of Motor City Shakedown. If you can’t wait or--horrors!--aren’t going to read the book, you can find the answer easily enough by Googling it.)

The arc of the plot of Motor City Shakedown follows the general line of the mob war. The Gianollas want Will to get the Teamsters Union into his father’s company, Detroit Electric. It’s impossible, but these guys won’t listen to reason. Moreover, they want Will to help them kill Vito Adamo, something he’d be happy to do if he could just figure out how to accomplish it and stay alive himself. He and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Hume, end up getting stuck in the middle of this war and have to play both sides off the middle in order to live through it.

Because the book involves the Detroit mob, I’ve also got a major tip of the hat to the Purple Gang. At this time, the Bernstein brothers (eventual leaders of the gang that ran Detroit during much of Prohibition) were kids running a street gang and doing odd jobs for Sicilian mobsters. Will enlists their help in finding Vito Adamo and gets a bit more than he bargained for.

I learned a number of interesting things while researching this book, some big and some small. Often the little bits of information are the best part for me. For example, at the end of the mob war, police found a notebook at Vito Adamo’s home. Inside the book was writing in Italian and graphic pictures of stilettos plunging into backs. The police were certain they had found a major clue--perhaps even a “tell-all” that would give them the inside information they needed to prosecute the murderers. They immediately paraded the notebook in front of the city’s newspaper reporters.

Unfortunately, the police had serious egg on their faces when the translation showed that the book was an unpublished “dime novel”--Vito Adamo’s attempt at becoming a fiction writer. The plot of the story followed a young Sicilian boy who had been wronged at every turn and avenges himself with his enemies. People wondered if that was how Adamo saw himself. If so, given the nature of the crimes he committed, he was likely the only person who felt that way.

I originally planned for Motor City Shakedown to be the third in the Will Anderson series. I envisioned the second book being set partially in Detroit but primarily in Panama, using the construction of the Panama Canal as the historical backdrop. The third book’s action would return to Detroit, with this mob war as the focus.

Wrong. Publisher St. Martin’s Minotaur bought two Detroit-set books, Nos. 1 and 3. A series is supposed to be set in a single location. Who knew? (Rhetorical question--you probably did.)

The best news for me is that I have been contracted by St. Martin’s to write two more novels in the Will Anderson series. The next will be titled Detroit Breakdown, set to a great extent at Eloise Hospital, the massive insane asylum that served Wayne County for well over a century. Will finds reason to commit himself in order to help Elizabeth, and you can probably imagine the fun I’m having running him through the gauntlet of mental health care in 1912. Detroit Breakdown will be available next fall.

Did You Win a Glynn?

Entries in our latest book-giveaway contest were sent from a surprising diversity of nations--not only the United States, Canada, and Great Britain (where most Rap Sheet readers seem to live), but also Brazil, Russia, and Italy. Obviously, there’s great interest in UK author Alan Glynn’s best-selling thriller fiction. Two of his books were up for grabs in this competition: Bloodland and Limitless (aka The Dark Fields).

From the many entries, we have now drawn two winners. They are Rob Howie of Tulalip, Washington, and Patrick Smith of St. Albans, Victoria, Australia. Congratulations to both readers. We expect that their book prizes--signed, of course, by the author--will be sent out posthaste from England.

And thanks to everyone who participated in this contest. We’re sorry that you all couldn’t win, but there are more such giveaways planned for the future. Who knows, maybe next time luck will be in your corner.

Tailing Trouble

Roberta Alexander’s review of Following Polly, by Karen Bergreen, recently released in paperback, was posted this morning in January Magazine. It reads, in part:

Usually stories about stalkers are too creepy for me, not the sort of thing I want on my bedside table. But this tale of Alice Teakle, a shy and rather forgettable woman who loses her dead-end job in a Manhattan booking agency, is a different kettle of fish.

You’ll find the full critique here.

Pictures Perfect

To celebrate his blog having reached the 100-post mark, Tipping My Fedora’s pseudonymous Cavershamragu has published his list of “101 of my film and TV crime and mystery favorites.” It’s rather an impressive feat, putting together such a lengthy rundown. And though I don’t agree with all of the choices (I, for instance, found Angel Heart, the 1987 film adaptation of William Hjortsberg’s novel Falling Angel, almost unwatchable), I agree with most of the picks.

Check out the full list here.

