News from All Over

• This year’s Left Coast Crime convention will take place in Sacramento, California, from March 29 to April 1. If you haven’t already registered, you can do so right here.

• I received a news release this morning, saying that Mysterious Press will issue Dennis Lynds’ first six Dan Fortune detective novels, written under the pseudonym Michael Collins, as e-books beginning tomorrow. However, I don’t see any more information about that release on the Mysterious Press Web site. Lynds’ introduction of the one-armed Fortune, of course, came in Act of Fear (1967). UPDATE: The Lynds/Collins link is now live here.

• Downton Abbey fans, rejoice! There were concerns heard earlier this year that Downton creator Julian Fellowes’ new miniseries about the sinking of the Titanic might not be aired in the United States until after the 100th anniversary of that disaster, which took place on April 15, 1912. (The series has already begun broadcasting in Great Britain, in four one-hour episodes.) But The Huffington Post now reports that ABC-TV will set sail to Fellowes’ Titanic next month. It will debut on Saturday, April 14, at 8 p.m. EST with a three-hour installment, followed the very next night, Sunday, April 15, by a concluding episode that begins at 9 p.m. EST.

• BBC-TV has commissioned four new episodes of George Gently.

• Round 3 of blogger Jen Forbus’ “Heroes and Villains” bracketed tournament has now commenced, with 16 candidates remaining in each category. I was especially sad to see both John Rebus and Sherlock Holmes defeated in the last round, and am hoping that Lisbeth Salander and Dave Robicheaux can survive this latest match-up. To participate in Forbus’ tourney, click here.

• This week’s new short story in Beat to a Pulp is “Eyes Open,” by award-winning Detroit writer Patti Abbott.

• Jeffery Deaver’s one and only James Bond novel, Carte Blanche, has apparently won Japan’s Bouken-shouetsu adventure fiction award for the Best Foreign Novel of 2011.

• And congratulations to Steven Millhauser, who has picked up the 2001 Story Prize for his collection, We Others: New and Selected Stories. I’ve been enjoying Millhauser’s work ever since I discovered a story by him in Esquire during the 1980s.