“I Won’t Play the Sap for You”

In addition to today being the 50th anniversary of The Dick Van Dyke Show’s debut, it’s the 70th anniversary of the date on which the best-known movie adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s novel, The Maltese Falcon (1930), had its New York City premiere. That version, of course, starred Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor, and was directed by John Huston. It’s not only an incredibly popular picture, but has been named one of the greatest films of all time.

Rather than go on at length about the attractions of 1941’s The Maltese Falcon, I shall simply embed a brief clip from that motion picture. Below, Bogie, portraying San Francisco private eye Sam Spade, confronts his alternately seductive and scheming client, Ruth Wonderly/Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Astor), about her role in the shooting death of his business partner, Miles Archer. It’s a powerful scene, based closely on the book’s denouement, that loses none of its impact with repeat viewings.



Thank you, Mr. Hammett, for penning The Maltese Falcon, one of my favorite private-eye novels. And thank you, Mr. Bogart and Mr. Huston, for bringing that story so vividly to the big screen.

READ MORE: “The Maltese Falcon,” by Tim Dirks (AMC Filmsite); “Ten of the Best Fat Men in Literature,” by John Mullan (The Guardian).

Name Branding

Ronald Tierney (Mascara: Death in the Tenderloin) muses in his blog today on the subject of co-authors and ghost writers in crime fiction.

“Oh, Rob ...”

I know it has nothing to do with crime fiction, but I just want to point readers to our friend Ivan G. Shreve Jr.’s Dick Van Dyke Show blogathon. The groundbreaking CBS-TV comedy series that he and so many others are celebrating debuted 50 years ago tonight and ran until June 1966. Shreve is cataloguing all the blogathon contributions here.

Some Final Thoughts About Bouchercon

From the left: The Rap Sheet’s J. Kingston Pierce, Shots editor Mike Stotter, editor and bookstore proprietor Otto Penzler, and Deadly Pleasures reviewer Larry Gandle.

Most of the 1,600 visitors to Bouchercon 2011, which was held September 15-19 in St. Louis, Missouri, attended that event in search of fans and/or old friends, and hoped to spread their names about a bit more, maybe sell or buy some books. But I was there for another reason as well: to learn about my great-grandparents, a subject I’ll address in due course.

For a long while, I resisted registering for last month’s convention. After participating in a couple of treasured Bouchercons in quick succession (Baltimore in 2008, and then San Francisco in 2010), I thought maybe it was a good idea to wait for a few more years before trying another. I figured that the 2014 event in Long Beach, California (which will follow gatherings in Cleveland, Ohio, and Albany, New York) would offer a more interesting setting, and it will certainly be closer to where I live.

However, when two of my British colleagues--Rap Sheet contributor and ubiquitous reviewer Ali Karim, and novelist Roger “R.J.” Ellory--announced they were traveling to St. Louis for this occasion, and would be joined there by Mike Stotter, editor of the e-zine Shots (who I first met during a very drunken book launch some years ago in London)--my resistance crumbled. It’s not often enough that I get to England, so seeing such compatriots on this side of the Atlantic Ocean is a treat that I did not want to miss.

Furthermore, The Rap Sheet and I had been nominated for an Anthony Award--for a second time, after Baltimore--and it’s hard to pass up the opportunity to be on hand to be handed a prize of any sort. Not that I expected to win--and I didn’t, in the end, one of my few disappointments during this trip.

(Right) J. Kingston Pierce, Max Allan Collins, and Ali Karim

Since we’ve now all been treated to a few post-Bouchercon posts--including those from Vince Keenan, Graham Powell, Jeri Westerson, Max Allan Collins, and Jen Forbus (writing here and here, so far)--I’m not going to try for a full-scale wrap-up of the convention. Endeavoring to capture all of the sights (the monumental Gateway Arch, the city’s beautifully refurbished Union Station, downtown’s freakishly quiet streets--a consequence, I suppose, of the Bush/Republican recession) would run to many thousands of words. Instead, I’ll just share a few of my best memories from that event:

• Sharing mini-burgers with legendary editor Otto Penzler at the St. Martin’s Minotaur party, while he encouraged me--at entertaining length--to pick up a copy of his latest doorstopper of a short-story collection, The Big Book of Adventure Stories (2011).

• Chatting at the William Morrow party with Chelsea Cain (The Night Season), whose sparkling personality and light humor are much in contrast with her dark thriller fiction.

• Finally meeting editor-writer Bryon Quartermous, who told me that he’s called off plans to resurrect his once-popular Webzine, Demolition. There are just too many competing and successful products already available on the ’Net, he explained, and a call for submissions to the first edition of the revitalized Demolition proved disappointing. Bryon said, though, that he hasn’t given up on the notion of rebuilding his e-zine--he’ll watch for a better opportunity sometime in the near future.

• Frequenting the giant book-sales room in the Renaissance Grand Ballrooms building (adjacent to the convention hotel), where I picked up a few gems from a booth representing Hooked on Books, a Web-based “store”--originating from Illinois--that specializes in vintage and collectible paperbacks. I paid daily visits to that booth, familiarizing myself with its stock of plastic-wrapped volumes. I wound up buying novels by authors I’d not previously read (including Helen McCloy and Bill S. Ballinger), as well as a few that I simply had to have because of the quality of their cover illustrations. An example of the latter can be enjoyed on the left: Donald M. Douglass’ Many Brave Hearts, a 1960 Pocket Books edition with jacket art by Harry Bennett.

• Sharing a meal with Janet Rudolph, editor of the Mystery Readers Journal, who also blogs at Mystery Fanfare. I’ve often seen Janet at these get-togethers, but had never before had the chance to speak with her at length. She turned out to be a delightful dinner companion.

• Introductory encounters with Denise Hamilton (Damage Control), Chris Ewan (The Good Thief’s Guide to Venice), Keith Thomson (Twice a Spy), Adrian Magson (Death on the Rive Nord), Deon Meyer (Trackers), Sean Doolittle (Safer), Jonathan Hayes (A Hard Death), and Sara Paretsky (Body Work). I also enjoyed renewing my acquaintance with Gary Phillips, Max Allan Collins, Patti Abbott, Megan Abbott, Martyn Waites, Peter Rozovsky, Kelli Stanley, Les Blatt, Con Lehane, Dana Cameron, Craig McDonald, and Barbara Fister. Bouchercons are very much about comradeship. It’s rare that most of us get to hang around with so many people who share our passion for crime fiction.

• Smoking cigars with Anthony Rainone. Anthony has long been a contributor to January Magazine, which I also edit, and writes infrequently for The Rap Sheet. On the Saturday of this last Bouchercon, I strolled down to the Starbucks nearest the convention hotel, the Renaissance St. Louis Grand, and took my place, reluctantly, at the end of a conga line of patrons that stretched from the serving counter all the way to the front door ... and then back again to the counter. And who should I find myself standing immediately behind, but Anthony. He’d just arrived in St. Louis the night before, and had a few obligations, but we swapped cell phone numbers and arranged to meet later. Finally, at about 9 p.m. the two of us dropped in at Stanley’s Lounge, a cigar bar on Washington Street, just a few short blocks from the Renaissance. That smoke-filled joint boasted a walk-in humidor--with attendant, no less. Anthony and I each picked out our favorite brands, found places at the big square bar, ordered drinks, and proceeded to talk for hours about books, our experiences in St. Louis, and the difficulties of trying to read--much less review--the myriad crime novels being produced nowadays.

• Attending the “Shadows Rising” panel discussion, during which moderator Jeremy Lynch of Crimespree Magazine and his five panelists--Megan Abbott, David Corbett, Russel D. McLean, Todd Ritter, and Wallace Stroby--identified their favorite noir movies from the 20th century. Not only familiar flicks such as Fritz Lang’s M (1931), Double Indemnity (1944), In a Lonely Place (1950), and Kiss Me Deadly (1955), but also such obscure cinematic fare as Il bidone (1955). Between that discussion and the panelists’ follow-up posting in the Crimespree blog, I now have a ludicrously long Netflix list of what to watch next.

• Encountering Miriam Parker (right), the effervescent marketing director from the Mulholland Books division of Little, Brown. I would have written that I “met” her, except that “met” suggests something rather less boisterous than the truth. You see, I was walking through the convention’s book-sales room with Max Allan Collins, who’d just promised to introduce me to his sometime writing partner, Matthew V. Clemons, when we passed a pair of fetching, dark-haired young women, one of whom glanced at my name badge, suddenly reached for my arm, and announced that she was my “number-one fan.” Now, I’ve never been known to have a fan, much less a number-one fan, so I think my dumbfoundedness under these circumstances was quite understandable. I managed to carry on and meet Clemons, but was soon back talking with Miriam. She proved to be a fund of reading suggestions (including only a couple of books she represented), and in turn introduced me to Mulholland editor John Schoenfelder. This is one of the treats of any Bouchercon: happening on people you know by name and reputation, but who might previously have passed you on the sidewalk entirely unacknowledged.

• Sitting with D.E. “Dan” Johnson (Motor City Shakedown) at the Librarian Breakfast, and then with Thomas Kaufman (Steal the Show) at Friday’s Shamus Awards banquet.

• Hanging out in the convention hotel’s bar with Ali, Roger, Mike Stotter, and whoever else stumbled by. A good watering hole is essential at Bouchercon, because it’s there that interpersonal links are most easily made and the best strange convention stories shared.

• And visiting my great-grandparents’ house. Prior to Bouchercon, I’d never been to St. Louis. However, my father was born there. His beloved grandfather, my great-grandfather, had been an executive with the N.O. Nelson Manufacturing Company, a major national distributor of plumbing supplies during the early 20th century, and had constructed for himself and his wife a stately Tudor-style home in Webster Groves, an affluent St. Louis suburb. That house (shown here) went up in 1909 and was designed by the local architectural firm Jamieson and Spearl, which also created the majority of edifices at Washington University at St. Louis and the University of Missouri between 1912 and 1950. For most of my life, the only association I had with my great-grandparents’ residence was through a couple of dusty black-and-white photos. But before setting off for St. Louis, I contacted the Webster Groves Historical Society, looking for information about that house and who lived there now. The people at the Society were very helpful in connecting me with the current occupants. So while I was in the city, I took a few hours off from the convention, hired a cab, and went out to Webster Groves. The folks who now live in my great-grandparents’ home, both in their 80s, couldn’t have been friendlier or more welcoming. They showed me around the place (which they have restored to its vintage splendor), brought out a couple of photos of my great-grandparents that I’d not seen before, and even had stories to tell me about my paternal ancestors. For as it happens, the woman who lives in that large house also grew up nearby, and she and her sister were quite friendly with my great-grandmother (who managed to outlive my great-grandfather by some two decades). I know my father and his grandfather were very close, but I think I heard more about my great-grandparents from the people who live in their old home than I ever did from my less-garrulous father.

Although Bouchercon was the focus of my St. Louis journey, this side-trip to Webster Groves and the opportunity to hear about my family’s history was certainly the most memorable aspect of the adventure.

POSTSCRIPT: I would be remiss if I did not credit organizers Jon and Ruth Jordan, co-editors of Crimespree Magazine, and McKenna Jordan, the owner of Houston’s Murder by the Book, for their joint efforts in making the St. Louis Bouchercon such a success.

Little Big Shots

Having tried myself to put together a regular, once-a-month-only column of crime-fiction news (that is, after all, the format in which The Rap Sheet started out), I know the difficulty of the job facing British reviewer, author, and bon vivant Mike Ripley. Yet he demonstrates much greater success in completing that task than I ever did.

His latest “Getting Away with Murder” column for Shots is a scatter-shot collection of notes that takes in Anthony Horowitz’s forthcoming Sherlock Holmes novel, The House of Silk; Margery Allingham’s 1934 novel, Death of a Ghost, and Rex Stout’s The Black Mountain (1954); new works by Ian Rankin, Tom Egeland, and Tony Park; a reminder of Malcolm Gair’s yarns about British private eye Mark Raeburn; U.S. author Ed Gorman’s big award win at September’s Bouchercon; and the revelation that “Sam Eastland,” the pseudonymous author of the popular Inspector Pekkala thriller (including Siberian Red, due out in February 2012), is really Paul Watkins, an American “who has been turning out varied but always excellent novels for twenty years or more.”

You can read all of Ripley’s new Shots column here.

There’s Nothing Wrong with Free Books

This is simply a reminder that we’re fast approaching the deadline for entries to The Rap Sheet’s latest book-giveaway contest. The prizes this time are one free, signed copy each of Bloodland and Limitless (aka The Dark Fields), both by British author Alan Glynn.

To be placed in the running to win one of these novels, all you have to do is e-mail your name and postal address to jpwrites@wordcuts.org. And please write “Alan Glynn Contest” in the subject line. Contest entries will be accepted until midnight tomorrow, October 3. Winners will be selected at random and their names announced on this page the next day.

There are no geographical restrictions to this contest.